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orpheus art & literary magazine
fa l l 2 013
Contents
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regret
Jed Helmers 6
a i r p o rt s t r e a m s
Ethan Klosterman 7
S i t, s tay
Mara Kalonski 10
2 0 1 2 e l e c t i o n pa n e l s
Lauryn London 12
Caroline
Jed Helmers 13
A moment in misogynist bullshit
Sam Hamilton 15
Blue
Adrienne Lowry 16
I Think You Got All That You Came For
Niky Motekallem
C h e c k o u t O r p h e u s — UD ’ s A rt a n d L i t e r a ry Magazine on Facebook for updates and more.
Orpheus is the University of Dayton’s student-written and student produced art and literary magazine, published once a semester. Works may be reprinted or reproduced only with permission of the author/artist. We accept poetry, short stories, photography, fine art, and design.
17 the hilltop at the end of the world
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Sarah Yedlick 19 S ta c k s o f T i m e
Mara Kalinoski 29
Adrienne Lowry 30
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L i f e i n t h e Pa l e o z o i c E r a
Edge
Lauren Glass
27 D e s i g n S c i e n c e : T h e E v o l u t i o n o f
Madeline Herbert
Breezes
Kelsey Mills
26 C a n o e f o r T w o
Jill Pajka
Pick up lines
Stephen Brown
23 S pa c e b e t w e e n
Josh Chamberlain
Scum for dinner, seconds
Joy Hamilton
22 P e r s o n a l L o go & B r a n d i ng El em ent
Rachel Kapicak
Hi
Ann Marie Cardilino
21 B l u e f u s e
Stephen Brown
Rights.Rites.Writes
Rachel Kapicak, Jenny Watercutter, Sam Bidwell, Matt Weiler
20 D o o r
Jed Helmers
— o l o g y, — p h o b i a
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the other side
Sam Hamilton
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Regret J E D H E L M E R S • f i n e a rt s • S E NI O R
Favorite television show?
Q
Doctor Who.
A
Airport Streams E T H AN K L O S T E R M AN • M A R K E TIN G & L E A D E R S H I P • FIFT H Y E A R
Q Three biggest fears? A Shooting in jpeg. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. Spelling my name wrong.
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Sit, Stay M A R A k a lo n sk i • e n gl i sh • f reshm a n
I lean forward with my elbows on the table and fix my eyes on the ruby light pooled from the lamp. There are many textures in it, and I find myself drawn into them as if they are warm water and I want to submerge my whole self. I scratch my beard and adjust my glasses and my pupils dilate slightly to focus. I am looking at the red lamplight, but still I can feel the creases drawn through my skin, the leathered sensation of its being. Concentrate, I think, concentration. The red borrows added luminance from the glossiness of the table, and draws a ring around itself. Library time is the best time of the day, with the books stacked eons high on the
shelves. They stand with spines convex, worn and warming, held up by the mere proximity of their cousins. I run my fingers across the pages of the one in front of me, feeling that dry, clean drag of paper beneath my weathered hand. It is my twenty-seventh year here. I try not to tally the days in my mind, but when I blink, I just see the fast-flipping pages of the calendar, disinterested in my watching them. It swarms me. 12 times 7 is 84 . Mute swans mate at age 3 and stay with their mate for life. Ernest Hemingway was born in Illinois. Chromosomes, ribosomes, lysosomes. Happiness is a thing that circles you closely but never finds its way inside.
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Q Favorite word? A Visceral. It sounds so nice when spoken, and I love it’s meaning.
No, I admonish myself. Happiness is in and of itself. You may have happiness. You may think yourself inside the circle. I watch the circle of red light on the table. It has a moving quality, though it stays quiet and still, glowing. That red, two shades off from the colour of our car. The exact color of the flash, I’m sure, that neurons scrambled to send through their brains in a moment of unjustifiable pain. I love the red. It is aching and lovely at the same time, entirely sure of itself. It is just pigment, after all. Tornadoes exist between the earth and cumulonimbus clouds. The only way you can be killed by a stingray is if it stings you directly in the heart. 3000 people commit suicide every day. Happiness. Happiness. The time we went to the beach. Burning sand, glazed water too bright to look at directly. Blue sky, blue water, blue swimsuits. I hold their hands, one soft, one tiny, in my strong palms. She smiles
up at me from under some ridiculous hat that swallows her up. Tendrils of hair sweep out from the floppy brim and her browned fingers press against mine. She smiles. Perfectly. Jack tugs at my other hand, his high little voice stumbling over his anxious feet as he runs toward the water. I can feel tears in my eyes in the library, but there is only sunlight at the beach. Only sand dipping into craters beneath our feet. Jack runs splashing into the ocean, his plump little legs stomping as fast as they can upon the smooth pebbled floor. Freezing cold water washes over his ankles and he screams delightedly, laughing. She squeezes my hand and smiles so radiantly it seems to draw light from directly overhead. I feel such a love flooding through me that it’s hard to breathe. My thoughts are swirling. Beautiful woman, beautiful son, beautiful day, beautiful crash, beautiful screams,
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beautiful red. I am halved. Eyes blinking, and then no longer blinking. Green trees arching delicately into the clouds. The sound of shearing metal. Dirt, wood, black, ocean, ash. I am cleaved back together, with parts missing and sides asymmetrical. I take a deep breath and swallow, which is difficult. Tears reabsorb themselves into my eyes, soft. Happiness, I think. Happiness. The sun is in the sky. The world is turning. I am alive. The six white bars of light from the window slant across the wooden table. I hear soft footsteps approaching and I close my eyes, the red light disappearing behind the thin membrane of my eyelids. “Mr. Powell?” says the woman to my left, with gentle syllables. “It’s time for bed.” I take my pill from the white hand and swallow for the 9850 th time. I stand and it takes me longer than it used to. I feel my joints preparing themselves to move, like soldiers in formation.
My bones make an effort to strengthen, I can almost sense the osteoblasts working desperately to reproduce and furnish me. Happy thoughts, I remind myself, automatically. You are not as old as you feel. 37 times 14 is 518. 5329 is a perfect square. 18 minus 9 is 9 again. I will see them if I
walk down the hall, and we will be at the beach, and that will be beautiful.
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Global Warming & On the Road 2012 Election Panels L A U RY N L O N D O N • G R A P H I C D E S I G N • S E NI O R
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Life advice?
Q
The grass is greener where you water it.
A
Caroline J E D H E L M E R S • f i n e a rt s • S E NI O R
Life advice?
Q
Never trust a big butt and a smile... seriously.
A
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A Moment in Misogynist Bullshit S a m H a m i lt o n • E n gl i sh • S e n i or
I smell like those things I’m not allowed: The wasteful stench of an overexposed mouth. The tang of rusted parts. It lingers in my hair and festers in the sulci of my brain. I reek of what’s wrong with this order; Of pants and piercings and stale smoke Collecting in the bottom of a womb shaped bottle On the neck of modesty— Hypocrisy in shades of pink and yellow Supporting selective causes while they Crucify for the sake of the future. I am told we bleed unheroically; No man is dead for our sake or at our hand, No phallic war in the name of compensation or ego, No medal of honor for the life we bring in the Battle with our body.
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Favorite television show?
Q
The Big Bang Theory—BAZINGA.
A
Still, we are not fingerprints. The rest of us reeking of A brooding concoction of shame and will, The tender smell of sweat and emptiness that bites The inside of pointed nostrils with the bitter Undertone of defiance and strength. But we swallow Prescriptions Fists Hysteria Like soap, bleaching our insides of the worldly grime, Sanding our calloused hands and tourniquet ribs So they can fit into a size two Coffin made of doilies and casserole pans. “Oh, but the stink of sweat and love becomes us,” An artificial mantra we were taught to repeat. We are expected to wear our feminine fragrance The way a man wears a woman around his waist. We should smell like His. We should smell like delicacy. We are their monster as much as our own. We remind them of their odor, expose Their restlessness. We mock their men and their fences. But we smell like all the things we’re not allowed: A truthful and pitiful reminder of what is wrong with this order.
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Blue A D R I E NN E L O W R Y • P H O T O G R A P H Y • S E NI O R
Pet peeve?
Q
When people don’t change the toilet paper roll after it’s empty...
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I Think You Got All That You Came For NI K Y M O T E K A L L E M • f i n e a rt s • FIFT H Y E A R
If you could learn one random skill, what would it be?
Q
Taxidermy.
A
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The Hilltop at the End of the World S a r a h yedl i ck • E n gl i sh , pol i t i c a l sc i e n ce , spa n i sh • S e n i or
“You think Jeb’ll show up?” I glanced down the hill at my hometown, smoking in ruins, charred black remnants of homes and buildings scraping the sky like a dirty fingernail. Thick smoke was hanging in the air like a disease, wrapping around Marsha and I as we sat there, watching the devastation. It had all started out so small; whisperings of strange happenstances on the news and people dying of a mysterious new disease in Malaysia, until it finally escalated to reports of lights in the sky and constellations rearranging themselves. The religious zealots started ranting about the end of the world. Preachings like “repent, the end is nigh” and “the apocalypse is upon us,” became commonplace. And then one
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Q
Pet peeve?
A
Mouth-Breathers
day, I woke up and found my apartment complex on fire. “Nah,” I murmured. “You really think he made it out of that mess? We barely did. I don’t even know if he heard me yelling at him to meet us up here.” “Yeah, but you still never know. Jeb was so damn lucky, remember when his brother won the lotto and gave him all that cash to buy a new car? Jeez. If anybody were to make it out of there alive I’d put my money on him first.” “What, not on us?” I downed the rest of my Jack Daniels and threw the empty bottle down the hill. “That’s alright. I wouldn’t have been my first choice either.” “At least we got it better than Mrs. Hickey. She went back inside for her pet bunny, you see that? Then by the time she got out her husband was already gone. Burnt to a crisp in the driveway.” Marsha laughed, but it was hollow.
Empty. “Just her and the bunny now. Poor substitute for a husband if you ask me, even if he was the world’s biggest prick.” “Yeah, worst comes to worst though, she could probably eat him.” “True. Might be nice to cuddle with a little bit at night, too, when it gets all cold out. Little old lady like that’s bound to get lonely at night, especially now.” She hiccupped, and I turned to look at her. Tears scavenged dirty paths down her cheeks, and I could smell her perfume mixed with the scent of charred flesh on the wind. Cotton candy and baby-back ribs. “Jeb’s really not coming, is he?” Crimson light doused the sky, and the ground shook slightly as another hunk of debris collided into the Earth. “I don’t think anyone is.”
Stacks of Time A D R I E NN E L O W R Y • P H O T O G R A P H Y • S E NI O R
Life advice?
Q
Do what makes you happy. The world is your oyster.
A
Door J E D H E L M E R S • f i n e a rt s • S E NI O R
Favorite word?
Q
Tangential.
A
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Q
From where do you draw inspiration?
A
Bad dramatic TV series, music, friends’ stories, books, and anything from metros to the open sea.
Blue Fuse s t ephe n b row n • E n gl i sh , a n t hropology • S e n i or
Blue-white light catches The air burns The lights blow Darkness Complete, filling up the spaces in my mouth Leaving glistening teeth, A Cheshire smile It’s quiet here, time stopped with the lights Like that boy cursed with immortal beauty, I wait for the darkness to consume me Whisper to me the answers Direct me But it doesn’t, it can’t The fuse just blew.
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Personal Logo & Branding Element R A C H E L K A P I C A K • G R A P H I C D E S I G N • S E NI O R
Q Three biggest fears? A Being kidnapped. Tarantulas. Not making a difference in the world.
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Space Between josh ch a m b erl a i n • e n gl i sh , a mer i c a n s t ud i es • S E NI O R
There are Christmas songs on the radio, but the snow lining the median is a sick grey color. We’re ghosts and we glide down the highway, lit only by the overhead streetlights and our nostalgia. It’s late and neither of us feels like sleeping. We drive instead. “Midnight Mass was stupid this year,” she says from the passenger seat while scanning the radio for something that isn’t bullshit. “Why?” “I don’t know. Just was.” I don’t say anything as she looks out the window. “Christmas feels different now,” she says. “How would you know? It started…two and a half hours ago.” “You know what I mean. Everything about it. Maybe because we haven’t been home this whole time.”
“You’ll get used to it. After three years, I’m pretty well adjusted.” “What? To not being at home or to being eighteen?” She makes a face back at me. “What do you think, dipshit?” “I mean, don’t get me wrong, the Christmas festival at school was really neat and everything, but it was just so strange. I think I got homesickest— That’s a word, right?” “Go with ‘most homesick,’” I say. “…most homesick right after Thanksgiving. I mean, I’d just been home, but I felt like I was missing everything.” “Something tells me you didn’t really. Mom and Dad don’t really have much going on without us.” “Eh, well they’ve got…” She pauses. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Is that sad?” “Who knows?”
“Being eighteen sucks, doesn’t it?” I make a face at her.
“Maybe it’s because Santa’s dead,” she says after a moment.
“Really, with the sarcasm?”
“What?”
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Q From where do you draw inspiration? A Staying up too late, driving my car too fast, music that’s too loud,
thinking too much, and conversations that aren’t long enough.
“Why we feel like this. ‘Cause Santa died.” “You know Mom would sling that whole ‘The magic of Christmas is in your heart’ speech at you right now, right?” “You think there’s anything to that?” “I guess. I agree we probably started feeling like this back when Santa Claus got debunked, but there’s more to it than that. I mean, even after I found out, Christmas was still special because I got to pretend for you. It was like creating the magic for you kept it alive for me.” “Maybe it gets better when we have kids and we get to create the illusion for them.” “Let’s not talk about that yet.” “Sorry.” Wham! is singing “Last Christmas” on the radio and the streetlights are casting shadows on the dashboard. We sit and listen and think about what to do. “Does home still feel like home to you?” she asks. “That’s kind of a complicated—I don’t know. Why?”
“I’ve just been thinking about it lately. And I just don’t know how to feel. Like how I’m supposed to feel.” “You’re not supposed to feel anything.” “No, I mean… I don’t know what I mean. It’s just been weird, coming home. You know?” “Yeah…” “I think the weirdest part is the smell,” she says. “It’s like it was always there, and I never really noticed it before. You know how when you used to go to a friend’s house and it had such a distinct smell to it, and you were always like ‘I wonder what my house smells like?’ It’s like that. And it’s weird. I notice it now. I’ll just walk in the house and it hits me all of a sudden.” “Yeah, that’s how it works. What does it smell like to you?” “I don’t know. I don’t really know how to describe it. It just makes me…nostalgic. It smells like childhood, but it doesn’t feel like home.” I nod and smile. “Do you know why?” she asks. “I’ve got guesses, like everyone else, but
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I don’t really have any answers.” “I mean, no one does,” she says. “But I think it’s a rite of passage thing. Like you’re supposed to not feel at home anywhere, at least for a while. It’s funny because we’re at that point in life where nothing’s permanent. You move from dorm, back to your parents’ house, back to dorm, back to parents’ house, to apartment, to parents’ house, to apartment, and so on and so forth. You’re just in a state of constant moving and it feels like you’re always packing up your shit.” “Great. That’s just what I wanted to hear.” She puts her feet on the dashboard. “Does it get better?” “Some. School starts to feel like home a little bit. And coming home doesn’t feel quite so strange after a while. You just… I don’t really know how to explain it. You just get used to not being home. Or not having a home. Something like that.” I merge, splitting the difference between the two highways, one heading north, one heading south. We’re suddenly on the tiny stretch of road that cuts the city, the buildings on either side of us scraping the stars above. The road rolls out in front of us, leading nowhere as it disap-
pears into a tunnel that leads exactly where we just came from. “Where’re we going?” she asks. “Nowhere.” She nods. “We’re not really anywhere,” I say. It makes me sad to admit, but here in the middle of everything, it’s true. She nods again. Michael Bublé starts crooning through the speakers and she makes a noise of disgust as she changes the station. She settles on Ben Folds Five’s one song about the day after Christmas. Bobbing her head to the music, she looks out the window. I merge and we’re on the highway headed north again. The song plays on the radio. “The world is sleeping. I am numb.” “Let’s go home,” she says. But we both know that it isn’t.
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Canoe for Two J I L L PA J K A • FIN E A RT S , E N G L I S H • S E NI O R
Favorite television show?
Q
South Park and Cake Boss.
A
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Design Science: Evolution of Life in the Paleozoic Era M A D E L IN E H E R B E RT • G R A P H I C D E S I G N • S E NI O R
Life advice?
Q
Laugh every day.
A
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Three biggest fears?
Q
Huge sea creatures. Failure. Being murdered.
A
—ology, —phobia M a r a K a l i n osk i • e n gl i sh • f reshm a n
I held a human heart in hand, And it was cold And mine beat faster. I traced the tiny veins and arteries, in baby blue and soft pink And thought how once this made a man exist, And how some day my own heart would be plasticized and dark Like a frozen mass, nothing more, In someone’s fingers. I thought how one day I might be dust. What should have felt beautiful, interstellar, The push of life held in my palm, Instead felt nauseating. It was heavier than I expected And complicated, and visceral, And dead Just a dead thing I could peel apart. One day, every life becomes this, A contrast between the fast-beating and the still and handled, A shadow, formaldehyde, and cold weight. He had thoughts, ideas, emotions, tan skin, fevers, sex, bad days, purposes And now he is yellow and covered and dissected and an object, A method. He is science. His muscles are shiny, his lungs grey The heart in my hand the last tie to humanity And motionless, Exactly what we all become.
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Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Article Six RACHEL KAPICAK , SAM BIDWELL , J ENNY WATERCUTTER , MATT WEILER G R A P H I C D E S I G N • S E NI O R S
From where do you draw inspiration?
Q
The beauty and power of the concept or problem.
A
Hi ANN E M A R I E C A R D I L IN O • P H O T O G R A P H Y • J U NI O R
Q
Pet peeve?
A Don’t lie to my face, or leave wet towels on the floor.
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Scum For Dinner, Seconds J O Y H A M I LT O N • E N G L I S H • S E NI O R
Favorite television show?
Q
Parenthood, but I have to admit that nothing beats Hey Arnold, ever...
A
Looking around this room to decide And yes that is what’s to be done. Squeeze bile jelly from my eyes And spread it thickly upon blackened hearts For purpose, purpose. Eaten without taste from this one, but for others But for this one potent and strong Fills head with the smoke Mind with the thoughts Stomach with burn. Acid’s like good Like good when it burns Scorching tongue cheek throat The rock-hitting bottom. Crunching like glass between teeth grinding coffee Tastes in the mouth All the livelong day All the livelong life Crunching too like grinded beans. Hand to mouth Blinding bile from sockets puffed from tears That stain yellow on the floor On the counters Spilling over like the milk not to be cried over. Acid’s good for that too Clean it up clean it up Bile’s good for that too Jelly like bile Jelly like bile when it burns, yellow when it spreads. Forced down the gullet, which is blackened like hearts. Squeezing jelly from your eyes tastes like burn on charcoal insides. Swallow preaching when the heart hungers for it— Scum for dinner.
Q
If you could learn one random skill, what would it be?
A
How to clean game after a hunt.
Pick Up Lines s t ephe n b row n • E n gl i sh , a n t hropology • S e n i or
Kissing, touching, strange hands Poke at corners of my heart Attempting Trying to make me feel something But, I can’t I won’t Throat seals up Legs close tight, waterproof Inside, hives claw underneath my skin Fingernails dig to get inside Me They trace a constellation Map out the contours of my corners Each caressing scratch, leaves words that sink into skin later Whispering, But, Honey, I want to Oh, by the moving of tectonic plates and The formation of hotspots within the landscape Of my heart how I wish I could Sweetie, I want your Arms to be the ones that lock me into bed at night So I don’t worry awake and wander away Baby, I want How I dream of nothing more than old bitter hands, grasping for fingers But Baby, Baby, Baby, I can’t feel that. I won’t feel that, maybe one day I will.
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Breezes KELSEY MILLS • GRAPHIC DESIGN • SOPHOMORE
Favorite word?
Q
Bubbleology. It’s the study of bubbles... how cool is that?!
A
Edge L A U R E N G L A S S • J O U R NA L I S M • FIFT H Y E A R
Q
Life advice?
A
Get on a bike and ride it.
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Favorite word?
Q
“Cadywampus,” meaning crooked, wrong, or unaligned. It’s a great ice breaker for those “word-nerd only” parties, and those times you want to be the envy of your friends.
A
The Other Side S a m H a m i lt o n • E n gl i sh • S e n i or
She wonders if he knows a demon hides his claws and misdeeds between the teeth of preachers, only seen when heads are shaken and bullied into the world where men are full of smiles and faces kept in their pockets disguised, they chant
He wonders if she sees inside the walls and underneath the floors through the eyes of a felon looking for the crumbs, of something left in this world, still resembling goodness; nursery rhymes that remind us
There is something left to look for on the other side.
Acknowledgements & Staff
Pat r o n s
English Department Paul H. Benson Eileen Carr Michael Barnes ArtStreet Department of Music Fa c u lt y A d v i s o r s f o r L i t e r at u r e
Joseph Pici James Farrelly Albino Carrillo Stephen Wilhoit Fa c u lt y A d v i s o r f o r D e s i g n
John V. Clarke A rt a n d D e s i g n S e l e c t i o n Pa n e l
John V. Clarke Judith Huacuja Julie Jones
Editor
Hannah Breidinger Editor in training
Grace Poppe A s s i s ta n t E d i t o r
Daniela Porcelli A s s i s ta n t E d i t o r i n t r a i n i n g
Bobby Beebe Design Editor
Kaitlin Meme A s s i s ta n t D e s i g n E d i t o r
Lori Claricotes Activities Director
Olivia Ullery
Student Activities Director
Activities Director in training
Amy Lopez-Matthews
Veronica Colborn
Cover Imager y • Blue • Adrienne Lowr y • Page 15
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