Green Blotter 2024

Green Blotter 2024

Green Blotter is produced by the Green Blotter Literary Society of Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania. Submissions are accepted year round. Green Blotter is published yearly in a print magazine and is archived on the following website. For more information and submission guidelines, please visit:

www.lvc.edu/greenblotter

GREEN BLOTTER

EDITORS

Managing

Gillian Wenhold ’24

Art

Phoebe Bidelspach ’27

Poetry

Katherine Buerke ’26

Prose

Isaac Fox ’24

Assistant Prose

Brielle Krepps ’26

Design

Annie Steinfelt ’24

READER BOARD

Ashlynn Godfrey ’27

Carley Herndon ’25

Lindsay Keiser ’24

Justin Kopp ’25

Brielle Krepps ’26

Abby Lavery ’27

Jess Moser ’26

Kohai Pavan ’27

Katelyn Price ’25

Tavi Stallings ’27

Annie Steinfelt ’24

Athena Vinson ’25

FACULTY ADVISORS

MC Hyland

Holly M. Wendt

Grace Miller

Em J Sausser

Aynslee Mattson

Sofia Ettema

Mackenzie Dunne

Sophia Bunting

Madelyn Furman

Alannah Tjhatra

Isaac Fox

Isaac Fox

Olivia Couch

Lily Tolchin

Caitlyn Kline

Sydney Moses

Caitlyn Kline

Caitlyn Costa

A.M. Ruth

Sophia Bunting

Kith Kelly

Rian Disney

Aodhán C.E. Ridenour

Rian Disney

Paige Dalto

Audrey Cota

Sophia Bunting

Dania Kreisl

Katherine Buerke

Sophia Bunting

Rian Disney

Bharti Bansal

Em J Sausser

Isaac Fox

CONTENTS

The Insubordinate River

The Sea’s Shanty to His Mother

Riverbed

Ode to Leaves After Rainfall

An ode to the water damage on my living room ceiling

Bathroom Painting

dirty bathroom mirror

Message from Your Old Home

Stand Firm

Taillight

Fire Alarm Blues

The Conversations Between the Mentally-Ill Daughter of a MentallyIll Mother

The Room (The Hex) (Litost)

Skeleton Portrait

Noble Efforts

Untitled

Black Hole Q’s

Untitled

What We Find in the Dark

An Interpretation of Gwendolyn Brooks’ “A Lovely Love”

There is something about it that feels good

Woman With Makeup

A Letter from the Singing Bones

Reflections on a Well-Kept Cemetery

Charcoal Skull

My

says psych wards don’t exist anymore

Dear Reader,

Thank you for reading the 2024 edition of Green Blotter! We feel incredibly privileged to publish the work in this issue. This year’s contributors have gifted us (and you) with a diverse array of poetry, prose, and visual art. Their work thrums with tender language, beautiful imagery, and piercing, mind-bending, dangerous ideas. In this issue, we’ll explore the complexities of motherchild relationships, memories of home and family, and the many facets of mental health. We could not be more excited for you to read this.

On a bit of a sad note, a lot of our editors are graduating this year, including our Prose and Reviews Editor Isaac Fox, Layout Editor Annie Steinfelt, and Managing Editor Gillian Wenhold. For many of us, this is a bittersweet issue. We get to celebrate the inclusion of these amazing pieces of work and welcome so many new faces into our organization, yet have to say goodbye to several people who have put their hearts and souls into this magazine for years. We are saying goodbye to another person as they turn the page to start a new chapter of their life: our co-advisor Dr. MC Hyland. A talented poet, avid book-maker, and inspiring professor, Dr. Hyland has changed how all of us will read, write, and think about art for the rest of our lives. They inspire us to take creative risks, no matter how crazy. We will miss them dearly and wish them the best of luck and happiness in their future endeavors.

Although we’re sad to see so much of our staff leaving, we’re excited for the future of Green Blotter, its contributors, and the staff—wherever they may take the next steps in their lives. We type this letter in Lebanon Valley College’s English department lounge while listening to the rhythmic crank-thud of the new-to-us 1930s printing press in the next room over. We can’t help but think of the exciting issues of Green Blotter yet to come, and all the other kinds of art that will come from these people and this place.

Sincerely, The Editors

The Insubordinate River

Grace Miller River— swallow your pride. Spit out my sister from your covetous lips.

Calm your riotous language of booming palms, curling those fingers in hunger to the sky.

You do not exist beyond heaven’s tears; I will stitch shut the firmament above and you will languish for the humbling sprinkles of my spittle.

River— restrain your belly. Say we have no dispute and allow us nomads to pass.

The Sea’s Shanty to His Mother

Em J Sausser

His name was Beau. He was like a faun—his legs were thin and lanky, and when he was young he could hardly walk steadily. It wasn’t always clear if his poor balance was to blame, or if his unconventional jacket was the culprit. Practically since he was born, he wore a brown jacket sized for a grown man. His mother always rolled the sleeves up to free his hands. He was never without that jacket, and she was never without Beau.

The people in town called her “La Femme Qui Attend” or the woman who waits. Each morning she readied her son for school, and when he was off, she went to the docks and watched. Most passersby ignored La Femme Qui Attend, and still others pitied her. Her brown locks fell to her shoulders and around her face, hiding her eyes from those who dared approach. She would weep at the passing ships and experience a jolt of excitement when one would near the port. Every afternoon, she would retrieve her son from school and act as if nothing beyond the horizon concerned her. It was always clear: nothing was more important to her than Beau.

After years of seeing her pitiful display, I finally walked up beside her. She didn’t turn to me—she did nothing to acknowledge me but release a soft sigh. Her hands were crossed, resting on the guard rail of the dock as she stared out. Her hair blew back in the breeze. She smelled like lilac and salt water, and her eyelids were painted lightly in black. I mimicked her hand placement.

“La Femme Qui Attend,” I squeaked out. I cleared my throat. “Madame, what are you waiting for?”

She smiled as she looked down into the crashing waves below. She watched for a moment, a twinkle playing in her eye. Her gaze turned to me. I hadn’t seen her face before—her deep brown eyes glittered like the sea. Her light brown hair framed her soft face. Her lips were plump as they parted to greet me.

“Whom. For whom am I waiting, you ask?”

“Oui, madame,” I replied. I bit the inside of my cheek, watching her look out at the sea with a mournful smile.

“Mon amour, ma vie—my love, my life, Monsieur Louis Chanté,” she replied.

“Louis Chanté?” I asked. She nodded slowly. The waves crashed beneath us, the birds bellowed around us. Her eyes scanned the horizon as she thought.

“He was mine for a few months…before the waves pushed him back out to sea. He left me his jacket, and he gave me my son, Beau.” She cleared her throat before regaling her story to me, cast against the entry and departure of ships in the dock.

It was seven years ago when La Merveille des Mers docked at the struggling port city. The ship brought an important businessman who sought to make connections all throughout Louisiana. He anticipated his stay to last a few months as he networked and secured deals. The crew of La Merveille des Mers were given a luxury they’d never had before—the joy of staying in one place for more than a few nights. The ship was primarily for cargo; the crew loaded it on and took it off at the next place. When it was selected as a transport vessel for the businessman, the crew was pleasantly surprised. Their cargo changed from metals and fabrics to the posse of a very important man.

Louis Chanté was a member of that crew. He was on the younger side of the men that made up La Merveille des Mers. His narrow face ended in a sharp jawline that was dotted with the shadow of a future beard. His hair was a light brown, and his eyes were a deep mahogany—near black. He reveled with the crew upon their docking. For the first few nights, they spent their time in the bars and pubs scattered around the streets. Some continued their benders, but others, like Monsieur Chanté, took the opportunity to explore the streets. The streets were barren of people; the locals all seemed to stay indoors in the evenings. Much to Monsieur Chanté’s chagrin, it seemed that only pubs remained open in the nights.

Jeanne was a young woman then, with dirty blonde hair that fell past her shoulders. She was an important seamstress’s newest apprentice. The seamstress, Adrienne, was highly sought after by many senators’ wives and socialites alike. Adrienne’s girls worked many late nights to finish gowns for esteemed women. Jeanne—who would much later become La Femme Qui Attend—happened to be leaving Adrienne’s late one night when she met a handsome sailor named Louis. The two froze before each other. Louis spoke first; he asked where the best swimming spots were. Jeanne laughed.

“Monsieur,” she spoke, suppressing her continued laughter, “the bayou is all around you. As long as you aren’t scared of seagrass and gators, this whole town is a playground.”

His cheeks turned pink as he watched her. He looked away to hide his embarrassment.

“Madame, I am scared of alligators,” he replied.

“I do know a spot, but it’s for locals.” She smiled. “You can blend in with us, can’t you?”

“I can try.”

Jeanne led Louis through town, beyond the shanty homes, and to a small bay hidden in the trees and seagrasses.

“Monsieur, this is the best swimming spot. Should you come here in the daytime, it will be full of people. I ask that you keep this secret from your crew,” she said, staring into his eyes.

“You have my word,” he replied, placing a hand over his heart. “On the condition that you swim with me.”

Jeanne laughed. Further persuasion was unnecessary—in an instant, the two swam through the murky bay water together. For the next month, each day that passed brought about a night of swimming for Jeanne and Louis. They grew closer and closer, despite Louis’s inevitable departure.

Louis stopped returning to the ship during evenings, opting instead for the luxury of Jeanne’s home—a stationary building, unmoved by the sea’s waves. Jeanne and Louis came to have a deep connection, one they would hesitantly call love. Jeanne was more inclined to say love; Louis seemed scared to define it so finitely. They agreed, though, that they could be described as happy.

They were happy until the socialite parties became less with the season, and La Merveille des Mers began preparing for the open waves again. What Jeanne and Louis shared had become tender longing. Louis didn’t tell Jeanne when the crew’s important businessman returned. He spent a final night with her, and he woke before the sun rose.

“Jeanne, you are my first love. But it is not meant to be. When I return to France, I will search and find someone. But in my mind, your shadow will loom over her forever, mon amour,” he whispered. He rested his jacket on the bed beside her and left.

When the sun rose, La Merveille des Mers lifted its anchor and set out to the open waves. Jeanne found Louis’s jacket, and raced to the docks. She ran into the water.

“Monsieur! You left your coat,” she shouted. She fell to her knees in the water. The waves swept around her and drank her tears as they pulled Monsieur Chanté further away.

The next months were difficult for Jeanne. Adjusting to life without Louis was nigh impossible. She had to force herself to rise every morning, go to Adrienne’s, and work. She felt sick and weary for so long, and her chest ached with heartbreak. Other apprentices shared in Jeanne’s heartbreak. At one time or another, they too had fallen in love with a sailor.

When Jeanne’s pregnancy became apparent, Adrienne had her come to the shop at night to work. Jeanne became isolated from others, partially from her own desires and partially to save her name from the gossip of socialites. When her child was born, she named him Beau. She wept as she held him. She called him mon coeur, my heart. She loved him so deeply that he became the power to keep her heart beating without Monsieur Chanté.

Louis never returned again. He never met Beau, and he never saw Jeanne again.

“I am Jeanne Chanté,” she said calmly, “and my son is Beau Chanté. It may seem childish, naive, whatever you may choose to call it. But I intend to wait for Monsieur Chanté until my lips turn blue and my heart refuses to go on.”

“Madame,” I said. It was all I could muster as my heart broke for her. A bell chimed in town, and her head turned behind her.

“I must go pick up Beau. Au revoir, stranger,” she nearly whispered.

I watched La Femme Qui Attend stop waiting for Louis Chanté. Only for her son did she stop waiting. I wanted to tell her that Beau was all she needed. Deep in her heart, I think she knew. The sea sang its crashing praise as she left for Beau.

Riverbed Aynslee Mattson

Ode to Leaves After Rainfall

Sofia Ettema

Once the tempest finishes its tantrum of banging branches and overflowing the once-gentle creek, I will then peer through a lattice of sugar maple leaves to check on my neighborhood haven. I push past the tender vines through the humid bride’s veil of misty sheen and marvel at the cool turquoise and green. My slippery fingers trace Gaia’s lush, rooted arteries that stretch far as nerves into her green fingertips adorned with rings. How sad that on this Autumn’s eve you must soon wither with the sinking Virginian sun. Eventually you will crackle like embers stamped out beneath my dusty, wandering boots.

Dry as bones in a sun-ridden valley, your graceful reach will shrivel into a cacophony of reds, oranges, purples, and browns; erupting into a fiery sunset straining against the spreading twilight as stars twinkle into their dim place. Yet the Big and Little Dipper will remind me of that sacred visit after the retiring storm, where drops on the leaves mix like riverways into my salty tears.

An ode to the water damage on my living room ceiling

Mackenzie Dunne

The cola colored residue from the eight feet of snow that Hurricane Sandy brought to New England as a blizzard. A small kiss on the peeling popcorned ceiling of our childhood living room, just as you turned the corner you’d see it: a boot print.

A stamp on our ceiling that screamed,“We live here!”

A seal of approval from the God of rain and snow herself. Someone who watched me grow three inches in one summer. Someone who watched as my sister cut ten inches of her hair.

However, it’s a mystery to us, the name of the man, who walked across our ceiling.

Bathroom Painting

Sophia Bunting

dirty bathroom mirror

Madelyn Furman

She almost missed it the first time it happened. She had just woken up, just dragged herself into the bathroom. She turned on the light, rubbed her tired eyes, and looked into the dirty mirror. She wasn’t there, as if she had completely disappeared. Only for a split second. Almost before she could notice, her reflection was there, standing in front of the shower curtain where it should be. A confused expression looking at her. She had been so tired and stressed lately. Did that really just happen?

The next time she knew that it had. It was one of the thousands of monotonous days in her lonely apartment. She sat on the couch, the TV playing some show she didn’t care about and her dinner on the coffee table, the other plate empty on the counter. She heard a buzz from her phone as it lit up. hey, just checking in. do you need anything? company, food, space? just let me know <3. She didn’t move, just watched as her phone faded to black. Dark. Empty. Her eyes widened and she sat up just as her reflection appeared. She was certain that time. She didn’t answer that text. Those weeks after the funeral were never-ending. Her guitar with the pick still settled between the strings sat in the corner, a new home for dust. The pictures on the wall haunted her. Stared at her every second, wishing that she would look back at them. She took them down one by one. Honeymoon. Matching Christmas sweaters. Prom. Reminders she didn’t want. She can’t remember what it felt like to be that girl in the pictures. She dropped them in a box and shoved them into the hall closet.

On her first day back at the office, she walked in with her head down, avoiding the staring eyes. When she sat down and looked at the glossy black computer screen, it was only that. Nothingness. She held her breath. It was eight seconds before she could see herself staring back. Each morning in the bathroom, it took longer and longer for her reflection to appear. Longer and longer she had to stare at the endless black of her phone or computer. It wasn’t long before she was used to it. She learned to do her makeup without a mirror. She knew whether her hair looked a mess just by feeling it and how to perfect it within seconds. She didn’t even expect to see her reflection anymore. Not in mirrors. Not in dark screens. Not in shiny buildings.

Her reflection was lost to who knows where. Liberated from dark car windows, water, spoons, the toaster, sunglasses. She started responding to texts and having people over again. She

wasn’t exactly the hostess she used to be, but she tried. She swore she never used to get so exhausted after having people over. But she perfected her fake smile.

And she had never really lived alone, but she realized it wasn’t so bad. It’s quiet. And that’s good. Different. She finally got around to selling that guitar that she hadn’t picked up in months. The corner was repopulated with a lamp. She admired her living space. Couch, TV, coffee table, lamp, and dark, empty walls except for one useless mirror.

Message from Your Old Home

Alannah Tjhatra

Scrub the tea stains from the counter till the countertop is raw; leave no traces of the smudges on the mirror in the hall.

Fix the dent from when your frying pan collided with the floor and erase the measure markings of your kids beside the door.

Peer into the master bedroom, take the bedframe and the sheets. Stick it all in that big U-Haul parked so smugly in the street.

Now your never-folded laundry clothes have disappeared from view, and the foyer closet’s hollow in the absence of your shoes.

But your fingerprints, invisible, have left their rounded marks in the living room and kitchen, and on my furnace-heated heart.

Stand Firm

Isaac Fox

Taillight

Isaac Fox

Fire Alarm Blues

Olivia Couch

There is a moment

When the sun ducks behind a cloud

In which I become something divine.

In the ensuing emptiness

The condensation ring around the week-old iced tea

Sitting on the coffee table in front of me

Becomes the third circle of hell.

We coexist

Without existing at all. How gluttonous is that–

When so much of who I am

Or who I thought I was

Or the amalgamation of others that fills

The empty space inside me

Is just a glass of water on your nightstand.

You’ll go to heaven with a hymn stuck in your throat

As if I won’t be standing here

Waiting for the fire alarm to tell me

When to leave.

The Conversations Between the Mentally-Ill Daughter of a Mentally-Ill

Mother

Lily Tolchin

You need to stop doing that so much, she says as I rinse the soap from my hands, It’s becoming an obsession, I think, she says Well then you need to stop checking the stove, isn’t that an obsession? I ask It’s different, she says after being silent for a while

What is it that you see? she asks me one day and I tell her, Well, they’re everywhere, all over my shoes, the cracks in my fingernails, y’know, that sorta thing, what do you see? and she tells me her visions of her home and family burning up like a dying star, all disappearing as if she had woken up from a dream, People like us, she says, we spend so much of our lives seeing things that don’t exist—that will never exist, I just hope you’ll remember to see your real life, too, and then I say, I hope so too

I think I’m just stuck this way, she says one evening as she swirls her glass of wine mixed with the gin you get on airplanes, That’s why it’s different for you, you still have time

But isn’t that what you told yourself when you were young, I say without thinking and she takes a sip

I’m not this person because I want to be, I say, I know I’m wrong, and this is one of those moments where she decides to do the motherly thing and looks at me, You’re not wrong, you’re my daughter, she’s holding my head to her chest now and I stare ahead, forgetting what part I’m supposed to be playing until

she breaks the stillness, but maybe being my daughter is what made you wrong, she whispers just above her throat

Oil Paint Study

Caitlyn Kline

Learning to Drive

Sydney Moses

After an embarrassing fumble with my noisy keys as I lock the house behind me, I see Max and his giant golden car parked in front of my next door neighbor’s house. He’s got one foot propped up against a tire, arms crossed, leaning against the back of his car. Max Mendelsohn is a god amongst men, the pinnacle of nice Jewish boys. He is exactly the kind of boy that all of us want to marry. When he offered to drive me to services after work today, my lungs almost crawled out of my mouth.

When Max sees me, he waves and heads around to the front of the car and gets in the driver’s seat. I go to the passenger side. His car is tall and makes me embarrassed about my own height. It smells like shenanigans and vape juice. I buckle as he checks the mirrors. He looks at me inquisitively and my lungs try to crawl out again.

“Are you wearing lipstick?”

“Can’t let God see me without it.”

I hate how I look in this car. My boobs are waterfalling out the front of my shirt, and that’s only okay when it’s on purpose. My stomach hurts from the button on my pants, but I just bought these pants and so-help-me-god, I will get my thirty-two dollars’ worth.

I put my coat over my lap and cringe horribly at myself when I knock over my unzipped purse. I scramble to pick up tampons and loose change from the floor of the front seat of his car.

I am an embarrassment to God. He is looking down and wishing he built me differently. Maybe I shouldn’t even go to Shabbat. Maybe when Max drops me off, I’ll walk back home. But what if somebody sees me? And tells him?

Max keeps looking over at me and every time our eyes meet, I want to throw myself out the window of this car and join the roadkill, my nice Shabbat clothes be damned.

Temple is just a few minutes from my house, unfortunately. I’d give an arm and leg for an hour of uninterrupted time alone in the car with Max Mendelsohn. He drops me around the back of the Temple in a shady spot and I wave goodbye awkwardly. His windows look blacked out in the shade, so I can’t tell if he waves back, but something tells me that he doesn’t. The sun moves behind

a tree and the golden car oxidizes, speeding away. I stand in the parking lot looking lost, even though I work here.

All through the service, I look over at the door, hoping he will come back and sweep me off my feet and offer to drive me to the afterparty. Ultimately, I walk there by myself. He doesn’t.

A Peak of Autumn Caitlyn Kline

Wedding, Departure

Caitlyn Costa

gloss of paper: grainy faces with familiar borders sown in the background / mother of the bride / cheeks stained rouge to imitate youth / dress the color of a rose pressed between yellowed pages / stark against the black of suits / white teeth / eyes obscured by glasses / lithograph of memory: no they didn’t care about us girls, wives, men, and pigs

we were a small countryside town so we were not bothered no prod, no barrel digging into our backs

the closest city was guangdong and that was an hour away i was nine when we left you should ask your grandmother— sometimes country folk are lucky.

she looks good in red / says it complements her skin tone / for the tea ceremony she wore a qipao of weighted silk /

high collar / gold embroidery / store-bought / not sewn upstairs / cup of pu’er / parting gift placed in a parent’s chipped hands / photograph doesn’t catch the detail of a phoenix rising along her back.

we had to pledge loyalty yes stand up!

there was a song march on!

at school we wore a red handkerchief i would fold it like this and tie it around my neck there comes a time when fighting is leaving.

ink on stone / a mother tries to impress an image upon her daughter but instead forms a crack.

The Room (The Hex) (Litost)

A.M. Ruth

It hangs in the room, damp and drowsy, illuminated by blue sunlight that blinds one eye while leaving the opposite corner dark.

It hangs heavy from the trapezoidal beams on the orange ceiling, still smoking from the oven of a witch who gave up eating children and began frying the inspirations of ghosts who were mature for their age.

It hangs in the infinitesimal space between jumping for joy and jumping off the cliff, beaten to a pulp in the orange juice, strained through crowded teeth.

It hangs immobile in the cerulean haze, obscuring the pages of organized volumes, crackling in scribbles that read,

I would rather be on edge than falling off.

Skeleton Portrait

Sophia Bunting

Kith Kelly

I am a very successful young man. I live in a large condo with a view of the city. I have a good head of hair. I have luxury furniture and sophisticated taste. I am in control of everything in my life. I have a one-thousand-dollar espresso machine. I am very healthy. My smoking habit does not define me. I can express my emotions in a manner that others can comprehend and identify with. I am brave for starting therapy. What happened to Harrison Cohen is not my fault. Harrison Cohen was an insane person. I did what I could to help him.

I first met Harrison for a coffee chat in college. He had applied to join my club. He sat across from me with big pleading eyes. He said he was on fire about consulting. He said he needed a community of like-minded young professionals. I told him that we didn’t like to accept third-years applying in the spring. He said that he’d tried other organizations but knew he belonged at Bertrug. He said even though he was older he’d commit heart and soul. I joked that there was no heart or soul in consulting.

He raced through the technical section and got almost half of the answers right. When he stood up to shake my hand I felt my back straighten. He was tall and quite handsome.

“Thank you for your time, sir,” he said.

I told him not to call me sir. We were the same age. He scolded himself.

“When will I hear back? Can you tell me how I did?”

“If you make it to the next round, we’ll notify you by the end of the day.”

“Do you think that I’ll make a good fit at Bertrug? Because I know I will. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”

“I have to discuss with the other members, but like I said, we’ll notify you in the next few hours.”

“I’m looking forward to it!”

“Well…this is a competitive process, Harrison.”

“I understand. Is there anything I can do to improve my chances?”

“I appreciate your enthusiasm, but it’s out of your hands. Have a great day.” I turned and left the coffee shop. He emerged and started behind me.

“You’re going this way too?” he said, catching up in a jog. I had only walked ten yards or so.

“Do you live down here?”

“No.”

“Where are you going?”

“My girlfriend’s.”

“You have a girlfriend? Tell me about her!”

“She’s fine.”

“Man, you have it all.”

I was deliberately walking out of step with him trying to get ahead.

“That’s why I need a place like Bertrug,” he added. He had caught up to me again.

I turned sternly to him and spat this in his face: “There’s a lot of places like Bertrug, but there is only one Bertrug.”

“I know that—’ he said “—I need Bertrug specifically. Tell me, what’s the best thing about consulting?”

He continued to frenzy and bounce up and down along my side. He almost skipped until we met the cultist.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” A well-dressed man in a wide-brimmed hat was standing in the sidewalk. “Would either of you have a moment to discuss something very important to me?”

“Well, sure!” Before I could say no, Harrison was shaking his hand.

“Hello there, young man. That’s quite a firm handshake you’ve got! What’s your name son?”

“My name’s Harrison Cohen—what’s yours?”

“S. A. Elian. It’s wonderful to meet you, Harrison. What’s your friend’s name?”

He jabbed a thumb in my direction. I told him my name.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you too.” He nodded to me with a flashy smile. “I’ll try to make this quick for you folks.”

“No need to rush,” Harrison said.

“Let’s start with a question. What got you out of bed this morning, Harrison?”

“Easy! Today is a big day. I just had my interview for an elite consulting student interest group.” Harrison smiled at me.

“That’s terrific. And that interview went well for you?”

“Yes sir, it did!”

“Harrison, why do you want to go into consulting?”

“Honestly, I’ve always been very passionate about it.”

He turned to me. “What about you? What got you out of bed this morning?”

“My alarm clock,” I said. He laughed. “I haven’t heard that one before. Tell me this, though: what gave you the strength to stop that alarm and come stand here in front of me?”

“I didn’t get out of bed so I could stand here in front of you. I got out of bed because I have shit to do, and now you’re in my way.”

“Tell me: what is it that you have to do?”

“Well, mister, I have to go to class and study so that I can get a job so that I can earn money and contribute to society and make a living. Is that a concept you’re familiar with?”

“Yes, I’m aware of the concept of money. It’s just the way you said it—you got up so that you could ‘make a living?’ Why not just say that you got up to live? Why should money be the driving force behind your living? What I’m talking about is the purpose. I bet you’d be surprised how few people I talk to that know anything about the purpose. Most of them can’t tell me how or why they got up that morning. It breaks my heart.”

“That’s terrible,” Harrison said.

“The purpose is what gets us out of bed, gentlemen. The purpose. The purpose brought us together today, and because of that I’m going to make you both an offer: if the world of things lets you down as I know it will, simply give me a call and I will change your life.” He handed us each a business card. On one side was the name Serendipity and on the other was a small phone number etched in red ink. “I’ll be easy to get a hold of. Take care, gentlemen.”

“Thank you, Mr. Elian!” Harrison said. Elian tipped his hat.

I threw my card in the first trash can we passed.

“What’d you do that for?” Harrison asked.

“Give me a break. Haven’t you ever been hustled before?”

“What are you talking about? That guy wasn’t asking for money.”

“When people talk about money, they tend to say the opposite of what they mean. First rule of consulting.”

“Interesting. I don’t get it.”

I stopped and said that I had to walk in a different direction.

“I’ll be in touch, Harrison. Have a nice day.”

“Thank you! I look forward to working with you.”

That evening I told the Bertrug board that Harrison Cohen was an idiot. I texted him and said that I had advocated for his membership, but I was voted down. I said I was sorry and wished him good luck. He never responded.

The following months were some of the strangest and most miserable of my life. My girlfriend was accepted into pharmacy school and transferred midway through the year. I sobbed on her kitchen floor that I was never going to love anybody else. She said she was doing it to give me freedom. There was nothing I wanted less than freedom. She asked me to help her pack up her cabinets, so I threw up in the sink. She thought I should leave. Within two weeks she changed her phone number.

When I wasn’t writing her letters, I kept busy with Bertrug. I had my eyes on a diamond ring and a downtown condo. I spent more time in the business school library than in my bedroom.

One night I passed a small gathering at University Park. They were standing around a hole. Inside up to his neck was Harrison Cohen. He was shirtless, sweaty, and bald-headed. He was shoveling dirt from under his feet. I don’t think he saw me.

“What are you doing?” a woman asked.

“I’m removing the dirt from this hole, ma’am.” He wiped his brow.

“Why?”

“So that I can put it all here!” He pointed to the pile above his head.

“But why?”

“Well, then I’m going to move it back into the hole.”

“Why?”

“So nobody falls in and gets hurt!”

“I don’t understand. Why do this in the first place?”

“I don’t know. Why do anything at all?” he said. That was good enough for the crowd who murmured among themselves. I left not wanting to be spotted. The next morning I saw that the hole was filled in.

It might have been a funny episode had I not felt so awful about things. My letters had come back unopened. I felt terribly guilty about not feeling guilty when I stopped going to my exgirlfriend’s church.

Though miserable, I adapted. I fit in a few workouts each week. I was becoming a bolder consultant. I wrote interest letters to elite firms that I thought were out of my reach. I heard positive responses from a few.

I would have found the hole incident funnier still had it only happened once. I’m not sure if he ever dug another hole, but he did other projects, usually with an audience. One morning I watched him mix twenty-five packs of cards together. He re-sorted them into decks and then put each card one at a time through a paper shredder with robotic meticulousness.

Because I dreaded it, I figured that another encounter with Harrison was inevitable. It wouldn’t happen until the last day of finals. The business library was completely empty except for the two of us. I hadn’t noticed him earlier when it was crowded, but now it was late and everyone else had left. I was reading The McKinsey Way. Harrison was hunched over a white binder a few tables down. At around midnight I turned off my lamp and walked over to him. He looked at me with bright eyes.

“Hey!” he said.

“Hi, Harrison. How was your year?”

“I’m glad to see you, man! It’s been the best year of my life.”

His eyes were so full of color that I didn’t at first notice the heavy black bags. He had also shaved his eyebrows. I felt a small pit in my chest.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. I’m still sorry that Bertrug didn’t work out for you. We have a policy against repeat applicants, but I don’t see why we can’t make an exception. I don’t see anybody else still studying.”

He looked confused. “Bertrug?”

“The consulting club.”

“Oh—of course! How’s that going?”

I looked at his binder. It was a list of names and phone numbers. I recognized a few.

“Are you reading the class directory?”

“Oh, no. I’m memorizing it.”

“What? Why?”

“So that I can have it memorized.”

“I don’t understand. That’s a huge waste of time.”

“You either get it or you don’t.”

“Do you get it?”

“Why should that matter?” He was up to ‘R.’

“How long have you been at this?” I asked.

“About three days, I think.”

“Jesus Christ. Have you slept?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you gone to the bathroom?”

“Well, I haven’t had to today. I’ve officially cleared out my gut. I haven’t had much food. I’m picking at what people have left here.”

“Harrison, I demand that you stop.”

“Why?”

“You’re miserable.”

“I’m not.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You either get it or you don’t.”

“Are you taking care of yourself?”

“With all due respect, we’re the same age.”

“Okay, Harrison.” I crept back from the table.

“Have a great summer, man!” he called from behind me.

I would not.

That summer I interned at a consulting firm in the city. It paid forty-one thousand dollars and provided takeout for dinner if I worked late. I had takeout most nights. You were not supposed to sleep at the office. Some nights I did not sleep. It was all my own decision. I needed to work twice as hard as the other third-year interns to be the permanent hire.

I was satisfied when I received my offer letter at the start of my 4th year. I was to be a junior consultant starting at 96 grand. It has been four years since I’ve accepted and I am still working the same position for the same pay.

I did not see Harrison at school. No holes were being dug in University Park, no cards were shredded. No crowds watched in wonder as a sick boy did nothing. I could finally ignore his existence until a phone call I received about five months ago.

It was an unknown number. I was studying figures in a spreadsheet and eating leftover Chinese food. I was alone in the office.

“Hello?”

“Hello! Hello! Oh my God! I knew you’d pick up.”

“Who is this?”

“It’s Harrison! Harrison Cohen. From college!”

“Harrison. Hi. How are you?”

“Oh, I’m pretty good. How are you?” There was heavy static on his end.

“I’m busy, Harrison. What can I do for you?”

“You’re in consulting, right?”

“Yes, Harrison. I’m in consulting.”

“Do you make a lot of money?”

“What?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you not make a lot of money?”

“No, I do.”

“Whoops! I almost forgot the first rule of consulting.”

“What do you want?”

“Today I was thinking: who’s the best guy I know? Who has a heart? Who can help me? And then it hit me. It’s you. Obviously, right? And what do you know, I’ve got your phone number memorized. You never changed it!”

“I guess not. What can I do for you Harrison?”

“Hey, if you do this, for me, I’ll change your life. I’ll do anything.”

“What is it?”

“I need you to come post bail.”

“What? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know, bail, like the money someone pays for somebody else to get out of jail.”

“I know what bail is, what did you do?”

“It couldn’t possibly matter. You’ll laugh when I tell you, anyways. I was pushing a large stone up the side of a mesa, and I got in all kinds of trouble because I crossed over a highway. Obstruction of traffic, endangerment, vandalism. Stuff like that.”

“You want me to come pay your bail?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m asking.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in the Chaves County Detention Center. You should be able to find it on Google.”

“I know better than to ask, but why the hell did you push a stone up a mesa, and then why did you call me when you got arrested?”

“Well, you see, I was going to roll it back down when I—”

“Shut up, Harrison. Shut up. I am not going to get you. I am not going to save you. I do not owe you anything. You are insane. You are an idiot. I owe you nothing. I hope this is a sick prank. You are going to be stuck in jail until you can get some other sorry-ass sucker to come bail you out.”

I hung up.

In my anger, I realized that I had played a part in Harrison’s downfall. Then I realized that I had realized that long ago. I had the money. I had the vacation days. New Mexico sounded terrible, but most things sounded terrible. I could do my good deed for the year and then get the hell out of Harrison Cohen’s way for the rest of my life with a moral waiver. I was going to start by changing

my phone number. What was the point of money if not to serve a higher purpose? Why be rich and be a miser? Two days later I was on a flight to Roswell.

The police clerk laughed when I said I was posting his bail. “Oh yeah, the beautiful mind?”

I was sitting on the bench when they walked him out. He had long hair and a scrappy beard. Tears were running down his cheeks. He was still tall and handsome if twenty pounds lighter.

“Oh my God!” he ran over to me and hugged me.

“Hi, Harrison.”

“You’re my hero. You’re not going to regret this.”

Wedged under his arm was a thick stack of white paper.

“What’s this?”

“Oh, a project. I’m writing down the even numbers.”

We walked outside together.

“Harrison,” I said in the parking lot. “You are not well. I am not going to let you run away this time.”

“Where are you not going to let me run?”

“Anywhere, Harrison. Don’t run anywhere. Just live a normal life from now on.”

“A normal life? Like what?”

“Don’t pretend not to know. Everything you do is pointless.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“What’s the point of pushing a stone up a hill even if you’re going to push it back down? Why start?”

“Like I said, why should that matter?” I wanted to punch him, and I’d never punched anyone.

“I don’t know how to ask this,” I said.

“Just ask.”

“Was it because of me? Was it because I didn’t let you into my consulting club? Is this because of that devil-worshiper you got conned by?”

“Are you talking about S. A. Elian?”

“Sure, S. A. Elian. If that was his name.”

“Oh yeah, Elian was a fraud. His first initials weren’t even S. A. I figured that out a few years ago.”

“Then why? Why didn’t you graduate?”

“Because S. A. Elian was right about something.”

“What?”

“When I called him, they told me to go meet him in a barber shop. They asked if I was ready to live the purpose. I said I was, and then they shaved my head and began preaching from a little white book. Elian said that to live a meaningful life, one has to dedicate themselves to noble efforts.”

“Noble efforts?”

“S. A. Elian teaches that a noble effort is any act that is not inherently selfish. He said that giving was a noble effort. So are good deeds, efforts to improve oneself, and efforts to spread love. He said those things aren’t inherently selfish. I believed him. I dedicated myself to that. I spent a few weeks just holding doors and tying people’s shoes and picking up garbage.”

“Then what?”

“Well, then I got promoted. Once you get promoted, you unlock a new type of noble effort. The donation.”

“Ah.”

“I’m broke. He left me with nothing. It made me consider the whole premise. I realized that there were no noble efforts.”

“What?”

“If I do a good deed, I feel good. Noble Efforts aren’t supposed to make you feel good. They are supposed to make the world a better place. When I pick up a piece of trash, it gives me a better self-image. It was all self-gratifying. The only noble effort would be an effort that I didn’t understand the purpose of.”

“Are you going to keep living this way?”

“I don’t know.”

“It wasn’t very pointless of you to ask me to pay your bail.”

He laughed. “I’m sorry. I ain’t perfect.”

“Well do you want a ride into town?”

“Nah.”

“Bye, Harrison.”

“Thanks for the bailout.”

And that was the last I should have seen of him.

Sixty-three days later I received a subpoena from the Eagle County courthouse in Gypsum, Colorado. I was needed to identify a body.

It was him. He and his emaciated figure are now burned in me. He looked like a bird splayed and opened. He had bloody mangled feet. The mortician covered him up and said that as far as he could tell, Harrison did not eat one morsel of food after being released from jail. Two hikers found

him 530 miles north of where we said goodbye.

A few cops saw me throw up in the parking lot. I was furious at Harrison that he wasted my bail money. He made my good deed pointless.

I had no part in any of this. At each step, I did the right thing. I am thankful that the cult left Harrison alone. They could have used him for worse. No act is pointless. No negative thought is worth attaching to. I shall press on.

Untitled Rian Disney

Black Hole Q’s

Aodhán C.E. Ridenour

What if black holes flip the world inside out, turn false to truth, give ones to zeros, and switch slowly to quickly, sucking, spitting, quarks from nothingness? What if infinity meant Be Here Now, made lies irrelevant, called words the most and least important things to not exist? What if

I am you, and you are me, our collective speech, this universe, Led back into itself, and better never found a worse… Would last be first?

Black be white?

A cause for peace evoke the fight?

And how would anybody ever know they’re right?

A perfect ambiguity, A unified androgyny, A paradox composed of

I think the point is that the question doesn’t have an answer, Save for that the answer is To never ask the question . . . Too late. Now what?

If black holes do flip the world inside out, I’d wait, And in the meantime Wonder why.

Untitled Rian Disney

What We Find in the Dark

An Interpretation of Gwendolyn Brooks’ “A Lovely Love”

Paige Dalto

If it is to be real, let Your breath gently grace over my form as it Has always been a struggle to be Seen and felt. In the dim alleys And crowded bars, let Your presence be of a shadow; that it

Echoes through dense bones and into the soul. Let it be Consuming and overwhelming and frightening in the solace of a Warm, empty hall

Brimming with vacant voices of those whose Souls still wander together, leaving imprints on the floors for a janitor

To inspect with curious caution as muted laughter javelins Through the linoleum. Our souls stand in silence, no epithet

To cut through the darkness and Shift our attention from careless thought

Of ourselves to

The reality that seems to cheapen

With the scent of vanilla and hyacinth

Swimming through confining darkness

Is this the feeling that The poets speak of that we Have long sought And claimed and abused and adored and Made to a game as we played

On sandpaper sidewalks under vast sky? Have we

Not held its abrasive body to our own and thus found

A blooming, wretched rot, Beginning to spread through the tissue and tendons. A plot to make The host unable to function without the Presence of this consumption, disguised as brittle petals

To obscure the impending fall.

Hide the damage. Let

The fire spread, tangerine heat as it

Engulfs epidermis and ethmoid. Could it be

There are no alarms in the stairways, No cautionary signs or vibrations, and So we fumble blindly through the darkness in search of a Fleeting feeling of fellowship that opposes the splintery

Sense that we are on the wrong side of the box

And are denied entry. A sense of understanding where The ground is swallowed whole, and it is only you And me existing in this void potential. A space that I have Only seen in fleeting moments, before I am thrown Into an endless sphere of impassive motion. For me, This repetition has bruised and burdened and scraped Away my body and left me

Bare, a momentary figure in a motionless realm with Solely sepia eyes and watercolor words and your Forgiving kiss,

Promoting persistence. Not yet have I decided or hunted or honed

In on what I believe to be Good for me,

Yet you have graced my time in this realm and have Shown me the sensations of adoration between the moments before we are released From this and move to the Other. It has not yet claimed me

Or you, but I know that after We are freed of this Time, I will search the empty cavern And unearth you by the warmth of your kindness, And the way you smiled In a lifetime that has since slipped away Into vague memory. I will still recall the way our Eyes met, and my skin peppered from impalpable shocks. I will remember that Profound sense of belonging is Perhaps the Only remaining birthright That we are allowed to cling to. A reclamation of A fleeting feeling from our fleeting time in our Fleeting lives that we deemed irrevocably lovely In every sense. A response to one another that can only be identified as love In its richest form. A tribute to the nurturing received in Our cotton swaddling clothes.

Another memory that falls into darkness in the Other; not Easily grasped in a space such as Nothing. Yet, we will find that like Sensations of a past realm, we create New Love that Transcends time into this Other Space, where we have merged to one. Unfathomable is this path; We are not To be guided or sheltered or herded by faintly lit Lanterns, casting more shadows than there are bodies. Other is not found by Being sought; it seeks Us. Other is deific, unlike any Of the philosophies from those self-deemed as wise

And beyond the existence of women and men, isolation survives not, either. Is this it for us? Run.

Abandon the concept of existence as a people And embrace the Other, as these realms are Of no viable comparison. The Good is coming. Indescribable, consuming. There is no language that they Can create that encapsulates the serenity in the solitude; it must Be felt and heard and seen and smelled and tasted firsthand, not Imagined. The light cannot catch Our irises in this space. The idea of us Is imprinted beyond time. But in mortality, here We fear this Other. In its unknown, fear it is definitionless And everything, instantaneously. So, as we traverse time in A cosmos before divinity, we find that this Air becomes a fragment less strict When we stand together in a momentary atmosphere.

There is something about it that feels

Audrey Cota

good

The way lush trees are dimmed so low water swims down its leaves and spine singing I collect these tears sinking into a puddle of mud—its trunk is hugged by the ground.

The way grass, weeds, and flowers all shy to the weather, insisting not one is better bathe in pools of all the same water

The way a flickering streetlight’s whispers of life can only be heard in the dark

Sandpaper sidewalks transform like tumbled soil to clay.

A holed cup can’t stay full. It shrieks I’m thirsty the stream of its wounds makes a path.

Splinters from a playground build a floating vessel.

I’m glad to be drenched, floating, and flowing.

An imposter is a sun that claims I’ll love you giving life to the grass, weeds, and flowers to leave them dried of their given vibrance.

No need for the flashlight of the sun.

The salt tastes good.

Woman With Makeup

Sophia Bunting

A Letter from the Singing Bones

Dania Kreisl

Dear White Settler,

I wanted to say, thank you for scattering my bones in a land I do not know. A land where I was not raised, where my parents and siblings were not raised, where my grandparents were not raised, and where my ancestors did not live long days and breathe their last breaths. My bones sing to each other in adoration of your kindness for taking me from the land of which I knew and putting me in a land where you and your future generations did not want to live. I appreciate that you’ve taken a liking to where my home used to remain, as you take care of the graveyard of my people by digging up their singing bones to place your new white settlements upon where they rest.

This friendship that we created through the Trail of Tears will last a lifetime, and I hope you remember this bond for eternity. My bones sing of this friendship as they rattle and yearn to crawl to your homes where my home once was and thank you with the blood of your ancestors, that you may drink it as a peace offering, as we light a fire in your honor using your houses as the fire pit, while your families worship inside of them.

I hope you live long and happy lives, and that someday some new settlers will provide you with the same opportunities you have once provided us: to be taken from your lands and brought to a new place where you can drink from the bottles we once drank, so that your bones can sing in harmony with us as we lay to rest in lands that we do not know.

Sincerely,

The Singing Bones

Reflections on a Well-Kept Cemetery

Katherine Buerke i.

The dead do not need shade

But still, we planted trees, scattered

Closely until the headstones became pebbles

From cathedrals to crypts, I walked, until I found the graves of Paupers, the nameless, faceless masses

Overgrown weeds

Strangling stone slabs in the glaring, eating sun

With flies and a smell that isn’t death

But surely isn’t life

Between recollection and forgetting

In the shades summer sun

But the dead do not mind

Just as they do not smell the crumbled flowers

On their heartless graves

Monumental down a road

Cathedrals in separating rows

Cracking of rows of graves

Stone somehow the

Bathed in shrouded living find

Sunlight purpose trampling

Stretching hours the dead

Shadows mimicking flattening their humanity

Long lives to carved names

Lived quickly but in the end

Burial stones it is a well-kept

For Beethoven cemetery of And Schubert well-remembered

Flattened by bodies and along Stones which the flower-strewn

Can not sing graves. old couples hold hands on benches, waiting.

Charcoal Skull

Sophia Bunting

Untitled Rian Disney

My doctor says psych wards don’t exist anymore

Bharti Bansal

Welcome to this ride through your mind.

You will be granted exactly one life to process that you got ill here.

We have all the food stocked up for you. All the memories might fade from these mood stabilizers and you might even forget the name of the last movie you watched. But do not overdose. You won’t forget yourself anyway.

Lean to the doors if it feels dizzy. It’s in your head. This earthquake isn’t registered on the Richter scale. Nobody will believe you.

Take your favourite sweaters with you, the ones your Nani made in sky-blue color. Do not believe this will serve you the sky. Hope doesn’t work that way.

Keep your pens in your pockets, to write. Do not use it as a weapon. It serves nobody.

Ask your mother to prepare good food for you. Tell her you need to learn how to cook it before you are gone. Call it independence, freedom even. You can put in as much salt as you want. Even coriander leaves.

Ask your father for a hug. It’s more difficult than asking for money. He will always give you extra. Money.

This ride will be difficult, but hide in your mind when it gets fast paced.

Remember it’s all in your head.

On your way, you will see flowers and mistake them for sun. Windows will be barred from opening lest you jump off.

Here, the only freedom you have is to feel happy. We know you don’t. Hence the ride.

Cover your ears when voices in your head get too loud. Some days even songs will be a nice reminder why it never works out, this terrifyingly silent noise.

Do not tell your doctor where it hurts. Your heart.

He has learnt to see it as an anatomical feature. Don’t you know they place a stent in it and call it a heartbeat?

Always remember about mountains. You don’t need a funeral to ask for a wish. But if you get one, ask for them to let you fly for once without the limits of the family wings. Keep in mind your yearning for Baluganj horror stories, Scandal Point and remember that a horse does more stealing

than the king guiding it.

Keep khatta along with you, Nani’s homemade aachar, and her little stories of how much she loved Nanu. Perhaps it will be a good reminder of how love surpasses time, and as much as the world tells you otherwise, nothing saves like love.

Do not seek for connection. This psych ward doesn’t exist in the real world, only the patients do.

And when you reach your destination, your old psychiatrist, dressed in a gray suit and a complementary tie because life shall never be drained out of a cabin, tell him you have finally realized what he said.

He will repeat that scientists have finally concluded how mental institutions have ceased to exist in India, and only families can heal a person. But tell him that the last time you thought to run away from this world was because you felt a family should never pay for a daughter’s messed up head, and as much as families can heal, it becomes a mutual unsaid agreement: to love and be loved.

The irony is, they think they don’t deserve you and you think you don’t deserve them. The distance widens. Delusions increase. And suddenly even when you are trying to escape, you remember the disclaimer, “This is only a one way, non-refundable ticket. Patients are solely responsible for everything that happens to them. No complaints are registered. Silence is the only way to suffer. A person can only be a victim of his own stories, and if you tell the world, they will laugh it off as a bad script. You don’t want that kind of shame, now do you?”

Important: Please don’t forget to mark your attendance. It shall be done by the tears at night. Be silent while you cry. Or else it will become real. And nobody will believe you that you are suffering.

P.S. Remember to donate whatever you can for future trips by other individuals. It will be best if you keep an open mind and leave laughter behind. Smile through the pain. If you wish to come on this ride again, write back to us. We can be contacted only through the voices in your head. If it is urgent, visit a psychiatrist, never a friend. A friend might convince you that you are loved and send you flowers or your favourite doda barfi, but a doctor will always treat you as a case.

Tale of Edelterre—Lost

Em J Sausser

My home is gone. The land where it once stood is barren, scarred by wars and flame. They claimed to be heroes. The ones who stormed my home and took it piece by piece claimed to be saving it, or saving me. They are the heroes of their own story, but they are enemies of mine. I can’t find my children; I can’t find my parents or my neighbors. I can’t find anyone. My hands seem foreign. My clothing is frayed, and I have nothing but a dull iron sword at my side to keep me company.

I pass by the tall red oak tree with the gaping ax mark embedded within its bark.

I used to have a dog. Her name was Fox. She had red fur like one, and my youngest son, Patryk, declared her name when she followed me home from work. Those kids would run around the yard for hours with Fox. I smiled each time I saw it.

Fox was well-trained. She never needed a leash. She always followed me closely on walks, never straying too far. My middle child, a son named Yves, took her on runs and hikes. Every time they came home from a journey, they fell asleep for hours! And my oldest child, my daughter Vyktorya, was Fox’s best friend. When she shared her woes, Fox was the first to listen and comfort with a cuddle.

I miss them.

I pass by the red oak tree with the ax mark in it.

I’m following a light in the sky. I’m hoping my family and friends are too. I can’t look back. I’m not sure I want to see what is back there. The smoke from behind me stings my eyes and irritates my throat. I cough. I can’t hear myself cough.

Each day takes a new part of me away. I’ve lost what a touch feels like. I can’t remember what my mother looked like, or how my father spoke. The tastes of my favorite meals are fleeing from me. I can’t remember what they were. What did I eat? I can’t remember my job. Did I even have one?

I pass by the oak tree with the ax mark in it.

I’ve seen that tree many times. I should be going forward. In fact, I am moving forward. Yet the scenery is so familiar. Time feels cyclical, fate is a vortex circling around me. Every day starts the same and ends the same. Wake up, go to work, come home, cook dinner, sleep. I’m an ouroboros eating my own tail. As it gets eaten, the body grows shorter. Is my time getting shorter? Is it gone? Follow the ouroboros to my destination, to the end of the tail. But the tail is at the start — at the head. My destination cannot be where I started. I can’t find where I started. It was home, I think. With my family. I can’t remember their names. Did I have children?

I pass by the tree with the mark in it.

I need to rest. My legs ache as if the whole world rested on my back. My eyes want to close.

My arms feel like my bones are made of lead. I’m tired. But if I rest, I stop moving. I can’t risk losing progress—losing distance. I am jogging and running and—where am I going? Why am I going? “Just go,” my mind nags at me. Go where? “Just go,” it says again. I run. I keep running. Through the brush, past trees, past everything. It looks like there is a clearing through the tree line. I keep running. The clearing gets further away. And further and further away. I reach out towards it, trying to hold it in place until I get there. My hand looks foreign. It looks burnt and withered away and rotten. I look away.

I pass by the tree.

I need to rest. I need to rest. I finally slow down and look around. I sit at the base of a tree and try to think. My mind is clouded by a dense fog. When I try to push through it, the haze pushes back. Ash falls from the sky—it looks like snow. Why does the thought of snow comfort me?

My eyes sting. I seal them tightly. Tears threaten to breach my eyelids. Are they a result of the stinging or of sorrow? I don’t remember what I had, but whatever it was is gone. I can’t bear it—I’m grasping at air in my mind, trying to find something that is utterly unattainable. My heart is breaking over what I lost—over the fact that I am lost. I use fallen leaves to fashion a mask and cover my face. I can’t fathom seeing myself, nor could I survive anyone seeing me. I am guilty of not fixing it, of not saving everyone. I curse the gods—I couldn’t even save myself.

I look forward at the towering pillars before me in the woods. A particular tree catches my eye.

That tree looks familiar.

In Between

Isaac Fox

CONTRIBUTORS

Bharti Bansal is a 26-year-old woman currently residing in a small village of Himachal Pradesh, India. She likes to overthink her place in this world and tries to make sense of her said obsession with it through poetry. She loves cats and has a dog named Jugni which she likes to mention everywhere she goes. Sometimes her life is more about Jugni than her own self. On the days she isn’t longing for friendships, she studies the meaning of data through her degree in Data Science. She can be reached at her instagram @useless_thought25.

Katherine Buerke is a sophomore English and Creative Writing student at Lebanon Valley College. She is involved with theatre and orchestra and enjoys reading, going on hikes, and spending time with friends in her spare time.

Sophia Bunting is a third-year student studying Creative Arts-Therapy & Wellness at Lebanon Valley College. Bunting is an officer of the Kappa Pi Honors Society, an Intern for the Suzanne H. Arnold Art Gallery, and loves to use various mediums to create her artwork.

Caitlyn Costa was born in Toronto and raised in South Carolina. She is a senior studying biology at the College of Charleston. Her work was previously published in Miscellany.

Audrey Cota (born 2002) is a Chicana poet raised in San Diego, California. She is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s degree in English at San Diego State University. Her work has been published by The Oakland Arts Review and 30 North Literary Journal.

Olivia Couch is a Junior at the University of Richmond, majoring in English and Classical Civilization. Her work has been published in Stolen Shoes Mag and is forthcoming in The Messenger. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky with her cat and a deep, existential dread for the future.

Paige Dalto is in the home stretch of her senior year at Lebanon Valley College. She is double majoring in English and Social Justice and Civic Engagement and is an editor of LVC’s student-led newspaper, La Vie Collegienne. Her writing, often creative nonfiction and poetry, explores emotion and the female experience. Paige is immensely grateful for the support she has received from her professors, friends and family throughout her creative journey. She intends to continue sharing her writing post-graduation and is looking forward to a future in writing.

Rian Disney is a Creative Arts major currently studying at LVC. Pictures admitted to Green Blotter are from Photography Art 215 with Dr. Taylor. Rian aimed to present an experimental exploration of light effects in portraiture with these three images from his studies. Rian also makes it a point to keep up this more modern and abstract style in his personal artwork, which can be viewed on instagram at the handle disney_ap2223.

Mackenzie Dunne is a senior at the University of North Carolina Wilmington pursuing Creative Writing and English. One day she hopes to own her own farm where she can live out her dreams of reading her works of poetry and nonfiction to her chickens, but until then she will continue through school.

Sofia Ettema is an illustrator with a love for nature and writing. She grew up in northern Virginia, and her love for nature came from her family’s hiking and camping trips across the east coast. She loves to spend her time making art, playing adventure games, or drinking tea.

Isaac Fox plays the clarinet and guitar, makes weird little books, and spends as much time as possible outside. His work has previously appeared in Bending Genres, Tiny Molecules, and A Velvet Giant, among other publications. You can find him on Twitter at @isaac_k_fox.

Madelyn Furman is an English writing student at McNeese State University. Her work is featured in The Alcott Youth Magazine. To keep her mind busy, she writes, plays guitar, and crochets.

Kith Kelly is a fiction writer from La Salle, Utah. His work is interested in the absurdity of American life. This is his first published work in a non-local journal. He is 21 years old. Kith is currently enrolled at the University of Chicago.

Caitlyn Kline is a senior art major at Lebanon Valley College and has won several awards for her art since high school, including an award as winner of Pennsylvania’s 9th District Congressional Art Competition. Kline has had her art featured in Green Blotter from 2021 to the present, and continues to pursue success in her work.

Dania Kreisl is graduating with her undergraduate Bachelor’s degree this May of 2024 at Texas Christian University where she studies as an English major and Writing minor. She’s an avid reader who has learned to love many different genres of literature and is eager about sharing her writing, as well as others’, with the world. She is passionate about publishing and is striving towards working in the publishing industry, as she will be attending the Denver Publishing Institution for their Summer 2024 graduating class.

Aynslee Mattson is an undergraduate student at Utah State University studying Art Education. Their work, while spanning medium and subject matter, most currently explores local landscapes and the visual abstraction of nature.

Grace Miller is an undergraduate student based in South Florida. She is fascinated with folklore, the outdoors, and has recently jumped on the bandwagon of pickleball. Her work often draws from life experience.

Sydney Moses is a junior at Beloit College where she is pursuing a double major in anthropology and creative writing. She has been writing her whole life and hopes to publish books in the future and work in publishing. When she isn’t reading or writing, you can find her cooking, listening to 70’s music, or playing with her dog, Bodhi. Sydney’s work has previously been published in Parakeet, Turtle Way, and the Oakland Arts Review. You can find her on Twitter @sydneym_okay.

A.C.E. Ridenour was born and raised in the riverlands of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and studies English: Creative Writing, Spanish, and Art at Slippery Rock University. His periodicals have been published in Life in the Villa, his poetry in KGB Lit Mag, and his art in Illuminate. He served as editor-in-chief of The Phoenix, and is an associate editor for SLAB.

A.M. Ruth is a student at Lebanon Valley College majoring in Music and Music Education and minoring in English. Their favorite type of weather is fog.

Em J Sausser is a biology major with environmental studies and chemistry minors. Em loves hiking, crocheting, making art, and writing when time allows it. They have been writing and creating many works in the world they develop called Edelterre.

Alannah Tjhatra is currently a student in Southern California. She enjoys poetry and fiction writing, mind-bending movies, and good conversations with friends. Her work has previously been published in The Roadrunner Review and Glass Mountain Magazine.

Lily Tolchin is a senior English Writing major at the University of Pittsburgh. Her work has previously been published in two editions of the Ralph Munn Creative Writing Anthology.