Venture Online vol3

Venture Online Table of Contents

Volume 3 - Fall 2010

Poetry

Prose

Art

Different....................................................1

by Tanner Phillips, Pearl, MS I Think of You...........................................2

by Kitty Holland, Diamondhead, MS The Science of Sleep .................................3

by Hope Owens-Wilson, Jackson, MS Woman’s Strength.....................................4

by Kandance Webley, Madison, MS If You Were................................................5

by Amanda Blakely, Greenwood, MS Trials .........................................................6

by Alivia Yeager, Louisville, KY After ..........................................................7

by Bianca Smith, Tylertown, MS Ode to a Mother .......................................8

by Chassidy Williams, Chicago, IL To Wake Up Alone ....................................9

by Ryan Scott Felder, Philadelphia, MS Dreams....................................................10

by Russel Williamson, Pearl, MS Forsaken Shoe.........................................11

by Joseph Miller, Collierville, TN Title of our Bookstore.............................12

by Heather Miles, Irvine, CA Terminology from a Betrayed Core.......13

by Chassidy Williams, Chicago, IL A Stroll in the Night ...............................14

by Cristin Stephens, Shreveport, LA Endless Horizon......................................15

by Charlie Dingus, Oxford, MS Bounds ....................................................16

by Bozidar Bukilic, Podgorica, Montenegro

If Ever......................................................17

by Jessica Boone, Gulfport, MS Road Trip ................................................19

by Callie Daniels, Jackson, MS Yapuwaz..................................................21 John Houston, Starkville, Mississippi A Leaf ’s Journey .....................................23

by Ye Xiao, Changsha City, Hunan Province, China Crash .......................................................25

by Kaleigh Caldwell, Hernando, MS The Mask of Loneliness ..........................27

by Tiesha Jeffries, Holly Springs, MS Mississippi’s Finest .................................35

by Lauren Babb, Clinton, MS 1986.........................................................29

by Joseph Wendy Alliance, Leogane, Haiti Plans........................................................31

by Jessica Boone, Gulfport, MS Red Satin Sheets .....................................33

by Melanie Madden, Roseville, MN Letter to the Tulledega Times ................36

by Jason Cimon, Tupelo, MS Art History..............................................37

by Hope Owens-Wilson, Jackson, MS Teacher and Student ..............................38

by Brooke Esch, Brookhaven, MS An Artist’s Opinion ................................39

by Kaitlin Bachmeyer, Huntsville, AL I Believe ..................................................41

by Kalee Fine, Olive Branch, MS Biography of Bozidar Bukilic ................42

by Bozidar Bukilic, Podgorica, Montenegro

William Strouth, St. Louis, MO .......Cover, 20, 36, 44 Noel Childress, Oxford, MS ................(i), 2 Kaitlin Bachmeyer, Huntsville, AL.......1, 3, 5, 11, 14, 28, 40 Jessica St. John, Byhalia, MS..........4, 15, 32 Kathryn Christian, Knoxville, TN.............6 Amanda Vann, Atlanta, GA ..........7, 12, 13, 16, 18, 34 Chris Green, Virginia Beach, VA...............8 Ellen Taylor, Pontotoc, MS ........................9 Joseph Katool, Madison, MS...................10 Kelly Psonak, Brandon, MS.....................22 Lauren Banquer, Hattiesburg, MS ..........24 Caty Cambron, Rome, GA ......................26 Kavious Millen, Southaven, MS ..............30 Taylor Brown, Adamsville, TN................35 Brooke Esch, Brookhaven, MS ................38 Allie Billmeyer, Cape Girardeau, MO.....42

Volunteer Readers Mallory Blassingame, Keith Boran, Sheena Boran, Ben Child, Betty Crane, Bob Cummings, Chip Dunkin, Shanna Flaschka, Karen Forgette, Abby Greenbaum, Whitney Hubbard, George Kehoe, Amy E. Mark, Alice Myatt, Chris O'Brien, Susan Pedigo, Ann Phillippi, Ann Marie Schoff, Laura J. Schrock, Danielle Sellers, Jessica Stock Editor/Art Director, Milly Moorhead West Assistant Editor, Larry Agostinelli

Artwork: Noel Childress, Mosaic

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Different by Tanner Phillips From a high school of 1,000 To a university of 15,000, From living with Mom and Dad To taking care of myself, Things are different.

From being a senior and King of the World To being a freshman lost in the shuffle, From being everybody’s best friend, brother, cousin, or nephew, To being a stranger in a very diverse crowd, Things are different.

From competing on the baseball diamond year-round To walking campus for exercise and playing intramurals, From skimming my notes to make 100’s on tests To studying for hours to earn an A, Things are different.

From being around the same old people To making new friends and broadening my horizons, From living around people just like me, To learning about people from far different cultures, Things are different.

From being a closed-minded teenager To realizing the beauty of diversity, From a content teenage boy To an excited young man hungry for knowledge, Maybe different doesn’t always mean bad.

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Photo: Kaitlin Bachmeyer, glasses reflect

I Think of You by Kitty Holland I think of you I think of you every day I think of you when I wake up I think of you when I see the sunrise I think of you as I walk down the hall I think of you when I drive I think of you when I eat I think of you in class I think of you when I watch tv I think of you when I’m out with friends I think of you when I go to sleep I think of you in my dreams I think of you when I’m not thinking But you don’t think of me

Drawing: Noel Childress, Blue Girl

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The Science of Sleep by Hope Owens-Wilson I died when I was born. Past lives ending, a new one beginning.

I was the Nazis, I was the Jews.

I was the Europeans, The Native Americans.

The Conqueror, the conquered.

I am the conquest.

Painted brown on a white canvas, colored with the mud and the sun from God’s crayon box.

I am the Earth.

Filled with all the bodies of water in the World, I am the Red Sea. I am the cliché, the new idea.

Born again to change the world.

I am the Hope.

The trees, the animals, they are a part of me and I them.

I am the errors, the mistakes. I am the correctional fluid.

Fifteen years is a long time to live in an everlasting paradox.

Or maybe...

It’s the beginning of the end. The last page with a cliffhanger, a sequel to come.

Working hard to work hard.

Stay afloat.

Stay on top.

Stay in flight.

Stay alive.

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Get to where I want to go, what I want to be.

Use my childhood dreams to guide me there.

Always close but never close enough.

A day late, a dollar short.

Running out of time, making it up.

Everything.

Trying harder, climbing up.

Everything.

Reach the peak, ring the bell.

I made it.

But now I have to get back where I started.

Photo: Kaitlin Bachmeyer, Underwater

Woman’s Strength by Kandance Webley Knowing your worth is being as beautiful as the petals of a rose Knowing your worth is believing there is a purpose for your existence.

Knowing your worth is to understand that woman was created with man, but was not created to live as his shadow.

Let your light shine through your confidence, your pride, your intellect, not your hair, your nails, your apparel.

And do not be stained by the injustices and the prejudice of a world corrupt.

Do not be underestimated, belittled, or inferior.

And rise above challenges that knock you off your feet.

Stand on the tops of clouds rather than sit in the bottoms of dumps.

Know your worth, believe in yourself, and understand your power.

You are Woman.

Photo: Jessica St. John, No Looking Back

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If You Were by Amanda Blakely If you were a drug you’d be ecstasy And I’d be high from now until eternity If you were a star I’d wish every night For you to fall and be my light If you were a dream I’d sleep a lifetime For as long as I slept, you’d always be mine Since you are a man, I’ll call you my love And every night, I’ll thank God above

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Photo: Kaitlin Bachmeyer, Lovers

Trials by Alivia Yeager Fifteen years young Experience bigger than I would ever know Doing something others would only dream of Young girl with a gun case bigger than her Starting the morning with a canvas shooting suit Unable to move Waddling up to the line Setting the gun on the stand Hitting a button and a target zooms down range One pellet at a time fits right into the gun Slowly picking it up And visualizing the shot going straight Through the middle Open my eyes and Placing the gun perfectly centered Pulling the trigger and knowing exactly where it hit Pushing the button to bring the target back to me Seeing the middle destroyed Knowing I have to repeat it 39 more times, For two more days My best friends go to Beijing.

Drawing: Kathryn Christian, untitled

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After by Bianca Smith After two weeks of knowing me, you swore you loved and wanted only me Blindly, I agreed to love you too.

After two months of me, you cheated with her.

After four months of you, I ended it—because of her.

After ending it, I sat in that same chair, crying those same tears.

Time after time after time After the tears, I swore to never give my heart away.

After more time, I decided to never declare love—after only two weeks.

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Photo: Amanda Vann, Albums

Ode to a Mother by Chassidy Williams Fragile carrier of life; adored.

You are nourishing and mature with virtue.

Slightly powdered with the scent of home, Your presence is admired as a reasonable curfew.

Provider of so much; accustomed to giving your last You possess rich lively strength.

Manufactured in layers that don’t easily unfold Your resiliency is known; it’s not a myth.

Passionate lover, beautiful spirit, one-of-a-kind soul Your unconditional love devotedly guides me.

I imagine your heart is molded in gold; Bright as a neon light, you are my understanding Your warmth is what I yearn Like twinkling stars, your eyes reflect your legacy; From your goodness, do I willingly learn.

Artwork: Chris Green, Tree

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To Wake Up Alone by Ryan Felder I wake this morning with thoughts of you, clinging to the dreams I had wishing they were true.

Actuality sings a melancholic note.

“I am not yours, nor you mine” And yet it is in the fleeting moments of fantasy, that I choose to dwell.

For in my dreams it is you and I on fallen leaves, under a cloud-filled sky.

Actuality sings a melancholic note.

“I am not yours, nor you mine.”

I close my eyes, and go back to sleep.

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Drawing: Ellen Taylor, Hands (detail)

You come to me while I am weak and speak to me in my sleep.

I can’t get you off my mind, and can only see you when I am blind.

You sometimes put me in despair but can make me feel like I am floating in air.

I fear your presence occasionally, and other times don’t want you to withdraw.

I don’t know what my life would be without you, if I never saw you at all.

Dreams by Russel Williamson

Artwork: Joseph Katool, Paths

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Forsaken Shoe by Joseph Miller I was your luxury, Your greatest tool of extravagance.

You tied a knot around my heart And unraveled it just as delicately.

You loved me.

And now I sit alone.

Thrown into the depths beneath your bed And separated from my beloved twin.

But you did not show sympathy, You saw my loss as merely a setback.

I hope you’re not too tired tonight For I have a most wonderful surprise in store.

That stench of stale popcorn?

That’s me.

I do hope you enjoy it As I intend to remain here Alone and “not-so forsaken”.

Sleep tight…

Traitor.

It was you.

You are the reason why I must suffer!

Oh, how you stride defiantly about In your new pair of kicks As I sit alone Amidst heaps of others you’ve forgotten.

I carried your weight upon my very sole And this is how I am repaid?

Do not think this torment will not be shared For I shall have my steel-toed revenge.

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Photo: Kaitlin Bachmeyer, Drummers

The Title of Our Bookstore by Heather Miles The commencement of gardenias.

You’ve got some growing up to do if you want to be as old as I and I you.

For that soundproof box was safe: we didn’t want our silent screams to be heard but here they are let out, let true. and the song is out of tune.

The voices are, however. They are.

Two glasses of White Zin there on the floor of our empty living room clanked in a toast to not so well hidden truths, the freedom of unknowns. The conquering of Catalina.

We were gone for a while there mama but we’re coming back now.

So bring on those unyielding drops that fell on those years that loosened our grip on the now and left us in a spacefilled nothing. Alone in our closeness.

This is good, this thing they call youth, yours renewed but we share it now just the same.

For you see, we have weakness from the same hands. Forever cold, fragile, tiny with anxiously bitten nails.

We have beauty from the same woman. I am you are your mother.

Awkward grace.

And so I run to find my heart home.

Sip that strawberry wine barefoot in a field of my.

Embrace my gypsy hips and let free to wave my stubborn locks.

To be my own.

Your strength in me the finest discovery.

Now listen. Angel wings? You have them too.

Ride, ‘til you find the limit, the sky in your eyes.

Better yet, ‘til you discover there is none.

Photo: Amanda Vann, Pink and Pearl

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Terminology from a Betrayed Core by Chassidy Williams As a deceitful serpent callous and dull You are the equal to a heartless Grinch.

Marble face, eyes of a raging bull; Unattractive as a horrid stench Like a haunting swift mischievous ghost You wrench and chill my soul.

Similar to something I hate the most Your words burn flesh as heated coal.

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A ratchet memory in my mind It’s purely you that I hate to think of.

Something lost that I would not like to find You mirror a strangled dove.

Please don’t dare speak to me You pitiful abuser of trust I can only be happy that you allowed me to see How you planned to sour Eve with lust.

Drawing: Amanda Vann, Secrets

A Stroll in the Night by Cristin Stephens As I stroll in the night air, Nyx, the goddess of night is with me.

As we walk I see a street with tragic darkness No hope, no light in the night of Nyx’s eyes.

I feel the futility of my power Because on my street I see much light, I see a different world.

I know where my feet land. I will never run fast through life.

I will never look at a watch because time is useless to me For all it does is limit me to my power of the night.

Photo: Kaitlin Bachmeyer, Street Dance

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Endless Horizon by Charles Dingus I live in a land where the sun never rises.

The sun is only ever in the West.

Looking at its movement in the sky, it shares no surprises.

It never gives my soul any rest.

For the past 5 years, I’ve been on my own.

Tragic to your eyes, comic to mine.

It’s the only way that I have ever really known.

A lifestyle now attached to my spine.

Because what is life without a dream?

A derelict on the road, with no doubts to lift What is a dream without life?

Here’s to you, dear vagabond adrift.

Stranger Stranger Why don’t you go find yourself a home?

Stranger Stranger Why do you choose to be alone?

His back stands straighter, While his life grows stranger Stranger Stranger Why don’t you go find yourself a home?

Stranger Stranger Why do you choose to be alone?

Life is demanding.

It’s only easy at the bottom.

My dreams are entrancing.

They coddle my wounds like cotton.

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Photo: Jessica St. John, Perseverance

Photo: Amanda Vann, Burned Life

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If Ever by Jessica Boone “Say, Say my playmate, won’t you lay hands on me?

Mirror my malady; transfer my tragedy.”

Like a bird of prey sensing an easy meal she hones in on the distinctive smell of caffeinated bliss. With a shuffle of sluggish feet she joins the long line of hopeful addicts, gazing longingly at the glowing display of sugar-infested nothing. “Kill me,” she thinks as a pack of sorority sisters gleefully cuts in front of her. She tilts her head in fascinated wonderings. Is it correct to call them a “pack”?

Or are they more of a gaggle? But there is no brain space this morning to contemplate these mysteries. Strange scents bombard her nose, and the crush of humanity makes her uneasy for a few moments. Snippets of conversation reach her ears, and she finds herself fascinated, inventing stories to suit their lives, as an onlooker would. Yes, there is nothing to fear from these fellow junkies.

Aching for a taste of their hot vault of pungent morning, fidgeting addicts sway and dip to the rhythm of their unmet need. She squints at a man in line behind her. Is he American? Is he a nice person? What is his favorite color? On cue, as if sensing her telepathically-sent curiosity, his eyes laser beam their way toward hers. Instincts scream to avoid, but like a cat with 8 lives lived, she never learns. The prey always senses a careless predator, and today is no different. Yet her patience is thin and her sheep’s attire grows itchy. With a subtle nod she disengages from this game and concentrates on the real quarry.

Her mind wanders again, as it always must. “It took me years, Cherie, to learn this art,” she thinks. “And it still makes no sense.

A certain magic is involved between a game-player and a true human being. I am the former; you are the latter.” Wilder urges arise unbidden, and a smile coats her lips at the thought of a wellearned night of panther-and-mouse. Just to run in the night forest as she once did....but self-denial sucks like that. A love affair with her pockets begins. “Dear pockets, I have never loved another like this for at least five seconds. Your sweet comfort carries me

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through my day like the promise of an old lover to meet me at the end of my painful journey. Yours forever.”

Yet her hands are itching to cheat on those faithful pockets this very morning. The tired barista behind the counter mumbles something that sounds like a “hello”. An exchange of symbols takes place and she finds herself shuffling around again, now only waiting for the pacing beast in her veins to be soothed at last with a straight shot of this personalized fix. “Dear Barista, my pain is almost at an end. Take pity on me and those I fidget with this morning, and grant me the serenity to somehow go on with this travesty. Don’t judge me—I’m just trying to survive the semester.

Yours forever.” She stares blindly at the counter until a weary angel with spiky hair sets in front of her the prize of this morning.

Her fingers grasp the overheated eco-cup with stylized print telling everyone what a good girl she is for buying recycled, but the truth is she just doesn’t give a shit. All she cares about in this moment is chasing away the chill that malingers in her chest and the frost that never leaves her hands. “Dear eco-cup, I shame the gift of your presence with my apathy. In ten minutes I’ll be thankful for your existence, but bear with me until I can adjust the blood content in my caffeine system. Yours forever.” An image of herself as Captain Planet pushes its way into a tired brain, and she purrs like a dashing dastardly devil bent on destruction.

Hoping none of the sheep she was imitating heard her impromptu display of wolfish pleasure, she shuffles along with a practiced smile. She pauses in her contented lope and rests her joy upon the condiment table. She changes the shade of her beverage to a suitable bitterness and secures the top at last. Her task now completed, like a rocket going anywhere but here, she is gone.

“When I’m at the pearly gates, this’ll be on my videotape.

Mephistopheles is just beneath and he’s reaching up to grab me.”

“Some people use thought to not participate in life.” A book a dear lover once gifted haunts her fevered brain like the disease her body is fighting. She’s trying so damn hard to participate that the strain is tearing her at the seams. Angry tears threaten to pour out

of the foggy mirror as she scrutinizes herself one more time. Like a lion caged, she feels helpless and frustrated.

She storms past the empty gleaming sink into the main bedroom. As she does this simple task, her eyes are drawn to the large bookshelf stuffed and overflowing with the guilty evidence of her favorite nighttime addiction. Austen mingles with Cole, and for a moment she flushes, rueful to catch herself in such an embarrassing situation. She raises a hand to correct this minor misstep, but her traitorous fingers have more sinister ideas.

A special book grazes her palm, and a hidden spring trap of emotion overwhelms her. Roots spring up from this dusty journal grasping her wrists, on to her forearms, slowly inching over bare skin.

Every second they take her over more, a sea of quivering sensations that hold fast. These roots know her confessions like a midnight barstool. They creep over her, lingering upon old scars and new growth, and her chest nearly bursts open. Her body shivers, but her hands are steady as they open to the front cover where a handwritten chicken-scratch note lays in wait to capture and maim again.

“Merry Christmas, Jess!” she sinks to the floor in suppressed agony. “This New Year’s brings the seeds of change that are destined to grow in our lives...” but the rest of the words blur into a sea of inky black. She cherishes and curses this travel-sized acknowledgement of the past. Suddenly she is all the people she has ever been and ever will be. Like an old friend, scenes come to greet her from her memory: She is a six-year-old scribbling about the trials of having a twin sister. She is an eight-year-old touching the cool skin of the boy lying quiet at the bottom of the pool. She is a twelveyear-old with a winning first kiss story and a new love to savor.

She is a sixteen-year-old with a razor smile and ruby tears. She is a nineteen-year-old with no plans and no expectations.

She comes back to her body in a rush of metallic-tasting heat.

She finds herself resting on the floor like a drunk too gone to make it to bed. But it’s not the floor anymore. Her roommate gives a half-hearted, watery smile as she comes to on the hospital gurney.

Glassy eyes search out relief from this endless torture. It feels like dying, but she tries for lighthearted comedy to chase the threat of

Artwork: Amanda Vann, Paint in the Sink

tears from her roommate’s eyes. Someone stands over her, and panic flares before she realizes that the Reaper does not call from the bedside. She lays there for hours more, and as she does she fades in and out of shifting hallucinations and forgotten memories.

She cowers from the imagined monsters that people her room at night. She tackles an opposing defender and scores her team’s tournament-winning goal. An almost-lover embraces her, whispering words long forgotten. A full moon rises, and she basks in the gentle glow. Hurricane winds howl, sweeping away everything. She glides toward her Prom date, as a pool of warm gold circles her feet.

She sees candles lit, and roses litter every surface. A band of gold gleams as she cradles a sleeping infant. She studies the gray peppering the person in the mirror. She buries many a loved one in the twilight of this life. She lies down to sleep and simply drifts away.

Images of a lifetime slip before her. Past, present, and future compact into millisecond-long shorts, colored by emotion: laughter, joy, sadness, tears, and love. The mask of learned civilization drops and she simply belongs within herself for as long as she desires. She remains unchanged and yet forever changed. She loves endlessly, and is endlessly loved. She is free, she is happy, she is whole, she is safe here. She has no plans, no expectations, but every day is a new day. She is a contradiction—and that’s alright with her.

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The Road Trip by Callie Daniels Rev. David Daniels was content with his home, his wife, and his five children with God knows how many grandchildren. He loved Sunday naps passionately. It was rare scraps of rest he could find before Erlene, his adoring wife, would rattle him awake; sometimes the occasional rescued kitten would get to him before Erlene could. One would find his disgruntled figure in the kitchen slowly singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”

His numerous grandchildren called him Papaw which soon became his official name; only Erlene called him David and that was when she needed him to get in the living room so he might participate in the socializing.

Erlene, a.k.a. Mamaw, mother of his five children and his first true love, ceaselessly asked him to drive out of state to family reunions in Georgia. She succeeded one day when their oldest grandson Caleb graduated from college.

The forsaken pastor found himself amidst the chaos: Callie Daniels, the first daughter of his surprise baby and his youngest, Quentin, had just gotten out of school for the summer as well as her little sister, Rose Daniels; Monica, Quentin’s wife and Callie’s momma, was organizing suitcases, fixing the car, double-checking.

Quentin was begrudgingly retying the odd gift on top of the van with a piece of thread while Erlene dictated the importance of the gift and that Jim and David could

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do great things with it and Caleb will do just fine with an envelope of cash because he’s a graduate not a boy.

The gift toppled precariously on the van as Rev. Daniels casually leaned back his head and stood there with his eyes closed. “David!!” Erlene yelled as the van doors slammed. Poor Papaw hurried as he lumbered to the white van as quickly as his 6’5”, 298 pounds structure would allow.

“I’m sorry, Mom, but that gift is a piece of nonsense.”

Quentin bickered with Erlene over the tattered pieces of the box that held the odd structure. While Quentin was attempting to cross highway lanes, the gift had blown off and bounced through the three lanes of the highway to the side of the road. Callie heard a chorus of words she never heard emanating from her momma and the horns blaring from the window and sat in awe while Rose frowned as she twisted and turned in her car seat, finally shrieking in defeat. Erlene squawked as Quentin bit down on his tongue with fury, a signal that he had crossed the point of no return from his temper.

Rev. Daniels woke up with a murmur before surveying the scene… He asked if the wheels of the gift could be put inside the van. Within mere minutes, the family was back on the road to Georgia.

Rose cooed happily as Erlene fed her ice chips from her sweet tea. Callie gazed out of the window while Rev. Daniels rumbled next to her. Monica and Erlene chattered away with Southern gossip as Dad put in his two cents every few minutes or so. Green hills rolled

by, tinted by red-violet clovers and white daisies. Callie sighed before closing her eyes blissfully. “Pull over!”

Erlene barked, and the window thumped Callie in the face as the van swerved, tires screeching, Rose wailing, Rev. Daniels bellowing like a mammoth. The van stopped in front of the gas station. Quentin could not speak for he was seething with his bitten tongue.

“David!” Erlene ordered before exiting the van. Rev. Daniels looked at the wheels blocking the only way out.

“If you would STOP ordering Jumbo Diet Cokes and Sweet Teas and taking them with extra diuretics…”

Quentin muttered as he got to the side of the van. “It’s a miracle that Rose doesn’t even need to pee.” Monica shot him a look as she pulled out a fresh diaper. Quentin raised a hand in defeat. The van door squeaked in protest as Quentin pulled on them; after a lot of tugging and curses, they relented. By then, a small flock had lazily gathered with mild curiosity in front of the gas station; the van was pulled broad-side right next to the entrance.

Quentin grunted with effort as he pulled out the gigantic box. The crowd stood as if their presence was solace enough for the frazzled man. Quentin took the wheels blocking the van’s opening and quietly rolled them away.

A sight greeted the mass: a tall man with piercing blue eyes rose with dignity. The white van wobbled with each slow step he took as he got past Callie and Rose who were now staring somberly into the crowd. A hushed silence fell as Rev. David Daniels straightened his suit as he exited the van. It was as if Jesus had risen from

Photo: William Strouth, Overpass

his tomb.

“I’m surprised nobody asked for an autograph.”

Quentin remarked as the van rumbled on the Interstate 220.

By the end of the odyssey of gas stations, the family settled in Stephanie’s living room. Stephanie, Rev. Daniels’ third youngest daughter, asked, “What is that?” A low seat with two large wheels attached to it caught her eye when she looked in the direction of Quentin’s glowering.

“It’s a gift for David!” Erlene smiled as she hugged Stephanie’s second son, David. David never played with it.

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“Yapuwaz” by John Houston The droning of a small airplane wrenched me out of my comfortable slumber as I tried desperately to go back to sleep. I felt so tired, my body ached and it simply couldn’t be time to wake up yet. It seemed my head had crashed on the lumpy pillow only moments ago and now I was being asked to go through another whole day like the last, without so much as a cup of coffee. The twin engine plane sounded something like a small Cessna, very much like the one I remembered flying in to arrive here. I fumbled around clumsily for a light switch only to find my hand covered in thick spider webs moments later. These spider webs were very different than the ones back home— more like cotton than anything else. A chill went up my spine as I imagined the creature that spun them. Putting these thoughts aside, I started to dress in the dark. I knew it was pointless to try and go back to sleep; besides my curiosity had gotten a hold of me.

As I stepped outside I heard a few shouts coming from houses on the outskirts of the village, Yapuwaz in northern Honduras. There was something going on near the airstrip.

Well, perhaps I shouldn’t call it that; it was more like a country road riddled with potholes, with bright colored bandannas tied around a few of the taller trees to act as guides for the pilots who dared attempt landing on such an obstacle course.

I tapped one of the many bystanders on the shoulder to try and find out what was happening. He turned with a frown on his face, looking me up and down, considering if I was worthy of his time. In broken Spanish he managed to explain that this was just one of the many routine drug drops that Colombian smugglers made every night. A look of astonishment must have spread across my face because he laughed and walked away leaving me to ponder if I shouldn’t go back where I came from that very instant.

As I walked back to the family’s house with whom I was staying I listened to the sounds of the jungle at night. The river

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lapped up against the shore as what I thought to be crickets chirped in the distance and howler monkeys drowned it all out with such a ruckus that it was a wonder anyone in the village was still asleep. As I neared the steps of the hut, I heard the roar of a jaguar in the distance. I stopped for a moment as I tried to picture the majestic cat, prowling the near shore warning anyone who dared to cross the river of the peril that could await them. I walked up the steps of the house and turned the corner into my small, makeshift room. The glass lamp chased the shadows from the walls with its natural glow. I crashed on my cot as my mind darted a few hours back picturing the trip up the river.

The flimsy build of our piragua didn’t do much to comfort me as I watched trunks the size of light-posts float by missing our boat by inches. The chocolate colored water swirled around us as the tiny outboard engine struggled against the current. Just as I was getting comfortable in my seat, trying to forget about the fact that we had managed to fit about two dozen people into a boat that was clearly only made for half that many, I heard a shout from the piragua in front of our own. Before I could understand what was happening two shots were fired into the nearby bank and I watched as a very large crocodile slid into the water, disappearing under some mossy logs covered with debris from last night’s rain. I shuddered and concentrated on the tattered raincoat of the man sitting in front of me.

The hum of the Cessna’s engines woke me up once again.

The smugglers must have finished up with that night’s business and disappeared into the jungle night just as fast as they had come. There were still a couple of hours left before daytime; I stared at the ceiling as I pondered how this day could possibly be more exciting than the last.

The village was bustling with activity as I walked outside, women walked past me balancing makeshift barrels on their heads which they used to haul water from the nearby stream.

An intense soccer game had broken out in one of the cleared plots of land just to the side of the main trail. I watched as the kids kicked around what seemed to be a plastic soccer ball, rushing to shoot it right between the goal posts they had made

this morning from the leftover scraps of wood the men had brought back from across the river. The men shouted from the bank as they struggled to pull huge, golden colored banana stalks out of their canoes; I wondered if they had seen the jaguar I heard last night.

Most of the villagers were friendly, they smiled and laughed as I walked by, a couple of the boys even let me join their game.

I had played soccer before but it was nothing like this. Once you received the ball you became a target, and with my light skin and brightly colored running shoes I was a very easy one.

After the game was finished, we all went to wash off in the nearby stream. Its clear water posed a stark contrast with the muddy consistency of the river which it would soon join.

As I ate my lunch of rice and fried plantains, a form of cooked banana that tasted more like a baked potato than a fruit, I looked across the river. The jungle on the other side stared back at me menacingly; its towering trees and long, draping vines rose up from the water creating a wall of impenetrable green. The mountain, named “Rama” by the locals, rose out of the lush green and climbed all the way into the clouds like a castle with the river as its moat. It was a perfect image of how nature took care of itself, oblivious of the comings and goings of the real world.

The old men seemed to enjoy sitting outside in the stifling heat, sharpening their machetes, talking about how much more they knew than the children, contently playing with the soft dirt in the street. In a way these men were like the jungle— wise, old, and resentful of how their natural way of life was being changed by people like me with every passing day.

I wanted to tell them that wasn’t the case; I wanted to help, in whatever way I could. In fact, earlier in the day I tried to help clear off a plot of land that is going to be the site for the new community clinic. Needless to say I’m not an expert with a machete and just made a fool of myself. My soft hands where like toys compared to theirs, callused, leathery, and used to the hard work required of them. They laughed in unison as I did my best to cut down the tall shrubs and small trees that surrounded the clearing. It really made no difference that I spoke

Artwork: Kelly Psonak, Bird (detail)

Spanish, understood their culture and genuinely enjoyed any food they would offer me. I was an outsider and could never be anything more.

It wasn’t a strange feeling; I experienced it every time I joined my father on his mission trips to help him translate for the American medical brigades. The fact I happened to be alone just made it much more obvious. It’s an interesting paradox; to be born in one country but be told you belong in another. All it means is that you don’t belong to either, stuck in the gray, between black and white.

I started walking home as the howler monkeys began their antics for the night. Curiously it wasn’t as annoying anymore, or maybe I was just busy slapping away mosquitoes the size of horse flies that liked my exotic taste. Night descended over the village of Yapuwaz as the last rays of light flickered out across the water, outlining the towering trees on the other side of the river. The mountain seemed to be lost in the clouds as I tried to catch one last glimpse of it.

Tomorrow was my last day in the village and I regretted I couldn’t stay longer. After my many years in and out of the countries of Latin America, I had learned that the longer the stay, the harder the goodbyes. Besides, it wasn’t where I belonged.

I lay down on my cot and left my mind to wander as I dosed off into sleep.

I looked back across my shoulder at the little village on the river bank, bustling with activity as morning chores got underway. A soccer game was already in progress as the men returned with their usual catch of brightly colored fish and lush banana stalks. It all vanished from sight as the outboard motor roared to bring us around the river’s curve.

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A Leaf ’s Journey by Ye Xiao It was autumn now and all the trees in the forest above the little village were preparing for the coming winter. Thousands of leaves which had given life to the trees since early spring had now turned to a collage of beautiful colors—red, brown and golden yellow.

Sitting high atop a massive oak tree was a beautiful dark brown leaf. All season long since he unfolded as a soft, tiny feather, he had grown strong watching over the little village on the hill down below. He watched the farmers planting in the spring, the mothers washing clothes in the stream and listened to the laughter of the children as they played in the shade beneath him.

It was a good life being a leaf. You catch the sweet rainwater that falls from the sky, drinking in slowly and feeding the mother tree below. As you grow, you spread wide and create shade for the tree and the villagers beneath you. With each breeze from the earth’s wind you inhale her breath and take what is needed to keep mother earth’s air fresh.

But the leaf was tired now; he had stood proudly all season.

He knew in his heart that the end was coming and that he would soon fall to the ground like so many before him.

Then he would complete the cycle of life by giving back to the soil at the base of the mighty oak. Oh how he longed to see the world; how grand it would be to see the city, to listen to the voices, watch the excitement of each day.

As the leaf was dreaming of these things, suddenly a strong wind blew through the tree, shaking him from right to left and quickly snapping him away from the tree which had been

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home. The wind blew stronger and carried him higher… high above the village now and he could see that he was being swept away. The wind moved him over the mountain, down across the stream and straight into the huge city that lay at the bottom of the mountain.

Soon he was resting on a rooftop of a restaurant. The restaurant was so busy with people coming and going, laughing and talking about their lives. Across the street was a park and he could see couples walking and sitting together in the beautiful weather. The cars and buses moved so quickly, horns honking, whistles blowing…the leaf was so excited!

There is so much energy here he thought, everyone was so very busy. And before he could think much longer, the wind once again picked him up taking him high above the city and moved him towards the huge river.

The wind set him down so softly on the water and he began to drift with the current. This was fantastic he said! He was floating quickly past the barges and boats…so many boats and he feared he would get swept under the waves. But luck was with him and he continued on down river now floating into a more quite area where the fishermen were casting nets. He could hear the men talking to each other as they worked and he could see the excitement in their eyes when they hauled in a huge load of beautiful shiny fish. Some boats had houses on them and he could hear the mothers talking as they prepared lunch for the fishermen. It was so strange and exciting to see this life on the water. The leaf never imagined such a thing was possible but he loved seeing the happiness of the people.

Soon the current took the leaf back into the middle of the river and quickly moved him out towards a very wide flat

area of water. The air was different now he thought; it was so crisp and had the slight taste of salt in it. Suddenly a wave lifted him up and he couldn’t believe what was laying in front of him…THE OCEAN! Oh how the leaf had dreamed of this day! The river had emptied its great mouth into the sea and the leaf was heading right for the middle.

The leaf was so happy, his heart pounded with joy. The beauty of the bright blue water, the smell of the air and the blue sky seemed to go on forever.

family what he had found so far away. He also knew that the leaf would want to be placed back on the ground near the oak trees and that is what he planned to do.

The beautiful brown leaf, breathed in and out deeply now; he closed his eyes in the peace that comes from knowing that he had seen the world, he had done his job and he could now return to the earth from where he had come, maybe to one day return…a much wiser, more patient part of the earth’s beauty.

As he drifted out into the blue water, the wind once again changed and started to move the waves towards the beach.

Leaf could see the beautiful white sand beach now, it stretched on for miles and he watched the waves lapping at the sand.

This was fantastic, he thought, much more than his dreams had ever been.

Soon the wind had washed the little brown leaf upon the shore and he lay there drying in the sun. As he lay still, so thankful for his journey, he heard voices coming towards him.

Soon an old man appeared, walking with his dog. He had a familiar voice, one that he was sure he had heard many times back in the village.

The old man bent down very slowly and picked him up. He said to him “Leaf, you are so beautiful and so far from home.

How did you ever get all the way here to this beach?” The leaf felt warm in the old man’s hand and he knew he was safe. He now remembered that the old man was from his village and he recalled the man talking about wanting to see the ocean before his life was done.

The old man placed the leaf in the big pocket on his jacket.

He would take the leaf back home with him to show his

Artwork: Lauren Banquer, Leaf

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Crash by Kaleigh Caldwell I could hear high-pitched sirens coming from all directions, covering my loud sobs as I lay on an ambulance stretcher. There were many paramedics all around me in dark uniforms telling me that everything was all right. I knew something bad had happened; I had seen the scarlet red blood to prove it. I clenched my eyes shut praying that they were right; that everything would be all right. When I opened my eyes, there was utter chaos around what used to be our family van. Seeing so many panicked faces and hearing their frantic speech, something told me that as much as I wanted to believe the kind paramedics; everything was not going to be all right.

It was late afternoon on October 13, 1997. My parents were taking me to my pediatrician for a check-up. My mom was in the driver’s seat in our old, ugly, brown family van with my dad in the passenger’s seat. I was in the middle backseat by myself at five years old with my two younger sisters, Jasmine who was three and Sylvia who was two, sitting in the very back in their car seats. I did not like that Jasmine and Sylvia always had to go everywhere with me. They got everything they wanted.

“They are babies. They cannot be left alone. And they love you. They are your sisters,” my mom always explained.

I wished I could be the only child again.

About three minutes after my mom drove the van onto Interstate 55, a small, gold colored car ran our van off of the road.

Within seconds, our van flew off of the pavement and rapidly tumbled down the grassy hill and came to a halt by crashing into a tree. There was a loud, crackling sound followed by a deafening thud. When I opened my eyes, I saw the tree that stopped our van lying flat on the green grass.

“My babies! My babies!” my dad cried while crawling towards us on his knees.

At the same time, I could hear my mom screaming, “The kids!

Oh my God! The kids!”

When I turned around, I saw that both of my little sisters

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were unconscious. However, my face was locked only on Jasmine.

There was crimson red blood oozing down the side of her head from where I could not see because of her thick, curly hair. I screamed a piercing scream similar to the shrill screeches most people have only heard in a horror movie.

Blaring sirens were getting closer and closer as I panicked at the sight of my sister. A couple of minutes later, I felt large, strong hands grab me and pull me out of the now deformed van.

“Shh. She’s going to be okay. Everything’s all right. Shh,” a firefighter kept repeating in a husky yet gentle voice as he carried me toward an ambulance.

It was not until then that I realized I had been screaming.

Though he was patting my back and trying to soothe me, I could only sob hysterically only seeing the horrific image of my baby sister. The firefighter tenderly laid me on a stretcher and told me to relax and not to worry as a paramedic put a mask over my face. I noticed how dark the sky was now.

“How long have we been here?” I thought.

As the paramedics began to load Sylvia and me into the ambulance, I saw my mom running toward another ambulance with flashing red lights.

I cried, “Mommy! Don’t leave me!”

“I have to go with Jasmine. Daddy will stay with you,” she replied as she rushed towards another ambulance. I tried to focus on the starlit sky to calm my nerves.

No matter how much I tried, I still could not stop myself from crying. A young female paramedic gave me a small, stuffed pink seal to make me feel better. To my surprise, it actually did help me achieve almost immediate tranquility, as I stopped crying and fell asleep.

When I awoke, I was in a blindingly white room with bright, fluorescent lights. I looked on my right to see Sylvia sleeping in a long white bed beside me. On my left was my dad dozing off in a chair at my bedside.

“Hey there, Sleeping Beauty,” he said softly.

I felt a little disoriented. I did not know where I was, what time it was, or what was happening. “Had it all just been a nightmare?” I thought to myself.

“Where are Mommy and Jasmine?” I asked.

After taking a slow, deep breath, my dad told me that Jasmine hit her head really hard and needed surgery on her brain. There were a lot of big words I could not understand. He told me that my mom was going to stay with her.

“Jasmine is going to be fine,” my dad said.

Instantly, I felt that same fear for my sister as I had in the van.

But at the same time being a scared, little kid, I wanted my mom with me too.

“You wouldn’t want Jasmine to be alone, would you?” he asked.

I solemnly shook my head no while cold, wet tears streamed down my cheeks.

“Jasmine needs Mommy right now,” he explained.

I knew my dad was right. Jasmine needed my mom more than I could possibly imagine.

At five years old, I knew that the word “surgery” was a scary word that no one wanted to hear. I knew it was rarely a simple

Photo: Caty Cambron, Art

thing. “Surgery” meant that if a person needed it, that person was in risk of dying. If my sister needed surgery on her brain of all things, then something must be seriously wrong. I knew the brain controlled everything in a body.

“What happens if a brain is broken?” I thought.

“Don’t worry, Kaleigh. Everything is going to be okay,” my dad said, seeing my troubled expression.

“Jasmine cannot die. She is only a baby. She is my baby sister,” I thought.

At the same time, while thinking of the selfish wish I had made earlier, a bizarre twinge in my stomach made me want to throw up.

“I take it back!” I thought. “I didn’t mean it!”

I stared off into nothingness, truly afraid of what might become of my sister.

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The Mask of Loneliness by Tiesha Jeffries My high school was diverse and stereotypical. I say it’s stereotypical because it was distinguished by cliques, almost right out of a movie—first the wealthy and preppy girls, well-known as the “it” clique, or the cheerleaders, or the “I can do whatever I want because I play sports” clique, the Hip Hop Urban Blacks, laid-back Asians, the free-spirited art bunch, geeks, and the Goths.

It began when I transferred to Rocky High in the middle of my sophomore year. Being from the heart of Texas, I was naïve to the idea of groups, cliques, or clans. Where I’m from, everybody got along with everybody. Making friends was easy, so I expected the transition from one high school to another to be effortless.

I remember my first day. Feelings of anticipation and excitement came over me as I sat idly in first period waiting on class to begin. The engrossing tick-tock sound of the white wall clock grabbed my attention. Before I knew it, the bell signaling the beginning of class rang snapping me out of my clock induced trance. Students began flooding into the classroom, filling the worn empty wood desks. My enthusiasm grew. I was ready to introduce myself.

Equipped to show off my bubbly personality after class, I waltzed over to a group of seemingly favorable girls who were chatting next to a set of lockers and held out my hand. Before I could speak, the talking ceased and a look of disgust spread across their faces. They blinked and marched right passed me as if I was not standing there.

I spent the next four periods of that first day trying to figure out what went wrong. Was there something on my face? Were my hands not clean? Maybe they just did not see me. The image of their disgust-stricken faces continued to play in my mind. Then came lunch.

As I stood in the center of the cafeteria, tray in hand, things became much clearer. Looking around, I noticed each and every table grouped with its “own kind.” No two people at a table were different.

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At a big rectangular table three feet or so in front of me there were some loud, obnoxious guys wearing letter jackets, arm wrestling.

Directly to the right of them sat the group of snobby girls I had encountered earlier. Behind them were a handful of geeks playing chess. On the opposite side of the cafeteria were other tables complete with their own community of clones.

There I was my hair in pigtails, dressed in a blue and pink floral dress with my favorite pair of pink, rhinestone-studded, cowgirl boots. No one else looked or dressed remotely like me. I was the only one of my kind and for the first time in my whole life I felt out of place.

Loneliness was no friend of mine and I was not about to accept the feeling now. Not now, not ever. Something had to be done.

Over the next few weeks I studied that rude body of snobs. It had occurred to me that they were the group that everyone wanted to be a part of. That is where I wanted to be. A wise person once reminded me, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” And that is exactly what I planned to do.

It wasn’t hard to mimic their expensive but simple style. A few trips to the mall and tips from the hottest magazines (which I had seen them read religiously during lunch) and I had transformed myself from a young country girl to an urbanistic fashionista. All I had to do now was wait.

Then it happened. The leader of the “it” clique noticed me.

We were in the ladies room washing up for lunch when she turned to me and said, “I love your shoes.” It went from there. Next thing I knew I was having lunch at the “it” table. I remember the inward sigh of relief; “I did it,” I thought, as I sat at the table and listened to them converse about the latest fashions, cute guys, and upcoming events. I was changing—becoming less and less of myself every day. Eating lunch with them became a routine. I became one of them.

As we walked down the hall of the school, the loud, thoughtinvading conversations would wither, and the eyes of everyone would turn to us. I could feel the stares, some yearning and others envious. Those eyes would take in everything from the crown of our heads, to our expensive clothes, all the way down to our French manicured toes. Although I dressed as theses girls dressed, talked as

they talked, and did what they did, I was not one of them—I was the complete opposite to be exact.

That is when loneliness began to settle in. Although I had “friends” and was a part of the elite, I was unhappy. They weren’t friends with me. Not the real me anyway—I was the one who loved to ride horses, who liked to walk barefoot to the pond, or found peace in reading a book. They didn’t know me. I didn’t know me. I had sacrificed my loving and compassionate individuality to become someone I secretly despised and looked down on. I hated them for turning me into a foreign person. They pressured me and didn’t even know it.

Why couldn’t I respect my own characteristics enough to let them show? My uniqueness was acquired at birth, during childhood, and my early teen years. I used to be proud of who I was.

Photo: Kaitlin Bachmeyer, Lineup

My back was against the wall. Either way I was lonely. With it being a “lose-lose situation,” I decided that I needed the “it” clique.

They validated me and gave me a sense of belonging. I couldn’t possibly go back to being friendless and I couldn’t show them who I really was. I was scared they would reject me. They didn’t welcome me with open arms when I was in my Hillbilly ways, I thought to myself.

I wondered how many people mask who they really are just to impress someone, to be a part of some insignificant group that was overall meaningless. I know I’m not the only one but maybe just the first to admit it—If being in the “it” clique meant concealing who I really was, then that was exactly what I was going to do.

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1986 by Joseph Wendy Alliance Both at an ontological and a collective level, 1986 is a memorable date in my history. In February 1986, the Haitian people overthrew Jean Claude Duvalier, Baby Doc, and put an end to three decades of dictatorial rule that started in 1957 with Dr. Francois Duvalier, Papa Doc. This is in this euphoric atmosphere where the Haitian people began to aspire again to freedom and dignity and felt that the dark years of oppression and systematic dehumanization were affairs of the past that my birthday will take place ten months later, specifically in December 1986. To be honest, born in Leogane a town situated at eighteen miles from the capital city Port-au-Prince, my family and I were not exactly at the centre of these events that I just describe above. We were close to the centre obviously if we are thinking in pure terms of geographic proximity, but if we refer to the economic, political, and societal organization of the territory, we undoubtedly belonged to the periphery.

Nevertheless, Leogane at that time was still a luxurious place. When as a little boy I went to primary school riding my own bicycle, I remember how fresh these mornings were due to the sugar cane plantations that stood on both sides of the road. On their way back to school, some young children sometimes uprooted pieces of sugar cane which they ate voraciously as they were walking in direction of home. My childlike imagination

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compared these plantations to a large comestible forest placed in our passage.

During the weekends, I usually left the terrible cousins of my father’s side to visit my grandmother whose attractive calm and goodness have always had a great influence on me. Two natural elements, the sun and the sea, used their complicity and complexity to make my grandmother’s living place look like a surrealistic universe. Every time I visited her, I felt that I was right in the middle of a sort of a magnetic field a la Andre Breton. From her house, three minutes were enough to reach the sea. In spite of this proximity, unlike my other companions, I was never able to swim correctly.

In 1999, after finishing my primary school, I moved to the capital city Port-au-Prince in order to further my education. At that time, my father had already left Haiti and basically I had been living with my mom. At Portau-Prince, I stayed with some other family members. It was very painful for me to live in a place where my mother was absent. However, my sufferings were somewhat compensated by the fraternal welcome of my new protectors. I went to Saint-Louis de Gonzague, and despite some difficulties inherent to the new experience itself, my passage at saint-Louis remained overall a very fruitful and positive experience. Besides a tradition of fostering academic excellence, I also understood that Saint-Louis was a good place to grasp the idiosyncrasies of Haitian society. The hours spent there at playing soccer among friends in an atmosphere of intense

emulation while ignoring the burning rays of the Caribbean sun, are also good souvenirs.

In 2006, I was admitted to Paris 8, Sorbonne, a French university as a Law major, but I was unable to get there. I could not find someone in Paris who was able to take care of my housing accommodations.

Therefore, I did not obtain the visa. Sad story.

Immediately, I applied to Notre Dame University in Haiti. I spent three years there until I was designated among other companions to participate in an exchange program for one year with the cultural section of the U.S. embassy in Haiti. After the earthquake on January twelfth of this year (2010), it has been decided that we will get our degrees at our respective universities. Like my previous experiences in life, the one at Ole Miss comprises its difficulties, but at the same time it has expanded my intellectual and cultural horizons.

Artwork: Kavious Millen, Fence

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Plans by Jessica Boone Even the best of plans can fail. Sometimes love just isn’t enough. I remember that call as if it happened yesterday. “We took him to the emergency room, and a few hours later he slipped into a coma.” One week seems like a lifetime ago, yet the details are still so clear. The smell of hospital chemicals burns the inside of my nose. The vinyl of the faded mint-green chairs is cracked; the slightest shift will cause the spindle legs to shake like a jello cup on a high-speed train. Heads in hands, we stare at serviceable tile flooring tattooed with the scuff marks of pacing loved ones nearing their panic points. A nurse walks in and every head in the waiting room whips around, daring to hope that good news arrives on swift wings.

But for some it never comes.

I’m not a praying woman, but I might just start. I stare down at the man lying still in the hospital bed. I look down at the frizzy white hair and bright blue eyes of a man I’ve loved my entire life. I’ll never talk to, laugh with, or kiss him good night. I’ll never listen to his stories again. I’ll never hold his hand. He’ll never look any older. He’ll never pet the family cat, or ride his motorcycle, or build dreams for a boat to captain as he once did. We’ll never make memories again. He’ll never walk me down the aisle. He’ll never hold my first child. None of those things will happen. Ever.

Back in the waiting room a vibration starts low in my soul, turning my throat hot and sticky. Unable to stand, I crouch low on my knees, head bent, waiting for anyone or anything to take this pain from me. My eyes are crusty from crying. My clothes are wrinkled from not sleeping. My hair is disheveled from clutching my head to make this nightmare stop. Please, anything...make this stop. Unformed thoughts fly at random; emotions flood me until I finally sob aloud.

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My throat hurts from trying to hold all of this back, but the heartache is too much now. I want to rave at the universe, God, the Reaper, anyone who tells me this is part of some divine plan. You know what my plan is? To make more moments, to make precious every second that I have with the ones I love. Fuck you and your stages of grief. I don’t want your pity, or your condolences, or your sad smiles singing “I don’t know what to say to you”. Leave me the hell alone....please.

Why is this happening? How does any of this make sense?

If there is some divine creator, they must know he belongs here. And if there isn’t....I didn’t fight hard enough. I wasn’t there often enough. I should have stayed at home, lending support, being with my family. Surgery after surgery, treatment after treatment—I should have been there, and I wasn’t. Things could have ended differently. It wasn’t his time...Please. I never got a chance to say goodbye.

A few days later my mother says to me “We think it’s time.” But what does that mean? Surrounded by my family, I hold his cool palm. I try to speak but the words won’t come.

His limp fingers don’t grasp mine. He doesn’t open his eyes.

He won’t ever open his eyes again. Liquid grief scalds my cheeks, and acid churns in my stomach as I look at him for the last time. I choke, but I manage it: “I love you Daddy...so much...I’ll always be your little girl.” But he doesn’t say “I love you” back, and the last bit of hope inside my heart breaks to realize my father is really gone. He’s not in the body I see. He’s not a part of the hand I hold or the whiskery cheek I kiss goodbye.

The white fuzz on top of the head I touch for the last time will never fall out again because of chemo treatments.

The body he was given simply gave out. There will be no more fighting, no more grueling radiation, no more sickness.

He is finally at peace. I just want him to tell me that it’s alright to feel this way. That he’s going to be fine where he is.

Anything to make this pain stop for five minutes. I can’t be at peace yet, but the minister waiting outside the plastic curtain assures me that there will be relief. My Daddy is with somebody’s “Lord and Savior”, but he’s not with me, and that’s all I care about. Jesus can damn well sit on it for eternity, because I’m not through making memories here. I’m not remotely ready to give up yet.

I escape to my car in the parking lot, and it takes a full ten minutes to shake myself out of shock. A single line runs an infinite loop in my mind. “Love is watching someone die.” A howl starts low in my chest and builds its way up, until I’m screaming my exploding heart out of my lungs in fury, in rage, in hatred of nothing and everything. I have never felt more powerless. What I feel is too big to describe. It takes me over, invading, leaving nothing behind but aching nerve endings and spent breath. I cry, I weep, I beg, I plead, I shout, I scream, I demand, I implore, I bargain, I promise. I lay my head on the steering wheel. I honestly want to die.

Suddenly, like the air being let out of a balloon, I am calm. I stare blindly out the window, thinking nothing, feeling nothing. My tears have dried, and I breathe through my mouth, docile. I look at myself as an outsider, floating above my body in a dream-like state. Seemingly hours later a young couple with a flailing newborn walks in front of my car, and I stare in fascination. I want to hold that child. I want to feel that new life squirming, growing, looking at this world with fascination and awe. I feel raw and confused, like that tiny human being. I feel a sense of connection, and all is quiet within me. The world keeps turning as it always has, and I must go on with my life. I pick up the pieces, and make new plans.

Photo: Jessica St. John, Journey

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Red Satin Sheets by Melanie Madden It’s November 1st, 1999, my sister Mallory and I are playing a Barbie computer game that we play constantly.

The game allows you to design clothes for Barbie and then create a name for that certain look. We have just finished a trendy outfit for Barbie when we hear our oldest sister, Morgan, say calmly from the kitchen, “Mom, I either just peed my pants or my water broke.” As my Mom freaked out and got ready to drive to the hospital, Mallory and I did the only thing we could think to do in all the action. We named our Barbie outfit “Morgan Broke the Water.”

My sister Morgan and I have had a special relationship, especially when I was younger. She is AfricanAmerican, adopted as an infant, and nine years older than me. She was my cool oldest sister, and since there are seven children in our family, a stand-in mother on occasion. She was in gymnastics and dance, but she truly excelled at track. When she “baby-sat” my sister and me, she would take us to McDonald’s for lunch, and when we got home, she would dip a knife in peanut butter and jelly so my Mom would think we ate at home. Morgan would teach us dance routines and gymnastics tricks, and braid our hair in cornrows.

Occasionally, she would let me sleep with her. Her bed had red satin sheets that were exotic to me. She would

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put her headphones on my ears and I would listen to rap music until I fell asleep.

Morgan became pregnant at the age of seventeen.

I will never forget the night I found out. It was the beginning of the summer of 1999, I had just finished 2nd grade. We were having a family dinner, all seven kids and my parents. “Morgan has something to share with you all,” my Dad said. We looked at Morgan, and she ran crying to her room. I got a bad feeling in my stomach because I knew something was not right. I stared into my lap as my Dad continued, “Morgan is pregnant.” I looked back to my father and there were tears of anguish, the type I have not seen since. My siblings and I were dumbfounded – none of us said a word. My Dad went on and said a few more things that I do not remember. I just recall that my stomach and my heart felt hot because I knew something scary was happening in our family.

After that day, things changed around our house.

Morgan’s relationship became strained with my parents as they discussed different options and tried to plan for the future. She had to drop out of high school and did not graduate. Things were tense and my relationship with Morgan changed. She went from being the coolest older sister in the world to being a stressed, moody, single, pregnant teen, dealing with things a seventeen year old should not have to think about. The days of McDonald’s, gymnastics and cornrows were long gone.

Since I was so young, I judged how serious this was by how others reacted, but it did not make much sense to me. I looked up to Morgan, but I noticed that people were disappointed in her. When my Mom shared the news with others, she did so in a sorrowful, hushed tone that made it clear this pregnancy was not to be celebrated. I did not know much about sex then, but I did know that to have a baby you had to be intimate with a man. It was strange to me that Morgan did this, and I too was disappointed in her.

As the months passed, however, and Morgan grew, we could not help but be excited for the baby to arrive.

For me, it was like waiting for a little sister. We spent hours pouring over baby name books, and I would come running anytime Morgan said, “I feel a kick!” But still, Morgan and my parents were fighting all of the time, and she was spending more hours in her bedroom.

One night, when Morgan was eight months pregnant, I quietly knocked on her door. “What do you want?” she said. I came in and asked shyly, “Can I sleep with you tonight?” Morgan looked at me for a minute before she scooted over and patted the space next to her on those red satin sheets. Surprised and overjoyed, I quickly made my way over to her bed, but as I was about to climb in, she said, “Hold on.” I braced myself for her change of heart, but she only said, “You go get a heating pad for my belly and I’ll grab my Walkman.”

Today, I have a beautiful eleven year old niece

Photo: Amanda Vann, Encaustic Flowers

named Arianna. I have watched her grow from a little bean of an infant to a girl on the cusp of adolescence, a track star in the making. She’s tall and slender, has big brown eyes, a gap in her front teeth, and braided hair.

I’ve been a babysitter, a stand-in mother, and cool older “sister”; everything Morgan was to me. Arianna has shared my bed more times than I can count. When she climbs onto my blue cotton sheets and nestles her warm little body into mine, everything is how it should be.

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Mississippi’s Finest by Lauren Babb “There go the Griswalds.” This is what people driving by were probably saying after seeing all fourteen of us on our annual family vacation to Destin, Florida, two summers ago.

A month before we left my grandfather bought an antique 1976 GMC motor home. It was supposed to be in tip-top shape.

Three hours into our six-hour drive, the air conditioner went out and it was a hundred degrees outside. The rear air bags were leaking air and the tail end of the motor home was almost dragging the ground. It didn’t take long for us to start acting like “rednecks.” The children, delirious by now, were hanging out of the windows trying to get air.

We began to entertain ourselves by opening every window and waving to the people laughing at us as they drove by.

My grandmother was furious with my grandfather. She kept saying, “I told you this old damn thing wasn’t going to make it! I will never step foot in it ever again!” We thought that this was going to be the worst of our troubles, but it wasn’t.

Just barley outside the Mobile Bay Tunnel we started hearing funny noises from the motor. Suddenly hot water gushed out of the motor onto the windshield, and we were forced to pull off onto the side of the road on Interstate 10. Everyone began to panic. My grandfather, being his optimistic self, kept saying “We’re going to be fine, just get that Dasani water out of the back to fill the radiator up so we can make it to the next exit.”

By now my grandmother had taken the two youngest grandchildren to the edge of the woods to seek shade. We were all about to suffocate; and to say we were irritable is an understatement. Needless to say, the Dasani water solution was a failure.

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Finally, we decided to call the Highway Patrol after noticing two shady characters pulling over in front of us. We thought for sure that we were going to be robbed, but they were two construction workers wanting to help us. (We learned a lesson there about judging people by how they are dressed!) The Highway Patrolman gave us the number for a towing company.

After he left, my aunt realized that she knew someone that lived in a town close by. We gave them a call, and luckily they were home. They came in a truck and a car. We then piled our luggage and ourselves into the vehicles. After the motor home was towed, they drove us to the Pensacola Airport where we rented three SUVs. We made it to Destin by two o’clock in the morning. An easy six-hour drive took my family sixteen hours. After this trip my family unanimously decided to brand the motor home with a name, “The Turd.” This trip was a trip to the beach I will likely never forget.

Photo: Taylor Brown, Sandy Legs

Letter to the Tulledega Times by Jason Cimon Dear Sir or Madam, The wind rips through the badlands of Oklahoma leaving it worn and torn like the cover of an old bible.

There’s a strip of highway somewhere between Tulsa and Henryetta where the sprawl begins. The shells of former strip malls and blinking yellow lights yielding highway traffic to the dangers of wandering motorists, and gas station casinos welcome you to the north end of Okmulgee. Just beyond earshot of the Love’s StationSubway lies our working poor, our tired poor, but our proud poor unseen from passing motorists, the salt of our earth. This is the part of our country doomed before conception in a terrain fertile with suffering, bearing no hope.

Along these wind-swept spines lies a future: industry.

What has been punishing these great reservations for generations can now help bring prosperity to an area which nearly 55% of the population lives in poverty.

Harnessing only 1/5 of the Earth’s available wind energy would provide seven times as much electricity as the world currently uses.

My country entitles nothing but the means to toil the land and labor so that wages may be earned to provide a life to a family and to feed one’s self. I’ve seen the rolling hills of Wyoming, the purple and crimson cliffs along southeastern Arizona’s High-way 10, and the Pentecostal plains of the Texas Panhandle. The one thing that sets these areas of the country apart from Artwork: William Strouth, Golden Sky

eastern Oklahoma is the available wind-harnessing technology. The existence of wind-harnessing turbines develop a barren and uninhabitable land into a lucrative industry that give the citizens, native to the soil, gainful employment.

In our day of social awareness, bad decisions should no longer transcend generations. Our reliance on fossil fuels should no longer be of relevance. My dream is to take the pin-wheel I once held against a grey November sky and blend it into the horizon. The time to act is upon us. No longer shall prosperity be gauged by the accumulation of gambling debts. Let’s not deny our citizens this opportunity. As the wisest of wise songwriters once said: “The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.” (Bob Dylan) Thanks for your time, Jason Cimon

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Art History (on a trip to the University Museum) by Hope Owens-Wilson As I look at Andrew Bucci’s untitled piece in the foyer of the Museum, I am struck by what I see. I had never pictured myself to be the type to go into an art gallery, stare at a mostly red streaked canvas with a sole blue triangle hanging off the edge and discern the artist’s intention or the emotion evoked. But this one “speaks” to me. In it I see suffering, I see black, white; I see America. I blink and for a moment I flashback to the Civil Rights Movement. I shake it off thinking that it was just a fleeting idea, a result of my working with the William Winter Institute. Then I turn my head and see that I was right, maybe.

I see a white figure in black kneeling next to a black figure in white, consoling a figure on the ground, and in the back I see red, white, and blue, with streaks of green. So now, I’m standing here in front of this painting I never wanted to care about, concocting a story. I see them struggling together through the movement, come home from a particularly stressful rally, and then they see it. MLK is dead, or one of their members has been arrested. One cries while the others pray. I see this and wonder, is this normal? Is this okay? Then I realize that I have been standing there too long. The place is

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about to close and I’m getting hungry, but I have got to move on to the next painting. So I blink and then step to the right. It says, “Sailor’s sunset” and I think, “So, there’s this captain...”

Photo: Milly M. West, Museum Visit

Teacher and Student by Brooke Esch Throughout my childhood, I had never really known how it felt to have to “go without”. I have never been a selfish person; however I’ve been fortunate enough to not have to go through the feeling of being extremely thirsty from not having a sip of water all day or going without a meal for days. These past couple of summers, I had the opportunity to attend mission trips that changed my life. I had the chance to understand what those who are less fortunate were going through and how they were coping.

Two summers ago, I went with my youth group to Santa Fe, New Mexico. While it is a tourist destination for many in the United States, it was in the mostly unseen poorer part of Santa Fe that I worked. There I met a little boy, Alexis, who showed me things I didn’t already know. He lived in little, tiny, government-owned apartment that was extremely cramped and dirty, yet he was full of life. I never once saw him without a smile on his face. That week in New Mexico, this four-year old boy showed me what it meant to not care about material things.

Alexis was always happy and would show up to the playground every morning ready to play. We hung out together a lot that week whenever I was on site and really built a special bond. The last day of my trip he asked me why I was there and how long was I planning on staying to play with him. I informed him that I would be leaving the following day to go back to my mommy and daddy. As soon as he heard that, he began crying and saying that he wanted me to stay with him and live with him. I made little jokes about how I thought he should come live with me. I would “stuff him in my suitcase”. He answered by saying that tiny, dirty apartment complex was his home and he didn’t want to leave the people he loved.

Photo: Brooke Esch, Alexis

Alexis taught me that morning that material things won’t always be around, but my friends and family will always be there for me. He made me reevaluate my life and what I was doing wrong. I was taking everything I had for granted. Even though I was thankful for my friends and family, I wasn’t looking at them as a special gift.

I’m very lucky to have the people I have in my life. Not everyone has amazing friends like I do. Not everyone gets a new car for graduation. Not everyone has a wonderful dad or mom that loves them to death and not everyone has the ability to eat or drink when they are hungry or thirsty.

I was sent to Santa Fe to spend time with some wonderful children and tell them about the amazing God we have. I did that, but I came back touched by a little boy. Ultimately, he showed me to love life and not to take anything for granted. My goal was to teach, but I became the student, and my teacher was a four year old named Alexis.

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An Artist’s Opinion by Kaitlin Bachmeyer It’s hard to call myself an artist when I can’t draw. It becomes embarrassing when people ask me to draw them something and I have to awkwardly decline. As an artist people expect you to be well rounded in all areas of art because you’re “creative.” While that may be true for some artists, I regret to say it is not true for me. It’s not easy for me to put pen or brush to paper and pop out a Van Gogh image. Now in photography, my forte, taking a beautiful picture is relatively easy as long as I am focused.

My dad, who used to own his own studio, has always told me I have a way of looking through the viewfinder onto a regular object, say a pencil, and making that pencil extraordinary. If only things were as easy when actually using the pencil.

Photography is clean, precise, and “smudge-free.” It really is just transforming the way people look at everything they see around them; whether that be rotating the image, cropping a landscape, or adding unexpected elements of design. So going into a five week summer study program at Savannah College of Art and Design for a class in both Photography and 2D design seemed like a great thing to do to help me fine-tune my artistry.

I had no idea what to expect from 2D design, but I figured it wouldn’t be hard. The class laughed and said, “This will be a joke,” when our professor was twenty minutes late to our first 8 a.m. class. When he finally

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strolled into the white-walled musty classroom with amazing “artist’s light,” all of our previous opinions were questioned. What we had expected was a professor who was very straight-laced because he/she was unhappy to be having to teach a summer foundations class to a bunch of high school kids who didn’t even know if they would pursue art as a profession.

Edward Barbier was not straight-laced. “Sorry guys, it’s such a beautiful morning that I had to take my Hog out for another spin around the neighborhood,” he said, while taking off his jacket. He was of course speaking about his Harley-Davidson which he talked incessantly about, and if he could relate art to his bike, he always would. Barbier, which he told us to call him, was about fifty years old, had salt n’ pepper buzzed hair, and a thick gray mustache tickling his mouth. He was pretty short and dressed like a guy who you could tell hated that he had to dress for work each morning. He was a hippie and we knew it.

Over the course of five weeks we would be learning how to arrange layouts, make designs, and draw things to make them most appealing to the eye. Two weeks in, we had our first real drawing project, not a layout or geometric design like we had been doing. We had to use images to create an idiom. Mine was “Hit the Books.”

I tried countless times to draw a baseball player swinging at books for a home-run. Each time I tried it came out not up to snuff and I would toss it away. Barbier asked me if I was using my head, had I exhausted all my resources, and tried different options.

Next, I did a glue and paper drawn color transfer of a baseball player and created an image that pleased us both.

Even though I didn’t draw it myself, it was my own original design. But what I learned from him was not through my own experience, but what I saw from one of my classmates.

Some of the kids in there were just geniuses with a pencil and paper; their images were flawless and, of course, I was envious. But two of the girls had what I would consider average or below-average images. The designs were good, but could have used work. But to my surprise and ultimately my whole new respect for art, professor Barbier loved these pictures. He went on and on about how they reminded him of childhood and how they would be amazing as kids’ illustrations and how the colors complemented the shape and “roughness” of the images. It shocked me to realize that I had forgotten about different audiences artists create for. We aren’t all creating work for the snobbiest classical art critic in the world; everything is subject to opinion. My awkwardly proportioned attempt at a baseball player might have been okay as long as in the rest of the piece I stuck to the basic elements of design.

Throughout the rest of the course I learned about opinions and how you can’t let them influence your art.

No one ever became a great and well-known artist by sticking to the guidelines other people set before them.

Jackson Pollock, a great modern artist, said, “A canvas is an arena in which to act.” To be truly great we all have to expand our horizons and not be afraid of what others

Photo: Kaitlin Bachmeyer, Suspended

will think but do what makes ourselves satisfied.” Barbier’s class allowed me to re-learn that we each make our own success, and whether it be my drawing or photography, no matter what my audience thinks, I know I am an artist.

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I Believe by Kalee Fine Adrenaline is pumping through your body. Beads of sweat are rolling down your face. Your opponent is staring you down waiting for your next move. Everybody is watching and waiting. You have two strikes on you already. You need to make this next pitch count. The ball releases from her hand, speeding towards you so fast you have little time to think.

Crack! The ball rockets towards the outfield. You take off towards first, racing, trying to beat out the power of your opponent’s arm. You reach first and your coach tells you to go towards second, but the ball is coming in quicker than expected. Slide! Slide! Your team yells. Dirt kicks up as you go down to touch the bag.

The dust settles, the ump is screaming. Safe! Your team yells from excitement as you get up and wipe the dirt from your uniform.

I believe in softball.

It takes determination and competitiveness to win a game. There are those error-free innings from the defense, even when your opponents are swinging with all they got.

Those amazing double-plays (that rarely happen in a game) are great, especially when you are a part of it. Catching a pop fly when the sun seems to blind you; your glove is a magnet that the ball can’t repel. Miraculous plays are made that nobody expects you to make, even yourself. Those simple plays that get the out every time make it all worthwhile. I believe in throwing the ball so hard it feels like your arm is about to pop out of place—the runner can’t beat it out so it’s worth it.

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I believe in the sound of the contact between a bat and a ball, whether it’s a loud crack or a dull thud. Homeruns that win the game are just as important as sacrifice bunts that advance the runner a base. I believe in the opponent’s pitcher throwing you four balls so you can get on first.

Slamming line drives and scaring the crap out of the infielders is one of the best parts of the game. Hitting foul balls that hit a car in the parking lot or almost hit someone in the stands is a secret goal of the batter. I believe the ball is someone you’re mad at, and the bat is your weapon to inflict pain.

It’s alright for your coach to yell at the ump for a bad call, even if he may get kicked out of the game. I believe that umps are biased against particular teams. Those stupid cheers from the other team does are so annoying they should be made illegal. I believe in other ways of trying to get into the team’s “head”, ways not as annoying and more effective.

Showing off bruises and cuts to everybody because you think your injuries are cool is all part of the fun. I believe in medical tape and pre-wrap for those with weak ankles and bad knees. I believe ice packs are a joint’s best friend. The stinging hands from the freezing cold are just a reminder of how much you love the warmer, later part of the season. I believe in strange tan lines from all the different uniforms worn at practices and games.

Softball is the sister of “America’s Pastime,” yet its sibling is shown more favoritism. I believe softball is better than baseball, just because.

Charcoal Drawing: Allie Billmeyer, Ventress Hall

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Dear Readers, You are either holding the third edition of Venture Online in your hand or reading it at your computer-on line! Either way, I thank you for your support Venture.

In putting this edition together, I realized that the life of busy students leaves too little time for creative writing, but somehow some very special young writers found time to go above and beyond their classroom assignments for Venture submissions.

All writers whose work is presented here are in classes taught by a dedicated group of teachers in The Center for Writing and Rhetoric. A big thank you goes out to those teachers who encouraged their students to write and to those who also served as readers and judges for the selection.

You will notice some excellent art throughout the magazine.

Most of this art is the work of freshmen who are in the CWR or art classes here at Ole Miss. I thank Sheri Reith, chair of the Department of Art, for her support of this project.

Our designer, Larry Agostinelli from the Division of Outreach at Ole Miss, has placed the selected poems, essays, and short stories together with art for another very beautiful publication.

Larry is a very gifted designer, and we Larry Agostinelli at Venture know that what we do is Designer and Assistant Editor nothing without the sincerity of purpose that he brings to the project. We could not exist without the support of Outreach and the inspired talent of Larry.

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I want all the writers whose work was not accepted to know that you all have talent and we at Venture encourage you to pursue it. This fall’s entries have a creative bent a little bit different than what I have seen before. Some stream of consciousness writing, along with some not so traditional love stories, travel adventures, and poems that grip at our own awareness of what life, even very young life, can be. Two awards are given today by the Mystic Krewe of Mykarma, an anonymous group dedicated to the support of gender freedom and creative endeavors in the UM community.

The Freshman Writing Project started in the summer of 2009 in the Department of Freshman English. Since it was my idea, I became the editor. It’s a job that has brought great satisfaction and enjoyment. I want to thank my boss at the Center for Writing and Rhetoric, Dr. Bob Cummings, for his continued support of the project.

My continued thanks go to my friend Deborah Freeland, Senior Designer in the Division of Outreach, who encouraged me with this project from its inception. She puts the magazine in ISSUU for online viewing.

Sincerely, Milly Moorhead West, editor Venture Online can be found on the English, CWR, and Outreach sites at Ole Miss. http://issuu.com/literary_visual_art/docs/venture_vol1 http://issuu.com/literary_visual_art/docs/venture_vol2 http://issuu.com/literary_visual_art/docs/venture_vol3

Photo: Milly M. West

Photo: William Strouth, Going with the Flow

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Editor: Milly Moorhead West Assistant Editor: Larry Agostinelli

Photo: William Strouth, Eye of the Tire (reversed)