LETTERS + STROKES
ROOM EIGHTEEN
ASTRA ARMSTRONG - ZOË GATTI - ENANU GERIMA - NORA GUSHUE CELIA REILLY - MONA SHARAF - MIKE STEVENSON - IDA VAN NECK
ZOË GATTI
CYPHER LEAGUE
2
ROOM EIGHTEEN - ISSUE XI
CONTENTS ZOË GATTI - 2 NORA GUSHUE - 4 ENANU GERIMA - 7 IDA VAN NECK - 8 MONA SHARAF - 10 MIKE STEVENSON - 12 CELIA REILLY - 13 ASTRA ARMSTRONG - 14 NORA GUSHUE - 17 MIKE STEVENSON - 19 ENANU GERIMA - 20 MONA SHARAF - 21 CELIA REILLY - 22 IDA VAN NECK - 25 COVER PHOTOGRAPHY: ZOË GATTI
“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.” -GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ
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NORA GUSHUE
POOLING
Photo by Zoë Gatti
Waking up, the ground is too hard, too demanding of me. He offers me breakfast. I only take the coffee. “I’m going to head out soon.” He’s so pretty, so together; it hurts to look at him. “You gonna be okay today?” “Mhm,” I nod. I wish he would just go. “Okay.” He walks out. He didn’t dry his hair properly so there’s a trail of water on the back of his shirt. His short shaggy hair retains water like a sponge. Every breath I take is painful and comes out in a rapid shutter like when you try to stop crying. My clothes reek of responsibility. I know I should put them on. If he comes home and I’m still in my nightgown he’ll get the look on his face. The look of devastation he feels deep down in his feet. He’ll smile and say “Hi sweetie” and kiss my temple but I’ll see the face and it’ll break me. My nightgown pools around my feet. “I’m going to make you eggs.” He walks back in. His tie hangs around his neck. That’s all I can look at, his sunflower tie. He got it for himself after a promotion at work. It’s his second favorite tie. “I don’t want eggs.” I couldn’t possibly eat, not with my lungs empty. I search my drawer for pants. 4
“Bacon then.” I pick out baggy ‘boyfriend’ jeans and pull them on. I can feel Jacob watching me anxiously. “I don’t want bacon either.” I attempt to put on a Tufts study abroad t-shirt. The fabric slides to the ground. He takes a step forward, taking in a sharp breath, but I stop him by leaning down and picking it up. “Cereal... yeah a nice piping hot bowl of cereal.” I spin around. I look directly at him. My hair band comes out, my hair falling to my shoulders. “I don’t want anything Jake!” I don’t mean to yell at him but I want him to go. “Honey…” He reaches out for me. I take a step back. “Don’t.” He pulls his hand back into a fist taking a deep breath, scrunching up his face in pain, shutting his eyes tight but not enough to wrinkle his nose. His shoulders are set low in exhaustion. “I’ll see you when I get home,” he says. His voice gets gruffer when he’s quiet, like wheels rolling over gravel. “Okay.” “I love you.” “Okay.” He reaches out to pull my head in for a kiss. He stops himself. I close my eyes. His footsteps are so light I can barely tell he’s leaving the room. He slams the front door. I understand. He needs somewhere to put all that frustration. I wouldn’t blame him if he hurt me, purposefully dug a knife into my gut, called me all sorts of things. He never would though. He cares too much. He cares too much about everything. I shuffle backwards until the backs of my knees hit the bed and I fall into it. I want him to come back. I want him to make me eggs and bacon and let me run my steady hands through his damp hair. I want to feel the heaviness of his head on my chest as I breathe. But now all we do is fight. I just yell at him and he sighs and walks away with heavy shoulders. Hours later he comes into bed hoping I’m asleep and knowing that I never really sleep. He tries to get closer to me. I scoot so far away that half of my body is outside of the covers, and all of me needs warmth. Sometimes I even go to the couch, without a blanket, and lie there. There was a time before when both of us couldn’t sleep. Our room stuck out from the rest of the apartment and the walls were so thin that when it rained it sounded like we were surrounded by chainsaws. We would hide under the sheets with a flashlight and sit across from each other. “I thought you were a girl scout,” he would whisper. “I was, but I’m still so scared of lightning!” He would laugh and tickle me, as I tried to cover my ears with the palms of my hands and shut my eyes. I’d wriggle away from him until we were both laying next to each other, holding our stomachs, tears pressing at our eyes. Busses pass outside the window. My cereal is soggy already. I try to place it on the bedside table but it slips out of my hands and crashes to the floor. I leave it there. I turn on the TV. Stacy Hallingan’s face comes up, stiff blonde hair and dazzling
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Photo by Zoë Gatti
smile. “Five men killed by a mysterious gunman. Stay tuned for the full story.” I flick the TV off. It feels like there’s something scratching at my throat. Screaming to get out. People always talk about anger being in your gut but it’s not. Anger’s all in the throat. It’s a reckless, hideous animal fighting for its life and to spring out of your mouth and destroy everything. And there’s something nice about that feeling, about that twisted power. I get off the bed. I wander around our apartment. Bedroom: turn on TV; kitchen: eat cheese or olives or something that doesn’t require cooking. My distaste for frozen foods leaves our freezer and fridge virtually empty if we put off grocery shopping. Bathroom: look in the mirror, rearrange my hair, pull at my face to convince myself that maybe if I looked different I wouldn’t have to deal with this. The sun’s long left our bedroom windows when I decide to run a bath. I take candles from under the sink. I put on Thea Gilmore. As I undress, my hands shake. The water is hot and smooth. The candles make ghosts on the walls. “Martha? I picked up stuff for-” Jacob walks in carrying grocery bags, “tacos…” He puts down the bags. He lets his blazer fall off his body, untucking his shirt and undoing the buttons. His work clothes scatter the floor, except for his tie, which he’s hung on the towel hook. I start to cry. “Hey.” I wave, tremors racking my body. He slips into the water behind me. I lay my head on his chest. I’m still shaking. “I’m scared.” “I know.” He wraps his arms around me, tightly tangling our fingers together to stop the trembling. He can’t, not actually. It’s like suffocating. That dull mumble of struggling to breathe. Except, instead of drifting into death, I remain alive. I keep living despite every voice in my head begging me to stop. He doesn’t get it; why it’s so hard to wake up, to put on clothes, to do anything. He worries and he supports and he helps but he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get desperate because he’s never been it. And it is something to be. 6
ENANU GERIMA
SUNDAYS Marylin looks forward to Sundays. Every Sunday. Sunday night is when the girl reads to her. The only time the girl reads to her. Marylin reaches for the remote to her recliner and raises her legs. “Elevation is good for the legs,” said a smiling Mr. Yang, the family doctor. The one that prescribes the ancient tea with bark in it. Bark and other indescribable things. Things that were once living. “All the more healthy Ms. Labrash,” he said, handing the prescription written in Chinese to Aina. Marylin feels around for her headrest pillow, the pillow that fits perfectly around her neck, but she can never quite place it like Aina does. Not nearly as perfect. Aina, the girl’s mother. The girl is her youngest child. It’s getting late now, only stars are left to shine through her imaginary sky. The only thing that she can still see. The girl tiptoes into the room hoping to find her grandmother sleeping. Marylin is still awake. Staring up at the ceiling, as she usually did. Seeing the birds she used to watch in Vegas. The seagulls reminded her of the two lovebirds she once owned. The ones that used to wake her up to blissful mornings back in Vegas. Until one of the pair died, leaving the other with only the sounds of mourning. Marylin then began painting sad portraits of the scenery on the other side of her window. The yellow sun becoming a dim watercolor orange. Once she realized the similarities between these pieces - pieces of loss and the ones she painted after Eddie’s death, she stopped painting altogether. She stopped her art. Because she was never going to be a dark artist. She wasn’t going to let sadness get the best of her. The girl pulls up the short brown stool, setting it to the side of her grandmother. She watches her grandmother. She watches what she hears: The air making its way through the tubes into her grandmother’s pathetic lungs. Marylin has avoided sadness for so long that it’s catching up to her now. “Full force,” thinks the girl. “You haven't a chance,” she adds. Tears welling up in the girl’s eyes, “You haven’t a chance granny,” she says softly to herself. Marylin continues to watch the good days. The days the sun didn’t burn through her fragile skin. Her veins sizzling at its kiss. The days she could hear the crickets sing lullabies to her at night. The days back when she met the requirements of humanity. Back when she possessed the ability to smell. To taste. To hear. To see. Even her touch fades now. The girl wipes her face with her mother’s sleeve. She nudges her grandmother on the shoulder. Nudging her to wake out of her daze, like she often has to do. The girl takes her mother’s sleeve to her mouth. Gasping for breath. “Granny?” The girl quietly begs. “Granny?” 7
IDA VAN NECK
PAPRIKA I’d always wanted a sister. A little girl I could hold. She would walk around in my old clothes. If she fell, I would catch her. In my lap she would wrap my curls around her fingers and whisper what kept her up at night. She would steal my perfume and then deny it and, at night, I would tell her all the things my mom never told me. But I got a brother instead. I leave the TV on downstairs so the room is still filled. I have turned on every single light in the house but the one in the hall is broken again. In the dark my bare feet on the stairs make more noise than usual. I told him I would be there in five minutes but it’s already been ten. Every stone of our house is emitting the heat it soaked up during the day. I would open the windows but mosquitos really like his blood. “Where were you? You’re late,” he says. He lies sprawled out on his bed in his Spiderman underwear. I can count all his ribs. He’s eight but still has a rotund baby belly that moves up and down when I tickle him. His skin is warm and dry. He never sweats. I only ever stop when he screams. “STOP. STOP TICKLING.” “You were laughing. That means you like it.” “Doesn’t mean anything.” He reaches under his bed and presses the book hard on my legs. “Read.” I couldn’t believe how small he was in the beginning. I couldn’t believe anything could have such tiny hands. My pinky seemed huge with his red fingers curled around it. He was always hungry. He was helpless but seemed to think that he deserved to be given everything. He cried a lot at night. He demanded to be touched. “And as time went on, James became sadder and sadder, and more and more lonely…” As I read his eyes are wondering and his fingers draw shapes on the wallpaper. “Are you even listening?” “Yes.” “What’s the last thing I read?” “I don’t remember anymore now.” “Uh-huh.” “Start over again.” “…Fine. But listen this time.” What used to really annoy me about him was that he was unable to say the word paprika. He could say ‘Pa.’ He could say ‘Pri.’ He could say ‘Ka.’ But he always stubbornly turned the full word into parkika. I don’t remember when he finally got it right. 8
“Bigger and bigger grew the peach, bigger and bigger and bigger.” I close the book and put it back on the floor. “No. Read a little bit more. Please?” “Hmmmm, let me think. No.” I try to get off the bed but he grabs my throat from behind and pulls me back down. I manage to get his arms off me and push my knees down on his chest. My throat hurts. I grab his arm and bite him. He screams. I fall back on his pillow laughing like a maniac. He’ll always be smaller than me. His pillow smells like him. Sour, almost like vinegar. It’s repulsive and attractive at the same time. I feel a strange bump under my head. “What’s in your pillow?” He quickly puts his hands on my arms. “Nothing.” I try pulling it out but his little nails dig into my skin. I push both his hands down with one arm and pull a little beginning readers book out of his pillow. Frog and Toad are Friends. I’m slightly disappointed it’s not a diary. “What is this?” He gives up fighting and looks at the wallpaper. “What is it?” “It’s from school. I was supposed to give it back to Ms. Katia last year. But I forgot.” “You’ve had this for a year?” “Please please don’t tell mom.” “I won’t.” He doesn’t look convinced. I’m offended. “If you put it under your mattress it’ll probably be safer than in your pillow.” I lift up a corner of the mattress and he slides the book under it. We both lie down under his thin blanket and look at the ceiling. I close my eyes for a second. I can feel his little fingers touching my eyes. “Your eyelids are so thin. Can you see through them?” “No, stupid, of course not.” I get up, kiss him on his forehead and turn on his nightlight. “Goodnight.” “Goodnight.”
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MONA SHARAF
PEBBLES It was in the top left corner of her closet, folded neatly between her favorite floral sweater and a concert t-shirt. She pulled it out, careful not to knock over the pile of clothes it was hidden under. The shirt was blue. She smoothed the creases and laid it on her bed. Time had past without her being aware. Ten months had gone by and she was back in the same place she’d been the summer before. She stared at the shirt, wishing she could iron it. But the iron was upstairs. She flipped the shirt over. Her eyes swept over the crudely scribbled names covering the shirt. She was looking for a name. His name. She found it on the sleeve of the shirt. It was written in blue sharpie. Daniel. She ran her finger over the name, making sure it was real. Making sure the days they spent together, watching the masses of kids run around, were real. The days they’d spent ignoring the sweat they were both drenched in. She remembered the day he signed her shirt. She’d named that day pebbles. They’d sat in the grass, covered in a comfortable combination of sweat and dust. They’d ignored the kids around them, screaming for their lost lunchboxes. His hands were behind his back. In one hand was a pebble. In the other was where she wished her hand was. She guessed which hand the pebble was in. She’d usually get it wrong. He’d laugh at her. She’d laugh with him. He would shake his head, his smile betraying his fake disapproval. She’d grab his hands, feeling for more than just the pebbles. He never pulled his hands back. She put the shirt to her face. It smelled like generic laundry detergent, soon to take on a new scent. Blue raspberry popsicles. Sweat. Chlorine. She pulled the shirt on over her head. It was looser than before. It hung on her body, just missing where her waist used to catch it. She pulled out a pair of black running shorts. She slipped them on. Where they once clung to her, imprinting her waist with the red plastic marks, they now struggled to wrap themselves around her waist. This time it would happen. This time she would get it right. She would be good enough for him. She knew exactly how it would happen. They would say hi. He would laugh. She’d mimic his laugh. He would ask how she was. His eyes would search her body. She would read too far into his look. She would smile. She would say she was good. She’d ask what college he was going to. He’d reply. She’d calculate how far away the school was. Too far. She’d congratulate him. He’d thank her. They’d catch each other up on a year lost. Telling forgettable stories of mundane days. Vacations they’d taken. Tests they’d failed. Slowly adding up the days that they had forfeited. She would wish he had been there when he couldn’t have been. He’d wished he’d taken the chance. They would wish for an impossible past together. Too regretful of the past to take any steps forward. But they knew they would. It would take time. But this time it would happen. She got in her car, happy that the ridicule of being the baby last summer was now going to be erased. She started the car, opened the window and 10
Photo by Zoë Gatti
turned off the AC to save gas. It was 8:05. Forty minutes until she would see him. The radio turned on by itself. She couldn’t hear what was playing because of the hot wind blowing in her face. She was going fifty miles an hour, twenty over the speed limit. She’d lost track of her speed. She pressed the brake, hoping her heart would slow with the car. She drove down the same path she’d used to get everywhere in life. Took a right past the same grocery store she always went to. Past the pool where she used to spend her summers. Took a left past the library. Speeding away from the ice cream store; the one that had the flavor she loved that no one else had. Pink watermelon sorbet. There was no more waiting left. He was waiting for her. She’d already packed her backpack. It was the same purple one she’d used last summer. It had the Zebra clip on it. Its white fur had turned brown. He had laughed at her for having it when she came to camp the first day. She only smiled back. An old bathing suit was in the front pocket. The same one she wore last summer. But this time she knew it looked right on her. This time he would stare at her in a good way. A bottle of sunscreen, the same bottle from last summer still unused. A water bottle, ice filled to the top. A lunch box with what she considered a lunch. An apple. A yogurt. She parked. It was 8:22. She was twenty-three minutes early. She was the first one there. She waited. Goosebumps covered her body, fighting against the warm breeze that hit her. They were a small group. Only nine people, including her. Her boss arrived first. He was new. She said hi. They’d only met once. Seven to go. Then Six. She said hi to the kid she used to go to middle school with. Five left. Four left. Three left. She smiled when the group congratulated her on finally being an adult and getting a car. Two left. She gave a half-hearted hug to a girl she worked with last summer. One left. A car parked. It wasn’t his. Zero left. 11
MIKE STEVENSON
CALENDARS
Photo by ZoĂŤ Gatti
I met her over the summer. I found that she had a smile like petrichor and a laugh like adolescence, with bright eyes and brown hair that chased its own tail until it reached her shoulders. I met her and loved her when her hands were full of summer, and we sat on a couch and admired what she held. Then I held her. I felt summer where I needed it. I felt the liberty of youth and the power of the sun. I felt her eyes on mine and her cheek in my hand. Then nothing. School started again and my summertime was dead. She looked at me with the coolness of a beautiful winter, snowflakes amassing at the tips of her thin eyelashes, waiting for her to blink. I kept my eyes on her feet, her legs, her thighs, her hips, while she kept her eyes closed to me for reasons she left in the summertime. I loved another girl's winter, but ached for the hot air of the summer. I flipped through calendars of memories, tasted every month and came to taste the closeness I shared with her. This time, we felt the same youth and repressed memories and the warmness of the couch on our legs - a reminder of what we left behind. I took in doses of her smile of petrichor and her laugh of adolescence. Her eyes free of winter and her hands full of summertime, and I loved her season. I ached for it. I found my summer. 12
CELIA REILLY
DUST & MAKE UP “And I guess it’s my fault because I didn’t raise you right. I’m supposed to force this shit into you. The way you live is disgusting. Just disgusting. I can’t even go into your room without feeling light headed. You live like a goddamn pig. I mean your room is disgusting, do you know that?” The girl says nothing. She keeps her eyes locked on the road. “I bought you storage. Your clothes are on the ground. I bought you shelves for your books. They’re on the fucking ground too. There’s trash and filth and dust and makeup. It’s just disgusting. I don’t get how you live like that. How are you not ashamed when your friends come over?” The girl, again, says nothing. “That filth. I don’t know where I went wrong with you. Don’t know what I did. I blame myself, really. I’m supposed to make sure you’re ready for the real world before you leave the house. I was too loose. I wouldn’t get away with half the shit you get away with growing up. And look at you.” The girl looks at herself. She sees nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least. A little messy, that was true. A little lazy, that was also true. Her mom continues. The girl spaces out. She focuses on her composure. The girl continues to keep her eyes locked on the road. She thinks about school. And boys. And the book she’s reading. She thinks until the car and her mom are just physical things in her mental world. “Whatever. You seem to be a lost cause at this point. I’m done. I’m done trying with you.” The two women let the music cover the tension. The girl has to keep herself from smiling because, for the first time, her cheeks are dry. For the first time her face doesn’t betray her. They get out of the car. They enter the house and her mom tells the girl to make sure she eats dinner. They both know she won’t eat. The girl says okay. She walks to her cluttered room and closes the door. Her mom knows she is crying. The girl knows her mom doesn’t care. Each woman knows they blame one another. The girl doesn’t eat that night or clean her room. Her mom doesn’t ask her to. 13
ASTRA ARMSTRONG
ON THE STRUGGLE TO WRITE I’ve spent a long time stuck in silence, afraid that I’ll say something wrong. To be able to hold my own personal dictionary is what I believe will make me unique one day. My own words, my creations and my own vocabulary. While I know writing doesn’t come natural to me, I have not allowed this to deter me from my goals. I won’t be here to witness the immortality that my work has achieved and I know that, by definition, this means I will never know whether my endeavors have been successful. I am often afraid of expressing myself through words, as I’m not sure if those words are good enough. What if my words don’t really bring my voice out on the paper? If the truth remains hidden, then we’re left to break all the rules. So what am I really afraid of? Somehow I wish it was that easy to explain. I tell myself I want to be heard but I just can’t figure out what I am really afraid of. Am I scared of change, scared of failure and scared of success? Writing leaves open wounds. Untold stories that can’t be explained, and memories of permanent reminders of the pain inflicted upon me. So why come out of my shell? Just to be placed back upon the shelf in which my words took me from? I have the words to change the world but I keep biting my tongue. My words are what saved me from burying myself under so many burning bridges. 14
AN ESSAY IN FRAGMENTS I write to remain silent. Our words are as hopeless as the innocent man on death row. And while some may stand, most remain seated refusing to take the opportunity to speak…and we all lose. We write to restrain violence in a society that says communication is a science. I want to dive into an ocean of words and come out with a poem. This, to me, is a form of transportation. Forget the science. Writing is digging my own grave with my own shovel. My mind defeats me, it gets cluttered inside with creative compositions and all of my negative thoughts collide. I stop thinking and start writing. The ideas begin to argue amongst each other. I could write about my family drama. All of the adjectives would be so ideal. And then I would pepper them with curse words. Brainstorming is a boxing match sans pain. So I keep it all inside and eventually I’m fighting against a blank paper, a blank .docx file. Still with nothing to say. Quit word. I can see the path of greatness writing has planned for me. It’s like a black box room with black-ink writing on the wall. The goal of writing rejects me as it simultaneously accepts me.
Photos by Zoë Gatti 15
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Photo by ZoĂŤ Gatti
NORA GUSHUE
GLASS It’s humid and the air’s practically begging for a summer rain. In the house the room is dark, except for the couch where the light of the TV hits. She sits there, forgetting that she’s waiting for someone. James stumbles through the door, a gaggle of arms and legs. She doesn’t look up, even when she hears the breaking of a glass in the kitchen or when she hears a laugh and “You fucker that hurt.” He turns around to face his wife. “Baby.” James holds the last vowel for a few seconds. She still doesn’t respond. “You know what Scrubs said tonight? He said he wished he’d married that girl. You know, the one with the hair - the big hair. You know what I’m talking about? He dodged a bullet on that one. What a little snake she was, a snake. Yah know, with that kid. Didn’t she have a kid? What a snake.” He comes towards her and sits down on the couch. She can see his hand is bleeding. She cups the hand in hers and gently pulls him up. “Come here.” “Wha-why?” “Just come here.” He follows her down the hallway to the bathroom. He shut his eyes at the sudden burst of light and she runs the water over his hand. The bathroom is small and comfortable with a rug and cool, clean tiles. It’s the kind of bathroom you’d want to throw up in at a party. “Ah. That stings.” He jerks his hand back but she doesn’t let go. “It’s just antiseptic, give it a second. Calm down.” She takes gauze from under the sink. He watches her wrap his hand. The bathroom is wobbly but it isn’t spinning. It makes her hair look as if it crashes against the sink like waves crashing onto rocks. He can’t really feel his hands or any part of his body except for his lips and they’re tingling. He wants to kiss her, all over her body. On her shoulders and elbows and toes and the corners of her mouth. She wants to put him in bed so she can finish her show and clean the glass from the kitchen floor. “It doesn’t sting anymore.” “I told you it wouldn’t.” “N-no you didn’t.” 17
“What?” “You’re beautiful...” She walks him further down the hallway towards the bedroom. She used to be able to hold him up easily, but the beers and pasta had caught up with him and with her, even though she’d never admit it. “Did you hear me?” “What?” “I told you, you were beautiful.” “Thanks.” “You used to love that yah know? Being beautiful.” “Mhm.” He crashes onto the bed head first, legs hanging off horizontally. She bends down and pulls off his shoes, sliding his feet onto the bed. She likes his legs. When they were younger his legs were so skinny she’d sit for hours as the tailor fit his pants just right to make them look normal. He’d come out from the back of the shop spinning like a girl with a new dress. “How do they look?” “Same as the ones you got a month ago.” “Those were tweed these are pin striped!” “They look the same to me.” “I hate you.” “You love me.” “But how devil woman?! How?!” He’d scream shaking his fists until he’d swoop down to kiss her. James groans and she’s yanked back to the present. “What it is?” “You coming?” He waves his arm, attempting to gesture to the space next to him in the bed. “In a minute.” It won’t be a minute. He’ll fall asleep and forget he asked. She goes back to the kitchen. The glass has shattered completely and she can feel tiny pieces wedged into her foot. He’s tracked in mud from the garden. There are bloodstains on the couch. She won’t complain about this to her friends or her mother. She can’t leave but she’ll never forgive herself if she stays.
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MIKE STEVENSON
TO DISTRACT ONE’S SELF It was quiet where he was from. Sometimes there was a party deep in the suburbs, where his mother's friends would get together in a strange convention for drunken old women. They would get together and complain about their sons and how much they wished their sons would work harder to be more like—or unlike—their fathers. That topic would change if, and when, one of their children died while playing baseball too far out in a field during a storm. The mourning would begin, but only over drinks. That convention became a showcase of each woman’s pain. The men, on the other hand, found it easier to communicate through work. The frequent spitting of tobacco, the twisting and pulling and slamming of tools - tools barely obedient to man - took on a different shape to them. Something else to conquer and tinker with to forget what was happening on their own home front. They would get together to reminisce about what it felt like to be with a woman through chopping down trees or tightening screws. That topic would change if, and when, one of their children died from a disease they couldn't just hammer away. The mourning would begin, but only at work. It would become solace for men who ripped tendons to forget, men who found sanctuary in the cold kiss of a hammer on steel. It was quiet where he was from. And that didn't change once he was gone.
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ENANU GERIMA
REGRET Her attention wanders, as she bends and raises the bright satin sheets to the top of the bed and over the pillows. She flattens the creases. The creases that the boy absolutely adored. “They like mountains ma. To ants.” Diane smiles to herself as she remembers the boy’s words. The boy with such small hands. Such small eyes fitting since his vision often got lost in his own head, his own imagination. With thoughts of the boy poisoning her bed making, Diane yanks the last blanket up to the pillows. She had yelled at the boy when she’d entered her bedroom and found him poking an ant into the bottom of a satin crease. She’d felt awful when, with the boy’s face red with tears and his nose dripping with snot, she’d plucked the ant and crushed it between such barbaric fingers. He had buried his face in the very mountain of satin his six-legged friend once crawled. The hard touch thrashing the entire Sunday morning bed. Thrashing the entire scenery. Diane pulls back all of the covers and, before starting again, wipes her sweaty hands down the hips of her red apron. The boy often talked of leaving. Pulling the satin sheets up to the pillow, she left the creases. She bent and kissed the mountains. Diane had ignored the boy because the boy did not know what she knew, and had not experienced what she had experienced. He had not, she had believed, known of the dark that she had known. Because she had kept him from it. Kept him safe. When she found herself sweeping out the dust, the last of her boy, from his room, she wept. And she had wept some more, after receiving, from the boy that had gone to join the marching ants, a letter assuring her that he would come back a man. A man that he believed she would not recognize. The only letter she would ever receive from him. And she has wept ever since.
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MONA SHARAF
AMERICANA He thought that coffee always tasted best when it was raining. That’s why he made the decision to go get coffee at five in the afternoon as rain started to slam against the sliding glass door of his workplace. He ran to his car, sliding into the black leather seat, his button down shirt soaking wet. Closing the door, he sat there, letting the smell of his $4 cup of coffee fill the car. Starting the car, he drove to his daughter’s school, letting her in the car without a word. As soon as she slammed the door closed, he began driving. He took a sip of his coffee, letting it swish around his mouth until it was cool enough to swallow. He always drank black coffee. His mind drifted with the car. He thought about the calories in the salad dressing he had doused his lettuce lunch in this morning. His wife made his lunches. He never complained about how bland they were. He thought about his wife. Age had been good to her. Despite the weight age brought with it, her face was still the one he had made himself love. He took another sip. The roads were slick. He turned off the wipers, letting rain cover the windshield until he could barely see, finally turning on the wipers and bringing a momentary clarity. He drove with both hands clutching the steering wheel. He would have driven with one hand, but his daughter was in the car. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, making sure she didn’t notice him staring. They had sat together for almost twenty minutes without saying a word to each other. He saw the silent tears on her face that matched the raindrops streaking the windows. He smiled. He veered off the main highway onto the windy road that led to their home. The sharp curves in the road, along with the rain, created a deadly combination. Just as the car hit a sharp curve he took a sip, relieving his right hand of its duty. He didn’t slow down when he crossed the bike path, knowing that no one would bike on a rainy day. He wished the drive were longer. He hated going home. He asked his daughter if she had eaten lunch. She shrugged. He took another sip. When he reached their neighborhood, his muscle memory took over. He used the .6 miles left of his drive for himself. He picked up the coffee and kept it in his hand as his left hand steered the car towards the place he lived. He had forgotten to get a cardboard slip for his coffee and the cup was too hot. It burned his hands but he didn’t mind. He turned the corner. .1 miles left. He took another sip. The car pulled into the driveway, where he let his daughter out of the car before pulling into the garage. She ran in without a word. He drove the car into the driveway next to his wife’s blue Toyota Camry. He shut the car off. He took his last sip. 21
CELIA REILLY
HUMS I knew I was in the hospital. I knew my parents were somewhere, watching me. And I knew I was in trouble. I listened to the beeps and hums of the room. I pictured my parents coming into the room. My mom is covering her mouth with her sleeve. She is crying. My dad is holding her. His greying hair is a mess. They look at me. Call me “baby.” Ask if I’m scared. Ask if I remember what happened. I’ll say no. Then I’ll say yes. My mom will choke on her apology. He’ll stutter over his words. I’ll soak up their regret. I’ll have to resist smiling. But things never work out so perfectly. The click of my door snapped me out of my daydream. My parents entered, led by a short doctor. My heart started beating faster. I prayed they couldn’t hear it. My mom wouldn’t look at me. My dad wouldn’t stop. I wanted to be left to the sound of the hospital hum. “Good, you’re awake Lola. I’m Doctor Wayne.” I tried to figure out why the doctor looked so uncomfortable. I realized it was because he’d talked to my parents already. I gave him a little nod so he knew I understood. “Do you know why you’re here?” Another nod. “Can you tell me what you remember?” I looked at my parents. Doctor Wayne got the message. “Would the two of you wait in the hallway? Patient and doctor conversations get…personal.” They both looked at me in the same way. I was the deer they just hit with their car. They had to look like they cared, but in reality I was just an inconvenience. “We’re going to get breakfast.” The sound of my dad’s voice shook me. He looked at me, and I understood him. Even when he wasn’t in the room he was the highest authority. He made sure I knew every time he left me. My mom looked at my dad. She didn’t want to leave me. Or better yet, she didn’t want to leave me with someone who would listen. My dad held her hand, squeezed it and led her out. After the door was securely shut Doctor Wayne turned back to me. “I never believed figurative things could affect the real world.” Each word in my sentence came out dry. It was the first thing I had said in days. “What do you mean figurative?” he pulled up a stool. I played with my hair. It was dirty. “Sleep.” The doctor scribbled on a notebook. I continued. “Food.” “Food?” “The average human can go weeks without food. Three.” I liked that the doctor was watching me. “Three weeks.” “And how did these…figurative things affect the real world?” I looked around the hospital room. Crisp whites and pale greens lined the 22
walls. The room was too big. If they cut it in half they could have a whole other room. I thought about telling the doctor that. “I’m sick.” I listened to the doctor scribble more. I wondered what he was writing. “Sick how?” His breath was minty, which was nice because he was very close to me. “You’re the doctor.” He laughed. I held on to the hardiness of his laughter. The doctor didn’t say anything for a while. I assumed he was picking the right words. I waited quietly. I started picking at my hospital bracelet. I watched my feet. I wiggled my toes. They moved the white blanket around. I wanted the doctor to hurry before my parents returned. They’d never let him tell me what was really wrong. I thought about them. They were probably thinking about me. Lola Ann. Such a disappointment. Such a sad, sad excuse of a child. “Lola what extra activities do you do?” His question confused me, but I answered. “I play piano. And soccer. And softball, basketball, and I sing in the church choir. I’m in the youth group my church has. We do projects and stuff. I study a lot, because grades are important. On Wednesdays after school I have girl scouts. More projects and stuff. My parents give me books to read, I read a book a day. It helps with vocabulary.” “That’s a lot of stuff to do.” I shrugged. Doctor Wayne took his glasses off. “Lola when do you sleep?” I looked at my feet hoping they’d give me the right answer. “At night.” Doctor Wayne put his glasses back on. “How long do you sleep?” “When there’s time for sleep I sleep.” “Lola if you’re not sleeping that’s a problem.” He looked at me. “If your parents know you’re not sleeping that’s a bigger problem.” “I sleep.” “Lola do you know why you’re here?” “I sleep.” “You passed out during school Lola. You fainted.” I was running out of things to fidget with. “When’s the last time you slept?” “I just woke up.” Doctor Wayne shook his head. “Besides in the hospital.” I didn’t say anything. There was no right answer. “I don’t know if your parents know you haven’t been sleeping. Or eating.” I felt my eyes grow. I knew the circles under them might suggest I didn’t sleep much, but how’d he know I wasn’t eating? “But if they knew, you need to tell me now Lola.” I imagined telling him. Taking my teeth off my tongue for once. Letting someone know how I felt. All the stress. How sad I was. Being crushed. The pain of being watched. I imagined him hugging me. Telling me it was going to be okay. I imagined my parents walking in. I imagined they had been listening the entire time and knew I’d told Doctor Wayne about being tired. I imagined 23
Photo by Zoë Gatti
them calling me lazy. A loser. Asking for help was the same as quitting. I knew that. I imagined my mom calling me a quitter. “My parents didn’t know.” Doctor Wayne’s frown forced me to look away from him. “They didn’t know. This is all my fault.” He watched me for a while and then scribbled on his note pad. I listened to him putting the stool back. I thought about my parents. Imagined them taking me home. Imagined going to my piano lesson the next day. I waited until after he left, and then I cried. 24
IDA VAN NECK
Ella elle l’a No matter how high she jumped she would never reach the attic’s ceiling. She jumped from one mattress to the other, never once falling in between the wide space between the mattresses, and into what she called the “ice sea.” Higher and higher, making the dust swirl in the sunlight. Her rapid breath and the creaking of the mattress were nearly enough to drown out the sound of her mother singing in the garden. Higher and higher. But her ponytail kept tickling the back of her neck, breaking her rhythm each time. She stopped, pushed the ponytail up and tightened it with a hard yank. It always slid back down again, lightly brushing her skin whenever her feet left the ground. Again and again. She jumped with her hands in her hair trying to pull it up and nearly fell.
Photo by Zoë Gatti
She ran down the stairs, her feet barely touching the wooden steps. The bathroom was bright, white and beautiful. She knew exactly where to find what she wanted. Bottom shelf in the wooden basket filled with combs and hairclips. With one outstretched arm she held her ponytail up high and, with her other hand, she held the scissors. She cut the ponytail clean off, right below the hair tie. It all fell to the floor. She picked up the hair tie and wrapped it around her wrist. She gathered the hair in her hands and knew she 25
had to get rid of it. The clean bathroom was no place for a handful of tangled up dark hair. The trashcan was not enough. Only the toilet could make things disappear. She flushed three times just to make sure. Now she could go back. Back to her attic to make dust swirl in the sunlight and never reach the ceiling. Until the shadows grew long and forced her to leave. She could imagine what came creeping there after dark. In the kitchen it smelled like hot sugar and melting plastic. The girl never spent much time there; this was her mother’s territory. She seldom cooked but was always in the kitchen. She would sit at the table pretending to read the newspaper, or stare blankly into the garden. Or take up the fight against the never-ending dust the house produced. The kitchen table was filled with empty jam jars waiting to be filled. The tops were neatly placed next to their respective jars. The tablecloth, once white, was now dotted with red stains near the girl’s seat and with coffee rings where her mother sat. Her mother stood at the stove, loading freshly cut rhubarb from the garden into the sugar water. Her hair fell in a long braid along her back, gleaming like a snake. Her long fingers didn’t seem to feel the steam coming from the pot. She was still humming and even slightly swaying her hips but stopped abruptly when she saw the little girl. She held back her shriek but not the disgust in her eyes. Furiously, she dragged the girl to the nearest mirror. “Look. Look what you did.” The sweat and the dust had mixed on her skin, leaving the girl with grey stripes all over her face. Her hair was a short spiky mess. “Why did you do that? Look at what you did. The dirt’s bad enough. But look. Look at your hair. Are you going to school like that?” Now the girl grew scared. She hadn’t thought about that. She’d just wanted to stop her hair from tickling her neck. “Yes. You’re going to school like this. It’s about time you learn actions have consequences.” Up until then she had always been tolerated at school. There was an unspoken agreement that she was left alone and, in exchange, she didn’t press herself upon anyone. But when she returned to school and saw all the heads turn her way, with hungry looks, she knew that from now on she was burned. Ella came on the first day of spring. She wore a pink satin dress and her hair was the lightest shade of blonde. The only empty seat left was next to me. Even our teacher seemed slightly bewildered by the small willowy girl floating through the classroom. She sat down and smiled at me. Her clothes smelled like lavender. She had a cruel smile. I was on the playground, playing a game I’d invented two weeks before. I was startled when I saw Ella’s green eyes so close in front of me. “What are you doing?” She said. “I’m trying to walk without touching the edges of the tiles. It’s really hard.” “Can I try?” “Yes. I guess.” But soon a rescue team of four girls turned up and they informed Ella of 21 21 26
the facts. “Don’t talk to her. She’s nothing. “I’m sorry.” “That’s okay, you didn’t know. You can come with us now.” “Okay. Bye Nothing.” She was awarded a stream of giggles and from then on my name was Nothing. One time they pretended I was dead for a day and they held a small funeral for Nothing. I kept yelling that I knew they could all hear me. On a Wednesday Ella danced for us. We had been called to the gym and impatiently sat on the hard wooden benches. We knew she had something to do with dancing because she often wore those ridiculous pink tutus to school. I could never understand why everyone just let that pass. She wasn’t wearing one today, only a black leotard and tights. When she started dancing her body became liquid. I didn’t know bodies could do that. I kept hoping she would fall. I kept hoping the ground would knock out her teeth. As she spun around, like gravity meant nothing to her, her ponytail came undone. A week later I was walking along the path through the woods when I saw the shimmer of pink through the bushes. I ran up the hill, not to hide but to spy on her. She was alone, skipping with her white shoes through the mud. My hands dug in the earth and I could feel the dirt and half rotten leaves. I pressed them together, threw the ball of dirt at her and hit her leg. She stopped and looked around, scared. A surge of delight ran through me and I had to bite my tongue to stop laughing. It was just too funny. But when she wiped off the dirt and started walking again I panicked. She couldn’t go yet. I stormed downhill, crashed into her, dragged her down and wrestled until I sat on top of her. I reached for the ground, took the mud in my hands and smeared it on her face. I yanked out chunks of her pretty blond hair. I scratched her arms until little lines of blood came trickling down. My hands found her pale pink shirt and ripped it open. Buttons danced away on the ground. Her nipples were soft and pink and she already had slight breasts. I didn’t have anything. I pressed my lips hard onto hers and ran away.
Photo by Zoë Gatti
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ROOM 18 - ISSUE #11- JUNE 2014
PRODUCED BY THE LITERARY MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT