Pendulum | Fall 2016 by Brandon Liu

P E N D U L U M Est. 1886

THE LITERARY ARTS JOURNAL OF PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY

Fall 2016

PENDULUM BOARD EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Alex Zhang and Carissa Chen MANAGING EDITORS Annie Ning and Brandon Liu WRITING EDITORS Emma Dyer and Joonho Jo

ART EDITORS Ally Grounds and Ivy Tran

LAYOUT EDITOR Rex Tercek ASSOCIATES AnnÃ©e Reach, Caroline Grace, Katie Lee, and Willa Canfield FACULTY ADVISER Willie Perdomo

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii. Mourning

i. Morning Last Chance, Colorado by Annie Ning Three Paintings by Wendi Yan Gardening by Eugene Nakamoto Two Sketches by Chris Lee In Defense of Cats by Arianna Serafini Spotted & Wild Dogs by Katya Scocimara Digging by Eric Tang clutching//restless by Peter Duff Heaven Beside You by Majestic Terhune Triptych by Grace Huang The Sun Rose Rust and Gold by Zea Eanet

2 3 4 7 8 11 12 15 16 17 18

ii. Love To Love by Zaidee Laughlin Two Dresses by Ivy Tran Untitled by Ariel Kim Lips by Ivy Tran Cinnamon by Bella Alvarez Head in the Clouds & Restricted by Heather Nelson Thermal by Ellie Ward Vivi by Maya Kim

19 21 23 24 26 27 29 29

Rebreathing by Meghan Chou “Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move / Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove” by Ruby Fludzinski Michael Brown by Wynter Tracey Nico Paintings There Are Distances Between Us by Carissa Chen Three Ceramics Pieces by Mei-An Nolan Father Tea by Alex Zhang The Space Between Two Names by Carissa Chen Cover Art: Rorschach by Alex Zhang Back Art: Untitled by Alex Zhang

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 40

i. Morning “So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.” - Robert Frost

Last Chance, Colorado v Annie Ning When the sun god comes to drink our whiskey, we let him. A semiautomatic sputtering in his throat

their petals through the half-mirage sky. And even Rosie is a half-formed ghost

when we let the silver bullet tear through his heat, and then pass the bottle back to us.

echoing her mother’s smile, all tooth. I am not my mother, eyes too wide and thought too hasty, but at Rosie’s

Then the straight-shot down to Last Chance, road belting into the fallen grass-

watching my father exhale another bleeding cigarette I wonder if behind smoky recoil

land of grit, of shithouse radio and the white noise grainy on

I am my mother’s ghost? The chickadeedeedee is only a hollow shrine to the badlands,

our cruddy kitchen sinks. This town has more ghosts than burger joints

then Colorado shrink-dries like a last chance and the grease on the counter is only a ghost, too.

my Dad observes, when we stop at Rosie’s to cream and sugar our coffee to excess, there’s a petroleum aftertaste in our mouths. I look around for ghosts: a signal crosses over on the TV like a divine message, the smokestacks radiating ghosts of the backfield, sunflowers slicing

Three Paintings v Wendi Yan

Gardening v Eugene Nakamoto I let the spade tower above my shoulder. There, it tottered in ominous instability, before slicing through the air much like a peregrine dive-bombs its prey. Surgically, the blade connected with the neck of the porcupine. The animal shivered in the dark grass, already matted with its blood. Again and again, I lifted my tool to wind up its killing potential. Each time I brought it down upon the porcupine, the iron dug deeper into its neck. I was trying to lop off its head. Occasionally, a car would pass by next to the ditch in which I was hosting the execution. I didn’t want to look like a psychopath, so each time I saw an approaching car, I’d wrench my spade out of the pulpy porcupine at my feet. I may have even ran the bloody blade through the bentgrass and weeds to make it more presentable. Truth be told, I don’t know what I would have done had a car stopped, and its occupant actually noticed the lunatic with the spade, standing beside what was clearly his victim. I suppose I’d have resorted to some agrarian form of the Nuremberg Defense. I’m a gardener, not a sicko, I’d say. My employers wanted some pests exterminated. But I didn’t say these things, because nobody stopped their cars, and nobody saw me partake in this grisly labor. To be fair, the Owners had asked me to do it. The porcupine had lounged on their lawn for an hour, leeching on the worm-laden richness of their low-cut grass. The creature didn’t belong on the property; its electrified spikiness inflamed an otherwise pastoral countryside. The Owners lived upriver of the Exeter River, enough so that the water turned creek, and the creek turned quiet brook. Here, in a Puritan

hollow where the brook rested calm and ascetic, and hardened the earth and woods into a stolid portrait, the Owners had settled on a bank. They lived in a colonial house with a yellow siding and a lilac-laden back porch that oversaw the water. Around, seven acres of New England lay in constant need of cultivation. From the front of the house, a driveway wounds its way over a rolling hill, and met Silver Moon Street. A ditch ran alongside the road, and officially demarcated the property. A black mailbox read, “FIGO & JONES.” Figo and Jones, aside from the house, owned an inn down in Exeter. The Inn, too, had a yellow siding, but instead of the woods, it eyed the Federal-style bank and the Grecian bandstand in the middle of town. The Inn operated as a bed and breakfast, and catered oftentimes to families of the Academy, which lay just a three-minute walk away. This convenience had made Figo and Jones something of family friends; my mother stayed at their inn when she came to visit me, now finishing my prep year at Phillips Exeter. In late May, just before the sun had flared into its sultry phase, my mother beckoned Figo to discuss plans for my summer break. She herself held a semblance of an idea: I could enjoy the dog days with boyish abandon—with a minimum of decency and discipline. Eavesdropping, I heard her ask Figo, “Could Eugene perhaps help out at the Inn? He will work hard and be of some use around your house. Maybe he will mow your lawn and clean your pool—like an American boy.”

Figo verified with Jones, and they agreed to offer me room and board at their house for one summer month, in exchange for menial chores and responsibilities. My contract began right after the end of school. At the house, I watered sages, hibiscuses, and petunias, cleaned the pool of their petals, and assisted Figo and Jones in their maintenance of the lawn, which neatly fit the property like a Saxony carpet. Figo showed me how to fuel and start a John Deere lawnmower, which I mounted on Sundays to buzz the grass. Once a week, one could watch me lurch from side to side on the mower as I drove this way and that to quash rebelliously long tufts. With a steel blade, I enforced the three-and-three-quarters inch status quo. Even if grass could scream, I wouldn’t have heard its cries; a snug earmuff crowned my head. At the center of the lawn stood a granite fountain, and around its base circled a ring of boxwood. This I maintained with Jones and a pair of clippers. We’d start on opposite sides of the circular hedge, and work our way clockwise going snip, snip, snip. Apparently, I did not snip fast enough, for Jones would always finish his semicircle before I’d gotten halfway through mine. With a concerned furrow in his patrician face, Jones would usually look up and advise that I work on my forearm strength so that I could improve my clipping. This way, I could become a better gardener. Over at the Inn, I spent my shifts not so much in the garden—which there existed in the back yard—but being of assistance indoors. Come breakfast each morning, I plated French omelets and poached eggs with Hollandaise sauce, served them to equally refined guests, and then dashed upstairs to help the matrons go through the motions. Figo had an

exhaustive checklist for recently-vacated lodgings. Housekeepers were expected to replace the sheets, vacuum the carpet, stock the Gilchrist and Soames soap, and effectively “reset” each room: carpets, blinds, decanter of port wine, and all—within the frame of half an hour. Something always went forgotten. One day in the third week of my internship, the housekeepers didn’t restock the toilet rolls. A perspiring man came bumbling into our office (which was also the kitchen), and kindly inquired where the paper could be found. All of the staff were present in the room, as we’d been preparing a late morning dessert. No one dared talk until Jones had swiftly escorted the guest toward the storage room, and their footsteps had faded into the plush carpeting of the hallway. Figo cleared his throat. He began, choosing his words as a surgeon would choose a scalpel, “Ginny…Edith…we cannot keep both of you employed if at every opportunity, every assignment…you insist on making these embarrassing mistakes. We at the Inn have taught you, repeatedly, to-” “-Figo I’ve had enough,” Ginny cried. She shook her head vigorously, as if panning for the hardships she’d endured over the last few weeks. This apparently also jogged some tears from her eyes, for she started weeping. “You’re crazy, Figo…this whole place is crazy. Screw your toilet rolls and room-service wine bullshit. I can’t do this anymore!” With that, she began picking at the knot that held her housekeeper’s apron together. This took a while; Ginny had a portly figure, one that filled her apron in such a way as to make the uniform hard to slip off. Meanwhile, I stood at the kitchen counter, plating what I thought was an exquisite presentation of fan-sliced honeydew and delightful 4

blueberries, freshly-picked from Maine. When Ginny had started her retirement speech, I’d considerately closed the service door between the kitchen and dining room. Presently, I basked in silent pride for having sheltered the guests and what should be their pristine dining experience. Beside me, Edith cussed and walked out to the parking lot to have a smoke. Later that day, back at the house, Figo knocked on my door. A usual occurrence—around magic hour, Figo would invite me to “walk and talk” around the property. This usually entailed me holding his wineglass as he surveyed the lawn, so that he could gesticulate wildly at “the gorgeous azaleas,” “the wonderful willows,” and “beautiful Zelda,” the basset hound who padded ahead of us on her four stumpy legs. “You did well today,” said Figo, as we left the house via the garage. “It was very mature of you to shut that door during that…episode.” I thanked him, and gratefully accepted his wineglass. As we made our way along the driveway, Figo complemented the setting sun, and successively, the flowers and trees that adorned his estate. I decided then that I rather liked this man; he was a perfectionist, but he duly appreciated perfection when he saw it. At the time, Plato’s Theory of Forms had never graced my mind. But even then, Figo clearly lived as an acolyte of some omnipresent purity. With those beady, avian eyes, he saw in every inn a perfect Inn, in every gardener a perfect Gardener, and in every garden a perfect Garden. Like Jones, he could readily identify and loved to snip, snip, snip the parts that looked wrong. Then I realized that he hadn’t run after Ginny when she’d strode out of the kitchen, never to return to the Inn. He hadn’t even tried to make her reconsider; she’d been a weed that had conveniently decided to

eradicate itself. Unlike Ginny, the porcupine we’d found on our walk was not willing to move. Figo had sighted it after cresting the hill, the prominent mound which oversaw the lawn panoramically. The porcupine’s brown back was hunched over the green grass; it presented an unromantic, slow-moving turd on the sunset landscape. Figo told me to get rid of it. For half an hour, I did nothing but throw palm-sized rocks at the creature. One skittered between its spikes and glanced off its back, leaving a maroon patch where there’d once been brown hide. Otherwise, I didn’t achieve much; the porcupine waddled to the ditch by the road, where it sat teasing the sweet ultimatum of a blunt strike. I jogged back, past the house to the toolshed—my armory, and selected a standard shovel. Hefting it with both arms, I returned to the porcupine to do the deed. By the road I stood, a darkening silhouette of a violent intention. I raised the spade. My first few strokes felt tentative, but they gave way to assurance once I cut into the flesh. My shadow grew more menacing as the sun averted its gaze. By the time I finished, a sheen of dark red coated the edges of my shovel. I didn’t want the tool to rust, so I rinsed it with water later that evening. Then I put it back in the shed, ready for more gardening the next day.

Two Sketches v Chris Lee

In Defense of Cats v Arianna Serafini

The majority1 of people in this country are dog people. When you mention to them that you like cats, the most common reaction involves a wrinkling of noses and a shaking of heads at you as if you’ve just announced that you bathe exactly once a month or that you don’t believe in ice cream. These reactions certainly have numbers on their side: self-proclaimed “dog people” outnumber “cat people” six-to-one according to one study.2 “Um,” these people say, as if stating the obvious, “dogs are a man’s best friend, not cats.” Asking these people why they do not like cats, or at the very least why they do not like cats as much as dogs, garners a variety of responses, from the overly general (“Cats are too aloof”) to the unreasonably specific (“Once, when I was five, my neighbor’s cat Lulu scratched me when I tried to swing it around in a circle by its tail”). The adjectives stereotypically associated with cats include selfish, vain, overly-independent, crafty, lazy – the list goes on and on. There’s no way around it: cats often get a bad rap. But most of the time, they don’t deserve it. Many of the negative claims made again them are simply unfounded, while other “negative” claims, upon closer consideration, turn out to be not so negative after all. All told, cats merit more than a lot of people give them credit for. One might even say they are the true underdogs of the animal world.3 A couple days ago I was in my friend’s apartment, ostensibly there

to visit her but in reality mostly there to visit the cats that currently occupy the same space. They are not her cats: she is only taking care of them for some friends of hers while they find a more permanent place to live. But they are cats nonetheless, so they make me happy. Sydney is fluffy, mostly black with cream-colored paws and stomach. She is the more hyperactive of the two. Mr. Pigs, a grey tabby, is sedate, calm, and measured. I pet his head gently as Sydney attacked a nearby chair, exposing her white belly as she twisted onto her back to give her claws a better grip on the wooden leg. Half watching the WWE fight that was playing silently on the TV above me, I lay next to the cats on top of the grey shag carpet that covers the floor of my friend’s living room, feeling at home and quite peaceful and slightly sleepy and, more than anything else, overwhelmingly content. Cats can have this effect on most people, if we’re willing to let them, excepting those who are allergic – even though mildly allergic people can still enjoy cats.4 To be near a cat, at least for me, is to be graced by the presence of a being who knows exactly what she wants. If she is sleeping peacefully next to you, her tiny pointed chin with its delicate whiskers resting on her equally tiny paws as her torso rises and falls with each petite breath, then she is sleeping there because she trusts you, and has designated you (for the time being) as someone who she

1 Or even arguably the vast majority. 2 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/29/cat-people-dog-people-intelligence_n_5412245.html 3 Which is ironic, right, because it’s underdogs?? Right?? No…? Well, okay then.

4 Actually, in my experience a lot of cat-haters are allergic to cats, and they lay the blame for this allergy entirely on the cats, which is relatively silly because the cats have had zero say in this.

is not loathe to be around. Cats have standards, as pretty much anyone who as ever interacted with a cat knows, which means that winning them over means something more significant – and is infinitely more rewarding – than receiving the affection of an animal known for its propensity to love unconditionally.5 Being around affectionate cats fills me with joy not just because a tiny, adorable creature is purring into my ear but also because that tiny, adorable creature has chosen me specifically whose ear they would like to purr into. I feel lucky – I might even go so far as to say blessed.6 I understand, though, that not everyone shares this viewpoint.7 But regardless of any one person’s individual affinity for cats, perhaps there are some things we can all learn from the cat – from my cats and from cats all around the world. I respect cats’ independence, their ability to, quite frankly, not give a shit. For probably thousands of years, cat owners must have wondered if their cats could understand when they were being called.8 Certainly, anecdotal evidence is inconclusive. I’ve 5 Of course, here, I’m talking about dogs. In fact, a dog’s complete and utter adoration of his owner is often viewed as a positive trait. “They’ll love you no matter what,” everyone says. And maybe that is what some people need sometimes – an animal that will only see the good in them, who will be happy to see them each and every day. But I’ve always questioned the authenticity of such relationships. As Josh Billings once said, “A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself,” and something about that rubs me the wrong way. 6 This fits well with the fact that cats consider themselves to be gods: “Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.” – Christopher Hitchens 7 And in the words of Kanye West, “I’m not here to convert atheists into believers.” 8 When I say thousands of years, I do in fact mean thousands of years. Ancient Egyptians, in particular, are famous for their relationship with cats. One of their gods, Bastet, was portrayed as a cat, and another god was said to have taken the form of a cat in order to vanquish a powerful evil serpent. When a cat

earnestly called my cat Owen thousands of times from only a couple feet away, my voice sing-song and my hands stretched out towards him and my eyes fixed on his, and while sometimes he’ll mewl in response and pad over to nuzzle his face against my hands, more often than not he’ll simply flick his ears at me and stay exactly where he is. Occasionally he’ll even walk in the other direction, tail held high as if to say, “Yeah, whatever.” And according to studies done recently, that’s not an inaccurate assumption: cats can understand their own names and can even distinguish their owners’ voices from those of strangers, but don’t always act on those recognitions.9 In other words, they operate under their own prerogative. Whether we admit it or not, almost everyone in this world is guilty of acting simply to please others or to gain approval (from bosses, friends, teachers, parents, anyone really). The cute guy in your Physics class mentions offhandedly that he likes the color green and you, for mysterious reasons, paint your nails emerald for the rest of the term.10 Don’t worry – I get it; we’ve all done similar things. This, however, just isn’t how cats roll. For them, the very fact of their existence is reason enough to be fed, to be pet, to be loved. I’m died, it was mummified with care just as the Egyptians themselves were, and their human family went into mourning. Killing or harming a cat in Ancient Egypt resulted in harsh penalties – possibly even the death sentence. An often-recalled story (which is probably more myth than fact) tells of a foreign army who won a battle against the Ancient Egyptians by putting cats on their front lines: the Egyptians were too afraid to harm the cats during the fighting so they instantly surrendered instead. In my opinion, Egyptians had the right idea about cats in general. (http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/cat.html) 9 http://blogs.discovery.com/bites-animal- planet/2013/12/study-shows- cats-understand- their-ownersbut-they-dont- care.html 10 Obviously, this is just an example that I’ve made up for the sake of illustration. But at risk of incriminating myself, I’ll admit that if the cute guy in my Physics class said something similar I’d be awfully tempted to act in the same way.

sure that’s what my other cat, Ying, would tell us if she could talk every time she jumps up onto our family room couch next to my mother, who is busy drafting (and redrafting and re-redrafting) agreements. Dainty, elegant, and acutely inconsiderate, Ying traipses across the sea of papers and legal pads until she is staring directly into Mom’s tired blue eyes. “Pet me!” she demands in a series of earnest meows, threading her lithe black body in between Mom and her laptop.11 My mom obliges, understanding that resistance is futile, because Ying knows that she deserves it. Not on any special grounds – it’s not as if my cat has played a long game of fetch or performed a challenging sequence of tricks – but rather because she cannot fathom any reason why she would not deserve love and attention. So I ask you, the next time you are around a cat, to take some notes. Watch the way he silently sashays into the room, at once unobtrusive and self-assured. As he curls up in the perfect patch of sunshine and begins grooming himself, notice the time he takes with his movements, how he luxuriates both in the warmth of the light and in his ritual of self-care. Observe, too, the ways he conveys love and appreciation: an unprompted nuzzling of a human’s leg, a low and unceasing purr, a dead bird dropped proudly in front of his owner’s feet – the only material gift a cat knows how to give. Once you’ve paid attention for a while, you’ll see it’s not that cats are not entirely selfish; instead, it’s that they simply believe that they are worth it, that they deserve the good things in life on the basis of their existence. If you’re like most of us, you’ve been trained your entire life to ask 11“Cats can work out mathematically the exact place to sit that will cause most inconvenience.” – Pam Brown

why, to question any fleeting thought you may entertain that you deserve those things too. But the next time you have doubts about your own worth, about your rights to love or recognition, companionship or happiness, take a step back. Instead of asking why, consider the cat and ask why not. For a cat, being herself is enough justification. For you, perhaps being yourself is more than enough too.

Spotted & Wild Dog v Katya Scocimara

Digging v Eric Tang “Here .Yes, right here.” “This side of the hill?” I ask. “Yes.Yes, this is it. It will be beautiful in the spring.” It should be spring already, but winter still holds on. Flowers and grass are barely breaking through the frost; the cemetery’s hills and stones are encased in thin white sheets of crunching snow and slippery ice, save for small oases of grass. I can’t imagine how Seamus made it around this place without breaking a bone. “Here it is, then.” I mark the spot by sinking a wooden post into the mud. The woman smiles a little, looking out at the expanse of graying snow. Past the fence are the neighborhood houses, their paint fading into shades of brown and green. The old folks’ home is a few blocks further down, soft light glowing in its windows, and the movie theater limps along nearby, though trash rolls along the sidewalk outside them. Nestled among the houses, the cozy space of Walker’s Pub is just opening up for the afternoon. The building’s facades are all peeling, losing color, growing old and sagging under their own weight. Then Parks, beyond them. The lights are still out over there. The woman shifts a little. She is rubbing her necklace between two fingers, as if its pendant could keep her warm. “He’ll love looking out from this hill. Thank you, sir.” “Just doing what I can, ma’am.You’re very welcome.” A long pause, as wind rolls through. I notice the necklace which

the woman’s wearing: a silver snowflake, on a silver chain. Her hair is graying, and wrinkles crease her cheeks every time she smiles. I wonder how long she’s lived in the city. “Have you always worked here?” she asks. “No,” I say. I scuff my boot along the snow, and point my gloved hand upwards at the fifth floor of Parks Hospital. The whole building is dark and boarded up, but it still stands as the tallest building north of midtown, a hulking monolith overlooking the other darkened streets and houses. “I used to work up there.” *** The woman leaves soon after, and I trudge back across the grounds, past the rows of stone markers, past the looming vault which I’m set to open up any day now. Stomping the snow off my boots at the door, I now part the curtain that leads to the preservation room. Seamus used to help out in the preservation room, and I miss the kid — made things less lonely here. He was learning, too: used to watch every single thing I did as I tempered the bodies. And he could dig, fast. Still, I can handle the embalming on my own; I’ve done this a thousand times. Gloves, gown, start mixing fluid. Massage out the dead man’s rigor mortis. Incise the carotid artery, start pumping fluid. I ask Seamus to pass me the trocar, before realizing I have to grab it on my

own. Sponge, cream, suture incision. Copy the patient’s name into my log: Arthur Rein . Last touches, final checks — all done. It takes a little under two hours, but it goes like clockwork if you don’t mess up. Besides, the job has its moments. I go to most of their funerals, transporting the casket and all, and the best moment was when one father got up from his chair and hugged me, whispering in my ear. “She looks like she could dance,” the father said. And yet it’s not the same as being a surgeon. Back up there, on the top of Parks, fathers would hug you because their daughters really could dance. Here, all we can do is preserve their memories. *** “Ay, how is it, Gabriel?” Walker asks, his grimy dishrag midway through polishing a glass, his chiptoothed smile welcoming me from behind the counter. I take my seat at the bar. Evening’s coming along now. “Could be worse. Had to fire Seamus yesterday, though.” “Ah, shit,” Walker says. He sets down a dark tumbler of bourbon in front of me. “Smart lad, that one was — he’ll make something out of himself, won’t he?” I nod. “Might even make it out of this place.” I gave Seamus all my old college textbooks as a parting gift; couldn’t get him nicer stuff. Barely enough money left to even pay him. There are no couples in the bar today. There’s no groups of friends, no pals out for an afterwork beer. Every one of them is alone, at their own round tables, staring at the bottom of their glasses and swirling their drinks. There’s not even a view anymore — Walker’s bar used to have a

second floor, then he downsized, had to come downstairs. Cramped, but it feels like home. Walker looks around then leans over the counter close to me, putting down his glass for a moment. “Look, speaking of this place — listen to me, Gabe.You’re a lucky bastard: good head, good schooling and all. A surgeon , for chrissake, and you’re drinking in this” he coughs, almost chokes on his own saliva, “in this deadend pub, in this deadend city. Why ‘aven’t ya upped and left?” I stare down at the amber glass. “I’ve been thinking about it . . . it’s hard. Want to get out sometimes. But I got a wife here, kids.” “Then move ‘em,” Walker suggests. “Plenty of hospitals would take ya.” Cat, Sayid, Penelope they all thought the same, moved out months ago. The whole city hasn’t got a single one of my old colleagues . “Other hospitals,” I say, “They’ve got plenty of doctors. But here — if Parks opens back up, who’s gonna be here?” Walker runs his fingers through his beard. I down the rest of my glass and wave away the second one that Walker is bringing me. I don’t want to get drunk — I want to finish the job right. “Last thing, Gabriel,” Walker says, polishing glasses as I rise from my chair. “If yah’ve fired Seamus, who digs the graves?” I pull on my two jackets, heading for the door. “I do.” *** After emerging from Walker’s, I make my way back to the graveyard, through the evening’s quiet orange sundown. I grab the shovel from my office and walk to the hill with the wooden post. This is the first one.

Cold air. The breath from my mouth swirls in vapor. The shovel feels cold, heavy, unfamiliar in my arms. Then I hear footsteps, coming softly across the hard paths. In the faint orange light, I can make out a woman walking through the graveyard. As she comes closer, I realize it’s Ms. Rein, her grey coat flapping in the wind as she moves towards me. She comes all the way up the hill until she is standing next to me, as I stare at the ground with unwilling hands. I shake my head. What am I now? Surgeon tumbling from the fifth floor to the mortuary’s office and then here, out in the cold dirt. I don’t save them anymore — just bury them. “Mr. Santiago,” Ms. Rein says, grabbing my shoulder. “I just want you to know . . . what you’re doing means a lot. Having a place where I know he is — a place I can go, where I know that he’ll be — that means the world.” My hands are shaking, fumbling with the shovel between my fingers as I drive it towards the dirt — Maybe one day I’ll save another life. Maybe one day the lights will flare back on in the hospital, and the crowds will roar at Chrysler Park, and shops will hum and we’ll feel alive again. One day, maybe, our kids will dance.Yet until then I am here, shoveling my spade through the earth, carving out the final resting place of Arthur Rein and the rest of us to come. I am just digging, through ice and dirt and decay, searching beneath the rubble for their home and mine.

clutching//restless

v Peter Duff

Heaven Beside You v Majestic Terhune “Best safety lies in fear.” - Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3 Tornado seasons emerges from the one-oh-oh percent, hot ‘n heavy humidity of June and July. Brushing against apartments on television, combing through Heaven’s alfalfa fields, tonight’s storm slinks towards the front porch. Sirens wail electric warnings across abandoned roads and under naked skin. Electrons from lightning or ley lines or loss of levity charge the ether, churning the world above bruise plum and green, banishing bluebirds, and panting promises of ruin. Wind tears lawn chair from lawn, rain consumes sock and skin, and electricity abandons the neighborhood to blackness and the bruise above. Almost there, taunts the twister and I am alone and I slide atop stalks of grass, slipping down the Easy Descent from front door to cement-gutter-safety, but gutters turn to riverbeds in under thirty minutes and I. Know. It. The tempest takes all. Plunging each foot into liquid chaos, I enter into the drainage Pit, torrents tugging at the weakness in my knees, scoffing at the sight of decade-old flesh fighting nature whilst the added gravity of wet denim sucks me closer to the Fall and I battle into the clogged drainage pipe, my sole shelter on a street devoid of basements. Soggy, strong, silent, the rainfall reaches my knees, the burning cold rainfall reaches my hips. Your fear smells of sulfur. Reaching my shoulders, the whirlpool splashes grit-water down the back of my throat and I gasp, choking on silt and sandstone and

biting down on Paradise’s tears. Hail, horrors, hail. The cyclone twists my body, gripping sleeves nails hair air shoes and will as the world pushes against my skeleton, creaking bones and rattling and shaking until I give up the gutter grip, permitting the water to yank me out into the ranks of dead, beheaded ash trees along the riverbank where homes that were once absent of basements are now absent and into the riverbed’s rift I am dragged deeper deeper deeper deeperdeeperdeepdeeepdeep. The second death is here.

Triptych v Grace Huang

The Sun Rose Rust and Gold v Zea Eanet The sun rose rust and gold over the mountain. Down below, far beneath the trees with leaves that cut like knives if you let them, the people were already beginning their work. They were tiny and they toiled endlessly, and endlessly the little house watched them. It saw them every day, weights on their shoulders and worries on their backs, as they beat their work-paths into the soft ground. Their feet, sometimes bare, sometimes coated in hard leather but most often wrapped in rags, made something almost like a sound to the house that could not hear them. They were all right, the house decided, looking at their paths, pale trails that generations loved with their soles and sweat and souls. The little people far below, who hid from the leaves of the trees when the hurricanes blew, they were all right. The house was all right too. It had been on the mountain for as long as it knew, and time passed by it like a breeze that had no beginning and no end. There were people inside the house, sometimes. It felt them, warm and half-real in the morning and cold on the skin at night. They squirmed back to life between the bedsheets when the sun touched them, like the orange worms that wriggle inside the buds of jewelweed plants and can be kept inside a sealed jar for days because they barely need any oxygen. Sometimes there were two people that lived in the house, sometimes one, sometimes none. Once there had been two people and then all of a sudden three, but the house knew what was right and quickly there had been two again. And don’t think that the house didn’t care about the people, don’t

ever think that. The house loved the tiny things that thrived in it because what kind of house would it be if it didn’t? It had been built, after all, by human hands that human feet had carried on pale paths up the mountain. Stone by stone, human hands had brought the house to life, sleeping against the rubble in the night and shaking themselves slowly back to work with the sun. The embryonic, roughstone house had cared for its creators even before it was a house. The house cared. But the house knew what was right, and what was right was an eating room and a sleeping room and two people or one person (because one brought a second soon enough) and the sun and work and the mountain and the leaves that cut like knives if you let them. It was right for a house to watch the people on their way to work and it was right for the people to come back to the house when the nights got cold and they wanted to hold each other and be held. And so, every day from the unimaginable beginning to the unforeseeable end the sun rose rust and gold over the mountain, and the house on the mountain felt its presence and watched as every pair of soft, squirming people kissed each other and walked through the trees and cried over everything and worked and from working, had everything. And every evening the house opened its doors when the current pair of writhing lovers sought entrance, and every morning the house rocked them back awake and wished them well in a quiet, termite-eaten way. And every hundred years, and every million years, and every year and every month and every day the house recognized the souls that climbed the

mountain and the soles of their feet on the floor that was dirt and wood and tile and linoleum, and every morning the sun was rust and gold and the house was older and older. And when the unforeseeable end finally came to call, the sun still rose and the house was still stone, but stone that had long since rocked its way into dust. And the unforeseeable end came in and made itself at home and after a moment there were no more people to follow the sunlight down pale paths to work and there was no more morning to melt them awake and no more house to watch them go.

Untitled v Wendi Yan

ii. Love â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is how we loved: a knife on the tongue turning into a tongue.â&#x20AC;? - Ocean Vuong

To Love v Zaidee Laughlin I loved him like a stone skipping over water. I loved him like a thoroughbred thundering around a track. I loved him like soft lines drawn on backs with fingernails. I adored him from the moment he sat down beside me on the lawn and his knee landed on my sun-stained thigh. The hairs on his legs were bleached golden against his brown skin, and he looked like a boy used to blues skies above his head. He smiled at the people tossing frisbees and footballs, as if the scene pleased him more than the individual players. When he looked over at me and introduced himself, his voice radiated somewhere within me as a sound I had never heard, but had always longed for. We talked about our homes and our families, and he felt like mine. I loved him when he stood outside my door in his father’s old sweater and waited patiently as I calmed myself in the mirror, before walking out and seeing once again his dark eyes, this time illuminated by a streetlight. He made me feel safe as we walked down the path into the sleepy town, and when he took my hand I clung to his arm with my other. He entertained me with stories about his little brothers and his middle school friends—inconsequential things that, because he was saying them, meant the world to me. When he finally stopped under a lamppost by the river and kissed me, it was like finally take a full breath. I lusted after him when we climbed the stairs to my soft, warm room. He let his fingers linger on my hips as I stepped. Finally behind a locked door, he held my waist so strongly I felt weightless. Lightning

sparked in the space between our skin as he pulled my shirt over my head, leaving me open to him. I wanted to be. I felt at home. I lusted after him as he put his lips on my body like no one ever had before, with raging affection and gentle passion. I have never had someone so close to me. When we were finished, he continued to hold me, and I melted once again into love, clasping his hands around my soft stomach. I loved him every time he yelled. I loved him when I yelled back and we raged against each other in our own volcanic atmosphere. I loved him when he said the words he knew would hurt the most, and when he instantly apologized, knowing, obviously, they had already done their job. I loved him when he fell quiet and asked if I would please leave over and over as I sat still on the edge of his bed. I loved him every time he kissed me angrily, because I could taste the passion and desire on his teeth. I loved him when our thunder would settle and we would be left only with the smell of rain on warm cement. I desired him more than I desired to breathe. I longed for him as I watched him pack up his things to leave our home. I loved him as he planned to fly across the ocean. I loved him as he looked at me with his dark eyes that made my lungs melt and told me that we would not cease. I believed him. I longed for him as I looked around and saw him in all the places he had ever been—all the places I would have to be without him. I loved him as he left. We talked everyday. We talked about things that didn’t matter, because we had run out of things that did. Then we talked every night,

saying words of encouragement and adoration before closing our eyes in our separate hemispheres. Then we talked only when we had the time to manage the weight of helplessness that would sit in our chests when we thought of each other. We talked every couple of days, until I looked back over the vignettes of our life together and realized it was never going to return. I loved him out of desperation as I ended our course. As I broke up with my computer screen and introduced myself back into the real world. I loved him like the aftertaste of an acid trip. I loved him like a bass drop. I loved him like a stone sinking smoothly.

Two Dresses v Ivy Tran

Untitled v Ariel Kim `She was secure in the miniature world she had built; the two other men seemed distant planets, each in his own sphere of memory and solitude. – Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient, page 47

since, you know, it doesn’t actually begin there. But it also doesn’t always crawl up. Sometimes, it stays low around your ribcage, wreaking havoc on the soft tissue there. A cardiac sphincter.

Odette/Odile honest fiction: but what she wished had happened

Tums are good as a quick fix. 750 Extra Strength, assorted fruit – even better are the peppermint, 1000 Ultra Strength. They’re gluten free, too. Just calcium carbonate in milligram doses. But no more than ten in a twenty-four hour period. But. “She was always hungry.” (50) In the spaces between midnight and dawn. It was there we discovered that “some people you just had to embrace, in some way or another, had to bite into the muscle, to remain sane in their company.You needed to grab their hair and clutch it like a drowner so they would pull you into their midst.” (48) And as I opened to him, the chlorine whispered, “Nothing will kill you.You are pure carbon.” (109) Ilhan!

The basement, dry, the laundry room damp with lingering traces of bleach. He offers me the world with a single kiss on my nose. “I’m never going to find another you.” Painfully. Almost easy. I lean up on my tiptoes to brush our lips together. My skin remembers his, recalls his warm breath at the base of my neck, my mouth against his shirt. A tingle blossoms as he, clumsy fingers run through damp hair, his kisses dance down the curve of my spine… Small hands clutching at his sides. A hipbone against her diaphragm. He is a swimmer. He swims, drenched. Forearms, shoulders hunched and ankles turned out. Breaststroke. She is a dancer, and “she move[s] back and forth at [his] desire.” (52) She cannot swim. Not in chlorine. Cl–. In water, Cl2, an atomic number 17. He was seventeen. She fell in love with him first. Swallowed by the remnants of treated water clinging to his shoulders, the lingering peppermint on his breath when he came home from the pool. Heartburn has a way of soaking up, up, up and into your actual heart,

“You were supposed to hold onto me!”“I did.Till you moved away.” “How long did you hold me?” “Until you moved. Until you needed to move.” (105) First love. It draws you in, uses you, glorious and gentle, a little angry but mostly confused, and never really quite satisfied. Expectant but guilty. Hesitant. “Don’t do anything stupid,” it whispers. All the while waiting. Waiting for a moment of weakness, a split-second when she will slip, and fall, fall, fall into his arms again. “There was something about him she wanted to learn, grow into, and hide in, where she could turn away from being an adult.

Lips v Ivy Tran There was some little waltz in the way he spoke to her and the way he thought.” (52) She sits on the floor of their room. Stripped down to his shorts, a pale yellow bra. Thinking. What do you do when someone offers you the world? He walks in. Tchaikovsky’s music swells around them, the haunting wail of the oboe swirling within the cushion of the cellos’ and violas’ longing vibrato.

Cinnamon v Bella Alvarez the carnage of your innocence came in the form of a tray of cinnamon muffins, warm and gooey. you came down the stairs as the scent spiraled up from the oven and filled the whole house with a pleasant aroma. they didn’t warn you about this, but you could infer things from the silence. like when they thought you were asleep but instead your eyes glinted in the darkness, staying up every night to to listen to the words that cut like knives. his eyes are watering and her voice is wavering and this is the first time you’ve seen your parents vulnerable, jugulars exposed to the lions of lost love. she tells you in a quiet voice that they care about you no matter what but we’re getting a divorce. words are on the tip of your tongue but you can’t make sense of them and instead you reach for one of the muffins. the cinnamon is spicy and sharp, softened with a hint of vanilla. years later you’re in a bakery and you notice a fresh batch of cinnamon muffins, and you find yourself staring at your reflection in a cracked mirror, watching the streams of jet black mascara drip down your face.

Head in the Clouds & Restricted v Heather Nelson

Thermal v Ellie Ward what i wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t give to have sticky skin stench of summer running along my hipbone take a dip, take a sip, Coca-Cola commercial kind of air. that anti-air- conditioner kind of air. that syrupy night kick my blankets off windows open motorcycles roar by sleep on the sofa with the cousin and the dog sleep alone except for the moth on your ceiling and the late sun sunk down kind of black night, with the blinds rustling and the fan on. I dream in heat, my body curling to leave its signature your body curling to match me. wait, who are you? how did you invade my poem, my dream, my georgia peach of a warm dream - with children running around the porch where we sit and drink iced tea to fend off the heat as we watch them skinning in the brown mud wait, why has your dream covered mine? this was perfectly pleasant, like the press of our warm bodies until you looked at me, held me with your eyes and I let you inside. opened my screen door so you could share my shade. borrow a cup of sugar, I am your neighbor let you sleep inside me, all the while knowing that you would wake, unaware of your dreaming and of my emptiness without you.

Vivi v Maya Kim

iii. Mourning â&#x20AC;&#x153;Mostly I have felt myself becoming a servant of sadness. I am still looking for the beauty in that.â&#x20AC;? -Maggie Nelson

Rebreathing v Meghan Chou His mother built the crib by hand With freshcut wood, sanded and a new feather cot — Cigarettes forfeited to be bought. His fists dragged what she ignited. Stubbed sacraments: Crayon and Camel packs, alike — These repurposed candles and menthol sticks, Palpated with a spark and lighter fluid, Whittled, alight in the air. Guiding white smoke Past his unfiltered mouth. Baptized below his mother’s crucifix — Jesus’ feet toying in the meniscus Of gingered water; Jesus’ palms grasping At crisscrossed gaspers, An addict — he drank Adam’s tainted ale. But purified tap could not cure his ailments: the apnea, the broken Neurons — contracted from his mother’s sin. She feared he would choke if he slept On his back. The cotton bedspread Smelt of tobacco A witness to his mother’s kowtows

Never to be outgrown, he never grew older Imperceptible wisps turned his lungs into those of a smoker. He was unknown, unmade, undiscovered And spoke not a single word. What might he have thought As his exhales became inhales? And deep, deep sleep claimed His unwoken eyes — Homegrown from prenatal to cradle. She found him blue, almost purple, a figurine Dipped in cold violet to make his luster opaline. She scrubbed his face with nicotine soaked fingers, but the purple was not spilled wine. “Oh Sidney! Sidney!” she cried, “Please, go Back to Sleep.”

“Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move/Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove” v Ruby Fludzinski

MICHAEL BROWN IS SHOT AND KILLED IN FERGUSON v Wynter Tracey (one) soggy baltimore sits on my skin like a plague. i tried lying on my bedroom floor, face-down in the blue carpet (two) imagining bullet wounds like badges down my head and shoulders; what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like to lie for hours, four hours in the sun-baked veins of missouri. (three) i could not squeeze into their white skin like i did sperries and so i hid my blackness in the plaid folds of my uniform skirt.

Darryl Hunt & Charles Ray Finch v Nico Coleman

There Are Distances Between Us v Carissa Chen i. The human brain is the most complicated and unreliable mystery of the known universe. There are more neurons in a single brain than there are stars in the Milky Way. There are two infinities - stars and synapses, polar but parallel - and between them, a space for you and me. This space exists and breathes in ways we will never fully understand, but it is here and in this moment, it is the space between your blue and my brown, both eyes blinking. Once, I woke and mistook the white walls of my dorm room for skin. Everything pulsing. Breaking flakes. I thought of the white and the layers of paint and brick and mud and air it covered.Years before, there had been an incident involving beer cans and a car and, after, I watched my sister’s brain painted, plastered white. Memories like flakes. She stopped sleeping. Her skin paled. That winter was bitter. The hail was endless. Some family time, maybe a year away from school, they decided would be good. My sister’s task was to design the new living room. My parents gave us a brush and twenty dollars and my sister and I started painting the walls a violent blue. We carried tin cans and wore surgical masks to keep away paint fumes. ii. I was young and didn’t understand why she chose that color, but when I look at your eyes now, I know. Blue is the color of surrender and by the time we finished the walls, my sister cut off all her hair and bought herself a new jade necklace. Wore it like a name. I could never tell if it was fake, from one of those penniless vendors in Chinatown. Every night, when I go to sleep, I think of your eyes. I think of all the colors that separate us, all the atoms and odds and numbers between us. I think

of the prayer verses my mom reads in the car and then I think of you and our breasts and your eyes and it shocks me - the clarity of the pulse of a heart, the intensity of emotions that defy brains and bibles and beliefs. I will not tell you I love you. Those words need space and time. They do not exist easily. In a photo album, there is a picture of me in a hospital gown smiling with a tube hooked over my lips. I have no recollection of the memory except for the blue hospital gown. When I was young, I used to study my sister’s book on anatomy and galaxies and black holes and brains, and I now understand what it means to defy. To defy is the scar running down my chest in the photo. I imagined gloved hands once pumped and molded my heart there until it beat and beat and beat again. iii. My sister is an optometrist. She is always concerned with clarity, the way light bends. The marvels of the body are mundane and endless. I do know this, however: there are ways we can connect. Neurons and comets are made of the same atoms as eyes and aortic valves. There must be a space where we could do more than hold hands against plaster white walls. There must be a way we could look to the color blue and say, look, we are here.

Threaded v Mei-An Nolan

Father Tea v Alex Zhang Black My father drinks only darkness. I am five. On winter nights, we sit together in the screened porch and watch the stars with mugs clenched between palms. His breath forces steam from the cup’s edge and into the bitter air. I bring my face close to my tea and inhale the scent—sharp and acrid. Beside me, I hear my father slug gulp after gulp; I fence the full cup between my fingers until it’s cold. Green I remember the sensation of coarse leaves splintering against my tongue. On my first trip to China at the age of six, we attend an all-family dinner; tea arrives with the meal in place of water. Thirsty, I tug my mother’s grey sweater and gesture to my throat. She reaches across the table and grasps the handle of the communal pot. I peer through the open lid, asking where the teabags are. She chuckles, lifts my porcelain cup, and fills it to the brim. The leaves float like miniature boats in a steaming pool of algae.

sugar that my mouth floods with cavities by the time I am nine. On the way back from the dentist, my father yells at me in Chinese: “How are you this stupid? You only have one set of teeth.” The entire time, his tea-stained incisors—off yellow—dip with each word. Oolong People might think this is “authentic” tea, but it’s only something you sip in the Japanese section of Epcot at Disney World. My family visits the theme park to celebrate my tenth birthday. The trip ends early. We leave after my father argues with the waiter and demands we go to another restaurant, one with real tea—Chinese tea. The lights of the park vanish in the rearview mirror while tears run down my cheeks. My mother holds my hand, softly sings Happy Birthday. My father frowns into the windshield at the black pavement rushing past. He turns up the radio. I taste only salt. White It might as well be water; you might as well not drink tea at all.

Red

Yellow

By the time I am eight, I have developed an addiction for bing hong cha, which translates to “iced red tea.” It’s the Lipton of China, so drenched in

My grandfather consumes only yellow tea. We visit him in Shanghai when I’m thirteen; I recall my parents arguing the night before.

“You have to see him, he’s your father,” my mother reasons.

Jasmine

“He was no father to me.” I hear the slam of his fist as it lands firm on a tabletop.

Every day, I visit a local coffee shop and order a twelve-ounce cup of Jasmine tea. The smiling barista hands me a delicate white timer set for three minutes, though most days I leave the bag steeped long after the beeps, the way father likes it. I will never tell him though.

The next day, we lurch through traffic until we reach my grandfather’s yellowing stone apartment. Inside, I sit on the living room carpet and play with a blue toy truck he gives me. In the kitchen, a kettle screams and my father rushes to turn the burner down. He drops the pot; I hear the crash of the metal against tile. “How are you still this stupid?” my grandfather hollers in Chinese from his rocking chair. My father mutters as he wipes with towels that stain piss-yellow. We don’t visit again until years later. Mint I develop an obsession for mint tea in high school after the purchase of a shiny, chrome Keurig.

Lavender My mother is a fan of delicate teas, a category that encompasses everything bearing the names of flowers. On her birthday in March, I boil a fresh pot of Lavender tea. But walking to the dining room table, my feet stumble and the clay pot shatters on the wooden floor. The liquid seeps into the cracks and the room fills with the scent of summer. My father stomps across the room; he chucks paper towels at me, yells into my ear. My mother pulls him away gently by the arm and I sop up the mess in silence.

In October, my father calls me to complain about my Amazon purchases. “Why the hell would you order mint tea? I don’t understand.” I struggle to comprehend his rushed Chinese. “Remember your roots,” he spits before hanging up.

Pu’er

The next week, an aged gray teakettle arrives along with three packs of foreign green leaves wrapped in Mandarin labels I cannot read.

I am seventeen. Some breaks, I return home to find my father has unearthed the faded pu’er tin from the upper cabinets and left it open on the counter. In the confines of the screened porch, he peers out into the darkness with a scalding cup firm in his hand. There is no son at his side.

Real black tea—it’s fermented, bitter, aged, and the color of winter midnights.

The Space Between Two Names v Carissa Chen I glance back one last time before proceeding up the stairs to my mother calling welcome. Sun Sometimes I imagine my relationship with my father as a cup of tea—a cup of sun tea. It’s prepared by steeping tea leaves in a jar of tap water and leaving the mixture to bask in the sun. In most cases, however, the rays are not enough to kill the bacteria. The concoction festers until no longer identifiable—the surface rankled with off-white globs, the color decayed to septic brown. This is our father-son drink. I don’t want to think about the taste. I am trying to find the words to say he was too bitter.