Sheepshead Review

University of W isconsin -­ Green Bay’s Jour nal of the Arts

Spring 2009

To our readers, It’s hard for me to believe that I have been with Sheepshead Review’s staff for three years. But when I think about how much I have learned about the publishing process, writing, art, and myself, I’m even more amazed that so much could be accomplished in such a short time. When I first joined Sheepshead Review’s staff in the fall of 2006, the journal was a black and white publication. Now with this issue, my last, we are publishing in full color and featuring more artists than ever before. Much like the repurposing and reinvention of the raccoon skeleton in Greta Jordan’s Rising Phoenix Awardwinning “Reincarnation,” which appears on the cover of this issue, Sheepshead Review continues to redefine itself, ever-evolving and growing into something new.

Every spring, Sheepshead Review sponsors the Rising Phoenix contest which showcases the best works of the UW-Green Bay community in visual arts, fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Congratulations to this semester’s winners: Greta Jordan for “Reincarnation,” Jesse Stratton for “That Abandonment Called Adventure,” and Sheepshead Review’s first double winner, Jean-Marie Mayer, for both “The Cat that Hopscotched Back Through Time” and “God Does Not Play Dice.” Sheepshead Review is proud to publish their work.

When I considered whom we should approach to judge the Rising Phoenix contest this semester, I had lofty dreams: a nationally acclaimed author, an innovative educator, an award-winning syndicated editorial cartoonist, and the Wisconsin Poet Laureate. I’d have been amazed if even one of these talented individuals accepted. So, imagine my enthusiasm when they all graciously said yes! To this powerhouse of Rising Phoenix judges — Erin McGraw, Carolyn Kott Washburne, Joe Heller, and Marilyn L. Taylor: thank you for your time, expertise, and reflections on our winners. Your generosity has allowed our students unprecedented entry into a professional world of artists.

Over the past several semesters, it has become tradition for Sheepshead Review to publish an interview with a respected artist. Many editors go prematurely gray worrying about securing an interview: Whom shall we approach? What if they decline? Will this be the semester that the tradition is broken? Happily, I can announce that the tradition continues, thanks to Marissa Thayer and Adam Balz, whose interviews with award-winning authors John Smolens and Philip Lopate are featured in this issue. We are especially grateful to these authors for sharing their insights with our readers.

Thank you to all the writers and artists that submitted to this issue of Sheepshead Review; without your creativity and unique voices, this journal would not be possible. I would also like to thank everyone that worked on the journal — I could not have imagined a better or more talented staff to work with. To our enthusiastic adviser, Dr. Rebecca Meacham: thank you for giving us the freedom to explore and try new things (for better or worse) and for having faith in our abilities.

Sheepshead Review has been growing, shifting and evolving for over three decades. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to page through an issue of the journal from those early days, you may not recognize it as being the same journal you now hold. But the basic underlying structure remains; in its bones, it is still a journal of the arts dedicated to publishing quality works from the UW-Green Bay campus and surrounding communities. It has been, and always will be, staffed, managed, and produced by UW-Green Bay students. Although this issue of the journal marks my departure, the experiences I’ve had and the lessons I’ve learned as a member of this amazing staff are among those that I will treasure forever. I am truly honored to have been part of the journal’s history, and I look forward to seeing the next incarnation of Sheepshead Review.

Thank you,

Christopher Delmont Editor-in-Chief Sheepshead Review

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Letter from the Editor

Staff

Fiction Editor

Adviser

Fiction Staff

Dr. Rebecca Meacham

Editor-in-Chief Christopher Delmont

Assistant Editors-in-Chief Saul Lemerond Jennifer Stallsmith

Managing Editor Jennifer Stallsmith

Assistant Managing Editor Jenna Rommelfaenger

Paul LaBrosse

Amber Bassett Meghan Everett Kathryn Myers Mary Straviski

Poetry Editor Amanda Klukas

Poetry Staff

Hilary Bullock Clarissa Carroll Nick Reilly Jenna Rommelfaenger

Layout Editor

Nonfiction Editor

Assistant Layout Editor

Nonfiction Staff

Chris Livieri

Jaclyn Zwerg

Chief Copyeditor Christine DeNardis

Assistant Copyeditors Amanda Klukas Jennifer Stallsmith Andrew Wienke Clarissa Carroll

Promotional Director Hilary Bullock

Web Editor

Christine DeNardis

Staff

Mindi Vanderhoof James Grogan Kyle Hynes Sarah Rades Andrew Wienke

Visual Arts Co-editors Ashley Borman Chris Livieri

Visual Arts Staff Jessica Engman Jane Fletcher Leah Korger Michael McCormack Paul Mee Julia Syrjala Brenda Zayas Jaclyn Zwerg

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God Does Not Play Dice Jean-Marie Mayer

Nonfiction

8 10 12 16 21 26 27 29 35 39 41

The Cat That Hopscotched Back Through Time Jean-Marie Mayer That Abandonment I Call Adventure Jesse Stratton Reincarnation Greta Jordan

At Peace Saul Lemerond The Unstoppable Robert Jensen Monster Kathryn Myers SHC Jennifer Sternitzky The Itch Saul Lemerond Queen of Cups Meghan Everett The Survivor Andrew Stimpson

Poetry

Fiction

Rising Phoenix

Contents

43 47 52 55 60 63 64 65 66 68 69 70 71

Hospital Hero Kyle Hynes Self-Portraits: An Interview with Phillip Lopate Adam Balz Grandma and Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow Barbara Byron

Michigan Frost: An Interview with Writer John Smolens Marissa Thayer A Wife’s Tale: Or A Really Smart Husband Stephanie Arnold Dead boy Theresa Warner Pinned Clarissa Carroll Untitled Jean-Marie Mayer Munchausen’s Hilary Bullock Intersecting the Wolf River Jesse Stratton Dance of the Mechanical Men Stephanie Arnold Vicarious Andrea Frederick Trick Daniel Beckwith

Contents

Visual Arts

72 73 74 75 76 78 80 82 83 85 86 87 88 89 90

Contents

Riding the Tide Mary Mattson Extra Baggage Samantha Parker Hip-Hop Generator Zachary Taylor New Experiences Pt. #1: Hot Tub Kellen Holden HERE...

Russell Brickey Deserted Mary Mattson Preparations Amanda Klukas Question Vanessa Smith Exploring the Body Clarissa Carroll Bike the Zoo Andrew Linskens File Life Abraham Clark Grandma Marian Molly Keyser Rest Leah Korger Untitled Ice Molly Keyser Life of the Party Hilary Bullock

91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105

The Stall Adam Koenig Patience Leah Korger Bomb Dragon Andrew Linskens Twelve Thirty Kate Helein Another One for the Collection Chris Livieri Café con Leche Abby Bergsma Wilted Kate Helein The Downfall Leah Korger This Sunset Could be That Bullet to Your Head Matthew Becker Heaven’s Mirror Chloe Scheller

Bomb Swing Andrew Linskens All in a Day’s Work Jessica Engman Bleu Ann Miller Simplicity’s Charm Chloe Scheller Home Mark Schindel

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Rising Phoenix Winners

Every spring since 2003, Sheepshead Review has held the Rising Phoenix Contest which honors the best submissions in both writing and visual arts as judged by locally and nationally esteemed artists from the Midwest.

This year, entries judged for the contest came from staff, students and alumni of UW–Green Bay. We showcase four winners each spring: one in visual arts, one in fiction, one in nonfiction and one in poetry. For the first time in Sheepshead Review history, the submissions of one student were selected as the winner in two categories.

As always, the writing winners are displayed at the beginning of the journal and the visual arts winner is featured on the cover. This issue includes the insights of all three winners along with the judges’ comments on the pieces.

God Does Not Play Dice

Jean-Marie Mayer

Writer’s Comments: “God Does Not Play Dice” was an assignment to write a science poem. I’ve recently become fascinated with physics and especially with the mindset you need to understand it. A physicist’s brain is a strange, strange place. I found Schrodinger’s cat experiment particularly mind-boggling, as all it proves is that what we don’t know is uncertain. As beneficial as physics has been to creating our modern world, I think it’s all rather silly.

Poetry Judge’s Comments: The most memorable element of this excellent, intelligent poem is the irresistible voice of its speaker. There’s a confidence here, a certain inherent authority of tone in every line, which convinces the reader that the poem not only speaks truth but also manages to do it in a very likable way. An underlying touch of dark humor provides even more of what it takes to make true believers out of us. When the poem insists, for example, that each of us resides simultaneously in two parallel universes, we’re ready to defend that idea to the bitter end.

Also admirable is the graceful way that “God Does Not Play Dice” mixes the vocabularies of the philosophical and the down-home. It’s not easy, for example, to get away with using a phrase like “That’s quantum uncertainty, baby” — but this poet does it with total aplomb. Finally, the sounds and rhythms of the poem work well, and we reach the last line feeling that we’ve been in the hands of a very talented practitioner.

-Marilyn L. Taylor, Wisconsin Poet Laureate 2008-2010 Contributing Editor, The Writer magazine

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Rising Phoenix

God Does Not Play Dice

Jean-Marie Mayer

Rising Phoenix

There are two existing realities, one you see, one you don’t: classical reality where you think you know what’s what and you’d be right, except you’re wrong, cause there’s quantum reality telling you what’s up with the atomic-subatomic levels, matter and energy. Classical reality looks like a stream of continuous energy, but that’s just wrong, wrong, wrong, energy crams itself into tiny packages, millions exchanging in rapid succession. That’s the illusion of continuous flow, life, katra, karma, ch’i, feng shui, mother nature and neurons firing across synapses. You wouldn’t like living in quantum reality. You might find yourself stuck in a box with a cyanide capsule, a particle accelerator firing electrons, and your life hangs on a +½ or -½ measurement of particle spin. And while you’re trapped in the dark, outside scientists postulate that you are both dead and alive, that is, until they open the box and let the cat out of the bag, so to speak.

Until then, you exist within parallel universes, one where you’re dead, one where you’re alive, and one where you didn’t let mad scientists stick you in a box. That’s quantum uncertainty, baby.

And it’s all so they can build their super computer and do long division on their taxes. But you don’t need to worry about taxes, ‘cause if that electron releases the cyanide, uncertainty is over, and, in the quaint terms of classical reality, you’re dead.

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The Cat That Hopscotched Jean-Marie Mayer Back Through Time Writer’s Comments: “The Cat That Hopscotched Back Through Time” is an attempt at a modern fairytale. I wrote it how I imagined parents would tell their child a bedtime story. I wanted to recapture that feeling I had as a child that everything around me was magical.

Fiction Judge’s Comments: What a surprising and unsettling story this is! Beginning with the tone of a fairy tale, it seems to suggest to readers that it will be a sentimental portrait of the fleeting pleasures of childhood. Very quickly, however, the story takes on shadows that make it considerably more sinister.

As Ellen watches the extraordinary cat nimbly hopping backward, the pebbles glow like moonstones, blinding her. Light in this world brings too much illumination; not only is Ellen blinded, but the cat who beckoned her runs away. All alone, Ellen hesitantly follows the example set by the cat, taking on the old skills of childhood until she can’t stop her shrieking laughter, and her skin vibrates with starlight. Then she, too, leaps from block number one and disappears into the night.

Is this a happy story about returning to the embrace of innocence? Or is it a terrifying story about being beckoned into nothingness? Yes and yes. The author skillfully balances the tone, weighing Ellen’s nearly hysterical laughter against the blackness that absorbs her. The writing is startlingly beautiful, carried off with confidence and panache.

-Erin McGraw Author The Seamstress of Hollywood Boulevard The Good Life Lies of the Saints Professor of English The Ohio State University

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Rising Phoenix

The Cat That Hopscotched Back Through Time There once was a cat on a hopscotch path. The hopscotch path numbered one to ten, and after school all the pretty neighborhood girls, Ellen and Susan, Bridgette and Mary, all in pretty little dresses, white socks and ribbons in their hair would run to play on it. They’d pick up the prettiest pebbles, toss them and hop across the numbers – slap, slap. And that hopscotch cat, that dang black cat with little white paws, would dash across the path while the girls were hopping. Dash right under their feet as they balanced one leg on the five and about to bounce to seven. Dash right over their toes, make the girls scream and fall over and skin their knees. They’d yell at that stupid hopscotch cat and chase him under the row of yews by the fence.

Years passed and all the pretty little girls grew up into giggling teens. And Ellen and Susan, Bridgette and Mary, didn’t play hopscotch anymore. They bought make-up and cell phones, went to parties and talked about boys.

But they still walked past the hopscotch path on their way home from school, and year after year the same black cat sat on that old hopscotch path.

When the girls were all grown women with jobs, mortgages, and cars, one of them, Ellen, walked home on a cool spring night after getting milk from the 24-hour 7-11. The moon was big and round and low in the sky like an overfilled water balloon when Ellen passed the old hopscotch. Its white paint glowed brighter in the moonlight and Ellen stopped across the street from the glowing hopscotch and stared because that same black cat was sitting in front of it.

numbers. Ten, nine, eight, not even looking over its shoulder, its white paws smacked the pavement three, two, one. Then the cat ran back to the other end of the hopscotch and did it all over again. The moon got even bigger and shone brighter and little pebbles glowed like moonstones, blinding Ellen. The cat started at the end and ended at the beginning, launched itself off the big painted number one and landed neatly on all four white paws before dashing off under the row of yews.

Ellen stepped up hesitantly to the old hopscotch and stared at the painted numbers. She dropped the milk and walked to the end of the hopscotch, placing her back to the path.

Craning her eyes over her shoulder, she hopped backwards. Ten. Nine. She wobbled but recovered, hit the final two, one and launched herself off the path. Ellen’s skin tingled and a bubble rose up from her gut and erupted into a fit of giggles. She ran to the end of the hopscotch and did it ten again nine and again eight, seven each jump her powder blue slipons slapped the concrete six, five until she could hop the path without peeking over her shoulder four and the moon shone big and white and the black cat with little white paws began yowling three and Ellen couldn’t stop her shrieking laughter two and her skin vibrated with starlight when her feet smacked the last number one and she leaped backwards.

The next morning, Ellen’s fiancé only got the answering machine when he called her number.

Her mother got the same when she called five times. None of her friends knew where she’d gone. Her family put up have-you-seen-thisperson posters. They taped a poster to the street light beside the old painted hopscotch where a black cat with white paws watched a pretty little girl toss her pebble and hop across the numbers.

The cat reared onto its back paws and under the big, bright moon began to hop, starting at the ten, hopping backwards counting down the

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That Abandonment I Call Adventure

Jesse Stratton

Writer’s Comments: To me, faith and adventure-seeking are one and the same. My relationship with God is an adventure that continually keeps me guessing. I didn’t really think about faith in this way before I read C.S. Lewis, Stephen Lawhead, and Ted Dekker; they opened me up to new and exciting realities. All three showed how life is a story with God as the author. This sounds like a bumper sticker cliché, but it is a concept worthy of consideration. Taking this view, life is more than an obstacle to get through but an adventure to be lived.

Lewis used the power of allegory in The Chronicles of Narnia series to illustrate how our relationship with God crosses the threshold into another world. Aslan was not a stuffy character behind a pulpit but a lion. Lewis loved to say of him, “He’s not a tame lion,” meaning that God was not a tame being. Lawhead is best known for his novels about Celtic myth come to life. In those timeless adventure stories out of pagan Britain, he has interwoven God as a loving, benevolent being who blesses mankind with great displays of beauty, sadness, and triumph. Dekker’s Circle trilogy is a wonderful adventure story, which centers around the concept of life as an adventure and God as the author of a great story. The second book of the trilogy just so happens to be the book I was reading on the porch the day of the storm.

These authors helped to shape my view of life and how it relates to God and the adventures he has blessed me with. I see each adventure as an opportunity to act out the faith I profess.

Nonfiction Judge’s Comments: I am impressed with “That Abandonment I Call Adventure” because of the author’s appealing and candid voice, his creative use of words and phrases, and his compelling descriptive passages. He offers the reader much food for thought about what it means to be alive and aware.

-Carolyn Kott Washburne Author and Editor Adjunct Associate Professor of English University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

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Rising Phoenix

That Abandonment I Call Adventure I stood gazing up at the largest mountain I’d ever seen. Towering above my head 10,378 feet, the snow capped fortress beckoned, and I answered its call. I glanced over at my friend, Steve, and his parents, a wide grin on my face.

The four of us made our way to the ranger station, our feet crunching on the dry, New Mexican earth.

Jesse Stratton

Rising Phoenix

Not more than a few miles outside Albuquerque, Sandia Mountain seemed like a new planet. I’d never seen the desert before, and my senses were overwhelmed by the sight of the cactus and the smell of the air, fresher and dryer than any other air I’d yet breathed. It was as if no other human being had ever filled their lungs with it. Virgin oxygen, unpolluted and untainted by any lung but those of the native deer and roadrunners. I found it hard to believe that only a few miles away lurked a city of over half-amillion people.

We arrived at the ranger station, the starting point for the Sandia Peak Tramway, the world’s longest aerial tramway at more than two-and-ahalf miles long. Somehow the tram managed not to defile the mountain’s natural beauty yet unobtrusively climb its staggering heights.

Every available inch of the tram car not used for structural support was devoted to windows; through these lenses I watched the ground rise higher.

First, the desert foothills; littered with fallen stones that looked small, but were easily the size of a semi truck. One pile of shattered rubble had settled on the crest of a hill in such a way that they resembled a cannon aimed into the far off distance like a sentry. When we made it to the top, we were greeted by a blast of cold air. Though it was almost sixty degrees in an Albuquerque November with no wind, Sandia’s peak was a gusty twenty degrees. Instead of desert, snowy pine trees topped the ground, transporting us from high-desert to tundra. The

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cold air was soon forgotten, however, when we turned away from the pine forest and beheld the view; 11,000 square miles of panoramic wonder.

I stepped to the very edge of the steepest slope, almost 6,000 feet straight down.

At that moment the rest of the world evaporated. It was as if the entire trek was a great unraveling, culminating in a tear in the veil between the world of the ordinary and another wilder place untouched by the mundane predictability on which we’ve learned to depend.

At that moment I could have fallen to my death or flown through the divide, never to return.

Either possibility would have broken my heart with joy. But I didn’t fall and I didn’t fly, I stood there until time once again caught up with me.

My companions were moving on. I followed.

We hiked around the peak for a few hours; each bend in the path revealing a beauty more subtle and wild than the last, but nothing rivaled that moment on the brink. Snowy evergreens, like a sugar-plum Christmas display thrived in the thin air of Sandia’s upper heights. I was reminded of The Chronicles of Narnia.

One rocky outcropping, devoid of trees, supported a small cabin made of the same stone as the mountain. Its weather beaten, rusticated surfaces an abandoned testament to nature’s wish for privacy. Inside was scrawled in faded charcoal the memorial of a fellow adventurer: “If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane, I’d walk right up to heaven and bring you home again! JZD.”

Eventually we made it to the ski lodge that crowned the lesser heights on the east side.

We ordered some drinks and food, human civilization, once again, overtaking our senses.

Later, as I tried to process what had happened, I could not help but be reminded of an experience over two years previously in the summer of 2003. I was fifteen-years-old, standing in an airport saying goodbye to my parents, on my way to Peru. It was my first time out of the country, my first time on a plane, and I was going all alone. Those same feelings

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of standing on the edge of something both wonderful and terrible, of fearlessly jumping into an unknown void had overtaken me then.

At a youth rally called “Acquire the Fire” put on

by Teen Mania, I had eagerly signed up to go on a missions trip to spread the love of Jesus in foreign countries. When a representative called me to find out if I was still committed, I wasn’t so enthusiastic. But it was like a will greater than my own had overtaken me and I said I’d like to go to Lima, Peru. What had I been thinking?

I didn’t really want to leave in the middle of summer, spend two grand that I didn’t have, and parade around some other country telling all the poor people running around their slums in their too-small basketball shorts with their starved dogs that Jesus loved them. They’d take one look at my well-fed, North American body and say, “Who are you to shovel us this load of crap?” Besides, I couldn’t stand to hear the sound of Spanish. Nevertheless, I felt God pulling me toward this decision. The lack-offunds situation worked itself out; I didn’t have to spend a dollar of my own cash, people donated money toward the trip.

Once I arrived in Texas, I linked up with other teenagers in my group. After two days of training, where we learned several dramas which were performed to draw a crowd, we were on our way. We spent ten grueling days in Lima performing dramas all day in the humid weather and getting less than six hours of sleep a night. Many of us got sick and once we were driven off government property by soldiers wielding machine guns. The others may have complained, but I loved it. I loved the crazy traffic, the walled compound we slept in, the unique people I met, but most of all I loved the unpredictability. My safe little world in the U.S.A. had never been so far away. When the time came to return home I didn’t want to go. I didn’t sleep the last two nights, just to spend more waking hours there.

I tried to sum up these moments of delicious uncertainty but was only able to come up with one word: adventure. That word has ever after filled me with a longing so great I fear it will

Rising Phoenix

never be satisfied. Every day I have to remind myself, when the daily cancer we call life invades my soul, that once I lived, if ever so briefly, on the edge of something so incredibly beyond my comprehension that it resided in the lofty places of lost words and forgotten poems. Those perfect pearls plucked out of space, those moments when the realm of the transcendent invades the ordinary seem lost to the same void when paper and pen are handy.

I fight to keep the feeling alive, but the harder I try to grasp it, the more it fades. Adventure, by its very nature, defies capture. And so, life once again returned to normal. I came home from New Mexico and Peru before that, with a few reasonably pleasant pictures. I told my friends how much fun I had and moved on with high school.

satisfaction that they seek out would still remain elusive. Adrenaline junkies are searching for the same things the rest of us are, the only difference is they treat it like a drug. But the true fulfillment of adventure comes from a deep willingness to let its forces go to work rather than from trying to manipulate them.

What saddens me is when I come across people who have ignored adventure’s call.

There are so many who have been hurt by its uncaring wildness that they shut it out of their lives lest it ravage them. Some have answered its bidding only to be struck down; mountain climbers who’ve broken themselves after a vicious fall, or dreamers who’ve seen their dreams brutalized by others who haven’t had the courage to dare. Others have never even tried to step out and live. They’ve been told it was wrong or wasteful to have adventures. Other’s responsibilities have so overwhelmed them that they don’t have the time or energy to devote to adventure. What a tragic loss. I believe it is a basic human need to face unknown forces and come back changed by them.

The day was warm and sunny. I was outside, lazily reading on the front porch-swing. The book was an adventure story of the best kind.

High stakes, daring rescues, forbidden love; the perfect read for the perfect afternoon. Then the sky grew dark, too dark to read by, a chilly wind picked up and a distant rumbling grew to the north. A storm.

I am not naive; I have felt the blow of adventure gone wrong. But there was nothing left to do but pick myself up and try again. To give in to pain, failure, or loss would be to surrender part of myself, my own humanity, to the mathematical monster who would meticulously devour each of us.

All at once the wind shook the trees and the lightning split the sky. The gentle pitter-patter of the rain turned into a torrent. That was too much for me. Off came my shirt and I was running through the woods, lost to the raw power of the storm.

Of course, I know I need escape from the everyday unremarkable every now and again, lest I go mad waiting for my opportunity at a really big adventure. That is where deep willingness comes in. If I live my life willing to let adventure happen, what Robert Frost calls choosing the road less traveled, I will be pulled into the staple diet of lesser adventures. These small meals prepare me for the feast of a great adventure.

Rainy afternoons are even better than sunny ones if your only goal lies in the pages of a book. But this wasn’t a rainy afternoon. This was a storm. When the light became too dim to read I decided to go inside, turn on a lamp and read in a more predictable place. But at that moment I heard the pitter-patter of the rain.

Perhaps watching it fall down and being alone with my thoughts would be better than reading.

Those big things, the once in a lifetime adventures, are just that; once in a lifetime. Few people live lives of unending adventure, one quest after another. If they did, the beauty and

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Reincarnation

Greta Jordan

Artist’s Comments: My work stems from my questions of reality. I have found that as we grow up, our immediate surrounding is our reality. Once we are introduced to new cultures, our idea of reality changes.

Many cultures translates to many realities. Through the creation of objects, I explore alternative realities. I create new worlds based on an idea that interests me by manipulating the source of my curiosity. For example, I found a raccoon skeleton in a hole in a tree while taking a walk. I was inspired by a line created from the skull all the way to the end of the tail of the carcass. This line represents a transfer of energy, which can be visual and metaphorical.

It’s my impression that most people don’t get excited about little things, moments or ideas, so I feel I must make these discoveries larger or more intense so people will notice them. I hope my creative quirkiness gives the viewer a sense of wonder and curiosity about the development of the sculpture.

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Rising Phoenix

Reincarnation

Visual Art Judge’s Comments: The image of the dry defleshed skeleton central in the sculpture is an object of death. Curled in a fetal position the organic shape echoes a harsh life. But using basic shapes in front of and behind the harsh skeleton the artist gives the viewer an insight into a spiritual realm.

The artist has placed in front of the skeleton a square which creates a frame. It harkens the present life as set and rigid, completed and self-contained. Just the opposite is the circle behind the skeleton. I think the artist takes the circle beyond the typical circle of life analogy. The use of wood (organic) as juxtaposed to the metallic/plastic square adds to the movement from a structured past to the openness and potential of the future. Not knowing what the step in this animal’s reincarnation is, the artist gives us a hint of what it might become. Curving wires arch out and around from the central skeletal image creating wings and airy shapes. The ugliness of the carcass will metamorphosize into something beautiful.

-Joe Heller Syndicated editorial cartoonist Green Bay Press-Gazette

Rising Phoenix

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Balance of 8

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Rising Phoenix

Flowers

Yellow Bug

Rising Phoenix

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Fiction

At Peace Tim was smiling. He had a feeling it was going to be a good day. Although feelings like this tend to be good for everyone, they were better for Tim because of their relative lack of frequency. To say that he’d been depressed would be an understatement. It had all started when his wife asked him for a divorce. This alone being enough to depress a person was compounded by recent and frequent episodes of misbehavior by his two sons and by his mother’s relentless meddling.

The last few days had been looking up for Tim, though. He’d made a decision to let go of his problems and not worry about things he could not control. “Maybe they’ll just work themselves out,” he hoped. Even though it seemed unlikely, the comfort was enough to relieve much of his stress.

Without these worries, the last few days had been wonderful for Tim. Looking at himself in his bathroom mirror he wondered, “Could I be too happy?”

He’d heard stories about mentally defective maniacs who could waltz through their lives without the slightest notion everything around them was completely topsy-turvy. “Am I being naïve?” he wondered. “Is it obtuse for me to believe that my problems can just solve themselves?”

He let this notion pass quickly as he realized he’d begun to worry he was not worried enough.

Tim sat down with his two sons at the breakfast

Fiction

Saul Lemerond table and opened the morning paper. He’d always found the morning paper comforting.

Not that he reveled in the sorts of things society found problematic. It was more that he was comforted with the fact society continued to find the same things problematic on a regular basis. This morning’s paper, which was the Friday morning edition, contained the same sorts of stories it always did: local politics, crime rates, war in the Middle East, gas prices, new business openings, factory closings, suicide lists… Nothing new, just that same sort of comfortable sameness Tim had come to depend on.

Reviewing the suicide lists, Tim found himself slightly troubled. They were longer than they had been on previous Fridays, covering almost two full pages now. For the longest time the local paper had just listed the suicides in its obituaries section, every once in a while giving article space to suicides it knew its subscribers would want to read about in more detail. After a while, the editors noticed suicides were taking up far too much space, so they started to compile the names and print the week’s full list in their special Friday Suicide Edition.

Wondering if it was something he should be worried about, Tim looked up from his morning coffee and asked his sons what they thought about suicide.

They stared at him blankly. His elder son, Charlie, asked, “What do you mean?”

Tim stiffened up, perplexed. “What do I mean?” he wondered, looking down at the morning’s

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paper. “Well,” he said aloud, “like, I guess… like, how would you feel if someone you knew decided to run a garden hose from the tailpipe of their car to the inside of their car?” “Why would someone do that?” Charlie interrupted.

Again Tim found himself perplexed. His children always had a way of confounding him.

“For the purpose of a painless suicide…I guess,” he said slowly.

“Garden hose is too small,” said Franklin, his younger son. “It’s not well-suited for the task.

I’d say a central vacuum hose would work much better.”

Tim wondered where his kids acquired such strange ideas. “We don’t even have central vac,” he said aloud. Franklin shrugged and said nothing, shifting his focus back to his Captain Crunch.

“No,” thought Tim, looking down again to read his paper “nothing to worry about at all.” He looked over to Franklin, “Do you need a ride to school today?”

“No,” said Franklin. “I think I’d like to walk today.”

Tim knew enough not to ask his elder son.

At seventeen, Charlie liked to put as much distance between his father and himself as possible. He already had a hard enough time dealing with the fact that his father taught at the same high school he went to.

•••••• As Tim was driving to work, he looked up just in time to see someone jump off an overpass, his body crashed into the pavement of the left lane, forcing the van next to him to slam on its brakes. Tim praised his good fortune as he was in the right lane and was therefore able to drive past the corpse without stopping. His satisfaction was reinforced when the morning’s radio traffic report informed him they’d had to close the highway because of the incident. It seemed like too good a day for him to be late for work.

22

As he drove, Tim listened to his favorite radio morning show, “Talk of the Morning.” They were interviewing a doctor of human biology. The doctor was explaining the varied roles bacteria play in the common everyday world.

“When you die,” the doctor explained, “your immune system dies with you. Bacteria that is normally harmless to the human body finds itself no longer hindered by white blood cells and high body temperatures. A cold body is a breeding ground for bacteria. They feast on our flesh and expel gas as a byproduct. We call this the process of bodily decay or, as it’s more commonly referred to, rotting.”

“On a hot day in a stuffy garage, the corpse of a recently deceased suicidal man or woman could begin to stink before their kids got home from soccer practice. It’s all just part of our extraordinary circle of life.”

•••••• Once in class, Tim was pleased to learn an unprecedented number of his students had actually done the assigned reading. He knew it was an extremely rare occurrence for high school students to take an interest in classic literature and decided this was indeed a good day in the making. Seeing them so obviously interested, Tim jumped at the opportunity to reach out to his students.

“Passion!” he said, slamming his fist on his desk to begin class, “Is the single motivating factor in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Their unrelenting need to be together ultimately resulting in their tragic demise.”

Noticing some of his students murmuring in the corner, Tim looked in their direction. One of them, a girl who, up until now, had never spoken a word in his class, raised her hand and asked, “Do you think that outside of passion, Romeo and Juliet could have been expressing resentment?”

This interested Tim. “What do you mean?” he returned.

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“Well,” she explained, “as a teenager, I can certainly relate to the concept of controlling parents. When parents refuse to allow their children to make their own decisions, it creates a lot of resentment. I know I’m not the only kid who’s considered hanging herself from the ceiling fan in the living room, timing it just right so that when my parents come home from work, I can see the looks on their faces as my neck is snapping.”

As a collective murmur of agreement swept the class, Tim felt a strong sense of pride knowing his students were actually relating classic literature to their own lives. He wondered what had happened to make them suddenly so interested in Shakespeare.

•••••• On Tim’s lunch break, he discovered a body hanging in the teacher’s lounge. Remembering his classroom discussion, he wondered briefly if this person had chosen this spot on purpose.

The body was hanging right in front of the microwave, which was horribly inconvenient.

Any faculty member, including Tim, who wanted to heat up his lunch, now had to swing the corpse to one side while at the same time opening and closing the microwave door and then set the cook time before letting the body back down.

After warming up his own lunch, Tim sat down at the table with his co-workers, Ms. Johnson and Ms. Darkenthorpe. He then pointed at the hanging corpse.

“It’s the funniest thing; I was just talking about this with my class,” he chuckled.

“Classic teenage rebellion,” said Ms. Johnson, the school’s psychology teacher.

“But why’d he have to pick such an inconvenient spot?” asked Ms. Darkenthorpe.

“Hey, it could have been worse,” said Ms. Johnson. “This morning somebody jumped off

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of an overpass in front of my van, I was stuck in traffic for an hour.”

“That was you?” Tim asked, somewhat bemused. “Small world.”

When Tim returned to his classroom he noticed half of his students were missing. They all had something important to take care of at home, or so the notes they left him had said. Tim found himself grateful because it’s so much easier to reach students with a smaller class size.

•••••• After work, Tim drove to his therapist’s office.

Tim had been seeing him every Friday since his wife had asked him for a divorce. He’d been depressed, very depressed, but in light of his recent positive outlook and overall happiness, he was pretty sure this would be his last time seeing Dr. Romero.

Tim felt his left foot slip out from under him as he walked into the front door of his therapist’s office. He landed shoulder first on the marble floor with a thud. The doctor’s secretary rushed to help him up.

“Oh, I am so terribly sorry,” the secretary said as he held out his hand to help Tim up.

Tim stood up and noticed he’d slipped on a pool of blood. Tracing the pool to its source, he discovered an old woman with a sword pushed clear through her torso. He took a moment to collect his thoughts, told himself to let go of his apprehensions and then smiled to himself. He turned a questioning gaze to the secretary.

“It’s called seppuku,” said the secretary, enunciating SEP-PU-KU in three rapid-fire syllables. “Also known as hari-kari, it’s a form of Japanese ritualistic suicide. The old lady sure did love her samurai movies.”

“You should clean that up,” said Tim, slightly disturbed by the office’s lack of professionalism.

“Don’t worry, someone’s on it, she’s only just bled out, you know. I’m surprised you couldn’t

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hear her screams from the parking lot.” The secretary adjusted his tie and led Tim into the psychologist’s inner office. Once inside, Dr. Romero motioned for Tim to sit down.

“How are we today?” asked Dr. Romero.

“Pretty good,” said Tim. “I think this actually might be our last session.”

Dr. Romero looked surprised. “You’re no longer depressed?” he asked.

“No, not at all,” said Tim. “I really believe I’ve finally come to peace with my relationships and surroundings.”

“That is certainly good to hear,” said the doctor, taking a moment to review some notes he’d made during Tim’s last visit. “So your panic attacks are…?”

“They’re gone,” responded Tim.

“No anxiety problems?”

“None.”

The doctor sat back in his chair, reading from his notes. “Over the past few months, you’ve been expressing your dissatisfaction involving relationships. You’ve cited them as the most probable source of your overall anxiety and depression.”

“Yes,” said Tim smiling, “and I did but, it’s really the strangest thing because all those problems kind of just solved themselves.”

Dr. Romero dug into his notes, believing his patient was in classic denial. He decided to press deeper. “You’ll have to forgive my hesitance, it’s just that I’m looking down at this laundry-list of concerns you’ve had over the last few months and I find it hard to believe that all these issues have simply worked themselves out.” The doctor pushed his glasses up his nose and started itemizing his notes.

“Your younger son, Franklin’s behavior

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problems?” asked the doctor.

“Dead,” replied Tim, remembering his good luck.

“He jumped off an overpass this morning.”

“Oh,” said the doctor. “And your older son, Charlie’s grades?”

“He hung himself in the teachers’ lounge this afternoon.”

“Indeed,” said Dr. Romero. “And your mother’s unrelenting meddling?”

Tim pointed to the doctor’s lobby enunciating, “Sep-pu-ku.”

“Wow,” commented Dr. Romero while looking down at the list, reading off the last and most important of Tim’s concerns. “Your ex-wife,” he asked.

“My ex-wife died of asphyxiation,” said Tim, almost triumphantly.

“Really?” asked the doctor.

“Yup,” said Tim. “She ran a garden hose from the tailpipe of her car to the inside of her car.”

“Hmmm,” said Dr. Romero. “And do you ever think about killing yourself?”

“No,” said Tim. “I used to, but not anymore.”

“Well, you might change your mind, and you paid for the hour so, here,” the doctor took a length of rope out of his desk. “Let me at least show you how to tie a noose. It’s much easier than it looks.”

•••••• On the way home, Tim listened to the oldies.

The shoulder of the highway was littered with cars, their doors open, bodies lying next to them baking in the sun. “Sweet Home Alabama” began to play. Tim sped down the highway with a smile on his face. Then he saw blue lights flashing in his rearview mirror; he’d been going

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twenty miles over the speed limit. It’d just been so easy driving down the empty highway.

Tim pulled over and got his paperwork ready for the police officer. In true cop fashion, Tim had to wait ten minutes before the officer got out of his squad car. The officer walked up and tapped on Tim’s window.

“I pulled you over because you were speeding,” said the cop. Tim looked straight into the officer’s mirrored sunglasses. He didn’t care if he got a ticket, he felt too good. Even if he did get a ticket, the day would still rate among one of the greatest days in his life.

“You have two choices,” said the officer, drawing his sidearm, the setting sun glinting off of the barrel of his 9mm Beretta. “I can either write you a ticket or you can blow your head off with this here pistol.”

Tim didn’t even have to pause to think it over.

“I’ll take the ticket,” he answered, suddenly understanding why there were so many dead bodies littering the highway.

The officer looked dismayed, “Sir, do you know how much paperwork I’m going to have to fill out to give you this ticket? Plus, there’s a good chance you might even lose your license. Are you sure you rather wouldn’t just put a bullet in your brain? It would make both our lives easier.”

“It’s really not a problem for me, Officer. I’ll take the ticket,” said Tim. The officer walked away and Tim waited twenty minutes for a ticket that never came. Before putting his car into drive, Tim walked over to the police cruiser, he looked inside and saw the cop had taken his own advice and put a bullet into his brain.

Tim walked back to his car, drove to a hill overlooking the city, and watched the sun make its descent below the horizon. The day was ending. Tim thought it was almost sad, really.

But, with the last of the sun’s rays disappearing into black, Tim realized that it was the really good days, the days like this one, which made life really worth living.

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25

The Unstoppable In one hour, Ernest C. Williams would be dead.

It was 4:58 pm right now and his favorite show was about to start, so he would be dead before the next show, which as fate would have it, was another one of his favorites.

He was not sure how he knew this strange new fact (how can one ever really know how one knows anything these days?) but he knew it solidly, just like the others in the room – his wife of twenty-nine years Hilda, his sixteen-yearold son Herbert, and his fifteen- and sevenyear-old daughters named Nelly and Kelly, respectively. He was aware that they knew of his impending death simply because when the attractive blonde news anchor finished saying, “Goodnight! And remember – tomorrow is a new day!” his family, instead of smiling and giving an unconscious cheerful nod to the television set, stopped their forks halfway between their trays of microwave chicken kiev and their slung-open mouths and turned and stared and made Ernest feel quite awkward.

Robert Jensen television set did seem a little quiet. So Ernest reflexively reached out to the remote control, but even as he wrapped his fingers around the device, his life fled his body. His hand, suddenly limp and robbed of its animus, flopped down and depressed the mute button, mixing real and imagined quiet to make a concrete mallet as stunning as the loudest cathedral bell.

The room stirred to action. Hilda drew near to cradle her dead husband, Herbert called an ambulance, Nelly blubbered incoherently, and Kelly reached for her father’s outstretched hand and depressed the mute button again.

And so at 5:56 pm, four minutes to the next show, and despite the caterwauling TV, the room abruptly seemed filled with a silence quite new to those present. It was not the mute calm held by those contentedly watching television, but rather it was a conscious, thickly congealed atmosphere exuded by people realizing that they have held their tongues for the last hour to hear strangers speak of stranger things.

Ernest seemed agitated at this odd sensation of being conscious of this new kind of quiet, the quiet found only in cacophony. Perhaps the

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Fiction

Monster The room was every little girl’s dream. Pale pink walls framed white shelves stacked with toys and a closet packed with pretty dresses.

The carpet was the color of melted butter, and just as soft. The bed stood in the middle, a triumphant centerpiece of pink, silk sheets and twists of rainbow canopy. The living quarters of the princess, and on the bed perched the queen. A beautiful bronze-haired woman in a silk robe, she was leaning over her fiveyear-old daughter.

“Do you want to hear a story, darling?”

Without blinking, the little girl shook her head.

Her face was a small circle of stark white against the pillowcase. The only color in it came from her enormous blue eyes and the swollen black shadows underneath them. Even her lips, which had been cut to ribbons in an attempt to bite back screams, were pale and strained.

The mother wanted to ask what had turned her vivacious daughter into a bruised and battered stranger with the haunted eyes of an adult. The questions and concern trembled on her lips, but she forced them back. She was afraid of what the answers would be; afraid that she would hear something she could never understand.

The shame of it made the mother’s smile wide and over-bright, and her words filled with a false confidence.

“You just need a good night’s sleep. Just eight hours and sweet dreams. And you’ll be fine.”

The girl nodded, her head jerking up and down

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Kathryn Myers automatically, an unconscious movement that she was hardly aware of. Her eyes, dulled by the understanding and expectation of horror, weren’t even fixed on her mother’s face.

Instead, she stared blindly over the left shoulder of the silk robe. This ritual where the mother soothed her troubled conscience was nightly, and the little girl was impatient with it. She’d learned long ago that the comfort offered by older arms was false.

“I’ll leave you to it, then.”

The mother kissed her daughter’s rigid cheek and stroked a hand down her corn silk hair.

She switched off the fairy lamp next to the bed and hurried out of the room, hunching her shoulders against the slap of cold reproach that followed her.

Alone, the little girl lay waiting. The resentment was familiar, and she let it roll over her and away. The bitterness was something she understood; she was angry with her mother for seeing the terror and the plea in her eyes and for leaving her alone anyway. But it wouldn’t help her now; the heat of anger had to be put away. She’d learned that being calm and being cold was key to surviving. She had to feel nothing at all, or she’d go insane feeling everything at once. But she couldn’t block everything out. The longer the little girl waited, the harder it became to suppress that tiny spurt of hope, hope that it wouldn’t happen tonight.

The hope was the worst of it; worse even than the fear that clutched her belly like a greasy fist.

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The closet door on the opposite side of the room shuddered, and then opened with an audible creak. The little girl felt the fear spiral upwards, and she was helpless to stop it. She closed her eyes immediately, her only defense.

To see the monster was to court madness. But she knew what it looked like. The first night it had peeked around her closet door, grinning at her from underneath all her pretty clothes, she’d been too innocent to look away.

The monster was a round ball of quivering pink flesh, about the size of the tires on a truck. It had no legs, only long and powerful arms that ended with blade-like claws. It couldn’t walk, so it buried those claws into the carpet and dragged itself toward the little girl’s bed.

Whomp. Hissss. Whomp. Hissss.

Once it reached the bed, the monster reached up and stabbed those claws into the mattress, inches away from the little girl’s feet. She listened to it grunt and struggle as it levered itself the short distance from the floor to the bed. Once up, the monster settled itself on top of the little girl’s legs. Its flesh was hairless and wrapped around the girl like pudding. It pressed against her with a demand that the little girl didn’t recognize, even after all these repeat performances.

Cold. Calm. Quiet. The little girl would retreat there until dawn broke through the window and then the monster would roll itself off the bed and back into the closet. Then, impossibly, the little girl would sleep until her mother came to wake her at eight. The mother would smile away the little girl’s stories about what happened in the dark, just as she would ignore her daughter’s pale skin and bruised eyes. Monsters were silly, and obviously something that the little girl imagined. But the little girl could see the desperate lie in the mother’s eyes. The mother knew the monster, knew it well, and probably had suffered under it at one point. But she refused to help her daughter, even though she understood the pain and the panic.

Four months later, a teacher from the little girl’s school called the police, concerned with the little girl’s weight loss and listlessness. The little girl hid in her room with the door shut, listening to the harsh words and her mother’s screams.

From her window, she saw the officers shove her father into their car, while her mother sobbed and struggled.

That night, the monster never rolled out of the closet. The door stayed firmly shut, and the little girl slept like that child she should have been.

She refused to open her eyes, but she knew its face as well as her own. Large, lidless eyes dominated a face that had no nose, and a mouth that sported a wide, fang-filled grin. The claws danced over the girl’s neck and belly, pushing down just hard enough to hurt. But the little girl wouldn’t scream, because it wouldn’t matter if she did. No cry, no matter how loud, would bring her mother running. She was alone with a nightmare that shouldn’t have existed. It would press against the girl all night, daring her to open her eyes, to see it and to understand.

But the girl wouldn’t, no matter how much her skin itched with the urge. She wasn’t so exhausted yet that she wanted to take that slide off the edge of sanity and into the undemanding black.

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Fiction

SHC Davis was riding the bus home from work when a man sitting across from him burst into flames, smoldered a bit, and then went out, leaving nothing but a portion of his legs with the feet attached. Well, most of the feet. Even the man’s briefcase and hat were gone. There was nothing but a large mound of ashes and two charred legs looking like they were gnawed off at the kneecaps.

Davis was horrified, looking wildly around at the other passengers, but they remained as they were; as if nothing had happened, staring out the window or reading their newspapers. Some were sleeping soundly. He looked back at what was left of the man across from him. From here he could see that only the man had caught fire.

Nothing else around him was damaged, save the plastic on the seat the man had been sitting on. The paneling behind the driver’s seat, the bus window and pole above the seats were all unharmed, leaving no sign a fire had ever been there. And surely the driver or those sitting near him would have felt the heat or seen the flash.

But no one moved.

He got up to have a closer look, still mystified, but curious now more than ever. Now the other passengers stirred and shot him a look.

A warning, perhaps, or disgust. As if this happened all the time and he should just leave it alone.

But as Davis stood up to further investigate, he saw his stop coming into view and fumbled for the pull cord. In a few blocks, the bus was stopped and Davis moved towards the door. He

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Jennifer Sternitzky stopped at the stairs and turned to the driver.

“There’s—.”

“I know. Have a nice day now, sir.”

The driver motioned with his head for him to please step down and Davis went, feeling very, very cold on this hot summer day. His mind was reeling as he seemed to float down the steps. He was barely off the last and onto the street when the driver pulled the door shut. It screeched so loudly that he had to cover his ears and instinctively squeezed his eyes shut.

In a moment he opened them again and looked around.

He’d pulled the cord too soon. This wasn’t his stop. He’d have to walk now.

Davis still couldn’t get his head around the combustion. Had he been the only one that had witnessed it? Surely not. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, surveying his surroundings. The day went on as usual, if eerily quiet. Not much of a breeze today. Maybe three, four blocks ’til he was home. He’d have to tell Dory about this one, though he doubted she’d believe him.

He felt heavy, as if he was standing in sludge as he tried to pick up his feet to carry himself home. It was definitely hot today. Davis couldn’t get that scene out of his head, tried to imagine what it must have been like for the man. Did it hurt? Did he feel the fire starting? Moreover, what the hell caused it; leaving only the man and nothing or no one else harmed?

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Before he knew it, Davis was at his front door, his hands jammed into the pockets of his pleated khakis. Dory had been watching from the window and ran to open the door.

She squealed with excitement and worry and jumped in his arms to hug him; Davis was later coming home than usual. But when she saw the look on his face she slid down and eyed him, trying to read his thoughts.

“Davis, honey, what’s wrong? Something happen at work today?”

“No, sweets. I’m fine. Just a weird day. I need to check something on the computer.” He put her down and headed for their back room where all their computing needs were met. Dory thought his voice sounded distant and not quite Davis’.

Davis looked up ‘man randomly on fire’ in a search engine and thousands of hits came up under the heading ‘Spontaneous Human Combustion.’ He read quickly and hungrily as Dory watched from the doorway. There were true accounts, almost no witnesses—just people who’d found the bodies, speculations as to how it starts or happens and scientific skepticism. Some said it wasn’t possible. Most said yes, definitely. There were even pictures.

He was repulsed, horrified and sick to his stomach.

When he finished reading, Davis went to his closet, pulled out all of his heaviest sweaters; then he went to his dresser drawer and pulled out all of his wool socks and long underwear.

When his arms were full, he brought his collection out to the fire pit in their backyard and burned them. He threw his half-finished pack of cigarettes and all his lighters into the fire as well.

When Dory saw Davis stalking out the back door with an armful of clothes she ran after him, but he had already started the fire. Thick black smoke rose up and he turned to her, his eyes glazed.

“Go get yours, too,” he said flatly.

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That night, Davis dreamed everyone he knew was in flames; walking around, waving with torches for hands.

Davis woke up early the next morning, rising with the sun. He was too warm and kicked the blankets off. As he blinked his eyes open, he noticed a sickly sweet smell, thinking Dory had woken early and was making breakfast.

He rolled over and Dory was nothing but a pile of powdery ash and kneecaps. Three fingers, a thumb, and a couple of toes littered the pile. The blankets were singed and almost completely gone. He wanted to scream, but his hand went for her remains. The curtains just above her side of the bed were unharmed, though the walls had a bit of smoke damage.

And something else. As he looked closer, he noticed a greasy film on the wall below and to the left of the window and above the bed on her side.

Davis looked back down at the kneecaps and screamed. He sprang out of bed and tore the covers away from the bed, trying not to let them touch him. All he could do was stare at the pile of ashes that used to be his wife. He hadn’t felt anything in the night, hadn’t heard her scream.

And come to think of it, the bed did feel awfully light and empty this morning.

Now that he knew where the smell was coming from, he wanted to vomit. He went to the kitchen and sat at the table, head in hands. He pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes until it hurt. Then he pushed a little more ’til it made him cry out. He couldn’t get the image of Dory’s ashes in the bed next to him out of his head.

And one of the fingers still had her wedding ring on it. When he realized this, he wanted to vomit again, and gagged.

He pried his hands from his eyes and started to cry out of fear, anger, and grief. What the hell was this? Some cruel joke? Davis put his hands in his lap, hunched over and stared at the wall.

He sat until his knees and butt ached, ‘til his eyes were red from the strain.

In a few minutes Davis pried himself off the

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chair and went for a long walk to clear his head.

It was still hot and he had to fight the urge to rip all his clothes off to keep from getting too hot.

Everything seemed strange and eerily quiet or muffled: all the houses, cars, trees and bushes, even the people he passed on the street. The dogs, too, as if he’d wandered onto the set of Edward Scissorhands; it was ethereal. He jammed his fists into his khaki pockets, keeping his head down and stalked down sidewalk after sidewalk, turning occasionally onto different streets. Before long, he found himself blinking up into the sunlight at the entrance to the town’s library. He wiped the sweat from his forehead before pulling the heavy glass door open.

If possible, the library was even quieter than the outside. Readers and librarians lurked about, pushing up their glasses, pulling dusty books off shelves. Others were studying or sleeping in overstuffed chairs. No one seemed to notice him as he nearly floated across the thin carpet towards the nearest row of internet-ready computers. He pulled out a chair, stopped, and then pushed it back in again, deciding against the internet. He didn’t want his mind wandering and surfing, stumbling across the wrong things, things that might terrify him even more. Instead he felt himself being pulled towards the stacks.

A girl with thick, black glasses shot a glance up at him as he passed.

Davis wiped his hands on his pants and squinted up into the glaring fluorescent lights overhanging the stacks. His arm felt heavy as he slogged it up to the top row, pulling down the first thing he saw; anything was fine. So long as he was away from home and could feel somewhat normal. He opened the plasticjacketed hardcover book to a random page and began to read: SHC, otherwise known as Spontaneous Human Combustion, is defined as the random bursting into flames by a human or animal...can spread to objects as well…just before death…

Davis let out a sharp cry and dropped the book.

It sparked, smoldered, and became a pile of ash. He stared at it for awhile, trying to

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ignore what he’d read.

He reached his hand up to the shelf at eye level and selected another plastic-jacketed hardcover. This time he looked at the cover before opening it: Crimes in Arson. Jesus! Davis slammed the book shut and placed it back on the shelf, then moved to the aisle. He counted five rows—his favorite number—and turned left.

He stood at the first bay of books and again squinted up into the fluorescent lighting.

Again he slogged his hand up to the top shelf and pulled out a book. It wasn’t really that important, just a book to distract his mind’s wandering. He began flipping through the pages, not really reading, when the book began to feel very warm in his hands. Before he could drop it, there was an audible poof!, a small explosion of flame, and the book was ashes in his hands, as if he’d scooped them from the floor or the shelf.

He stared at the ashes in his hands, then up at the books on the shelves. He didn’t dare take out another one. He tipped his cupped hands and dumped the ashes onto the floor, wiping his hands on his pants, which now had a powdery streak of brownish-grey.

Davis moved to the aisle again and headed back towards the seating area and on to the information desk. He walked intently up to the unassuming lady with horn-rimmed glasses and brown hair in a bun filing her nails, seated behind the desk.

“Excuse me. Miss?” Davis placed his hands on the desk and leaned his weight into them.

The librarian’s full red lips were pursed as she looked up. “Can I help you?”

“Yes. I — I’m not quite sure how to tell you this, but…well, could you come with me please? I need to show you something.”

The librarian looked confused and put her emery board next to the keyboard. “If there’s a mess somewhere, I can just call….” She

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reached for the phone.

“No! Sorry, no. It’s not a mess. Just, please come with me.”

The librarian got up and waited for Davis to lead. He looked around the seating area. By now, the other patrons were watching him curiously; two teenage girls seated at a study table were whispering and grinning. He brought his eyes down to a table next to one of the chairs. A book there. He stalked over to it and picked it up. The librarian reluctantly followed.

He didn’t want to do this in front of everyone, but someone had to believe him.

“Look, this book.” He opened to a random page. Nothing happened. He flipped through a few pages. Still nothing; the book didn’t even feel warm to the touch. Davis’ eyes widened in disbelief and he looked pleadingly up at the librarian, who now had her arms folded on her chest, waiting for the show, or at least an explanation.

Davis looked down at the book and began flipping more rapidly through the pages. Nothing happened, not even a spark.

“But…but the others…they caught fire somehow and turned to ash. I can show you.” He was sweating and near panicked now; he reached to grab her hand and she flinched. He brought his hand down and motioned for her to follow him.

She did, following lightly behind him in her highheeled shoes. He could hear the rustle of her skirt against her nylons as they walked. They reached the aisle and Davis counted five rows.

But when he pointed to the floor where he’d dumped the ashes, there was nothing. No sign anything was amiss. He looked up at the shelf where he’d taken the book from and there was indeed a gap, but that was to be expected in a library.

The librarian again folded her arms and looked crossly at Davis. “Is there something you need to tell me, sir?” She was getting impatient now and began tapping her foot. The sound seemed amplified in here and drove him crazy.

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He brought his hands up to cover his ears and scrunched up his face as if deflecting a highpitched, loud, noise.

“Gah! No! I’m telling the truth! Look!” Davis nearly jogged back to the seating area. His eyes darted around the room and it seemed everyone was laughing at him. There was another book on another table and he nearly lunged for it. As his hand touched the cover, a bright spark flashed to his left. One of the girls at the study table—a cute blonde—was in flames. The girl next to her looked on, staring blankly. Davis went over to the table and nearly vomited. The blonde girl was nothing but ash and a tanned, supple, bare leg with a sneaker still attached. There was a greasy film on the seat and back of the chair, but the table was unharmed, as were the girl and chair next to her. The blonde girl hadn’t even cried out, nor had the other girl. Davis moved to the other girl, who was still staring, motionless like a mannequin. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. The girl’s head flopped limply, but her eyes never averted their gaze.

“Excuse me, sir! Stop that!” The librarian was standing at her desk, phone in hand.

Davis turned to look at her, clearly mad, or terrified, or both.

“I said stop that! I’ve already called the police and they’re on their way!”

He let the girl go and stalked over to the librarian. She looked terrified for a moment, and then she, too, was a burst of flame. Davis screamed and fainted.

When he came to, the library was dark and the patrons had all gone home. Had the police come? He didn’t know and didn’t care. He just wanted the hell out of there. His body was stiff as he pried himself up off the hard, thinlycarpeted floor. The silence of the place was eerie. Everything seemed surreal and the air inside was cool. One light illuminated a small space and Davis followed the source: the desk lamp had been left on, the phone off its hook,

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black spiral cord dangling off the edge.

There was no sign of the blonde girl’s or the librarian’s ashes.

Davis stood up and brushed himself off, violently shaking his head as if to erase the day’s events like a MagnaDoodle. The movement seemed to trigger something and his whole body began to shake violently, like a dog.

Oddly, Davis felt refreshed and clear-headed.

He headed for the exit.

Darkness and a chill, night breeze greeted him as he pushed the heavy glass doors open.

The moon was bright and the night was warm, except for the breeze. He shuddered a little at the temperature change and let his feet carry him home.

He walked briskly, his fists jammed into his pockets. The world seemed so still around him, quiet. He smiled. As he walked, he detoured down a few neighboring streets, passing a playground and the local high school. A church, a bar — rock music blaring, drunken shouts — and then the rest were resident houses.

The sound of his footsteps on the pavement comforted him and he began to whistle, fire and ash never crossing his mind. He walked a few blocks like this, heading towards home and momentarily forgetting that his wife was dead.

From above, some two or three blocks from his house, he heard a loud pop and the sound of glass shattering. He looked up in time to see the last licks of flame in the street lamp. He stopped, seeming to remember something, and then kept walking, trying to ignore this.

Another block was passed and soon every street lamp Davis passed under popped, burst into flame and coughed shards of glass just inches away from his feet. He walked quicker and the lamps seemed to burst quicker. He was running now, first stiffly with his hands jammed in his pockets, then taking long strides as he pumped with his arms. He was sweating and nearly crying as he neared his front door.

The lamps seemed to pop and shatter with rhythm as he ran; the snares against the bassdrumming of his footfalls.

Fiction

“Dory!” he cried out, but the second cry for her caught in his throat as he remembered. He heaved his weight into the door and pushed it off its hinges, bolting through his living room towards the bedroom. He slowed his speed to better maneuver around furniture and down the hallway.

The computer was on in the den.

He hadn’t used it at all today and was sure he didn’t leave it on from yesterday. A tingling in his feet and gut told him to run, but he was curious, drawn to it. The screen was bright, flashing page after page of tiny black text on white screen. As he moved closer he could see the pages scrolling and loading faster and faster. In slow motion, Davis pulled the chair out from the desk and sat down. Hunched over, he leaned in towards the screen, his nose inches away from the monitor. He reached for the mouse and instantly the pages stopped scrolling and flashing. There, in front of his face, was an article with a picture of the charred remains of what used to be a man. A young man, probably in his early 30s, the article said. Davis read on as he scrolled through the article: Davis Scherzinger was found dead in the den of his home, late Friday evening. Officials say the cause was Spontaneous Human Combustion, a phenomenon still widely disbelieved and still being studied. Davis’ wife, Dory, had died earlier in the day, presumably of the same cause. It is rumored that Davis went for help, but details of these deaths are still unclear. Officials were at first unsure that it was indeed Davis, as the only thing to be found was a mound of powdery ashes and a grease stain on the carpet. But officials were able to identify him by the lower jaw and a finger with his wedding ring still attached. No other damage was done to the home, or to any other object surrounding Mr. Scherzinger’s remains.

Davis’ breath caught in his now uncomfortably dry throat. His eyes ached and he thought he might vomit again. The room seemed uncomfortably warm and sticky and he rolled up his sleeves; it was becoming more and more

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difficult to breathe. He stood up, paced the room and found himself back at the bed he used to share with Dory. The bed was still unmade, but there was no sign of Dory’s remains, or that a fire had ever occurred. Even the greasy film was gone from the walls and comforter.

Davis tried to scream but only managed to whimper. “Jesus, it is warm in here!” He moved to shove open the window over their bed, but a blast of hot air hit him in the face, instead of the cool breeze he’d walked in just minutes ago. He gasped and tried to catch his breath, his eyes and head reeling. Suddenly the world began to spin and blur and Davis spun on his feet, holding out his arms for balance as he leaned this way and that, like the Tin Man in Wizard of Oz. He brought his eyes to the floor to try to steady himself. A spark began at the bottom of his pants and then the world went white and orange and red and yellow. No one saw him and it came on too quickly for him to cry out.

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Fiction

The Itch When I wake up, I always have to take a drink.

I’m sure most people would frown on this, but I don’t see any problem with it; I really only need a couple to calm my nerves anyway. My hand itches this morning, some sort of rash; could be psoriasis, eczema, maybe a spider bite. I rub some Neosporin on it and boot up the computer.

I spend most of my morning free time on the Internet looking at porn and masturbating. I find this also calms the nerves. Sometimes I think the hours spent masturbating could be put to better use doing something productive, something fulfilling. Maybe something that doesn’t leave me with an empty feeling, maybe something like gambling. I like playing poker on the Internet; I’ve always found a certain fulfillment in winning lots of money. The main problem with gambling is that I don’t always win; many times I end up losing. I tend to lose more when I’ve had too much to drink. This is why I’ve made it my top priority to gamble less. Less gambling means more masturbation. At least I can still get some fulfillment from my work.

Still itching, I make a mental note to pick up some calamine lotion when I get some time.

Grabbing a bottle, I fill up my Thermos with gin and coffee. Some people would probably see fit to judge a man who takes a few drinks before getting behind the wheel, but I’m one of those people who drives better after a couple. In my line of work, shaky hands can lead to disastrous results. Plus it helps calm me, which is no small task for a grown man who has to put up with dozens of shitty kids.

Fiction

Saul Lemerond Mints are a wonderful thing. I take them continuously because I like having fresh breath.

Also, they numb my tongue which kind of itches this morning. Walking into work, I say good morning to Doug. He tosses me my keys and tells me that a few people called in complaints on me last week. He tells me that I’m on probation. This doesn’t bother me because I’m Union. I’ve worked here for too long, and the Union would throw a fit if I were ever dismissed for anything other than severe circumstances.

Doug asks me about my hand. Remembering the rash, I look down and see that the skin on the back of my left hand has taken more of a purplish hue. Scratching the back of my neck, I tell Doug that his mom got rough with me last night. He tells me to get fucked. I’ve always liked Doug.

I sit down in the driver’s seat of my bus. This is always the most comfortable part of my day.

I turn the radio on to the oldies. The kids hate it and are usually not afraid to tell me, but I have ways of getting their respect. Usually all I have to do is scream at them until I see fear in their eyes. I’ve been asked by some people if screaming at the kids bothers me. It does not.

In fact, I find it to be one of the most satisfying parts of my job.

Being a school bus driver is no easy task.

Sometimes people ask me how I do it. Truth be told, there are three things that are important for maintaining sanity in a job such as this. Good music is first and foremost because you can always turn the music up to drown out the little

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bastards if they get too rambunctious. Secondly, a man needs tough skin. I’ve found the kids have a knack for sniffing out my weaknesses, upon which point they commence a gossip regiment that usually identifies me as the town’s most prolifically ugly, smelly, and mean drunken bus driver, and to be perfectly honest, sometimes the taunts seep their way under my skin. This is why I have my third rule, otherwise known as rule number three.

Rule number three states that whenever you feel like you want to beat a child within two inches of their life, take a drink. If you ever want to send the bus careening off of the side of a hill, not caring if you die as long as all those dirty little shit bags die too, take a drink. If the chaos of the bus is slowly grinding away the thick wall you’ve built and is threatening to send you off the deep end into a place that you’re sure only exists in nightmares, take a drink.

Sometimes it’s nice to add rules, though. Like say if the kids aren’t being too bad, but at the same time you’re battling a rash that is making your neck, shoulder, arm, and hand itch, then it’s fine to take a drink of that coffee and gin. Sometimes — times like today — there is no amount of gin that can suppress the constant noise from children; children that have somehow become little evil spewing machines, unwillingly allowing their preadolescent chaos to float up front and into the bus driver’s ear, causing the bus driver to reevaluate every single major decision that he has ever made in his life. On days like this, I’ve also found it’s acceptable to scream at the children while accelerating into any turn and watching all the little bastards bounce around like popcorn in the back of the bus. This may cause the children to cry, but I’ve always thought that their crying is better than me crying.

So, like I said, my morning is filled with picking up shitty kids. I try my hardest not to pay attention to them. I notice a small area of skin on the back of my hand has broken open. As yellow pus slowly oozes its way outward, I roll down my sleeves and put driving gloves on. It’s best not to give the kids anything to zero in on.

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Taking a drink, I make a mental note to go see a doctor.

By midmorning my entire body itches. This causes me to drink more. I notice I’m running low on gin and thank God that I have another fifth of gin in my coat. The kids are screaming about someone on the bus being smelly. I pay closer attention and realize the kids are talking about me and I take a drink. Then I notice the smell the kids are referring to. It smells like old garbage, like something’s rotting. I realize the number of flies on the bus seems to be more than normal and assume this is one of the children’s doing.

“None of you kids better have brought garbage on this bus!” I yell, itching as I drive. “I swear I’ll find out and write you up if you did!” I make sure to make my mean face. I have the best mean face; the other bus drivers always compliment me on it. One of the kids yells at me to stop swerving.

“If you stop making me mad, maybe I’ll stop swerving,” I say. I find that placing blame on the children not only makes me feel better as a person, but it also makes the kids shut up.

With the shitty kids, the smell of the garbage, and the incessant itching of my body causing a major increase in my drinking, I realize that I’ve passed the point of what I call ‘a good-drivingdrunk’ and slipped into possibly dangerous ‘bad-driving-drunk’. It’s times like this that I know I’ve got to hunker down, concentrate, and focus on the road. Can’t let this two-lane street split into one of those ever-dicey four-laners.

I thank God this part of my route brings me out into the country. Fewer cars mean fewer obstacles. The kids must know there’s something wrong because they’ve gone dead quiet. My entire body itches but I know enough not to take my hands off the wheel. The insides of my gloves are wet with sweat. Very wet, I look down to take them off and see yellowishred fluid oozing out from the sides. I realize two things in succession: one, the smell of rot is coming from me, and two, that my hands have

Fiction

started rotting and are now dripping out of my gloves. Looking down at my hand in panic, I look up just in time to see that my bus is now in the wrong lane and an SUV is swerving in an attempt to avoid hitting us head on.

First, I feel a sharp jolt. Second, I hear something I can only assume is the sound of metal tearing. Third……

Wake up to the smell of rot. The bus is on its side. There’s moaning and screaming coming from the children in the back. I hear sirens, panic. Climb out through back of bus tripping and slipping through blood and children.

Sprint off the road and through trees. Run over hills and through fields of corn. My entire body itches. Sirens still screaming. Smell of rot following me the whole way. Still coming from me, I tear off my gloves and coat and shirt. Black veins showing through purple skin running from the tips of my fingers throughout my body. I run through open fields and into forest. Sores the size of dimes speckle my body, yellow pus and blood seep out and drip on the ground. I panic. Puke. Keep running.

The first person to find me will kill me when they see what I’ve done. I run down ditches and over stumps, ducking trees and fences, I hear a whisper; look back, trip on a rock and run into a tree…. …and I’m dreaming. In a great hall, looking down I can see that I am whole, no sores, just clear skin. I realize that I’m smiling. A buzz runs steadily through me, I feel warm, comfortable; I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so good. A fine mist swirls about me and there’s a girl here. She’s beautiful. Walking silently through thick fog, she stands before me wearing a black dress. I stare at her and she says nothing. I ask her what is happening to me. Her mouth doesn’t move but I can hear her whisper.

“Do not worry,” she says, mouth not moving, eyes white as snow. “Everything is as it should be.” I ask her what she wants. I ask her why she’s here, why I’m here.

“Be happy,” she says. “It’s a privilege to be

Fiction

here.” Her smile shines and I can tell what she says is true. Sitting on the floor, I can feel only warmth. I realize I am happy, I’d almost forgotten what it felt like. It’s so nice, lying here for what seems like eternity, this girl standing over me smiling. Such a wonderful thing to be warm.

Wake up to the smell of rot, the buzzing of flies and the screeching of crows. I feel nothing now. No pain, no itch, nothing but cold. Looking down, I see a crow picking at the flesh of my arm. I move my arm and the bird takes flight and a cloud of flies move from my body. The bird stays away but the flies do not. Looking up, I see turkey vultures circling, waiting. Except for the cold, I feel nothing, no urge to panic. I don’t know where I am. Looking down at my body I see that the rot has gotten worse. There is very little skin left. Patches of green and yellow mold appear on raw flesh. Maggots crawl through the meat of my arm. They talk to each other.

Commenting on the pleasures of their feast, once and again they mumble their thanks to me between mouthfuls.

“You’re welcome,” I tell them, and they continue to feast.

It’s twilight, I start walking, this disturbs the maggots, but only for a moment and then they go on to continue eating. I hear a voice, it’s the girl.

“Where are you going?” she asks. I look and see she’s walking beside me now.

“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly, she smiles, and the maggots laugh and I try to blink my eyes only to find my lids are gone.

“Well, you must have somewhere you need to go?” she says and the maggots shout their agreement. I think for a moment, feeling cold.

“I need to get to the warm place,” I say.

“Do you know where it is?” she asks and the maggots laugh and dance and echo the girl repeating, “Do you know where it is? Do you

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know where it is? Do you know where it is?”

And the beautiful little girl smiles and says, “I can show you, just follow me.” We walk through the forest, one foot after another, maggots chatting amongst themselves. We walk for a long time. The girl talks about the warm place.

Pieces of flesh fall from my skin, they sizzle as they touch the ground. I feel nothing except for cold; a chill in the core of me. The girl tells me I’ll be ok.

“The cold is only temporary,” she says. “We will be to the warm place soon.”

Day is replaced by night and worms crawl up through the dirt into my feet. They crawl up my body and the maggots greet them with shouts of joy.

“Do not worry about your bus,” she tells me, her beautiful voice echoing through my ears.

“In time, it will all be forgotten.” I find that I can barely remember it already.

“Your life of pain will be erased,” says the girl.

“Once we get to where you want to go, there’ll be nothing but happiness.” And I know what she says is true.

I moan and I hear the girl nodding her head.

“It really is an honor to be chosen,” she says.

“Just think, you could have gone on through the rest of your life never knowing what it’s like to be warm, to be happy. Can you imagine living a life without gifts such as this?” I think for a moment and find I cannot.

It’s such a wonderful thing, I think. To be warm and happy, all the pains of the world seem more than anyone should have to bear. There is so much chaos, so much disappointment; it’s amazing I’ve made it this long. I know now I was being tested. The old one was watching me, wanting to see if I was suitable for her gift, her choice to give me the itch has become my salvation.

As I follow the girl toward The Old One, the maggots sing to me beautiful melodies. The worms whisper poetry. The crows and flies nibble pieces of me and tell me they love me.

The girl tells me we’ll be to the warm place soon; she says I’ll be happy there, that I’ve earned a place and that no one else can take it.

I place one foot after another. I’ll be warm soon.

Such a wonderful thing to be warm.

There’s nothing now, except for cold. Birds and flies constantly circle around me and tell me not to worry. They tell me they only eat the parts of me I do not need. Fluid drips down my face and I understand that my eyes are dripping out of their sockets. I hear the girl giggle.

“Do not worry,” she says. “I will be your eyes.”

The smell of rot comforts me now. Smells sweet, a wonderful thing really. The girl tells me the warm place was built by her mother.

She says her mother is very old, far older than anyone can remember.

“She used to be very strong,” she says. “But now she can only whisper to get attention. She will be strong again. But for now, she can only whisper out the itch.”

I try to speak and discover I have no tongue.

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Fiction

Queen of Cups She was peeling wax again. This was not out of boredom or a drunken task like making cookies at two am but a sign of nervousness. He could tell. If she was bored, she’d be complaining about boredom. Her nervousness was not diminished by drinking. If she didn’t have the wax to fiddle with, she would bite her nails, which were already bitten to the nub framed by calloused and dead cuticles, anticipation of what was to come in the next few days. He wasn’t going to let her wallow in the news that she brought home from the doctor. Michael knew she had already decided what she was going to do, disregarding all of his protestations of readiness. He just needed her to stop thinking about the growth as a person. In a drunken attempt to release that nervous energy, Michael snuck up behind Anna and began to tickle her. It wasn’t going to be so bad. An awkward elbow caught Anna’s glass in the scuffle for dominance and shattered against the floor.

Meghan Everett as they worked together to make safety cones out of cans of soup and crushed tomatoes.

Michael will clean it in the morning while Anna is at her appointment.

“You think that’s enough?” Michael asked, placing a kitchen towel over the soup can stonehenge to act as a further guard against glass accidents.

“It’ll have to be,” Anna stated, crossing her arms.

“I think that’s a sign from God,” Michael said, looking forlornly at what was once one of their remaining three glasses.

Michael remembers the last time they broke glass together. Anna calls it the month of pain. There wasn’t really that much to it; she exaggerates the amount of pain that was involved. Michael fell into the pile of glass they had left to clean in the morning. The initial shock of the penetration had hurt, but the endorphins had dulled the pain while Anna had helped him up and began to pull the glass from his hands and knees. Blood had gotten everywhere. She got the big pieces with her fingers, the medium with tweezers, and the small with duct tape.

Tape loses its stickiness when covered in blood. But one piece had inserted itself so deep into the skin in the hollow on the outside of his right kneecap.

“To stop drinking?” she asked.

“I can’t get this one out.”

“No. To get plastic cups,” Michael said, telling Anna that he loved her with a grin.

“Leave it. I’ll get it in the morning. Let’s just go to bed.”

Michael pulled Anna into his arms away from the glass. A comfortable silence fell over them

Picking at the scar that remained from the shard, Michael thinks about that month that he

“Oh! That’s the fourth one this week,” Anna exclaimed.

Fiction

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couldn’t get it out. It was a great month. Anna checked Michael’s knee every day to see if the shard had worked its way through the flesh that had closed behind it when it went in. A careful hand and a sharp eye had found the shard and extracted it. Anna named the shard Gregory James Frankenstein. She wrote out an elaborate backstory as well. Gregory was the half-brother of Victor Frankenstein and was even more psychotic. The bastard child of Victor’s mother and port, Anna’s poison of choice that night. None of that was true, of course. It was just a piece of glass. A reminder to buy plastic cups.

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Fiction Fiction

The Survivor On a lifeboat, a man’s world is composed entirely of two colors: the thick, depthless yellow of the raft and the cold, limitless blue of the sea and the sky. This simple beauty is lost on the man, whose thoughts add up to little. Having fought through storming waves, weeks of hunger, and volumes of thirst, the man finds himself absent of all things beyond the gentle solitude present before death, so familiar to mankind and so foreign to man. The subtle degradation of his food and water supply matches that of his spirits, reducing the man to the state he is in now, staring up at that hideous dot of yellow in blue, whispering quietly, “Oh God, where are you now?”

God rarely answers in like form to the questions, and this instance is no different.

All the man’s world, all the world’s oceans, fill with bubbles of purple turning into a deep and thriving red. As the man witnesses the changing of the sea, he feels like a stranger in a strange land who sees the flying colors of his home at long last. If he had tears, he would weep into the ocean.

Inches below his exhausted sight, the red surges toward the sky; something massive, something old is coming to encounter the man in the lifeboat, and he feels fear once again.

Whatever it is brushes against the thin bottom of the raft, and the man’s heart beats with a last-ditch vigor. Gripping the sides of his raft with all his tender strength, the man witnesses the monumental husk lift his entire world yards above the sea, and he slides down its rubbery

Fiction

Andrew Stimpson side. The raft finds its footing, splattered with watered-down whale blood like a vulgar and unnatural rust, and the man comes eye-to-eye with what he cannot name in his weakness.

He knows there is a name, but that world where things have names is gone along with freshwater and shade.

The man stares without thought into the whale’s eye, tearing blood and, somehow, pity.

Yards behind that pupil rests an intelligence, a life that man will never fathom.

As the whale sinks one last time into the red sea, the man sees and at last understands the mystery of the blood gushing from the thing’s colossal veins. Dozens of sharks, likely hundreds, and far more than the man can count are latched onto the whale’s carcass. Every animal in creation. Thousands and thousands of jagged white teeth filled with blood, ink and blubber, working their way through all the whale has to offer in a hideous microcosm of life. The man does nothing, can do nothing but witness.

Slowly, the violence descends into the sea, and the man is left waiting for the coming black. It falls from the sky and rises from the sea until at last he is crushed. But his thoughts rest on the whale’s eye and what its name should be, so full of blood and tears; such is the pity of God.

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Nonfiction

Hospital Hero I was only eight-years-old when my mom took my two younger brothers and me to the doctor for our checkups. I never enjoyed trips to the doctor when I was that age; I always thought I was going to get a shot. I would have my checkup first, being the oldest, put up a huge fight and eventually be held down and given the shot I needed. My younger brother, Brad, the middle child, would go next and put up the same fight because he saw me do it. After Mom calmed him down, the doctor quickly gave him his shot. My youngest brother, Ryan, was the last one to go; being only four-years-old he didn’t know what to make of his two older brothers crying because of something that only took seconds to complete. I remember my mom telling the doctor that Ryan had really bad stomachaches; the doctor felt my brother’s stomach while he was on the table and Ryan was laughing because he was so ticklish. I remember the doctor laughing back at Ryan and then she abruptly stopped and told my mom that Ryan would need an MRI at Children’s Hospital. She told my mom not to worry; she just wanted to make sure that Ryan was okay.

On our way out of the doctor’s office, my brothers and I all grabbed suckers. I grabbed a cherry Safe-T-Pop, the sucker you couldn’t choke on, because it was my favorite flavor. My brothers grabbed the same flavor just because I did. In the car on the way to the hospital, I remember eating my sucker and calling my brothers copycats. My mom would then tell us that she would pull the car over and leave us there. We were so young that we believed her;

Nonfiction

Kyle Hynes none of us wanted to get hit by a car, so we stopped arguing and ate the rest of our suckers.

After a short ride to the hospital we got out of the car and followed our mom inside.

My mom was reading People magazine, which I’m sure she read from front to back at least three times, when finally the doctor came out holding my brother’s hand. Ryan had a big smile on his face and another cherry Safe-TPop sucker in his hand. The doctor asked to talk to my mother in the other room. When the door shut I remember telling Ryan that I should eat his sucker to make sure it wasn’t poisonous; something my dad told me all of the time when I was eating something I really enjoyed. My dad apparently used this same line on Ryan because he immediately opened the wrapper and shoved it into his mouth. As I was about to grab for Ryan’s arm, the door opened back up; my mom came out in tears and walked straight towards the payphone, trying not to look at us.

She called my dad and then my aunt. After she hung up the phone, she bent down and hugged us. It was the tightest hug I ever remembered receiving. After she hugged me and my brothers, she grabbed Brad and me and told us that we would be staying at my aunt and uncle’s house for the night. I was confused because my mom was crying, but I was excited to stay at my aunt and uncle’s house because I could play with my cousins. Little did I know this was going to be one of the worst days of my life.

For the next couple days my aunt would take my brother and me to school, pick us up, and take us to the hospital to visit my mom, dad,

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and little brother. After plenty of visits to the hospital, I overheard from doctors talking to my parents and my parents talking to my aunt and uncle that Ryan had neuroblastoma, a cancer in his stomach. For a couple of months my aunt and uncle took care of my brother and me. One day after my aunt took us to the hospital, my mom brought my brother and me out into the hallway and told us that Ryan would be losing his hair due to chemotherapy treatment to help get rid of his cancer. She asked us if we would be willing to shave our heads to help Ryan deal with the situation. I don’t remember saying yes and I don’t remember saying no, all I remember was my mom with tears in her eyes staring at me and my brother. The next day, my uncle shaved my head and then Brad’s. That night I walked into the hospital room with Brad, both of us without hair. My mom saw us both and left the room after hugging us, in tears. My aunt walked in after us and saw Ryan, without his hair, smiling at his brothers who now looked like he did; she immediately followed my mom out of the room in tears. Brad and I played videogames with Ryan for hours; even when he lost he never stopped smiling. After leaving the hospital that night, my aunt told us that we wouldn’t be able to see Ryan for a couple days because he was having surgery to help make him well.

I stayed at my aunt and uncle’s house for a couple years with Brad. My mom, dad, and Ryan stayed at the hospital just as long. After several surgeries, Ryan was finally able to come home. I finally got to stay with my family at my house. As the years passed, Ryan made a full recovery. My parents, of course, had troubles paying medical bills, but my extended family, neighbors and church helped with the payments. Everything was looking as if our family would pull through this rough time. It looked as if the worst days of my life were behind me by age 12.

Four years ago, during the summer after my senior year of high school, my family was cleaning the house and getting ready for my graduation party. Ryan and I were carrying the metal fire pit up to the house from the shed in

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the backyard, when Ryan began complaining of pain in his legs and back. I followed him inside because he started to cry due to the pain. After taking two steps into the house, Ryan collapsed to the floor. I told him to get up so he could lie on the couch. Crying in severe nervous pain, Ryan said he couldn’t move his legs. I ran outside, grabbing the phone as I did to call 911 and tell my dad what had happened. An ambulance arrived minutes later taking Ryan and my parents back to the hospital we knew so well, leaving Brad and myself alone at our house in shock and fear for my brother’s health and my family’s strength.

Brad and I spent a couple nights alone at our house when Ryan was moved from room to room as doctors tried to figure out what was wrong. When Ryan was finally provided a room for more than a couple hours, Brad and I drove to the hospital to visit our family. I will never forget the doctor entering the room only minutes after Brad and I arrived. He asked if we would follow him down the hall. I left the room with my parents as Brad stayed behind with Ryan.

As we followed the doctor down the hall and entered a room full of chairs, I sat in between my mom and dad facing the doctor across the table. I heard every word the doctor said that day and still think of it as a bad dream. As the words came out his mouth, I wanted so badly to just wake up from this nightmare and go home with my family. He told us that they found another tumor in Ryan’s body that grew so large that it wrapped itself around Ryan’s aorta and spinal cord, pinching his nerves causing total loss of mobility below his waist. He told us that Ryan would no longer be able to walk and that he would need surgery right away in order to stop further constriction of his aorta.

Before I could even turn my head to look at my mom, she gave me the same tight hug she had given me only once before, but crying more than I ever remembered. And as I turned my head to look at my dad, I saw him wipe tears from his eyes; this was the first and only time I have ever seen my father cry. As tears began to fill my eyes, I stopped them from falling and told myself that everything would be alright. I wasn’t going to deal with this again, my family

Nonfiction

wasn’t going to deal with this again, and most importantly, Ryan wasn’t going to deal with this again.

After what seemed like hours, but was really only 20 minutes, the doctor took us back into the room and let my dad tell Ryan what was going to happen. I thought Ryan was going to break down crying because realistically, who would be alright with what the doctors had determined? As my dad told Ryan he would not be able to use his legs again and he would need to have surgery immediately, Ryan looked around the room and saw tears in everyone’s eyes and simply said, “Okay!” The doctor began to relay to Ryan what my dad just said when Ryan interrupted him and said, “I heard and I’ll be okay!” After he said that, I don’t know if it was just me wanting to believe that everyone stopped crying, but the room became very quiet and I know that in this, the other worst day of my life, I smiled for Ryan’s sake.

of my life. When I think of all the tears my family has cried, not once can I think of a time when I saw Ryan let a tear fall from his eyes. Ryan has a better attitude than anyone I know, and for that he is my hero, my best friend, and my brother.

After three major surgeries, the doctors had removed all of the tumor that they could from Ryan’s body. Ryan was in the hospital for that entire summer recovering. The day Ryan was released, he came home in a wheelchair smiling because he was so excited to live with his family again, out of the hospital.

Ryan is now a senior in high school and plays wheelchair basketball everyday. After only three years of playing wheelchair basketball, Ryan was announced at a national tournament as being one of the best to ever play at his age.

Ryan was offered full scholarships to seven universities for the opportunity to play for their teams. Next year Ryan will be attending the University of Alabama, where he received a full scholarship to play wheelchair basketball for the Crimson Tide.

Ryan still has a tumor wrapped around his aorta and spinal cord. Even though it is a lot smaller than it once was, the threat of it growing still haunts me and my family everyday. Ryan spent well over three years in the hospital, and I did not miss one day visiting him. I can officially say I have two days that I consider to be the worst

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Guest Interview

Self-Portraits: An Interview with Phillip Lopate

Adam Balz Writing on subjects from the profound to the seemingly mundane, from joie de vivre — love of life — to owning a cat and shaving his beard, and even an infamous essay detailing every visible and invisible inch of his own body, Lopate has made a career out of being his essays.

In his introduction to The Art of the Personal Essay, Lopate writes that “The hallmark of the personal essay is its intimacy. The writer seems to be speaking directly into your ear, confiding everything from gossip to wisdom.

Through sharing thoughts, memories, desires, complaints, and whimsies, the personal essayist sets up a relationship with the reader, a dialogue — a friendship, if you will, based on identification, understanding, testiness, and companionship.” In a sense, no one has set up a greater friendship with his readers over the last thirty-plus years than Phillip Lopate.

A celebrated author for more than three decades, Phillip Lopate has worked in almost every medium of literature, from novels and short stories to poetry, criticism, and memoir.

In 2004, he published an eponymously-titled “biographical monograph” about artist Rudy Burckhardt and an “urban meditation” on Manhattan titled Waterfront. Two years later he published and edited a massive, 825-page compendium of American film criticism spanning the last 90 years. But it’s his personal essays for which he’s received the most acclaim.

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Balz: You’ve worked in quite a few genres of literature: novels, personal essays, poetry, memoirs. What do you most enjoy writing?

I think I’m most comfortable with the essay, whether personal or formal. It’s a form that I feel I can control better. I just finished writing two novellas, so I still write fiction, but my sense is that once every ten years I’ll write a novel or two novellas, and the rest of the time I’ll work in nonfiction. I used to write poetry, but I haven’t written it in a long time.

Balz: For our nonfiction class we read your essay “Portrait of My Body” and needless to

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say, it caused a bit of a stir. Was it easy to write something so personal?

Well, once I started it was easy. I was originally asked to write something about the male body. There was this special issue of Michigan Quarterly Review on the male body, and I thought, well, I don’t know anything about the male body, but I know something about my own body. So I just started analyzing it and I was inspired probably by Montaigne because he says very particular and revealing things about himself and his physical apparatus, so I thought if he could do it, I could do it. I think there’s a sort of a gap between the state you get into when you’re writing which, for me, I can feel very brave, and then once it’s out there suddenly I think, Wow, did I say that? or I didn’t mean to be that revealing. There’s a difference between the self sitting at the computer and the self who goes out and meets the world.

Balz: Have you ever read “Portrait of My Body” live? And if so, what was the reaction, generally?

Well, the first time I read it, people were laughing in the aisles practically, it was very funny to them. It’s funny to read out loud a description of someone who’s standing right in front of you. But the whole point that I had in writing that piece is that people would connect and say, “Well, yes, I have really weird ideas about my own body.” I don’t think I’m so unique in that. I don’t think I’m the only one who loves my belly button.

Balz: During the process of writing “Portrait of My Body,” did you ever stop and say, “You know, some day I’ll have to read this out loud, maybe I should tone it down?”

No. I think that it’s a spur for me to write something that has a lot of frankness. I want to get to that. It was exciting, driving me on.

Balz: Is frankness or openness something you look for in essays that you read? Is there anybody that embodies that, somebody that you really respect for doing that?

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Yes. Every essayist I respect, from William Hazlitt, James Baldwin, to Virginia Woolf, embodies that. I think that’s part of the topography, the landscape of the essay, is you want it to go down some way. You don’t want it to stay at the same level. You want it to delve.

I do, anyway. I want it to get at something underneath the initial. So that’s where openness or frankness come in handy. Also, I think the personal essay is a form that thrives on conversation and intimacy, so there’s this sort of natural drive.

Balz: In the introduction to The Art of the Personal Essay you say that the personal essay was making “a cautious revival.” More than ten years later, do you think this prediction came true? Why or why not?

I think it came true. I’ve been teaching around the country, and I see a lot of people writing. In fact, a lot of students who would have written short stories with the same material in other times now don’t take the trouble to disguise it.

It used to be that somebody who wanted to be a writer would have a character who wanted to be an architect, posing, you know what I mean? Now, magazines have a lot of personal essays. Memoirs have obviously made a strong comeback, so yes, I think it’s something — it’s definitely in the air.

Balz: Do you think this kind of revival has had a drawback when you see people like James Frey and all those other fake memoirists?

Well, it’s just like any form, there are going to be bad — there are going to be mediocre or deceitful memoirs, just as there are going to be mediocre poems and mediocre novels. There’s no guarantee. In fact, the odds of writing a good memoir are no better or no worse than writing a good piece of fiction or poetry. So, I think the people — the readers — are hungry for interesting stories, and James Frey originally wanted to publish his book as a novel, but he was talked out of it by the publisher. He should have published it as a novel.

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Balz: When you teach across the country, what’s the greatest obstacle to people being open in their writing?

about themselves?

I rather think that you need some ego to write.

If you mean self-absorption, that’s a different thing. You need ego, but you also need curiosity about yourself and about others….You can’t — you have to have some sense of your strengths and power, otherwise you don’t go very far. So actually I think a little arrogance is a good thing for a writer.

Balz: You included one of your own essays in The Art of the Personal Essay (against joie de vivre). What about that essay made you choose it for such a wide anthology?

Well, I was interested in a kind of contrarian point of view, taking a stance that isn’t usual or conventional. And I had a number of them in The Art of the Personal Essay, like Hazlitt’s “On the Pleasure of Hating” or Beerbohm’s “Going Out for a Walk” or Samuel Johnson’s “Solitude of the Country,” where it said the opposite of what you expected to hear. So, this was one that was in keeping with it. Also, it was an essay that really identified with me, a lot of people had thought of me as the author of “Against joie de vivre.” And I thought that it was sufficiently revealing, that it would give other people the courage to be honest.

I think defensiveness and self-righteousness. In other words, people develop tools of survival.

So that helps to get through life; it doesn’t help to be a good personal essayist. You have to dismantle your own defensiveness, and become complicit of the problems around you. And so for me, it’s just like the whole issue of political correctness. Students, for instance, are easily moralists; they try to have an answer like “Oh, well, this person is a racist.” I think the greatest obstacle would be a rush to judgment, an attempt to construct a world so that one is in the moral high-ground.

Balz: You’ve talked before about how egotism fuels essays. Do you think that’s become a problem: People with too much ego writing

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Balz: On a more casual note, what books are lying around your house right now?

There are about ten thousand books lying around the house. What have I been reading recently? I read Willa Cather’s novel Lucy Gayheart. I read a novel by a guy who — a Chinese writer who won the Nobel Prize, his name is Gao Xingjian, the book is called Soul Mountain. I just read a little novel by Roberto Bolano called Amulet. And now I’m reading a memoir, The Bishop’s Daughter by Honor Moore, which is about her father, who was a bishop. So a little of everything.

Balz: In 2006, you published American Movie Critics, the compendium about film criticism.

How did the idea first come to you to compile this?

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I’ve always been interested in movie criticism; I’ve written a fair amount, and I wanted to teach it. I realized that there’s no book out there that I could assign my students, so I had to write it myself. I had quite a bit of success with The Art of the Personal Essay, and I also did another anthology, Writing New York, about the literature of New York City. There’s something that’s a lot of fun for me about reading anthologies. You get to read everything, do a lot of research, and get to discover wonderful bits of writing. This is not bragging because I didn’t write it.

I love that book.

from the newspaper-reading generation, so I love looking at newspaper and, frankly, I don’t surf the Internet very much because I’m writing from five to eight hours a day, and the last thing I want to do after I finish writing is hop around and look at Websites. I prefer newspapers and magazines. I like holding them in my hands. I like getting the ink on my hands. But, yes, I do think that film criticism is going to graduate, it’s going to evolve. Then the question becomes how does a film critic make a living?

If most Jennifer Stallsmith information is free, how are you going to make a living? That problem hasn’t been solved yet.

It’s interesting that I was trying to configure a whole canon of movie criticism and show the difference. Recently, a lot of film critics have been fired from their jobs. So the question of whether film criticism will survive or not is up in the air.

Balz: In the introduction to your book Totally, Tenderly, Tragically, you discuss tracking down an old movie by George Cukor because his other movies made such an impact on you.

What movies or directors really turned you on to the power of film?

Balz: When anthologies about works of nonfiction are published, they rarely include works of criticism, either of books or movies.

Why do you think the art of criticism isn’t appreciated as much as other forms of nonfiction?

Antonioni, Godard, Griffith, Carl Dreyer, Bresson, Mizoguchi, John Ford, George Cukor, Satyajit Ray, Kurosawa, it goes on and on.

Ever Thought About Jumping off a Building

I think it is and it isn’t. One of the things I was trying to show was that a lot of film criticism really is like an essay, or is an essay, just a different kind. You have the same question of how you’re going to grab the reader’s interest; how you’re going to sustain tension; are you going to argue with yourself; are you going to [include] personality? I think that criticism is studied. Obviously part of the problem with film criticism is that the medium is new. It doesn’t always get the respect that it should because it’s sometimes seen as a kind of popular medium that’s not even an art form. So it had to overcome some of that skepticism.

Balz: Where do you think the future of film criticism is? Is it going toward the Internet?

Yes, it’s going toward the Internet, inevitably because newspapers can’t seem to make enough of a profit, and young people often surf the Internet rather than read newspapers. I’m

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Balz: Are there any contemporary filmmakers who manage to still inspire you, or is the magic of movies really something you find in childhood?

There are still some wonderful films. For instance, I really did like No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James.

Some of the foreign filmmakers like Aleksandr Sokurov, Hsaio-hsien Hou and Kiarostami, and Mike Leigh are very important. There are young directors and older ones. I think the art of film is very much alive.

Balz: Critics often mention how much they love writing reviews of bad movies, and after that list you just gave, I was wondering, do you go to watch movies like Hostel and Saw, or do you stick mainly with the classics?

Well, I go to new movies, obviously. My thirteenyear-old daughter and I went to see Enchanted, which actually I liked a lot. I saw Juno with her.

I don’t go in for J-horror. I’m not anti-horror film, but it’s not my first idea of a good time to go to

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a movie where I’m going to see somebody’s cheeks being slashed. I want a film that will give me both entertainment and some sense of wisdom and perspective on human nature.

A good comedy can do that or a good drama.

But I’m not up on the latest Japanese horror or the American remakes.

Balz: What advice would you give somebody who’s going into film criticism? I know on the NPR interview you said you’re really irked by people who tell directors or film studios what to do with their movies. Is there any advice for film critics or up-and-coming film critics?

Try writing about movies that really shake you up in interest, even if you don’t entirely like them, and read my anthology. Read other film critics, just try to get your work out, and show it to other people. I don’t think there’s any “must not do” where film critics are concerned. I wish them the best. I think some people still care about movies and debate them, discuss them, and that’s not going to go away anytime soon.

Balz: In closing, I just have one more question.

Since you’ve tackled so many genres, is there any other genre that you’re looking forward to tackling?

I think I would like to write a memoir of some kind, an autobiography of some kind….

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Grandma and Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow From grandparents we glean reverence, tolerance, a sense of family, and roots. One of life’s little blessings is to have known a grandparent. I was fortunate to have known three. My paternal grandmother lived with us on the farm ’til I was about 13. She was a petite lady, barely 5 foot, and had long reddish blond hair, usually neatly done in a bun. Grandma was nearly blind by then, in her 80’s, and in need of a home with a little less activity than our rapidly growing family provided. She had truly done her life’s share, having raised seven sons, two daughters, nursed a son through Polio, and cared for an invalid husband the last year of his life. Grandpa died when I was 2 months old so I never knew him. She did not share much of her long life with us. Realizing that she would be moving away, I struck up a conversation with her one fall day when I was 12. She invited me to help read with her the entries she had made in her Bible, which she drew out of her big black trunk; a trunk that contained the only worldly goods she yet possessed. I was thrilled.

She relayed that she was born in rural Michigan but her family moved to Chicago in 1869 when she was barely six! Her father sold his share of a farm so he could come to the big city. She had an older brother, Fred, and younger sister, Alice.

Her father seemed to have been involved in the lumber business. Most thrilling was Grandma’s tale of the Great Chicago Fire. She was 8 years old that fateful day, Oct. 8, 1871. She claimed she knew Mrs. O’Leary’s cow! Could I believe her? Well, who was a 12-year-old to question this frail, tiny lady? Such a tale! As she described the flaming lumber sailing in the

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Barbara Byron firestorm winds, mothers racing with children for the river or the lakeshore, farm animals bellowing, the incredible roar of the fire you had to hear to believe. Next, she spoke of sneaking out with her brother to investigate the aftermath of the conflagration. She described the melted dishes, twisted silverware, and items of value people attempted to bury as the fire came upon them. This was real. Grandma relayed how the entire area smoldered for days to the east of their home, which had not burned. I devoured every word of her story. She allowed me to copy from the Bible each entry she had so carefully written over the years of raising her family. I learned later Grandpa had grown up less than two blocks from her home. He was from a large family of boys; many of her sons were named for those uncles. The date of her marriage, the birth of each child was carefully scripted into that Bible which has never been seen again.

She had lived her entire adult life in Chicago.

She was a Chicago girl, a city lady.

My post script to this enjoyable encounter with Grandma is that years later, 1984 to be exact, our oldest son announced his engagement. I promised them a family tree. This gift began with a trip to the Newberry Library in Chicago, where my first question was, “Where did Mrs. O’Leary live?” The young clerk was taken aback, but quickly located someone who knew — DeKoven Street! And so began my ongoing search of family stories and histories of land and happenings! In the 1870 Census, less than two blocks west of O’Leary’s, I found a Miller family with a 7 year old girl, Mary, born in MI, an older brother, Fred, and a baby

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sister, Alice! I recalled that conversation with Grandma. She was guiding me. As I continued with my family research I wished to find her in Michigan. Since her surname, Miller, is like finding a Smith or Jones in a haystack, I was not hopeful. As we reviewed family tales we recalled Grandma liking to grow fresh mint for her tea. Dad said that was because her family in Michigan grew spearmint for the Wrigley Gum Company. Another ‘maybe’ tale I told myself, but I worked on that angle. Lo and behold, an area near Kalamazoo, in Otsego Township was where much of the spearmint was grown for the Wrigley Company. With a little assistance from a local library there I found the family!

Everything fit. There are land records of the sale from Fredrick to a dad and a brother. In 1860, Fredrick is there, married, with a baby boy. There they were, Grandma as a child, her parents, even grandparents!

I had often wondered how she liked living on the farm, but now I think it is possible that our rural setting, and, later, the home with another son in the woods of Northeast Wisconsin, reminded her of her home in Michigan. We will never know as she quietly passed on, at the age of 92, with only a bit of gray in her strawberry blond hair. She was returned to the big city, to be laid to rest beside her husband.

That visit with Grandma so many years ago has resulted in many conversations with other family members and a love of histories of all kinds.

As I share these authenticated stories with grandchildren I marvel at their fascination with how life really used to be, their joy of history coming alive, just as a certain 12-year-old was fascinated back in ‘49.

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Guest Interview

Michigan Frost: An Interview with Writer John Smolens

Marissa Thayer

the Northwoods offer. A self-proclaimed lover of the snow, Smolens has set two of his novels, Cold and Fire Point, in Upper Michigan.

With a collection of brilliant short stories in My One and Only Bomb Shelter (1998) and six completed novels under his belt, Smolens not only knows what it takes to become an established writer but has what it takes. His most critically acclaimed novels include Cold (2001), The Invisible World (2002) and Fire Point (2004), with his latest novel, The Anarchist (2008) awaiting its proper praise. Most notably, Cold was nominated for the prestigious Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Award.

With a flow of ideas coming to him while doing the simplest tasks such as yardwork, it’s easy to tell why Smolens has become such an accomplished author.

Thayer: Discuss how you decided to become a writer. At what stage in your schooling did you know writing was what you wanted to do?

Though the title of one of six published novels

by John Smolens is Cold, his personality is far from that description. As an English professor at Northern Michigan University, Smolens is just as focused on educating his students through fiction workshops as he is sitting down and writing his upcoming seventh novel.

After moving to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula over two decades ago, this east coast Massachusetts native has found ample inspiration in the quiet and blusterous winters

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In high school I suddenly “got” reading literature. I was particularly thick-skulled but was fortunate to have some very good, innovative teachers. They saw, I believe, that I wasn’t just a “jock” (though I was), but a kid who wanted to examine the stuff of life, and over a few years they had me reading things that really turned my head around. A couple of examples: Camus’ The Stranger and The Plague — both were enormously influential. And certainly some of Hemingway’s short stories and novels.

I attempted to write my first short story on Christmas day when I was 18 — I remember

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little about it, although I know it was about a boy who was in the woods (in the snow), and there was something about a wolf. Not very original, true, but for a few hours I got lost in the telling of it. I think it was the first time I realized that writing, the intense engagement with language on a page, was something that I wanted to do.

I felt then — as I do now — that I wanted to be a part of that world. If Hemingway, Camus, and Flannery O’Connor found writing stories uniquely fulfilling, then I wanted to try it, too.

Thayer: How do you generate ideas for your writing?

I often start with a line. An image. Perhaps a line of dialogue (imagined or overheard). I start with something specific, and then see where it takes me.

Thayer: If this doesn’t always work, what do you do next? Do you feel pressure when working on a deadline? How do you veer away from writer’s block?

I don’t care for the term “writer’s block” — of course, no writer does; but my point is this: if you take the long view, there are times in your life when you should be writing, and there are times when you shouldn’t. There certainly are days when I don’t feel I can get a word on paper — and I don’t. But rather than look at that as a failure of some sort, I try to make use of the time spent trying. The first thing is to get your butt in the chair. Even if you just sit there and stare at the blank page or screen, you’re doing something, your brain is turning, if ever so slowly. What I usually do is read. I often reread my stuff; sometimes I make lots of changes, sometimes hardly any. But that, too, is writing.

I believe in the composting approach to writing: you throw all the garbage in a hole and let it stew; periodically, you take a shovel or pitchfork and turn it; eventually, it becomes something nutritious that may allow you to grow plants and flowers.

As for deadlines, I think they are a good thing for writers, as long as they are reasonable.

They kick you into gear, something most writers

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need. We are mostly a bunch of procrastinators.

Thayer: Talk a little bit about your writing process. Where do you write? Do you need quiet? Where does your best writing take place?

These days I write mostly on my computer.

For years I wrote longhand, and then typed up drafts on a manual typewriter. I still think like a longhand writer, I think; but actually using a computer is easier for the simple reason that now, when I write for any length of time with pen or pencil, my hand cramps up. I grew up in the hockey rinks of Greater Boston. Old hockey players tend to be arthritic. Hips, knees, and hands tend to go first.

Thayer: Where do you find inspiration?

I don’t want to keep sounding contrary, but this is a word I never use and greatly distrust (along with romantic notions of a “muse”). I think most writers start with ideas and images. I do. If I don’t have any in my head (I usually do), then I’ll do something else for a while. Work in the yard, clean the garage. Yardwork and working on the house are great places for ideas, I’ve always found. I’ve been known to stop while sawing a board to make a note, which I tuck in my nail apron. Not exactly a scene from This Old House, but true.

Thayer: Where does your personal life fit into your writing? Do you try to keep it separate or do you sometimes find your family or experiences creeping into the narrative?

This is impossible to say, really. I do not write autobiography, but I’m always drawing from my impressions and experiences. It’s impossible to really separate the two, and I don’t know that a fiction writer should worry about it. As Hemingway said, in effect, it goes best when you just make it up. Whether it somehow resembles your life is immaterial.

Thayer: What did it feel like to finally get recognition/awards for your writing?

Just knowing that someone has read something

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of yours is a great reward. I honestly believe that I would continue to write, even if I didn’t publish another thing. After so many years, it’s how I deal with the world, how I cope with it. John Cheever said that he wrote so that he might make order out of chaos.

geographically and culturally. Two peninsulas and a lot of coastline. A separate entity, I think. I also don’t think my “values” have really changed because of living here as opposed to in New England. I do love living on a hill overlooking Lake Superior.

Thayer: What exactly about Michigan makes it seem so unique to you? What were your first experiences in Michigan that truly enhanced your desire to write about the setting?

Michigan is a unique place. I can’t identify one specific thing that made me want to write about it. I suppose Cold was first suggested by the weather (I’m writing this on April 1, a day when school has been cancelled due to a blizzard — our annual April blizzard). I love The Weather Channel; it’s my favorite station, and I’ve always lived in places where the weather is varied, unpredictable, extreme, and dramatic.

Last night, the wind off the lake was raging; all night branches were hurled against our northside windows, and this morning the backyard (we live within sight of Lake Superior) was strewn with downed branches. I really expected a window to break during the night. Plus, the power went out and the house got cold; we lit candles; just as I was about to build a fire in the fireplace, the power came on again.

Why wouldn’t anyone want to write about places like this?

Thayer: Boston and the East Coast have a different set of values/personality than the Midwest; did changing your locale affect your writing? If so, how?

Interesting question. It has in a number of ways.

To put it briefly, I think that moving away from New England, where I was brought up, allowed me — odd as it may seem — to see it more clearly. And now that I’ve lived in Michigan for 23 years, I feel that I’m able to write about this part of the country as well. Some may disagree, but I don’t think of Michigan as the “Midwest” — it’s just Michigan, a truly unique place

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Thayer: Cold was a brilliant novel that captured life in the Upper Peninsula. How did you receive/accept the inevitable criticism by native “Yoopers” of the way you depicted their lifestyle?

Thank you for your kindness, Marissa. Readers — native Yoopers and otherwise — are entitled to their opinions, of course.

Thayer: What challenges do you feel there are when writing about a specific region or group of people?

The challenges change with each story, each book. Right now I’m in the early stages of a book about the American Revolution. I want to

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be true to the events and the people who really played a role in events such as the Battles at Lexington and Concord and at Bunker Hill. For this kind of fiction, a lot of reading and research is required. I’ve always loved to read history, so I think I’m well-suited for this. I also have always been curious about life in other eras — this is probably due to the fact that I grew up in the Boston area, and when I was young I used to work on the restoration of old houses and buildings. These places tell you a lot about the lives of the people who inhabited them.

So writing about them is important, and it’s essential that you get the details. For instance, earlier today I read that a lot of the Americans’ bullets used at the Battle of Bunker Hill were made by melting down organ pipes ripped out of churches. A detail like that makes my day.

Thayer: Your newest novel, The Anarchist, will be coming out in late 2009. What do you feel is the role of historical fiction in writing?

It’s important, needless to say. I’ve always read a lot of history. I spent four years researching and writing The Anarchist. I love to find unexpected details, such as the contents of President McKinley’s pockets on the day he was shot in 1901 (he had less than two dollars and three pocket knives!). It’s an intriguing challenge to write fiction about real historical events and figures. If Teddy Roosevelt didn’t exist, some novelist would have to invent him.

McKinley’s assassin, a young man named Leon Czolgosz, I find to be a remarkably dark and contradictory figure. He was, indeed, a coldblooded murderer, and yet, he also possessed considerable sensibility. He acted knowing that he would be caught and, most likely, persecuted (he was electrocuted a little more than a month after the president died). His behavior while incarcerated and during his two-day trial baffled authorities. He often behaved in a civilized, respectful manner. In some ways, I think he was the first “modern” assassin.

Thayer: How do you find a balance between fact and fiction when writing historical fiction novels?

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This is what really makes me want to write historical fiction — the possibility of blending the two, fact and fiction. In The Anarchist, I can “create” characters based on what I’ve learned about people like McKinley, Roosevelt, and Dr. Presley Rixey (who was the personal physician to both presidents); and I can try to make a full character out of Czolgosz — about whom history tells us little with absolute certainty. But I can also create fictional characters who could have been a part of the events surrounding McKinley’s assassination. For example, the Pinkertons were a very influential force in those days, and one of my main characters is a Pinkerton agent who runs spies that infiltrate various anarchist and workers’ organizations.

That agent, a man named Norris, and his spy, an Erie Canal boatman (a “canawler”) named Moses Hyde, are characters that I had to write about. They lived in a secret, brutal world that I believe is worth remembering.

Thayer: What do you feel is the importance of writing? Some critics say writing cannot be taught, can you weigh in on this issue?

These two questions — they require a book each! I’ll just say that writing is important; it’s how we attempt to understand what’s going on around us. And as far as whether it can be taught — this is something that’s said too often, probably by people who have never written much (certainly not novels and short stories).

Perhaps it comes from romantic notions of artists slaving away in cold garrets? And yet if you mention an accomplished painter or a musician, no one seems to question the fact that they might have attended the Julliard or the Berkeley School of Music in Boston. It’s absurd to think that a particular kind of education might invalidate a writer’s worth. If you’re worried about this, read the book first, and then the author’s biography after.

Thayer: How have you been able to persevere through writing? How have you been able to handle rejection from publishers in the past?

I’ve had plenty of rejection over the years, and persistence is necessary (and, certainly,

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perseverance). This may seem an odd response, but to a considerable degree I learned these things by being a goalie — as a kid, I played a lot of hockey in Greater Boston, and the position of goaltender requires that one develop a certain temperament, one which becomes useful if one chooses to write after hanging up the pads.

Thayer: What function does having an agent play in publishing?

They’re very important. They can’t guarantee that a writer will get published (as is often believed), but they can help. A good agent can be an invaluable asset.

Thayer: What is the editor/writer relationship; can you outline the process?

This too requires a book (of which there are plenty). It’s difficult to generalize, except to say that the best relationship is one where both editor and writer are working together toward the same purpose — producing the best work, a novel and giving it a chance at finding an audience. This is not easy to accomplish in this society. It’s interesting, I think, that Jim Harrison, one of our greatest living American writers, is a best-selling author in France.

Thayer: When writing a novel, what audience are you trying to reach? What audience have you found is generally attracted to your novels?

The question of audience is a good one — and a very complicated matter. In short, I want to write stories and novels that I would want to read, and would hope that a person with a certain curiosity would want to read. A lot of people in publishing talk about “markets”; writers, the ones I admire, talk about “readers”, and there’s a significant difference. There are a lot of problems with publishing in America and I wonder if that difference isn’t at the heart of the matter, to steal a phrase from Graham Greene.

Nonfiction

Thayer: What is the motto you live by as a writing teacher, or what do you hope your lasting legacy will be?

Motto: “Stay true.” Legacy: I’ve never actually thought of such a thing, not using that term anyway.

Thayer: What term would you use besides legacy? Could you expand more on this?

Well yes, briefly. I’d like to leave a body of work that long after I’m gone someone might read and still appreciate. Go into a library and walk among the stacks — look at all those books, many of which haven’t been taken down off the shelf in years (this is particularly true if you read a lot of history). But they’re there, waiting. Right now I’m reading some books that were written nearly 200 years ago and, according to the library slip in the back, haven’t been checked out for nearly a half century. The authors of those books, I think, knew that their work would gather dust, but consider the alternative — to not have written those books at all. When John Updike, a very eloquent fellow, was asked why he wrote, he replied, “Why not?”

Thayer: What are you currently working on? Do you have any new directions you’d like to take?

I’m currently working on several things, but am mostly devoted to another historical novel. This one takes place in Boston, from the Battle of Lexington and Concord to the Battle of Bunker Hill (April to June of 1775). These were truly remarkable events; some of my main characters are an apprentice to the great American patriot, Dr. Joseph Warren, who died at Bunker Hill; Abigail Lovell, a young American woman who undermined the British military; and Captain Walter Laurie, a British soldier who served in both battles (and was responsible for burying Dr. Warren). I used to live on Bunker Hill in Charlestown, so this story, this place and its history is very important to me. I hope I can do the events and these characters justice.

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A Wife’s Tale: Or A Really Smart Husband It isn’t all the time that you run into old friends.

I mean really old friends, the kind you knew the day after you were born and the kind that make you wish the world were just a little bigger; big enough to get permanently lost in.

“Wow, isn’t it a small world? I haven’t seen you since high school, so did you ever become an artist?”

Sometimes they are a little too familiar, these old friends. All they want to know is if you ever actually made it in life or if you are some sort of sad case of a story so they can delight in the horror of it all. Perhaps it makes their own lives a little tastier in all its trashy-TV-talk-show glory.

But it’s the psycho stalking ex-not-his-girlfriend that you really, I mean really, don’t want to run into; especially not on the telephone calling from some mysterious state.

She was never his girlfriend, he was a horrible teenage boy, or perhaps an average one, as a female I guess I really don’t have a clue. We are taught by our fathers all men are evil and by our mothers that they only want the flower below.

They were right in his case. He used her for the stuff she bought him and deflowered the garden time and again. She loved him for it.

Now, it’s this girl-in-love thing that I never understood. Sure, we fall for guys, but some of us drop the panties and charge head on screaming, “I want to have your love child!” If you’ve never seen that girl before, trust me, she’s a literal nightmare. She is the kind of stalking ex that had a room full of pictures

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Stephanie Arnold

of him and pictures of you, with your eyes scratched out and darts all over them. Well, she does in your nightmares anyway.

Imagine ten years of mediocre marriage. The kind that was traveled by a couple with lots of kids, rough times, and a denial that the honeymoon has long been over and it’s time to get down to business. It’s time you come to the crossroads and let go of his hand, look him straight in the eye and say without an ounce of remorse, “You’re a dumbass.” If that isn’t bad enough, you begin to poke and prod him for the real reason he dragged you into the past ten years of torture and loneliness. No really, it was all his fault. You had no idea that “Do you take this man for better or worse…” translated into “Do you take this man for someone great who will psychologically and emotionally shred you into a million tiny particles of people bits…”

Mom and Dad made it look so easy didn’t they? No, it isn’t easy reaching a decade with someone, and it makes it all the more difficult when she calls you in the middle of the night to explain what an “old friend” she is to him.

It doesn’t exactly jump straight to the point, this psycho ex drama. It starts with mysterious calls that hang up on you and guilty looks from him when you talk about being hung up on. He doesn’t exactly tell you that it started a month or two ago, that he knew she tracked him down and began to stalk him all over again, the way she did when you first met him. And this kind of girl, she doesn’t exactly care how badly she was treated; she missed it the whole ten years. But he can’t hide it from you forever; it can only

Nonfiction

go on so long before your rough times, your desire for him to cherish and awe over you, and his outlandish behavior over hiding it begins to have you believing that he, your man in shining army greens, is cheating.

type thinks that “but” means it’s time all over again to reclaim something she never had to begin with. So she writes a nice letter. Not one you ever see but one that will fill your heart with joy.

What else is a girl who has gained twenty pounds, wears comfy clothes for more than a day, pulls her hair into pony tails, gives up the makeup, replaced silky sexy things with granny panties, and is drowned out by screaming munchkins supposed to think? The military gives him plenty of opportunity, what with all the deployments, CQ (that’s a babysitting the barracks overnight job), staff duty (which is babysitting the battalion front desk), and any ridiculous thing they can think of to take him away from home time and again. Soon enough, you will be so suspicious that when he comes to tell you they are sending him to war, you attack him for leaving you for some other woman. At least that’s what it feels like.

It turns out that husbands are the weakest creatures when it comes to hiding their innocence from wives that will refuse to believe how truly ridiculous a ridiculously true story is. I didn’t, I fell for the shadows in the back of my mind gossiping about the devious nature of my poor tortured man. Until he tells me, all on his own, without prying it out of his bleeding deceitful corpse because you know us women are that evil. He tells me how the letter reads, “...if you ever leave your wife, I’ll be on your doorstep…” and he finishes it with, “…stupid bitch thinks I’m ever going to leave you.”

He was never cheating, and there is no other demanding, demonizing nag but you. No really, you are. In fact you’re worse, but we can pretend otherwise. He is as pure as any man could be, regardless of the trail of damaged goods he left behind. This psycho ex tracked him down through other “old friends” that he talked to for all of a minute due to “old friends” telling them they ran into him and passed him on. He would make quite the high school reunion stud, if our high school had a reunion. It doesn’t. It can’t. It’s an overseas American high school for military brats, and it closed down a few years back anyway.

I love this man. I loved him the whole decade I was an idiot, and I loved him the next seven years after. But I will have to say that when he has the naïve gull to make such an explicit statement that clearly represents how much he cherishes me… yes me, the wicked old ogre under the marital bridge that leads to sanity and happiness on the other side… I love him for the childlike rudeness he states it with. Sometimes wives are the stupidest beings on earth.

He confesses, too, confesses about being innocent but aware the whole two months or so. What in the world are men thinking when they decide that silence is the best plan of attack? He could have just fessed up the day he heard from this marvelous “old friend” and let you in on how he was at first polite, “Oh yeah, sure I remember you.” And by the end of the conversation, politely stern, “Look, I really don’t keep in contact with anyone from way back, but it was nice of you to call and say hi.” He doesn’t realize the danger in the “but.” You see, this

Nonfiction

61

Poetry

Dead boy

Theresa Warner

I fell in love with a dead boy He was dead from the moment I met him And he will haunt me for infinity I once thought I could make him smile Make him move Breathe life into his soul But for as much as I tried And for as much as I cared My beautiful corpse rotted in my arms He fell to bits, fell to bones I had given him all my life And in the end had none left for myself When he was gone, my dead boy left me Just as vacant and unreal as him

Poetry

63   

Pinned

Clarissa Carroll

It’s the hopelessness you feel by folding your hands, closing your eyes and praying, thinking to yourself that he’s not really there.

Like accidentally firing your hunting rifle into your foot and you SCREAM at the initial pain and you start to cry.

It is a wrestling match and you are the one getting thrown to the mat with no room to wiggle out.

You quiver as he slowly strips you of your self-worth.

Your naked body lies beneath his strong, athletic, muscular physique, frightened while the weight of the world is forced upon you.

All you can do is lie motionless and wait ‘til it’s over.

Like the referee with his whistle in hand while he counts 1…2…3…

Pinned.

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Poetry

Untitled

Jean-Marie Mayer

The first thing that a person will notice about another person is their hair.

The self-consciousness that everyone’s staring and knows it’s not real.

It was never like my real hair could feel or had feelings, so why should I feel the loss of it?

Caring for it is like brushing a cat, or when it’s on its stand, like playing with a doll’s head.

Real hair is dead past the scalp anyway, so why should wearing someone else’s hair be any different?

The best wigs are made from real hair. It has its own life when it’s off my head.

Like it still knows it’s someone else’s hair and it’s glad to be off my head and doing its own thing. Even if all it does is sit on its stand and stare at me.

I lock it in the closet at night.

Poetry

65

Munchausen’s

Hilary Bullock

Haven’t you ever wanted a disease?

Nothing too deadly.

Just something, anything, microscopic.

Don’t you ever want to sit in that starch-white room with its papery bed?

List off the symptoms, headache, stomachache, backache.

Wouldn’t you want to feel that tiny butterfly needle pierce your skin?

Watch the rush from the bluish vein, tainting the tube a crimson red, while filling the vial with its sticky rich substance.

Don’t you ever want to tell your ailing story to all that will listen?

The nurse from urgent care, the on-call doctor, the boyish-faced Oncologist.

Haven’t you ever wanted to be placed in an MRI, the loud vibrations lulling you to sleep?

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Poetry

A spot on your lung, a hum in your heart, a mass upon your brain.

Wouldn’t you love to have the doctor hold your hand?

Pray with you, Tell you everything will be alright?

Well, Wouldn’t you?

Poetry

67

Intersecting the Wolf River

Jesse Stratton

Rotted wood planks half-buried By the broken gray stones, Iron rails run their rusty course Red-brown and solid, A shaved stripe through the yellow Hair of the Big Woods, In autumn.

I step from plank to plank, And sometimes in between, Step, step, crunch.

Now on the rail itself, heel to toe, Canvas shoes not making a sound, But it’s harder to balance.

Rustling yellow walls open suddenly, Revealing a wide double mirror, blue Reflects blue, and I, a homeless pilgrim Behold the Wolf.

She is quiet, serene, the wind barely Causes a ripple of her blue fur. If I listen closely, I can hear her tongue lapping The stones and wooden trestles.

Between the planks nothing but air Stands between her damp fur and me.

Do I dare cross her, that calm, Sleeping Wolf, with nothing but Air between us? The planks are unevenly spaced so it’s Tip-toe, double-time, or standing still.

Soft slap of lap-lapping tongue, This isn’t the first time I’ve flirted with her.

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Poetry

Dance of the Mechanical Men

Stephanie Arnold

Mortality plays the grey waltz Turning and swaying three four

five Beautiful, they dance down the assembly line Men making men one two Metal legs, tinkered arms three four five Spinning gently, passing time madly Piece connected to piece one

two Lost in lull, drowned in drone three

four

five Repetition down the assembly line The whistle blows slow

slow halted Cloned unique, the mechanical dance Mortality plays the grey waltz

Poetry

69   

Vicarious

Andrea Frederick

I am living vicariously through time.

Each separate heartbeat a Different Letter On the keyboard, each Breath A spark through my system.

I can feel my lifeblood Surging through the Web of information Like a sea of energy…

All I have to do is Tap Into it.

All I need is Another program Another Cable And I could synchronize my Heartbeats My Thoughts Into harmony with yours And we could live forever Entwined in Artificial passion.

I do not fear the disease— Only the Symptoms Eating at our Lives.

70

Poetry

Trick

Daniel Beckwith

Pull me through a hat Make me your trick Take the roses I’ll be by the door.

Poetry

71

Riding the Tide

Mary Mattson

The ocean at moon rise rumbling and restless, the tide coming in, waves pounding against rippled sand washing up the beach reaching, standing on the shore just long enough to gasp before slipping back only to be overcome by the next whitecap mounting the current thrusting forward rushing to fill tidal pools teeming with potential… crashing forward slipping back until the last wave breaks white on the shore, the moon’s pull relaxes, and the tide withdraws leaving slick seaweed clinging to the glistening sand

72

Poetry

Extra Baggage

Samantha Parker

I stuff you in my bag, next to those frequent buyer cards that never get filled. You capture the space I otherwise would fill with another, coupon, lipstick, or lover. Packing the remembrance of your harsh touch, your voiceless words, your undisclosed promises.

Once I threw you in my sock drawer, shifting and shuffling to the back with the mismatched pairs. I tried to wear you like a brooch, on my breast, a badge of my courage, the courage to love a man who enjoyed his gloom and discontent.

Once I wore your bruise, all purple, and black, and blue, and green, and yellow.

So, I stuff you in my bag, a vanishing object, stretching against the seams and stitches that refuse to let you go.

Poetry

73   

Hip-Hop Generator

Zachary Taylor

When I was younger, I used to combine the words on the paper and the thoughts in my mind.

Then I typed them into something greater, thanks to the hip-hop generator.

I’d print them out and hit the speakers and bust a rhyme to shake ya sneakers: “Yo I don’t do drugs, I ain’t got the need, my momma buys Kool-Aid, not dope or weed.

Get up outta herr and don’t come back, I brush my teeth cause I hates da plaque.

I’m cleen and meen and I’m just thirteen and when I hit da pool, I rock da sunskreen.

Now I gots to finish, I got chores to doo, So peace out ya’ll, I’m Da Phresh Kangaroo.”

So maybe my parents were right when they said, “Get off that damn website and read a book instead.”

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Poetry

New Experiences Pt. #1: Hot Tub

Kellen Holden

We sat at the edge of stars and bubbles and bugs.

The fireflies danced around our naked bodies and sucked the blood dry from our veins.

Exhaustion and heat.

We basked in those days while we looked out over the water into the foggy unknown.

We drank some wine; laughed about the thrills of awkward situations.

And although they sprinkled over our heads shrouded in the breathtaking light of the moon, there were no fireworks between us that could take my breath away and make me fall for you.

Poetry

75   

HERE…

Russell Brickey

The freeway curls like the tendril of a new fern uncoiling Into the grassy outskirts where the shingle factory Clatters behind the long, low metallurgy plant, And the iron monger’s shop hammers flint all day Only to close at night like a shellfish, and we cling to the tip of the continent.

The “T&R” truck stop has been bankrupt for years But the sign still stands, unlit, Ozymandian above The tarred rooftops.

To one side of the overpass you can see The grim mesh of the railroad yard, God’s own acre of empty boxcars and squat brick buildings, And beyond this, the paper mill looming over its steeps of sawdust.

On the other side, bungalows doze under generations of trees Beside the “Roller Derby,” now dead as Disco, And the soaped windows of the Safeway collect Pale clouds of sunlight, a crystal palace of loss— Still, the parcels of field are mowed by the city.

The young dogwoods are staked ritualistically Each spring as if celebrating the rebellion of living things. I-99 Connects us to the land with a Dairy Queen, burning

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Poetry

Neon at its junction: our totem. To the West Side, elder houses, regal For this economy, stand (patient pilgrims), their wide lawns pruned & cultivated, Thick as carpets and separated by the breadth Of zoning regulations.

This is the nexus of freeways singing the body mechanical.

The landscape dreams of its own wild children.

Poetry

77   

Deserted

Mary Mattson

I’m hoping to graft fins onto my children’s limbs and mine so when the time comeswe all can swim when the oceans rise.

There will be no safety, though, to swim to.

The water will be still and so calm but for moon-pull ripples, tidal waves, and storms so big we will all have to live in the eye.

And there our vision will be 20/20 — I expect, but there will be no going back.

To retain our rights as solitary sentients, the dominant and — well — only species left, we will name our storms exotic things, like– Dennis and Tina.

And eventually, when we find ourselves missing the company of lesser creatures, we will name our storms things like Wildebeest and Merlin.

This is, of course, if we find ourselves.

Likely our fins will fail us as there will be no surfing without a shore, nor resting without land, and

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Poetry

no use for our hands but to pray.

Perhaps we’d have been better off with gills than fins.

So we will pray into a great silence, and the empty ocean surrounding us will say nothing and the storms will not be ours to name.

Poetry

79

Preparations

Amanda Klukas

Twenty-four hours have passed a cleaning crew spent most of them Scrubbing, Disinfecting, Erasing any Evidence.

I’ve been chosen to gather clothes that will soon become ashes.

Your mom wants the necklace from your father, your “Bud Light” hat.

Your house appears unchanged, but the noises of home are Silenced.

At your door, I pause.

I prepare myself for the mess I am sure I will see.

The smell of disinfectant is Nauseating.

Your collage of pictures is Gone.

Your football jersey is Missing.

Your gun cabinet is Empty.

No posters or beer signs.

Bare walls — too clean; even for you.

She must have taken it all.

I’d almost rather see Blood.

I gather the things I came for.

Any jeans will do.

Find the necklace on your dresser.

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Poetry

Your cell phone tucked away in a drawer; all the unanswered calls to Her. Were you asking for help?

I can’t find your hat.

I’ll have to check your car.

I need to get out of here so I turn to leave but can’t.

My eyes fix themselves on the ceiling, my feet the floor when I see the Hole.

In the ceiling just inside the door.

Above the void that had always held your bed.

The room, cold and still Fades.

For just one instant I am alone with the Hole and your Pain.

In a rush of Blood to my head — a realization.

Your prized possessions were taken from your walls by your Blood.

Your favorite hat?

It was on your Head.

Poetry

81

Question

Vanessa Smith

Soul, where are you? Sustain your physicality.

Me, animals, plants, rocks.

Others from times before are watching.

Spawning from depths of earthly, dim desires.

We rise together.

Put us in a jar, seal it tight.

We won’t refuse fresh air, but you will not see our souls escape from our dry, hungry mouths.

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thirst thirst thirst

Poetry

Exploring the Body

Clarissa Carroll

Your pearly white teeth allure me to your being.

With a breath of fresh air I enter through the nasal cavity.

Electrical currents streaming through tiny wires leading in every direction intrigue me.

I seek adventure and cannot choose just one of those many wires.

I want to go everywhere.

As you take a large gulp I travel farther into your system.

I pause at the lump, thumping rapidly in your chest.

Why such a quick pace?

Is something not quite right?

A rollercoaster ride through your veins is exactly what I need.

I travel down your arms, make your fingers tingle, loop back to your center.

The continuous pumping pushes me farther along the ride, through your abdomen and beyond.

A force stronger than I could have imagined pushes me rapidly down your legs.

I am in your feet at the very tips of your toes and again, I loop back to your center.

My circulation is complete.

The infection has been spread.

I laugh as you sneeze, and cough, and ache.

As you rest and try to fight off my work, I lay dormant… waiting to strike again.

Poetry

83

Visual Arts

Bike the Zoo

Visual Arts

Andrew Linskens

85

File Life

Abraham Clark

Digital photograph/manipulation

86

Visual Arts

Grandma Marian

Molly Keyser

Inkjet print

Visual Arts

87

Rest

Leah Korger

Digital photography

88

Visual Arts

Untitled Ice

Molly Keyser

Inkjet print

Visual Arts

89

Life of the Party

Hilary Bullock

Digital photography

90

Visual Arts

The Stall

Adam Koenig

62x20 inch dye-sublimation print

Visual Arts

91

Patience

Leah Korger

Acrylic paint

92

Visual Arts

Bomb Dragon

Visual Arts

Andrew Linskens

93

Twelve Thirty

Kate Helein

Silver gelatin print

94   

Visual Arts

Another One for the Collection

Chris Livieri

Steel and copper wire

Visual Arts

95

Café con Leche

Abby Bergsma

Photograph

96

Visual Arts

Wilted

Kate Helein

Acrylic on canvas

Visual Arts

97

The Downfall

Leah Korger

Acrylic painting

98

Visual Arts

This Sunset Could be That Bullet to Your Head

Matthew Becker

Cannon Digital EOS Rebel, Photoshop CS3

Visual Arts

99

Heaven’s Mirror

Chloe Scheller

Digital photograph

100

Visual Arts

Bomb Swing

Visual Arts

Andrew Linskens

101 

All in a Day’s Work

Jessica Engman

Digital photograph

102

Visual Arts

Bleu

Ann Miller

Photoshop drawing

Visual Arts

103 

Simplicity’s Charm

Chloe Scheller

Digital photograph

104

Visual Arts

Home

Mark Schindel

Digital photograph

Visual Arts

105 

Ever Thought About Jumping off aNotes Building Contributors’

Jennifer Stallsmith

Fiction “The Survivor” by Andrew Stimpson

“SHC” by Jennifer Sternitzky

This story grew from the image of the man, the survivor, staring into a whale’s eye, and how frightening that must be, all alone on the ocean.

That image is honestly the result of me trying to understand prayer, and how frightening it is that God (go with me on this) would listen to us.

The very idea that the being on which all of the universe is constructed is also breathing life into me, makes me feel smaller than even Carl Sagan can.

Spontaneous Human Combustion is something I’ve always been terrified of, especially as a kid.

I was so afraid of getting too hot in case I, too, exploded into flames (though it doesn’t work that way). So I decided to write a story about a guy who experiences it everywhere he goes.

“Monster” by Kathryn Myers

“Pinned” by Clarissa Carroll

The idea for this story started in a tanning bed. In a tanning salon, the employees tell you that you have to keep your eyes closed, or something bad will happen. And that got me thinking, how often do we keep our eyes closed against the things we’d rather not see?

This poem tries to express a feeling that really can’t be put into words.

“The Unstoppable”

Poetry

“Untitled” by Jean-Marie Mayer This poem was written for a class based on an object another student brought in.

by Robert Jensen

“Preparations” by Amanda Klukas

This is a piece I wrote as I watched television with my family. I was disgusted with the institutionalized device, and, well, I guess the words in the story of “The Unstoppable” are what that disgust sounds like.

I don’t know how anyone can experience the suicide of a loved one without being deeply affected.

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Contributors’ Notes

“New experiences pt. #1: Hot tub” by Kellen Holden It’s just about wanting something and not getting that feeling inside you.

“Riding the Tide” by Mary Mattson This is not about sex.

“Deserted” by Mary Mattson Poetry should speak for itself pretty much all of the time.

“Vicarious” by Andrea Frederick My work is nothing more than tiny flashes of insight into my world.

“Dance of the Mechanical Men”

life. Albany is retained as a map in my head, somewhat like the old flat-earth maps of the medieval monks, which I keep glossing over and over again. I like images out of these memories which are as unusual as I can make them. I like joining the images of nature and industry, probably because the two are so intractably separated in our world. And I like the abstraction of not actually knowing what these images mean to me – they are like soft noises of big things happening over the horizon.

“Munchausen’s” by Hilary Bullock Mun·chau·sen syndrome Pronunciation: \ˈmən-ˌchau’-zən-\ Function: noun A psychological disorder characterized by the feigning of the symptoms of a disease or injury in order to undergo diagnostic tests, hospitalization, or medical or surgical treatment.

by Stephanie Arnold

(Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary)

How can robots not have a soul? The muted characteristics of a Buddhist monk and the untainted expression on their metal face claim it all...I am not you, but I live.

“Exploring the Body”

“Here. . .” by Russell Brickey

“Hip Hop Generator”

This is a poem about my hometown, Albany, Oregon. Growing up, the rhythms of industry were always making themselves distantly heard on the airways; somewhere beyond the calm of my neighborhood, some strange legion of mechanical parts was always faintly groaning and banging and rattling, melding with the hum of the highway. And it always seemed to my growing mind that something huge and mythical was going on just over the horizon.

So I became fascinated with the mechanical workings, the labyrinthine manufacturing warrens, the highways and byways and overpasses of the town, even though I did not realize this fascination until much later in

Contributors’ Notes Guest Interview

by Clarissa Carroll

Isn’t anatomy fun?!

by Zachary Taylor

Somewhere out there, under the warm California sun, Eazy-E is rolling (a joint) in his grave.

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Nonfiction “Grandma and Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow” by Barbara Byron

“Heaven’s Mirror” by Chloe Scheller I took this photo this past summer at Yellowstone Park.

“Life of the Party” by Hilary Bullock

Ever Thought AboutHappy 25th Anniversary, Auntie Nana and Uncle Rick! This is what happens when you put all the Jumping off a Building cousins at the same table with noStallsmith centerpiece Jennifer With some 25 years invested in family history, genealogical records, and verbal histories that mean so much to me but little to others it is time to share! There are stories here! I plan to tell these stories. My hope is to create interesting, true tales, for our children, grandchildren, and anyone else who will listen!

“Hospital Hero” by Kyle Hynes My younger brother has gone through some extremely difficult times in his life, and I have not once heard him complain about his troubles.

He is seventeen, and he is my hero. I meant for this work to show how strong and humble he is, but I’m not sure if it does him justice.

Visual Arts “This Sunset Could be the Bullet to Your Head”

by Matthew Becker

I like to use my Cannon Digital EOS Rebel, it gives me some great pictures. That and Photoshop CS3 are my two key elements to my pictures along with lighting, angles and compositions, of course. This picture is one of my favorites. I love its simplicity and it just reminds me of how we should appreciate the small things in life.

to occupy their attention.

“Bomb Dragon,” “Bomb Swing,” and “Bike the Zoo”

by Andrew Linskens

I am strongly influenced by the Midwestern work ethic I witnessed growing up in suburban Wisconsin. I grew up in the technological whirlwind of the 1980’s. Looking back, I feel like I was the last kid to play outside and the first to have videogame addiction. Prior to obtaining my degree in art, I worked as a meteorologist in the military. This scientific experience has had a dramatic effect on what I produce as an artist.

In my work I try to juxtapose iconic images together in an ironic way. The images and symbols I use are part of a personal vocabulary. I often use the same imagery over in other mediums seeking the best possible articulation between the original idea and final characterization. I don’t necessarily know the motives behind these narratives. I’m most interested in the formal relationships within the work and their ability to stand as an image.

“The Stall” by Adam Koenig This image is part of a series involving characters, and the narrative that develops through their search for identity.

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Contributors’ Notes

Sheepshead Review would like to give a special thanks to: Wendy Bassett

Carolyn Kott Washburne

Joe Heller

Larry and Barbara Watts

Sherie LaBrosse

Tina Watts

John Landrum

Humanistic Studies Department

Nancy Matzke Erin McGraw Robert Shebesta

Johnson Litho OFO

Marilyn L. Taylor

Students and staff of UW-Green Bay

Sarah Thiele

SUFAC

1582 Lineville Road, Green Bay 54313 805 George Street, De Pere 54115 2672 Eaton Road, Bellevue 54311 Bring in this ad for 10% off your next purchase!

Sheepshead Review is looking to promote your business here!

Each semester, our journal reaches audiences in increasing numbers. Sheepshead Review is distributed to members of the UW-Green Bay campus community and sold at many local coffee shops, art galleries, and bookstores. These pages are seen by students, parents, and community supporters alike. We look each semester to increase readership and distribution.

Your advertisement in Sheepshead Review could be reaching countless community members right now.

We can accommodate your existing advertising designs, or we can assist you in creating an attractive and effective design.

If you are interested in advertising with us, please contact us via our Website, www.uwgb.edu/sheepshead, attention managing editor. We look forward to working with you to increase your business exposure along with ours!

Donations Have you enjoyed this issue of Sheepshead Review? We hope you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed creating it for you.

Sheepshead Review is created by a dedicated staff of students each semester at UW-Green Bay. We work together on all aspects of the creation of this quality publication from soliciting submissions to reviewing those submissions, from budgeting the production of the journal to distributing it throughout the community. Each semester brings new ideas, new challenges and ever increasing quality.

Would you care to make a donation to assist us in our production? We welcome your interest, and as an added bonus to your support, we are able to offer a subscription to our journal for any donation over $25. The subscription schedule is as noted below: $25 – one year (2 issues) $50 – two years (4 issues) $100 – four years (8 issues) $200+ – lifetime subscription

If you have any questions relative to providing support to Sheepshead Review, please contact us at sheepsheadreview@uwgb.edu, attention managing editor. We greatly appreciate your interest and your support.

Submit to your creativity . . . . . . and to Sheepshead Review!

Sheepshead Review, UW-Green Bay’s Journal of the Arts, is accepting submissions of unique original writing in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as distinctive works of the visual arts, including photography, graphic design, sculpture, painting and more. We are interested in exploring new areas such as: original works of translation, graphic novel excerpts, creative scientific essays, or any other form your creativity takes. If assistance is needed in submitting photographs of threedimensional work, please contact Sheepshead Review.

Some guidelines: • Each author/artist may submit up to three pieces per genre.

• The name of the author/artist must not appear anywhere on the work.

• Please include an artist statement with each submission.

Submit your creativity online at: sheepsheadreview@uwgb.edu

Submission Process Sheepshead Review employs a blind submission process in an effort to maintain the integrity of the artists and writers, journal and staff. All submissions that come into the Sheepshead Review Website are coded and cataloged by the genre indicated. Every writer and artist is assigned a code to provide easy tracking of their works, while maintaining the anonymity necessary for the unbiased reviewing process.

Once the submission deadline has passed, the submissions are then distributed to the appropriate genre staffs — visual arts, nonfiction, fiction and poetry — to be reviewed. Staff members rate each work based on the criteria that apply to that genre and his/her own personal tastes. The editor of each genre ranks them based on the reviews from the genre staff. After all the works that will be included in the journal have been finalized, the staff is then made aware of the names of the authors and artists.

Sheepshead Review’s editors and staff work hard to protect the journal’s reputation and take pride in producing a quality journal of the arts. We hope that our readers will recognize those efforts and enjoy paging through the journal as much as we do.

Featuring: S te p ha n ie A r n o ld Ad a m Ba lz Mat t h e w Be c k e r Da ni e l Be c k w it h Ab b y B e r g sm a R u s s e l l B r ic k e y Hi l a ry B u llo c k Barbara By ro n Clari s s a C a r ro ll Ab ra ha m C la r k J es s i ca E n gm a n Me g ha n E v e re t t And re a F re d e r ic k K a t e H e le in K e l l e n H o ld e n K yl e H y n e s R o be rt Je n se n G re t a Jo rd a n Mo l l y K e y se r Am a nd a K lu k a s Ad a m K o e n ig Lea h K o r ge r S aul Le m e ro n d And re w L in sk e n s Ch ri s L iv ie r i Mary Ma t t so n J ean -M a r ie M a y e r Ann Mi lle r K a t hryn M y e r s S am a nt h a P a r k er Ch l o e Sc h e lle r Mark S c h in d e l Va ne s s a S m it h J en ni fe r S t e r n it z k y And re w S t im p so n J es s e St r a t t o n Z ach a ry Ta y lo r Mari s s a T h a y e r The re s a Wa r n e r

Address:

Sheepshead Revi ew Theatre Hal l 310 UW - Green B ay 2420 Ni col et Dri ve Green B ay, W I 54311

Email:

sheepsheadreview@uwgb.edu

Website:

w w w .uw gb.ed u/sheepshead Sheepshead Revi ew ’s mi ssi on i s t o of f er UW - GreenB ay students and the W isconsin com m uni t y an arts f orum that showcases works and provide professional growth opportunities through the prod ucti on of the Jour nal .