Literary Magazine

molten art

2009-2010, vol. XI colonial forge high school 550 courthouse road stafford, virginia 22554 phone: 540.658.6115 email: davisjm@staffordschools.net cost: $10 cover photo by j’nai phillips

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Molten Art

is the literature and art magazine created entirely by students at Colonial Forge High School. It serves as an outlet for student expression and imagination, as well as a publication opportunity for student writers and artists. Submissions are open to any student in grades 9-12 enrolled at Colonial Forge.

Submissions are selected based on quality and literary/artistic merit with regards to the overall theme of the publication.

Each submission is selected through a systematic and detailed process involving a roundtable discussion amongst all the editors. Submissions have the author’s names removed in order to ensure anonymity and eliminate any potential bias.

Selections are subject to a three-round elimination process, with only the highest quality pieces making the final cut and accepted for publication.

Students are encouraged to submit their work for publication consideration.

The Molten Art staff reserves the right to edit all submissions as necessary.

We also reserve the right not to print material that invades an individual’s right to privacy, or material that is obscene or libelous. Authors and artists retain copyright of printed submissions but grant Molten Art the right to use selected submissions as deemed by the editorial staff to be most appropriate for the magazine as well as for promotional purposes.

Opinions expresed in the magazine are not necessarily the views of the advisers, school administration, or the school board.

Colophon Molten Art was published on IBM-compatible computers using Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign CS4.

The magazine was printed through Walsworth Publishing.

We used Bell MT font for the headlines, body copy, and credits, and Candara for display type. Copies of this magazine can be purchased for $10 at Colonial Forge.

For more information, please contact the Molten Art staff advisor, James Davis, at davisjm@staffordschools.net.

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Table of Contents TITLE My Creation If You Could Hear A Word aroundandaroundandaround...

Hugh the Singer Morning The Old Man Lost Heart of a Lion Lovely We Are Ready The Watchman Depths Fragments The Jester Darfur Lost on a Set of White Stairs...

Urban Warfare Devil’s Water The Void Supermarket Congratulations to the New Generation Crash The Last Piece Her where is my mind?

I Hate MLA The Game Under a Desk Totally Dad Rumor Mill Teenage Whispers The Roof T-H-U-M-PI Know You Like the Back of My Hand An Odd Hobby This Man Wanderlust Paralytic Lost Inside Creaking ARTISTS Marie Akridge: 63 Lindsay Aldred: 30 Rebecca Bunker: 11, 42 Shelby Lemons: 17, 38, 50, 69 Chelsea Palys: 48, 59 Alex Vanderveer: 52, 56 Gacheri Mwongo: 71 Ivan Monagan: 65 Darius Jones: 60 Matt Terry: 7, 37 Ashley White: 2

PAGE 05 06 07 08 10 11 13 14 16 19 20 23 24 25 27 28 29 31 32 36 37 38 39 40 42 43 44 46 48 50 51 52 56 57 58 61 64 66 67 70

AUTHOR James Wooten Hannah Somers Elizabeth Everett Corinne McCormick Erin Godshall Corinne McCormick Catherine Volland Katherine Henion Megan Lopez Theresa Ptakowski Jocelyn Jamison Caitlin Russell Michael Kretz Jacob Minogue Ciara McTarsney Asia Alsgaard Jordan Greer Luke Smith Caitlin Russell Jessi Goodman Tisha Wilkerson Lauren Young Courtney Perrault D.J. Haskin Sami Durham-Hall Jessi Goodman Jessi Goodman Hannah Somers Charles Albright Michael Kretz Ciara McTarsney Hannah Somers Sami Durham Marie LoDuca David Klimek Jonathan Allen Caitlin Hinson Elizabeth Everett Asia Alsgaard Maren Hunsberger PHOTOGRAPHERS Devon Brandt: 9 Abigail Catterton: 26 Danyelle Fletcher: 22, 51 Kaitlyn Gannon: 25 Merary Guitierrez: 36 Thomas Moore: 12, 21, 66 Grace Phillips: 41 J’nai Phillips: Cover, 18, 28, 45 Andy Sudwi: 34 Leandra Tranquill: 35, 47 Sammie Weissenberger: 24 3

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Dear Reader, I

invite you to explore the plethora of creative artwork that adorns these pages. Each piece is equally brilliant and distinguished. From the shortest poem to the longest story, immeasurable hours of dedication and hard work are contained within this publication.

Molten Art embodies the ideal expression of youth, involving a growing passion for both the real and abstract.

As writers and artists explore their talents, a coalescence of styles and genres intertwine to form this extraordinary publication.

The process unfolds with a single word, a single stroke of the pen, a single idea, bounded only by the limits of imagination. Sometimes along the way, though, we all begin to wonder. Our imaginations have the capability of leading us astray, allowing us to produce wonderful creations. Always remember, not all who wander are lost.

Thank You,

Michael Kretz

O

ne of the seemingly uncurable diseases of today's society is that most people have become nobody to the world--a mere pinprick of a star among thousands of others. Most do not even wish to fight another second for recognition. Most may sure as fire leave this world without making a mark. Most are content with this passive lifestyle. The Molten Art literary magazine is the exact opposite of this illogical idea. It is a safe haven for writers, poets, lyricists, musicians, artists, and photographers that wish to counteract the conformity of their peers and a magical place where imagination is the perspiration of great minds.

We implore you, as you flip through these pages, to recognize the great work of your peers and let it serve as a motivation to not walk through life conforming to the status quo. The wide world surrounds and envelops us; you can decide to cage yourself in, but you cannot cage it out. The reality will always catch up.

Don't wait until the end comes because your hopes may fail you.

Instead, start living now.

Sincerely,

Caitlin Russell & Hannah Somers

Molten Art Staff Co-editors in chief: Michael Kretz, Caitlin Russell, Hannah Somers Art editor: Alex Vanderveer Advisor: Mr. Jim Davis Special thanks: Dr. Martin, Mrs. Kopcak, Mr. Beale, Mr. Snead

What’s New? Molten Music!

At Molten Art, we love art in any form, whether it’s words, images, or songs, and we wanted musicians to get the same chance as poets, painters, and photographers, so we put together a playlist of Forge recordings. Your CD (so old-school, we know) is in the back of the magazine. Enjoy!

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My Creation by : James Wooten

My pale fingers stretch across blank pages wanting to create Wanting to fill the space and sate My need to feel My need to show My need to be My quavering fingers reach out over full pages I long to erase I long to rearrange, refill new spaces I need to fix mistakes But ruts, habits keep me from avoiding the new ones.

I erase over and over.

My shifting eyes scan these inked-out pages Is there any reworking this tattoo?

Is there any need to?

What have I to gain or lose That hinges on whichever I choose?

I certainly can't erase...

Do I want to?

My no longer shaking hands sweep back and forth across the scene Reconsidering, reconstituting, reworking, redoing Erasing sometimes, if I can But despite steadier hands, they are no less certain.

After all, they can't determine when this picture will be finished Or if it’s even worth the choice not to scrap it And begin again.

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If You Could Hear a Word by : Hannah Somers

I’m shaking now.

Sick really, Back and forth, Though I must admit to being somewhat impressed Is it me or the earth convulsing?

At the level of intricacy this time around.

My instability whispers the answer in my ear.

He laughs saying, you’ll never get out of this one Thank you, I say And I nod knowingly, And try to turn away, Cast into submission.

But the movement is unrelenting I realize my self is its belonging; And my thoughts won’t stop.

Now and forever, I’ve never heard of a fatal case of exposure It must be obsessed.

To the real world, I can’t remember how I used to be, But there’s a first time for everything For life is constantly shining a spotlight And if I’m the first, Flashing right before my eyes, At least my lengthy corpse will be remembered.

Interrogating me; There are noises now, And the light swings A humming behind the voices that surround me Showing me the depths of my demise.

As I lean upon the bricks Every corner of the room is invisible, That weigh me down.

Only darkness is shown through the light I should’ve known I would fall back Until once again it’s gone, Upon a dead beat; With one flick of a switch.

The music made is the only thing that can sing me to sleep, He beats me, About an hour later every night.

Kicks me to the side, On account of the shaking Throws me a knife.

And the thoughts Crawling on my hands and knees, And the humming, Clicking open the switchblade, I might be losing it.

Crying over an open wound Where is rock bottom when you need it?

That’s yet to occur.

I think the death is holding me just above on purpose.

A note’s slipped under the door.

It’s obsessed with me, I presume, Letting the blade fall, Why else would it be unwilling to stop the constant falling?

I unfold every crease A few broken bones won’t hurt, Trying to remember what a letter is, I promise.

How a word looks, Just let me go.

What a life means.

Shaking its head no, the headlights Have a good night, it reads.

Turn to deadlights, Looking down at the future blood-stained floor, And the chains around me are illuminated.

I hold the bit of paper in my hands, Brushing its hands along my restraints, Leave the flesh wound at my feet, Life admires its handiwork.

And pray to God that the penstrokes will save me.

It’s terrifying,

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MATT TERRY

aroundandaround andaroundand by: Elizabeth Everett

Always in a circle Never ending rhyme Slaves to the Father Bound by his time No sympathy, Only sticks kin to swords No rewards.

Only, “Around once more!”

Blood red, I haunt you.

Fastest of the lot.

Waited on the most Though you’ll know it not.

As significant as an hour Yet small as a tick Hard to miss, Yet hardly ever seen.

Here I’m hung Here I’m mocked ticktockticktockticktocktic

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Hugh the Singer H

ugh locked the door with trembling hands. It was an early September morning and the air was already chilly. Hugh rubbed his sore arms with his wrinkled palms and began the long trek to his old pickup.

He held on tight to the rusted wrought-iron rail that supported him. He stepped slowly down the first step, the second, and finally the third. By the time he reached the truck parked on the street, he was out of breath.

Hugh remembered the time when he could practically leap to the street, but many years had passed since then.

Perhaps he could feel sorry for himself and sit all day alone in his small house.

But no, that’s not how Hugh was. Hugh was a fighter and besides, he hated to be alone. He loved being around people, so much to learn and enjoy. Hugh slowly pushed himself in the truck; he had become very careful over the years. Last year he fell and had to go to the hospital. No hospitals for me please, he thought as he started the engine.

Hugh hated hospitals. The unnatural smell of cleaning products. The stressed feeling. Everyone there was scared or anxious. “No thanks,” Hugh said unknowingly aloud as he pulled out onto the main road. Now where am I going? he thought, confused for a moment. Today is Tuesday...chorus practice. The church, the church. He focused on the dark pavement ahead; Hugh was nearly blind but always swore he didn’t need glasses. After ten short minutes, he reached the church.

Hugh loved chorus practice. All of his friends were there: Mary, Grant, Bill, Kate, and Bob. But what Hugh really loved was to sing. As a boy, he sang in the choir; his mom always said, “Hugh you got a beautiful deep voice,” and Hugh loved to sing ever since.

He envisioned himself as a modern day Dean Martin.

“That’s Amore” was Hugh’s favorite Dean Martin song; he was a hopeless romantic. He recalled singing to his wife, Rosa, in the morning. She would yell at him playfully, “Hugh, it’s too early! You’re no Dean Martin.”

Rosa would laugh and laugh. Her laugh was so beautiful, like she was singing. She was beautiful, Hugh thought as he sat a moment in his car reminiscing. Rosa died 5 years ago, but Hugh continued to sing because it reminded him of her beautiful laugh. And of course he

by: Corinne McCormick

Her laugh was so beautiful, like she was singing. loved being with his friends; some of his friends he just met, others he knew for years.

Hugh was a “social butterfly” according to Bob, “always charming and friendly.” Bob was Hugh’s closest friend. Years ago they used to bowl together, and Hugh always thought he was the better bowler, “a professional.” However, his scores tended to disagree. Bob on the other hand was a great bowler, a true pro. Every Thursday, they’d meet in front of the lanes saying the same thing, “Fancy meeting you here.” It was their little joke. Hugh and Bob loved to joke and laugh. They share their humor and their baritone voices, which brought the chorus down a whole octave.

Hugh laughed at the memories of Bob at the bowling alley every Thursday, turning off the truck and slowly stepping out of it. His fragile feet began their shuffle towards the church doors. Hugh was late already. He quickly opened the door, excited to start singing. What would the chorus do without me? he thought.

His friends needed him. Rosa needed him. Besides, without me, the chorus wouldn’t be as charming. Hugh laughed and let the door shut behind him.

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DEVON BRANDT

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Morning by: Erin Godshall

The rest of the world, quite frankly, can go screw itself.

My bed is all I need.

These covers are warm, and I am happy to burrow comfortably under the sheets.

The bears have it right.

Why are humans so opposed to the hibernation thing?

Don’t tell me we’re not built for it.

We’re just not trying hard enough.

The wonderful natural high of being half awake and half asleep washes over my body and my eyes droop.

I peer blearily over at the clock: 5:49 Nobody will miss me if I sleep a few more hours, I’m positive.

I mean, first block is a waste of time anyways.

My eyes travel over to my phone.

New Message Shoot.

Must have fallen asleep texting.

Braving the cold, I hesitantly stretch my arm out to get the phone, and then hastily snatch it back to my heated haven.

My brain kicks into gear to read “Glad u had a good game : ) Can’t wait to c u tomorrow babe” So, maybe the world isn’t that bad.

Stupid bears.

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The Old Man by: Corinne McCormick

I

t was ripped an inch on the left corner. The red leather was worn and wrinkled. The cover was slightly arched open from the years of use. Its pages were filled with black scribble; stained a deep amber from layers of dirt and dust. The once Kelly green ribbon hanging from the top was now fraying, its color fading to a pale aqua green.

The binding was slowly unraveling, white stitching grasping the fragile pages with a weak grip. The words ‘Journal’ were once engraved in gold, now faded to a whisper on the worn red leather.

It smelt of frustration and admiration, years of devotion made it frail. It sunk deeper into its resting place, on the bottom of a dusty mahogany shelf. The memories splashed from page to page, yet the old vessel had been at dock for years. The black print stretched from beginning to end. The last word scribbled—love—completed the purpose of this small red book, to be forever closed. Each day the journal’s words faded, its tired spine holding years of thoughts. There it stood, weak but full of wisdom, always comforted by the fact that it was loved.

REBECCA BUNKER

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THOMAS MOORE

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Lost by: Catherine Volland

I had an identical twin Although she wasn’t as faded as I was She was the clear favorite between us She was my best friend; we were never more than a foot apart I wonder how she is doing If she is still alive and well The last time I saw her we had just gotten into a load of trouble Enjoying ourselves as we always did I’ve been lying in this closet for years now Trapped in these four starch white walls I begin to wonder if I will ever be found If anyone even remembers where I belong I doubt that my family and friends could even recognize me now It’s been ages since I’ve been worn I’m dirty, dingy, and have grown to have holes My sole has become weak I’m bursting at the seams My memories begin to fail me Wishing that one day I will be found And returned back to my rightful place

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Heart of a Lion by: Katherine Henion

D

awn’s light bathed the dense deciduous forest around the Thompson’s farm with an assortment of red, orange and yellow hues. The tops of the trees glowed emerald green causing shadows to disappear in the sea of color. The cascade of colors caused birds and squirrels to wake up in their nests and drays. The sound of their feet and wings made the forest seem as if it was waking from a deep sleep.

But the light could not penetrate the bowels of the forest. Darkness still reigned until the sun was at its highest point in the sky. In the dark chasm, at the roots of a gigantic oak tree, a dog lies on a bed of twigs and leaves. Its breath was slow and had a smooth rhythm. Unknowingly, its owner had travelled to the deeper part of the forest and laid his faithful pet on the leaves. Strapped for money, he was forced to release the family pet into the black forest.

The dog slept soundlessly as the sunlight started to filter through the dark part of the forest. When the sun was at its peak, the dog awoke from its deep sleep to find that he was not in the comfortable living room near the fire where it fell asleep. It rose from the makeshift bed and shook itself of dead leaves that clung to the black and white fur. It yawned and stretched to loosen its tight muscles. After doing the regular morning routine of stretching, the dog smelled the air and blew a puff of air. It didn’t know where he was but could smell the familiar scents of water. Following the scent of water, the dog came to a small stream.

The rushing water was crystal clear and looked delicious. The dog trotted to the stream bed and drank the cold water deeply.

When finished drinking, the dog son realized that its master was not coming back. But it was content with the situation. The black and white dog had been in this situation before it arrived in the shelter. But it still hoped that there were humans nearby, desperately wanting a family to call its own. But the dog also loved to be free with room to roam.

The dog pushed its thoughts to the back of its mind when he heard a growling sound. The quiet forest had dulled its sense of hearing and the dog jumped at the sudden sound. But it soon realized that the growling was coming from its stomach.

Hunger now coursed through the dog and caused hunger pangs. Drooling, the dog began to hunt for a squirrel to eat. The dog lowered its nose to the ground and quickly found the scent of the squirrel. It crouched to the ground and pawed its way to the tree next to the stream. There, sitting on a root of an oak tree was the largest squirrel the dog had seen in a long time. The dog slowed its pace drastically and stayed as quiet as a mouse. Closer, closer, closer, POUNCE! The dog killed the squirrel with a few shakes and quickly ate its meal.

Licking the rest of the squirrel off its lips, the dog went to the stream to drink again and returned to its bed of leaves. The dog did this routine of hunting, drinking and sleeping until the winter months. When the cold weather moved in, the dog soon began to hunt less often and the stream froze. The dog realized that it was going to starve if it didn’t find shelter and food soon. Then, as if the dog’s prayers were answered, it scented two humans from its bed of leaves on morning.

These humans smelled different from the others it had encountered in its life. The two humans smelled of musk and metal. Nevertheless, the dog followed the scent. It traveled and traveled. It traveled for hours. The small stream soon turned into a rushing river. The river was not frozen completely which allowed the dog to lap up mouthfuls of ice cold water. When the dog had its fill, it continued to follow the scent of the humans. Soon the dog came upon a camp site with two tents and a fire in the middle with logs around it. The dog barked and ran toward the fire. But, suddenly a young man crawled out of one of the tents. The teen stopped half way and looked straight at the dog. The dog froze in place and panted.

“Look, Dad, a dog! It is so handsome. Can we keep it?” asked the teen, not keeping his eyes off the dog.

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“What are you talking about?” an older male’s voice said inside the tent next to the first. Then, suddenly, the flaps of the second tent opened and a grey haired man poked out its head to look.

The dog barked again and started to back away from the camp site.

“Wait, don’t run away! We won’t hurt you.” said the first man in a panicked voice.

The dog froze again in place and looked at him.

The first man smiled and whistled to the dog. The dog slowly walked toward the teen which was now coming out the tent and walking to the fire. The dog picked up speed and trotted toward him. The young man whistled and crooned for the dog to come closer. The dog didn’t want to come too close to the unfamiliar man, so it trotted toward the fringes of the warm heat of the fire and sat.

“Alright, you can stay right there. Dad, can we keep him? It’s getting colder and it looks like he doesn’t have a collar. Can we? Please?” pleaded the teen towards the older man.

“Hmmm…. Well, if you can coax him to the tents and train him, then we can keep him. I don’t want any animal to suffer in the cold,” the man said with an understanding tone while stroking his short beard.

The younger one cheered and the dog howled with him. The man laughed at this and whistled to the dog too. The dog liked the second man because the dog was reminded of its previous master. So, the dog went to him without hesitation. As the dog came close enough, the man scratched its thick winter fur and its black, floppy ears. The dog sighed with pleasure and closed its eyes.

“Well, it seems to be trained enough. I wonder who would leave such a nice border collie behind in the forest.” the young one wondered absentmindedly.

“Yes, that was what I was wondering myself.

What do you think we should name it? It is a….. boy,” the man asked with a quizzical look.

The pair was silent for a while as they contemplated a name for the dog. He didn’t mind the silence and enjoyed the warmth of the fire. After a few minutes, the teenager sat down by the dog and faced the man with a smile.

“What about the name Lucky? He was lucky he found us in such cold weather,” the teen said with a sense of pride.

The man laughed heartily until he was flushed with red.

“No, that is too common a name. Everyone and their mother would call their dog Lucky. How

“Wait, don’t run away! We won’t hurt you.”

about Leo? That is a manly name and it suits him.

He survived this long winter and his courage gives him a heart of a lion,” the man said after his bout of laughter.

The younger man nodded enthusiastically and laughed at the theology involved in the naming of Leo. Leo was content with his new name. He howled with the laughter of the two men and lolled his tongue at them. Several minutes later, Leo learned the humans’ names. The young one was named Bryan Thompson and the father of the younger was named Thais Thompson. Leo, Bryan, and Thais laughed and howled until snow started to fall. The two men went into their tents, but Leo remained. Leo didn’t know if he was invited or if he was staying for good.

“Hey, where is Leo?” Thais’ voice sounded from the second tent.

Leo rushed forward and poked his head through the tent. Leo found Thais with a smile on his face as Thais patted the spot next to him. Leo rushed in and sat next to his new master while facing the tent flaps.

“You are here to stay, boy. And nothing in the world will change my mind.” Thais said while rubbing Leo’s scrawny body.

Leo and his new master watched the fire die down as darkness overtook the forest.

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Lovely by: Megan Lopez The trip began with a sleeping pill. Twenty minutes ‘til complete solitude and the submission to my subconscious. Morning sunlight filled the car, deceitfully presenting us with the familiar heat of the summer we so longed for, crushing snow beneath our tires all the while. The middle seat holds such hardships. Limited leg room and the unavailability of a window to rest a groggy head. Accepting the only option obtainable, I bend at the waist to rest my head on the pillow waiting on my lap. The cool relief of the pillow on my freshly warmed cheek and the flickering of light, continuously interrupted by billboards and concrete buildings, made for a satisfying coma.

I shut my eyes only to find myself yearning for the radiant sun rays that made themselves so scarce at home, where winter’s nip resides. Unlocking my lids to take in what I can before the wave of exhaustion consumes me, I find your eyes, splashed with the sun’s lustrous glow, fastened on mine.

You smile as the light ringing tone of my phone distracts me, informing me of a new text. My phone flips open to the new message from you. “You’re lovely.”

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SHELBY LEMONS

I find your eyes, splashed with the sun’s lustrous glow, fastened on mine.

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5/20/2010 7:31:32 AM

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We Are Ready by : Theresa Ptakowski

Nerves heighten, as does the thrill.

A new angle is fast approaching, but we are ready.

Ready for the nervous laughter, the amazement of the opportunity, but what should we expect?

Officially ready. It’s now or never.

We feel a shake and know it has begun.

The ground disappears from below us.

Slowly, smoothly, we are on our way.

Rising above the trees, joy flutters through Our once sweaty hands, point to birds in the sky.

A hummingbird, an eagle— our smiles widening with every new perspective.

The envelope filled with hot air now, allows us to drift effortlessly Its multicolored design makes us known to the world below.

Far away now from where we started Far in distance and far in thoughts New discoveries along the path, but we were ready for it all.

As night creeps in we are not afraid, because we are ready, ready to reach reality once more.

Slowly, smoothly, we glide downward.

Back on the ground we step out, and breathe in the air.

Somehow the air is different now, but we were ready. Ready to go up, ready to come down. And we are always ready, to face the world.

J’NAI PHILLIPS

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The Watchman by: Jocelyn Jamison

T

he little girl pressed her hand to the window and watched the fog slowly spread around it like a disease. It was cold. She was cold. But things were always like that. She had gotten used to them.

She watched the snowflakes fall one by one on the other side of the frozen glass. She had never seen snow before, but they had never been in the mountains before either. At least, she didn’t remember being here. Her older sisters had told her they had come when she was still a little baby, but it didn’t count if she didn’t remember anything about it.

That’s what she’d told them, anyway. She stared at the window for a moment, then took her finger and began to draw a picture in the fogged over glass.

She wasn’t sure what it was, but it was pretty…kind of. A little. Maybe. She coughed into her sleeve and then wiped the picture away. It would’ve been gone in the morning anyway.

She wished she could have gone outside and touched the snow, but she wasn’t allowed to. She wasn’t supposed to leave the house at all. Her mother had told her repeatedly how lucky they were to have found such a nice place to stay, a place where they could keep her warm and that was giving them her medicine for free, but she didn’t think it was very nice at all. It was small and cramped and the lights were too bright. It smelled like medicine and mold and hospital. And she hated hospitals.

She stuck out her tongue and pressed her forehead to the window at the thought. The cold and the condensed water droplets made her giggle as they trickled down her nose. That was when she noticed him out of the corner of her eye. Or rather, remembered him.

The IV was still inserted in her wrist, standing next to the bed like a watchman. She thought about tugging him out and decided against it, coughing

“Why are you keeping me in here?”

instead. He was the reason she couldn’t go outside. He was the reason she was so tired. He wasn’t very nice at all. She wasn’t even sure what his initials stood for.

All she knew was that her medicine was trickling down his arm and into hers, and that he made the hurt go away but not the tired. That never left. Her mother had said that he was going to take care of her and make the coughing stop for a little while. She would rather be coughing than stuck in here staring at snow that she couldn’t touch.

Maybe her sisters would take her out tomorrow. Maybe. That would be nice.

If the snow was still falling.

She turned away from the window and looked at her watchman instead. She pulled the covers around her shoulders and glared at him, looking at the reflection of the shadows under her eyes through his, wherever they were.

“Why are you keeping me in here?” she asked him. No answer.

No wonder; he couldn’t talk. “Why do you have to make me so tired?”

No response. Not even a shake of the head. “When are you going to let me out?” For a moment, she thought she heard him say something, but it must have been the way he creaked when she moved. She huffed and turned away from him, looking back at the snow instead. At least it was pretty. At least it got to be outside. She picked up her pillow, placed it against the window and then leaned against it. She pulled the covers up to her chin, and thought one more time about pulling IV’s hand off her arm. But that might make her mother cry again. So she left it.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and then looked at him once more. Maybe he was falling asleep too. She closed her eyes and placed her hand on the window one more time.

“Good night Mr. Watchman.” She drifted off to sleep.

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5/20/2010 7:31:36 AM

THOMAS MOORE

Author’s note *For this story, I wanted to write something from the perspective of someone really young. I picked one of my oldest characters, who has been suffering from an illness all her life, and decided to write a story about her looking out the window at the world she’s not allowed to explore. As I was writing, I was going to have her talking about the IV in her arm and then leave it, but when people are little, they tend to let their imaginations run wild, and so the IV became a character itself. I thought I’d write a little bit out of my comfort zone and try something with some personification. -I was trying different things with tone and point of view as well.

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DANYELLE FLETCHER

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Depths by: Caitlin Russell

Blue, glistening blue around me, the fizzing bubbles are crystals reflecting sun’s natural light.

Shapes swim about me, Sea creatures, strange, unknown I gulp in sea water, too much It fills my lungs with its chill.

I kick to the surface with fishlike, flipper fins Wild arms move about, Fingers feel seaweed slither past me.

Shouts of laughter meet my ears In a pool, children around me In colorful bathing suits, Suntan lotion smearing their cheeks, But I could still taste the saltwater in my mouth.

The roar of a truck engine, the heavy fumes of gasoline turning the sky to charcoal and choking my lungs, But I am soaring across a maze, Full of windy, criss-crossing streets, Looking down on the tiny insects below Moving, flitting from place to place like flies from plate to plate.

Feel the sun kiss my cheeks, the cool light air ruffle my feathers.

A hand tugs on my arm reeling me back like a kite on a string Once swooning from wind’s embrace, But must be pulled back down My father. I look out from Our apartment window view as the cars move along the city streets.

I look to my dad and ask, “Where are my wings?”

Green vines tangle my hair, thorns of the brush ensnare me, The emerald leaves of the canopy are umbrellas protecting me from the rain.

I hear a growl from darkened trees of some creature ready to pounce Wielding its lethal claws and fanged teeth Birds chatter incessantly A secret language I can’t understand A tap-tap-tap against a window pane I’m on the outside looking in, A zoo with camera flashes, smiling families, caged animals Was there ever such a place of pure imagination?

“No,” they tell us, “Because we must grow old.”

Leave behind our toy binoculars made of toilet-paper rolls, glittery paints, stickers, and sequins We trade them in for perfect square cubicles grey with no windows, dull with no natural light No more time for make-believe.

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Fragments

SAMMIE WEISSENBERGER

by: Michael Kretz

Flakes fall in the winter snow, panes frosty from the evening air; ashes kindle in the fire so warm.

Memories, like an everlasting picture.

Fragments, like the wood in the fire, turn into chopsticks, turn into, glistening memories, bits and pieces of times gone by.

A reminder of the complacent times, moments of solitude, and peace, happiness and satisfaction, the whisper of the wind in the night sky.

Awaiting word of the future, the train whistle in the distance, calling, signaling, there are better times ahead

Fragments of my imagination, keep me company, in this cold, dark house, on a sunny December day.

but the best is yet to come.

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The Jester by: Jacob Minogue

Temptation works to suck me in To flesh and passion’s child

Rain softens the trodden ground As I continue down this road

While the other road is mysterious Leaving my heart rather beguiled

On a path of love and lies To find my future abode

The longer I stand in solemn salute The harder the choice becomes

My breath comes heavy and fast As my steps strive to quicken

Lightning strikes and tears trickle While the water continues its runs

To reach an end of one situation Before the plot does thicken

A howl is heard in the distance To show it is time to leave

But alas I see a fork in the road It appears I was too late

To depart on either path As long as my heart does conceive

The trees surround this muddied ground And the paths they do separate

And as a foot reaches forward A step in one direction

One reeks of cheap perfume Of fiery passion and lust

I know I must never look back But to continue my attempt at perfection

KAITLYN GANNON

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While the other smells of simple pine Brought with the wind’s gentle gust

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Darfur by: Ciara McTarsney

They have eyes shining brightly, forever drowning under words of sorrow.

Together curiously wanting, asking, needing again to be satisfied.

They plead inside their aching souls where a desire so close to hunger must hide away to not be discovered by not ignore either.

Embraces will become tied, tragedies into tight knots.

To know what lays around the corner is a mystery waiting to be witnessed.

Every sound becomes loud even ones of the smallest of things.

Their future is still unknown while hope still remains a hope so large it can be seen, be felt as it radiates from one to the other in a chain of travel between these longing lost souls.

While screaming eyes will question their cries that can only be fully heard to be understood.

Must they be aware or frightful?

For you may cast them away so you may try and forget.

If forgotten there may be disbelief that is so far deep, it will create a new belief. A belief that says there is no existence of this tragedy so despairing and then souls are left to waste away.

Waiting through the nights that feel like eternity, they stay eyes wide open, fear never absent.

But they will not ask for anymore tragedy only keep singing their sweet melody.

ABIGAIL CATTERTON

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Lost on a Set of White Stairs on the Sea

J’NAI PHILLIPS

by: Asia Alsgaard

Trapped on a set of white stairs Risen out from the deep depths of the sea I sit, waves lapping at my feet.

I sit upon my lonely perch, With no possible place to go.

Crying out with no one to hear me.

From the zenith, I stare into the darkness below It stretches out into an unimaginable pit, A deep pool of blackness.

For there is nothing left of me to hear.

My bones cast dark shadows on the pale white stairs, My empty grin slowly crumbles away.

Solitary silence resounds around me Flapping in the wings of receding gulls, Swimming on the fins of fading fish.

Until someone comes by to lift up my bones Reforming sinew and muscle, Creating someone whole.

Then once again I will live.

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Urban Warfare by : Jorden Greer

D

ust. Heat. The sound of foreign language ripped away by whistling Afghani winds, peppered by the sharp rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire. The hot sun is obscured by billowing clouds of black smoke and dust, the heat of oil fires and the burning wreckage of the remains of convoy trucks color the air dull sienna, blending into the reddening sand.

Camo figures loom out of clouds of dust kicked up by explosions, dirt covered goggles and ragged uniforms only visible from mere feet away. Quick and fluid, a soldier whips around a sandstone outcropping and sends a quick burst of death toward the Enemy, cloistered in the small village, barely fifty yards of sand and scrub land away.

A quick signal.

Silent battle cries, overlapped by fierce cover fire, erupt as soldiers surge forward, overrunning the small contingent of insurgents quickly neutralizing the Enemy.

The surprised and terrified faces of young boys armed with guns too large for their small arms and battle scarred adolescents with old eyes are hard to shut out. The cries of the wounded, screams of the enraged, and the soft weeping for lost ones are easily heard over the loud commands from superiors.

Gliding down brown urban streets, palms sweating, knees shaking, the rookie soldiers look around nervously, taking confidence from their older comrades who keep the muzzles of their guns trained on open windows and broken doors. Ragged breathing can be heard over the earpieces of the radio set, inhaleWith a roar, the wind is crushed out of the street as chips of wood and stone thud into heavy combat vest and score scratches across grimy faces. Mushroom clouds of heat and debris from the bomb roar out of the windows, the blast sending men flying across the street into the wall, crumpling like aluminum foil onto the sandy ground. The silence is profound as the still life forms stay down and only a few manage to get to their feet, staggering, the street swinging in and out of focus.

Behind, the surviving company rush up, shouting

words lost in the ringing of the lingering blast, devastated faces barely comprehending how everything went so wrong, so wrong...words, sounding through hazes of grief and pain, move out, keep moving, safely...

Teeth gritted against aching pains, the survivors force themselves to their feet, guns held like safety blankets in the nightmare of this seemingly beautiful country, eyes wary, looking left and right for danger.

A face, contorted by hate and fury, shows itself in an open doorway and reflex flicks the muzzle of a gun up, safety off. A quick spasm of a finger and he falls back like a target cutout, face frozen in death. The young soldier looks in horror at his handiwork, bile rising in the back of his throat as he turns away to continue through the rest of the deserted town. As they clear that last alley of the labyrinthine village, the steady trop-trop of the helicopter pounds in exhausted ears.

As the silhouetted helicopter slowly touches down, the waves of sand kick up peppered tender skin, scouring away skin like a sandblaster. The relieved soldiers hop into the cabin, buckling in, rifles slung across necks and hold tight in tired arms.

Through the drooping eyes of the U.S. soldiers, the liquid red sunset spills its last drop of red across the desert landscape, flaring brilliant red before slipping behind the earth, plunging the Afghan countryside into purples and blacks, the only light coming from the distant pinpricks of foreign stars.

Wood and stone thud into heavy combat vests and score scratches across grimy faces 29

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LINDSAY ALDRED

5/20/2010 7:31:54 AM

Devil’s Water by: Luke Smith

Truth be bold, but don't be bright Your venomous lies they shine The pink webs are laced tight A white rose supposedly mine You cut so deep, who will heal You say fine I cannot deal I cannot wonder for my reality The one you cannot feel The taste of what you called love now sour, the Devil's drink, a reminder of our mortality Your truth, I can't touch the pins and daggers you smile and speak I see now, the lion of which you lack, but I do not speak of your morality Too weak Won't say Can't speak Today I quit Always Your fit To see I sit Alone in the sea Of my truth, your light The lies were always nicer to me

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The Void by: Caitlin Russell

I

sat at the edge of the stream, dipping my feet into the cool water and watching the sunlight skip across and dapple its clear, glass-like surface.

My toes touched the smooth pebbles at the bottom of the stream, feeling the contours, softened from years of running water. Over my head, mosquitoes hummed, and a brightly colored dragonfly whirred by my ear. In one hand, I held Caroline Keene’s The Case of the Vanishing Veil, and my other hand was fixed on turning the next page, eager to absorb as many words possible, to find out Nancy Drew’s next clue before my mom called me in for dinner.

Opening a book was opening a world of adventure.

The words I read became makeshift homes for me as I journeyed from book to book and character to character.

“Caitlin!” my mom shouted from a few hundred yards away, leaning with weariness on the screen door as she stood on the back porch of our house, “Dinner!”

“Coming!” I shouted back, anxiously flipping through the pages looking for the end of the chapter. I sighed, disappointed. Ten pages left: too many before my mom will start to wonder where I am and get mad.

Picking up my flip flops, bright blue ones with mud slightly obscuring the pink and yellow flowers on them, I headed indoors, leaving deep shoe impressions in the damp earth—reminders of my presence etched onto nature’s canvas.

——— The clinking of silverware against glass plates, the chewing of crunchy garlic bread, the banter between my sister and me, and the important, “grown-up talk” and gossip of my parents filled our tiny dining room.

“Hey, stop hitting your sister, Caitlin…” my father corrected me sternly, in a voice and tone that practically gave away his Army experience.

“But she started it…”

“But she started it,” my mom echoed in reply, mimicking my whine, “You’re going to be almost ten and you think that excuse is still going to work? I don’t think so miss…”

Careful to roll my eyes after their thoughts had shifted back to their own conversation, I asked to

clear my place and be excused from the table.

“But you didn’t finish your spaghetti…,” my mom said solemnly, as if eating a few extra noodles was going to do anything, “Ok, go ahead.”

I got up from the table and headed back to my room, making sure not to forget the worn copy of The Case of the Vanishing Veil that had been sitting on the kitchen counter, waiting for me to delve into its secrets.

——— When I woke the next morning on the bottom bed of the bunk bed that my sister and I had shared, I peeked outside the blinds to see if it was again one of “those days.”

I adored those summer days when dawn poured over the asphalt streets of our neighborhood in a wreath of liquid copper, where the wind was just light enough to tousle my hair and thin t-shirt, where the sun smiled down on the earth staining my skin with golden dust, and where I could bake on top of the warmed concrete patio behind our house.

My eyes squinted to adjust from day to night, and I sighed with a heavy heart. The sun was dimmer than usual and was beginning to make its ascent into the sky; the various birds and insects resumed their familiar chatter.

An unusual mist and stillness lay about the land, broken only by the incessant babble and hum of nature.

The light peeking from the clouds as I was peeking through my blinds was weak and fake. It seemed to be almost unreal like borrowed light from another world, real only as long as my imagination could keep up with its race, second by second.

I leaned over my pillow to my bedside table and picked up a pen that I kept there always so that if I ever had an idea or a thought, I could write it down before reality erased its authenticity from my mind.

Lying again on my back, I looked up and examined the letters written on the cardboard beneath my sister’s top bunk. “Dreams:” was all I had written, nothing more. To the list, I added my first goal, “... read 100 books in a year.” I stared at the letters, until I was completely satisfied with their neatness.

When I leaned over once more to return the pen to my nightstand, I knocked over a full glass of water

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onto the floor and onto my Nancy Drew book, the one I had not yet finished. I felt the room become dimmer as a group of clouds masked, for merely a few moments, the light of the sun.

The shadows in my room turned gray, an ugly dull color that mocked my frantic distress as I tried to fix what had already been done. The shadows that trapped me were like ominous waves rising to greet an unsuspecting boat.

The shadows swept over me as I examined the damage with disillusionment. The text was so smudged it would be impossible to read the ending.

“Caitlin…” I heard my mom call feebly from her bedroom, “Caitlin…”

“Yea Mom?” I answered, mechanically, walking down the hall towards that weak voice, trying not to reveal my inane frustration from ruining the book but at the same time regretting that I had left the mess back in my room.

My infant brother was still fast asleep in his crib at the foot of my parent’s bed. I found her, though, my mother, not in her bed, but sitting beside the tub in the bedroom, her hands tugging on the shower curtain, her face ashen, her hair disheveled and not brushed.

“Mommy? Are you okay?” I asked, my voice starting to crack as a stab of panic and fear crawled its way inside of me. I tried to fend off the intruder, but in vain; it became a disease that soon, without my willpower or strength to fight it, ran rampant through my veins.

“Yea….ummm… need you ….call…Mrs. Reed… across…street…she’ll know…,”my mother said confusing fragments; she made speaking, breathing even, look difficult.

“Mommy? Are you sick? Do you need the doctor?”

Trying not to waste time by waiting for her answer, I ran to the kitchen to grab the phone and frantically dialed the number to our neighbors, the Reeds, which I know by heart: 732-804-1995 Mrs. Reed, only minutes later, came running across the street, and told me to wake my sister.

The next things I heard, or at least remember hearing, were sirens.

——— A team of paramedics crowded around her like ants, preventing me from getting a full look. At-

tempting to squeeze past the wall of medics, I was relentlessly pushed away, which only angered me further.

“I am her daughter!” I shouted, my loud screams surprised me by echoing and bouncing off invisible walls, “That's my mom!”

"We are taking your mother to the hospital," answered the reassuring voice of an ambulance technician. Her words were mechanical like a robot's, without any true depth, without any sincerity in them, like a masked fraud hiding behind a thin curtain.

“You need to step aside, miss,” shouted another medic who was helping lift the stretcher that carried the unmoving body of my mother.

“I want to come...” I pleaded with the maze of men and women surrounding me, “I want to say goodbye.”

I climbed into the ambulance with its flashing lights and blaring sirens and sat next to my mother, trying to focus on her face. Her face. It was so pale and ghostly that I was almost afraid to be near her. Instead I focused on her eyes: the darkest brown almost black eyes that seemed to bulge from their sockets. It was as if she was trying to say, “It’s going to be alright, it’s going to be alright.”

But she was the one that had been loaded onto a stretcher and taken away in an ambulance. I held onto her hand, squeezing tight, for as long as I could, for as long as the medics would let me until they pushed me out of the ambulance. I clasped my fingers around her hand like a child holding a precious red balloon.

If you slacken your grip, even for a moment, the tiny balloon will float up, up, into the sky...and away.

——— Hear a rustling of something unknown, mysterious like the quivering of leaves in the gentle rocking breeze. The rustling sounds like spirits whispering. I think they’re talking about me.

Climb down from my bed, tip-toe to the door, peek-out. Look-round, check the shadows for monsters, but I’m hardly brave enough.

“Mommy?” I call out.

Silence. I can almost see it written on the walls in black marker just to remind me that it’s the only thing waiting on the other side of my door.

“Daddy?” I call out again.

No answer. Quick, run back to bed. Hide under the sheets. Go back to dreaming. Before I have time g

Mommy?

Are you okay?

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to get sad.

——— On the car ride to the hospital, my brother was fast asleep in his car seat and my sister was busy adjusting the clothes on her baby doll.

My dad was silent,.. almost the entire drive, until finally I attempted to break the awful silence that seemed worse than the encroaching air of a coffin.

“Dad? Is Mommy going to be okay?

When will she be home?”

“Soon, I guess.”

Furious with his dim response, I huffed and turned towards my window, my heavy breaths making foggy swirls on the glass.

I shivered, trying to shake the worry from my mind, staring enviously at the pine trees as they blurred past us in the car... wishing that I could shake the fear off just as easily as those pine trees that quivered with the breeze, their dead pine needles dropping to the ground with easy forgetfulness.

When we finally pulled into the parking lot of the hospital, I stared, gaping at the enormous structure before me. The hospital was huge as if to show how tiny and insignificant I was—that I was merely a breath of wind, a soft lullaby, gently rocking a tree’s branches back and forth, back and forth.

Time seemed to go in slow motion when in the hospital. Even when the doctors raced back and forth from patient to patient, with nurses shuffling from one bed to another stretcher, time seemed to move like the pages in a flip book that you can buy for a buck at the Dollar Tree.

As I sat in the waiting room, I watched as doctors and nurses sprinted up and down the bleached barren halls, all sharing the same thing that I so longed for: purpose.

One of the nurses stared at us for a few moments before deciding to approach; her face seemed frozen in time, ageless, and she smiled at us, a sort of strange, false smile only reserved for mannequins in shop windows. I tugged on my dad’s shirt, afraid of this woman, cowering a little behind his tall frame.

She led us to a crowded room with a tiny bed, a sink, and a private bathroom. My mother slept, and as I watched her, covered in a web of strange wires and beeping monitors, I realized why Caroline Keene never wrote about hospitals.

——— I had finally opened my eyes, but I did not like what I saw. The void occurred to me: I saw the emptiness of heav-

ANDY SUDWI

en mirrored now on a marred earth, the earth no longer drenched in the sun’s liquid copper but rather lifeless and cloaked with snow. I had drunk the waters of happiness and was able to escape for a while, but when I returned I was forced to be embittered by the taste of this world.

Go ahead, and say what you’re thinking. Tell me what I ought to hear. I can read it in your face. The garden that I imagined is not the real world; this cold, hospital with its doctors and nurses in their identical white lab coats is the real world.

Now I know, instead of falling head first into the pages of book, I merely welcome it as a sort of relief, welcoming the liberation from twisted vines of my tangled emotions. I will never fall that far again. 

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Runaway by: Caitlin Russell

Her head hangs low, she lets her dark hair, cascade across her face.

Her pallid countenance like the moon draped in a cloud curtain, Her eyes try to focus on the ground.

They are like the frozen stars peeking through the thin, sheer fabric of those clouds.

“Mom’s over-my-shoulder about everything, Dad’s like I don’t exist...”

This is what it’s like to be free? she thought, Rid of the steel bars, suffocating existence in that tiny cell.

She tries to hear the choir of angels’ song, But other noises flood her ears: Sirens amidst the honking horns of bright yellow taxis flitting about like bees, Shouts of angry pedestrians and vendors meshes with roaring car engines, screeching of braking tires.

She can’t even hear her own voice within her mind, or if she even has one strong enough to fight anymore She cannot hear that sweet song of the angels, it is drowned out, washed away like a single footprint in the sand once ingrained, a mold to be filled now disappeared, a mere remnant of the past.

She imagines a cup of warm coffee held in her ungloved fingers.

Her hands tug the thin purple jacket closer, closer to her body, But the jacket is a one-way road And the warmth is going in only one direction: away, And the hostile cold… …it bites and nips at her naked hands until they are raw and numb.

“Which way to Penn Station?”

An old man on the curb absorbs her expression, as she his, he is selling cashmere scarves-pinks, yellows, greens, blues-they flail like abandoned streamers in the unruly wind the only hope against a stark landscape.

She traces the fine lines that wrinkle his face, and tell the story of his life like a map.

“Penn Station?” she repeats, Louder, louder this time, Her voice trying to duel with the screaming wind.

LEANDRA TRANQUILL

The old man with silvery hair, gold-rimmed glasses throws his hands up, his eyes form a quizzical frown.

She looks around at all the unfamiliar.

The wind heaves, great sighs matching her own disillusionment, and imagines being rocked, back and forth, back and forth, with a lullaby being sung into her ears, a whispered soft melody.

She longs to be back in that rocking chair Asleep and free in her dreams She is trapped here, lost in a desert of gray, and she cannot find the way home anymore, lost in the decrepit, city streets littered with the black of evil and waste.

She pushes her hair back, like the clouds moving across the moon’s face She fixes her gaze up to a distant sky she doesn’t even know if it’s real in this haze, And she wants more than anything to not be a runaway but to runaway home.

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Supermarket

MERARY GUTIERREZ

by: Jessi Goodman

People, by nature, are good I see little girls holding daddy's hand at the supermarket, grins on their rosy cheeks.

To their left, lanky boys with misfit jeans, and last year's shoe size, Grinning at barely women girls who ignore them loudly with the clicks of a text.

Around the corner, aged love's timeless beauty waits.

Wrinkled digits interlocked in the pasta aisle, deciding whether rigatoni or macaroni will suffice for dinner.

People, by nature, are bad The father catches the thief, she is taking candy from a dispenser and shoving it into her mouth.

She screams and rants, and her father follows suit, getting frustrated and tired of her insubordinance.

The boys wait for the ladies to turn the corner before divulging their private hormonal urges to each other.

Then ancient lovers stand at the pharmacy, debating pasta or pills tonight.

And then they all check out.

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Something is happening To today's generation We're killing ourselves off In the most heinous situations.

Pointless murders Useless sex Unforgettable memories You soon regret.

Congratulations to the New Generation

Changing people's lives.

People just like you.

People who didn't deserve it.

People you never even knew.

Did you know the name of that body that fell?

That person was loved and on their way outta high school.

Now they had to leave everything behind Because that's what you forced them to do.

And for what?

You were jealous that the mother's son had new shoes.

by: Tisha Wilkerson

Demeaning ourselves And giving into pressure.

Girls wearing clothes Disrespectful to themselves and their mothers.

Small shirts.

Smaller skirts.

Bodies exposed So you know she's a "flirt" It's fun!

It's exciting!

It's part of being a teenager!

Let it go, No one will know.

Until your picture's on the Internet And the school is calling you a . . .

We're losing sight of what's most important To get five minutes of bliss and an eternity of sadness.

Getting drunk.

Getting high.

Don't you see you're destroying your mind?

That mind that's supposed to pave the way For tomorrow's generation to be able to survive and stay.

Something is wrong With this generation We're killing ourselves off For the stupidest of reasons.

Forget about education.

Ignore your opportunities.

This family is only crying At the loss of a child, And news stations are sighing From one more tragedy to tell.

And tomorrow Before the next generation has even begun to come This generation.

Today's generation.

Will be gone.

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MATT TERRY

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Crash by: Lauren Young

How could I forget?

The panic that drove the Jeep instead of my hands The crunch of the hood as it rammed into the branches How there was so much to think about with no time to think Why can't I remember?

The thoughts that rushed through my head The screams from the back seat that sounded like silence How it became reality instead of a nightmare How can I replace?

The smashed hood of your car The four friends we once hugged The trust that was given but forgotten The crash that smashed into our lives.

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The Last Piece by : Courtney Perreault

She’s done it, Finally given that Last piece to him.

The piece you're supposed to save for “the one.”

Does she regret it?

Her mouth says no, But the eyes tell the real truth.

They scream yes, As if wanting to be heard, Loud and clear.

Was it perfect?

The way everyone describes Their first time to be?

She wants to say yes, Wants not to say what She's actually thinking; No, it wasn't, in fact Far from it, But she'll never tell him, Probably not anyone.

Was she ready?

She thought she was, But no, Hell no.

Why him?

Was he special?

Not really, Just an average guy Who didn't care at all, About taking that Last and final piece.

SHELBY LEMONS

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Her

by : DJ Haskin

W

e have all done things that we’re not proud of, and it burdens me to say that I’m no exception. In fact I’ve probably done more than my fair share, undoubtedly even hitting all seven deadly sins in one day.

While I am not proud of this fact, I accept it at face value as I try to learn from my less-thanperfect moments. Of all my flaws, envy and greed seem to reign supreme over their five vassals.

What’s in a name anyways? Envy and greed may be terrible things, but without envy there can be no motivation, without greed, no desire, even though that desire may be black at heart.

At times they rule like the iron curtain, blocking out any outside influences and forcing me to submit to their will. Although I don’t experience any Bruce Banner-like changes, nor are my eyes turned to emeralds, I still feel out of control. As if I’m a bystander watching this bizarre scenario unfold, unable to shout out and stop myself.

Instead I’m confined to my body, left banging my head against a figurative wall chanting, “stupid, stupid, stupid!” Envy has pushed me to the edge more than once. One such event is particularly memorable as I think back to a time I had much more difficulty controlling said urges and desires.

Back in the day, I would walk past this one house on my way to school every day. This house was no Chateau de Chambord by any means but it still possessed some charm and elegance. The most promising feature was the white farmer’s porch that stretched the length of the house before disappearing around the corner. It was on this porch the object I wanted, needed rather, could be found sitting on any given day, rain or shine.

Every day I would gaze longingly at the object of my primal desire and each day she looked back at me, but never acknowledged any of my gestures.

I tried in vain to invoke a reaction, any reaction at all, from her but alas my endeavors were useless.

She would rather sit on her perfect little porch, just outside her brilliant blue door, mocking me.

For weeks I was tortured by her but I never deviated from my path for fear that if I didn’t walk by each day then she would forget me. I couldn’t sleep at night without first praying for her to finally take action and accept my courting. My yearning for her grew exponentially as the weeks dragged on, much like my feet as I sulked past her residence

from day to day. Eventually she came to control my entire life, every dream was of holding her in my arms and all my waking moments were spent with her in mind.

She was eternally out of my reach, I felt as though I was in a Michelangelo painting, playing the part of Adam while she acted as my God. She was the deity that I obsessed over constantly.

I had to have her and would do anything just to touch her delicate looking face.

One day I decided enough was enough, I couldn’t take it anymore and I needed to have her. I told my walking buddies that I had forgotten my homework and advised them to go on without me. Instead of returning home, I chose to skip school and doubled back to stake out her house.

I didn’t want anyone to find me so I hid across the street in some bushes until the time was right.

Finally the old lady of the house left to get groceries or something and I could make my move.

I was hard pressed to suppress my excitement as I watched the old lady shuffle out to her car, only to turn back around. My heart sank.

If she went back in the house then I knew I would never have the chance to approach her porch undetected, however when she reached the front door she paused, took out her keys and locked the front door. Then she shuffled to her car yet again, climbed in, and finally drove away.

My spirits were soaring as I climbed out of the bushes and turned towards the house. I began to stumble because my legs had fallen asleep and, looking back now, it would have pretty funny looking if anyone had been there to watch. By the time I got my sea legs I was halfway to the house and traveling at almost a dead sprint.

I could see her just sitting there on the porch, gazing off into the distance, ignoring me still. I jumped the steps with a single bound and dove towards her, towards my prize, towards she that haunted my dreams, the ceramic rabbit sitting on the porch. I grabbed it, jumped the steps and darted away, back to my hideaway where I could safely examine my precious.

She was about a foot and half tall, although I could have sworn she was bigger from far away.

The paint that had adorned her face was chipped and in reality gave off more of a creepy, demented feeling than one of cozy home décor. The colors

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GRACE PHILLIPS

were nowhere near as vivid as my dreams had been but I found her beautiful in her own, unique way.

As I turned my newly acquired prize over in hands I was horrified to find multiple cracks and even a missing foot. How on earth something so perfect could be chipped and damaged deeply disturbed me.

Surely the old lady must have noticed when the rabbit was dropped and knocked over so why hadn’t she performed an assessment to make sure no harm had befallen this precious little rabbit. The old lady was more concerned with locking her door than checking on this little rabbit from time to time. I found it ironic that she could spare the time to shuffle up her porch steps, which clearly required some effort on her part, but had left this poor little rabbit out to rot. Suddenly I felt cheated by this ceramic rabbit.

For weeks she had taunted me, thrown what I could have into my face when, in reality, she was ugly, deformed and not even worth a second glance.

I would have left that stupid little rabbit in those bushes had my guilty conscience not taken over.

Enough sleep had already been wasted on her so I wasn't about to let guilt sit in my stomach and prevent me from dreaming peacefully that night. So I went to sit on the porch, this time at a much slower pace resembling the typically early morning stumble to school. There was no more joy or need to dart quickly across the yard. In fact I think I even hoped I would get caught and hopefully taken away or

locked up, at least then I wouldn’t have to confront the little old lady. This was not to be though because after a few hours or so, the little old lady’s car pulled into the driveway and I was forced to man up. When the little old lady asked what I was doing I explained how much I wanted the ceramic rabbit and how I had finally just resorted to stealing it. At first she seemed a little worried but eventually she broke out in a smile and told me how she had won it playing bunko a few years ago.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she said. “If you carry in my groceries I’ll let you have it.”

Although the rabbit really wasn’t interesting anymore, I decided it was least I could do for her.

The little old lady even gave me the missing foot, telling me how she’d been meaning to get it glued back on but just never had the time. On my way home, I got to thinking about this ridiculous rabbit I had been going crazy over and actually laughed at myself for being so stupid, stupid, stupid. I ended up ditching the rabbit on the corner of my street, mainly because I didn’t feel like being mocked for bringing home a rabbit from school but also because it was no longer mine to obsess over. I was moving on to bigger and better things; this little rabbit was someone else’s dream now. I had bigger fish to fry, more important obsessions to develop, and that girl next door was looking pretty good.

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5/20/2010 7:32:02 AM

REBECCA BUNKER

where is my mind? by: Sami Durham

I love your construction paper fingers and your marble eyes and I love how you shoo matters of the day across the sea. you tell me my faded lips seem to wake your early mornings, and cause you to forget the matters we fought yesterday.

I tell you your construction paper fingers have gotten wet and are falling apart.

I catch the pulp between my palms and roll it into a small carpet we can use in our entrance hall. you wake and tell me you want to hold my hand, "where are my fingers?" I say, "we have a carpet now, look." your marble eyes are a little loose, the fish are running low. there's a hill out back, you drive me crazy to the picnic trees, we have watermelon seeds and saltwater for lunch.

I notice your marble eyes have fallen into my glass but don't tell you, because the fish are low on marbles and I love your marble eyes.

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5/20/2010 7:32:03 AM

I Hate MLA by: Jessi Goodman

Poised on my jointed haunches.

A position hammered into my hammering hands from ninth-grade typing lessons.

Index fingers search for raised edges, a simple reminder of memorization.

Keep on homerow, don't deviate from the form.

I find there are much simpler, and comfortable ways, to convey a message.

Like a pencil.

On a piece of torn paper.

And although the professionalism and order are lacking, the words come through much more clearly and abruptly.

Who had the job of sitting around and deciding what measure of margin appropriate?

And I wonder if they feel fulfilled, and happy in their lives.

They probably wanted to be an astronaut or a policman, or both.

What happened to their dream of arresting aliens who had stolen cargo ships for their own cosmic piracy needs.

And when did they deviate, exactly, from their imaginations.

Do they realize the torture and disdain students endure from their decisions that seem to change biweekly?

I hope they have the courage to quit and wrangle martians trespassing on our moon instead

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The Game by : Jessi Goodman

I

ran, in the rawest sense of the word, something most people never have the opportunity to do. My legs felt like featherweight steel, a combination of constantly contracting muscles and light toes. I avoided branches, spiderwebs, rocks, foot entrapments, and any obvious path for my pursuer to copy. There was a half a mile left before I would reach the true obstacle course--the historic district. I wanted to look back, to see his face, to see the anger in his eyes and the fury in his pace. This wasn't a game for the weak, for the ill-prepared. I did this for fun, and he didn't stand a chance. Just the sheer thrill of being chased gave me the strength to carry on faster through the woods.

A few of the other cross country runners and I had been kicked off the team. We would come to practice in what my mother calls “altered states of consciousness.� When we let it slip to a particularly gabby teammate, we were booted off before we even got a chance to protest. This rejection led to the invention of a new sport that combined the joys of cross country and free running. It was dangerous, and it was exhilarating.

But most importantly it risked your life, not in a mortal sense, but in the way that one wrong move could change everything in an instant.

There is no adrenalin rush better than one with almost certain consequence.

This is how it is played: you find a spot, any spot, preferably indoors, a house, like a model home. Then, you call the cops. Cops are ideal for this game, they are trained to run, to pursue criminals. This is their forte, and in this case-it is also mine. You have to make up some legitimate reason, or simply call and hang up. Either way, you must lure them out to your location. When they arrive, you wait for them to ring the door,

knock, yell, threaten, and whatever else they do before the pivotal moment when they give up. Right as they sigh, put their hands to their temples, and start to turn back to their vehicles, you go. Open the door quickly, reach in with a hand, unlatch their holster, take their sidearm, and bolt. Whatever you do, don't let them see your face, an event like this is memorable, and they will certainly go straight to a sketch artist to figure out who you are. A ride should wait to pick you up at the finish, so you can make a safe getaway, without being caught.

Today, the track was across a two mile stretch of woods, a hundred yard dash over an open field, through the historic district, into one of two identical parking garages, and then into the other where my friend should be waiting in his car for me. As I neared the edge of the woods, I could see the clearing that led the way to town.

It was essential that I hid my prize, the gun, and ditched the cop before I reached town and received any unwarranted attention. I briefly looked over my shoulder as I hit the field, the only time I would allow myself to do so. I didn't see him; I heard him. He was about a hundred yards back. I stashed the gun in the back of my jeans and resumed my full-out run. As I reached the town limits, I could hear him, breaking through foliage, screaming at me to stop.

I hopped an old brick wall and ran to the parking garage. I turned to go into the building as a car rounded the corner. Running directly at it, I could hear the breaks squeal. I bent my legs,

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J’NAI PHILLIPS

leaped onto the hood, ran up the windshield and down the back, and jumped off the trunk to the ground where I kept sprinting. I could see the other garage from the entrance to the top level, so I increased my momentum. The tricky part was to keep up speed as I jumped to the ledge and then to the other parking building. If I didn't, the results would be disastrous.

I neared the ledge and jumped onto it, bunny-rabbit style, landing equally on both feet. Quickly, I bent my knees and threw my body into the air. As I soared, I could feel the steel against my lower back, and my

hair brush over behind my face. I saw the ledge slowly approach, and pass, as I landed and rolled onto the parking garage.

I looked up to find my pick-up. I didn't see the car that was supposed to drive me to safety. All I saw was the cop's car and a beckoning arm. Was this it?

The inevitable end to the game? Had I lost? Then I recognized the face. It was my friend behind the wheel of my pursuers car. He must have stolen it while I distracted him. It seemed as though we had invented a new game.

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5/20/2010 7:32:07 AM

Under a Desk by: Hannah Somers

I’m feeling like I’d rather live under a bridge Than live under a desk.

I’d sleep beneath the stars Before I’ll bow to one, Because I’m just not ready to give in yet.

I could sell my integrity For the price of a house, But I won’t, Because how can I know That my soul Has a price tag Dangling cheaply from it?

They said you can’t change the world, Like you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, But I’m ready to run that old dog into the ground For all it’s worth.

Cause I’ll be damned if my brother Has to grow up in a world, Where they teach that the Indians Had to leave because the heat Would melt their pottery.

My mind is more powerful Than the stock markets, And I’ll see it all on my own time Even if it means walking across the oceans With no money in my pockets, And nothing but tattered clothes to my name.

They told me I might as well Start looking forward to reality.

That I need a plan.

That in the next five years I’ll need a career, And who I am just isn’t going to cut it.

But why the hell would I prepare

For the end of my life?

And why the hell Would I want to have Something even they say no one wants?

Their minds are corrupt.

She told me she understands me.

That she understands the way I think, And that the things I don’t want to do I’ll do because I have to, Because I live under their roof.

I told her she sounded like the world Saying, you live here So just deal with the shitty reality That’ll be handed out.

He laughed at me When I told him the world was ignorant.

I said that people are closed-minded to change, And to that they both laughed.

She said I should stop talking about things I don’t know, Maybe they should start seeing Things they can’t see.

I’ve got a year and a half left To find a way to hold on to Everything those above our age have lost; Or to make a map Of all the places I’ll be chained to desk jobs.

I don’t want to lose my soul For an apartment that’ll cost more than it’s worth, And a car that’ll get me to and from work, In under four hours if I’m lucky.

For the highways these days Are just as clogged, As the minds of people who see the world In dollar-bill green.

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LEANDRA TRANQUILL

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Totally Dad by : Charles Albright

A

fter brushing a few issues of Better Homes and Gardens aside, I came across the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly. On the cover were the stars of Seinfeld and the caption had talked about their upcoming reunion show. I figured it was only a matter of time and actually thought this was a little overdue. They said in the interview that, “The show was so perfect; we didn’t want to ruin it. But after a while, we all said, ‘What the hell’ and went with it.” The more and more I thought about it, the more I realized that was true of all things. No matter how special you think something is, you start to realize that it’s pretty flawed. If it’s already broken, it can’t hurt to break it some more.

I kept reading on about how even though Michael Richards had been at the center of a big controversy, he was able to restore his image to the public. Even after saying some horrible things, he was able to be forgiven.

It was at that moment the secretary called me back to meet with Eddie. “It must be nice to be on TV,” I muttered to myself as I got up and walked down the hall.

This was the third time I had hired Edward Cohen to help me settle my divorce. I wasn’t as nervous about this one compared to the other two, as Linda and I didn’t have any kids together. At this point all I had to lose was some money and some furniture. I decided I wasn’t going to fight tooth and nail with her over the amount she received; she at least deserved some compensation for what I had done. After about an hour we had finished making up my end of the bargain. “Alright Stephen, I’ll send this over to Linda’s attorney and we’ll keep in touch alright.”

“Alright, sounds good. Thanks again.”

It was coming up on seven o’clock by the time I started my car, so I decided to go to out to eat. Since I was in the area, I decided on Tony’s Pizza. It doesn’t have the most appealing building, but the food is pretty good…usually. I started my car and tried to put in a David Cross CD, because I need the laughs, but it started to skip. I hated my car for that. Beyond its luxurious exterior lay a plethora of interior problems.

From the soda stains in the backseat to the non-existent CD player, this thing was a bust. This was one of those things I wouldn’t mind doing more damage to….

It took me about five minutes to get to the plaza in which Tony’s is located. It’s a part of a strip mall that has seen better days. Several of the businesses have left or went out of business altogether. I put some of the blame on the aesthetics of the plaza itself. It looks to have been neglected for several years. The paint job looks to be older than me, the neon signs over the doors to which they belong have all dimmed, and the 48

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parking lot is riddled with potholes (Most of which I tried to hit with my excuse for a car). But at times I like it this way. Nobody approaches it because of its tired look, so it’s remained a relative secret.

I gave my order to the newest of the teen cashiers perpetually hired there. I don’t think I’ve actually talked to anyone over the age of twenty-one in there.

After I paid, I took a seat in one of the red, white and green booths, Italian themed of course, as this was a pizza place. Even though it was terribly tacky and cliché, there was an honest charm to it. It didn’t try to be like the other local pizza joints that tried to pride itself on the owner’s Italian roots and blasted big

CHELSEA PALYS

5/20/2010 7:32:09 AM

chains for not being “real pizza.” They all tasted the same to me. But I liked Tony’s because of all its little quirks, like the fact that they put the pepperoni under the cheese and that it was run by a bunch of Greeks as opposed to fourth-generation Italians. It was different without being too ahead of itself. Finally my order was ready. I took the greasy box and made my way home.

My house seemed to loom upon the hill on which it stood. Linda was away for the weekend, visiting her parents amidst all this divorce trouble. It was emptier than ever, as now I was the only one living in the five-bedroom home. Linda and I had bought it a couple years ago to make room for our kids, but neither wanted to live with us after what we had done to their other parents. And I really couldn’t blame them. A family can’t be brought together under a coat of lies, so our hopes of starting a normal family never really got off the ground.

I put my things down on the kitchen table and turned the television on to whatever was on Channel 4. I opened the box only to see a sausage pizza, not the pepperoni pizza which I had ordered. My first instinct was to blame the kid at the register, but I remembered those at Tony’s probably wouldn’t let him within ten feet of the oven. I figured it was only karma, the latest of misfortunate events to befall me. But it really wasn’t that big of a deal, it was only a pizza.

As I watched Brian Williams relay information of the latest global tragedies, I realized, I wasn’t exactly enjoying what I was eating. It wasn’t that the pizza was bad or anything, it just wasn’t what I asked for, expected to get, or wanted. In my haste to get home and eat my pepperoni pizza, I didn’t bother to check whether I got was what I had ordered. I stuck it out for a few more slices until I was moderately full and decided to throw it away. I wasn’t going to eat it for lunch tomorrow or anything, I may as well trash it.

I wandered upstairs to take a shower and get ready for bed. As I made my way through the empty halls I picked up a nice coat of dog hair on my pant legs. I realized I hadn’t let them out. I looked around for them but realized that Linda had probably taken them to her parents’ house for the weekend.

I swear that woman loves those dogs more than she loves her son.

When I finally got in bed I turned on ESPN to watch whatever sport event was being shown. I didn’t really care what was on, I just like the light the TV gives off. Like the house, my bed was very empty too.

But I liked it that way; it was good to be alone for a bit. I had been used to the couch in the living room since Linda had found out I had cheated on her. I then started to think about the whole ordeal. One of her friends had seen me out with my other girl and called her the same night. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she yelled.

“What do you mean?” I tried to play stupid for lack

of a better answer.

“You’re running around with some other bimbo that’s what you’re doing!”

“She’s just a fr-” “Stephen dear, you don’t have any friends. How long have you been seeing this woman?”

“Five months.” A lie, it was more like a year.

“I guess you’ll never really change.”

“You didn’t seem to mind.” I had cheated on my second wife, Karen, with Linda.

“I can’t, well; actually, I can believe you. Only you would chase me around for five years, ruin your family, and marry me, only to do it again. You aren’t that smart, are you?”

I decided to keep quiet. I didn’t feel like lying to her anymore and I really didn’t care what happened.

And besides, I really am not that smart….

Needless to say we broke up right after the incident. I got an e-mail from her attorney the next day telling me she had filed for divorce.

I couldn’t sleep, so while the computer was on my mind, I got up and checked my inbox. She had, or her attorney rather, had e-mailed me back telling me what she wanted out of the settlement. It all seemed pretty trivial. She wanted to sell the house and split it sixty-forty, the forty coming my way. Fair enough.

She wanted the dogs, most of the furniture and at least half of the cookware and plates. That was all fine with me. Those sorts of things didn’t really matter anymore. Thousands of dollars wasn’t going to get my kids back or give me what I really wanted out of a relationship. I didn’t really know what I wanted out of anything anymore. You think you want the nice car that says you’re a distinguished man or a house on the corner lot that says you’ve achieved success and have a wonderful family, but somehow you end up with a broken thirty-thousand dollar CD player and a home that echoes when you shut a door. The things I do want are the things I can’t have. I want to spend time with my kids and I want someone whom I can be happy with. But even with those things, you always take them for granted and look for something better. Sometimes I feel as though we’re all chasing cars.

I started to write an e-mail to Karen telling her that Linda and I were getting divorced. I told her how it happened, not leaving out any detail. I don’t know why, I almost felt like she could sympathize with her, and I was feeling sort of sorry for myself.

I almost titled it “Oops”, but then I realized some people take this kind of thing seriously, so I thought better of it. I told her I’d need to talk to the kids, to tell them that Linda was leaving and I was moving out, not that they would care.

After I sent it, I did some web surfing until my eyes became strained. I turned off my computer and I lay alone in my bed until I fell asleep.

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Rumor Mill

SHELBY LEMONS

by: Michael Kretz

Like water passing over a wheel, rumors flow from person to person, ceaselessly, without hesitation, silence and solitude are forever gone.

Words, whispers, stares, fingers pointing, backs turned; no concern for anyone else, only for destruction and chaos.

The routine of daily life, broken and twisted, by the words of another, and hopelessness rules the day.

Inevitably, time heals all wounds, but the scar perpetuates, leaving a lasting impression of the unfortunate times gone by.

Tranquility shattered by fear, calm replaced with unnerving glances.

What is going on?

When will it ever end?

The wheel of the rumor mill keeps on churning.

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Teenage Whispers by: Ciara McTarsney You;ll never tell them your life to fuel their lies for small things will make sense in the long run They’ll drill at your sanity, how long will it be until it's gone?

Their thoughts creep inside your head Their words crawl under your skin You’re like some broken-down machine The things they hate of you stab deep Before you know it you’ll be gone...

Just sit still, wait and hide in your darkness while it slowly boils you over the top You’re on edge, on crazy sharp edge That's why you’ll never tell them.

DANYELLE FLETCHER

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The Roof by: Hannah Somers

T

wenty-three” I typed into the Word document.

The highest consecutive number of times a light had gone on and off in the same room; indicating an unusually restless night sleep for the people living in the house across the street, two houses to the left, number seven. I had every movement of this neighborhood recorded, analyzed, and at my fingertips. I was careful, though, to only venture onto the roof, laptop in hand, once my parents had done their last checking-in and the neighborhood was still in the face of the street lights. Every night I would climb onto the rough speckled roof top, leaving the window open and the lights off in case I needed to retreat quickly, and slowly inch my way down the steeply-slanted roof. It probably isn’t too safe, now that I think about it, but a life without chances is like a paper without a pen – you’re left pretending that there’s a story somewhere, that there’s an experience lying invisible between the lines. I knew everything about every house; number of windows, children, number of times they had a certain meal every week. I especially prided myself on this one. I could smell a pot roast dinner, the favorite Sunday night meal on the block, from a mile away. I could even smell out the sides sometimes; mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, a garden salad –if the dressing smelled strong enough. My favorites were the hard ones though: green-bean casserole, tacos (especially the pre-packaged ones) and pasta (which always gave me trouble because the tomato sauce smelled a lot like pizza). I could always tell which families were a little estranged. Those were the ones that never emitted any kind of evening meal smell. This made sense, I concluded, because you can’t smell late night dinners alone.

Every house number had its own file, convenient for keeping track of my tallies and notes. Before I even began to see the neighborhood around me I’d open documents 1-7 and enter the date on every next page. There was never a night that I didn’t type something new for every house. There was always something; a different light on, a different car parked in a different place, a new curtain hanging in a window, a new smell resulting form an experimental dinner; and I’d found that every new discovery correlated with an old one. For instance: the house across the street, document number four, had a new car in the driveway tonight. It was a graying color, definitely an old make, and the license plate cover looked foreign – like one of those West Coast ones with palm trees or peaches on it.

The two back tires were low on air and the back wind-

shield had remnants of bumper stickers and window paint.

I concluded it must belong to a younger person, probably early twenties, and early twenties plus foreign license plate cover plus mysteriously parked car must mean son or daughter home from college. There were rarely any new people coming and going from our old neighborhood, and so the rest of the night was spent typing two new pages into document number four, the rest were left blank.

The next night my parents went to bed earlier than normal, and though the street lights had not yet come on, I decided to venture out onto the roof and begin what I had determined would be a night solely dedicated to the observation of house number four. The old car was still there, parked on the street this time though, as if the he or she college student had left and returned that day. I wish I hadn’t had classes so I could’ve seen the car leave, times of day are always the best indicators of place – early in the morning, work; around noon, lunch (or in this case there was also the possibility of classes), and late afternoon usually meant dinner or some sort of social activity. As I looked closely, though, I saw bags in the backseat with the infamous logo of the only grocery store within thirty miles of here. “Male student” I typed in, and then skipping a line and adding a dash I typed “left milk in car.”

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ALEX VANDERVEER

I began looking back on my previous notes about house number four, suddenly intrigued by the goings on behind closed doors. It had a surprising number of “meal alone” tallies – about four a week – and the blinds were normally closed unusually early in the evening. Another strange thing that caught my eye was an entry from about two months ago, the middle of November; all it said was “police car in driveway.” All signs pointed to estranged married couple; no meals together, to bed early, possible domestic violence calls. It all explained a car I had never seen before in the driveway and a license plate cover from hundreds of miles away.

The next day was unusually warm for a January afternoon. The snow had begun to melt and the shingles on the roof that once held ice, were now covered with periodic puddles of water. Balancing my laptop on my knees, I noticed the door to house number four open, followed by a female voice yelling quite loudly from within. I ducked down instinctively, like I had been completely exposed; a criminal caught red-handed. I had never really been caught off guard by a neighbor, other than the occasional late night worker; and at least I had warning in the way of head lights when I was faced with them. Finally getting up the courage to peer up out of my hiding place, I noticed a man,

“dark blue jeans; oversized sweatshirt; no shoes,” standing in the icy driveway, peering over a giant white puddle with a dish towel. He seemed to be contemplating the very existence of the white liquid; almost as if he felt guilty for cutting short its relationship with the split-open carton next to it. Must be a college student, I figured, because even though I had never really seen any of those residing in house number four, adults would never waste their precious time on the mourning of a dollar fifty plus tax. I clocked it; ten minutes, thirty two seconds before he broke from his trance. He began looking around, as if he didn’t know where he was – like a child who had fallen asleep on the couch and had mysteriously ended up back in his own bed by the morning. I hadn’t realized how intensely I had been watching him, though, until this frantic gaze was centered on me. I had zero reaction time, all my plannedout getaways for these types of situations had either been exhausted or disabled by the pure spontaneity of such an encounter. We were both stuck like two deer in the same headlight for the next “57.2 seconds”. “Old-car-collegemale hurriedly made his way inside; milk, towel, and milk carton remained in driveway,” I typed into the 122nd entry for house number four; definitely the strangest one yet.

The next week I had classes lined up almost twice a g

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The Roof (continued)

day every day and my time was spent switching from staticy radio talk show to staticy radio talk show in the hours it took for me to get home through rush hour traffic. I was always relieved to see the all-too-familiar stop light marking the edge of our town right off the highway. Possibly even more prevalent, though, was the feeling of fear that on my own commute home I might run into the now titled “awkward-old-car-collegemale.” I hadn’t seen him since the incident, and honestly, I had almost given up on my search for truth within house number four. There were too many variables, and not enough of them could I control. Besides, I was pretty sure I had them figured out: estranged old married couple, leading to young college son estranged because of them, most likely home from college for God knows what reason. My guess was that there was some sort of problem at home, a kind of family emergency that the son had to rush home to fix. It would explain the earlier police visit and the fact that this guy, whoever he was, had been the only one to leave the house since he had arrived. Staring down at the dashboard clock and starting my stop watch as the numbers changed, I passed the only gas station in this one horse town and made my way home. Exactly fifteen and a half minutes later, I pulled up to the curb and made my way inside, thankful as I saw the graying old car was missing from the front of house number four.

With so much going on lately, I had been neglecting the roof; like a kid I had forgotten I had. Hungry, and a little cranky that no one was giving him any attention, he desperately called my name as I opened the window for some fresh air.

I was hesitant at first, I had been caught once so the chances of being caught again seemed extremely likely; but seeing that the old car was still missing, I decided it couldn’t hurt to give those shingles some much needed love and attention. I unplugged my laptop from the wall, grabbed an old sweatshirt off the ground and stepped outside. The second I felt that roof beneath my feet I regretted ever leaving it. It was like a longlost friend, reminding what was important, of who I really was, which had seemed to have gotten lost beneath the piles of online grade reports, lab books, and worn out back pack straps.

Opening the laptop felt like home. I double-clicked the word documents until seven were open, and instinctively entered the date on each one. I had a feeling I was finally back, the incident behind me, and nothing but the world in front of me; fingers ready at exactly 11:02 to record it all; but then the graying old car came skulking down the street. “11:03: here we go again.”

As the gray form closed in on its residence, I tried to convince myself that the fear of confrontation once again was barely even an option; as it pulled into the driveway instead of its normal street occupation, I finally let out a breath I had been holding in for the past 22.3 seconds; and as the man opened the car door and stepped out to go inside, I was pretty certain that tonight would be okay. “11:05, subject leaves car, heads towards door.” I think what sealed my doom was letting my guard down for even ten seconds to type, moving my eyes

from the threat to the comfort of the keys. The second I looked up, thinking I would see the estranged-college-student open the door and walk inside, I saw him turn around and look straight towards me; my worst nightmare realized. In a last ditch attempt to salvage my records before all hell broke loose I typed “college student in blue jeans and old university sweatshirt begins to deliberately walk towards own front yard – 11:06.”

“Um, what exactly are you doing up there?” the not-so-unknown-anymore man from house number four asked, a completely puzzled look upon his face. He was standing right below the edge of the roof now, so close that the stained white gutter was beginning to cut off my view of his feet, leaving the shoe portion of my records still blank. I was lost for a second, in a daze from the after-shock of an explosive combining two worlds I never knew could even come close to meeting; it was like a bipolar magnet. But instead of having two poles, it was more like it couldn’t decide which pole to be, so both had tragically landed somewhere in the middle.

“Uh, sitting on the roof,” I explained, rather awfully.

“Hmm, really? I didn’t notice,” “College student = liberal use of sarcastic language – 11:08” “Wait, is that a laptop? You know it’s supposed to rain tonight, right?”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. Realizing how little sense that must’ve made; but he laughed.

“Now I’m sure you’re not responsible for the weather, but who knows. So what exactly are you doing then?” He asked again, and then added, “other than sitting on the roof.”

“Um,” I said contemplating whether or not I should answer honestly or excavate through my mind, trying to find the remains of an ancient excuse I was sure I had made before; how could I not have prepared for a confrontation like this?

“I’m typing what I see,” I said finally, hoping this would be just specific enough to satisfy him into leaving, and just vague enough to justify keeping my cover.

“About what?” he asked, of course.

I figured backing out now was probably still an option, but barely rational since I had already been caught, already been discovered like a sniper in some bell tower over London, I might as well explain and plead for mercy.

“About the neighborhood,” I said, practically closing my eyes for fear of seeing the worst, but all I heard was more laughter.

“Of the neighborhood?” he asked, like I hadn’t been speaking English.

“Ya, the neighborhood; the people and the houses, and stuff like that” “Hmm” he paused for a second, 2.54 seconds actually, just enough time for me to realize that the absence of words was almost more terrifying than the onslaught of questions.

“So you have on anything on me in there?”

The question hit me like a bullet; not only had I been discovered, but little mercy had been shown. “Definitely a male college student” I typed quickly, trying to avoid being found out again, “only guys that age would ask questions that I never saw coming, whose origins confused me to no end.” But it was too late, I was in too deep, and so I replied with the safest answer I knew.

“Uh, ya. But it’s not like weird or anything. It’s kind of about your whole family.”

My studying of his reaction was briefly interrupted by a

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woman’s voice coming from the stoop of house number four. Her hair was short and frazzled tightly in soft gray curls, and she was dressed in a long pink robe, her feet were shoeless, and her arms were crossed.

“Adam what are you doing over there?!” she yelled, in a voice completely unexpected from such a small woman.

“Just a second!” he yelled back. “Hey I gotta go, but you should come over for dinner tomorrow, and bring your laptop, my family’s got to see this,” he said, laughing yet again, and in a second he was running across the street, shutting his car door – which he had inexplicably left open before he walked over – and practically bounded up to the front stairs to the old woman.

“Blue Running shoes” I entered in the space I had left open, and after it: “put into use at 11:25, January 15th”.

The next morning I got up at 4:15 panicking. Without even thinking I pulled out my laptop and began typing what I could remember of my dream. “White picket fence; perfectly square house; four doormen that took four different coats from me; a china set that matched the wallpaper; forty little old ladies dressed in pink robes; handcuffs instead of silverware; old man with giant steak knife; turned into giant steak; Adam dialed 911 phone shaped like police car; put phone to ear and sirens went off.”

I couldn’t stand it anymore. After spending 42 minutes and 33 seconds trying to fall back asleep, I tiptoed downstairs and stood in the kitchen. I decided that if I was doomed to a shanking by an old man and forty old ladies in pink robes, that I would bring a sort of “thanks-for-inviting-me” gift to at least give me a fighting chance. I opened the fridge and stared; like I did when I was bored and food, logically, was the only cure. After realizing that the perfect ‘keep-them-out-of-jail-free’ card was not going to pop out of the deli meat drawer I closed the fridge, and began digging around the bottom shelf of the cabinet for some of my mom’s old cook books. Pulling out the biggest one I could find, a spiral bound book made to look like a picnic tablecloth, I began flipping through the pages. I stopped on “Family-Sized Pot Roast Dinner.” Of Course! I thought. Pot roast: the “favorite Sunday night meal on the block.”

I left my house at 6:54, giving me a minute to walk over and subtracting ten minutes from the average time I began smelling dinner food around the neighborhood over the past two months.

My hands were shaking under the weight of the pot roast, which I had placed on a Christmas platter, the only one I could find in our mess of a kitchen. Balancing the platter on one hand, using my chin for support, and holding my laptop under the same arm, I rang the doorbell and listened as footsteps started moving towards the door at a rather swift pace. I thought it must be Adam, judging by the weight and speed of the steps, but to my surprise I was greeted by the old woman, dressed in an all white jump suit type outfit this time, with all white shoes and pink laces.

“Uh, I brought pot roast” I blurted out of complete loss for all sanity.

“Ahh, brilliant. Pot roast! We haven’t had that in months.

Jim’ll be thrilled.” “Jim!” She yelled up the stairs. “We’ve got company. Come in, girl, it’s freezing out there.”

Taking a look around I realized house number four was nothing like I had imagined: there were no guns, no jail cells, no doormen, and the wallpaper couldn’t have matched any sort of

china set even if it wanted to. She led me into the kitchen and I was surprised to see that everything was carpet, the hallways, the living room, even the kitchen except a small square of tile just beneath the sink.

“Are you thirsty, dear?” she asked, just as a man, whom I supposed was Jim, walked in; followed thankfully by Adam.

“Well hello,” they both said almost simultaneously, the old man a bit more solemn than the younger. ”Why don’t we sit down, Ann” I followed them to a room located at the complete opposite side of the house that was uncomfortably filled by a giant cherry-oak table, with antique looking chairs. The woman placed my pot roast right in the middle of the table, surrounded by the Chinese take-out they had ordered before. The second we sat down, 7:10:45, everything I had feared was gone. Ann talked most of the time; about how her grandson had just graduated “with honors” from UGA (the University of Georgia) and had come back home to help out “his old grandparents.” How his grandfather had “had a fit” when he found out he was, because “he was a grown man” and he could “do things on his own.” She also explained, though, that no matter her husband’s opposition the incident last November had proved that they were much better off with some help.

She then laughed, adding that her grandson was a great help, but an awful cook, and she missed those home cooked meals they used to be able to have. She talked for hours, and before I knew it it was 9:30 and I had to, reluctantly, get going. After saying goodbye and being smothered by the old woman, who had become as much of a grandmother to me, in the past two hours and forty minutes, as she was to her grandson, Adam walked me out.

“Sorry about all that craziness” he said once we stepped outside.

“It’s really alright. It was fun” I said, a Christmas platter holding a left-over white rice container in one hand, my unopened laptop in the other. “Sorry I didn’t have a chance to show you guys my laptop stuff ” I said just now realizing that that was the reason I had been invited over all along.

“That’s okay. There’s always next time. Besides, I don’t think my Gram stopped talking long enough for you to show us anything anyway.”

To this I laughed.

“She really likes you.”

“Well I’m glad, they’re really nice people.”

“Ya they are…I should probably get back inside, but I’ll see you around.”

“Alright sounds good, tell them thanks again for me.”

As I turned around to walk back home, I saw the house across the street: gray-blue siding; three closed windows, two with blinds and one with curtains; two cars in the driveway. The lawn was green, with small spots of brown dispersed everywhere – sign of neglect or just a result of a cold winter? The door was a sort of off-white, with scattered footprints at its base from full hands. As that door was opened, though, I was brought into a whole other world than what could be seen by the street, or by the sidewalk, or by a roof. That night, I kept every window up, every blind and curtain drawn, and my mind open; as I entered the statistics of my very own house into Document number 8.  55

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T-H-U-M-P by: Sami Durham++ dear mirror, lately you have been showing me flat-lined heartbeats, electric tremors and eyes that speak the truth; with one wrongly halted breath I could fall apart. dear mirror, you're up to your old tricks again, reflecting this loss of faith.

you say, “darling it’s momentary.” but every time your perfection splinters you are only lies driven into my flesh. dear mirror, I think something is wrong with you because the ugly girl from yesterday is missing.

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I Know You Like the Back of My Hand by: Marie LoDuca If you were to wake up a cartographer, Which I’m sure I will not, But, if I could make a map of anything, I’m sure I’d start with my left hand.

The beginning of the beginning, the base of the thumb Wrinkled. Dry. Cracked.

My index finger, pressurizing any writing situation; An infamous white mark lain across it Passing time as it rises.

My middle finger. Bold as it is weathered.

The calluses on its side Tell stories and bare pained wisdom.

And, the ring finger. Your waist is oh, so cold.

Soon, my love, we’ll get you some gold to hold tight And a tendon for your muscles, As you have none To rise to the occasion.

Baby, small finger. My ink-stained friend.

You have no choice but to rub across each mark I make.

Thank you for the spell check all these years.

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An Odd Hobby by: David Klimek

H

ello there. How has your evening been treating you tonight? Mine, it has gone exceptionally well. The selection of sauce here is incredible, imported ales from Germany, spicy brews from Japan; you could not get any better than I think you can here. And before you ask, no I am not an alcoholic, I am a mere social drinker. It is a good hobby to have I believe. Everyone has their hobbies. Knitting, painting, writing, all very commendable forms, but drinking is quite galvanizing. Enjoying the companionship of new people such as yourself and sharing personal stories as we unwind. I remember listening to an unemployed man about his troubles the past night, used to be a traveling salesman with household products or something of that nature, going on one of his numerous outings. He was crossed by a group of ruffians in an alley, while taking a shortcut from a sales call. At first they appeared very warming wearing their fictitious smiles, but soon enough, he awoke in a pile of waste with vermin crawling all over his person. They were gone, his products, gone, money, gone with all of those pleas of asking for more work, the brown-nosing of his boss, poof, just like that. He told me he was having a rebuttal with some loan sharks, had a bit of a gambling problem you see and needed the money dearly. Unfortunately he was given his walking papers. Not much he could do or say to repeal it all. Then his life took a slippery slope, his wife left him, house taken, and now he was left to ponder on his own. Why did this happen to him, what did he do so wrong? Besides the gambling he was an upright citizen, regular church attendee, an honest husband. One of those rare misfortunes that you hear when you have a hobby like mine, never ceases to amaze me on how deep people are willing to go into their stories to a complete stranger. I guess I must project the image of an actual good being, but I am far from it, completely on the other side of the spectrum.

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CHELSEA PALYS

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DARIUS JONES

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This Man by: Jonathan G. Allen

There is a line, drawn between me and my kind.

Open up my head, walk in my shoes, read my thoughts and it will blow your mind.

This Man This Man’s eyes speak what is on his mind, And the people he’s cared for have let him down time after time This man.

This man’s heart has been broken and fixed and broken This man’s love had come and gone by the truthful words his eyes have spoken.

This Man. This man’s ears have heard the shatterings of glass heavens.

This man became a man when he turned eleven.

This man had written and has said many words in his life time, But only man is his life line.

That man.

That man has brought him through hells and high waters.

That man has preached to this man to love one another.

That man. This Man. They both live for a purpose, for those to understand That the most caring, loving, compassionate of them all is this man.

This man.

This man has seen angels and demons clash in war just for his prayer.

This man's soul always feels there is a blessing in the air This man.

This man would risk his life to save another’s, give to those that need it.

This man’s heart has shown nothing but love to those who believe it.

Believe that this man has seen a lot of things, been through what some can’t stand, but this man didn’t let it make him anything short of a man. This man, who lives off of the tears of joy from spirits crying, off the sounds of lust, malice and anger dying, the taste of peace, smells of passing and feelings of love in every way, lives off sight of happiness that he sees in your face, even though you try to hide the tears, and the shocks of pains hurts and fears. This man cries when you cry, his heart is with you, and means it when he says, where were you, I miss you, feelings the connection when he kisses you, Valentine, will you be mine. Let go of all your problems.

Whisper in my ears your desires, tell me how you feel.

Listen to my heart, feel the beat of this love drum. Understand that all is for you or no one. This man shows care with the smallest things, from simple chump change to diamond rings, leaving those things to bake in the sun at my right hand.

Floating along with me, mind gone in another world, my high.

This man is wasted on the time he wasted waiting for the right moment to ask for your hand of future husband and wife.

Believing in a place where night, but a place where our love is the sunlight, but for now my summer days are shorter than my winter nights, and the cold breeze is making me disintegrate into the bitterness of the lust of this world, the prides of life. Attacking this man’s being, bringing on things that don’t belong, eyes not speaking, mind not believing in this man.

This man.

This man has reached the point where life is his climax point of joy This man has moved past the past because yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, so live in the moment for this man.

This man

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Kind of White by: Katelyn Eads

I’m the kind of white where I carry SPF 70 in my purse all the time.

I’m the kind of white that spends a week, in summer, on the Mediterranean coast without applying

SPF 70 or any other kind of sunblock, and still doesn't get a tan.

I’m the kind of white where my friends say I must reflect the sunlight.

I’m the kind of white where I say “shorty” and get confused when people correct my pronunciation

of Flo Rida lyrics.

I’m the kind of white that wears Coach shoes, Ralph Lauren blazers, pearl earrings, and drives a BMW to my safe, well-funded suburban high school.

I’m the kind of white where I'm a WASP, the palest of the pale, which is almost an accomplishment -

because of how fast the gene pool's mixing up - except for the part where it’s almost

completely not.

I’m the kind of white where I'm not completely a WASP, though, cause I dropped the Protestant part

a few years back. Guess I'm just the WAS kind of white, or maybe a WASA - White Anglo-

Saxon Atheist.

I’m the kind of white that doesn’t believe in God, because what kind of God condones the slaughter and enslavement of every corner of the globe by a bunch of angry, entitled men with

washed-out faces who just happened to catch on to guns and accounting before most anyone else?

I’m the kind of white who thinks a just God would have locked them away for those crimes. Cordoned off

the continent, maybe, until the rest of the world could catch up and stand a chance or until

the Europeans fought amongst themselves long enough to purge the urge to conquer and conceal

every history, language, culture, and belief that was not their own.

I’m the kind of white where I'm particularly repulsed when this kind of thing is justified with Religion.

I’m the kind of white that keeps an ivory dragon inside me, where it gnaws on my innards until I want to

throw up, or cover myself in clay, or get in the shower and scrub at my skin with steel wool until

I am no longer white, but red and bleeding like the back of every slave beaten by a white master.

I’m the kind of white where the dragon has two names: I call it History and it calls itself Guilt.

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Nevermore by: Elizabeth Everett

White washed windows, White washed walls, Barren echoes through the halls.

A stolen kiss, A stolen heart, Nevermore, Nevermore.

MARIE AKRIDGE

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Wanderlust by: Caitlin Hinson

Staring out a window Yearning for a change Hoping for a new place On another plane A need to find a world An undiscovered life The urge to move, Continue so through the day and night This ailment is maddening Driving me insane Breaking windows, smashing doors It can’t be good, you see My aching heart is pounding Lusting for the trees The fjords, the mountains, valleys, Oceans, creeks, and seas.

I can tell my father’s worried My mother’s called a nurse Sister says I’m crazy It can’t get any worse The doctor finds it funny He’s jovial, serene I’ve got a case of Wanderlust, He says then takes his leave First I'll book a ticket Knowing where to go Geneva, Harbin, Lima, And then maybe even to Oslo Now I board a plane Finally feeling free Oppression gone, restrictions lifted A cure for my disease

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IVAN MONAGAN

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Paralytic by : Elizabeth Everett I don't feel the cold creeping through the cracks of my hollow chambered heart I don't feel them crawling through the film of grey matter in my salt encrusted mind.

Didn't they see that I was still breathing? and my heart was still beating?

They should have caught it, but they were too complacent within their own facade.

They didn't feel the cold creeping through the cracks of their hollow chambered hearts.

They didn't feel them crawling through the film of grey matter in their salt encrusted minds.

Because they didn't know.

So who is to blame when it all comes to a close?

It won't be me.

TOM MOORE

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Lost Inside by: Asia Alsgaard

I

awake to unfamiliar and uncouth surroundings. My head pounds, my body shakes. I slowly stand, wobbling on quaking feet that rock to the beat of the floor.

I shake my head to clear the clutter and look around before starting across the room.

It is accented by one window covered by gray baords that let the faintest slivers of light through the dusty panes. Uneven slats creak inder my shifting weight as I make my way to the lone door. Clearing my lungs of the age old dust that floats through the air, I reach out and slam my palm against the brass handle. The metal has a shocking cold to it that penetrates to my bones, but I hold on and turn. It swings forth, with not even the slightest creak. A long hallway stretches before me seeming to stretch on and on for miles.

A frayed red carpet paves the floor. It looks like it had held a type of floral pattern with green and gold which now can only barely be made out. I step out and notcie the old statues poised on either side of the hall. Squinting into the gloom, I can just barely make out the shape of a door off in the distance. With a lack of a better option, I began to walk. At first, I check all the doorways for loose knobs, but after finding them all locked, I give up the prospect that they will open and ignore them.

It seems to go on forever. The hours and minutes and seconds draw by until they all blend together creating one massive blob of time. How long has it been? If it was forty minutes, or forty hours I cannot say. At some point, I begin to hear a noise. It was faint at first, but grew in intensity as I continued down the hall. "thump, Thump, THUMP." The first time I hear it, I stop dead. But i get use to it and it just becomes another thing in

my surroundings. When it stops, I don't even notice.

Reaching out for the door at the end of the hall, a moment of panic passes through my mind along with memories of locked doors.

Luckily, it fails to come to fruition and the brass doorknob of the wooden door turns smoothly as I walk through and step into...

The room I awoke in.

Panic wells up in my chest and I feel suffocated.

I stand stock still, aghast. It had taken so long, had I gotten turned around? But I knew I hadn't. It's hard to be turned around when you just spent the last two or three hours learning every corner and crevice of a hall. I had not been turned around. I knew that at once, but what had happened? I stand for a minute, pondering, but I can come up with no answer. Not knowing what to do, I turn around and face the lone door. I slam it shut then reopen it and peak out. As if I had just walked back, I find myself back at the other end of the hall marked by the same antique statues.

By now I am full of exasperation, sick of the confusion and fear of wondering where I am and how I got here. The truth is, I don't know. g

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Panic wells up in my chest and I feel suffocated.

The walls fall in around me and the air gets thinner and thinner and fingers rake my throat. I stumble and hit the wall and see a silver of light through a set of dusty boards. Looking at the window above me I take in long deep breaths, pulling the air into my lungs. Then, I hear a noise.

It sounds different this time, a sort of creaking of the floorboard. It pauses, then creaks again.

Almost as if it is moving nearer to the room where I currently stand. I look around. No place to hide even if I wanted to, which i'm not sure I do. The thing creaking may be the only chance I have to figure out why i'm here and how I can escape.

Still, I scurry behind the door so that I will be hidden from sight when it opens.

The door begins to creak open at a painfully slow pace. I peer through the crack and an eye stares back at me. I stumble, hitting my head against the wall before hurriedly peaking around the door. Nothing. Disappointment racks through me. Where did it go? Why tease me with the possibility of human contact and freedom, then leave me hanging cold? Then I realized the truth - I was a prisoner.

"Why?" I cry out. "Why are you keeping me down here?" But there was no answer and I slumped down to the floor, head in my hands.

A fair amount of time passes, but I finally muster enough energy to stand. I walk back out into the hall and look for something big and heavy. I pick up a bronze vase and walk back into the room over the the lone window. Hefting the vase above my head, I pound it into the boards. After a couple of hits, a crack appears and I could hear the whole house shudder with the impact. Soon a whole chunk of the boards falls away. Sitting the vase down, I stand on tiptoes and peak into the penetrating light but as I do, something slams against my face and knocks me to the floor. Blood slides down my cheek as I look around, but I see nothing. Shaking my head, I stand up. Taking one last look at the window and fallen vase, I wordlessly walk back into the hall. Silently I walk. The only noise the padding of my feet on the threadbare carpet below me. I pick up the pace. I'm flying now. My feet race. The pattern's a blur. The walls meld together as I run. Tears flow freely now. The frustration leaking out. I quickly wipe them away, they have no place here.

I slow down as I reach the door. I turn around and watch the door at the opposite end of the hall.

As I open the door, the one at the opposite end of the hall never moves. Turning around, I close

my eyes and rush in. Opening them, I scream in frustration. The same room with the same walls, the same vase and window greet me. Too much to bare, I kick at the floorboards. I sit down, breathing hard. Looking back out into the hall, I see something black moving towards me. I stand up, the blood rushing to my head. I waver for a second, then slam the door closed. I look wildly around for something, anything I could use as a blockade.

My eye catches on a tall pedestal. I slide it under the knob just as something hits the door with a thud. My heart pounds in my chest. Sweat courses down my face in rivets of fear. Shadows begin to creep under the door frame, sliding slowly in. Tendrils prod and poke. I back up against the opposite wall as the thing comes in, faster now. Swirling smoke clouds the air around me. I choke and cough. Smoke fingers lick at my ankles, perversely ticklish and I try to jump back further. A billowing form rises before me, sharp claws and flashing yellow eyes that seemed to pierce my very being with their intensity. It strikes out, flying towards me with incredible speed. I jump to the right, its claws just barely raking my side. I scramble on hands and knees to the fallen vase. I pick it up and stand on wobbling feet. Hefting it up, I turn and use the momentum to fling it towards the creature. It flies through.

The creature seems to grin, eyes dancing with mirth. It begins to come closer. Not knowing what else to do, I duck my head and barrel through the beast. Smoke billows around me as I yank open the door and run out. All the doors along the hallway stand open, but when I look down them, they look all the same with similar red carpets and dusty painting. I choose to ignore them, choosing instead to run down the hall to the opposite door.

I see the beast coming towards me, faster now. I clench my eyes shut, and run with all of my might.

I reach the door in an instant and open it, hoping someting may have changed. I jump in, shut the door and yank it back open. Rather than finding myself at one end of the hall, I come out from one of the doors that line the side. I blink in surprise; my face breaks into a grin. I wait until I see the creature coming down the hall towards me, then I rush across the hall and into another door. I slam it shit the open it back up. This time, I'm at the far end of the hall. Now having time to think, I stop and catch my breath. I see the creature coming down the hall. Enraged, it rushes towards me with incredible speed. A sob catches in my throat, I push it back and stand my ground. The creature is

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almost upon me now. Time seems to slow as the blackness rises up before me. It engulfs my body, creeping into the orifices and pores. I fall down, feeling the creature swirl inside of me. Clenching my eyes shut, I focus all of my will onto it.

I feel it pause inside of me for a brief moment.

Encouraged, I focus harder.

You're not welcome here.

My body shudders with the effort. I see black smoke wafting up from my body, slowly at first, then gaining in intensity.

Be gone.

Ice cold pain shoots through my veins and I scream. Momentarily losing concentration, I can feel the beast clenching a tighter hold.

No. With one final push, I expel the creature.

Gasping, I stand up staring at the beast. I can still feel some of it inside of me, but it will fade.

The creature glares at me its mouth opens in soundless anguish. Then, it disappears. Amazed, a smile begins to form until i realize I have no way to get out.

Frowning, I walk out into the hall. A different scent hangs in the air. Unable to place it, I continue walking. Trying to find the scent, I close my eyes. It seems to be coming from up ahead.

Eyes flying open, I walk until I reach the other door. With no hesitation, I reach our my hand and yank it open. I step back in shock.

Fresh air slowly wafts over me, the freshest I have ever breathed. Inhaling deeply, I close my eyes. Opening them again, I look at the slowly waving trees illuminated by the softly glowing sun. It was paradise. Tears of happiness sweep down my face. I take a step out and soft grass embraces my feet. Then, I begin to feel an odd sensation in my head, but as the darkness begins to close in around me, I refuse to feel afraid.

I could die now, and I would be happy.

The whole world blacks out.

I awoke to someone gripping my hand. I open my eyes.

"Mother?"

My mom's tear stained face looks back at me, "We didn't think you would ever come back."

"What do you mean?"

She hesitates, "You've been in a come for months. We were afraid you would never wake up."

I looked up at her and smile. Reaching up with a fragile hand, I caress my mother's cheek, "For a little bit, I was afraid of that too." 

SHELBY LEMONS

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“We didn’t think you would ever come back.”

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Creaking by: Maren Hunsberger

I knew this house when we were both young [the house and I] and we have watched each other's swing sets rust slowly in the autumn wars of light.

We have seen days when the fractured pieces of everyone have drifted all day waiting until they can come back to the house and fall into faces twisted in grief, the ones they may have been waiting to put on since they woke up in the morning.

We have seen days spent in the hazy light filtering through the dust motes, floating down to us on the now shabby carpet, sleeping dreams [with moustaches and foreign accents] that start soft but grow disconcerting in ways we cannot name.

We have grown older [this house and I] and we see each other’s cracks at the seams, our dreams now careworn and patched.

I miss the youth of this house when raindrops still raced down the panes we still spoke to each other [you and I] but now things are silent and our old house creaks at night.

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GACHERI MWONGO

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5/20/2010 7:32:25 AM

molten music playlist 1. “Untitled” by Aaron Tlumack 2. “Burn Before Reading” by Aaron Robeson 3. “A Soldier at War” by Greg Nowotarski 4. “I Copy Fresh Like the Crystal Castles”

by Greg Nowotarski 5. “Houstalantagreg” by Greg Nowotarski 6. “Pain and Glory” by Decades Late 7. “42” (Instrumental) by Maurice Nowlin 8. “Answers in the Sky”

by Eric Handy and Andre Austin 9. “Alone” by Swift Da Waiter (James Rapelyea) 10. “One for Me” by Swift Da Waiter (James Rapelyea) 11. “Red Handed” by Swift Da Waiter (James Rapelyea) featuring Skater Boy and Jwarr3n Hook

STEFFI WALTHALL

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5/20/2010 7:32:27 AM