Amused Spring 2022 by Miami Country Day School

ISSUE 1 SPRING 2022 VOLUME 16

amused

Miami Country Day School

Editor's Note Amused is a student-run art and literary magazine with the purpose of showcasing the highest quality work produced by the upper school students at Miami Country Day School. Through the compilation of student work, the editorial staff aims to showcase the contrasting viewpoints and experiences that exist within our community in a format that is aesthetically pleasing for the reader while also complementing the talent of the students.

Editorial Policy

Current Miami Country Day School students may submit art and writing for consideration by the editors during the beginning of the second semester. Editorial staff positions are open to all members of the student body. The magazine is free to all members of the school community.

Thanks to Jill Robert, Upper School Director, and Mariandl Hufford, Head of School, for their generous support.

Editors-in-Chief Joshua Respler '22 Michael Puglise '22 Layout & Design Editors Amina Bilalova '23 Lucas Velloso '23 Managing Editor Zachary Arnold '23 Poetry Editors Malini Kamlani '22 Alexis Kaplan '23 Prose Editor Sophia "Bell" Lopez '23 Art Editor Amy Bhakta '23 Marketing & Distribution Alexander Svanidze '22 Maya Tafur Martinez '25

Editorial Staff Caitlin Cherenfant '23 Zakaria Djahed '23 Chaya Hazan '23 Daniella Judge '23 Alexis Kaplan '23 Xavia Orr '23 Danielle Respler '23 Faculty Sponsors Scott SamuelBrennanBrown

ContentsTableof

The Thing with Feathers Soﬁa "Bell" Lopez Hibiscus Felipe Blaya Peripheral Apathy Zachary Arnold Abyssal Disappointment Zachary Arnold Oleta River State Park Evan Hurwitz Looking Glass Marley Borrow She is Cecilia Storm A King of Ranking Noble & High Zachary Arnold Out of the Ashes on Boylston Street Meritt Lubetsky Day-dreamer at the Library Salomé Benitah Moving Avery Morgan A Light on Faith Laura De Wilde

The Midnight Ballerina Micheal Puglise Someday Oliver Kozlovski Blind Scout Hudson Mixed Beauty Alba Haw His White Eyes Felipe Blaya A Song to the Sea Audrey He Fixing Perfection Caroline Jiang Spring in Washington, D. C. Arabella Gutchess Anchor Marley Borrow Shabbat in the Dark Ella Gilderman I am America Kenneth Barrett Black Out Poem 1 Dylan Kleinberger Black Out Poem 2 Marley Borrow Black Out Poem 3 Lucas Crespo Black Out Poem 4 Mariana Diaz Nouns, Verbs Lucas Ortegon Poetry for English Class Madelyn Pelletier

The Trail of Negative Emotions Ella Green Manacled Mind Micheal Puglise

WritingPoetry

302016131255141731333539 11060544851626568767788111111112112113121

Lopez 107 115 Forever Lasting Peace Sara Bhakta

The Voyager Camp Alba Haw Born of Winter Audrey He Beware the Lone Ranger Max Castañón In the Arms of Orpheus Pedro Silva Second Chances: A World Without You Maya Tafur Martinez

II Fiction

Written simultaneously by Z. Arnold, O. Brennan, A. Ataman, J. Hare, and B.

Prose

What is an Education?

Michael Puglise Burial in Bolivia Miguel Escobar Things that Remind You of Your Childhood Chaya Hazan As Sweet as Tati G. Caitlin Cherenfant Nothing to Fear but Rain Itself Danielle Respler How Do You Feel About Tattoos?

Jude Held The World We Had That Day Zachary Arnold Circle of Atlas: The Future of Femininity Madeline Bram Scar to the Face Gabriela Tangioni

1031014385763692341819993 123117 80 Separation Remi Rosenfeld Desert Roses in Winter Audrey He Jane and the Endless Time

6 Falling Amina Bilalova Church Mia Zapata-Herrera Goalaso Simone Hart Nature's Finest Simone Hart Hidden Gems Isabella Torres Always Look Behind You Isabella Torres Untitled Jude Held Mass Migration of Abused Women in Guatemala Sabrina Morata School Zone Stuart Browning Jr. Humble Beginnings Jake Wyka In the Shadows Simone Hart Entering the Space Ship Lucas Chemla Takeoff Lucas Chemla Three Photographs Lucas Velloso Mixed Beauty Alba Haw

404919182252373534322352 478466758189909192282958

Digital Media Corruption Soﬁa Vasileva The Motion of Past and Present Debora Sirotsky Reﬂection Andrea Holder

III VisualPhotographyArt

Mixed Beauty Alba Haw Swamp Lucas Velloso Bee! Lucas Velloso The Tiny Venture Capitalist Isabella Torres Ice Cream Mia Zapata-Herrera Renovation Amina Bilalova Triple Exposure Hannah Webb Wynwalls Maria Ataman One Way Harry Florin Wrong Way Harry Florin Tiki Mask Michael Puglise Barbed Wire Ethan Babil Skylines Isabella Torres Police Car Jude Held Lifeguard Kamilla Dobromislova 120929111391106 59

IV Traditional Media Forest Trail Amina Bilalova Self Amy Bhakta Still Life of a Toy Horse, Pitcher, and a Pumpkin Soﬁa Vasileva Looking at You Amina Bilalova Thoughts that Drown Amy Bhakta Survival Tamara Bhardwaj Ponyo Riccardo Carrafelli Chihiro Riccardo Carrafelli Distress Andrea Holder A Party I Don't Remember Debora Sirotsky Serene Disturbance Alexandra Ataman Dancer In The Dark Andrea Holder Warped Eternity Alexandra Ataman Jane Alexandra Ataman Isabel Alexandra Ataman Multi-Media Forever Lasting Peace Sara Bhakta Fate Audrey He Hearts of Green Isabella Possin Tumultuous Worlds Sara Bhakta Male and Female Speed Limits Jaydy Hammond Memory Lane 1 & 2 Jaydy Hammond Winter Fairy Sabrina Valdivia Insecurities Layla Reese Hungry Spider Beck Trafon Aries the Ram Lucia Cartolano Dying Earth Anthony Calfa Serene Ocean Maryam Rassif Coconut Man Stefano Dumas Every Rose Has Her Thorn Sophia "Bell" Lopez The Live Joker Carlos Caban102965510712911154261747879 143279767 122122122122122122122122122II 53 Front & Back Covers Fish! Nina Vara 80

Amused

“Hope” is the thing with feathers. I saw it once as I walked, Perched on the shiny Black roof Of a parked car. I stopped To snap a photograph. And in the Photograph, the thing with feathers And the tree behind it blent into One. Find the thing with feathers, I thought. The hidden thing with Feathers. The hidden thing with feathers That continues to Elude me, just Out of my grasp as it rests On the parked car and hops from Roof to windshield. Oh, dear thing With feathers, I hold you in my hand. My legs may shake as I walk, my eyes May begin to Leak, my breath may Quicken. But oh, dear thing with feathers, I hold you in my hand. I will chase you Evermore, too afraid to pluck you from Your perch and hold you to my chest And feel the Strength of your wings Against my still-beating heart. But I hold you In my hand and hear you sing your Oft silent Song, and that is enough.

2 The Thing With Featers

Sophia "Bell" Lopez Audrey He Fate

3 PossinIsabella

GreenofHearts

I would pick every hibiscus that covers these ﬁelds we walk, just for you. I would jump from the highest mountains and scale the tallest cliffs, just to admire you. My love for you is everlasting, And its expanse stretches farther than the hillsides we walk on, farther than our dreams And farther than time itself.

Summer blooms like the beautiful, velvet hibiscuses that shroud the hillside, and the cool Mediterranean breeze blows past the two of us. As we make our daily trek to the town, I begin to admire you. Your smile glows brighter than the ﬁreﬂies we watched together, and your laugh creates moments of unforgettable joy between the two of us and the smell of your perfume, elegantly and pleasantly follows our trail. I have seen the world at its best, I have seen the sunrise and sunset, I have seen mountains that pierce the heavens and the oceans full of life, yet your elegance overshadows all of them.

HibiscusFelipeBlaya

ABYSSAL

Among all the worst terrors unleashed on the world, it seems a bright spot. There were, in that abyss, forces of depression, destruction, and insanity. It is hope for success that continues the war. It is hope for change that keeps the everyday people, tired yet restless, tapping away at their jobs. It was luck that kept that most horrid of forces within the box. It was humans who made it anyway. Perhaps they hoped that this one beast would not turn out as the rest.

DISAPPOINTMENT

Why was there a shred of hope in the bottom of Pandora’s box?

PERIPHERAL APATHY

Narcissus could not only see himself in that river: he could see, too, each passerby from the corner of his eye. It was not his curse to be unable to see the world around him, but rather to watch those he loved cry for his return and simply be unable to care.

Zachary Arnold

6 Amina Bilalova Falling

Tumultuous Worlds

What makes an education? Is it the grades you earn? Is it how successful those grades help you become? Or is it the experience you gain along the way? Truth is, it is a little bit of everything. Listen, we’re students here. We can tell you. Education is privilege. It is access to life’s most powerful tool: knowledge. With it, I can alter both my reality and the society around me. Without it, my reality is limited. Becoming informed is the ﬁrst step towards a successful life, where I can prosper working with others. By learning from the lessons of centuries of advancement, we build upon the past to craft a brighter future. However, privilege begets exclusivity. Unfortunately, the barriers of wealth and ethnicity hinder advancement by preventing many from an equal education. Differences in private and public education continue to skew equal opportunity in a land of meritocracy. Education is an exploration, a venture into untraversed terrain. By interacting with and learning from others, the possibilities are limitless. The collaboration of ideas, information, and opinions forti ﬁ es the existing foundation and opens the door to creativity and ingenuity. From the sciences to the liberal arts, an education helps me express myself and forge my passions, offering an enchanting path of discovery and selfrealization.

What is an Education?

Michael Puglise

9 andbetweeneducation,"Throughtherelationshipsocietytheindividualbecomesmutuallyrewarding." }}

Education is work: the allnighters, learning from failures, and developing fervent determination. Education is writing until your hand goes numb and reading until your head throbs. Education is willing to persevere despite the obstacles in the way. Whether that means countless hours dedicated to learning a new instrument, language, or sport, education goes beyond high school’s demanding academics. Education is an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, a drive that invigorates me to push the envelope.Education is an evolving paradox. The more informed I become, the more I question the world around me. The more I learn, the more I critique the system that educated me. Over time, we develop our own unique beliefs and morals. These differences strengthen society, offering a variety of ideas and perspectives that require communication and interaction. Through education, the relationship between society and the individual becomes mutually rewarding. The very individuals that are raised and educated in our communities contribute their own polished views years later, enriching their society for future generations. Education is hope and investment in the future. Wealth and time are sacriﬁced so that young adults like me can become future leaders. Parents dedicate a large part of their lives to ensure that we both continue their legacy and create our own. Education is my path towards a brighter future that aspires to resolve the concerns of Educationtoday. is a wine that matures with age. Education is an hourglass that ﬁlls with time. Education does not merely extend to school; it is a lifelong accumulation of knowledge. The more experience and understanding I gain, the more profound an impact I can have on those who choose to listen. Education is a balance between providing and receiving, speaking and listening. Those who develop this balance after years of patience interact deeply with others and can be relied upon as valued members of their communities.Education, however, has diverged from its lofty purpose. The goal of learning and listening is often lost in the pressure put on SAT scores, grade point averages, and college resumes. Today, students like me are ignoring the journey and are only concerned about their destination. Society has dictated that acceptance into an exclusive school equates to life or death, predetermining a future of either success or failure.

11 Evan Hurwitz Oleta River State Park Bike Trails Amina BilalovaForest Trail

That path, covered with dirt, rocks and roots, through the voice of a proud father who forced The Present loads with opportunities and asks

13 she stares at me her complicated blue saucers melt into mine the atlas of constellations resting on her skin connect to mine while our chests ebb and ﬂow in perfect synchronicity there’s a familiarity in the curve of her brows but a disconnect in the hollows of her cheeks and the downturned edges of her lips confuse me her face the color of untouched paper her eyes scrunch, hiding their blue secrets from the world they soon allow for the world’s rivers to leave them our tears fall into night sky drawn into our skin they drip down our colorless cheeks pooling into the pockets made by our collarbones we consider each other for a moment wondering how one could be unrecognizable yet the most familiar face in this world looking glass Marley Borrow

Jaydy Hammond Male and Female Speed Limit

SheIs Self-Identity Amy BhaktaCecilia Storm

Conﬁdant. Spy. Treasurer. She nurtures our secrets. Caches of whispering knowledge

16 She Her creation marked the beginning, the genesis of life. She adapted and became what was asked of her. Concealer. She performs them all, the translations of the stars and invisible secrets of shadowed light veiled in the pleats of her skirt, sewn into her hem.

A KING of ranking NOBLE & HIGH

A king of ranking noble and high, perched upon a throne of rebellion; A suffering campaign he does decry, Singing from his shining stallion. He throws a banquet for his people, devourers none but the trenchers. He constructs a gilded church and steeple and civilizes all the blenchers.

A new king grows, leading malice tall. Prosperity does he soon retort, Returning once more that wretched ball. The beauty with which an orchard blooms is the chaos which its death assumes.

But one down day the king’s life doth short.

Zachary Arnold

Mia Zapata-Herrera

Boylston

Out of the Ashes on Street

HartSimone

Merritt Lubetsky Goalaso

The thunder scatter and the pieces roar Seedlings shaken brought up from under Wicked weather, destructive force pushing through.

Weightless clouds ﬂow effortlessly in motion

For the lives lost and forever changed by the bombs that exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013 (a firsthand account).

“We are one. We are strong. We are Boston. We are Boston strong."

—Announcer at Fenway Park We are mother nature on a bright blue spring day We are the healing forest We are the sunrise, the sunset, the moon and the stars. Bound forever by the storm Crisp air, bright blue skies

Faceless stampedes of broken branches, arms and legs, hearts and souls

The seed planted with purpose Joined by love. Bound forever by the storm Dark skies, thunderous clouds Forever caught in the downpour Broken dreams, wilted ﬂowers A stream of polluted rain. Bound forever by the storm

Our roots are strong as the sunsets The force of nature makes us strong No longer alone, no longer just one. Bound forever by the storm The clouds part, rays of light peek through Unbreakable bonds, one becomes two, strength lifts and carries us A stranger's hand, a hidden kindness, the river ﬂows through us all

We are mother nature on a bright blue spring day We are the healing forest We are the sunrise, the sunset, the moon and the stars. We are bound forever by the storm.

22 Simone Hart Nature's Finest

The Voyager Camp

Noise, chaos, running through the bus. What do you expect for a bunch of 10-year olds? There are always four types of kid. The normal ones: the people who just sit on the bus, talk to a couple friends, and enjoy the ride. That makes up 2% of the population. Then there are the ones that seem like they have no sense of hearing at all. They scream their heads off and run around the bus, full speed. Then there's the sleeper, the person who dozes off the whole ride and is pretty much invisible. And ﬁnally the one kid who screams, “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?” every singleCamp.minute.The place children either cheer or dread. Peter was for sure dreading the whole experience. Peter was a 10 year old, single-child from Indiana who had slick, frizzy brown hair with bright green eyes like the apples that his uncle grew. With no surprise, Peter was wearing his denim jacket, pants, and his wrinkled white shirt.

BOOM! The bus ﬁnally came to a stop. This was a surprise for Peter. He felt like that ride would never end. The kids stepped down and jumped onto the muddy, sticky grass that almost felt like quicksand. There was a man and a woman standing right next to a sign with the camp logo and signaling everyone to come. The man had white-blond hair, with a beard as long as Dumbledore from Harry Potter. He was the perfect mixture of nice and terrifying.

Sitting at the back of the bus, seeing everyone in front of him, made him annoyed, but also scared that he might not make friends.

If anyone knew Peter, they knew that he loved his Netﬂix time, and was certainly an indoor kid, which is exactly why his mother sent him to The Voyager Camp, “Where all children become adults.” His family life had been pretty shaken up ever since what happened with his uncle. Peter’s mom wants him to have a good time and escape for a couple months.

Alba Haw

On the patio in front, a man and a little kid ran around from one end to the other. This brought Peter back to years before the camp started, when his uncle would always do the same. Everyday they would play and pretend they could teleport across the world. It was always his uncle's dream to create some type of invention, like a superhero, and would talk about it often. Peter always laughed and brushed it off. How could his ordinary uncle make something so… revolutionary?Theemployees continued saying, “You will leave this camp with a toolbox of experiences to help you succeed in life.” Before Peter could have a little bit of hope that he might enjoy himself at camp, they made everyone sit down in a dark, small, hot room and have a 2-hour seminar on rules. Peter had no problem listening to what they had to say. The problem was that the employees made the kids sit in a circle with everyone just staring at each other. It seemed like an eternity. Peter had no choice but to stare at the campers and analyze them just like they were doing to him. Although it was initially awkward, this step made him feel a little more comfortable. Everyone looked so different from each other. From blue, green, and brown eyes to blond, brown, red, and orange hair, all the campers had a unique style and personality. Some kids were laughing during the assembly and others were taking it so seriously to the point where it was concerning. This gave Peter some hope that he might even fit in at the VoyagerWhenCamp.the seminar was finally over, they got everyone to stand up and go to another section of the camp. They passed by a beautiful array of flowers and trees which looked like they were Photoshopped. They smelled like pure freshness. The employees got to a little lake where another employee was waiting by the dock. The campers all got around in a circle and waited for her to speak. “Hello, campers. My name is Jamie. I am the founder and owner of The Voyager. I’m in charge of the activities and making sure everyone has a great time. I’m the person you want to see and don't want to see. Of course, our camp is about fun but also safety. I’m pretty sure you all had a quick assembly on rules right?"

The woman had bright red glasses that matched the color of her hair. The way she looked at the campers let them know that she wasn't going to play around. Peter, shoved by about 100 kids, ended up at the back of the huddle, not being able to see much. All he could hear was the employees saying, “Welcome to the Voyager Camp, where all children become adults! Here you’ll learn the basics of living in the wilderness, have fun, and make memories that’ll last a lifetime.” Peter started giggling because the exact same quote was on their website. “So rehearsed,” he thought. Peter gave a quick glance at his surroundings and almost started to cry. He tried not to. Doing that the ﬁrst two minutes they got to camp would not be the best start. Across the street was a little blue house, much like his childhood home, with a rough wooden deck and a roof that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years.

TorresIsabella GemsHidden

“You're in a Bunny Cabin. Step right next to those three over there.” He walked over and got in line. A guy walked toward them and said, “Hey, my name is Alex. I’m your camp counselor this summer. I’m so excited to get to know each and every one of you. I came to this camp when I was around your age. It was such a great experience. Do you guys have any questions before I show you around?” Lucas said, “Yes, when are we going to leave?” Peter laughed and thought to himself, “Wow, this might be the only thing I relate to with thisAlexkid!”said, “Well, in a couple months. Those months are gonna feel like seconds by the way. I promise you.” Lucas rolled his eyes. “Alrighty campers, let me show you around your cabin.” First impressions of Alex were pretty great! Peter thought that he looked nice and wanted to help. He had green eyes, brown hair, he was tall and muscular; you know, your typical Disney Channel movie star. The fact that he was wearing an Avengers shirt, Peter's favorite movie, made it so much better. Peter knew that if there was anyone to count on in this camp, it was going to be Alexhim.opened the door and showed them around. It had a couple bunk beds, cool ﬂoors, and paintings on the wall. The paintings were mostly of the camp, although one was of a red car. Peter pointed to the painting and asked, “Why a red car?” Alex laughed and said, “I don't really know. It's just… always been there. It looks cool though.” Peter giggled, but suddenly had a sense of deja vu. When he was 7, his uncle always talked about wanting a revolutionary car and would go into detail: how the engines would run, what color it would be. The car on the painting, with the cherry red paint, reminded him of those moments. The cabin, for the most part, was neat and clean. Then again, that was before they looked in the bathroom. Brian slowly walked to it, and they all heard the most piercing scream ever.“What is it?” Lucas asked.

Everyone sighed, plopped down on the floor, and talked to each other. Peter felt like any moment he had of relaxation was a chance to see something new in camp. Peter thought to himself, “Wow, they forgot to put the word zoo on the camp website!” There were so many animals: parrots, raccoons, cats, and deer. Around him were dark wooden cabins that looked fairly roomy. Some were definitely more in shape than the others. Peter sat down, hoping that he might get something good. “We will now be calling those in Bunny Cabin. Lucas?” Lucas stood up. He was wearing a Gucci shirt and glasses that looked like they cost the same amount as a car. First of all, someone needed to tell him he might have been in the wrong place. Second of all, how was he only 10? “Blake, come up, please.” Blake was wearing some jeans with a plain white t-shirt. He got up with the most confidence Peter’s ever seen. He just said “bro” and walked in line with Lucas. “Brian, you're up.” Brian on the other hand, was the shortest of them all and looked pretty shy and worried. He slowly scurried in line with Lucas and Blake. “Lastly, Peter… ” He was so zoned out that he had no idea they called his name probably ten times. “PETER?” “Oh sorry,” he said. “What cabin am I in again?”

Everyone screamed out “YES!” “OK campers, good to know y’all are listening. If you break any of those rules, your head counselor will bring you to me.” There was silence. Everyone saw her bright smile and thought, “She seems nice, but also super scary.” She had straight hair and yellow earrings that made her look a little welcoming. Shockingly, she was wearing heels! I mean, who would do that? Peter could barely walk in the camp with sneakers! Jamie continued, “You will now be assigned to your cabin and your head counselor. These are the people that will help you through this journey. They’ve been in your position, and now know their way around the camp. They'll also be bunking with you in your cabin.You might want to sit down; it might take a while.”

Everyone said how happy they were to be there and how their favorite color was purple. Once it reached Peter he said, “Well, hi. My name is Peter Rodriguez. I love the color blue. One day, my uncle disappeared, and I never saw him again.” Everyone was shocked, their jaws on the ﬂoor. They didn't know whether to console him or just keep going. It was an awkwardness cycle the whole time. Peter couldn't believe he said that, and he wondered what just happened. It all came back to him, the feeling of betrayal, his uncle’s empty room, no calls. Once everyone ﬁnished, Jamie said, “Well, thank you for coming. It was an interesting experience for sure. Get a good sleep. Tomorrow we’re going hiking!” Everyone went back to their cabins. Peter, Lucas, Blake, Brian, and Alex all went inside. "What just happened? What happened to your uncle?” Blake said. Peter said, “Yeah, I don't know why I said that, but it's true.” Everyone just gasped. My dad passed away when I was super little. I never got to know him. And so my uncle stepped in and helped the family. He was like a father to me. But one day, nine months ago, he completely left. All his stuff was gone, and I haven't seen him since.”

Alex walked toward him, “Wow, I'm so sorry that happened to you. If you ever need to talk, we’re all here. Right, guys?” Alex looked back while Lucas looked at himself in the mirror. Brian nudged him. Lucas said, confused, “Sure, yeah, whatever he said.” They all laughed and hugged Peter. That's when he knew he had a family by his side. The next morning was bright and clear. Peter was sort of hoping that it would be gloomy so they wouldn't have to go outside. Unfortunately, it was time for hiking. Bunny Cabin was all ready to go on their adventure for the day. Everyone brought water, Gatorade, some chips, gummy bears, and fruit packets, and they started to head out. They walked for about a half an hour before they ﬁnally got to one of the mountains, which was shockingly named Voyager. The mountain wasn't that high or steep, but it didn't look like a walk in the park either. It had dry green grass surrounding the top and what looked like a wooden house. That was hard to see at the time, the fog rolling in. They started to hike up the mountain with hope that everything would go as planned. After about two hours of walking and complaining, Bunny Cabin got to their halfway mark. Peter started to get a sense of deja vu again, like his family had come up to that mountain before. He felt connected to it, a different and distinct feeling. They continuedAlex,on. leading the troupe, stopped and started pointing to the ground. “What happened?” Peter asked. They all looked down and saw a dirty blue scarf. Then it hit Peter like a ton of bricks. It was his uncle's scarf! He would bring it with him everywhere he went. He wore it the night before he left. Peter was in disbelief and told all his friends. Everyone was in shock. Peter decided to bring it with him through the rest of the hiking trip, to give him motivation. After another two hours, they ﬁnally reached the top. They felt invincible after all that, spending about four-and-a-half hours walking. On the side of the mountain, they saw a little cabin

26 Brian pointed, and they all knew that now they would have to clean up a whole bunch. Alex said, “Alrighty, guys. It's night time. We have to go to the fire to tell some cool stories.”They all got outside and saw a huge beautiful fire with the other campers sitting around it. Bunny Cabin sat on the side, joining the circle the camp had formed. The fire felt warm, a comforting feeling: a feeling that Peter never thought he would get. Soon Jamie walked out with her signature smile and said, “Hey, guys! I hope you had fun looking around your cabin and getting to know your roommates. We brought you all here today, around the campfire, to introduce yourselves. We’re gonna go clockwise around the circle and talk about what you like to do, your favorite food, color, etcetera.”

27just a few steps away. Alex decided to bring them all inside and hoped that they could wind down for a little before they go back to camp. He knocked on the door and had no response. He shouted, “Hello, is anyone there?” Silence. “I guessHenot.”pushed the door open and looked around. Soon a middle aged man walked toward the door. Peter recognized that person in the shadows. It was his uncle. Peter screamed at the top of his lungs. He ran toward him and gave his uncle a huge hug. “What? I can't believe you're here. What happened? Why did you disappear?” His uncle, with a tear in his eye, smiled and said, “I'm so so sorry! It was to protect you and your mother. What I am going to tell you is strictly conﬁdential and you can't tell anyone!” He looked to his side and said, “Who are these people?” Peter laughed, “These are my friends. I'm on a camp hiking trip. Whatever it is, they can know. They won't tell anyone. I Peter'spromise.”uncle giggled and explained, “What you don't know, Peter, is that I am an inventor. I invent revolutionary products and devices. I have been working on this project since you were just a baby. Sketches after sketches and hours of hard work, I ﬁnally came up with a teleporting car.” Lucas screamed, “WAIT YOU MEAN CARS CAN ThenTELEPORT?”Alexscreamed, “YOU MEAN WE CAN“TheyTELEPORT?”cannow.Thanks to me. All you have to do is sit and you can go wherever your heart desires.”Peter,angrily jutted in, “This is all very cool, but it doesn't explain why you left.”

“Oh I'm getting there,” Peter's uncle said. “One day my computer got hacked and a bunch of criminals were set to rob our house. They all wanted to steal my hard work and possibly capture me. So I ran away, hoping they would follow me and not you or your mother. Now they should be coming very soon. Stall them! Tell them anything to get them away.”

Peter's mind was all over the place. His ordinary uncle turned out to be not so ordinary.They all came up with a plan to get those burglars as far away as possible and started to walk back. Soon enough, they were at camp, ready. A couple of minutes later, a group of tall guys wearing all black showed up. They looked like some FBI agents or something. One of the guys in the middle asked, “Hey, we’re looking for Jim Rodriguez. Have you seen him around?” Brian, with his bright red face, just started panicking. Clearly he was not a good liar.

Peter stepped in and said, “What my friend is trying to say is we haven't seen him. Maybe you could try looking somewhere else. But he might be miles away, behind us.” They led them to the deepest end of the woods. Peter was hoping that what they said would be enough.

The next morning everyone was scheduled to learn how to build tents. Before Peter and the rest could even get started, the camp sirens went off. Everyone there from the two-hour seminar knew that sound meant there was an emergency. The whole camp went to the Great Hall and sat on the dirty ﬂoor, waiting for the chaos to start. Jamie ran inside and shut the doors. The whole camp was so quiet; all they could hear was the old rustic clock ticking. Jamie, stressed, said, “Hey guys! I am sad to announce that the course for tent building today is cancelled. We got news that four men that were caught on camera disappeared and didn't show up the next morning.”Everyone's eyes grew big. They started to chatter and whisper amongst themselves. Those in Bunny Cabin didn't know whether to say something or keep quiet. They felt guilty, but at the same time relieved that they would not have to worry about the FBI lookalikes ever again. Or so they thought….For their ﬁrst criminal case, they did pretty well. In celebration, they all ate s'mores and played some games. Weeks passed, and it

28 was time to go home. Peter and the rest had. They all came back to their normal school tons of fun, and seeing Jim made it ten times better. Everyone returned to their homes. Lucas went back to California. Blake went back to Kansas. Brian went to Georgia. Alex went back to Texas and Peter went home to Indiana. Homework, going out with friends, watching TV. Until one day, they looked in their driveway, and all had teleporting cars. So ﬁ Vasilevaa Corruption

DeboraSirotsky Salome Benitah

The Motion of Past and Present

I didn't know the proper way to sit The lady at the front desk pressing the machine’s buttons determining a student’s future with the beep-beep for check out I didn’t know that was the way to check out A clock on the wall can be heard at every tick and tock holding all the power and the wrong time I didn’t know it had the wrong time or that one day dreamer not a care in her mind just staring at the shelves and the students and the lady and the clock, invisible to the rest of the library.

The shelves spilling with stories stories of heroes or epics as the smart people call them, stories of love or romance as the smart people call them Neatly aligned and organized the shelves and the students immersing themselves in their work with crossed legs and busy hands

I remember my tiny hands reaching out into a foggy, blue abyss

I remember the cold

I remember a world only as big as my imagination

I remember it all I remember sand crabs and coconut water

I remember plane rides and toys

I remember lights and yellow taxis driving by I remember it all I remember when it changed I’ll remember it all Avery Morgan

Moving

I remember when not knowing was okay

I remember it all I remember moving to New York

I remember feeling safe in Waikiki

TorresIsabella YouBehindLookAlways

33 I was born into a circle With a cross scratched into the middle I was young, I did not know what it indicated Through time It Thefadedlight that was never truly there The ornaments around my home meant nothing to me It began to rain inside Drenching the dirt Creating mud in my mind Soon enough, I opened the window It felt like a warm dew in the morning Creating a safe space for the water and dirt That came beforehand The now open window helped me Held me through the storm created by my own psyche A lamp by my bedside To help me see at night I am made of feathery stitched light Woven into a basket resembling a soul Something I had not realized Until the trees died Until the long daylight became long moonlight I recreated myself Reborn into my own circle It was not what I was fostered into It was not the expectation My own blaze had been created A Light on Faith Laura De Wilde

34 Jude Held

35 The TrailNegative Emotions... of Sabrina Morata

Forced to go where he demands My anger runs deep like an endless well PAIN The day my family was killed Killed in cold blood Before my wide, bloodshot eyes Was the ﬁrst day I felt true pain An intolerable pain A pain that suffocates me Disabling breathe from my mouth

The gun that kills, Killed my father I fear my new home Will feel nothing like my true home ANGER

I am Angryangryatthe

My heart ﬁlled with emptiness GRIEF No time to grieve for my fallen family

To an unfamiliar home So many prayers for the dead Left unsaid Due to this maniacal march

On these mud-ﬁlled roads

Give me time to grieve, You [insert adjective] tyrants Trauma Every time I see the oppressor, Trauma invades my thoughts That same man who stole And shackled my life to the prison gates

man Angry at his destructive nature His weapons His lust for my land I am his dog on a leash

Ella Green

I fear this cold gun held to my head

I must continue this journey

The trauma is incurable Like a deadly disease It invades every cell in my body, In my defeated body. Mass Migration of Abused Women in Guatemala

FEAR I fear this dangerous trek

Stuart Browning Jr School Zone

Mind Manacled

Michael Puglise

Have mercy on humankind and our creativity that yearns to be released from this stall of steel clasps and the brick wall that watches as we age and are replaced when we fall.

Why gears that churn must you keep us in turn?

inenclosecoughingSmokestacksashthemindtheneverending sash. Whirring whine of the assembly line will permeate our heads until the end meets time.

Oh, being up above, what remains to be touched by the encroachment of man on the North Devon I loved? indeed lifetimes have gone by since His gaze ﬁrst grazed my eye, since He presented yonder key to free my manacled mind. Immortality misperceived, I repent now through disease. A Laudanum swig, my arms outstretched, with ﬁngers pointed up towards eternity.

40 Jake Wyka Humble Beginnings

The girl did not leave her cabin again for many days. Orlov and Eryk stayed outside her home, leaving food and clothing and defending her cabin from wolves, at times expressing their wonder that such a child had survived alone for so long.That week, Orlov and Eryk returned from their marriage rites with a child in tow. The girl was speaking now, her accent light as the wind on the steppes as she asked countless questions about everything, her laughter so infectious even the horses seemed to be affected.

Yes, they were lovers. Yes, they were from Brdsk. No, they had never fought a bear. “No, people do not live in ice huts in Brdsk.”

Eryk found the precocious child endearing. He had always wanted children but had not thought it would ever be possible for him. Life meant always choosing something over the other. Eryk had chosen Pytr over the world. He had been ready to sacriﬁce for it.

Years ago, on the night that Pytr Orlov found her, the sky had been covered in stars. The girl had not heard a human voice in months and had run into the snow believing her father had ﬁnally come home. She did not remember her name.

Orlov's heart had stopped at the sight of the pale girl running out into the night, wearing nothing but a shawl. Beside him, Eryk let out a small noise, his eyes trained on the child before them. She was tiny, little more than a wisp of dark hair and wild doll-like eyes. Under the glow of the stars, he could see as she seized in terror at the sight of them, her shoulders stiffening.

BORN OF WINTER

Audrey He S he didn’t remember much of what came before. Only ﬂashes of memories she would rather not see. A wood cabin and a language of lilting tones. A red talisman, its faded spell unreadable. A father who had never been home. A mother who lay coughing in winter.

42 Soﬁa Vasileva Still Life of a Toy Horse, Pitcher, and a Pumpkin

43 on my phone threw me off guard. The birds chirped outside. The sunlight brought its warmth into the room like a waitress bringing food to a table. They were mocking me. I sat up on my bed and read my grandfather's farewell message to myself over and over and over again trying to make sense of it all.

I remember the ﬁrst time I thought about taking one's own life. I was probably around eight or nine years old when I was riding through the busy streets of Bogotá, Colombia with my mom and I asked her, "Can a person kill themselves?" Obviously, this question seems pretty stupid to ask now but at the time I had genuinely wondered if such a thing was possible from a human being or if some unknown, omnipotent power would prevent one from pulling the trigger if one so wished to do so. That day, I added a new word to my vocabulary, suicide. Yet, it would take me years to add another one of the most important words in my life to that list, euthanasia. No one goes to sleep one night expecting their life to change all of a sudden the next day. No one goes to sleep one night expecting to lose a part of their innocence with the dawn of a new day. I awoke on the morning of July thirty-ﬁrst, 2020 feeling as normal as ever. My body was wrapped around the white blankets that caressed my skin. One of Leonardo Favio's classics played from my speaker on the nightstand. It was a regular morning.I stretched my hand out in search of my phone so that I could check the time or turn off the music before going back to sleep. My eyes still didn't want to awaken, and there was no motive for me to get out of bed having gone to sleep so late that night Yet, what I saw

None of it made sense. It was so ambiguous, so bleak. He simply expressed that he wanted to say goodbye and that he tried to escape the pain that his cancer was putting him through. He had decided that it was time for him to go. His life was too painful to keep on living. I swiftly got up from my bed,and walked over to my mom's bedroom. She was the only one in the house at the moment. To say my family is disorganized and all over the place is an understatement. My dad, his parents, and my sisters were living in Colombia. My mom and I were living in Miami with my stepfather. I've lived away from half of my lineage since we moved away when I was six. I stayed in touch with my dad's mom, but not with his dad. He was an adventurer. He loved to visit the world and its wonders and didn't care if he was by himself. My grandparents had divorced way back in the seventies and hadn't missed each other. The consequence of having such a distant grandfather and living away from him my whole life was that I never truly got the chance to know him. Miguel Escobar

Burial at Bolivia

44 Regardless, he changed my life in a way no one else has. I wasn't the only one who felt this way. He never created a strong enough bond with the rest of his eight grandchildren who were older than me by decades. The only time I ever saw my grandpa was on occasional visits in which my dad would always say, "Miguel, we have to go see your Abuelito Mario! You haven't seen him since last year," to which I'd always agree not because it thrilled me to see him but because I felt the need to. I barged into my mother's room without saying hello. I simply showed her the phone and expressed my confusion. She looked as though she understood. We began calling my sisters, my father, my aunts, and even my grandma to see if anyone else had received the same suicide letter I had received. The ﬁrst to answer was my sister, Camila. I sent her the text. Apparently, my dad had left the house early in the morning without saying a word, but she hadn't wondered where he was off to. We also called my grandmother, his ex-wife, and showed her the message to which she replied, "He's probably joking around! He didn't actually kill himself. Mario wouldn't do that. He isn't able to go through with it!" Seeing that she didn't understand, our best bet was to wait until my father realized his son had also received a Themessage.last time I saw my grandfather alive was about a year before he died. My dad had scheduled a lunch with the three boys of the family so I could see him during my summer vacations. We went to this wings restaurant in a shopping mall and sat down to eat. My grandpa showered me with the usual questions, "How's school? How are your grades? Did you get a girlfriend yet? What grade are you in? Where do you live again? How old are you?" I knew what Alzheimers was at the time and I knew my grandfather was starting to develop the disease. I could see the look of pain in my father's eyes that night when we talked about his father's incurable disease. During the dinner, my grandpa asked me if I was still into geography like I had been as a little child. I told him I was so that we could relate on something even though I had lost much interest. He told me about all his travels. His voice lit up as he told me about all the places he had gone. It seemed as if he had no regrets in life, but when I asked him, he responded. "I wish I could've gone to Bolivia," he said. "Why Bolivia?" I replied. "It was the last country left for me to visit in South America but now I'll never go there." "Yes you will!" I remember saying. "You're not too old." His face made me believe that he felt old, as if the years were eating him up alive with every word. That night, I truly believed he'd make it to Bolivia someday. The silence and the absence of knowledge were eating me alive as I waited in my mother's bedroom for a response from my dad. In the meantime, I decided to reply to my grandfather's text in the hope that somehow he'd receive the message from heaven. I did not know how to tackle the situation.

45I didn't know how to tell my friends that my grandpa had killed himself and I had received a suicide letter. In the meantime, my mother began talking to me. "Your grandpa always said this is what he wanted, Miguel," she began, "He's been telling us for years that he wanted to choose the moment he left us. No one took his threats seriously." I was shocked at this revelation. How come my grandfather had been threatening to choose his own death for years and no one ever took him seriously. How come I never knew. Then, we received a call from my father. My sister had told him about the text I had received that morning. From the sound of his voice, I could tell he was crying. He explained the situation to me. My grandpa had decided to inject himself with a lethal dose of morphine that morning and had sent out a suicide letter on WhatsApp to his friends and family. His three children, my father, and two aunts, had received a special text message while everyone else had received the same message I got. Regardless of this, I felt honored to have gotten the letter either way. At the moment, he was in a coma. The injection hadn't fully killed him and so he was in the process of dying as we spoke. I decided I'd let my father spend the last moments with his father and I hung up the phone. The summer of 2020 had been a very particular summer for many reasons but one of the most bizarre occurrences of all was that I had texted my grandpa a record amount of times.

The first was on Father's Day, which fell on June 21, 2020. I hadn't been able to travel to Colombia because of COVID, and I knew he was struggling with his cancer so I told him I was looking forward to seeing him in the near future. The second time, he texted me to wish me a happy fourteenth birthday on July 7, 2020. The conversation was very small but regardless it was something. The final time I spoke to him before his death was on July 26, 2020, grandfather's day. I later found out that I was the only one of his grandchildren to text him on that day yet most of my cousins had texted our grandma. In return, I later found out that I was the only one of his grandchildren he texted for I was on his mind during his final days.

The first lesson I learned that day was that kindness can really go a long way. My dad called me in tears a few minutes later when he was finally gone. He and my aunts had found his phone and read the message I had sent him in secret. My dad broke down as he told me how much that message meant to him. In a way, I felt flattered that my dad had found comfort in my message in such a time yet I felt as though I felt embarrassed or put on the spot. Throughout the day I received countless messages and calls from friends and family. That night was when I finally added that one precious word to my vocabulary, euthanasia. My mom told me, "Your grandpa didn't commit suicide, rather, he performed euthanasia on himself."

46 "Euthanasia is the word for when someone decides to end their life because they are sick and decide to die rather than to keep on living because their pain is unbearable. Regardless, I don't want you to think about euthanasia as an option ever in your life. God decides when we leave and we have no say over that and your grandpa didn't either." I felt angered that the adults in my life were trying to tell me how to feel about this situation. At the moment, I felt embarrassed to say it and to this day I haven't found the courage to say it but I agree with his decision. He was brave and he was suffering and he didn't have to continue suffering by himself if he didn't want to. I agreed with him when it seemed no one else did. The night before he died, I had stayed up till three-thirty in the morning playing video games with my friends. He sent his last message to me at three forty-three. Thirteen minutes could've been the deciding factor over life or death. What do you do when you have someone's life in your hands? Do you let them live or do you let them die? The answer might seem simple enough but to this day I don't feel like I know it myself. Had I stayed up thirteen minutes more, I would've seen his message. I would've known before anyone else. I could've stopped it. Would he resent me? Could I really break his trust like that? Could I really have reported him to my father before he killed himself and forced him to live through his cancer so he would eventually die regardless? Yet, what if I let him die? What if I knew all along that he was going to kill himself that night and I didn't say a word? What would I do when I heard the cries of my father, aunts, sisters, and cousins? What would you do if you had a person's life in your hands? Do you let him live or do you let him die? Months have passed since he died and today my father buried his ashes. With the money we inherited, he bought himself and his new wife a ranch in the hills of the Andes. The property was named after my grandfather's ranch which he owned when I was a baby, The Aquarelle. Today, he buried the ashes of my grandpa in the hills of The Aquarelle along with his sisters. I saw the pictures of the burial, and all I could think about was about taking the remaining ashes and sprinkling them all throughout the Uyuni Salt Flat in Bolivia so that a part of him could make it there and he could ﬁnally have no regrets in life.

HolderAndrea

ectionﬂRe

The Midnight Ballerina

Left with the shards of a broken mind, they cut me the deepest. Yet jewelry of the dark is the kind I like to ﬂaunt, my personalized sleeveless secrets.

Gently I waltz to the sound of the clock, eyeing its steely gaze as I go. Oh, riveting ballet between my ears, only your broken beauty I shall know.

Glassy gleams of tempered ambition stare back from my soles, daring me to traverse this sharp, complex system until crimson ribbons unroll.

Michael Puglise

HartSimone TREESWINTER

ShadowstheIn

My introduction to Paris: trees and graffiti. After more than eight hours on an airplane, sitting in a large black van, sweating through the winter coat I’ve borrowed from my mom, I just can’t believe the trees. They’re like spines, tendril branches seeping out of thin trunks, petrified in the cold air. They’re winter trees. Winter trees. I don’t have winter back home. Miami is 330 days of summer and 35 days of slightly cooler summer. Winter trees in Paris. . . on the sides of roads lined with colorful graffitied words. The graffiti is no different. But I can’t stop staring at the trees. We pass warehouses for IKEA and Amazon. Then a series of tall buildings and what look like they may be townhouses. Blue and silver and“Youbrown.guys tired?” my dad asks. “I’m looking at the trees,” I tell him. And he tilts his body back to look out the window, but it takes a little more for him to see what’s so special about them.“They’re winter trees,” I say. I think of the word "leaf" again. The trees are in leaf. Well, they’re not. But they will be in a few months, and I get to see them. Dying. I can’t believe I’m in Paris. The mismatched buildings are shoved together. No alleyways. A balcony at every window. When we get to the Airbnb, it’s not ready yet, and so we wait outside in the van with the driver who has coughed three times. I count dogs —a fluffy brown one, a wiener dog in a red sweater—and look at the Then,buildings.Itakemy first steps onto the streets of Paris to stretch my legs. I take a deep breath of the cold air, focus on the icy feeling in my knees, the gap between my jacket and my boots, a smile on my face.

Sophia "Bell" Lopez

While I drive down the cracked street my car makes a sound like a roaring lion.

Someday Oliver Kozlovski

Someday I’ll have a house the size of the moon with so many chefs and maids and servants that it’ll look like Times Square.

Someday I’ll own a Dodge Charger. The sky is dark, rain hits the road, thunder booms in the background.

52 Lucas Chemla Entering the SpaceshipTakeoff

53 BLIND Scout Hudson Andrea Holder Distress

He knew. Knew his heart was possessed, Knew, yet his ghost continued to haunt our love. The ghost in place of a precious soul whispered to me, was stronger than all else. Stronger than the currents that weather down rock. Stronger than the gravity that keeps us alive— I gave him time as if time were his to take. In the end his coat of deceit grew thin, enough for light to pass through— Finally, I left.

Do not return, I was cautioned by my mind. He will only maim your heart once again. It might shatter from the pain of lost love. He lives on a pedestal in my heart. All can be seen from the top: rainbows of hope, waterfalls of theywhoshouldThatthunderstormsdesire,ofloathing.summit,Iwillnowadmit,bereservedforthosedon’trealizeareaboveallelse.

Left with the intention of never looking back. He stole what was not his to take. But repainting a torn canvas is now my problem to face. I don’t love him anymore, but my boat on the river of lies is rumored to have left the shore Silence your heart. Do not return. I was cautioned by my mind, He will only maim your heart once again. It will shatter from the pain of lost love. This time.

Thingsthat remind youofyour childhood

APartyIDon'tRemember

Rummaging through my Grandmother’s wooden cupboards and the knick-knacks closet near her room, I am transported back to my childhood. My fingers remember the patterns of chipped wood and scratches engraved into each cabinet and the way they magically close with magnets. The larger-than-life cabinets towered over me and provided infinite possibilities, hide-and-seek marathons. “One. . . two . . three. . .” I sprint down the hall, short of breath, thinking of a spot that will render my small body invisible. The wooden cabinets call my name and usher me towards them. Like a wild monkey or perhaps a gymnast, I attempt to occupy a space in the second level of cabinets. But I cannot manage, so I settle for the lower row. I open the cabinet door, step inside, always occupied by someone’s old wedding dress, suit, or scratchy winter coat. The dry cleaner’s plastic covering fits around me like a toddler-wrapped Christmas gift. “Ready or not, here I come!” Praying that I will remain undetected, I breathe very quietly and only through my nose. Silence and waiting. In my boredom, I stick my nimble fingers into the endless coat pockets hoping to find hidden treasures. From my memory, my greatest finds have been a rusted euro coin and a century-old strawberry hard candy. Have they ceased their search for me? Am I just that good at hiding? Probably. But to ensure I have not been forgotten, I begin to quack. Quack. Quack. Footsteps approach and I seal my lips tight. The creaking of the wooden floor grows louder. Then the cabinet door swings open and a small hand removes the plastic wrap from my face. My cousin prances around the room, her victory known to the whole house. I lose.

58 Lucas Velloso

Top to Bottom: New York, New York, Sasquatch, Duck Duck Go!

Mixed Beauty

Alba Haw

The tranquil clean sound ﬁlling up my soul while the water starts drifting, shoots out tears contracts back holding it all in pushes away into the toes of another horizon that settles in while both sides look splits them in half two worlds and as the centerpiece moves up into the space into the unknown clears up the sky brightens our own home

Amina Bilalova looking

at you

Felipe Blaya

As my vision fades, I do not see those lights I have longed to watch Nor do I see those pearly gates nor peaceful angels ﬂoating gure who guides me to the darkness patiently waits, How can he be so comfortable with this darkness? His ghostly white eyes pierce straight through my soul And his casual black suit blends him into the depths of nothingness. I was graced by God, or whatever force resides in the darkness,

His White Eyes

“...Ok”

63 Tati G. asAs Sweet O

The ﬁrst funeral of someone I knew who had died. I didn’t think of pausing at her casket and bowing my head in respect. All I could do was glance at the vessel of her soul and move to my seat. I didn't cry, but my aunts and uncles understandably needed to. They were yearning for their beloved sister while Mama Dé and Papa Dé sat in the front pew, watching over silently. But I had followed my mom’s instructions. Even when the nephews and nieces were called to the platform, and my eldest cousin shared a memory of Tati G. Even when I heard their heavy breaths and broken sobs, I didn’t cry. I couldn’t cry. Throughout the funeral, only three thoughts cycled. Caitlin Cherenfant

1. nicknames of my grandparents

nce, I never got to taste my own birthday cake — the unknown fl avor strawberry and vanilla topped with a messy array of rainbow sprinkles and the “Happy 15th” cake topper skewed on its crown. I couldn’t taste my own birthday cake. I couldn't smell the burning candles, and the pain in my eyes from the sinus infection wouldn't allow me to watch reruns of The Good Place while eating my dessert. It wasn’t until the following week that I realized I had Covid-19 in the first few months of the pandemic. It was a series of firsts for a lot of things in March, 2020. The first time getting sick in over a year. The first time having my head hurt so badly I couldn't talk. The “could’ve been” first time liking strawberry cake. But the bitterest of them was the first funeral of Tati G. My aunt—beautiful, spiritually whole, and godly—a vision shining through her pearly gap-toothed smile that only spoke the rarities of love. She suffered from cancer, a few years of subtle cries and hard prayers. We somehow knew that she was going to pass, and we prepared for it. There was this period in time, however, when she looked like I remembered her. In memory, she glides through family reunions, jokes about how her short and shiny coils had begun to be more luscious than ours, and consistently, with each chuckle and chortle, rejoices about “how very great is our God.” Surrounded by family, Tati G. was given peace just last year. But she left her spirit within us and her husband and two children. I miss her greatly, but I know that I will see her again.

So, as of now, instead of thinking about how she's gone, I think of her smiling face as I go to sleep. But her life and her passing forced the display of a hidden feeling of mine that had festered for too long. * * * “Don’t cry when we get there,” my mom said.

“Hmmm?” “Your aunts agreed to not cry at the funeral for Mami De and Papi De’s1 sake.”

1. How sometimes I waited for Tati's bosom to rise and fall 2. Would Tatie G. feel sad if she knew that I wasn't crying? 3. I feel so fake being here. After the burial and reception, we went to another aunt's house. We were all laughing. Though we still had on our wrinkled black dresses, lace, black gloves, and wide-brimmed dark hats, we smiled. We played games together, we prayed together. We drove to get food, and they paid for a slushie even if I wasn't able to taste it. Even though part of me felt secure to be with them in the memory of Tati G., I couldn't help but still feel like a fraud in the family. The thief that just came to steal pure sympathy from others. This third thought never went away, nor did it begin that day; it just resurfaced until I truly believed it to be true.You typically live with extended family in a Haitian household. You share the same bedrooms, food, soap, cars, life, and personal space. It's been like that for my whole life. But it still often occurred to me that while I have lived with the same members of the family for the longest time, the rest of my cousins had “extended sleepovers” constantly. They went to the same school, the same churches, the same parties. This wasn't the crippling feeling of jealousy, but the feeling of not being a member of my own family. I still remember the Christmas mornings waking everyone up to eat oatmeal and banan peze2 and thank God for blessing us to be together. But now, I look back to see multiple pictures of us together as children at Sea World, Disney, and Chuck E. Cheese. I cherish them without knowing a single one of those other moments together. After the funeral, guilt stuck to the lost memories of me and them. 2. Haitian dish; fried plantains 3. “Let’s go” in Haitian creole

The guilt of not knowing how to comfort my cousins for the loss of their mother and of not trying hard enough to know. Immediately, it becomes a terrifying thought, that because of barriers of languages, cities, and time, I will not be a true part of my family—especially with my cousins. Even though I love them so much, I know that whatever they need I will do. I will ﬁght to make them happy. But talking to them on a regular day can be a struggle. I have wondered why my relationship was like that of an awkward acquaintance you met every so often. We meet again at family reunions, laugh at jokes, give each other lots of full or half hugs. Then when the night begins to fall, and our speech and affection becomes more natural, we hear my parents yelling“Ann ale3!” Then the process starts all over again until the next reunion. I don't care at all about the lost birthday cake, and I probably would still not like strawberries anyway. And I am not dwelling on the fact that Tati G. is gone. I learned more out of the way she lived her life. She loved me so much, even if I barely saw her while we grew up. Some might say this is protocol, family inclined to love family. Maybe she saw me as such an innocent, cheeky baby and kept that image of me whenever we meet again. Maybe in addition to that, regardless of her faith, I know she loved me with all her heart no matter what I did or didn't do. I want to be like this. I want to be as dear, sweet, and devoted as her. I’d rather live by her whole example, instead of pretending that I don't feel fake with my own family. I want my connection with my extended family to be more natural, to cut through the set bonds of shared blood. If having an organic connection means that I have to work harder for it, then I’m all right with that.

Three thoughts coursed through my head:

65 heFather,who dwells beneath the waves. The ever-powerful. The unpredictable. A song echoes in my ears, crashing waves and cawing gulls. Violent. Calm. Roiling. Thundering. "The Death of Sailors," he sings to me. He lends his strength to me, and I, in return, give my voice to him.

A Song to the Sea

Mournful sonatas and wistful concertos I sing to him. And he who shall one day drown the earth accompanies me in his tenor. Standing before you humbles me. Audrey He

` 66 Lucas Velloso Mangroves

Fixing Perfection

Alexandra Ataman Serene Disturbance Caroline Jiang

68 Rebuild this picture-perfect person from broken roots and stems. Sculpted into ﬂame, born from rippling waves because the estrangement was suffocating. Fix my obsequious eyes to apprehend so they see how this will end. The light speed of possibility lies about. The smoke of eternity fogs the horizon. Fix my attentive ears to perceive so they never miss a beat. The shift in tranquility disturbs all. The violation of equality harms any. Fix my fearless mouth to explore so the poison isn’t ignored. The portal of individuality shines through. The beam of creativity focuses ahead.

Fix my elaborate hands to provide, or they receive reverence worldwide. The gift of empathy contributes plenty. The blessing of remedy saves each and every. Fix my heart to satisfy your desires, your requirements, your demands. Fix yourself, I was encouraged. No Fix yourself, because I’m a freesia in the ﬂower garden, ﬂourishing.

voto

69 face. The door to the backyard opens and he takes a step outside. I start to feel wet droplets fall on my skin. It feels normal. Not thirty seconds later, the tears from my eyes stop and instead I excitedly jump up and down asking if I can swim in the pool. Since it is just a slight rain shower and there are no apparent thunder claps or lightning strikes, he says yes with a relieved smile. “Thata was so much fun!” I cheerfully shout. “You see? Nothing to be afraid of.”

“Put on your bathing suit ” “No,” I cry, rocking my ten-year-old body back and forth in the ill-lit corner. “No. There is no way I am going outside.”

“Put on your bathing suit,” Dad says again, with a sense of frustration. He picks me up off the ﬂoor and Mom brings me to my room to change. “I am NOT going outside!” I screech. “Just put on your bathing suit. It’s okay.”

Itself

NothingFearRain

I’m hyperventilating as Mom helps me into my swimsuit, each breath deeper than the last. Mom walks me back over to the room in which Dad laid in wait. I see that he has, too, changed into his swimsuit. A look of exasperation emerges on his face. My head pounding. Thought after thought. Question upon question. Why would they take me outside? I don’t want to go outside. This isn’t fair! I feel nauseous, my mind about toDadexplode.instantly grabs me and pulls me up. My watery eyes look into his determined *** but

Danielle Respler

The days leading up to May 20 are endless. At last, it’s Monday! My family and I are getting dressed in our shirts and jerseys with “Phillies” stitched across the front, and Mom packs pajamas so when we come back to the car we can sleep on the ride home, knowing that we have school the following day. My brothers and I excitedly ﬁdget in the backseat the whole ride to the stadium. Finally, Dad parks the car on someone’s front lawn and we jump out. We start running towards the stadium as Dad pays the homeowner $10. The walk from the parked car to the ballpark is not far at all, about ﬁve minutes, three when we run. It is a clear, sunny, beautiful day, a great day for baseball. When we arrive at the stadium, we walk to our seats and take in the game, enthralled by every pitch. Unfortunately, the Phillies are not so great this year, and this game is no exception. Regardless, just being in the stadium to watch our team makes me happy. Around the time of the seventh-inning stretch, I look up to the enormous video

70 board where it is showing live footage of the weather outside. Whoa! It looks like a hurricane. The downpour of rain and forceful wind in the palm trees is all I can see. What happened to the beautiful day as we entered the ballpark? As I look around, I realize that no one is really thinking anything of it, as we all live in Miami and rain is something we can expect for at least a few minutes every day. As the saying goes, “if you don’t like the weather in Miami, just wait five Eventuallyminutes.”the ballgame ends and the crowd stands as one to leave. I see people clump together, trudging to the stadium’s exits. Not us, though. Even though it’s a school night, Dad suggests we wait a little while and soak in every minute we can in the ballpark. He tells Mom that this will help with the traffic situation that occurs after every baseball game, but we all know it was a Marlins game, so there wouldn’t be really much of a crowd, anyway. Minutes later, we walk through the exits and descend the staircase. I hold the door at the bottom of the stairs open and let my family follow behind me. Now, we are outside under a covered walkway. It is dark and gloomy; however, the sky is lit up from the flashing light of electricity striking every few seconds. Buckets of water are falling from the sky. It is exceptionally windy and cold. Dad says optimistically that the rain will clear up eventually and we will be able to walk to the car soon, but for the meantime to stay under the canopy above protecting us from the storm. Five minutes pass. . . Ten minutes pass. . . Twenty minutes pass. . . The rain does not stop.

Suddenly, without warning, I see Dad start to walk away into the tempest. “Where is Daddy going?” I ask anxiously.“He’s going to get the car to drive it over here so we don’t have to walk in the rain,” Mom responds.My brothers and I restlessly wait next to Mom. Ten minutes later I see Dad walking back towards us, drenched. We wonder why he is walking and not driving, but before any of us could ask the question, he yells over the thunderous noise, "You have to come with me!

Imagine being a Floridian and deathly afraid of rain. Crazy. Impossible, you might think, but you would be wrong. For three years, two months and 27 days, just the sound of rain made me cringe in terror. My family lives in Miami, Florida, home to warm climates and white beaches. When it comes to sports, my best friend likes to say that we are “the typical American family.” She doesn't understand the half of it, though. We are deﬁnitely more passionate than most. Dad grew up in South Jersey and has raised my brothers and me as diehard Phillies fans. The minute next year’s baseball schedule is released, we scour the calendar and start planning which games we will attend. We always go to as many Phillies games in Miami as we can, as we live so close to MarlinsThePark.2013 baseball schedule is released and we see that the Phillies are going to play in Miami on May 20. My brothers and I start to panic because we realize that May 20 is a Monday, meaning the game will happen on a school night. I am in second grade and my brothers are in third grade and Pre-K. Maybe we won’t be able to go? Our fears are laid to rest when Mom and Dad say, “Of course we are going!”

"I try running to him, but the water ﬁlls up to my waist and keeps pushing me down." }}

72 The car will never make it here; the streets near the stadium are completely flooded!” Mom immediately tells my brothers and me to take our shoes off and she places them in the half empty bag we got from one of the merchandise stores in the stadium. We need to keep our shoes dry for school the next morning.Dad leads the pack and we follow behind. Just one step out from under the cover and my socks are entirely soaked, to say nothing of the rain pelting my body. Only a few feet away from the park, the world changes. This flood is real. The water level is up to my waist, and higher than the top of my little brother’s head. Dad lifts the little guy to sit on his shoulders. He doesn’t have a choice, really. Without being raised up, the kid will have to swim back to the car. Crying, panicking, shivering, freezing, I trudge slowly to the car. I feel a mixture of concrete, grass, and rocks under my feet, surprising me with each step I take. We walk for a minute when I look up and shockingly see Dad and my younger brother about 20 feet in front of me. I wonder how they separated from me so quickly. I then turn back and faintly see Mom, about 30 feet behind me, holding my older brother’s hand with her left hand and the bag filled with the shoes in her right. I’m alone. I look back up and see Dad turn a corner. I’m terrified.

“Daddy” I yell, hoping he will be able to hear me over the rain, and the thunder, and the police sirens surrounding the area.He does not turn back. I assume I am not heard. I’m petriﬁed.

“Daddy!” I scream at the top of my lungs. I still do not see him nor hear a response. I try running to him, but the water rises to my waist and keeps pushing me down. There is no use in trying, I am not going to be able to catch up to them. I look behind me, again, and I see my brother and mom still holding hands with their heads pointed towards the ground. I station myself so I could wait for them to catch up to me, and I could finish this terrible, frightening journey to the car with some company. Once again, though, the water will not allow for that to happen. This time, the water pushes me down so violently my head goes underwater.Water surrounds my head, seeping through my ears and nose. I can’t breathe. After what feels like hours, but must really have only be a few seconds, I reposition myself to stand upright, the monstrous waters still shoving me back and forth. I continue to walk to the car and turn the same corner where I last saw Dad. Externally I am wailing, bitterly cold; internally I am wishing I were in bed, quietly and peacefully asleep. As I make my way through the river in the street, I take a look around me and see every car flooded, including multiple police cars. It’s shocking to see. Is our car flooded? Will we be able to get home? What will we do if we can’t get in our car?Finally, after what feels like 100 years, I make it to the car. I see that it is not flooded because it is on elevated land, and I’m beyond grateful. When Mom arrives shortly after, she reminds us that she packed pajamas that we can change into. We all hurriedly hop into the car, swamped. Water splashes every inch of the carseats. I can’t believe what I just experienced. I rapidly change into my pajamas and sit back in my seat. I may be wearing night clothes, but there is no way I am going to be able to sleep right now.Still full of worry and fright, I ask my parents, ”Are you scared?” “No, Dani. It’s okay. Everything will be okay. We will be home before you know it,” Mom assured me. I quietly whisper okay and spend the next few minutes sitting in silence watching my parents frantically figure out a way to get out of this neighborhood. Dad finds a route home that seems safe and he presses on the gas. Navigating through the unfamiliar maze, we eventually make it out of the neighborhood. I continue to shiver in my seat, looking out the window. Lightning flashes, police sirens, ambulances, rain drops. “This can't be real life. This isn't really hap-

73 pening,” I think to myself. I feel the car inching forward carefully on the road and then abruptly come to a stop. Dad presses on the gas, but the car is not moving.“What’s happening?” my older brother asks. “It seems like we are stuck in a small ﬂood,” Dad answers, focused and irritated. Thankfully, it does not take long for us to get out of this predicament. After what we just went through, it feels like we could accomplish anything.

The terror continues for the next three years —a Florida girl scared of the rain. My parents, my brothers, my friends, everyone thought it was silly and told me to “Just get over it. It’s just rain.” Not a drop could fall, though, without me knowing that there was going to be a ﬂood. Nothing, it seemed, could get me to that point until I heard the words that ﬁnally helped me conquer my fear, “Put on your bathing suit.”

The ride home is tense. Dad focuses on the road and peers through the rain, which continues to fall so hard that the windshield wipers are of little help. Mom uses GPS to help him ﬁnd paths that may be dry enough to drive. My innocent younger brother sleeps next to me, and my older brother and I silently stare through the windows at opposite sides of the car.Eventually, we arrive at the house. I promptly run to the front door, anxious to get inside. Dad barely has the key in the door before I thrust it open and run to my room to hide under the covers of my safe, comfortable bed. My parents walk into my room to reassure me that everything is okay and we are safe in this house. I can sense their relief now that we are home and dry. A few minutes later, they depart from my room and once again, I am alone in the dark. I cannot fall asleep. I twist and turn, impossible to ﬁnd a restful position. The quiet patter of raindrops on my window is not a peaceful sound anymore. Rather, it is a terrifying and nervewracking reminder of tonight.

74 Amy Bhakta Thoughts that Drown

75 Washington, D.C. Spring in

The snow begins to melt as the trees show their bright green color. The ﬂowers blossom, display their petals as the grass is glazed by the sun. The world is ﬁlled with colorful patterns— out of the cold, into the cherry blossom world. Arabella Gutchess Bee!

77 anchor Marley Borrow you keep me grounded downsteadyto earth but slowly drowning you pull me down keeping me beneath the surface shallow breaths i take struggling to release from your cold embrace

HOW

Ponyo

CarrafelliRiccardo DO YOU ABOUTFEELTATTOOS?

80 We reached the shop, and I finally got to meet the man that was going to change my dad forever. He stood a staggering 6’4" and large black tattoos covered the majority of his body. To this day I remember the intimidation that this man presented me with, almost as if he was an opponent in a basketball game. We got to talking, and as things progressed I began to realize the magnitude of this moment. The tattoo was initially only supposed to cover a small portion of the forearm, but the artist decided that it should cover the entirety of his forearm. It took a pep talk to get my dad on board with the idea, but with ample encouragement and confidence, my dad got on the table. I sat bewildered next to my dad, laughing occasionally to play off the anxiety that overcame my body. As the pen needed his flesh, my dad would wince and show visible pain. But then he would giggle a little bit, a reassuring gesture that allowed me to sit back and take a few deep breaths. The ink slowly began to accumulate on my dad's skin, and I began to see more and more of what my “new dad” would look like. Then, I would look up, and my dad and I would make instant eye contact. I looked at him and still saw the same person behind those eyes, and realized that nothing had changed. Finally, the tattoo was done and we were able to see my dad’s reaction. He got up, looked in the mirror, and stated, “Sweet!” This made both me and the tattoo artist burst into laughter, seeing that the wild experience just warranted a minor reaction. Every time I've seen my dad since that moment, the visibility of the tattoo has diminished to the point where I don’t even recognize it anymore.

Jude Held Chihiro

BEWARE THE LONE RANGER Isabella Torres

81 The Tiny Venture Capitalist

the sun was not directly overhead. Using his only intact pan, David prepared his daily breakfast of beans wrapped in a tortilla. He was financially unstable due to limited opportunities to get a decent legal job, and the possibility to improve his own life from the resources available to him was seemingly nonexistent.Wearing his now two year old jeans and shirt, along with the knitted sweater that Tita had made a few months prior, David glided on the northbound sidewalk leading to Main Street to walk towards the East Chicago Lighthouse Charter Academy. He passed by the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe, one of the more popular churches in the area, as the majority of the community is of Mexican descent. Since the creation of his dream and the promise that accompanied it, David had decided to rise early, because “the early bird catches the worm,” or so the gringos claimed. David strolled west on Main Street, its unkempt and graffiti-stained red brick apartments opposite the safer, yet even more ominous, gray buildings, ostensibly an endless void of Max Castañón Walking on the cold pavement of Pulaski Street, David’s trembling legs quicken. He makes an abrupt cut into the alleyway a few meters from Broadway Street. He walks with guilt and shame as he contemplates the action that he finally decided to follow through with last month. These feelings resurface as he passes the East Chicago Shrine Center nearby his home, reminiscent of his colorful life just a couple of weeks ago. However, his train of thought gets cut off. Thunderous footsteps behind him start getting louder with the passing seconds, the pulsating beat akin to a huēhuētl foretelling his impending doom. As he wakes up lying down in a grimy alley surrounded by blood-stained snow, now blemished with no traces of its former purity or promises, David recalls his tainted life as his consciousness begins to fade away. David Golíat began his last semester of high school as a senior in a neglected and worn down apartment neighboring the infamous Arbor Health Care Center, with most of the employees not being brave enough to even come near the building when

82 nothingness. He reached the apartment where his friend Miguel lived, an amalgam of modern-day shacks. “Oye guey! Date prisa mano!” David hollered to Miguel, louder than usual. David was in a hurry to meet all his friends in one place once again after three long weeks of winter vacation, and he wanted to catch the resurfacing transient emotions of safety and comradeship, which he had believed for years were already long gone after his parents had abandoned him. “Cállate compa. Déjame descansar, pendejo,” replied Miguel with a bitter voice at an octave lower than usual, indicating that he only recently woke up. David was subsequently reminded of his memories of the past when he was sent by social services from his hometown of Austin to Chicago and first met Miguel. He was sent to live with his abuelita, who he nicknamed Tita, when a social security service officer realized that the honors student David did not have a permanent home or legal guardian taking care of him, as he solely relied on the support of his close friends and their respective families. Adriana Lopez and Pablo Golíat had met in the engineering department of the local college and had fallen in love. Adriana, as a first-generation Mexican college student, was pursuing an education to be able to have a stable financial future and live the life that she had always dreamed of. Pablo, a young Chicano man vested in the study between math and sciences to find out how the world worked, strived to get his degree by his fourth year of college to provide for his future family. Adriana and Pablo wholeheartedly believed that they would be able to live reputable lives and raise a family of their own after graduation. And, for the first decade after Adriana had conceived her son, David Golíat, in 1997, they had a stable income. However, with the encouragement of mutual friends and family members, Mr. and Ms. Golíat invested all of their available funds into stocks in late 2007. This was the last time that the Golíat family saw their hard-earned money before it all disappeared.

Over the following months Pablo went to multiple job interviews in Austin ranging from medical jobs to accounting to company 9-to-5 business jobs and even for minor restaurants and family stores, but to no avail. The prosperity of the American people and economy was long gone, and what remained was an overabundance of unemployment with strong demands for the limited supply of jobs available. On the other hand, Adriana had decided to help with housework after she was laid off from the company she had worked at for 6 years. Adriana felt remorse and powerlessness, as she was unable to go and work even if she miraculously landed a job because the family no longer had the means to pay for David’s nanny, Claudia, to take care of him.

A fortnight later, all economies and related institutions suffered a major blow in what came to be known as the Global Financial Crisis of 2007 - 2008. Due to having suffered a tremendous loss with their money, the effects of the housing market crash and increased mortgages, as well as high interest loans, David and Adriana were forced to into foreclosure. As what seemed to be overnight, the family was relocated to the lower class with hundreds of thousands in debt and with a 10-year old child.

“Mama, why can’t we eat eggs and bacon for breakfast anymore? Where is Claudia?” David questioned, disappointed in the unanticipated change in living conditions. With mixed emotions of guilt and anguish drawn on her face, Adriana was unable to look her child in the eyes and tell him the truth. Feeling guilty of depriving David of the comfort and happiness that he deserved in his childhood, Adriana ignored the agony, as well as David’s question.

On that Sunday night, Adriana told him about the legend of the Lone Ranger a passed down generation after generation as a tradition in the Lopez household. According to Mexican legend, he lost his wife and children and roamed the streets headless, as it had been chopped off by a guillotine when he was still living. Beware the Lone Ranger; he rides through town wearing all black, looking

83 for poorly behaved children to kill. Although he was unaware when his mother told him the legend, David later learned in middle school about the Texas cowboy known as the Lone Ranger, a fictional Texas hero. The fictional stories told about the Lone Ranger’s heroic deeds protecting innocent settlers from "evil Mexicans and Native American warriors,” as David’s 8th grade history teacher, Mr. Griffin, stated. Months later, David would become inspired by his recollection of the legend and take the message to heart because it was the last thing that David remembered his mother telling him.

at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Austin and landing at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago on a summer Saturday morning, David was not expecting any spectacular sights or the phenomenal size or scale of the airport itself; therefore, once he witnessed the airports that were larger than neighborhoods, with glass embedded into the walls of the airport to signify a reflective halo symbolizing the American Dream, and planes longer than skyscrapers, he was flabbergasted. Feeling a strange sensation in his stomach that can only be described as the jitters felt from the flapping of butterfly wings in one’s stomach during take-off, comparable to the feeling of clouds lifting you up from your stomach, David was surprised with all aspects of the experience.The day that he met his abuelita, David was immediately captivated, as his abuelita was very similar in stature, hair color, skin tone, and facial features to his mother and to himself. She initiated the conversation with him in Spanish. “Hi David. Although you have never met me before, you might be able to tell that I am your grandmother because of similar traits. Even though my name is Lucía Lopez, I hope that my daughter taught you a proper enough education to know that you should

After a month or so passed by, it was decided that David would be sent by plane to Chicago so that he could live with his grandmother, as she was the only member of David’s family that wanted to take care of him after his parents had seemingly vanished. The plan was for David to live with his abuelita until he legally became an adult at 18 then go to college or work to have his own home and life. David had to say his farewells to his dearest childhood friends with tears streaming down his cheeks. Unfortunately for David, life takes the most unexpectedArrivingroutes.

On a Friday afternoon, less than half a month after David’s 11th birthday, Adriana and Pablo packed their belongings and left the city in search of a better life together, leaving a vast burden behind: David. Over the next few years, with the continuous financial and emotional support of his friends at school and their families, David managed to stay in the city and stay enrolled in his school. He was not at risk of being taken by social services because neither the school supervisors or public of fi cials cared enough about another abandoned Chicano to search for possible means of helping him. Unfortunately, due to his heavy trauma of being abandoned, David lost almost all of his trust for friends and strangers in fear of being left behind again, and he had to slowly rebuild friendships over a period of years. He became more recluse and was no longer able to initiate conversations or friendships. Reminding himself of the legend that he recalled from his mother years prior, David became focused on prioritizing academics and courseworks over all other aspects of life, and by the beginning of his sophomore year he had a 4.9 GPA. David was a righteous and honorable student, refraining from fights, drugs, and parties due to his immense fear of being killed by the Lone Ranger, and his promise to go to a reputable university to improve his life. Alas, everything changed after a social service of fi cer saw David at a ceremony for his first-ever award (an honors certificate for grades 9 and 10). Following a brief conversation, the officer, Mr. Rogers, reported to his boss this abandoned child who was living without a legal guardian for over five years, and action was taken on behalf of 16-year-old David Golíat.

84 Mia Zapata-Herrera Ice Cream

Eventually, after having every type of debt imaginable piling up at his front door, David gave in. Miguel gave David an opportunity to work for him in dealing and distributing drugs, and David took up the job in the middle of November of his senior year in high school. Things were starting to get better in David’s life, as he was able to pay off most of his debt with the money Miguel gave him for distributing drugs. He maintained As throughout all courses to be able to fulﬁll his self-made promise, and he was enjoying life. call me abuelita, Lita, or Tita. Whichever you prefer is ﬁne by me,” she told David. “Thank you for taking the time to pick me up from the airport and allowing me to stay in your household. I greatly appreciate it, Tita. I can certainly see the similar dark skin tones, black hair, black eyes and thick lips, as well as the high cheekbones,” David replied (in Spanish), shrewdly including some compliments about her aesthetic features. “Ha Ha Ha! This young man has a snake-like silver tongue. Nevertheless, thank you for the compliments. Por cierto, mí amor, are you willing to start looking around the community to get to know various places and your future“Yes!friends?”Ishall learn about the community and its people to be able to integrate by the time school starts in three weeks,” said David. However, this marked the beginning of David’s steep decline in societal standards.Two days later, on that Monday morning, David was shocked by the community in which Tita lived. The scorched heat revealed blistering cracks on the roads. The narrow roads and alleys gave a certain depressive touch to the already bland apartments and shacks, as calling them houses would be offensive to houses around the world. David encountered a suspicious group hanging around a backstreet. After introducing himself as the nuevo chavo in the community, David is greeted by the six young men present. The one in the middle of the group, Miguel, introduced himself as the leader of the “¿Quépachanga.ondaguey?

Almost exactly two years later, with a week left until the beginning of his senior year of high school as an eighteen-year old, Tita passedDavidaway.felt his world crumbling to pieces once again. This emotion that he had not wanted to remember. This familiar void in his soul and hole in his heart. It all started to rush back at him. Fortunately, his friends were able to rapidly improve David’s disposition by giving him the mental support that he needed. He had stared down the abyss, and the abyss had stared back at him for a second time and spared him. The abyss would not spare him a third time.

David started spending all of his spare time hanging out with his friends or going to pachangas to ﬁll in that emptiness. He started acting more like his friends from the community, yet did not steal or sell drugs like they did. He had copied their manners of speech and that air of hueva that protruded from their attitudes, yet still had a righteous personality when he was by himself. However, having recently turned 18 without someone to care for him, David now would have to work jobs to pay his apartment rent (used to be Tita’s apartment), or partake in more illegal activities like his friends.

Why are you not talking anymore? Are you a nerd, D-A-N-I-EL?” asked Miguel. An upright and academically inclined young adult would be completely ostracized from kids of his age group and ethnicity, as he would be trying to act like the white kids by having different values, morals and attitudes on life compared to those that have lived in this community all their lives. David started paying closer attention to the words that these chavos used, as well as the context, to incorporate them

85 into his own manner of speech to be able to integrate fully. Because he had more money and more supportive environment in Austin from ages ten to ﬁfteen, David had not yet learned any profanity or Mexican colloquial terms and expressions. It is dubious, however, whether or not this change that David decided to make was the right decision.

86 On the 13th of December, 2017, a dangerous group of drug distributors and vendors caught wind of some high school students selling on their territory in East Chicago and started the hunt to find the kids. Miguel was later informed that a dangerous group of people were snooping around the neighborhood and warned David to not get into any potentially risky situations.“Don’t worry guey. I’ll be fine, believe me, pendejo,” answered David after Miguel told him the news. David believed that he already suffered from worse in life, and that a little situation such as this one would not cause any hindrance. Exactly 10 days later, 7 days after he was accepted in University of Chicago and just months away from fulfilling the promise he made to himself, a suspicious group of people appeared to be following him. Miguel’s cautious words played in his head on repeat. Walking on the cold pavement of Pulaski Street, David’s trembling legs quickened as he made an abrupt cut into the alleyway a few meters before Broadway. He walked with feelings of guilt and shame, contemplating the decision to distribute drugs that he had finally decided to follow through with last month. These emotions reemerged as he passed the East Chicago Shrine Center near his home, reminiscent of his enjoyable life just a couple of weeks ago. However, his train of thought got cut off as the thunderous footsteps behind him started getting louder with the passing seconds, the pulsating beat akin to a huēhuētl indicating impending doom. As he momentarily gained consciousness lying down in a grimy alley surrounded by bloodstained snow, blemished and without traces of its former purity or promise, David recalled his tainted life before his consciousness began to fade away. As he saw a shadow come his way, David questioned if this is how his life would come to an end: lying on the pavement of an alley, his blood pooling around him.

Why must I always receive the short end of the stick that is life? Have I been forever stuck in God’s shadow? Why does the Lord’s mercy not fall upon me? It is all for naught now, as the abyss gazed back at him for the third and final time. The shadow coming closer seemed to be missing its head. The figure was not a shadow at all, but rather a headless person. With a peaceful last breath, he remembered a final, fleeting testament to his life.

That’sAh. Bewareright.theLone Ranger.

87 Ella Gilderman

88 "Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever."

The chains are tiring us out, but offer no opportunity for escape Or chance for us to reclaim our selfhood I wish for a good Shabbat all night under the sun that has set I wish to be treated as more than dirt, and thrown into a ﬁre like coal

We must never forget our blood, the scrapes, the bruises, the numbers, the hope A suitcase of family and religion is opened up And poured everywhere Our hearts are only left with ripped clothes that expose our nature

The gold pried from our teeth by sadists Who ignore Our cries and screams, the agony Of our entire bloodline They use our bodies as sharp-edged spears And laugh when our brothers, sisters, and cousins fall Injured on the hard, cold ground and bleed out their worth The song repeats its chorus Just like Egypt, we are bound in chains Relying on the wisps of humanity we remember, especially at sundown Especially when the train doors close Especially when the candles die And once again, Shabbat melts in the dark And once again The future still holds promise

We were the singled-out broken car, we needed you to notice us A world made of four dirty walls, a roof, and labor, Forced to follow the bumpy road to our new home away from home In here, our identities are shared But our souls vary The pain is passed down from generation to generation And their memories Shake in our bones

-Elie Wiesel

For our ancestors who remind us to never forget Flying in the dark night, I needed you to guide me

89 TRADITIONAL FILM PHOTOGRAPHY BilalovaAmina Renovation

90 Hannah Webb Triple Exposure

91 Maria Ataman Harry Florin WynwallsWrongWay One Way

Harry Florin

BarbedTikiWireHut

Micheal

EthanPugliseBabil

Charles’s mother, Abigail Young, a tall strawberry blonde with freckles dotted across her cheeks, had fallen in love with a Brazilian man she met in college. They were perfect for each other. They were both passionate, both chasing their dreams to the ends of the earth. Abigail wanted to become a singer, while her lover wanted to become a guitarist. When Abigail finished college, the couple moved to New Orleans, living in a small one-bedroom downtown. They hoped to break through in the city, whether that was performing on the streets or in a jazz Withclub.this being her first love, Abigail thought they would be together for the rest of their lives. She soon realized this fantasy of hers was never going to come to fruition when she told her lover she was pregnant. The next day, when Abigail woke up, she slowly noticed that the Brazilian man was not in bed with her, was not in the apartment they shared. After seeing not a single one of his things were in the apartment, Abigail realized that she would never see that man again. On January 15th, 2000, Charles Henry Young came into Abigail’s life. After this, her life could only go downhill. Soon after Charles was born, she stopped chasing her dreams of reaching stardom and started working as a waitress at Coquette, a chic bistro that paid her enough money to stay downtown. Abigail also started smoking, but she made sure to never do so near her son.They slept in separate rooms, with Charles sleeping right across from the living room. Abigail was strong, determined to make sure her life would not slip any farther than it already had, but she would find herself often thinking about the life she could have had with the Brazilian man.

“Charles, go back to bed honey,” Abigail said in a hushed tone. Charles could tell her eyes were watering in the dark room.

Charles, who did not know his father’s name, was always curious about why his skin was not the same as his mother's, or why he did not have her strawberry blonde hair and her green eyes. His appearance, from his black hair to his dark brown eyes, were pieces to a puzzle he would only complete when he was much older, a puzzle that would unveil to him where, and who, he truly came from.

“Mama, what are you watching?” Charles asked her in a tired voice. He sat down on the couch beside her.

One night, when Charles was about nine years old, he woke up in the middle of the night to see a light coming from underneath his door. He got out of bed and walked out of his room to see the dark apartment, illuminated by the glow of the television. Abigail was hunched over on the couch, watching a movie with a look of anguish in her eyes. Abigail had heard the door open, and she turned to face her son.

Another thing the white kids would bully Charles for was his father, or, more precisely, his lack of one.

93 Arms of Orpheus

Excerpt from a story by Pedro Silva

In the

94 The movie was Black Orpheus, a Brazilian retelling of the classic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice set in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval. The scene that was playing at that moment was of Orpheus, dressed in traditional Carnaval clothing, holding a guitar while Eurydice, in a white floral dress, slept beside him. Orpheus began to strum on his guitar, which bled out a melody that would haunt Charles for the rest of his life. “It’s a movie your father would watch with me,” Abigail finally said. The melody stabbed at her heart, causing her face to swell with tears. Charles felt the need to ask a question, but waited a moment to assess whether this decision was right or “Whatnot.was his name?” She sniffled, then spoke with a tone that made her seem lost: “Fernando Valles.” Abigail locked her vision on the screen of the television, the film casting a spell that only seemed to hurt her as she kept staring at the film.“He would always say that we’d end up like Orpheus and Eurydice. Him playing that same melody as we dance in the streets of Rio.” She let out a small chortle, only to start tearing up more“Whyintensely.me?”

Her throat started to clench, and Charles heard her voice start to shake as she said those last words. Charles had realized what his mother went through with his father, being stripped of the life she could have had, stripped of her soul. She could never be Eurydice. Not now. Not ever. And it was all because she was naive and fell into the arms of her Orpheus. Abigail composed herself and ordered her son to go back to bed. Charles set his head on his pillow, hearing the faint melody until he fell asleep. As Charles got older, unbeknownst to him, he started to look more and more like his father.

The more and more he looked like his father, the more and more distant Abigail felt from her son. She could not stand seeing that man’s face again, after all that he did to her, after all he took. It started with her not making eye contact with Charles for too long, then she would speak little to him, until it became that she would hardly talk to her son at all, staring at the television with lost eyes, cigarette in hand. Charles knew this was not his fault, but he had no clue who else to blame.Charles spent much of his time alone during high school, not being able to spark up many conversations and prioritizing his courses over everything. When he graduated in 2018, Charles was the model student; 4.8 GPA, head of the debate club, and leader of a service organization aimed at helping the city's homelessCharlespeople.also started to take a liking to music. Seeing that he was living in the birthplace of jazz, it seemed that it was inescapable to at least be fond of music. Taking advantage of his intelligence, Charles won the attention of the Berklee College of Music, getting a full scholarship to study guitar. Going to college was a relief to both Charles and his mother. Abigail would not see her son’s face; Charles would not feel like a burden to his mother. Charles enjoyed the freedom college gave him, but hated the loneliness it kept him with. He still hardly talked to people, not ﬁnding any crowd to ﬁt into. But Charles at last found a friend in his roommate, Turner, a short white kid with curly brown hair from New York. Boston quickly became Charles’ place of refuge. Berklee’s campus was integrated into the city, so Charles quickly experienced the city life the university promoted so strongly. The buildings, the water, and the trees that dotted the sidewalks hit Charles with a newfound sense of comfort.

“Well, I ﬂew all the way here,” Abigail said, maintaining her upbeat tone. “When can I ﬁnally hear you play?”

As he started to strum his guitar, Abigail knew just what song he was playing. That melody, that damned melody, she couldn’t run away from it. As she looked to her son, she saw the man that she once loved, her guitar player, the man that left her so she would take care of Charles on her own. She was overcome with emotions, none of which were positive. When Charles ﬁnished playing the song, his mother was halfway through the door, tears streaming down her face. At ﬁrst he tried going after, but after piecing together what had happened, Charles knew there was no way she would come back.

95 The school year started out smoothly, with Charles learning how to perfect his guitar playing skills with every class. Charles’ guitar teacher, a middle aged Japanese man named Tomo Fujita, started off every lesson using a wellknown song to display a technique. In one of the ﬁrst classes, to teach the skill of ﬁnger picking, Mr. Fujita picked Garota de Ipanema to help solidify what he was teaching. Charles gravitated towards the sounds of Bossa Nova as if he had the music in his blood. After that class, he would spend hours searching the web for different Bossa Nova artists, becoming obsessed with the works of João Gilberto, of Jorge Ben Jor, of Gal Costa. After a few weeks, Charles mastered several Bossa Nova songs on his guitar, which was provided to him by the university.During the end of November, 2018, as Berklee neared the end of its fall semester, Charles invited his mother to come to Boston and see the school. Abigail reluctantly agreed, only doing so since she felt guilty for not reaching out to her son in months. Her son hoped to make his mother proud with all the hard work he had done in the past semester. But Charles came to regret this decision when it came time to perform a song for his mother. Abigail was staying at a hotel a little ways away from Berklee, and she came over one afternoon to get a campus tour from her son. “Hi, mom,” Charles said, smiling out of nervousness. He hugged his mother, the smell of her cigarettes borderline “Hi,unbearable.honey,”

That song Charles played was the same he had heard when he was nine years old. It was the same song his father promised he would play to Abigail. It was the song Orpheus played to Eurydice. Charles understood what he had just done, so he went back to his room, hoping things would get better in the morning.

“How’s everything back home?” Charles“Notasked.as lovely as this city”, Abigail responded, “I mean, look at this!” Charles felt relieved his mother was more upbeat. Her eyes did not look like they were lost anymore. After walking around for a while, Charles took his mother up to his dormitory, where Abigail was introduced to Turner. Turner decided to leave the room, possibly to give Charles and his mother more personal space.

“Oh, right,” Charles spat out quickly. He picked up his guitar and decided to play the song Manha de Carnaval by Luiz Bonfá. Charles found this song in October, but he felt as though he knew it for much longer.

Abigail said through a forcedItsmile.was quickly becoming winter; the leaves on the ground projecting yellow and orange hues were evidence of that. Charles could tell his mother was happy to see him, although it was not so obvious from the outside.

Andrea Holder Dancer in the Dark

96 Things only got worse in the morning. Charles called his mother, who picked up the phone almost immediately. “Charles, I’m sorry I have to do this,” Abigail weeped. She sounded furious, yet the heartbreak in her voice dominated all other emotions. Charles could hear her take a long drag from a cigarette, then the words, “You can’t come back“Mom,”home.”Charles said softly, “Don’t do this. We have to talk this out.” “No Charles, we can’t. You wouldn’t“Mo-”understand.”Charles was about to finish his sentence when he realized the call had ended.For winter break, Charles stayed with Turner’s family until school started again. He knew he could not find a family to call his own in New Orleans. So, in January 2019, Charles did something he never thought he would do: he set out to find his father. He did not know where to start, nor did he know what would come out of this. All he knew was his father’s name, and that was enough of a start to get him somewhere. Charles went on Facebook, searching for the name Fernando Valles. After a few hours of searching, Charles found a man living in Florianópolis with that name and the right age. Looking at his profile picture, Charles thought he was looking into a mirror. This had to be his father.The first message Charles sent was simply this: Hi, I’m Charles. I think I may be your son

97 1LaneMemory 2LaneMemory

98 P ostmodernist art and writing, which emerged in the 1960s, reﬂected, often ironically, the fragmentation of post-World War II society. In terms of content and form, it is characterized by intertextuality, in which meaning is shaped by reference to other texts or artworks, and/or through such deliberate strategies such as pastiche (art in the style of another artist or period), plagiarism, mock translation, parody, selfreference or by interconnections between similar or related works understood through the use of culturally speciﬁc references. The work in form and content often explores the theme of chaos.

POSTMODERNISM

SECTION

THE

Maya Tafur Martinez's "Second Chances" eschews the expectations of ﬁction entirely. The language itself, in contrast to the traditional plausible plot, characterization, and description, moves to the foreground, experimentation one might see as ironic or playful. This special section also features blackout poems, a form of creative appropriation, in which the original text is concealed to reveal something new — a blurring of both literary and visual genres and forms. The editorial staff hopes you enjoy the challenges, demands, and questions inspired by this work.

The Editorial Staff consequently a parody of the literary essay form itself. As such, it is reminiscent of work by Jorge Luis Borges — fictions about fiction. Another piece, "Jane and the Endless Time," builds upon a Dadaist tradition called an exquisite corpse — a mode of composition in which a group of writers takes turns adding sentences to a story or poem. Thus, the piece becomes a collaborative act. In this group story, though, students on a shared Google document wrote simultaneously, without taking turns, and the result is a freewheeling chaotic mashup of a narrative, the process nonlinear, reminiscent of freestyle jazz.

Jaydy Hammond

Postmodernist writing — more so than visual art — requires some degree of experience and taste in order to grasp and appreciate it. The work in this special section of Amused introduces our readership to Postmodernist tropes we have perhaps grown accustomed to in social media (memes, TikTok videos), movies (Pulp Fiction), and music (hip-hop sampling), but do not often see showcased in high school art and literature magazines. For instance, Madeline Bram's "The Circle of Atlas: The Future of Femininity," seems like an essay about a novel written for an English class. In fact it is a work of ﬁction about an imaginary novel and

Zachary Arnold 99

99 know what is next to us. We know when we are because of something that just happened. It’s next to you, in time. You are currently standing at a point around sixty billion seconds, give or take a few billion, from the year in which a few scholars claimed that a man was born by the name of Jesus Christ. Nowadays, scholars have claims that differ by a few million seconds. Yet, the time in which we consider ourselves remains as it always has, at least here in the States. Elsewhere, it differs. Frankly, it’s arbitrary and so is where you are. You could be a meter from that stick in the ground, perhaps three feet. When you’re on the beach, you sit at an elevation, for the most part, of around 0. 0 from where? Just someplace some water decided to be? Someplace that isn’t even real, just a result of measurements and tests to determine where, roughly, all this water is? What if it changes? What if the measurements were wrong? What if we all became mole people and suddenly it got too confusing to label things in the negative all the time?

All these units and baselines are really just easy to visualize and mathematically pleasing. Yes, many are scientifically based. But we chose the basis. We chose where we derived it from based on where we wanted it to be, for the most part. In the winter of 1708, Daniel Fahrenheit determined that 0° was the current temperature in his hometown of Danzig, only later realizing that it should probably be determined from some sort of scientific formula. A vexatious source, and yet the world spins on. Time is continuous, just like space. If you could draw two different parallel lines through spacetime, you could always draw an infinite amount more between them. You could draw any of these two lines and label the space between them a “second.” But, the universe will disagree. A second is not the sixtieth of the sixtieth of the twenty-fourth of The World We Had That Day

and you want to keep track of infinite time, what’s the problem? You can just keep writing. There is infinite space, but you can only use a little bit of it. In fact, for the most part, very little of anything is truly used. Look at this paper; it’s so black. If I wanted you to read this efficiently, I would write much smaller, let the letters fill up every crack and crevice in the paper, and after I was done I would stuff letters between letters. But you can’t read that. You can create shapes and patterns ever smaller, but the smaller you go the less you can actually perceive what you have just done. So, you figure, what is the easiest way I could perceive something? So you take a piece of tape and a thin marker and you start making little lines, hundreds of little lines, as fast as you can. So you say “this pattern represents how to bake cookies” and “this pattern represents a little picture” and perhaps you might even say “this pattern is the current time.” With all these patterns how do you decide how much space you give to them? What’s the least amount of space you’ll need to tell someone how to bake cookies or to show someone a cat or to keep and update the current Probablytime? about 31 spaces, for the time at least. If you counted every second and used binary instead of morse or any other on/off code of the sort, it’d give you sixty odd years. Your tape won’t even last that long. Of course, you could copy all that information onto a new tape, but by that point will you even would you even use the same information on the tape, it’d be outdated. A new tape means you need new information. So you make a tape for your friend, and you use the same codes. So you think, “This is a rather arduous process,” and so you begin to wonder whether you could put your tape under a photocopier and paste some of its pieces over to the other tape, then maybe change a couple of lines here and there. You question whether this is really a good, lasting solution. But that isn’t your problem.So you do it anyway, and the world spinsInnovationon. builds on itself. It’s an ascending tower starting from simple machines to simple abstract concepts, like when arithmetic becomes geometry. If the number 9 was made wrong, everything would fall apart. Especially if it became more and more wrong and wrong as people copied it into their theorems and laws. Alexandra Ataman Warped Eternity

101 The Circle of Atlas: FutureThe of Femininity Madeline Bram

102 W hat will feminism look like in the future? Pulitzer prize-winning author P. Reeves explores this in his latest novel titled The Circle of Atlas. The first novel in a projected trilogy, Reeves's new work experiments with a solely female false utopia, and the consequences that social constructs like femininity and masculinity have on our society. Whether it is a cautionary tale or a figment of imagination, there is no doubt that this novel has become an overnight sensation. In fact, in a recent interview, Reeves has teased the possibility of a movie adaptation. While there are multiple components that make this book successful, Reeves tackles controversies relevant today such as transgender rights and the effects of gender roles on society, which makes The Circle Of Atlas stand out. It is impossible to analyze The Circle of Atlas without first discussing its title. In the novel, the story is centered around the passengers of the spacecraft, Atlas, particularly the ship’s inner circle. At first glance, the title makes sense, seeing as the story revolves around the inner circle of Atlas; however, it would be negligent to assume that there aren't any hidden allusions, as Reeves is known for his easter eggs. Reeves has stated in multiple interviews that he was inspired by the works of Homer and Hesiod, so it isn't unreasonable to assume that he would try to include elements of Greek mythology in his own writing. In Homer’s Odyssey, Atlas is represented as a king of a district. In Hesiod’s Theogony, Atlas was condemned to hold up the heavens as punishment for going against Zeus. Atlas, in Reeves' novel, is the spacecraft that sits above the mother planet and houses The Queen and her inner circle of matrons, maids, and midwives. Using the context of Odyssey and Theogony, The Queen and her inner circle aboard Atlas create and uphold a “heaven” in which there are no men. The Circle Of Atlas’ all-female society is reminiscent of the Amazons in Greek mythology. The surrounding controversy around this book stems from its overarching allusion to transgender rights. The plot revolves around an Amazonian adjacent society in which boys are never born. The secret birth of a boy sets in motion a prophecy in which the protagonist seeks to expose a corrupt government. That part of the plot is a relatively familiar, and arguably overused trope in literature and film.

You can see variations of this trope in books like Dune, The Giver, and many other famous works. The controversy comes when we learn what society does with boys. When boys are born, the midwives are instructed to kill the baby upon birth, without the knowledge of the mother, and the babies are presented as stillborn. If this storyline seems familiar, it is probably because you are familiar with the biblical story of Moses. Ironically, the people who oppose the production of this book and alleged movie, are radical extremists. Following. their argument, the book promotes misandry and transgender concepts. The misandry argument is somewhat understandable, seeing as being a male is directly referred to as a “deformity” and “defect” numerous times, and men are considered biologically inferior. However, it is impossible to ignore the obvious role reversal that P. Reeves is creating. Historically, women have been referred to as the inferior sex, so is P. Reeves’ intention malicious or exploratory? Was it P. Reeves’s intention to spark outrage? The more people he provokes, the more discussions take place. But the most controversy comes from the transgender aspect of the book’s ending. The main protagonist “solves” the problem of boys being born by creating an underground organization to surgically transition the baby boys to baby girls, before being ejected from the ship and dying in the vacuum of space. P. Reeves doesn’t write books with happy endings. In fact he has stated numerous times that his books aren’t for the faint of heart and that he much prefers a sad and sadistic ending to a happy one. The controversy works for P. Reeves because it creates discussion, and perhaps for this reason, his sales are skyrocketing. In the age of cancel culture, P. Reeves toes the line on what’s socially acceptable, and he does it in a deliberate and literarily beautiful way. He makes commentary on gender roles and utilizes role reversals and numerous plot twists, which make his writing unique. His style is enthralling and engaging and leaves the reader inspired and with a new perspective on literature and science ﬁ ction novels. Consequently, The Circle of Atlas initiates what no doubt will be a compelling trilogy.

Sitting at Gaea’s global headquarters, Sir William Brown is preparing to address his board of directors’ annual meeting as the founder and CEO of Gaea Enterprises. Sir Brown has a chief record of revenues in his multiple green line of vehicles and energy producing plants around the world. With these positions Gaea has the most lucrative private company in the year 2075. While reviewing his speech, Sir Brown calls in Lady Margaret Jones who has been his personal assistant for the last 27 years. Lady Jones brings him the contracts for the two seats they have acquired to spaceship Plutus. Lady Jones asks him if he wants to withdraw the funds from his personal account in Switzerland, to which he replies that the account has the six billion euros required as payment within an hour of delivering the signed contracts. Spaceship Plutus is a private endeavor by a consortium of the 200 wealthiest individuals on planet Earth. This spaceship's purpose is to provide shelter outside Earth for the next 10 years because 83% of the ocean’s surface have been covered with a mutated algae that against nature has reversed the photosynthesis process, yielding triple the amount of CO2 of any living organism, and it is forecasted to deplete oxygen levels required to sustain human life in the next 10 days. As Lady Jones conﬁrms the wired transfer, she calls Sir Brown to remind him that tomorrow at 8:00 AM he needs to be at the launch pad and that they will meet at location since he will need to entertain for the evening all the board of director members, except the three who will be traveling with them in Plutus. Sir Brown Maya Tafur Marinez

Second Chances: A World Without You

delivers his annual state of the business review and also comments on the special project that his lead team of scientist are working to revert the behavior of “cow” algae. Results are expected in the next 45 days, just in time to avoid mass panic once the general public has been informed that oxygen levels will come to a dangerous level within six months. As the celebration of becoming the largest global enterprise comes to an end, Sir Brown retires to his apartment very sleepy because he has been awake for the past 36 hours without taking his clothes off. He lays in bed until 9:00 AM when the sound of his cell phone disturbs his slumber. He promptly answers his cell phone and Lady Jones frantically asks him where in his journey to the launchpad is he, for which he replies that he has just been awakened by her call, realizing that he will not be able to arrive on time before the gates close to the passengers of Plutus. He asks Lady Jones to stay on the line. He returns to his happiest memories and realizes that Lady Jones has always been there. He breaks the silence of the call by telling Lady Jones how much he regrets not telling her about his love for her and that the imminent reality of not seeing her again drives him to speak his mind and heart. "Please forgive me for not telling you this before and at the same time do allow for my love to you to be the purpose of not allowing this to happen again. Upon your return to earth 10 years from now, I will set all the foundation to prevent greedy enterprises from proﬁting by destroying Earth, mutating food producing plants and risking the future of Earth for a few dollars.” As Lady Jones

105Sir Brown reminds her that he will stay on Earth working with the scientists in charge of Project Phoenix and that he is hopeful of the results. She cries and confirms to him her love for him all of these years and reminds him that she has sent the bonus payout of three times the annual salary to all employees of Gaea Worldwide as a token of their appreciation for their hard work. Signal cuts off as the doors at the launchpad close, leaving them with black mirrors in their hands. As he dries his tears from his eyes, his attention focuses on an incoming video call in his studio. He attends the video call with Dr. Richard Taylor, lead scientist of Project Phoenix. “Sir Brown, my heart is filled with joy as we have finished the fifth round of tests for the DNA stand that can revert 'cow' algae to oxygen producing behavior. Hence, photosynthesis will take place as any other healthy functional plant on the planet.” Sir Brown immediately inquires about the plan for disseminating the DNA strand and its timeline, for which Dr. Taylor replies that they will deliver it in a water-based solution loaded in a fleet of 300 airplanes over the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans in the next 24 hours and that the results should be perceived in 72 hours. With Sir Brown's approval they will start the process immediately. Sir Brown replies, “Bloody hell, you are a brilliant man and your team is a squadron of angels who have given the 12 billion people on Earth a lease on life! Dr. Taylor, go for it.” As Sir Brown falls into the ground with his hands on his face. He screams, “Never again, never again will the mighty prophet gamble with the life of a living organism.” Minutes later, his cell phone rings and it is Lady Jones. “My love, I am on my way home to you, for I cannot be without you fighting to save the Earth.” Sir Brown replies, “The Phoenix has risen. Hurry up, so we can see the fruits of our lives give a second chance to this beautiful planet.” Lady Jones and Sir Brown are sitting at their home office while their attention is drawn to one of the 25 monitors inside the room. Sir Brown brings up the volume and the news broadcasts continues to deliver the following: “5 minutes within the launch of spacecraft Plutus, the main engine has failed, sparking a chain of events that ended with the spacecraft breaking into pieces and claiming the lives of the 200 wealthiest individuals on Earth and a crew of 1,000 workers whose sole purpose was to attend to the wellbeing of these guests for the next 10 years." As news leaked that Earth was days away from not being able to sustain human life for “cow” algae is depleting oxygen levels faster than previously announced, the general public waited, afraid. Sir Brown and Lady Jones hold hands and look at each other and immediately say to each other at the same time, “We need the world to know about Project Phoenix.”

106 Skylines Isabella Torres

Chapter 1

It was a difficult time for the raft to stay afloat in such weather, its brown planks of wood shaking above the water. The damp wallpaper slowly peeled off the walls as the faucet dripped ominously. A pudgy hand lifted the raft out of the sink and pushed it down into the water by the drain. The lightning struck again, roaring and crying, and the clouds flashed white to black then black to white. The storm continued to rage and grow, slowly but surely evolving into something far greater.

he English Moors whistled underneath the full moon, invisible above the clouds. The lightning struck as the owls howled at the stars. The waves looked up at the sky in uproar, as if chasing the taste of lightning themselves.

Jane and the Endless Time

107

Written simultaneously by Z. Arnold, O. Brennan, A. Ataman, J. Hare, and B. Lopez

Alexandra Ataman

Jane couldn’t sleep, and she stood at the sink, looked out the window, remembering what had happened. Her messy hair swayed as the wind ﬂowed through her window. Bile rose in her throat with every clap of thunder, her mind traveling back to that fateful night ten years ago. In anger, she plucked a digestive cookie off of the counter and crushed it in her ﬁst, the pieces falling like hail onto the small raft. She downed it fast, shaking her head against the memories. Jane hadn’t always been like this, her sleep-deprived eyes staring at the blank wall. The phone rang. Then it stopped ringing.

Alien Subchapter 1938 (alternate version 27)

J ane stood by the sink washing dishes, waiting for Frank to arrive. In the bathroom, Holly was dead, as she had been for years. Jane could not forget the humanity that seeped out of Holly’s weak, human lungs that night. Jane’s memories of her daughter’s life — and death — were confused now, her form laid to rest in the green bath water. Jane lay hunched over her small soul, staring down with eyes of anticipation; she knew what was coming. In the distance Jane heard a loud crash which came from an alien spaceship falling from the sky. She watched herself and mirrored the movements of “Fake Jane.” The mirror broke, and the pieces of it fell upon the kitchen floor. It flew into the air, flying at real Jane, killing her instantly. A knock came from her door: “Sweetie? I’m real sorry about the other day. I know I lashed out, and I feel real bad for that.” Her father called from the other side. T hey arrived in a ship shaped like the Biblical Noah’s ark, which hovered over Manhattan for 40 days and 40 nights before first contact was made. Their skin was brown, fins like fish on top of their heads. Their hands — or better stated, webbed fi ngers — stuck to almost everything they touched, besides iron and copper. They dropped down in Newark in metal tripod-like machines, three hundred feet tall, with large flamethrowers attached to the underside. There was a deep, rumbling sound as the aliens’ elephant-like feet hit the earth. They made strange dinosaur-like noises and were heard all throughout the cities of the world. Without a word, they began their attack, grabbing anyone that was around and eating them.

As the aliens stormed the streets, their elephant-like feet created holes in the earth which transformed into white holes.

108 J ane was a quiet child, or rather she had to be. She had not developed a functional larynx until the age of seventeen. For years of her life, her hands had been her voice — learning the functionality of sign language and how to maneuver her hands onto spare mechanical parts. She was an engineer at James’ Shop. After the alien invasion took place and she began what “they” called Fundamentals in Education, her skills advanced remarkably, and she graduated early as a Level Green. The best in her class. Soon after she had met Frank, he shared his thoughts with her about a robot baby he wanted to create. The two hit it off immediately and began drawing up the plans for it.

Chapter 2

Back then, more aliens crawled out like zombies from the pits of hell. With their massive numbers, the governments of the world decided to make the Geneva Conventions into the Geneva Suggestions. As the aliens took over Newark and the rest of the United States it was ﬁnally declared the First Apocalypse. Jane’s father read about the apocalypse in the newspaper. It was here that he left Auto-Repair, denounced his sins, joined the clergy, and prepared for the end of humanity. Jane grew in the midst of the chaos, while aliens stomped around and caused the plummeting holes in the Earth we see. Chapter 3

109 Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out Poetry. Black-out

110 Kenneth Barrett I am America

Marley BorrowDylan Kleinberger

111

112 Lucas Crespo Mariana Diaz

Verbs, Nouns Lucas Ortegon ArrestProtectReportHelpDriveShootSolveFindJumpRun VERBS

CarPolice HeldJude

Police PoliceHandcuffsPartnerStationGuncarRadioTaserCriminalJailDog NOUNS

115

The adults heard me screaming and rushed to my aid, and they saw me, bleeding, crying in pain as the dog bit my left lip. I couldn’t move my head, I was afraid that if I did, it would end up ripping a piece of flesh from my face. I didn’t speak, I didn’t move, I was hurting so badly and I wished it would stop. I suddenly felt someone lowering me down. I didn’t know who it was at first until I saw a glimpse of my father, using his hands to open the dog’s mouth so there wouldn’t be any ripped flesh. I was crying, howling in pain, I remember seeing my sister crying in horror, my mom is terrified like she saw someone she loves being killed in front of her. I was injured badly. After what happened, the adults tried to calm me from my painful shrieks. I couldn't even bring myself to look at the mirror, I was way too focused on the pain on my lips. A towel was brought to me, to stop the bleeding from happening. I could taste the blood in my mouth, my mouth was all red and oozing with the blood that came from my lip. I remember feeling a fresh liquid of blood going over my body. I remember we had to leave now, we had to go to the city, to a hospital.I felt really sleepy while we made our way there, my head was pounding and I felt really dizzy. I wanted to lay down so badly. I remember falling asleep, while listening to the noisy buzzing cars and feeling the vehicle turning into different directions. I woke up for a shorter time, I remember hearing my father calling for me to get up since we finally arrived in the hospital.

116 I never thought that this would happen to me. I could have never imagined that of all the things that I would experience, this was going to happen me. I remember that day, it was stuck in my head, and there was a mark in my face to show that grim reminder of that day. It was a warm sunny afternoon in the season of summer vacation. It was our last day in the beach house in Rivera, located in a beachy" town where the roads are all sandy. However, we were supposed to leave after the vacation of July. It was early August and late July, school started on August 1st where I lived so we were going to leave in three hours so we could go home and go back to school. It turned out to be a change of plans. I remember feeling the hot humid air around the house with its open windows. I remember the loud and colorful television playing in the background and the conversations the adults were having. I was laying my head on the couch looking really tired, it was a long day and I used my energy throughout the day. There was also another thing on the couch, a dog, he was a Jack Russell, with black and brown face, his body had white fur with two black spots, he was short and a bit chubby. I wished I wasn't so stupid, even if I was ten years old, I still wish I wasn’t stupid. I should have listened to my parents’ and their friends’ warnings when they said I have to avoid this dog at all times. I learned that in the hard way, I was sliding my way to the dog like a worm. I had no idea what I wanted to do with him but as soon as I got close to

117 Separation Remi Rosenfeld L uke and I showed up to school wearing the same bright red Wisconsin college sweatshirts that announced we would be together for the next four years, while Alice was wearing her Tulane sweatshirt. This meant that Luke and I would be going to Wisconsin while Alice, Luke’s girlfriend, would be far away from us in New Orleans. We three have always been a little group, with Alice having been my best friend since we were five. I can’t believe we would be splitting up, but at least I would have Luke with me. Luke was busy highfiving me when Alice seemed to shrink down inside herself. She went silent and crossed her arms. Her whole persona changed as she stared at us with a blank expression followed by a frown. It was obvious that Alice wasn’t happy that she wouldn’t be with us. It was almost like she was mad at me for being the one who got to go to school with Luke—as if I had any say in who was accepted. I mean, I get it—seeing your best friend and your boyfriend go to the same school. I would feel awful as well. So I decided to go up to Alice and remind her of the pact we made: that no matter what college we would go to we would stay best friends and visit each other. She was standing in the hallway leaning against her locker. She had decorated it with heart and fl ower stickers, but over the course of the year the colors had begun to fade, and they had started to peel off. Although she still seemed upset, she told me that Luke and her had already talked about the long distance thing at his house earlier this week. He had gotten mad at her and slammed the door on the way out, then sped off in his car. She had stood there crying, but then a few minutes later he texted her and drove back. She said she really wanted to try and make it work but she couldn’t tell if that was what Luke really wanted as well. I told her the only way to figure this out was to go and speak to him, but she was scared. She loved Luke so much--they’ve been together for a year now--and honestly I think she's become a lot more into him than he has her since he hasn’t once mentioned to me about visiting her. I held my breath and looked out above her head at the clear sky through the window. The unending horizon echoed my inner joy about embarking on a new future, knowing one of my best friends would be alongside me. Returning my gaze to Alice’s troubled face, I controlled my own excitement to focus on her. Luke had confided that he doesn't know if the long distance relationship is his thing, that he was scared being apart for so long would change them. He didn’t want them to resent each other from holding them back from a college experience or force a relationship when it would be too hard. Alice told him that as long as they love each other they would be fine and that she didn’t want to break up.

118 So he decided to try the long distance to make her happy, but she knew that it wasn’t what he wanted. Alice was just too scared to think about not being with him. She had started biting her nails again, a habit she had tried to break for years, and her insomnia returned. She had dark circles under her eyes even her concealer couldn’t hide; she needed to feel she still had him even though they were going to be so far apart in just a matter of a few months. But deep down Alice knew this wasn’t what Luke wanted; he always used to talk about not going into college with a girlfriend so he could get that college experience. I could describe the graduation experience, the speeches, the parties, how my parents stressed out and all of that, but what happened after completely overshadowed it, so I think, for now at least, I’ll skip that part. It was graduation week so everyone couldn’t stop smiling and was ﬁlled with excitement but it was still awkward with the three of us. Luke was trying to spend more time with me; he was saying it was so we could bond for college. I could tell this was making Alice feel like a third wheel. She felt she already lost him since he was no longer always with her and she felt he was slipping away. I didn’t know how to make it better. I kept trying to tell Luke he had to stop and spend time with Alice since he really doesn’t have much time left. Alice came up with the idea for our grade to go to the Keys so we could celebrate after graduation and it would buy her some alone time with Luke. After graduation, we drove out to the Keys across the Overseas Highway with water surrounding us on both sides. The three of us screamed our playlist and my favorite songs by Taylor Swift. We even allowed Luke and his friends Anthony and Brian to play some rap.

Our hair blew like crazy from the wind, and we didn't care about anything except that we had finally graduated which meant the start of a new chapter in our lives. We spent all day at the beach hanging out with our friends. I watched Alice keep trying to drag Luke away from Antony and Brian, but he was having the best time with his friends. I understand it’s our last weekend and they’d be far apart, but I felt that she needed to respect his last senior weekend in Florida with his friends. I didn't really see Alice again until she walked into the kitchen of this house we were staying at and told me that we should go upstairs to sleep. Her frown lines betrayed her annoyance, and I knew it was about Luke not spending enough time with her. But, I wasn't tired and I wasn't ruining my senior weekend by going upstairs to sleep at 10 p.m. I told her I’d be up soon and walked back outside towards the bonfire and our friends on the Staringbeach.outthrough the flames further down the beach, I saw someone standing there just watching the waves come up onto the sand. He turned his head and I realized it was Luke. He smiled and ran over to grab me from where I was sitting saying he had to show me something amazing. Laughing, we ran and tripped towards where he was standing and he suddenly stopped and pointed at the water. As we walked along the beach and watched the mesmerizing ocean we started to talk about our new life waiting for us. How we would stick together and have the absolute best time. So I thought why not help Alice out and suggested we visit her together and right when I said that, his body froze and his eyes turned flat. I knew the long distance thing was bothering him. His expression was suddenly so distant and his body had turned away from me.

119 He fi nally began to explain, speaking softly that he just can’t see this working and she won’t let it go. “I've been best friends with her for a long time and I have been dating her for a year. But I can’t do it." His eyes were pleading with me for understanding. I couldn’t believe what I heard. There must have been another reason, so I asked,but he said he couldn’t tell me. I told him he’s my best friend and that nothing he could say would change that. His gaze became suddenly intense as he said “well, this will” and quickly swooped down and kissed me! I didn’t understand where that came from. Although it scared me, I realized that the swirling excitement inside my body revealed my truth– I wanted him to be mine. He was Alice's boyfriend and my best friend. This just made everything awful. Although I was certain my physical reaction to him would be impossible to conceal, I knew I just had to wait for us to leave for Wisconsin and then we could be together far from Alice and our friends. Luke begged me not to utter a word while wrapping me in his arms, holding me tight against his chest. I told him I felt the same way but as long as he was still with Alice nothing could happen. I stepped back out of his embrace and forced myself to look away, while I gathered my strength. I knew it would be hard for Luke and I to stay away from each other but I couldn’t hurt Alice more and, most of all, I couldn’t let her find out what happened. Luke and I had planned on him and Alice breaking up once she got to Tulane so that we could be together. He said that he and Alice had not been working for a while and that he wanted to be with me. We both knew that if Alice were to find out about this she would never speak to me or Luke again. We had plans to say our big goodbyes early Tuesday morning.

I was dreading it. I didn't want to say goodbye to my best friend, and I felt like a liar. Alice was leaving for Tulane a few days before we had to be at Wisconsin, so she was still busy packing all her clothes. Like our usual Sunday’s, we decided to bring coffee before saying goodbye. I showed up ﬁrst because Luke was stopping off at Starbucks with our orders. I opened the front door that was always unlocked and ran up the stairs to Alice’s room.Shecalled out from the shower that she was running late and asked me to look through her closet to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything. When I saw the shirt I had been looking for for months, I squealed and threw my bag down so I could change into my long lost shirt. Luke’s voice came from the front door calling out “coffee delivery,” so I ran down to grab mine. Alice’s parents were there and soon we were all in the kitchen talking, waiting for Alice to come down. All of a sudden, Alice screamed from upstairs and burst out from her room towards us, repeating “I can't believe you!” She held my phone in her hand, which had been in the bag I left on her closet ﬂoor when I put on my shirt. She shoved the screen into my face and said, “How long have you two been betraying me?” I looked down at my phone and saw a text from Luke that had been sent 15 minutes ago. It said “I’m breaking up with Alice tomorrow.” I tried to explain to Alice that it had happened once, meant nothing, and how Luke acted on it, not me. She didn’t believe me; she was so mad at both of us. There was nothing to say to get her to believe me. She said she never wanted to see the two of us again and would never trust us. She threw the rest of her stuff in her car and drove off.

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Kamilla Dobromislova

Lifeguard

Trial 3 Dedicated to mediocre poems about sunsets Submitted for English (Otherwise,classes.dedicated to myself and my peers.)

121 Trial 1 Life will show me Hot leather seats in a metal husk Soundproof, ripe, new That rip at my skin When I stand Park benches hearken To maturing skies That pluck berries of the past To hold in earth-shaped sinkholes Through interwoven grains Of wood and time When we will sit

Of introduction crash before I capture a glimpse of Ropes that I cannotCatch. I do not know who I am. Madelyn Pelletier

On a dandelion's death? Was it a waste to try?

Trial 2

Is the rain wasted when it falls on Flowers, grass, and umbrellas all the same? Is the sun worthless when Trees still cast shadows and skin still burns? Do we not make wishes

Poetry for English Class

Within a gap of emboldened stars We ﬁnd ourselves Dazzled by the light In intoxicatingly rhythmic prose Mawkish and saccharine Trial 4 I am lost Indecisive among jeering brine And vocableWavessand

122

Column 2: Layla Reese, Insecurities; Anthony Calfa, Dying Earth; Sophia "Bell" Lopez, Every Rose Has Her Thorn

Column 3: Beck Trafton, Hungry Spider; Maryam Rassif, Serene Ocean; Carlos Caban, The Live Joker

Left to ColumnRight1:Sabrina Valdivia, Winter Fairy; Lucia Cartolano, Aries the Ram; Stefano Dumas, Coconut Man

Selections from a novel by Audrey He

123 Winter Roses One for Sorrow, Two for Mirth, Three for a Wedding, Four for a Birth. Five for Silver, Six for Gold. And Seven for a Secret, never to be told.

Desertin

It began with familiar words, and now it ended with them. The man who lay dying in front of her, scarlet seeping into the formerly white rug, laughed coldly and spoke his last words –– the words that started it all on that night three years ago. The words that marked the only admission of defeat that a man who had never once lost in his life would give. Then, however, he had meant it as an endearment, repeating what she had been forced to hear since birth.

Two days of well-placed secret glances and luscious smiles later, the wedding was announced. Nasrin had succeeded. Conceived a mere four months after the kraljjice’s pregnancy was told to the world, she had been born to bind Brdsk with her nation––and slowly introduce the cracks needed to allow her to rule alone–with her father as her advisor pulling the strings of course.

“Men spend their entire lives fearing every sword, only to be cut on the thorns of a Rose.”“Then it is a blessing I carry no blades,” she had replied, allowing the words to bind her, the truth in them stronger than any promise. T he night which started it all, at the Igranka, the court had kept no eyes for anyone else. Of course, this was to be expected in a season where a Khalida would grace the floor. As parents of the interested families watched from the sidelines, carefully calculating only the most advantageous matches, she Nasrinentered.Khalida, however, had held no intention for any man except the newly crowned kraljj, Aleksandr Anisimov, still untried and easy in the wake of the previous ruler’s death. As she stepped out, swathed in black gossamer steeped with golden threads, Nasrin knew in her heart of hearts that she would notThefail.kraljj had danced with her seven times that night, spinning her across the dance floor for the entire kingdom to watch, utterly trapped by the promise hidden in her ebony skin and her Khalida eyes of liquid gold. Her family had always possessed unsettlingly perfect features of heartbreaking symmetry, and the people often whispered of the otherworldly power that thrummed from them–– if only they knew. He was the moon to her sun, possessing the cold blue eyes and pale skin that marked his people. As they glided, his frost white tunic seemed to drown in the sheer dark silks of her dress whose embellishments shone like the desert sands under the midday sun of her homeland.The Brdski kraljj was no fool––even if she had been the ugliest woman alive, her name was all he needed to secure an alliance with the most powerful family on the continent––and prevent war. Nasrin’s movements were fl awless, and, from a distance, it was said the tittering court had begun to wonder whether the kraljj truly led the dance at “Mojall.kraljj,” she had murmured, curtsying when the final note of music faded from the air. Her well-practiced jasminelined voice bestowed his title a new meaning, one that it never had and would never again possess. Outside, a golden comet streaked across the night sky, leaving a gash of crimson red light that seeped into the stars and lit the fluttering snow.

Prologue

Giving a questioning look towards the lady, Sofya turned to pour herself a cup of tea to soothe away the jealousy that had tinged her vision from the moment their union was announced. Her Aleksandr, stolen away by a foreign prinzessa. Robbed from her as if––“As I’m sure you’ve learned, Sofya, the Khalidas were once the deadliest assassins on all the continents before Nasrin’s great grandfather grew bored of murder and won himself a crown. First to a nation and then to an empire. Now, their family runs the continent.”Stopping mid-sip, she answered, “Yes, every Brdski child knows the story of their rise to power.”“But very few know of how it was done. Do you ever wonder why such a story has such few details? It’s because no one knows how it was truly achieved. One moment they were nothing more than tribal kings, and the next, their sons sat on an emperor's throne.”

Dressed like a starry sky, beautiful as the winter moon. Of course Aleksandr would have taken Nasrin over her, gods, of course, he–––“He is a fool, a young, arrogant fool,” seethed Lady Naryshkin, her dark hair glistening in the light. “Wherever her family goes, they leave a path of destruction. And they have never lost a war. He’s brought a wolf into the sheep’s den.” "

Sofya blinked at what was just said. That was certainly a surprising stance. Lady Naryshkin was typically quite warm and welcoming. If her suspicions had peaked, something was indeed very wrong.

125 Chapter 1

F ather, the wedding has been announced,” Sofya panted, rushing into Lord Matveyev’s ofﬁce. “It is to be held on the next new moon, three weeks hence.” Her father turned in surprise. He seemed to have been in the midst of a heated debate with Lady Naryshkin. In recent years, the two of them were seldom seen apart, each taking comfort in the intelligence of the other. Glancing at his daughter’s expression, he paused, “It seems the Khalidas never disappoint. With a face like Nasrin Khalida’s, taught by her father to tell such pretty lies, the kraljj no doubt had no eyes for anyone else.” It was true. Sofya had been trying to catch the kraljj’s eye for years, ever since they were children playing in the gardens. He had been her ﬁrst infatuation, an innocent girl’s dream for romance. She and Aleksandr had been friends once, having shared many childish sorrows and joys, before the old kraljjice died and responsibilities drifted them apart. Though she knew that Brdski culture did not consider her a beauty, she’d still held onto her hope that she would win his hand, if not for her charm, then for her father’s high place in court. At the Igranka, the night before, she’d worn her best gown, a gauzy thing of emerald green, and had been building her courage to ask for a dance. Until she entered.

“You think she is here to… to steal a kingdom?”“I think that Asyif Khalida has spent an awful lot of time and gold to raise the perfect daughter, only to give her away so she may give birth to another ruler’s heirs.” Lord Matveyev stood from his chair, “The night before last, a comet ﬂew across the sky, leaving a ghastly trail of red light. Some call it a prophecy of what is to come.” Lady Naryshkin scoffed. Laughing uneasily, she dismissed him entirely, focusing instead on the logical question of why Nasrin was here in the ﬁrst place.

Lord Matveyev narrowed his eyes, giving his full attention to this little interaction, curious as to whether his daughter would volunteer to put herself in the wolf’s mouth. If Nasrin truly did plan to steal a nation, something told him she was not the type to avoid disposing of people who became problematic.Sofya thought for a moment before she nodded. While her father had been nothing but patient to her, she knew that he too was getting frustrated at her lack of talent in securing a marriage or proving herself useful at court in any other way. Her participation in this was crucial.

“Perhaps their intentions are pure,” her father shrugged. “Perhaps Ramil wanted peace, and she is here to forge an alliance.” “Ramil has mines overﬂowing with gold and oases laden with fruit. Thirty thousand foot soldiers lie at their sultan’s command, and they possess the best archers and cavalry under the sun. They need no alliance. They have all the wealth they need, and their military exempts them from fearing any enemy. If Nasrin’s uncle called for it, Brdsk would have already fallen.” Sofya tilted her head in confusion, “Yes, Lady Naryshkin, but if this is the case, why have any scheme at all when they can simply invade?” Lord Matveyev looked to his daughter, “Because a country torn by war is not as useful as one that remains intact. If they invade, the commoners will always see them as the enemy. But this way–” “This way, they frame themselves however they wish,” Lady Naryshkin ﬁnished absentmindedly, brows creased in thought. The woman had always been exceptionally clever. It was why she sat on the royal council. Her schemes could convince any sane man that the darkest of nights had become the day. Her eyes turned to regard “Sofya…Sofya.youare of age, yes?” “Yes, Lady Naryshkin. But not yet engaged.”“Well, that is not all it is said to be, my dear. I am not engaged either and I am double your age,” she said with a scoff before continuing. “The new Kraljjice will need a lady-in-waiting. How do you feel about small talk, dearest?”Sofya regarded the woman standing before her. In her youth, she was rumored to be an exceptional beauty, with dark hair and skin the color of fresh cream.

Even now, she was striking, and Sofya often overheard the court wondering of an impending union between Naryshkin and Lord Matveyvey. But she knew that the whispers were wrong. Their love was not romantic; no, it was the type of friendship that had run so deep the two souls had intertwined. But Sofya did not mind the gossip. Her mother had long died and faded from memory. Lady Naryshkin was the closest thing she had. And then there was that question of hers. A lady-in-waiting? Sofya understood the scheme well enough––stay close to the kraljjice and spy on her, reporting her every movement to this room. It was clever, deceivingly simple, just the sort of thing that Lady Naryshkin would propose. But, everything had a cost.

At her nod, Lady Naryshkin grinned before turning to leave the room, citing the preparations that must be made. As she slipped out the door, Sofya could have sworn she winked.

The words were not the traditional Ramilon ones once said at her parents’ wedding. These were repeated in the harshness of the Brdski language and the sight of their unfeeling gods.

127 Chapter 2

The priest spoke, his voice like thunder echoing through a valley, “Let this marriage be seen in the eyes of gods and men alike. Let the blood spilled on this day represent a true weaving of souls. Let the smoke that you breathe rise to the heavens where Mati and her consort reign forevermore."“Forever shall it be so,” the crowd answered, chanting the words with a fervor that could only come from madness. Looking into Nasrin’s golden eyes, the kraljj smiled gently as the priest replied, “If the couple is willing, then the vows shall be made.”

T he wedding was a grand affair, with banquet tables laden with the finest of both Brdski and Ramilon cuisine and the castle’s halls overflowing with guests of all social strata–– her new husband wished for the world to see his latest prize. Nasrin, dressed to show the full capabilities of her father’s wealth, slowly walked down the aisle of the tserkov to claim her prize and say her vows. Kneeling at the feet of the priest, the future kraljj and kraljjice of Brdsk bound themselves to each other, slicing their palms with a dagger carved from ice in honor of the first union between Mati and her consort. At the spilling of blood, Nasrin’s spark of allhost ––magic –– poured from the wound, making shadows dance on the walls. The darkness sang around her as Nasrin watched her dark blood mingled with his, staining the snowy cloth a crimson red. The room was deathly silent; hairs stood on the backs of necks. Wordlessly, the priest lit the fabric alight, placing it into a fire fed on star anise, imported from the rocky islands across the sea, and willow bark, allowing the bitter and aromatic scent to fill the room.

“In the eyes of the old gods who have destined this union, I vow to be faithful. In the eyes of the people, I vow to be strong. In the eyes of my kraljj, I vow to be humble. Like this ring, let our love be a circle unbroken. Let our love be without beginning or end, just as the winter snows shall never cease. Forever shall it be so.”

“Forever shall it be so,” the gathered mass answered once again as the silver crown of Brdsk was lowered onto Nasrin’s head, its weight unexpectedly heavy.

The day was a blur of artiﬁcial smiles after that, of congratulations and endless dancing. When the shadows lifted, all that were present seemed to forget the strange hum that had radiated off of their new kraljjice. The release of her magic had thoroughly dissipated, leaving only the smell of anise and willow bark that hung in the air long into the evening. Her new husband seemed surprised with the fervor with which his people loved his new bride, ignorant to the gifts and visits she had been paying to the poorest in the land. Her father had always told her that the best way to steal a kingdom was to steal its people. Even those who had never met her already knew of her as stories spread of the ethereally beautiful amira of Ramil who treated peasants as if they were her closest friends and spoke to their children like her own. They named her Crna Ruza–– the Black Rose. As the couple stood on the castle’s balcony, waving, the crowd below had cheered, louder than ever before, for their new kraljjice.

Inwardly, Nasrin grinned. However cold and unpleasant her father had claimed her husband to be, he was quite handsome and had been nothing but kind to her, seeing through parts of the mask that she allowed him to and somehow understanding her wildness the way no one ever had.

The kraljj gifted her with six of the ﬁ nest hunting hounds in his people’s possession, all of them beautiful grey creatures who possessed the strength of a lion and the obedience of the most highly trained of the royal guards. “For the purest and most beautiful among women,” he said, presenting her with the whip which commanded them, “may they serve you well and bring honor to the wolves who sired Makingthem.”ademure show of femininity, she had smiled softly and replied, “I will only need their protection when you are not by my side, Moi Korol, and I hope that shall be a rare occasion indeed.”

“That is because they have never seen a lovelier monarch than the one who graces your side today, Moi Korol.” The couple looked behind them to see a man who bore similar features to the kraljj standing behind them, covered in silks draped in gems of blue and gold–symbolizing his celebration of the new union between Ramil and Brdsk. “Vashe Velichestva,” he said with a low bow as Nasrin regarded him with her striking eyes of molten gold. The man had an air of command around him; he was someone who very obviously did not enjoy being in the presence of anyone who held rank above“Moyahim.ljubav, this is Lord Matveyev, royal treasurer. He and six other council members whom you shall meet tomorrow make the royal advisory who serve as my closest conﬁdantes and rule by my side,” introduced the Incliningkraljj.her head towards him, Nasrin smiled as he laid a kiss upon her hand, “then it is my honor to meet you Lord Matveyev, strazar of Brdsk.” While the meeting was over and the newlywed couple turned to hear the praise of another equally eager member of the court, Matveyev’s eyes never once left Nasrin. The man whose bold gaze made her magic whisper warnings and beg to be released seemed to be calculating the worth of her very soul in coins of gold. Although the day seemed to drag on into eternity as all concepts of time and reality blurred with the endless onslaught of well-wishers and courtiers vying for power, for the rest of the event, Nasrin could not seem to shake the feeling of being watched. As per Brdski tradition, the wedding ended with the exchange of gifts between the bride and her groom.

“My people are normally not nearly so welcoming,” marveled the kraljj.

Nasrin’s gift to her kraljj was a ﬁery stallion, red as the desert sands of her homeland and faster than the wind itself. The stallion’s name was Aldam, after the brilliant sheen of his coat. He was Nasrin’s horse once, having bound itself to her from the moment it ﬁrst came into this world––until her father had learned of the Brdski kraljj’s love of Handingriding.the reins to him, she had smiled again and said, “From my uncle, Sultan of Ramil, for the man who commands not only a kingdom but also my heart. May Aldam serve you well and bring you swiftly home from your many conquests.”Setting Nasrin on top of his new stallion, the kraljj and his bride rode for their wedding bed where she would be expected to birth an heir. The hounds followed Aldam closely, more lethal than any rytsar.

I129t was not eternal sleep which greeted her, nor the ﬁery tongues of sinners’ torment. Rather, a lilting voice, hauntingly feminine and heartbreakingly soft, was singing. The sound of water gliding over marble, the scrape of feet beneath it. Sofya opened her eyes to the morning sun.

IsabelAlexandra Ataman

Epilogue

Colophon

This issue of Amused was designed using Pages, Procreate, and Adobe Photoshop CC. Amused is set in four fonts. The main text is set in Baskerville. Student names are set in Canela. Titles and bylines are set in Didot, and Savoye LET. The magazines nameplate on the cover is set in Didot and Copperplate.

Email: amused@miamicountryday.org

About Amused

The magazine is published by the students of Miami Country Day School, 601 Northeast 107th Street, Miami, Florida 33161. School enrollment for Upper School is 478 with a faculty and staff of 79. The poetry, prose, and artwork found herein are the original and creative works of the students. Copyright on all works is retained by the authors and artists.

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