Montage | Issue #13

MONTAGE A R T S

J O U R N A L

2018-19 Issue

Co-Editors-in-Chief Rose Aubery and Jordyn Wagner

Editorial Assistants

Brianna Hitchingham, Sage Larson, Luke Madden, Allison Nichols, Sarah Patrick, Miranda Sun

Faculty Advisor

Janice Harrington

Cover Art “Purple Blades” by Jin Young Park

Logo Design Kate Rosean

Copyright © 2019 Montage Arts Journal. All Rights Reserved.

Montage Arts Journal is a literary arts magazine created by undergraduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

CONTENTS Crickets | Emily Stutzman page 5

In the Absence of Heat | Katie Powers page 6

The Uninspired Artist | Julia Marsaglia page 12

Loretta | Kris Poker page 13

Vent | Autumn Schraufnagel page 16

Power and Empathy | Aishi Huang page 17

Fictional Beings Manifesto Against the Common Enemy | Vivian Sanchez - Reynoso page 18

Mirage | Apurva Chakravorty page 20

Read Between the Lines | Favour Samuel page 22

All I Have Learned | Megi Mecolli page 23

Sweet Baby Jane | Taylor Vidmar page 24

London through Monet through Williams through Me | Julia Marsaglia page 31

Revival | Aishi Huang page 32

Brightside | Bobby Matzuka page 33

We Still Pretend It Didn’t Get to That Point- | Autumn Schraufnagel page 38

Ten Months’ Sestina | Natalie Sarris page 39

Beauty in Simplicity | Favour Samuel page 41

Due to Unforeseen Circumstances | Sarah Nagel page 42

Tiger in the Dream | Aishi Huang page 47

To Cross Oceans | Autumn Schraufnagel page 48

Winter Picturesque | Ayse Pirge page 49

Emphasis on Loved | Megan Resurreccion page 50

They Say the Grass is Greener on the Other Side | Favour Samuel page 55

Crickets

Emily Stutzman Wary of sleep’s beckoning, I listen wearily to the familiar night sounds.

Crickets chirping in the darkness, singing a fractured melody, crickets I’ve heard since my childhood, always squeaking their tune, crickets outside my window, crickets piled on the sill, crickets crawling, pouring through the barred shutters, scratching steadily at my haunted dreams, crickets I heard as cruel words were hurled at my mother like a cracked, cast iron pot, her soul crushed like a priceless teacup under my father’s boots—the same steel-toed boots my grandfather wore to kick a child, crouched, helpless, quaking with fear in a corner, listening to the crickets under a cratered moon, harmonizing a shrilling music, the tune unchanged by a shattering heart and a crushed soul whose dying embers drift to the ash-caked floor, the smoke evaporating into night as dark as the soot-black crickets who scratch their cold strains into my dreams as soon as I slip, shivering, into the shadows of sleep.

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In the Absence of Heat Katie Powers

It is January, and you are cold.

The heat went off in your apartment five days ago. On the first day, you called your landlord, explaining quickly that it was freezing and you needed your heat fixed. He rushed you off the phone, telling you in his gruff, aggressive tone that the issue would be resolved much more quickly if you left him alone. You hung up without uttering a word, your hand shaking violently. You hate that you let him intimidate you.

You have lived in the city, and on your own, since November.

You came because you wanted so badly to escape home. Home is a place far smaller and far more contained. January at home was far less cold. It was less lonely too. But not much ever happened there and you didn’t think it had much to offer you. You also thought you would be safer in the city since it never sleeps and neither do you.

It’s rather confusing, you think. You are unable to sleep but you are also unable to get out of bed most mornings. You contemplate how it is incredibly cruel of your mind to do this to you.

A high rise sits beside your 3rd-floor walk up. All you can see out your window is other windows. You sometimes find yourself gazing inside of them, looking for glimpses of life.

It is January and the family in the window across from yours has not taken their Christmas lights down.

As you sit on your couch each night, you see their twinkle and the vague figures of the humans sitting below them. You have spent too much time imagining what they are saying, or what they are doing. You have always wondered if they are happy but it is difficult to guess from this view.

You also wonder what has kept them from taking down their lights. Is it the same thing that has kept you from doing your dishes?

To keep from freezing, you have been wrapped in a blanket for the past few days. The chattering of your teeth keeps you from focusing on anything else but your icy breath and the chill running up and down your arms. You have even turned your oven on but it does little to help unless you are right next to it, letting its heat absorb into your skin. You laugh to keep from crying as you think about what your parents would say if they knew that you were thinking of sleeping on your kitchen floor tonight.

The apartment is messy. There are dirty dishes in the sink, although you can’t remember the last time you cooked. You can’t remember the last time you did laundry either. There are stacks of clothes on the floor and you have no way to tell if they are dirty or clean. You attribute the state of your apartment to the cold and your inability to remove the blanket from your shoulders. But this is merely convenient.

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You know, deep down, that the cold and the messy are hardly related.

You also came to the city because you thought it might inspire you.

You are a writer. At least, you used to be a writer. Now, you are a copyeditor. You have an internship at a publishing house. You were excited when you got the position. It is the type of place that likes to cultivate new voices, particularly young new voices, and when you applied for the position you were convinced that was you.

You haven’t worked on a story in months.

You don’t think that copyediting is very interesting. It’s tedious.

Comma placement. Semicolon usage. On a good day, you might get to make a note about “word choice.” Still, it is so much easier now to fall into someone else’s story than to trudge aimlessly through your own.

You haven’t had a good idea in a while.

Or maybe, you haven’t had it in you to come up with one.

Your chest tightens as you remember last week when the head of the publishing house called you into a meeting. A progress check, she called it. She asked if you had any projects you were working on. When you said no, her lips pursed, her eyes tighten. You were so energetic in your interview, so driven to create your own worlds and develop your own ideas. What happened to all of that?

You didn’t know what to tell her. You wished so badly that you had an answer.

Her stare penetrated into you and you could feel her disappointment running through your entire body.

You actually have been working on a piece for some time, but you have not touched it since before you moved. All you can come up with is the beginning and the end and there is nothing in the middle.

There is no story without a center so it has gone neglected.

You are still on the floor and the cold comes down on you. You wrap yourself up tighter.

Your phone lights up. It is your friend, Mark. At least you think he is your friend, and that he is nothing more than your friend, even though on occasion, you partake in activities that make whether or not he is simply your friend a complicated question. He is nice to you and sometimes he even makes you feel beautiful, or at least that you are for the time you are with him. But lately, you have been dodging his messages.

“Come over?” he asks.

“Caught up,” you reply.

“Maybe I can come there?”

“No heat. Sorry.”

You are back on your kitchen floor. His offer is tempting since his apartment is probably warm and his voice will probably seep through your ears and into your head and make you feel okay for a 7 | Montage

while.

But you cannot handle the city today and you can not bear the amplified ringing you will hear after it’s over with him and you go home and you are alone again.

Mark has asked you if he could read your writing but you have always said no. Everything you have was written long before he knew you and you don’t want him to know that person because you have tried so hard to outrun her. You don’t think he would understand.

You don’t think anyone would understand.

You have considered writing about him before. Him, and you.

But you decide against each time thinking that it wouldn’t mean anything to anybody that isn’t you.

Your mother calls you. She was scared when you moved to the city but she said that she believed in you. You half-listen as she complains about your father, your sister, your aunt. When you finally get a word in you mention that it is cold in your apartment. Of course, she is disappointed. You quickly tune her out when she makes the obvious suggestion of getting out of your apartment. Maybe you can stay with friends? Or even a hotel? She wouldn’t mind footing the bill for you.

Or you could spend your weekend at the library working on your writing.

Your mother doesn’t understand how the city overwhelms you, how you must force yourself out the door each morning because you feel as if the buildings are closing in on you and that you will suffocate from the dirty air and the heavy breaths of humanity.

For the past few weeks, you have only gone out to work and back.

It is January and you have barely eaten in days.

The cold has kept your appetite mostly at bay but the idea of navigating the grocery store has also kept you away from feeling the full force of your hunger.

With the blanket still wrapped tightly around your shoulders, you comb through your cabinets, looking for something that will fill you up.

Nothing.

After a while, you find some tea in the back of the pantry. With your hands shaking, you heat up some water on the stove. You drink the tea but it does not make you feel warm.

It does nothing to fill you.

You start to feel dizzy. You need some food. Maybe a quick trip outside will improve your mood. Maybe the bitter outdoors will not feel as cruel as the chilly apartment.

Before you leave you stare at your reflection in the mirror. The deep black under your eyes is becoming more prominent. At work this week, you noticed your co-worker staring at you on the other side of 8 | Montage

your desk, her face twisted in concern. She opened her mouth and quickly shut it again when she saw your eyes begging her to please stay silent. Since then, you smack on concealer, but it is usually to no avail.

The dark purple still bleeds through. Today, you decide, it is not worth it to even try. Your exhaustion will not be silenced.

You trudge down the stairs, your entire body wrought with hesitation, telling you to go back, to stay where you are safe. But you are hungry so you persist.

You hope you haven’t left your oven on.

The bus stop is a few blocks down from your building so you head in that direction.

Everyone walks with a purpose on the streets of the city. They are always coming or going, devoid of hesitation. You have never felt like you knew where you were going even when your destination was clear and easy to get to.

You often stay at work late even when you don’t need to because doing so makes the streets feel somewhat clearer. If you leave when everyone else does the streets are so full, too full, and you feel that everything is going to combust around you.

You are suddenly grateful to the cold, and the snow, and the day of the week, for making the streets even less full than usual.

When you finally get to the bus stop, it is nearly empty. The old lady is there. You have seen her here many times, often singing softly to herself or feeding the squirrels, wrapped in her colorful coat. Usually, you ignore her.

Today, her worn face is illuminated under the street lights. The buildings blend into the background and she is a statement against the snow. You stand at a distance.

You realize quickly that she is staring at you. You turn your face away signaling your desire for solitude but she approaches you.

“Do you want to hear a story?” she asks you.

You look at her, your eyes widening. “Okay.” Your voice is tight from disuse.

“I have a sister,” she begins. “And a garden…”

She continues to talk, her mouth moving quickly, and she is glowing.

You don’t really understand the words the woman is speaking.

She is going on about her sister? And a flower? And the springtime?

Her story and her words are there but you cannot figure out what they mean or why she has decided to say them to you. Maybe she noticed your empty face and thought that you needed somebody to talk to. Maybe her brain felt too full and she needed someone to hear her words. It is the way she says them that grabs you. You are certain that these words and this story must matter to her. You do not think they should mean much to you but somehow they do.

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The bus pulls up. “Well. This is mine,” she tells you.

You look up at the bus and notice that it is not your number.

She is going to leave you.

You panic. “But what about the story?”

“Sorry,” she gathers her things. “I have to go.”

“But, I’m on the next one,” you say desperately. “Don’t you want me to hear the end?”

“Have a nice day, ” she walks up to the bus. “And stay warm.”

She disappears into the sea of humans inside. The bus drives away and she is gone. You do not catch her name, or where she is from.

It is January, and you are alone.

You are also cold. Her presence made you forget for a moment, but the cold, harsh and unrelenting, whips onto your face, stinging you until you feel nothing.

You are relieved when your bus comes, but it quickly turns to panic as you squeeze inside among all of the people. You imagine this is what drowning feels like.

Finally, you make it back to your apartment. You don’t remember much of your journey.

It is January and you are the most alone you have ever felt.

You know you should be accustomed to loneliness, but you aren’t.

You are not good at being lonely.

You think it might be the worst way to be.

You think you would be a better writer if you could figure out how to be content inside of your own mind. If you learned to navigate loneliness.

You think about the bus lady and the way that her mind is a maze that twists and turns and goes in every direction. You think that maybe she should be a writer. Her mind works in ways that yours never could.

If you see her again you will tell her that.

By this time, you can no longer remember what the story was about. But you don’t think that matters.

All you remember was the way that she made you understand that her words were important even if they didn’t really mean much to you.

You wish you could feel things the way she does. You wish you could feel something inside of your head. You wish you could feel anything at all.

You wish you could make other people hear you.

You sit on your windowsill. The snow is coming down now, faster, and faster. You see the family in the window across the way. You look closely and you realize that they are laughing. At least, it looks like they are laughing.

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Their lights are still on, just like how your dirty dishes are still in the sink. You realize now that it is naive of you to compare the two.

Your chest contracts, up and down, faster and faster. You cannot control your own breath.

You pick up the phone. Maybe you can call someone? But you have no one. At least, no one who will really hear you. You breathe into the dial tone, the static, hoping that somehow, someone will come through. But there is only the bitter cold and the quiet. You slam the phone down.

Your chest moves up and down quickly. It is all too fast, too quiet, too dark. Too cold. Too dark. Too cold.

Suddenly, a gentle hum. There it is. Your heat is on.

You feel yourself unthawing. You begin to move the blankets further down your body.

Your eyes crack open and the light comes through.

The night is gone. You have slept through it for the first time in so long. The blankets that enveloped you are on the ground now and beads of sweat make a crown on your hairline.

You go into your room and pull out your journal from under your unmade bed. You have always known how you wanted your story to end. You decide that you will write the end now, and fill in the center later. It comes out of you.

It’s done. A catharsis of sorts. You put down your pen and shake your wrist.

It’s been awhile.

You still don’t know how you got there, or how you will keep trudging through to the end. You don’t know if what you wrote is any good or if it will ever mean anything to anybody. You have not found a way to connect the end to the beginning but it doesn’t matter.

You will get there somehow.

Maybe tomorrow you will go back to the bus stop.

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The Uninspired Artist Julia Marsaglia Scratch...

Scratch scratch swish swish swish swish swish

Sslllip Scratch scratch.. .... Hhhhhhhhhhh Thhhwip!

Thhwip thwip

Flick!

Hmph.

Tap Tap Tap Scratch scratch scratch ShhHu shhHu ShhHu Scratch, swish, slip. ...Mmm...Nnnn...

Scratch... Thhwipp...flick flick Sllllip!

Hhhhhhhh “Nevermind”

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Loretta

Kris Poker

The curves of her body slope delicately into the assortment of plush pillows he’s carefully placed about her, as though she’s slowly melding into her surroundings, becoming one with them, captured for all time in this moment. Her flesh like that of Olympia, the curve of lips stained the red of Pyrrha’s mane. Her light hair flows over the pillows, each curl as fragile and as sublime as an American white-crested river.

He can’t help but smile, his mustache twitching and his hands tightening around his tools, pride pooling deep in his gut and overflowing into giddy excitement that threatens to overtake him into a mania.

Certainly he would be the talk of history for this, he thinks.

She says nothing, of course, just lays there still as a doll among the plush pillows and bright upholstery, her gaze far away and distant and growing all the more so by the minute.

He sits back in his stool, and for a moment it’s all he can do to not reach over and touch her hair, to touch the length of her body where feminine curves begin, where her presence in this universe is known to him and him alone.

But he can’t. Not only would it be against the rules, but he might get his hands wet, dirty, and ruin the pretty sight he’s created for himself. Might ruin her. He can’t touch, but he can look, he can copy, he can commit to his memory the Vitruvian pastiche of womanhood that every part of her body represents.

Each heaving breath from her breast is Motherhood to him, each small twitch of a finger as transcendent as the Lover to him. The long, naked expanse of her legs are that of the Harlot, the faraway stare that of a Muse.

The wood of the stool creaks as he sits back. He opens his mouth, then closes it, his voice unsure, his voice too daring in the intimacy of this room.

The walls are decorated with bright red and pink and white and cream wallpaper, romantic and sensual, fashionable and clean, but dark, dark enough to leave things unsaid and things unseen.The bed, a four-postered monstrosity covered with linens and cloth and draperies galore, are illusion enough to make him feel he spent his money well, that he isn’t wasting his hard-earned francs in pursuit of his passions.

Here, in her room, he can pretend his wealth extends far beyond this room, that her willingness is not merely a quality of the room they’re in.

She refuses to look at him from her heavenly pedestal on the bed, and it dries his tongue further. He wants to say, ‘Aren’t you gorgeous,’ but it would be redundant, would be humiliating on both their ends, for why else would he be here, using her, doing what he does, if she weren’t as pretty as a siren lying in wait?

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He wants to say, ‘You’re filthy, and you deserve more than this,’ but it, too, would be redundant, hypocritical, considering his deeds. He, more than most, has contributed to her fate.

He wants, more than anything in the world, to say, ‘I love you, I love you more than all the rest, and you’ll never know the extent to my love,’ but there’s a pang deep in his heart that fears for what will happen if she continues to stay silent, if her silence will tell him more than the Library of Alexandria could.

And so, with almost trembling hands and a mind that wants nothing more than to feel the buzz of something, anything, he returns to his work, his mouth dryer than sandpaper and his cheeks flushed and red, and sore from a rushed shave that left his skin raw. The rosiness of her cheeks-- all of them-- makes him blush all the more. He feels fevered and delirious, and hysterical and- There’s a knock on the door. It makes him jerk in his seat, hair flying in his face as he faces the door behind him. His woman doesn’t react.

“Mademoiselle Loretta? Monsieur Montgravet? It has been awfully quiet in there. Is there anything I can provide you two?”

The voice is muffled behind the thick oak door, but the dripping tones of her worry seep their way through the grain. He turns to the Mademoiselle in question, the redness of his cheeks feeling as though Dante had slapped him for his thoughts. She seems to be looking at him, deferring to him, and it emboldens him, his mustache twitching again in an approximation of a smile too scared to pull across his face fully.

“We’re fine.” He says, his voice cracking down the middle. He can imagine his woman laughing at him, smirking and holding her stomach to keep herself steady, toes curling and hair flung back as she mocks him. But she’s silent, and there’s only the permeable silence of the attendant behind the door that leaves any lasting mark upon the conversation.

He coughs, looking down at his stained hands and then the door once more. “I still have fifteen minutes. At least. Leave us be.”

There’s silence again, and then a soft, insistent, “Mademoiselle?”

No words of reassurance make their way through the door, and after a moment, the aid opens the door, peeking her head in through the small opening. Her dark eyes are wary, but when they land on him, to the tools in his hands and the red and pinks of his canvas, she squints and slowly backs out of the doorway, saying quietly, “Fifteen minutes.”

The aid steps away away from the door, and her footsteps fade down the hall, each creaking footfall getting quieter and quieter, and he realizes he had held his breath through her interruption, through her rudeness, and it’s only once he can no longer hear her that his lungs fill 14 | Montage

with air, the acrid smell of the paints half-squeezed from their tubes on his easel singing his nose hairs.

He takes another steadying breath and turns back to his woman, his eyes zeroing in on her and his project. His project, almost complete, almost fulfilled, almost perfect. Her gaze goes blank again.

The visage of her veins run thick like blood down her wrists and thighs and for a moment, he ponders leaving them like that, unblended, untarnished, thick gashes that cut through the careful soft paint surrounding it.

He wonders about keeping her lips pomegranate red like Persephone’s ageless scream, and he wonders about her breasts and her ass, and the curve of her spine, all red and white and pink and full of a life that he doesn’t have access too, can’t have access to, won’t have access to until he completes this, completes her.

He lights a cigarette, slender and poorly rolled in his excitement. The filth of paint on his right hand stains the tobacco papers, while his left makes the final adjustments to the canvas. Before the cigarette is even halfway done, burning as it sits in his mouth, she sits up from her nest of pillows, the perfect halo of hair ruined, the spell broken, the atmosphere almost pops around him as she yawns and licks her lips, taking some of the bright lipstick with it.

“You’re almost done, yeah?” She asks, and her voice is bored, dazed, as though she had almost been asleep before realizing the time, as though she didn’t understand the momentous occasion for his visit.

He nods, mute, and smoke unfurls from the cigarette’s end, shrouding his face as she pulls a simple dress on over her naked body.

There’s derision sitting in the corner of her mouth like venom as she unfurls her hand gracefully towards him. Her finger brushes his hand, the first contact he’s received, and he shivers, wondering, before the gesture becomes more insistant and he fishes out his wallet.

The hour is up and the fiction is wet with paint, and the woman he has only just learned is named Mademoiselle Loretta forgets about him as she leaves the room, leaving only lustful painted eyes staring at him from the realm of muses.

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Vent

Autumn Schraufnagel It has decided to let out another groan of warm air: the vent, as observed, pushes artificial comfort through slats thick with dust from neglect to clean and re-clean.

Noticing the dust is difficult, thinking about it is worse— each speck a tiny person swirling around the room, sticking and clinging to each thing for a while.

It’s a shame the filter doesn’t thin everything.

People’s scents are always coming through— clean sheets and cigarette clouds, burnt hair and cheap perfume, a muddled mess of odors piling and polluting the space.

Invisible still is the furnace.

Always taking the temperature given, attempting, in some way, to regulate.

Forced on, forced off, feeding the vent, strained by filter, everything performance.

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Power and Empathy by Aishi Huang

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Fictional Beings Manifesto Against the Common Enemy Vivian Sanchez-Reynoso

*The following is a revised shortened version of a draft of the Manifesto Against the Common Enemy by what came to be known as the Fictional Beings Association. Any correction and/or change done in the revision will be shown in cursive.

Fictional People Beings Association Manifesto Against Vivian the Common Enemy Us, the members of the Fictional People Beings Association (FPA) (FBA), issue this Manifesto to express the mission, history, and purpose of this union. The purpose of this union is to provide support to those who have been affected in one way or another by decisions and actions of one Vivian Sanchez, whom we have decided to use her name on this document as a way to exert some of the treatment that she has afflicted upon us given that she has taken upon herself to expose not only our private lives, thoughts, feelings, and intentions, but also our personal history as well as that of those around us whom we have decided, for safety reasons, to refer to as the Common Enemy.

Vivian This enemy has been acting as what we’ve come to describe as a tyrant, a goddess-like figure that has even been known to surpass the goddess’ power. She has, in too many occasions now to be considered inadvertently, messed with our lives interfered with the course of action in our stories. The severities of her crimes cannot be measured, as the consequences of her actions, and the consequences that said actions cause in our lives, cannot be accounted for. The way in which Vivian she came upon such power as to affect the logic of our world is unknown to us. No wizard, sorcerer, wilder, witch or mage has been known to wield such power. Even the gods are said to tremble at her presence, and yet she chooses to present herself with the face of a commoner.

Her purpose it not clear, and her intentions are ever confusing.

She has been known to make great acts of kindness, like granting water to the desert tribes and giving fruit to barren land, and yet she’s burned realms to the ground and submerged entire cities under water. Her power knows no limit, as she’s been known to affect the weather, time, and place and if there is she just surpasses it with no regard to the consequences of her selfish actions. Vivian She has demonstrated the ability to change the smell of the air with a thought, the colors of the sky by just looking at it, she’s been known to shift not only her appearance but that of others by merely choosing to do it.

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This manifesto serves as a promise that I, a displaced princess who has been linked to her for years and has yet been given no official name other than “Vhalia Protagonist” by her who has been referred to as ‘Anya’ by her, vow to rally whatever power I seem to have over her to protect my realm and as many others as I can.

For all we know Her power is could be limitless, but we have hope. Each realm has brought forth a group of beings who seem capable of affecting her, focusing her rage on us seems to distract her from others, containing her wrath to us in what she has referred to as “plot/ story lines.”

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Mirage

Apurva Chakravorty You told me to look for rivers in deserts and Fresh water droplets in harsh sun rays You trained me to walk twenty miles Rather than run seven, to Build a sled instead of dragging my hand in the sand Following you, I only knew to wear a sun hat, Thick shaded sunglasses and Sunscreen to shield myself, you said If I got hungry I had to find and climb a Palm tree with dates to fill me up and maybe Hope for a mirage to get me through but Don’t rely on false images don’t Believe everything you see You see, you demanded I wear a Backpack with all the things that would Get me through this vast hell.

You didn’t tell me that there was a place before this desert and That there’s a place after You didn’t allow me to venture to a beach or forest where Water was everywhere, or to Dream up some mountains and trees Following you, I never learned That the emptiness was a choice I could run from, A way to protect myself if it got too much, you never said If I got hungry I could just sit and order a buffet, Eat with my fingers and maybe Live in the mirage if I found one that I actually could believe what I see You see, I went out with this boy who was Much like you, not telling me the things I could do whose words Dried my eyes like grains of Yellow dirt and whose fists pounded the heat so I could barely stand on my feet, I went and Married this boy because He was all I could see because When I did meet a boy who was a lush green forest, I Figured he was a mirage because— That’s what you taught me.

And so I wore my sunscreen with fear Dreaded the hours I forgot my hat 20 | Montage

Starved myself on days without dates And I was thirsty, stranded in a desert I didn’t know I could escape.

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Read Between the Lines by Favour Samuel

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All I Have Learned Megi Mecolli

To the little girl dashing through a field of dying dandelions,

Understand that the wishes you are kicking up

At your feet are coming true, sailing into the wide blue sky.

To the little girl whose eyes sail across a million worlds,

Learn all that you can, and fill your head with

Dreams just waiting to be brought to life.

To the little girl wiping away tears,

From the bullies, from the bee-stings,

From the muffled shouts and screams,

Know the power that is coursing through

Your veins, that your young heart may be

Breaking, but it will mend back together

Twice as strong.

To that little girl whose world is one of vivid color

And vibrant, fleeting daydreams:

Let your world be mine once again.

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Sweet Baby Jane Taylor Vidmar

Kaitlyn Jones was the first to know. She’d run into Annie Spracklin and a redhead she didn’t recognize at the nearest CVS, two towns over from Herrick. She was there to pick up her father’s blood pressure medication. The girls exchanged niceties as Kaitlyn inspected Annie, who carried ibuprofen, maxi pads, and a heating pad—a collection of items which seemed nothing but sad and dull until she noticed a pink prescription slip.

“Three years already. Can you even believe?” Kaitlyn asked, quickly peeking down at the pink slip. From the slip she caught: Doxycycline, Methergine, Ergotamine. Doxycycline, an antibiotic, wouldn’t have stood out if not for its combination with the latter two. Kaitlyn was a nursing student. She of course knew the specific, notably child-free situation for which one needed to prevent postpartum hemorrhage.

Kaitlyn told her mother.

Kaitlyn’s mother, Jen—choir director at the Catholic Church— relayed the message to Joyce—President of the Altar Society—who’d caught Jen teary-eyed mid-prayer. Joyce delivered the news and a request for prayers to Janet Keller at that month’s Herrick Community Pride Association meeting, during which the salacious story was also overheard by Amy Brewer.

Amy walked into coffee that week carrying herself like a child in a Christmas pageant carries the baby Jesus. She gave up her usual seat in favor of the one next to Ruth Wetterling. “Ruth.” She paused. “I’m so sorry to hear about Annie. Please know I’ve been praying for the both of them,” she said.

“I’m sorry, what do you mean?” Ruth asked.

And thus Kathy Spracklin was awakened at 9:23 that Saturday morning by the call from her mother-in-law, Ruth’s shrill voice piercing her eardrum through the tiny smartphone speaker: “My God, what has Annie done?” ***

Annie knew what she’d done, and she knew what she’d done wrong was simply what she let happen to her.

A dark-haired boy named something like Mark or Adam cornered her at a party on campus one night towards the end of the semester. She was tired—she was so tired. She’d let him climb on top of her then stick himself inside her, tell her it was all good, baby. The entire time all she could think of was his left eyebrow, how it was positioned higher than the right one. Why is that? she wondered, stupidly, irresponsibly, as he did his part to put a baby inside her.

Annie sat, hunched over on her bedroom floor, sandwiching herself in between her bookshelf and TV stand. She wanted to contain 24 | Montage

herself, contain Herrick’s and her family’s masterfully executed shunnings of her. She hadn’t looked at her father in days; she was too afraid to face him. Her mother hadn’t yet said a word to her, just approached her that Saturday morning and handed her the phone, then watched and listened as Ruth told Annie she’d better be glad she couldn’t be locked up for this.

Annie knew then it would have been better to be known as the town harlot than a baby killer. She pulled up her shirt and inspected the pale, stretch-marked skin on her belly. Everything below her neck ached, but her stomach felt ablaze. She’d never known pain like it. It was specific, piercing. It too said: I know what you did.

She found out she was pregnant the way one finds out they have a stomach virus—violent vomiting and distracting, dizzying sickness, as if her body was rejecting what was growing inside her, attempting to expel something that would hinder her wellbeing. The pregnancy test cost ten dollars and weighed a thousand pounds. When she saw the little pink plus sign, she exploded. She looked at herself in the mirror and screamed like twelve-year-old in her first real fight—scrappy and blood-thirsty.

You stupid fucking bitch. You whore. You’re so stupid. So fucking stupid. Look what you’ve done. What have you done?

There was a small patch of skin on her stomach, just below her belly button, from which she’d meticulously plucked individual hairs, using her tweezers to dig underneath her skin until the strands were visible and able to be removed. It was a nasty habit, cutting her body apart until it bled and scabbed over, then doing it all over again when the little black hairs grew back. But she couldn’t stop digging. She dug and dug like the frat boy thrusting inside her, trying to find whatever it was she was keeping from him, and the doctor, reaching even deeper inside her to undo what the first man set in motion.

When she came back for break after finishing her finals, almost everyone in Herrick knew that Annie Spracklen had done something worth talking about. Eyes followed her as she dragged her suitcases up her front porch steps and as she pumped gas in her car. They wanted to discover something no one else knew, and so they watched her, constantly, as if waiting for the sheriff to show up and arrest her this very second. One girl who’d sat across from her in home economics sophomore year messaged her on Facebook asking her when her baby was due. Annie deleted her account.

She had no desire to talk to anyone from high school, anyway.

She longed for the students and academics at her university, for people who had better things to worry about than what was going on inside her uterus—for people who knew it was none of their business. The girl with the nose ring who’d led her sexual assault prevention course freshman year, or her humanities professor. They would understand.

25 | Montage

She mostly missed Emily, her best friend from school who’d driven her to and from the clinic, but Emily had already left for her summer study abroad trip in Belize. Emily was in Belize, and Annie was trapped in the corner of her childhood bedroom. Life wasn’t fair for anyone, she thought.

There was a knock at the door. Annie pulled down her shirt and wrapped her arms around her legs, nestling her head in between her knees. It was her mother, she knew from the quiet, timid knock. She peeked at the door and waited.

Kathy came in holding a water bottle and a small tupperware container. “Have you been eating?” she asked after a moment of purposeful silence on both parts.

Annie kept her head down. She thought it a waste of time to answer a question they both knew the answer to.

“Leftovers,” Kathy said, finally, nodding her head to the container. She set the tupperware and the water bottle on Annie’s night stand then wiped her hands down her shirt and rested them on her hips, as if preparing to say something monumental. She breathed in slowly, then released it all at once. “You know, camping out in here and hiding from everyone isn’t doing any one of us any good,” she said. “You’re just making things worse for yourself. And for the rest of us too.”

“For you?” Annie asked.

“Well, yes, for me. And your father, and your grandmother. It’s upsetting that you’re not able to see this from our point of view.”

Annie wondered why she needed to see from any other point of view but her own. “I don’t understand what you want me to do,” she said.

“Really, Annie? I think you owe us an explanation at the very least. I’d appreciate an apology too.”

“What do I have to apologize for?” Annie dug her fingernails into her palms.

Kathy shifted her weight to her left side and closed her eyes for a moment. “For hiding something…” She waved her hands in the air like the words might sink from the ceiling. “Something like this from me.”

Annie was so angry she could cry; she shouldn’t have to apologize for her mother to understand. She brushed the hair out of her face then stood up to face her mother, who was sniffling softly.

“I’m sorry you’re too stupid to know what’s been going on,” Annie said. It tasted wrong but came out so easy. She braced herself for her mother’s response.

Kathy shook her head and laughed. “Motherhood is a blessing,” she said. “You rejected that. And you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

“I just regret coming back here,” Annie replied. It was wrong to say and it wasn’t entirely true, but part of Annie wanted to see her mother flinch, just this once.

26 | Montage

Kathy didn’t flinch. She stared at Annie silently for a minute, then turned towards the door. “I love you,” she said as she began to step out. She paused. “And I’m sorry that all of this happened.” The door shut quietly.

Annie couldn’t tell if her mother was sorry for something, or sorry about something, or maybe just lying about feeling sorry in general. She used to believe everything her mother said—that the tooth fairy carried Annie’s tiny teeth on her back and left her more money when she remembered to floss. That Kathy learned how to wrap presents so beautifully because she used to work at the North Pole. That, after Annie said her prayers at night, angels came to guard and protect her.

Annie still remembered the prayer she’d been taught as a child, the one she was told would remind her guardian angels to look out for her. She stood up and walked over to her bed. She still had the same sheets she’d had as a kid. They used to be bright yellow but had since been reduced to a faded, almost tan color. She always meant to buy new ones but she kept forgetting. The sheets didn’t bother her anymore.

Every night as a kid she would kneel down at the foot of her bed and rest her elbows on a fuzzy pink throw pillow. She’d fold her little hands and recite it with her mother. Annie knelt down and whispered to herself.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Bless the bed that I lie on.

Four corners to my bed, Four angels round my head; One to watch and one to pray And two to bear my soul away.

She reached out and gently patted each corner of her bed, blessing it just as her mother had when she was a kid.

It was not yet 6:00 pm but Annie tucked herself underneath her comforter regardless. As she did so, she wondered about the last line of the prayer. She hadn’t ever questioned it before, but it seemed awfully morbid to ask a child to pray for angels to watch and wait for her demise. Would those last two angels not intervene? Why not? To Annie, angels seemed pointless. ***

Annie woke a couple hours later to the sun gently setting. She hadn’t been outside in days and, if not for all the people she knew were out there ready to attack, she would be on one of her usual nightly runs.

This was her favorite part of the day, when it was no longer blisteringly hot and the cool air was easier to breathe. When kids rode their bicycles in the middle of the streets as grills were winding down, the smell of smoke and hamburgers still faintly in the air. It was stupidly idyllic, but 27 | Montage

Annie wanted nothing more than to have just a piece of it.

Her parents were on the back porch, probably listening to the Cubs game on her dad’s emergency weather radio. She figured they probably wouldn’t notice if she left. So Annie stuffed her feet into an old pair of slippers and snuck downstairs to the kitchen, where she quietly lifted her mother’s keychain off the key holder. She tiptoed into the living room and out the front door to where the car was parked in front of the house.

She had no plan, and no desire to be around other people, so she drove down the blacktop. She took the winding country roads, past soybean fields and pig farms. The radio station that was left on—WDKN’s 80’s, 90’s, and Now—was playing a Dixie Chicks song. It could have been nice if Annie had been able to think of anything else but the conversation with her mother.

She hadn’t told her mom, or anyone for that matter, but Annie had always wanted a little girl. She wanted to name her Jane. She imagined Jane with little pigtails, light freckles dotting her nose, and her same green eyes.

But sitting in her doctor’s office at the campus health center, Annie knew this wasn’t her Jane. Even after this she still couldn’t get herself to say the word. “An abortion,” she remembers whispering to Emily. Nothing about this had been easy, and yet she was expected to simplify and explain it for everyone. She didn’t even know how to describe it to herself.

She moved aimlessly down back roads for nearly an hour. As she circled back into town she drove through the Catholic Church cemetery, which had always terrified her as a kid. She parked her car outside the parish hall and sat in silence. It was there where Annie once rode her bike, all the way across town, to run away after her parents grounded her for not turning in her homework on time. She rode in circles on the smooth concrete until they found her a half hour later.

Her mom later taught her to drive in the same parking lot. She’d been so scared to drive initially that she couldn’t even put her foot on the gas; she just let the car roll around while she practiced turning the wheel. Her mother had lied to her, telling her it was normal to get behind the wheel a few times before you actually drove out of the parking lot.

Annie noticed the church lights were on. She wondered if anyone was inside. They kept it unlocked most days—her aunt played the organ at Mass and almost never needed the keys to get in to practice.

She couldn’t imagine anyone being there this late on a Thursday night.

Too bad, she thought, since it was so quiet and so isolated here on the edge of town—the perfect place to hide. No one would expect anyone to be here. Certainly not Annie.

She hopped out of her car and walked to the church. The main 28 | Montage

door was locked, but the one on the east side wasn’t. Once inside, Annie walked straight down the aisle like she did during her first Communion. There were almost no lights on. The church looked like a haunted house; Annie felt like someone might jump out and scare her.

Back behind the altar was a statue of Mary that Annie had fixated on when she was younger. She had porcelain white skin. Annie knew it wasn’t correct; Mary didn’t have white skin. She didn’t have dirty blonde hair and blue eyes, and she wasn’t this old, either. She was just a kid.

Annie walked up to the statue and rested her hand on Mary’s cheek. Then she formed her fingers into a claw and dragged them across the statue’s face until she felt little curls of paint gathering under her nails. There she was, slowly chipping away.

“What are you doing?” Annie froze. Her mother’s voice echoed throughout the church.

“How’d you know I was here?” She lifted her hand off Mary’s face.

“There aren’t that many places to look, Annie. And your car is in the parking lot.” Annie listened to her mother’s soft footsteps. She wouldn’t turn around. Her mother walked up the carpeted steps to the altar, then rested her hands on Annie’s shoulders. Her thumbs traced tiny circles on Annie’s back. “Do you have anything to say?”

“No.” Annie pouted.

Kathy let out a few hushed grumbles, like she wanted to say something else but decided not to. She sighed. “Okay. That’s okay. Will you at least look at me?”

Annie turned around.

“My girl,” Kathy said. She brushed the hair out of Annie’s face.

The two stared at each other for a few minutes, Kathy clearly waiting on a response and Annie determined not to break. Kathy wiped her hands on her shorts.

“When you were little, maybe two or three, I took you to a Holy Day Mass with your great grandmother. Right after the homily, you stood up on the pew and started singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’”

Kathy laughed. “I was petrified. I took you outside and yelled at you. You probably don’t remember, but you cried. So much. I felt horrible.” She shook her head.

Annie shifted her feet. She didn’t remember, but it felt familiar.

“I’m sorry about that, Annie.”

“Thank you.” Annie turned away. It was late; there was no light streaming through the stained glass windows. There were fourteen of them, altogether representing the Stations of the Cross. Annie thought there was something alarming about windows without light.

“I’m going home now. Are you coming with me?”

Annie knew there was a difference between a venial sin and a 29| Montage

mortal sin, but she couldn’t remember which one was worse. She did know that they were both unforgivable. “No,” she said.

Kathy nodded. She closed her eyes for a moment, then walked back down the aisle.

After Kathy left, Annie walked the stairs up to the choir loft.

She sat at the organ bench, facing the altar. Up there she felt the air shift. That was what it meant to be an angel—looking down on a world that was out of focus, the statues and hymnals so little and so pointless.

Why intervene? It didn’t look like anything deserved saving.

She looked at the image stained on the window directly across from her, above the tabernacle, above the altar, above Mary.

It was Christ, on his knees, the darkness overwhelming him.

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London through Monet through Williams through Me Julia Marsaglia

According to Monet when London awoke the scene was muted a conductor was streaking onward, and the wrinkled river below was quietly moving along like the locomotive it never suspended motion the city beyond unbothered but with itself waiting for the sun to peer through each window each action wholly impartial to the vibrance that it bolsters.

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Revival by Aishi Huang

32 | Montage

Brightside

Bobby Matzuka

I am the last living human being on the planet.

Of this, I am almost certain.

I have not spoken to another man or woman in what I can only guess is a full calendar year. The radio and television have both gone silent. The windows must remain sealed, and the doors must remain locked, so I can’t very well look at the world outside. I can imagine it though.

The silence must be stifling. It certainly is disturbing within the confines of my home, in which no voice other than my own has been heard for months. I imagine that the birds no longer chirp, that only the sound of the wind survives now. The wind and the leaves that it drags along the dead earth. I imagine that opening that door, the one that looms in the front of the house, the one that I’ve marked with “DO NOT OPEN,” would reveal little besides death. Death and a fleeting moment of immense sadness, of a crippling understanding of what has become.

It is hard to pinpoint what happened. I often wonder to myself as I try to sleep. What happened? It is so much more complex than that. The straw that broke the camel’s back sits atop an assortment of other straws that were there first. This being said, I dislike answering the question. Leaving it without an answer gives me some semblance of purpose, at least. Maybe I can, if anything, identify each of the dominoes that had to fall in order to collapse upon mankind.

Really, having to answer that question helps me to understand another question: why me? Why, of any of the billions of people, would William Thameson survive?

Maybe I didn’t. Maybe this is hell. Or maybe I did. And maybe this is life.

It doesn’t matter, as I look upon my wristwatch, one of few devices that still works. It is seven-thirty at night, which means that it is time for my meeting. I shuffle across my crowded living room, the one with the bookshelf I’ve read all the books from, and make my way to the bathroom. Just above the sink, he walks in at the same time that I do.

He, too, is William, but I have decided to call him Bill, so as not to cause more confusion than there has to be.

It works almost like a walky-talky. When I close my eyes, I may speak and Bill may listen. When I open, he speaks and I listen. Whenever we do it any other way, he interrupts me.

He greets me with the same smile that I offer to him. Fake. We are rarely happy to see each other.

I close my eyes tightly. I really don’t want to be interrupted this time.

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“Hello, Bill.”

I open. “Hello, William,” he answers. He looks sickly.

“I read the first chapter of Harry Potter today.”

“Again? Why would you do that?”

I smile in an attempt at countering Bill’s aggression. “Oh, you know. To pass the time,” I say.

He shakes his head at me. “No, no, no. You have plenty to read other than that.”

“Maybe. But I felt for some light-heartedness for today.” It was true. I always love the introduction of the series. It is so innocent. We know so little of the conflicts to ensue. We only know of a boy with powers that few others possess, and how he wrestles to know the responsibilities that come with these abilities. And I always laugh when I remember what it was like to first hear the word “muggle,” and to learn that such a silly word referred to me!

“William,” Bill calls, a familiar sternness in his voice. “You did not read it for fun.”

Yes I did. So I say, “Yes, I did.”

“No, you did not.”

I laugh, trying not to be nervous. Part of me wants him to get at what he’s getting at so we can get it over with. I humor him. “Why else would I read the first chapter of Harry Potter, Bill?”

“Because you’re thinking about Delilah. Sorcerer’s Stone was her favorite book, after all. You read it to her before she would fall asleep, remember?”

‘Delilah.’ Oh. The name makes me dizzy to even hear Bill say. I let it roll around on my tongue. It feels as though I get drunk every time I sound it out. Duh-Lie-Luh. Maybe I really will get drunk later, after this meeting is over.

“No, William. That’s not healthy for you and you know it.”

I hate it when he reads my mind like that.

I want to get back to the subject. “So what if I read it because of her?” I ask. “What is the harm in that?”

“She is gone. Her memory can only hurt us. We have to move on.”

I shut my eyes tight. “We all grieve differently, okay? This is how I show grief. I remember her. I think she deserves that.”

“No, she deserves to be with her father.”

I’m grinding my teeth after hearing him say that. “You know that isn’t possible!” I yell, so frustrated that I leave my eyes open. We are interrupting each other now. I take a deep breath and close them softly.

I count down in my head. Three...two...one.

“You know that isn’t possible.” I repeat, quieter this time.

I open my eyes again. It seems that Bill has calmed down some too. “No, I don’t know that that isn’t possible,” he says calmly. “And nei34 | Montage

ther do you. No one knows, William. No one knows where they go, what becomes of them.”

“Well listen here,” I say, my eyes still closed but my index finger poking out of my fist to point at Bill. “You could throw that ‘no one’ bullshit right out the fucking window, okay? There’s just me now. You, and me. Alright? So you can save your speech about ‘no one.’”

I’m annoyed with how calm he still looks when I open my eyes again. “Now you’re just getting angry over nothing. Just to distract yourself from the matter at hand.” I want to punch him, but I let him continue. He shrugs his shoulders. “Why don’t you just end this misery?” he asks. “Why do you feel the need to perpetuate this meaningless husk of a thing that you call a life?”

I close my eyes and run my hands through my hair, hoping to not get so angry as to rip it off of my head. “It’s the principle of the thing, Bill! It’s the responsible thing to do, to try to hold on.”

“For what? What are you holding on for?”

I thought about it for a minute. “I’m going to feel real fucking stupid when, in my dying milliseconds after I pull the trigger, I hear a voice come over that radio.”

That ought to shut him up.

“And suppose that happens,” he says. “Suppose you miss that transmission from the second-to-last man or woman in the world. Then what?”

He didn’t give me enough time to answer before he started talking again. “Then,” he said, “that person will inherit the miserable status that you are grasping so desperately at, and you, meanwhile, will be back with Delilah.”

I slam my fist on the sink. The porcelain rattles. My voice shakes, even though I don’t want it to. “Don’t make promises that you can’t keep, Bill,” I warn.

I see now that his eyes are red, and a few tears roll down from their corners. Maybe I got him now. Maybe he’ll relent.

No such luck. “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?” he asks me, his voice cracking a bit. “Even hell would be better than this.” He gestures at the bathroom, and I look where he points, made more miserable by the white walls and the baby blue shower curtain that has remained unchanged, since even before Delilah died.

“I have to go,” I tell him. “But I’ll be right back.”

“Have mercy, William!” he shouts as we both walk out of the bathroom.

I sit on the couch and hold my head in my hands.

After a few minutes, I get her picture from the kitchen drawer.

A while back, Bill told me to hide my pictures of her. He told me that they hurt too much to look at. I listened for a while, but then I started to forget what she looked like, and that made me sad. So I hid just one 35 | Montage

picture of her that I can look at sometimes. This is one of those times.

I pull it out and sigh as I look upon her once more. I always get a little frustrated with the photo, though. It could never capture the innocence in those chocolate brown eyes. Nor the way her brown hair might look gold in the summer sun as she played and developed freckles on her cheeks for every day she spent outside. It captures her smile, but not correctly. That girl smiled loudly, and no camera could quite pick that up. The picture isn’t good enough, but it is something.

And it always makes me think of that one song. The one that goes “Hey there, Delilah, what’s it like in New York City?” Those lyrics always ring through my head when I look at the picture. What’s it like?

That was the one bit of envy I drew from her after all was said and done and she had lost her battle. At least she’ll know soon, I remember thinking.

My eyes dart to the gun on top of the cabinet. Maybe I’ll know soon too. Maybe I’ll finally find out what happens next.

I should probably consult Bill one more time before I make any rash decisions. I walk towards the bathroom, remember that the picture is still in my hand, and retreat. I hope Bill didn’t see. I put it away in the kitchen drawer, take a deep breath, and re-enter the bathroom.

For a minute, we just look at each other. We both run some water from the sink and splash it on our faces. Maybe we are ready to talk now.

I close my eyes. “Now, Bill, before I go through with this, you have to give me some reassurance. So here’s what I’ll do. I’m going to give you my last bits of reasoning for holding on, and I want you to tell me why they shouldn’t stop me from ending it.”

He doesn’t answer, so I keep going. “Okay,” I say, “here it goes.

Delilah used to tell me the loveliest little piece of advice when I was feeling down. That girl, she’d see the sadness in my eyes so well. I tried to hide it for her sake, I really did, but she always saw right through me… down to her last day. She used to tell me ‘something mildly wonderful happens to us every day.’ And I believe her. And that’s a reason to live. To see those wonders, mild or otherwise, happen every day. Why shouldn’t I believe her, Bill?”

From the moment I open my eyes, I can tell that he has an answer. “Of course she was right, William. She was right all the time. Now, what thing happened to you today that was mildly wonderful?”

I close my eyes and think hard. He starts speaking before I even open my eyes. He’s not supposed to do that. “Can’t think of anything, can you?” he asks, rhetorically. “Do you know why?”

“Why?” I ask with my eyes open now, since the rules are apparently meaningless.

“Because it hasn’t happened yet. Now I recall something else Delilah would say. She was so clever, I forget where she heard this one. But she 36 | Montage

would say ‘everything always ends well, and if it doesn’t, that means that it isn’t over yet.’ Do you remember that?”

I nod. Of course I remember that.

“Good. This is about to end, William. That is going to be your mildly wonderful moment for today. The moment in which it all ends.

And when it does end, it will end well. And if it does not end well, then you haven’t reached the true end of this journey. Simple as that.”

It all sounds so nice to me. He sounds like he’s right, and I agree with all that he’s saying. I can’t wait to see my daughter, and so I’m eager to go through with it. But it would be improper to leave Bill without as much as a goodbye.

“Goodbye, Bill,” we both say at the same time, looking at each other. Strange that he’d call me that too. Strange that I’d talk to him with my eyes open. I lift the mirror in which he lives off the wall, and he helps me lift it from his side. Then I turn it around so that I no longer can see Bill, but only the brown backing of the mirror.

I practically skip my way to the cabinet on which the gun lies. I grab it, and it’s cold from sitting up there for all this time, unused. It’s dusty too. I contemplated cleaning it many times over the months, but the thought of holding the thing always frightened me. Until now. As I sit on the couch with it and try to decide which way to do this, I hear a knock at the door.

Ah yes, another ‘phantom knock,’ as I like to call them. I got that idea from ‘phantom limbs,’ which, according to my book on oddities of the human body, is where amputees would sometimes feel pain in their amputated limb as if the limb were still there. Me, I have phantom knocks, where it sounds like people are still out there even though they most certainly are not.

“Mister Thameson!” I hear, from the door (phantom voices sometimes come with the phantom knocks). “Mister Thameson, are you in there?”

For some reason, the phantom voice sparks something within me, and I suddenly can pinpoint almost exactly when the world ended.

Strangely enough, it was within mere minutes of the moment in which Delilah died. Funny.

I aim the gun at my head. I want to pull the trigger, but the phantom knocking is distracting, and it seems to be getting louder.

“Mister Thameson, please open the door!”

I stare blankly, my heart hollow and my hand pointing a gun at my head, at the door as it rattles along with each phantom knock. It isn’t supposed to do that.

37 | Montage

We Still Pretend It Didn’t Get to That PointAutumn Schraufnagel

you at the foot of my bed, a smiling nightmare with a pair of kitchen scissors, gripped tight and promising to cease chunks of my hair and whatever else you could easily cut, including us, a sister string.

I lent the hair, you spared the string.

It had been almost a year since the incident and I wouldn’t have said anything that night except we were sitting in your closet high again and laughing, eating gobs of raw cookie dough that reminded me of Christmas and how you always got to string the lights.

How I’d follow you around and around dragging and untangling the clump of glow.

It wasn’t that I wanted to tell you about the night in the abandoned house on Somonauk Street. I wanted to tell you that I lost your coat somewhere along the way.

That it was pitch black and pouring rain and I think his shoes must have damaged the carpet.

Think my toes were the coldest they had ever been, think I could finally understand why you hated him and the idea of shooting stars.

Really, I just wanted to tell you, just wanted you to drive us there so we could slip through the second story window, stand in the big dull emptiness and see how easily we filled it.

Dance as the passersby looked up and saw not you or me, just some distant glow decorating the bare rooms.

38 | Montage

Ten Months’ Sestina Natalie Sarris

I wrote this in the blue dusk while falling — while trying — to sleep. But your photos whispered soft words through the velvet dark and dreams kept me from sleep.

If we could just lie here awake — my love, if I could just have you — Instead, I thumb through our photos: our first dance, your eyes shut in sleep, your once-shaggy hair, drive-ins in the dark, the first weekend snow started falling and I could no longer hide my budding love.

Of course I kissed you.

Loving you is like sleep.

It’s easy to forget I’m falling, slipping into a soft, sweet love.

Tender things take shelter in the dark and develop like photos, film paper impressions of you.

Now ours is a long distance love, a romance realized through photos and affection-warmed whispers after dark.

Still, separation cuts; heartache denies sleep, and I can’t stop falling.

I’m fractured without you.

I miss you every day. I miss you in the dark, when the cold and empty keep me from sleep.

We could warm my lonely bed with our love, but you are distant; I keep you only in photos.

Honey, I’m heartsick, heart-desperate, falling for you, wishing I could fall into you.

My memory traces every yesterday in our photos; I imagine every tomorrow in my sleep.

The days between us keep falling like night rain, droplets disappearing into the dark.

Come here, let me show you love.

I want to give my everything to you.

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Before sleep threatens to surround; before the dreams and dark take me, give me a moment longer with our photos. Love, I want to keep falling into you.

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41 | Montage

Beauty in Simplicity by Favour Samuel

Due to Unforeseen Circumstances Sarah Nagel

ELLE is a quiet, hard-to-read seventeen-year-old girl wearing a burgundy beanie, flannel, jeans, and hiking boots. Very reserved, but not mean or bratty.

LAN is a kind, good-natured man in his late forties, also wearing camping clothes. Elle’s uncle.

ELLE and LAN are in the woods stargazing. ELLE is playing solitaire.

LAN: This is really nice. Nice and quiet—getting away for a little while.

Lord knows you and I could use it, what with the past months...(voice trails off, becomes sad) and...well, all that stuff. (Realizes it just turned sad and jokes to bring the mood up) And it’s not that cold either, it’s nice for October! But..I mean..., if you are cold, I’ve got blankets and extra socks in the car. (starts to get up) here, // I’ll get them for you— ELLE: // Oh, I’m not cold--but thank you.

LAN: Okie Dokie. (Beat. Awkwardly taps his fingers, then looks up and smiles enthusiastically) Look at that. Just look at that, we could not have asked for a clearer night. (Beat. He looks at ELLE, who is focused on her cards. She is unresponsive). I mean just look at all those constellations!

ELLE: (glances up and smiles softly) Pretty.

LAN: Yeah...(nods, waiting for her to continue). Yeah, it truly is. (smiles and glances at ELLE. He continues to nod slightly awkwardly) Very pretty. Yep. (Taps his legs and snaps out of awkwardness. Then he looks up again). Ope, there’s Orion. Man, it’s so clear. (Chuckles to himself) Although...I always thought that Orion was a big waist of space. (Chuckles again, waiting for ELLE to react.) Waist of space. Like, because Orion’s a belt. (Looks expectantly at ELLE).

ELLE: Oh. (Small laugh).

LAN: Yeah...(nods, waiting for her to continue). Yeah, it truly is. (smiles and glances at ELLE. He continues to nod slightly awkwardly) Very pretty. Yep. (Taps his legs and snaps out of awkwardness. Then he looks up again). Ope, there’s Orion. Man, it’s so clear. (Chuckles to himself) Although...I always thought that Orion was a big waist of space. (Chuckles again, waiting for ELLE to react.)Waist of space. Like, because Orion’s a belt. (Looks expectantly at ELLE).

42 | Montage

ELLE: Oh. (Small laugh).

LAN: I get it, I get it. Just a corny old uncle joke...I’d say three stars at best. (Looks at ELLE for a reaction, but she doesn’t react.) (Remembers a story and chuckles fondly). I...uh (still chuckling slightly) remember back when I was in the military we would be in a desert and you could see so many stars out there. The commanding officer there was this stone-faced fellow, real tough, and one night we had went outside and were looking at the stars and he told that joke with a dead straight face and went right on with his business. (chuckles to himself again) It was the funniest goddamn thing I’d ever heard at the time. (Chuckles to himself again. It should be funny in a sad way at the lack of reaction from ELLE, and how hard LAN is trying).

ELLE: (continues playing solitaire) Yeah.

Long, awkward beat. Lan keeps looking at Elle and tapping his legs.

LAN: How’s your game?

ELLE: I still need...(looks over her cards)...the ace of spades.

LAN: Ah. Are you sure it didn’t fall somewhere?

ELLE: (Shrugs) I’m sure it’ll turn up. I’ve never lost a game of solitaire.

LAN: That’s...well, that’s sure something! (smiles at her) Do you play often?

ELLE: Often enough.

LAN: Gotcha. Well...uh, yeah, well camping’s always a good excuse to play a good card game. You do like camping and the woods, right? I remember you mentioning doing restoration science club work here?

ELLE: Ecology club. And it was only me who went, I just did it under their name.

LAN: Just you...wow, that’s (about to say “sad” but realizes how that would sound to ELLE, so changes track)...impressive. (Probing.) None of your classmates wanted to come?

ELLE: I didn’t tell them I was coming.

LAN: (Half-joking, trying to make it light to get ELLE to talk). Wouldn’t that take longer to do it by yourself? It’s a big forest.

43 | Montage

ELLE: I like to be alone.

LAN: (Long beat.) You know...you can always talk to me, right?

ELLE: Yeah.

LAN: (Deep breath, calm and kind. Doesn’t want to put ELLE on the defense). Elle, I’m worried about you.

ELLE: (Not unkindly) Don’t. I’m fine. (flips over another card.) I still can’t find that ace.

LAN: Elle, I know these last months have been hard, but even before that, you’re...isolated. I’ve never seen you with any friends, you spend all your time locked away in your room or off doing restoration work—and that’s not a bad thing, it’s a great way to spend your time—but you’re always...alone.

ELLE: (Resigned. Doesn’t want LAN to feel sorry for her.) I just don’t have friends. And Aaron moved to Alaska.

LAN: (Slightly confused) Yeah, I know that must’ve been hard for you. But I never thought...were you and Aaron close before he moved?

ELLE: (Face darkens, but voice is casual). Not really, but he’s my brother.

He’s at least someone.

LAN: Elle, (more forceful) what’s going on?

ELLE: (Calm). Nothing is going on. I’m a teenager, I’m just going through a phase. (flips over a card and makes a sigh of irritation, then mutters to herself) Another two.

LAN: No, this has been going on as long as I’ve known you. It’s concerning to me, and...(reluctant to bring it up, but feels like this is the only way he can get through to her)...I haven’t brought this up, but it really concerned your mother too. About a week before she passed, she was talking about how she wanted to connect with you when the new school year started. She wanted to know what was going on because you never talked to us. She loved you. She loved us so much. (Beat. No reaction or response from ELLE). And what...what pains me the most is that she told me that she was starting to get through to you. Talking to you, I mean.

She said you were talking to her, and she said she had a good feeling about her relationship with you.

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ELLE: (Bitter and resigned) And then she died. Just like Dad. LAN: I know you’ve...been through a lot. And your mother’s death...

And it was just...God, it was horrible. It’s was horrible for me too. I feel it too, Elle. You aren’t alone. Whatever is going on, please talk to me.

Your mother cared so much about you, and even though I’m not your blood relative as far as I’m concerned, Elle, you’re my family. You and my sister were all I had, and now...you’re all I have left too. You need to tell me what it is you’re feeling. You’ve barely talked since she died, and you didn’t even go to the funeral. And I’m not mad about that, that’s not what I...I’m just worried about you because I don’t know what you’re going through.

ELLE: (Showing emotion for the first time) You can’t understand. No one can understand.

LAN: What does it even matter whether or not I understand? Just tell me. You’ll feel better if you talk about it. You can trust me.

ELLE: That’s not...I don’t mean you couldn’t understand, I mean you can’t. I can’t tell you.

LAN: Did someone hurt you?

ELLE: No! See, that’s why we shouldn’t talk about this. You’ll get the wrong idea.

LAN: The wrong idea of what?

ELLE: (Exasperated, tries to take control of conversation) Just so you don’t, like, call a social worker, I am being truthful when I say that this problem is mine. No one else’s. This only involves me. I’m not being bullied, never have. That’s not what this is.

LAN: You’re scaring me, Elle. We’re in the middle of the woods at night, no one is around to overhear and I have no one to tell. I promise I can help you, I care about you, and whatever this problem is, you can tell me and we’ll work through it. I don’t care what it takes.

ELLE: (After a long beat.) When I was five, I had a friend named Holly.

We had a recital to put on in front of the school, and I told her how scared I was to do it. I told her how I felt, I let her in, and three days later she tripped on the playground, hit her head, and died. I had a feeling that it was my fault, somehow it was // my fault— 45 | Montage

LAN: How could you // possibly think— ELLE: I could feel it, I just knew. I didn’t tell anyone for a long time, but a year later I told my dad because the guilt was eating me alive. The next day he was hit by a car. He died not even twenty-four// hours later.

LAN: Elle, accidents // happen— ELLE: (raising her voice, now trying to convince LAN, wants him to understand) In middle school, they called me down to see a school psychologist and he just kept asking about my dad, he kept pushing it, so I told him I thought it was my fault that they both died. A week later, the light fixture in his office fell on top of him and he died on the spot.

(Speaking faster, not wanting to give LAN a chance to interrupt. She needs to be heard). When I was a freshman, I became good friends with this girl named Anna, she got it out of me, and two days later, her dad got a call that his job was relocated to some rural town in Texas. She moved the next day and // I never heard from her again-- LAN: But that’s not your // fault-ELLE: Last year, I told Aaron. Six days later he got a job offer in Alaska.

(Long beat.) And then...mom. She talked to me and...I told her too. And she had a heart attack. A heart attack. She was a healthy, forty-eight year old and she had a heart attack. (Long beat. LAN stares at her in shock.

ELLE delivers these next lines staring at the fire, bitterly, with a low soft voice, letting these words cut). And the worst part is that every time, I think that maybe this time will be different. Maybe this time they won’t die or leave but they do. Every. Single. Time. (Beat).

LAN’s cell phone rings. It rings through the silence four times before LAN answers.

LAN: Landon Briggs. (Beat). I’m still on leave—(beat) three months ago.

(Beat). Oh. (Beat). I thought Wilcross was the on-call officer. (Beat) This Tuesday? (Short beat). No, it’s not a problem. (Beat.) 0600 hours, understood. (Hangs up phone, looks at ELLE.) Due to ...unforeseen circumstances, they need an officer to lead a group of men for a few months.

(More to himself than to ELLE): It should only be a few months...(voice trails off).

ELLE: (Long beat.) I’m...it was nice knowing you, Lan. You’re a really good person. I’m...really sorry.

A gust of wind blows the ace of spades at ELLE. She picks it up and places it down on her card game.

46 | Montage

47 | Montage

Tiger in the Dream by Aishi Huang

To Cross Oceans

Autumn Schraufnagel It never made sense To grasp water With anything like hands, Still we tried Wading out As if we could reach the end Of the ocean Equipped with an instant Leaving our heads To sunbake, Willing our bodies to Crest onto, Roll into, blue Into green Foam that cleaved For a moment To our fingers, static Glaze of the sea We waited cold and capsized Until blood called us Back to the room, Dead bodies surfacing Like they ought to Someday I’ll sail out, Find you on another bend On a different horizon With a sun like a low, ripe orange Tides away from the mercurial moon, We’d nudge the shore, soft As a radiator hum, careful Not to wake the sea Maybe there, maybe then, Across an ocean, We could meet.

48 | Montage

Winter Picturesque Ayse Pirge

A stream of silver Penetrates the woods Caressing oaks blanched and erect The cliffs stand In veils misty and pale By towers of glass Glistening yet concealed Beneath the flakes Swiveling in the air Such blows the wind Briskly upon the bushes Dusted with snow Yielding patterns to and fro A subtle halo Glows majestically Incessantly in harmony

49 | Montage

Emphasis on Loved Megan Resurreccion

“A vanilla latte for me, and a caramel macchiato for my caramel macchiato.”

“Is that supposed to be a cute brown joke?”

“Maybe.”

That was the bit I heard today from Honey and Sweet Pea. That’s what they called each other. When I got on at Lincoln and Tenth, Sweet Pea was already in his usual spot. Honey always boarded at Jefferson and Tenth, and sat next to Sweet Pea, bringing him a medium Starbucks drink every day in addition to his own coffee.

They didn’t know me. I didn’t know them. I just sat behind them. Every day. My headphones were always blasting music. When I got on the bus, I immediately turned down the volume. I used to not do it, I swear. It hadn’t occurred to me they were gay until Honey gave Sweet Pea a quick peck on the cheek one day. The tiny bit of homophobia left in me poked at my brain, telling me that something was off, even though I knew that nothing at all was wrong. Still, I couldn’t help but listen. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. It was like a morning ritual.

What I gathered from being the person who sat behind them on the 8:16 am bus was that they were NYU alumni thanks to the logo on the back of Honey’s Saturdays-only sweatshirt. They obviously somehow had the money to afford two Starbucks coffees every single day even though they were post-graduation college students who probably had tubs of debt to pay off. They both typically matched in sweater vests, trousers, and loafers. Other times it was something on the more snazzy side: plain bowties and vividly patterned suits, combed hair and pocket squares, most-likely-knock off Rolex watches and a pair of circular glasses for Sweet Pea.

And of course, there was a certain silver band on Sweet Pea’s ring finger, too.

“So what’d you think of the cake design I sent you, Sweet Pea?” Honey said one morning, handing him a fresh cup of coffee. I saw the steam rising from the drinking hole in the lid, and Sweet Pea gently blew some of it away.

“I like them. The different rose sizes are nice,” Sweet Pea said, then he sighed. “But I told you, I’m not sure a bunch of flowers on a cake will help my parents feel better about them attending a gay wedding. As much as that shouldn’t matter. Sorry, Hun.”

I was almost sad I couldn’t be invited to their wedding. They had been discussing their wedding plans for a while. I was sure that the cake was going to be delicious regardless of the design.

“I think a simple white cake will be good. It’ll all taste the same,” Sweet Pea seemed to reason. “We’ll still have the two groom 50 | Montage

figurines.”

Honey shrugged. “It’s just not the same, you know? It’s our wedding, a one-time thing!”

Sweet Pea put his arm around Honey, squeezing his arm and pulling him closer so that their heads touched. “I know. We can talk more later. We’re almost at our stop.” He planted a kiss on Honey’s forehead and whispered something in his ear that I couldn’t overhear.

At Marian and Red, they rose from their seats, hopped off the bus, and headed towards wherever it was they went.

I always got off at the next stop. I’d turn the music volume back up and head my own way. I’d wondered where it was they went. But frankly, they had their life, and, well, I had my own, too. ***

For the next week, neither Honey nor Sweet Pea talked about the wedding. Same seats and same cups of lattes and macchiatos and same bits of conversation were caught each day. They appeared to be the outgoing types, never staying at their homes for too long.

“We seeing that movie after work?”

“When are we driving up to Eli’s place again? We definitely should bring Max this time instead of finding another disastrous dog sitter.”

“I think I’m feeling Thai for lunch.”

“There’s a new mini golf place opening up a couple of towns over. Can we please go?”

Even when it was somewhat uninteresting conversation or small talk, my music was off. There was something about them I couldn’t ignore. Was this some weird sign from a higher being telling me this was what I wanted too? That I finally desired a life-long partner instead of the roommate I just broke up with? Maybe I needed a new best friend– or even just friend–I could converse with about the newest nostalgic arcade down the block from my apartment? Did I maybe instead want to plan their wedding so I could tell them that they should definitely get the roses on their cake and tell Sweet Pea’s parents to fuck off if they had trouble attending a gay wedding because I always had trouble with letting my family push aside my own beliefs and feelings? Perhaps I was also gay or bisexual or pansexual or whatever-fucking-sexual and that I was about to board the “Coming Out Train” on a “Journey of Realization and Acceptance?”

Sometimes there was a lot of reflection and existential thought on those kinds of days.

Regardless, they were cute. They were loving. They were genuine. They were this single sweet-loving, rom-com-like, pride-having, batch of sugar cookies and chocolate roses of a couple that was like every adorable couple’s love in the world was wrapped and stitched in between this couple’s hearts. Grotesquely adorable, but also so pure 51 | Montage

and doting.

***

There were occasional days of silence as well. Even then, I sat in silence with them.

Honey brought the coffees on the bus, handed one to Sweet Pea along with a quick kiss on the cheek, and sat in silence, fingers intertwined with each other’s. I’d wait for one of them to say something, but nothing. Sometimes, Honey, being a little shorter in their seats, rested his head on Sweet Pea’s shoulder, and Sweet Pea did that thing where he’d rest his head on top of Honey’s. I guess I could have said that that was sweet of Sweet Pea.

Whenever they got off the bus on silent days, they were still hand in hand, never caring about the random stare they got from some other man on the bus. Sometimes it was even the bus driver. They never looked back, never stared at anyone else other than each other, never even turned around to see that there was someone who was rooting for them, even if that someone wanted to give them something off their wedding registry and never ever could. ***

There was a day when neither of them showed up. Honestly, I didn’t blame them. The weather was nightmarish. It was the middle of March and I didn’t blame them if they both decided to call in sick to their jobs or canceled whatever plans they had to avoid stepping out into an arctic landscape where people slipped on icy sidewalks and got their lips frozen off if they didn’t own the protective gear they needed from the heinous wind chill.

I was jealous. They were probably snuggled up in one of their cozy apartments, body heat keeping them warm and preventing each other from getting out of bed to make breakfast or get dressed. Even in my imagination, they were all loving and adoring, but as soon as I thought of it, I shut it down as soon as the thought of two strangers canoodling in bed struck me as stalker-like and creepy. ***

Something must have had happened on their supposed day off together.

I was confused when I got on the bus and Sweet Pea wasn’t there. Some other stranger had taken Sweet Pea’s place. I was still in my usual spot, but they were not. I thought maybe something came up, maybe they were taking another day off, but then they both boarded at Honey’s stop.

The bus was a little full that day, so they both stood, holding onto separate grab handles. The pair stood next to each other, hands not intertwined.

I couldn’t hear them. I wasn’t close enough to listen. They talked without glancing at one another, almost as if they were speaking to 52 | Montage

themselves, to a wall, to a mirror, to the stranger standing across from them. No coffee either that day.

There was some annoying chatter going on behind me. I couldn’t care less about that. ***

Honey and Sweet Pea boarded the bus together again the next day, but it didn’t look like it was fully intentional. It was a Saturday, and they were both in their Saturdays-only sweatshirts and sweatpants.

“I told you to stop following me, Mike,” I heard Sweet Pea say.

Sweet Pea yawned. Honey nudged him with a Starbucks cup in his hand. “I know you’re tired, Sweet Pea, so just take the damn coffee.”

“Don’t call me that anymore,” Sweet Pea said, still taking the macchiato from Honey.

“What?”

“Mike, come on, you know my name.”

“You really prefer Xander? You loved my nickname for you.”

“Exactly! Emphasis on loved.” Sweet Pea blew on the lid of the cup and took a sip.

“You’re getting off track,” Honey said with gritted teeth. “This isn’t how it goes. We should just go back to my place or your place, whatever, and have a mature, adult conversation about everything. It can work out.”

“No,” Sweet Pea broke eye contact. He looked out the window.

“You can’t just walk away from everything.”

“It’s been decided.”

“No, it hasn’t, it really hasn’t and you know it and I know it.”

Their conversation was interrupted as the bus jolted to a stop, its doors opening, gesturing for people to board on and off.

Honey continued to gaze at Sweet Pea as Sweet Pea still stared out the window, refusing to look back. But Honey got up and hopped off the bus, which wasn’t either of their usual stops. Sweet Pea never looked back.

I never knew why they ended it. And I knew it, if not for the missing ring on Sweet Pea’s finger, then for the end of the 8:16 am bus morning rituals with coffees and hellos and kisses on cheeks and arms around each other and talks of what their afternoon and evening and weekend and date night plans were.

Sometimes I wished I could find them: Mike and Xander. I could’ve played matchmaker, the stranger on the bus who would have saved it all and thanks to their great listening skills, would have been able to get them to sit at a table in a Starbucks café with their usual coffee orders and talk about their problems, and after that the stranger would have gotten invited to the wedding, where Xander’s parents didn’t care they were gay, and the stranger would have gotten to eat the delicious cake with the flowers and the two groom figurines on top, 53 | Montage

then gifted them with the most expensive item that was on the registry as just an extra token of gratefulness.

But I did not belong. This was their place and not mine. I was just that stranger who sat behind them every day, who had no place, who secretly observed and listened, who could not stop the inevitable. I started to listen to my music on full blast again, never turning it down.

I didn’t see Mike or Xander on the 8:16 am bus anymore–didn’t really care to, didn’t really care for the strangers who sat in front of me in silence, and didn’t really care to look back. ***

A few months later, I felt someone plop down next to me. Normally no one bothered to sit next to me even on busy days. But I looked over and saw a familiar face, never from this viewpoint before.

Mike was on his phone, earbuds plugged in, probably also with the music turned all the way up. He was scrolling through a playlist with a black background, picking out a new song.

I stared at him for only a few seconds, and never said a word.

54 | Montage

They Say the Grass is Greener on the Other Side

by Favour Samuel

55 | Montage

Acknowledgements Montage Arts Journal would like to thank all the authors and artists who submitted to the journal for our 2018-2019 edition. This edition of Montage would not be possible without you taking a chance with us. We would also like to thank the University of Ilinois Urbana-Champaign English Department and Creative Writing program for their support and help in advertising during submission periods. Thank you as well to our faculty advisor Janice Harrington for her support and help in securing a future for this journal.

Thank you to all our wonderful editors who helped make this edition the best it could be and for your dedication throughout this year. And last but not least, thank you to the person reading this right now. Without out our readers, this publication would be worthless. We hope you enjoyed the pieces as much as we did and that you’ll return next spring for the next volume.

If you enjoyed this volume of Montage and would like information on how to submit for our next volume or information on how you could get involved in the creation process, please contact us at montagejournal@gmail.com