Synthetic Symphony (India Ink, (14" x 11") —Samuel Stone ‘21
Contents Souls Herding Cattle Sunset The Nature of Time Finn Shake Your Lonely Spanish Steps Three Friends
4 7 11 12 12 13 14 15
The Lost Skier Pipe Dream Freiheit Fit for Travel Behind Seeing Pretty and Pink Pok-ta-Tok Blossom Hue Cyberspace Blues Smile
16 18 19 20 21 23 24 24 26 29
Ryan Hubley Andrew Zimmerman Dante Militello Jonathan Sargent Emmanuel Martinez Noel Frazier Kevin English Maximiliano Gutierrez Eric Schmidt Samuel Stone Michael Rose Tim Flannery Robert Santiago Matt Price Ricardo Hidalgo Ryan Newell Stephen Schulte Maximiliano Gutierrez
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Andrew Schubert
33 35 38 38 40
Noel Frazier Moises Mora Vincent Langoehr David Helledy Ian Reynolds
45 46 47 48 50 52 53 55 56 58 59
Isaac Cephus Kevin English Sergio Jara-Reynoso Jack DuBois Richard Becker Thomas Woodward Christian Visaya Elliot Roe Joseph Tierney Felipe Muzquiz Sergio Jara-Reynoso
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Her Pao Lee Osvaldo Sanchez-Arellano Andrew Cafaro Moises Mora
Twilight's Last Gleaming Spring Has Sprung Goat Longing Rise Asteroids: A Space Opera Grey Wolf Progress Exit Ruttin' Bucks Summer, 1871 You Can Call Me Al The Rain Hawk My Mistake(s) The Daily Pair Generation with No Peace The Buddha Angel Blue Veil Texture
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Wasn't Built in a Day (India Ink, 10" x 4") —Samuel Stone ‘21
Souls “Hey. Hey buddy.” The voice was unclear at first and my vision hazy. “Connor? Connor Matthews, that you?” A blinding light was radiating from his midsection. “Do I have the right soul here?” “Soul? Wha - Who are you? What are you talking about?” “Oh for Pete’s sake,” the figure replied, “Did they forget to fill you in during your ascension?” The figure placed his hands on my forehead, and everything from my life flooded back into my mind. Yes, my name was Connor Matthews, and I was killed in a car accident on January 14, 2018. “Yeah, I know, it’s a lot to take in at first but you’ll come to terms with it in a minute or so, everyone does,” said the figure. “First off, Connor,” he continued, “You’re allowed to keep one material possession you had on you at the time of your death.” “Okay,” I stammered, “anything I had on me?” “Yes, yes. Anything you had on your person, c’mon now. Sorry if I’m rushing you through all this, it’s not really my job. Your guardian angel must have fallen asleep on duty.” “Alright, I think I had a necklace with a moon on the end of it, and a little heart hanging off the side.” “Perfect, that will be with you when we’re done here, just make sure you stay in contact with it or it will materialize back into Earth matter and you won’t be able to bring it with you when your time is up down there. Now that that is all taken care of, congratulations, Connor Matthews. You made the cut, but before we can let you through the gates you’ve got a couple options. Six months repenting in Purgatory, or a year roaming around back on Earth as a spirit. “Ah,” I was dumbfounded. “What’s Purgatory like?” “Well it’s not designed for fun. Lots of silence and reflection, usually the younger ones like yourself, can’t stand it there. Ugh-they should have gone over this with you on your way up.” “Um, okay. I guess I’ll go be a spirit,” I said, without understanding what that meant.
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Hubley “Wonderful, I’ll start you off in front of your former house. First, you should know: Yes, there are other spirits; No, they’re not all friendly; Yes, you can morph through walls; Yes, you can manipulate Earthly objects, but it will be difficult at first. I think you’ll figure out the rest on your own. You’ll arrive on Earth two weeks after your death.” He seemed rushed. “Oh, one more thing, if you see a little red guy with horns running around, don’t acknowledge him. He’ll try to get you to sign a contract with promises of eternal glory. Don’t do it, it’s a scam. “Um, okay, I think I -” “I’m sorry, I have a lot of souls to get through today. I’m sure you’ll be fine down there. I read your file, you were an independent kid, always eager to be out on your own.” “Yeah I guess, but -” “Good luck, Connor!” And all of a sudden I was back on Earth. Must’ve been a lot of souls that needed sorting that Saturday. 1394 Riverside Road. The large brick house looked about the same as when I pulled out of the driveway that Saturday. Upon reaching the front door, I saw the red ribbon pinned into the wood. There’s a different colored ribbon for every kind of tragedy, it seems, red must be teen driver awareness or something like that. Regardless, I pressed myself into the door and began to slip through. Morphing yourself through walls isn’t the most pleasant experience. Think of trying to squeeze a cube of Jello through a tiny tennis racket - that’s the best way I can describe it. Dogs must have some special gift with recognizing a spirit’s presence. We had, or they still have, I guess, a Husky-Shepherd mix named Shiloh. He was laying on his doggy bed in the living room having a snooze, but as soon as I came through the door his head shot up. From what I could tell so far, anything I said was inaudible to humans, but for dogs it was different. I leaned over in front of him and said in that dopey voice we use so often when talking to pets, “Shiloooo! How’s my big puppy doing?” His ears twitched at every inflection, and his tail wagged. His eyes could follow me for a moment before disconnecting. I wondered if he realized that I had not been there for a while. I’d like to think he missed me. Voices sounded from the kitchen. It’s weird, when you’re dead you get this keen insight whenever someone is talking about you. It was my mom and my brother, Andrew, talking with my Aunt Carol and Uncle Jim. “So, do you think there’s enough grounds to file suit against the guy that hit him?” Jim asked. “Oh I don’t know. They did give him a urine test that night to see if there was
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Hubley anything impairing his system, and it came back clean,” my mom said. “It was snowing, too. His side of the story was when they came to the four-way stop, neither of them stopped in time and they skidded into each other.” What a load of crap. He T-boned me going at least thirty-five. “Connor always drove too fast. Who knows, maybe he never slowed down at all,” she said, crossing arms and looking up at the ceiling. Andrew glared at her. So did I. I got right up in her face and made some obscene gestures with some choice words thrown in. If only she could see me. Ever since high school started we never really got along well. After a few long seconds, Carol tried to break the tension, asking, “What was he doing out so late, anyways?” My mom and Andrew kept glaring at each other until she walked out of the room, straight through me, without offering a response. It’s a strange feeling to have someone pass through you, almost the same as morphing through a wall. Uncle Jim leaned over to Carol and said, “He was out with his girlfriend, I think he stayed later than usual because it was their anniversary or something.” At that I no longer wanted to be in the room either, I had been pushing that part of my death as far as I could towards the back of my mind. As a spirit, I knew I could never really speak or interact with her ever again, and that’s the only thing I hadn’t fully come to terms with. I squeezed my way up through the ceiling, and caught the beginning of my Aunt’s response. “Oh goodness, heavens,” she was such a soft old lady, “I hope she’s doing alright.” I had been thinking the same thing. I wanted to go check-up on her. I went into my bedroom, the door was cracked so I was able to heave it open enough to get myself in without splicing myself through it. Just how I left it. My pile of clothes was still sitting on my chair, and the smell of cologne permeated the room. I guess I forgot to put the cap back on; I was in a rush to get to Ashley’s house that night. I always was. I looked at the two little porcelain turtles sitting on top of my headboard. She gave those to me after a trip to South America. I think I named one of them. Sheldon. I picked him up off the headboard. Imagine trying to pick up a turtle no more than an inch wide that felt like it weighed ten pounds. He had a pair of glasses sloppily glued onto his head. I thought the name Sheldon was fitting for a nerdy looking turtle. “What the hell are you doing?” a familiar voice yelled from behind me. I jumped and dropped the little turtle as I spun around. “Uncle Bill?” I couldn’t believe it at first, a face I knew in the form of spirit. But I guess it made sense, he had died of lung cancer three years earlier. “You’re a spirit?” “Yes sir, just like you,” he said as he extended his hand for a firm shake and then followed up with a hug, “although I’m no doubt a little more advanced than you.”
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Herding Cattle (Painting, 8" x 10") —Andrew Zimmerman '22 7
Hubley “You died three years ago,” I said, “What are you still doing here?” “Well I did some things in my younger years that the big man wasn’t too proud of, and rightfully so. Once I heard about your accident I thought I might as well stop by your place, figured you’d turn up here soon enough.” “Just checking up on the family.” “Yeah, I’ll bet you’ll find yourself doing a lot of that. I check up on your Aunt Cindy a few times a week, make sure she’s okay.” “So you just stay around your house then? It must have taken forever to walk from your place to mine.” “God, no-oops, I’m not supposed to say that anymore, he’ll probably tack another week on just for that. But when you’ve been a spirit as long as me you’ll learn a few more pros that come with being dead. I can zap myself just about anywhere I want. “For real? That’s dope.” I thought about Ashley, she lived a good twenty-five minutes away by car. It’d take me at least a day to walk there. “You think you can help me out?” “Sure, whatta ya need, Connor?” “There’s someone I really want to go see, just to make sure she’s okay, but she lives another county away.” “Am I right in assuming that this ‘someone’ is that girl you were seeing for a while.” “Yeah. Wait, how do you know about her?” “Like I said, I keep tabs on the family. She seems really sweet from what I saw of her, got yourself a real fox,” he said with a chuckle and a rough pat on the shoulder. I smiled back at him and said, “Yeah I sure thought so, still think so.” “Alright, Connor, picture her place in your mind and grab on. Make sure that’s the only thing in your head.” “Okay, give me a sec,” I said as I picked up the little turtle and placed it gently into my pocket - Yes, ghosts have pockets. I thought of the long winding driveway that led up to her house, and the skinny tree with pink flowers in her front yard. Her mom told me the name of the tree once while I was attempting to make small talk, waiting for Ashley to finish getting ready to go out to eat at some fancy restaurant. Going out to a nice place was quite the occasion for us broke teenagers, so we tried to dress to the nines. I thought of her front porch, where we had been forced to pose in front of her parents and older siblings so they could take pictures and playfully poke fun at her. I took Bill’s arm and we whirled off in a hundred different directions for about a second, then, at an instant, everything stopped moving, and we were standing at the end of Ashley’s driveway.
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Hubley “Here were are,” said Bill. “Thank you,” I said. “I don’t want to keep you here all day so you think there’s any way I can learn how zap around like that?” “Eh, maybe. Just really focus on wherever you want to go, and be specific about it. You’ll feel some sensation after a while, just go with it and let it take you away. “You sound like a total stoner right now, Uncle Bill,” I chuckled. He laughed and said, “Yeah that’s probably part of the reason I’ve been down here for so long.” Then he gave a nod, closed his eyes, and whirled away. I got up to the front porch and pressed on the doorbell. By the time I realized that I had to consciously exert force to get the doorbell to ring, and remembered that I can’t just go up and ring doorbells anymore, the ‘Ding-Dong!’ told me it was too late. The door swung open and there she was, my classic high school sweetheart, peering straight through my face with a look of confusion. The flesh on our faces would have been touching if I still had any. She was wearing a necklace adorned with a small green heart, one that I had given her for her birthday a year earlier. I slipped through her and into the doorway, her dog, Cona, wagging her tail just behind Ashley’s legs, trying desperately to see what was going on outside. Cona reacted in a similar manner as Shiloh, following my movements for just a moment before losing track, then pricking up her ears and sniffing around, searching for a scent. I reached down to pet her like I always would, but as soon as my hand reached her fur she jumped back and stood alert. “What is your deal?” said Ashley as she closed the door tight and shooed the dog down the hall. Her mom was standing behind the kitchen counter cutting vegetables. “Who was that?” she asked. “No one. I told you the doorbell didn’t ring. Your ears must be failing you in your old age,” said Ashley, trying to keep a straight face. She always played around with her mom like that. They were close. Her mom never minded me hanging around their place every weekend, although I don’t think she’d appreciate my presence the same way anymore. She was easily spooked. They both were. She walked up the stairs and turned the corner into her room. I followed. She hadn’t gotten rid of the pictures of us she had spread out around her room. Some were silly, some were cute. There was one terribly awkward picture that my family had forced us into when we were crushing on each other as little freshmen. We both looked terrible, but it was our first picture together so she kept it. As I was looking around the room admiring all the keepsakes she still had of us, she walked through me and out the door. I figured she was using the bathroom so I stayed and kept trying to cherish the amazing time she spent with me.
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Hubley I felt like I needed to do something. Something to show her I was okay, that I wasn’t totally gone yet. But, I knew that just about anything moving on its own would terrify her and she probably wouldn’t set foot in that room for a week. On her desk was an envelope. This I recognized immediately because it had been sitting in my bedroom for almost a year, my parents must have found it and given it back to her after my accident. Inside was a letter Ashley had given me on Valentine’s Day. On the back side of the letter she had drawn a picture of us sitting on a bench, and looking up at the moon, with the phrase, “to the moon and back,” written ornately beneath it, a saying we always used. At that moment I remembered my keepsake, the moon necklace with a heart hanging off it. The bright figure who chauffeured me back down to Earth had me so frazzled I never even realized it was around my neck. Ashley gave it to me on our anniversary, a couple hours before the accident. Inspired by her gift, I grabbed the letter and put it on her bedside table. It’s a strange feeling to have a measly piece of paper feel like it weighs three pounds. I managed to lift one of her pencils and focused hard on drawing a neat heart underneath her drawing, with a thin dash followed by an uppercase C. It wasn’t perfect, but was still clearly recognizable. So long as she wasn’t scared out of her mind I thought she could make the connection. Then, I dug into my pocket and pulled out Sheldon the turtle, and as I was placing him in the middle of the heart, the door opened. While I was only holding the turtle a couple centimeters above the paper, that was still enough to emit a light tapping sound after letting go, and its feet weren’t perfectly even, so he wiggled on the paper a little bit after landing on it. To make matters worse, I accidently brushed the pencil off the table when I jerked away. Ashley stopped walking a couple feet in front of the door, then glanced around the room a couple times. Her eyes fixated on the night table, squinting at the letter and the little turtle. She approached slowly, and then standing over the table, lifted Sheldon. She studied him, and then looked around. She faced me long enough for me to notice the moisture around her eyelids. Then, her eyes went to the letter, and the C below the heart. She sat on the bed and rose one hand to cup it over her mouth. “Megan, if your messing with me I’m going to kill you,” she said, a bit choked up. Megan was her little sister. After a minute she buried her face in hands and sniffled, “Why did this happen to you? I don’t know if you can hear me or not, or if you're somewhere in the sky, or-or-I just. Maybe if I didn’t push my mom to let you stay later you’d still be here.” I wrapped my arms around her and kissed her on the cheek, but I knew she couldn’t feel any of it. I took off the necklace that she gave me, and put it around her neck. The moment I took my hand off it, it began to formulate back into Earth matter. It wasn’t a large pendant, didn’t carry much weight, but it was enough for her to take her head out of her hands and see the moon, now dangling from her
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Hubley neck. Her face froze, and her muscles tensed. A minute passed, then another, and another. I was starting to think I scared her into paralysis. Just as I was starting to regret what I did, she lifted her hand slowly off the bed, and clutched the necklace. Pressing her hand on the pendant she looked up toward the ceiling and smiled.
—Ryan Hubley '19
Sunset (Painting, (24" x 18") —Dante Militello '22
Finn (Drawing, 10" x 13") —Emmanuel Martinez '19
The Nature of Time Even the greatest of moments inevitably fade into obscurity: ? The great men and beasts which lie between the known and the unknown. ? A drawing. An ancient burial. ? A tusk. Herds long gone. ? A tooth. ? A desert of serpent bones! ? A crater and its impact. ? An elegant feather in amber. ? The footsteps of giants along a sandy shore. ? Snake stones! ? “If the origin of the world had been known to man. I would have started there.” —Cenorinus 3rd Century C.E.
—Jonathan Sargent '19
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Shake Your Lonely The tree above me rustles, although it isn’t the windiest of days. A light wind presses my baggy shirt to my skin. These branches seem to sway more than the branches of any other tree, as if the tree is moving itself. Her head lays on my shoulder. It feels like this wind has a secret power that touches her hands on mine. For that moment we lay together, in the green grass, my mind still afraid. I feel my mind rustle like the branch, controlled by a wind that pushes it around. Controlled by the need for someone by my side, the fear of independence. The wind dies down. She speaks up, “The wind is too cold. Let’s go.” Although cold, I enjoy the refreshing breeze. Despite goosebumps and watery eyes, my body feels comfort from this wind, though I feel as if it usually wouldn’t. The wind hits my baggy shirt again, pushing my collar up against the dewy grass. In the corner of my eye, I see that her hair isn’t moving with the wind, as if it’s only windy right where I lay. Before, the wind made my mind hectic, rustling with thoughts, but as it blows again, it feels calming. It is like a breath or breeze blowing out a fire in my mind. A fire of somewhat lonely thoughts.
—Noel Frazier '20
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Spanish Steps The steps were brightly lit. Beams from a myriad surrounding street lights gave the setting a kind of golden glow, a rich vibrance that sharply contrasted the deep blue sky. A sphere-topped column in marble was at the base of each set of stairs; at the top was an old Church, Trinita dei Monti, whose bells chimed in steady rhythm. Before the Church lay a pillar monument, an obelisk, whose tip, pointing heavenwards, drew the gaze to the bright Roman skyline. Dotting the skyline was a wide array of trees and buildings, old and new. The steps were linked together by short walls of marble, so that when the steps were full with visitors, one could use them to split through the crowd. The serenity was broken by a loud whistle. A pair of young tourists had made their way onto one such platform. Each pinching one end of a green flag, they shouted, “Viva o Brasil!”
—Kevin English '19
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Three Friends (Painting, 8" x 10") —Maximiliano Gutierrez '22
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The Lost Skier A boy zipped through the trees, skis bouncing back and forward, never slowing, never stopping. He flew down Steamboat’s back mountain, long ago leaving behind his distressed parents for a trail seldom trod. He weaved back, then forward through the pine and oaks ravaged by deer, and around icy mounds of snow, the quickest way to end a ski trip. The sun beat down in this cool thin atmosphere, burning the skin of all who were touched, while offering no warmth in return. His throat and legs hurt, although the pain had left his mind many hours before. The paths began to melt together, split apart, melt together again, and before long the boy had no idea where he was anymore. Making a misguided call, he cut into an area where no other had gone before, failing to notice the “no go zone” sign which was nearly covered in snow. Now he would pay the price. Whack! Bursting out of the snow came a root, grabbing the boy’s boot, and causing him to go into a tumble. Everything flashed white. There was no depth, just a blank canvas. The skis had ceased to move. This boy’s name was Eric. Eric surveyed his surroundings, realizing the scale of his predicament. His first ski had buried itself in a pile of snow near the stump, while his second had slipped into some unseen location. “What . . . happened? I was just going, but something was there . . .” He tried to move, yet his body only sank deeper. The crystalized quicksand held him fast, uncompromising in its grip. Snow leaked into his pants like waves over a ship’s side. The icy blood in his veins burned like hot ash. If he didn’t get out soon… he had to move. Growing frantic, Eric tried again, but to no avail. The sun was departing; the world was growing dark. Eric felt his muscles ache and his throat grow raw. He looked to where his first ski had sailed. That board of plastic and metal was the key to his dilemma. He pounced, but the skis ducked out of his reach before he was yanked back into his pit. He stared at the mound, and the mound stared back at him. “Just try and reach me,” it taunted him, its voice groveling in conceit. The sun began to darken, a cloud washing over it. Eric began to cry, a weak defeated elevenyear-old. “Will I die here,” he asked the whitewashed skis. He pulled himself into a hol-
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Schmidt low ball, anything to stay warm. The cold was setting in. His eyes began to grow heavy and droop. The hole comforted him, consoling him in his troubles, slowly pulling the boy into its clutches. Maybe he could just rest his eyes for a second, save his strength. He could escape once he was rested. He lay against the side of the hole, his strength sapped. His eyes closed, and he began to feel at peace. The air didn’t feel quite so cold any more. “Eric!” cried an unknown entity. Eric’s head whirled in the direction of the sound. “Eric! Where are you Eric,” cried a voice in the distance. “Mom,” Eric cried out desperately, but his voice wouldn’t allow it. His throat was too raw. She continued to call, but her voice only grew fainter, soon gone entirely. Eric had to go, now. He had let the cold slink into him. He focused in on the pile where his ski lay, and he dove, forcing his will through the snow. “GO, GO, GO!” screamed his mind. The cold pulled him down into the depths of the snow. He pushed, harder, then harder until suddenly, the prize was there. When all seemed lost, the ski had revealed itself. He pulled, weakly at first, then with the ferocity of a shark. The ski flew into the air, and with it the ash of a freezing volcano. Looking around himself, Eric saw his second ski lying twenty feet downhill. There was no other option but to go back into the sea of ice. Grabbing his newly-freed ski, he pushed it down the hill, stopping it reasonably close to the other. Kicking furiously, his arms malfunctioning propellers, he pushed to move forward. Out of the blue, a kraken of the deep, his old enemy, the root, made its last stand, holding on one last time until its wooden tentacle bent finally to his will. He had defeated the cause of his tumble, but he still had to escape. Eric continued his eccentric swimming form until he reached his skis. Breathing a sigh of relief, he looked backwards at the snow pushed back and forward, a sign of his struggles. He looked forward to where he yet must go, and then he saw it, the groomed snow of a main run. Without a second thought, he began to pack snow, placing it in clumps behind him, before laying down on his skis. Pushing one last time, he sailed downhill. He would make it. The light of a warm sun flashed down onto his face.
—Eric Schmidt '22
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Pipe Dream (India Ink, 10" x 8") —Samuel Stone ‘21
Freiheit I thought mid-pond myself-thus mirrored and bound By crystal ice of the certain cold derivedExacting winter’s consequence brought round For seizing, as my name, his logic-mind. Out of nothing all heavens broke: Lighting striking down upon the earth, Fire birthing a mountain of black smoke, Upon which I stood in stale mirth Past reason’s yokeBurning thrones become nought but ash. Left so in stilled collapse, I met The frozen pond since melted fast. The raging fire had been quenched, And all was then at ceaseless restYet while I floated, gazing up at stars, From deep below, purest notes arose, of ours,
—Michael Rose '19
A Version of Newton’s Law of Cooling T(t) = the Will to Freedom = Determining One’s Determination (by Else or Self) C = Specific Freedom = Realistic Parameters dt = A Respect for Time
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Fit for Travel Cruise-liners were the only means of travel that spoke to your status. I, Daniel Forger, 23 years old, had the pleasure of traveling on one from my home, one day, to Amsterdam. Upon my arrival, the sun shimmered over the bay waters and glistened off the well-minted New Federation buildings in the distance. This was my fiftieth destination since coming of age, and though I was running out of nice places to stay, the traveling never got old. Of course, it also cost little for me as well because of my status as a non-threat. Let’s just say the NF treated their elite with style. I had the right to the world. I had clean, fitting, white shoes. Even as I exited the cruise-liner and offered the man my arm to scan, he read my status and hence bowed to me. I took this in stride, like I usually do. Honestly, I don’t like the attention. My parents never boasted, so I follow their lead. As I exited the dock, my senses were overwhelmed. My vision filled with bright lights and bronze skyscrapers that pierced the blue skies on the main street nearby. I smelled the alluring unique scent of food I already knew I wanted to taste later that night. I even heard a saxophone further down towards the mall. I was certain a new adventure awaited me, but first, I had to find a hotel. Usually, they were right alongside the dock with the large NF logo on the front, but I had read that Amsterdam had so many historic buildings on the oceanfront that when the NF formed after the world coup, they kept those buildings and built inside the mall. It looked like I was heading that way. As I continued along the sidewalk, I saw another type of NF building, and probably the most well-known: the testing building. A line of anxious seventeen-year-olds stretched down the block and out of beyond my vision. I had once been one of those children, coming of age. Soon, they would go into those doors and about five hours later, come out as either non-threats, like me; questionables, who were allowed some freedoms but under watch; and un-fits, who were allowed little freedom and constant surveillance. It all had to do with criminal intent. When a group of zealots stationed all over the globe rose to take over the United Nations, the world nearly fell apart.
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Flannery Thus, the nations retook power and formed a new, more powerful group, the NF. To keep the same thing from happening again, the NF used new technologies in psychology to make a complete psyche test. If you passed (i.e., your weren’t crime-prone) you received the right to be a citizen of the world. If not, well, you got less than that right. Some rejected the idea. Actually, a lot rejected the idea at the time. The news showed riots happening all over the world. The NF contained those threats with the military, and everyone eventually submitted to the idea. I was seven at the time. It seemed fair to me. At least I was safe. From them. I approached the mall, pondering this history of the NF when I realized I had missed a crucial factor, one that I forgot often. The stranded un-fits were also a problem, and I was bound to run into one in the mall. When the NF took power, they issued a mandate saying no travel could take place until everyone over the age of 16 took the test. Those traveling had to stay in their prospective countries. My father was one of those people. Luckily, he passed, but many were not so lucky. When one became an unfit, they were no longer able to travel, and hence were stranded in a foreign land. I saw one up ahead amidst the shoppers and passer-bys. They were usually easy to spot because of their dated clothing and misplaced race. This one sat with a darker complexion and some sort of red cross sweatshirt. I tried avoiding the stranded at all costs, as did most people, but if one locked eyes with you, they were surprisingly quick to beg, to you, specifically. I must have been lost in my thoughts about this, because she looked right at and through me before I could avert my gaze. I froze, but not because of her gaze. Well, actually, part of it was her gaze. She had the greenest eyes I had ever seen. She was . . . different. I didn’t expect anything beautiful about criminals, but here this one, this woman. Her plea was even more surprising. “Please, please help, someone. Anyone. It doesn’t have to be me,” she whispered through cracked lips as if the truth had escaped her soul. Her green eyes only reflected the sunlight and dilated slightly. I stayed frozen as she crawled towards me. “Please,” she said again. When she was about four yards away, I snapped out of my strange daze, fished some money out of my bag, and threw it at her out of pity. Confused, I ran down the street until I found the NF hotel. Safe again. Only a few minutes passed until I overcame my shock in the hotel room. Back in the sleek design of the NF, I tried to relax. I just had more interaction with an unfit than I did in the past year. My hands were shaking, but not out of rage. The room supplied flavored water, so I poured myself some. It had a sweet taste, and that finally stopped the shaking. I sat down on an NF-logoed chair. What just happened? Why was she like that? Why was I shaking? The un-fits were supposed to be crime-prone, but if that woman had stepped on a bug in that moment, I would have been more than Behind Seeing (Drawing, 6" x 7") —Robert Santiago '19
Flannery surprised. And why did she say help, someone? Didn’t she want something from me? It amazed me that in such little time, someone had such an impact on me. Surely, a person like that deserved to sit in this NF chair. Surely, they could see new places. Surely, they had a right. As the sun dipped low and disappeared behind the skyscrapers, I felt an impending disgust for my surroundings. The chair I sat in was no longer comfortable. The bronze skyscrapers looked like drills destroying the city. I took another sip of the flavored water and spit it out; it tasted of over-ripe banana. She deserved better. I walked out of the hotel room, out of the hotel, and back to the mall. She had to experience some niceties, even if they were little in comparison with my life. I had to find her first. Down the street, however, I heard sirens. My pace picked up a bit quickened until I saw the source of the noise. Cop cars were parked right where I had thrown the money. An officer was leaning up against the nearest car, so I decided to do a bit of inquiring. “What happened here?” I asked. The officer didn’t even turn around. “None of your business,” he said. “The hell it is, I’m a non-threat. Now tell me what happened,” I used my rank effectively. The man turned back to me with an apologetic look on his face. “So sorry, sir. I meant to say that there was another un-fit scuffle. One dead. The other arrested. There was some money involved.” I felt a rock in my throat, and started to understand what transpired, but I asked anyways, “Someone died? Who?” “Some stranded Arabic woman. Why do you care?” “Did you identify her?” “Again, why do you care?” “I just want to know. Now what’s her name?” “Hadiya something. Does it matter?” the officer looked at me with suspicion. Un-fits and non-threats were never supposed to mix, so I took to my senses and dropped the interest. “No, I guess I just wanted to know more.” “Okay, well, carry along then.” I wept in the hotel room all night. Never before had I felt guilt, but it was as if I felt the guilt of the entire world on my shoulders right then. After what seemed like hours of crying, I made a vow, and it started tomorrow morning by going home. Hadiya deserved more, and so do others. I will find them, and I will help them. As I boarded the cruise-liner, I noticed some dirt on my white shoes for the first time. I smiled.
—Tim Flannery '19
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Pretty and Pink (Painting, (24" x 18") —Matt Price '20
Pok-ta-Tok Ay crai mayself tu eslip, dey laf ahem. No aydia la esclavitud ji gos tru. “esleyveri guas a choys,” no mames. Kant eskeyp dos cheyns. Ches ji chos tu provayd for as, insted of caoüerin an livin as tu dai. Ji üercs obertaim bicas jis bos üont pey jim til ji dos. Ji teyks mi tu de loyer bicas ji wans tu meyk shor ji es anderstud. Kant eskeypt da risens ay liv fur. Munths pas . . . da moni gru leks. Ay quen onli pritend guat dat fils lyk. Ji es not protequed bai da las. Ji kant fait dem bak. Ji cuaietli resivs jis peychek. Jis dos nat Ixpekt tudey tu bi eni diirent, bat ji cheks it Eniwey. Ji recivs faif an aur, no peymend Fer obertaim, no benefits. Ol ji jas tu cho fer Tuenty-yir werk icuals a esteyl bax of Corona. Das maits na ath da faul oder reydietin af da ratin carbord. Reyn fils da pors af jis chik. Kant eskeyp da reyn dat perges jis natis. Ji luks ober ath mi, ay sin an dans fer jim. Aym ol jis gat, aym tuenty-yirs uf werk I caught hordes of fireflies in my backyard, shut them in a jar, and then watched them attempt to escape. They learn to buzz on the bottom because they can’t escape. Generations mature inside, every little miracle attempts the daunting flight. When they fail, they settle down. I open the jar, but only the younglings will leave the jar.
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Blossom Hue (Drawing, 10" x 10") —Ryan Newell '19
Pok-ta-Tok I cry Myself to Sleep, they laugh At him. No idea The enslavement he goes Through. “Slavery was a Choice,” I grit my teeth. Can’t Escape those chains. Yes He chose to provide for Us, instead of cowering And leaving us to die. He Works overtime Because his boss won’t Pay him ‘til he does. He Takes me to the lawyer because He wants to make sure he is understood. Can’t escape the reason I live for. Months pass . . . the money grew legs. I can Only pretend to understand what that feels like. He is not Protected by the laws. He can’t fight them back. He quietly receives his paycheck. He does not Expect today to be any different, but he checks it Anyway. He receives five an hour, no payment For overtime, no benefits. All he must show for Twenty-years is a stale box of Corona. Dust mites gnaw at the foul odor radiating off the rotting cardboard. Rain fills the pores of his cheeks. Can’t escape the rain that purges his nights. He looks over at me, I sing and dance for him. I’m all he’s got, I’m twenty-years of work. I caught hordes of fireflies in my backyard, put Them in a jar and then watched them attempt To escape. They learn to sit in the bottom because they can’t escape. Generations are raised inside, every little miracle attempts the flight. When they fail, they settle down. I open the jar, but only the younglings will leave the jar.
—Ricardo Hidalgo '19 2019
25
Cyberspace Blues I shot up from my bed in a cold sweat. While on my business trip, I’ve been staying in a capsule hotel in the Shinagawa district in Tokyo, Japan. My name is Alec Seinbach. I moved to Tokyo from the US three years ago, hoping to quench my thirst for new tech and possibly the blossoming of a new age for virtual reality. It’s 2045 and I’m ready for a change of scenery from the world, I’m sick of all the boring jobs and people from my small rural home town. As a child, hearing all the promises and stories of evolving virtual realities and cyberspaces, I’d dream of these becoming reality. The deaths of some test subjects using amateur gear developed by incompetent creators, stagnated VR, and the ball seemed left in my court. Taking a job as a programmer for Wintermute industries, a huge Japanese conglomerate, my dreams may have been realized. We made a breakthrough in our development of the DIVE system and after some thorough testing, we could push out our tech in the form of a helmet. The system works by sending out theta brain waves while simultaneously seducing the user’s brain into transmitting delta waves. This puts the user into a comatose state until “Neural Link” is achieved, the moment when the computer places their consciousness into a virtual world. I’ve been the one testing the system for a couple months now, making objects and interacting with them in the DIVE. Last month, the team started integrating Artificial Intelligences for world building, for me to interact. From my capsule, down the hallway in a haze, the neon lights of Tokyo pulsed through the window, beating my head with their saturated glow. Sometimes, this metropolis is such an eyesore. Even my flat in Shinjuku can leave me wanting my past quiet rural life. Still, I stay waiting for the day I make my own world, the powers of a god in my hands, typing cities and people into existence through my code. Grabbing some pills from a dispenser down the hallway, I swallow them and rush back to my bed. On my way back, a girl is standing in the hallway. Overwhelmed by sleep, I don’t notice her until I get back to my pod. Her figure has a light blue tone to it and she seems distant: she could be an AI, but I wasn’t in a DIVE. My body trembling, I turn and look at her, a hazy thought floats into my head, “Do I know you? Wait, why are you
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Schulte
here?” She turns and smiles while looking at my shocked expression. She wears a red vinyl raincoat, short gray skirt, and tall black boots. Her long black hair drapes over part of her face and stays mostly in place while she jaunts towards me. “What’s up Alec, how are you?” she says in her usual gentle, kind-hearted voice, putting her hand on my shoulder. “What?” I fall to the ground stumbling back. “You can't be here, Luna. You died five years ago.” She frowns and begins walking down the hallway, pulling out and beginning to chew a piece of gum. “You look terrible. Do you even know where you are?” Luna replies, in her playful tone. After this, she abruptly bursts into millions of small green and blue fragments that shoot up and phase through the ceiling. I get back into my bed, memories pounding back into my mind. Luna-her true name was Yuna-was my girlfriend while I was studying abroad in Japan five years ago. We went to the same university and often wandered around playing video games at arcades (she hated how critical I was about the peripherals) or watching anime in her apartment. She was welcoming and warm to me and my heart broke when I left at the end of the year. We promised to meet again. She was ecstatic when I told her of my acceptance at Wintermute. She died before I came back to Japan from a car accident, breaking my heart once more. Her touch felt so real, but her features suggested an AI from a DIVE. In the years after she died, I fell back into hard drug use and drinking, shoving my emotions down with volatile substances. Once my team was brought onto the DIVE project, however, the work piled up and I subdued my sadness and loneliness down until they stopped rearing their ugly heads and my dependencies left. Seeing her again-feeling her again-disturbed me, her touch so real although I assumed it was derived from blocks of code. I decided to go to work early since my office was only six blocks away, and boot up the DIVE. En route, I walked slowly observing my environment, pondering Luna’s premonition. Huge skyscrapers flashing neon and ads flanked my view, with the occasional dim-lit cafe from the same chain. Nothing seemed out of place, and after inspecting some walls and parked cars, they were too realistic to be anything but the genuine article. Still my suspicions were raised, so I broke some leaves from off a bush in the median and crushed them under my foot. They sounded like glass breaking and fractured into the same fragments Luna split into, phasing through my foot and flying to the sky. The sky had a different hue than the intense neon colors that came from the legions of signs; it was more of a deep blue as opposed to gray from smog, but those harsh neon lights still had their same effect. The sky seemed like multiple auroras
2019
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Schulte being mixed, shooting into divergent directions. Now I know where I am: I’m in a DIVE. The chief neurologist on our team told me that I may experience personal interactions while in the DIVE, something to do with memories and procedural-code meshing. This explained Luna’s presence and the hyper-realistic environment: she wasn’t real. I begin to exit by making an ‘X’ symbol in front of myself in the open air with one finger. This is the standard log-out command. Once the symbol is made, it has to be pressed and the user is brought out. Before I press the exit command, my shoulder is tapped and I dart around hoping to see Luna again. It is Luna, but now she is wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with the hood up. “Do you know where you are now?” she says. I reply succinctly, “I’m in a virtual space right now, and gotta get out.” “What? Does this have anything to do with your new job?” Her tone shifts, she is confused. My boss fervently told me not to mention that this is a generated world to any AI or other being while in a DIVE. “Don’t you know where we are? You asked me if I knew earlier,” I tell her, ignoring her previous question. “This neighborhood has many office buildings and a bunch of arcades we went to in college. Alec, this is where I first met you.” Five years ago, after finishing up classes for the day, some buddies and I went to an arcade around here to decompress. When we got there, I saw Luna playing some war game on a table. She looked confident and invigorated to move her holograpic troops around the realistic looking board. I walked over and asked her if I could challenge her next. We were very competitive and immediately asked the other for a rematch once either one of us lost. At around 11:30 that night, we got kicked out as the arcade was about to close. She smiled at me, giving me her number. Without paper to write on, I swallowed my embarrassment and asked her out, getting her to meet me at a local cafe I frequented. Thus the start of our relationship, my favorite moments of being in Tokyo. I left the DIVE, leaving Luna in there, and kept a journal of what happened when I was in cyberspace. I discussed what had happened and many of the specialists within the project told me that my brain had influenced the DIVE software, making a computer-aided lucid dream. This phenomena had unlimited potential and the team decided to pursue it further. A chip was implanted into my head to monitor my vitals
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Smile (Drawing, 11" x 11") —Maximiliano Gutierrez '22
2019
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Schulte and aid the fluctuation of brain waves in the DIVE. Having gathered important data like my brain-wave frequency and which parts of my brain were stimulated, testing with lucid dreaming began. I spent most of my time in the DIVE trying to reach Luna in any way possible. This space wasn’t the same as a regular lucid dream, the waves produced from the coding only occasionally affected my brain waves. Producing elements within the space neurologically became unreliable and would often result in glitching. One night, once testing was complete, I left the offices and headed back to the hotel to grab my stuff. I took the weekend off, taking the train to get back to my flat and tried to catch up with some old friends in the area. No one responded to my messages, probably off doing their jobs or wasting time. I decided to walk to the arcade where I first met Luna, hoping to relive some past memories. Upon my arrival, I noticed that the place was in ruin. I assume the whole building was invaded and turned into a drug den, but it was completely deserted. The only machines still working in the arcade were Seared Steel, my favorite hackand-slash, and the war game I used to play with Luna, Proto-Overdrive. The cold metal of the war game gave me goosebumps. Whenever we would play, she would slam her hand on the edge of her control panel: she’d hit it so hard, she'd left an indent. Overwhelmed by the recollection of my past and the memories tangled within it, I broke down, weeping heavily onto the console. During my outburst, Luna came from behind me and gave me a hug, the warm embrace calming me down somewhat. “Stop crying, Alec, I’m here for you,” her voice passionate and caring. “It’s just, I miss you so much. I need you, Luna.” I said, but it’s barely audible between my sobs. She blushes and hugs me with more pressure and begins crying into my chest, “I miss you! You have absolutely no clue what it’s like for me, always alone with no one to talk to.” “What do you mean?” I’m done crying and have settled down a bit. “She’s not real. Does she know where she is?” “I’m no more than collections of your memories with me and am trapped in here alone all the time. I can't see anybody,” she scolds me and continues crying. Her words make me start crying again and we are both bawling together for some time attempting to connect once more. After what seemed like an hour and a half, we’ve both settled down and begin discussing what has happened in our years apart. I told her of my relapse into substance abuse, my work load, and the hollowness I’ve been feeling. She said that she had no memory of the last years but started experiencing weird dreams about her time with me but could only go to places we’d both
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Schulte been together. The only other place she’s been is what she described as a black void, with sparse groups of binary code forming objects and different structures. My eyes widened and a fire lit inside me. Luna was a collection of my memories that binded to the source code of the DIVE. These bits and pieces of her consciousness that connected could flow between pure cyberspace and the DIVE world; meaning she could control and manipulate the code and from there, any tech connected to the DIVE. I got to work attempting anything to get her out of the DIVE system and possibly into an exoskeleton, giving her a body and the ability to exist within reality. To start this, I integrated Luna onto an AI, so she could learn and develop. I felt excited each morning to wake up, getting to work with Luna. At first, any failure frustrated me, but whenever I felt down, Luna brought me back and we kept at our goal. She kept the DIVE running all the time, and fixed the arcade into our base of operations, transforming our war game to our main work area. After three months of work, Luna controlled most of the source code and could manipulate anything within the system. She had control over the DIVE, cyberspace, and some servers at Wintermute. She had the tenacity and resolve like she was playing me in Proto. When I told everyone at work what happened during the tests, they started helping us. Several weeks passed and we weren’t able to make any more progress. Taking a new angle, we created a procedural world for Luna that included important places from her previous life: her apartment, a local park we frequented, and many of her favorite shops. In the next two years, we kept on testing more and more complex trials, refining our machine. Once perfected and manufacturing began, we brought our machine out to the public. Everybody on the development team was given a system for free, each one coming with a developer kit so we could create our own DIVE experiences. Now, being able to create to my heart's content, I often met Luna in the DIVE, her very existence blurring the line between real and virtual. We spent more and more time together, she talking about how the system was running, while I told her about my upcoming projects. Finally, the void that Luna left within me was filled again. —Stephen Schulte '20
2019
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Twilight's Last Gleaming (Photography) —Andrew Schubert '19
Frazier
Spring Has Sprung The gutters were filled with flowers, and his body with wine. A weather-worn wooden ladder leans against the chipped grey walls of the house. Gutters bent, one could see the flowers and leaves hanging from the metal by their soft crippled stems. The man knew only a few steps up the ladder would allow him to pull these leaves onto the ground, enabling the rain water to flow into his garden where it belongs. Setting his foot up on the first foot of the ladder, his hands caress its sides. The man’s old white pleated sneaker slides out from under him, and he stumbles forward. Knocking his nose on the ladder’s frame, he tips back and spills upon the wet summer grass. At least he had something soft to land on. A bit of blood was sneaking from his nose, but nothing too serious. He twists over so his chest presses onto the soft grass, the back of his white tee shirt now stained green. The sun that stares down upon him, also gazes upon his garden. Roses, sunflowers, marigolds, and a great rush of light fill the air. The man is hot. The rays of sun press on his back on their way to earth. The man finds momentary comfort on the grass. He falls asleep. Sleep from comfort or from head pain? He has no idea. He has no dreams. He wakes up to the rhythm of the city and tries to remember what happened. He slowly stands up and arches his face to a screaming noon sun, marching straight at him like soldiers through his eyes. The flowers and leaves from the gutter have fallen into the grass along with him. Looking toward the garden, a rush of worry hits him. “I’m late to water!” Picking up the hose, he sprays his garden, deliberately covering each fluorescent petal, allowing them to be pressed down by the stream of faucet water. He often overwaters his flowers. They tend to die early of drowning, as if he cares and gives too much to the flowers, too fast. He seems to hope that the flowers will blossom into full beauty if he gives them all their water at once, despite this constant pressure and interference being, in fact, detrimental. He has studied how to perfect his yield, yet his obsession is his downfall, and he watches his flowers drown every time he gardens. Putting down the garden hose after each flower has been hydrated, he whips
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Frazier open his screen door, kicks the mud off his heels, and walks toward the kitchen. Catching a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the television screen, he sees the bloodstains on his shirt, and the large bump on his forehead. “I hate that ladder,” he mutters, rubbing his soft hand on his noggin. He knows there is ice in the fridge, and puts a few cubes into an old purple rag. Pressing the bag against his head, he still feels pain. He holds the ice upon his head and sits down on his ripped, pleated TV chair. An arm's reach away is his half-full Coca Cola and a bottle of wine. He takes some ice out of the bag, drops it into his dirty scotch glass, mixes the soda and wine, only then remembering his shirt is battered. Too lazy to change, he drinks his mix and shuts his eyes. Somehow he is tired, even after his surprise nap in the grass. He awakens, a sharp pain pulsing in his temple-the bump! He can’t remember what he was dreaming, and sees the sun going down outside his window. The pain feels too intense to be a normal bruise; he feels inclined to see a doctor. The hospital is right up the street, around the corner. Knowing he must go, he wriggles into a new striped shirt, picks up his tape player, and sets his headphones over his ears. Before he walks out, he stares through his window. The flowers’ petals blossom like the wings of an angel. He feels proud of his garden; he feels this is his creation. The man decides he won’t water the flowers before the sun goes down, he’ll wake up early tomorrow and take care of them. “Bye,” he says, as if the flowers would miss him. For some strange reason, he will miss them, though he will only be gone for a moment. Feeling rested and limber, he hops down the front steps. The sun is dimmer, and shines on his back as he walks east. Kids play on the grass across the road. His music overpowers their yells and laughter, though he does enjoy the scene of gleeful play in his neighborhood. It makes him remember why he moved there, although he doesn’t get out much. His head seems to hurt more and more as he walks away from his home. The ground is hot, and as he reaches the corner the broken concrete turns to fresh black pavement. He has reached the main road, and sees the hospital to his left. The buildings on this road are old gothic structures. The smell of bakeries, markets and chocolate fill the air. People are on their porches smoking, or biking down the road. All the while, the man stares down at his pleated white sneakers, and listens to music. Dirt builds up on his shoes. “Geez,” he utters, staring at his shoes, “No wonder I’ve never walked down this dirty road.” Before the he knows it, an automatic door slides open and the dimmed city lighting turns fluorescent. He takes off his headphones, pauses his tape, and finds the first open counter. “How can I help you?” a nurse asks, a bright smile on her face. The man sees right through her friendly look, or so his mind assumes, and he cuts to the chase. “I bumped my head. I need some pills.”
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Goat (Drawing, 7" x 5") —Moises Mora '20
Frazier The woman chuckles and shakes her head. “How about we let you speak with a real doctor. Maybe you will need pills.” He tenses up, sighs. He doesn’t appreciate her tone, mostly because he knows she’s right. A doctor quickly finds him, and asks him into a room. The room is bright, the doctor tall and skinny. Forgetting his name, the man refers to the doctor as “Doc.” The doctor asks him questions, and he responds quickly to each. He wants to go home, drink wine and water his flowers. His time is precious. Each word the doctor says goes through the man's ear and floats out the other. Finally, the doctor says, “This bump looks terrible. You must stay the night, and rest in the dark.” The man feels his stomach drop. His head feels hot. “No. There must be another solution. You see, I have a garden that needs to be watered very early tomorrow.” The doctor is stern in his decision. “I’m sorry. Is there anyone at your home we need to contact? Anyone to tell you won’t be coming home?” “I have no one to go back to. But what does it matter? I’d rather be home than this disgusting room.” Doc smiles, “If you’re comfortable sleeping in that, I can leave you a pain reliever and turn the lights off. It’s dark now anyways, you must lie down and sleep.” The man shakes his head, but submits. He takes his pill and lays down on the creaking hospital bed. The doctor switches the lights off, and closes the door shut. There the man stays. Stuck in a daydream. The window blinds are open, and the city lights are lit. The moon rests upon him, and he rests upon his pillow. As he quietly rests under the moonbeam, his mind plays witness to the people of the city, outside. Drunk, loud, wild. He wishes he was staring outside at his flowers. Flowers under the sun are what he prefers, especially to people under the city lights. He sees his silhouette in the reflection of the window and tries to make out if he’s even wounded at all. Filled with emotions, he flips to face the other direction. He could only see a black wall. Seeing visions of darkness, he decides to close his eyes. He told the doctor he had no one to return home to, yet longed to return to his flowers. He envisioned harsh winds blowing, the petals drying, and the flowers fluttering away from his house, away from him. He tossed and turned all night, worrying his flowers would meet their demise before he made it home. They longed for his water, his care. These thoughts riddled his sleep. The night is long. After imagining every way that the flowers could’ve died, the man seems to make out a glimpse of sunrise, gleaming through the window. His eyes feel the burn, but enjoy it. This rush of light hits him like a rush of new life. The sun seeming to take control of his body, he stands up, grabs his tape player, and runs out
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Frazier of his room. He turns right down the hospital hallway, and sprints out the automatic door. Everything behind him seems a blur. Reaching the street, the sunlight shines into his eyes. He turns right and heads towards his corner. Running for the first time he could recall, he hears people laughing, trucks driving, venders yelling. He steals an apple from the market as he passes, and takes a big bite. Now running with his hands full, he looks up. Beautiful gargoyles look down on him as to say, “Where are you going?” “Home!” he yells. He turns right and somehow the sun still seems to be in his eyes, even though he faces in a new direction. Once again everything behind him is a blur. Abruptly, he finds himself at his home. He stops. His house looks gorgeous with the light upon it. The grey looks blue in the light, like the sky is mirroring itself upon the home. He runs up his stoop and through his house. He scurries . . . up to the window facing his garden and gasps. Today, the garden seems different. The flowers, brighter. Petals, larger. Grass, greener. The man doesn’t understand. He wasn’t there to water them. Then he notices. Water is rushing from his empty gutters and into his garden, where it belongs. The water is nurturing his beautiful creation. As the sun shines on the garden, he knows the flowers are blossoming, like the wings of angels. A glimpse of himself is caught in the window. His silhouette is clear, and his wound is gone. His head doesn’t seem to hurt anymore. His delight is lost as he looks out the window again. He sees a petal drop onto his concrete walkway that separates grass from garden. “Well,” the man thinks to himself, “all flowers must die.”
—Noel Frazier '20
2019
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Longing On that warm summer day, he lay on the quiet, secluded Caribbean beach. A gentle breeze ruffled the trees. The sun, unhindered by clouds, shone upon the clear ocean as the waves inched ashore. He spotted a hermit crab crawling into its home in the sand and chuckled. They’re funny little guys, he thought right before the warm air and soft sand lulled him into a light sleep. Not long after, he heard her voice. “Hey!” He opened his eyes to see her waist-deep in the ocean, waving at him. “Come on! The water feels amazing!” He rose and began to walk toward her. They had been friends since childhood -stood by each other through everything: mental issues, failed friendships, toxic relationships. Once he entered the water, he realized how calming it was. He wanted simply to lose himself in it and drift wherever the tide decided-Madagascar, Australia, maybe Mexico. She began to splash water on him and laugh, but her voice gradually faded out of his mind. He looked deep into her eyes and began to remember the sky. In awe, looked up to it. He could faintly hear her saying something, but his senses had been entirely captured by the smell of the salt, the breeze, the sunlight-especially the light. He didn’t know what had everything, and he didn’t care to find out. All that mattered was that exact moment. Everything is so “Hey! What’s wrong?” “Nothing,” he responded absently. The plane ride was no different. He stared out the window, into the clouds, which seemed to invite him into their soft embrace. He felt that he could leap onto them and not plummet to his death. He could hear her speaking to him, but he wasn’t listening. All that he could think about was returning to that place. Those thoughts lingered, penetrated only by the hum of the plane engine.
He tried returning to ordinary life, though he found he could not. Before the journey, when his friends would speak to him, he would listen intently, chatter, andbut now, all of that seemed insignificant. Now he suppressed laughter when his friends discussed their mundane lives as they slaved away in the job they hated. None of them have ever lived, he thought. What a shame. Nothing could compare with what he had seen. Later that day, as he was preparing for bed, he remembered that tomorrow was Saturday. He sighed with relief-he could sleep in. He climbed under the blanket and stared at the ceiling, focusing only on the ecstasy provided by the blanket and mattress. After a few moments, he grabbed The Odyssey and began to read. Odysseus had finally arrived home after twenty years, and he would soon challenge his wife’s suitors. After about an hour, he began to grow tired and set the book on his nightstand. His phone lit up-a text from her: “Hey… what’s going on? You’ve been acting really different since we got back”. He turned off his phone and set it back down on the table, closed his eyes and fell asleep-hoping to reawaken on the beach.
—Vincent Langoehr '20
Rise (Painting, 10" x 8") —David Helledy '21
Asteroids: A Space Opera A jaded paradise of the stars, these hallowed halls, this blessed majestic spectacle built upon the very element that both plagued and sustained its existence: The Castle amongst the asteroids. Rich with Thorium, these hurling masses of the void quickly became the source of wealth for the Wilhelm bloodline. What was a once rich feast that fed the beast of the expansion of the family, today, now only scraps remain. For thousands of years, the family mined the field, calling all those born of their lineage, “The Kings and Queens of the Field.” A filthy business, the profit margins were rather thin. In this day and age, there were so many more financially rewarding endeavors. The Wilhelms often found themselves wrangling with outlaws who would desert the fields before the end of their term, taking with them vast portions of the family Thorium wealth. In this space, a wild west, an open ocean, it often came down to cheating, or being cheated. The warship Meridian navigated the field with difficulty. Captain James Cortana stood next to a massive metal wheel that controlled the sharp turns, climbs, and dives of the ship. “Drop the landing gear and prepare the crew. We’ll be out and about shortly,” the Captain called to his second in command, Jack Helios, who flipped switches and pressed buttons on his control panel. “Mr… Cortana, is it? Here at Castle Wilhelm, we have put up with an enormous amount of unfortunate circumstances… no more! I would advise against any conniving decisions. You will not be left alone at any time during your visit. Am I clear?” At this very moment, a woman entered the room: the most beautiful young lady the Captain had ever seen; assumedly Sir Roger Wilhelm’s daughter. “Father, I’ll be going out for the day.” Sir Wilhelm watched the Captain’s eyes. “Alright, that’s fine.” She seemed discouraged, and left the room. Wilhelm’s gaze did not break from the Captain. “You will not be seeing my daughter again, nor will you be setting foot inside the Castle. Please leave and begin your work as soon as possible.”
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Reynolds The Captain nodded, and promptly stood up. In the corridor outside Sir Wilhelm’s office, Captain Cortana encountered Mr. Jeremiah Johnson, the heir to the Johnson Ranch and thousands of the finest Cattle on this side of the galaxy. The two men were aware of each other. “Captain Cortana,” Mr. Johnson stated dryly. The Captain said nothing to Johnson as he passed by. It was off-putting to him, yet he continued down the corridor. He gazed out the window across the courtyard and was met by the eyes of the same beautiful woman the Captain had just encountered. Not paying attention to his surroundings, the cattle prince promptly collided with a pillar. The Captain laughed, not even looking back. “Good luck with that one, deary.” So, these two men and their crews, one in a heavily armored warship and the other in an awkwardly large, converted cruise ship, navigated the most heavily trafficked corner of the asteroid field. The cattle hands in full space gear used lassos to gather the smaller asteroids and collect them onto the ship while the translucent shield caused the larger ones that could not be handled on the ship to bounce away. The crew of Captain Cortana had a different method, at least 20 of them jet packing away from the ship and using pickaxes to collect small rocks with a heavier concentration of the Thorium ore. “Well, Captain,” the intercom came alive, “how are things goin’ on your side of the belt?” Mr. Helios looked back at Captain Cortana. The Captain shook his head, and ignored the call from Mr. Johnson. “Y’know,” Johnson’s second in command, Trenton Orion stated, “if he would let us work with him, we could get this job done in half the time. A metric ton of Thorium in these fields isn’t exactly easy to come by. Do you think they know the government makes it in labs now? Takes ‘em a week to get the same kind of product it takes us two to gather. It’s a more generic blend, but still, easier than this.” Johnson shook his head. “I reckon the only reason this industry’s still alive is the strength and energy output of raw Thorium. The operating cost is cheaper and the Thorium’s stronger… Plus, keeps us employed. Everyone’s happy.” Orion nodded. At that moment, the star cruiser collided with a rather large asteroid, and three of the Captain’s men were lunged through space. They drew small hand-cannons from their utility belts and began firing at the ship. “Hold your fire!” Johnson spoke into the intercom, “no harm intended.” Captain Cortana came on shortly after. “Mr. Johnson, if your ship cannot keep away from
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Reynolds my men, I suggest you prepare yourself for a far more intense offensive. Perhaps you should consider finding something more equipped to navigate an asteroid field than that old clunker.” Johnson, infuriated, “The likes of you would never understand the kind of ship cattle upkeep needs. The next time your men fire at my ship, I’ll return the favor tenfold.” “Enough talk, Johnson, just stay out of my way.” Johnson shook his head and tried to ignore the irritations of this man. “Sir,” Orion called out, “We’ve got a full load. We can head back to the Castle and process it for raw product,” Johnson nodded. Back at the Castle, Captain Cortana and his men sang and danced merrily, having gathered 1,200 lbs. of raw Thorium. The Johnson Ranch crew stood behind the large processing trommel, feeding it Thorium-rich rock. “How’s it lookin’, Butch?” Johnson asked his trommel operator of almost 20 years, a man who had worked for Mr. Johnson, Senior before Jeremiah. “Well,” he said, “I’ve seen a lotta Thorium in my day… I’ve seen a lot more than this, but We’ll make the cut, Sir. This is a good enough load.” Johnson nodded. “I can tell your men take this work seriously, Mr. Johnson.” He turned and was greeted by the warmth of Lady Wilhelm’s demeanor. He smiled. “They’re good men, Miss. They’re smart and they’re efficient with more than just cattle. What’s your name?” “Evangeline. And you’re Jeremiah. You’ve worked here before, perhaps just a boy, then. Well, I suppose I was just a girl then as well.” Mr. Johnson nodded. “Well, Jeremiah, I should very much like to see you again. If you will be frequenting my father’s field.” “I would very much enjoy that, Evangeline.” The two smiled at each other and the chemistry was obvious. There was jealousy in the eyes of the Captain, who viewed the interaction from a distance. The feelings were short-lived, as a man like Cortana would always value currency over the tender embrace of any other sentient being. The following week, the two groups gathered more and more Thorium as Mr. Johnson and the heiress to the Field found themselves taking long walks with each other. Soon they were holding hands and embracing as lovers. What was not apparent to either crew early on in the week was the declining health of their employer. This man was plagued by addiction to chemicals of various compositions, all aiding in driving him insane. He watched the Castle garden from the balcony outside his office, his eyes a very, very bright blue and bloodshot, and his pupils dilated. His straight, blonde hair was matted, and his face bruised in self-inflicted pain as he watched his daughter
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Reynolds walking with someone who was, in his deranged mind, a delinquent. His expression was wild, unpredictable, shaky. “That scum of the earth. No one will wed my daughter. No one will wed my daughter!” The hysterical Sir Roger Wilhelm picked up a nearby chair and, with all his might, lunged it off the balcony. It clattered into a bush, quietly, and no one seemed to register what had happened. He proceeded to ransack and destroy his office, knocking over furniture and clawing at priceless works of art like a bloodthirsty tiger. He stormed out of the room and down staircases and corridors into the bowels of the Castle, to the room that housed the machines which controlled the artificial gravity, the oxygen, and the asteroid shield. There were three red levers. One by one, the psychotic Sir flipped each lever. “Warning, warning, warning, life supporters will power off in 30 seconds. Warning, warning, warning.” The Captain’s men had been counting their money and gambling it away to each other and the ranchers were running their trommel as the sound system blasted the warning.
Everyone looked up, everyone listened.
“Pack it up boys, get everything onboard!” Yelled the Captain as all his men proceeded to scramble, gathering up everything they could carry and rushing onto the Meridian. The rancher looked around at his men, “Double time!” The ground anchors on the trommel retracted and the entire mechanism was swallowed back into its compartment on the ship. The ranchers helped Johnson suit up as the other men boarded the ship to safety. “What’s the plan, boss?” Johnson pulled the jumpsuit over his shoulders. “I need to figure out who did this, and I need to find the Wilhelms. Otherwise, get our cut of the money and get the hell out of here. Oxygen?” Orion clicked the helmet onto Johnson’s head and tapped a button near his ear, “Online, sir.” Johnson and Cortana proceeded towards the Castle, side by side, as the shield protecting it shut down, the lack of gravity making it difficult to walk. The temperature dropped dramatically. The Castle came back into contact with the vacuum of space. It was havoc inside the Castle, large and small rocks flying everywhere, Sir Wilhelm stood at the end of a long corridor, a sword in one hand and his daughter’s arm tightly gripped in the other. She struggled, but both wore proper equipment and were at least breathing. “Wilhelm, what have you done? The entire Castle is being destroyed. Everything
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Reynolds you own, everything you’ve worked for. Why?” Asked Johnson, trying to reason with the man. He laughed. Quietly bloodthirsty, the Sir laughed. “I don’t need this Castle. I don’t need a fortune. All I really needed was my daughter, my daughter whose heart, until recently, completely belonged to me. My daughter is the greatest treasure I have, and now I feel I am losing her, Mr. Johnson. My daughter is in love with you, and I do not intend to stand by as I watch her be taken away by a gluttonous swine like yourself. You will leave this place immediately.” While Johnson wished to save Evangeline, it seemed in her eyes that she wanted to stay with her father. With anguish in his heart, he turned and approached the door where the Captain was already waiting for him. “Listen,” began the Captain, “we need to get out of here. This place is tearing itself apart. We can still get the Thorium, but it’ll be risky.” Johnson holstered his weapons, tears forming in his eyes, his voice breaking as he began to speak. “Are you insane? There’s not enough time-” “Stop it! We have a job to finish here. Now let’s get the Thorium and get the hell out of here!” The Captain picked up the rancher and the pair ran towards the Thorium storage area. “Officers Orion and Helios, bring the ships around to the storage area. Fly straight and true, prepare the men to load up.” The ships flew steady through the asteroid field. When landed, both crews scattered, gathering all of the Thorium they could carry, and heading back to their ships. When the ships were loaded, all of the laborers came face to face. “Well,” said Johnson, “I suppose this is where we part ways.” Their palms met in a handshake, and in that moment, the entire crew of the Meridian, outnumbering the ranchers 3-to-1, drew their weapons. “Not quite, deary. That cruise ship is equipped with four escape pods with enough life support for at least a week. If you know what’s good for you, you and your men can board those pods.” “Unbelievable!” said Johnson as the Captain pulled his hand away from him, drawing a gun and motioning the ragtag crew of cattlemen onto their ship. The pods were loaded and launched within a few moments, and Trenton Orion took control of the cruise ship. “Well, Captain Cortana,” he said over the intercom, “Where to next?” The Captain began to laugh. “Decades of danger and dastardly destruction, tremendous loss, trial and turmoil, and at the end of the day, the only thing you can bring yourself to ask me is, ‘Where to, next?’ Well, I suppose we’ll set a course for the farming colonies. We seem to have some precious cargo to offload, perhaps for a pretty penny.”
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Reynolds “Ay, ay, Captain.” And so, as soon as they came, they were gone. A once beautiful, shimmering Castle erupted into explosions as spires and towers drifted through the space around the estate. The Meridian, its Captain with crew of cutthroat thieves in tow, barreled through the asteroid belt. With a flash of white light, they disappeared into the darkness. —Ian Reynolds '19
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Grey Wolf (Drawing (11" x 10") 45 —Isaac Cephus '19
Progress You could see the smoke rising from the cottages, or if no fires were lit, the smoking ashes of fires past. The smoke here was comforting; it reminded you of the coziness of home, the warmth of a fire. The heavy industry, not so far off-you could see stacks dotting the horizon, feeding into a cloud of soot-wore an overwhelming look of melancholy, of obscene filthiness. Smoke here was a burden; the cost of production. A whine sounded, as of the belt of a great machine turning over half-ceased gears. The sound casted a strange feeling of inevitability and permanence, as of a man breathing his final breath; as if there was an immutability to all damage that came with progress. Industry is a machine that cannot be stopped. The gears of production, no matter their consequence, continue turning in the name of convenience so that some comforts can exist, but at what cost?
—Kevin English '19
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Exit We are looking for an exit, Slaves of this life. We go out at night to forget it, No good is found holding a knife. Watch them take your bread, Abusing your weakness. They will leave you for dead, All because of your meekness. Obsession. You are going in the wrong direction. Slave of who you want to be. You are looking for an exit?
—Sergio Jara-Reynoso '19
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Ruttin' Bucks (10" x 8") —Jack DuBois '19
Summer, 1871 Jonah sat, legs crossed, against the old oak tree in the meadow. Its bark, while weathered and gnarled from its innumerable years, had a certain softness that made it Jonah’s favorite place to take a rest. The sun was in full force today, its angry beams stopped dead by the mighty oak’s gentle covering of paper-thin leaves. Jonah, shielded from the piercing rays, leaned his head back against the shingled bark. It was late in the summer now, and while the hot dry weather had made for a terrible season in the fields, it often gave him an excuse to get away from the farmhouse and take the milelong walk to the meadow, much to his aunt’s dismay. Jonah had been forced to move to the countryside years ago, intended as a last-ditch effort to “straighten him out,” or so Aunt Nellie had said. While it was true that he had been a troublemaker in school, Jonah knew the only reason he was out here in this God-awful place was because his mother wanted to get rid of him, as she had from the moment he was born. It was his father’s death in the war that made her dreams of being free possible, and so Jonah was shipped off the following spring. A year later, the postman brought word that she had died after deliriously staggering out into the streets from a tavern in St. Louis, succumbing to the cold. Great, he had thought, my mother was a drunk and my father is dead. ‘Least I know where I come from… But that was all time out of mind, water under the bridge. Now, it was only a matter of hours before Aunt Nellie sent his cousin out to grab him from the meadow and make him get to picking the barely ripe peaches in the orchard. He sighed, closed his eyes, and let the subtle whistling of the wind through the trees lull him into the only real peace he knew. Jonah awakened to a clouded sky, the air damp, palpable with humidity. All was quiet around him, as if time stood still, waiting to take its cue from his next movement. He moved his legs out to stretch, but found their forward progress impeded by a warm, furry coat. Startled, he jerked back, accidentally ramming the back of his head into the tree. “Damn…” he whispered to himself, almost forgetting the newly discov-
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Becker ered creature in front of him. His eyes adjusted to the light, and he recognized the animal he had encountered as a golden retriever, smiling at him, panting ever so softly as it too felt the stagnant humidity. Jonah reached out to pet the dog, tentatively taking care to let it sniff his hand and judge him a friend or foe. To his surprise, the creature immediately laid down on its side, clearly asking for a belly rub. Jonah was happy to oblige. He spent the better part of a half an hour lying there with the dog, as it showed its appreciation by occasionally lifting its head and lapping him on the chin with its wet, floppy tongue. Jonah didn’t mind. This pattern continued, his strokes becoming shorter and shorter, as his eyelids drooped. Soon enough, Jonah lost consciousness and fell asleep once more, his head resting on the flaxen coat of his new best friend, lifted every few seconds by its breaths. The dog didn’t mind. Jonah reawakened hours later to an inky, anvil-clouded sky. The wind blew in shrill screeches, as buckets of rain pelted the earth with deafening rage. Jonah and the dog, however, still remained dry, sheltered by the strong branches of the oak, which creaked in ornery sighs as the wind and rain buffeted its aged heavy boughs. Still, the faithful oak stood firm and defiant against the skies, daring the elements to do their worst. The skies were happy to oblige. An enormous crash of thunder, accompanied by blinding flashes of lightning, hit a nearby pine, striking fear into the boy’s usually jaded heart. Danger, his brain screamed. Run. Not a moment later, a second thunderbolt struck the top of the old oak. Jonah, fueled by pure, distilled animal instinct, bolted from the tree. His ears heard no sound, only a high squealing, and his deep brown eyes were partially blinded by the unimaginably bright flash. He had only narrowly escaped the cover of the oak as he heard a third strike, undoubtedly targeting the same tree. He turned, the water droplets stinging his bare arms and soaking through his white cotton shirt. His eyes looked to the tree, and squinting, he made out the unmistakable glow of yellow and red. The oak was burning.
He froze, standing still in the middle of chaos then remembered: the dog.
Jonah bolted for the tree. Why had it not followed him? What the hell was it waiting for? The questions came to mind, but were rendered useless as the retriever came into view, panting happily and wagging its tail. “C’mon boy!” hollered Jonah, yet the dog did nothing. “We have to go!” Still, it only looked at him and tilted its head.
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Becker Jonah could barely hear his own shouts over the roaring of the blaze. The broiling heat of the incandescent wood scorched Jonah’s skin even from where he stood yards away. “Get the hell over here!” A splintering crack echoed from the heights of the tree’s raging canopy as the old oak drew its final breath. Time seemed to slow to a crawl once again as a fiery bough gave way to gravity. It happened so slowly, yet in the blink of an eye, that the dog, still smiling innocently at Jonah, was crushed under the dead weight of the blistering wood. Jonah screamed and ran into the blaze, to the friend he had abandoned just minutes before. He could feel his skin burn, blister, char. The pain didn’t matter now. He tried with all his might to push the heavy wood to the side, trying to ignore the pain in his hands, but it made no difference. The dog’s eyes were closed, its ribcage crushed and unmoving. Smoke billowed around him. Jonah let out one final mournful cry of anguish, collapsing onto the remains of his only friend, his tears evaporating before they even left his eyes. He sobbed, inhaling the acrid black smoke in short shallow gasps, until he, as the old oak tree had, drew his final breath.
—Richard Becker '19
You Can Call Me Al (Drawing, 9" x 12") —Thomas Woodward '20
The Rain It was dark, almost to the point where the ground ahead of her fused seamlessly with the night sky, rain like soft teardrops falling from blackness, sealing the horizon as they fell. She ran through the woods, stumbling over herself, managing to stay upright as she splashed her way in a desperate escape from the advancing Darkness behind her. It seemed to glide over the terrain with ease, gaining ground on her, closing the gap. The woods were dense, the trees chaotically swinging in the wind, nearly as disorienting as the fog and rainfall. She heard a faint sound of running water in the distance against the now thundering rain; a piercing fear coursed through her veins. She looked to her left in hopes to run upstream, and there, she found the Darkness, and the same thing to her right. She was trapped. Her heart pounded hard against her chest, the violent claps of thunder shaking her no more than her shivers against the cold. The sound of a waterfall turned from a hiss to a roar. Staggering to a stop, she felt at her face and cringed, now noticing several abrasions from the trees. Bits of twigs and leaves stuck in her hair. She shook herself as if to awaken from a sleep and surged forward, the great waterfall coming into view. She found a spot where she could look over the edge, a significant drop into the deep water far below her. White-capped rapids erupted from the falls, occasionally splashing up to lick at her feet and legs. It was too dark and foggy to see further than a few feet in front of her. Sudden gusts of wind threatened to knock her into the abyss. Quetz? She turned around to see another girl, a familiar girl, clad in just jeans and a t-shirt, soaked from the rain, muddied and bruised. She approached, stopping abruptly, Quetz taking a defensive stance. “Quetz,” the girl in jeans said, “you’re- you’re afraid.” Quetz refused to turn around. She continued to stare into the abyss, tense and angry. “It’s Cortez to you,” Quetz spat bitterly.
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Visaya “Maybe so,” the girl began, “but that’s not something I would be proud of.” A great bolt of lightning pierced the heavens and shot for the ground, the boom of thunder shaking the sky as it rocked the earth. A silence between Quetz and the girl followed, broken frequently by the aggressive discord between the waterfall and rain, which was now beginning to die down. “I’m not afraid of you,” Quetz retorted. “Whatever you want to tell yourself,” the girl said. “There’s a safe path just ahead which leads to the stream below the waterfall, if that’s where you’re going.” “You’re lying,” Quetz said. The sun was peeking through the clouds now, a blue sky, unburdened by streaks of rain, a faint rainbow forming across the horizon. “You can walk away, if you wish.” “You’re lying!” “Quetz, I’m not here to hurt you.” “You’re sick,” Quetz said. “You’re sick and awful and I hate you!” Quetz charged at the girl, her hand in a fist. The girl sidestepped quickly as Quetz slipped by her on the muddy ground, managing to loosely keep her footing, stumbling angrily to turn around. “This isn’t a game, Quetz,” the girl said. “Run to the stream. There’s a path that leads down there. I don’t want to fight you.” Quetz stood there with tightened fists and clenched teeth. The chill of the rain from earlier was replaced with an inner fire of rage. And then it returned, all at once. Quetz loosened her fist. Quetz couldn’t beat her in a fight. Both of them knew this. Quetz was cold. Her whole body ached, a sharp pain in her heart most of all, and without saying anything more to the girl, she ran away, stumbling frequently in her desperate escape as tears formed streaks down her cheeks. The girl remained standing by the waterfall, staring blankly into the blue sky. She took a deep sigh as soon as she couldn’t hear Quetz anymore and turned around to face the stream. She walked over to the safe spot on the cliff and sat down, peering over the edge into the void. The sun was out now, a more vibrant and radiant rainbow tying the sky to the ground. The clouds and fog had disappeared. She looked out and saw everything clearly, a beautiful scene radiating warmth and nature in front of her. She couldn’t see Quetz, however, and concluded that she had most likely drowned trying to cross the stream. “You- didn’t have to do that.” A warmth from behind her approached. It was the Darkness, representing itself as a single spherical entity now, about the size of a human person. It approached her
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Visaya silently, chaotic tendrils of shadow flashing out from a central core, straining to reach and grab her. It suddenly expanded and enveloped her, then slowed, gently falling over her like a blanket. She was still able to see into the river below. She sat there and looked down at the river, safe and warm near the hissing waterfall. There, she fell asleep as she wondered why Quetz was running from the Darkness in the first place.
—Christian Visaya '20
Hawk (Drawing, 6" x 5") —Elliot Roe '20
My Mistake(s) Dear Joe, Why do you bully me? Don’t you know I love you fully? You used to be my guide, My guy, But you’re confusing. Why is this hate infusing Itself into your brain? You’re using It against me, what am I doing To make you mad? You used to be so glad To be around me. But every time I make a sound You want to drown me. We have so much in common But you spend your time stompin’ On me. I go to bed And cry my eyes out Wishing I was sick and dead. I think I’m just sick in the head. I remember you got me a gift wrapped in red That Christmas when I was eight. The last time you were nice to me was third grade. But we played my favorite game About a week before the first day of school came. We laughed until midnight. Maybe you’d seen the light. But when I went to sleep My grip on Puppy grew tight.
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You’re off to college soon and this just might Be the last good childhood memory of my life. Your bro, Leo.
Dear Joe, You’ve now left for college. I feel really small, this Isolation in our house is not common knowledge. You treat me better these days. I guess it’s easier to like me from far away. When you visit they All put on a fake kind face. I dream, waiting for the phrase “Wanna come to my place? We can play Pokémon. I know you like that.” Oh, would my woes be gone – Even if for just a day We could sit together and play. Remember at school, in church, we were praying? And we cried Because you were leaving for the first time
Signatures
Tierney On a plane? I don’t know what you were thinkin’ then, But I know I was gonna miss you and Although it got easier as it happened again, Every time you leave my mind twists and bends Trying to figure out what I did or said That brought our friendship to an end. Maybe you just needed space you couldn’t get. Maybe something else was making you upset. I just hope deep down you didn’t forget me. We can fix this together if you let me. Sincerely, Leo.
Dear Joe, Why didn’t you stay with us? Why did you cut ties? Don’t you miss us? Sometimes, I think, All you ever did was lie to me. I’ve finally opened my eyes to see. You never made time to be The brother I really need. The sad thing is, You write this poem in my voice But won’t change. You put my life in danger But you’ll turn the page And forget all about this for the rest of the day. I now know what you worried about on the plane. You were scared to fly. Guess it isn’t that scary now, is it? Can’t you hear your siblings cry?
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You never said I love you. Did you even say goodbye? Guess you couldn’t swallow your pride. Once upon a time, You made me laugh and smile. You truly once did want me to stay for awhile. Then one day you left my side, And you denied You ever liked me And hope I’d never find out. But I doubt You meant it Because you never said it To my face. It’s comforting to know I had a place In your heart even if just a trace. I hope you love me because this guilt can’t be erased. You wrote this in pen. It’s on the internet. The me in your world Isn’t aware you wrote this And he’ll never know it. Please don’t ghost him. Don’t be like my Joseph. Love, Leo.
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Tierney When the concept for this story first hit me, I’d been playing a video game with my little brother. It was his favorite one and he’d just bought it a few weeks before. He took me through the whole campaign and we laughed for hours (mostly about my ineptitude). He went to bed, but it was summer so I stayed up into the early morning. I considered that I would soon be entering my last year of high school. These are my last few months at home. With Debate starting, I’d be missing almost every weekend. I began to think about my relationship with Leo, and realized that he was putting more work into the damaged relationship than I was. Soon I noticed that in all my siblings. As I was about to leave their immediate lives, my parting gift was neglect. I worried that our connection would erode over time as we became less and less important to each other. I didn’t even know it until I finally looked inward.
—Joseph Tierney '19
The Daily Pair (Drawing, 13" x 12") —Felipe Muzquiz '21
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Generation with No Peace I’ve-I’ve got a life to live. I’ve got a lot to prove. I’ve got a lot of love To give to you. Piensa en ti, No en los demás. Escucha tu voz, No las bocinas. La vida no es para arrepentir. Olvida las reglas y se feliz.
We . . . wish this won’t last, Let it go by in a flash. For our sake. Where’s the peace we talk about? Where is it now? Oh, my poor child. Vivimos peleando, gritando, y rezando. Las guerras del mundo nos están acabando. Quitándonos paz y razón de vivir. Se me está acabando razón pa’ reír. War . . . we live in war. We know no more. Sad to say, it’s every day. On the news. It’s no amuse. A generation with no peace.
—Sergio Jara-Reynoso '19
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The Buddha Tasting something bitter, All seek to taste something sweet. While many had chosen to live beneath the earth, He had gone to learn how to swim In the Cosmic River. And upon returning, he wears the sun on his head And all the heavens on his tongue. And on his body, He wears the saffron robe of eternal victory. He had won Without a drop of blood, Without the unsheathing of a sword, Without the firing of an arrow. But he had won With his heart, With his mind, And with his words. Thus, he is called The One who shines of a thousand golden suns, The One who stands at the pinnacle of all Truth.
—Her Pao Lee '19
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Angel Osvaldo was in K-5. He was at school telling all his little friends that his mother could have his baby brother anytime soon. He had gone on for a couple days now about it, everyday saying that today was the day that his baby brother would come into the world, the day he would become a big brother. With a huge smile on his face, “My brother Angel is going to be born today!” His teachers would just smile back at the cute little five-year-old who was so happy that he was soon to be a big brother. He would go about his day, giving people hugs and always cheering people up if they were down. For this little boy, absolutely nothing could wipe the smile off his face. Recess rolled around, and everyone in the class lined up at the doorway waiting for further instructions to go out. They walked out the doors down the steps and out into the gloomy day. Thick clouds formed in the dark gray skies. Half way through recess it began to drizzle, then suddenly the drizzle turned into rain and hail, cutting everyone’s’ recess short. All the kids hustled inside trying not to get soaked. Most stood wet and frowning, but there was still one kid who stayed happy as could be. That was Osvaldo. While his classmates were outraged at the fact that recess was over, Osvaldo turned into the sunshine of the class, the warmth for everyone through his joy of becoming an older brother. Around one o’clock, the office called Osvaldo’s teacher; he was going home. Osvaldo instantly gathered his belongings and darted out the door, heading down the stairs to the main office. When he saw his dad, he saw that he had been crying, and was trying to smile but couldn’t. Osvaldo couldn’t understand why. Seeing his father at his school, he would imagine that it would be to give him the good news, but instead there was a tear stealing down his cheek. This was odd. Osvaldo had never seen his dad cry before, he the man of the house, he always the one to be strong, to hold his feelings in and so to look over his family. So seeing his father with tears brought confusion, Osvaldo wanted to know, but did not want to ask and make him go back to crying.
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Sanchez-Arellano “How was school, Mijo (Son)?” Confused as to why he didn't talk about Angel yet, “It went well. Am I a big brother?” His father would ignore Osvaldo’s question and would continue to talk to him about his day at school. A couple hours passed and they still had not gone to the hospital where his mom was due to give birth. “Mijo vamos a Toys R’ Us? (Son, want to go to Toys R’ Us?)” “Si! Me puedes comprar el juguete de Power Rangers? (Yes! Can you buy me the Power Rangers toy?”) “Lo que tu quieras mijo tu puedes tener. (Whatever you want you can have, son),” said the father in an attempt to take his son’s mind off of his mother and brother. The day went on. The darkness of the night had come about and still they had not gone to the hospital. Why haven't they gone to see his mother yet, his little brother? Osvaldo looked at the clock reading 9:25 pm. The day was coming to an end yet they had not gone to visit Osvaldo’s mother and baby brother. “Dad, why haven’t we gone to see Mom and Angel yet?” “Mijo, there is something we need to talk about.” His father took a deep breath, then he bent down and looked at his worried son. “Your mom had a little problem when your brother was being born.” “What kind of problem? Is he coming tomorrow then and not today?” “Look, Mijo-” how was he going to tell his little five-year-old that his brother died? “-your mommy had problems and your little brother-” “My little brother what??” “He is heaven, Mijo.” Osvaldo’s father was now holding Osvaldo in his arms as the tears began to pour down his eyes. He didn’t want to tell his son what had happened, he knew it would break his little heart but he couldn’t lie anymore. “But, but how does that happen? I thought all babies live, Dad.” Osvaldo felt his little heart begin to contract as if someone was squeezing it. Osvaldo couldn’t comprehend what had just happened. He didn’t know that babies couldn’t make it. Never at such a young age did he think about losing a brother. He sat shocked and devastated. His own heart broken. The hope of a happy childhood was now altered from a few short moments ago. At such a young age he had to endure life’s most terrible event, death. “I don’t really know, son,” with a teardrop falling down his cheek. “I wanted him to make it as much as you did, buddy.” The father felt the weight of the world as he told his son that he would no longer be a big brother. He had crushed his little heart and knew this day would always be one he would remember even if he didn’t want to.
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Sanchez-Arellano He knew that he would now have to be there for his son more than ever, to support him in whatever he wanted, whatever made him happy. He had seen how devastated his son was, and now vowed to make sure that he never saw his son as heartbroken as he was that night. “I am so sorry to hear, Valdo, I never would’ve known you had lost a brother at such a young age. I now understand why you and your brother Andres are so close,” said David. He got closer to Osvaldo and put a hand on his shoulder as his saw the guarded tears form and fall down Osvaldo’s cheeks. Osvaldo at this point dazed off into another world. Facing forward he imagined what it would’ve been like to not only have one younger brother, but to have two younger brothers. Andres already looks up to him and tries to copy him in whatever he does-would Angel have been the same way? To have two little brothers running behind him, always bothering and looking up to him. Playing soccer with Angel, debating who the best team or player was at the current moment. Debating why one was better than the other at soccer and so on. All these moments that could’ve been. “Oh, yeah, I try to not let it affect me much, since it happened so long ago. It’s just there are times when I do just think about what would’ve happened, you know?” “Yes, I understand, but just remember that I am always here if you ever want to talk. Don’t shy away, you know I got you.” “Thanks bro, it really means a lot.” The day went on, but Osvaldo continued to reminisce the what if’s, each what could’ve been. His brother’s birthday had come, September 25, and it was a game day. Osvaldo wanted to score for his brother on his special day, but his dreams of this were ended when the game was suspended. Two days later, Osvaldo had another chance, playing the nationally ranked number three team, Salesianum from Delaware. Throughout the game Osvaldo struggled to focus on the game. He would continuously lose the ball and he began to worry that he wasn’t going to make his brother proud. With seconds left in overtime, Osvaldo scored the winning goal, instantly falling to the ground in tears and pointing to the sky. “This was for you Angel, I love you.”
—Osvaldo Sanchez-Arellano '19
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Blue Veil The nicest one walking in the Or
hallway
the
attic
Was never the one weeping Or the one
you’d
expect was hurting the most —Andrew Cafaro '19
Texture (Monoprint, (10" x 8") —Moises Mora '20
Credits Editor-in-Chief Peter Selfors
Literature Editors
Art Editor
Vincent Langoehr Her Pao Lee
Andrew Schubert
Cover Art
Jack Haskins
Sunrise in Autumn (Painting, 24" x 18") —Joseph Janisch '20
Sea Turtle (Drawing) —Peter Selfors '20
Calligraphy —Xun Lu '19
Signatures Squad Vincent Langoehr Connor Larkin Her Pao Lee Ian Reynolds Andrew Schubert Peter Selfors Gabriel Sweezy
Art Associate Moderator Ms. Ginny Schauble
Production Consultants Mr. Gary Skinner gskinner.aplus@gmail.com APLUS Graphic Resources Mr. Shane Skinner shane.k.skinner@gmail.com APLUS Graphic Resources
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