Fall 2017 - Memento

C oll li e pp ct in ive gs

25 Ali Moon – The New

4 Adrianna Beddoe & Olga Narolska – Mark and

Annoyance (2D illustration)

Helen Osterlin Library Lives On (woodcut) 5 Carrie Lynn Dunklow – in remembrance of

26

sonja olshove (poem)

C

6 Koree Bemiss – Wild Fields (painting)

28 Matthew Suehr – More Weight (short story)

7 Susan Odgers – Camouflaged (non-fiction)

30 Laura Helferich – Abandonment

at the Commons (photograph)

7 Jettarin Issaravanich – Journey (2D illustration)

31 Anne-Marie Dunklow – smolder (poem)

8 Katie Lee – Here Comes a Thought (drawing)

32 Amanda Coddington – When Sleeping

9 Richard Vegh – An Intermediary (short story)

Women Wake (short story)

14 Liam Kaiser – Pier Walk (photograph)

the Bottom of Thatch Lake (flash fiction)

18 Alexis Steig – 7:29 (short story)

53

35 Nichole Hartley – Generations (photograph)

54 Jennifer Dalio – August 28 2005,

Bonnet Carre Spillway, Louisiana (poem)

38 Mitchell Lewis – They Told Me (poem)

19 Desiree Morgan –

The Name Tree (photograph) 21 Cole Burns – Depression

40 Ann Hosler – Entwined (short story)

55 Rebecca Sarin – Rescue (2D illustration) 56 Lyric Belle – Change (poem) 57 Heidi Way – Memento (poster design)

48 Brianna Olson-Bogart – Faded Reflections (poster design)

(2D illustration)

22 Tamara Wiget – Optical Illusion (short story)

23 Rachel Lynn Moore – Ride or Die (short story)

Kiara Ortiz – Puerto Rico

(photo collage)

36 William Walton – Springfield Armory No. 462,737

37 Joel Mann – Patched Up Life (poster design)

Adventures (2D illustration)

Hats (photo collage)

(2D illustration)

(short story)

17 Kendra Hoggard – U.P.

52 Grace Kohler –

34 Kristy Tompkins – Journey of the Heart

15 Liam Strong – A Son’s Father (poem) 16 Jackson Douglass – The Body (Still) at

Alexandra Johnston – I’m Sorry, I

Forgive You (non-fiction)

58 Erica Smith – The Spelling Bee, or Another Story About Love and Death (creative non-fiction)

49 Megan Ward – Dixie Bells (poem) 50 Kelsey Pease – Letters (photograph) 51 Deanna Luton – honeydew curls (poem)

60 Cheryl Herschleb – Sydney (watercolor)

Letter from the Editor oment, m s i h t l l i t Be s emory… m a t u b s become for then it When I wrote that introductory line to this semester’s call for submissions, I had one particular image in mind: a photograph taken several years ago of my grandmother—healthy and happy in her 80s—dancing in the center of our family at a wedding reception. That was the last day I saw her before her funeral, but it’s how I will always remember the type of woman she was: vivacious, sassy, loving, and loved in return.

The creative mind allows for us to weave fictional memories or relive events of the past. These pieces of artwork, stories, poems, This semester we challenged the photographs, and more are each a memento to be treasured.

NMC community to share their stories as we celebrate the first issue of NMC Magazine’s 40th volume. With respect to this milestone, the staff decided to publish 40 works by 40 individuals. This limitation meant that we couldn’t publish everything from the plethora of submissions received.

We hope you enjoy these mementos as much as we do.

Ann Hosler 3

Editor-in-Chief

“ Mark and He len Osterlin L ibrary Lives O n�

by Adriana Beddoe & Olga Narolska

ries s made to preserve old memo This wood-burning project wa and rs yea t have happened over the as well as historic events tha future location. bring them into the new and

in remembrance of sonja olshove

by Carrie Lynn Dunklow

i. 04 september it is said that time heals all wounds but what of the shattered heart? the heart for which there will not be enough time

to find all the pieces

to make whole again how to heal that?

ii. shatter sometimes a fault line appears and gradually, after time passes, a break will occur other times the heart shatters—

without warning

without relief

iii. absence in the moments when i remember fully what your absence means the wave

of barren rooms

of empty seats crashes over me, paralysing and consuming a blow from which i may never wholly recover

5

“W ild Fie lds ”

by K

oree

Be

mi

ss

In the past several years , I’ve been collecting flowers fro m various events and place s and drying them. Many kn ow that a flower is most beau tiful when it’s fully bloomed.

However, I believe the mo st beautiful aspect of a flowe r is the memory it leaves behin d.

Not long ago I visited a fie ld near where I live and plu cked some poppies to dry. This painting is a memento of that very moment. By drying this flower I’ll forever hold the memory of this time.

Camouflaged

by Susan Odgers

I teach human sexuality.

I have since 1989.

F

or 28 years, I’ve collected hundreds of transformative “mementos” from my classes. Perhaps this is due in part to the power and intimacy of the subject, or the particular students in any given semester. Maybe it had more to do with where I was at in my life at the time. Probably, it’s the whirl of all three.

On the November day I told my class I wouldn’t be getting out of the wheelchair, there was a heavy silence. Some students looked sadly at the floor, others stared blankly out the windows and a few were actually crying.

A young male student finally burst the stillness: “I hate you! You should have told us on day one that you use a wheelchair. We’ve all been rooting for your recovery. Don’t you understand how important you are to us? You’ve been our guide through one of the most complex aspects of our life. We share everything and you couldn’t have told us this?”

That first class taught me a deeper understanding of education and the communities we create in the classroom. I apologized to my students, explaining the need for boundaries. For them, for me. In my effort to prove myself at NMC and give my class as much instruction as possible, I’d overemphasized On the November day I told our instructor and student roles, my class I wouldn’t be getting and underestimated our shared humanity. My students taught me out of the wheelchair, there that authenticity is vital. From that was a heavy silence. day forward, we all learned lessons that went far beyond NMC. A week before my first semester at NMC, I broke my leg in three places and came to class sitting in a wheelchair wearing a long, extended plaster cast from my hip to my toes. I looked like I’d been hit by a train. As my bones healed, the cast was cut shorter and shorter. My students began commenting, “I bet you can’t wait until you’re out of that wheelchair.” I’d smile and say nothing. What they didn’t know was that I needed the wheelchair before I broke my leg; I was paralyzed from the waist down from a spinal stroke at age 18.

ey”

rn “ Jou

by Jettarin Issa

ravanich

ave from at I have to le th y da e Th . life love represents my level of life. I This work piece d take a big step to another ng time is not that ne an r a lo my comfort zo go overseas fo to t y comfort bu s ce n perie to get out of m ed ar sc o to seeking new ex I am believe that if easy for me. I . er on’t be bett zone my life w

s ome C e r “ He ought � h aT

by Ka

tie L ee

I think of passing ories thoughts and mem one as butterflies. Each in g in different, flutter ess. sn and out of consciou be nice Sometimes, it can a wave to lose yourself in of memories.

An Intermediary

by Richard Vegh

W

e tend to think of our lives as stories, and of these having beginnings and endings. We think of almost everything this way, as though everything must have a definite starting time and place. Even when we suspect it’s not true, we like to pick some point, draw a line beneath it, and say, there: that’s when it began.

My beginning was at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, at the Stone Institute. I was discharged after twenty-four hours under observation. I wasn’t really observed; mostly I sat on the examination table and tried not to remember anything. I counted my breaths. I imagined being outside, in Connors Park, watching pigeons sort litter into the two categories that matter to pigeons: food and non-food. I stared at the white walls until I began seeing shadows.

A nurse brought my clothes in a plastic bag. He had wooden plugs in both ears and lots of tattoos; one was an oval that looked like a snake swallowing its tail. I changed, putting the hospital smock in the bin the nurse indicated and following the blue line as instructed: straight through two sets of doors, then right at the atrium—a giant whale skeleton hung suspended overhead, watching us passersby below—and finally out onto the sidewalk alongside Ontario Street. My dark blue jeans were crusted where salty slush had dried on them. My feet were too warm in the grippy socks I’d been given, which I’d kept rather than imagine being destroyed, and left on rather than wearing the stiff socks I’d walked in with. The sweat collecting along the small of my back and dampening my feet felt colder than Lake Michigan in the Chicago February air.

I walked the whole way, an approximate reflection of my previous trek. Each time a bus swam past like a whale above the slushy street, I’d hold my breath for no reason. At points I stopped to watch my foggy exhalations or the pigeons and squirrels in the streets and bushes. Once, in a crosswalk, I stopped for too long and a car nearly struck me.

Of course, by the time I got back there was no one else in the apartment. No note, either. Just piles of things like a story problem of division with messy remainders. There wasn’t any point in trying to call her, or in sitting around any longer than I already had. Even in my imagination, none of my arguments had persuaded her to remain.

There was nothing to measure time by except my counted breaths, or the

I cleared the piles of books and folders off the chair and keyboard by our—my—old desktop, and counted the moments while I waited for it to start up. There was nothing to measure time by except my counted breaths, or the chunking relays of the chunking relays of the machine. machine. The breathing exercises often helped: an insistence on a mythic present state of being. Long inhalation, cool in the nostrils, a slight rising hitch that might be bronchitis; then a shorter release of warm breath. A short pause, then the cycle repeats, a seemingly eternal cycle to which I could endlessly return.

By the time I opened my eyes, the trick had worked: the timeless present obliterated all sense of time’s passing. The login screen glowed in front of me, steady as starlight.

9

I called up a classifieds site and began drafting my ad. For a moment, I paused to tabulate the rent, before typing in a figure that would just about cover a few more weeks in this intermediate place. Enough time to find out what ways were still open to me.

I knew there was a chance to go back. Even knowing you can never go back to the same place—not really—I knew my friends and family back home, the ones who’d stayed, would understand. They knew about Steph and me. If I returned, they’d welcome me back, and I might find some comfortable existence without ever facing what happened. That, more than anything, kept me there. I was responsible to my own problems.

After a few more moments, unsure exactly what I’d written, I clicked “submit,” and settled back against the wooden chair to wait. Within moments, my phone rang.

When he said his name, it was something like “Seph Tifferet.” My chest lurched at how near it was to “Steph,” but I repeated it back to him carefully and it was fine. When he came to see the place, he didn’t seem fazed by the untidy piles of belongings I’d halfheartedly begun to organize into neater stacks. I watched as he studied the apartment in much the way an actor pores over a script. There seemed to be a band of light around his head, and broad, sweeping wings beyond his shoulders. Of course I didn’t mention these to him.

I’d seen things differently even before the Stone Institute, and they’d only grown more uncanny since then. I began to notice that Chicago pigeons, for example, had really distinctive qualities: one had a third wing; another stared at me from the second set of eyes on the back of its head. There was a squirrel with two tails. Sometimes, I saw things I wasn’t sure were really there. Like in the crosswalk, when I saw Steph watching me from a rooftop.

And then the car had swerved past, and I looked up again, and she was gone.

I began to notice that Chicago pigeons, for

example, had really distinctive qualities: One

Seph agreed to sign a sublease when he returned later that evening, and I knew my sojourn in this middle place would be extended for a little while.

When he arrived that evening, it was by way of the tiny balcony adjoining the living room. I’d been gazing through the the second set of eyes on the back of its head. balcony door when I saw him descending, wings outstretched over half the street, before they snapped back and folded behind his shoulders as he landed, knees flexed, and rapped twice, politely, on the door. There was barely enough space for one person to stand on that balcony with the door shut; I crossed over and opened it.

had a third wing; another stared at me from

“Thank you,” he said, and I nodded.

“I have tea, if you’d like. Or if you want to settle in, I’ve cleared out your room.”

It had been a second bedroom in name only, filled with the forgotten and disused implements of elided futures: an autotailor, a rowing machine, an indoor herbarium set. Now it had an air mattress and a dresser from the basement commons area, near the storage lockers. He smiled, and went to his room.

I sat on the couch in the living room for a while, staring into the deepening gloom, eventually falling asleep.

When I awoke, I was draped with my favorite coverlet, the one I had thought lost the year before during the move. I remember blaming Steph for its loss, for setting down boxes at staging points outside the elevator and in the hall. Seph was humming some hymn, busily preparing a meal.

I just lay there for awhile, listening. My chest rose and fell with the rhythms of his voice, and the slide and shuffle of the utensils and plates and pans. The smells, lemony and cinnamon, were a synaesthetic pathway to places I barely remembered, or perhaps had only ever imagined.

Suddenly embarrassed, I got up to brush my teeth. Seph pretended to notice me just as I was about to say “Good morning,” preempting me with a hearty “Good afternoon!”

I wasn’t sure if Seph knew that I could tell he was an angel. I’m not sure how long it took me to find out. First, there was the flying. And even before that, there’d been the wings. So those were two things. But also, he told me he was an angel, and I thought I might believe him.

I asked one day after about a week had passed: “Seph, are you an angel?” I pretended to study my fingernails, but I watched that glowing band over his face.

“I think I must be.”

That was pretty close to a definite answer. But I decided to keep an eye on Seph and try to figure it out for myself.

“Why my apartment, Seph? Why here, and why now?”

We were sitting in the living area, and we’d just finished eating another of Seph’s miraculous meals. I think it was baba ganoush with some sort of frites, and a salad with couscous and herbs. And then baklava, only in place of honey, he’d used agave, and in place of butter, olive oil. I’d grumbled that he would ruin it, but of course it was flawless. Everything he made came out that way.

“I am where I must be right now, Jo. There is nothing more to tell.”

“But… You must be here for a reason.”

Seph folded his Rodinesque hands over his lap and stared placidly back at me. To be honest, I’d grown tired of looking at him. The ridiculous regularity of his features, the proportionality and symmetry of his build. That accursed aura of light, obscuring everything definite. The wings that hovered, impossibly—even now, as he reclined comfortably against the couch—over his shoulders.

Shoulders which he now shrugged.

“Are you here because of something I did?”

I can’t say why, but my left hand was trembling. I balled it up and covered it with my right hand.

Seph frowned, a little, and the room darkened.

“It is through nothing you did or didn’t do, Jo. I am here. That is all.”

“Can you tell me anything? Do you know why I’m here?”

I could never determine what color his hair was, really, because of the light that played about his head. Sometimes, it seemed blond, or platinum. Other times, jet,

or scarlet. Tonight it seemed like strands of taffeta, tan and brown. The fringes swept from side to side as he shook his head.

I went back to counting my breaths, beginning at nothing and building toward a pointless larger nothing. Dimly, I sensed Seph Tifferet rising and crossing to the balcony, before I felt his presence lifting away. Eventually, all the progress I was making toward counting some magnificent sum of breaths was lost, and the count faded to a prior unnumbered nothing.

I’d taken to haranguing Seph, trying to provoke some prodigious response. I could no longer bear the weight of his eyes, which felt much like my own: too knowing.

I couldn’t bear the sight of him, looming like some force of nature, bent on some purpose that had nothing to do with me, but was fully compatible and amenable to my existence. I looked for some jagged edge against which to dash myself. I kept pushing Seph, hoping for an unkind word.

Among the most beautiful things were the feathers. The way they’d tickle my nose as they flew up, launching themselves skyward on laundry day. Or how they’d somersault and backflip on invisible zephyrs while I chased after them with a broom or duster. Even how they’d lie, mirror-bright, until finally I touched one, and its sheen faded away to a dull and lusterless gray, indistinguishable from a pigeon feather.

I watched him angrily that evening, cooking another meal he’d share with me. Everything about him infuriated me. I held the feather up to block him from view, pretending he wasn’t really there.

One night, I got him drunk. It took some cajoling and convincing, but eventually I managed it, and a bottle of sparkling wine between us, he began telling me things.

There was nothing special about this time and place, I learned, except that it was near the apartment of an important individual: a math student working on an advanced problem in number theory involving filters and lattices—something to do with discovering prime numbers in an infinite series.

“What will happen to him?”

“Her. What will happen has already happened. My presence has affected events sufficiently.”

And it really has nothing to do with me.

He just looked at me, sadly, and I realized I’d said it out loud.

“I know you’re an angel.”

He began laughing, gently, then stopped.

“Do you know the difference between us—you, and me?”

I shook my head. No. But I knew. Seph could never be mediocre in anything. Could never be less than beautiful.

He shook his head as well.

“What is your purpose, Jo? You have one, even if you are unaware of it—you will invent it, if need be, or will remain confused, until one day, at the end of your

life, there will be nothing left for you to do.” He paused, then added, “It is not that way for me.”

He stared at the table, and I saw the rings a sawblade had exposed, shining through the layers of paint and lacquer and everyday use.

“For me, there was no beginning, and there will be no end. There is only one thing, and then another thing, and then another. I go there. I come here. I go there.

There is no reason or purpose. There is no resolution. It is only that I go on.”

I thought about this, for a while. I thought about my dreams—the ones I’d had, and the ones I’d lost.

“Why not stop?” I asked. I couldn’t see his eyes. I saw emerald and lilac flecks, and shimmering gold, but they were lost in the luminescence.

I looked for some jagged edge against which to dash myself.

“I tried, once. That is one action I can not take.”

I’d wanted to ask why he hadn’t stopped the mugging the night before, just a few blocks from our apartment building, or helped some of the lost and suffering of Chicago—why he wasn’t making more of a difference. Now I saw that there was no need to ask. He studied my expression, until I nodded.

“What will happen to her?”

I wasn’t sure if he knew who I meant, but I didn’t want to be any more specific than that.

“There may be an accident. She will likely survive, but her priorities and focus will change.”

“I’m going to go for a walk.”

“I will not be here when you get back.” Already, the shadows around him had begun to close in.

“I know.”

He set a gray feather, like a pigeon’s, on the table. I put on my coat, for appearance’s sake, and made my way out through the door and down to the street below.

The stars were all out waiting for me.

13

“ Pier Walk�

by Liam Kaiser

yI ium of photograph Through the med those of e tyle and cultur embody the lifes ique un at Lakes. Using who surf the Gre show ctives I want to pe rs pe d an es gl an so ty of a place that the sublime beau me. many of us call ho

A Son’s Father

by Liam Strong

We hike on your birthday. The same day every year but never feeling quite like the last.

You and I. You hold down the wire fence for me, trudging up to the railroad, balancing pace on each tie. It’s almost November, and the maples and burning bush have yet to bruise flame.

Every time we walk these trails looping back to where we began I want to taste the river’s water rushing like dog kisses on my face. The black bubblegum of Mitchell Creek like your hair, denied by age. Through a gap in the trees, blinking in silence, we take pictures of an eagle’s nest, and I wonder then if you would ever let me fall, and get up on my own.

My ankles are weak. The coffee you leave for me in the morning doesn’t strengthen me like it used to, and I know this because I can sip it without burning my tongue, because the leavened earth beneath my shoes smells too sweet, because your arms carry me without holding me like a son should be held.

I trip on your words growing up in an hour, yellow canaries of aspen leaves pecking at my shoes.

You teach me without speaking to keep my eyes downcast, yet after so many years of concealing my mind from you and all else, the sun and sky have never seemed so terrifying.

15

T

The Body (Still) at the Bottom of

by Jacks on Dou Thatch Lake g

hatch Lake was formerly known to a select few fishermen who made the trek when in search of seclusion and quiet. It was accessible only by wiry trail, so deep in the woods there was hardly any chance of one ever stumbling across another.

A body was placed in Thatch Lake on a moonless night. The lifeless corpse sunk quickly from the weight of the chains wrapped around its chest, blood seeping from the crooked gash stamped in its forehead. It landed on the bottom in a mushroom cloud of murky sand and decomposing fish.

More recently, an influx of tourists to Thatch Lake has led to the construction of a road, parking lot, and boating dock. The A body was placed in Thatch perimeter of the water Lake on a has been transformed moonless night. from grimy dirt banks to pristine beaches of white sand. There are fishing contests held every summer, and almost a dozen boaters drop their lures above the darkest points in the center. Hamburgers are cooked in

lass

barbecue pits. Children jump off the dock and swallow mouthfuls of water.

But still, there’s a body at the bottom of Thatch Lake. Much of its skin and muscle has flaked into the water and been snacked away by blameless fish. Algae has settled on the surface of its rusty shackles and encroached across its exposed bones. Yet those responsible grow older, allowing the memory of that moonless night to erode into a bad dream, while the muddy ground reclaims it all into the Earth.

a trip I took My memento story describes summer. On to the Upper Peninsula this woods, I saw my trip I went hiking in the and got eaten e, waterfalls, camped by a lak alive by mosquitos!

“U.P. A dventu

by Kendra Hoggard

res�

17

7:29

by Alexis S teig

I told Dad we should’ve left sooner but he always leaves late. He jokes that it’s because his internal clock is perpetually incorrect. I glance at my watch—6:47, the sky is growing dark. We’re not going to make it on time unless we break the law. “Dad, we’re going to be late!” I shout from the entrance way, banging my fist against the doorknob.

He finally appears, all ready to go in a suit that looks sharp on him. He’s a fairly tall man and has broad shoulders; he could wear a clown suit and make it work.

fault for buying it at a vintage resale store —but twenty dollars was a deal my fickle heart couldn’t deny.

“Thanks, Dad.” We start down the driveway and he clicks the garage door opener. “We’re not taking the SUV?” I ask. The Suburban is aging, but reliable.

She’s been in the family for years, and I recall many a conversation between Dad and I, mostly me saying, “You need to trade this in and get a nicer car,” and him responding with an indignant “Absolutely not. She’ll run for at least ten more years.”

That’s the thing about Dad, he doesn’t like to give up on things even when it’s evident that he would be better off letting them go.

“No, I have something for you.” He winks. The rickety door opens to reveal a 1980 Chevy Silverado in striking indigo that I had long since forgotten, fresh lacquer gleaming.

burns or grease stains, the steering wheel varnished and sleek, windshield now clear and free of cracks.

Even the floor mats are pristine, I observe, but the aroma of my childhood remains—like it had been sealed in a time capsule and waited for this exact moment to be rediscovered.

The first time I was in this truck, that I can remember, was when I was six years old. Mom was on a retreat with some of her church friends, so Dad and I made a weekend of it, mapping out the state and seeing everything there was to see. We would roll the windows down and eat our root beer popsicles until it got dark, then we would camp out somewhere under the stars. I found myself always wishing that Mom would leave more frequently so I could go on more of those trips. They were sacred to me.

I manage to hop inside the cab with Dad’s help and without ripping my dress. He closes my door, gentleman that he is, then crosses over to the passenger side and hops in with ease.

I smell the exhaust even before the engine roars to life, and when I turn the key the motor’s power shoots up through my spine, sending warm vibrations to every nerve ending.

...the aroma of my childhood I realize that, in my heels, I’m almost as tall as him now. I’m taken remains—like it had been back to a time when my dad was a sealed in a time capsule and giant to me—a mountain in my child mind. I would crane my neck to look waited for this exact moment at him and his golden eyes would to be rediscovered. smile down at me, then he would pull me up into his arms and I would bury It had fallen into disrepair since the transmission my face in his thick, dark hair that always smelled “Well? Shouldn’t we get going?” he says after a broke and I’d thought we’d gotten rid of it years ago. My like woods and pine. It was a wonder how different few moments, raising his voice slightly to be heard we looked—I shared almost everything with Mom— first love, the rust bucket. “She’s all yours, Sam.”Tears over the engine. My hand is small but fits perfectly our dark eyes, blonde hair, and light skin were stark dampen my cheeks before I can prevent it. on the gear shifter, the wear of many years creating contrasts to Dad’s rugged, olive-skinned charm.

“Dad…” Warm, strong arms and a steady heartbeat grooves in the handle. Park, reverse, neutral, drive.

We used to be porcelain dolls next to him. And his thaw my cool demeanor. His scent is familiar—that I roll her out of the garage gently, and in the fading hands were those of a working man—huge, with same old pine needle scent interspersed with Old Spice light she’s even more beautiful. I nearly forget the permanent grease stains in the creases, but it never and bar soap. He’s never been the frivolous type, never wedding—I would rather drive from here to Mexico bothered me. spoiled himself with things like expensive aftershave than go to some ritzy venue and witness the maror cologne. I suppose I’m a lot like him—I just wear “You look great, sweetie.” He wraps an arm riage of two people I barely know. We weren’t even dresses and put on make-up sometimes. around me and kisses the top of my head. My invited to the actual wedding, just the reception. floor-length number, covered in lace and embroidery The interior of the truck is almost completely redone Our dirty driveway, typical in most small Mid beads, is gorgeous but itchy. I suppose that’s my when I look inside, gray cloth unblemished by cigarette

western towns, is long and winding, meeting up with pavement at the end of a quarter mile stretch. Dust flies behind us, loose gravel throwing rocks against the undercarriage.

Disregarding the meticulous care I’d taken to put myself together, I roll the windows down. Carefully curled blonde strands whip around my face, falling from the pins I’d so delicately fastened them with. My face grows sore from smiling and I can nearly taste the root beer on my tongue.

Dad’s honey colored eyes glow as he pulls out a cigar with an intricate orange band around one end, a distinct contrast to the dark brown rod. He never smokes anymore; he quit after Mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, so I know that this is a special occasion. The flame from his glove-box lighter takes to the tobacco instantly, and I’m soon greeted by a sweet smell.

Tangy and slightly smoky, just like the peach cigars of my memories. When we come to the pavement, we’re greeted by an undisturbed view of the sunset. The sky bears a great resemblance to the smell, a warm landscape bursting with oranges, yellows and a deep crimson as it nears the horizon. I take a pause, letting the thrum of the motor absorb the silence for a few moments before I turn onto the road.

The aroma of everything should be overwhelming, the combination of the peach smoke, my dad’s musk and the truck’s fumes would drive any normal person to a migraine—but it’s perfect to me. A welcome assault of the senses that I’m unable to rationally explain. The tension I’d been holding in my chest liquefies in that instant, and I glance over to see my father smiling out the windshield. He’s a picture of relaxation— arm slung over the side, cigar dangling loosely between his index and middle fingers. Mom would’ve loved to see this.

” ee r T e am

“The N

by Desiree Morgan

Soon we’re in town, about six miles away from the venue which happens to be an orchard. The buildings, old but well-preserved, seem smaller now in this truck, and though I know it’s because I’m sitting higher off the ground, I fantasize that I’m a giant. Dad mentions something about filling the tank so we can go for a drive later, so I stop at the closest gas station—a Sunoco on the corner of West 8th and Friedland Street. He pumps while I pay, trying to be quick to compensate for how late we already are. By the time we load back up it’s 7:24, only six minutes before the reception is set to start, and my rising blood pressure is evident.

My brother-in-law pa ssed away this year on the 4th of July from a roll over car accident at the ag e of 19. “The Name Tree” as we call it, has become his grave stone for me to come visit him. The Name Tree ea rned its name because one by one, ea ch person would be “initiated” and have their name carved into this single tree on their 10 acres of land. I myself, even had my name added to their fam ily tree. The carving “GABE” was wr itten by Gabe himself, my brother-inlaw, years ago.

Two days after his pass ing, Gabe’s dad added “LOVE YOU” ar ound his name.

Being late to things is one of my biggest pet peeves, and Dad knows it.

“Sam,” he says, resting his hand on mine, “You know we can be late for this, right? Kelly won’t be offended. And if she is…” He smiles. “Well that’s just too bad, isn’t it?”

“We can always return the cheesy picture frame we bought if she tries to pick a fight.” I respond, and we laugh. His ease in handling tense situations is what has made him so popular in our small town. It’s a wonder he never remarried—he really is a catch.

As I pull away from the pump, the fleeting thought crosses my mind about how inconvenient this intersection is. The gas station is on a steep incline, meeting with the road at a tricky angle, which makes it even more difficult to attempt a left turn, but in a truck this size I estimate that I can make it. My estimates aren’t quite so accurate.

...my dad’s musk and the truck’s fumes would drive any normal person to a migraine—but it’s perfect to me. go blurry. I see Dad try to shield his face from the glass before I lose focus.

The whole incident goes slower in my memory than I’m sure it did; the Dodge must have been going at least forty through the intersection, which would mean that the duration of this episode was only five or six seconds, maybe less. I reach to Dad and talk to him but he’s not responding. With as quick as everything happened, I didn’t witness exactly what injuries he may have incurred. I touch his shoulder and my fingers are dark red, probably a mix of his blood and my own based on the shards of glass embedded there.

A Dodge pickup, which had seemed a safe distance away when I pulled out, is suddenly on top of us, slamming the horn before colliding directly with my passenger side door It feels like a movie as I watch it happen: glass shattering into the cab, the terrible The oxygen sound of crushing entering my lungs metal and the ...the Dodge must have is thick from fumes screech of tires as been going at least forty and my own panic. I the other driver struggles to minithrough the intersection... grab his hand, hoping that he’ll feel mize the damage. the pressure and Glass floats in front of my face in slow motion, hundreds of shards nicking wake up. Dad, please. I don’t know if I’m pleading with him verbally or in my thoughts; the ringing in my cheeks and forehead, but my arms won’t move my ears is drowning out everything. His dark hair fast enough to protect me. Time speeds up again is covering most of his face, figure slumped over as my head jerks back and smashes into the side of but still being held up by the seat belt. His lips are the cab, causing my skull to throb and my eyes to

busted, but I can tell by the surplus of red that they are not the biggest problem. His honey colored eyes remain unopened.

Burnt rubber smell mingled with the metallic bitterness in my mouth, and the last thing running through my muddled brain is the time on the analog dashboard clock—7:29pm. I was seven years old when Mom died, and she was twenty-nine—how strange is that? Then everything goes silent, completely silent, as I close my eyes, still clutching my father’s hand.

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Depres s lot of p ion takes over eople a a nd to repr esent it I wanted i beautif n a sad yet ul way.

Optical Illusion

by Tamara Wiget

The smell of Windex permeated the room as one of my coworkers polished fingerprints off the mirrors that separated walls displaying row upon row of eyeglass frames. A phone rang across the room, jarring the peaceful lull that had settled in. The second ring was cut off, followed swiftly by the monotone voice of my boss: “Near and Far Optical, this is Dane. How may I help you?” The steady click of computer keys blended with his dull tone.

“Don’t you think she’d be prettier if she brushed her hair?”

My attention snapped back to the nicely dressed woman who had asked me such a question, and for a moment her voice transformed into a nasally accent from the heart Everything of Wisconsin.

a familiar sense of defeat in the slump of her shoulders. “I like this pair best on you,”

I wasn’t her mother, and I couldn’t fix the damage that hers had spent years inflicting.

I smiled, trying to sound cheerful as I picked up one of several frames she’d tried on. The thoughts cleared slowly, like smoke.

I gave the young girl her receipt and change, and I watched her go. I knew that these moments would become the memories that shaped her.

“Fine, but nothing fancy on her lenses,” her mother commanded as she dug around in her purse. She took out her wallet and handed her daughter a few bills. She stood, swinging her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll be back in ten minutes,” she told the teenaged girl, with no explanation.

The girl stared down at her shoes as I relayed the cost of her glasses. She slid the money across the desk without looking up.

I smiled my customer service smile at a younger mother and daughter pair as I made my way to the cash register. The child bounced in her seat while another optician handed her a new pair of shiny purple glasses. The girl put the glasses on—the proper way, with two hands—and beamed up at her mother, her face shining with joy.

Don’t you look cute!” the woman squealed in genuine delight. I couldn’t help but was wrong smile, sharing their with me. I could never joy for a moment; It was my mother’s voice, but when I looked do anything right. accompanied by up, I saw the look her hand pulling of sorrow on my at my frizzy curls as she spat “Look at you! Brush patient’s face, and felt it echoed in my own heart. your hair and get rid of these tangles! Can’t you This girl was not like us, her mother not like do anything?!” I ran my hands through my hair to ours. We were not cute, and never joyful. We banish the feel of her unkind fingers. A well-worn lived in shame and envy, never knowing what it list of other inadequacies ran through my head— was like to be adored, never feeling cherished or my clothes, my homework, the way I walked, the wanted by our mothers. We were burdens, and way I talked, what I read. Everything was wrong we carried that knowledge around like a weight with me. I could never do anything right. hanging from our necks.

I looked at my patient—a tall, freckled, I ached for the girl, wanted to go to her, hug redhead of no more than fifteen—and could read her, make her feel loved—but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

This girl was not like us, her mother not like ours.

I’d been that teenaged girl, beaten down by the words of the woman who had given me life, who, as I grew older, was supposed to become my best friend. I, on the other side of the pain and grief etched in this young woman’s face, was on a path to healing, and could only hope that one day we would both walk in the world knowing we were worthy of love.

e i D or e d i R e

nn Moor

by Rachel Ly

My mother did a lot to shape my views on men and love. Growing up, I watched her give the best years of her life to a man who was a wonderful father and provider, but a terrible husband. She spent weeks, and sometimes months, crying in bed behind a closed door because he’d strayed again and she believed she alone should bear the weight of his transgressions.That fucking door. I used to sit outside of it and when her muffled cries rose to choking sobs, I’d shake the locked handle and she’d quiet. I tried to help, providing the only sort of comfort I could, but looking back I wonder how much pain it caused her to know that I sat there, listening.

Donny said he would do better, and I tried to be generous. I gave him not one, not two, but three chances to straighten his shit out and act right. I looked inside myself and justified taking my mother’s path by projecting my own goodness onto him. I granted him humanity he didn’t have. I treated him with graciousness he didn’t deserve.

When she talked about how she loved my father, she said that she did so unconditionally. She spoke of this as if it were noble, and worthy of her. But that woman was an angel on this earth and even as a child I knew that she deserved so much more than the cyclical suffering that she called unconditional love. Through her, I came to understand that the allure of love without limits to a woman is like the appeal of an electric lamp to a moth.

Through her, I came to understand that the allure of love without limits to a woman is like the appeal of an electric lamp to a moth.

I’ve tried loving men. I’ve tried again, and again. I’ve lived twenty times over the very same lesson that my mother taught me. This time, I finally learned.

The first time he came home hours late, walked past me where I waited on the living room couch and jumped into the shower. I picked his clothes off the He came in from showering with a towel wrapped around his waist. He dropped it over the evidential clothes pile and pulled on a fresh pair of green boxers with white four-leaf clovers. I bought them for his birthday last month. He made some joke about being a lucky guy that I only half-heard as he slithered under the covers and coiled his arms around my waist. I rolled to face him and set my hands on either side of his face. His eyes looked as bright and eager as they always did.

For a while, I thought this was what love looked like.

Donny thought he was deserving of unconditional love. He wanted a ride or die bitch, and I looked at him like he was that lamp, that light. I wanted to be that bitch for him. I still thought that if I could mold myself into one of the forms he dreamt of he wouldn’t betray me.

Men play nice just long enough to hook you. Just long enough that you’ll view their betrayals as anomalies and hear legitimate remorse in their rehearsed apologies. They call you babygirl like it’s your name, so they don’t accidentally let an “Angela” slip when they’re pleading their case to Jessica.

He lay a hand over top of one of mine, pressing it to his cheek.

“All good, Leah?” he asked.

“Baby, don’t you love me?” And you do.

I slid my hands out from under his, feeling the small, sinewy muscles along his neck. I ran my fingertips all the way down to the shallow craters above his jutting collarbone.

“I thought you were my ride or die!” And you want to be.

“Don’t throw everything we have away over one stupid mistake, baby girl.

I promise I’ll do better!” But he won’t. You know he won’t, because he’s playing the same game you are.

23

“All good,” I echoed. I spread my fingers across his neck until my hands wrapped lightly around his throat and his pulse tapped against my palms.

“Good to hear,” he smirked, closed his eyes, and leaned in.

I lifted a leg to hook it around his waist and pulled his body flush against mine.

Donny’s eyes opened and his smile spread with excitement, but when he saw my hard expression his face fell and he tried to pull back. “You said you were all good,” he said.

“Who have you been fucking?” My voice sounded hollow and warped, like listening to a cheap recording of myself.

He laughed, just as short as before but sharper now, and he didn’t leave me any space to respond.

“Just you, babygirl,” he delivered the lie with bright eyes and I let my hands drift down to his chest. I felt the quake of his quickened heartbeat through his ribcage.

“Maybe I’m just being a little crazy,” I offered.

“You’re not crazy,” he tried to assure me—but I already knew that I wasn’t.

the records down and drew the tip of the file across each side. When I was finished ruining his records I convinced myself he must have died in an accident on his way back from work. A dead man couldn’t leave me for doing him wrong.

I couldn't stand the sound of his

breathing.

The moth landed on my shoulder and I swept it off onto the carpet. It landed upside down and struggled, flailing against the thick fibers. The dust from its wings rose like a tiny cloud of ash. Would it be able to fly if it managed to turn itself upright? Or would it crawl away, helpless, to die and rot under Donny’s favorite chair? I drove my file through the insect’s fat, hairy body and carried it to the trash can in the bathroom. I buried my file, along with the creature impaled on it, at the bottom of the can under the last two weeks of cotton balls, q-tips, string floss, and red-brown pads wrapped stealthily in toilet paper.

Really, I knew he was coming back, but my heart still turned to lead when Donny walked through the door the next morning.

“I’m sorry,” I said, even though I wasn’t that either. I traced small circles on his chest and pushed out my bottom lip.

“Hey, hey,” he whispered, his arms sliding around my shoulders. “It’s alright.

I’m not mad. It’s all good.”

He always liked protecting me. He thought I needed it.

The second time, he didn’t come home that night at all. Maybe he knew better. I spent the first two hours playing Let it Bleed by the Rolling Stones on repeat until I couldn’t stand the sound of it. It was Donny’s favorite record. His copy had been well loved for many years and meticulously cared for. I snatched it off of the record player, ran out the back door and hurled it like a frisbee into the forest behind Donny’s house. I stood there, the screen door propped open against my foot, wondering if I should retrieve it. It had been his father’s. The entire collection and the player were a part of his inheritance and he valued them more than the money left in his name.

A moth, fat and clumsy, grated its body against the screen as it passed by on its way to the bright lights behind me. I let the door For a while, clatter shut and went back inside.

I thought this was what love looked like.

I took my metal nail file from the bathroom counter and knelt on the living room floor in front of the wall of carefully kept record racks. One by one I pulled

The third time—well, here we are now. My hands at Donny’s throat. His wide eyes staring up at me, pleading.

He’s not fighting me as hard as he was a minute ago. I might have forgiven him again, but he was too bold in his lies. He tried to convince me that the gaudy coral lipstick smeared across his neck was mine. He claimed I’d been wearing it when he left for work that morning, and that I’d kissed him before he went out the door. I hadn’t touched him in days, but when he said that I smiled, said I was foolish for forgetting, and kissed him right there on his neck where she had. I made him a Moscow mule in his favorite copper mug and waited until he was deeply asleep before I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t stand the smell of booze and foreign perfume. I couldn’t stand the sound of his breathing. I don’t have to listen to it anymore.

Donny is cold and still beneath me now. I crawl off his corpse, and look down at my hands. My right palm is covered in smudges of coral wax. If the color were a little deeper, it would look like blood. I walk into the bathroom, turn on the light, and find myself in the mirror. My mother’s eyes stare back at me. I turn the faucet, splash water across my face and scrub the lipstick off my hand. I face my mother in the mirror again. I am no fucking moth.

n

o

by Ali Mo

25

I’m Sorry, I Forgive You

by Alexandra Johnston

The house was called Hiland Cottage; a cozy title for a place where people came to die.

I don’t know what I expected it to look like. Run-down, probably. Shabby, with hideous pink carpets worn down into ruts from wheelchairs and the foot-dragging shuffle of the elderly and dying. I think I expected a harried-looking staff, who flinched every time a nurse call-button was pushed, who used an obscenely saccharine mask to hide the raw, withered husk that resembled a soul.

The reality was a well-maintained, cozy little place with airy, cheerful rooms and bright, happy colours. The staff greeted me happily, pointed me to room three countless times, showed me to the kitchen on my coffee runs and occasionally made the coffee runs themselves.

But when death finally found its way to room three, I found myself fascinated with a grandfather clock in the lobby. It became death’s clock to me, though it wasn’t satisfyingly sinister. It was walnut, and gold, and tick, tick, tick-ed away in the corner. Ticked away my waiting for the hearse, ticked away the life of the patients. It seemed morbid that a place with so many people with so few days should count down every second with brazen ticking, and mark the passing of every second down, down, down into death’s cold embrace.

As I stood watching the pendulum swing, a nurse interrupted my thoughts to ask if my brother and I were “Being helped.”

I stuttered out something like “Oh, we’re... we’re... uh... waiting.”

The word waiting suddenly seemed horrifically macabre. How dare I have time to wait? A life was gone, how could I wait?

The nurse stared, clearly needing something more.

I considered how he, a man “We’re waiting for my parents,” I explained, hoping that would account for the presence of a seventeen-year who saw death every day, old girl and fourteen-year old boy. and treated it with a business-like nonchalance would She looked at me, her face softening. “From room three?” see my inablity to feel anything.

I nodded.

I was glad that I didn’t have to tell her that the occupant had just died, and appear insensitive with my inappropriate lack of feeling for the topic.

“OK.” She left the building, leaving us with the tick-tick-ticking.

At her exit, my uncle entered.

I didn’t know if the customary pleased-to-see-you smile was appropriate, so I started and stopped, and settled on “Hey.” He smiled a bit and ruffled my hair. I think he mistook my awkwardness as a difficulty suppressing my grief. Or maybe it was more comforting for him than me.

He asked how I’m doing, I said “Good.” after some hesitation, and he too, exited.

How can that be answered from behind a mask of feeling like mine? I hated myself for saying “Good,” but it was the safest option. I couldn’t have played “Not so well,” and that would’ve been horribly obvious, and the truth, “Bored,” would’ve been obscene.

A Western played on a television somewhere. Horses screamed, guns fired, and with a click, it shut off.

I was a self-absorbed 16-year-old when she got sick for the last time.

A woman said good-bye, that she’d be back tomorrow. And as I considered the possibility of a tomorrow for the residents here, the man with a hearse arrived, a friend of dad’s from high school. He asked my parents where to take the body. I was nudged forward to greet him. My father’s expression told me I might have found it a bit too easy to be charming, and the funeral director had a similar problem with “I’m sorry for your loss.” It popped out of his mouth, and before a response could be made, he was talking about the flowers.

I considered how he, a man who saw death every day, and treated it with a business-like nonchalance, would see my inability to feel anything.

Sitting in the garden, after chasing a cat, as everyone made arrangements, finally I considered crying. I wasn’t sad, but there was the feeling that something had changed. Like having the same wallpaper on a computer for seventeen years, and then having it suddenly change. Up until now, my only emotion toward the whole affair was sort of an awkward uncertainty. I didn’t know how I was supposed to act.

It may be cold to say I didn’t feel any grief. I was bored. I wanted to go home and check the new episodes of the Nerdist to see when he would be having someone from the cast of the second Hobbit. There was the cat to play with, but it just gave me a disdainful look and scaled a tree, its ginger-and-cream coat vanishing into the leaves. It hardly seemed fair that a cat, the very picture of indifference, should judge me for not crying.

I wrote this on the day my grandmother died. August 27, 2013.

I was a self-absorbed 16-year-old when she got sick for the last time. I had drifted away from her before her death, angry over some comment. It took me three years to finally detangle the web of emotions in my chest and just cry.

I wish she had lived long enough to see me grow into a woman, one who could reconcile my early memories of a cookie-baking grandma who wanted to give me the world and the later ones of her smoking through her oxygen mask and lashing out in pain through a haze of prescription medicine. I want to tell her that I understand how strong she was to be in pain her whole life and still smile and teach six-year-old me how to make pineapple upside-down cake and microwave meatloaf. I wish I had been old enough to understand the weight of her words when she confided in me about her childhood, her alcoholic father with the nasty temper and her terrifying walk home with her brother’s ‘trustworthy’ friend. I want to tell her that I admire her.

She loved me deeply, I’m sure of that.

27

Gray objects floated past the man in the twilight, his labored breathing echoing off sidewalk and cement walls. His black Nikes drank the shadows that pooled around his feet, and his dayglo orange sweatshirt kept the darkness at bay.

Every morning he liked to run through the old carnival grounds by the ocean. It had become a ritual for him. His mind wouldn’t register when he was awake until he was there by himself, his sweat already pouring into his thick workout clothes.

A distant cloud floated above the horizon, its azure belly a passive threat from the sun. The man quickened his pace, chasing his own shadow through the stalls and past rusted gates. Soon he was sprinting, pumping his fists with each step. Blood rushed in his ears, and he started to hyperventilate. He turned down a random walkway between two stalls and lost his footing. Asphalt tried to kiss his forehead, but his limp body slumped into a lazy roll. The cloth at his shoulder ripped as he landed on his back. He lay with his eyes closed, feeling the hum of his overworked body. The salty air was cold and refreshing, and after a few moments he reopened his eyes.

All he saw was an overpowering glow of red and his lifeless hand on the ground. After his pupils adjusted, he registered a neon light emitting from the building he had tumbled in front of. Above him two evil eyes smiled sardonically, and he read three words in red cursive, “Hall of Mirrors.”

“Hey Mister! Hey, you on the ground! Dust yourself off and step on up!”

More Weight

by Matthew Suehr

completely mirrored, giving the impression of vast space to either side of him. This odd sensation threw his equilibrium off and made his legs wobble, but finally he found himself in a well-lit room. It was circular, with hanging Edison bulbs that left the ceiling in darkness. Three mirrors stood in the middle. The first was a perfect oval. The second, the shape of a star. The third was shaped like a giant dagger.

In the first mirror his running clothes were replaced by wrinkly khakis and a faded polo shirt. He stood in the middle of a dirty apartment bedroom, leaning stacks of books and papers strewn everywhere. A lone lamp stood next to the bed, and a half-eaten Hot Pocket lay prone on a plate on the desk.

“Hello,” his reflection said, without looking up. “How may I be of assistance? I have quite a bit of reading to do, and I would like to continue my studies as soon as possible.”

This odd sensation threw his The back of the man’s throat felt dry and equilibrium off and made his cracked as he asked, “Who are you?”

The man slowly stood, probing his head with the tips of his fingers for bumps or blood. He mechanically The reflection tilted its head, and looked up legs wobble... made his way over to the light, noticing that the voice with clouded eyes. “Are you not able to deduct had come from a teenaged girl in a yellow and red striped uniform. Her blonde hair that by yourself? I am you, sir, at least a piece of you. I sit or stand here, it was in pigtails, absorbing the neon so that it seemed a reddish gold. Her green matters not, and I read. I learn. I absorb all of the knowledge I can get my eyes were slits of mirth, and her jaw worked tirelessly on a large hunk of gum. hands on—that is my sole purpose.”

“Too long at the beer tent, eh mister?” she asked, followed by a large bubble that popped once it reached the size of a softball. “Well, you seem alright now.

Want a ticket? You’re my first customer of the day.” She leaned over the lime green podium and looked both ways. “I can give you one for free if you promise not to tell anyone.” With a wink and a giggle, she tore a blue ticket off a large roll.

The man opened his mouth to reply, but couldn’t find the right words. His mind was hazy, a dark mist the consistency of grape jelly.

The girl popped another bubble while she waited, and then she ushered him in.

Stumbling through the dark, he found a winding walkway. The walls were

“Haven’t you learned to clean your room?” the man quipped.

“It matters not,” replied his reflection. “At least, I don’t care. I am blind to the rest of the world. All that exists is what’s inside these books, and inside my head. Why should I worry about the squabbles of others or the way they see me? I am perfectly content.” At this last statement the reflection’s left eye twitched, and his finger tapped the binding of the book in his hand.

He did not remember turning, but the man now stood in front of the star-shaped mirror. His reflection wore a tailored suit, his hair stylishly tousled, and a delicate glass of champagne nestled in his hand. He stood in a

richly decorated room, white tables lining the walls and elegantly dressed dancers twirling lithely behind him.

“Ah, it’s damn good to see you, friend!” said the reflection, taking a sip from the champagne glass. “You are working much too hard. You’re practically hurting yourself. You need to have fun!”

It was then that the man saw the glaze over the reflection’s eyes. He was obviously drunk.

“Running, what a waste of time. I’d rather drink, laugh, and dance!” exclaimed the reflection with a twirl on his shiny black shoes. “Forget about the ugliness of everything else. Live the life you want! Don’t mind those bumps along the way.”

The reflection leaned toward the mirror, his fruity scented breath fogging the glass as he whispered, “Treat yourself.”

He found himself gazing into the third I won’t let you sit around mirror in a stupor. All and waste our time on Earth . he saw was a soft black, with no distinguishable features. He heard the sound of waves, and when the moon peaked out from behind dark clouds he saw that the mirror displayed an ocean, only a few feet above the waves. Three slow taps came from the dark mirror, beckoning him closer.

Suddenly a hand shot out of the mirror, punching a perfect circle in its surface and sending a large shard into the man’s left hand. Before he registered the pain, the wet hand grabbed his clothing and pulled him into the water. Its cold embrace was shocking, but not as much as the pale face that grinned at him wolfishly. Its hair was a wild mess, face was covered in thick stubble, and yellow eyes reflected the lunar rays with an unsettling madness. The stranger kept a tight grip on the man’s wrist, and burst into harsh laughter.

Chortling, it clamped an iron manacle to the man’s wrist, and the man began to sink as he watched the stranger crawl up and out of the mirror. He tried to keep his head above the waves, but his muscles cramped after a few minutes. The weight proved too much, and he began to sink into the abyss.

Before his eyes closed forever, his chest jumped up and down, sucking in saltwater as if it were air.

The man woke to a young woman pumping his chest, humming to the beat of “Stayin Alive” by the Bee Gees. He sat up with huge gasps of air, wetness clinging to his left cheek. Blood congealed on his forehead and hair as he hunched over, lungs weakly whistling.

He was still in the abandoned carnival grounds, but the hall of mirrors and peppy toll-booth girl were gone. With a sigh of disgust, he wiped off his cheek, jerking his left hand away as it touched watered-down vomit. A large shard of reflective glass was embedded between his first and middle finger, and both of his wrists were rubbed raw.

After slowly pulling out the shard and wiping his hands on his sweatshirt, he itched his face and felt a thick growth of stubble that hadn’t been there before. His hands slid up to his head, and felt a mop of thick, messy hair.

“What happened? Are you alright?” asked the young woman, her voice full of genuine concern. The sun blinked at the horizon, and her blonde hair drank its crimson rays until it was a reddish gold.

“Shit, I must’ve tripped and bumped my head. You saved my life.” He smiled wolfishly, staring into her green eyes. “Can I make it up to you over lunch?”

She looked him up and down and said, “Sorry, I have a boyfriend.”

“Oh, how I have waited for this! Forever, really, in this damn place. Do you like it? I’ve been watching you, crying out for you to notice me, but not even a glimpse in my direction. Not even a ‘Hello,’ or a ‘How are you?’” Its smile turned into a threatening grimace. “Well, I’m taking over, you impolite putz. You’ve done things your way, and now I’ll take a chance at the reins. You were always so calm, so nice, so quiet.”

“Just because there’s a riptide doesn’t mean you can’t swim at the beach,” he quipped, jumping to his feet.

It leaned in and smiled, whiskers almost touching the man. “I am tired of your timidity. Life’s a race. I’ll fight, fuck, cheat, and steal my way to the finish line.

I won’t let you sit around and waste our time on Earth. It’s a goddam playground and you’ve only tried the merry-go-round. I’m going to climb on the monkey bars, jump off the swings, and burn the fucking jungle gym.”

She stared with a look of disbelief, until she laughed so hard she snorted softly. She took out a pen, slid up one of the man’s sleeves and wrote her number on his forearm, as well as the words, “Just lunch.”

29

“Are you sure you’re ok?” she asked, an eyebrow raised in concern. She put the back of her hand on his forehead to check his temperature.

“Now I am,” he rumbled.

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silence was her goodbye to the people who ignited her flame in all the wrong ways it began as a wispy flicker she couldn’t light a candle with, but their stale air, biting oxygen, sparked a chemical fire charcoal lungs puffing a burst of sweet wild cherry smoke through scabbing ears still in desperate recovery singed hair gathered into a rope, a waiting fuse for the day her eyes cleared enough to enjoy fireworks a sizzling marked her steps as she dropped the match crafted from third-degree anxieties and combustible whispers unable to contain her smolder she gave them an inferno entrances never welcomed her the way exits did 31

by Anne-Marie Dunklow

When Sleeping Women Wake It was as if I were sleepwalking, and I didn’t know how or when to wake up.

by Amanda Coddington

My little girl ran through the overgrown grass, arms flailing about, crushing wild daisies beneath her small feet. I’ve never seen such happiness from a child here at this house. It looked run down from weather and years of neglect. Shingles from the roof were scattered about the yard, and one shutter had come unhinged, slowly swaying there in the breeze. The house’s paint, dingy and pealing, even looked like time itself had abused it.

flower garden. That window was the only connection with the outside world I truly had. My entire life could be summed up through that glass pane.

“Momma, Momma,” her words came rushing out with excitement.

“Momma, I wanna go see what your room looks like.”

into the side of the pillow that held years of smeared mascara and tears, trying to shield her face away from the light. She vowed not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her torn. That’s all he really wanted from her anyway.

It wasn’t her body that he so often came into her room to violate. It was the torment he caused her, and the embarrassment on her face every morning.

It was the way she would flinch at his touch in public like prey trying to flee from its pursuing predator.

Stepping into the home, I could still breathe in the faint odor of alcohol and stagnant cologne, as if it had seeped into the walls only to permanently stain the elegant wood. She let go of my hand and ran toward the heavy staircase, the patter of her little feet ringing too loud in the silence.

Still I stood there on the sidewalk in front of the old home, the tight grip Walking into this place was like walking back in time, like stepping right of a child’s fingers wrapped around mine. back into a terrible dream, a nightmare that held me in its proverbial grip.

It was easier this My heart raced faster, and my stomach knotted tighter with every step “Momma, what did this house used to closer I took to my old room. My body shuddered with disgust, while look like when you were just little?” way, giving into my frail uncertain fingers nudged the door, reopening a portal My words came out so quiet, like I was speaking the efficiency of into hell. only for myself to hear, “This house used to look so I stood there helpless and watched the images of beautiful from the outside.” It was fake beauty though. There silence and the art my younger self, that girl as she writhed and was nothing good about what resided here. of invisibility. jerked about, entangling herself in thick white I told myself that I would never come back. Only in his passing do I cotton, a blanket of protection now stained with shame. Limbs numb from return. The neighbors had started to complain about the ungroomed lawn exhaustion, her eyes went to that place. The place she often went to feel and vacant house that sat in the middle of such a tight-knit and quaint little nothing. No pain, no heartache, no betrayal, just nothing. It was so much community. A house like that would bring unwanted negative attention to safer not to feel, not to let the world touch her. It was easier this way, giving the area’s reputation. Such a scandal like this would never be spoken of. into the efficiency of silence and the art of invisibility.

There were rumors floating about shortly before I left this home, rumors She wadded the loose fabric clinging tightly to her body in her fists. of a father who would drink himself violent, and a daughter of loose morals.

Sweat clumped her hair to her forehead. It wasn’t her sweat though, it No one other than me knew the truth. So, it was no surprise to hear that he was his. He heaved himself on her harder, fumes rolling from his breath, had drank himself to death, and I wondered just who happened to find him catching in her nostrils. Choking back the scent of him, the surrounding face down in that vengeful bottle. space reeking of his favorite bourbon and cheap cologne. She threw her head

Such eagerness felt unnatural when thinking about it together with the memories of my childhood room. I let her little body pull me forward from the sidewalk toward the house. From the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of the window, clouded with grime, which used to overlook the vivacious

The ceiling drifted away, fading into the distance as she herself only wished she could do. The thrashing of his body darkened her thighs with thick bruises.

Swallowing back her watery weakness, she protectively clutched the only safe and innocent thing in the room, the one thing that hadn’t let her down yet. Pressing her palms into her eyes to relieve the pressure building up inside, she steadied her breathing.

He always left her there as if she were trash he had no more use for when he was finished. He would leave her alone to clean up his mess, waiting for the slight latching sound of the door’s hitch that conveyed some small ounce of safety. Once the creaking floorboards beyond dulled to nothingness, she turned the heavy weight of herself onto her side and let it all out, tears searing into her cold skin, hot and angry. She let out her frustration over his power, let out her revulsion over the feeling of him inside of her, let out everything that he had stolen, her happiness, her trust, her virtue.

She wiped the back of her hand against her trembling lips, stifling back the urge to vomit.

she lived every night. Nobody else truly knew, and dark artist painting pictures without permission, raping if they did, they didn’t speak a word of it, but the me through my own thoughts. The small child pressed looks of contempt on her little palm inside mine her neighbors’ faces “Okay, Momma,” she This didn’t have to again. were only directed said, then headed over toward be my fate, and it toward her, as if she, the bedroom’s dingy window. and she alone, had didn’t have to be my Again, it was as if I saw caused this. It was as myself back in time, in my own unborn child’s fate. if they thought that worst dream. That girl, she somehow she had stood there alone, between brought this indignity upon herself. Or maybe, they the thick glass windows that shielded all life from her. didn’t think that at all, maybe that’s only what that The limp flowers and mangled garden dirt were the only girl could see. Her own disgrace projected from the thing of beauty encasing this home. She watched the eyes of others. petals blow in big circles in the yard before scattering The slight stomping of little feet brought me back from the horror, as elated giggles and bouncing blonde pigtails tied with delicate silk ribbon came rushing through the door past my side. The small child went straight for the bed, crashing into the mound of dusty bedding. Every bounce sent puffs of its filth wafting into the air.

The worse part always came after the attack. It was Nausea instantly struck my insides seeing a the feeling of worthlessness. No matter how many child, my child, on something that held years of times I had tried, and no matter for how long I would such malice. “Honey, get off that right now,” panic bathe, I never really felt like I was clean. The taint edging my voice. will always be there, I remembered so forever ingrained into freshly how that girl This house was her my very being. had stripped the bed

personal prison, holding of all its material, not Sweltering tears streaked down my a fresh hell only she wanting to lie in its face, burning into my dank horror, inaudible lived every night. skin like acid. It had whimpers escaping her been years since I lips. Seeking solace had given in to thoughts about the abuse. Bitter agony in the silence of night, she cocooned in slumber, cursed through my mind. How did this happen, how allowing the world just beyond to pass her by. could this happen? Why me?

This all felt so surreal. It was like living outside That girl. That desperate girl. She spent hours alone inside the small walls that confined her soul. This house was her personal prison, holding a fresh hell only

of myself, like I was in a permanent state of sleep, confronted only by my past memories. There was no present, and there was no future, the memory, a

33

to the ground. There, those petals in all their loveliness would wilt and die, like everything else this place touched.

There, rocking gently back on her heels, that girl prayed for this all to end, for her life of torment to be over. She was sure that any death would be easier than enduring one more second of this abuse, but something in that very moment, something happened while she was in that place she often would go. She felt something, the slight flutter of the life inside her.

That day I felt everything again. My listless mind embraced it all, even welcoming the years of built up pain. That was the day I decided to free myself from such tragedy. This didn’t have to be my fate, and it didn’t have to be my unborn child’s fate. The burden of that old life lifted from me, and I felt my own selfworth again grow with the life inside me. That day when I left my nightmare for the last time, I left her behind.

I watched that girl fade from the window. All of her would eventually be gone with time, and the only thing I took with me from that dreadful place was my child.

She was the reason I chose to feel again, she was my reason to wake up from this and live, and now, she was my constant reminder that something so beautiful could come from something so ugly. I left it behind to give her life, but that day she gave me back mine.

Six years later, the flowers along the house would flourish, touched with such tenderness that the only thing that was reminiscent here of such a dark period was a memory fading even more each day.

Heading from the home’s long staircase with my child, I felt the slight crunching of something beneath my feet. Looking down at broken glass reminded me of the photo that used to hang on the wall, the photo that still held a place there.

“Momma, I look just like you when you was little.”

“Yes, you do honey.”

After all, we are both a product of my father.

“ Jo urn ey of the

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by Kristy Tompkin

This triptych tells the story of disc overing my daughter’s co ngenital heart de fe cts and the journey we took to get th em repaired. An enor mous story smas hed into three panels !

“Generatio

by Nichole

ns”

The Hartle y dad’s strongest s first ide of tradition on m in the name J the fa four photogames. Thmily is the y gener raph e art Jim, and atio come ifacts from bond Jame ns of Jimm c s only m arried d , repres y, JD the ale sib own th enting , ling in roug the each h the gener ation.

Springfield Armory No. 462,737

by William Walton I was born in January of 1944 in Springfield, Massachusetts. I remember the sounds of heavy machinery and the heat of a forge. I remember my mother placing me in a truck, then I slept.

When I woke up I was in South Carolina.

The air was warm and wet and my mother was nowhere to be seen. I was pulled from the truck by a man in a green shirt, and from there I was passed to another man in the same shirt. I can’t remember how many of these men I was passed between, but eventually I ended up in the care of a man named Private. Private seemed like a decent enough fellow, but he was always on edge. He was often getting yelled at by a taller man named Sir who wore a weird hat. I didn’t know much back then, but I knew my job was to keep Private safe.

I remember the first time Private took me out to the range. It was a cool Wednesday near the end of January. There was a great sense of anticipation, Private was meticulously loading one round at a time into the stripper clip. He put the clip in my well and racked the bolt. I produced a satisfying clang, and Sir yelled a I didn’t know much back then, but I knew my job was to keep Private safe.

command. The ground was still wet with dew when Private laid on his stomach and shouldered me. Sir yelled again while Private began to put steady pressure on my trigger.

He placed a clip in my well and from there we I felt the pressure build, the hot gasses boarded a small boat with about twenty other strained my every component. I thought I was men. I’m not sure how, but I could tell that they going to shatter, but I didn’t. As the bullet were scared. finally exited my barrel, I felt a great sense of relief as I expelled the gasses expanding inside I saw a beach ahead of us as the sun rose. me. My bolt racked again, automatically this Shortly after an alarm sounded and the boat time, and another cartridge was loaded into my began to sail toward the shore. Private checked chamber. Private pulled my trigger again, and my action, disengaged my safety, and looked again I felt the rush of I’m not sure how, but I could tell that towards the beach. I being fired. He fired me heard explosions come they were scared. six more times before I from above as bright ejected my clip with a loud crack. My bolt locked streaks of light flashed around us. The pilot of open, and Sir yelled another command. the boat yelled something and Private held me I carried on like that for several weeks. He would take me to the range and fire me and listen to Sir yell commands. Then, one day in May, we didn’t go to the range. Instead we went to the docks and boarded a ship.

I’m not sure how long we were in the ship, but eventually we came to a stop off the coast of England. Private went landside, leaving me alone in the bowels of the ship. He was gone for some time, and when he came back he smelled of cheap whiskey. The next day he took me to a tent not far from the dock. Inside was a chalkboard and a man. Private called this man Sir, but he didn’t look like the man from South Carolina. This new Sir gave a speech, and drew some diagrams on the chalkboard.

I was taken back to the ship after that. The mood was somber; some men wrote letters while others prayed. Private just sat in his bunk and stared at a photograph. Before the next dawn, Private awoke and took me to the deck.

tight to his chest. I heard another explosion, this one much closer to us, and the boat shook. I saw a flash of light and heard Private scream. After that all I saw and felt was salt water.

I am old now, left with a rusted action and a rotten stock. Years in the sea took their toll, and no one can fire me anymore. These days I sit behind glass. Every once in a while a man with rubber gloves comes out to check on me. He rubs me with oil to prevent further oxidization, and he says that I tell a very important story.

I don’t know what happened to Private, but listening to the man with the gloves, I figure that what ever happened on the beach wasn’t very good. Still, sometimes I like to imagine that Private made it out okay, that he made it back to South Carolina or wherever he was before then.

I like to imagine that he found the lady from the photograph, and maybe they had a son who liked to wear gloves and take care of old rifles. I like to imagine...

“Patched Up Life”

by Joel Mann

I wanted to create a timeline of what I consider significant moments in my life, but in a fashion that speaks more to my style, and also a subtle nod to the trademark flair of one of my favorite designers, Aaron Draplin.

Each patch represents a landmark moment in my life: my birth, when I started playing the bass, the day I married my wife, the day I started my design company, and the births of my two children: Sadie & Henry. The final part of the timeline is the blank piece of paper, which the path trails off on, to symbolize the endless possibilities that still await me.

I chose the meandering map style, versus the traditional, more linear timeline format because no path is a straight line. No life looks perfect while it’s being lived. It’s only when looking back that you can see the beauty that is created from the stumbles and the wandering that brought you to where you are today.

There was a time, they told me, that all I am was the vagaries and shiftings of tides.

Defined before thought, a meme in madness.

I listened, for I thought theirs was the voice of wisdom and tried to harken back to a primal place.

But I was not I then.

Little self, cupping juice and mewling for warm arms and a face much bigger than this.

With lungs tinier than a fist, just loud enough. Â Mom hears the scream of an infant forcing for itself a place to be.

This was I, or so they’ve told me.

She called me a force of nature, named me.

She made from dust and blood roads and empires for tiny hands to form or destroy.

She tells tales of how I alighted her sails, calling her from sleep with a siren song, forcing compassion from her tired eyes.

My wiggling form was enough for her to hope, they said.

They show me pictures and swear I was there, but I was formed before I could tell myself a thing.

A meme in madness, I was caged before I could fly.

I could touch, they said.

I was doing it before, and yet what were those tiny hands like?

I picture them under the groaning and cracking of joints; they were storms and thunders, riveting and bigger than I.

My world was me, grew out of me, and now that world is a tool, cannibalized and made to clack and shuffle; those hands are still soft and young, and yet now without force, heavy.

I remember the feeling of carpet, and how much it meant to me; it’s meaningless to me now.

The 60s shag, like wispy tufts of hair I could pull on and not be snapped at for.

In its curves a jungle and a face to crawl on and feel with hands, toes and chest.

I still remember the smell of prune juice and shag, my cotton shirt and the feeling of rocking.

I thought the whole earth must be feeling this too

They Told Me

by Mitchell Lewis

I can’t tell you what the faces looked like, or the color of our walls; my world was ankle high.

A world I walk on now with calloused feet.

It is song worth no merit, they tell me, my baby blues, dirge, buried, worthless.

It is sad to lose a thing I may never have had, but I remember.

A moment I can never hold, unsure if it was I then or it is I wishing back now.

God told me I was special; He sang with suns and tingles down my spine.

He was a book, a man, a friend, and my chest, and not necessarily in that order.

I got lost because being wasn’t shag and prune juice.

I couldn’t make my fingers a force of nature so I found a sea to drown in.

I waited for salt and water to tear apart my form so I could be that force of nature they told me she said I was.

It worked.

Until it didn’t.

I ripped, and could no longer hold the sea, too foreign for the sea to hold me.

I found my end, right at the fingertip, the place I feared I would find it.

I am my own world now.

I am terrified.

And I don’t remember being truly scared till I was I because I could be less, or gone, or not enough.

God taught me that, or I remember he did, at least.

I have discernible bounds now, right at the bone.

But that’s me now, right to the tip.

I remember me, I am I, because I recall things.

And now because I can die.

I am scared but I am home; others don’t tell me how far my reach is now because they know I saw my arm just yesterday.

I know my bounds, and it is I.

My memory gave me that, but also thunder and blues.

A bird defined and warmed by its cage.

39

ntwined

My mouth twitched as I struggled to not yet match the grin slowly creeping onto Edward’s face. His eyes focused on my lips reciting our vows. “…for better or for worse,” the priest continued. “…for better or for worse,” I repeated, gently squeezing Edward’s hand.

“Until death do us part.”

I held Edward’s gaze, my brain capturing every bit of this moment. “Until death do us part.”

by Ann Hosler

“Each memory was brought to life

The priest raised his arms, slowly sweeping his head from side to side as he addressed the church. “The bride and groom have vowed to love and remain steadfast and loyal to one another as they stand before their assembled community of friends and family. May your love be eternal and undying. By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife.

You may kiss the bride.”

before me and within me. I could not avoid them. Neither could I rationalize, explain away. I could only re-experience with total cognizance, unprotected by pretense. Self-delusion was impossible, truth exposed in this blinding light.”

_ Richard Matheson, What Dreams May Come

Edward wasted no time wrapping his arms around me as our lips connected. I think the cheers cooled us down into the “church kiss” category.

We broke apart and turned to our families, my aunt winking from the front row.

A shadow falls over me from the other side of the hospital bed, and I turn to find a hawk-nosed nurse inches from my face. contact. He offers me

I flashed her a cheeky grin and my new husband tugged my hand as we hurried down the aisle.

The summer I turned six was the first time I met my Aunt Judith. My parents had prepared a room for her to stay in shortly before she arrived, but I overheard them whispering about her for weeks leading up to the big day. Mom didn’t discuss her sister much, so I was excited to meet my mystery aunt. That first glimpse of her pixie-cut blonde hair—styled akin to Mia Farrow’s in The Great Gatsby—framing a friendly petite face and fiery hazel eyes has a cherished spot in my mind.

She stayed for three days, celebrating my birthday that weekend. Her smile dazzled my friends and I; we were enraptured by her exotic tales of adventure. Why doesn’t Mom share these stories? I wondered aloud.

Aunt Judith winked and leaned in, like she had a secret, whispering loudly: Catherine isn’t a Keeper, so she can’t come along. I turned around in time to see Mom clench her jaw, but my aunt just smiled affectionately at her.

My childhood passed without seeing my aunt in person again, yet with each birthday a handmade card arrived with a picture of some place she had visited.

Mom seemed upset by the first card, wanting to discard it. I talked Dad into convincing her otherwise, insisting that because the envelope was addressed to “Carly” and not “Mom” she wasn’t allowed to decide its fate. They argued that night, the first of many to come.

Another contraction rips through me with the intensity of two semitrucks colliding head-on at highway speed. I tighten my grip on Edward’s hand, his fingertips tomato-tinged from the

an encouraging smile as I pant through the pain; we’ve been here for hours and no words will change the situation.

A shadow falls over me from the other side of the hospital bed, and I turn to find a hawk-nosed nurse inches from my face. Behind her, the doctor consults in hushed tones with another physician and two nurses.

“You need to breathe, dear, or—” “Get out of my face,” I growl through gritted teeth.

The nurse gasps, turns to look at the readout from one of too-many machines hooked up to me, then scurries out in a huff. Edward chuckles, drawing my attention back to him. “That wasn’t well-done, love.”

“You try having this baby then,” I grouse.

His lips curl sadly in response.

Several contractions go by before two familiar faces peer around the growing wall of doctors. My aunt rushes over with my father trailing behind.

“Oh sweetheart, we came as soon as Edward’s voicemail pinged through.

One of the cell towers is out in the city…” she trails off, flapping her hands briefly before leaning over to hug me. Pulling back, my aunt beams, pride etched on her lightly-wrinkled face. “I’m just glad we beat the baby!”

My father makes a vague noise of agreement, his panicked eyes looking everywhere but at me. I giggle as I recall my mother once telling me, while explaining the birds and the bees and everything in-between in the most horrifyingly revealing way, that he had to be carried from her delivery room after he fainted. He denies her claim to this day. Amusement morphs into a grunt of pain as a new contraction crashes in.

Observing my father’s paling face, my aunt steers him toward the hall. “We’ll be waiting outside for the big event!” She winks and ushers him away.

I pant through the contraction, wondering what use those fancy breathing classes were when I can’t focus, also dimly aware of Edward brushing the hair off my sweaty face. He’s waiting to hand me a cup of water as my breathing evens out, and we share weary smiles. Behind him I see that the sun is nearly setting—we’ve been here since morning, when twilight painted the sky.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Evans?”

My doctor breaks away from the consulting gang, who all turn to observe him observing me. He stops at the end of my bed, chart in hand. His mouth is a grim line, odd to see on such a normally amicable man. I nod, not trusting my voice to function for long at this point.

“I’m afraid your dilation is not progressing beyond six, and all readings indicate abnormalities in the baby’s heartrate,” he explains.

“Abnormalities?” Edward cuts in, his voice rough. “What do you mean, Dr. Benston?”

The doctor nods. “With each contraction we’re seeing severe drops in heart rate. The longer your labor continues, the more at-risk your baby is for heart failure.”

I stare at Edward with unshed tears, silently pleading him to somehow find the right words to say. A contraction intrudes on the conversation, and afterward he lays a soft kiss on my hand before turning back to Dr. Benston.

“So what are our options?”

Dr. Benston grimaces, glancing briefly at the consulting group, down at my chart, and back at us. “The best one, for the health of both mother and baby, is to perform a cesarean.” He nods at my audible intake of breath. “I know how much you wanted a natural birth. Please believe that I wouldn’t present this option if I didn’t think it was in your best interest, Mrs. Evans.”

“I…understand.”

My voice wobbles and everything goes dim while the next contraction overtakes me.

By the time it’s passed, the room is empty aside from one nurse—not the hawk-nosed one from earlier—and Edward.

“They went to prepare the paperwork and contact the anesthesiologist,” he explains.

“Ah,” I say, feigning interest at an invisible speck on the bed. Guilt swamps me. How could I fail at the one thing my gender specializes in?

“Hey,” he says, leaning his forehead against mine, drawing my eyes to his. “It’s gonna be alright, you know. Don’t beat yourself up over it. We’ll make it through this and have a beautiful son or daughter in no time.”

I nod, releasing a shaky breath. “You’re right,” I offer with a wobbly smile.

He draws back, smirking. “I’m always right, except when I’m not.”

A package arrived on my twelfth birthday, and inside was the most beautiful wooden box I had ever seen. Dad said that the wood was mahogany, its dark reddish-brown grains flawlessly straight and smooth. Intricate swirls looped through a series of engraved ovals on the lid, with no recognizable beginning or end. My aunt’s note that year was the shortest yet:

Carly, Keep the box empty—soon it will serve its purpose. Have a wonderful birthday.

Love and smiles, Aunt Judith My parents thought I was asleep, but their argument kept me awake. It’s unnatural, it must be smashed and burned, Mom yelled, her voice clear and shrill. I never heard Dad’s thoughts, his low-pitched baritone muffled by the walls. When Mom snuck into my room

that night, I pretended to sleep, biting my lip as she snatched the box from my nightstand before hurrying out. Silent tears streaked down my cheeks, but eventually sleep consumed me.

The next morning the box was perfectly placed back on my nightstand, a single sooty fingerprint on the upper-right corner and a faint ashy smell hanging in the air. Mom never mentioned the box again.

I pretended to sleep, biting my Over the next two years I followed my aunt’s instructions, leaving the box empty. I peered inside it each birthday before slipping Aunt Judith’s card beneath, curious if there would be a change. I’m not certain what lip as she snatched I expected to happen, but disappointment filled me each time I saw its barren interior. the box from my nightI had only been a freshman in high school for one month when Mom left and never returned. stand before hurrying out.

Dad told me it wasn’t my fault—that sometimes relationships crack and never heal properly.

I knew for years they were unhappy, and that he was trying to protect me, but eventually life had to begin.

“Close your eyes and try to sleep now,” I sing along to my well-loved and ancient Pat Benatar CD while swaying around the living room, “Close your eyes and try to dream. Clear your mind and do your best to try and wash the palette clean.”

“Hey!” I say, glancing over at the clock. It’s a bit after two and I need to leave soon to beat the worst of the traffic on my way to our son’s school.

“Uh... hello ma’am… this is Lila, from Augatine Memorial Hospital.” An older woman’s voice comes through on the other end of the line, a constant din of commotion in the background.

My voice cuts off as my phone rings, and I snatch I frown, not wanting to deal with another fundraising call during my “mommy freetime.” it up, rushing across the room to pause the disk.

Before responding, I remind myself of the best lesson my father taught me: anyone can be rude, I don’t recognize the number, but that’s but manners will get you places. “What can I help you with today?” I inquire. normal whenever Edward is at the office; The woman heaves a sigh… of relief? Exhaustion? I can’t tell, and her next words rip away my his headquarters re-routes outgoing suspicions.

“This number is the first ICE contact listed on Edward Evans’ phone.” calls through more lines than I “Oh, god,” I drop to the floor in shock. “Edward, he’s my husband… is he… I mean… what…?” The words to care to save in my phone. form coherent thoughts escape me.

“Your husband is in the ER right now, Mrs. Evans. He’s in critical condition, not waking, but currently stable. I’m afraid I don’t have any other information as I just came in a short time ago.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I blurt, foregoing manners and hanging up. One hand swipes through my contact list to my aunt’s name as the other grabs car keys. “Hey, sorry for the short notice but I need you to pick up Paul from school…”

When I was looking for an extra house key during holiday break my sophomore year, I found a letter Aunt Judith wrote to Mom. Buried deep within the hallway table’s general junk drawer, beneath a pile of fading scrap paper and dull-tipped pencils, the local post office stamp showed that it was processed the day before Mom left us.

Dearest Catherine, I’ve honored your wishes to stay away from my beloved niece, but I fear I cannot wait any longer. I know you are loathe to admit that some things in this world exist beyond human understanding, but the fact remains that Carly is the next Keeper and my time is nearing its end. I do not wish to place a burden upon the girl that she is ill prepared for. Send her to me for lessons—time is of the essence.

Yours, Judith

she heard I was pushing myself beyond my limits, she reminded me that taking care of myself has to happen before I can even dream of caring for others.

“Fine,” I relent, releasing his hand and rising. “But not my house. It’s not…” I look over at Edward and swipe the tears away. “It’s not home right now, you know?”

“Your father’s, then, and you can see Paul, too.” She loops an arm around my waist, letting me lean on her as we leave Edward behind.

I confronted Dad, who admitted that he knew about the letter, though not its exact contents. I thought your mother took the letter with her, otherwise we would have read it together, he explained.

After minutes of yelling, many tears, and some hugging, he called my aunt and they arranged for me to have an extended stay with her. I was on a plane by the weekend, Dad’s guilty expression lingering in my head. Our hug was stilted, his farewell gruff. Sure, I was peeved he hadn’t mentioned or searched for the letter, but we should have parted on better terms. You never know when a goodbye is your last.

Aunt Judith, who had aged dramatically since I saw her nine years prior, was still the smiling woman of my memories yet with many more wrinkles and gray hairs. She drove me through the quiet town where she resided before we pulled into the driveway of her one-story ranch-style home.

I don’t bother to look up as fingertips gingerly brush my elbow.

The following week I enrolled in a charter school that only ran half days on a nearly year-round schedule. It took a few weeks, but I started to get into the routine of high school in the morning followed by lessons with my aunt in the afternoon. I quickly was indoctrinated into the unbelievable history of my family.

“Hi,” my best friend, Hannah, says softly.

“Hi,” I respond, fingers entwined with Edward’s unmoving digits, my head resting on the side of his bed staring, hoping, for some flicker of movement.

“You need…” she trails off and flinches as I lift my head and fix a hard gaze on her, then clears her throat and continues. “You need to take care of yourself, too. I know Edward’s parents, and your father, are too damned scared to say it, but there, now it’s said.”

Every generation our family has one or more Keepers born into it— that is, individuals who possess the “gift” to protect the memories of others. You’ll find cornerstone memories vibrant, making minor ones seem dull, my aunt described. Some people may resonate more strongly with you, perhaps even reflect aspects of your own life, and they will outshine all else.

I heave a sigh and lean back in the chair that has been my home for the past few weeks, ever since a drunk driver slammed into Edward’s car on his way to a meeting. My heart rages again at the thought of some asshole, healthy and—currently—free, who thought it was a grand idea to get drunk in the middle of a day and get behind the wheel.

Hannah crouches beside me, snapping me back to the present, concern plastered across her face.

“Let’s get you home so you can sleep for a few hours and have something other than hospital food.”

I shake my head but know she’s right. Because my mother was absent most of my adult life, my aunt and I grew close, and she often shared bits of wisdom gained throughout her own. Every time

With billions of people in the world, a Keeper usually doesn’t know whose memories they are shielding, nor is the gift unique to our family. They exist all around the world, bearing their burden and That treasures without regard to race, gender, or was ethnicity.

the day I learned that the impossible is always possible.

At first, I thought Aunt Judith was trying to relive the early days of our relationship by regaling me with outlandish tales until I retrieved the box she had sent me on my twelfth birthday.

By this time I had been with her for about three weeks, but hadn’t bothered to unpack everything yet, so it was still nestled inside my larger piece of luggage.

She taps my nose fondly, then tips my chin up. “And I know you loved him, and nothing will ever replace that. I don’t expect it to. But… you need to live again.” Hannah sweeps her hand around my small, cluttered, yet neatly-kept house. “Step outside these walls, and paint with all the colors of the wind.”

I grabbed it, then tripped on the wheel of my bag as I stood. The box snapped open as it tumbled from my grasp, landing upside down on the Berber carpet. I carefully scooped it up, flipping it over, gasping at the glimmering, translucent shard suspended within its heart.

I groan, swatting her hand away. “Did you seriously just quote that Pocahontas song to me?”

Hannah’s musical laughter fills the air as she steers me toward my room.

That was the day I learned that the impossible is always possible.

I close my laptop, another day’s work behind me. Freelancing keeps me busy while Paul is in school, but it also provides a roof over our heads and food on the table. The best parts are not being enslaved by an office and being able to busy myself despite how damn empty the house is whenever my son isn’t home.

The day I walked across the stage and accepted my diploma was a proud one. Dad and Aunt Judith sat side-by-side in the audience. Mom never responded to any attempt to reach her, and I finally gave up on rekindling our relationship. People I loved were there to support me, and that was what mattered the most.

I learned a lot about being a Keeper throughout my final two years of high school. Aunt Judith noticeably slowed down, age not creeping but consuming her, yet she was tenacious and daily found something new to impart. She had a basic set of rules for Keepers:

This weekend, Paul is spending quality time with his grandfather. My father became a lot more involved after Edward passed away nearly two years ago, moving across four zip codes to be closer to us. For an eleven-year-old boy, having a father-like figure for support is a big deal, and I think my father secretly enjoys that he can do “guy stuff” that he never did with me—not that he’d ever admit it.

My phone jams with Hannah’s ringtone the same moment a sharp series of knocks rap at my front door. I swipe to answer her call and lift the phone to my ear as I stand on my tip-toes and peer out the door window.

“Open up, girl!” Hannah laughs into the phone as she waves at me from the front porch.

I hang up and yank the door open, my best friend scooping me in a big hug.

“Guess what day it is?”

Taking in her “prowler” outfit, as she dubs it, I wince. “Friday?” I offer helpfully, hoping she forgot how to read a calendar while knowing why Hannah is really visiting me.

“It’s the first day of the rest of your life!” she exclaims, pursing her lips at my frown. “You know I love you—platonically, of course.”

1. Don’t touch the shards for too long.

2. Don’t touch the shards too often.

3. Don’t tell others—unless you absolutely must.

I found her first two warnings difficult to heed after I touched the original shard suspended within my Keeper box. Another’s memory—vivid as if I was living it myself—washed over me. ...

“I hate this new house so much,” she whispered between tears, stuffing her favorite blanket and two more apples into a purple My Little Pony backpack. “I’ll find my way back to my real home.”

She tripped across the lawn as she dashed through the chilling nighttime air. The moon gradually disappeared as the trees grew denser, and she fumbled a flashlight from her bag to illuminate the forested floor.

Crickets sang, leaves rustled, and the occasional rumble of a car engine passed in the distance as she traversed the woods.

She was sure hours had passed when a branch snapped loudly behind her, causing her to scream and drop her flashlight.

The feelings were too intense, the sense of wanting more an open wound within me.

“Wait, don’t be scared!” a boy’s voice called out, and soon a hand as small as hers reached out, scooped up the flashlight, and offered it to her.

“Who are you?” she asked, looking around nervously. Her parents always told her it wasn’t safe to talk to strangers, but surely they didn’t mean other kids—right?

“I’m Edward.” He smiled and took a tiny step closer. “My house is two down from yours.”

“Oh.” Edward took another tiny step forward. “But we can be friends,” he added.

She stared at him. What did he know? He was just a stupid boy. She glanced around at the trees. Her parents would miss her in the morning, and these woods were pretty scary when she was alone.

Nodding, she held out her hand. “We can be friends.” ...

The moment I let go of the shard I keenly missed the girl’s tumult of raw, unfiltered emotions. My aunt was upset to hear I had engaged so long with the memory, and worked harder to drill her Keeper lessons into me. I eventually relented after indulging in the third shard—that time, of a high school senior scoring the winning touchdown in a playoff game. The feelings were too intense, the sense of wanting more an open wound within me. I shoved aside my curiosity and followed Aunt Judith’s wisdom—for a while, at least. It had yet to guide me wrong.

The days following my graduation became somber as Aunt Judith’s health swiftly declined.

Dad stayed for the week, and I wept on his shoulder the morning we couldn’t wake my aunt up.

That night I carried her Keeper box outside with me, as she had requested in a note we found on her bedside. She wrote that the role of Keeper was a heavy one, and though she was sorry to leave us, it was her time to let go. Dad helped me stoke the flames in her backyard fire pit, then silently returned to the house, squeezing my shoulder on his way past.

When a person’s mind begins losing its grasp on vivid details, my aunt had once explained, it’s because their Keeper has passed on. Their souls are no longer entwined, and memories they protect become dim remnants of what they once were. The human mind could only retain a finite amount unaided, and a Keeper’s soul could only withstand so much weight.

Aunt Judith had shown me the inside of her Keeper box once, and it lit up so brightly that I saw spots for several minutes afterward. The number of shards within was beyond my comprehension. I could only hope to one day protect as many memories as she once did, to feel the strength of my soul sing with the burdens and joys of others.

I knew, as I stood before the fire that night, something about my aunt’s Keeper box was different. Peering inside confirmed it.

The shards remained, but they were dull husks, some brittle and already shattered.

Snapping the lid shut, I tossed it into the fire pit, whispering thanks to the woman who was a shining light that guided me to where I needed to be. The flames leapt as they consumed the box, rainbow-hued tendrils licking its edges until it collapsed suddenly into a pile of embers.

Their souls are no longer entwined, and memories they protect become dim remnants of what they once were.

In that moment, I resolved to uncover the joy in vibrant moments before my future consigned itself to ash.

Hannah tugs my hand, dragging me out to the dance floor, shimmying around to the beat of some unfamiliar pop song. I throw my head back and laugh, shaking and swinging my arms in a valiant attempt to dance.

She is right—I need to get outside my walls. I’ve forgotten what fun is. Not that I don’t enjoy my son and my work, but there needs to be more to fill the void.

“Hey, I don’t want to creep you out, but there’s this older lady at the bar who’s been staring at you for at least a half hour now.” Hannah not-so-subtlety nods her head to my left, and I glance back in time to catch a short-cropped blonde-and-grey-haired woman spin back toward the bar.

“Are you sure it’s me?”

Hannah wiggles her eyebrows, and I swat her shoulder.

“Well, maybe she’s interested in you,” I point out.

She giggles. “Oh no, it’s definitely you. It would only be polite to at least say hello, and let her down lightly, Miss Manners.”

The music switches to a slow dance and Hannah loops her arm through mine, steering me toward the bar, not stopping until we’re behind the woman. The woman turns, her eyes widening.

“Uh, hello,” I say, giving a little wave with my free arm.

The woman’s face lights up, almost like she recognizes me. “Hi!” she exclaims, a wide smile stretching across her face as she extends a hand. “You must be Joy Evans. My name is Carly, and I’ve waited my whole life to meet you.”

“Faded Reflections�

by Brianna

Olson-Bogart

A past not forgotten but not quite clearly remembered.

Faded reflections are triggered by mementos of our past, allowing us to reminisce on the memories attached to a physical object.

D ixie Belles

by Megan

Ward

49

My mama, my aunt, and my grandma (who always wanted me to call her maw maw, but that was too hick-ish, too Beverly Hillbilly-ish, too much admitting what my family really was) put their three womanly figures, (Venus, Athena, and Hera perhaps) into the backseat of my grandpa’s blue Volvo (who was always pop pop, no matter what that said of my family).

They laughed and cried, for lack of air, (lack of space) and my grandpa (his Matlock smile) winked at me.

He knew they had a few too many Bloody Marys full of grace.

I can still smell that moment (tabasco and aftershave) now that my mama’s gray, my aunt’s gone, and my grandma’s alone, seeing them as they should always be: three southern beauties full of mistakes.

“Letters�

by Kelsey

Pease

Last year, my very best friend lived in Japan for 14 months while on exchange. It crushed my heart to have her leave, but we stayed in touch by writing letters and postcards. The ring pictured is one which we both have, which we bought as a symbol of our friendship before she left.

honeydew

by Deanna Luton Growing up, my grandmother’s house was my second home.

Greeted by the soothing scent of lavender and sweet peas, she provided a harbor of tranquility from my nuclear family’s choppy seas.

She swept me away from childhood’s cacophony

to submerge me in serenity.

My grandmother lives like a minimalist.

Re-gifting and donating—clutter is her biggest pet peeve, letting go, her most cherished pastime.

Unbeknownst to me, nearly two decades later, with countless purges in-between,

she still holds onto pieces of me.

We have drifted apart since college’s start.

Time and money estranging us—but recently we reminisced.

She pulled a photo album from her top dresser drawer.

Safely hidden but never out of reach, pictures of a pint-sized fashionista nestled inside,

the living memory of babydoll me.

My grandmother was a career cosmetologist.

She spent her entire life cultivating beauty. Tucked away, preserved in a plastic baggy, I found a single lock of honeydew curls.

From my very first haircut, she recollects, admiration in her tone as a smile cracks her rouged cheek.

51

“Hats”

by Grace Kohler

This piece is a collage of photographs that I took of my aunt’s hat collection. I inherited many of these hats after my aunt passed away, and they’ll always be a symbol of her unique personality and quirky fashion.

These Puerto photos repre photo m Rico a coupl sent my trip with th eans a lot t e years ago a to afterm e ongoing pr o me, especia nd each ath of H ob l urrican lems followinly e Mari g the a.

53

to Rico� “Puer ra Ortiz

by Kia

August 28 2005, Bonnet Carre Spillway, Louisiana (pron. Bonnie Carry)

by Jennifer Dalio

Turning off the Bonnet Carre at 5:30 on a Sunday afternoon I tune my radio to KHB 83 for weather news When the levee breaks, I hear, Mama you’ve got to move.

Expecting traffic orders, or “updates soon— save yourself. Save anything you can’t afford to lose” as we turn off the Bonnet Carre at 5:30 on a Sunday afternoon.

But no. They’d programmed this prophetic groove Robert Plant shouting Joe and Minnie’s Memphis blues When the levee breaks, Mama you’ve got to move.

Maintain your grip on last spring’s stray doubloon and hope tomorrow brings better news, for you and everyone on the Bonnet Carre, 5:30 this Sunday afternoon.

But, still awake on Monday morning, no matter who you know or what you used to do The levee breeches and it breaks, and everyone has got to move.

A family, packed for several nights in a motel room Will spend the next two years in cast-off clothes and shoes.

I turned off the Bonnet Carre at 5:30 on a Sunday afternoon And the levee broke. And I had to move.

r hold a f e v e r o f l ica wil Traveling out o help R a t s o e to art. na, C Parismi place in my he teering my timated in my special ntry and volun rtles is illustr memory. the cou ecies of sea tu l token of my save sp to – a beautifu memen

“Rescue”

by Rebecca Sarin

Change

by Lyric Belle

You say you’re listening, but did you really hear? Take the love in your ear. The words you ignore are like raindrops that fall upon your hair, clinging to it like a separate entity, with the look of a crystal clear dome on the surface but never given the chance to seep in and dampen your hair. Or, with words, change your life.

Einstein said: “You can live as if nothing is a miracle, or you can live as if everything is a miracle.” Your miracle could be in the words you didn’t let stain your heart. Can you imagine?

If you had one miracle or life-changing moment, say per year, and you missed the chance as it drummed on the door of your ear? Then you didn’t get to fulfill your potential because your door—and therefore your mind—was closed.

A miracle could be realizing you have a $1.50 and can physically get home—using the bus— and your life changes by begrudgingly spending both the Sacagawea and 50-cent piece you’ve had since childhood. Gifts from your father as the Tooth Fairy, rare with divorced parents—a couple of tiny pieces tying you to memories of a childhood home, the only one that was left before its demolition.

I really need to get those coins back. I don’t want this change in my life.

d the e old an r, h t e t a r ne po to incor the Title Desig ble the d e t n a em Iw it of it to res the spir new in bson. I wanted a bold design o h Henry H f his work, wit throughout. o ts e essenc macro elemen g involvin

“Memento�

by Heidi Way

57

The Spelling Bee, or Another Story About Love and Death

by Erica Smith hen I called you from the school, I was sobbing uncontrollably in my darkened empty classroom, W the gray January sky outside providing only dim light through the dusty windowpanes. On the phone with you, I sat behind my desk, doubled over and heaving with sorrow, while my sixth-grade students

were all collected in the gymnasium for the spelling bee. The news I tried to relay was bleak and punctuated with muffled sniffling: the veterinarian had discovered a mass in Ellie’s abdomen, and every course of action ended with the same result—her death, premature at just six years old. There was no avoiding it, only prolonging it, putting it off.

As I hung up the phone, I hastily dried the tears from my cheeks and attempted to wipe smudges of mascara from the corners of my eyes, using the reflection of the computer monitor as a mirror. Once I’d managed to gather myself, I quickly took to the empty halls to join the rest of the school in the gym. Wincing as the metal door latch echoed noisily across the laminate ...every course of floors, I plastered on my most convincing smile and made my action ended with way to my seat in the front row, next to the children who had been displaced from the competition in earlier rounds.

the same result—her death, premature at just six years old.

While the remaining two spellers enunciated each letter of their words—my mind was anxiously darting from thought to thought, carefully avoiding lingering too long on those that came most easily—memories of Ellie. I rummaged through stacks of dormant moments in my mind searching for something, anything, to distract me. This exercise in evasion transported me to fifth grade: my first spelling bee and the word, affinity, which removed me from the regional competition; the meaning of the word affinity and how frequently I had used it in the years since synonyms for the word affinity; and a list of things which I truly have affinity for, brought me right back to the topic I’d hoped to avoid in the first place.

That evening, I sobbed the entire way home from the vet’s office, images of Ellie’s jaw going slack in my lap and the feeling of her lifeless body beneath my hands cycling through my mind. I cried at the thought

of her nose and paws growing colder by the second, wrapped in a red fleece blanket in the back of my car. My temples throbbed with each and every convulsive groan and yet I could not stop.

When we parked the car, I dragged myself out of my seat and to the hatch, to feel Ellie’s hardened paws and bury my face in her endlessly soft fur one last time. As I’d feared, most of the warmth had left her body, despite the seemingly short time that had passed. I stood, oblivious to the cold air surrounding us, dampening the fur of Ellie’s neck with my tears, until you gently patted my shoulder, indicating that it was time. It felt clumsy and unceremonious, wrapping her body as tightly as I could with the blanket, trying to make sure each part of her was covered. In that moment, I was ashamed that we hadn’t planned something more­—that we hadn’t had the time or the forethought. What I knew in the back of my mind was that it didn’t matter, regardless of how much I wanted it to.

I went inside and watched from the living room window as you and my father trekked out across the snow-covered backyard, guided by a flashlight, and laid Ellie’s body

in a shallow grave near the edge of the pine trees.

I thought briefly of our old dachshund, who had been laid to rest years earlier in a grave nearby.

However, what I thought so little of in With the flashlight turned off, the two of you lit those moments stands out as one of the most cigarettes as you shoveled the earth back into the notable occasions of nearly-frozen ground, our entire relationship.

I cried at the and I felt a fleeting pang did not ask you to of guilt that Ellie might thought of her nose Ileave work, or to come be cold out there, all and paws growing home and dig a hole alone. into the frigid earth Earlier that afternoon, colder by the second, for my beloved dog’s I had been surprised to wrapped in a red body; yet you did see you waiting for me fleece blanket in the anyway. On that gray when I came home from and bleak January back of my car. school, a full two hours afternoon, a menial, earlier than usual. I’d yet monumental task became a labor of love. thought little of it in that moment because there A small hole just four feet into the ground, was no more I could concentrate on aside from Ellie’s grave holds more than just her body getting to Ellie, waiting at the animal hospital, as and her memory; it holds the measure of your quickly as possible. When we got home that night, character and of your love.

I still thought little of where you were going and I wish that these complexities, love and what you were doing with her body, as I was too mourning, could be spelled out as easily as overwhelmed with sorrow to analyze details that a-f-f-i-n-i-t-y. seemed comparatively irrelevant.

59

“SydneyH” erschleb

by Cheryl

I painted th rador Retrie is of my six-year-old painting jou ver, Sydney, this fall Labweeks later rnal for Watercolor in my breathing. , she developed diffic1. Three to find out We took her into the ulty Failure due she was in CongestiveVet ER, time was limto a tumor in her hea Heart away a wee ited with us, and sh rt. Her 4. She was k and a half later on Oe passed way too soo a fantastic dog who le ctober this memen n. I was glad I had p ft us at my side. to of her while she w ainted as still

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The following pages are an accurate representation of the magazine's binding (issuu does not have vertical formating).

sonja olshove (poem)

Hats (photo collage)

55 Rebecca Sarin – Rescue (2D illustration)

54 Jennifer Dalio – August 28 2005,

(photo collage)

53

51 Deanna Luton – honeydew curls (poem)

(watercolor)

60 Cheryl Herschleb – Sydney

About Love and Death (creative non-fiction)

58 Erica Smith – The Spelling Bee, or Another Story

57 Heidi Way – Memento (poster design)

56 Lyric Belle – Change (poem)

50 Kelsey Pease – Letters (photograph)

49 Megan Ward – Dixie Bells (poem)

(poster design)

48 Brianna Olson-Bogart – Faded Reflections

40 Ann Hosler – Entwined (short story)

23 Rachel Lynn Moore – Ride or Die (short story)

(short story)

37 Joel Mann – Patched Up Life (poster design)

(short story)

36 William Walton – Springfield Armory No. 462,737

35 Nichole Hartley – Generations (photograph)

(2D illustration)

52 Grace Kohler –

Bonnet Carre Spillway, Louisiana (poem)

32 Amanda Coddington – When Sleeping

Women Wake (short story)

Kiara Ortiz – Puerto Rico

30 Laura Helferich – Abandonment

at the Commons (photograph)

28 Matthew Suehr – More Weight (short story)

34 Kristy Tompkins – Journey of the Heart

38 Mitchell Lewis – They Told Me (poem)

22 Tamara Wiget – Optical Illusion

(2D illustration)

21 Cole Burns – Depression

The Name Tree (photograph)

19 Desiree Morgan –

18 Alexis Steig – 7:29 (short story)

Adventures (2D illustration)

17 Kendra Hoggard – U.P.

the Bottom of Thatch Lake (flash fiction)

16 Jackson Douglass – The Body (Still) at

15 Liam Strong – A Son’s Father (poem)

14 Liam Kaiser – Pier Walk (photograph)

9 Richard Vegh – An Intermediary (short story)

8 Katie Lee – Here Comes a Thought (drawing)

7 Jettarin Issaravanich – Journey (2D illustration)

7 Susan Odgers – Camouflaged (non-fiction)

Alexandra Johnston – I’m Sorry, I

Forgive You (non-fiction)

26

25 Ali Moon – The New

Annoyance (2D illustration)

31 Anne-Marie Dunklow – smolder (poem)

5 Carrie Lynn Dunklow – in remembrance of

4 Adrianna Beddoe & Olga Narolska – Mark and

Helen Osterlin Library Lives On (woodcut)

6 Koree Bemiss – Wild Fields (painting)

e v i s t g c e in l ol ipp C l C

3

Editor-in-Chief

Ann Hosler

When I wrote that introductory line to this semester’s call for submissions, I had one particular image in mind: a photograph taken several years ago of my grandmother—healthy and happy in her 80s—dancing in the center of our family at a wedding reception. That was the last day I saw her before her funeral, but it’s how I will always remember the type of woman she was: vivacious, sassy, loving, and loved in return.

The creative mind allows for us to weave fictional memories or relive events of the past. These pieces of artwork, stories, poems, This semester we challenged the photographs, and more are each a memento to be treasured.

NMC community to share their stories as we celebrate the first issue of NMC Magazine’s 40th volume. With respect to this milestone, the staff decided to publish 40 works by 40 individuals. This limitation meant that we couldn’t publish everything from the plethora of submissions received.

We hope you enjoy these mementos as much as we do.

oment, m s i h t l l i t Be s emory… m a t u b s become for then it

Letter from the Editor

by Adriana Beddoe & Olga Narolska

ries s made to preserve old memo This wood-burning project wa and rs yea t have happened over the as well as historic events tha future location. bring them into the new and

“ Mark and He len Osterlin L ibrary Lives O n�

04 september

how to heal that?

the heart for which there will not be enough time to find all the pieces to make whole again

it is said that time heals all wounds but what of the shattered heart?

i.

by Carrie Lynn Dunklow

shatter

5

other times the heart shatters— without warning without relief

sometimes a fault line appears and gradually, after time passes, a break will occur

ii.

in remembrance of sonja olshove

absence

a blow from which i may never wholly recover Â

the wave of barren rooms of empty seats crashes over me, paralysing and consuming

in the moments when i remember fully what your absence means

iii.

In the past several years , I’ve been collecting flowers fro m various events and place s and drying them. Many kn ow that a flower is most beau tiful when it’s fully bloomed.

However, I believe the mo st beautiful aspect of a flowe r is the memory it leaves behin d.

Not long ago I visited a fie ld near where I live and plu cked some poppies to dry. This painting is a memento of that very moment. By drying this flower I’ll forever hold the memory of this time.

em iss

oree B

by K

“W ild Fie lds ”

A young male student finally burst the stillness: “I hate you! You should have told us on day one that you use a wheelchair. We’ve all been rooting for your recovery. Don’t you understand how important you are to us? You’ve been our guide through one of the most complex aspects of our life. We share everything and you couldn’t have told us this?”

A week before my first semester at NMC, I broke my leg in three places and came to class sitting in a wheelchair wearing a long, extended plaster cast from my hip to my toes. I looked like I’d been hit by a train. As my bones healed, the cast was cut shorter and shorter. My students began commenting, “I bet you can’t wait until you’re out of that wheelchair.” I’d smile and say nothing. What they didn’t know was that I needed the wheelchair before I broke my leg; I was paralyzed from the waist down from a spinal stroke at age 18.

ave from at I have to le th y da e Th . life love represents my level of life. I This work piece d take a big step to another ng time is not that ne an r a lo my comfort zo go overseas fo to t y comfort bu s ce n perie to get out of m ed ar sc o to seeking new ex I am believe that if easy for me. I . er on’t be bett zone my life w

ravanich

by Jettarin Issa

ey” rn “ Jou

That first class taught me a deeper understanding of education and the communities we create in the classroom. I apologized to my students, explaining the need for boundaries. For them, for me. In my effort to prove myself at NMC and give my class as much instruction as possible, I’d overemphasized On the November day I told our instructor and student roles, my class I wouldn’t be getting and underestimated our shared humanity. My students taught me out of the wheelchair, there that authenticity is vital. From that was a heavy silence. day forward, we all learned lessons that went far beyond NMC.

or 28 years, I’ve collected hundreds of transformative “mementos” from my classes. Perhaps this is due in part to the power and intimacy of the subject, or the particular students in any given semester. Maybe it had more to do with where I was at in my life at the time. Probably, it’s the whirl of all three.

F

I teach human sexuality.

I have since 1989.

by Susan Odgers

Camouflaged On the November day I told my class I wouldn’t be getting out of the wheelchair, there was a heavy silence. Some students looked sadly at the floor, others stared blankly out the windows and a few were actually crying.

ie L ee

I think of passing ories thoughts and mem one as butterflies. Each in g in different, flutter ess. sn and out of consciou be nice Sometimes, it can a wave to lose yourself in of memories.

by Ka t

s ome C e r “ He ought � h aT

9

By the time I opened my eyes, the trick had worked: the timeless present obliterated all sense of time’s passing. The login screen glowed in front of me, steady as starlight.

I cleared the piles of books and folders off the chair and keyboard by our—my—old desktop, and counted the moments while I waited for it to start up. There was nothing to measure time by except my counted breaths, or the chunking relays of the chunking relays of the machine. machine. The breathing exercises often helped: an insistence on a mythic present state of being. Long inhalation, cool in the nostrils, a slight rising hitch that might be bronchitis; then a shorter release of warm breath. A short pause, then the cycle repeats, a seemingly eternal cycle to which I could endlessly return.

There was nothing to measure time by except my counted breaths, or the

Of course, by the time I got back there was no one else in the apartment. No note, either. Just piles of things like a story problem of division with messy remainders. There wasn’t any point in trying to call her, or in sitting around any longer than I already had. Even in my imagination, none of my arguments had persuaded her to remain.

I walked the whole way, an approximate reflection of my previous trek. Each time a bus swam past like a whale above the slushy street, I’d hold my breath for no reason. At points I stopped to watch my foggy exhalations or the pigeons and squirrels in the streets and bushes. Once, in a crosswalk, I stopped for too long and a car nearly struck me.

A nurse brought my clothes in a plastic bag. He had wooden plugs in both ears and lots of tattoos; one was an oval that looked like a snake swallowing its tail. I changed, putting the hospital smock in the bin the nurse indicated and following the blue line as instructed: straight through two sets of doors, then right at the atrium—a giant whale skeleton hung suspended overhead, watching us passersby below—and finally out onto the sidewalk alongside Ontario Street. My dark blue jeans were crusted where salty slush had dried on them. My feet were too warm in the grippy socks I’d been given, which I’d kept rather than imagine being destroyed, and left on rather than wearing the stiff socks I’d walked in with. The sweat collecting along the small of my back and dampening my feet felt colder than Lake Michigan in the Chicago February air.

My beginning was at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, at the Stone Institute. I was discharged after twenty-four hours under observation. I wasn’t really observed; mostly I sat on the examination table and tried not to remember anything. I counted my breaths. I imagined being outside, in Connors Park, watching pigeons sort litter into the two categories that matter to pigeons: food and non-food. I stared at the white walls until I began seeing shadows.

e tend to think of our lives as stories, and of these having beginnings and endings. We think of almost everything this way, as though everything must have a definite starting time and place. Even when we suspect it’s not true, we like to pick some point, draw a line beneath it, and say, there: that’s when it began.

W

by Richard Vegh

An Intermediary

I sat on the couch in the living room for a while, staring into the deepening gloom, eventually falling asleep.

It had been a second bedroom in name only, filled with the forgotten and disused implements of elided futures: an autotailor, a rowing machine, an indoor herbarium set. Now it had an air mattress and a dresser from the basement commons area, near the storage lockers. He smiled, and went to his room.

“I have tea, if you’d like. Or if you want to settle in, I’ve cleared out your room.”

“Thank you,” he said, and I nodded.

had a third wing; another stared at me from

When he arrived that evening, it was by way of the tiny balcony adjoining the living room. I’d been gazing through the the second set of eyes on the back of its head. balcony door when I saw him descending, wings outstretched over half the street, before they snapped back and folded behind his shoulders as he landed, knees flexed, and rapped twice, politely, on the door. There was barely enough space for one person to stand on that balcony with the door shut; I crossed over and opened it.

example, had really distinctive qualities: One

I began to notice that Chicago pigeons, for

Seph agreed to sign a sublease when he returned later that evening, and I knew my sojourn in this middle place would be extended for a little while.

I’d seen things differently even before the Stone Institute, and they’d only grown more uncanny since then. I began to notice that Chicago pigeons, for example, had really distinctive qualities: one had a third wing; another stared at me from the second set of eyes on the back of its head. There was a squirrel with two tails. Sometimes, I saw things I wasn’t sure were really there. Like in the crosswalk, when I saw Steph watching me from a rooftop.

And then the car had swerved past, and I looked up again, and she was gone.

When he said his name, it was something like “Seph Tifferet.” My chest lurched at how near it was to “Steph,” but I repeated it back to him carefully and it was fine. When he came to see the place, he didn’t seem fazed by the untidy piles of belongings I’d halfheartedly begun to organize into neater stacks. I watched as he studied the apartment in much the way an actor pores over a script. There seemed to be a band of light around his head, and broad, sweeping wings beyond his shoulders. Of course I didn’t mention these to him.

After a few more moments, unsure exactly what I’d written, I clicked “submit,” and settled back against the wooden chair to wait. Within moments, my phone rang.

I knew there was a chance to go back. Even knowing you can never go back to the same place—not really—I knew my friends and family back home, the ones who’d stayed, would understand. They knew about Steph and me. If I returned, they’d welcome me back, and I might find some comfortable existence without ever facing what happened. That, more than anything, kept me there. I was responsible to my own problems.

I called up a classifieds site and began drafting my ad. For a moment, I paused to tabulate the rent, before typing in a figure that would just about cover a few more weeks in this intermediate place. Enough time to find out what ways were still open to me.

I could never determine what color his hair was, really, because of the light that played about his head. Sometimes, it seemed blond, or platinum. Other times, jet,

“Can you tell me anything? Do you know why I’m here?”

“It is through nothing you did or didn’t do, Jo. I am here. That is all.”

Seph frowned, a little, and the room darkened.

I can’t say why, but my left hand was trembling. I balled it up and covered it with my right hand.

“Are you here because of something I did?”

Shoulders which he now shrugged.

Seph folded his Rodinesque hands over his lap and stared placidly back at me. To be honest, I’d grown tired of looking at him. The ridiculous regularity of his features, the proportionality and symmetry of his build. That accursed aura of light, obscuring everything definite. The wings that hovered, impossibly—even now, as he reclined comfortably against the couch—over his shoulders.

“But… You must be here for a reason.”

“I am where I must be right now, Jo. There is nothing more to tell.”

We were sitting in the living area, and we’d just finished eating another of Seph’s miraculous meals. I think it was baba ganoush with some sort of frites, and a salad with couscous and herbs. And then baklava, only in place of honey, he’d used agave, and in place of butter, olive oil. I’d grumbled that he would ruin it, but of course it was flawless. Everything he made came out that way.

“Why my apartment, Seph? Why here, and why now?”

That was pretty close to a definite answer. But I decided to keep an eye on Seph and try to figure it out for myself.

“I think I must be.”

I asked one day after about a week had passed: “Seph, are you an angel?” I pretended to study my fingernails, but I watched that glowing band over his face.

I wasn’t sure if Seph knew that I could tell he was an angel. I’m not sure how long it took me to find out. First, there was the flying. And even before that, there’d been the wings. So those were two things. But also, he told me he was an angel, and I thought I might believe him.

Suddenly embarrassed, I got up to brush my teeth. Seph pretended to notice me just as I was about to say “Good morning,” preempting me with a hearty “Good afternoon!”

I just lay there for awhile, listening. My chest rose and fell with the rhythms of his voice, and the slide and shuffle of the utensils and plates and pans. The smells, lemony and cinnamon, were a synaesthetic pathway to places I barely remembered, or perhaps had only ever imagined.

When I awoke, I was draped with my favorite coverlet, the one I had thought lost the year before during the move. I remember blaming Steph for its loss, for setting down boxes at staging points outside the elevator and in the hall. Seph was humming some hymn, busily preparing a meal.

“What is your purpose, Jo? You have one, even if you are unaware of it—you will invent it, if need be, or will remain confused, until one day, at the end of your

He shook his head as well.

I shook my head. No. But I knew. Seph could never be mediocre in anything. Could never be less than beautiful.

“Do you know the difference between us—you, and me?”

He began laughing, gently, then stopped.

“I know you’re an angel.”

He just looked at me, sadly, and I realized I’d said it out loud.

And it really has nothing to do with me.

“Her. What will happen has already happened. My presence has affected events sufficiently.”

“What will happen to him?”

There was nothing special about this time and place, I learned, except that it was near the apartment of an important individual: a math student working on an advanced problem in number theory involving filters and lattices—something to do with discovering prime numbers in an infinite series.

One night, I got him drunk. It took some cajoling and convincing, but eventually I managed it, and a bottle of sparkling wine between us, he began telling me things.

I watched him angrily that evening, cooking another meal he’d share with me. Everything about him infuriated me. I held the feather up to block him from view, pretending he wasn’t really there.

Among the most beautiful things were the feathers. The way they’d tickle my nose as they flew up, launching themselves skyward on laundry day. Or how they’d somersault and backflip on invisible zephyrs while I chased after them with a broom or duster. Even how they’d lie, mirror-bright, until finally I touched one, and its sheen faded away to a dull and lusterless gray, indistinguishable from a pigeon feather.

I’d taken to haranguing Seph, trying to provoke some prodigious response. I could no longer bear the weight of his eyes, which felt much like my own: too knowing.

I couldn’t bear the sight of him, looming like some force of nature, bent on some purpose that had nothing to do with me, but was fully compatible and amenable to my existence. I looked for some jagged edge against which to dash myself. I kept pushing Seph, hoping for an unkind word.

I went back to counting my breaths, beginning at nothing and building toward a pointless larger nothing. Dimly, I sensed Seph Tifferet rising and crossing to the balcony, before I felt his presence lifting away. Eventually, all the progress I was making toward counting some magnificent sum of breaths was lost, and the count faded to a prior unnumbered nothing.

or scarlet. Tonight it seemed like strands of taffeta, tan and brown. The fringes swept from side to side as he shook his head.

against which to dash myself.

I looked for some jagged edge

The stars were all out waiting for me.

13

He set a gray feather, like a pigeon’s, on the table. I put on my coat, for appearance’s sake, and made my way out through the door and down to the street below.

“I know.”

“I will not be here when you get back.” Already, the shadows around him had begun to close in.

“I’m going to go for a walk.”

“There may be an accident. She will likely survive, but her priorities and focus will change.”

I wasn’t sure if he knew who I meant, but I didn’t want to be any more specific than that.

“What will happen to her?”

I’d wanted to ask why he hadn’t stopped the mugging the night before, just a few blocks from our apartment building, or helped some of the lost and suffering of Chicago—why he wasn’t making more of a difference. Now I saw that there was no need to ask. He studied my expression, until I nodded.

“I tried, once. That is one action I can not take.”

“Why not stop?” I asked. I couldn’t see his eyes. I saw emerald and lilac flecks, and shimmering gold, but they were lost in the luminescence.

I thought about this, for a while. I thought about my dreams—the ones I’d had, and the ones I’d lost.

“For me, there was no beginning, and there will be no end. There is only one thing, and then another thing, and then another. I go there. I come here. I go there.

There is no reason or purpose. There is no resolution. It is only that I go on.”

He stared at the table, and I saw the rings a sawblade had exposed, shining through the layers of paint and lacquer and everyday use.

life, there will be nothing left for you to do.” He paused, then added, “It is not that way for me.”

by Liam Kaiser

“ Pier Walk�

yI ium of photograph Through the med those of e tyle and cultur embody the lifes ique un at Lakes. Using who surf the Gre show ctives I want to pe rs pe d an es gl an so ty of a place that the sublime beau me. many of us call ho

15

I trip on your words growing up in an hour, yellow canaries of aspen leaves pecking at my shoes.

You teach me without speaking to keep my eyes downcast, yet after so many years of concealing my mind from you and all else, the sun and sky have never seemed so terrifying.

My ankles are weak. The coffee you leave for me in the morning doesn’t strengthen me like it used to, and I know this because I can sip it without burning my tongue, because the leavened earth beneath my shoes smells too sweet, because your arms carry me without holding me like a son should be held.

Every time we walk these trails looping back to where we began I want to taste the river’s water rushing like dog kisses on my face. The black bubblegum of Mitchell Creek like your hair, denied by age. Through a gap in the trees, blinking in silence, we take pictures of an eagle’s nest, and I wonder then if you would ever let me fall, and get up on my own.

We hike on your birthday. The same day every year but never feeling quite like the last.

You and I. You hold down the wire fence for me, trudging up to the railroad, balancing pace on each tie. It’s almost November, and the maples and burning bush have yet to bruise flame.

by Liam Strong

A Son’s Father

T

hatch Lake was formerly known to a select few fishermen who made the trek when in search of seclusion and quiet. It was accessible only by wiry trail, so deep in the woods there was hardly any chance of one ever stumbling across another.

A body was placed in Thatch Lake on a moonless night. The lifeless corpse sunk quickly from the weight of the chains wrapped around its chest, blood seeping from the crooked gash stamped in its forehead. It landed on the bottom in a mushroom cloud of murky sand and decomposing fish.

More recently, an influx of tourists to Thatch Lake has led to the construction of a road, parking lot, and boating dock. The A body was placed in Thatch perimeter of the water Lake on a has been transformed moonless night. from grimy dirt banks to pristine beaches of white sand. There are fishing contests held every summer, and almost a dozen boaters drop their lures above the darkest points in the center. Hamburgers are cooked in

barbecue pits. Children jump off the dock and swallow mouthfuls of water.

But still, there’s a body at the bottom of Thatch Lake. Much of its skin and muscle has flaked into the water and been snacked away by blameless fish. Algae has settled on the surface of its rusty shackles and encroached across its exposed bones. Yet those responsible grow older, allowing the memory of that moonless night to erode into a bad dream, while the muddy ground reclaims it all into the Earth.

lass

The Body (Still) at the Bottom of

by Jacks on Dou Thatch Lake g

by Kendra Hoggard

�

“U.P. A dventu res

a trip I took My memento story describes summer. On to the Upper Peninsula this woods, I saw my trip I went hiking in the and got eaten e, waterfalls, camped by a lak alive by mosquitos!

17

7:29 “No, I have something for you.” He winks. The rickety door opens to reveal a 1980 Chevy Silverado in striking indigo that I had long since forgotten, fresh lacquer gleaming.

That’s the thing about Dad, he doesn’t like to give up on things even when it’s evident that he would be better off letting them go.

I manage to hop inside the cab with Dad’s help and without ripping my dress. He closes my door, gentleman that he is, then crosses over to the passenger side and hops in with ease.

I smell the exhaust even before the engine roars to life, and when I turn the key the motor’s power shoots up through my spine, sending warm vibrations to every nerve ending.

The first time I was in this truck, that I can remember, was when I was six years old. Mom was on a retreat with some of her church friends, so Dad and I made a weekend of it, mapping out the state and seeing everything there was to see. We would roll the windows down and eat our root beer popsicles until it got dark, then we would camp out somewhere under the stars. I found myself always wishing that Mom would leave more frequently so I could go on more of those trips. They were sacred to me.

burns or grease stains, the steering wheel varnished and sleek, windshield now clear and free of cracks.

Even the floor mats are pristine, I observe, but the aroma of my childhood remains—like it had been sealed in a time capsule and waited for this exact moment to be rediscovered.

...the aroma of my childhood I realize that, in my heels, I’m almost as tall as him now. I’m taken remains—like it had been back to a time when my dad was a sealed in a time capsule and giant to me—a mountain in my child mind. I would crane my neck to look waited for this exact moment at him and his golden eyes would to be rediscovered. smile down at me, then he would pull me up into his arms and I would bury It had fallen into disrepair since the transmission my face in his thick, dark hair that always smelled “Well? Shouldn’t we get going?” he says after a broke and I’d thought we’d gotten rid of it years ago. My like woods and pine. It was a wonder how different few moments, raising his voice slightly to be heard we looked—I shared almost everything with Mom— first love, the rust bucket. “She’s all yours, Sam.”Tears over the engine. My hand is small but fits perfectly our dark eyes, blonde hair, and light skin were stark dampen my cheeks before I can prevent it. on the gear shifter, the wear of many years creating contrasts to Dad’s rugged, olive-skinned charm.

“Dad…” Warm, strong arms and a steady heartbeat grooves in the handle. Park, reverse, neutral, drive.

We used to be porcelain dolls next to him. And his thaw my cool demeanor. His scent is familiar—that I roll her out of the garage gently, and in the fading hands were those of a working man—huge, with same old pine needle scent interspersed with Old Spice light she’s even more beautiful. I nearly forget the permanent grease stains in the creases, but it never and bar soap. He’s never been the frivolous type, never wedding—I would rather drive from here to Mexico bothered me. spoiled himself with things like expensive aftershave than go to some ritzy venue and witness the maror cologne. I suppose I’m a lot like him—I just wear “You look great, sweetie.” He wraps an arm riage of two people I barely know. We weren’t even dresses and put on make-up sometimes. around me and kisses the top of my head. My invited to the actual wedding, just the reception. floor-length number, covered in lace and embroidery The interior of the truck is almost completely redone Our dirty driveway, typical in most small Mid beads, is gorgeous but itchy. I suppose that’s my when I look inside, gray cloth unblemished by cigarette

I told Dad we should’ve left sooner but he always leaves late. He jokes that it’s because his internal clock is perpetually incorrect. I glance at my watch—6:47, the sky is growing dark. We’re not going to make it on time unless we break the law. “Dad, we’re going to be late!” I shout from the entrance way, banging my fist against the doorknob.

He finally appears, all ready to go in a suit that looks sharp on him. He’s a fairly tall man and has broad shoulders; he could wear a clown suit and make it work.

by Alexis S teig

“Thanks, Dad.” We start down the driveway and he clicks the garage door opener. “We’re not taking the SUV?” I ask. The Suburban is aging, but reliable.

She’s been in the family for years, and I recall many a conversation between Dad and I, mostly me saying, “You need to trade this in and get a nicer car,” and him responding with an indignant “Absolutely not. She’ll run for at least ten more years.”

fault for buying it at a vintage resale store —but twenty dollars was a deal my fickle heart couldn’t deny.

The aroma of everything should be overwhelming, the combination of the peach smoke, my dad’s musk and the truck’s fumes would drive any normal person to a migraine—but it’s perfect to me. A welcome assault of the senses that I’m unable to rationally explain. The tension I’d been holding in my chest liquefies in that instant, and I glance over to see my father smiling out the windshield. He’s a picture of relaxation— arm slung over the side, cigar dangling loosely between his index and middle fingers. Mom would’ve loved to see this.

Dad’s honey colored eyes glow as he pulls out a cigar with an intricate orange band around one end, a distinct contrast to the dark brown rod. He never smokes anymore; he quit after Mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, so I know that this is a special occasion. The flame from his glove-box lighter takes to the tobacco instantly, and I’m soon greeted by a sweet smell.

Tangy and slightly smoky, just like the peach cigars of my memories. When we come to the pavement, we’re greeted by an undisturbed view of the sunset. The sky bears a great resemblance to the smell, a warm landscape bursting with oranges, yellows and a deep crimson as it nears the horizon. I take a pause, letting the thrum of the motor absorb the silence for a few moments before I turn onto the road.

western towns, is long and winding, meeting up with pavement at the end of a quarter mile stretch. Dust flies behind us, loose gravel throwing rocks against the undercarriage.

Disregarding the meticulous care I’d taken to put myself together, I roll the windows down. Carefully curled blonde strands whip around my face, falling from the pins I’d so delicately fastened them with. My face grows sore from smiling and I can nearly taste the root beer on my tongue.

pay, trying to be quick to compensate for how late we already are. By the time we load back up it’s 7:24, only six minutes before the reception is set to start, and my rising blood pressure is evident.

Soon we’re in town, about six miles away from the venue which happens to be an orchard. The buildings, old but well-preserved, seem smaller now in this truck, and though I know it’s because I’m sitting higher off the ground, I fantasize that I’m a giant. Dad mentions something about filling the tank so we can go for a drive later, so I stop at the closest gas station—a Sunoco on the corner of West 8th and Friedland Street. He pumps while I

by Desiree Morgan

“The Nam

e Tree”

My brother-in-law pa ssed away this year on the 4th of July from a roll over car accident at the ag e of 19. “The Name Tree” as we call it, has become his grave stone for me to come visit him. The Name Tree ea rned its name because one by one, ea ch person would be “initiated” and have their name carved into this single tree on their 10 acres of land. I myself, even had my name added to their fam ily tree. The carving “GABE” was wr itten by Gabe himself, my brother-inlaw, years ago.

Two days after his pass ing, Gabe’s dad added “LOVE YOU” ar ound his name.

The whole incident goes slower in my memory than I’m sure it did; the Dodge must have been going at least forty through the intersection, which would mean that the duration of this episode was only five or six seconds, maybe less. I reach to Dad and talk to him but he’s not responding. With as quick as everything happened, I didn’t witness exactly what injuries he may have incurred. I touch his shoulder and my fingers are dark red, probably a mix of his blood and my own based on the shards of glass embedded there.

go blurry. I see Dad try to shield his face from the glass before I lose focus.

Burnt rubber smell mingled with the metallic bitterness in my mouth, and the last thing running through my muddled brain is the time on the analog dashboard clock—7:29pm. I was seven years old when Mom died, and she was twenty-nine—how strange is that? Then everything goes silent, completely silent, as I close my eyes, still clutching my father’s hand.

busted, but I can tell by the surplus of red that they are not the biggest problem. His honey colored eyes remain unopened.

...my dad’s musk and the truck’s fumes would drive any normal person to a migraine—but it’s perfect to me.

A Dodge pickup, which had seemed a safe distance away when I pulled out, is suddenly on top of us, slamming the horn before colliding directly with my passenger side door It feels like a movie as I watch it happen: glass shattering into the cab, the terrible The oxygen sound of crushing entering my lungs metal and the ...the Dodge must have is thick from fumes screech of tires as been going at least forty and my own panic. I the other driver struggles to minithrough the intersection... grab his hand, hoping that he’ll feel mize the damage. the pressure and Glass floats in front of my face in slow motion, hundreds of shards nicking wake up. Dad, please. I don’t know if I’m pleading with him verbally or in my thoughts; the ringing in my cheeks and forehead, but my arms won’t move my ears is drowning out everything. His dark hair fast enough to protect me. Time speeds up again is covering most of his face, figure slumped over as my head jerks back and smashes into the side of but still being held up by the seat belt. His lips are the cab, causing my skull to throb and my eyes to

As I pull away from the pump, the fleeting thought crosses my mind about how inconvenient this intersection is. The gas station is on a steep incline, meeting with the road at a tricky angle, which makes it even more difficult to attempt a left turn, but in a truck this size I estimate that I can make it. My estimates aren’t quite so accurate.

“We can always return the cheesy picture frame we bought if she tries to pick a fight.” I respond, and we laugh. His ease in handling tense situations is what has made him so popular in our small town. It’s a wonder he never remarried—he really is a catch.

“Sam,” he says, resting his hand on mine, “You know we can be late for this, right? Kelly won’t be offended. And if she is…” He smiles. “Well that’s just too bad, isn’t it?”

Being late to things is one of my biggest pet peeves, and Dad knows it.

21

on�

by Co

ns r u le B

si s e r p “De

Depres s lot of p ion takes over eople a a nd to repr esent it I wanted i beautif n a sad yet ul way.

I smiled my customer service smile at a younger mother and daughter pair as I made my way to the cash register. The child bounced in her seat while another optician handed her a new pair of shiny purple glasses. The girl put the glasses on—the proper way, with two hands—and beamed up at her mother, her face shining with joy.

“Fine, but nothing fancy on her lenses,” her mother commanded as she dug around in her purse. She took out her wallet and handed her daughter a few bills. She stood, swinging her bag over her shoulder. “I’ll be back in ten minutes,” she told the teenaged girl, with no explanation.

The girl stared down at her shoes as I relayed the cost of her glasses. She slid the money across the desk without looking up.

I’d been that teenaged girl, beaten down by the words of the woman who had given me life, who, as I grew older, was supposed to become my best friend. I, on the other side of the pain and grief etched in this young woman’s face, was on a path to healing, and could only hope that one day we would both walk in the world knowing we were worthy of love.

This girl was not like us, her mother not like ours.

I gave the young girl her receipt and change, and I watched her go. I knew that these moments would become the memories that shaped her.

I smiled, trying to sound cheerful as I picked up one of several frames she’d tried on. The thoughts cleared slowly, like smoke.

Don’t you look cute!” the woman squealed in genuine delight. I couldn’t help but was wrong smile, sharing their with me. I could never joy for a moment; It was my mother’s voice, but when I looked do anything right. accompanied by up, I saw the look her hand pulling of sorrow on my at my frizzy curls as she spat “Look at you! Brush patient’s face, and felt it echoed in my own heart. your hair and get rid of these tangles! Can’t you This girl was not like us, her mother not like do anything?!” I ran my hands through my hair to ours. We were not cute, and never joyful. We banish the feel of her unkind fingers. A well-worn lived in shame and envy, never knowing what it list of other inadequacies ran through my head— was like to be adored, never feeling cherished or my clothes, my homework, the way I walked, the wanted by our mothers. We were burdens, and way I talked, what I read. Everything was wrong we carried that knowledge around like a weight with me. I could never do anything right. hanging from our necks.

I looked at my patient—a tall, freckled, I ached for the girl, wanted to go to her, hug redhead of no more than fifteen—and could read her, make her feel loved—but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

My attention snapped back to the nicely dressed woman who had asked me such a question, and for a moment her voice transformed into a nasally accent from the heart Everything of Wisconsin.

“Don’t you think she’d be prettier if she brushed her hair?”

The smell of Windex permeated the room as one of my coworkers polished fingerprints off the mirrors that separated walls displaying row upon row of eyeglass frames. A phone rang across the room, jarring the peaceful lull that had settled in. The second ring was cut off, followed swiftly by the monotone voice of my boss: “Near and Far Optical, this is Dane. How may I help you?” The steady click of computer keys blended with his dull tone.

by Tamara Wiget

Optical Illusion

I wasn’t her mother, and I couldn’t fix the damage that hers had spent years inflicting.

a familiar sense of defeat in the slump of her shoulders. “I like this pair best on you,”

e i D or e d i R

e

I’ve tried loving men. I’ve tried again, and again. I’ve lived twenty times over the very same lesson that my mother taught me. This time, I finally learned.

“Don’t throw everything we have away over one stupid mistake, baby girl.

I promise I’ll do better!” But he won’t. You know he won’t, because he’s playing the same game you are.

“I thought you were my ride or die!” And you want to be.

“Baby, don’t you love me?” And you do.

Men play nice just long enough to hook you. Just long enough that you’ll view their betrayals as anomalies and hear legitimate remorse in their rehearsed apologies. They call you babygirl like it’s your name, so they don’t accidentally let an “Angela” slip when they’re pleading their case to Jessica.

Donny thought he was deserving of unconditional love. He wanted a ride or die bitch, and I looked at him like he was that lamp, that light. I wanted to be that bitch for him. I still thought that if I could mold myself into one of the forms he dreamt of he wouldn’t betray me.

Through her, I came to understand that the allure of love without limits to a woman is like the appeal of an electric lamp to a moth.

When she talked about how she loved my father, she said that she did so unconditionally. She spoke of this as if it were noble, and worthy of her. But that woman was an angel on this earth and even as a child I knew that she deserved so much more than the cyclical suffering that she called unconditional love. Through her, I came to understand that the allure of love without limits to a woman is like the appeal of an electric lamp to a moth.

23

“All good,” I echoed. I spread my fingers across his neck until my hands wrapped lightly around his throat and his pulse tapped against my palms.

I slid my hands out from under his, feeling the small, sinewy muscles along his neck. I ran my fingertips all the way down to the shallow craters above his jutting collarbone.

“All good, Leah?” he asked.

He lay a hand over top of one of mine, pressing it to his cheek.

The first time he came home hours late, walked past me where I waited on the living room couch and jumped into the shower. I picked his clothes off the He came in from showering with a towel wrapped around his waist. He dropped it over the evidential clothes pile and pulled on a fresh pair of green boxers with white four-leaf clovers. I bought them for his birthday last month. He made some joke about being a lucky guy that I only half-heard as he slithered under the covers and coiled his arms around my waist. I rolled to face him and set my hands on either side of his face. His eyes looked as bright and eager as they always did.

For a while, I thought this was what love looked like.

Donny said he would do better, and I tried to be generous. I gave him not one, not two, but three chances to straighten his shit out and act right. I looked inside myself and justified taking my mother’s path by projecting my own goodness onto him. I granted him humanity he didn’t have. I treated him with graciousness he didn’t deserve.

My mother did a lot to shape my views on men and love. Growing up, I watched her give the best years of her life to a man who was a wonderful father and provider, but a terrible husband. She spent weeks, and sometimes months, crying in bed behind a closed door because he’d strayed again and she believed she alone should bear the weight of his transgressions.That fucking door. I used to sit outside of it and when her muffled cries rose to choking sobs, I’d shake the locked handle and she’d quiet. I tried to help, providing the only sort of comfort I could, but looking back I wonder how much pain it caused her to know that I sat there, listening.

nn Moor

by Rachel Ly

I thought this was what love looked like.

I took my metal nail file from the bathroom counter and knelt on the living room floor in front of the wall of carefully kept record racks. One by one I pulled

A moth, fat and clumsy, grated its body against the screen as it passed by on its way to the bright lights behind me. I let the door For a while, clatter shut and went back inside.

The second time, he didn’t come home that night at all. Maybe he knew better. I spent the first two hours playing Let it Bleed by the Rolling Stones on repeat until I couldn’t stand the sound of it. It was Donny’s favorite record. His copy had been well loved for many years and meticulously cared for. I snatched it off of the record player, ran out the back door and hurled it like a frisbee into the forest behind Donny’s house. I stood there, the screen door propped open against my foot, wondering if I should retrieve it. It had been his father’s. The entire collection and the player were a part of his inheritance and he valued them more than the money left in his name.

He always liked protecting me. He thought I needed it.

“Hey, hey,” he whispered, his arms sliding around my shoulders. “It’s alright.

I’m not mad. It’s all good.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, even though I wasn’t that either. I traced small circles on his chest and pushed out my bottom lip.

“You’re not crazy,” he tried to assure me—but I already knew that I wasn’t.

“Maybe I’m just being a little crazy,” I offered.

“Just you, babygirl,” he delivered the lie with bright eyes and I let my hands drift down to his chest. I felt the quake of his quickened heartbeat through his ribcage.

He laughed, just as short as before but sharper now, and he didn’t leave me any space to respond.

“Who have you been fucking?” My voice sounded hollow and warped, like listening to a cheap recording of myself.

Donny’s eyes opened and his smile spread with excitement, but when he saw my hard expression his face fell and he tried to pull back. “You said you were all good,” he said.

I lifted a leg to hook it around his waist and pulled his body flush against mine.

“Good to hear,” he smirked, closed his eyes, and leaned in.

breathing.

I couldn't stand the sound of his

Donny is cold and still beneath me now. I crawl off his corpse, and look down at my hands. My right palm is covered in smudges of coral wax. If the color were a little deeper, it would look like blood. I walk into the bathroom, turn on the light, and find myself in the mirror. My mother’s eyes stare back at me. I turn the faucet, splash water across my face and scrub the lipstick off my hand. I face my mother in the mirror again. I am no fucking moth.

He’s not fighting me as hard as he was a minute ago. I might have forgiven him again, but he was too bold in his lies. He tried to convince me that the gaudy coral lipstick smeared across his neck was mine. He claimed I’d been wearing it when he left for work that morning, and that I’d kissed him before he went out the door. I hadn’t touched him in days, but when he said that I smiled, said I was foolish for forgetting, and kissed him right there on his neck where she had. I made him a Moscow mule in his favorite copper mug and waited until he was deeply asleep before I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t stand the smell of booze and foreign perfume. I couldn’t stand the sound of his breathing. I don’t have to listen to it anymore.

The third time—well, here we are now. My hands at Donny’s throat. His wide eyes staring up at me, pleading.

Really, I knew he was coming back, but my heart still turned to lead when Donny walked through the door the next morning.

The moth landed on my shoulder and I swept it off onto the carpet. It landed upside down and struggled, flailing against the thick fibers. The dust from its wings rose like a tiny cloud of ash. Would it be able to fly if it managed to turn itself upright? Or would it crawl away, helpless, to die and rot under Donny’s favorite chair? I drove my file through the insect’s fat, hairy body and carried it to the trash can in the bathroom. I buried my file, along with the creature impaled on it, at the bottom of the can under the last two weeks of cotton balls, q-tips, string floss, and red-brown pads wrapped stealthily in toilet paper.

the records down and drew the tip of the file across each side. When I was finished ruining his records I convinced myself he must have died in an accident on his way back from work. A dead man couldn’t leave me for doing him wrong.

n

o

by Ali Mo

25

He smiled a bit and ruffled my hair. I think he mistook my awkwardness as a difficulty suppressing my grief. Or maybe it was more comforting for him than me.

I didn’t know if the customary pleased-to-see-you smile was appropriate, so I started and stopped, and settled on “Hey.”

At her exit, my uncle entered.

“OK.” She left the building, leaving us with the tick-tick-ticking.

I was glad that I didn’t have to tell her that the occupant had just died, and appear insensitive with my inappropriate lack of feeling for the topic.

I nodded.

The nurse stared, clearly needing something more.

I considered how he, a man “We’re waiting for my parents,” I explained, hoping that would account for the presence of a seventeen-year who saw death every day, old girl and fourteen-year old boy. and treated it with a business-like nonchalance would She looked at me, her face softening. “From room three?” see my inablity to feel anything.

The word waiting suddenly seemed horrifically macabre. How dare I have time to wait? A life was gone, how could I wait?

I stuttered out something like “Oh, we’re... we’re... uh... waiting.”

As I stood watching the pendulum swing, a nurse interrupted my thoughts to ask if my brother and I were “Being helped.”

But when death finally found its way to room three, I found myself fascinated with a grandfather clock in the lobby. It became death’s clock to me, though it wasn’t satisfyingly sinister. It was walnut, and gold, and tick, tick, tick-ed away in the corner. Ticked away my waiting for the hearse, ticked away the life of the patients. It seemed morbid that a place with so many people with so few days should count down every second with brazen ticking, and mark the passing of every second down, down, down into death’s cold embrace.

The reality was a well-maintained, cozy little place with airy, cheerful rooms and bright, happy colours. The staff greeted me happily, pointed me to room three countless times, showed me to the kitchen on my coffee runs and occasionally made the coffee runs themselves.

I don’t know what I expected it to look like. Run-down, probably. Shabby, with hideous pink carpets worn down into ruts from wheelchairs and the foot-dragging shuffle of the elderly and dying. I think I expected a harried-looking staff, who flinched every time a nurse call-button was pushed, who used an obscenely saccharine mask to hide the raw, withered husk that resembled a soul.

The house was called Hiland Cottage; a cozy title for a place where people came to die.

by Alexandra Johnston

I’m Sorry, I Forgive You

I was a self-absorbed 16-year-old when she got sick for the last time.

27

I wish she had lived long enough to see me grow into a woman, one who could reconcile my early memories of a cookie-baking grandma who wanted to give me the world and the later ones of her smoking through her oxygen mask and lashing out in pain through a haze of prescription medicine. I want to tell her that I understand how strong she was to be in pain her whole life and still smile and teach six-year-old me how to make pineapple upside-down cake and microwave meatloaf. I wish I had been old enough to understand the weight of her words when she confided in me about her childhood, her alcoholic father with the nasty temper and her terrifying walk home with her brother’s ‘trustworthy’ friend. I want to tell her that I admire her.

She loved me deeply, I’m sure of that.

I was a self-absorbed 16-year-old when she got sick for the last time. I had drifted away from her before her death, angry over some comment. It took me three years to finally detangle the web of emotions in my chest and just cry.

I wrote this on the day my grandmother died. August 27, 2013.

It may be cold to say I didn’t feel any grief. I was bored. I wanted to go home and check the new episodes of the Nerdist to see when he would be having someone from the cast of the second Hobbit. There was the cat to play with, but it just gave me a disdainful look and scaled a tree, its ginger-and-cream coat vanishing into the leaves. It hardly seemed fair that a cat, the very picture of indifference, should judge me for not crying.

Sitting in the garden, after chasing a cat, as everyone made arrangements, finally I considered crying. I wasn’t sad, but there was the feeling that something had changed. Like having the same wallpaper on a computer for seventeen years, and then having it suddenly change. Up until now, my only emotion toward the whole affair was sort of an awkward uncertainty. I didn’t know how I was supposed to act.

I considered how he, a man who saw death every day, and treated it with a business-like nonchalance, would see my inability to feel anything.

A woman said good-bye, that she’d be back tomorrow. And as I considered the possibility of a tomorrow for the residents here, the man with a hearse arrived, a friend of dad’s from high school. He asked my parents where to take the body. I was nudged forward to greet him. My father’s expression told me I might have found it a bit too easy to be charming, and the funeral director had a similar problem with “I’m sorry for your loss.” It popped out of his mouth, and before a response could be made, he was talking about the flowers.

A Western played on a television somewhere. Horses screamed, guns fired, and with a click, it shut off.

How can that be answered from behind a mask of feeling like mine? I hated myself for saying “Good,” but it was the safest option. I couldn’t have played “Not so well,” and that would’ve been horribly obvious, and the truth, “Bored,” would’ve been obscene.

He asked how I’m doing, I said “Good.” after some hesitation, and he too, exited.

Stumbling through the dark, he found a winding walkway. The walls were

The girl popped another bubble while she waited, and then she ushered him in.

The man opened his mouth to reply, but couldn’t find the right words. His mind was hazy, a dark mist the consistency of grape jelly.

“Too long at the beer tent, eh mister?” she asked, followed by a large bubble that popped once it reached the size of a softball. “Well, you seem alright now.

Want a ticket? You’re my first customer of the day.” She leaned over the lime green podium and looked both ways. “I can give you one for free if you promise not to tell anyone.” With a wink and a giggle, she tore a blue ticket off a large roll.

He did not remember turning, but the man now stood in front of the star-shaped mirror. His reflection wore a tailored suit, his hair stylishly tousled, and a delicate glass of champagne nestled in his hand. He stood in a

“It matters not,” replied his reflection. “At least, I don’t care. I am blind to the rest of the world. All that exists is what’s inside these books, and inside my head. Why should I worry about the squabbles of others or the way they see me? I am perfectly content.” At this last statement the reflection’s left eye twitched, and his finger tapped the binding of the book in his hand.

“Haven’t you learned to clean your room?” the man quipped.

The man slowly stood, probing his head with the tips of his fingers for bumps or blood. He mechanically The reflection tilted its head, and looked up legs wobble... made his way over to the light, noticing that the voice with clouded eyes. “Are you not able to deduct had come from a teenaged girl in a yellow and red striped uniform. Her blonde hair that by yourself? I am you, sir, at least a piece of you. I sit or stand here, it was in pigtails, absorbing the neon so that it seemed a reddish gold. Her green matters not, and I read. I learn. I absorb all of the knowledge I can get my eyes were slits of mirth, and her jaw worked tirelessly on a large hunk of gum. hands on—that is my sole purpose.”

“Hey Mister! Hey, you on the ground! Dust yourself off and step on up!”

In the first mirror his running clothes were replaced by wrinkly khakis and a faded polo shirt. He stood in the middle of a dirty apartment bedroom, leaning stacks of books and papers strewn everywhere. A lone lamp stood next to the bed, and a half-eaten Hot Pocket lay prone on a plate on the desk.

completely mirrored, giving the impression of vast space to either side of him. This odd sensation threw his equilibrium off and made his legs wobble, but finally he found himself in a well-lit room. It was circular, with hanging Edison bulbs that left the ceiling in darkness. Three mirrors stood in the middle. The first was a perfect oval. The second, the shape of a star. The third was shaped like a giant dagger.

by Matthew Suehr

More Weight

“Hello,” his reflection said, without looking up. “How may I be of assistance? I have quite a bit of reading to do, and I would like to continue my studies as soon as possible.”

This odd sensation threw his The back of the man’s throat felt dry and equilibrium off and made his cracked as he asked, “Who are you?”

All he saw was an overpowering glow of red and his lifeless hand on the ground. After his pupils adjusted, he registered a neon light emitting from the building he had tumbled in front of. Above him two evil eyes smiled sardonically, and he read three words in red cursive, “Hall of Mirrors.”

A distant cloud floated above the horizon, its azure belly a passive threat from the sun. The man quickened his pace, chasing his own shadow through the stalls and past rusted gates. Soon he was sprinting, pumping his fists with each step. Blood rushed in his ears, and he started to hyperventilate. He turned down a random walkway between two stalls and lost his footing. Asphalt tried to kiss his forehead, but his limp body slumped into a lazy roll. The cloth at his shoulder ripped as he landed on his back. He lay with his eyes closed, feeling the hum of his overworked body. The salty air was cold and refreshing, and after a few moments he reopened his eyes.

Every morning he liked to run through the old carnival grounds by the ocean. It had become a ritual for him. His mind wouldn’t register when he was awake until he was there by himself, his sweat already pouring into his thick workout clothes.

Gray objects floated past the man in the twilight, his labored breathing echoing off sidewalk and cement walls. His black Nikes drank the shadows that pooled around his feet, and his dayglo orange sweatshirt kept the darkness at bay.

29

It leaned in and smiled, whiskers almost touching the man. “I am tired of your timidity. Life’s a race. I’ll fight, fuck, cheat, and steal my way to the finish line.

I won’t let you sit around and waste our time on Earth. It’s a goddam playground and you’ve only tried the merry-go-round. I’m going to climb on the monkey bars, jump off the swings, and burn the fucking jungle gym.”

“Oh, how I have waited for this! Forever, really, in this damn place. Do you like it? I’ve been watching you, crying out for you to notice me, but not even a glimpse in my direction. Not even a ‘Hello,’ or a ‘How are you?’” Its smile turned into a threatening grimace. “Well, I’m taking over, you impolite putz. You’ve done things your way, and now I’ll take a chance at the reins. You were always so calm, so nice, so quiet.”

Suddenly a hand shot out of the mirror, punching a perfect circle in its surface and sending a large shard into the man’s left hand. Before he registered the pain, the wet hand grabbed his clothing and pulled him into the water. Its cold embrace was shocking, but not as much as the pale face that grinned at him wolfishly. Its hair was a wild mess, face was covered in thick stubble, and yellow eyes reflected the lunar rays with an unsettling madness. The stranger kept a tight grip on the man’s wrist, and burst into harsh laughter.

He found himself gazing into the third I won’t let you sit around mirror in a stupor. All and waste our time on Earth . he saw was a soft black, with no distinguishable features. He heard the sound of waves, and when the moon peaked out from behind dark clouds he saw that the mirror displayed an ocean, only a few feet above the waves. Three slow taps came from the dark mirror, beckoning him closer.

“Running, what a waste of time. I’d rather drink, laugh, and dance!” exclaimed the reflection with a twirl on his shiny black shoes. “Forget about the ugliness of everything else. Live the life you want! Don’t mind those bumps along the way.”

The reflection leaned toward the mirror, his fruity scented breath fogging the glass as he whispered, “Treat yourself.”

It was then that the man saw the glaze over the reflection’s eyes. He was obviously drunk.

“Ah, it’s damn good to see you, friend!” said the reflection, taking a sip from the champagne glass. “You are working much too hard. You’re practically hurting yourself. You need to have fun!”

richly decorated room, white tables lining the walls and elegantly dressed dancers twirling lithely behind him.

She stared with a look of disbelief, until she laughed so hard she snorted softly. She took out a pen, slid up one of the man’s sleeves and wrote her number on his forearm, as well as the words, “Just lunch.”

“Now I am,” he rumbled.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” she asked, an eyebrow raised in concern. She put the back of her hand on his forehead to check his temperature.

“Just because there’s a riptide doesn’t mean you can’t swim at the beach,” he quipped, jumping to his feet.

She looked him up and down and said, “Sorry, I have a boyfriend.”

“Shit, I must’ve tripped and bumped my head. You saved my life.” He smiled wolfishly, staring into her green eyes. “Can I make it up to you over lunch?”

“What happened? Are you alright?” asked the young woman, her voice full of genuine concern. The sun blinked at the horizon, and her blonde hair drank its crimson rays until it was a reddish gold.

After slowly pulling out the shard and wiping his hands on his sweatshirt, he itched his face and felt a thick growth of stubble that hadn’t been there before. His hands slid up to his head, and felt a mop of thick, messy hair.

He was still in the abandoned carnival grounds, but the hall of mirrors and peppy toll-booth girl were gone. With a sigh of disgust, he wiped off his cheek, jerking his left hand away as it touched watered-down vomit. A large shard of reflective glass was embedded between his first and middle finger, and both of his wrists were rubbed raw.

The man woke to a young woman pumping his chest, humming to the beat of “Stayin Alive” by the Bee Gees. He sat up with huge gasps of air, wetness clinging to his left cheek. Blood congealed on his forehead and hair as he hunched over, lungs weakly whistling.

Chortling, it clamped an iron manacle to the man’s wrist, and the man began to sink as he watched the stranger crawl up and out of the mirror. He tried to keep his head above the waves, but his muscles cramped after a few minutes. The weight proved too much, and he began to sink into the abyss.

Before his eyes closed forever, his chest jumped up and down, sucking in saltwater as if it were air.

h ment “Abandony Laura Helferic

b

� ons mm o C at the

This p ho groun tograph wa ds an s tak on the d I really l en at the S ove al walls. l the g tate Hospi It's a tal raf piece of art fiti painte d within art.

31

entrances never welcomed her the way exits did

unable to contain her smolder she gave them an inferno

a sizzling marked her steps as she dropped the match crafted from third-degree anxieties and combustible whispers

singed hair gathered into a rope, a waiting fuse for the day her eyes cleared enough to enjoy fireworks

charcoal lungs puffing a burst of sweet wild cherry smoke through scabbing ears still in desperate recovery

it began as a wispy flicker she couldn’t light a candle with, but their stale air, biting oxygen, sparked a chemical fire

silence was her goodbye to the people who ignited her flame in all the wrong ways

by Anne-Marie Dunklow

flower garden. That window was the only connection with the outside world I truly had. My entire life could be summed up through that glass pane.

Such eagerness felt unnatural when thinking about it together with the memories of my childhood room. I let her little body pull me forward from the sidewalk toward the house. From the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of the window, clouded with grime, which used to overlook the vivacious

“Momma, Momma,” her words came rushing out with excitement.

“Momma, I wanna go see what your room looks like.”

into the side of the pillow that held years of smeared mascara and tears, trying to shield her face away from the light. She vowed not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her torn. That’s all he really wanted from her anyway.

It wasn’t her body that he so often came into her room to violate. It was the torment he caused her, and the embarrassment on her face every morning.

It was the way she would flinch at his touch in public like prey trying to flee from its pursuing predator.

Stepping into the home, I could still breathe in the faint odor of alcohol and stagnant cologne, as if it had seeped into the walls only to permanently stain the elegant wood. She let go of my hand and ran toward the heavy staircase, the patter of her little feet ringing too loud in the silence.

Still I stood there on the sidewalk in front of the old home, the tight grip Walking into this place was like walking back in time, like stepping right of a child’s fingers wrapped around mine. back into a terrible dream, a nightmare that held me in its proverbial grip.

It was easier this My heart raced faster, and my stomach knotted tighter with every step “Momma, what did this house used to closer I took to my old room. My body shuddered with disgust, while look like when you were just little?” way, giving into my frail uncertain fingers nudged the door, reopening a portal My words came out so quiet, like I was speaking the efficiency of into hell. only for myself to hear, “This house used to look so I stood there helpless and watched the images of beautiful from the outside.” It was fake beauty though. There silence and the art my younger self, that girl as she writhed and was nothing good about what resided here. of invisibility. jerked about, entangling herself in thick white I told myself that I would never come back. Only in his passing do I cotton, a blanket of protection now stained with shame. Limbs numb from return. The neighbors had started to complain about the ungroomed lawn exhaustion, her eyes went to that place. The place she often went to feel and vacant house that sat in the middle of such a tight-knit and quaint little nothing. No pain, no heartache, no betrayal, just nothing. It was so much community. A house like that would bring unwanted negative attention to safer not to feel, not to let the world touch her. It was easier this way, giving the area’s reputation. Such a scandal like this would never be spoken of. into the efficiency of silence and the art of invisibility.

There were rumors floating about shortly before I left this home, rumors She wadded the loose fabric clinging tightly to her body in her fists. of a father who would drink himself violent, and a daughter of loose morals.

Sweat clumped her hair to her forehead. It wasn’t her sweat though, it No one other than me knew the truth. So, it was no surprise to hear that he was his. He heaved himself on her harder, fumes rolling from his breath, had drank himself to death, and I wondered just who happened to find him catching in her nostrils. Choking back the scent of him, the surrounding face down in that vengeful bottle. space reeking of his favorite bourbon and cheap cologne. She threw her head

My little girl ran through the overgrown grass, arms flailing about, crushing wild daisies beneath her small feet. I’ve never seen such happiness from a child here at this house. It looked run down from weather and years of neglect. Shingles from the roof were scattered about the yard, and one shutter had come unhinged, slowly swaying there in the breeze. The house’s paint, dingy and pealing, even looked like time itself had abused it.

It was as if I were sleepwalking, and I didn’t know how or when to wake up.

by Amanda Coddington

When Sleeping Women Wake

The slight stomping of little feet brought me back from the horror, as elated giggles and bouncing blonde pigtails tied with delicate silk ribbon came rushing through the door past my side. The small child went straight for the bed, crashing into the mound of dusty bedding. Every bounce sent puffs of its filth wafting into the air.

That girl. That desperate girl. She spent hours alone inside the small walls that confined her soul. This house was her personal prison, holding a fresh hell only

33

of myself, like I was in a permanent state of sleep, confronted only by my past memories. There was no present, and there was no future, the memory, a

personal prison, holding of all its material, not Sweltering tears streaked down my a fresh hell only she wanting to lie in its face, burning into my dank horror, inaudible lived every night. skin like acid. It had whimpers escaping her been years since I lips. Seeking solace had given in to thoughts about the abuse. Bitter agony in the silence of night, she cocooned in slumber, cursed through my mind. How did this happen, how allowing the world just beyond to pass her by. could this happen? Why me?

This all felt so surreal. It was like living outside

That day I felt everything again. My listless mind embraced it all, even welcoming the years of built up pain. That was the day I decided to free myself from such tragedy. This didn’t have to be my fate, and it didn’t have to be my unborn child’s fate. The burden of that old life lifted from me, and I felt my own selfworth again grow with the life inside me. That day when I left my nightmare for the last time, I left her behind.

I watched that girl fade from the window. All of her would eventually be gone with time, and the only thing I took with me from that dreadful place was my child.

She was the reason I chose to feel again, she was my reason to wake up from this and live, and now, she was my constant reminder that something so beautiful could come from something so ugly. I left it behind to give her life, but that day she gave me back mine.

There, rocking gently back on her heels, that girl prayed for this all to end, for her life of torment to be over. She was sure that any death would be easier than enduring one more second of this abuse, but something in that very moment, something happened while she was in that place she often would go. She felt something, the slight flutter of the life inside her.

to the ground. There, those petals in all their loveliness would wilt and die, like everything else this place touched.

she lived every night. Nobody else truly knew, and dark artist painting pictures without permission, raping if they did, they didn’t speak a word of it, but the me through my own thoughts. The small child pressed looks of contempt on her little palm inside mine her neighbors’ faces “Okay, Momma,” she This didn’t have to again. were only directed said, then headed over toward be my fate, and it toward her, as if she, the bedroom’s dingy window. and she alone, had didn’t have to be my Again, it was as if I saw caused this. It was as myself back in time, in my own unborn child’s fate. if they thought that worst dream. That girl, she somehow she had stood there alone, between brought this indignity upon herself. Or maybe, they the thick glass windows that shielded all life from her. didn’t think that at all, maybe that’s only what that The limp flowers and mangled garden dirt were the only girl could see. Her own disgrace projected from the thing of beauty encasing this home. She watched the eyes of others. petals blow in big circles in the yard before scattering

The worse part always came after the attack. It was Nausea instantly struck my insides seeing a the feeling of worthlessness. No matter how many child, my child, on something that held years of times I had tried, and no matter for how long I would such malice. “Honey, get off that right now,” panic bathe, I never really felt like I was clean. The taint edging my voice. will always be there, I remembered so forever ingrained into freshly how that girl This house was her my very being. had stripped the bed

He always left her there as if she were trash he had no more use for when he was finished. He would leave her alone to clean up his mess, waiting for the slight latching sound of the door’s hitch that conveyed some small ounce of safety. Once the creaking floorboards beyond dulled to nothingness, she turned the heavy weight of herself onto her side and let it all out, tears searing into her cold skin, hot and angry. She let out her frustration over his power, let out her revulsion over the feeling of him inside of her, let out everything that he had stolen, her happiness, her trust, her virtue.

She wiped the back of her hand against her trembling lips, stifling back the urge to vomit.

The ceiling drifted away, fading into the distance as she herself only wished she could do. The thrashing of his body darkened her thighs with thick bruises.

Swallowing back her watery weakness, she protectively clutched the only safe and innocent thing in the room, the one thing that hadn’t let her down yet. Pressing her palms into her eyes to relieve the pressure building up inside, she steadied her breathing.

This triptych tells the story of disc overing my daughter’s co ngenital heart de fe cts and the journey we took to get th em repaired. An enor mous story smas hed into three panels !

rt”

Hea

s

by Kristy Tompkin

“ Jo urn ey of the

After all, we are both a product of my father.

“Yes, you do honey.”

“Momma, I look just like you when you was little.”

Heading from the home’s long staircase with my child, I felt the slight crunching of something beneath my feet. Looking down at broken glass reminded me of the photo that used to hang on the wall, the photo that still held a place there.

Six years later, the flowers along the house would flourish, touched with such tenderness that the only thing that was reminiscent here of such a dark period was a memory fading even more each day.

“Generatio

ns”

The Hartle y dad’s strongest s first ide of tradition on m in the name J the fa four photogames. Thmily is the y gener raph e art Jim, and atio come ifacts from bond Jame ns of Jimm c s only m arried d , repres y, JD the ale sib own th enting , ling in roug the each h the gener ation.

by Nichole

command. The ground was still wet with dew when Private laid on his stomach and shouldered me. Sir yelled again while Private began to put steady pressure on my trigger.

I didn’t know much back then, but I knew my job was to keep Private safe.

I remember the first time Private took me out to the range. It was a cool Wednesday near the end of January. There was a great sense of anticipation, Private was meticulously loading one round at a time into the stripper clip. He put the clip in my well and racked the bolt. I produced a satisfying clang, and Sir yelled a

When I woke up I was in South Carolina.

The air was warm and wet and my mother was nowhere to be seen. I was pulled from the truck by a man in a green shirt, and from there I was passed to another man in the same shirt. I can’t remember how many of these men I was passed between, but eventually I ended up in the care of a man named Private. Private seemed like a decent enough fellow, but he was always on edge. He was often getting yelled at by a taller man named Sir who wore a weird hat. I didn’t know much back then, but I knew my job was to keep Private safe.

I was born in January of 1944 in Springfield, Massachusetts. I remember the sounds of heavy machinery and the heat of a forge. I remember my mother placing me in a truck, then I slept.

by William Walton

I was taken back to the ship after that. The mood was somber; some men wrote letters while others prayed. Private just sat in his bunk and stared at a photograph. Before the next dawn, Private awoke and took me to the deck.

I’m not sure how long we were in the ship, but eventually we came to a stop off the coast of England. Private went landside, leaving me alone in the bowels of the ship. He was gone for some time, and when he came back he smelled of cheap whiskey. The next day he took me to a tent not far from the dock. Inside was a chalkboard and a man. Private called this man Sir, but he didn’t look like the man from South Carolina. This new Sir gave a speech, and drew some diagrams on the chalkboard.

I carried on like that for several weeks. He would take me to the range and fire me and listen to Sir yell commands. Then, one day in May, we didn’t go to the range. Instead we went to the docks and boarded a ship.

tight to his chest. I heard another explosion, this one much closer to us, and the boat shook. I saw a flash of light and heard Private scream. After that all I saw and felt was salt water.

I don’t know what happened to Private, but listening to the man with the gloves, I figure that what ever happened on the beach wasn’t very good. Still, sometimes I like to imagine that Private made it out okay, that he made it back to South Carolina or wherever he was before then.

I like to imagine that he found the lady from the photograph, and maybe they had a son who liked to wear gloves and take care of old rifles. I like to imagine...

I am old now, left with a rusted action and a rotten stock. Years in the sea took their toll, and no one can fire me anymore. These days I sit behind glass. Every once in a while a man with rubber gloves comes out to check on me. He rubs me with oil to prevent further oxidization, and he says that I tell a very important story.

He placed a clip in my well and from there we I felt the pressure build, the hot gasses boarded a small boat with about twenty other strained my every component. I thought I was men. I’m not sure how, but I could tell that they going to shatter, but I didn’t. As the bullet were scared. finally exited my barrel, I felt a great sense of relief as I expelled the gasses expanding inside I saw a beach ahead of us as the sun rose. me. My bolt racked again, automatically this Shortly after an alarm sounded and the boat time, and another cartridge was loaded into my began to sail toward the shore. Private checked chamber. Private pulled my trigger again, and my action, disengaged my safety, and looked again I felt the rush of I’m not sure how, but I could tell that towards the beach. I being fired. He fired me heard explosions come they were scared. six more times before I from above as bright ejected my clip with a loud crack. My bolt locked streaks of light flashed around us. The pilot of open, and Sir yelled another command. the boat yelled something and Private held me

Springfield Armory No. 462,737

I chose the meandering map style, versus the traditional, more linear timeline format because no path is a straight line. No life looks perfect while it’s being lived. It’s only when looking back that you can see the beauty that is created from the stumbles and the wandering that brought you to where you are today.

Each patch represents a landmark moment in my life: my birth, when I started playing the bass, the day I married my wife, the day I started my design company, and the births of my two children: Sadie & Henry. The final part of the timeline is the blank piece of paper, which the path trails off on, to symbolize the endless possibilities that still await me.

I wanted to create a timeline of what I consider significant moments in my life, but in a fashion that speaks more to my style, and also a subtle nod to the trademark flair of one of my favorite designers, Aaron Draplin.

by Joel Mann

“Patched Up Life”

In its curves a jungle and a face to crawl on and feel with hands, toes and chest.

I still remember the smell of prune juice and shag, my cotton shirt and the feeling of rocking.

I thought the whole earth must be feeling this too

I remember the feeling of carpet, and how much it meant to me; it’s meaningless to me now.

The 60s shag, like wispy tufts of hair I could pull on and not be snapped at for.

I picture them under the groaning and cracking of joints; they were storms and thunders, riveting and bigger than I.

My world was me, grew out of me, and now that world is a tool, cannibalized and made to clack and shuffle; those hands are still soft and young, and yet now without force, heavy.

I could touch, they said.

I was doing it before, and yet what were those tiny hands like?

They show me pictures and swear I was there, but I was formed before I could tell myself a thing.

A meme in madness, I was caged before I could fly.

She tells tales of how I alighted her sails, calling her from sleep with a siren song, forcing compassion from her tired eyes.

My wiggling form was enough for her to hope, they said.

She called me a force of nature, named me.

She made from dust and blood roads and empires for tiny hands to form or destroy.

Mom hears the scream of an infant forcing for itself a place to be.

This was I, or so they’ve told me.

Little self, cupping juice and mewling for warm arms and a face much bigger than this.

With lungs tinier than a fist, just loud enough. Â

I listened, for I thought theirs was the voice of wisdom and tried to harken back to a primal place.

But I was not I then.

There was a time, they told me, that all I am was the vagaries and shiftings of tides.

Defined before thought, a meme in madness.

by Mitchell Lewis

They Told Me

I remember me, I am I, because I recall things.

And now because I can die.

My memory gave me that, but also thunder and blues.

A bird defined and warmed by its cage.

39

I am scared but I am home; others don’t tell me how far my reach is now because they know I saw my arm just yesterday.

I know my bounds, and it is I.

And I don’t remember being truly scared till I was I because I could be less, or gone, or not enough.

God taught me that, or I remember he did, at least.

I have discernible bounds now, right at the bone.

But that’s me now, right to the tip.

I ripped, and could no longer hold the sea, too foreign for the sea to hold me.

I found my end, right at the fingertip, the place I feared I would find it.

I am my own world now.

I am terrified.

It worked.

Until it didn’t.

I got lost because being wasn’t shag and prune juice.

I couldn’t make my fingers a force of nature so I found a sea to drown in.

I waited for salt and water to tear apart my form so I could be that force of nature they told me she said I was.

God told me I was special; He sang with suns and tingles down my spine.

He was a book, a man, a friend, and my chest, and not necessarily in that order.

It is song worth no merit, they tell me, my baby blues, dirge, buried, worthless.

It is sad to lose a thing I may never have had, but I remember.

A moment I can never hold, unsure if it was I then or it is I wishing back now.

I can’t tell you what the faces looked like, or the color of our walls; my world was ankle high.

A world I walk on now with calloused feet.

by Ann Hosler

_ Richard Matheson, What Dreams May Come

before me and within me. I could not avoid them. Neither could I rationalize, explain away. I could only re-experience with total cognizance, unprotected by pretense. Self-delusion was impossible, truth exposed in this blinding light.”

“Each memory was brought to life

ntwined

The priest raised his arms, slowly sweeping his head from side to side as he addressed the church. “The bride and groom have vowed to love and remain steadfast and loyal to one another as they stand before their assembled community of friends and family. May your love be eternal and undying. By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife.

You may kiss the bride.”

My mouth twitched as I struggled to not yet match the grin slowly creeping onto Edward’s face. His eyes focused on my lips reciting our vows. “…for better or for worse,” the priest continued. “…for better or for worse,” I repeated, gently squeezing Edward’s hand.

“Until death do us part.”

I held Edward’s gaze, my brain capturing every bit of this moment. “Until death do us part.”

Another contraction rips through me with the intensity of two semitrucks colliding head-on at highway speed. I tighten my grip on Edward’s hand, his fingertips tomato-tinged from the

My childhood passed without seeing my aunt in person again, yet with each birthday a handmade card arrived with a picture of some place she had visited.

Mom seemed upset by the first card, wanting to discard it. I talked Dad into convincing her otherwise, insisting that because the envelope was addressed to “Carly” and not “Mom” she wasn’t allowed to decide its fate. They argued that night, the first of many to come.

She stayed for three days, celebrating my birthday that weekend. Her smile dazzled my friends and I; we were enraptured by her exotic tales of adventure. Why doesn’t Mom share these stories? I wondered aloud.

Aunt Judith winked and leaned in, like she had a secret, whispering loudly: Catherine isn’t a Keeper, so she can’t come along. I turned around in time to see Mom clench her jaw, but my aunt just smiled affectionately at her.

The summer I turned six was the first time I met my Aunt Judith. My parents had prepared a room for her to stay in shortly before she arrived, but I overheard them whispering about her for weeks leading up to the big day. Mom didn’t discuss her sister much, so I was excited to meet my mystery aunt. That first glimpse of her pixie-cut blonde hair—styled akin to Mia Farrow’s in The Great Gatsby—framing a friendly petite face and fiery hazel eyes has a cherished spot in my mind.

I flashed her a cheeky grin and my new husband tugged my hand as we hurried down the aisle.

Edward wasted no time wrapping his arms around me as our lips connected. I think the cheers cooled us down into the “church kiss” category.

We broke apart and turned to our families, my aunt winking from the front row.

My father makes a vague noise of agreement, his panicked eyes looking everywhere but at me. I giggle as I recall my mother once telling me, while explaining the birds and the bees and everything in-between in the most horrifyingly revealing way, that he had to be carried from her delivery room after he fainted. He denies her claim to this day. Amusement morphs into a grunt of pain as a new contraction crashes in.

“Oh sweetheart, we came as soon as Edward’s voicemail pinged through.

One of the cell towers is out in the city…” she trails off, flapping her hands briefly before leaning over to hug me. Pulling back, my aunt beams, pride etched on her lightly-wrinkled face. “I’m just glad we beat the baby!”

Several contractions go by before two familiar faces peer around the growing wall of doctors. My aunt rushes over with my father trailing behind.

His lips curl sadly in response.

“You try having this baby then,” I grouse.

The nurse gasps, turns to look at the readout from one of too-many machines hooked up to me, then scurries out in a huff. Edward chuckles, drawing my attention back to him. “That wasn’t well-done, love.”

“Get out of my face,” I growl through gritted teeth.

“You need to breathe, dear, or—”

A shadow falls over me from the other side of the hospital bed, and I turn to find a hawk-nosed nurse inches from my face. Behind her, the doctor consults in hushed tones with another physician and two nurses.

an encouraging smile as I pant through the pain; we’ve been here for hours and no words will change the situation.

A shadow falls over me from the other side of the hospital bed, and I turn to find a hawk-nosed nurse inches from my face. contact. He offers me

He draws back, smirking. “I’m always right, except when I’m not.”

I nod, releasing a shaky breath. “You’re right,” I offer with a wobbly smile.

“Hey,” he says, leaning his forehead against mine, drawing my eyes to his. “It’s gonna be alright, you know. Don’t beat yourself up over it. We’ll make it through this and have a beautiful son or daughter in no time.”

“Ah,” I say, feigning interest at an invisible speck on the bed. Guilt swamps me. How could I fail at the one thing my gender specializes in?

“They went to prepare the paperwork and contact the anesthesiologist,” he explains.

“I…understand.”

My voice wobbles and everything goes dim while the next contraction overtakes me.

By the time it’s passed, the room is empty aside from one nurse—not the hawk-nosed one from earlier—and Edward.

My parents thought I was asleep, but their argument kept me awake. It’s unnatural, it must be smashed and burned, Mom yelled, her voice clear and shrill. I never heard Dad’s thoughts, his low-pitched baritone muffled by the walls. When Mom snuck into my room

Love and smiles, Aunt Judith

Keep the box empty—soon it will serve its purpose. Have a wonderful birthday.

Carly,

A package arrived on my twelfth birthday, and inside was the most beautiful wooden box I had ever seen. Dad said that the wood was mahogany, its dark reddish-brown grains flawlessly straight and smooth. Intricate swirls looped through a series of engraved ovals on the lid, with no recognizable beginning or end. My aunt’s note that year was the shortest yet:

Dr. Benston grimaces, glancing briefly at the consulting group, down at my chart, and back at us. “The best one, for the health of both mother and baby, is to perform a cesarean.” He nods at my audible intake of breath. “I know how much you wanted a natural birth. Please believe that I wouldn’t present this option if I didn’t think it was in your best interest, Mrs. Evans.”

“So what are our options?”

I stare at Edward with unshed tears, silently pleading him to somehow find the right words to say. A contraction intrudes on the conversation, and afterward he lays a soft kiss on my hand before turning back to Dr. Benston.

The doctor nods. “With each contraction we’re seeing severe drops in heart rate. The longer your labor continues, the more at-risk your baby is for heart failure.”

“Abnormalities?” Edward cuts in, his voice rough. “What do you mean, Dr. Benston?”

“I’m afraid your dilation is not progressing beyond six, and all readings indicate abnormalities in the baby’s heartrate,” he explains.

My doctor breaks away from the consulting gang, who all turn to observe him observing me. He stops at the end of my bed, chart in hand. His mouth is a grim line, odd to see on such a normally amicable man. I nod, not trusting my voice to function for long at this point.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Evans?”

I pant through the contraction, wondering what use those fancy breathing classes were when I can’t focus, also dimly aware of Edward brushing the hair off my sweaty face. He’s waiting to hand me a cup of water as my breathing evens out, and we share weary smiles. Behind him I see that the sun is nearly setting—we’ve been here since morning, when twilight painted the sky.

Observing my father’s paling face, my aunt steers him toward the hall. “We’ll be waiting outside for the big event!” She winks and ushers him away.

“Uh... hello ma’am… this is Lila, from Augatine Memorial Hospital.” An older woman’s voice comes through on the other end of the line, a constant din of commotion in the background.

“Hey!” I say, glancing over at the clock. It’s a bit after two and I need to leave soon to beat the worst of the traffic on my way to our son’s school.

When I was looking for an extra house key during holiday break my sophomore year, I found a letter Aunt Judith wrote to Mom. Buried deep within the hallway table’s general junk drawer, beneath a pile of fading scrap paper and dull-tipped pencils, the local post office stamp showed that it was processed the day before Mom left us.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I blurt, foregoing manners and hanging up. One hand swipes through my contact list to my aunt’s name as the other grabs car keys. “Hey, sorry for the short notice but I need you to pick up Paul from school…”

“Your husband is in the ER right now, Mrs. Evans. He’s in critical condition, not waking, but currently stable. I’m afraid I don’t have any other information as I just came in a short time ago.”

My voice cuts off as my phone rings, and I snatch I frown, not wanting to deal with another fundraising call during my “mommy freetime.” it up, rushing across the room to pause the disk.

Before responding, I remind myself of the best lesson my father taught me: anyone can be rude, I don’t recognize the number, but that’s but manners will get you places. “What can I help you with today?” I inquire. normal whenever Edward is at the office; The woman heaves a sigh… of relief? Exhaustion? I can’t tell, and her next words rip away my his headquarters re-routes outgoing suspicions.

“This number is the first ICE contact listed on Edward Evans’ phone.” calls through more lines than I “Oh, god,” I drop to the floor in shock. “Edward, he’s my husband… is he… I mean… what…?” The words to care to save in my phone. form coherent thoughts escape me.

“Close your eyes and try to sleep now,” I sing along to my well-loved and ancient Pat Benatar CD while swaying around the living room, “Close your eyes and try to dream. Clear your mind and do your best to try and wash the palette clean.”

I knew for years they were unhappy, and that he was trying to protect me, but eventually life had to begin.

I pretended to sleep, biting my Over the next two years I followed my aunt’s instructions, leaving the box empty. I peered inside it each birthday before slipping Aunt Judith’s card beneath, curious if there would be a change. I’m not certain what lip as she snatched I expected to happen, but disappointment filled me each time I saw its barren interior. the box from my nightI had only been a freshman in high school for one month when Mom left and never returned. stand before hurrying out.

Dad told me it wasn’t my fault—that sometimes relationships crack and never heal properly.

The next morning the box was perfectly placed back on my nightstand, a single sooty fingerprint on the upper-right corner and a faint ashy smell hanging in the air. Mom never mentioned the box again.

that night, I pretended to sleep, biting my lip as she snatched the box from my nightstand before hurrying out. Silent tears streaked down my cheeks, but eventually sleep consumed me.

I shake my head but know she’s right. Because my mother was absent most of my adult life, my aunt and I grew close, and she often shared bits of wisdom gained throughout her own. Every time

Hannah crouches beside me, snapping me back to the present, concern plastered across her face.

“Let’s get you home so you can sleep for a few hours and have something other than hospital food.”

I heave a sigh and lean back in the chair that has been my home for the past few weeks, ever since a drunk driver slammed into Edward’s car on his way to a meeting. My heart rages again at the thought of some asshole, healthy and—currently—free, who thought it was a grand idea to get drunk in the middle of a day and get behind the wheel.

“You need…” she trails off and flinches as I lift my head and fix a hard gaze on her, then clears her throat and continues. “You need to take care of yourself, too. I know Edward’s parents, and your father, are too damned scared to say it, but there, now it’s said.”

the day I learned that the impossible is always possible.

With billions of people in the world, a Keeper usually doesn’t know whose memories they are shielding, nor is the gift unique to our family. They exist all around the world, bearing their burden and That treasures without regard to race, gender, or was ethnicity.

Every generation our family has one or more Keepers born into it— that is, individuals who possess the “gift” to protect the memories of others. You’ll find cornerstone memories vibrant, making minor ones seem dull, my aunt described. Some people may resonate more strongly with you, perhaps even reflect aspects of your own life, and they will outshine all else.

The following week I enrolled in a charter school that only ran half days on a nearly year-round schedule. It took a few weeks, but I started to get into the routine of high school in the morning followed by lessons with my aunt in the afternoon. I quickly was indoctrinated into the unbelievable history of my family.

Aunt Judith, who had aged dramatically since I saw her nine years prior, was still the smiling woman of my memories yet with many more wrinkles and gray hairs. She drove me through the quiet town where she resided before we pulled into the driveway of her one-story ranch-style home.

“Your father’s, then, and you can see Paul, too.” She loops an arm around my waist, letting me lean on her as we leave Edward behind.

“Fine,” I relent, releasing his hand and rising. “But not my house. It’s not…” I look over at Edward and swipe the tears away. “It’s not home right now, you know?”

she heard I was pushing myself beyond my limits, she reminded me that taking care of myself has to happen before I can even dream of caring for others.

“Hi,” I respond, fingers entwined with Edward’s unmoving digits, my head resting on the side of his bed staring, hoping, for some flicker of movement.

“Hi,” my best friend, Hannah, says softly.

I don’t bother to look up as fingertips gingerly brush my elbow.

After minutes of yelling, many tears, and some hugging, he called my aunt and they arranged for me to have an extended stay with her. I was on a plane by the weekend, Dad’s guilty expression lingering in my head. Our hug was stilted, his farewell gruff. Sure, I was peeved he hadn’t mentioned or searched for the letter, but we should have parted on better terms. You never know when a goodbye is your last.

I confronted Dad, who admitted that he knew about the letter, though not its exact contents. I thought your mother took the letter with her, otherwise we would have read it together, he explained.

Yours, Judith

I’ve honored your wishes to stay away from my beloved niece, but I fear I cannot wait any longer. I know you are loathe to admit that some things in this world exist beyond human understanding, but the fact remains that Carly is the next Keeper and my time is nearing its end. I do not wish to place a burden upon the girl that she is ill prepared for. Send her to me for lessons—time is of the essence.

Dearest Catherine,

“It’s the first day of the rest of your life!” she exclaims, pursing her lips at my frown. “You know I love you—platonically, of course.”

Taking in her “prowler” outfit, as she dubs it, I wince. “Friday?” I offer helpfully, hoping she forgot how to read a calendar while knowing why Hannah is really visiting me.

“Guess what day it is?”

I hang up and yank the door open, my best friend scooping me in a big hug.

“Open up, girl!” Hannah laughs into the phone as she waves at me from the front porch.

My phone jams with Hannah’s ringtone the same moment a sharp series of knocks rap at my front door. I swipe to answer her call and lift the phone to my ear as I stand on my tip-toes and peer out the door window.

This weekend, Paul is spending quality time with his grandfather. My father became a lot more involved after Edward passed away nearly two years ago, moving across four zip codes to be closer to us. For an eleven-year-old boy, having a father-like figure for support is a big deal, and I think my father secretly enjoys that he can do “guy stuff” that he never did with me—not that he’d ever admit it.

She tripped across the lawn as she dashed through the chilling nighttime air. The moon gradually disappeared as the trees grew denser, and she fumbled a flashlight from her bag to illuminate the forested floor.

“I hate this new house so much,” she whispered between tears, stuffing her favorite blanket and two more apples into a purple My Little Pony backpack. “I’ll find my way back to my real home.”

I found her first two warnings difficult to heed after I touched the original shard suspended within my Keeper box. Another’s memory—vivid as if I was living it myself—washed over me. ...

3. Don’t tell others—unless you absolutely must.

2. Don’t touch the shards too often.

1. Don’t touch the shards for too long.

I learned a lot about being a Keeper throughout my final two years of high school. Aunt Judith noticeably slowed down, age not creeping but consuming her, yet she was tenacious and daily found something new to impart. She had a basic set of rules for Keepers:

The day I walked across the stage and accepted my diploma was a proud one. Dad and Aunt Judith sat side-by-side in the audience. Mom never responded to any attempt to reach her, and I finally gave up on rekindling our relationship. People I loved were there to support me, and that was what mattered the most.

Hannah’s musical laughter fills the air as she steers me toward my room.

I groan, swatting her hand away. “Did you seriously just quote that Pocahontas song to me?”

She taps my nose fondly, then tips my chin up. “And I know you loved him, and nothing will ever replace that. I don’t expect it to. But… you need to live again.” Hannah sweeps her hand around my small, cluttered, yet neatly-kept house. “Step outside these walls, and paint with all the colors of the wind.”

I close my laptop, another day’s work behind me. Freelancing keeps me busy while Paul is in school, but it also provides a roof over our heads and food on the table. The best parts are not being enslaved by an office and being able to busy myself despite how damn empty the house is whenever my son isn’t home.

That was the day I learned that the impossible is always possible.

I grabbed it, then tripped on the wheel of my bag as I stood. The box snapped open as it tumbled from my grasp, landing upside down on the Berber carpet. I carefully scooped it up, flipping it over, gasping at the glimmering, translucent shard suspended within its heart.

At first, I thought Aunt Judith was trying to relive the early days of our relationship by regaling me with outlandish tales until I retrieved the box she had sent me on my twelfth birthday.

By this time I had been with her for about three weeks, but hadn’t bothered to unpack everything yet, so it was still nestled inside my larger piece of luggage.

The moment I let go of the shard I keenly missed the girl’s tumult of raw, unfiltered emotions. My aunt was upset to hear I had engaged so long with the memory, and worked harder to drill her Keeper lessons into me. I eventually relented after indulging in the third shard—that time, of a high school senior scoring the winning touchdown in a playoff game. The feelings were too intense, the sense of wanting more an open wound within me. I shoved aside my curiosity and followed Aunt Judith’s wisdom—for a while, at least. It had yet to guide me wrong.

Nodding, she held out her hand. “We can be friends.” ...

She stared at him. What did he know? He was just a stupid boy. She glanced around at the trees. Her parents would miss her in the morning, and these woods were pretty scary when she was alone.

Edward took another tiny step forward. “But we can be friends,” he added.

“Oh.”

“I’m Edward.” He smiled and took a tiny step closer. “My house is two down from yours.”

“Who are you?” she asked, looking around nervously. Her parents always told her it wasn’t safe to talk to strangers, but surely they didn’t mean other kids—right?

“Wait, don’t be scared!” a boy’s voice called out, and soon a hand as small as hers reached out, scooped up the flashlight, and offered it to her.

Crickets sang, leaves rustled, and the occasional rumble of a car engine passed in the distance as she traversed the woods.

She was sure hours had passed when a branch snapped loudly behind her, causing her to scream and drop her flashlight.

Snapping the lid shut, I tossed it into the fire pit, whispering thanks to the woman who was a shining light that guided me to where I needed to be. The flames leapt as they consumed the box, rainbow-hued tendrils licking its edges until it collapsed suddenly into a pile of embers.

I knew, as I stood before the fire that night, something about my aunt’s Keeper box was different. Peering inside confirmed it.

The shards remained, but they were dull husks, some brittle and already shattered.

Aunt Judith had shown me the inside of her Keeper box once, and it lit up so brightly that I saw spots for several minutes afterward. The number of shards within was beyond my comprehension. I could only hope to one day protect as many memories as she once did, to feel the strength of my soul sing with the burdens and joys of others.

When a person’s mind begins losing its grasp on vivid details, my aunt had once explained, it’s because their Keeper has passed on. Their souls are no longer entwined, and memories they protect become dim remnants of what they once were. The human mind could only retain a finite amount unaided, and a Keeper’s soul could only withstand so much weight.

That night I carried her Keeper box outside with me, as she had requested in a note we found on her bedside. She wrote that the role of Keeper was a heavy one, and though she was sorry to leave us, it was her time to let go. Dad helped me stoke the flames in her backyard fire pit, then silently returned to the house, squeezing my shoulder on his way past.

The days following my graduation became somber as Aunt Judith’s health swiftly declined.

Dad stayed for the week, and I wept on his shoulder the morning we couldn’t wake my aunt up.

The feelings were too intense, the sense of wanting more an open wound within me.

The woman’s face lights up, almost like she recognizes me. “Hi!” she exclaims, a wide smile stretching across her face as she extends a hand. “You must be Joy Evans. My name is Carly, and I’ve waited my whole life to meet you.”

“Uh, hello,” I say, giving a little wave with my free arm.

The music switches to a slow dance and Hannah loops her arm through mine, steering me toward the bar, not stopping until we’re behind the woman. The woman turns, her eyes widening.

She giggles. “Oh no, it’s definitely you. It would only be polite to at least say hello, and let her down lightly, Miss Manners.”

“Well, maybe she’s interested in you,” I point out.

Hannah wiggles her eyebrows, and I swat her shoulder.

“Are you sure it’s me?”

“Hey, I don’t want to creep you out, but there’s this older lady at the bar who’s been staring at you for at least a half hour now.” Hannah not-so-subtlety nods her head to my left, and I glance back in time to catch a short-cropped blonde-and-grey-haired woman spin back toward the bar.

She is right—I need to get outside my walls. I’ve forgotten what fun is. Not that I don’t enjoy my son and my work, but there needs to be more to fill the void.

Hannah tugs my hand, dragging me out to the dance floor, shimmying around to the beat of some unfamiliar pop song. I throw my head back and laugh, shaking and swinging my arms in a valiant attempt to dance.

In that moment, I resolved to uncover the joy in vibrant moments before my future consigned itself to ash.

Their souls are no longer entwined, and memories they protect become dim remnants of what they once were.

A past not forgotten but not quite clearly remembered.

Faded reflections are triggered by mementos of our past, allowing us to reminisce on the memories attached to a physical object.

Olson-Bogart

by Brianna

“Faded Reflections�

by Megan

49

Ward

D ixie Belles

My mama, my aunt, and my grandma (who always wanted me to call her maw maw, but that was too hick-ish, too Beverly Hillbilly-ish, too much admitting what my family really was) put their three womanly figures, (Venus, Athena, and Hera perhaps) into the backseat of my grandpa’s blue Volvo (who was always pop pop, no matter what that said of my family).

They laughed and cried, for lack of air, (lack of space) and my grandpa (his Matlock smile) winked at me.

He knew they had a few too many Bloody Marys full of grace.

I can still smell that moment (tabasco and aftershave) now that my mama’s gray, my aunt’s gone, and my grandma’s alone, seeing them as they should always be: three southern beauties full of mistakes.

by Kelsey

Pease

“Letters�

Last year, my very best friend lived in Japan for 14 months while on exchange. It crushed my heart to have her leave, but we stayed in touch by writing letters and postcards. The ring pictured is one which we both have, which we bought as a symbol of our friendship before she left.

51

as a smile cracks her rouged cheek.

My grandmother was a career cosmetologist.

She spent her entire life cultivating beauty. Tucked away, preserved in a plastic baggy, I found a single lock of honeydew curls.

From my very first haircut, she recollects, admiration in her tone

the living memory of babydoll me.

We have drifted apart since college’s start.

Time and money estranging us—but recently we reminisced.

She pulled a photo album from her top dresser drawer.

Safely hidden but never out of reach, pictures of a pint-sized fashionista nestled inside,

she still holds onto pieces of me.

My grandmother lives like a minimalist.

Re-gifting and donating—clutter is her biggest pet peeve, letting go, her most cherished pastime.

Unbeknownst to me, nearly two decades later, with countless purges in-between,

to submerge me in serenity.

Growing up, my grandmother’s house was my second home.

Greeted by the soothing scent of lavender and sweet peas, she provided a harbor of tranquility from my nuclear family’s choppy seas.

She swept me away from childhood’s cacophony

by Deanna Luton

honeydew

by Grace Kohler

“Hats”

This piece is a collage of photographs that I took of my aunt’s hat collection. I inherited many of these hats after my aunt passed away, and they’ll always be a symbol of her unique personality and quirky fashion.

These Puerto photos repre photo m Rico a coupl sent my trip with th eans a lot t e years ago a to afterm e ongoing pr o me, especia nd each ath of H ob l urrican lems followinly e Mari g the a.

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by Kia

to Rico� “Puer ra Ortiz

by Jennifer Dalio

(pron. Bonnie Carry)

A family, packed for several nights in a motel room Will spend the next two years in cast-off clothes and shoes.

I turned off the Bonnet Carre at 5:30 on a Sunday afternoon And the levee broke. And I had to move.

But, still awake on Monday morning, no matter who you know or what you used to do The levee breeches and it breaks, and everyone has got to move.

Maintain your grip on last spring’s stray doubloon and hope tomorrow brings better news, for you and everyone on the Bonnet Carre, 5:30 this Sunday afternoon.

But no. They’d programmed this prophetic groove Robert Plant shouting Joe and Minnie’s Memphis blues When the levee breaks, Mama you’ve got to move.

Expecting traffic orders, or “updates soon— save yourself. Save anything you can’t afford to lose” as we turn off the Bonnet Carre at 5:30 on a Sunday afternoon.

Turning off the Bonnet Carre at 5:30 on a Sunday afternoon I tune my radio to KHB 83 for weather news When the levee breaks, I hear, Mama you’ve got to move.

August 28 2005, Bonnet Carre Spillway, Louisiana

by Rebecca Sarin

“Rescue”

r hold a f e v e r o f l ica wil Traveling out o help R a t s o e to art. na, C Parismi place in my he teering my timated in my special ntry and volun rtles is illustr memory. the cou ecies of sea tu l token of my save sp to – a beautifu memen

I really need to get those coins back. I don’t want this change in my life.

A miracle could be realizing you have a $1.50 and can physically get home—using the bus— and your life changes by begrudgingly spending both the Sacagawea and 50-cent piece you’ve had since childhood. Gifts from your father as the Tooth Fairy, rare with divorced parents—a couple of tiny pieces tying you to memories of a childhood home, the only one that was left before its demolition.

Einstein said: “You can live as if nothing is a miracle, or you can live as if everything is a miracle.” Your miracle could be in the words you didn’t let stain your heart. Can you imagine?

If you had one miracle or life-changing moment, say per year, and you missed the chance as it drummed on the door of your ear? Then you didn’t get to fulfill your potential because your door—and therefore your mind—was closed.

You say you’re listening, but did you really hear? Take the love in your ear. The words you ignore are like raindrops that fall upon your hair, clinging to it like a separate entity, with the look of a crystal clear dome on the surface but never given the chance to seep in and dampen your hair. Or, with words, change your life.

by Lyric Belle

Change

d the e old an r, h t e t a r ne po to incor the Title Desig ble the d e t n a em Iw it of it to res the spir new in bson. I wanted a bold design o h Henry H f his work, wit throughout. o ts e essenc macro elemen g involvin

“Memento�

by Heidi Way

57

As I hung up the phone, I hastily dried the tears from my cheeks and attempted to wipe smudges of mascara from the corners of my eyes, using the reflection of the computer monitor as a mirror. Once I’d managed to gather myself, I quickly took to the empty halls to join the rest of the school in the gym. Wincing as the metal door latch echoed noisily across the laminate ...every course of floors, I plastered on my most convincing smile and made my action ended with way to my seat in the front row, next to the children who had been displaced from the competition in earlier rounds.

were all collected in the gymnasium for the spelling bee. The news I tried to relay was bleak and punctuated with muffled sniffling: the veterinarian had discovered a mass in Ellie’s abdomen, and every course of action ended with the same result—her death, premature at just six years old. There was no avoiding it, only prolonging it, putting it off.

hen I called you from the school, I was sobbing uncontrollably in my darkened empty classroom, W the gray January sky outside providing only dim light through the dusty windowpanes. On the phone with you, I sat behind my desk, doubled over and heaving with sorrow, while my sixth-grade students

That evening, I sobbed the entire way home from the vet’s office, images of Ellie’s jaw going slack in my lap and the feeling of her lifeless body beneath my hands cycling through my mind. I cried at the thought

While the remaining two spellers enunciated each letter of their words—my mind was anxiously darting from thought to thought, carefully avoiding lingering too long on those that came most easily—memories of Ellie. I rummaged through stacks of dormant moments in my mind searching for something, anything, to distract me. This exercise in evasion transported me to fifth grade: my first spelling bee and the word, affinity, which removed me from the regional competition; the meaning of the word affinity and how frequently I had used it in the years since synonyms for the word affinity; and a list of things which I truly have affinity for, brought me right back to the topic I’d hoped to avoid in the first place.

the same result—her death, premature at just six years old.

by Erica Smith

The Spelling Bee, or Another Story About Love and Death

I went inside and watched from the living room window as you and my father trekked out across the snow-covered backyard, guided by a flashlight, and laid Ellie’s body

When we parked the car, I dragged myself out of my seat and to the hatch, to feel Ellie’s hardened paws and bury my face in her endlessly soft fur one last time. As I’d feared, most of the warmth had left her body, despite the seemingly short time that had passed. I stood, oblivious to the cold air surrounding us, dampening the fur of Ellie’s neck with my tears, until you gently patted my shoulder, indicating that it was time. It felt clumsy and unceremonious, wrapping her body as tightly as I could with the blanket, trying to make sure each part of her was covered. In that moment, I was ashamed that we hadn’t planned something more­—that we hadn’t had the time or the forethought. What I knew in the back of my mind was that it didn’t matter, regardless of how much I wanted it to.

of her nose and paws growing colder by the second, wrapped in a red fleece blanket in the back of my car. My temples throbbed with each and every convulsive groan and yet I could not stop.

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in a shallow grave near the edge of the pine trees.

I thought briefly of our old dachshund, who had been laid to rest years earlier in a grave nearby.

However, what I thought so little of in With the flashlight turned off, the two of you lit those moments stands out as one of the most cigarettes as you shoveled the earth back into the notable occasions of nearly-frozen ground, our entire relationship.

I cried at the and I felt a fleeting pang did not ask you to of guilt that Ellie might thought of her nose Ileave work, or to come be cold out there, all and paws growing home and dig a hole alone. into the frigid earth Earlier that afternoon, colder by the second, for my beloved dog’s I had been surprised to wrapped in a red body; yet you did see you waiting for me fleece blanket in the anyway. On that gray when I came home from and bleak January back of my car. school, a full two hours afternoon, a menial, earlier than usual. I’d yet monumental task became a labor of love. thought little of it in that moment because there A small hole just four feet into the ground, was no more I could concentrate on aside from Ellie’s grave holds more than just her body getting to Ellie, waiting at the animal hospital, as and her memory; it holds the measure of your quickly as possible. When we got home that night, character and of your love.

I still thought little of where you were going and I wish that these complexities, love and what you were doing with her body, as I was too mourning, could be spelled out as easily as overwhelmed with sorrow to analyze details that a-f-f-i-n-i-t-y. seemed comparatively irrelevant.

I painted th rador Retrie is of my six-year-old painting jou ver, Sydney, this fall Labweeks later rnal for Watercolor in my breathing. , she developed diffic1. Three to find out We took her into the ulty Failure due she was in CongestiveVet ER, time was limto a tumor in her hea Heart away a wee ited with us, and sh rt. Her 4. She was k and a half later on Oe passed way too soo a fantastic dog who le ctober this memen n. I was glad I had p ft us at my side. to of her while she w ainted as still

by Cheryl

“SydneyH” erschleb

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Caroline

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