Fall 2018

cover art by:  

N M C M A G A Z I N E FA L L 2 0 1 8

VOLUME 41 ISSUE 1

N M C M A G A Z I N E FA L L 2 0 1 8 V O L U M E 4 1 - I S S U E 1

This semester, the essence of the NMC Magazine kindled with ideas of inclusivity for all mediums, styles, and extrapolations of creativity. We wanted to see anything and everything, advocating for all voices to be heard. NMC Magazine thrives off the imaginative opportunities of proposing a theme for students, but for this issue we decided to rescind. The theme, then, is themeless. The perspectives of many different fields are procured here, to garner insight into a constellation of topics unburdened by a typical theme. The staff, students, and faculty echoed creative thoughts, exploring the intrinsic and the conversational. I implore you to not only divulge connections between submissions, but to also experience inspiration unfolding.   Editor-in-Chief

TABLE OF

CONTENTS FUELED BY FALL 1

GARDEN 25

CURIOUS CONCOCTIONS

55

ELEVEN 2

FICKLE WATER 26

A QUICK BIOPIC IN WHICH SOMETHING GOOD MIGHT COME

56

by liam kaiser by natalie preston

by rachel lynn moore

BARNS OF SLEEPING BEAR DUNES by hannah witte

3

BRIDGE TO NOWHERE & READY TO FLY

4

FEATHER LINOCUT

5

EVERYBODY FEELS LIKE DANCING

6

DANCING FOOLS

10

by kristy tompkins

HAM RADIO 28 FALL IS IN THE AIR & JEREMUNDO

37

LETTERS TO CLEMENTINE

38

KALE SALAD (WITH A SIDE OF FRIES)

39

ME THE LAZY ARTIST

45

TALE OF TAILS

46

by hannah krohn

by matt esckelson

INSATIABLE 11 by amanda coddington

TAJ MAJAL & TWO RIVERS

15

APRÈS MOI, LE DÈLUGE

16

by kailey rubinas

THE EFFECT OF MINIMALISM IN MUSIC

17

by spencer norrod

by ann hosler

by lynnae christensen by jim lyons

MOVING DAY 49 by patricia prihoda

A WHISPER FROM A DANDELION

50

PURPLE NIKE DAYDREAMS

51

WAVES 21

by sophia elhart

MY BROTHER’S SONS AND MY NIECE

by c. l. dunklow

by ali moon

22

by rachel esckelson

BURNING DESIRE by kendra hoggard

62

by tamara wiget

ETIQUETTE 69 by jessica solem

ALL THE MEMORIES YOU CAN BEAR

70

PINS AND NEEDLES

73

by richard vegh

by kamron williams

BONE DEEP 74 by deanna ray luton

HALF HER KINGDON by claira d. humphrey

78

CRUSHED 79

LOLA 54 by james russell

RAVEN 61

THE INCIDENT 63

by molly eastman

by kacelyn pangborn

by rachel esckelson

by liam strong

by hannah carr

by kristy tompkins

by william walton

27

by zach vaughan

JOURNEY OF THE HEART PART 2

by Anne-marie kabat

by hannah strong

by lyric belle

UNCOMFORTABLE CREATURES

80

by kajetan morman

Fueled by Fall by liam kaiser

Fueled by Fall captures the extreme sport of downhill mountain biking in all its glory. Captured in the hills of Traverse City near the State Hospital, there’s never a dull day in these hills.

by natalie preston

Eleven 2

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here are things I remember, even now, that don’t entirely feel real.

Memories that are weighed down and foggy, like the slow, syrupy feeling of waking up from an afternoon nap.

Though hazy, tinted a pinkish orange, I remember the Badlands. The sprawling plains of South Dakota, interrupted only by the large rock formations that shot up from the ground, clustered together like trees. They had been forming on Earth for hundreds of years, and I was there, pressing my hands into them, feeling the warmth of the stone on my palms.

We had driven the entire way, hauling our little camper along. Two days of nonstop driving does something to the time around you, confuses it, muddles your

perception. Motels with fuzzy TVs and itchy blankets, McDonald’s breakfasts, and desolate rest stops all begin to melt together into one confusing moment in time. The days never seemed to start or end. They simply bled into each other, constantly forming and reforming.

The wind was constant in the Badlands—in fact, it only seemed to grow stronger the longer we were there. On the last night, the wind blew so fiercely, that our camper began to rock dangerously back and forth. My mother woke me up. Bleary eyed and confused, I hadn’t even noticed the rocking. Huddled together, we migrated to the truck, aimlessly driving in search of shelter. Yet all we found was a closed diner and an abandoned gas station. Tornado sirens wailed in the distance, a sound that went right under my skin, grating and harsh like a panicked scream.

Eventually, we stopped, parking on the side of the road to sleep.

The radio was turned up just enough to hear weather announcements through the heavy static. The wind rattled the truck from side to side, slicing through the air so fast it made a high-pitched whistle. I laid in the back seat, too restless to fall back asleep.

Head tilted up at the window, eyes toward an empty black sky.

Houses would be gone by morning, I remember thinking. The rocks would be there though, same as ever. I was happy to be alive. I was happy to be forming along with them.

They simply bled into each other, constantly forming and reforming.

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Barns of Sleeping Bear Dunes by hannah witte

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he wind changes direction in a heartbeat, like a leaf in autumn, crisp and sharp, like a helicopter swirling from tree tops, like the parachute path of a toy rocket, drifting from view.

A feather from a gliding bird above, diving waving swooping, spirals to the forest floor.

I wanted to get comfortable here, attached to this graceful heron, a flight so powerful, purposeful.

We have prevailed peaks and ventured into valleys.

Yet all birds must molt making room for the untouched and brilliant.

It is growth.

Life.

I have faith.

Your strength will weather any storm.

Your path is navigated.

Never will you be alone.

Journey of the Heart

Part Two

With changing seasons storms are certain, propelling us further off course or sweeping us into deep water.

It is the way of the wind.

Fly with each day.

Intuition compels us to pare down, hold onto only the vital.

This wind will clear away the insignificant.

Shed leaves and broken branches will be buried by a blanket of white.

Prepare for winter in its harshness and simplicity.

Your migration has begun.

Trust the wind’s story, its promises.

by kristy tompkins 4

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Feather Linocut

fall 2018

by kristy tompkins

5

Everybody Feels Like Dancing by kacelyn pangborn

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ackson Pollock designed a painting called Mural, 1943. The painting was created with oil-based paints instead of water-based paint. Pollock used a white canvas that he stretched in his studio to the client’s custom requested size of eight feet and one quarter inches tall, by nineteen feet and ten inches long. The array of colors in the painting include greyish blue, golden yellow, deep blood red, and light baby pink. He added black lines in with the colors to create a “pop” to the piece. The strokes of black covering the canvas surround the brilliant colors, creating a sense of motion. The closeness of the black waves and swirls suggest a sense of unity and understanding. The bright colors surrounding the black figures give a sense of gentle relaxation. What comes to your mind while looking upon this painting?

The first thing I thought of when viewing the piece was of many people dancing merrily together. The black lines represent the people and the colors are the music playing behind them. The colors also denote the sense of movement created by the music. A combination of swing, tango, and jitterbug dance styles come to my mind when I look over this chaotic disarray of a painting. I see competitions, dance-offs, weddings, homecomings, proms, and dance classes with flashing lights of yellow, shining about the dance floor as a hundred feet are moving a mile a minute in their unique routines. I also see music. A collision of yellows and blues creates a jazzy undertone to Pollock’s masterpiece. Meanwhile, the pink and red remind me of a passionate tango to a sensual Latin song from Spain. I see fast paced chaotic songs that would force your feet to move rapidly across the floor.

Mural 1943 reminds me of my time as a teenager. I had a very specific weekly routine growing up. I joined a young adults’ group

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through a local church. The group consisted of roughly thirty to forty people, and met each Tuesday at four o’clock.

We would all gather at a corner coffee store, called The Journey (it was owned by a church nearby) in Midland, Michigan, to play board games or to do homework together.

As you walked in you felt the warm welcome of Christian contemporary song, and were met with the sweet comforting smells of coffee and baked goods. The walls were a subtle dark grey and the floors were stained a bright oak. All the chairs were green or red, which created a happy vibe among the customers. There would be six or seven games being played, and everyone would choose which one they wanted to join.

Generally, I would choose a card game of some sort because they are my favorite.

While we played games, we would drink coffee, eat snacks, and enjoy each other’s company until it was time to go next door where there was a taco bar where the fellowship continued.

Oscar’s Bar and Grill was just across the street from the coffee shop downtown. Every Tuesday night they would have a taco bar for five dollars and you could have all the tacos you could eat.

Our group would play pool as we ate tacos and spent more time together. The taco bar consisted of five different kinds of meat you could choose from: chicken, beef, fish, sausage, and crab. They also had a plethora of vegetables to choose from. You were able to design your tacos to your own personal specifications with all of the choices they offered. At nine o’clock, after plenty of tacos, we would go around the block to a little studio loft above a thrift store that the church sponsored.

During our time at the studio we would take off our shoes, turn up the music, and everyone would dance together. A dance instructor of some sort was normally there, who would help teach us new moves each week, or would critique and help us polish the dance moves we

A collision of yellows and blues creates a jazzy undertone to Pollock’s masterpiece.

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had already learned. There were strings of bright colorful lights hanging all over the walls and ceiling. Some of the lights would blink or fade in and out. Along one wall of the loft there were mirrors from the floor to the ceiling so that we could see ourselves as we danced. The music we chose to dance to more often than not was jazz. We chose this style because the majority of the group enjoyed swing dancing. Every now and then we would switch it up and try something new. Some of the dances we tried were the waltz, the jitterbug, the polka, the tango, the mambo, and the cha-cha. We learned so many dances together, and we enjoyed every minute of it.

The point of the group was fellowship. We, as a collective, did things together that kept us out of trouble, allowed for some time away from school or work, and gave our parents a break.

We all appreciated Tuesdays because we got to be around people we loved. We were able to spend time with people who had similar morals and ethics. Most importantly, we got to be around people who simply enjoyed having fun together with no judgement. So for me, when I see 7

the Pollock painting, I not only see and feel the dancing and the music, but it also evokes the memories of fellowship and happiness I had as a teenager with my young adults’ group.

We, as people, find happiness when we are all connected to one another. In the book Tribe, Sebastian Junger mentioned, “Humans are so strongly wired to help one another and enjoy such enormous social benefits from doing so…” (54). We are not meant to be alone. We are “herd” animals (although not as much as livestock). I personally would much rather be with a group of people or with another person than be by myself.

My thoughts on society having herd tendencies are echoed by Jackson Pollock himself. According to a Pollock website analysis of Mural 1943, Pollock stated, “It was a stampede... [of] every animal in the American West, cows, horses, antelopes and buffaloes. Everything is charging across that goddamn surface” (Mural). Pollock said this to describe his vision that inspired the painting. The colors he chose are common in Native American art, and would suggest he had a background in the culture, which is true; he grew up in the “wild west.” Even the way he chose to paint this has a native sense to it. Pollock seems to be searching for a closeness within the painting.

Desired closeness is something we long for in today’s society; although it seems as though we do not discover that closeness until a disaster happens. In times of extreme difficulty, we tend to come together as a community to support each other and to

find support from others. Several examples of catastrophes that create bonds of unity are that of the bombing of the two World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001, hurricanes along the east coast, earthquakes on the west coast, tornadoes that ripped through towns, mudslides collapsing the homes of hundreds, fires burning the forests of hunters, war, and volcanoes spouting out lava engulfing land in black rock… or death!

In Tribe, Junger claims people seem to only come together to create a tribal community during these disasters that occur, “the beauty and the tragedy of the modern world is that it eliminates many situations that require people to demonstrate a commitment to the collective good” (59). These disasters naturally create a type of society all with one goal, working together to fix things, to survive, and promote the “equality of men” (Junger 44). During these times of chaos people have found that they were actually happier when together.

But why is that?

Charles Fritz, a researcher for the National Opinion Research Center in 1961, interviewed those who were involved in natural disasters on how they were adapting to the conditions in which they were living, and asked a puzzling question, “Why do large-scale disasters produce such mentally healthy conditions?” (qtd. in Junger 52-53). If we think about how people come together to create a diverse yet close society after a traumatic time, we can see why they would be more mentally healthy. They are working together as a unit. These hard times created a social

In times of extreme difficulty, we tend to come together as a community to support each other and to find support from others.

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understanding with one another that we desire and need, yet we rarely find it on a daily basis.

Fritz also had a theory that explains “modern society has gravely disrupted the social bonds that have always characterized the human experience, and that disasters thrust people back into a more ancient, organic way of relating. Disasters...create a ‘community of sufferers’ that allows individuals to experience an immensely reassuring connection to others” (qtd. in Junger 53).

Let us examine the bombing of the Twin Towers, and those people that lost so much. During the event, and in its aftermath, people of all ages, races, and religions came together for one purpose: to gather together as a community, to help and support each other.

They helped pull each other to safety. They provided medical aid, a shoulder to cry on, and a phone to call a loved one. The tragedy created a situation that allowed for people to disregard societal barriers, and become one family, depending on each other, and grieving together.

Thankfully I have never been involved in any dreadful occurrences, yet I can feel empathy with the many who have. Dancing is very similar;

Everybody feels like dancing at some point in their life, and dancing is more fun with others than by yourself.

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although it only takes two to tango, teamwork and a sense of dependency are required. In my young adults group we had many people coming together to share fellowship and spend time with each other, creating a sense of community. Everybody feels like dancing at some point in their life, and dancing is more fun with others than by yourself.

Pollock’s painting of Mural 1943 demonstrates a sense of closeness, of dancing together to some snazzy music, of a tribe of people working together to create a better society, or, according to Pollock, a stampede of animals running together.

All in all, we are searching for a society that is a community; a society that works together not just during disasters, but during our day to day lives.

What can we do to help foster that?

Works Cited Pollock, Jackson. “Mural, 1943 - Jackson Pollock.” WikiArt, 1 Jan. 1970, wikiart.org/en/ jackson-pollock/mural-1943-1.

“Mural, 1943 by Jackson Pollock.” Jackson Pollock: 100 Famous Paintings Analysis and Biography, 2011, jackson-pollock.org/mural.jsp Junger, Sebastian. TRIBE: on Homecoming and Belonging.

Hachette Book Group, 2016.

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The Dancing Fools by matt esckelson after Pieter Jansz. Quast

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Insatiable by amanda coddington

E

mma slammed the bathroom door behind her. She couldn’t get inside fast enough. She wanted, no, needed to be away from those girls. All of them, with their flawlessly fitting tutus covering just the right amount of butt and thigh.

She couldn’t bear to watch them anymore. Final rehearsals were just insufferable. Everyone watching her, the other dancers all hoping she’d fail so they could finally have her spot; her friend, examining every move she made down to the final count; and her mother, watching her with absolute focus. It was enough to make anyone sick.

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Emma swayed with her back against the bathroom door, the wood bracing what was left of her feeble sanity. Rubbing her aching temples, Emma felt such desire to give in, to enjoy the soft substance she’d slipped off to the bathroom with. She held it between her fingers, mushing then flattening the edible stress ball. She thought if she could just feel the food against her skin it would satisfy her starving eyes.

It wasn’t enough, and before Emma could comprehend what she was doing, she sank her teeth into the soft chocolate pastry, feeling it roll and clump to the roof of her mouth.

Only twenty minutes until the performance was set to start. Emma yanked open the stall door and hid. Privately secluded in the theatre’s heavily adorned bathroom, the cold from the toilet seat made the tights underneath her layered tutu feel almost wet. She posed sheltered between the stall’s secret walls, her breath shallow. She tried desperately not to sound as if she was eating, but Emma’s stomach cried out in pain, spotlighting her.

Suddenly, the bathroom entrance

swung open. Emma threw her hands over her mouth and sucked the delectable little pieces of pastry that stuck to her gums. Shame flowed through her. She began shaking from both the bathroom’s natural chill and guilt. A ngry tears leaked from her eyes, taking her thick false lashes with them. Before Emma could calm herself, her stomach rolled again. This time she couldn’t control it. Bile burned up her throat and into her nose, choking her with chunks of half-digested donut.

Emma froze inside the stall, the evidence of her appetite now staining her previously pristine silk tutu.

“Emma?” the sound of her friend’s voice penetrated the ringing that clogged her ears. “Emma, are you in here?”

Jaycee slid further into the bathroom, her pointe shoes making graceful clinks against the floor.

She saw Emma’s own ballet points beneath the stall. Moving with feline lithe, Jaycee reached for the slightly ajar stall door, not bothering to knock.

She knew her friend hadn’t taken off to actually use the bathroom.

Emma, horrified that her only friend 11

would learn her secret, shielded her mascara-stained face with one forearm, and held up the palm of her hand with the other, blocking Jaycee’s entire view of the scene contained inside.

Jaycee peered through the crack in the door, pity masking her perfect features. “Oh, god. Emma are you alright?”

Jaycee moved into the stall and reached for the toilet paper dispenser, pulling a huge strand out and wadding it up into a thick ball before reaching for Emma’s chocolate-tinted, vomit-covered tutu.

Panicked, Emma stood and pushed past her friend, shouldering Jaycee’s brittle frame as she tried to wipe the pathetic spectacle away.

Embarrassment turned to utter irritation. Emma spat, “I get stage fright. I was hoping eating something would settle my nerves.” Outside the stall, Emma stood in front of the bathroom’s mirror, pulling at her tear-matted lashes.

“Okay,” Jaycee’s voice came out

strained, as if Emma had reached down her throat and squished her vocal cords into raw meat. “Your mother’s doing lineup,” she murmured, before tossing the wad of toilet paper into the garbage.

Emma hovered over the mirror, her doll-like eyes as dead and glassy as the marble she pressed her palms onto.

Turning to her side to glance at her butt, she snapped again, “I’m fine.”

Jaycee’s eyes lingered on her friend as Emma stretched t he bottom of her costume, adjusting her tutu to cover as much of her bottom as possible. “I’ll tell your mother you’re sick.” Jaycee turned and opened the bathroom door. Before walking out, she shifted back toward Emma and said, “You can’t keep this up forever.”

Emma watched as the door shut with slow-motion condemnation. Emma’s face burned and her chest heaved. She wasn’t actually angry with Jaycee; she was angry with herself. Her throat clenched tightly

Emma hovered over the mirror, her doll-like eyes as dead and glassy as the marble she pressed her palms onto.

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against its own knotted tissue. She hadn’t realized that Jaycee knew her secret. All those times after rehearsal, when the girls would grab a snack, Jaycee knew why Emma snuck off to the bathroom.

Emma didn’t even bother to grab a tissue, and taking in a huge sniffle of snot she turned on the faucet and cupped her hands, letting the water beat down. After smearing the liquid over her blotched face, she pinched her burning nose, bringing her mouth to the bottom of the metal faucet, forcing herself to taste the liquid. Emma gagged, demanding the substance back up her aching throat. She needed to feel the water trickle down her tender gullet, to fill her aching stomach with something. But she couldn’t; she didn’t really want to.

Music seeped through the bathroom walls. Heavy thuds vibrated the concrete, melding with the thuds of her heart.

Something once so innocent creating so much pain. Emma’s body shook, her athletic frame now so weak. Unlike Jaycee, whose dainty body held so much power.

Jaycee didn’t need to starve herself. She was naturally skinny with all the lean beauty a dancer’s body should have.

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Emma retreated back into the bathroom stall, wanting privacy from her own reflection. Even her eyes held judgment.

Emma had seen girls in and out of ballet camps that resorted to her same methods.

She remembered watching them as they’d walk by and thinking, “At least she’s doing something to lose the extra weight.”

Nobody wants to see a fat ballerina.

The idea of “fat” echoed inside her head, and tiny knives that could only signal hunger cut into her temples. The bathroom’s heavy wooden entrance cracked open.

“Emma,” Jaycee’s tired voice seeped through. “Emma, if you’re not out in time for final lineup, I’m going to have to go on for you.”

What was left of Emma’s innards sank. “I’ve tried so hard.”

“I know you have.”

Emma didn’t realize that she had actually spoken until she replied. Her friend knocked on the wooden stall door behind which Emma continued to take refuge.

“Emma, please come out. Your mother is going to be so disappointed.”

Jaycee felt a pang of sympathy. She

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understood what it was like to feel ugly.

What it was like to disappoint her family.

Jaycee’s own mot- her was also an angry woman. Some nights after rehearsal, if Jaycee hadn’t been beautifully balletic enough, her mother would strike her out of anger. It was a jealous kind of rage though. Jaycee was living the life her mother had wanted for herself.

“We can swap costumes,” Jaycee mumbled, pulling at the fabric that clothed her own body.

Emma sighed with a force that could have removed five pounds right there.

“Somehow, I don’t think your costume will fit me.”

It was true. Emma had a much more athletic build than Jaycee did, but she could have made do if she really wanted. Enraged by the thought of trying to squeeze her broad shoulders and gymnast like thighs into her friend’s costume, Emma teared up again. Then heavy footsteps pounding with a purpose echoed through the bathroom’s wooden

door. Emma heard her mother shouting for them. She must have been at the end of the hallway still, but her displeasure penetrated the barriers between them.

The rhythmic tapping of her mother’s heels grew closer.

“Emma! Jaycee!”

Their heartbeats fluttered as the bathrooms wooden door flung open. Emma shot up, propelling herself out of the stall, and smacking Jaycee right in the forehead with its polished mahogany. Surprise widened both girls’ faces as Emma’s mother heaved her boney self inside.

“Jaycee! You have three minutes,” Emma’s mother’s sharp words ripped through them, and sliced into Emma’s gut. Her mother stared at the two girls, but Emma knew her distaste was only meant for her.

“I wasn’t feeling well,” Emma said into her mother’s empty glare. Jaycee shifted her weight uncomfortably next to Emma. Emma opened her mouth to speak again, but her mother’s snarl cut her off.

The rhythmic tapping of her mother’s heels grew closer.

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“Look at you. You look disgusting,” she motioned to Emma’s puke-stained costume. “Go change,” she demanded.

“Jaycee, you have less than three minutes.

Don’t disappoint me.” With one final glare, Emma’s mother turned, leaving the girls in silence.

Emma broke down. Braced by the wall’s concrete, she sank in front of the mirror where the two of them stood.

“You go,” she uttered between sobs.

It wasn’t so much that her mother knew Jaycee was more talented and beautiful to watch that hurt Emma the most.

It was the fact that she hadn’t even asked if Emma was okay.

Seeing Emma so crumbled under the scrutiny destroyed Jaycee, and she lowered herself next to her friend.

The two of them stared at each other’s reflections in the mirror, the bottoms of their pointe shoes now soiled in filth, and streaking the once perfect ribbons that wrapped around their ankles.

Emma then noticed a small red swell was forming at Jaycee’s hairline. The same red swell Jaycee’s mother had given her so many times before.

Not only had Emma hurt herself, 14

and failed her mother once again, but she had also hurt her only friend.

Emma let her body go limp against the floor, hunger pains prying at her stomach, “I’m just so tired,” she whispered.

“I know,” Jaycee replied, reaching for Emma’s hand that still held trace amounts of chocolate caked under her nails. “Me too.”

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TA J M A J A L and T W O R I V E RS left and below, respectively by kailey rubinas

fall 2018

15

16 and i stop

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and there it is, the flood.

i open my chilled lips to whimper your name between short circuits [i can still hear you] laugh

besides the vapor of that time [i flinched and you smiled] you confessed bruises will never be jewelry but that’s all you let me wear

looking around because i need to preserve us in my memory before we become just you and [what you hold on to]

just like the chaotic overflow rocking me along i realize [i am numb], the last thing i’ll ever be besides infatuated with sutures

this is my swan song but the swans will always be more breathtaking,

[i like to pretend] i wouldn’t take their wings if i could

holding onto my bated breath

[you swore you would never leave me too] but you really meant never leave any evidence

and i started

the lights ricocheted on the water like i wish i had when [you pushed me] into the reality’s murky depths

though the water had every kind of river monster, you insisted instead of admiring the fish [i should have] asked them how to swim away

after me, you whispered into my chapped ears, telling me [i was yours] a little too often to hear the sirens coming

après moi , le déluge

by anne-marie kabat

The Effectiveness of

Minimalism in Music

M

by spencer norrod

usic in today’s society is seen as one of the most important forms of art known to humankind, and in this particular age, many of the hit songs we hear in our day-to-day lives are heavily formulaic. Songs that get played on the radio repeatedly often have a catchy hook, an easy-to-follow and effective chord progression, and usually pertain to the topics of love, sex, hardship, or other controversies. A majority of the population fully embrace the variety of hits that grace the radio every year, many of which include love songs, club bangers, dance hits, ballads, and much more. On the other end of the spectrum however, more unconventional genres of music exist, and there are audiences that seek these out as an alternative to the mainstream.

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In 1998, Frederick Geiersbach wrote an article entitled: “Making the Most of Minimalism in Music”, published in an issue of Music Educators Journal.

Geiersbach was cited as being the music director for Lamoille Union High School and the local district elementary schools. This article explains the history of minimalism, avant-garde musical techniques, and describes the learning process used to teach music students the concepts of minimalism. The primary point of the article is to inform and educate its audience, while explaining that the use of minimal music composition helps music students grasp certain ideas at a young age. Ideally, the subject of Geiersbach’s piece would appeal mainly to music and band teachers looking to teach their students minimalist concepts, or use the concepts to help students understand other ideas. This article would interest fans of the art form, anyone who’s interested in discovering new genres of music, or basically anyone who has an eclectic music taste. The cliched atmosphere and reality is that many people today would more often prefer listening to pop music over more minimalist works, but that doesn’t mean minimalistic music isn’t any less effective at getting an emotional response out of listeners. In turn, Geiersbach effectively informs his audience and recommends classroom teachings to show children these concepts, which would suggest that minimalistic music is more credible than many may deem it.

The content in this article mostly serves as a logis17

tical piece, providing the reader with histor- ical and technical information about the minimalist art form.

Geiersbach explains that minimalism is a technique that started in the world of visual art, and then was later repurposed for the world of music. As it sounds, the point of minimalism is to showcase less elements than usual, and to repeat and expand upon simple ideas. Musical minimalism has been practiced and pioneered by several composers and creators since the 1950’s and 60’s, and was originally intended to challenge compositional serialism, which is the excessive use of multiple elements such as pitch, rhythm, and tonal structure. Defining characteristics of minimalist music include irregular harmony, and repeating musical ideas gradually or slowly (Geiersbach 1-2). Geiersbach later then mentions how aspects of minimalist music can be used to teach concepts like notation and complex rhythms, and describes instructions for how best to teach a class this material (3-4).

Geiersbach clearly has a very deep understanding

As it sounds, the point of minimalism is to showcase less elements than usual, and to repeat and expand upon simple ideas.

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of how the music works and the techniques at play, and is attempting to tell the reader how it works so that the material makes sense and has meaning. This also provides credibility for teaching young music students the material, showing that the concepts in this music could benefit them and help them understand certain concepts that may be more challenging at a young age. He states: “Students can use the processes of minimalism to generate new music, to overcome technical problems, to learn the written language of music, and to attune themselves to the significance of change in music for all textures, styles, and epochs” (6). Geiersbach’s logical reasoning is that if children learn through these concepts, much more complex ideas will later come naturally to them. Through these techniques, the students will have a keen understanding of music notation, music theory, rhythm, group harmony, and improvisation.

Abstract musical ideas can be taught to students faster, because the ideas in minimalist music are more simple and easy-going.

When speaking of the music as a whole, Geiersbach stated that “... minimalism offers us another perspective on the entire body of music” (Page 6).

Although Geiersbach isn’t speaking primarily on an emotional level, his explanation of techniques used in minimalist music can be used to understand its emotional appeal. Minimalist music, which is typically ambient or atmospheric, challenges a

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listener’s idea of how a song will progress, typically repeating phrases or melodies and slowly adding more or changing the piece over time. To many listeners, this openness of where the music will go could lead to something truly unpredictable, and therefore, a more adventurous and intimate listen (2). Knowing how minimalist music works as a whole gives context to the reasoning for teaching children these ideas, and makes a listening experience much more imaginative and emotionally personal for others.

I would say there’s nothing to discredit what Geiersbach states in his article, as it is all factual information about the methods of minimalist composition, and are logistically good reasons for teaching young music students. As far as opposing viewpoints go, the predominant source of disagreement comes from an audience who just subjectively prefer other kinds of music over more minimalist works. Experimental music is experimental for a reason, and just isn’t favored by the majority, and that’s quite alright.

Every genre or category of music has its particular audience, and anyone who’s searching will eventually find examples of what they’re looking for, and maybe even bud new tastes along their musical journey.

Willingly taking an adventure outside of the musical comfort zone can truly be an interesting experience for someone, too. I know several individuals who have discovered their favorite artists through random musical expeditions, hanging out with friends with

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different tastes, or just by sheer circumstance. Anyone could say that more experimental works may appear to be too simplistic or too different from their normal tastes. In the same vein however, it could be said that the musical unknown always leads to something interesting, at the very least.

An example of a highly regarded piece that many would consider to be very expressive would be “Rhubarb (#3)”, by Aphex Twin (Richard D. James), a nearly eight-minute ambient track recorded in 1994 on the album Selected Ambient Works, Volume II. “Rhubarb” progresses very slowly, as warm synth sounds repeat melodies and build on top of each other, swelling and forming into something truly blissful. It makes the listener question what will be added next, and then allows them to dwell on and emotionally connect with the sounds they’re hearing. It could be said that the space in between the musical elements in a piece like this is the most important element of all, as it allows time for reflection. I personally would describe the

It makes the listener question what will be added next, and then allows them to dwell on and emotionally connect with the sounds they’re hearing.

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experience as a very comforting and beautiful feeling, and many members of the electronic music community can also attest to it being one of the best simplistic ambient pieces of all time. The information in Geiersbach’s explanation of the art form helps provide context to how music like “Rhubarb” is experienced and enjoyed on an emotional, or potentially even spiritual level.

My initial response to the article that Geiersbach wrote was interest in the topic, and the desire to research more of this kind of music. As a musician, I was already fascinated with many minimalist artists and composers, such as Philip Glass, Brian Eno, Harold Budd, Steve Reich, and William Basinski.

More than anything, I was intrigued by the method of how these creators would make their music or com-pose, and how each one found their individual sound. Reading this article made me more interested in the music theory behind this kind of music, and how it varies from artist to artist. I was also curious as to whether the information that Geiersbach spoke of held up twenty years after he had written this article, and I personally believe it does so quite well. The minimalist techniques that Geiersbach mentions in his article are very much present in a lot of the ambient music made by today’s artists, such as prolonged harmonies, repeating said harmonies, and the sense of atmosphere that can be created by the simplest ideas.

To put it best, “Making the Most of Minimalism 20

in Music” is a very informed and well-written article, and I took quite a bit from it. Geiersbach thoroughly explains the history of minimalism, and what makes it a unique concept. Geiersbach then advocates heavily for the information to be taught in schools for band and music students. He goes into detail, explaining how characteristics of minimalism can be used to teach students advanced subjects at a young age, including writing their own music notation. Throughout the article, Geiersbach also provides tips and ideas for any tutor who wants to incorporate the minimalist ideas into their class routine. At the end of the article, Geiersbach explains that he does understand that not everyone will want to play or hear minimalist music, but that doesn’t take away from its potential for learning, and exploring musical idzeas (6). I agree with his statement, and I do believe that despite the majority’s lack of interest, there is an abundance of potential to inspire or teach someone something they may have never considered before. With that in mind, the significance and importance of minimalist work stands not just as a method of teaching, but as a supremely underrated form of art.

Works Cited: Geiersbach, Frederick J. “Making the Most of Minimalism in Music.” Music Educators Journal, vol. 85, no. 3, Nov. 1998, pp. 26–49., doi:10.2307/3399142.

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Waves acrylic on canvas by ali moon

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21

MY

BROTHER’S AND

SONS

MY NIECE by william walton

Y

ou don’t get to talk about that,” Jimmy said to me, fiddling with the tab on his can. He doesn’t have a left leg anymore, so I stopped.

His wife came out onto the porch carrying two plates with sandwiches. She walked behind me and around to the left side of the table. She sat the plates down and bent to kiss Jimmy. After, she hurried back inside.

“Thanks Sarah,” I said just as she opened the screen door.

“You’re welcome,” she said, smiling briefly and closing the door behind her. Inside I heard my niece, Sally, calling for her.

Jimmy just looked into the backyard where my two nephews were playing catch, his eye following the ball. To the kids’ credit they never dropped it. Jimmy lit a cigarette.

“So,” he said, “where’s your girl?”

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“Oh, she’s out in San Francisco for the week. Advertising conference – business trip, you know?” Jessica, my fiancée, was the assistant creative director and lead media liaison at McCann Erickson. “It might be the last one for a while—she’s looking to jump ship soon, open her own production house down in LA.” “You okay with that?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty stoked for her, actually.”

Bobby, the youngest of the kids, fumbled the ball sending it into a bird feeder. Seeds fell all over the grill.

“Goddammit Bobby,” Jimmy pushed his arms against the table like he was going to stand, but he didn’t. I glanced at his stump. I guess you never get fully used to missing something like that. “Sarah!” he shouted and a few moments later she stepped out onto the porch. He pointed to the grill, “Clean that shit up.”

“I can do it.” I moved to stand, but Jimmy cracked open another beer and sat it on my coaster. Bobby and Jack went back to throwing the ball.

“She’ll get it,” he said. “And besides, it’s been a while since you made your way up from the big city. What’s baby brother up to these days?”

I told him about teaching English to immigrants and my meeting with Scribner and how in the spring I might get picked up as a fulltime faculty member, and he nodded and watched his sons play catch. Every few

I glanced at his stump.

I guess you never get fully used to missing something like that. nmc magazine

minutes he’d shout at the boys, criticizing their stance or form.

One time, after he had finished shouting, I yelled that I thought they were doing great. Jimmy looked down at his stump before turning to face me. He gave me half a smile.

“Hey,” I said. “How about I take the kids to the museum?

It’s been like two months since I’ve seen them, and for their age that might as well be two years.”

Jimmy sipped his beer. He looked past me for a moment and at the boys and then to his left through the screen door where Sarah was doing the dishes. He smiled and stared.

“Jimmy?” I said. “What do you think?”

“That sounds like a great idea,” he said. “Sarah and me haven’t had much time to ourselves lately.” *** We stopped for ice cream on the way to the museum.

I got a milkshake and the boys both ordered brownie sundaes.

Sally just wanted a vanilla cone, no sprinkles even. Bobby and Jack devoured their sundaes before Sally even reached the actual cone.

“Wow,” I said, “that was fast. When was the last time you guys got one of those?”

“Yesterday,” said Jack. “Dad takes us here after baseball.”

He raised his bowl to his lips and slurped the remaining fudge.

“I’ve heard you’re great at it. The way your dad talks you’re going to be in the World Series by the time you’re twelve.” I turned to look at Sally. She was gazing out the window, staring at a woman about my age leaning against a Harley. “You seem like the impartial type, Sally. So how good is your brother’s playing really?”

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“Oh,” she said, “Mom and I don’t like sports.”

“He’s the best,” said Bobby, bringing a close to the moment.

I finished my shake. Sally’s eyes were focused on the window again and so were mine. Every once and a while I would say really or no way in enthusiastic response as my nephews told me all their most recent adventures. I really wanted to be interested, but my heart wasn’t in it. *** The museum was dead inside. I paid the seven dollars for adult admission and walked through the turnstile, the kids following me like goslings. We stopped for a bit at an exhibit on famous writers from our state. The boys begged me to move on, so we did.

We walked past some old cars. They had a Model-T people could sit in, and I got a cute picture of the three of them in the front seat. Sally asked me to read a little placard explaining how the engine worked. I did and she smiled.

“Can I see your car’s engine?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said, “but I won’t be able to explain how it works.”

There were a few other exhibits, but Jack and Bobby could hardly look at any one for more than two minutes before taking turns punching each other. That was until we reached the military section.

The museum had a whole area dedicated to “America at War.” There was a scale diorama of Omaha beach, a small auditorium showing video footage of a Civil War reenactment, and an actual river boat from Vietnam. The boys loved all this, and I kept having to remind them not to touch the glass. There was a disarmed IED from Afghanistan in one of the cases.

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“Dad talked about those.” Jack was the first to notice it.

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m sure he did.” I wanted to sound compassionate but came off as dismissive; nobody teaches you how to talk to kids about war. Thankfully, they were too young to notice. “You know what it is then?”

“A bomb,” Bobby said. All four of us stared at the thing. “It’s why he’s missing a leg.” His coldness bothered me. Kids tend to ignore the gravity of their words.

“Why would people do that?” asked Sally. No judgement in her voice. Curiosity though, the way she asked me about the engine.

“They hate us,” Bobby said. “All of them.”

“I hate them,” said Jack.

“No you don’t,” I said. “Aunt Jess’s mom came from Afghanistan, you know.”

“I want to be a hero like Dad,” Jack said. “I want to shoot them all for him.”

I didn’t know how to handle that so I just walked over to some f lags from the revolution. Sally followed me.

“He doesn’t want to hurt anyone,” she said. “He just gets mad sometimes that Dad can’t play ball with him.”

“I know,” I said. I don’t know if I believed her or not.

“I think Jack gets jealous of me,” she said. “Bobby too.”

“Why’s that?”

“Dad bought me a guitar for my birthday. We play together now.”

“Oh,” I said, remembering when Jimmy taught me to play.

Mom would get mad at us for being too loud until one day Dad came home with a pair of earplugs for her. It didn’t keep her 24

from bitching about the holes in our jeans or how long our hair was getting, but Jimmy and I loved him for it. And we loved Mom for it too. What’s the point in learning guitar if it doesn’t piss off your mom? I stood there thinking about this as the boys watched newsreel footage of D-Day. Eventually, Sally grabbed me by the hand and led me over to where they had a cardboard minuteman with the face cut out. She stuck her head through.

“Take a picture,” she said.

And I did.

Nobody teaches you how to talk to kids about war.

nmc magazine

Garden by hannah strong

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Water

by rachel lynn moore

Fickle 26

I want something solid under my feet. Stable, like stone arms and weathered hands.

But every time a lover builds me a house I move in boxes full of curses. Ruin packed under gently folded hand towels. I cross the threshold and loose a living flood of termites, pouring from my sleeves into every crack and crevice. It eats away at the foundation, turning concrete to sponge until the walls have nothing to stand on.

I should be less reliant on others. I tried to make a home in myself, but my hands are unsteady and nothing is up to code. My lungs sputter and groan like a furnace one frost from failing. Hands that knew how to fix leaky faucets are a memory. I keep my curses in the attic and hear them plotting in whispers at night. My bedroom lies in rib cage walls and I lose sleep to the sound of my heartbeat echoing across the cavern between my ears.

I live on sea legs. Unstable, and perpetually stepping off my father’s boat. I search for myself on an aging dock while he retreats. Marina water swells between us. Rippling waves splinter our ref lections. The dock shifts, the world bucks beneath me, and I drop to perforate my palms with slivers. The boat grows smaller until it is too late to jump back on. I curse and hear his voice from my lips. He taught me to sail but I can’t swim, and the lake knows this is weakness. When I stand on still ground I feel gelatin in my joints. Or a lack of will.

I wish I took actions as if they belonged to me. Instead I fasten weights to my ankles and name them after things I once loved thoughtlessly. Family. Father. God. Words that feel like roiling clouds over an autumn picnic. Words that deserve more than I give them.

But trying to give is only trying and I am miles from doing. I’m good at building up reasons to say no. Familiar with being overtaken by the storm. The rain will come again, and I’ll run.

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BRIDGE TO NOWHERE Lake Dubonnet on a particularly calm day.

photos by zach vaughan

R E A D Y T O F LY Jaime, a butterfly native to Kingsley.

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27

Ham RADIO

by hannah carr

Characters: WALTER Hueronvun, the grandfather LIZA, WALTER’s daughter, mother to JEREMY and CAT JEREMY, the son CAT, the daughter 1st RADIO VOICE, a robber 2nd RADIO VOICE, a robber

At Rise: WALTER sits at the desk. No one else is on Stage at this point. He is fiddling with the radio and the fuzz of radio static breaks in. Faint voices can be heard, then grow louder as he turns up the volume.

1st RADIO VOICE: You’ll have to keep pace with me. The Yesper Bank has quick security responses.

2nd RADIO VOICE: Oh, I know that. Keeping up with you isn’t the problem. The problem is getting the money in the bags.

(WALTER had been leaning back in the chair but now he sits up. Attentive to the conversation.)

1st RADIO VOICE: (Confused) Why is that a problem? You just stuff. It’s the easiest part of the job.

2nd RADIO VOICE: (Slightly irritated) Well, $100 per bag doesn’t make them overly stuffed, but we’re taking 40k and only have five bags.

(CAT enters from down stage left, JEREMY follows close behind her.)

Setting: The living room of the Hueronvun’s house

CAT: Now you tell/me!

Time: 1960s

1st RADIO VOICE: Doesn’t matter—they’re going straight in the car anyway.

The living room has three doors, a front entrance at the upper right stage, one to the kitchen left of center stage, the third in the back corner, stage left.

There is a desk downstage left where there is a radio and lamp. A rolling chair is seated behind it. A couch sits further upstage to the stage right of the desk with a side table stage right displaying a rotary phone. Stage left of the table is another chair. Further decorations are left at the director’s discretion.

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Scene I

JEREMY: You never let me get a word/in edgewise, earlier.

2nd RADIO VOICE: (Unconvinced) Yeah, I guess you’re right.

WALTER: Be quiet, you two!

(He puts a finger to his lips and motions for them to lower their voices.

Shaking her head, CAT exits left of center stage. JEREMY shrugs his

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shoulders and exits stage right. While this happens, the radio voices are still talking, not at an audible level, though.)

1st RADIO VOICE: Car identification ring any bells?

2nd RADIO VOICE: (Thoughtful) That’s not how we did last time though. Then again, last time didn’t end so well for some people…

(There’s a long pause on the radio. LIZA enters left of center, wiping her hands on her apron.)

LIZA: Dad, it’s time/for dinner.

(WALTER waves a hand at her, shooing her away.)

1st RADIO VOICE: Yeah well... This time will be different.

We’ll make a clean break of it.

LIZA: It’s lasagna; it will get cold soon.

2nd RADIO VOICE: (Confused) I don’t think making a cleaner break of the bones would really help. They’re still broken.

1st RADIO VOICE: Bozo, this time I mean no one will get hurt.

(CAT enters from left of center carrying a can of Coca-Cola.)

CAT: Mom, I thought you said you/were getting grandpa for dinner?

1st RADIO VOICE: Now remember, 6 o’clock the sixth on the corner of second and fifth.

(LIZA moves forward, putting a hand on WALTER’s shoulder.)

and sixth.

WALTER: (Tugging at hair, exasperated.) No! (CAT and LIZA start, looking to each other. CAT shrugs but pointedly rubs her stomach indicating she’s hungry.)

LIZA: No what?

WALTER: He got the address wrong for one. For two, it’s not a show. They’re planning a robbery. And for Pete’s sake, either eat without me or join me here, but let me listen, please.

(CAT tosses back the rest of her Coca-Cola and sits down in the chair with a grin, throwing her legs over one of the armrests. Slightly stunned LIZA sits down on the couch.)

2nd RADIO VOICE: So, decals, and guns on the sixth at six on the corner of second and fifth?

(JEREMY enters from stage right.)

JEREMY: (Checking his watch.) Isn’t it time for dinner?

LIZA: (Nods mournfully and whispers) Past time.

JEREMY: Why? 1st RADIO VOICE: Good question. Just how many guns do you bring? Well, how many did you get?

CAT: Sit down, there’s a robbery happening.

(WALTER motions for them to lower their voices again.)

LIZA: Come on Dad, you can finish your show later. (She tugs a bit causing both WALTER and chair to roll back.)

2nd RADIO VOICE: So where do I go to get the guns with the serial numbers removed?

2nd RADIO VOICE: 3 o’clock the third on the corner of third

JEREMY: Right now? (He points to the ground and looks around.)

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1st RADIO VOICE: Did you get that? Phil on Market Street?

WALTER: No, the plan. Now shush and listen!

JEREMY: Plan? Robbery? For what, Buckingham Palace?

LIZA: That was quite convincing, wasn’t it? I wonder when the next episode will air. (She stands, smoothing out her apron and exits left of center.) I’ll go reheat the lasagna.

CAT: (Exasperated) The plan for the robbery. And JEREMY how would they even rob Buckingham Palace from Florida?

WALTER: We need to call the police. That was no show. Our Yesper Bank in Holiday is on the corner of second and fifth.

JEREMY: I don’t know. (He crosses his arms.) Maybe that’s what they’re planning.

JEREMY: (Scratching his head.) I didn’t hear anything about a robbery.

(JEREMY sullenly takes a seat.)

(WALTER hisses at them to be quiet, a finger to his lips.)

1st RADIO VOICE: Oh for Pete’s sake, Frog! Didn’t you study the map?

LIZA: (Leans to JEREMY) It’s a show your grandfather’s listening to. The lasagna’s cold by now anyway, so let’s just humor him.

(JEREMY arches his eyebrows skeptically, but leans back against the couch.)

2nd RADIO VOICE: (Frantic) Oh! You really shouldn’t threaten people over the general frequency!

1st RADIO VOICE: The what?

2nd RADIO VOICE: Frequency. The general frequency that anyone can tune into...

1st RADIO VOICE: (Dangerously calm) I know what it is. (Pause) You got the plan?

2nd RADIO VOICE: (Meek) Yes. 1st RADIO VOICE: Good. Now get off the radio.

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(A click sounds as they tune out and the radio static comes back. WALTER turns down the volume.)

WALTER: (Rifling through papers on the desk.) What’s the number for the local police?

LIZA: The police won’t appreciate a call about a show. Why don’t we all sit down to dinner?

(CAT has picked up the phone and is dialing.)

CAT: Hello, police? Yes, this is CAT Hueronvun. I’d like to report a crime.

WALTER: Dinner will have to wait just a bit longer.

LIZA: Dad, what do you care about a supposed bank robbery?

WALTER: I bought out Yesper last week. I can’t stand by and let one of my banks get robbed.

(LIZA gasps, a hand over her mouth.)

LIZA: You did what?

CAT: Yes, you see it’s very urgent. There’s been a murder at 4625 Wallace St. There’s a lot of blood. Oh do come quickly please! (She hangs up, everyone looks at her in shock.) What? You have

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to admit it’s the best way to guarantee they’ll actually come.

(END SCENE)

JEREMY: If we knew something you’d be the first one we’d tell, Mom. (Nodding, LIZA exits left of center stage.)

Scene II At Rise: The living room. The police had recently visited last week. One week later on the sixth, close to six o’clock. Nobody is in the living room yet. The radio is still on the desk and next to it is the phone. Stage right of the couch is a knitting basket with a few rolls of yarn in it. WALTER is not at the house.

Unbeknownst to LIZA and the audience, he is at the bank.

(CAT enters from left of center stage, LIZA follows her out of the door.)

CAT: I don’t know why you’re so worried, mom. Grandpa said he’s at work so he’s at work.

LIZA: Oh, I have no doubt he’s at work. I’m just worried about what kind of work he’s doing. In case you forgot he didn’t respond too well to the police implying he has an overactive imagination last week. On top of that it is the day mentioned in that plan on the radio.

(CAT sits down at the desk.)

CAT: (Innocently) Is it? I had no idea.

(JEREMY enters from left of center stage, and while checking his watch sits down on the side of the couch closest to the knitting basket. Shaking her head, LIZA moves toward the door left of center stage.)

LIZA: I’ll put some leftovers on a plate for him when he gets home. (Before she goes through the door she turns back to CAT and JEREMY.) If you two knew something, you’d tell me, right?

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CAT: Why’d you say that? When she finds out we’ll be grounded till doomsday.

JEREMY: Key word being “know,” CAT. We don’t actually know anything yet. We just think we know. After all, he could have changed his mind.

(JEREMY picks up a ball of yarn and tosses it from hand to hand. The phone rings and CAT jumps, causing herself and the chair to skitter back. Scrambling, she pulls herself and the chair back to the desk and picks up the phone.)

CAT: Hello? (Pause) Yes, it’s here. (Pause) Okay, will do... be safe.

(CAT hangs up the phone, and starts to fiddle with the radio.)

JEREMY: That him?

(CAT nods. LIZA enters from left of center stage.)

LIZA: Who was that on the phone?

JEREMY: (He starts to unravel the yarn.) Grandpa, he wants us to help him run a test on the general frequency.

LIZA: A test? What sort of test?

CAT: If the general frequency on his radio at work is the same as ours here.

LIZA: (Confused) But, it’s a general frequency…

JEREMY: (Glaring at CAT even though she can’t see.) Yes, but they’re 31

different models and well, we’re humoring him.

(An alarm goes off in the kitchen, LIZA starts.)

LIZA: Oh! The coffee cake for tomorrow!

(She exits left of center at a quick trot. As she leaves, loud Irish music comes from the radio. Frantically, CAT turns down the volume. She continues to turn knobs until a faint static can be heard and then she turns up the volume.)

JEREMY: I thought he was already on it. (The yarn ball is now unraveled and he is trying to re-roll it with little success.)

CAT: He said it might be a bit. He’s going to try to fit it under his overcoat.

(JEREMY stops tangling with the yarn and looks to CAT) JEREMY: Under his overcoat?

CAT: (Without turning around) Mmhmmm. Figures it will help him pick more stuff up. You know, since nobody will be able to see it they’ll say and do whatever.

(Nodding, JEREMY resumes twisting the yarn around his hands. The radio static drops out and is replaced by the fuzz of background noise.)

CAT: Grandpa? You there?

WALTER: Yes, I’m here. Try to exnay on the talking to me, please.

I don’t want to draw attention by having a talking overcoat.

CAT: (Pleased) So it worked?

WALTER: What did I just say? No talking please unless absolutely necessary.

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(Heaving a sigh, CAT sits back in the chair. JEREMY looks up at her, his hands totally encased by the unrolled yarn. The only sound is of occasional traffic coming from the radio.)

CAT: (To the radio) Has anything happened yet? People lurking around, cars parked nearby with someone sitting in them?

WALTER: Shush! I’m not even in the bank yet.

CAT: Well, hurry up and get in! It’s almost six. They’re bound to make their move soon.

(WALTER doesn’t reply, but the sound of traffic dies down, replaced by the quiet murmur of people walking on tile and chatting with each other.

CAT spins in the chair again and JEREMY, having successfully untangled his hands from the yarn, picks up another ball and begins to unravel that one. LIZA enters left of center stage.)

LIZA: (TO JEREMY, looking at the pile of mutilated yarn next to him on the couch grow larger as the current ball of yarn joins it.) What on earth are you doing?

(JEREMY looks from the yarn to her and back to the yarn. He continues unraveling the piece in his hands.)

JEREMY: I’m organizing it. You see, they were wrapped counterclockwise, but they should be wrapped clockwise. Before you ask why it’s piling up on the couch... I was having trouble re-wrapping and decided to come back to it later.

(LIZA, shaking her head, exits stage left.)

WALTER: Two men just entered, both have very bulky overcoats and hats tilted to mask their faces. Lousy disguise if you ask me.

Wind could dismantle it.

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CAT: (CAT stops spinning and claps her hands together excitedly) Did you hear, JEREMY? It’s happening!

WALTER: Oh! Another one just walked in, no overcoat though… (Loud static fills the room)

JEREMY: (Sighing, holds his tangled hands out in front of him.) Better call the police so they know we’re not the ones committing the robbery.

JEREMY: Yes. You see, last week we did call in about a murder, only it wasn’t a murder. It was a—

CAT: Oh! Right. (CAT picks up the phone and starts to dial.)

CAT: (Frustrated) So, it hasn’t started yet? What if they meant next month instead of this month?

1st RADIO VOICE: Okay, here’s my account number, and I’d like to withdraw everything.

CAT: Hello, Police? (Pause) Yes, I’d like to report a robbery, a— 1ST RADIO VOICE: Well, I know it’s unusual but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it, now does it?

CAT: Sorry. A robbery, l’d like to report a robbery. (Pause) Uh, it’s at a bank and no I’m not there. My grandpa is though.

WALTER: Those weren’t the right guys. They just left. Wait, the one came back…

CAT: You know, just hold off, actually, on starting on a report…

(Pause) Well, I guess, I mean I’m listening to what’s happening.

(Pause) Well, it’s on the radio, and it hasn’t officially started yet but (Pause, CAT sits up straighter, looking affronted.) No! No, this is not a joke! I would never!

(JEREMY, his hands de-tangled, rises and grabs the phone and walks back to the couch, sitting down next to the pile of yarn. He holds the phone in a cradle between his ear and shoulder and picks the yarn up again.)

JEREMY: Hello, Officer? This is JEREMY Hueronvun. You were just speaking with my sister.

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WALTER: They would have specified if it was next month. Now hush, I’m getting funny looks!

(JEREMY is now pacing upstage, phone in hand, stumbling every now and again on the wire. His hands are still connected by yarn. It also looks like his conversation is continuing while CAT talks.)

3rd RADIO VOICE: Now, be a dear and get the cash in the vault for me, would you?

CAT: Wait, who’s that?

2nd RADIO VOICE: (Distanced) You heard ‘em, do as they say now or I’ll be forced to put this to use on something besides the ceiling. (A faint gunshot is heard through the radio.)

JEREMY: (To the phone) I have it on good authority that guns are being used in this robbery. (Pause) How do I...? My grandfather’s in that bank! (Pause) What do you mean...? (He puts a hand over the receiver and calls to CAT) How many people are there?

CAT: Robbers or civilians?

JEREMY: (JEREMY thinks for a moment, then speaks back to the phone.)

Yes, I’m still here! It takes time to get information, you know!

(Back to CAT) Both. Both please.

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CAT: (To the radio, in as quiet a voice as she can manage.) How many robbers? How many civilians? It’s important, please, for the police.

(LIZA enters from left of center stage. She stops and looks at them. JEREMY notices her and hands the phone off to CAT, who has not yet noticed LIZA. JEREMY and LIZA appear to be having a heated discussion.)

WALTER: (Disgruntled and annoyed, he talks in a low voice.) Two robbers...

CAT: (To the phone) Two robbers. (Pause, curious) Hey, don’t you guys need the address?

WALTER: (CAT continues her conversation on the phone) Make that four robbers. The baby carriage was a sham.

CAT: —and fifth. Also, it’s four robbers, not two. (Pause) No, I wouldn’t know! I’m relaying!

WALTER: No head count for the civilians. We scattered, but it is payday...

2nd RADIO VOICE: (Getting closer) I hear talking!

CAT: (To the phone) Number of... it’s chaos. You can’t expect an exact number! (Pause) Well, it’s payday, use your deductive reasoning. That’s what tax dollars pay you to do, isn’t it?

LIZA: (To both JEREMY and CAT) I thought you said you didn’t know he was planning anything? This looks like knowing to me!

CAT: (Holds the phone out to JEREMY) Please take it, he’s being unreasonable.

JEREMY: (Walks over and retrieves the yarn tangled phone. Then speaks to CAT.) You need to practice your people skills. (To the phone) Yes, hello.

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This is JEREMY again, I apologize for anything she may have said… (It looks as if his conversation is continuing as LIZA walks towards CAT) LIZA: Well, what do you have to say for yourself?

CAT: (Turns in the chair to look at her mother.) We didn’t lie. Honest.

(She holds up one of her hands in a scout symbol.) We didn’t know anything. We suspected and planned, just in case Grandpa went through with it.

LIZA: (Arms crossed) Went through with what?

1st RADIO VOICE: Okay, now we need the dough in the registers. (Pause) Come on, quickly, quickly!

CAT: (Wincing) Going to the bank.

(LIZA glowers at CAT) LIZA: (Exasperated) He went to the bank? You knew—(CAT, opens her mouth and LIZA throws up a hand as if to block the words.) You suspected, had a, whole plan just in case he went to the bank and didn’t think to tell me?

JEREMY: Please get your officers over there. They’re onto the registers already! (Pause) What do you mean you already have officers there? I haven’t heard about any. (Pause) No, I’m not in the bank to see for myself! How could I be talking to you if I was at the bank?

OFFICER BARNUS: (Through the radio.) Alright, hands in the air!

CAT: (Sheepish) I’m sorry, Mom. We just didn’t want to worry you. Didn’t really think about how not knowing could make you worried too.

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JEREMY: (To the phone.) Hold on there’s been an update. (Pause) It appears I owe you an apology.

1st RADIO VOICE: (Laughing) You expect to stop us with that!

Two cops with Tasers versus us four with guns?

JEREMY: I know what I mean now about owing you that apology. I want to apologize for thinking your department could handle something like this. (Pause) They brought two officers to a four person robbery with firearms. What else would I be referring to?

LIZA: I suppose I should be glad that you lied out of— CAT: (Insistent) We didn’t know for sure.

LIZA: (Smiling) Right. Well whatever you want to call it, it was done out of concern not malice.

CAT: (Nodding vigorously) Exactly, we were being thoughtful, heroic even.

(Distinct, but distant gunshots can be heard through the radio. JEREMY, LIZA, and CAT all turn to look at the radio, horrified.)

CAT: (To the radio) Grandpa? What happened, are you okay?

JANITOR: That’s it—this circus stops now!

LIZA: (To the radio) Dad, who was that? Are you okay?

JEREMY: Now what’s happening? (Pause, JEREMY speaks back to the phone.) No, I wasn’t, but if you know I’ll gladly listen.

WALTER: The janitor… he’s getting a raise starting next pay period.

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(CAT and LIZA look at each other confused) JEREMY: How many? (Pause) Three people shot? Are they alive?

(Pause) What does that mean?

CAT: What’s the janitor doing?

WALTER: (Gleeful) Taking out the baddies… Spray bottle and broom, genius! (Thuds can be heard coming from the radio but no more gunshots) JEREMY: (Jolts a bit and starts talking in the phone again.) Yes, I’m still here. No, I’ll hang up now. (Pause) Yes, I’m… wait a minute, I’m not sorry. I didn’t waste your time. There was a crime being committed. I called you. I did my civic duty. I have nothing to apologize for! (He hangs up the phone and sets it down on the table between the couch and chair. He sits on the couch and starts unraveling the yarn around the phone angrily.) Anything else from Grandpa?

LIZA: (To the radio) Dad, can you talk with us now? (To JEREMY) Did I hear you say, three people were shot?

(CAT sits up straighter) JEREMY: That’s what the officer said. He doesn’t know what the injuries are like, but I’m sure they have an ambulance on the way.

CAT: (Chin on her hand) Then why haven’t we heard the sirens go by? We’re right in between the hospital and town; we would have heard them.

LIZA: (Becoming distressed) You’re right. We absolutely would have heard them. JEREMY, call the police station back and make sure an ambulance is on the way. (To the radio.) Dad, we’re going to 35

make sure an ambulance gets there, okay? Stay safe. The danger might not be over—there are still weapons on the premise.

JEREMY: (Sheepish, and concerned) Uh, mom, I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to change our number if we ever want the police to take one of our calls again.

CAT: I know. (She walks to the table and grabs the phone. JEREMY is still unraveling some of the yarn and gets tugged closer to the arm of the couch next to the phone.) We’ll call the hospital directly.

LIZA: CAT, that might not be the best— CAT: Yes, hello? I’d like to make a… (She puts a hand over the receiver.) Is it a call or report?

JEREMY: Doesn’t matter. Just give them the address and tell them to come quickly. (He looks at the radio, worried by the silence from it, and almost absentmindedly he continues to fiddle with the yarn.)

CAT: Yes I’m here, send an ambulance to the Yesper Bank on the corner of second and fifth. Please hurry. (Pause) Why? It’s a bloodbath, bodies everywhere. The children and the elderly are at risk too. I can see red on the windows. Oh please hurry! Some of them may still be alive in there, but there’s no telling for how long! (Pause) No, I’m not right there… Why are you questioning me? People are dying! (Pause) How do I know...? Well, are you in contact with people inside the bloodbath? Because I am. (Pause) That’s what I thought, and don’t think for a minute that if I don’t hear sirens soon that I won’t keep calling until I do. Remember, this is a bloodbath we’re talking about. Every second counts.

(She hangs up and looks at JEREMY and LIZA who look at her in disbelief.) What? (CAT shrugs) You want someone to get there quickly, 36

you make it dire. Life and death always gets people running.

You can’t blame me for wanting them to get there faster when Grandpa won’t answer.

LIZA: (Slightly stunned) Yes, that is true, I suppose, and the element of danger does require some, urgency and… (Now she speaks more determinedly and with less surprise. Sirens sound outside the house and grow more distant.) Well, if lying is the way to get fast help, then good job. Just please, only do it for emergencies.

WALTER: Sorry, but I should turn this off, that OFFICER BARNUS is giving me the evil eye.

(All three move to the radio) JEREMY, LIZA, CAT: (in unison) Wait!

LIZA: Don’t you dare turn off that radio!

WALTER: (Oblivious) I’ll be home soon. Looks like the ambulance is coming. (Sirens can be heard through the radio.) I can probably get a ride home from them. It won’t take them long to look after the ventriloquist dolls that got shot up, 4th RADIO VOICE: Oh thank god, you’re here. They shot my— (Pause) Well, I suppose they’re dolls to you but to me, to me they are irreplaceable. Now can’t you do CPR or something? (Pause) Don’t walk away from me!

WALTER: I hope he has insurance on those things. (Pause) No, I don’t think the coat will answer me…

(END Scene) (End Play)

nmc magazine

by molly eastman

Fall is in the Air

fall 2018

Jeremundo by molly eastman

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Letters to Clementine by hannah krohn

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nmc magazine

Kale Salad (with a Side of Fries) by ann hosler

12:52pm becca rasdell’s office “How did you—” Becca gazed across her desk, eyes riveted by the bag clutched in Bob’s hands. She swallowed a surge of nausea when she noticed one corner of the bag was saturated by its contents. “My request was sarcastic,” she sputtered. “How did you even obtain that so quickly?”

Her assistants shared an uneasy glance. As Bob moved to rest the bag on her desk, Becca held up a staying hand. He quickly retreated. She refused to clean up that revolting mess.

The grooves of her pen dug into her palm as she envisioned filling out their termination papers.

Tom cleared his throat and filled the space that Bob had vacated. “We recruited some help on the floor and laid out a plan.

Bob and I took the unmarked company van. Cars scattered as soon

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as we flipped those lights on.” He grinned.

The daft fool. Becca had privately obtained that van from the local police department, signing a disclosure form stating that the vehicle would only be used when her high-profile consulting firm needed to ferry an elite client around town. It was a decommissioned undercover vehicle that, when outfitted with plush seats that her type of clientele expected, offered a measure of safety to individuals paranoid because of their fame. Breaking that disclosure agreement was as good as breaking the law. A trip to the station in the near future would be necessary to circumvent any damage her assistants caused.

“The whole story, Tom,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

“Oh. Well, it started with this morning’s meeting…” * * * 10:27am cardinal boardroom rasdell consulting inc.

My head drooped as Jeffrey droned into the 27th minute of his PowerPoint presentation about globally expanding the firm’s reach into Dubai. A heavy object struck the table. Both my head and heart rate jerked up, just as Ms. Rasdell’s hand-carved pen bumped into my arm. Ms. Rasdell rolled her eyes at me and turned back to Jeffrey.

The next few minutes ticked by, with Bob slinking in as the presentation reached the half hour mark. He was always late in the mornings, even back when we were roommates in college. I pursed my lips to refrain from laughing at the glare Ms. Rasdell favored Bob with before she stood and interrupted Jeffrey.

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Today would be another day we’d not present our idea for Tuxedo Thursdays.

“Thank you for that deep, insightful look at the numbers, Jeffrey.” Ms. Rasdell strode to the front and flipped the projector off. Jeffrey blinked, and she tapped her watch. “Thirty minutes.”

Jeffrey paled. “You’re welcome, Ms. Rasdell.” He scurried

back to his chair.

“Does anyone else have anything to add?”

The silence was heavy. I glanced back at Bob, who shook his head once quickly. Today would be another day we’d not present our idea for Tuxedo Thursdays. I knew my colleague was right; it was dangerous to lengthen any meeting where Ms. Rasdell already had to interrupt for time. She was strict, which I assumed was due to proving to her mother that she could run the company better than her older brother, who was currently cavorting on some tropical— * * * 12:54pm becca rasdell’s office Becca’s knuckles paled as her grip tightened on her wooden pen. “Tom.” The man’s monologue halted. Becca sighed.

“I think it would be wise to skip ahead a bit, to after the meeting.”

“After the meeting. Oh, right! When you made your request.”

Tom’s eyes lit up.

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Could she fire him twice? * * * 11:04am 18th floor hallway rasdell consulting inc.

Bob and I walked behind Ms. Rasdell, jotting down everything she said. There was a list of errands she needed us to do: dry cleaning to pick up, supervising a delivery, readying the plum conference room for a meeting with a rival consulting firm’s CEO, doubling the security for when the Italian ambassador visited next week, and so on. I wiggled my index finger as it cramped, bumping into Ms. Rasdell’s back when I missed her sudden stop.

“Sorry, Ms. Rasdell!” I took a large step back.

“With how inattentive you are, I don’t know how you two get anything accomplished,” Ms. Rasdell huffed. “These tasks need to be done today. Do you understand?”

“We got it, ma’am,” Bob said. His ginger curls flopped in the sunlight streaming through the nearby floor-to-ceiling window.

Bob had mixed up ceremonial accoutrements for two clients last week, which offended both visiting dignitaries, so I knew he was eager to please Ms. Rasdell.

Ms. Rasdell looked out the window for a long moment. I wondered if she was still on edge from the pre-meeting phone call she took from her mother. The yelling was clearly audible from five rooms away, where Bob and I shared a small office.

“I hope so,” she said. “There’s more, but those items are of the utmost importance for today’s agenda.”

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“I’m sure we can fit in a few more things.”

Ms. Rasdell arced a perfectly manicured eyebrow at me. “Indeed. Here’s one. You can find me the greasiest burger in town, with a side of fries, during the height of the afternoon rush.” She smirked for a moment, then just shook her head. “Get busy,” she called over her shoulder as she strode away.

I mused over the oddness of that request. Ms. Rasdell’s kale-and-blackberry salads were infamous water cooler chatter.

One day she had raspberries instead of blackberries and the office went wild. The boss looked perfectly healthy and didn’t need to eat that rabbit food anyway, so maybe she was ready for something more. I jotted this down in my notebook as her office door slammed shut.

“Bob, we better figure out how to get that burger first.”

Bob nodded. Of all the tasks, this would be the most harrowing. * * * 12:57pm becca rasdell’s office “Wait,” Becca interrupted. “You just mentioned that I never eat anything for lunch other than kale salads. Why would you believe I was serious about wanting greasy food?”

“You said there were a few more tasks,” Bob piped in from behind Tom. Becca groaned. How did these two men ever get through HR’s vigorous screening process? It was infeasible to imagine that they held up against a full interview panel for two hours without cracking. She should have known better when, in his

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first week, Tom delivered her brother’s dry cleaning to her after walking into a potted palm.

“The first thing we did was hit the marketing floor,” Tom continued, oblivious to her growing exasperation. “Those folks are great at strategizing, and they love helping out.”

“You mean they love evading their actual work,” Becca grumbled under her breath. * * * 11:22am 6th floor marketing cubicles rasdell consulting inc.

I waved to Jessica and Amberly as Bob and I exited the elevator. “Hey, ladies. Ms. Rasdell has a task that we need some outside help on.”

The women sprang out of their chairs and rushed over.

“Anything for the boss,” Amberly said. “Especially if it gets us out of cold calling old clients for a bit.”

Jessica nodded, blinking wildly at me, as she drew up alongside Amberly.

“Is something stuck in your eye, Jessica?”

Jessica stopped blinking and a mottled red shade spread across her cheeks. “Um, no,” she whispered, sharing a look with Amberly.

I shrugged and lowered my voice as well. Jessica had the right idea about keeping it quiet. It wouldn’t do to have the gossip reach the water cooler before we delivered the goods to Ms. Rasdell and got to boast about it ourselves.

“Ms. Rasdell asked us to get her the greasiest burger in town 41

with,” my eyes flicked to my notebook, “a side of fries. During the height of the afternoon rush.”

Amberly gasped. “You must be joking!”

“No, I have it written down, as well,” Bob said, turning his notepad to show the women. I was happy to see my friend working on his attention to detail. He had struggled with it throughout college.

“During the afternoon rush?”

Jessica asked. “I can tell you a great burger joint, but it would take at least an hour round-trip at that time.

I don’t see how you can deliver in time unless you could get all that traffic to move just for you.”

She shook her head, frowning. “Sounds like an unreasonable request.”

The van. It was rarely used, except when Ms. Rasdell needed to move big money clients around town. Even then, the flashing lights on the top had never been deployed in the few months that I had worked here. The siren had been disabled after I accidentally bumped into the button labeled “Lights & Siren” during my orientation tour.

Bob’s hand grabbed my shoulder. “The van!” He had been on the same tour as me, both new hires fresh out of our Bachelor’s degree program. We had just graduated a few weeks prior, both at the top 10 percent of the bottom 25 percent of our class.

The siren had been disabled after I accidentally bumped into the button labeled “Lights & Siren” during my orientation tour.

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My parents had gushed over how thrilled they were that I was finally done with school.

I grinned and nodded. “The van. But,” I looked at the women, “we need the keys.”

Jessica whispered to Amberly for a few moments. Amberly nodded. “Jessica has a plan. Meet me in the parking garage in ten minutes.” * * * 1:02pm becca rasdell’s office Becca stared blankly at her desk phone, its multitude of buttons alight with calls she was currently neglecting.

“So, Bob and I waited, and then Amberly showed up with the keys and an address.”

“Did you two get anything accomplished while they stole my company’s property?” Becca asked.

Tom furrowed his brow. “We were just borrowing it, for company purposes.”

Becca looked at him, clenching her jaw to keep it from gaping. “For company purposes.”

“Right!” Tom said. “And uhm, no, we didn’t, but we were planning on it right after we delivered your lunch.”

Bob stepped out and lifted the bag, his eyes brimming with hope. She bared her teeth and growled, and Bob flinched, ducking back behind Tom. * * *

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11:57am grande view blvd. grand trayers, mi Not every car moved aside for the van, but most merged out of the center lane as I steered toward Burger Royale. Bob kept a lookout for cop cars, and whenever he called out a sighting, I maneuvered us down a side street. Once it was the wrong way down a one way, but timeliness was important to Ms. Rasdell, not details. She had taught us that being on time made the best impressions in the consulting world. * * * 1:03pm becca rasdell’s office “Are you seriously going to monologue every thought? Even the ones psycho-analyzing my personality?” Becca demanded.

“I’m beginning to wish I never asked.”

Tom brightened. “It’s getting to the good part, though!” * * * 12:18pm 3 centimeter rd. grand trayers, mi I flipped off the lights as the GPS chimed the impending right-hand turn 400 feet away. I glided across two lanes and into the parking lot to a chorus of honks. Six cars sat in the drive thru lane, and a woman in hair rollers screamed her order at the speaker.

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“Hey Bob, go see if you can convince those people to let us in,” I said.

Bob hopped out and ran to the closest car, speaking with rapidly moving lips and wild gesticulations. I had no idea what he was saying, but felt hopeful when the driver scooted out of the line, U-turning and flooring it back toward the road. The next few cars did the same, while the one behind the screaming mother—I had now pulled close enough to see two kids punching each other in the back seat—flipped Bob off and rolled up his window.

Bob shrugged and returned to the van.

“What did you tell them?”

“That we were a covert SWAT team, and the drive-thru was rigged with explosives. If the restaurant served too many people today, it was gonna blow.”

I whistled. “Wow, man. That’s intense.” * * * 1:06pm becca rasdell’s office “You created a bomb scare?” Becca dropped her pen onto a pile of unfinished paperwork and buried her face into both hands.

“It’s OK, boss, no one believed it,” Bob said.

Becca looked up at him in disbelief. “What about those people who you frightened into leaving?” She lowered a hand to her phone, pushing a button.

“OK, well, those four. Not too many.”

“One is too many!” She desperately hoped that no one got a photo of these two fools cavorting around town today. A rising terror gripped her. If her mother discovered any of this story, 43

she would reinstate Becca’s useless brother as CEO of the firm. She refused to lose the position she’d fought years for because of one greasy hamburger. “…and some fries,” Tom said.

“What?” Becca started from her reverie.

Tom looked around nervously at everything but her. “Like I was saying…” * * * 12:20pm burger royale drive-thru grand trayers, mi The mother finished screaming her order, and the next guy in line must’ve only

* * * 1:10pm becca rasdell’s office “We returned the same way, gave the keys to Jessica, and then came up here with your lunch,” Tom finished, gesturing toward Bob, who had returned to hovering behind him.

Becca’s office door flung open and several security guards filed in.

“Ms. Rasdell, are you alright?”

“Remove these two idiots from my presence, Carmen.”

“At once, Ms. Rasdell.” Her head of security gestured to the other guards, who grabbed Tom and Bob by their arms and began hustling them toward the door.

“Gentlemen, consider yourselves fired.”

Tom flashed a panicked look over his shoulder as two guards practically dragged him through the doorway.

“Carmen, one more thing.”

“Yes, Ms. Rasdell?”

Becca pointed toward Bob, who the guards nearly had out the door.

“Leave that bag with me.”

She refused to lose the position she’d fought years for because of one greasy hamburger.

wanted one thing because he ordered in less than a minute. I rolled down the window as I drove up to the drive-thru speaker.

“Moofa-rammm, gr ate undir?” garbled a voice from the speaker.

“I’d like your greasiest burger and some fries,” I said, enunciating clearly. You never know what weird food you could end up with otherwise.

“Ur boog ur no crassy!”

“Yes, that will be all.” I smiled at the speaker. Ms. Rasdell was going to be thrilled. Maybe she’d promote me to executive assistant.

“That’ll be $7.78. Pay at the first window.”

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I paid the lanky teen at the window, who directed me to pull forward to another window. The glass slid open and a portly man wearing a headset glared at us before thrusting a brown bag in my direction. I grabbed it, thanked the man, and tossed it to Bob.

nmc magazine

Me the Lazy Artist by lynnae christensen

This digital drawing expresses the frustrations the artist has while pursuing perfection. It is an incomplete self portrait which parallels the struggle against one’s own mind, for the cursory words are directed towards the artist from the artist.

The piece itself represents an internal anger towards not rising to completion.

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U

A Tale of Tails by jim lyons

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pon hearing the word “scorpion,” most people probably imagine tiny assassins emerging from the desert sands to deliver a lethal sting from their tails, a primeval terror armored in chitin and malice. As such, when told I have one as a pet, the first question is generally some variation of “Did you remove the stinger?” or “Why would you keep such a dangerous animal? Are you crazy?”

While it is certainly true that a scorpion is not an especially cuddly sort of animal, scorpions are a far cry from the malevolent monsters they tend to be portrayed as in popular culture. I had the distinct pleasure of tending to three different scorpions at various points in my life, but the second one, my beloved Pandy, remains an especially unique experience.

Pandy was an emperor scorpion whom I named after her species scientific name, Pandinus Imperator. At the time, emperor scorpions were the most commonly seen variety of scorpion found in the pet trade due to their gentle temperament and mild venom. Pandy, however, was a bit of an exception, being both ill-tempered and prone to displaying displeasure if disturbed. At the slightest provocation, gleaming obsidian claws would swing out like a great mechanical trap while her tail snapped to attention to display the bright red sting tipping its end. The meaning was clear, “Leave me alone!”, but why she felt so insecure eluded me.

One evening, I found Pandy in her usual hiding place within a clay cavern that had belonged to her predecessor. But, instead of her usual restful pose with tail coiled and limbs tucked tightly against her body, her claws were wedged into the soft soil of the enclosure and her first two pairs of legs were folded beneath her

nmc magazine

body like a person crossing their arms in preparation to carry an uneven load.

“Mom!” I remember calling out. “I think Pandy is forming a birthing basket!”

Unlike most arthropods, scorpions universally give live birth like a mammal instead of laying eggs. What had originally been assumed to be a sign of a well-fed scorpion turned out to be a very pregnant scorpion. This also explained Pandy’s uncharacteristically foul temperament.

One by one the newborns dropped into the waiting cradle formed by their mother’s legs, tearing free from the translucent membrane that had linked them to their mother in the womb and clambering up to the safety of her back. By the next morning, a litter of about 13 scorplings were nestled atop their mother, soft creamy white infants with tiny black eyes.

Their claws were sealed shut and their iconic stingers were little more than blunt pearly barbs, but their morphology was unmistakably that of a scorpion.

The scorplings remained on Pandy’s back for about a week or so after their surprise birth until they molted for the first time. During the night, each had wriggled out of their old natal skins with newly-formed armored plates and a set of functional claws and stinger. By dawn, the newborns had been quick to take to their newfound freedom of movement to explore their strange

What had originally been assumed to be a sign of a well-fed scorpion turned out to be a very pregnant scorpion.

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new world, scurrying hither and yon around the enclosure like tikes under the effects of a sugar rush. Such bravado was fleeting, however. Whenever the young scorpions were frightened, they would frantically retreat to the safety of their mother, ducking beneath her armored body and hiding amongst the safety of her legs. For her part, whenever her children returned in fear, Pandy would respond by leaping into her defensive stance with claws outstretched and tail raised, ready to fight off whatever had the gall to threaten her babies. Eventually, with no threats forthcoming, she would once again settle down into a restful pose, and the young would emerge from beneath their maternal bastion lest they be sat on.

While most scorpions tend to leave home after they are able to fend for themselves, certain species like the emperor and its forest scorpion cousins will form a familial unit for a prolonged period of time, with the mother continuing to provide care to her young and the siblings remaining together until ready to strike out to find mates. In Pandy’s case, I would often see her scorplings running around with bits of shredded cricket or other insects that she had killed and processed on their behalf. In one particularly memorable account, a scorpling was witnessed running around with a cricket leg in its mouth as large as its own body, like a toddler with a turkey drumstick. The young were no strangers to hunting, often chasing crickets as large as themselves and unintentionally ganging up on prey targeted by their siblings (and on one occasion, prey their mother had wanted). While Pandy never used her sting for any purpose beyond intimidation, the scorplings used theirs readily on prey, though in fairness their size would make prey capture by brute force alone virtually impossible.

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Unfortunately, I was not properly prepared to raise scorplings at the time, and many were lost to the molting process.

Insufficient humidity resulted in most of the poor things getting “stuck” in their old exoskeletons and dying from exhaustion or malformation as a result.

Of the original litter, only two made it to the point where their armor bore the obsidian gleam of their mother. Of these, one escaped the enclosure (a cast-off exoskeleton was found nearby) while the last was attacked by a rogue cricket which had differing opinions on how the food chain worked. Pandy would eventually die after sustaining an injury while tunneling, one leg crushed by a decoration she had undermined.

Pandy’s abrupt death, paired with the loss of her litter, was overwhelming. The resulting sense of failure and grief would prevent me from keeping another scorpion for many years, until one November afternoon at the local PetSmart.

While purchasing crickets as food for my brother’s gecko, I chanced upon a display containing a juvenile forest scorpion (Hetrometrus), not far removed in development from where Pandy’s young had been before their demise. The idea of such a young creature being purchased as a “disposable” novelty pet pained me greatly, and the experience with Pandy led to a strange sense of reassurance. I had tended to the needs of a young scorpion before, knew where I had failed, and could use that knowledge to ensure this one might have a better future.

I left the store with both the crickets for my brother’s gecko and the young scorpion, ready to begin a new tale.

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nmc magazine

Moving Day by patricia prihoda

fall 2018

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A Whisper From a Dandelion by sophia elhart

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nmc magazine

Purple Nike Daydreams by c. l. dunklow

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s the stretcher wheels struck the curb, the sheet covering the body billowed, momentarily exposing a pair of purple Nikes. *** Anna left class and cycled across the quad to meet her best friend. If she had looked fifty yards to her left, Anna would have realised her friend wouldn’t be at the agreed upon location.

Purple Nikes were her best friend’s signature shoe, and she wore them everywhere. In her rush to be punctual, however, Anna’s world condensed to only what appeared before her handlebars.

Therefore, she missed the strangest scene the town of Redhooke had ever witnessed—a murder investigation. The entire police force of fourteen officers—only four of whom were competent— milled about the crime scene, dazed. The town was unaccus-

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Therefore, she missed the strangest scene the town of Redhooke had ever witnessed—a murder investigation. tomed to even hearing an unkind word, thus the concept of a murder in Redhooke was unfathomable.

When she first learned of Carrie’s death, Anna was certain there’d been a mistake. Anna and Carrie had crossed paths numerous times on campus but hadn’t become friends until six months prior. The two women bonded over a shared love of law and often talked about attending Harvard Law School together.

Weeks earlier, that dream had finally become reality when both received full scholarships to the esteemed institution. They mapped out the four years they’d be spending in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and even discussed establishing New England’s first female-led law firm. Anna was in disbelief that Carrie was gone. Standing in line at the local coffee shop, her knees buckled beneath her. She’d never find another friend like Carrie, that was for sure.

“Who killed Carrie?” became the mantra echoed throughout town. Flyers silently screamed at passersby from lampposts and telephone poles. Every townsperson deemed themselves amateur sleuths and spent their free time searching for answers. Anna, in the eyes of the town, apparently did nothing. She attended classes and fulfilled obligations. This irked some of the residents. How was it possible for someone to continue living in a “normal” fashion when she’d just lost her 51

best friend? Some even considered Anna the prime suspect.

Whispers followed her everywhere.

While the accusations were unpleasant, Anna knew it was imperative to keep her own detective work a secret. Given the laughable inexperience of the Redhooke Police Department when it came to murder investigations, Anna didn’t trust them.

She was by no means well-versed herself, but knowing Carrie best had to count for something. Anna was confident that gaining access to the case evidence was her only chance to ensure her friend wasn’t relegated solely to headlines and a scant obituary.

Redhooke’s police station resided within the town’s oldest building. Constructed in 1887 and designed by famed architect Gridley James Fox Bryant, the building was the pride and joy of Redhooke. This night, the marble façade gleamed in the moonlight, providing an ethereal backdrop to Anna’s inquiry. Anna hesitated as she approached the entrance and reached for the doorknob. If she was caught, she would most likely lose her scholarship to Harvard Law. However, no matter what the local paper wrote (“College Student’s Murder Close to Being Solved”), Anna knew the whole truth was as of yet uncovered. First, though, she’d have to pass the lone security guard, also Redhooke’s town crier, Ignatius Stanley. It was well-known that Iggy slept through most of the nighttime hours of his shift—he was eighty-three, after all.

With this in mind, Anna steeled herself and turned the knob. The mahogany door groaned as she pushed it open. As expected, Iggy snored loudly at the desk. Anna crept across the grand hall to the stairwell and descended into the inner recesses of the building.

The evidence locker, if it could be called that, was a slew of miscellaneous items. It seemed as though everything from 52

the past sixty years had been carelessly tossed into the room. It was obvious that investigations were a nonexistent part of the Redhooke Police Department’s operations. Anna hoped this all but assured she wouldn’t have to filter through every item in the locker. Carrie’s murder had occurred only days ago, and that meant the evidence pertaining to the case should be somewhere near the top of the heap. Without hesitation, Anna began sifting through a pile to her left.

Four hours passed in the evidence locker and still Anna hadn’t found anything even remotely related to Carrie’s case. As daylight filtered in through the ground-level windows, Anna’s hope of easily locating evidence went unfulfilled. It seemed as though the officers had failed to follow the cardinal rule of investigation: collect—but also catalogue—as much evidence as possible. As Anna moved a dusty campaign sign (“Get Iggy with It”), a familiar colour caught her eye—purple protruded from beneath a mountain of old t-shirts. Anna grabbed the purple nub and pulled. The force caused her to stumble backward, but seconds later she was standing in the middle of the evidence locker holding a pair of shoes tied together at the laces.

The lack of even a shred of evidence soon forced Anna to abandon her crusade to avenge her friend. The murder became a cold case not long after. Although saddened by Carrie’s death, the majority of Redhooke residents concerned themselves more with the sullying of their town’s name. Carrie’s murder shattered Redhooke’s idyllic nature. Anna, though, never got the answers she needed.

Adrift after Carrie’s death, Anna contemplated rescinding her scholarship. Harvard Law had been a shared dream, and at

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first she didn’t see the point of attending without Carrie. Consumed by grief and with no reason to remain in Redhooke, Anna ultimately figured a change of scenery would provide the reprieve she so desperately needed and chose to leave. She departed for Harvard the following autumn. The establishment of a new routine allowed Anna’s life to return to a semblance of normalcy. Some days were easier than others, but the difficult days far outweighed the good.

While she had no trouble getting to class—the escape it provided was most welcome—simple tasks like brushing her teeth and combing her hair sometimes proved torturous. There were days where she didn’t want to get out of bed—more than she cared to admit—and showed up to class harried and unkempt.

On days when there was a particularly exhilarating lecture, or she defended a case well in class, Anna thought not of Carrie’s absence, but of what her friend might have said or done. These thoughts brought Anna closer to Carrie. Anna had found a way to keep their friendship alive. She continued her studies in this same vein, and gradually the good days drew even with the bad, then quickly surpassed them. The plan the best friends had created for their futures became the driving force behind Anna’s success. She lived not only for herself, but for her friend, too. Carrie had been the only person Anna could always count on, and Anna wasn’t about to let her down. *** It was the summer of 1998. Thirteen years had passed since that fateful day in the quad. In that time, Anna graduated at the top of her class at Harvard Law and passed the bar

exam. Now a well-respected attorney, life had settled into a routine and she enjoyed much success. The ‘80s had been big, but Anna was bigger. At least in Redhooke.

Anna knew the residents of her former stomping grounds followed her career with earnest interest. That was why the phone call hadn’t surprised her. It had been mid-May, on the day Carrie would have celebrated her thirty-fifth birthday, when Anna was asked to join the staff of her alma mater as a visiting professor. The offer was a big deal, but it also meant returning to Redhooke for the first time since Carrie’s murder. Anna lingered for months over the decision prior to saying yes. In one week’s time, she’d be back in the town where she lost laughter and found silence.

On the first day of fall semester, Anna walked the familiar sidewalks to the campus. Redhooke hadn’t changed much in her absence. Because she had responded to the college’s offer so late, the best they could do was convert a smaller classroom into a makeshift office. The classroom selected just so happened to be the room where Anna and Carrie had taken Legal Ethics and first struck up a conversation. The two young women had sat next to each other in the far left corner of the front row. Carrie’s purple Nikes were one of the first things Anna had noticed about her. As Anna surveyed her office, lost in memories of the hauntingly brief, yet ferociously meaningful past she had shared with her best friend, she leaned back in her chair and crossed her purple-clad feet upon her desk.

Anna had found a way to keep their friendship alive.

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Lola

by james russell

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Curious Concoctions by rachel esckelson

This is an interactive potion-making game for which I hand-illustrated 31 elements and animated using Adobe Animate. The beauitful soundtrack was composed by my dad. Unfortunately, the interactive game itself doesn’t work on the web. Instead, the QR code below links to a recorded playthrough of the game.

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A Quick Biopic in which Something Good Might Come

W

hen I was a kid, by the time New Year’s Day nudged itself along, I thought in terms of years: “This year was a good year!” What happened around me inevitably didn’t comprise who I was, so things were fine, good even. I kept everything I needed for school in a desk: notebooks for each subject, Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards from my black market recess scheme, and stockpiled library books. I was a kid, a nerd, and capable of loving myself.

High school, side B of the record, let’s say junior year. I didn’t ask myself many questions. My single-strap backpacks kept breaking, the plastic-wrapped insides like exposed bone. I tried being a Christian for a hot minute there, and into college, too.

I lived in increments of weeks: 365 days = 52 weeks = 52 days in the form of parabolic stone slabs. By the time every Friday came, I forgot about time until my alarm clock reset my mechanical movements Monday morning.

These days, I live on my own, and walk to work. I forget what I had for breakfast this morning, but sleep is for dinner. There’s a cormorant sitting on the rail of my front porch. Traveller or invasive species, I don’t pay him attention, and he doesn’t ask. He’s not homeless, after all.

I think in the ghost of hours, units of facile time so microscopic it’s hard for me to determine whether they were good or bad. I’m fortunate I get out as much as I do. My routines are embraced: I both need and want the structure of repetition. It helps me cope with change, to the point where it’s not even coping. I like waking two hours before work and living without a reliance on caffeine; it works for me. What I’ve cultivated and gath-

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by liam strong

ered as rational facets for myself coincide as physical and mental routines, with the result of consistent self-esteem boosts.

I spend more time preparing for my day than I do actually enacting it. The diaspora of who we once were and the things we used to do are fickle; I love certain things I once hated, and vice versa. I question myself daily on the rationality of things I ascribe to or, at the very least, find fascinating. There’s this particular resilience I have toward evasion that extends itself to being too focused in my work life that I assume many people have. But when I buy a new hiking backpack with twice the pockets and space as the shitty one I had in college, the fluorescent lighting above me shudders and I find myself at my desk, symbiotic with my phone. I carry the same mysticisms, but not the same yearning.

The little changes shouldn’t hurt the most.

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Perhaps the silver lining is that we want to carry more than we already do. A house, a career, an education, relationships, social interactions, logical processing—name every esoteric complexity in our lives and scrunch them down into something compact. Shoulder it, and after time, it offers a simpler weight.

What we allow ourselves to accept is contingent on our willingness to improve, and although you might argue this disregards our psychological and physiological setbacks. But this is purely meditational, possible for every individual. I’ll avoid the generic Instagram metaphors, which extrapolate statements that are too easy (“Life is *insert basic phrase here*”). Our interpretations of life deserve open conversation, but glittery, unrealistic utilitarianism won’t push us to new ideas. I’m not encouraging people to yield larger backpacks for gathering open-mindedness, but rather impose the opposite: we don’t need to hinge life on a purpose, and neither does what we carry. *** When I say I evade things, for a solid season, I am excitable. By get really excited, I routinely exercise an assortment of, let’s say, five or so things productive and recreational that shove out the previous requisite of tasks and joys which make up everything I do in a given time. It’s a lot less theoretical than it sounds. That said, this natural back-turning makes the facets of nostalgia both enticing and inductive of shame for me. I am ashamed of the time I cannot hand out via hugs and coffee and hours tethered to people I wish I could see everyday. This doesn’t mean I’m going to selfishly have a kid to re-live, through another mote of life, what I may or may not have had. But as a demisexual man who has significant memory loss of childhood at 22, I

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still can’t help but envy kids who don’t even know what existence is. The cormorant looks ageless, but there’s no telling how long he’ll stay. I think I could love him. The child in me, curled in some urn of forgetfulness, was handed over to him a long time ago, but the dust has yet to settle.

For the longest time, I didn’t expect mildew to grow in a backpack. Yet it can grow anywhere. It makes me curious about everything else that festers within and without, the tiny nuances of disregard I give to people I never see, friends I could have had, the burgeoning impulses of dysphoria and mental health that I don’t understand about myself just yet. The grime of my last backpack hid in the bowels, unnoticed until after I had transitioned to this new one. I had that backpack for four years. There were specks of rust bruised into the places where I stuck enamel pins and buttons, aging with the rain and snow.

I hate that I hold closely something as miniscule as a backpack—it’s irrational. There’s too much buried and unearthed, juvenile and unkempt, to keep track of. However, a reminder of my fallibility is necessary for healthy progression as an individual. As the years go by though, I’ve become jaded, upside down, or practically non-existent. For instance, I went to a funeral last week for my aunt, and I didn’t cry. Was I supposed to? Did I even mourn? I can’t say for sure that I upheld those social norms, and whether it was subconsciously intentional or not still eludes me. It’s not that I don’t want to feel anything, but my yearning for mental stability is stronger than emotional stability, partly because I don’t value my emotions as much as my mental state.

This could come off as cold-hearted, but where logical thought prevails, I find myself producing the most empathy toward peo57

ple, including myself.

Where we interact weakly with ourselves is in our preconceived notions of social constructs, particularly in the side effects of consumer culture. We’re not excited about big things anymore; we’re excited about new Netflix shows, getting our car back from the mechanic, going out for lunch with a friend. This time we live in— now more than ever—promotes trendsetting, generalizing people into columns, rows, and coordinates. I feel this myself on a regular basis, though there is some pride to protect the labels given to and by oneself. That said, I do not subscribe to the generalization of people because it propagates hateful and impressionable thought like a disease. I will not critique that which people carry alongside them, their intricacies, burdens, and ultimately, uniqueness. (You could argue the opposite on an existential perspective; both views are valuable.)

Whether or not we consider the carrying capacity of a backpack as infinitesimal is both a question of semantics and, well, stitch-work. However, we could look at ourselves intersectionally. People are a collective of outcomes caused by events in their lives. Think of this as storing backpacks within backpacks, a Matryoshka doll comprising who we are. It’s fair to throw away and forget certain detrimental things in one’s life. More often than not, we don’t notice these as problems. And that’s okay. There’s no excuse we can make for the ages we have been, but maybe we can embrace the reprisal, the fatalistically un-new bodies we

inhabit in these current moments.

What can be best applied is the fatalistic notion of human possibility; we cannot carry and assume of ourselves what isn’t possible of us. Incidentally, this should be taken in a positive light, because the image of a backpack is linked to a very human contingency to uphold, both consciously and unconsciously, the harbingers of what is, was, and yet to come. Some can’t rid themselves of their ghosts; others yearn for their former selves, a longing to re-live eras of youth. I barely remember anything before 5th grade. I am incapable of regretting that. I know what I liked as a kid, but that’s solely because I haven’t ceased liking some of those things. (I still eat my cereal with milk to the side, and embrace the flack I hear about it.)

Now, I’m vastly more philosophically and politically oriented than I ever thought I would be. I cook every morning. I no longer have night terrors. I work a job I adore, directing passion toward my pedagogy.

In a way, a wound whittles deeper. It’s little, meticulous, nagging.

There’s a sort of acceptance we achieve when coming to terms with our own social “mediocrity,” especially in a time of inflated dissonance in mass media and entertainment. With so many famous artists, actors, writers, entertainers (you name it, there’s someone to perform the role), it devalues the stage for idolization. Possibly for the better, as well. When the bar is not only lowered but expanded through explorations of

I do not subscribe to the generalization of people because it propagates hateful and impressionable thought like a disease.

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medium and style, it widens the definition of what it means to be an artist. We might find ourselves infatuated with the underground, someone who’s on a much smaller platform.

However, a platform is still a platform. We don’t know a fraction of the entertainment we could, which devalues living out our dreams. In turn, the persistence of nothing ever being good enough, being irrelevant, is a result of our postcolonial explosion of creating new things, and making more space for human influence.

Mediocrity, on an existential scale, must be discussed without hostile rhetoric and treated carefully. Although I don’t think humans can be truly pacifistic, violence only breeds subsequent violence. Argument driven by animosity closes ears more than it opens.

Speaking to my own struggles for purpose, the partial absurdity of dreams is much more eternalistic than how we interpret them. I daydreamed so much at night when I was younger that aimlessness became a virtue to me. Yet, I never converted those aspirations into my waking life. No star-spangled background accentuating me as a firefighter or movie director. The little accomplishments I’ve made have been big enough. The dream was never alive, but I have a funeral for it at a diner, drowned beneath coffee and creamer. The dream, always dead, was the most open pair of eyes I’ve ever looked through. My adult life has consisted of a virile strand of hopping back and forth between career paths fledgling to whatever I might I want to do.

I almost fear the clichéd life of wanting to be relevant; so-

ciety already prods us enough with a spear of meaningfulness.

The fear of relevance is justified, and I zip it up with everything else I ascribe to. We speak in third person plural much too often to lift ourselves up: a momentary crutch. We split into social groups and sides (usually of the same coin), for reasons beneficial and malignant. Conformity in any light is unavoidable, but you don’t need me to say that it’s dependent on choice. The “get a life” mentality is more harmful than we realize, and people don’t always deserve the negligence of critiquing what place they are in life. Life, I would logically purport, is not a place; subsequently though, paradise is what you make it.

My autonomous conscience felt practical, once, particularly as a teenager. Gave reasons to the happenstance surrounding me. Called what I owned mine. Set in my ways, hated what I was told to. I had dreams of falling off playground equipment as a kid, and I should have. I didn’t have dreams about my teeth falling out, and I should have. I had a dream once where I could remember my dreams, open an accordion binder and slide through the straw of something I did not understand. I couldn’t have, but I never recognized contention quite like I did then.

I don’t know if we can understand people better than we can ourselves. That uncertainty is inspiring, in some sense, though I suppose it’s my human tendency to find beauty in the largeness of something, unknown or not. It’s a lovable kind of terror.

These days, I don’t act as judge or pay much attention to the

The dream, always dead, was the most open pair of eyes I’ve ever looked through.

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things people carry. My younger self did that for too long. Hell, even how we carry ourselves doesn’t matter to me. I won’t tell anyone how to be. The cormorant shits where he does. Where your feet land is where they do. People will do what people will always do—once an idea reaches conception and emerges into the world, the return policy is nonexistent. Nothing needs to be.

I’d like to believe I’m not getting older, but hopefully more and more like myself. I wonder if in ten years I’ll still be hauling a backpack with me everywhere. Maybe I’ll transition to a rucksack, or a suitcase. Maybe I won’t need anything. When I walk to and from work, though, I don’t make any stops. I take out what I need once I finally sit down. Sometimes the backpack rips open without ripping open and a gangrene of thought meanders along the sidewalk. When I reach home, I balance the broken mailbox on its crooked frame, climb the porch steps. I take my time.

I hope the cormorant stays. We will not watch each other grow old. We will view each other being ourselves, coming and going with new baggage. I imagine he wouldn’t want to come in even if I asked. The same goes for me, refusing to observe how he flies elsewhere. We do not look like anyone, but we look like each other. If his comfort and vigilance over me can be perceived as love, then I think that’s good enough.

Maybe I could love me, too.

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Raven

by rachel esckelson

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nmc magazine by kendra hoggard

The Incident by tamara wiget

T

he aqueous humor isn’t actually funny at all, and whoever named it probably had a, well, a weird sense of humor.

It’s actually just a bunch of liquid floating around in your eyeball. Kinda gross if you think about it, although not as gross as your vitreous humor, which is basically just a sloppy bunch of runny jelly in your eye. Even the word vitreous sounds gross if you ask me, although nobody ever does. Or they didn’t, anyway, before the night of September 3rd.

But before we talk about that, we need to backtrack—way back—to the third grade. That’s when Mia Fallow’s parents decided to move from Trenton, New Jersey, to our sleepy little town in the Midwest. As Mia’s best friend I think she’s great, but I know that other people look at her and think she’s kind of a dork. I know because people like Len Krantz used to call me

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(I’m Sam Kent, no relation to Clark Kent) and Mia dorks to our faces, and other people laughed at us a lot. This had been going on since Mia moved here in the third grade—well, longer for me, but that’s not the point—and she grudgingly endured it until that night in tenth grade.

She put up with Len’s shit for seven years and barely ever made a peep about it. She would talk to me, of course, because we’re best friends, but I don’t think she ever told anyone else. She never told her mom, or her sister, or the principal. I told the principal once after Len put gum in Mia’s hair, but all he did was give Len one measly hour of detention. So what? Len’s girlfriend, Samantha Pikowitz, practically lives in detention. They probably spent the hour tongue fighting over a piece of gum.

There’s something grosser than your aqueous humor.

So the Tuesday before—September 3rd was on a Saturday— Mia and I were sitting outside during lunch. Mia was drawing in her sketchbook. She’s pretty shy about her art, but trust me when I tell you that she’s really good. Like, I bet her stuff will be in museums someday. She’s also really good at math, so she wants to go to college and be an architect. How many women are architects, anyway? I bet not a lot. That’s what I like about Mia. She’s pretty quiet so people don’t think much of her, but she’s actually really brave and doesn’t let anything hold her back.

Except Len Krantz. He’s a jerk, but he’s always had some kind

They probably spent the hour tongue fighting over a piece of gum.

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of weird power over her. Once when Mia’s sister Joan was home from college, she told me that adults brainwash girls into thinking that when a boy is mean to you, it means he likes you. A lot of girls go gaga for Len, and maybe Mia has a secret hope that Len’s crappy behavior means something and maybe someday he’ll confess his love for her, like some kind of garbage you see in those 80’s teen movies we watch in her basement most Saturday nights.

I’m not in love with Mia, if that’s what you’re thinking. This isn’t Pretty in Pink where Ducky thinks Blaine is a tool because he very obviously has it bad for Andi (although, I can objectively say that Blaine is a tool.) I don’t hate Len because I think he’s competition for Mia’s affections; I hate Len because he’s a dick. He’s a dick to Mia, he’s a dick to me, and he’s a dick to a lot of other people. He’s just a big, giant penis with a good haircut and above average charisma.

So, Mia and I were sitting outside on Tuesday, and she showed me a really cool drawing of her turtle, Broccoli. Broccoli had been sick with some turtle disease and had been on the decline; Mia finished the picture just a couple days before he died, and I could tell it was really special to her.

I was admiring it when King Asshole came up behind us and, without warning, poured his soda over Mia’s head. It ran down her hair and face onto the picture of Broccoli.

I’ve only seen Mia cry twice in our seven years of friendship, and this is one of those times. She didn’t move. She didn’t look at me, or Len, or anything except the picture of Broccoli as it became a wet, muddled mess of cola. The colors ran like the tears

on her face, dripping together onto her hands. Len’s friends laughed, but as he walked away he seemed disappointed that he hadn’t gotten a rise out of either of us. It wasn’t until the second bell rang that I could get Mia up and into the girl’s bathroom to clean the swirls of yellow and green and red marker off her hands. The picture formerly known as Broccoli went into the trash.

I was suspicious when Mia seemed fine the next day, and on Thursday, too. It wasn’t until Friday that I knew things were definitely not okay. Far from okay. Okay was Earth and we were way off in outer space, floating somewhere beyond Pluto. We were at our usual Friday night spot, The Chunkey Munkey, eating our usual—scoop of pistachio ice cream and a scoop of strawberry in a cone for me, two scoops of coffee ice cream and one scoop of butter pecan in a waffle bowl for Mia. Usually only old people eat butter pecan, but Mia’s what hippies call “an old soul” so it kind of makes sense that she would like old people things. I suspect that this also explains her love of Judge Judy and old episodes of Star Trek.

It wasn’t until Mia had finished her ice cream and was crunching through her waffle bowl that I knew something was wrong.

“We should go to Peter Sterlington’s party tomorrow,” she said through a mouthful of bowl.

Peter Sterlington is like that guy in Say Anything who throws parties for high school kids even though he graduated a long time ago, because, well, he throws parties for high school kids

The colors ran like the tears on her face, dripping together onto her hands.

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even though he graduated a long time ago. Rumor has it that when he graduated, Vice Principal Liebenstein still had hair. We tried to verify this via old yearbooks tucked away on a high shelf in the back of the library, but there is no Peter Sterlington in any yearbook going all the way back to 1977. Based on this information, Mia and I theorize that Peter Sterlington is secretly some washed up old rock star who got clean and changed his name, but still likes to vicariously watch other people have a good time.

I choked on a pistachio. I mean, yeah, technically anyone (except freshmen, who are deemed too much of a risk factor) is invited to Peter Sterlington’s party, but that doesn’t mean that just anyone can go to Peter Sterlington’s party. Only jocks, the nerds who let dumb jocks cheat off them, cheerleaders, cool stoners, hip art kids, hot foreign exchange students, and the handful of sexy drama kids who always get lead roles are really invited to parties. Mia and I were classified as Nobodies, which ranked somewhere below unsexy drama kids but above the girl who eats her own boogers during algebra and the guy who was caught jerking off during an assembly about safe sex in the eighth grade.

Warning bells blared in my head. Mia and I didn’t veer from our routine; it was predictable, made things easy. We always knew, without even talking about it, that I would spend Saturdays watching movies at her house, and she would spend Sunday afternoons hashing out homework at mine. That we would sit together at lunch, that we would quietly joke about girls who gushed about homecoming and mock bonehead jocks in private.

Our friendship had a rhythm, a flow.

I felt a storm a’brewin’. I had a feeling that if Mia knew

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that I knew, though, it would make things worse somehow. I decided to play it cool.

“That could be fun,” I lied as I forced the errant pistachio down my throat.

Mia didn’t say anything, just smiled and took a big shark bite out of her waffle bowl.

I didn’t spend Saturday at Mia’s like usual, because when I casually told my mom that we’d be going to a party, her eyes turned shiny with joy; I guess she’d been pining for the day when her dorky baby boy would take tentative steps toward becoming a normal human being. Personally, I’m waiting for the day she realizes I was probably switched at birth. But to appease her until that day, we went shopping for a new outfit.

I showed up at Mia’s house later that night wearing said outfit: burgundy corduroys, black t-shirt with Freddie Mercury (RIP) dancing across it, a blazer with blue and green vertical stripes, and bright yellow Chucks. Honestly, I was feeling kinda good in it.

“Whoa,” Mia started slightly when she opened the door, then laughed. “I guess Patty got wind that this isn’t a normal Saturday night.”

I nodded thoughtfully. Definitely not. A sick feeling rose up, like we were Dorothy and Toto about to get sucked into a big twister, and I was just the yappy little dog who couldn’t stop it.

Mia’s dad drove us to Peter Sterlington’s house. Before we got out of the car, he gave us a lecture on responsible behavior, and twenty bucks to call a cab in case we couldn’t get ahold of him for some reason. I think he could sense something too.

I’ve always liked Mia’s dad.

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We heard music blaring before we were halfway up the walk to Peter’s front door. I turned to see if her dad was still parked by the curb, cautiously waiting to see that we were alright, but he’d already driven off into the night.

Thanks for nothing, Jeff.

We knocked on the front door, but with the sounds of shitty dance music booming through every crack, no one could hear us probably. We stood there until I was sure Mia would admit defeat; but after an eternity, her small pale hand struck out like a snake and grabbed the doorknob, and that’s when I knew we wouldn’t be returning to our regularly scheduled program. She turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. I watched her shoulders heave as she inhaled, and then stepped inside. I stood under the porch light, dumbfounded, as she moved down the hallway toward the pounding bass. It wasn’t until Mia rounded the corner that my brain sent my body signals to move. I sprinted after her, rounded the same corner—and smacked into her from behind.

I peeked over her shoulder at the scene that held her gaze.

It was chaos. The room was dark, lit only by colorful laser lights streaming through the air in time to the beat. In the furthest corner, black-on-black shapes writhed and squirmed against one another; the sexy drama kids were making out with each other in one big, amorphous pile. In another corner, the entire cheerleading squad was enacting a scene that exists mostly in the wet dreams of teenage boys everywhere: a playful unmentionables-only game of Twister. The star quarterback was spraying them with a foam machine, his comrades gathered around, their cans of Bud Light raised in approval as they hooted and 66

hollered. A cloud of smoke drifted from our left, and the sweetly choking scent of pot assaulted my weak nerd lungs. A couple dozen people danced around a keg holding court in the middle of the room.

Peter Sterlington himself appeared out of nowhere, carrying a small cooler of beers. “Hey guys, welcome to the party!” he enthused, putting one in each of our hands. He left us standing there, mouths gaping, as he continued to pass out beers like some boozy Santa.

We sipped cautiously from the cans, and after awhile I felt pretty good. Maybe we could actually be friends with these people, I thought, as we drifted from group to group. Time speedily passed as we cheered on the cheerleaders, who had moved to a hilariously drunken game of hopscotch outside by the pool. We sang a glorious, heartwarming rendition of our school’s fight song with the jocks, and we laughed to the point of tears as Jenna Arnold, Queen Stoner, told the story of the genius prank that had gotten her suspended for an entire week her freshman year.

As Mia and I engaged in a game of darts with Nu Lei and her boyfriend, Todd, who was from another school, I contemplated that maybe doing something new now and then wasn’t so terrible, that our classmates weren’t so bad, that we shouldn’t let one jerk like Len Krantz ruin— Then Len Krantz appeared. Shit. It was Mia’s turn at darts, and— Wait, first let me say that what followed has been questioned time and time again by parents, students, and police. Accounts are wildly conflicting; some say that Mia finally snapped and maliciously turned on Len. Some say that he just got in the way,

nmc magazine

Len and his idiot buddies were laughing, but I saw the glee in her face as she gracefully extended her arm, releasing the dart.

that it was an accident. But as the most sober person in the room, I can confidently tell you what happened.

Mr. Dickhead came out of nowhere with a classic move he hadn’t utilized in years. Just as Mia was poised to throw, he came up from behind and shoved her, yelling, “Mia, don’t fall-oh!” This play on her last name was a classic insult, and probably the best thing his C+ average brain could come up with.

Now this is where things get dicey, but I’ll swear to any god of your choosing that this is exactly how things went down.

Mia fell forward. We had all stepped back to give her room to throw, so I wasn’t close enough to catch her. She seemed to fall in slow motion; yet as she fell, she rolled in Len’s direction.

Len and his idiot buddies were laughing, but I saw the glee in her face as she gracefully extended her arm, releasing the dart.

It was then, at that moment, that it all became clear to me: this was a set-up. This was exactly what Mia had been hoping for. She didn’t know how exactly, but she knew our presence would draw Len’s attention, and that she would have her revenge. She would honor Broccoli’s memory.

Len’s laughter quickly turned to screams; Mia’s aim had been true. The dart lodged itself in Len’s aqueous humor, narrowly missing his cornea.

Mia hit the ground.

Everything around us stopped, frozen like those moments in Saved by the Bell where Zack Morris pauses the story to defend

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to a faceless audience the shitty behavior in which he’s about to engage. That guy joins Blaine in the Major Tool Club.

Samantha Pikowitz was the first to break scene. She was in the pool playing Marco Polo when Len started screaming.

She ran in through the open sliding glass door, sloshing water all over Peter Sterlington’s carpet.

“Babe? Babe?!” her voice was panicked and shrill, like a co-ed who heard a restless icky thump, showering just after losing her virginity in basically any teen horror movie ever. She shrieked wordlessly when she saw the dart sticking out of Len’s eyeball. Everyone gathered around Len. A couple of the drama kids fainted. Then everyone started shrieking and screaming.

No one knew what to do, and this was in the days before you could Google shit on a pocket-sized computer at any given moment.

“What should we do? Pull it out?” the cheerleaders babbled between sobs.

The footballs grumbled amongst themselves: “Will his aqueous humor leak and deflate his eyeball?”

“Will pulling it out pull his eyeball out of his socket?!”

“Is it better to leave it in? What if it blinds him??!”

Mia was forgotten for the moment, and I took the opportunity to quietly collect her and get the fuck out of there before this bunch of drunk, confused teens became a bloodthirsty mob.

We walked to the 7-11 down the street and called Mia’s dad from a payphone. He didn’t ask any questions, and we didn’t give any answers. But it wasn’t long, of course, until the police came to 67

their door and we had to spill the beans. Mia, who had never told a lie in her life, innocently explained that she had just been having fun when Len bumped into her, and while she was of course so sorry, it was a complete accident. I nodded in agreement, but didn’t say anything. I may be a dork, but even I know best friends don’t snitch on each other, especially when shit hits the fan.

Naturally, we were both given a breathalyzer test, but we hadn’t really had that much to drink and by that time we were well past sober. Most everyone else at that party didn’t get off so easily. Len was well over the legal limit, and because I suspect they know that they’ve raised a colossal asshole, his parents chose not to press charges. The fact that he had to wear an eye patch for a while was also a nice perk; we got a kick out of yelling “Arrrrrr, matey!” and “Yo-ho-ho!” as he trudged from class to class.

Mia eventually told her parents the truth. All of it, starting from third grade through the night of September 3rd. They were horrified, and I think ashamed that they hadn’t realized the years of bullying she quietly endured. In their distress they considered moving back to Trenton, but Mia somehow talked them down, assuring them that she thought everything would be fine, and that she would let them know right away if the bullying began again.

And she was right; everything was fine. We went about the rest of tenth grade without mishap. Even after he didn’t have to wear the eye patch anymore, Len gave Mia (and by extension, me) a wide berth.

Tomorrow is September 3rd, junior year. It’s a Sunday, so Mia and I will be at my house, working out tangents and limits at the kitchen table while eating junk food and listening to the Smashing Pumpkins. Just like usual.

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nmc magazine

Etiquette by jessica solem

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All the Memories You Can Bear by richard vegh

As you know, it’s not the kind of thing we really talk about: it’s one of those unspoken realities of this world that some people die. Even worse, in the years after Consolidation some toddlers and infants were treated with the Juvenex vaccine in their crèches and feeder-growers, but then were unable to receive their maintenance treatments or nanogel implants. Just the usual bad luck: their foster families rejected them for having the wrong color eyes, ones that maybe didn’t coordinate with their foster siblings, or their adoption was into ill-fated families who had sworn into all the wrong markets. One dumb misfortune or another meant those little ones would have the self-repairing telomeres, but not the rest of it, and, well, I’ve told you the rest.

Like I said, it’s not something we talk about, but they’re out there, and occasionally—often when we least expect it—they ap70

pear in our world. It’s hard not to pity them, but it’s just as hard to really sympathize.

We all know unluckiness can be contagious.

But tonight I’m going to talk about one of them anyway.

Because it’s been weighing on me, this encounter. I remember it was in a Macy’s, of all places. The memory is still vivid, as so few of them are, anymore.

It happened in Upper Evanston—in the walled-off portion, you know, up there with all the skyways and conveyer walks like glass gerbil cages—where few, if any, of the Unmods could reach.

The whole place ran mostly on automatics and a skeleton crew of servo drones, on account of the memetic plague, I suppose.

It smelled like burnt oil and floor wax. I remember heading there because my biosuit had caught the flu, just hours before my crèche-mate Alex’s bonding ceremony. I needed to find something suitable to wear that wouldn’t shame or obligate Alex to take on additional oaths. I was desperate enough to let the vending machine extract several stem cells and to place my seal over them, diminishing my value in any future bond I might swear. I knew as I did it that I’d soon be wearing real fabric again, weird and dead as it feels, unmoving against my skin.

Anyway, it was while I was trying on the inert realsuit that I heard a buzzing, sawing rasp, and my uncovered skin bristled in waves of pimpling flesh. It was the characteristic wheezing we all learned to recognize in our bond-prep academies: the high pitched, rhythmic humming of pollution-scoured lungs. Lungs that will never fully heal, never quite die. I thought the sound might be originating from the stall next to mine—the one I’d have to pass on my way out the changing room exit.

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There is, I have to admit, somewhere in the back of my mind, the bleeding-heart academic’s voice still arguing for Unmod rights, even for equal access to Juvenex vaccines and gel implants for all, as insane as such a policy would be—especially in the decades since the Riots. (Have I already remembered to you the night Detroit was bombed? I think that must have been... more than a century ago.) Not that those treatments would be any use now, for their kind. Not after what we’d poured into the lower atmospheres and seeded into the water supplies to try to rid ourselves of them. The only “humane” route, we told each other.

Back then, we used to say such things. I think we even believed them. But our politics became much more hardline as we came to grips with the stark truths of limited resource replenishment rates and the limitless capacity of Unmods to reproduce. Who could have ever guessed that one day, pollution itself would be seized upon as an expedient tool to keep the Unmod population in decline? But why am I telling you all this? This is in your memory vaults, I’m sure.

Standing there in the stall, holding the real fiber costume, I briefly thought that I could pretend to be one of them. Into my mind flashed all the questions one asks at a moment like that: how did the creature get in here? Was it carrying any sanctioned biocontaminents my Basic nanite loadout hadn’t been updated for? Was it one of the violent, berserker ones you see in the threedees?

I touched the portion of the changing stall door that would deform under the heat of my hand, wondering as I did so if the Unmodified were cold to the touch, as I’d heard, then hoping in

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the next instant I’d never have occasion to find out. As the door swung open, it was standing right there, just to the side: skin curiously free of lesions, sunken golden-green eyes fixed upon me, and hair tucked back neatly. It wore a Macy’s name tag.

I froze. Something about the way it stood gazing struck me as unthreatening. In the back of my mind raged the incredulous, the unhinged, the perplexed, the explosive recriminations I would surely be lodging against the Macy’s bonds-holders who would put an unsuspecting genevestor in this position. But somehow, now at the forefront of my mind, was the old curiosity at this creature’s presence—even curiosity over what life was like for it.

Neither of us said anything for a long while, perhaps minutes, until its gaze dropped to the textile garment I was holding.

It gasped, “Would... you... like…” It paused. A creature of the underworld, raised up from the streets. An unwelcome reminder of what we used to be. I thought it expected to be interrupted, but I waited for it to finish. “...a... garment... shield?”

What I knew it intended to ask was, did I plan to go outside?

No fabric, whether of synthetic or phenomenally expensive natural fibers, could long endure exposure to the biosmog.

I pictured what the same smog had done to its lungs. My eyes searched for some place to land—somewhere other than its nametag or its eyes. None of the Unmods could hope to recover from the decay of even the first missed gel treatments. Once the flesh began to die, the process could never be fully reversed.

I spotted a quicksilver ripple rolling between its hair follicles, a wave of millions of nanophages in one tiny droplet, massaging its scalp to stimulate blood flow and scraping away miniscule 71

flecks of skin. Not enough to reverse the decay, but enough to keep it in check.

I was furious. Not with the Macy’s bonds-holders, for raising this creature up and providing it with Basic medical care. Or rather, not only with them.

“Thank you, no,” I replied, with care. It nodded, and stepped minutely aside.

It wasn’t until later, as Alex was getting genesworn to BMW-Tesla, that it occurred to me to try to recall the creature’s name, but by then I’d already forgotten. Too little memory to spare, I suppose. It had offered me a garment shield, so that the suit I chafed at through the ceremony would be able to withstand the same conditions that had ravaged its flesh.

I’ve told you this before, haven’t I? I think that will be all for now; there’s work to be done. Tomorrow, I’d like it if you’d remember for me something from before the Consolidation. I don’t care what. Just nothing recent.

And before I forget… delete any references I’ve made to Alex, in all your records.

I’m sure Alex has done the same, by now.

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We all know unluckiness can be contagious.

nmc magazine

Pins and Needles by kamrom williams

A visual representation of how a panic

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attack starts for some individuals.

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Bone Deep B

by deanna ray luton

oth my grandmothers inhabit skeletal structures that have rebelled against them. You could say my family’s matriarchs ache bone deep, a trait passed down to my mother and then me. *** i. Grandma My father’s mother was cast under the thumb of an abusive father and a cold, distant mother. Born in 1942, Grandma was taught the importance of family, trained to be a homemaker. Her father, the barber, wounded his soul in WWII. A few glasses of gin deep, he’d take his leather barber’s strap to his wife and children’s exposed skin.

Grandma developed a love for helping people care for themselves. As a little girl, she spent her summers taking care of her own grandmother. Rheumatoid arthritis had atrophied the joints in her hands. In a time before preventative measures of modern medicine,

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this disease disabled many. Grandma used her hands to bathe her grandmother and brush her hair. She cherished this escape from her volatile homelife.

Grandma fell in love with a high school basketball star. She fled animosity for falsely perceived security. At fifteen, she married her first love. Soon, she was pregnant with little Billy. Then came Aunt Debbie, and Dad made three. In the beginning, her husband was full of charisma and charm. Fatherhood caused his traumatic childhood to boil over into spousal abuse. Grandma said, to his credit, he never hit the kids.

In the 50s, single parenthood was a rarity inductive of shame. Grandma challenged social norms—putting selflove above her domestic duty. She became a strong and independent single mother.

She worked long hours at the factory to support her family. The assembly line’s repetition made her body throb.

Grandma met Grandpa at a local tavern. She found in him the gentle kindness missing from her first marriage. She healed through peace and tranquility. He and his siblings used their hands to build her a four bedroom

nmc magazine

house on a hill. She pursued her beauty school dreams and became a licensed cosmetologist. She used her hands and feet in her daily life—her hips, her spine, her elbows and knees.

Grandma adored my loose ringlets and insisted my mother not let anyone else trim them. But slowly, she began to lose the litheness in her nimble finger tips. Today arthritis has rusted her joints. She no longer masters the hinge of scissors. Without her, my mane grows untamed, curls spiraling into split ends.

Grandma is retired from a lifetime cultivating beauty. *** ii. Granny My mother’s mother was a byproduct of the counterculture, born in 1952.

Granny blossomed in the 60s, her rebellion fueled by young love and LSD. Her mother was a proud member of the NRA. Grandma Great said she’d knock a man to the ground with the barrel of her rifle before she’d let him lay a hand on her.

Granny, a free love hippie, wanted to be everything her parents would never be.

Granny fell in love with a cowboy turned outlaw. At 22, she became a

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mother to twins, unexpectedly. When Papa’s lumberjack aspirations took her away from the protection of her family, he battered her womanhood. Granny spent eighteen years being regularly beaten black and blue and bloody. They never married, but she grew attached to her captor. Whenever she tried to flee, Papa threatened to burn down houses to bring her home—even my mother’s very own.

Granny was in awe of Northern Michigan’s natural beauty. She spent long days at work in the woods. She used her hands to wield chainsaws, feed chipmunks, and braid her daughter’s hair.

One summer afternoon, she was alone in the woods with the twins. Her chainsaw stalled, so she used Papa’s. It kicked back and sliced her arm to the bone. Granny’s hands weren’t strong enough to make the mechanical beast submit.

Granny craved tranquility. After almost two decades of abuse, she vowed to never again put herself in danger.

Slowly, she filled a storage unit with her most prized possessions before she finally vanished. Flames licked the walls of their house when Papa came home from the woods to find it empty.

Reborn from its ashes, he always promised her a parcel of property and a log cabin fit for the cover of Home & Garden magazine. Granny fell for Papa’s manifest destiny. He won her back with persistence and a deed to ten acres where he would build her dream home with his bare hands. He harvested cherry and maple trees, acquired white oak. Cancer took his life before he finished the floor, but he built a three story log cabin from the foundation up with help from assorted friends and family.

Granny discovered the stability of solitude. Self-inflicted scars from the past haunt her present with consequence.

Doctors say her lifestyle shaped her body’s decay, warn my mother not to follow her footsteps. Osteoporosis set in long ago, her weakened bones continue to shatter when she loses balance. She aches arthritic on the verge of a big rain. Granny spent most of my childhood in and out of the ER. Ulcerative colitis wreaks havoc on her digestive system as a result of decades of constant stress.

Granny has a green thumb. She nurtured her plants, wilted and bloomed alongside them. She has never 75

been afraid to get her hands dirty. When I was little, she enlisted me to help fill her flower beds made from heavy boulders harvested from the quarry of her densely wooded driveway. In the spring and summer, her secluded oasis is in full bloom: color and texture breaking up the forest’s monotony. *** iii. Mom My mother was raised to be a laborer. She learned to cook and clean, along with a plethora of other practical skills.

As soon as she was old enough to toss a piece of firewood in the back of a pickup truck, she worked from sun up to sun down to help provide for the family.

Domestic violence stained her childhood traumatic like coffee and cigarette teeth.

Mom fell off the back of a truck when she was young: her hand broke on impact.

Without medical attention, the bones healed incorrectly. At only nineteen, she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in the aftermath of constant physical and emotional trauma. When I was a baby, she broke her foot falling off the porch in order to protect me, nestled safely in my car seat. Her face contorts in pain when 76

I massage her foot; I feel bone fragments long ago strayed from their birthplace.

Mom fell in love with a blue-collar welder. She dreamed of security and a happy family. Trauma from the past left its mark, her brain rewired to react as if in danger. I remember waking her because I had a nightmare. Startled, she jumped to her feet, disoriented, ready to swing at childhood demons with her own two fists. I never understood why her eyes flashed with fear and anger when I snuck up behind her at the movie store as a mischievous little kid. Her body is in a permanent state of self-defense.

Mom devoted herself to motherhood and housewifery. Four years after I was born, she gave me a little brother on Daddy’s birthday. Three years later to the day, Daddy was struck by lightning.

Mom says his once good-humored nature turned sour. He became Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Most people don’t survive that voltage, but luckily his welding truck reduced the amperage. Accidental electroshock therapy surfaced repressed childhood memories. He adopted a negative attitude toward women. Dad

degraded and insulted Mom regularly.

He wanted her weakened with his words so she wouldn’t leave.

Mom flirted with financial independence. She became a budtender with the wave of medical marijuana’s commodification. Mary Jane eased the impact of her childhood pain. She used her hands to clean vacation houses in beautiful destinations along Michigan’s waterfronts. Her fingertips made glass, marble, and hardwood sparkle. After over a decade of incessant verbal abuse, we left Dad on his birthday.

Mom’s heart was stolen by a farmer. His skilled hands taught her how to love passionately, without passivity.

Mom nursed a vegetable garden in our backyard this past summer. She seeded tomatoes, planted potatoes, and onions sprouted from the season before. She is a force of nature *** iv. Me Our identities are shaped by childhood experiences. Naturally, storms my parents weathered leaked through the roof of our family home. I saw first-hand the water damage of abuse. My father

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tried so hard not to be a reflection of his that he became a ghost. My mother purified as much of the toxic radiation left over from exposure to her nuclear family as she could. Violence and trauma brand us irrevocably.

I have always had a penchant for self-destruction. I fractured my wrist in intermediate school capture the flag. I tore my rotator cuff at high school track practice, throwing shot-put and discus. In college, I slipped on the ice and cracked my patella. Weak-kneed, I never got an x ray, despite the school nurse’s insistence, due to my lack of health insurance. When humidity is high, my bones ache. Pain radiates up my thigh and down my calf, through my wrist to my fingertips and up my forearm. I never understood the weight of wear and tear on this mechanical marriage we call our mind and body.

I use my hands to dull the edge of pain’s blade. I became Mom’s personal masseuse. With practice and repetition, I developed a knack for kneading knots beneath her skin. My hands are magic.

My fingertips can feel tension built up between bone, muscles, and tendons. I

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Our hands do so much for us; I cannot imagine losing the mobility in mine. learned the balance of gentle, yet persistent pressure needed to relieve her pain.

At seventeen, I was tangled in the web of a man who was seven years older than me. He tested my predisposition for masochism. I passed. Part of me idealized the brutality of being “loved” so forcefully. I fell victim to cold, calculated doses of affection. I convinced myself intermittent abuse equalled normalcy.

Our arguments struck me as passionate instead of abusive under the flammability of alcohol. He told me not to touch him, that I was so clingy I disgusted him. Now I struggle expressing empathy for people I love through touch.

I’m addicted to creativity. My childhood emotional outlet of finger painting and molding Play-Doh evolved into watercolors, acrylics, charcoals, pastels, and clay. My hands allowed me to scribble once upon a time fairy tales steeped in witchcraft, magic, and royalty, scrawl long-hand verses of poetry, and fer-

vently turn pages in paperback books.

I became a student worker, and my fingertips flashed across keys, engaged in collegiate journalism and email correspondence. Our hands do so much for us; I cannot imagine losing the mobility in mine.

I fell in love with myself. I am the master of my own making.

Transcendence is achieved through self-awareness and reflection. Enlightenment can be painful. Contemplate the culmination of experiences that comprise us. Let trauma be the catalyst to our evolution instead of our destruction.

We are all a product of our ancestors’ decay. Those who have come before us cement the foundation of our frames of mind. We must be mindful of the way our actions mirror our experiences. My matriarchy gave me blueprints on how to survive womanhood. They gave me cautionary tales on how to avoid monsters in the shape of men.

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Half Her Kingdom by claira d. humphrey

A watercolor painting of the Greek goddess Persephone, a large pomegranate as her moon, and the seeds her rain.

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nmc magazine

Crushed by lyric belle

W

ikipedia defines pressure as “the continuous physical force exerted on or against an object by something in contact with it” or “the use of persuasion, influence, or intimidation to make someone do something.” As I read this definition, a chuckle stifles itself in my chest before it can escape. That’s me. I’m the object. Let’s make that object into a diamond for the sake of this, though I can’t stand them. At least they’re something widely appreciated.

I know it takes a lot of constraint to make a diamond, but too much pressure will crush anything. Though, with just the right amount, a jewel shines. I’ve always had too much force on me and have been chiseled away at just enough to shine but never polished. So when the tiniest bit of stress is alleviated, I think, since it’s the best I’ve ever felt, that it’s the best I can ever feel.

That’s what an abusive relationship is like: it’s better than you’ve ever had, or expected, so it can’t get better than this.

Because once someone holds you and knows what all has been done to you the thought doesn’t occur they’d do that to you too.

So when he does, it is like having every single important man in your life spit on you and then the rickety shelter you find com-

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forting, in the form of a boy, leaks on you from the rain, it feels the same. So even though the impossible ideal of perfection he needs from you, in the form of a spotless house, impeccable body, and beautiful style is more pressure than anyone should have to take, it’s different than before, so you trick yourself into thinking you are shining brighter than ever; and maybe you do for a short while. Then what you are covering up to look better, the house you cannot maintain, the hair on your head becoming an untamable tangled mane starts to be its own pressure. The lack of food simmers beneath the way you try not to ask for it and the way you don’t get to pick what you want off the menu. Or else risk another call out in front of everyone for needing it. Like last time with the idea of popcorn at the movies. Look, you’re thinner than you’ve ever been so you must be healthier than ever: exquisitely sparkling, you tried to coerce yourself into believing.

You’re no longer drowned out by the cacophony of screams, now obliterated by the silence.

Much like putting my feet on the vent we shared, it feels nice at first so you quickly learn to depend on it. Even when it starts to burn you, when the heat shuts off you’re left with a wet-cold patch on your feet where the heat was. I feel that wet-cold now.

“It only felt like love because your heart didn’t know what box to put it in.” I hear on the TV, and though it’s corny, it’s the sort of thing I force into consideration now. Like the fact that if I’m a diamond that’s been chiseled away at but unpolished, not gleaming, of course I don’t like the way I look or this classification of gemstones in general. I’m one that’s never been polished. But someday, when I am, I hope to be undeniably glossy and glistening.

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KAJETAN MORMAN TO SELECT/DESIGN

Uncomfortable Creatures 80

by kajetan nmc morman magazine

NMC MAGAZINE Amanda Coddington

Rachel Esckelson

editor-in-chief

literary staff

design staff

Ann Hosler

C. L. Dunklow

production manager

literary staff

Kajetan Morman

James Russell

Anne-Marie Kabat

design editor

literary staff

McKenzie Leishman

Deanna Luton

design co-editor

literary staff

design staff

Rachel Lynn Moore

Tamara Wiget

Alissia J. R. Lingaur

literary editor

literary staff

faculty adviser

Lyric Belle

Matt Esckelson

Caroline Schaefer-Hills

literary staff

design staff

N M C . E DU/ N M C M AGA Z I N E

design staff

Hannah Strong design staff

Kristy Tompkins

faculty adviser

Nichole Hartley web admin

PAPER

FONTS

PRINTING

cover: lynx opaque white cover smooth 80 lb. body: lynx opaque text smooth 70 lb.

headline: dunbar low body: mrs. eaves ot

volume 41 issue 1 fall 2018 printed by: brd printing, inc. lansing mi

STAFF

Liam Strong

cover art by:  

N M C M A G A Z I N E FA L L 2 0 1 8

VOLUME 41 ISSUE 1

N M C M A G A Z I N E FA L L 2 0 1 8 V O L U M E 4 1 - I S S U E 1

This semester, the essence of the NMC Magazine kindled with ideas of inclusivity for all mediums, styles, and extrapolations of creativity. We wanted to see anything and everything, advocating for all voices to be heard. NMC Magazine thrives off the imaginative opportunities of proposing a theme for students, but for this issue we decided to rescind. The theme, then, is themeless. The perspectives of many different fields are procured here, to garner insight into a constellation of topics unburdened by a typical theme. The staff, students, and faculty echoed creative thoughts, exploring the intrinsic and the conversational. I implore you to not only divulge connections between submissions, but to also experience inspiration unfolding.   Editor-in-Chief