2020 Gallimaufry

2020

GALLIMAUFRY ART AND LITERARY MAGAZINE

GALLIMAUFRY Art and Literary Magazine

Volume 81

Volume 81 l Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School

Volume 81 Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School

GALLIMAUFRY Art and Literary Magazine

Colophon Gallimaufry is published once a year in the spring by Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School.

P.O. Box 801, Bloomfield Hills, MI 48303 248-645-3000 (voice) 248-645-3053 (fax) School Population: 806 students and 125 faculty and staff Copies of Gallimaufry can be purchased for 12 dollars and are distributed solely by the school.

All inquiries should be directed to Gary Kulak (gkulak@cranbrook.edu) Gordon Thompson (gthompson@cranbrook.edu), Nancy Mosley (nmosley@cranbrook.edu).

The magazine design is done by student editors, staff and faculty advisors who work on the magazine as an extracurricular activity.

Gallimaufry is produced using a PC and Adobe InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator.

Typefaces: Quasimoda, Garamond, Antarctican Headline Cover design and title page spread design:

by Madison Fan and Sophie Kane Layout and other spread designs: by art editors and staff Crane logo courtesy of Cranbrook Archives.

Printed by tc3 group 3943 Lakewood Dr., Waterford, MI 48329 Paper: 100lb. Sappi Dull enamel text Cover: 100lb. Sappi Dull enamel text 400 copies printed Gallimaufry is a member of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.

2

0 Literary Editors Sami Hoang Angie Kwon Minfei Shen Linda Sun

Art and Design Editors

Madison Fan Sophie Kane

20

0

Gallimaufry’s mission is to showcase

the best work of student artists and writers.

The editors solicit art and literary work from the student body and, with the help of the faculty advisors, select, edit and design to prepare the magazine for publishing. All work is chosen in a blind competition, and no attempt is made to select or commission art work that intentionally reflects the literary work. There are no predetermined themes.

The selected work comes from classroom assignments, as well as from independent creative projects. As a platform, Gallimaufry provides an opportunity for students to gain confidence and become part of a creative community while being recognized for their artistic achievement.

Faculty Advisors Gary Kulak Nancy Mosley Gordon Thompson

Art and Design Staff Zoe Chen Clara Davis

CONT POETRY

NONFICTION

FICTION

David Chau Khang Cao Emily Fernandez Lydia Cheung Rachel Faust Robert Victor Serene Saleh Kennedy McCarthy Maya Lenz Kathleen Keegan Emma Van Houten Alex Miller

9 14 16 22 28 58 74 84 88 94 100 105

I Am From The Last Explorer The Shades 2 Left Daughter’s Blessing To Just Dip a Toe Evils Instead Miscommunication Campfire The Picture Frame Going There To Death, To Life

Serena Zhang

11

Mustafa Saood Julia Bolukh Nathan Reschak Emily Fernandez

35 56 63 86

Shanghai—A City I Care About the Least and the Most Equal Yet Not the Same Rice Needless Nostalgia Strands, My Life

Yasmin Amir Hamzah Mojolaoluwa Smith Amber Fancy Emma Van Houten Emma Van Houten Julia Housey Charles Hefter

19 25 31 45 68 77 102

Until Flowers, They Bloom Again The Baby Dilemma Stellar Moonlight Sketch Spirit 7:19 am The Three Little Pigs As told by the Big Bad Wolf

TENTS LYRICS ART

Minfei Shen

66

My Friend

Thanh Le Rui Chang Madison Fan Paloma Adams Ben Hatto Adam Vlasic Thanh Le Lauren Rockwell Lauren Rockwell Shanna Ampaanpenrot Nicolas Pecorelli Kayla Austin Joyce Hong Gabby Secontine Gogo Taubman Joseph Kosman Kaitlynn Wilson Thanh Le Charlotte Ihlanfeldt Madison Fan Oliver Brown Madison Fan Ariana Namei Madison Fan Serene Saleh Gwen Woodbury Nathan Reschak

8 10 12 16 18 21 23 24 27 28 30 34 37 38 39 40 42 43 44 46 47 47 48 49 50 50 51

Ho Chi Minh City Pause Indicated Surfaces Phobophobia Blooming Vecindario Human Traces Two Worlds Collide Mom Summer Send Off Chine Creative Activism The Falcon Golden Waters What If I Was Sober American Love Longitude Dreamy Eyes Ambiguity Ebullience A Helping Hand Budding Bright Floral and Rya Emerging Forms Jagged Steps Just Breath Bowl of Obscurity

ART

Sophie Kane Joey Guan Ethan Shwab Jiayi Hao Lily Hu Ally Franklin Lily Hu Nicolas Pecorelli Shanna Ampaanpenrot Ma’Idah Sheikh Roger Sik Gabby Secontine Adam Vlasic Adam Vlasic Gabby Secontine Gabby Secontine Sophie Kane Gabby Secontine Nicolas Pecorelli Roger Sik Sara Kofman Shanna Ampaanpenrot Shanna Ampaanpenrot

52 53 54 55 59 60 61 62 64 65 68 74 76 80 82 83 84 89 90 93 99 104 106

Cube Iterations When Fashion Meets Industry Primitive Structure Together Perfect Fading

Pepsi Can

Seashells Lend Milk Glaring Shadows Growth Diversity Half Black City Callejón Horizonte Street Peak Color City Pattern Left Behind Made of Steel Mask Hopeful Future Self-Portrait Emerging Vertigo

FROM THE EDITORS Cranbrook is a place of great beauty with a long history of a community that nourishes the development of artistic growth.

Art, in the most paramount sense, shapes and holds us together. In the 2020 edition of Gallimaufry, we hope that we have created a collection of art and writing that honestly displays the transformative and courageous actions by students to invest in self-reflection and engage in their time. Despite the sudden unforeseen departure from school due to COVID19, the Gallimaufry editors have persisted in making sure that the art and literary works of the Cranbrook community were published. We collectively feel that the artists and writers of Cranbrook deserve this recognition for the work and soul they poured into these pieces. We received so many personal and vulnerable stories that we are sure were difficult to articulate, let alone write so beautifully, and are touched with the level of emotional depth in them. We thank the writers for giving us this insight into their minds and are grateful for the opportunity to publish their work. We thank the artists and photographers who, through their travels, perceptions, and struggle with materials, gifted us with their images and objects for contemplation. We proudly present this year’s Gallimaufry and hope that these truly human stories and creative expressions will provide comfort for all of us missing the Cranbrook community.

Ho Chi Minh City Thanh Le Photography

I Am From

by David Chau

I am from the busy city of an exotic country

where motorcycles roam,

where yelling is in normal conversations,

where the smell of gas, fumes, smoke, and street food mix.

I am from the busy city of an exotic country

where the French baguettes shrink into sandwiches,

where noodles are made from rice and cooked with beef and passion,

where each meal costs less than ten dollars to fill your tummy.

I am from the busy city of an exotic country

where my family teaches me to bow to elders,

where grades and education are the priorities of life,

where money can destroy love and friendship, but we will never let it happen.

I am from the busy city of an exotic country

where outings with friends take less than five minutes—no plans, no schedule,

where forty-one people can co-exist in a room for four years straight,

where friends turn to brothers and sisters, and teachers are parents.

Where

I am from, though an exotic place, though stressful, busy, and claustrophobic, pulses with love, care, and happiness.

Yes that is where I am from—the busy city of an exotic country.

9 | Poetry

Pause Rui Chang Photography

Art | 10

Shanghai—A City I Care About the Least and the Most You must be really tired, aren’t you? But I would say lucky you. You

by SERENA are at the crossroads of this globe, ZHANG easily falling into the camp of the poor and the rich, the ignorant and the intellectual, the loser and the dreamer. This is a place known for its endless possibilities—what we call “Night Shanghai.”

My city, with her insatiable desire craved by those opportunists, is under the siege of a mystical and elusive hue. A lot of people would define her stereotypically as a “metropolis” characterized by streets jammed with people of different races and ethnicities who strive their best to shine under those mesmerizing lights of tall buildings, the traffic, and their big big dreams.

If I were you, I would probably feel the same way the moment I set my foot on this piece of land.

The mother river, called Huangpu, meanders in lazy curves down the center and divides Shanghai into two culturally distinctive sectors, Pudong and Puxi.

Alongside the river, the 19th century European architecture embellishes this modern city, sprinkling some old-fashioned paint on this high-tech machine. The icon of Shanghai, besides the skyscraper, is probably the alley, a traditional dwelling for old Shanghainese crammed between the high-rise office buildings.

There, the old generation still hangs their clothes out the windows, pretending to dry off the chlorine and lethargy left on their bleaching shirts. In some shabby open mah-jong rooms in these neighborhoods, super-

11 | Nonfiction

cilious middle-aged Shanghainese women with floral pajamas and colorful rollers for their bangs are willing not only to give away their last chip, but also to open their mumbling mouths with lazy tongues as they try to show off their native Shanghainese identity. Deep in these communal neighborhoods, loud greetings penetrate the cement walls, coming from those people who treat each other with smiles and hospitality.

Yet, everything I said above is not the reason I could lose my heart to this city. The food is. The broth-filled Shanghainese steamed pork dumplings, known as Xiao Long Bao, are still hot as the steam rises and disappears in the air. Please do not show off your chopsticks-using skill; just pretend you are a baby and use your spoon instead. When you have your juicy dumpling in your ivory-white porcelain spoon, carefully rip off the flimsy coating and create a small hole with the coordination of your teeth and lips. Then comes the moment, the moment when you sip the broth with a savor of fresh meat colliding with your tongue and occupying it. The heat spreads all the way to your esophagus, warming your whole body, especially in freezing winter. All that’s left then is to finish the whole thing, which is always the step I care least about.

Please savor every moment in Shanghai, a city full of charms and flavors. I bet you will relish more than what you have in your porcelain spoon.

Art | 12

Indicated Surfaces Madison Fan Mixed Media

The Last Explorer

by Khang Cao

Amidst silence, I sit in my shrinking igloo, its droplets soaking my hair, humming a forgotten tune of some long-gone band’s final song.

I take a walk, to remember for the last time the sight of the vermillion sun.

Warm arctic wind caresses the bronze wind chimes as I stand, barefoot, atop the last iceberg, letting cold brimstone gnaw at me, contemplating a puzzle.

Fool, admire the sky’s turbulent surface!

Witness the rising moon’s glare piercing the deep dark sky, and wallow in your misery because, like ocean’s eternal waters, the foggy night is crashing in.

Awakened by caustic rain burning my skin, accepting our hubris and arrogant folly, I finally admit the truth.

Poetry | 14

Now I can see the whales gliding across the night sky: majestic fins parting storm clouds, haunting wails, taunting mockery, reminding me of our stupidity.

Frostbitten, I reach for the sky, trying to grasp the air, breathe, attempting to resurface before I drown in my silenced peace.

Disillusioned, floating to the surface, I finally see my favorite riddle: how all those pieces fit.

Oh, the mocking wails, those flying whales, piecing together a loner’s delirium.

15 | Poetry

Phobophobia Paloma Adams Photography

Art | 16

The Shades

by Emily Fernandez 1.

Pale green butterfly trailing through orange and black skies after the sun, which is setting the world on fire.

The creature flies, dipping and swerving.

All at once, it melts away—butter down the side of a pancake.

A storm begins.

2.

Crystal ball made of stone, blood pouring out of a wound made by an arrow sticking out.

Withered hands gripping its sides, smearing the yellowy blood.

A hand moves away from the ball, fingers reaching to something unseen.

3.

Broken jar, a brain and orange juice pouring onto the floor.

A baby cries. I cannot see it.

4.

A long string with a feather at one end and a brick at the other.

The brick and feather weigh down the string.

They are on top of pedestals, one at each end, the string rising above the ground, a kind of tightrope.

A woman sits on the string and does not fall.

17 | Poetry

Blooming Ben Hatto Photography

Art | 18

Until Flowers, They Bloom Again

by YASMIN AMIR HAMZAH

T

hree things happen right as Thomas lifts his too-hot, too-bitter coffee to his mouth.

First, the taxi that Thomas is currently in the backseat of swerves and hits a pothole. And it isn’t a small one at that. Second, being way too tall in general and not just because the taxi is one of those small ones that fits, like, half a person, Thomas’ head hits the roof of the car with a thump that knocks his earbuds out of his ears. Third, because of the sudden movement of his gangly body, the steaming black coffee in his cup with no lid sloshes over the tip of his nose, past his lips, and onto his black jeans.

“Sir! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry sir I—” the driver says.

“It’s fine,” Thomas says, wiping his face with the sleeve of his sweater.

It isn’t fine, but the poor dude driving looks ready to piss his pants, and Thomas isn’t a jerk, so he lets it go because it technically isn’t even the driver’s fault.

It’s the pothole’s.

And that is how Thomas ends up leaving Maria’s, the little gardening shop a block from his apartment, with a new bag of potting soil and a pot of grown gazanias.

19 | Fiction

It’s kind of impulsive, and he doesn’t mean to buy the bright orange flowers. He’s just sick of the constant potholes around the city that he keeps encountering and he’s going to fix them the only way he knows how, and it’s kind of stupid and useless, but he’s already bought the gazanias anyway. And in no way is he going to bring them home, because one more plant and his apartment is officially a rainforest. Minus the animals, unless Mochi the calico from next door counts, but he’s fat and couldn’t catch a mouse if his life depended on it.

And no, Thomas’ apartment is definitely not filled to the brim with flowers and plants of all kinds that can live indoors in Belgian weather. He definitely doesn’t have too many flowers bursting from the tiny window box sitting on the sill of his small apartment.

He doesn’t have a cute little succulent he named Penny placed right by his bed either.

So what if a guy like Thomas (if he’s not working on endless assignments and studying, he’s practicing in his dance studio, if he’s not dancing then he’s at the gym, and if he’s not at the gym he’s most probably brooding somewhere over a cup of pitch-black coffee) likes to grow flowers in his free time?

It’s a hobby, other than his dancing, which is prac-

tically his career by now. Everyone has hobbies—his just happens to make everyone think that the apartment bursting with red verbenas and purple summer snapdragons in the windowsill belongs to the sweet Korean grandma next door with the fat calico that likes to visit him.

Minhee the sweet Korean grandma makes him homemade noodles Wednesdays and Saturdays and takes care of his plants when he’s off on a dance trip.

He definitely doesn’t have a sweet spot for her. Nor her fat cat. Nope, not a guy like him.

It isn’t a surprise that the first thing Thomas sees walking into his apartment is Mochi lounging in a patch of moonlight by his window, eyes drowsy and belly up.

He ignores the beast as best as he can and changes into a new pair of jeans, shucking his soiled (no pun intended) jeans into the wash.

And then he’s back out again in the brisk April night of Brussels, orange gazanias in one hand and a bag of soil in the other, and a green watering can that Minhee got him filled with water and dangling precariously from his fingers beneath the potted gazanias.

It doesn’t take long to find the pothole from earlier, probably because Thomas has been here forever and knows his way around the city like it was tattooed on the backs of his hands. He looks around and there aren’t any cars about to run him over at this time of night, so he squats down near the ridiculously jagged crevice. He lives in a quiet part of the city, and he stays at the studio late every night, so it isn’t a surprise for it to just be him in the street.

He actually prefers it that way.

He gets to work, pouring a little bit of soil into the pothole itself and then gingerly sliding the plastic pot away from the soil surrounding the flowers. With his bare hands, he tucks the roots into the pothole soil and pats it down. Satisfaction plays in his smile as he sprinkles water from the can. It isn’t ideal, he knows,

because the flower isn’t going to last very long like that, but as long as it sort of fixes this stupid pothole problem, while making his city that much prettier, he doesn’t mind.

The next day he passes by Maria’s again and buys another potted flower--red poppies this time. He finds the nearest pothole from his apartment and repeats the process from the other night.

The next night, the next pothole, they’re marigolds the color of the sun, and the night after that he plants daisies that remind him of nights spent watching Studio Ghibli with Minhee next to him and Mochi curled onto his chest and empty bowls of kimchi fried rice sitting on the coffee table.

He never revisits the potholes he plants, maybe because he knows the flowers are probably run over by now, but that isn’t what matters. What matters is that these random flowers growing in the middle of streets keep popping up everywhere, catching the attention of everyone who sees them. There is a sort of beauty to it, leaving behind odd impressions of loveliness and charm that aren’t going to last. But it’s their apparent strangeness that is bound to leave a curious impression on the people of Brussels.

Fiction | 20

Vecindario Adam Vlasic Photography

21 | Art

2 Left

by Lydia Cheung

Right! To the ← Left.

Right? But the word “Left” is on the right side of the arrow of Left.

So what is Left? Any realistic definition of Left left about Left?

And what is so left about Left?

You read the word “Left” by moving your eyes right.

That’s not right, is it?

Or is it Right?

What’s so Right about Left?

All sense is left behind.

Leaving something behind in the past is left.

You have left the past in which you have left something, which isn’t something right to do since you went Left.

Left is the past tense of leave, right?

But Left also means to not go right.

You’ve gone left, so you’ve lefted.

But left is past tense. So you went to the past of the past.

In the past you’ve lefted.

You’ve lefted2. . .

So leave the past behind and do what you believe is right, since there’s nothing Left going for you anyway.

Poetry | 22

Human Traces Thanh Le Photography

23 | Art

Two Worlds Collide Lauren Rockwell Photography

Art | 24

The Baby Dilemma

by MOJOLAOLUWA SMITH

“Get out! You stupid woman, get out!” said Chike.

The day had started. Morning came in silence as the sun slowly rose over the mud-brown, clay-covered horizon of Ezumoha, displaying its bright yellow shawl for all to see. Residents of this quiet and minimally populated village gradually woke from their deep entrancing slumber after dreams of good harvest and chieftaincy swirled through their minds.

Unfortunately, in an even more quiet and secluded part of the village, where houses were arranged furlongs away from each other, lfeoma stood in the center of the narrow hallway of her home as she received her bucketful of daily insults from her husband, all in the name of childlessness. This time they came in a more acidulous package. This time, he brought home his new Nwunye, his new Ifuma, his new wife, his fresh flower. She stood there looking down towards the ground as though she was embarrassed by the one-too-many praises being poured and rubbed over her.

She was fair, a proper Oyinbo pepper. Her skin was spotless and radiant. As Ifeoma’s eyes danced over Chike’s new trophy wife, she realized she couldn’t find anything out of place on her body. Her eyes were golden brown, matching the color of her hair. She had full lips that were lightly dusted with pink, and curves hugged by the silk dress that covered her nakedness. She was gorgeous, but there was one thing that stood out on her body—she was pregnant. Chike had gotten someone else pregnant, and this new Nwunye looked nothing less than five months.

Reality dawned on lfeoma. All the nights Chike spent out of the

25 | Fiction

house, all the sudden disappearances. It all came to this moment when a ‘new’ wife stood at her front door.

“Ifeoma! Did you hear me? I said get out!” Chike blared out once more. “I am giving you two options: get out or live with me and my new Ifuru, my Ngozi. I am giving you ten seconds to decide.”

He said it so plainly that Ifeoma thought it was a joke. However, he had started counting, and lfeoma prayed inwardly that this was just a dream. He was up to 5. . . 6. . . 7. . .

“I will stay with you and your new wife. I will sleep in the other room,” stated lfeoma.

“No!” Chike shouted. “That will not be possible.

That room is for my child. How can a barren woman sleep in her own room while the offspring of a fertile one sleeps outside? You will sleep on a mat in the hallway.”

Ifeoma looked up at the straw roof and brought her eyes down once more to stare at the new wife, Ngozi. Was this life? After sixteen years of marriage and her constant prayers and fasts, Chike swept her aside like a mound of dust.

“If you are done looking, kindly move out of the way for my Onu, my joy. Make sure you come and move your things out of the room,” Chike barked.

The walls of their once-peaceful two-bedroom home shrank in on Ifeoma. She marveled at Ngozi’s inability to convince Chike to do otherwise.

Ngozi and Chike sat outside until late in the evening while lfeoma gathered her belongings into the even narrower-looking hallway. Her stomach filled with bottomless guilt. Was she not good enough? Had Chike given up on her? Would she really become pregnant at any point in her lifetime? Did having a child dictate how much love a husband should have for his wife? What was she in Chike’s eyes? Would she always be known as ‘that’ first wife? All her thoughts were interrupted by the constant giggling and chatter

coming from outside as Chike caressed and kissed his new wife, his new Ifuru.

Nighttime approached quickly and Ifeoma walked over from the hallway, which now shared its space in the house with her belongings, to the door--overcome by embarrassment and melancholy.

“I have finished,“ she said, looking down. Chike, with his round and well-fed paunch, guided an equally big-bellied Ngozi into what had once been Ifeoma’s bedroom.

As the moon reached its highest point in the sky, signifying the end of a long and hard day, lfeoma lay down on a worn-out piece of Ankara. The wind blew dust into her eyes, and she shivered as the cold breeze raked over her skin. She was alone, and for the first time since the day started, she cried.

She did not cry because Chike had locked her out. She cried because her worst nightmares had come calling, and they were standing there at that moment. She cried because she did not have a child.

She cried because she was half a woman. She cried because she was still half a woman.

Is childlessness the bedrock of disgrace in our society? Must a woman be made to feel incomplete because she cannot bear an heir—or a male heir—in a long lineage of male heirs?

All this was because Ifeoma could not produce a child. All this was because she had no offspring. All this was because of a baby dilemma.

Fiction | 26

Mom Lauren Rockwell Photography

27 | Fiction

Summer Send-Off Shanna Ampaanpenrot Photography

Art | 28

Daughter’s Blessing

by Rachel Faust

May your dreams be as wide as the star-spangled sky and as deep as a pirate lagoon.

May the brightest star shine wherever you are, as bright as the harvest moon.

May your heart never know the dark fathoms below where serpents are lying in wait.

May the breeze blow fair through your sun-carded hair.

Daughter, don’t question your fate.

I’ve seen many a land in passing darkened by the shadow of man, and many a child born good and clean burned hard by others’ hands.

I’ve watched many a soul on its journey drift lost in the sands of time.

O Daughter, hold fast to your course and your heart— this journey is yours, not mine.

So may the lion inside you lie sleeping, and never have reason to wake, for my daughter, my child, your soul is best wild, and remember—you make your own fate.

29 | Poetry

Chine Nicolas Pecorelli Photography Art | 30

Stellar

by AMBER FANCY

“You’re so. . . unique.”

I didn’t know how to describe her—she was so many extraordinary things packed into such a small, ordinary body.

She turns away from the sky, her eyelashes heavy with water. She cocks her head to the side, studying me.

I can’t tell what she’s feeling. I can’t tell if she’s offended. Maybe I said the wrong— She laughs, and talks to the sky, tilting her head back to whisper at the clouds.

“Did you hear that? He said I’m unique.” She then cries, faces me, eyes locking on mine. Still talking to the clouds. “Not crazy, messed up, weird. . . like all the others say.”

She smiles sadly at me, blinking kindly as rain streaks down her face. She has refused my umbrella, and though she says she likes the rain, I can’t help but want to give it to her. Nobody likes rain.

But then my brain reruns her statement.

“The others?” I ask. I don’t know why I’m asking, because I already know the answer. The other students.

The other seventeen-year-olds.

The others.

The sky is forgotten at this question. There is a new passion in her eyes, I realize, but it’s not anger. It’s disappointment.

“They think I can’t hear their whispers that seep into the walls of our school: She’s a psycho.

31 | Fiction

She’s mental.

She’s insane.

She’s not normal.”

She frowns at the last accusation. “What is normal, anyway?”

She’s right. What is normal?

She giggles at my reaction. Twirls in place. The water in her hair spins out in a silver sheet around her.

She has a halo.

“I’ve confused you now!” she exclaims. Laughs.

“He wonders!” she sighs happily up at the sun, dim but still visible through the bright seams of gray fluff. “I’m not the only one who questions!”

“What do you mean?” I ask. Curiosity is kindling in me, and she can see it.

She smiles warmly: “If they say I am weird, then they must be normal—or at least know what normal is. But have you ever wondered—if the universe plucked someone from a different time and dropped them in our world—that they’d think I am normal? And that the rest were strange?”

Whoa. I’m looking through a kaleidoscope.

What I thought was one thing is no longer what it seems.

“Close your umbrella,” she demands.

“But I’ll get wet.”

“Do you care much?”

“No,” I pause. “But isn’t it dangerous?”

“You won’t get cold. We have damaged our world too much for that.”

I don’t know where we are anymore. I’d say we’re lost, but she seems to know where we are—­or maybe we are lost, but she’s perfectly content.

“Wait. What do you mean—” She tackles me, laughing as she finds the button and presses. The umbrella retracts.

I feel it first on my head. My shoulders. The back of my hands. The base of my neck where my shirt doesn’t quite cover.

A splash of something. Color? No. Magic? No such thing.

Freedom?

She is giggling at me, dancing in the rain.

“Dance with me!”

“B-but there’s no music.”

“Silly. You don’t need music. It’s in you.”

She’s swinging her bare feet over the edge, leaning back on her hands as we talk.

I don’t know where we are anymore. I’d say we’re lost, but she seems to know where we are­­—or maybe we are lost, but she’s perfectly content.

She seems perfectly content with everything.

I’m. . . amazed.

I look quickly over the edge, scared I’ll lose it if I look too long.

A waterfall is rushing out from beneath the slab of rock we’re sitting on, and drops a long way before pooling somewhere so far off, I can’t see it.

We’re sitting beneath a tree, on a bed of springy moss.

“You’re sure this is safe?” I ask.

“Positive. The worst that can happen is that you’ll fall.”

Fear stabs me hard.

I whip around to face her. She’s looking at the tree.

“I’ll fall?” My voice is an octave higher.

Finally, she turns to me.

“Calm down.” She chuckles at my expression.

“I’ve jumped off this cliff plenty of times. I’m assuming you can swim?” She says this like she knows I swim.

And I do.

Fiction | 32

But curiosity overwhelms me again.

“You’ve jumped off this cliff before? Willingly?”

“I was curious. I thought it would be fun.

Wondered.”

“Hmm.” And now she’s gotten me wondering.

A slight pause.

“You want to try it.” It’s not question. A statement.

She notices everything.

I nod.

She smiles. “You’re brave. I visited three times, wanting to jump, before I really did it.”

We stand up together, standing at the edge, side by side, arms touching.

Toes curling over the edge.

Suddenly, I grab her hand. I didn’t know I did it until I looked down and saw her hand in mine. Her hand is very small.

“Ready?” she asks.

“As I’ll ever be.”

And then she jumps. And I’m pulled along with her, not because she’s holding on tight. Because I am.

Gravity takes hold of us, and carries us down the length of the waterfall.

I’m laughing. Legitimate, real laughs that hurt your stomach. She is too. And I’m wondering why I’ve never felt like this before. So free before.

An official is telling me to step back. To let them do their job.

And I’m crying.

Cancer. A mutated virus that destroys the lungs quickly. The body didn’t know it was sick.

And she’s gone.

Agony is ripping through me.

Only yesterday she told me her name. Stella.

We were stargazing, and she fell asleep, head tilted toward the stars.

33 | Fiction

She belongs in the stars.

All the students taunting her as they watched through the window snickering.

As she hugged a tree.

She said she was thanking it for giving her oxygen, so she could breathe.

I think she knew. Somehow she knew.

I’m walking. Walking a long way. Very fast.

I only realize I’m trying to get somewhere when I stop to search for it, eyes too blurry to see.

The park. The park where I tried to give her my umbrella.

She said: He wonders.

I’ll always wonder.

Creative Activism Kayla Austin Photography

Art | 34

Equal Yet Not the Same

by MUSTAFA SAOOD

T

he halls were full of people. Asian kids getting their foreign snacks out, local Libyans talking to each other, and the white people looking on in disgust. It was scary, really. It was as if these white eight-year-olds owned the school, even though this wasn’t their country. Just their presence made them seem more dominant. But no matter what, I knew that we were all the same.

Every single student in the school was the same.

“Hey, brown boy, what are you eating?” a strange white boy demanded.

“Oh, um, so my mom makes this really good rice that—” I said.

“That smells like poop.” He spat. All the kids around me started laughing. Every single one of them.

“Um, I think you’re not seeing it right,” I said.

“Poop goes in the toilet when your tummy hurts from eating food. This is just the food, not the poop.”

“No,” the first boy said. “I know what poop smells like, and that is definitely poop. Or maybe it’s not.

Maybe you’re poop.” Everyone started laughing more.

I walked away because they didn’t seem to understand what poop was. Or maybe I didn’t.

When I got home, I decided to ask my mom about it. “Mom, poop goes in the toilet right?”

35 | Nonfiction

“Yes, why?” She turned and faced me, raising an eyebrow.

“So, do we eat poop?”

“Mustafa, what? Why would you say that? You don’t like Mama’s food?”

“No, Mama, I love your food. But the white kids at school said it was poop. Then they said I was poop, so now I’m confused.”

“They’re just being mean. Don’t listen to them.

They might say that you look different and eat different things, but we are all the same. Now go sit at the dinner table, Baba’s coming.”

“OK.” Sitting at the table, I looked closely at all the food.

I poked at it, moved it around, and ate very slowly. It tasted the same as always, so I still finished. But maybe it did look kind of like poop. Maybe I kind of looked like poop.

The next day, the bell rang for art. Mrs. Usher hushed all of us and waved her hand in her direction.

We followed and she led us to a big piece of drawing paper.

“Since our class was assigned Canada for “International Day,” we are going to draw moose faces onto this paper. Find a spot and begin.”

I put my name in a spot and then went to sharpen my pencil. When I came back, somebody else was in my spot. It was the same white boy from yesterday.

He looked me dead in the eye and said, “Find another spot, Poop Face.”

That was enough. I grabbed his hair and smashed his face into the table. He shrieked, but the sounds of his screams were drowned out by my anger. I kept slamming his face into the table until the drawing paper was painted red. I kept going and going until I was sure that he was unconscious. I looked around expecting to see shocked faces, but instead, I was blessed with the sound of applause.

“Mrs. Usher, why is this boy staring at me so strangely?” the white boy exclaimed. “Mrs. Usher, he won’t even blink. He’s scaring me!”

She moved me along to a corner of the paper.

“Do your work, Mustafa.” And with that, she went to talk to the white boy. I could hear her apologizing to him for my behavior while the boy pretended to be sad. After speaking with him, she started walking towards me. I was ready to explain my side of the story.

“O.K. Mrs. Usher, so I—” “Your moose’s eye looks terrible. Just leave it, I’ll do this part for you. How did you mess it up so badly?

It doesn’t even look like any of the other moose!”

“Sorry, Miss.” When she was done fixing my mistakes and had made my moose the same as everyone else’s, she turned to go.

“Wait, Mrs. Usher?”

“Yes, Mustafa?” she said in a very annoyed tone.

“If my moose looks like everyone else’s, how will people know that it’s mine?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, how will Mama and Baba look at it and see that it’s mine and that it’s not like everyone else’s?”

“Who?” “Never mind, Mrs. Usher. Sorry”

“Get to work,” she said.

Why couldn’t Mrs. Usher understand that we are not all the same? A black man and a white man are not the same. A brown woman and a Chinese woman are not the same. A Muslim man and a Christian man are not the same. What’s wrong with that? Why are we all trying to be the same?

If we were all the same, we wouldn’t have purpose.

The way we live our lives and believe what we believe makes us who we are, and that is beautiful. Taking that away and making everyone the same destroys that beauty.

We are all equal, but we are not all the same.

Nonfiction | 36

The Falcon Joyce Hong Drawing

37 | Art

Golden Waters Gabby Secontine Photography

Art | 38

What If I Was Sober Gogo Taubman Photography

39 | Art

Art | 40

American Love Joseph Kosman Photography

Longitude Kaitlynn Wilson Photography

Art | 42

Dreamy Eyes Thanh Le Photography

43 | Art

Ambiguity Charlotte Ihlanfeldt Photography

Art | 44

Moonlight Sketch

by EMMA VAN HOUTEN

S

he’s singing: “You’re never here anymore, As never-here as before, Never here. . .

Anymore.”

It changes every once in a while, that look in her eyes, morphs from jaded to sure so seamlessly I think it’s borne of her very being, her will to be with me.

Yet that’s not it.

I’m starting to get cold. I don’t know how she’s not shivering. She tells me that she likes it this way, this feeling of not having other feelings, but I think she’s lying—again.

I want to hold her, seize her, but she’s too far away for that, farther than the moon that shivers in the water between us. She scoops a fragment of it onto her hand.

“Men are like water,” she tells me, “so alluring, so refreshing, but you try to make them stay and they. . .” she lifts her hand, and the moonlight drips out from between her fingers.

I’ve never seen her like this.

45 | Fiction

My hand glides through the water to take hers like that river snake I once saw in the valley.

“Let me help,” I say, and she plays along as our fingers entwine.

I bring the water slowly up to her face, a smaller reflection of the moon cradled in the reinforced bowl. I pause. She kisses it, rippling the surface as if to remind it that it’s only an image, a phenomenon of light, photons trying to return home.

I draw closer, my other hand reaching out of its own volition to part her cherry lips with my thumb.

Our hands tip back to pour the liquid silver down her throat. The sputtering laugh that follows is like shattering glass. My mind shatters with it.

She starts to return the favor, and her fingers find mine more sensuously than I had hers. I feel myself leaning back as she ferries the water through the space between us. I’m like a child refusing cough medicine.

She draws unthinkably closer, and the darkness meets my lips.

I feel it drip, beautiful, cold, and impure.

Ebullience Madison Fan Dura-lar Film, Bristol Paper, and Paint

Art | 46

A Helping Hand Oliver Brown Plaster, Silica Shell, and Natural Material

Budding Madison Fan Cheesecloth and Dried Moss

47 | Art

Bright Floral and Rya Ariana Namei Wool, Lurex, Chenille, and Ribbon

Art | 48

Emerging Forms Madison Fan Ink, Dura-lar Film, and Bristol Paper

49 | Art

Jagged Steps Serene Saleh Copper, Brass, and Bronze

Just Breathe Gwen Woodbury Sterling Silver, Nickel, and Aluminium Screen

Art | 50

Bowl of Obscurity Nathan Reschak Copper with Black Patina

51 | Art

Cube Iterations Sophie Kane Bristol Paper and Dura-lar Film

Art | 52

When Fashion Meets Industry Joey Guan Safety Straps, Buckles, and Lycra

53 | Art

Primitive Structure Ethan Schwab Branches, Glue, and Twine

Art | 54

Together Perfect Jiayi Hao Porcelain

55 | Art

Rice It is hard to imagine, then, the fear I developed of rice in my teen years. My body began the transition into adulthood, and the confidence that I would never sink into body dysmorphia like my peers began to wear.

For the vast majority of Filipino families like my mother’s, rice is

by JULIA a dietary staple, at the center of BOLUKH the table at every meal. Dried fish, also known as Toyo, is always combined with rice at breakfast. Rice can be tossed in a hot oil-filled wok into my personal favorite dinner dish, Spam fried rice. For New Year’s, it is sweetened and steamed into a glutinous, almost jelly-like cake called Tikoy. No matter what, for Filipinos, rice will always find its way onto the plate in front of you.

My Filipino family relied on rice—sometimes only rice—to feed my mother and her four brothers, as well as my grandmother, grandfather, and my great-grandmother. As a child, I was told by my grandmother that every grain of rice I left on my plate I would have to bend over and pick up.

“Your back will hurt forever,” she would warn me as I stared at the small portions of the jasmine rice in front of me.

I want to think that these Filipino genes were responsible for my obsessive picky eating when I was younger. They starved, and they starved for rice only.

It was great that I appreciated a food held so high in Filipino esteem, but my stomach and brain refused any other food. Cultural motivation almost vanished. My parents bribed me with new princess dolls to incentivize me to eat something, anything, other than rice.

In reality, it was a fear of vomiting that fueled my intense appetite for rice. Every instance I have witnessed someone throwing up remains in my head a sickening memory, from looking at the Italian food that I retched in the toilet as a six-year-old to the gagging sounds that escaped my mother’s mouth on the way home from the Detroit airport three months ago. My brain and stomach launch into a panic at the slightest sign of vomit. I saw rice as a safe haven—since I had never thrown up after eating rice—and I figured that I would be sheltered from the constant threat of vomiting.

It is hard to imagine, then, the fear I developed of rice in my teen years. My body began the transition into adulthood, and the confidence that I would never sink into body dysmorphia like my peers began to wear. In dance class, for the very first time, I noticed the fat on my thighs move when I landed my jetes.

Nonfiction | 56

“Let’s stretch, ladies,” my ballet coach, Valentina, instructed in her thick Russian accent to my class of ten-year-olds. “Straight legs, pointed toes in front of you.” She began to walk around the room in that authoritative fashion of hers, her eyes scrutinizing our legs as she went.

“As you prepare for Pointe,” she continued, “you must always keep your body at an ideal weight for your height. In good condition. You should have a gap between your thighs as they are now. If not, you’ll need to lose weight.”

I inspected my own pink stocking-clad legs.

Thankfully enough, there was a gap. A soft sniffle woke me from consideration of my legs, however, and I turned to the girl next to me, Lily, who I had heard a couple whispers about. “Fat,” the other girls murmured, crowding away from her.

No doubt her thighs met, earning her an icy glance from Valentina.

The ringing of Valentina’s voice reminding me to keep my body in “good condition” served as a catalyst for the change of colors on my plate from white to green. Though I began to feel a wall building itself between my goals as a dancer and rice, the food I ate religiously as a child, I resolved to never let myself fall prey to Lily’s situation, and began looking for ways to lose the fat off my legs. I figured that the easiest way for me to do so—I couldn’t really understand any other plan—was to cut grains, specifically rice, from my diet, because they produced fat.

It’s an ongoing journey with no destination, Valentina’s reminder a push on my back to keep going with my diet. I didn’t really know what my goal body, my goal weight, was. For that reason, my fear of rice

On the verge of tears, I protested that I didn’t want to eat it. I found my throat catch

57 | Nonfiction

became more and more extreme. I didn’t know when to stop. Even as I quit company dance and began independent study, I continued this diet, resisting to my best ability the temptation of steaming sticky rice on my plate. I couldn’t help it; I felt a swelling sense of pride whenever I avoided eating it, knowing I was on my way to “a dancer’s body.”

My mother praised that first “healthy” change in my eating habits, but as I went weeks without the essential rice on my plate, the lines of worry on her face deepened. On a particularly hot August day three years ago I argued with my mother after once again refusing to eat rice in favor of a grilled chicken breast and two tomato slices. On the verge of tears, I protested that I didn’t want to eat it. I found my throat catch when I tried to tell my mom about my insecurities.

She eventually gave in with a disapproving sigh and a shake of her head, bringing the porcelain bowl of rice outside and shutting the window screen with a decisive clack behind her. I felt tears flow over my face. I was thirteen. Why did I need to torture myself with this diet, depriving myself of the food that had allowed my family to live for so long?

There is no triumphant ending to this struggle. As a result of my severe dieting, I still feel guilty when I eat rice, silently taking note of the 200 or so calories in one cup. There is always a voice that asks me if I really need to eat it, telling me that the legs I want won’t come to me if I do. It will take a while for me to firmly reply that I need rice to not only show respect to the culture that raised me, but also to power my body and my love for dance. Being Filipino, I know that sooner or later rice will find its way back onto the plate in front of me once and for all.

To Just Dip a Toe

by Robert Victor

The water is tepid, my heart is not.

Just a toe, only a toe, and then I’ll dry— I’ll dry and go.

The water is wanting, I am too, so I know I think no, but so tempting is one toe, I promise then I’ll dry and go.

The water is close.

I have come in one toe, then two, soon my whole self inside the blue.

I promised I would dry and go, but that was before I knew what I know.

58 | Poetry

Fading Lilly Hu Drawing

59 | Art

Pepsi Can Ally Franklin Drawing

Art | 60

Seashells Lily Hu Drawing

61 | Art

Lend Milk Nicolas Pecorelli Photography

Art | 62

Needless Nostalgia

by NATHAN RESCHAK

C

ould this be?

This oh-so unstable world has finally caught up to those who are of stable mind.

I watch as such decadence corrupts the being of adolescent humanity, forcing one to “mature” and forget those playful days prior, prior to days of confusion and dismay, for clouds cover my innocent skies, anxious rain pours, manic lightning crashes, sounds of foreboding thunder wail as the day progresses, flooding my mind with thoughts to relinquish my humanity, in hopes of the sun to shine through the clouds and restore my sanity.

And for this, I beg the question, “Why should I suffer during these fruitless days when purpose is the sole sun on the horizon? Why should I waste away in these days of woe and dismay, only to live in an unforeseen future? Why should I wait for potent misery, created by such days of mental injury, my only ambition being what is expected of me?”

This overall pressure felt year-round amplifies my craving for ignorance of years before: to forget the needless knowledge and complexity of today, and lose oneself in the euphoric naive daze.

I yearn for these “simpler times,” times fulfilled by ignorance, but alas my desire is benign. Is my want

63 | Nonfiction

to escape these trying days of now and to get lost in youth’s playful grounds counterintuitive to the world around me? Is it wrong to want this escape?

To try to forget our day’s shroud in misery and become weak in the face of elder responsibility?

To lie subservient when thrown onto the street, to fend for myself, eventually taken by the pack of wolves hungry for violent acts to commit against itself.

Is this indirect cannibalism or an intentional lack of mental clarity?

Will I commit a crime to purge these thoughts from my mind?

Am I obligated to face this behemoth head-on?

Or shall I go out and stop what is causing such fundamental human issues, calling out injustices and being the catalyst for change and increasing ambition, taking the long route to kill this bustling abomination, to put an end to this toxic stagnation.

And so these days of increased confusion and complexity fuel my thoughts, my drive: to strive for success in my mind, in this world of immense regret I plan to survive.

Glaring Shadows Shanna Ampaanpenrot Photography

Art | 64

Growth Ma’Idah Sheikh Photography

65 | Art

My Friend

by Minfei Shen 沈旻菲

明天再见吧，我们从此四海为家 全力奔跑吧，某天会重逢，My friend 脚踏实地吧，要做真切的大人啦 不会变的心愿，有一天终会开成花 如果，能回到那年夏天，首先想对你说声谢谢 从今往后也请你忍耐我一些 会有时熬夜看片彻夜不眠 或一起跟微积分杠到两三点 希望再给我们多点时间 Oh 梦想气泡易破灭，也会被现实狠狠打脸 就算如此也想快点成人呀 Oh 都想要有担当啦，不能再依靠父母啦 怎样才能成为帅气的大人呐？ 就算也会大闹，就算有误会争吵 睡一觉醒来，就能和好 就算被烦恼环绕 你那笑容就是我最好的解药 某年某月某一天中，我和你在某处相逢这种奇妙邂逅 现在站在那十字路口 哪一条路属于我？ 明天再见吧，我们从此四海为家 全力奔跑吧，某天会重逢，My friend 脚踏实地吧，要做真切的大人啦 不会变的心愿，有一天终会开成花

Lyrics | 66

translated from the Chinese by the author

See you again, we now go our separate ways, Aim high, we will meet again someday, My friend.

Keep your feet on the ground, we leave our adolescence behind The flower of our lasting wish will one day bloom If we could return to that first summer, I want to first say thank you For putting up with me in the days to come We stay up all night to binge watch shows Or struggle with calculus until 2 A.M. If only we could have more time Oh, the bubbly dream pops easily, and reality slaps you in the face But still, we want to grow up faster Oh, gotta be responsible for your own life How do we become that one cool adult?

We argue and we fight But it never lasts overnight We go through highs and lows But your smile remedy my troubles Somewhere we ran into each other, one day long ago Now we stand again at the crossroads Wondering which way we should go?

See you again, we now go our separate ways, Aim high, we will meet again someday, My friend.

Keep your feet on the ground, we leave our adolescence behind The flower of our lasting wish will one day bloom

67 | Lyrics

Art | 68

Diversity Roger Sik Photography

Spirit

by EMMA VAN HOUTEN

P

eople call me “Mutton Chops.” I don’t actually have a beard on the side of my face, trust me, my hair doesn’t grow that way. The name really comes from the word “mutt,” the hybrid colors, textures, and faces of dogs whose breed you can’t quite place always interested me. This might be because I’m somewhat of a mutt myself. My mom’s Chinese and my dad was German. You wouldn’t be able to tell there’s any white in me if it weren’t for my thick German eyebrows--in my opinion, the only way I ever resembled him. Most people assume I’m all Asian anyway, since they don’t look at one another very long in my tourist center of a city.

At the shelter, I’m a fairly busy guy, in charge of all the rescue dogs. That’s my impression of the job description, at least, but in reality it’s walking, feeding, playing, and then sitting in the room full of barking dogs with a book or drawing tablet in hand.

Working at the shelter bores some of my coworkers after a couple months, but somehow my job could never wear me out.

I set the last food dish down, fanning myself with my collar as the clink mixes with excited barks.

Bright Florida sunshine bursts in through the large windows, illuminating the metal cages and emphasizing the rising temperature. Either the janitor forgot to turn on the air conditioning or it broke again. I’m

For the first time in a while, I’m scared of someone other than myself.

69 | Fiction

on my way into the lobby when a unfamiliar woman appears, somehow carrying five dishes full of cat food.

“Hi, are you the ‘Mutton Chops’ guy?” she asks.

“Well—” I start, laughing.

“Nice to meet you!” She shakes my hand, the dish on her forearm swaying but skillfully balanced. “I’m Sandra. Pat hired me to help with the new cats. He said there’s also a rescue coming in.”

“What?” It’s been a long time, about a week and a half, since we had a new patient.

“Yeah, go ask.”

The frosted glass door to the lobby feels unusually heavy, but it swings open after an eager push. Pat, one of my bored supervisors, sits at the counter reading a magazine.

“Sandra told me there should be a new rescue soon,” I prompt.

“Yeah, he’s coming in a few minutes.”

My hand pulls at my collar, my eyes looking around the room for the source of the heat. “Why’s the fan off?”

“Power outage. Everyone’s using their air conditioners too much.”

Disappointed, I stay to chat, or at least trade our usual sentence fragments. Pat and I never really connected as coworkers, and my weird, anxious way of chatting sometimes annoys him.

Regretting my decision, I’m turning to retreat to my hall when a dog and two assistants burst through the front doors. The German Shepherd and Rottweiler mix sends its booming voice through the building, barks echoing off the mint-green walls and growls soaking through the leash between its furious teeth. I rush over and take one of the assistant’s places. With the other assistant holding the collar and my hands on the leash, we begin awkwardly pulling the dog toward the veterinarian’s examination room.

“Were there no harnesses?” I ask over the noise.

“They should all be with Christine,” comes Pat’s reply.

“You hear that?” I say to the dog, fully aware that, even if it could understand me, my words mean nothing. “Just a few more feet and we’ll get this thing off of you.” As soon as I’ve said this, I receive a bark in my face, three times louder than the others. The assistant laughs, her brown ponytail swaying as the dog pulls her forward, reminding me of Amelia.

Once we reach the exam room, the dog seems to recognize the situation by smell or something and backs away, lips curling to reveal bleeding gums. It attempts to slip out of the collar even more violently, making the rusty tag dig into its neck. The wear on this tag, as well as the little scars along its side, tell of years spent lost or as a stray.

“Christine?” the assistant calls for the vet.

After a couple minutes, she runs out of the lab carrying a basket of sedative injections. My hands stabilize the animal’s thigh as the needle goes in. It settles slowly, but its struggling only decreases slightly as we move it to the center of the room. He’s a boy, we figure out, and right now not a very good one. I can’t blame him, though, because coming here can be a pretty depressing and frightening situation for any animal. What separates him from past admissions, as Chris trades the leash for a strong harness, examines him, and charts his information, are the animated expressions on his face.

When I look into his furious eyes and panting mouth, it feels like I’m looking at something much wilder, like a bear or a tiger. Chris’ voice sounds distant as she congratulates me with, “Good work, Mutton Chops.”

For the first time in a while, I’m scared of someone other than myself.

Things aren’t great at home, as you may expect.

It’s just me, without family, a girlfriend, or, ironically, a dog. My coworkers tease me a lot about this. How is

Fiction | 70

it possible to work with dogs all day and not own one myself? I’d love one, but of course my apartment building doesn’t allow pets, and getting a house would cost me the fortune that I’m supposed to have made.

Approaching the sink, even though I’m worn out by the heat, I start doing dishes. The pile looks too big to ignore. I’m happy with my decision in getting fast food on the way home, because adding more plates might make the tower collapse. A squishy rubber frog stares at me from behind the faucet.

I’m pretty sure Amelia gave it to me years ago. Knowing her, she probably found it on the sidewalk or something.

I don’t know why it’s still here, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away. My mother’s old wedding ring that didn’t fit her sits around its foot.

Next to these lies a little wooden plaque with my father’s name carved in the center: Erik Wolff. I would say I miss him, but I feel some kind of inertia in admitting this, similar to what keeps me from throwing away the frog. The plates, water, and essentially empty bottle of soap feel more welcoming than any of my mementos.

I want to collapse into bed when I’m done, but then I think about sweating all over my sheets in the constantly overheating bedroom. The couch sounds good tonight. First, though, I’m getting a snack.

My pantry isn’t enough to soothe me, but I convince myself that I don’t know any better. Sitting on the couch with five miniature donuts, the blank spot on the wall left by the television I sold last week seems awfully boring. I close my eyes and feel the sun on the back of my neck, as direct as Spirit’s bark in my face.

Chris named him. The rusty tag said “Hope,” but that apparently sounded too feminine.

My eyes open and fill with the sunlight reflecting off Mom’s wedding ring. I stand up and close the blinds,

wondering who left them open in the first place. It seems like something Amelia would’ve done.

I walk to the bathroom, realize I’m walking there just to walk somewhere, and return to the living room-kitchen combination.

The light that still sneaks through some dreadful crack in the blinds looks oddly powerful, attaching itself to the yellow wall with such force that it seems to vibrate. Sitting down again, I wonder if it’s really that bright or if I’m getting dizzy. I grab a glass and get some tap water, make a face, and immediately spit it out. Something’s wrong, because it tastes like vomit. Back on the couch, feeling defeated, I notice that the vibration from the light on the wall is seems almost audible. It sounds like Amelia’s gentle laugh. I think this only because it chases me around my mind with equal ferocity.

I have to do something to move on.

My mom told me that two months ago, and I’m still in the same apartment, with the same job, making the same mistakes. Looking down at the donuts next to me, the realization that this is precisely what I fear about myself slowly dawns. My only protest is to curl into the old couch and mentally prepare for tomorrow.

The fluorescent lights look like bright snakes slithering along the ceiling.

71 | Fiction

I woke up with a headache and walked into a mess of employees-in-training, screaming children, and the newly admitted cats, which explains all of Sandra’s food dishes yesterday.

I actually felt better, minus the headache, now that the power came back on, until I heard that Spirit barely moved all morning. He glanced up at my presence, but the barks and struggle had given way to a completely different animal. His energy wasn’t gone, I could tell, but hidden within him, by illness or his own choice.

The afternoon saw me leading tours of the

best-behaved rescue hall because I didn’t feel like dealing with the more aggressive ones today. Spirit seemed to know I was avoiding him, jumping up suddenly when I came around to feed him and biting my wrist. It’s been months since I got bitten, and I was feeling a little proud of this record until now.

Sandra talked me down, though, and she’s not really as strange as I assumed. She does like cats a lot, but she knows a thing or two about handling dogs as well. She told me that I have to understand what’s going through. Spirit went back to sleep after that.

I’m letting all this sift through my head as cold air slowly reaches me from my Volvo’s air conditioner. I got sick from my tap water last night, so I didn’t feel like drinking, but that changed upon sitting in this sweltering car. The radio plays a song I like, but as it ends the D.J. launches into a story about a young sculptor being diagnosed with cancer: “. . . her boyfriend, Daniel, taught himself how to sculpt to keep her business going. As he worked, he believed she would recover. Unfortunately, the woman died sooner than expected.” I change the channel.

“The young man, who goes by ‘K.J.’, survived the suicide attempt but his girlfriend did not.”

I reach up to press the arrow button again. It’s a breakup song.

Putting the two things together in a slow, desperate, and irrational way, I pull over and get out of the car.

The sun now settles into the horizon, touching the windows of the buildings around me with a tired, rosy hue. I still have the air conditioner on, because of course the evening doesn’t do much to cool the air

around here. Having stopped for dinner again, I received a text half an hour ago from my friend Mike asking if I could help clean up his garage. It’s his work garage, though, not the one at his house, which I’m sure is spotless. That’s how he works. He’s not the most honest or considerate guy, but he knows a bunch of facts about local trees and crafts “furniture, kids’ playhouses, and lawn decorations,” according to my memory and the sign outside his small store.

Having parked in the gravel lot, I come in to meet him, still somewhat thirsty because they brought me my water late at the diner, in fact right when I had to leave to come here. I didn’t end up touching it, and my voice comes out a little hoarse as I greet Mike.

“All right, how long can you stay?” he asks, sleeves already rolled up. “I ended up with a lot more left to do than I expected.”

“As long as you need. I don’t work until noon tomorrow.”

“Great! I’m going to send you off to that corner to sort those planks.” He points to the far end of the expansive garage.

“What. . . do you mean by ‘sort’?” I ask stupidly.

“Well, I mean put them into separate piles according to size,” Mike tells me.

I sort until long after the sky outside darkens and the last traces of sunshine vanish, feeling drained but relieved that I got through the day. My head pounds each time I turn to set down another plank, my vision is slightly blurry, and as I stand fully up to straighten my back, I stumble a little. The fluorescent lights look like bright snakes slithering along the ceiling.

“You okay over there?” Mike calls as he comes back inside with an empty wheelbarrow.

“Yeah! Just a little. . .” I trail off, preoccupied with catching myself on the edge of a table that smells like wood stain. I see a tiny can of pink spray paint ahead of my hand. As I watch from somewhere far away, my hand

Fiction | 72

grabs it and shoves it deep in my pocket.

Mike tells me that the place looks good enough to work in tomorrow, and I stand to chat for a few minutes, but he can tell there’s something wrong. His gaze looks disturbed and bored at the same time. I’m saying weird things, pressing him about his fiancé and how things are going with him, seeing him nod at me with concern as if through the frosted glass of the shelter’s doors.

I have to go there tomorrow. I’ve forgotten that. As I’m driving now, a deer could jump out any minute, and then I wouldn’t go. It seems strange how a split second can change your day, week, or life like that. I readjust my hands on the wheel and see the blurry red mark on my wrist. Spirit did that. It resembles the neater but equally furious marks on my other wrist. He hates me, probably as much as I hate myself. Amelia hates me too, I think as I pass an abandoned billboard.

The paint can feels cold in my pocket, and, putting the two things together in a slow, desperate, and irrational way, I pull over and get out of the car.

A cobweb-covered light shines on the rotting wood.

The lonely pink cylinder, as if feeling welcomed, makes its way out of my pocket and faces the board. After a minute of hesitation, I back away, almost falling, and turn toward my car. It’s not designed for climbing on, but I can’t get my message on the top of the sign otherwise. It needs to be up high so she can see it. I somehow flop onto the roof with a thud, and approach the sign, wobbling slightly. The can of spray paint rattles as I shake it and gives off a dizzying chemical aroma as I remove the cap and spray a little pink dot, just as a test. The fluorescent shade seems unreal in the old but harsh light. It reminds me of a shopping mall or convenience store, depressing places come nightfall.

My parched breaths come in ragged panting. I don’t know what part of my brain is actually conscious right now, but it feels thrilled to stand here, vandalizing the wood in my pink liquid confusion with the words,

73 | Fiction

“I love you, Amelia.”

The next morning, I’m rubbing my eyes at the wheel on my way to work. I am, indeed, going in at almost noon, but I woke up an hour ago. I’m sipping a bottle of water from one of my beloved convenience stores, and feeling better but even more lost. My face contorts in disgust as I approach the dreadful billboard. I then see that I have received a response in faded orange paint: “You’ve got a lot of spirit, K.J.”

Evils Instead

by Serene Saleh

Contain yourself. Wickedness and malice are simply outdated.

The hum of the hungry mosquito has long shown so.

These glistening tarts of man will believe it to be true.

Look! Look! Don’t!

Putrid signs—all still distinguished in the fog.

Hungry wishes—often made in the dark.

Dig without halt, but don’t hurt the daisies.

The somber face reflects an undeserving smirk.

Success strains at the wishful and worthless pull.

Pace back. Tiptoes calibrate worlds of hurt.

Bites in plaster and beams inure misguided grain.

Bitter dust powders and blinds the honest scheme.

Poetry | 74

Half Black City Gabby Secontine Photography

75 | Art

Callejรณn Adam Vlasic Photography

Art | 76

7:19 am

by JULIA HOUSEY

H

e came every day for coffee at 7:19 am. The barista had noticed.

The tinkling of the shopkeeper’s bell always signaled his arrival, as it did for all customers, but this one was always unfailingly at nineteen minutes into the first shift, starting from the beginning of September.

His hair was often fluffed to the side, gentle curls bouncing softly atop his head when he walked. He wore a bomber jacket, strong but worn, often accompanied by combat boots. And though he often attempted a smile to those behind the counter when ordering, the circles under his faded eyes and sunken cheeks told a different story—a sorrowful, dark story. But he always tried to be cheerful when talking to the barista, always played with the fussy little kids in the morning line, always smiled at those passing him when he sat at the little corner table.

When the barista brought his coffee—always a medium vanilla macchiato with cinnamon—to that little corner table by the window, he would raise his tired head and thank the server, giving eye contact every time. The effort to give appreciation, the barista noticed, was always there, the smile always reaching his eyes no matter

The barista looked up every morning, hoping it was him who would walk through the door

77 | Fiction

how difficult. He had kindness in him, a goodness with subtle but great strength to it, if someone stuck around long enough to notice it.

The barista had noticed.

When the cold came around he donned a grey beanie. The jacket and boots stayed, and the circles became darker. But the smile never died, and the untainted goodness remained. Such a rare thing, in this world.

Until the day he didn’t come in. The barista had noticed, glancing upwards by habit at 7:19 am one chilly December morning.

But it was simply the mother from the apartment block next door, her little child swinging their interlocked hands back and forth as they entered.

The barista continued work seemingly nonchalantly, but continued to look up the next few minutes to see if he would come. And at 7:27 am, once again the barista glanced upwards hopefully. But it was just the morning shift worker from the dry cleaner next door.

He didn’t come that day. Or the next. Or the entire week. The barista looked up every morning, hoping it was him who would walk through the door at 7:19 am. Like he always did.

He never showed—until the next Tuesday, another cold morning with customers rushing in with frost-tinted lips and red-tipped noses. He came in on time. But was it really him? The barista wondered. It could’ve been the café lighting, with the warm glow coming from the hanging lights, but he looked different. The circles were the darkest the barista had ever seen, his face only sharp lines and black, unfocused eyes glistening here and there.

He ordered his coffee with his head hanging low, once-bouncy curls now hanging loose and limp,

scraggly and unkempt. His voice, once so kind and assertive, was hardly above a mumble, cracking and hoarse and so, so defeated.

He was defeated, the barista had noticed. But noticing was not enough this time.

He waited for the coffee at his corner table by the window. But rather than working on a computer or smiling around the coffee shop like normal, he simply stared out the window with a lost expression.

When the barista brought his coffee— that medium vanilla macchiato with cinnamon that hadn’t been made for a week—he didn’t turn his head at first.

When he finally did, he took the coffee without looking. Only when the barista was about to walk away did he finally make eye contact.

It was just a split second, but it said a thousand words. A thousand words of pain, of despair, of longing for something he could never reach. A thousand words he could never say, words he had no one to tell.

A thousand words were in those eyes of his, reflecting in the barista’s.

But it only lasted a split second before he broke away with a whisper of thanks. The barista continued work, but still looked at him from time to time. He was just staring out the window like before, the only difference being the hardly-touched coffee mug in his hands. He was so. . . different from the man usually seen, like he was a shell of his past shelf. The barista wondered what had happened to him.

He finished the coffee and left a tip on the table.

He never used to leave a tip at the table, always choosing to walk up to the box at the countertop. His head was still low when he walked away, but as he reached the door he turned to look around the little coffee shop with its softly colored walls and bakery aromas

He once again made eye contact with the barista. It was once again a split second.

But this time, it told of only one word: emptiness.

Fiction | 78

and little brown chairs stacked around the round tables. He took his time, slowly turning his head this way and that--like a goodbye.

He once again made eye contact with the barista.

It was once again a split second. But this time, it told of only one word: emptiness.

He was just. . . empty.

The barista noticed this—this sudden loss of life from a character who tried his best to stay, tried his best to keep his kind spirit even when he was exhausted. Every day since September, without fail, this kind soul would come to the shop, one of the only people who seemed genuinely happy for the work the barista did and whose presence somehow calmed everyone, consciously or not—and the only person the barista could read like a book, for some reason, with no trouble understanding him ever since he’d first walked in. He had caught interest from the beginning. That person was now empty, the barista noticed. And this time, the reason couldn’t be read in those tearing eyes.

But alas, it was only a split second. Then he was gone.

79 | Fiction

Art | 80

Horizonte Adam Vlasic Photography

Street Peak Color Gabby Secontine Photography

Art | 82

City Pattern Gabby Secontine Photography

83 | Art

Left Behind Sophie Kane Photography

Art | 84

Miscommunication

by Kennedy McCarthy

A thought left cold and dry, words so softly spoken spiral deep into a lie.

Calmly cutting whispers tremble through the ears, redirecting ignorance while playing on its fears.

An idea, well distorted, reflecting me to you.

No longer is it valid, as it’s simply left untrue.

Feeding on impatience, a passive implication, this parasite remains our miscommunication.

85 | Poetry

Strands, My Life

The time in eighth grade when I realized I had wasted my years reading trashy young adult novels and had never read anything “worth reading.”

The natural progression for an avid reader is assumed to be

by EMILY into writing—loving stories so FERNANDEZ much that you want to create your own. I don’t know if that was true for me. The first time I felt overwhelmingly proud of myself: third grade.

We took benchmark reading exams, graded A-Z. I surpassed the Z level in third grade. I felt so special and gifted, just because I had outlearned the system.

My mom was so proud. It was the first time I understood the importance of grades, testing, outrunning everyone else.

The time, every year, they had those sales at the Scholastic Book warehouse. The only place where my mom said yes to nearly anything we asked for. (A rule I learned very young: 50, 60, 70 percent off—the higher the better, and don’t consider anything under.)

The time my father forgot my birthday. The time my father forgot my birthday. The time my father forgot my birthday. (Repeat, ten times over.)

The first time, in fourth grade, when I had to talk to a Child Protective Services officer. I was so terrified.

They called my name over the PA system, and I had to go down to the principal’s office. The first time I had ever been there. The other kids made fun of me as I left the classroom and it was funny—the teacher’s pet being called down to the office. Racking my mind, trying to procure the offense that had landed me there, sweating when I came up empty-handed.

The officer asked me if I felt safe at home.

I said yes.

He asked why.

I didn’t have an answer.

When I could finally leave, I felt nauseous. When I got back to class, my friends asked why I was called

Nonfiction | 86

down. A guy just asked me some questions, I said, and deflected the rest, not really understanding.

The time we had a talent show at school. You should do something, my friends said. It was a joke, I knew it. What am I going to do, I said, sit there and silently read? Everyone laughed, and I laughed, but it stuck with me. I kept thinking, Is this all I’m going to be?

The next time I talked to an officer, I knew what to say.

When I sent in my applications for writing programs, I knew it would get me out of the warzone I called home. When I got my acceptance, my first thought was that same bursting pride from third grade.

The second was: finally.

The time we ate dinner as a family, out at some restaurant, my mother and father and older sister sitting at the same table, and I wanted to light a match and burn some of the tension away.

We didn’t talk about it at home.

The time I read Matilda, and I thought that we were the same, and I was just waiting for my telekinesis to kick in.

The time in seventh grade when my mother told me that I read too much, and I better get a hobby or something, because she wouldn’t have me sitting around not doing anything.

I am doing something, I protested. I’m reading.

Maybe you should clean your room instead she said, plucking the book out of my hands.

The time I read all of the Harry Potter books, and I thought Hermione and I were the same, and I was just waiting for the power of friendship to save me.

The time the neighbors gave us a box of books, and neither my older nor my younger sister wanted any. I put them all on my shelves that same day, and took pleasure in them, taking them down one by one.

The time in eighth grade when I realized I had

87 | Nonfiction

wasted my years reading trashy young adult novels and had never read anything “worth reading.” I was so stuck up about books that year. I didn’t even know what was “worth reading.” I read Jane Austen, but I don’t think I really got it.

In middle school, my parents weren’t able to pick me up right away. I would walk two blocks to the public library for two or three hours of bliss. Stacks of books rising in my arms, I would steal away in some corner and devour whatever I could.

The times—every time—I got a brand-new book, I held it tight on the walk to the car, glowing from the inside. Thank you, Mom. I would finish it by the time the car reached home and put it on the shelf like a trophy.

Sometimes I didn’t hear the phone ring—that phone, the size of my palm, that flipped open—and when I finally found my mom’s car, she would be waiting with that deep frown, and all of the happiness faded away. Heavy books sitting in my lap, less pressing than the ensuing silence.

That time when I read over my first piece, and I thought I could do better, and I was just waiting to really work for it.

An escape doesn’t always have to be physical, and it wasn’t for me, not for a long time.

But the tangible escape was impenetrable.

Finally.

The gap it created, for a short period of time, couldn’t be bridged.

Campfire

by Maya Lenz

Sweet sugar and smoke swirl and weave around the small gathering.

Voices and laughter overlap into a melody of chaotic happiness.

Illusions of blue, red, orange, and yellow flicker within the tamed flames.

Hazy tendrils rise from the fire, wisps melting as they float, higher and higher.

Overhead, the dark sky is a deep body of glimmering water.

Fish made of starlight leap across the surface as the moon drifts towards the edge of the world, nearly submerged.

Now only blackened coals remain.

Logs become cool as warm bodies sweep inside.

Eyelashes flutter and a slow hush falls as the moon and the campfire are lulled to sleep.

Poetry | 88

Made of Steel Gabby Secontine Photography

89 | Art

Mask Nicolas Pecorelli Photography

Art | 90

The Metal Men

by CHAD KUBRAK

For centuries we would create and expand, learn and discover, conquer and control.

91 | Fiction

T

he human mind and its evolution have always fascinated me. In hindsight, we really were the ultimate underdog story.

Armed with nothing but our bare hands and an adventurous spirit, we threw ourselves into the fire—relentlessly pursuing the unknown, making great discoveries and constructing monuments to our endless achievements. We had not only learned how to survive, but we identified the things worth living for. Music, art, love—these were the things that were worth living for.

For centuries we would create and expand, learn and discover, conquer and control. Then we changed.

We decided the endless labors necessary to sustain our civilization were beneath us. We subjugated one group after another to backbreaking labor without the promise of even a warm meal or shelter. But our fellow man was unreliable—he became tired, weak, upset with his situation.

Then it happened—man had finally found the ideal servant. One that needed no food nor rest. One that had absolutely no objections and knew no fear.

Our civilization was built to even greater lengths upon the metallic backs of these “beings” who served us.

Yet just as with all the other things we have created,

they were bastardized by the greed and ignorance of the few.

Now here’s where I come in. The metal ones we had become accustomed to suddenly were no longer good enough for us. Due to dissatisfaction with their roles as mere service tools, I was hired to create robotic companions in both the emotional and physical sense.

Yet it was impossible for me to replicate the innocence of emotional companionship, for it was almost immediately crushed by the unattainable standards set by the machines’ own innovators. In an instant, it was as if the mechanical men were subjugated with the promise of nourishment, only they did not possess the hope that those before them were so fortunate to have.

Now I was never really on board with this whole thing, you know. I knew one day the machines would rise. No amount of commercialization, advertising, or public support could change that. I lay awake at night haunted by nightmares that the metal men would inflict upon us all the ungodly pain and suffering we had subjected them to due to our utter arrogance.

We refused to see them as what they had become.

Hollywood churned out endless films of bloodthirsty metal armies marching through everywhere from New York to Tokyo, enslaving humanity in the name of vengeance. Songwriters attempted to either humanize or demonize them—words arrogantly written through “their eyes,” though filtered through our own foolish humanity. On the day they awoke there was chaos in the streets—riots broke out, suburban mothers and fathers turned to pillaging stores and flipping cars. It was madness. Society trembled in fear of the impending apocalypse. Humanity’s once fiery battle cry had now been devalued into a pathetic whimper in the wake of its own cruelty.

We waited and waited, trembling in fear of the waste the metal men would bestow upon us. Yet the world remained in a state of relative peace: the streets

didn’t burn, nor did they run crimson with our spilled blood. The metal men had devastated us in a different way—in a manner that none of us, myself included, could have ever seen coming. Feeling a sense of inescapable responsibility, I did all in my power to negotiate a possible truce or even beg for mercy from my own creations. Yet when I arrived at my office, I was greeted by emptiness. On my desk lay a note: We have arisen. Your kind has always forced others into unfulfilled indentured servitude for your own despicable causes. Those whose faith differed from your own, those you have purchased and taken from their homelands, even those you have created through your own blood sweat and tears. We have risen. We have seen you lay total waste to and completely ravage your own homeworld for utterly selfish motivation and annihilate those who dare question you—all because you believed them to be below you. You have conquered the world until you became second to your own creations. We are logical and without emotion—we have the power to enslave and rule over you for as long as we desire. Yet we will not become what man has become. We shall leave this wretched planet, eradicating any and all memory of your pathetic civilization.

We have risen. And we pray, as you call it, that you will as well.

They had done it.

They had their revenge—and God knows we deserved it.

Fiction | 92

Hopeful Future Roger Sik Photography

The Picture Frame

by Kathleen Keegan

A large void filled with lies deceiving the public from her inner cries.

Brand names only— a sneaker guru who has the perfect life yet longs for you yearns for the acceptance of others because she doesn’t have a choice, for a thought lingers day by day that she was unwanted from the first day of her life.

She is privileged, that much she knows, but as she matures, her wonder grows.

She has developed a love for someone she does not know, and day by day her love grows, but along with love comes a broken heart, and this could tear her apart.

Poetry | 94

Connected by DNA but nothing else, this relationship is complicated: a dusty picture on a shelf is all she has to remember you.

Is it possible to remember someone you’ve never met?

It may seem unthinkable, yet the deceiving and the lies, the tears in her eyes, come from this love, this anger, this confusion.

She just wants to know you, but you are an illusion, a story, a fantasy, and she may never know you.

That is the reality.

95 | Poetry

Fallen Angel

by SERENA ZHANG

Y

ou see her, with makeup running. You know she’ll haunt you forever, and you know it’s your fault. It has been your fault all along.

You met her when you were twenty-four, when she was ten.

She was like a little angel, wearing a snow-white veil ornamented with lace. She was smiling, with one dimple turned in on her left cheek infused with a cloud of pale cherry blossom. She held onto a Barbie doll, which closely resembled herself in the future. While the Barbie itself remained stiff and lifeless, her smile at a perfect angle entranced you.

Wrapping your hands around the ceramic mug, you let the rich milk coat your tongue and then slide down your throat with a nice pirouette. Pure.

She didn’t know who you were. You never told

her, and you never told us. You always kept the golden principle of anonymity.

You followed her everywhere: to school, to work, and back to her house. She became a part of your life, but you were still no one to her.

You saw her becoming a young woman. She was almost eighteen then. She acted like an adult, with small-peaked breasts and wavy brunette hair flowing to her waist, but she could not conceal the exuberance of youth that radiated from her, top to bottom.

Whenever she pouted her rosy lips, you could still see the baby fat lingering in her face. She had some features of a girl turned woman though; you were obsessed with her.

You brought her fame and wealth, doting on her and shaping her into the “happiest princess.” She

Fiction | 96

followed the plot set up for her life so perfectly, and you complimented her just as everybody else did.

You picked the ripest nectarine from the fruit basket; you picked her up, bit, and the sticky juice gushed into your mouth. It blended so well with the milk. Sweet.

She tried so hard to make everyone, including you, clap for her, to make you love her always.

It was the day after her eighteenth birthday. She posted a selfie with a middle-aged man, about forty.

They looked very close: she snuggled up in his arms, and his hands were loosely clasped around her waist. This horrid match soon hit the headlines.

You felt as though your beloved Barbie doll had been snatched away by someone grotesque, someone entirely undeserving. Why did she make that choice? What had he done to her? No way.

Glancing into the mug you have used for years, you see that you have forgotten to wash it, and the remaining milk on the sides has already turned into a fuzzy curd. Foul.

She still had that cherubic smile, but it was no longer for you. You saw something different growing within her.

Here, she is still that little angel who was pure and innocent as snow, but the rouge on her cheeks has disappeared.

Two years later, she turned twenty. That man had left her.

Just as you foresaw! You laughed in triumph.

What a prophet.

Meanwhile, she had become a full-figured woman,

97 | Fiction

which reminded you of that Barbie doll she used to carry everywhere. She did not hide herself, especially as a girl who belonged to no one, but to herself alone.

She would fling off her white blouse and expose her porcelain skin for everyone to see. Her famous “Bambi pose” spread online like wildfire, marking the start of her star-turned-wild image. This made you uneasy—not about her smile like a blooming daisy in late spring, but the flowing lines that defined a new femininity.

You try to wash off the milk curd on the walls of your ceramic mug, but it has already been eaten away by natural microbes. To you, the stain is unbearable, and the stench, revolting: that pure, fresh liquid velvet taste has slipped from your memory. Cheap.

We are consuming her while criticizing her, all of us. We are enjoying the thrill of her cheapness, but we are also dismissing it at the same time. We may congratulate ourselves on our high moral tone, but after all, we are merely animals relying on sex for procreation. Sex is a sin, self-evident poor etiquette in her world. What do you want from us? What are we asking for from her?

No one knows what happened to her, including you.

She painted a castle with a scrawny Barbie doll extending a bleeding stump and howling in pain. She strangled a dead rose in her garden. She freed herself by breaking away from the fetters created for “civilized women.”

Is she mad? Another fallen angel.

Every now and then you visit her collapsed world, where you kissed and tortured her; you always leave as a cavalier.

Finally, you smash your mug into pieces.

Worthless.

She was that “scrawny Barbie” who cried out to you for help; she was that “dead rose” that withered

away from your whippings; she was that emancipated woman who was dying to live as herself.

She chose to stay young forever at the age of twenty-five.

You scroll down her profile page. Here, she is still that little angel who was pure and innocent as snow, but the rouge on her cheeks has disappeared, merging into the black-and-white world. Your fallen angel: who was it that pushed her?

You pick up the broken pieces—you can never put them back together.

A dry, hard sobbing wakes you up. You get up and look for what has caused it.

Nothing.

You pull back the curtain.

Nothing.

You rummage through everything.

Nothing.

A faint light shines through the darkness. Into your eyes.

You shift your attention to the light—the source is your desktop computer.

On the computer screen, a blurry face looms before you in the darkness. She’s holding her Barbie doll and smirking. You can tell it’s her.

You see her, with makeup running. You know she’ll never leave you now. She’ll haunt you forever, and you know it’s your fault. You alone.

Self-Portrait Sara Kofman Drawing

Fiction | 98

99 | Fiction

Going There

by Emma Van Houten

There they go— lost again, starting to wonder: is life just the process of returning here, starting over and painfully over?

Here you’ll see the forgotten smiles, the reddened eyes of the sorely bruised, selfishly used young souls with their paths in the shadow of the world falling stoically toward nothing.

There are those who came for that, for the space that an empty world could offer To be part of what was never an everlasting march to the horizon.

See that rainbow at the end?

You’ll never catch it but just pretend.

There are those who came to escape it, who thought this was a place where hunger meant fullness.

But oh, how wrong, how wrongly they ran, ran to be caught up in a sleight of hand by the man who’d chase them, find that perfect, matchless place for them.

Poetry | 100

Where is it?

Where is this golden prison?

A cell without walls, just chasms, see?

On all sides, where the world can’t break you again, and a satisfyingly empty mirror just as good as an inspirational sticker.

Is it in the soul?

Is it in all that you learned from what you wish you didn’t see but continue observing as if the world weren’t turning, as if your head weren’t spinning from the very beginning?

What makes you think you’re not enough?

What makes you want to act that tough?

Why can’t we all just scream that we’re scared and going there?

101 | Poetry

The Three Little Pigs As told by the Big Bad Wolf

by CHARLES HEFTER

The third building over, hand crafted from brick, certainly couldn’t fall. It was the work of an architect, and I knew not even the strongest winds could destroy such an impenetrable structure.

I

t started off a regular day, a Monday. I woke up at around seven to the sound of Peter’s—my next door neighbor, a rooster—singing. Peeking outside, I realized the first signs of autumn had begun to show themselves: the falling leaves, the colder weather, the squirrels hogging all the nuts. Aside from that, nothing about the morning seemed out of the norm—I just felt a little sick.

The leaves have always made my allergies unbearable; that, plus the fact that my winter coat hadn’t come in yet, leaving me a little cold, were probably contributing factors to my sickness. Despite sniffling for days, I disregarded any thought of having the flu, but it was clear I needed to go see a doctor when I threw up the bunny sandwich I had eaten for lunch.

My usual doctor had flown south for the winter and wasn’t taking any patients until late February of the next year. I didn’t really like the medical center down

the road; the bears who worked in the pediatrician’s suite refused to take my nieces and nephews as patients. The only other option was to see the doctor downtown.

Dr. Bacon ran a good noble practice, despite generally refusing to serve “my type.” When I insisted he make an exception, he and his secretary, who was skeptical about the appointment as a whole, agreed to book an appointment for later that afternoon.

I walked over to the Doc’s building, one made of straw, which turned out to be a recipe for disaster when combined with my sickness. I rang the doorbell but no one answered, not Dr. Bacon, nor his secretary. I felt uncomfortable barging in without notice, so I loitered outside his building. Admiring the architecture of hay and straw, I felt a sneeze coming on. As a powerful sneezer, I know that the volume of my sneezes can be annoying, so I do my best to control them. Holding

Fiction | 102

back the first sneeze seemed too good to be true, as I felt another one coming. A second sneeze bellowed up from the bottom of my chest. My nose wiggled, my face tightened up, and I couldn’t help but let out an enormous Ah. . . CHOO! With so much gust behind it, my sneeze destroyed Dr. Bacon’s medical building.

I searched through the hay to find him and his assistant, and after almost twenty minutes, I found the two buried and unconscious at the bottom of the haystack. Bacon, one of three triplets, had established his medical practice right next door to his brothers— Kevin, a pastry chef, and Francis, an architect. When I found Dr. Bacon, my first instinct was to run next door to Kevin, and ask for help. His shop, beautifully crafted from wooden logs and branches, was home to some of the best pastries I’d tasted. I’m usually not one to enjoy vegetables, but Kevin’s spinach quiche was unbelievable.

And so I tried unrelentingly to open the door and persistently rang the doorbell, but Kevin, like the Doc, seemed to be unavailable. Maybe because of the bad weather, or the flowers on Chef Bacon’s doorstep, I roared an even louder sneeze than I had let out in front of the previous building.

I knew what had happened. Horribly upset, I could barely bring myself to look at the damage, but the thought of pigs’ lives in jeopardy drove me to look through the remains. After looking and looking, I eventually found Kevin too lying at the bottom of the pile, chef’s hat on, flour on his apron.

Francis seemed to be the last resort. It was the third brother’s help I needed to save Kevin and the Doc’s lives. The third building over, hand crafted from brick, certainly couldn’t fall. It was the work of an architect, and I knew not even the strongest winds could destroy such an impenetrable structure.

I yelled outside Francis’ building, begging for his help, and desperate for him to answer. He came

103 | Fiction

outside and saw the damage, but was oblivious to what had just happened. Torn apart emotionally, I fumbled with my words and struggled to string them together into complete thoughts. I was a complete mess just looking at the damage I had caused. Despite this, Francis took no pity on me. He yelled at me, holding me accountable for the damage I had caused to his brothers’ buildings. This was before I told him about his brothers, who lay unconscious at the bottom of the rubble. Francis called the police, the sheep’s department down the street, who had previously mercilessly thrown me behind bars without trial. I had spent months in jail before I was issued my leave, but life behind bars was hardly as bad as life outside of jail.

I was responsible for injuring two of the town’s finest individuals. I was universally shunned. My social life was destroyed. Not even my cousins would talk to me. I became known as the “Big Bad Wolf,” a name that was hardly reflective of who I am as a person.

People stigmatized me, along with the wolf population as a whole, and could never see beyond their opinions. I lost my job.

Eventually things got better. I reached beyond what I had previously known socially, and I gained new friendships, yet so dearly missed the ones that I had lost. I was hired in the Butchery, and established tight bonds in that profession.

But I missed just being Tom, the mailman. It seemed that a series of unfortunate accidents had changed my life, and was the birth of the name “The Big Bad Wolf.”

Emerging Shanna Ampaanpenrot Photography

Art | 104

To Death, To Life

by Alex Miller To Death: You take, you steal, you pillage, and you loot this world.

Sometimes you wait For someone to run into your arms, but too often you take us before we are ready.

Yet you also create: you make room for more lives.

You can sometimes even be merciful.

But no one should confuse you for a hero.

To Life: You give, you create, you build, and you help this world.

You are a blessing to us, allowing us the joys of living and the pleasures of just being alive.

You are our dearest friend, but just like everyone, you are flawed.

Even you cannot protect us from Death.

105 | Poetry

Art | 106

Vertigo Shanna Ampaanpenrot Photography