Blackwater Review aims to encourage student writing, student art, and intellectual and creative life at Northwest Florida State College by providing a showcase for meritorious work.
Managing Editor: Dr. Deidre Price
Prose Editor:
Dr. Jon W. Brooks
Poetry Editor: Dr. Vickie Hunt
Art Direction, Graphic Design, and Photography:
Benjamin Gillham, MFA
Editorial Advisory Board:
Dr. Beverly Holmes, Dr. Christopher Snellgrove, Dr. Patrice Williams-Shuford, April Leake, James Suderman, and Dr. Jill White
Art Advisory Board:
Benjamin Gillham, Stephen Phillips, Leigh Westman, Dr. Ann Waters, and Dr. K.C. Williams
Blackwater Review Intern: Joshuah Jacobs
Blackwater Review is published annually at Northwest Florida State College and is funded by the college. All selections published in this issue are the work of students; they do not necessarily reflect the views of members of the administration, faculty, staff, District Board of Trustees, or Foundation Board of Northwest Florida State College.
Front cover artwork: Killing a Whale, Sarah Hawkins
Acknowledgments
The editors and staff extend their sincere appreciation to Northwest Florida State College President Dr. Devin Stephenson, Dr. Sasha Jarrell, Dr. Anne Southard, and Dr. Deborah Fontaine for their support of Blackwater Review.
We are also grateful to Frederic LaRoche, sponsor of the James and Christian LaRoche Distinguished Endowed Teaching Chair in Poetry and Literature, which funds the annual James and Christian LaRoche Memorial Poetry Contest, whose winner is included in this issue.
Unorthodox
Lucy Miree
In the tender womb of nothing, There was God.
There was Lucifer, endowed with the power Of forty suns to please Him.
“Morning Star” was the loving pet name Whispered into holy ears. Their bond swirled galaxies together, Then spliced them into supernovas. And Lucifer worshipped (loved) at the altar.
Ecstatic, supine, over and over.
Just once, glowing meekly, he asked To be loved (worshipped) back.
Horrified at how the light had possessed him, God called it pride, called it rebellion.
The first exorcism was carried out with a scream As Lucifer was torn apart and given new names: Satan, devil, smears of hate like whips.
And then God was alone in the empty.
Sneering, he made the day, the sun, the stars; Weak replacements for skin, a soft mouth, freckles. They were unyielding and silent, so he made more.
Frenzied, he vomited up willows and lakes and jellyfish
To fill the void. He called it “Eden.”
He made a model of himself, Adam, from clay. A true imitation, Adam was lonely.
The companion, Eve, was made soft and pretty and bright. She was a shadow of the enemy but called “woman.”
Of course, Lucifer heard about his echo. God had stolen her mind and strung It up on a forbidden tree
To keep her controlled and docile.
Cruelly, Lucifer freed her.
Blissful ignorance was burned away, Consumed with fear for her volatile and angry creator.
She and Adam hid for protection, Covering themselves in leaves and animal shit. Burning with an old fury, God banished them. Eve, for her part, spat on holy ground, And never returned to her lush prison.
And Lucifer? He no longer would grieve For his light that had become hellfire Or for the one who spurned him for being beautiful. Instead, Lucifer—no, call him Devil—would use that allure To remold His precious handiwork, His beloved. Let them burn.
The Storyteller
Jaclyn Tipton
One summer Sunday afternoon in Destin, Florida, with the Jeep windows rolled down to half-mast, and the AC still running because my dad didn’t worry about money now because he only chewed nicotine gum instead of tobacco, when the setting sun was filtering just right so I could see all the dust when we slowed down at the yellow lights, and when we passed the colorful Jeeps in the sales parking lot with the waving, dancing man dressed as the blue Statue of Liberty, my dad told me about the time he stayed on a nuke-bomb, radiated Airforce base in Uzbekistan.
“I was in a class for all the rookies who were fresh off the planes and still excited, and the teacher told us how we should never—Never!—dig in the soil because the explosion wasn’t that old,” he said, eyes glued forward, hands on the wheel most of the time. “I got out of that class, and me and my buddies all rode into that base together, shoulder to shoulder, on a big, green bus with no windows, so no one outside could see us. We hopped out onto this dead dirt that crumbled under our boots, and just like all the other rookies, we looked all around at the shit we got ourselves into. To the left was this grey, concrete, jail-looking building, to the right was a landing strip with booming C-130 and C-145 cargos leaving and landing, and in front of us were seven yellow bulldozers plowing and tilling that dead, toxic earth to make a foundation for another building.”
“No way,” I replied, mouth agape, wind whipping my hair. “Does that mean you have radiation? Does that mean I have radiation?”
He laughed, “Let’s just say, if I die mysteriously, here’s the Facebook page to help you sue.”
And then I was in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in front of the music shop with the blue treble clef sign with the yellow outline, but I didn’t want to leave to study Chopsticks, Little Panda, Happy Birthday, or Popeye the Sailor Man when I could sit in this blue Jeep Liberty and listen to when my dad went airborne in a faulty-braked car crash, when he sank a crabbing boat with his friend Luke at sixteen years old, when a car bomb exploded outside his window and shook him off his twin mattress, and when he flung ketchup packets under business men’s polished shoes and cheered when red sprayed on their khakis.
I didn’t want to roll up my window or—Please?—comb my hair or remember my brown bag with my piano books when I could listen to his fantastical, magical stories, passed down to my ink-stained left hand from his radiated genes.
Steve’s Poem
Katie Dineen
“It’s a beautiful sunrise,” said my cousin, his red, wet eyes turning to the hospital window, at the reds and oranges and yellows of the new day, and away from his father’s closed ones.
I unknowingly said goodbye to my uncle last Wednesday when I drove to the hospital as the sun set behind sorrow and storm clouds. I sang to him, and he told me he would clap if he could. As I left, I kissed him on the forehead, held his paralyzed hand in my functioning ones and told him I would see him soon.
On Sunday I woke up to my dad’s voice, stumbling on the other end of the phone call saying it had happened.
So I said goodbye to him again as I stared out my bedroom window, my eyes the same color as the rising sun.
The Old Man in the Vitamin Aisle
Jaclyn Tipton
I told my parents and neighbor that I stumbled upon them in Walmart right next to the iron pills, vitamin C’s, and pregnancy supplements as I was standing next to an old man with red cancer scars on his balding head.
Throughout my 25 years, I’ve learned that if you tell a lie with in-depth details— like the chapped-lipped, peeling-shouldered boy I saw on a speeding blue bicycle or the Leaning-Tower-of-Pisa hair on the waiter at The Melting Pot down Christopher Lane— that lie will be more believable.
But the old man at Walmart was real, and with his squeaky buggy of adult diapers, fresh strawberries, and caramel rolls, I wanted to talk to him.
But I didn’t.
His ears reminded me of the orange sweater I was wearing and how I hated it. His wrinkles made me think of the ghost in my apartment. The fan on my stove spins in lazy swirls like an old Ferris wheel. Doors creak open and never closed.
I think the ghost is my older sister, the one with the longer, dangly arm. Maybe her spirit was laughing at my crispy-burnt cooking or was trying to tell me I should take a walk outside like she used to with an opal fern pot planted on the side of her hip.
And his rubber work boots reminded me of the Christmases I flew to Montana to see my Uncle Richard and how it snows there, and how if the snow is dusty, you can never build a snowman.
So when this old man with a heavy nose, anchor tattoo, and Hawaiian shirt smiled, glancing at the white pill bottle, label facing up in my hand, I turned to my fake grocery list I made at my apartment, and pretended I didn’t see. Because I can’t lie with my eyes, only with a cluster of words.
Rocket Ships and Helicopters
Emma Pirmann
As soon as I skipped through the entrance gate, the stench of funnel cake dripping with grease and someone’s leftover motion sickness assaulted my senses, but I welcomed it with a nostalgic remembrance. These were the well-known smells of my childhood town’s rural Georgia country fair. My best friend, Sara, and I got discounted tickets from our fifth grade teacher that permitted us unlimited access to every ride the fair had to offer, and our parents finally agreed to let us roam the grounds with no adult supervision that year. I felt high and mighty strutting around like I was grown, but my father said I was feeling “too big for my britches.”
It was a long, rowdy walk to the larger attractions. We had to pass all the kiddie rides with wailing toddlers and the plethora of booths where people did random activities like throw darts at colorful balloons or shoot a water gun at a small target to try to win an overstuffed teddy bear. Walls of people surrounded us, but we continued to march on towards the alluring lights in the distance. The wind blew into our faces like hot breath, and it carried an odd leaf-like plant that I always called raining helicopters. The leaves were long, thin, and sharp around the edges, and they spiraled through the air like a helicopter struggling to find a landing pad. Several squadrons of Raining Helicopters performed an eloquent air show all night long in the glimmering neon lights just above the bustling crowd. No one seemed to appreciate the performance; the people only noticed the little cat scratches the leaves left behind when they grazed their skin. When we neared the more impressive rides, my friend and I bolted for the ION, which was sure to rattle my brain against my skull for a thrilling two and a half minutes. The ride spun around in tight circles while tilting back and forth like a massive teeter-totter. Its themed colors were a gaudy orange-and-green combination with silver rocket ship seats. I approached the carnie and waited for his permission to board, but he only offered a curt wave of his hand, which I suppose was his welcoming. The aroma of cigarette smoke lingered on his stained clothes and trailed behind him as he sauntered around the passenger carts. With Sara in tow, I raced toward the nearest vacant cart. We had to leap up and heave ourselves onto
the slick plastic seat, which was more of a glittery pew than a protective cushion. The carnie proceeded to make a full revolution around the ride to drop the safety bars into a secured position, and then he quickly retreated to the safety of the operating booth. My heart fluttered when I heard the loud crank of gears, so I gripped the safety bar with both of my sweaty hands until my knuckles were white. As my fingers tightened around the cool metal, the rod shifted. I tugged on it out of curiosity just to find that it lifted with no resistance. The rocket ship started to inch forward when I realized that the bar was indeed unlatched.
My mind instantaneously visualized myself being rocketed out of the seat like a daredevil from a cannon. With panic-stricken eyes, I turned towards Sara in terror; she had the same realization of our seemingly impending doom. The cart had made one full revolution and had now gathered a bit of speed. My mental calculations of danger levels went dead while instinct overrode my nervous system. I catapulted the bar into the air, and Sara and I plummeted onto the asphalt below on our hands and knees. Small pieces of gravel and sharp rocks made indents on my palms while my bare knees slammed the unforgiving ground with more force than I thought my body was capable of withstanding. I flattened my stomach to the ground and wished for the earth to swallow me. The bottom of the carts and some supporting iron beams were whirling just inches above our heads like a giant blender tangling glitzy rocket ships together. I clamped my eyes closed and felt the whirlwind of the carts as they made at least a dozen more breakneck revolutions before the carnie could halt the ride.
While the cyclone of carnival seats buzzed above me, time stretched. I could not see, for my eyes were blind with fear, but I heard everything. Onlookers shrieked at the sight of two little girls trying to protect themselves from being decapitated. Sara whimpered soft sobs next to me. My knees felt sodden and sticky, and it took me a few moments to recognize that blood trickled down them. Good thing my mom is a nurse, I thought; she even has steristrips and bacitracin in her purse, but her absence added a sting to my wounds. I wanted to get rid of her so bad earlier, and now I was truly alone. When the wind started to slow, I forced my eyes open and watched as a raining helicopter made a perfect landing on the back of my helipad hand without a scratch.
I returned to the fair two days later with gauze taped to my
knees and a Scooby-Doo Band-Aid plastered onto my forehead; Sara decided she wasn’t particularly fond of the carnival anymore. My older brother trailed after me as I bolted for the gaudy orange and green lights. The new carnie wore a perfume of buttered popcorn and cotton candy accompanied by a warm smile as she accepted my ticket. I hoisted myself onto the slick rocket ship and yanked on the safety bar with all my scrawny might; however, the bar refused to budge. With an ear-to-ear grin, I twirled through the humid air as if I were on a helicopter wing.
Dark Matter
Karly Casey
You were not the birth of a star, no swirls of red, orange, and yellow dancing together, forming a sphere of light. You were not trillions of hydrogen atoms giving off heat, fusing together to offset the gravity trying to pull you apart. You rarely produced light or warmth, like a faulty space heater in a worn-down trailer, fighting to work properly.
You were more like the life of a star, pressure from the heat begging you to separate, counteracting the gravity of your friends, struggling to keep you composed. Like trying to hold the sophomore chemistry slime that the distracted lab partner made with too much water, there was no way to hold you in one piece. You could never do anything for yourself.
You became the death of a star: a ball of mass collapsing into itself under the weight of gravity. Your depression created a black hole, sucking in all nearby objects: planets, asteroids, satellites, and moons alike. You were like holding a magnet close to the refrigerator where the force was so strong. It snapped right out of hand, entirely too difficult to resist. You disrupted the galaxy; everything had to fear you. Even debris outside your solar system had to worry about the star you once were.
The Empty Void
Morgan Masek
I hate the way some people live as if they are the sun, And the rest of us are just their solar system, Circling them.
Wherever they float, we go along with them, ever caught in their gravity. And I feel as though I’m a small, lumpy meteor, Drifting aimlessly through space. Cold, accompanied only by the distant glow of stars, I witness how planets circle them, always by their sides.
I have no pull of my own; occasionally, I find myself swept into the path of a solar system, a group, so happily circling around each other, I get pulled in among their dance. And I orbit them, spinning around, My edges smoothed by the gravity, And I believe for a moment. For that fraction of a moment, I have a place. I can become a planet. I can pull and affect the solar system. I’ll have moons; I’ll get an atmosphere, And maybe, just maybe, I’ll bloom with life. But just as fast, they drift away, and I’m outcast from the orbit, Left behind, once again just another random object In the empty void of space.
Technology
Eve Fleischer
The creaking noise that hurt my ears echoed through the room. I grimaced as I glanced around; there was nothing. There was always nothing here, for this room was dimly lit and horribly damp. I sat here for weeks at a time and was only taken out to be cleaned and placed back to rust. I don’t know why these humans continued to have me activated if I couldn’t even move. My body is made out of carbon fiber, which is light, but if that is the case, then why does it feel like I am made of lead? I tried to move my arms and succeeded in getting them stuck in an awkward position, facing out into the vast darkness. I could only internally scoff at myself. I knew that that was going to happen if I even bothered trying, yet I did it anyway. I wrenched open the eyelid of my only eye in time to see light flood the room.
“They were trying to move again,” one of the two men laughed at my position.
I wanted to reprimand him. Laughing at a robot wasn’t a good idea. Didn’t they know that the newer robots could kill a man in two seconds flat? Of course, I wouldn’t be able to since all of my joints were rusted. I was picked up roughly and taken out of the room only to be set on another table. “Why do we have to keep cleaning this scrap of metal?” the man who had spoken before complained.
“This is apparently her majesty’s favorite despite how old it is and the sheer number of robots surrounding her,” the other man spoke up. I moved my eye over to him to inspect him as they got to work unrusting me to where I could actually move. Normally, they would clean me and let me rust further. They scrubbed my face, and I heard one of them shriek like a little girl.
“It’s missing an eye!” Sadly, that was true; it had fallen out a long time ago. My old master could never find it, so they gave me a medical eyepatch to place over it, yet that was lost when I was brought to the scrapyard. Dirt had always covered my face, and no one ever bothered to clean it, so no one ever noticed that is was gone.
“Lost it,” my voice came out rough and more robotic than before.
The men jumped. “We thought you were deactivated!”
I rolled my eye at the men; they always noticed that I tried to move, so why were they surprised now? “Never was.” I moved, standing up for
only a mere second before my joints gave out on me, and I came crashing to the ground. After a moment of struggling, I stood up, planting my feet to prevent further damage to my casing. I came to a realization that I was taller than the men who cleaned me on an irregular basis. “Height?” I questioned them.
“Five-eleven,” they responded simultaneously. I nodded my head, and it emitted a loud creaking sound. “Neck,” I spoke gently, and they pushed me back on the table. They then proceeded to fix my neck and voice box to lessen the strain on me. They stepped back, and I stood once more and coughed out some dirt and dust to see if they would help my voice. “Thank you for fixing me.” I gave a gentle smile as my voice, along with my British accent, was restored and working well. “Now, shall I be going back to my room to be left to rust more before one of you decides that I should be cleaned again?” Grins appearing on their oily faces, they just shook their heads.
“You will be meeting the princess today to become her butler.” I gave a frown; I did not want to be a butler. As far as I knew, which was quite a bit, the job of a butler was repetitive and boring.
“Of course,” I hesitantly agreed and nodded with ease this time.
“Let’s take you to the princess so you can meet her. A real beauty she is!” They laughed before grabbing my wrists and practically dragging me through a series of doors and corridors. I couldn’t help but admire the new tech that had been developed while I was away, trapped in that damp room.
After they dragged me down what seemed like a never-ending hallway, we arrived in a large room. It was decorated with gold and silver decals on the walls. There were three thrones that sat at the head of the room. They were laced with velvet and gold. The floor was a polished marble, and there were plants growing everywhere. A grand chandelier hung dangerously above our heads. My artificial brain went through the calculations of the possibility of it falling on us. I let out a sigh of relief when it came out to be only twenty-eight percent.
“Princess, are you here?” One of the men called out, and I realized I still didn’t know their names. My thoughts were interrupted when a young girl around the age of seven or so, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, strutted into the room and placed herself upon the velvety cushions of one of the thrones.
“You called for me?” As soon as the words left her mouth, I was pushed, causing me to stumble forward and crash.
“We brought the robot you requested.” My chip went blank, and it
took a second for me to reboot and stand up from the fall.
“Don’t hurt him! Are you two idiots or something?” The men cringed as the young girl cried and hopped up running over to me. “Are you okay?” She gave me a worried look. I slowly nodded, and a popping sound echoed from me.
“Reboot successful,” I belted out in a mechanical voice.
“I thought you two said you would fix him!” The princess complained and stomped over to the two, whom I guessed were mechanics.
I coughed out some more dust and spun around. “I am very sorry, Miss. These two did indeed fix me though my motherboard seems like it is malfunctioning a tad bit.” I spoke softly in a normal voice that was mixed with my foreign accent. The girl stopped and spun around; she gave me a look of surprise.
“You have an accent!” She seemed to squeal, and I gave a lopsided smile.
“I was made in England. However, my connection to any basic Wi-Fi signal seems too weak at the moment, so I cannot pinpoint my exact location. Would you mind enlightening me on where we are?”
She looked confused for a moment as if she had never heard of England before, then, as though a light bulb, her face lit up. “Aloria, you are in Aloria. A kingdom filled with the technology of all sorts.” I searched my memory for a kingdom named Aloria.
“That country does not seem to register in my mind as a kingdom, at least at the time I was made. Do you know exactly how long have I been out of commission?” The three looked at each other.
“You are very old technology, so I am not completely sure of what time period you came from, but the year is now 5429 if that helps any!” My mind whirred to life as I calculated how long it had been since I was activated.
“If my mind has not failed me, which I don’t rightly think it has, I was created in 2968. That was around 2,461 years ago.”
Her eyes widened, “My, my, you are very old! Your processor must be so outdated! Thomas, Olaf, can you get me parts from the most recent broken bots?”
“Right away, Princess!” They ran off quickly. Their names must be Thomas and Olaf if this young woman is correct, which I highly doubt that she would be wrong.
“What might your name be, Miss?” My voice came out again slightly mechanical. I was so rusty that this would be a regular occurrence until I became used to moving and speaking again.
“Megan, yours?”
I blinked my one eye at her and muttered my name.
“What was that?” she questioned.
“Dimitri,” I answered curtly as to not anger her.
She circled me as if inspecting me. Oh, well, of course, she was inspecting me! I’m not entirely in the best shape as all of the other androids are.
“Where are all of the other androids? I heard those men talking about them.” She stopped, and her face fell.
“Those two haven’t been in my presence for two full years. The last time they saw me, I was surrounded by fully functioning androids. I don’t really know what happened; however, they eventually all malfunctioned and had to be shut down for fear of harming me or any of the other royal family.”
I only stood there.
Malfunctioned? The only androids that malfunction are those that have been bugged or corrupted unless they are as old as I am.
“Do there happen to be any other old androids like me?”
Megan shook her head, “All of them were crushed in the junkyard where we found you. You, however, only had a few dents and were as light as a newborn child. Why is that exactly?”
I should have told her, yet I felt as if I could have been harmed. I shouldn’t have human emotions, yet I was programmed by my original master to have them. That was such a long time ago. “I am made of a carbon-fiber blend that allows for light weight in order to not be crushed by my inner workings. I would have bet that you would’ve known that for being centuries ahead of my knowledge.”
She coughed slightly as if she was nervous about something; however, the reason had escaped me entirely. “Hey, I don’t know if this is rude or not, but why are you missing an eye?” Megan blurted out as she pulled my face closer to hers to see the empty socket better.
“It was never fully fitted to my socket, so one day I lost it. My creator never had the heart to make another one, so he fitted me with an eyepatch. Though that was lost in the scrap yard.”
“You were created by a male, huh?” She let go of my face, and I creaked back into an upward position.
“No, but I was made by a girl. She was as tough as she acted, yet she was very lonely. That was when I was created. I became her best friend and helped her with other projects she was working on. What I hadn’t known, and what she hadn’t told me, was that at the time, androids were illegal
to create and own. I was found out, and she was taken away. I was left activated and thrown into the scrapyard to be crushed. Though I never was. My system shut me down into sleep mode, and I was left there.” I spoke quietly and looked around the room. “Do you have a map I would be able to examine?”
Megan nodded wordlessly and led me to another room that had a large map that took up the three walls that were adjacent and opposite the door. I tilted my head slightly at the odd shapes that interrupted the blue that made up most of the map.
“Where are the continents?” I questioned myself out loud. I walked forward and placed my hand over where North America and South America should have been. It was now replaced with what looked like a backslash that was broken up by each end.
“You are looking at them!” Megan chirped happily as if proud of the world she lived in.
I closed my eye and hummed, stepping into the center of the room. A loud whirring sound emitted from me before it was replaced with a lower whirring sound. I blinked open my eye and saw a holographic image of what my world looked like. It came from my empty eye socket which meant it wasn’t going to move anytime soon. The continents had maintained their form, yet they had lost any and all peninsulas and islands. Compared to the map of the world now, everything was different.
“I don’t like this very much,” I told Megan outright. “The hologram is what my world looked like when my creator was alive. I remember it so well, and now I will have to get used to backslashes and a backward G.” Megan shrugged at my comment and pointed to the continent I believe used to be Europe and Asia.
“This is Rooke, the continent that Aloria resides on. We are not the only kingdom on the continent, but we take up this portion.” She motioned to the backward G, and specifically to the bottom portion of it. All of it.
“Soma takes up the rest of the continent, but they are very friendly. Yet they don’t like technology and refrain from using it! And the backslash, as you called it, is the continent of Lina. There is one kingdom that takes up the non-radiation filled bottom area. That is the kingdom of Histan. They are very protective of their area since they don’t want to be pushed into the radiation. Did you know that it could almost kill you in an instant if you were to step into the area?”
This was interesting, and I motioned to the bottom and top portions of the map.
“What happened to the North Pole and South Pole?” Her eyes lit up again, and she threw her arms up.
“They melted! The water level rose, causing most of the land to be swallowed up by the ocean! Which is exactly why the continents look the way they do.”
This was most definitely interesting. The hologram disappeared shortly after she finished explaining.
I was examining the loss of land when a large crash was heard coming from the throne room. I glanced at Megan, and we both rushed out of the map room only to see Thomas and Olaf on the floor with mechanical parts everywhere. I picked up the closest piece. It seemed to be an upgraded hologram projector. I pressed down on a hidden button on the back of my neck and my face split open down the middle, allowing me to access my old projector. With a few taps and clicks resonating from me, I closed my face allowing me to blink open. I tried out my new projector by projecting the planet as it was seen over two thousand years ago.
“Wow, what is that?!” one man asked.
I still could not differentiate between the two men.
“Olaf! It’s not nice to just ask questions!”
I guessed that it was Olaf who had asked the question.
“It is perfectly fine to ask a question. The answer is that this was our planet over two thousand years ago. This is what it had looked like before I was discarded.”
Looks of awe ensued until Megan clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. The hologram disappeared, and we all looked at her.
“Dimitri needs to be upgraded! Dimitri, do you think you can shut down so we can fix you?” I shook my head.
“I can only be fixed while activated, or you could break something that is fragile in my system. I will open up my casing for you, however.”
Creaking noises echoed through the halls as synthetic skin split open revealing panels upon panels of complex mechanisms that created me. “You’re gonna’ be a tough one,” Thomas spoke.
I can finally tell them apart. Thomas seems to have this mullet kind of hairstyle going, which is completely beyond me. Then Olaf is balding. At least that makes it a bit easier to tell them apart.
“Who built you? Your inner workings are so complex, and with a few upgrades, you would be better than the robots that used to work here!” Megan exclaimed, getting hyped over the fact that I am an amazing android.
They tinkered with some of my inner workings. “I am very sorry to
interrupt your work, but might I ask you the current time? My inner clock is off from the rust on my motherboard.”
Megan sat up quickly.
“Where is your motherboard?”
“The current location in the middle of my inner workings of my head. I can detach most wires to make it easier to access. Please wait a moment.”
A few popping sounds were heard until a green board that was covered in little rust spots was visible. “Taking it out will not stall any machines. I was programmed to work without my motherboard as a precaution.”
After a long few hours of fixing me and programming me to the new world, I was finished, and I closed myself up, finally becoming whole again. “I must thank you for fixing me; it has been such a long time since my inner clock has worked this well.”
“Why of course! It was my ple—” A loud moaning sound came from the castle itself before the floor started to shake.
“What’s going on?” Megan screamed as she fell to the ground in a heap.
I went to help her up when I was tackled to the floor by something. I should be more specific, so, two human beings.
“Don’t move!” A hiss was heard, and I saw Thomas scowl down at me.
It took a moment to register what was truly going on. “Thomas, please remove your body from my frame, or I must resort to more inhumane actions.” He didn’t move, and I kicked him off, sending him flying into the concrete wall that was only a few feet behind him. I stood, not wasting any time to get Olaf off Megan, who was struggling under the bigger man’s weight.
I swung a fist into the side of his head and sent him barreling into Thomas. I walked over and checked them. They were both out cold, and I turned to Megan. “Do you know what is happening?” She only shook her head in a response to me.
I shuffled over to the large window that held a gorgeous view of the grounds. However, this time the view was not very pleasant. It was covered in people who seemed angry. “My, my, what do we have here?”
Megan quickly strode over to the window and gasped. “Those are all of the robots that have been out of order!” Megan leaned closer to the window.
“A rebellion of some sorts. They must not have liked being junked for scraps.” I glanced at the blonde who had tears streaming down her face. “How could this have happened? They are tearing the castle apart.”
Fleischer • 19
I turned to her.
“We must leave then. As your only servant, I must recommend that it should be a place further from the castle than any other.” She wiped away tears and sniffled slightly before nodding her head.
“The outlands, the furthest point before Soma begins in its flora glory.”
“So we head there then?”
She only nodded and grabbed my wrist tugging me toward a small opening behind the king’s throne. “Through here, it will get us away from creeps and killer robots.”
I nodded and let her go ahead since she was indeed human and more likely to die if we got caught up in a scuffle.
The rustle of clothes and slight footsteps echoed through the tunnel. It was very dark and the air was humid. “Miss Megan, may I assume that the castle is next to a body of water?” Megan stopped abruptly, making me stop, too. She spun around looking up to see me.
“Do you happen to have a light?” she quickly said, and my pupil slid aside to reveal a lightbulb. It flickered on, illuminating the narrow tunnels that were lined with stone.
Upon closer inspection, it was actually concrete that was chipped at to give the illusion that these tunnels were very old. “These tunnels were recently built.” The words flew out of my mouth.
Megan giggled and smiled. “Yes, I asked them to be built to get to other places quicker. They did a good job, yes?”
I ran my fingers along the cracks and dents. I didn’t answer, and I didn’t need to.
“There is a large river next to the castle that lets the gardens grow vibrant.”
After finally answering me, Megan turned and continued walking. I continued walking, lighting the path ahead that only got tighter and tighter. It eventually came down to me having to crouch down to not scrape my head on the roof of the tunnel. I heard footsteps, and the light shut off. I slowly crept back the way we came to investigate. I knew I shouldn’t, but I wanted to figure it out as my coding programmed me to be a curious android.
“Dimitri, no!” Megan hissed at me.
I stopped in my tracks as a methodical clicking sound was heard echoing through the small corridor. I stared into the darkness, trained on nothing as I didn’t know where the sound was coming from exactly. “Megan, run and don’t look back.”
“But Dimitri—”
I shushed her, and not too long after, I heard the soft patter of footsteps leading away from the area.
“How sweet that you wanted to save a girl you hardly knew. Too bad you won’t be alive much longer to see her again,” a robotic voice rang out along with a louder clicking sound.
A pinpoint red light was seen cutting through the darkness of the tunnel as I stood silently watching for any sign of attack. Time seemed to slow as if nothing was going to happen for quite some time.
In only half a blink, I was tackled to the hard concrete flooring by something with a much heavier frame than mine or anyone I had met today for that matter. I struggled to push the weight off. My arms almost crumpled from the amount of pressure on them. Eventually, I got my bearings and pushed the weight off, which allowed me to stand up and survey my surroundings.
I saw what landed on me sprawled out on the floor in a large heap, unmoving. I was hesitant to come close to it, so instead, I bolted down the tunnel. I made it to the other side, which ultimately lead to the exit of the castle. I opened the door and closed it behind me. It was at that moment my mind buzzed slightly from the sensation of my motherboard or anything surrounding it being damaged even slightly.
“Dimitri?!” I felt arms wrap around my tall frame. I blinked and glanced down to see Megan hugging me tightly. “You’re okay,” she mumbled into my chest.
I reluctantly wrapped my arms back around her. “We must get moving because that android in the tunnel will not be stalled for long,” I told her, and she nodded as she removed herself from me.
“Well, that means we should get a move on, huh? To the outlands!” She smiled giddily as she skipped off in the direction of our destination. I followed behind her glancing back at the castle a few times to make sure we weren’t being followed. This gave me time to assess the position Megan and I had been forced into.
This is the first day I was finally taken out of that dingy old room. I glanced over at Megan, who was humming as she walked at the same pace as I did; our strides matched up as if she were trying to copy me. An army of broken and corrupted androids tried to take over Aloria. Though as hard as I tried to convince my microchip brain that it was just a coincidence, it feels as though it was planned in more ways than one. I looked forward to the dark vastness that left my mind reeling through the thoughts of what was beyond and the journey that we were about to take.
A Shot of Yellow, A Breath of Red
Emma Pirmann
My fat orange cat named Milkshake purred and pushed against my knees as I sat on my front porch waiting for the ambulance to arrive. The screeching sirens and flashing lights of an ambulance and a police cruiser were more than enough to terrify Milkshake, so he left me to run into the woods. All of the stone-faced EMTs and cops approached me slowly and followed my lead into my basement towards my older brother’s weak body lying limp on his bare mattress. I was pushed aside as they heaved him onto their gurney, strapped down all his limbs, and wheeled him out the door; during this ordeal, I stood with my back flush to the wall on the far side of the room like a forgotten painting whose eyes continue to follow you everywhere. After the ambulance left the driveway, a young police officer, probably no older than the overdosed kid he’d have to fill out paperwork for later tonight, squatted down to my height to awkwardly squeeze both my shoulders and reassure me that my brother would be okay, that he was going to get help, that he wasn’t going to die. That officer must have been fresh from the academy because the shock on his face radiated when I simply blinked at him and said with furrowed brow, “Yeah, I know. He was okay last time; he’ll be okay this time.”
When I found my brother this time, I had just gotten home from elementary school on a Thursday afternoon; I was in the fourth grade. My family never seemed to have enough house keys, so every day I got in by heaving myself up to the small window on the top of the garage door where the glass was broken out and wriggling through. As a result, spider webs always got in my hair and rust residue always stained my hands, but I’d brush it off on my pants and trot inside. This was the only time of day I usually ever got to be alone, but my brother’s Volkswagen was parked out front, which wasn’t entirely unusual because I figured he was just skipping class again.
At the foot of the staircase, there was the door that lead into my brother’s room, which was really just a converted moldy basement with new carpeting and a mattress. My mother always jokingly called it the dungeon, and it lived up to the name. A heavy
duvet was thrown over the only window blocking out all sunlight; the only light source in the room was a small TV on the back wall that was playing The Outlaw Josey Wales. After I ripped the blanket off the window, the fresh light illuminated all the wadded dirty laundry, discarded Taco Bell wrappers, unknown stains, and half-empty bowls of sour food that I would have to clean up before my mom got home. My nose burned with the combination of rotting food, cat piss, and revolting teenage boy body odor. I stepped further into the room in search of my cat as I heard a squeaky meow from around the corner. On a mattress with no bed sheets, Milkshake was nestling into the side of my brother who was lying on his back. He was wearing scuffed Vans, torn black jeans, and a long sleeved t-shirt with some skateboard company’s logo on the front, but one sleeve was rolled up all the way to his shoulder with a belt buckled tightly around his bicep and a hypodermic needle poking into his vein.
I gave myself ten seconds to panic. Clenching my eyes shut and tightening my fists, I cried out to no one in particular. I shook my head furiously to erase the image, but when I stopped and opened my eyes, the scene just got blurry from the few tears that had escaped. My mother had trained me on exactly what to do in this situation because she knew it was going to happen eventually. Step one—Take a deep breath and wipe the tears from your eyes. Even when I think I’ve gotten used to this, I always manage to cry about it every time. Step two—Get the naloxone shot from underneath the upstairs bathroom sink. The medicine was impossible to miss because the box was as yellow as a brand new school bus with the word “Naloxone” written in all capital, bold, red letters. As I rushed back downstairs, I cautiously held the box like a piece of crystal that would have broken if squeezed too tightly. Step three—Deliver the naloxone. After the belt was unbuckled from his arm, I had to slip the empty syringe out from the bend of his elbow, which produced a small drop of blood from the hole left behind. My shaky hands had to tear through at least four plastic wrappings to finally get to the naloxone needle to remove the red cap from the sharp metal tip. On the other arm, I slowly inserted the needle into his skin and pushed out the countering medicine.
I placed the needle down on the bedside table next to the bent and blackened spoon. I stepped back into my watchful painting position against the wall waiting for anything to happen. My own heart was beating so fast that I could hear it in my eardrums and
feel it in my temples; at first, I thought the rhythmic noise was his heart starting to gain strength, but the medicine doesn’t work that fast. Step four—Call for help. My mother answered the phone with a warm, “Why the hell are you calling me? You know I’m at work.” In the middle of a breath, I blurted out that he had overdosed on his bed, I had delivered the Narcan the best I could, and the next number I was going to call was 911. I held my brother on his side while watching Josey Wales race around firing off shots from his pistol when I heard the body in front of me start to wheeze, cough, and eventually, start some uneven breaths.
A Window into My Future
Emily Novack
Oh, the intriguing, beguiling, beautiful unknown we call the future! If only there were a way to look as if through a window into that hazy beyond and see where we will be. Traveling ten years into the future, I have gained my degree from University of South Florida, majoring in dance and minoring in psychology. It took hours of sweat and many long classes I would never have taken if not for my passion for dance and my hope of helping teens.
For the time being, I work as the youth minister for a Catholic Church, located downtown in Washington, D.C. And, boy, my Sundays keep me on my toes (sometimes literally, if I have a dance performance).
After morning Mass, my friends and I walk to a little café for lunch. As we amble back to the church, I tell the girls about a recent date to the Air and Space Museum. They laughingly tease me for being (and dating) such a nerd.
When we arrive at the church’s youth room, I flip on the lights. Next, I turn up the sound system to loud praise and worship music, barely resisting that urge to move that comes with any good beat. We set everything up for an evening of pizza and theology. It is a busy night, as we are making preparations for an upcoming youth conference. It will be the first time I am in charge of an event that involves getting forty teens through an airport and to and from a stadium without losing anyone.
Prepared, I walk the short distance from the church to my little apartment. Tired but contented, I climb the stairs. Fumbling with my keys, I unlock the door and collapse in my capacious papasan chair. I get up again quickly, realizing I’ve sat on my jewelry pliers. I toss them onto my small computer desk, which I almost never use except to pile things on, next to my beads and wire and curl up to have a look at the many messages accrued while my phone was on silent for the youth night.
Among texts from friends and emails from church employees, I find a picture of my sister and her husband with their baby. They had a half-birthday party for her, as this morning was the sixth-month anniversary of the time I stayed up all night babysitting their rowdy,
one-year-old girl. In another email is a request from the owner of the dance studio around the corner. She says she has been called away suddenly and asks me to teach her intermediate ballet tomorrow at nine in the morning. I groan as I send my acceptance. I love teaching dance, but so early?
I get up to throw a tangled bundle of tights and leotards in the washer and gracefully trip over my bicycle helmet. As I pour in the detergent, the buzzer buzzes. I rush to the door but trip over my helmet again, this time with a great crash and clatter as I clutch at a dishrag on the counter, pulling a jar of chopsticks down with me.
I get up laughing and run to the door. It’s my aforementioned nerdy date, looking down at me with an echo of my laughter in his big, blue eyes. I could fancy having children with such eyes, I think to myself. He has brought me a new sci-fi I wanted and my jacket I forgot in his car. He helps me pick up my chopsticks and the broken glass; then we say goodnight. Before I go to bed, I carefully put my bike helmet away and set out my dancewear for the morning.
In bed, I read by the light of a string of Christmas lights twined through the slats of my headboard. On my bed-stand, a tall stack of books and a framed collage of photos of friends compete for space. My floor is strewn with sheets of drawing paper, poor, torn attempts at a likeness of the statue of a horse I can see from my window. Among the sheets of paper lie many bent bobby pins, like fallen soldiers in the war of keeping up a dancer’s tidy bun. On the walls hang many works of art. Some are my own, like the girl with an afro of flowers. Others I have collected from out-of-the-way, open-air markets and museum gift shops.
Lying in bed, I go over my plans for tomorrow in my head. With dance in the morning, a hike and picnic date for lunch, and a planning meeting with the other youth leaders, it will be quite a day. Tired from my full Sunday, I slowly drift off to sleep.
I See Color
Jocelyn Donahoo
“I don’t see color,” she said, sincerely.
I noticed a few side eyes, eye rolls, and smirks. Evidence that they perceived it was a quirk. My thought was excuse me but I beg to disagree. “Cause if a couple of brothas with sagging pants and oversized hoodies crossed your path, and you found yourself outnumbered, and you clutched your purse, and you crossed the street, would you still say or believe that?”
Years ago in a 200-seat college lecture hall, a friend brought something to my attention. “Jojo,” she whispered, “we’re the only two black people in here.” Having grown up in inner-city Detroit, I watched our neighborhood go from diversified to white flight taking exodus, segregating the races to the suburbs. Scrutinizing the students up and down the aisles, I had to do a double take.
Eyebrows furrowed, I replied, “Oh . . . you’re right,” amazed she felt self-conscious, as if she didn’t belong, as if she’d fallen for that Jim Crow rhetoric.
I see color. Does it affect how I treat or come at you? No.
I have a right to be wherever I am, unless you make me feel uncomfortable, or less than. It makes no difference to me.
I’m going to speak to whoever is near, having no fear.
I see color. How can you not?
God made all these beautiful things that we glory in: the emerald-colored water rolling over snowy white sand that relaxes your shoulders and soothes your digestion; golden yellow sunflowers with the dark brown centers that brighten your day; candy-apple red cars, and that’s only the beginning.
When it comes to skin tone, that’s where God designed a plethora of palettes. Black—African origin skin covers a great deal of the color wheel: Ivory—almost white, albino, Olive, high yellow—butter cream, Butterscotch, golden tan, Café au lait, cinnamon, bronze, pecan tan, cocoa, coffee, ebony, mahogany, so many shades to see celebrating our diversity.
While some took offense, I understood her seemingly insincere pretense. She meant no harm. She wanted us to know that she’s inclusive, and doesn’t judge people based on the cover of their book, by the color of their skin. It makes no sense.
Not Your Average Color Guard
Jocelyn Donahoo
She doesn’t look like the average color guard. She has some meat on dem bones: a full chest, thick waist, plump hips and thighs, but it doesn’t matter because someone finally selected a complementary uniform, not one that accentuates muffin tops, bulges and misshapes, curvaceous Beyoncé contours, or slim, Taylor-Swift-type height and weight: a black dress with short sleeves, proper open neck, an A-line design, one that flatters every shape and dimension, regardless if she wears a double zero or a queen size.
But that’s not what really catches my eye. She has the moves, rhythm, spinning the flag, and posing like vogue with her head held high, her hand on her hip, a flaunting attitude, a presence in sync with the music. Proving, when it comes to swagger, size doesn’t matter.
Shade #243, Magic
Lucy Miree
A layer of me is missing. It hides in pots and tubes and jars, ready to be coaxed with gentle sweeps of brushes into becoming Me.
Creamy lipstick; the mineral smell of powder. You can buy them at a Walmart, but I’ll tell you a secret: this paint and pigment are fairy dust. Now watch what I can do . . .
Ladies and gentlemen, step right up to witness a daring feat of transformation! (Sponsored by Maybelline) Isn’t it fantastic? The flaws just disappear.
The black that lines my eyes goes on with a wand. My brick-red smile sizzles and sparks.
With the slight chemical burn of a damp wipe, I can even become faceless yet again, my canvas fresh for tomorrow’s next feat. And your mouth might twist in horror at how I pluck and poke and rub raw and draw lines and clog pores and blendblendblendblend, but they always said that magic can’t happen without a sacrifice.
Shoe Shine
Andrea Hefner
Instead of asking what they want to be when they grow up, maybe we should ask what kind of shoes they want to wear. Day in, day out, evening shifts, twelve-hour days, or more, would they prefer soft black suede over stocking feet, sensible heels, and soft spoken authority, boots laced and crusted with dirt from foreign lands, weary with the loss of too many lives? Will they wear smooth, white leather clogs that resist the blood and bowels of the population? Perhaps they’ll don tall boots that keep out the Gulf waters as they wade out to catch today’s catch. Wingtips polished and sharp, ready for the litigator’s floor, black steel safety toes, pounding the pavement, searching for suspects, knowing they might not make it back to cross the threshold of home? Safety-guard tread to prevent falls on the slippery tile behind the cooking line or high-top work boots with shanks for climbing, as they keep the lights on in the aftermath of the storm? Will they lace up over bare feet and walk miles to deliver shoes to those who have none?
Most importantly, maybe we should do our best to explain that the right pair of shoes might take multiple shopping trips to find ones that slip on easily, are worth every bit of the cost, carry their weight, and fit like a dream.
Leave-taking
Ryen Goebel
And summer, nothing but the drum of shoeless boys the hapless dancinggirls’ feet in meadows, dirt roads, the rushing underfoot green, a sun sinking nameless dogs to pant in standing shade of noon. Old haggard trees drinking light to cast their laticeshadows, lace the ground with blue green grey as the heat blooms upward.
Years of school when summer is framed by classroom-ledger days of waking and six hours, only six, but how the clock s t r e t c h e s them— wasting the casual thoughts in study, trying to urge the seconds up from walking speed, class names abbreviated to numbers, 9 weeks on 18 winnowed down to a letter on paper: success written in alphabetical ink and averages no greater than —nor less— Four point oh.
With summer, the most ephemeral of them all, passing in the heat/haze between cramping handsatnotes, pursed eyebrows comparing choice A to B, C to D, passing in 12th flashes of purpling stormlight until you stand at the moment of beginning, the moment of ending. The door of home indistinct in the
grey green blue leaves of trees smaller than you remember. Arid sunlight to lie, languid in the street separating the new car new classes new friends new home from the before place where, among the dancinggirls’ hapless waltzes, the boys’ shoeless adventures, the dogs’ nameless, worthy exhaustion, you learned bubblegum blowing, to whistle, the endings of fairytales. Tell me as you hold the pen again to the page— Litany of new rules, new school, new life arranged in committees and policies givingnoquarter— did you everonce wonder if you were mistaken to leave them all for this?
How the World Ended and I Just Drank Orange Soda
Madeline Nehus
My parents’ lives were changed forever on December 5, 1995. This was the day my brother was officially diagnosed with severe autism with mild mental retardation. Jacob was only three years old at the time, and I was going to arrive in March of the following year. Suddenly, my mom and dad had to reshuffle their priorities and plan for the far future. They seemed to take it in stride, of course, and I don’t remember the early years. My revelation wouldn’t come until much later.
It was a mild September day. I had started 7th grade, and Jacob went into high school. We went to different schools, which meant, for my mom, lots of driving kids around. She also drove my best friend, Mollee, home sometimes.
I was thinking over a conversation at the lunch table. Inevitably, the hard topics came up: sex, drugs, and death. As Mollee told yet another story that put her as the hero and savior of everything, I thought about her dying. I thought about me dying as I stared at the soda-stained floor of our family car.
I eventually rolled around to my mom. She did everything for me: drove, made phone calls, comforted me. She did all that, and she took care of Jacob. I used to sleep downstairs at times, and I would be awakened by the sound of my mother shaking Jacob’s many pill bottles. Those were just the morning pills. She was also active in getting Jacob into programs for people like him.
I thought about who would do those things if she were gone. My dad, I supposed, but I was certain that he would die before Mom, if not from stress, then a long-broken heart of having only half a son. That’s when I realized. It crept on me slowly, but there was no doubt about who was left in Jacob’s immediate family if our parents died.
“Mom,” I said, shattering the quiet, thoughtful atmosphere around me, “Will I have to take care of Jacob when . . . we’re older?”
I couldn’t say “when you and Dad are dead” because middle schoolers shouldn’t have those kinds of thoughts.
There was a pause, a split second before she spoke. I stared at the back of her head, suddenly realizing that her hair seemed extremely gray.
“Yes,” she sighed. I could see her face in the rearview mirror, and the area around her eyes that wasn’t covered by sunglasses seemed to sag. “You don’t have to, of course, but you will technically be his legal guardian if Dad and I die after you’ve turned eighteen.” My head spun, and my whole life seemed to flash before my eyes. I had the whole thing planned. After living with Jacob—with the explosive tantrums, awkward pigeon-toed walk, and his insistence of having a pair of straws to clack together wherever he went—I took consolation in the fact that I would move out, that I had the chance my mother never had. My life would be almost nauseatingly picturesque. I would have the perfect husband, perfect job, perfect kids, and perfect house. And now, suddenly, that was slipping away like water down a drain. Even though I didn’t open my mouth, my mind gave a wail of mourning. I saw the life that I was now bound to lead: frantically trying to remember who takes what pill at what time of day, holding the 200- pound man-child if he exploded in public, giving everyone an apologetic smile as he punched me. I wanted to be a writer, and writers hardly made enough to support one person, let alone two. Thoughts sped through my mind like I was on an outof-control carousel. I didn’t ask to be on this ride, and I wanted off.
By the time we reached Mollee’s house, I felt numb. I accepted Mollee’s offer to hang out at her place for a little while and jumped out of the car. Neither one of us spoke as we entered through the front door and went down the hall to her bedroom. It was as if Mollee knew the world had just been dramatically shifted under my feet, and, for once, she remained quiet.
Mollee had a mini-fridge in the corner of her room. She went over and opened it. I sat on the carpeted floor and started sorting through the thoughts in my head. I didn’t like this sudden burden of responsibility weighing me down and tried frantically to go back to that blissful ignorance I had before.
“Hey, there’s only two Orange Crushes left,” Mollee said, sitting down next to me and holding out a bottle.
The soda tasted flat and bitter on my tongue, but I thanked her anyway.
On “Wheatfield with Crows”
Lucy Miree
Dear Vincent, Your last work seems to haunt me. Can this really be the wild man of Arles who painted a sky that pulsed with life? Maybe I should understand, given your cursed history. You tried to find meaning fruitlessly in love, in religion, or on a canvas. In desperation, you even tried to swallow happiness, manic yellow joy like acid burning down your throat. It didn’t make you feel less empty. Perhaps you went out to that field just to paint, but days later, you shot yourself in it. So forgive me if I see a cry for help in your harsh lines and muddied colors. What were you thinking that day, when you scratched black across blue? It’s fitting, I suppose, for you to die in your own creation. Vincent, I think of the pain in your bruised sky, and I wonder if the beauty was worth it.
The Tree at Twilight
Ryen Goebel
Down where the old roads run, and songs are sung as sweet as the red repeating autumns, well, I walked there once, in a dream or a dusty afternoon or a pair of broken shoes— I can’t remember— and I bowed to the old oak tree, long and low because my bones were creaking like the old boughs in the wind, and the wild branches like dancers seemed fit partners for that final turn.
While the wind twisted round the tree and me, the light was slipping past midday, into the golden hour, and because I was not young, not new, nor true, nor fair, I was remembering the way I first sat among the old gravestones and watched my hair run silver, letting the grey warmth soak into my back the day you left town in a truck that never did turn up again.
I stood among those roots to watch the light change and waited for the tree to extend its fragile hands, their ends bent and lovely like old script. I waited until the light ran like honey out of an hourglass, pooling at the rim of the horizon as the shadows bled out long behind all things. And then, then only as my legs failed and shook, only then she chose to step from the bark, all rust and amber and wood-smoke grey, fair about the eyes, half devilish, halting, and swaying in time with the music.
Once upon a Time
Allison Williams
I was fourteen years old the last night you were in love with me.
We lay on our backs in dim light, cobblestone cold beneath our backs, staring up at sparks of magic, love letters from angels (or white Christmas lights, hung in the trees).
My hands tangled beneath my head trying to keep ants out of my hair, but if I’d thought, I would’ve reached across the ground to brush my fingers against your palm.
We didn’t talk.
We climbed atop a castle and the world was abandoned below us, utterly irrelevant to our new home in the sky (a playground, abandoned for the night).
There wasn’t enough room in our tower; we squirmed, knees brushing, elbows tucked in, careful to keep our hands to ourselves. Still, we refused to leave our perfect hideout.
Twice, already, I had pushed you off this cliff, watched you bleed on the way down. You weren’t going to kiss me a third time. I was too scared to kiss you, too.
We didn’t talk.
The words bubbled up in my throat, yeast fermenting until I had to spit it out or swallow, so my words were forced down: I love you, I’m sorry, give me one more chance.
I could have sat there forever, wanting, but the world became tired of our abandonment and the soap-bubble sides of our castle popped. You were disappointed but probably not surprised.
I never got another chance to kiss you.
The Matterhorn Study 2
Jason Anderson Photograph
Ekaterina Balushkina
Digital Photograph
Gummy Horror
Mollie Elizabeth Barnawell
Color Pencil Stargazers
Sharon D. Barnes Vector Drawing
Kimberly M. Brown
Mixed Media
Sky-crossed Lovers
Savannah Clay Graphite Meticulous
Brenda Crabbe Clay Crab Bowl
Brenda Crabbe Clay Hitchhiker
Waking Up from the American Dream
Colby Detwiler
Mixed Media
The World the Children Made
Colby Detwiler
Mark Anthony French
Mixed Media
Tactile Self-portrait (Static)
Amanda Jo Hakert Wood Alpha Binary
Sarah Hawkins Pastel Blush
Faces in the Night
Racheal Homack
Mixed Media
Ekaterina Ilina
Photograph Sparkles of the Night
Alaina Johnson Wood
Body, Soul, Spirit
Kaysi Lovelace
Acrylic
Glow in the Dark Jelly
Jose Molina
Graphite Rebecca’s Tea Party
Scattered Deer Antlers
Thi-Anh Moore
Mixed Media
Waiting on Autumn to Arrive
Thi-Anh Moore Ink
Maria B. Morekis
Photograph
Misty Mountains
Amanda Morton Mixed Media
Shoreline Paradise
Jasmine Richardson
Mixed Media Test of Time
Miranda Richeson
Acrylic, Pastel
Ordered Chaos
Olivia Rivera Photograph Untitled
The Mid-life Blossom
Crystal Ryan Wood
Tactile Self-portrait
Joel R. Thompson
Graphite, Charcoal, Pastel
Scarlett Voight
Mixed Media
Simply Overlooked
Chloē A. Young
Mixed Media
Fireflies
Chloē A. Young Charcoal
Male Figure
Arbor’s Shadow
Raven Motley
Frostbite nipped at the skin under my eyes, burning the tops of my cheeks like fire. I sat in the same spot for what was probably hours, waiting for my next meal to walk by. The only sound I could hear was the whistling of the wind through the trees. The snow had just stopped falling, but that didn’t stop the air from burning my covered nostrils. To most people it would seem insane living in the Alaskan wilderness, but I preferred it. I moved to Alaska when I was twenty-three in search of a new start . . . in search of solitude. Now I’m twenty-eight and still would rather face a grizzly than my past, but I guess that’s what it means to be Arbor Becket.
My cabin sat almost two miles from my newest kill spot, and I couldn’t wait to get back and sit next to the fire. I heard a twig snap to my left a few yards away. I looked over and spotted a small buck slowly making his way through the snow. He was cautious with every step he took; he knew that danger was close, but if he really knew how close, he would have run. I slowly picked my bow up off my lap, arrow already in place. I pulled back the string and held my breath, aiming right for his heart. Just a little closer . . .
He stopped to smell the brisk air with his ears flicking back and forth, listening for the silence. He walked closer to my tree, and with one breath, I released the string that held his life in my hands. In an instant the arrow was in his side, and he took off leaving a trail of crimson snow in his tracks. I didn’t waste time climbing down the tree; it was going to be dark soon, and the last thing I wanted was to be caught out at night.
The moment my feet hit the ground, I pulled my face cover down and let out a slight whistle that signaled my back up. I pulled my cover back over my mouth and nose and started to follow the trail, not wanting to waste time. I followed the blood splotches in the snow feeling the brush of fur against my pant leg. I didn’t have to look down to know my golden-eyed protector, Shadow, was there. My mind drifted while we followed the trail.
A year after I moved to Alaska, I found myself wandering through the dense forest that at the time was like walking through a castle of gold. I was making my way to the river with a book at my
side when I stumbled upon three dead grey tundra wolves. Out here they’re almost the size of a small horse, and the only thing bigger than them is a grizzly. I felt bad for the poor things, but didn’t want to waste time around them knowing that the bear probably wasn’t far, and all I had on me was my hunting knife. I continued to walk a little further when I heard a small pathetic whimper coming from one of the wolves. Without thinking I stepped closer to them.
Next to one of the poor mauled creatures, there lay a small pup that was blacker than the Alaskan night sky in winter. I stepped closer, and it wriggled on its belly toward me. I didn’t know what to do. I was not fond of things that could grow up and most definitely eat me, but I just couldn’t leave it there to die. Walking closer I reached down and gently grabbed it from nature’s crime scene. I looked it over and saw that it was a him, and noticed that even though his eyes weren’t open completely, they were already a sea of gold. He soon became my protector. He loved me, and I loved him with every ounce of my being.
I came back to reality when I didn’t feel Shadow’s fur on my leg anymore. I slowed down and looked back. He had stopped and smelled the air. I watched him, knowing not to move. When he finished, he caught up to me and let out a slight whimper. We were near a bear den, one that I obviously hadn’t marked yet. I ran my gloved fingers through his fur, letting him know it was okay. I started walking again because I couldn’t afford not to take this deer home. We needed to eat, and wildlife was sparse in the wintertime.
The blood trail had gotten thicker, and I knew we were almost to the buck. I looked up and noticed he was almost a hundred yards out. I slowed, and Shadow walked in front of me, smelling the air and scouting the area making sure we were safe. This was our routine. I don’t know why, but ever since he decided to go with me on my hunts, he took the lead the closer to the kill we got. When we finally reached the buck, Shadow circled out and almost swayed between the trees, finally walking back only to stop and sit behind me a few feet, keeping watch.
I turned back to the seemingly dead deer and pulled an arrow out of the quiver from behind my back and side shouldered my bow, my little handy technique I liked to call “poking the dead thing with a stick.” A nice jagged, dark pink antler scar about five inches long running down my side is what had made me decide to start using this technique.
I began to poke the deer from its lower stomach up. When I
finally made it to its face, I poked it around the eye and nose and decided that it was dead. I stuck the arrow back in the quiver and reached for the nylon rope latched to my side. I squatted down and had begun to tie the rope to its back legs when I heard Shadow’s menacing growl. I froze and prayed to whoever was listening out there that it wasn’t a bear. Still in a squat position, I slowly turned on the balls of my feet to see what danger was waiting behind me.
A raccoon . . . I pulled down my face cover and glared at Shadow. Are you kidding me? I thought we were in real danger. “Leave it alone,” I halfway whispered at him. I covered my mouth back up and reached for the arrow protruding from the buck’s side. I played a disgusting game of tug-of-war with the damn thing before it finally came out. I almost lost my balance once it was free and stumbled backwards a couple of steps. I heard Shadow let out a hackle that almost was a laugh, and I turned and glared at him, but he was just contently staring at me wagging his big, bushy tail. Before I turned back, another creature caught my eye. It was that raccoon, just staring at me curiously. I dismissed it and stuck the arrow into my quiver and grabbed the rope to start pulling the buck.
We didn’t go but maybe a mile from the tree where I shot the deer, so we had almost three miles to walk before we made it home. I’ve walked farther, but that doesn’t mean that it makes it any easier. He had to have weighed at least two hundred pounds, which meant that almost three miles might as well have been ten. I tied part of the rope to a clip on my belt and made sure I had a firm grip on the rest of it. When I was all set, I turned to Shadow and let out a muffled “Home.”
Proud of our newest kill, he began to prance as if he were the king of the forest. I rolled my eyes; this was nothing new. I began to pull the deer, noticing the still wide-eyed raccoon watching me.
We made it almost halfway when I felt the need to stop. My arms began to hurt, and my hands did, too. You’d think after five years out here this would be a cake walk, but it honestly sucked. Sometimes I missed being able to run down the street to a Sonic and get a fresh cheeseburger. God, what I wouldn’t do for a chocolate milkshake and French fries right now. I heard Shadow let out a whimper, which made me quickly dismiss the idea. As good as a milkshake and French fries sounded, I didn’t want to go back to the real world.
Before we continued, I turned back to make sure everything
was still tightly wound and knotted when I noticed our curious coon waddling along. He stopped short of the deer and looked up at me. Shadow walked to my side, and I looked down at him, and he looked up at me. We were both honestly thinking, what in the hell?
I dropped the rope and pulled the cover off my face just as an icy burst of wind whipped through the trees hitting forcefully. My eyes watered, and my lips instantly dried out, but I walked over to the raccoon and tried to shoo him or scare him away. He didn’t budge. Trying to seem scary, I waved my arms in the air and grrr’d at him . . . all he did was blink at me like an idiot. I looked back at Shadow. “A little help would be nice, you know.” He plopped his butt to the ground and started wagging his tail. I rolled my eyes and groaned. I turned back to the raccoon and picked up a handful of snow and threw it at him. Again he didn’t budge but to shake off the snow. “I give up.” I picked up the rope and covered my face back up over my now burning, chapped lips.
When we finally made it back to the cabin, I was relieved. My home wasn’t much to look at, but to me it was the greatest place to be. It sat up on a hill overlooking a valley that during the spring and summer filled up with this beautiful flower the natives called “shooting stars.” They were mostly purple and pink, but every now and then, I could see a yellow one. I had a cabin, a shed where I cleaned my kills, and behind the shed, a small greenhouse to grow vegetables during the cold months. The first year I was here, I began to get lonelier by the minute, but when I found Shadow, that all changed. I dragged the deer to my shed and untied the rope. I grabbed a hook attached to a chain hanging on the outside part of the shed and pulled it to the deer and hooked his legs. After a gruesome hour of cleaning and thirty minutes before the sun set, I cleaned my tools and took the deer off the hook to move it inside the shed so that no scavengers would get it. I took a bowl full of the fresh cut meat to the cabin, enough for me and Shadow to eat for a few days or more. We stepped up onto my small porch that had an even-smaller swing when I heard Shadow and another set of feet walk up. I turned and looked down, the raccoon.
“Nah ah, no way. Get out of here!” I shuffled my feet trying to scare the damn thing, but he was determined not to go anywhere. He walked closer to the door, and I shoved him with my foot, praying he wouldn’t bite me. Then he decided to sit like a dog and look up at me desperately.
“You. Stay. Bad, uh, raccoon?”
I turned back to the door and opened it, but the moment I did, the little varmint ran right between my legs and into the cabin.
“No! Get back here now!” Still holding a bowl full of fresh cut deer, I waddled in after him. Shadow took his time coming in as usual. I walked to the kitchen counter, which was directly to my left, and set down the bowl so I could throw the raccoon out. When I turned around, he was nowhere to be seen. I walked back to the door and shut it and took off my snow-covered boots. I walked to the right toward what I called my living room and tip toed toward the couch. It had a cover on the front of it, so I slowly lifted it up to see if the raccoon was under it. He, of course, was not. I walked to the fireplace and put some fresh wood that was sitting beside it in. I took some old unsent and never-to-be sent letters from my trash bin and lit them with a match.
After I got the fire going, I took off my coat, gloves and face cover and hung them. Then I walked to my room, which was to the left of my fireplace. I was still tiptoeing and looking for the raccoon. I heard Shadow’s claws clicking on the wood floors and looked back scrunching my brow, and I put a finger to my mouth as if saying “shhh.” He stopped and let out a playful growl and continued to walk toward me with his nails clicking on the wood floor. Huffing out and rolling my eyes, I tiptoed, and he click-clacked. I walked to my bed and bent down to look under it. Shadow followed my every move and got down on his belly and inched towards the bed. When I looked under it, I found a letter. I grabbed it while still scanning for our unwanted guest when I heard what sounded like, well, almost like a small raccoon snore. I peeped up over the bed and so did Shadow, and there it was, the raccoon. I had no clue how I didn’t see him there before, but there he was sprawled out asleep in my bed. There was seriously something wrong with this raccoon.
I looked over to my nightstand and saw a pen sitting there. I slowly reached for it when Shadow let out a small whimper, and I froze. This little guy was out of it. I quickly glared at Shadow as if telling him to shut it. I grabbed the pen and slowly moved to poke the raccoon. I poked him right in the stomach, and he jolted awake like he’d been shot. I quickly backed up, but Shadow decided to stay where he was. When the raccoon faced me, I saw something dangling around his neck.
“The heck is that?” I skootched closer to my bed to get a good
look.
“Is that a collar?” I looked at the raccoon actually thinking for a moment that it could possibly answer me and then realizing how crazy I was for thinking that. Praying it wouldn’t freak out and bite me, I slowly moved my hands to the raccoon. I reached around his neck and unsnapped his collar. It was a black strap with a small gold pendant reading in bold: ZORRO.
“Zorro?” I looked at the tag and then at the raccoon with one eyebrow raised. Then I looked at Shadow, “Who names a raccoon Zorro? You know what? Don’t answer that.” I flipped the tag over in my hands looking for a return address, but all I found was a small broken clasp that seemed all too suspicious. I looked up at the little thing that was still curiously watching my every move . . . someone threw him out. I sighed as I slowly reached back over to him and clasped his collar back together around his neck. I looked at Shadow, tongue out and his tail wagging like a happy puppy. He knew what was coming. I looked back at Zorro.
“Here’s the deal,” I said, obviously not caring if he could understand me or not, “You can stay, but you’re gonna have to pull your weight around here like the rest of us. Do you hear me?” He blinked at me and then turned around and walked in about three circles before he balled up and fell asleep. I looked at Shadow. “I blame you for this.” Then I got off the floor with the letter I had found in my hand and went to the kitchen.
When I got to the kitchen, I briefly scanned the cover of the letter that read my name “Arbor Marie Becket” and then my old address from when I lived in South Carolina. Then I saw the name up top and knew whom it was from;
Lincoln Slater, Magnolia Ave, Bluffton, SC, 29910
How did this get under my bed? I slowly walked to the couch, forgetting about the deer meat still sitting on the counter. My thoughts from the past soon consumed me as I felt tears swell like waves in my eyes.
July 4th, 2007, is what the calendar read when I was seventeen years old, one day before I turned eighteen and Lincoln and I could run away together. My reasons for running away weren’t because I grew up in a horrible home or because someone was after me. I was running away because I was madly in love. My parents adored Lincoln as well as his adored me. We had been together since the time we were ten years old. We wanted to travel the world together and
be our crazy adventurous selves, but I wasn’t allowed to leave until I was eighteen. At the time all that mattered to me was him. We didn’t have much. We worked the last three summers saving up money; we went out and bought a beat-up 1995 white Chevy Silverado, which neither of us ever drove, which we ended up naming Nancy.
My bags were packed before the week ended and so were Lincoln’s. We were ready to leave this one-stoplight town for good. Fourth of July night, the first tragedy in my life struck, and my heart lost one of its many puzzle pieces.
After the town’s annual fireworks show, Lincoln and I walked back to my house. My mouth was covered in blue raspberry Icee and his with sour apple green. When he kissed me, he tasted so sweet, and it made me giggle childishly. We were laughing about how we came up with the name “Nancy” for the truck when I first heard the sirens. We stopped as the firetruck came flying up from behind us and then turned down our street. We lived across the street from each other, so we trashed the rest of our snow cones and took off after the truck. It wasn’t easy keeping up with him; he was a literal track star in high school. I was wearing Nike shorts, a t-shirt, and Converses and still couldn’t keep up. When we turned to run down our street, a wave of smoke hit my face as if I had just run into a wall. I ran faster trying to keep up with him, but my eyes began to water from the smell. I slowed down, but not before I saw my family’s house on fire. I stopped dead in my tracks horrified by what I was seeing.
A large paw on my leg brought me back to the present; my face was drenched with tears. Shadow gave me a look that made me think he was asking, “Are you okay?” I ran my fingers through his soft fur. “Even after all this time, the pain still feels fresh, but I’m okay. I promise.” I kissed his forehead and decided to leave my pity party thoughts on the couch along with the letter from Lincoln. I got up and looked at my alarm clock by my stove since I didn’t have a stove clock. It read 12:48. I ran my hand over my face and realized I had left the meat out. I went to the cabinets and grabbed different storage bowls and then reached down and grabbed Shadow’s food dish. I put some of the meat into his bowl and packaged the rest and put it in the freezer. I set his bowl down, feeling anything but hungry, and I went to my bathroom, hoping to wash off the day. When I finished with my shower, I crawled into my bed and noticed that Zorro was still right where I left him. I had a full-sized
bed, a nightstand, closet and a window bench in my tiny room. Shadow had always slept on the window bench ever since he was a puppy. I hated leaving my curtains open, but he loved looking out into the night. I pushed Zorro awake so I could pull my quilt back. Exhaustion was clinging to every part of my body like an oversized wet t-shirt. When I lay down, Zorro decided to lie right next to my face. I sat up and picked him up gently, still unsure of if he’d bite me or not and moved him down next to my knees.
“I let you in my home and in my bed, but there is no way you and your bushy tail are sleeping right next to my face. Do you understand me?” No, of course, he didn’t, but I still rolled over and closed my eyes hoping my sleep would just sail me away. Right as I was on the edge of gone, I felt a fat ball of fur nest into my hair. My eyes snapped open, and I let out an annoyed grrr. I looked at Shadow, but he was too intent on looking into the dark Alaskan night. For once, instead of fighting, I just let Zorro stay there no matter how annoying it felt to me. I soon slipped into a vast land of dreams that I twisted in and out of. I soon fell deeper, but the further I went, the worse the dreams got . . . and they became the kind that I couldn’t wake up from.
Lazy Day
Joshua Clemmons
Ariel was sprawled on the living room couch waiting for her family to get home. This is all she did, day in and day out; she had little else to do. They were her only source of entertainment. Ariel was not a big dog. She had one eye, was shorter than an average hiking boot, and was not much longer than one. She looked like a grey cloud with a tiny white puff for a head, lying on the pull-out sofa that she rode by herself every weekday.
There are three people in her family. The first is the Big One. He is very rarely kind to her, or anyone else for that matter. If there is ever a frightening noise in the house, it is undoubtedly him. Some days it consists of yelling at the television during a football game while other days it is yelling at the Frail One over the money she had spent. She always knew that she should run and hide whenever she hears his voice.
The Frail One is much nicer than the Big One. She always makes sure that Ariel has plenty of food, water, and toys to play with. Ariel’s favorite is a stuffed raccoon named Marvin that she had bought her. The Frail One is always the one to confront the Big One when he is cruel to her. She appreciated that.
The last one in her family is the Best One. He has always been Ariel’s favorite, ever since she arrived. When the family went to find a dog, the Best One instantly approached Ariel and fell in love. The Big One and the Frail One tried to show him some other dogs. Ariel thinks this was because she was too sick to come home at the time, but the Best One refused to let Ariel go. Now that she’s home, the Best One is always the first to take Ariel to his room whenever the Big One starts fighting. She remembers one time that the Big One had been upset and thrown Ariel against the big table in the dining room. The Best One had seen him do this, and he had confronted the Big One without hesitation. Ariel could see the anger on the Big One’s face, but he would not strike the Best One. She thinks that this is because of what the Frail One might do.
Ariel decided to get up and go outside. She made her rounds around the yard, making sure to check the big tree twice, and quickly grew bored before going inside.
She grabbed Marvin from his permanent home in the pink wicker basket on the fireplace and snuggled up on the couch. She glanced into the front yard one last time before closing her eye.
Red Bandana
Kasey Rigby
I sat on the unforgiving hardwood floor. In one hand, I mindlessly flicked through social media, my phone screen lighting up my dark room. In the other hand, I held a soft red bandana tied so tightly around my wrist and hands that my circulation was being rudely cut off. My eyes stung, and my body begged for rest, but I couldn’t. I knew that as soon as I closed my eyes, a pair of icy blue eyes, his eyes, would stare back. At 11:35 p.m., I was alone in the quiet room. But Curtis was behind that painful blue, and he was waiting in the dark of my mind.
We used to be in percussion together. I was on the glockenspiel, a metal xylophone-like instrument that has a tangy iron smell like blood. He was on the drum set, and he didn’t care about the band or working for it or even for his own life and where it was headed. Curtis was a teenager like a fat housecat; he could do the work, but he had a lackadaisical attitude. His heavy eyelids hid piercing blue eyes. He had a smile more like a smirk, and he had straight black hair that stood proudly on the top of his head. I hated Curtis. He always showed up late. He always talked back. He always acted like he didn’t care. Whenever the band director softly scolded him for being late or disrespectful, Curtis would smirk and snap back a comment as soon as Mr. Fields turned his back. I hated him.
In my room, I put down my phone, and I stared up at the ceiling, which was perfectly white and smooth. The wrenching and twisting in my guts starkly contrasted with the sight. I began to cry, not the huge wracking sobs that rock the room, but the quiet type of crying that rock the soul. I felt harsh, raspy gasps for air, but I could hear only a weak whimper. However, on the inside, oceans were flooding over, and volcanoes were erupting. The world was ending. This apocalypse wasn’t affecting everyone, but I was falling apart, and all I could do was watch the carnage and cry.
Recently, Curtis and I exchanged terse remarks and sour looks. In the halls, whenever he passed, I steadfastly stared forward as if I were a racehorse with blinders on. At practice, he pestered me with comments like spitballs.
“Hey, get out of the way!” He would shout gleefully as he rode
his rolling instrument down an incline past me.
“It’s not a skateboard, dude!” I spat back.
“It isn’t like it really matters; have a little fun,” he teased.
“That is an expensive instrument; don’t break it,” I said as I ignored his statement.
In fact, at one football game, amid the smells of popcorn and hamburgers, he turned to a boy on trumpet and announced that I hated him. I said nothing to refute that statement. I just turned and gazed at the red and blue uniforms clashing on the field.
That was before Curtis killed himself.
I replayed all of our personal battles and arguments. I thought about times when I could have just smiled once at Curtis in the halls. I should have told him, “No! I don’t hate you. We are just different. We just don’t get along.” I could have laughed his comments off rather than scrunch up my nose disdainfully. As I sat in the dark room, I saw lights from the houses across the water blinking through my window curtains. Through blurry, tired eyes, cold tears burned tracks down my cheeks. I knew I should get up, but my limbs were made of lead. I knew I should go to bed, but I could not face his face. I should have helped him; I shouldn’t have hurt him.
The day that he died, I was coming home from the band trip. While I was on a bus laughing loudly with all of my friends on the scratchy seats of a charter bus, he was contemplating why he should stay alive. While I was running around in the rain and smelling the wet concrete and listening to the pitter-patter of the drops, he was dying.
I learned about his death the day after I got home from the trip. I heard it in my English class. A girl named Amber with her big blue bow asked me, “Did you hear about Curtis? He killed himself yesterday!”
“Wait, who?” I was sure, hoping, that maybe I heard her wrong. “The percussion player,” her blue bow cheerfully bobbed up and down delivering the news. I sat there confused staring at my blood-colored English book. When the shriek of the bell announced the next period, I walked down the hallway, moving slowly within my own consciousness.
When I arrived at band, the realization of what really happened punched me in the gut. I slowly put together my instrument, its silver buttons glinting cruelly and coldly at me. I sat down on the hard, black chair and waited. Mr. Fields took the podium and announced,
“Maybe you have already heard, but Curtis, the percussionist” his voice cracked under the pressure of actually admitting it, “took his own life last night.” I heard a girl start quietly crying far away, but I was stuck in my own head, sure that this was my fault, that I had pushed him to do this.
I assumed business as usual, but I was on autopilot. I performed that day just like any other, but it was just that, performing. As I walked from class to class, I desperately looked for him in the spots that I routinely ignored him. He used to be just another face in the crowd, but now I needed to see his smug face one more time. But he was gone.
Eventually, my sobs slowed to ragged gasps. I gazed at the red bandana that memorialized him–a crucial fragment of his marching band uniform. I closed my eyes and held the fabric tighter.
My alarm shrieked through the still morning. I blinked awake, and my sticky eyes rebelled against my brain. I peeled the drool-covered bandana from my face and stared.
I should have been kinder. I kicked and cursed myself for being so insensitive. It was my fault, and I knew it in my heart. It felt like an unseen entity pushed and pulled a knife through my chest. All I could do now was keep moving. I knew as soon as I hesitated or paused, I would be lost. I took a shaky breath and pushed myself off the floor. I walked away, still clutching the crimson bandana.
The Best Man
Lucy Miree
He calls it catching up. Catching up happens when it’s been too long since he last called, so he makes an effort, and you go out. Catching up means dressing well and primping for too long in the mirror, then hating yourself for it. It means that he rings the doorbell like this wasn’t his home too, once. Tonight, catching up happens at the modest pub around the corner. You don’t drink too much because you can’t afford to be loose around him.
This time around, it’s been especially difficult. He keeps talking about her, that perfect wife, about their monotonous little life together. You pretend that it delights you to hear about the dishes she’s cooking, the television shows they’re watching together. In the cramped booth, his knees touch yours. You wonder if he ever misses the cluttered apartment or the quiet mornings at the breakfast table. He licks foam away from his upper lip, and your eyes track the movement. You’re close enough to take his weathered face in your hands if you wanted. In another world, you do, and you kiss him. But you are firmly anchored to this world. In this world, you’re his best friend, he’s straight, and you never think about rough palms or dark blue eyes.
Later, the two of you walk down the sidewalk, shoulders brushing. He’s casual and happy, about one pint past tipsy.
“Ya know, it’s nearly been a year. Since I got married, I mean,” he says. You nod as if you don’t remember standing next to him while she walked down the aisle. You handed him the ring box and signed away your only chance at being half of a whole. “You still haven’t come to see the house.” His eyes cast towards the sidewalk, he sounds disappointed. You have the grace to look apologetic. It makes your stomach turn to think about sitting down with the two of them for dinner, surrounded by evidence of their marital bliss—pictures from their last vacation, their collections of knick-knacks, home-cooked food served on plates they picked out together.
“I’ve been meaning to,” you lie through your teeth. “Just been hard to find the time.” He frowns, and you’re sure he can tell that you’re being insincere. You think there’s a whisper of regret in his expression, but you can’t be sure.
Your house comes up first, and you escape up the stairs. You watch through the window as he strides away, illuminated by the sickly yellow light of streetlamps. There’s a quiet strength about him that you still admire after all these years. You want to run after him and ask him to stay. Some nights, you dare to think he’d do it if you asked.
You don’t. It’s too late, and you’re both too old. He wants to have children, a proper family, something you could never provide. He deserves to be a father.
Your phone pings with a text. “Tonight was fun, let’s get together again soon!” Your thumb hovers over the I key, and you consider breaking your silence. The resentful, selfish part of you hammers against your ribcage, telling you that he’d come running if you just said those words.
You do not tell him. You grit your teeth, and you do not tell him.
Relationships: The Game
Zachary Sticha
SCENE 1. SET. INT. THE HUMAN INTERACTIONS SET. Setting: Two sports announcers at a desk DR.
DEXTER LOVE
Hello, everyone! Welcome back to Human Interactions! The show where we commentate on and analyze events from the worldwide sport of relationships. I’m your host Dexter Love, and as always, I’m joined by my co-host Claybourne Fitzpatrick! Clay, how you doin’?
CLAYBOURNE FITZPATRICK
Oh, I am ecstatic, Dexter! I’m really looking forward to see what the players can bring to the table tonight. It should be good.
DEXTER
Indeed. We’ve got a great lineup of different situations featuring people trying to build stronger bonds.
CLAY
As always, we will be using the Sim’s scale to help us keep score of those valuable brownie points. For those of you scoring at home, it begins with acquaintances ranging from 1-39 points. Friends are considered in the 40-80 points, best friends/family 100-120, and beyond that is lover status. The more a person likes someone, the more points he or she earns.
DEXTER
Don’t forget negative numbers represent the many levels of your enemies.
CLAY
Yes, the lower the number, the higher the hatred. So be careful.
DEXTER
With that out of the way, let’s jump right into the action with our first human interaction!
(Light shines DL on a girl using her phone. Billy is behind her warming up like a boxer going into the ring.)
DEXTER (CONT.)
We go to Fareview Middle School, where 7th grader Billy Diamond has a crush on dancer Jenny Del Vitto and finally has the courage to talk to her.
CLAY
Only problem is Jenny hardly knows him with a measly four points. Barely acquaintance status.
DEXTER
Well, I have faith in this kid. Let’s see if he can change that as we go there live.
(Billy approaches Jenny.)
Hey, Jenny.
Oh, hey . . . Johnny.
Billy.
Right, Billy. I knew that.
BILLY
JENNY
BILLY
JENNY
CLAY
No, she did not! Ouch. Doesn’t even remember his name. That’ll kill some of his newly acquired confidence. Minus two points.
BILLY
How?
DEXTER
But wait! Yes, he is still going for it! I’m impressed by the determination the young lad is showing.
How about this weather?
BILLY
DEXTER
Clay, you’ve seen a lot of interactions like this play out through the years. How often does asking about the weather impress anyone?
CLAY Never!
DEXTER
That’s what I thought.
Um, okay I guess.
JENNY
CLAY
And it does not work here. What was he thinking?! I thought he would have a better ice breaker prepared. Bad play on his part.
DEXTER
He might have, but there is a big difference between practicing with yourself and actually talking to the girl of your dreams. The nerves must have got to him.
CLAY
Well, the clock is ticking. At this rate, he has maybe two questions left before she finds an excuse to leave the conversation.
DEXTER
Let’s see if he can bounce back.
BILLY
So . . . how’s your day been?
He’s desperate now.
CLAY
JENNY
Oh, um, not great. My dad might ground me if he sees what I got on
Oh, bummer.
BILLY
JENNY
And I stubbed my toe during dance 5th period. So, that’s been bugging me.
BILLY
Sorry to hear it. What dance were you doing?
JENNY
It was a hip-hop dance for the pep rally Friday.
DEXTER
Incredible! He seems to have come back from his awkward first impression.
CLAY
Yes. He seems more relaxed out there. Now, he’s listening more and letting her carry the conversation. This could pay dividends and . . . Yes! Her interest in him is going up plus five.
BILLY
Yeah, I love staring at you during the pep rallies.
What?
JENNY
CLAY
Uh oh! That came out a little too creepy for Jenny. Minus one point.
Can he recover?
88 • Blackwater Review the civics test today.
DEXTER
BILLY
I mean, I like watching you dance. You’re like, the best one on the team!
JENNY
Oh, thanks. Hopefully, next year I can be Captain.
DEXTER
Nice save! That’s a plus four.
JENNY
I just need to make sure to keep my grades up so I don’t get kicked off the team. So hopefully this last test doesn’t hurt my grade too bad.
BILLY
I know what you mean. I sure didn’t ace my last math test.
CLAY
He received an 89 on it, but downplaying his grades might work in his favor here.
JENNY
Yeah, tests are so dumb. Bombing one test doesn’t mean I’m not smart, right?
BILLY
Right.
DEXTER
All right, time to make his big move now. He might not get a better opportunity than this.
CLAY I agree.
BILLY
Hey, Jenny, what’s the prep rally for?
JENNY
It’s to get us pumped for the big football game against Foster Middle School. The dance team performs during half time.
BILLY
That’s cool. Maybe I could come and see you dance.
DEXTER
All right, here it is. It all comes down to this. The moment of truth. Let’s see how she responds.
JENNY
Oh, definitely! I would love to see you there.
DEXTER
Boom! There it is! She even said “love to see you there.” This. Is. Huge for Billy.
CLAY
Yes, a true underdog story. Billy isn’t even a big football fan, but whatever it takes to see Jenny he’ll take. He scores thirteen clutch points here!
BILLY
Sweet!
DEXTER
Oh, look at that smile! He sure earned it.
JENNY
Yeah, tickets are three dollars, and you can sit by my boyfriend if you want.
DEXTER & CLAY
No! She has a boyfriend!
CLAY
I did not see that coming. What a blindside!
DEXTER
Neither did Billy. Just when he thought he was getting somewhere with Jenny, she pulls out the bf card. That might be the nail in the coffin.
BILLY
Boyfriend?
JENNY
Yeah, my boyfriend Timmy Tool. We started dating a couple weeks ago, and he comes to all the games, so he knows the best seats. He is super funny and cool. I think you’ll like him. Game starts at six. Oh, there’s my dad. Hope to see you there. Bye, Billy.
BILLY
See ya.
(Jenny exits SL. Light fades on Billy. Buzzer sounds.)
CLAY
And that’s the conversation, or should I say “The Devastation”? What an awful turn of events.
DEXTER
Clay, let’s break it down. What went wrong for Billy here?
CLAY
Well, besides the obvious point of her having a boyfriend, I think Billy’s major downfall was just trying to take too big of a leap. She clearly barely knew him, and he wanted to be more than friends. Just a poor misread by Billy.
DEXTER
I guess that leads us to the real question: Is Billy still going to the game? Clay?
CLAY
It’s doubtful.
DEXTER
I’d say it’s a toss-up at this point. Luckily, I’m getting word that our on-field reporter Felicity James is live with Billy now. So here is the post-conversation conversation sponsored by Leonard’s Lip Balm: “Keep talking; we’ve got your lips covered.” Felicity, what can you tell us?
(Light shines on Felicity with microphone in her hands near Billy SL.)
FELICITY
Thanks, Dex. I’m here with Billy after his valiant performance engaging in conversation with Jenny. Billy, how are you feeling?
BILLY
Umm . . . I’ve been better.
FELICITY
Billy, you looked shaky at the start, but then you seemed to get into a groove.
BILLY
Yeah, I’ve been planning to talk to her for a while now and had a great line to say, but when I actually started talkin’ to her, I don’t know. I guess nerves just got the best of me. Then, I sort of broke the ice and felt more relaxed.
FELICITY
Billy, what’s your overall reaction to the interaction?
BILLY
I mean, I’m obviously a little disappointed she had a boyfriend already, but at the end of the day . . . I consider myself lucky to just be able talk to her and not look like a complete fool. She even knows my name now! And hey, I’m young. There are other fish in the sea.
FELICITY
Good to hear it. Billy, I’m getting a lot of interest from people about your attendance at the football game. What’s the update?
BILLY
I’m not ruling it out, but I’m not a big football fan, and I’d have to get a ride from my mom. So more than likely, I will just save the three dollars towards a new phone.
FELICITY
Well, Billy. Thanks for your time and take care.
BILLY
Thanks for having me. See ya.
(Billy leaves off-SL.)
FELICITY
There you have it! Guys back to you.
(Light fades on Felicity.)
DEXTER
All right, thanks Felicity. Great work as always! That was Felicity James with the post-conversation conversation presented by Leonard’s Lip Balm. Clay, any final thoughts?
CLAY
I am glad Billy isn’t dwelling on this. He has the right attitude after this unwanted outcome. I’m sure this isn’t the last time we hear from Billy Diamond.
DEXTER
I agree. I see him learning from his mistakes and coming back to talk to another crush very soon.
CLAY
Hopefully, with a more positive result.
DEXTER
In the end, final score He sees her as a 59, friend status, a demotion from crush status after losing 15 pts. She sees him as a 25, acquaintance. Plus, eleven points. Coming up after the break, we go to married couple Daniel and Courtney Sharper after Daniel has been fired from his job. We will watch the big reveal live on Human Interactions!
(Blackout.)
Rescue Me
Raven Motley
“Upsy-daisy!” My mom’s overly cheerful voice shouts as she opens my bedroom door.
“Do I have to go to school? Can’t I just skip this last month?” I say looking at her suspiciously. Why is she so happy today?
“No ma’am, you can’t.”
“Ugh.” I pull my feather comforter that my Mam Mams made me when I was thirteen over my head in rebellion.
“Come on, Sutton, it’s just this one more month, and then you graduate. So get your lazy tail out of bed, Miss Priss!”
I hate when she says my name like that. She always gives it way too much emphasis. I flip the cover off my face, causing my hair to fly into my eyes and mouth. I hate this.
“Up! Up!” she claps her hands at me like a dog trainer.
I sit up and look at her with a menacing glare. “Since when do you care if I go to school or not?”
She looks at me as if she is offended, but I know better.
“What? I am serious; the last time you were this anxious for me to get out of the house . . . Wait a minute; tell me you did NOT invite that snake back here!”
Her offended glare goes straight to shameful in a matter of seconds, and I know I am right.
“Look, you wouldn’t understand. What we have is real. He really loves me, and he told me he was sorry.”
“Yeah, he is sorry, a sorry piece of shit.” I sarcastically laugh at my mother, wondering how she could be so stupid, so naïve.
“Don’t you dare talk about him that way! He takes care of us when he can, and he buys me nice things. You’re only eighteen; you don’t understand what love is.”
“I may not know what it is, but I sure as hell know what it isn’t. I know it isn’t giving you a black eye every time you don’t agree, and I damn well know it isn’t sleeping with a man who’s been married for almost twenty years! Oh, my bad, Mom, I guess you are right. I don’t know what love is, and thanks to you, I don’t want to!”
“You watch your ungrateful mouth, or I will have you out of my house even before you graduate, Sutton Rayne Stakato!”
I put my hands over my ears. “Stop saying my name like that!
How can you stick up for him? He doesn’t care about you unless he’s getting it. You are literally what people call a ‘booty call.’ Just some tail for him whenever his wife leaves for the weekend or goes off on one of her business trips, and you know this. And yet you continue to stay with this sorry sack of—.”
“That is enough. Not one more word from you. Get up, get out of bed and go to school. You can stay at your Mam Mam’s or with a friend tonight,” and with those final words, she slammed the door behind her, shaking our entire single wide. Like always, she ended our unfinished conversation.
I flopped back down on my creaking mattress and looked up at my clutter of playwright posters on my ceiling. Mostly Shakespeare, but I did have a few others. There was an Oscar Wilde and a Sophocles poster up there somewhere. I didn’t know much about acting itself, but I loved the plots of the plays. I loved reading the scripts, not just because I loved to read in general. It helped me escape this world and took me to a place of romance, comedy, or tragedy.
Right as I put my arm over my eyes and was about to fall back asleep, I heard someone knocking at our front door. Oh, the benefit of living in a trailer; you can hear literally everything.
“Hi, Allie, how are you doing this morning, my dear?” My mother’s tone was all too cheery once again.
“I’m great, Ms. Ivy. Is Sutton up yet?”
“I tried getting her up, but she’s extra grumpy this morning.”
“Wow,” I scoffed loudly enough to where I knew they both could hear me.
“Then I guess I will just have to go get her up myself!” Allie was obviously ignoring my remark.
I heard the front door shut. Allie Martinez has been my best friend since the second grade. She’s the one that basically made me be her best friend. I remember it as if it were just yesterday. I wanted to play on the jungle gym, but the mayor’s daughter, Harmony, wasn’t having it. She shoved me in the dirt and caused me to scrape my knee, and I started crying. She and her little posse then began to call me “No Name Rayne.”
Then, out of nowhere, this little girl, smaller than me and Harmony, shoved her so hard and told her if she ever caught her picking on me again, she’d make her kiss a frog. Harmony ran away screaming, and this other girl looked me in the eyes, smiled at me with a snaggle-toothed grin, and said, “I’m Allie, and you now have to be my friend forever.”
And here we are today, about to graduate high school and
planning on going to the same college together.
“Good morning, grumpy pants!” Is all I heard before I saw a tiny Puerto Rican flying through the air, laughing and landing on me, knocking the wind out of me.
“For the record,” I breathlessly say, “it’s not my fault.”
“Charles, again?” she said lying on me like a dead fish.
“Yep, do you mind if—”
“You don’t even have to ask. Now get up, get cute, and let us go forth into the land of textbooks and smelly classmates!”
I giggled and looked at her, loving how she was always looking out for me. She never minded if I came over; she hates it when I ask, and even though I know I don’t have to, I always ask anyway.
She rolled off me, and I crawled out of bed. She was talking away as I was grabbing the things I needed.
Extra underwear, check, toothbrush, check, hair brush and hair-tie, check and check. After I made sure I had everything, I threw on my favorite pair of worn-out jeans with three holes, both knees and one on the right thigh. Allie calls them my “No-Butt” jeans because apparently they make my butt look as flat as North Dakota. I then proceeded to throw on my bright yellow “Talk Nerdy To Me” t-shirt and went searching for my Converses.
“You are not wearing that to school,” she looked at me horrified.
“Huh? What? Why not?” I looked down at my outfit and back at her.
“Sutto, it’s the last month of school.”
Not liking where this was going, I started looking for my shoes again.
“We have to go out with a bang; we are going to have to show those underclassmen that even though we still have a month left, we are still the kings and queens of the school.”
“Ha! I found them!”
“Are you even listening to me right now?”
“I am, but Allie, we both know I don’t care for any of those insipid idiots. So tell me why would I go out of my way to look good for them?”
“You don’t think Dakota is an inspid idiot.” I could just hear the slyness in her voice, but she also had my attention. I turned around to her after I tied both my shoes.
“First off, it’s IN-SIP-ID as in tasteless, unimaginative, or dull. Secondly, Dakota is stuck so far up Harmony’s bleached butthole to even notice me anymore.”
Dakota Lansky was the very first boy I liked, and I am not
talking about a kid crush. I am talking about we decided to do something very stupid together, and in the process, I started to have “L–word” feelings for him, but then I found out he had started dating that evil witch, Harmony.
“That’s not what I hear,” she said as she looked deviously at me. She really had my attention now.
“I hear as of last night Dakota left Miss Bleached Butthole for reasons unknown.”
I rolled my eyes. “That definitely has to be a rumor. They’ve been together since sophomore year. Besides even if it were true, I am not going to be his rebound. I don’t care for him that way anymore,” I lied and she knew it.
“Liar, liar pants on fire!”
I grabbed my books and necessities bag. “I feel like I am forgetting something.”
“Yeah, your common sense; I’m just saying, Sutto, you’ve had the hots for him since I’ve known you and you started to “L-word” for him at the end of freshmen year, and now he’s available and you’re going to let him see you in your No-Butt jeans.” Again she looked horrified and pretended to gag.
“Hey, don’t diss on my No-Butts, you a-hole. They’re my favorite pair of jeans, and you know this.” I kept scanning my room trying to figure out what I was forgetting.
“Ugh, I love you, but you need some serious BFS knocked into you.”
“Some what? That sounds like a disease.”
“It stands for ‘Boy and Fashion Sense.’” She rolled her eyes.
“Close enough.”
I could tell Allie checked her phone for the time at least three times because it kept making that annoying clicking noise.
“We really need to go, Sutto.”
“I’m sorry. I just know I am forgetting—oh wait. Never mind. I found it.” It was one of my many writing notebooks. I have two free periods after lunch, and all I do is write, and I can’t go anywhere without a notebook. The world around me may have dull people in it, but they make for good characters when I am bored.
“Okay, now that you have your diary, may we please go?”
I stuck my tongue out at her.
“Ivy, my darling, my love, you look just beautiful today!”
“Shit,” I mumbled. “Satan’s here.”
“Well, it looks like we are taking the window exit again, just when I thought we could use the front door for once and not ruin my
favorite pair of white jeans.”
I opened the window and let Allie go out first. As I climbed out and closed my window, I could still hear Charles sweet-talking my mom. This time I really did gag.
Charles has been around since I was ten years old. I thought he was the greatest thing to have ever walked this earth at the very beginning. He was the first man to really love me like a daughter.
So Charles made me feel loved and like we were one big happy family. Well, that is until the day I saw him hit my mom. She accused him of being unfaithful, and she turned around and slapped him. What I saw next made me feel as if not having a family wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Turns out she was right all along; he was cheating, only she was the woman he was cheating with. To add onto that, he had been married for almost ten years when he started sleeping with my mom.
I never knew who my real dad was. My mom never spoke or speaks about him when I tried to talk to her about who he was, and where he was. And the only answer I ever got was, “Are you not grateful enough to just have me? We don’t need someone like that.” After seeing how Charles treated my mom, I wondered what could be much worse than that?
“Sutto, let’s go!” Allie’s yelling and horn brought me back to reality.
As I climbed into her lemonade-smelling Volkswagen, Allie turned up her music all the way and smiled a perfect smile at me. I guess that’s what happens when you wear braces for three years. She put on her favorite band’s CD, and the whole time it was playing, all I could think about was how One Republic and a yellow rusted Volkswagen named Beetle go perfectly together. Both were worn out and godawful, but I loved Allie and she loved both as much as I love my “No-Butt” jeans. So I could never ruin it for her.
As we drove our normal route through town with the windows down, I became lost looking at the world I grew up in. Allie was singing at the top of her lungs and paid me no mind. The trees were in full and as green as grass. The air was hot and full of smell, some honey smells, some from Winston’s Bakery that we passed, and unfortunately some from the Bryer’s chicken farms two miles out of town. It was home, though.
We passed the city hall of Bay Hallow and also the animal shelter where I worked. I loved it there. No offense to Allie, but I loved animals more than I love actual people. Animals are strange; they love you unconditionally no matter how you dress, look, or
smell. They just want to be loved. I’ve worked there for almost three years now, and it has felt more like a home to me than my own house. As we slowed down at a stop sign, Allie squealed at the top of her lungs, which scared me so bad I hit the back of my head on the door.
“What the hell?” I said, rubbing the place where I knew a knot was bound to show up.
“Black Cat! Black Cat!” She licked her finger and put an X in the corner of her windshield, thinking that would keep away the supposed bad luck. I just laughed.
“You can’t honestly be serious. What’d he ever do to you?”
“Cause me bad luck. You might not be superstitious, but I am. Don’t laugh at me. You saw what happened last time. A black cat ran in front of Beetle. I ripped my pants in school. It’s not funny! Stop laughing right now.”
“Poor kitty,” I wiped a tear from my eye. Right before she started driving again, I actually noticed the town. There were hardly any people or cars. Usually, the town was filled with life.
“Hey, Allie, is it just me or does the town seem extra dead today?”
She glanced at me in surprise, “You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?”
“Two more girls went missing over the weekend. One over in Addison, and one right here from town. The girl from Addison was in our grade apparently, and the girl that went missing here was working at Sykes Diner. Rumors say that is was Madison Carrol, but I also heard Madison was planning on skipping town anyway.”
“Are you serious? I guess the Vanisher finally made their way to Bay Hallow, so much for the curfew.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” I could hear the fear in her voice even though her face concealed any evidence of it.
In the last four months, almost ten girls had just completely vanished into thin air. No trace of them except their things. It was happening all over North Florida and South Alabama. Mayor Woods issued a town-wide curfew hoping that this would keep the town from any travesties. Unfortunately, that was futile. The police still had no suspects, which was even scarier because the whole town thought these girls were actually just going “poof” and disappearing.
“Hey, look, there’s Petey!”
As Allie pulled over to the curb in front of the town’s water tower, I unbuckled and threw all my stuff into the back. When she finally stopped, I opened the door, and a giant linebacker popped his
“Hey hottie! Waiting for me?” Allie giggled and attempted to wink, but it just looked like a squinty blink.
“Well, hey, there, Beautiful, and why, yes, as a matter a fact, I am; mind giving me a ride to school, like always?” Petey’s voice was as thick as Bay Hallow’s famous honey and just as sweet, too.
I climbed out and lifted the seat up so I could crawl in the back behind Allie. Petey was a six-foot, two-hundred-something-pound giant, so he needed all the room he could get in this tin can.
Peter Alano Stakato, or as the entire town likes to call him, Petey, is my very handsome, very athletic, and very gay cousin, and I also like to consider him like another Allie. No one but Allie and I know about Petey. He feels if the whole town and team knew about him, then no one on the team would respect him, and he probably wouldn’t get his football scholarship to the University of Florida. Bay Hallow still lives in prejudiced times unfortunately. All the girls fawn over Petey, and why wouldn’t they? Black hair, blue eyes and an eight pack, he’s a man. Sadly for them, they will never catch his attention, but it’s still funny nonetheless to watch them try so hard just to fail miserably.
“Sutto!”
“Huh?”
“Earth to Zombie, did you not hear me?” sarcasm fills his voice.
“No.” Not really interested in his not-so-girl problems, I loved Petey, but he was such a drama queen sometimes.
“I said I told my dad about me this weekend.”
Okay, this was definitely interesting. Uncle Walsh was the town’s mechanic and weekend drunk. He was also prideful when it came to what he thought was his very straight son.
This would be interesting
When he looked back at me expecting me to say something, I just said, “Well, are you going to tell me how he took it or just leave me hanging?”
“Well, not good, but he also didn’t burst into a million pieces like I imagined he would. All he could say to me was ‘I knew there was a reason you weren’t bringing girls home,’ over and over again.”
“How’d you tell him?”
“I made sure he was drunk, and that way if he got mad, he’d be too drunk to take it seriously, but I figured I was still telling him.” His smile got huge as if he had just won a Nobel Prize.
100 • Blackwater Review head in the car.
I just smiled and shook my head at him.
“Here we are!”
“The streets may have been completely dead, but the school is not,” I said dreading the next seven hours.
I looked at the giant welcoming sign out front screaming in big mustard yellow letters, “Welcome to Bay Hallow High School,” and under it saying, “Home of the Hedgehogs” with an angry hedgehog holding a football. First, who the hell makes hedgehogs look angry? They’re so cute and cuddly, in a way. Second, I came to believe that whoever decided to make the school mascot a hedgehog in the first place was smoking some serious cannabis.
We all three climbed out of the Beetle and walked to the double doors, which to me was exactly how I imagined the gates of hell looking. That’s what they should rename this place, starting with that stupid welcoming sign in front of the school. “Welcome to Hell Hallow, where all we care about is football and not our students’ education!”
“This is it, guys, our last month and then sweet heavenly freedom!” She smiled and skipped happily. She then linked her arms though mine and Petey’s and led us through the gates and into the fire.
The day dragged by slower than a snail on pot, but when fifth period finally arrived, I was relieved. Fifth period is when the school holds all three lunches, and after the last lunch was over, the school only had two classes left, which for me was just free time to work on my writing and do research for my stories. Plus, I had last lunch with Allie, who was basically my comic relief during a dreadful day. When the bell rang for last lunch, I booked it out of economics and met up with Allie at our usual lunch spot out on the lopsided picnic table in the yard next to the cafeteria. When I first got to high school, finding a lunch table to sit at was nerve racking because it was like choosing what branch of politics you were going to be for the rest of your life. I just didn’t want to sit with people who only talked about makeup or sex.
So, I spotted this lopsided, covered in permanent-marker penises and “I love so and so’s” with loads of chewing gum underneath outside underneath the school’s biggest and loneliest oak tree and decided it was mine. Ever since then, this table has been my spot, and well, of course, Allie and Petey’s if they had the same lunch as I did.
As I sat at the table eating my homemade crunchy peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I listened to Allie talk about this new boy she liked. He was from somewhere over in Addison, and according to Allie, he was practically in love with her. She didn’t believe in dating
boys from our town just like I didn’t believe in eating lunches from our school, so she would always find herself being dumped and heartbroken while I always found myself with a broken and clogged toilet.
“Oh my god, Sutto, Dakota is walking this way,” she squealed.
I stared at her with my mouth full of peanut butter that was too sticky to easily swallow.
“Hey, Sutton.” His voice came from behind me. It sounded just like a ripe watermelon on a hot summer day.
Oh my god, what do I do? What do I do?
He sat down beside me. My eyes widened as I looked at him with my cheeks stuffed with un-chewed PB&J.
“Hi, Dakota!” Allie said deviously as she kicked me under the food.
“Ow!” I yelled almost spitting out my food. I glared at her.
“Swallow your food, stupid,” she mouthed at me.
I tried, but then, of course, I started choking.
Great, just freaking great, I am going to die choking on a sandwich in front of Dakota.
I could feel his concerned gaze watching me. “Uh, is she okay?”
“Sure, yeah, she does this kind of thing a lot,” Allie grinned at him quickly before she turned back at me and stared at me as if she was screaming at me with her eyes to get my shit together. Oh no, it’s not like I am choking or anything.
He touched my shoulder and began to rub my back, which only then caused me to cough harder. I felt my face burn red. I could die of embarrassment; oh wait, no I’m going to choke to death on a stupid sandwich before I even get the chance.
I finally realized I had my bottle of apple juice sitting in front of me and started chugging it, praying I wouldn’t cough and spit it all over them. The moment I finally was able to catch my breath, the bell rang to signal the end of third lunch and also the end of whatever chance I had to hear what Dakota had to say. Great, I am never eating peanut butter and jelly again, strictly soup from now on.
“Well, I have to go; I’ve got chemistry this period, and we all know how crazy Mrs. Harrington can be if you don’t show up one minute before the tardy bell. I will catch you guys later, and Sutto?”
“Yeah?” I looked at him wondering if I shouldn’t just tell him to bug off, that even after two years, I still hated him and rightfully so.
Ugh, but he has always been so caring . . . No, bad Sutton. Focus on your writing.
“I would really love it if we could catch up sometime.” His grin went all the way up into his green eyes, and before my brain could
stop my heart, I said, “I would love that.” And then he was gone.
Before I looked back at Allie, I saw everyone at third lunch staring at me in shock.
“Excuse me,” Allie said as she walked in front of me, “Do all of you need an eye exam? Because if all of you can’t let a girl choke in peace without eye gunning her down, we need to call the eye guy to the school. Move along people! Shoo!”
Then they all dispersed faster than flies trying to get away from a swatting hand. Oh no, this wasn’t good.
“This is bad,” I looked at her, “we need to get to class, like now.”
“We will get there, eventually, but we need to talk about how Dakota actually wanted to talk and still wants to talk to you, and he touched your shoulder! He still cares about you! I knew it!” she squealed.
“Allie, that swarm of gossiping fish weren’t staring at me because I was choking. They were staring because Dakota was talking to me! They all ran off to tell Harmony, I’m sure! We need to go before her lioness spots us and starts something we all know will not end well.” I started grabbing my empty lunch bag and my writing notebook, getting ready to speed-walk to the library.
“Well, you did have an excellent point, but the lioness has spotted you,” she said with annoyance.
“Shit,” I mumbled.
“Oh, my! Look who it is, Ms. No Name Rayne.” Her voice was probably lovely to all of the people who fawned over her, but to me it was like hearing someone run her nails over a chalkboard. I stood straight and clenched my fist before I turned to face the witch. I hated being called that nickname.
“Oh, you poor Harmony. After how many years you can’t come up with anything new and original? Someone’s losing her touch.” I turned just in time to see that Allie’s insult was a stick in Harmony’s ass. They hated each other more than the Capulets and the Montagues.
“Please, petty child, my beef isn’t with you, so let the adults talk,” she snipped back at Allie.
“What did you just say to me?”
I grabbed her arm and held her back from hurting Harmony because even though she was only five-two and one hundred and two pounds, she wasn’t afraid of anyone, especially Harmony Woods.
“What does her soulless majesty want today, and whatever it is, can she make it fast because we are late for class?”
“I don’t give a flying crap what I’m doing. All I care about is
what you are doing, especially with my boyfriend.” I could see her face turning redder by the second.
“See, I heard that he left your sorry ass. What happened, Harmony? Did he finally see that the ginger had no soul to love?”
“We are on a temporary break, you stupid bitch. I will make your life a living hell if you do not leave him alone.” Her face was so red her freckles had disappeared.
“Sheesh, careful Harmony, you look like you’re about to explode.” I looked at Allie, “Ten dollars says confetti pops out of her head when she does explode.”
“Ten dollars says it’s acid,” Allie grinned.
“You are so on,” and we shook hands.
“Shut up! You stay away from Dakota, or you will live to regret it! And you, next time I see you outside of school, watch your back.”
“Girls, get to class now!”
We all three turned around to see Coach Shells walking toward us. Shells was such an odd last name, especially for a coach.
“Do you not realize that it’s ten minutes past sixth period? Where are you three supposed to be?”
“Photography.”
“Earth science,” I could still feel Harmony’s eye daggers sticking into my back.
“And you, Ms. Stakato?” He never really liked me, so of course he always said my name like he just threw up twelve and a half times and that half time was where he said my name right before he turned it into thirteen. I never understood why he felt so agitated towards me.
“Well, I am waiting.”
“Oh, sorry, I don’t have any more classes today; I usually just hang out in the library until the bell rings.”
“All right, you two, get to class now or I’ll have both of you in detention, and you, get to class or go home,” and with that he turned and led both Harmony and Allie to class and left me to gather my thoughts.
For the next couple of hours I was too frustrated to write anything that made sense or wasn’t me making up a million ways to kill Harmony. The only logical thing I wrote the whole time was a short story of how I was a majestic queen and Harmony was a dragon, and I became this knight and cut off her head. Why did she have to be so bitchy? Maybe if she shaved off her red hair that had an ugly perm in it, she would be a happier person.
Ten minutes before the bell released us to go home, Principal
Stewart, the school’s most uneducated employee, came on the speaker.
“Students and staff, all activities as of tomorrow are canceled. The police will be here tomorrow to conduct interviews with everyone. We will be having a movie day in the auditorium. It is mandatory for all students and staff to be here. Thank you. Phew, thank God that is over. I hate that damn mic. I hate those damn announcements to those ungrateful rats.”
“Uh, Mr. Stewart?”
“What do you want now, Denise? Did my mother-in-law call again? Tell her she can take her ungrateful daughter back. What logical woman doesn’t love Pokémon? I knew I should’ve divorced her long ago.”
“Principal Stewart, the mic is still on.”
“The what?”
“The microphone, sir.”
“Oh, dammit.”
Click.
He collects Pokémon, but doesn’t know how to turn off a microphone. This town never ceases to amaze me.
When the end of the day bell finally rang, I was relieved and booked it straight to the Beetle. I didn’t want to run into Dakota or his stalker ex. I waited for Allie by the car and wished she would hurry up so we could just go, but of course, she took her sweet time. As I was waiting and watching students either making out by their cars or getting in them to leave, I saw a police car pull into the parking lot. The guy parked and got out; he was tall and slender, almost too skinny to be a cop. He asked Benny Calusa, a sophomore, who had won this year’s talent show by eating a triple decker cake in one minute, something, and the vacuum cleaner pointed straight at me.
“Oh, shit.”
Courtiers of the Dairy Queen
Ryen Goebel
Remove the roof of the evening and we find them, all these young people, dressed in smiles and cheap clothes, bandying words like paper airplanes across the table: call me clever, ask me where I got my shoes, will it rain again tomorrow? All these lonesome fools, meeting manoverboard eyes, casting for glances, the life-preserver pressure of the hand to be touched, to be seen, to be heard. They drink each other, larger than life, breaths expanding the room or afterwards, they drink themselves smaller, alone in smuggled bottles, catch smoke tides, waft themselves above the cold places they have made or been given.
Fleeting and too keen, all these adrift children sparkling in the late fluorescence. Ask me when last I was high, high on hope, or happiness, or the fact of being truly known or leave that unsaid, for tonight is a night for well-written lines, truths escorted by dainty, pretty lies in dancing shoes.
Tonight they are writing so as to be alive, so as to give themselves away, so as to discover, unwitting, the secrets of the heart, and, in so doing, be for a moment, alight and incorruptible.
The “Popular” Girls
Carly Herrera-McClelland
The icy wind ran across the tip of my nose. I closed my eyes so I could envision what my past life felt like. Despite the fact that I was a whopping 2,000 miles away, I could picture all my old friends with their shorts and tank tops on getting into their cars. Meanwhile, I was wearing the heaviest coat I had ever worn in my life. Everything, not just the weather, was different here in Indiana as compared to California. Trying to make friends seemed impossible because all the kids in this dinky town had known one another their entire lives. The “popular” middle school girls had caught my eye, and like the rest of the students, I wanted to be one of them. Although I wanted to be one of them, I needed to be myself even more.
As I sat down next to two strangers at the lunch table with my brown paper sack sandwich, I saw the popular girls smiling from ear to ear with their Vera Bradley lunchboxes and matching backpacks. Alone and far away from the only home I had ever lived in, I felt something growing inside of me. It felt like a thick, green envious monster was trapped in my body. Initially, I plotted an unrealistic and intricate plan. First, I would bleach my hair blond, then get a whole new wardrobe of clothes, eventually buying my first Vera Bradley travel set and taking gymnastic lessons so I could make the cheer team. As crazy as all this sounded, eleven-year-old me really thought it was the only solution to my dilemma. Instead of accepting myself, I grew obsessed with being someone else.
After a month of begging my mother to let me bleach my hair, I compromised on light brown highlights. For my birthday, I asked for the perfect Bermuda blue Vera Bradley lunch pail and became abruptly interested in sports, especially gymnastics. Even though I was doing everything I needed to do to be accepted, nothing really changed. My attention had hyper-focused on being accepted into this overrated clique. “Was it my name?” I asked myself. These girls had celebrity sounding names like Elle Costello and Reagan White. How could a name like Carly Taylor Herrera-McClelland ever be fawned over? I guess I was kind of stuck with it, though. Looking for any slight difference I was capable of changing, I compared and contrasted myself with these girls. Eventually, they noticed me, and I got invited to my first slumber party with the popular girls.
Finally, I was so happy to be in this group. It was what I had thought I wanted. I truly believed everything else about my life would fall into perfect alignment. Sadly, I was so wrong. Soon after the honeymoon phase was over, these girls were spreading rumors about me and each other any chance they got. Everything became a competition between one another: the clothes, the boys, and even the grades. I finally broke down when during a science fair one of these girls disrupted my bacteria experiment I had worked on for weeks! I was so unhappy trying to replicate myself into a mean girl clone. I just wanted out, so I reevaluated all the things that once had been so important to me.
After much thought, I began to dissociate myself from these girls and all the things with which I did not agree. I dropped out of gymnastics and never attempted any other sport afterwards because I concluded that I disliked sports, not to mention I could not do a cartwheel to save my life. When I went to the store, I picked out only comfortable clothes. I didn’t worry about the name brand or who would see me in them. I developed a love for theatre and The Beatles. For the first time since I had moved, I became secure in my own skin, and I was no longer afraid to stay true to my own identity and beliefs. Although my experience might have been extreme, I feel grateful to have quickly overcome identity issues that take some people decades to defeat. Trying to be someone else is a waste of any individual’s unique human experience. Never in my life have I met the exact same person twice, and I believe there may be a reason for that. Whenever I have the opportunity to make a decision, I make it my own, whether it is what I have for lunch or what I choose to do with the rest of my life. When I listen to what my conscience tells me is right, I find myself living in a world full of the people and things that are most important to me.
To Fiona
Jaclyn Tipton
You taught the pre-algebra that everyone switched schedules to attend, and students lined up in the Math Counts club, ears eager, just to hear your booming laugh and more about your border collie, Sebastian.
Sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, I shadowed you for years, wading in your sunshine.
But your body, always falling apart, was more fragile than even my freshman heart, brimming with first love and first loss. You embraced me like my mother would, still sitting in your foldable chair wearing pink flip flops, and I stared at the blue butterfly on your shoulder. I always wondered about its beginnings, what stories laid sunken in that skin.
After you snuffed a cigarette, you handed me Bob the Spider Plant in a tiny red pot, with your arm that wasn’t in the cast, soothed me with the lungs that hadn’t collapsed yet and spoke gently with the heart monitor that beeped Morse code: L-O-V-E.
“Your love for that boy won’t be alive in a year,” you told me, “but Bob will be, with some care.”
Once, in your cluttered, dimly lit garage, which you pronounced like “carriage” with a “G,” after we had papier-mâchéd one more layer of grey on that Odyssey Easter Island Head, you told me you spotted wind-whipped leaves sprouting out my ears, tangling in my bangs. You said you were positive I would grow beautiful gardenias, roses, or sunflowers one day.
You planted a seed in my brain with a gentle kiss to the scalp, and every day it has been growing. Leaves now snake my arms in a waxy green and drape my body like a shoulder blanket. The buds on my fingertips are morning glories.
I have Bob here, and he grows with me. And the two of us say hello, Fiona.
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The Musician
Ryen Goebel
There was a boy who carried no words inside him, only music. It was both curse and blessing, the two forged razor-soft and uncertain by long years. In the same mouth that turned words to ash, quiet, dreaming melodies curled like the silken beginnings of flowers, waiting for the merest thought to set them alight. In the same hands that rendered letters unreadable, shaped words no mind could comprehend, the rhythms of the sky and the stars and the moving waters ran like quicksilver beneath the skin, the mirrored ichor of galaxies. He was born one of those rare, muse-eyed children with sleepless fingers forever searching, leaving fragile masterpieces in the imprints of heel and toes.
Music, the great wordless language of the soul, came easier than sleep, easier than breathing. From the blind island of the stage, the sound of every unspoken thought, distilled and woven into iridescent chords, rang out across the darkened concert caverns to brush utter strangers’ earlobes, twine fingers with theirs, plant ghostly, evaporating kisses along their cheekbones.
But it was a twisting and self-serving magic, transmuting in the heart of each listener, a caterpillar set loose to gorge on the memories hidden behind the eyes, absorbing each fear and desire, regret and hope so that when the boy played them a butterfly, all flame and the shimmering black lace, the hall filled with moths and hummingbirds,
dragons and kites, cicadas and sunbeams as the fierce art of the music metamorphosed inside a thousand separate dreamers to show them fragments of themselves.
Even as he pricked his fingers on piano keys, bound his wrists to the bodies of violins, and bled the intricacies of his soul into the reverberating quiet of the crowds, the melodies could show them nothing new, tell them nothing they did not wish to hear. Words were power, and they had been denied him by the same windy grace which made every note piercing to point of heartbreak.
There was a girl whose world was light and motion and color without a breath of sound. She went to concert halls sometimes, to watch the musicians, for their hands and their faces and the unconscious art of their bodies. Unable to experience the music, her eyes drank all the more deeply of the small moments when its magic transformed the players. It was impossible to grow tired of seeing a chalky composition, the fruit of some foreign archive, awake in the hands of a knife sharp man, and, inablink steal all his corners. Or to watch some young pair of glasses, greenly half-dead of stage fright, remember how to call up lightning and send it crackling through the audience like a summer storm.
She had become very good at seeing, but music is the invisible alchemist, its traces left only in the barest shifts of faces and eyes and the subtle lilt of shoulders, and these illusive crumbs tempted her to recitals again and again.
Music was her only eccentricity. She spoke through the eyes and the hands, and through her writing, making a life for herself through poems, short fictions, her work as an editor which was perfectly comfortable, and never remotely rich. Then there was one day in a heat-exhausted August,
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when, slipping into the cool velvet depths of the auditorium, she faced a man she could not bear to watch.
As he crossed the stage, oddly childlike inside his height, the raw emotion bled from him as from a wound underwater. He played without chair or stand, without introduction of any kind. She had no more inkling than a tree or a stone of the impossible gift he was giving voice to, noticing instead how he fluttered over the instrument, a tailored darkness whose hands were burning, dying moths.
She watched as the music sent the crowd into raptures, wondering, how can you clap for this man, how can you smile? He was not only broken, but fracturing further under the weight of each moment, yet the melody wove such a mirage that the audience hardly glimpsed the magician. Halfway through the recital she fled to the molten air and sunlight of the street.
But she could not escape with distance or distraction the staggering memory, a brief catching of his eyes on hers. She could not negate with grey heat, the chill of electric desperation she had found there, helpless, shrinking and reaching by turns. Already a part of her knew she would search for him in hallways, dawn streets, the unsteady glass of windows through rain, seeking the voiceless, collapsing songbird whose charred wings could still, perhaps, be saved.
The Ant
Jaclyn Tipton
The boy keeps glancing at the silver knives his mother uses to slice mangos in the kitchen as his sisters talk about tomorrow’s science test, feet tapping from syrupy caffeine and not nightmares.
The boy’s smile never reaches his eyes, and his father always claps his back with a bragging hand. The boy tries to think of things that made him laugh, but all he can think of is himself becoming an ant. Maybe someone would scorch him with a magnifying glass or chop him in two pieces with a dirty fingernail.
His friends talk about the movie he’s never watched, the song he hasn’t heard, the model he’s never seen. He sits in what he calls his “humanity,” unwashed hair, dimming teeth, dirt-stained skin, the shirt he wore yesterday, and listens to the people who try too hard.
He stares at the sun when he thinks it’s too bright. He loses his line. He wanders until he fries of exhaustion. Maybe he really is an ant.
The boy listens to songs about death and figures Hell wouldn’t be so bad. He tries to write poetry about the vastness of the universe, about how his friends would eventually forget his middle name, about the God who never answered, but he can never finish a metaphor.
Seasons of the Breakdown
Savannah Gahagan
In the Winter, she lost her mind
The cold grey skies ate at her brain
Tears fell from her face like snowflakes
They were unique like the drawings on her wrists
The Winter began the breakdown
In the Spring, they put her away
Her world went from grey skies to metal chairs,
Crisp white bedsheets, and florescent lights
They told her she was insane
The word insane bloomed new in the Spring
In the Summer, she took pills
They were different shades of blue and green
Like the ocean in the town where she grew up
The man in the chair told her she was almost cured
The Summer gave her the ocean in a little clear cup
In the Fall, she was brought home
The drawings on her wrists now faded from red
Yellow flowers bloomed on the grey painted walls
Her little ocean of pills in their new orange home
And there she stood praying once more not to fall again
First Place, James and Christian LaRoche Poetry Contest, 2017
The Truth Hurts, but It’s Better Than the Alternative
Tiffani Hardy
The room is swimming in brown, or perhaps I am swimming in the brown room. The outdated wood paneling covering the too close walls and the cat vomit brown leather couch I found myself seated upon is cold and unwelcoming. It is all too much and simultaneously nothing at all. I think I have read about this before, discrimination— no, dissociation. The camera in the corner of the room points in my direction. There is no clock in here, and the window is slatted shut, so I count the blinking red recording light to help keep track of time.
The door next to me swings open; two men step in, and the atmosphere is instantly suffocating. I lost count—was it 1,957 or 1,975? The short one sits down first, directly in front of me on the other side of the low table that he set a manila folder and clipboard on. The tall one offers me a glass of water, for the fifth time, which I decline, for the fifth time.
“So, have you thought it over?” The short one asks. The smell of cold pizza clings to his collar, and his noticeable bald spot reflects the fluorescent lights.
The tall one, like an actor reciting lines, immediately follows with, “Remember, this is a safe space. We believe you and we will keep you safe. You do not need to be scared of him anymore, trust me.”
I sit, frozen, thinking of nothing except how much I absolutely do not trust these men sitting here with me. I know nothing about them, other than the obviously pre-planned facts they shared in an attempt to humanize themselves when I had first entered my tawny cell. Even if I did know them, I still would not trust them. Nothing good has ever come of my trusting someone. I know what the officers want from me, what they want me to do, and I want to do it, more than I have ever wanted to do anything. However, despite their reassurances, I am scared. I am more deeply terrified at this very moment than I know I have ever been in my short life.
“All you need to do is ask him a few questions. This is a chance for some closure. Maybe ask him why he did those things to you or if he is sorry for it at all. Whatever comes to mind, but please be specific,” the tall man says, as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the cell phone they had confiscated from me earlier. He tells me,
in his thick Boston accent, that I can turn it on whenever I am ready and, again, that I can trust him. I will not ever be ready for this, not really, but that is sort of the point I guess. If I had waited until I was ready, I would be sitting in class right now, talking to my friends or maybe at swim practice preparing for the competition in a couple of weeks. I had not waited, and I was not at any of those places. I had opened my mouth, spilled it all out, and now here I was, hungry and cold, scared, and all by myself with only a backpack to my name, surrounded by men that try too hard to not frighten me. The temperature in the room keeps dropping, so the sun must be setting outside by now. I pull on my stretched out sleeves for the thousandth time, a nervous tick to keep my arms covered from prying eyes.
I can see my reflection in the smudged glass of my cell phone. I never like what I see there, so I turn it on instead and wait for the bright light and familiar ring. My hands are shaking hard, almost violently, but they are slow to move with my will as I type out the words and hit send on the message to my father.
Until the Sunrise
Jaclyn Tipton
Day three in the bunkers, and things are finally brightening up. The thermometers say it’s a balmy 65 degrees Upstairs with a slight wind and minimal clouds. Our inspirational quote of the day is from our favorite philosopher, Aristotle: “Happiness depends upon you . . . ” Ha, now, if that doesn’t lift your spirits, nothing will! As for our daily reminder: Hunker down somewhere safe if you can help it. It’s a dangerous world up there, but as the readings say, it will all be over in a few days. So hang tight, and tune in to 100.6 tomorrow at sunset to hear more news. Simon says, Simon out. Thank you for listening, and God bless.
The radio died out, and left us in silence again. Todd and I didn’t feel like talking, and Harper had finally fallen asleep. We sat in our basement bunker, which, technically, was more like a concrete box, no bigger than a suburban kitchen but no smaller than a guest bathroom. We had two mattresses . . . assuming everything upstairs was destroyed. No one really knew what was happening, not even Simon on the radio. The sun slowly sank from under the crack of the door leading to the creaky, wooden stairs. When Todd and I first moved in, I hated those stairs because the light switch was at the bottom of them through the door. From the top, they looked like a staircase to Hell. Who knew that years later this Hell would be our sanctuary. Todd took in a deep, slow breath as his shoulders tightened. He stared at the thin line of light, slowly dimming from under the door. The two freckles on his cheek glimmered in the low light of our single, overhanging bulb. A shadow cast marks over the cleft in his chin, and it moved when he sniffed his nose. The bulb sat so still in the room, stiller than the glass top of a pond. I wanted to touch it, to swing it in a circle by its string just to see the shadows dance on the walls, to see Todd and Harper’s faces changing shape.
Harper yawned loudly, and I saw that devastated look on her face as she was waking up and rubbing her eyes. She was remembering where she was, that this wasn’t a dream. She looked at me, her brows furrowed. She signed to me, How much longer?
“Only a few more days, Sweetheart,” I replied, enunciating my words clearly, signing along with each syllable. Like a knife, my voice cut the room. I barely whispered, but the sound hurt my own ears.
This was the first thing anyone had said since the people outside had stopped screaming, and in times like these, I envied Harper, not able to hear our world. I talked aloud along with signing so Todd could hear. When he heard me address our daughter, his eyes shot our way. It seemed like hours since we last talked, but, realistically, I had no idea how long it had been. The line under the door was our only clock. As Harper closed her eyes and laid her dainty head on my thighs, she sighed loudly. I remembered the time I went to Alaska for a few years for a “Save the Whales” campaign in college. The winters were harsh with frostbitten toes and noses, and everyone was sad. “Winter Depression,” the doctors call it. The sun never came up. Here, in this makeshift bunker, the world was all dark. I knew why Todd stared at the dimming light, and I knew why my deaf daughter didn’t like to close her eyes. But it was only a few more days, and I could feel sunlight on my skin again. It illuminated the mysteries we didn’t want answers to, but progress was progress. And all we could do was move forward.
Writing about the Rain
Jaclyn Tipton
This time last year, I was living with a man on too much medication. It was an interesting time, and I recommend the experience (to a milder degree) to any writers looking for that spark of inspiration. Every tick of his head, a paragraph. Every conversation he pretended to forget, a chapter. Every strange epiphany at the breakfast table, an aphorism. Joseph was exceptionally creative, even if his stories were a little scary sometimes. I could write great horror stories about the tales of the ghost in our garage or the black, hooded man that sits in the corner of his eye. I liked it better when he talked about the fairies in the fridge, how (really!) humans could walk through walls if they tried, and how shrimp will become the top of the food chain in exactly one million years. I infected myself with his stories that spun out of him like a spider building its web.
I wish he would still tell me stories, but I think the nurses at Cary’s Psychiatric Hospital, especially Suzan, give him more medications when he does. I’ll see him glancing at them, all standing in formation around the room, like vultures circling a wounded deer. He doesn’t like the medicine, so unless we’re alone, he’s relatively quiet. When we go for walks in the garden, however, he’s calmer. He talks about what the voices are up to recently and the cool stuff he saw out his window yesterday. “I swear to God, it was magnificent. The sky was purple, Rose! Purple! You should have been there, I swear.”
In the gardens, cardinals streak the sky like American flags, white clouds sprinkling the day’s sky like night stars, and it reminded me of our first house, the one with the screened-in back porch and blue, cushioned patio furniture. Joseph loved bird watching, would sit on those blue chairs, feet propped on a wooden stool, for hours listening to all of them before the voices became too loud. That’s a blue jay. That’s a finch. That’s a crow. Once, after a long rain and a long talk, I said, “Hey, that’s a hawk singing, right?” He smiled at me, both amused and impressed I had managed to pay attention to his ramblings the previous day. His hands, calloused from pulling weeds and tending the blueberry bushes, combed through his hair and touched his nose.
“Actually, that was a mockingbird, Hun.” We were both wet
from the rain, clothes clinging to our backs because of the sprint from the car to the house. We had hoped my parents would want to reschedule lunch because my father hated driving in the rain, but we weren’t so lucky. The rain had stopped, but the thunder has stuck around. We counted our one Mississippi’s, two Mississippi’s in between each clap to see how far away the storm was. It sounded like it was coming back. The magazines we used as cover were on the concrete flooring between us in a dissolved mush. From the National Geographic, I saw an article titled “Destination Pluto?” On Time was a close-up of an old man’s face. Across his nose read, “I escaped a Nazi concentration camp…”
“Joe, we’ve talked about this. Call me ‘Honey’ if you’re going to use pet names. Hun reminds me too much of your Gran-Gran.” Joseph laughed softly, so softly, the wind almost took the sound away. He reached out for my hand, and I took it. The old man looked up at our hands meeting with sadness in his eyes. “But mockingbirds can imitate any bird they hear,” I continued, stroking his palms. They reminded me of my own when I was ten after a long day on the jungle gym. “Even if it’s imitating a hawk, how would you know it’s a mockingbird and not a hawk?”
“I’m not entirely sure, Hun . . . ny. Honey. There’s just something about the way it feels in my ears. It flows differently.” He paused. “It’s the difference between my voice and yours. We speak the same language, but we sound different. Your voice is warm, loving, inviting. Mine is gruffer. Like I’ve-smoked-a-two-pack-a-daysince-I-was-eleven gruff.”
“Joseph, you’ve never touched a cigarette in your life.”
“Honey, that’s not the point.” I chuckled, and he pulled my arm towards his so I would stand up. With his hand not holding mine, he patted his thigh, so I sat. “Point is that all birds have distinct voices, even if they can speak different languages.”
“Like mockingbirds,” I said, leaning back into the crook of his arm.
“Exactly. Like mockingbirds,” he replied. We sat in silence long enough for the clouds to open up and bring back the rain. Lightning illuminated the sky like fireflies.
“Do you really think my voice is inviting?” I asked, eyes facing towards the yard.
“Of course,” he replied, shifting his leg that I was sure was falling asleep beneath me. “I will never get tired of hearing your voice,
Rose Olivia. Not in a million years.”
Joseph could tell the calls of at least fifty different types of birds. He treated each species as divine, as royalty. His favorite was always the cardinal. Now, on our walks away from the hospital, when I ask him what bird is singing, he says to me, “What’s up with your obsession with birds calls? I don’t know, and I don’t care. So shut up, and stop asking me.”
Around this time last year, Joseph got angry. He wouldn’t listen to me, and I got so mad at him. Had he taken his pills that day? Why was he not looking at me? I didn’t exist to him. I should have never forgotten, and now it’s my fault that he’s in this hospital. I had made his favorite meal that night: chicken-cheese turnovers with green beans and sugared strawberries for dessert, but I forgot to give him the fork he likes. Did I set out his pills? It’s my fault. That night, his bloody knuckles smashed all our plates and wine glasses and even put a hole in my grandmother’s hope chest. He called me such horrible names. His contorted face sometimes shows up in my dreams as our fine china, white as his wild eyes, shatters against our flowered wallpaper. Grabbing the sheets until I realize he’s not there, I always wake up in a cold sweat. Flashes of his mangled hair sticking to his forehead and his bleeding feet flattening into the glass-littered carpet won’t leave my eyes for hours. Every time I close them, every time I blink, he is there.
After he was done with the dining room, he moved to my study, tore all my favorite classics off the shelves and apart page by page. “And so we beat on, boats . . . It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single . . . me Ishmael.” The words crumpled down to the floor in slow motion. He threw all my journals from the time I was nineteen to twenty-six into the kitchen garbage. Everything was in there: our first date, first kiss, our engagement, daydreams of our future family. My screams were drowned out by his own, and I was deafened.
Contrary to what the police think, my face was only bruised because I dropped a pan on it doing dishes that morning. When I went to put it away in our far kitchen cabinet, it slipped and hit my eye. That happened once when I was waitressing at Waffle House, too. It’s pretty common. Nothing more, nothing less. And the scratches on my arms I did to myself in my sleep. Odd, I know, but stress makes you do crazy things subconsciously, I’ve been told. Never, not
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once, did Joseph raise his fists, thumbs already broken, at me. The cops didn’t care for my story, though. I could tell by the way they touched their hats and squinted at each other before scribbling on their tiny, yellow notebooks. One had a moustache that was brown speckled with grey, and I wanted to rip it off, even if I had to do it one hair at a time.
They didn’t care about how to handle people with schizophrenia. I could tell as soon as they pushed passed me through our front door. I could sue, but that’s too much paperwork, too much trouble for something that can’t be undone. The damage is irreversible. He’ll never get out of this place. They held me back by the insides of my elbows and ignored my frantic instructions. Don’t do this; don’t do that. Stop yelling. You’ll upset him more. They dragged him into their flashing car and even hit his head on the top of the door. I wish Joseph would have cooperated in front of the neighbors who heard the screaming and called 911. I wish he would have stopped calling me names, at least at that point. Through their bedroom windows while watering their grass, the Caseys still look at me like I’m an alien. I live next door, but to them I’m from another galaxy, a work of fiction, something that does not exist. I wish that hadn’t been the last night he was in our house. But I wish a lot of things.
That night I sat on the floor in the corner of our bedroom and watched TV, and the couple in overalls and plaid shirts on the Discovery Channel gutted a caribou in their front yard. It was sunny where they were, and the snow reflected brightly onto all angles of their faces. Out of our window it was raining and dark. My nose, chapped and red, ran snot down to my lip, and I ate the strawberries and sugar from a plastic bowl he hadn’t broken. The bowl sat at my toes as my chin rested on my knees, and I chewed and chewed. The strawberries only tasted like paper on my tongue, and thunder clapped loudly in the distances. One Mississippi, two…
Today was an okay day at the hospital, but they wouldn’t let us into the gardens. The benches down those paths were always cold in the shade, and we would watch squirrels running down tree bases like gravity didn’t keep us tethered to the earth. I watched the cardinals as they flew from tree to tree, branch to branch, but I didn’t say anything about them anymore. They wouldn’t let us outside because it was about to rain, but Joseph had a five-minute spiel about how it probably had something to do with the Illuminati. “I saw it on the
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History Channel once, and this all makes perfect sense.” I jotted some notes on a piece of paper about this new theory. Good material. Another good story that wasn’t sad. The sunroom we sat in was off white like the pages of a fifty-cent book, and my fingertips were colder than usual.
“Also,” Joseph continued. “I still don’t understand why they won’t let me have my shoes.” I stopped writing, and we both looked down at his mandatory shoes. He owned two pair: white and light blue. They were rubber, looked a lot like Crocs, and squeaked with every step on the hall tiles. Joseph said they also squeaked on the wooden flooring in his room, but Brooklyn the nurse told me they never did. Today he was wearing the white pair. He hadn’t owned the shoes he was talking about for almost three years. They were Nike brand and lollipop red. He used to like making people think he would go running, but really, he would go to the park to sit with the ducks or sit at Johnny’s Pizzeria right across the street from the gym. He used to tell me that watching people work out through the gym windows was enough exercise for one day. “What do the doctors think? I’m going to see a dragon or some shit and then choke to death on the aglet?” I chuckled, remembering when I taught him that word: aglet.
“More like see a dragon, and then hang yourself from the vent with the shoelace,” I replied. It seemed that he only liked jokes about death now. The nurses, especially the one with the bigger nose, Cynthia, would always get mad at me when I indulged in a suicide joke. I just loved seeing a smile on his face, like the days I surprised him with Publix sushi or a Reese’s Cup. He laughed heartily, and the nurses, even though they didn’t hear what I had said, all glared my way. If he was laughing, it was about death. They knew that as well as I did. “But no, it’s honestly probably because of… Sal.” I continued, whispering Sal’s name. I had already looked around for him in the sunroom and hadn’t found him. He wasn’t in his usual spot on the couch in front of the TV. Sal was one of the more unusual patients here. Brooklyn told me once that he was one of the most suicidal patients they ever had. His eyes were a baby-boy blue and his wrinkles made me think of the rings of a cut tree. A wrinkle for every year alive, I assumed. They said he was doing okay as of now. “If he knew you had shoelaces, he might relapse and steal them away in the night.”
“Yeah, that’s understandable . . . I mean, crawling through that vent to get to my room would be pretty hard, but . . . No, I see what
you’re saying. If he walked through the walls after two am . . . I got you. I’m okay with no shoes,” Joseph said, sitting back in his chair a bit. The cushions squeaked almost as loud as the distant thunder, and same as me, he glanced out the window when he heard it. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. His skin that used to be a golden tan was now almost translucent. On the undersides of his arms I could see blue veins running strong like a map view of the Nile River, a single vein spreading out into other smaller streams of blood. “I like Sal. I don’t want him to die. He’s batshit, but I like him.”
As the storm neared, the sunroom became darker and darker. The walls became grey and blue, and one of the patients from the other end of the room looked around in wonder, checking her wrist that didn’t have a watch, probably trying to figure out if it was already time for dinner. I had about a thirty-minute drive home, and I didn’t want to be caught in the hell that was about to rain down. I began packing my bag with my writing gear.
“It’s about time I go,” I said after he yawned. Yawning was a good sign because Brooklyn told me he wasn’t getting much sleep lately. I stood up, put on the black raincoat I recently bought at Goodwill, fluffed up the collar, and looked down. Joseph was staring back at me, eyes like the night I ate the strawberries alone. His hands were clenched fists on the table, and a shiver went up my spine. What had I done? I always never knew. The doctors told me not to blame myself when this happened, but I always had a hard time doing that. Take one step back.
“What do you mean you’re going?” he said. His tone was monotonous, and my breath hitched. “You live here.” I always hated this. Hate, hate, hate. It always ended badly. Put your purse on the shoulder farthest from him. If I lie to him and say that I’m only going to my room, he’ll be fine for now. But when I come back next Wednesday for visiting hours, he’ll bring it up. “Why did you lie to me?” he would say. Tense your legs. You may need to run. But, on the other hand, if I fight it and say that I don’t live here, he’ll start yelling at me, face turning red like a sunburn. He’d make a scene, and some big, muscular people in white shirts and pants would come over to see if there was a problem. Don’t look him in the eye. I glanced at Brooklyn, and she immediately started to jog over. I didn’t realize I looked so frightened.
“Hi, everything okay here?” she asked, standing in between the
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two of us, just like that Time man all those years ago. And just like that, the lights switched on in his brain. His hands unclenched, his brows unfolded. Relax. He’s back.
“Yeah, everything’s cool, Brook,” Joseph replied. He looked at me and seemed taken aback, as if he just lost a poker game he was confident in winning. “You okay? You seem like you just saw the ghost.” He turned around, scanning for “the little girl” that roamed here. He said her name was Marissa, and she wears pink ballet shoes when she runs down the halls. Relax. It was only a pan. You were doing dishes.
“Um, uh . . . Yeah, I was just saying that I was going to hit the road before the rain picks up,” I stuttered. He turned back around.
“Oh, okay. See you next Wednesday?”
“Yeah,” I said. I let out a fake laugh, but he didn’t notice. The scratches were from you, Rose. You don’t sleep well. He waved goodbye with his bulky hand. His palms were smooth, no longer toughened by weeds and blueberries, no longer calloused. Blink back tears.
“Bu-bye.”
“Bye.”
I always want to not go the next Wednesday, to just forget one day. I want to wake up and think, hmm, is it Tuesday or Wednesday? And then not go. Shut the car door. Turn on the engine. Or better, I want to wake up, know it’s Wednesday, and lie in bed in the morning and think, hmm, Wednesday, Wednesday, do I have anything today? Seatbelt. But I know that’s never going to happen. Take a left. I’m just going to go back and wish for him to get better. Look up and blink. I will not cry. I just want him back at the house, to look at me the way he used to, with love in his eyes, like I was his cardinal. Slow down. It’s a yellow light. He doesn’t feel love for me now, only understands that he loved me before and doesn’t anymore. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. I still wear my engagement ring. Accelerate. I want his cheeks to not be so sallow, but the nurses say that he’s not eating. I wouldn’t eat those awful meals either, but I wish he would. Take a right. I wish those policemen wouldn’t have taken him away. Stop speeding. I could have easily handled it myself. He doesn’t get violent. The bruise was just an accident. The scratches were just me. I wish that our lives would have been different. But I wish a lot of things. Wait for the rain to start.
Letter from a Yellow Girl
Ryen Goebel
First snow, and we are lost together. You, broken shouldered, marionette unstrung,
and I, without a map catching at feathers like breadcrumbs, flashes of color to mark the watchful trees.
It started with a smile, ink and proof at once: “Do you, sir— —yes, do you believe you are alone in this?” Not all exist, but I am dancing on.
When we chase the setting curve of moon stranded in blue sky and you, statuesque child, gain color, no longer cut of marble,
when your secret garden sparkles with the promise of stolen paint, and there are stars to be found within the void, sometimes I find you in the smallest of ways.
And now I cannot bear to see you turn to stone once more even when the world moves, huge and unending around you, because we have discovered laughter together—
because I have seen how your chest is a lantern, your heart, quiet and steady, aglow inside and when you grin, the light spills out like sunshine.
because the moments have spun out, golden between us. Even when your eyes become ghost towns,
I know there is music inside you still.
Perhaps there are mysteries haunting us though I have walked your abandoned rooms. Perhaps they would bind us with rules, each consequence certain and dire:
tread softly, step not here.
But remember, a moment alone cannot turn you to ash and sometimes the moon lingers on in the blue sky.
You are loved. And cranes exist in perilous beauty, and sometimes the trick is to catch the feathers of dreams amidst the reality.
Contributors
Jason Anderson is currently seeking an associate’s degree and plans to further his education in art at Florida State University. He enjoys minimalism in his work, allowing the viewer to have a unique interpretive experience.
Ekaterina Balushkina was born and raised in Russia and has loved photography since childhood. She believes that at NWFSC she has learned how to see the world from a different angle.
Mollie Elizabeth Barnawell has been an artist for eight years. She lives for vibrant colors.
Sharon D. Barnes is married to a retired USAF Master Sergeant. She is the mother of two and grandmother of one and believes that she is making a difference in her life graduating from NWFSC.
Kimberly M. Brown is a twenty-year-old college student with a love for art. She is a huge moon lover and art nouveau fanatic.
Karly Casey is an NWFSC and Collegiate High School 2016 graduate. She is currently working on her bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Savannah Clay has been passionate about art as long as she can remember and hopes to pursue a career in the field. She hopes to continue her education in art at Savannah College of Art and Design.
Joshua Clemmons is a student pursuing an English literature degree who plans to attend either FSU or UF in the fall. He believes that dogs are God’s gift to humanity.
Brenda Crabbe was born and raised in Florida. She wakes every morning with too many ideas and never enough time.
Colby Detwiler is a children’s art education director.
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Katie Dineen is a senior at NWFSC’s Collegiate High School and was the 2015 first-place winner of the James and Christian LaRoche Poetry Contest.
Jocelyn Donahoo is a medically retired home health nurse, who heeded to a still, small voice that suggested she take a creative writing class. She did, was bitten by the writer’s bug, and has been writing ever since.
Vanessa M. English is married and has two beautiful girls. She and her husband lead youth ministry at Lifepoint Church and are active in the foster community.
Eve Fleischer is an NWFSC student with a passion for creative writing.
Mark Anthony French is a studio art major who finds inspiration in the relms of technology, nature, and emotion.
Savannah Gahagan is a senior at NWFSC’s Collegiate High School. She has been writing poetry for about four years now and was published in the 2015 issue of the Blackwater Review.
Ryen Goebel is an undergraduate currently working toward a BFA in animation. Stories enchant her, and she hopes to write her own someday.
Amanda Jo Hakert was born in Wyoming and raised in New Jersey. She is a military brat and U.S. Navy veteran who has a love for art and science. She is pursuing a career in nursing.
Tiffani Hardy is a sophomore at NWFSC. She hopes to one day become a professor and feels called to share stories about herself and her past.
Sarah Hawkins is a museum professional who is passionate about educating the public about the cultural significance of the arts. She uses her artwork to express her life experiences and faith.
Andrea Hefner is a poet who lives with great passion. She values family and friends and believes in choosing to live the life worth
130 • Blackwater Review
living. Finding great pleasure in her two children, her husband, her two sisters, and remembering her parents is what she enjoys most about life. One of the greatest joys she has is in helping others and finding the spark of kinship with other writers.
Carly Herrera-McClelland is an NWFSC student who plans to major in biology. She serves as the community service chairperson for NWFSC and is a Raider Rep ambassador. She aspires to one day write a book of her own.
Racheal Homack is a fine-art major. Her interest is in abstract and 3D art.
Ekaterina Ilina is an art major with a focus in photography. She prefers night and journalistic photography.
Alaina Johnson is an aspiring artist and designer. Her primary interests are drawing, painting, photography, and graphic design.
Kaysi Lovelace is an NWFSC student who hopes to turn her passion for art into a career.
Morgan Masek is a homeschooled high school student who is dual-enrolled at NWFSC. Once she graduates with an A.A., she intends to seek a B.A. in creative writing in order to expand her skills. Her dream is to become a published novelist.
Lucy Miree is a senior at Seacoast Collegiate High School and is dual-enrolled at NWFSC. She has a passion for all forms of writing but also loves films and music. Her favorite movie is Rocky Horror Picture Show, and her favorite song is currently “Moonage Daydream” by David Bowie.
Jose Molina is an NWFSC student going to school to be an art teacher.
Thi-Anh Moore is currently working toward a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in graphic design.
Maria B. Morekis believes one should “make art, not war.”
Contributors • 131
Amanda Morton is studying visual art at NWFSC and plans to transfer to UWF to pursue a bachelor’s degree. She hopes to be an animator.
Raven Motley is an NWFSC student who is currently working on multiple novels.
Madeline Nehus is currently a student at NWFSC pursuing a communications degree.
Emily Novack is a senior in high school who will be completing her A.A. this May. In the fall, she will be transferring to USF to complete her bachelor’s in dance. From there, she hopes to dance professionally and later to teach.
Emma Pirmann is a junior at Collegiate High School on the NWFSC campus. She was raised up and down the East Coast as a result of being a military brat but has resided in Niceville for her high school years. Her current major of study is biology; however, she claims she has a wavering mind of her future.
Jasmine Richardson is a junior in the Collegiate High School at NWFSC. She is passionate about art and learning.
Miranda Richeson is a local artist and student. She enjoys using lots of color in her work.
Kasey Rigby is a junior attending Collegiate High School at Northwest Florida State College.
Olivia Rivera is the property master at the Mattie Kelly Arts Center at NWFSC. Photography has always been her passion.
Crystal Ryan always looks for ways to improve her artwork, never stops learning, and keeps an open book for the future.
Zachary Sticha is a young playwright. He has written many one acts and even a full-length play. He enjoys watching movies and plays and plans to continue writing.
Joel R. Thompson is pursuing a degree in graphic design and hopes to work for Marvel as an artist. He believes dreams become things.
Jaclyn Tipton is a NWFSC graduate and is currently working on her bachelor’s degree at Florida State University. She is published in the 2016 Blackwater Review for her fiction piece “The Story That Could Have Been” and was awarded the Editor’s Prize for Fiction for the same story.
Scarlett Voight loves looking up to the sky at night in contemplation. She also wonders why food has to taste so good.
Allison Williams is a senior at Seacoast Collegiate High School who hopes to study exceptional student education and get famous from her writing someday.
