Parallax 2015 by Parallax-Online

I D Y L LW I L D A R T S

PARALLAX 2015

A Letter from the Editor- Parallax 2015

Table of Contents Parallax 2015

FACT: We have two eyeballs in order to give us depth perception – comparing two images allows us to determine how far away an object is from us.

POETRY Letter from the Editor- Poetry Lingering in Lingerie- Ségolène Pihut Mormon Bridge- Sidney Thompson A Semblance- Callie Levan Friendship; These Injuries are Prominent- Emily Clarke Belly Up- Katie Johnson Rug Walker- Parsa Sheikholeslami White Ash- Luis Bermudez Ham Dust on Fridays- Callie Levan Dormio Fidus Achates- Joseph Brutto The Size of the Girl- Emily Clarke Storm’s Day- Linnea Zagaeski Bonn- Alexander Whiting

11 12 13 14 15 16 22 23 24 26 29 30 31

ARTWORK Nudist on Vacation- Diana Ryu Morning Blues- Diana Ryu You Disgust Me- Diana Ryu Man With grey car and a medium sized soda.- Fiona McDonald Self Portrait in Touch- Fiona McDonald The Box- Heidi Songqian Li Tibet Woman- Heidi Songqian Li Reach Out- Heidi Songqian Li Wrathful Deity- Heidi Songqian Li The Six Tastes- Maisie Yixuan Luo Void- Sarah Little Transcend- Sarah Little Introspection Projection- Sarah Little Inhale- Jules Landa Ventre Cut 2- John Dee Anonymous- Dawn Jooste Fertility- Sterling Butler The Three Magnates- Rita Yiting Ruan

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

53 54 62 70

DRAMATIC WRITING Letter from the Editor- Dramatic Writing Burnt Toast- Sofie Puchley Life in an Elevator- Emily Cameron The Unheard- Emily Cameron

81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

ARTWORK Harvest- Ben Cruz Love, Edge or Edgeless- Rita Yiting Ruan Reality- Marika Conarroe Cinderella- Audrey Carver Cutting Edge- Audrey Carver Melting Confetti- Noah Jones Drafting Room- Holly Shelton A Diver- Sumin Seo Self Portrait- Reah Eunji Kang Sagrada Familia- Florence Liu Conformity- Florence Liu Solitude- Maisie Yixuan Luo The Last Empress of China- Maisie Yixuan Luo I will be ok….- Shirley Yingxin Gong Thankful- Shirley Yingxin Gong Effloresce 1- Anastasia James Oblivion 1- Anastasia James

101 102 104 111 113 117 124 137

FICTION Letter from the Editor- Fiction Sleeping In- Luis Bermudez Ham Skeleton- Danae Devine Those Two Places That Start With H- Sidney Thompson 어차피 돌아보면 다 허망한 / All False When Looked Back AnywayPaul Jung Non-major Contest Winner Digging Into His Thigh- Danae Devine Girl Parts- Callie Levan Goodnight Moon- Sidney Thompson

Table of Contents Parallax 2015

FACT: Humans and dogs are the only species known to seek visual cues from another individual’s eyes, and dogs only do this when interacting with humans.

Parallax 2015 Editor-in-Chief: Luis Bermudez-Ham Junior Editor/Poetry Editor: Parsa Sheikholeslami Dramatic Writing Editor: Emily Cameron Fiction Editor: Katie Johnson Non-Fiction Editor/Social Media: Segolene Pihut Editorial Staff: Danae Devine, Sumire Komori Visual Art Editor: Zi Sheng Xu Layout and Design: Omar Razo Creative Writing Department Faculty: Kim Henderson (Chair), Alice Bolin, Abbie Bosworth, Andrew Leeson Visual Art Department Faculty: Gerald Clarke (Chair), Mallory Cremin, Shauna Lehr, David Reid-Marr, Svetlana Romanova, Terry Rothrock, Linda Santana, Joann Tomsche, Melissa Wilson, Rachel Welch Idyllwild Arts President: Pamela Jordan Head of School: Douglas Ashcraft Idyllwild Arts Academy 52500 Temecula Drive PO Box 38 Idyllwild, CA 92549 (951) 659-2171 Parallax Online www.parallax-online.com Copyright 2015 Idyllwild Arts Foundation All rights reserved. No work is to be reprinted without the written consent of the author and the Idyllwild Arts Foundation. For more fun eye facts, visit : www.lenstore.co.uk/blog/101-amazing-eye-facts Butler, T. (n.d.). 101 Amazing Eye Facts | Lenstore Vision Hub. Retrieved April 7, 2015.

www.discoveryeye.org/blog/20-facts-about-the-amazing-eye/ 20 Facts About the Amazing Eye. (2014, June 10). Retrieved April 7, 2015.

PARALLAX 2015

To the Reader, Every year, the Parallax journal receives a vast array of submissions. Some pieces remind us of who we are. Others show us what we’re not. Some simply create worlds of their own, bending our mind with a display of possibilities. And as hard as it is for the editors to choose, not all of them make the cut. We sort the submissions out and find which ones rise above others, which ones are the highschool talent Parallax wants to publish. Most of all, we look for the pieces that have something to say. During the past year, one of the things that has stood out to me the most about the craft of writing and any other art form in general is that a piece has to be honest. We’ve all been there, reading a story, watching a movie, hearing a song on the radio and we can’t help but think, they’re trying too hard. Not to say that they have too much passion, that they’re too invested in what they’re doing, no. I don’t think that one can be too passionate about what they do. But so often an artist will try too hard to be someone they’re not. This is a necessary mistake; you have to know what you’re not to know who you are. What I’m getting at is that the pieces here know exactly that. Take for example Danae Devine’s “Skeleton,” and let yourself be submerged in her world, one of surreal plane rides. I guarantee your heart will skip and your head will spin the same way it did the last time you were in a new place. Take Parsa Sheikholeslami’s “Rug Walker.” Disregard the fact that a rug is talking to you, and watch how in a few compact lines your heartstrings can be tugged to test their elasticity. Or take Emily Cameron’s “Seen Not Heard,” which is sure to make any reader question (and oddly, yearn for) the existence of their parental skills. As I’ve said, these pieces, along with the others we’ve chosen, know what they are, what they’re made of. They stem from that awesome innate ability we humans have to produce art and have arrived here after spending weeks being revised by their authors and the editors. They have reached their peak form, a beauty we are ecstatic to present as the content of Parallax 2014-2015. The editors and I sincerely hope that you enjoy them as much as we do. Cheers, Luis Ham (Senior Editor)

A Letter From The Editor Parallax 2015

POETRY

Dear Reader, How dare you open the poetry section? Poetry is the words of the wise and if you think you have enough intelligence to go through this section and survive it then you are mistaken. In case you didn’t catch my sarcasm, throw your intelligence away, for this is not a section to read. This is a section to experience, and if you want to go through it defending your wit then you will end up with annotations and analyses of lines and symbolism but no understanding whatsoever of what the poet was saying. This is a ride, and someone else is driving. All you have to do is fasten your seatbelt and sharpen your emotions. The poets will take care of the rest. In this section, Callie Levan will change your interpretation of dust; Emily Clarke will bring in some sass and texture with her poem “The Size of the Girl,” Joseph Brutto will tear at your insides by telling the heartbreaking story of a boy who dresses like a girl, and Alexander Whiting will show you how nostalgia truly feels when one is away from a place close to one’s heart. You may laugh, you may cry, you may turn into a pony, or fly away and escape to space, but whatever you do, don’t try to understand. Live through these words and see what they will do for you.

A Letter From The Editor Poetry

Best, Parsa Sheikholeslami (Poetry/Junior Editor)

FACT: The world’s most common eye colour is brown.

Lingering in Lingerie Ségolène Pihut

Last words, contrary to popular thought, have no importance. Dead-set graves are of no equal distribution to the uncorrupted beauty of an untouched sky. Clumps of matted dark vines cling to the last memory in Belfast, where marked grass plots said goodbye to the solitary snatch of hair entwined in your stone-red teeth. I continue past the dotted lines, and harbor amongst the fatality of animals. Their wounded nature heals me, and for a brief second, I am fine. Letters that are written in cobalt ink have no remaining precedence in my heart, but listen: for I’ll write you anyways. “Oh but the sky! Treasure it, for when the clouds wither and fall, black spots will take the place of cotton giants.”

FACT: Your eye is the fastest muscle in your body—hence why when something happens quickly, we say ‘in the blink of an eye!’

We used to think in lobes and pearls, and the blessed beauty of a pope’s coral robes. Blue has no right to exist in temples of Christ, and your body is the utmost holy. You throw the slip away.

Sand cranes slip from heaven’s high graces, attached to puppeteer string, and fall back onto Earth along the receded banks of the Missouri. Driving down the center line, drifting pieces of ice pass us by.

Mormon Bridge

I’m six again, pulled apart by spring’s humidity. Drowning in the obvious, the heat hangs heavy, taking up the back seat of our car. Allie and I race raindrops huff on the windows, drawing pictures in the fog. The radio drags on.

Sidney Thompson

Back seat hidden treasures, the unexpected finds an unopened Tootsie Pop and a torn up Lucky Magazine. “When was the last time we bought Tootsie Pops?” I asked as Allie read how denim didn’t die. Lucky flipped on its side, lips stained blue, clanking the sucker between his teeth as if he were suffocating. “August 2003.”

FACT: You see with your brain, not your eyes. Our eyes function like a camera, capturing light and sending data back to the brain.

Problems arise and vibrate. Seeking support, expect indifference. Charged battery, full assault, naked in the cold way. I never thought I’d say this, it’s more of an accusation I’d never say aloud.

A Semblance Callie Levan

To friends who never cared and to love that somehow failed, pretending all the while to be a treat. The first time I saw the moon, I was alone after a shower, dry air sucking shampoo from roots. Third quarter and isolated. You’re me, I told her, in my head. The binoculars felt like a stone necklace when I wasn’t looking through them. Toast to your peers. Imagine for a second you are friends. Eliminate romance because what you want is not a rose or a fuck. For a time earnest tears shed into comforting flannel, washed out, dried, repeat, donate. Mom’s not here so who can I confess to? The moon probably doesn’t hate herself. From a sliver to a beach ball she has fans enough to spare. If you loved me, she says, you would leave me alone. We’re nothing alike, I told her, out loud.

FACT: Dogs can’t distinguish between red and green.

1. Jelenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s appendix burst at school, She only bled internally. Jose and I bundled her in our sweatshirts And only decided to worry, Once her entire body had shut down. The hospital took her for two weeks And even after that, We held her hands while she walked.

Friendship; These Injuries are Prominent

2. My lip got busted open with a Frisbee. Jelen and Jose had to speak for me, Always making things worse, Not on purpose but They had no life. 3. Jose fell on the basketball court And little pieces of asphalt violated his skin. The unseemly large gash on his elbow needed protection. Luckily the PE teacher had one last Band-Aid. It was circular, The size of a nickel, And no help whatsoever. When the slice was half healed he spent his free time Grabbing our hands and pressing them to the weird flaps of skin That now covered his elbow.

Emily Clarke

FACT: Eye colour is determined by the amount of melanin in your iris.

Belly Up Katie Johnson

I watch her float on the water that reflects the sky. Her hair floating around her head like a constant stream of thick, purple blood. She spins. She could be dead, but I wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t ask. For she very well might answer that yes, she is dead. The blue sky she lays upon, comfortable as needles and pins, swirls around and suddenly she is gone. As she had spun the day she encompassed oblivion in her own time. She was approaching the void. She was ready and I stared down at my muddy feet wondering if she knew how loudly Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d scream when I nailed them down in protest. Unable to go with her. Not ready, just yet. I was holding on too tightly to her skeleton fingers. I was pulled behind the blue velvet veil that she opened up.

FACT: Although our nose and ears keep growing throughout our lives, our eyes remain the same size from birth.

Behind it, I saw myself sitting on an orange shag carpet covered in skin. I was wearing gloves shaped like my own hands, covering my own hands. Each time I peeled the gloves off like dried paint

they returned in infinite layers. I would never reach blood. I would never reach bone. She pointed at the crystallized spiders that crawled from the corners of my eyes, forming shapes like torch-blown glass. She smiled at them as they pooled on the carpet. She washed her hands in them. She drank them. She pulled them into a needle and asked me to hold the belt around her arm.

Belly Up

‘Don’t be afraid,’ she said, ‘I can save us both.’

Katie Johnson

I believed her. She was honest. She could have saved the both of us. But she never did. She saved herself from the fog that snuck up and around us by cutting gills into her neck and pressing her toes into flippers and her fingers into fins. Five foot four with the world beneath her red leather boots, she spun herself with her dancer’s grace into a cocoon and back again. Metamorphosed and aware of the challenge she presents to the common eye.

Belly Up Katie Johnson

Too easy to trip over and too cryptic not to love. For me not to have fallen at her feet and raised my palms up with a silent cry, in the hopes she would say my name one final time, would have been some incredible feat and I know I am nothing if I am not weak. I had seen in the creases of her fingers that she was never mine. She was scaled in silver blue from her eyes to her kneecaps. She is the mermaid anchored at the bottom of her lagoon. The siren spoke and this way I could see from the tip of her tongue, she was as blue as the moon. Blue as the night. She glows with a starâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cold light, far away and dismal, but pure enough to know that, if you were to get up close, you would be struck by the simple beauty that she uses to keep the coyotes away from our door. She swam away from me. She dove into the fog and left me on the orange shag to choke on her words.

‘I love you’ got stuck in my throat and when I stopped my silly breathing she didn’t come back like she had promised. She stayed beneath the fog.

Belly Up

All I learned from her runaway techniques was that passion in deceit is as solid and unchangeable as the steel-toed ideas she carried around in her head, like dead fish floating inside a bowl. Belly up and bright eyed. I refused myself air and when I finally died, she rose up. Like a snake lifting its neck to bite me.

Katie Johnson

I had died inside myself. I had become trapped inside my cracked skull rotting with her voice. But she always said she ran faster with chains around her ankles. While I sat quietly, waiting for her to untie me, knowing that she had crawled into my ears with the smoke from her mouth and carved herself a permanent place at the back of my head. Speaking up every so often only to make me run after her in circles and cough up medicine for headaches.

‘Cry for me again’ was her next demand. With the purest loyalty I obeyed for days. Rock salt beetles under blue rubber grip are quiet when you crush them in the rain.

Belly Up Katie Johnson

Like a goddess of wisdom she spoke to me. Staring into the sun that skims over the valleys and looking forward for the cactus that cradles the moon. Her eyes fearsome and gorgeous like ice formed crystals, glowing from the blue, black lights inside of her. The dimming bubble lights hang from the black sky and hold themselves haphazardly in a tangled mess on the ceiling over the center of the room. They could fall. They could crush me. I would welcome it. If it fell, if they crushed me, it might kill that part of my skull she speaks to me through. Oftentimes I rehearse my telekinesis and invisibility. Knowing that in this strange sanctuary bending what I cannot touch is no stranger than trusting yourself to wake up after you’ve kept your eyes closed all night long.

In that room I had cut my hands away from my arms to make her pomegranate mouth shift, and, for a second, fail to frown. One day when the mile count is high, and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve driven past this orange shag back through the blue velvet, I might trust the words that slither past your split tongue. One day I might be able to sift the truth out of the lies.

Belly Up Katie Johnson

I am a rug. And she writes. And the ink is all over my face. And I am destined to embark upon non-existent words. “With all due respect, I find you stupid.” And I wonder why she never touches me.

Rug Walker Parsa Sheikholeslami

“Let’s listen to Edith Piaf.” And she falls in love. There is a very fine line between honey and honey. Honey is sweet and can be eaten at almost any time of the day. But honey is the color of her eyes. It’s bittersweet to look at, and it ruins the appetite. And she has never gazed into me. “Fly me to the moon.” And she dances like sand being tickled by water. “I won’t give you eternity. I find it very cruel to make you immortal. I want you to die when the time comes.” And she packs her bags. And rugs are like that. You touch them, but you never quite touch them. “I was wondering if I can smell your hair,” I say. And she is no longer there. But look… ink.

FACT: You blink more when you talk.

In a corner you extinguish yourself once more. Your simmered skin exposing in gaps a wooden chest left at once to be lit, the desire to rip wood for ignition. Ignorant nature of maiden ways as to light one too many. Perchance a fire to warm a street girl you say, yet of ten. A note directed toward desire and writ in ashes the wind too soon shall carry. Pens with dust ink that leaves traces. The ash is calligraphy of the heart, for what’s left is what’s burnt in the past, and what’s there still beating is only fuel waiting for a light that time will provide. A fatalistic approach to a question no one dared or cared to ask. But in your fear a feast of fire hides the remains, the ash. A proof of what heavenly forest you held once in conglomerate spaces of ninnies at dusk and daisies in knots, tied in a crown pattern around the gold strings of a matted hair you knew all too well, which now refutes your sight as a fire too bright and hot for one to directly look at, refuses your vision of solar ignition propelled by glowing embers of a future not yet come but which you anticipate with such emotion, not good emotion, emotion hot in its tearing and shredding ways, that the present is burnt and scarred with a mark of the past that like a ghost ship you keep reenacting, as if bringing the pain back from the graveyard will feast your hunger in coal and warmth. But where the line is drawn between bonfire and lighting you dare not, or care not ask. Yet your embers fall, at least one blown away in the form of white ash, particles driven away from the fireplace you call core. They try to be coughed out the door, but at least one is expected to fall under some couch, Kingdom of lint and dust, and among the knick knacks of the floor, the fallen treasure will become one more.

White Ash Luis Bermudez Ham

FACT: People generally read 25 times slower on screen than on paper.

ix. A woman’s muscles spasm and contort as a hand reaches into her throat and squeezes the organs responsible for cellular respiration. She coughs and gags and the hand, crushed and decaying, comes out in an eruption of liquid. The puddles of goo slowly sink from tall to small. They drip down the table and she blows her nose.

Dust on Fridays Callie Levan

ii. Six thousand years have passed since a storm that wiped out a specific family of dung beetles. They nested near a cactus that had been ripped open by little monkeys. The uncle beetle looked at the sky and warned everyone about the storm. A shiver of wind turned their legs into sand. The once-tickling sun began to roast the dung beetle family. vii. Blue rabbits descend from the sky in what appears to be a ray of sunshine, a spotlight, on one corner underneath the coroner’s dresser. The coroner’s husband draws the curtain shades and the rabbits stop falling. iv. Fingernails accrue rubbish and the mud from lazy pies. Mother gets upset. v. Let’s think outside the box for now. Twelve stars make up one dozen. The baker sold thirteen for ten dollars. Once, someone paid him in quarters. He accidentally dropped the coins and let his little daughter pick them up. She kept half and he kept almost half. One quarter rolled into the crack in the floor. It is still there. iii. Believe you me; people try to pull Excalibur out at least eight times a day. I swear it is super-glued in the rock. People land on their asses and the carnival’s manager laughs at the clouds that emerge from the ground. vi. High-quality museums clean their exhibits nightly. One place wiped down an entire staircase because of the snow and boots. However, after resting against a windowsill, a grandmother noticed the gray on her fingers and she knew it wasn’t fallen hair. She wiped the powder onto her skirt. x. I am alive. I am flying.

FACT: All babies are colour blind at birth.

xiii. It is not a real house until something breaks. It is not a real house after the last thing breaks. Floorboards don’t just creak; they snap. Abandoned and decomposing in the starlight, the house moans like a dying weasel. viii. Cats use sandpaper saliva to slim their strain. Tongues dig deep into thick fur and exonerate old fur; this method is imperfect, for they later gag and gag and gag. A child in San Francisco collects her cats’ hairballs in a glass jar. The jar is sealed tight and scentless. i (xiv-∞). A galaxy implodes. It is made of a stretch of billions of lightyears of dust and hydrogen. xii. Thick fog obscures the constellations and moon for one night. It moves slowly, an old man waking up, yet it dances oh so elegantly. My sister points a flashlight up at the fog, and we see the floating reality in the air and it is unashamed of being there. She pretends to have an asthma attack. The torch’s rays hit the fog like a spotlight. She turns it off. xi. Our cycle is a book, and then two books. Exponential growth and procrastination cloud our perspectives on the wasted forests. Perceiving the leaf takes time. Thin coats become worthy of winter and teachers would be cross to discover the abandonment. A cyclical break breaks the cycle, and long trails of fingers last for eleven days at most.

Dust on Fridays Callie Levan

Dormio Fidus Achates Joseph Brutto

FACT: An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

She holds this gun under her chin He’s cradling it like a child The heated steel Leaves his skin, Her makeup, His identity lost In the bullet’s flame For so long she had been surviving But every moment they met, Everyone broke him and stripped her From his personality’s hold Everyone screamed, just die! Just… Just fucking die! He tried to escape But each time she was Dragged back again Pushed ten feet down Under the school’s athletic pool The cloudy unfiltered water Dripping from his skin, Leaving it so cold, Yet so softened All the sick tasting chlorine Poured into his lungs As he tried keeping her dry, But the mass liquid engulfed them It left him feeling so Molested, her broken He couldn’t stop reimagining the Nightmares from when he was that Innocent small boy, His heart still has flame It still has that audacity,

Her heart is still burning with this Stupid fucking audacity Everything he imagines is pure Dysphoria tearing at his mind Bleeding it slow Every time he dreams Of putting on that dress She flashes back to him Watching her being Skinned in front of him, Down to her origins They pick themselves up, But why don’t they understand. . . Each time they’re so miserable

Dormio Fidus Achates

By the preacher’s hand They’re beaten with the bible; He has to be punished. . . The toxic scented candles flow Across the church The fragile silence cracks away and Dies like his sanity, But as the whips snap at his Flesh his screams soften “What a masochist” The preacher remarks. His perverted smile widens Enduring the molestation, her mind goes numb His body inert with pain Why? This sexual ache, this lust, has him in sinful tears Is she finally dead?... He’s been bound

Joseph Brutto

Into a prison cell The dress on the other side

Dormio Fidus Achates Joseph Brutto

He cries as he watches them Stain it... Burn it His shoulders banging Against the bars, Trying to reach for her It’s too late, She’s been burnt to dust He’s panicking, crying, Grabbing at the Remnants of his dress He’s alone, But he can’t seem to gather the last Bits of strength to hold up the gun, He writhes Curling up, nervously sweating He can’t refrain He can’t stop imagining Her dressed in that flame For when he was she, The world felt free, he felt free Child to Teen to this Strange example of a man, A man cursed to be tormented Grabbing at his hair, shutting his eyes He can’t escape those still Images of his dress Die they said, just fucking die So he did Then suddenly the world around him softened

“Lip piercings look slutty.” “Purple hair?” Friends with benefits But only when we want to. I always tell the boys to send their nudes To my ex-boyfriend’s cell number Oops.

The Size of the Girl

It’s not slutty because I’m not slutty, And neither is walking alone in a public mall. The problem child, believe it Or not, I’m not. “Who are you?”

Emily Clarke

FACT: The human eye can function at 100% at any given moment, without needing to rest.

Skies cry often where Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m from. They throw temper tantrums. Sparks fly. Filled with hate they Leave behind char.

Stormâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Day Linnea Zagaeski

Saddened they take The air and whip themselves. Tears crash down into the deep Inky depressions. The skies leave their marks with Cracks, they stomp downstairs They rip themselves apart Then cover themselves in gray wash Bandages. They shove themselves Into corners. They spit, shout, Shiver. They carve scars that fade They throw the last punch. A smile stretches across Sky, sun breaks through The clouds run.

FACT: Smoking reduces your night vision.

I think of you often, Bonn, Rain splattered windows And late sunsets, I think of your cobblestone streets And your quiet suburbia,

Bonn

Your coffee and cocoa, Your snow and your summer, I think of Am Fasanenhang 4, Home for three years,

Alexander Whiting

My bedroom and the couches, The European windows, and the cigarette trays, (Stolen from some hotel Only brought out for guests) In your arms I could sleep for hours Bonn. Bonn, when will I return? When will I eat again at Da Dante, Sit in your cafés in your countless ‘platz’s Whose names I forget? Buy an apartment in town, Drink my coffee And stare at statues of Beethoven? Bonn, When will I return?

FACT: In the right conditions and lighting, humans can see the light of a candle from 14 miles away.

Nudist on Vacation Diana Ryu Acrylic on Canvas

FACT: Your eyes start to develop two weeks after you are conceived.

Morning Blues Diana Ryu Drypoint on Plexiglass

FACT: Your eyeballs stay the same size from birth to death, while your nose and ears continue to grow.

You Disgust Me Diana Ryu Collage and Graphite

FACT: Pirates believed that wearing gold earrings improved their eyesight.

Man With grey car and a medium sized soda Fiona McDonald Digital Graphic

FACT: Corneas are the only tissues that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have blood.

Self Portrait in Touch Fiona McDonald Digital Graphic

FACT: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Red eyeâ&#x20AC;? occurs in photos because light from the flash bounces off the back of the eye. The choroid is located behind the retina and is rich in blood vessels, which make it appear red on film.

The Box Heidi Songqian Li Acrylic on Canvas

FACT: 80% of what we learn is through our eyes.

Tibet Woman Heidi Songqian Li Acrylic on Canvas

FACT: People who are blind can see their dreams if they werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t born blind.

Reach Out Heidi Songqian Li Wood and Plaster

FACT: An eye cannot be transplanted. More than 1 million nerve fibers connect each eye to the brain and currently weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not able to reconstruct those connections.

Wrathful Deity Heidi Songqian Li Charcoal on Paper

FACT: Eyes are the second most complex organ after the brain.

The Six Tastes Maisie Yixuan Luo Mixed Media

FACT: A fingerprint has 40 unique characteristics, but an iris has 256, a reason retina scans are increasingly being used for security purposes.

Void Sarah Little

Photograph

FACT: 80% of vision problems worldwide are avoidable or even curable.

Transcend Sarah Little

Photograph/Collage

FACT: Only 1/6 of the human eyeball is exposed.

Introspection Projection Sarah Little Photograph

FACT: To protect our eyes they are positioned in a hollowed eye socket, while eyebrows prevent sweat dripping into your eyes and eyelashes keep dirt out of your eyes.

Inhale Jules Landa Ventre Photograph

FACT: The entire length of all the eyelashes shed by a human in their life is over 98 feet with each eye lash having a life span of about 5 months.

Cut 2 John Dee

Photograph

FACT: Eyes began to develop 550 million years ago. The simplest eyes were patches of photoreceptor protein in single-celled animals.

Anonymous Dawn Jooste

Photograph/Collage

FACT: The human eye weights approximately just under an ounce and is about an inch across.

Fertility Sterling Butler Photograph

FACT: Contrary to urban myth, contact lenses cannot become â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;lostâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; behind your eye due to the structure of your eyeball.

The Three Magnates Rita Yiting Ruan Ink and Watercolor on Board

FACT: Snakes have two sets of eyes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; one set used to see, and the other to detect heat and movement.

DRAMATIC WRITING

Dear Reader, Welcome to the Dramatic Writing section of Parallax Literary Journal 2015. This section is about the most dramatic parts of human nature. Some may look at dramatic writing and find it over-the-top or exaggerated, but it often tells stories in the most realistic way. When performed, dramatic writing holds a mirror up to the audience and reflects their own problems, personalities, and lives. Dramatic writing is the genre that carries with it the most human of characteristics: love, hatred, despair. These are all very dramatic emotions, and also very human emotions, because we humans are dramatic creatures. We fight, we throw things across rooms when we’re angry, we kiss and hug and hold hands when we love someone, we freak out on occasion and yell and scream and flail our arms around as we run around the room with no clue what to do. These human characteristics, and more, define the Dramatic Writing section of Parallax. Sofie Puchley’s piece, “Burnt Toast,” effectively shows the varying characteristics and reactions of human nature. As the world is coming to an end, her broad and diverse characters react in their own unique ways. Susanna is the character who reminisces on her past, thinking of her dead father and the summers she spent with her beloved friend, Ryan. She shows us the humanity of regret and holding onto the memories of the past, both good and bad. Ryan serves as the comforting best friend in the situation, helping Susanna and her brother, Taylor, get through everything. He is the ideal best friend we all need when going through a tough time. And Taylor is our comic relief: a little boy who does not quite grasp the danger of what is going on around him, but from what he does grasp, he holds onto his one obsession, food, for comfort (a comfort I’m sure we can all relate to).

A Letter From The Editor Dramatic Writing

Dramatic writing is not simply about drama, or about creating situations for soap operas. It is about displaying humanity in its most critical moments, whether it be true desperation, joy, or insanity. Perhaps you will see some of your own humanity in these scripts and plays. Wishing you the best, Emily Cameron (Dramatic Writing Editor) FACT: Our eyes are made up of over 200 million working parts.

CHARACTERS: SUSANNA, TAYLOR, RYAN AND VOICE (The majority of the play is directed towards the audience. The only set re-quired is three chairs. The pacing transitions from fast to slow, and then slow to fast. The chairs are set up with one chair facing forward: SUSANNA sits in this one. One chair faces to the left: TAYLOR sits in this one. One chair is on the right: RYAN sits in this one. Lights up. We see each character sitting in a chair. We hear screams and gunshots. It sounds like a riot is going on. In the background, we hear â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cathedral Skyâ&#x20AC;? playing. Their heads are down and they look like they are listening to an announcement. We then hear an ominous crackling VOICE that is pre-recorded.)

Burnt Toast Sofie Puchley

VOICE (Crackling and very disjointed) The year is 2077 and something... is very... wrong... (Loud beep. The characters lift their heads.) SUSANNA Today they said the world would end. RYAN Today the mailman wore a gas mask delivering our paper. TAYLOR Today they said all of our toasters would explode. (Loud beep. Characters look up and listen to announcement. During this speech, actors stack chairs. TAYLOR sits on the top of the stack. SUSANNA sits on floor with her back to the left side of the chairs and RYAN to the right) FACT: Oily fish, vitamin A and vitamin C all help to preserve good eyesight.

VOICE Human... race... something is wrong... time... is of... the essence...

SUSANNA It was July, and the summer heat made the anticipation of our deaths even more unbearable. RYAN The mailman told me he knew this day would come. TAYLOR I was scared to make toast. (Loud beep. Characters look up and listen to announcement. The actors then move the chairs so that they are aligned in a row. SUSANNA in the middle, RYAN on the right, and TAYLOR on the left. Broken up speech.) VOICE Human... feelings... ignore... all... human... feelings.

Sofie Puchley

SUSANNA The paper said there would be a flash of light, and then a downpour of acidic green rain. RYAN The mailman told me that it was the Second Coming... but I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe in that kind of thing. TAYLOR I sat in the kitchen staring at the toaster... waiting... VOICE (All actors pace Crackling noise) Humanity... is... nothingness.

around

the

Burnt Toast

chairs.

SUSANNA I had to decide if I was ready to die. (Sits down in chair) RYAN I had to decide who to say goodbye to. (Sits down in chair)

TAYLOR I had to decide just peanut butter? Or jelly? (Sits down in chair) VOICE (Crackling) Humanity... is...(Long beep)

Burnt Toast Sofie Puchley

(All characters fall to the ground after the beep. SUSANNA, RYAN, then TAYLOR fall in a row. RYAN and SUSANNA slowly sit up and sit back to back. TAYLOR curls up in a fetal position.) SUSANNA Ryan is my best friend. My only friend. (Turns to look at RYAN.) RYAN I think Susanna is the most beautiful girl in the world. (Turns to look at SUSANNA.) SUSANNA I remember being alone with him last summer. Everything was so different then. Momâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hair was longer. My hair was shorter. RYAN We were in her room. She was wearing a red dress, and her eyes were extra blue that day. SUSANNA (Flatly) I remember being upset about the death of my father. RYAN I remember her eyes were wet. (She leans on him. He holds her. They are not looking at each other now, but at the audience.)

SUSANNA He held me. His hands were cold but I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mind. RYAN I held her. I touched her face. I could feel her sadness. Her eyes... SUSANNA He makes me feel safe. RYAN She makes me feel alive. SUSANNA I wanted to taste his lips, and feel his heartbeat against mine. If only for a moment. RYAN I wanted to feel her soft skin pressing against my body. If only for a moment. SUSANNA I wanted him to hold me forever. RYAN I wanted to tell her how much she means to me. I wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay. I wanted to tell her that I... I... (They almost kiss.) (Loud ding from toaster. This breaks the scene. Both actors look behind themselves.) TAYLOR Toast is my favorite food. (SUSANNA and RYAN go back to the chairs. The actors take the chairs and align them so they are in a circle. It should look like they are at a table. TAYLOR is eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.) SUSANNA Taylor is my little brother.

Burnt Toast Sofie Puchley

RYAN Taylor is a funny little guy. SUSANNA I remember his face when our father died. His eyes were dead and his face was pale.

Burnt Toast Sofie Puchley

RYAN He hasn’t been the same since. SUSANNA He screams at night. My mom says it’s just a phase, but I don’t know anymore. My mom is always working. And most of the time, we are alone. (beat) Ryan has been so good to him. RYAN I’ve tried to take him under my wing this past year. Mom? (Looks around.)

SUSANNA

RYAN He’s like family to me. SUSANNA Mom? (Looks around, worried.) I wish my dad was here. He would know what to do. RYAN I wonder if he is scared. SUSANNA I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s almost over. (Actors then make the chairs into a bed. RYAN and SUSANNA lift TAYLOR off the floor and place him on the chair bed. SUSANNA and RYAN are on either side of him, with their faces towards the audience. TAYLOR is having a nightmare.) VOICE (Crackling)... Toaster... will... explode... burnt... toaster... the... world... is human... race... nothingness... time to die... humans.

TAYLOR (In his sleep) NO!!! DAD!!!! I don’t believe you. He’s not gone. (Screams). He’s not gone!! (Screams and wakes up huffing and crying.) (We then hear screams and gunshots again. Actors should walk around and make various tableaus using the chairs. These will be determined by the director. RYAN’s attention should be focused on SUSANNA.) SUSANNA It was three o’clock. Nothing happened. (Tableau.) RYAN It was four o’clock. I called my Grandma.

Sofie Puchley

(Tableau.) TAYLOR It was six o’clock. And the toaster was still taunting me... (Tableau, then music starts.) Then suddenly! Then suddenly! Then suddenly!

Burnt Toast

SUSANNA RYAN TAYLOR

SUSANNA Everything went black. (Short Blackout.) RYAN The phone line went dead. (Pause. Lights up. TAYLOR is no longer on stage.)

Taylor?

SUSANNA and RYAN

SUSANNA We checked the kitchen. RYAN We checked his room. But he had vanished.

Burnt Toast Sofie Puchley

Taylor! Taylor!

SUSANNA (Black out.)

RYAN We were surrounded by darkness. It smelled like burnt toast. I couldn’t breathe. (Lights up.) SUSANNA We saw a flash of a brilliant red light. (Screams) Taylor! (Some sort of creepy red lighting should flash and cover the stage, and the pace starts to pick up. Actors are running and looking for TAYLOR.) RYAN We heard the sound of rain pitter patter on our roof. (We hear rain, screams, and the sound of a ticking clock.) SUSANNA I’m not sure if it was green; it was too dark. RYAN My heart was pounding. SUSANNA My hands were sweating. RYAN I held her hand; it was warm and soft.

SUSANNA I held his hand; I could feel his heart beat. I closed my eyes. I bit my lip.

RYAN SUSANNA (RYAN turns towards SUSANNA.)

Susanna, I lovâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

RYAN (Extremely loud explosive noise, with blackout, and another long beep.)

VOICE And the world was silent.

Burnt Toast Sofie Puchley

INT. APARTMENT BUILDING. ELEVATOR - NIGHT The elevator is a fairly plain apartment elevator. The back wall of the elevator is a clear glass window allowing its passengers a view of the city skyline. Outside it is New Year’s Eve, and thousands of people fill the city streets below.

Life in an Elevator Emily Cameron

WILLIAM (40), an ordinary looking gentleman wearing a business suit, strides into an elevator about to close. He is an extremely neat and tidy man, in appearance and personality. There is ANOTHER PERSON present in the elevator. William holds his cellphone to his ear in one hand. The other hand grips the handle of his briefcase. WILLIAM (in phone) Yes. Yes, Sir. I’m on my way. I’m in the elevator now. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes. Tops. He hangs up the phone. William glances at the other person there with him. LUCY (25) smiles at William politely. She is very pregnant and wears a colorful T-shirt over her large tummy that says, “Happy New Year!” Hello.

LUCY

William barely spares Lucy a smile back. Elevator doors close. Good evening.

WILLIAM

He pays her little attention and presses elevator button, B1. LUCY Could you press the lobby button for us? FACT: A newborn baby will cry, but not produce any tears. Babies do not produce tears until they are around six weeks old.

Us?

WILLIAM

He frowns at Lucy. She puts her hands on her belly and smiles proudly.

WILLIAM (cont’d) Oh, I see. You’re referring to yourself and your unborn child. How. . . motherly. He presses the L button. Lucy stares at him, slightly perplexed. William grabs a bottle of hand sanitizer out of his briefcase and squirts some into his hands. Then he puts the bottle back. He is thorough in his application. LUCY I’m sorry. I’m new to the building. I don’t think I caught your name. William Scott.

WILLIAM

LUCY Nice to meet you, Will. It’s William.

Life in an Elevator Emily Cameron

WILLIAM

LUCY Oh. Yes. Well, it’s lovely to meet you, William. I’m Lucy. I run the new day care downstairs. Lucy holds out her hand for William to shake. He frowns at it. He tentatively reaches out and shakes her hand like he’s touching a Dumpster lid. William pulls his hand away and gets out his hand sanitizer again and reapplies it. LUCY (cont’d) So, William. What are your fun New Year’s Eve plans? Watching the fireworks? WILLIAM Oh no. I am off to an emergency work meeting. LUCY That doesn’t sound very fun. WILLIAM On the contrary, our company was just bought by a very wealthy businessman and he plans on —

The elevator lurches to a halt. The lights flash on and off for a few seconds before the emergency lights kick on. Lucy stumbles to the back of the elevator. William could not care less about her. As soon as he regains his balance, he rushes to the elevator doors and tries to pry them open.

Life in an Elevator Emily Cameron

WILLIAM (cont’d) Oh no. No. No. No. I have a meeting to get to. He fails at opening the doors and begins banging on them. WILLIAM (cont’d) (shouts) Hello! Somebody help! The elevator’s stuck! Please! Help! LUCY It’s okay. I’ll press the emergency button and someone will be here to help us soon. She presses the big red emergency button. WILLIAM No. You don’t understand; this is the most important meeting of my career. I was trying to get promoted. LUCY It’s New Years Eve. Shouldn’t you spend it with your family and friends? As William and Lucy converse, William wanders around the elevator examining every crevice for an escape. WILLIAM My friends are at that business meeting. They’re called my bosses. LUCY What about your family? WILLIAM I’m sure they’re somewhere.(he pushes against the back window) You know, I bet we could pop this sucker out of here and use our jackets as parachutes. LUCY Shouldn’t you be celebrating the New Year with your loved ones? William stops in the middle of the elevator and stares up at the ceiling.

WILLIAM Do you think we could climb out the top? BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The sound of fireworks is heard from outside the building. We can see them go off through the window. William jumps. Lucy stumbles back and clutches her stomach. WILLIAM (cont’d) What! Fireworks already? Oh God!

LUCY

WILLIAM I know. If this thing does not move, I am definitely getting fired. LUCY I’m not talking about your job! My water just broke! William looks at Lucy. She lies on the ground at the back of the elevator, holding her stomach. He sees the liquid from her water breaking. LUCY (cont’d) Don’t stand there! I’m having a baby! Do something! William begins banging on the doors again. WILLIAM Someone help us! She’s having a baby! And I’m late for a business meeting! LUCY I am about to pop a living, breathing being out of my body and all you can think about is your job! WILLIAM This job is my life! And now it’s in the hands of a couple of elevator technicians! My life is in the hands of elevator technicians!

Life in an Elevator Emily Cameron

LUCY You call some corporate job that keeps you running around at all hours of the night a life?

Life in an Elevator Emily Cameron

WILLIAM Oh, what do you know? You’re a preschool teacher going into labor on a filthy elevator floor. Bet there’s bacteria all over this place. That sure sounds like a great place to give birth! Contraction! Lucy cries out in pain and clutches her stomach. Clueless, William approaches her with his arms raised out in apologetic surrender. WILLIAM (cont’d) I — uh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was being so offensive. LUCY No you idiot! I’m having a contraction! Oh.

WILLIAM

LUCY And being a preschool teacher has taught me more about life than you’ll ever know! WILLIAM That’s what people who didn’t go to graduate school say to make themselves feel better. LUCY Some of my children know more about life than you. WILLIAM Yeah, well, can they accurately predict stock market fluctuation down to the dime? They’re four.

LUCY

WILLIAM Then what’s so special about them?

LUCY They know how to appreciate life. They don’t hide from it like you do. WILLIAM You think I use my job to hide from life? LUCY Like a five year old hides from bedtime. What about you? Me?

WILLIAM LUCY

WILLIAM You use preschool metaphors to talk about life. If my job is my life, your life is your job. LUCY (unsure) That is not true. WILLIAM Of course it is. You said that you everything you know about life. Not everything . . .

your

children

taught

LUCY

WILLIAM Bet you think they taught you how to be a mom to that thing trying to shove itself out of your body. LUCY I take care of other people’s kids all day — WILLIAM But does that really mean you know how to be a mom? Lucy has another contraction! She cries out in pain, then breaks down into tears.

Life in an Elevator Emily Cameron

Contraction?

Life in an Elevator Emily Cameron

WILLIAM (cont’d)

LUCY Yes . . . No! I have no idea what I’m doing! I don’t know what to do with a baby! I can’t even get to a hospital to give birth properly — how can I raise a child? William stares at Lucy. WILLIAM Um, uh, I — It’ll be okay . . . ? Lucy cries out in pain and clutches her stomach. LUCY I have no idea how to raise a child. There. Are you happy? William sighs and reaches into his briefcase and pulls out a water bottle. He sits next to Lucy and hands her the bottle. LUCY (cont’d) Aren’t you worried I might get my cooties on it? Thank you.

He shrugs. LUCY (cont’d)

She takes a few sips. The elevator lurches and descends again. LUCY (cont’d) Looks like you’ll be making it to that business meeting after all. Yeah.

WILLIAM

William looks at his watch. WILLIAM (cont’d) You know, it’s pretty late now. Midnight.

LUCY

WILLIAM My meeting started at 11:30. (beat) It might be kind of pointless to go now. I’ll have missed all the important information about our stock and I know my boss will shoot me these terrible glares that would make some of your children pee their pants. LUCY That wouldn’t actually be a difficult task. Most of them aren’t potty trained. Right.

WILLIAM

The doors of the elevator open to reveal a crowd of worried apartment employees and elevator technicians. EMPLOYEE Miss, are you all right? LUCY I’m peachy. I love going into labor on a crappy elevator floor. EMPLOYEE I’ll call an ambulance. The employee scurries off. Contraction! Lucy cries out in pain. William takes her hand and holds it. Another set of fireworks go off. WILLIAM

Happy New Year.

LUCY

Happy New Year, Will.

Life in an Elevator Emily Cameron

The Unheard Emily Cameron

(A simple nursery. There is a crib and a BABY sleeps inside of it. There are minimal decorations. A changing table, a few stuffed animals, and a rocking chair. It looks like someone gave up decorating. JOHN enters, wearing a disheveled suit, carrying a suitcase. He’s young. Early twenties. He stands over the crib and peers inside of it.) JOHN It’s like seeing a ghost, or looking at an old photograph. You look just like Charlotte. Your eyes look the same way hers did on the day we met on the quad at the university. They look like hers did the day we got married. They look like hers did the day she triumphed through labor even though she had a heart condition. But, worst of all, they look like the way hers did, the day she died. (The BABY makes a small coo. JOHN turns his back on the crib, covering his eyes with his hand. CHARLOTTE enters, watching JOHN. JOHN cannot see or hear her.) JOHN Agh! Shit. I can’t do this. It’s been exactly a month now and I can’t take it anymore. The endless crying, the diapers, and those eyes. I can’t be responsible for another human being, let alone another human being who is barely as big as my head and can’t even go to the bathroom on its own. I’m not a father figure kind of guy. CHARLOTTE Stop trying so hard, John. It is a baby. It’s our baby. (CHARLOTTE walks to the crib and looks inside of it. She smiles down at the BABY.)

FACT: The shark cornea is used in human eye surgery as it is the most similar to the human cornea.

JOHN I can’t stay here. How can I stay here? Every time I look at you (JOHN looks in at the BABY. CHARLOTTE looks up at him), all I see is the thing that killed my wife. (JOHN turns away from the crib and takes a few steps away.) I’m sorry. I can’t do this. (JOHN starts to walk away. CHARLOTTE follows him.) What are you doing?

CHARLOTTE (Before JOHN can get out the door, BABY sobs. The sound scares JOHN and he drops his suitcase. It spills open. He turns back to the BABY, frustrated.)

JOHN Shh! Shh! Please stop this. Please just stop crying! Please, I don’t know how to do this. Look, see? I can’t even pack a suitcase properly! (JOHN attempts to soothe his baby. He reaches in to pick it up. Stops and jerks back. He grabs a stuffed animal instead and smiles too big at the BABY as he waves the stuffed animal in front of the BABY then puts it in the crib. The BABY stops screaming, but continues to blubber.) CHARLOTTE I wish you would’ve read that book I gave you. Or maybe helped me take care of the baby before I died. Or even taken any interest in our daughter at all. Then maybe you would be able to figure out that her diaper needs to be changed. (JOHN takes a step away from the crib. CHARLOTTE watches JOHN kneel before his suitcase and reclose it. JOHN grabs a paper from his pocket and checks his watch. CHARLOTTE approaches JOHN and examines the paper he holds over his shoulder.)

The Unheard Emily Cameron

CHARLOTTE A ticket for the twelve o’clock train? You’re serious about leaving our baby? You’re her father. You have a duty to take care of her.

The Unheard

JOHN Damn. I’m gonna be late. CHARLOTTE John . . . (JOHN starts to leave again.) No, John! Wait! (As soon as CHARLOTTE yells this out, the BABY starts to wail again. JOHN drops the suitcase again. It bursts open again. He turns back to the BABY. CHARLOTTE rushes over to the BABY’s crib.JOHN and CHARLOTTE stand across from each other on opposite sides of the crib.)

Emily Cameron

JOHN Shh. Come on. Stop. I’m begging you. My train leaves in fifteen minutes and look at my suitcase! CHARLOTTE I can’t believe you are about to leave our baby alone and helpless! JOHN Shh. Shh. Please. Aunt Sara will be here soon. She can take care of you. I have to go. So, please. Please. Stop crying. CHARLOTTE Aunt Sara? That’s who you’re leaving our baby with! My crazy, blind aunt who thinks she’s the long lost sister of Marilyn Monroe? (JOHN takes a step away from the crib, but the BABY begins to whimper again. He comes back to the crib.) JOHN I can only stay a minute more. But, I can’t miss this train. (beat) You know, I can practically hear Charlotte yelling at me about Aunt Sara. She’d say . . .

CHARLOTTE & JOHN You can’t leave the baby alone with an eighty-year old woman who can’t tell a baby crib from a dog kennel. (JOHN laughs to himself.) JOHN I always thought Aunt Sara was the funniest lady on the planet. You’ll understand why once you meet her. But, Char... well she could be a buzz kill sometimes. CHARLOTTE What? I’m super fun! Don’t you remember that day at the beach? You dared me to swim all the way out to the buoy and I made it halfway there. So, ha! JOHN I wanted us to go on real adventures. Bike all around Europe, run along the Great Wall of China, go helicopter skiing in the Alps! But, Charlotte wasn’t into any of that stuff. It was all school, work, money, the baby, the baby, the baby. It would always come back to you in the end. CHARLOTTE I wanted that stuff too, but I also wanted us to be a family. JOHN I wanted us to be a family. The two of us. The doctors said that’s all there ever could be. But if there was one thing I loved and hated about Char, it was her ability to try to overcome anything. CHARLOTTE And I overcame this — JOHN But she didn’t overcome this. She’s gone now. Sure, that first month after she had you, everyone thought she’d achieved a miracle. But, then she got sick. I saw the way you were destroying her. But, it didn’t matter to her. She didn’t care about anything but you. Couldn’t bother to think about anyone else. She never sat back and thought about how it was affecting us.

The Unheard Emily Cameron

CHARLOTTE Was I supposed to care more about you than the helpless little creature growing inside of me? JOHN She never thought about how it was affecting her.

The Unheard

CHARLOTTE (softens, confused) Me? JOHN She wanted you so bad she couldn’t remember to think about herself. (BABY begins to whimper softly.)

Emily Cameron John, don’t.

CHARLOTTE

JOHN You are what tore us apart. CHARLOTTE Stop it. You know that’s not true. JOHN You are the thing that took her away from me! (CHARLOTTE and the BABY get more upset the more JOHN accuses the BABY. With every sentence, CHARLOTTE steps toward JOHN.) CHARLOTTE I said stop, John! Look at her! It’s not true! JOHN You are what ended up killing her! (BABY’S cries get louder. CHARLOTTE grows more hysterical. Flailing her arms, right beside JOHN.)

Stop it! Shut up!

CHARLOTTE

JOHN You murdered my wife . . . CHARLOTTE (bangs her fist into JOHN’S back; he feels nothing.) I said, stop it, John! Don’t you see it’s not her fault! It’s not her fault! JOHN Why did she have to keep you? Because it would make her happy? Ha! (Steps back and looks up at the ceiling) Are you happy now, Charlotte? Do you feel better now that your darling baby has life and you don’t? (BABY cries louder. CHARLOTTE rushes to the other side of the crib, opposite JOHN, to try to aid her.) CHARLOTTE Stop, John! You’re upsetting her! You’re upsetting me! I just want to hold my baby! (CHARLOTTE tries to pick up the BABY, but every time her arms go to grab her, they miss. With each try, CHARLOTTE cries and gets more hysterical. JOHN looks like he is about to pull his hair out.) JOHN God, please make it stop crying! CHARLOTTE I’m trying! But, I can’t! I can’t!

The Unheard Emily Cameron

JOHN I have to leave. I have to go. (JOHN rushes to his suitcase and re-closes it as fast as he can. He tries to leave again, but the BABY starts to scream louder than it ever has before. CHARLOTTE jumps back in distress. JOHN throws his suitcase down on purpose. It breaks open and the contents spill out.) Shit! I want to leave in peace! CHARLOTTE Then go! If you want to leave so badly, just go! But stop yelling! You’re upsetting her more! JOHN What am I supposed to do now?! CHARLOTTE (shouting herself) How is shouting supposed to help? Who are you yelling at? JOHN I’m talking to you, Charlotte! (JOHN goes to sit in the rocking chair. He misses and ends up on the floor. He does not even have the energy to react.) What?

CHARLOTTE

JOHN I’m talking to you, Charlotte, and you’re not even here. You abandoned me. For a baby! CHARLOTTE No, John. I’m right here. JOHN What am I supposed to do now, Char? Huh? That’s what I wanted to say to you. You’ll get the baby, but then you’ll be gone. And what about me? What do I get?

Our daughter —

CHARLOTTE

JOHN The baby? How could you expect me to look at it and not think of you? How can I think of it as anything but the thing that took you away from me? (CHARLOTTE kneels beside JOHN.) CHARLOTTE John. Listen to me. I know I have made mistakes. I was controlling and stubborn, and I know you still haven’t forgiven me for the time we fought and I made you sleep on the couch. But, please don’t take it out on her. JOHN Why couldn’t you see? All I ever wanted was you, Charlotte. CHARLOTTE All I ever wanted was for you and me to be a family. CHARLOTTE AND JOHN I need you to hear me. CHARLOTTE I wish you could understand. JOHN I wish you were here. I can’t do this. I’m not like you, Char. You’re the one who made the grocery lists, set the budget; I’m the guy who went to the store and followed instructions. CHARLOTTE You’re not that guy, John. I swear you’re not. You’re the guy who kept me grounded and calmed me down when I found out I wasn’t supposed to get pregnant, and then stood by me when I did. I know you can do this. You have to. For the baby. For me.

The Unheard Emily Cameron

(CHARLOTTE lays her hand over JOHN’S. He pauses. She thinks she has broken through to him. But, then JOHN stands up. CHARLOTTE stands up.)

The Unheard Emily Cameron

JOHN I’m gonna miss my train. I have to go. CHARLOTTE No! You can’t! Please, stay! I’m here. I swear I’m here! (JOHN packs his suitcase hastily, zips it closed, and picks it up, ready to go.) JOHN I feel like I’m forgetting something. CHARLOTTE You have to stay! Please, John. Listen to me, you have to hear me! JOHN It doesn’t matter. I have to go. No, John!

CHARLOTTE (The BABY cries again. John stops and puts down his suitcase. Sad this time. Not angry. He walks over to the crib and peers inside. CHARLOTTE stands beside him.)

JOHN What is going to make you stop crying? CHARLOTTE I told you. Her diaper is dirty. JOHN I’m sorry. I can’t understand what you want. I wish I could . . . I should go.

CHARLOTTE Please, don’t, John. I’m sorry. Please hear me. Please listen! (CHARLOTTE waits for a response.) What is the point anymore? I’m a ghost. You’ll never hear me. (CHARLOTTE begins to walk away. JOHN picks up another stuffed animal and sets it in the crib. He pauses. He presses his hand into the bottom of the crib.) JOHN Your crib is wet . . . (CHARLOTTE pauses and turns around.) Oh God. I’m such an idiot. (CHARLOTTE approaches JOHN slowly. JOHN picks up BABY out of crib. It stops crying. He lays her on the changing table and begins to change her diaper clumsily. CHARLOTTE watches thoughtfully.) JOHN Oh, uh. Damn — Wait I mean, shoot. Don’t listen to me. I’m a bad influence. You shouldn’t cuss. (JOHN fumbles with the diaper, unsure how to assemble it. CHARLOTTE laughs.) CHARLOTTE No. It goes the other way. JOHN (JOHN finally figures it out and picks up the BABY. He sits down in the rocking chair with the BABY.) There. I bet that’s better, huh? (CHARLOTTE puts her hand on JOHN’s shoulder. JOHN never takes his eyes off of his daughter.)

The Unheard Emily Cameron

CHARLOTTE See, John. You did well. JOHN Of course, now you’re happy and quiet.

The Unheard Emily Cameron

CHARLOTTE Of course she is. You finally heard what she was crying. (beat) Can I do this?

JOHN

CHARLOTTE Honestly, John. I don’t know. No one ever does. I didn’t even know if I could. JOHN I wish you could have stayed, Char. I — We need you. You’ll be okay.

CHARLOTTE

JOHN I’m kind of a helpless father. Aren’t I? CHARLOTTE You’re not helpless. You’re going to be fine. (CHARLOTTE kisses John on the cheek as he drifts off to sleep. Then she reaches down and touches her BABY’s cheek fondly.) Goodbye, John. (CHARLOTTE leaves. Blackout.)

Harvest Ben Cruz

Oil on Wood

FACT: A scallop has around 100 eyes around the edge of its shell to detect predators.

Love, Edge or Edgeless Rita Yiting Ruan Ink Drawing

FACT: Goats have rectangular pupils to give them a wide field of vision.

Reality Marika Conarroe Photograph

FACT: Although the function of tears is to keep eyes clean, scientists donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand why we cry when we are upset.

Cinderella Audrey Carver Silver Gelatin Photograph

FACT: Owls are the only bird which can see the colour blue.

Cutting Edge Audrey Carver Darkroom Photograph

FACT: Your nose gets runny when you cry as the tears drain into your nasal passages.

Melting Confetti Noah Jones Acrylic on Canvas

FACT: About half of the human brain is dedicated to vision and seeing.

Drafting Room Holly Shelton Silver Gelatin Photograph

FACT: Most hamsters only blink one eye at a time.

A Diver Sumin Seo

Acrylic on Canvas

FACT: The phrase ‘it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye’ comes from Ancient Rome, as the only rule for their bloody wrestling matches was ‘no eye gouging’.

Self Portrait Reah Eunji Kang Acrylic on Canvas

FACT: Camels have three eyelids! This is to protect their eyes from sand blowing in the desert.

Sagrada Familia Florence Liu Woodcut and Screenprint

FACT: In an average life, your eyes will see 24 million different images.

Conformity Florence Liu Paper, PVA, 3D Output and Clear Resin on Wood

FACT: Our eyes have small blind spots where the optic nerve passes through the retina, and our brains use the information from the other eye to fill this gap.

Solitude Maisie Yixuan Luo Ceramic

FACT: Scorpions can have as many as 12 eyes.

The Last Empress of China Maisie Yixuan Luo Ceramic

FACT: ...and the box jellyfish has 24!

I will be okâ&#x20AC;Ś. Shirley Yingxin Gong Acrylic on Canvas

FACT: An owl can see a moving mouse more than 150 feet away.

Thankful Shirley Yingxin Gong Acrylic on Canvas

FACT: Research has found that a tie tied too tightly can increase the risk of glaucoma in men.

Effloresce 1 Anastasia James Digital Photograph

FACT: The perfect length of eye contact when you first meet someone is to acknowledge what colour eyes they have â&#x20AC;&#x201C; about 4 seconds.

Oblivion 1 Anastasia James Digital Photograph

FACT: Guinea pigs are born with their eyes open!

FICTION

Dear Parallax Reader, If you like classic rock, alcoholics, porn, businessmen, sex, ironic weather and childhood, there is no reason to skip past the Fiction section. Sure, the pieces here are a little longer than the poems, and sometimes they make less sense than a play, or an essay, but that’s all right. Stories are lies. Stories are open to interpretation. Charles Dickens never cared for symbolism but that won’t stop our English teachers from telling us that Mr. Badger loved Esther because he gave her roses or that Edwin Drood’s ring was a symbol of Godliness. And that’s perfectly fine. Fiction, by definition, is a belief or statement that is false and often held to be true because it is convenient to do so. So read on. Believe what you would like and ignore what you choose. It’s only real if it is convenient for you. It may be convenient to believe that people will like you better in Paris, or that porn will teach you life lessons, or that the thing on your porch is only sleeping, not dead. Read on, interpret what you must, be offended half as often as you smile and laugh really, really loudly so people will ask what you’re reading and you’ll get a chance to tell them all about this fantastic journal that contains the blood, sweat and tears of the writers on the hill.

A Letter From the Editor Fiction

Happy Reading, Kathleen M. Johnson (Fiction Editor)

FACT: It’s possible to blink five times in a single second.

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Sleeping In Luis Bermudez Ham

On Sundays, and days when school was cancelled, and whenever else I found the chance to sleep in, I would wake up in the top bunk of my room to a calm I was foreign to. In a house with two business parents, it was a triumph to find a minute without cell-phone chatter. The air seemed cooler, the rooms brighter, and the house was alive and tempting me to walk through its hallways. At eight, every room still seemed magical, and my parents’ bedroom glowed like a new trick: a foreign place I was seldom allowed to enter, the room with the big bed and the big TV, the one room in the house with a rug. I’d stare out the window and listen to an owl hooting. My eyes would run back and forth through the roof tiles to my left, the tree rising across the street, the bricks piled underneath. I’d get tired and throw myself into the neatly made bed, softer than any other, my eyes still looking out the window even as my body sunk into cotton and linen. I never told Ma I had been in there, and she never asked. On these days I woke up by myself to the scent of clean bedsheets, the idea that bedsheets need to be washed every once in a while still completely foreign to me. I couldn’t even begin to imagine that one day my bedsheets might smell like sweat and dirt instead of Suave Max. Bedsheets weren’t made like that. Things were made to last forever, to stand up against time. I imagined my room, its Action Men, its Beyblades, its planes built from parts my abuelo gave me, waiting for me to come back in twenty years, to walk through the door and find how it had all been waiting for me. In me was that loving indifference it is so easy to feel as a kid, before one realizes that things can be lost without ever being found again. The big sun rose atop the house, light bright enough outside on the patio to shine in through my drape-less window, the glass panels between the cross wood frames still feeling cold from the night before. I would find myself still surprised by the feeling of waking up alone, with some comfort from the silent morning and the hooting owl and the simmering white noise of the kitchen. I felt like an adult at eight years old, if adults could wake up any time they pleased and had the time to listen to small sounds.

FACT: Geckos can see colours around 350 times better than a human, even in dim lighting.

On Sundays, and days when school was cancelled, and whenever else I found the chance to sleep in, I would wake to the white noise of oil frying meat, of fire cooking chicken, of vegetables being simmered to a crunchy delicacy that made

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me wonder why some people didn’t like them. I’d walk down, hungry from the smell and because I knew what it meant. I’d walk down the stairs ready to have lunch for breakfast. I’d be lured out of bed and down the stairs, turning left and opening the swinging doors to be hit in the face by the steam of spices, by chilis being grilled and oil being burnt and that odd mix of Mexican and Chinese food my house used to always have, broccoli being stirred into beef, soy sauce added in, and my mouth melting like an ice pop over steam. Every Sunday night I knew that in a week I’d hear the owl again, smell the oil, the smoky soul of chile de arbol and pasilla and aceite de oliva, sweet rice and jasmine flowers and eggplants in a broth, all souls rising into my small, young nose and teaching it what a home smells like, adding items to an ever growing list of things I’d started to suspect I would need or miss later. I knew I only had to wait for time to do this, and I knew this until I didn’t anymore, and by the time we had left the house and my brother had broken my toys and I had found that the owl had been a pigeon all along, I was already new, and old thoughts seemed just childish ideas I’d once had, all a waste of time from when I was too busy looking for what wasn’t there.

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Sleeping In Luis Bermudez Ham

Skeleton Danae Devine

The aisle of the airplane stretches your stride into a catwalk. Mother used to say that diligence is key and your pink ribbon is tying knots around your blue hair, so you stop and roughly yank at it, obstructing any movement from the broad-headed Russian lady behind you. You’ve taken a moment to curse at your hair before releasing its final strands of blue from your scalp. Though you are small, the gray ceiling compresses your frame and you want to shrivel off your skin until you’re a happy skeleton. All naked bone and nothing to hide. People sigh from their tired mouths and rub their palms together, either out of anxiety or pleasure. A tall Chinese man with dark skin blurred by a red robe catches your attention. This is new for you. You’re going to Paris. The fact that your hair is blue is thrilling, and leaves a dangerous, dirty mark on the rubber clean life you were born into. And this is a new day so it’s OK that your eyes dart from side to side, because Paris was always at the core of your mind, though you’d never had the moment to chance upon it until now. “Can I get that for you?” a slight blonde inquires. She’s dressed in a flight attendant’s suit, blue and white, with dark buttons you want to pop right off and pin to your sneakers. You stare at them for a while before looking up, but before you can respond she’s moving towards your suitcase, and you slowly unravel your fingers from the handle. With a flip of your hair you take your seat, 48 E. “I like your blue hair,” she calls.

FACT: Our eyes close automatically to protect us from perceived dangers

“Yeah me too,” you mutter dryly. You use both hands to twirl it around your fingers, accepting your own compliment and yours alone. Like at that NCL tea party last month, when you wore a baby blue maxi skirt with a white boho blouse, and a lady from Oxford gasped and fanned long bony fingers across her chest as she eyed your hair in contempt. You grinned like it was Christmas. You said to her, In Paris they would like it. She looked like she wanted to squash you, but you recalled that the last time you went to Paris was when it snowed. You hadn’t seen it before. The white, soft specks fell from the sky and hardened under your foot. To you it was extraterrestrial, and with shaking hands you

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stuck your tiny tongue out to nibble at the snowflakes before embarking on the same plane you’re on now. There’s an old woman on your left with reading glasses like windows, and a button up, salad green cardigan. The man on your right has long wavy hair draped over his shoulders, and next to him is a guitar case. “Oh,” you remark. You look at it for awhile and bite your lip; it’s a nice leather with golden letters etched in the sides: Dynamite Cruisin’. Then you realize that you’ve been staring at it for way too long, so you launch back. But it’s too abrupt, and you’re too loud, and your hair color doesn’t make sense: you catch his attention anyway. He has dark eyes. And that is all you see—he has thin, crooked lips and dark eyes. You must have gotten the urge to smack him, because very suddenly you delve into the confines of your purse, and pull out a dozen macarons, the small ones from the bakery. You look at him, then you look back at your macarons, then you look back at him, and back at them. “I’ve got...” You stop and thin your mouth as you look at the macarons in suspicion. “I’ve got rose, mocha, lemon, lavender, pistachio, chocolate, vanilla, raspberry, blackberry, green tea...” You wander in thought, and make note of the people turning their heads towards you, and silently challenge them into a duel in which you slide out a hidden katana out from under the seat and slice off their heads Black Mamba style! Your stomach lurches into your throat, and the floor steepens with the plane’s shift. Out the window is the wing, ascending off the runway and into the air. Little lights glitter in the sky. A flush of zeal swims through you. “What are the other two?” The man furrows his brow and shifts uncomfortably. You open your mouth, and then close it and look forward. “You know what I think?” you smirk. The old woman on your left folds her New York Times newspaper. “What do you think?”

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Skeleton Danae Devine

You whip your head around, blue hair catching dead winds of the airplane. “I think we should play a game!” you exclaim, pulling at your sheer skeleton shirt. The man next to you raises a long fingered hand to his lips to stifle a laugh.

Skeleton Danae Devine

You smile. “Let’s play a game in which everyone gets up,” you motion with your hands, “and switches seats, last person to sit down gets kicked off the plane.” The man silently chuckles. “Disgraceful child!” The old woman bares a pair of knitting needles in a patchwork scarf, which you stare at for a while. She regards you condescendingly, huffing, “It’s rude to stare.” A little mousey boy kicks the back of your seat. You’d let him continue, but he gains inappropriate delight from each kick. You smother him with a glare, and then relax. “Do you want a macaron?” He looks at you blankly, and his mouth slightly drops. You gently place a purple one on his lap. He looks bored. He’s like a hot air balloon, nowhere to go but up. A small murmur sweeps across the plane’s interior and you furrow your brow, but then grin and turn forward. You know what’s in front of you. On the small seat table is a little Capuchin monkey bobbing his head, like a live version of the stuffed ones seen at museums. His wide mouth takes in a breath of dead air. You cock your head to the side in silent happiness. “Yeah, they just popped up from under the seats out of nowhere,” the man next to you regards, stroking the tail of a monkey that claws his shoulder and licks his neck. The red light up top flashes Seat Belts On. A woman screams, “How did those things get in here?!” She waves a frantic finger at you and the man’s monkeys.

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A flight attendant, the one from earlier, steps through the aisle and laughs heartily with heavy heaves, encouraging the man next to you to actually shake his shoulders out of suppressed giggles. You gently lift the monkey off the table and into your lap. You obtain inspiration and press your long fingers against the seat in front of you. It shifts to the side, and the seat is ripped from the ground, wires dangling from it’s sides. It hovers in the air. “Oh crap,” its passenger utters, annoyed. He reaches an insistent hand towards reading glasses left alone on the carpet, but he can’t reach them, so you do it for him. “Thank you, you’re a real gem.” He acknowledges you with a cup of coffee. You nod. The clouds are rolling like yarn balls—they remind you how promiscuously lithe cats are, and how excited they get at the sight of string. You clasp your hands at the thought of Paris and cafes, the sweet scent of thin air on top of the Eiffel Tower, wild pastels in deserted alleyways. “Have a nice flight,” a computer voice booms from the sides. The levitating old man spreads a wide grin. He nods expectantly toward the plane’s ceiling till a small crack emerges through its seams. The seat lifts the man toward the crack. He retrieves a small brass pin from his pocket and gouges a gnarled hole into the metal. The hole expands into a dangerously wide exit. He rises with coffee in hand, out of the plane and into the clouds, drifting far off until he is no more than a dentist balloon freed by a child down below. The old woman watches him disappear into the atmosphere and shakes her head in perplexity. The screaming woman’s eyes bug out. She presses a hand against her throat. “Did any of you see that?” she says, whipping her head around. You eye her black bangs in contempt. “I like your blue hair,” the man next to you comments. He smiles shyly.

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Skeleton Danae Devine

You grin. “Why, thank you sir—never received that kind of compliment.” You pull at your skeleton shirt. “You never deserved it.” The old woman laughs to herself. You cross your arms pompously. The man next you unclasps Dynamite Cruisin’, revealing a shining electric guitar.

Skeleton Danae Devine

“Bet you play some gnarly riffs on that thing,” you note. He nods. The old woman reaches into the compartment above, straining from the weight of a guitar amp, and sets it down with a grunt. She pats it and says, “You’re gonna need that, son,” and returns to knitting. The man next to you plugs in his guitar and starts strumming, humming. You tap your foot. The woman snorts, “Will someone fix that goddamn hole in the roof?” An assemblage of passengers rise from their seats, each with little gadgets in their hands, like hammers or scissors. The passengers attempt to gather under the hole; it blows strange winds into their eyes. One man in a snap-up t shirt reveals a roll of duct tape. He climbs onto the back of a woman so as to cover the hole. “Yep, definitely broken,” he remarks. After a few strips of duct tape, the speed of the plane pulls at his core and he’s thrown to the outside of the plane, his hands clutched around the rim of the hole. “Have a nice flight,” you mutter. And the clouds yank him away. The passengers return to their seats in disappointment. You try not to acknowledge the presence of a sweating fat lady with gulps smoothing down her throat. She chuckles nervously when you catch her eye. The wind from outside rings against your ears. A little drool escapes from the lips of the mousy boy. He reminds of you of that kid at Bishop, the one who laughed when you slipped on ice. Bishop was your mother’s getaway from work. She dragged you out of the house for hours so that she could play blackjack with her sister. But you liked the snow, and it

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snowed a lot there. Every time you fell on the snowboard, there was always a little kid to help out of angelic curiosity. The little boy who laughed came over and offered a tiny hand because you had blue hair. The monkeys hop from shoulder to shoulder, eliciting gasps from passengers, and screams from the screaming lady. You pop a macaron into your mouth and laugh joyously. The man next to you increases the speed of his knuckles, blasting screeches, igniting strings through his fingers. You sigh at each passing riff. Moments pass, and there’s a Drag Queen strutting along the aisle, pulling at the collars of her orange dress, asking people for a cigarette; you offer her a green tea macaron. She flashes you a smile, her dark eyeliner igniting the electricity in her green irises. The old woman next to you blows a kiss to her scarf; there’s a face etched on its fabric. There’s a Spanish Aphrodite who exits the bathroom. People turn and clap at her beauty. She runs toward the man next to you, and latches her mouth onto his. His mouth curves into a smile and reaches to cup her chin. You feel a pang of jealousy, but realize you’re saving love for college anyway. They both laugh, and you scratch the side of your forehead, uncomfortable. You hear the horn of an elephant trunk. And there’s the ceiling of the airplane again, expanding dramatically till the plane’s interior is spacious. A gray beast stomps through, and the screaming lady passes out. A little man with large brown eyes and a glossy thatch of hair is dressed in shiny pink robes and flaunts a hand bedazzled in chains through the air, raising an eyebrow. He muses at the sight of your skeleton shirt. He and the elephant disappear through the red curtains at the front of the line. The elephant’s tail swishes from side to side. “Why are you going to Paris?” the old woman asks.

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Skeleton Danae Devine

“So I won’t get teased about my blue hair,” you mutter, still peeved about the kiss. She chuckles. Red lights flash Seat Belt On. You don’t do it.

Skeleton Danae Devine

You bat your eyes at the man next to you, cocking your head to the side. “Could you teach me how to play the guitar?” Your blue hair catches at your lip and glues to your tongue. You scrunch your face and attempt to blow it out. He flashes brilliant teeth. “Of course!” The carpet seems to slope beneath your feet, and outside the clouds mist over the windows until the sky clears completely, and the Eiffel Tower seems to tease the extent of your arm’s reach. The lights dim, the monkeys scramble under the seats, the hole wraps in on itself, and the plane’s interior compresses back to its former size. You sigh and chomp on a raspberry macaron, tentative in movement. Do you remember when you talked to that writer in New York? He said he lived in France, and he gave you his number? You flipped your blue hair over the side when you boasted about that to the Oxford woman who scrunched her nose at your wardrobe. He called for you last night. Careful about disembarking with the guitar man. Keep your girlish flirtations in check; behave yourself. You’re tentative in movement. But there’s a youthful flush to your cheeks that reminds you France is ready for you. A voice booms, “All right, ladies and gentlemen, hope you had a nice flight. A couple minutes and we’ll be landing shortly.” Welcome to Paris.

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I’ve been contemplating existence and its only known side effect, death, in the spare time I allow myself to be horrified by a single thought that consists of numerous personal, cultural, conflicting philosophies that stretch beyond my realm of thinking. I’m not asking you to make sense of it all, but simply to hear me out. We live in endless, anti-climatic tragedies with brief moments filled with feelings of gateless freedom, undying love, and other things that leave smiles plastered across our faces due to a connection of familiar neurons, and a temporary displacement of otherwise balanced chemicals. This is what I’ve understood to be existence at its most basic, and to go any further in assuming would be playing on a hunch. I don’t like to wonder why I let kindness settle to the bottom of my coffee mug, indulging in its bitter taste. Or why I can sit through a funeral without shedding a single tear, but the moment I find someone forgets to acknowledge that the deceased was ever here or that meaning in what they left has dwindled to random odds and ends, I’m bent up over it for months. There are simply too many specifics to come to a conclusion, and there’s too much honest thinking not to kill, or at very least, hate yourself. I have considered, for when it’s all over, what happens at the end of these horribly mangled stories that we struggled to the final page for. What happens when we die. I don’t like asking what should be expected of someone who almost understood religion to know. Religion: that one lie in an almost-truth we let ourselves have, while dragging the rest of humanity’s good faith and hope through the dirt. I’d hate to be the firestarter, so I keep these thoughts, this one in particular, to myself.

Those Two Places That Start with H Sidney Thompson

I cannot disprove anything, not even a theory resulting in some sort of end success and some sort of demise. Though I do believe our definition and perception of the two words are incredibly blurred. What is demise if it is not just a place where hope and tragedy once coincided? Isn’t that the irony of a bad place? We always make it out to be monstrous and shallow when, in all actuality, it shows us more honest love than where we are now. It reminds us how the bitter truth is still truth, that you can always fall

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FACT: Your eyebrows prevent sweat dripping into your eyes.

Those Two Places that Start with H

a little lower. But with each fall you can look up and know youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll get back up again. It is hope in a place that lacks it. It pains us in its ongoing bliss we know will not last. It pains us in the few moments we must endure its victory. That we didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get an end of perfection, but the short stick. The reality of a forever beating heart. Is it so bad? Perfection is perfection. There is no heartbeat. Unless you knew a way to go on living without a beating heart, how could you be content in eternity with no up and down? No monumental highs to know you were alive and no desperate lows to know you were only human? To this I think, at least in hell, you know.

Sidney Thompson

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귀결 2014년 3월 24일 00시 47분 오늘도 새벽으로 들어가기 직전 개 짖는 소리에 조심했다. 멍청하고 미성숙한 생각을 몇 가지 다시 한번 돌이켜 볼 뻔 했다. 꼭 이 시간에만 언제나 그렇듯 부메랑처럼 돌아오는 헛 생각들을 밀어내는 순간 고작 한 달 만에 어어부 프로젝트 사운드로 귀결되었다. 잊고있던 습관마냥 정말 순식간에 “5촉 전구” 켜지듯 지금은 물고기의 아버지이자 물고기 잡는 사람의 음색이 필요했다. 지금은 오전이다. Result March 24 2014 00:47 Was cautious of dog barking before entering into dawn again. Almost looked back to a few stupid and immature thoughts. The moment when useless thoughts that come back like a boomerang are pushed back, the result comes to UhUhBoo Project Sound in a month. Like a forgotten habit returning, like when “five-tip lightbulb” lights up all of a sudden, the tone of fish catcher and fish father was required. Right now it is morning. 가장 적절한 시간에 마주치고 말았지 2014년 4월 2일 14시 57분 피자 배달직에서 잘린 안성철씨는 택시 기사가 되었다. 매일 기사식당에 들려 백미러의 유령을 보겠지. 턱뼈가 으스라진 그 외국 청년은 잘 지내고 있으려나. Happened to Collide at the Most Appropriate Time April 2 2014 14:57 Mr. An-Sung Chul became a taxi driver after he lost his job as a pizza deliverer. Would be visiting the driver restaurant every day, looking at a ghost reflected on rear view mirror. Wonder if the foreign guy who had his jaw smashed is alright. 맞서기 좋아하던 모청년 자살하는 글 2014년 4월 10일 15시 33분 길다란 구멍에 녹색 부드러운 막대기 하나를 꽂았다. 녹색 막대기 끝에는 분홍 부채. 구멍은 미동 없이 그 자리에 그대로 있다. 꽂혀있던 막대기는 움직일까 잠시 고민하다가 스스로 언어의 장벽에 밀려 저 깊은 밑바닥으로 떨어졌다. 그 광경을 보던 모청년은 자살 안했다.

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어차피 돌아보면 다 허망한

All False When Looked Back Anyway Paul Jung

*Non-major Contest Winner

FACT: The largest eye on the planet belongs to the Colossal Squid, and measures around 27cm across.

어차피 돌아보면 다 허망한

All False When Looked Back Anyway Paul Jung

*Non-major Contest Winner

A Writing Where an Anonymous Guy Who Liked Confronting Commits Suicide April 10 15:33 Stuck one green soft stick into a long hole. A pink fan at the tip of the green stick. The hole is where it’s at without movement. The stuck stick briefly contemplated about moving but volunteered to be pushed into the deep bottom by the barrier of language. An anonymous guy who witnessed that scene did not commit suicide. 적당한 스물 혹은 열아홉 2014년 6월 2일 23시 47분 몇 살 이십니까. 열아홉인지 스물인지 모르겠습니다. 나이 세는 법이 헷갈려서요. 그래도 나는 적당한 사람입니다. 이런저런 소리도 많이 듣고 말도 많지만 어디가서 이런저런 애매하고 짧은 소리 많이 듣습니다. 어색하지만 좀 지내다보면 괜찮기도 하고요. 하루 이틀 지내면서 별안간 요즘은 배우는게 많습니다. 기억이 나지 않을 때도 있지만 대게 만남들은 나에게 깊은 인상을 남깁니다. 가끔은 “지워져가, 모두 지워져가. 지워져가, 모두 지워져가.” 적당한 사람입니다. Proper Twenty or Nineteen June 2 2014 23:47 How old are you. Don’t know if nineteen or twenty. Confused of how to count ages. Yet I am a proper person. I hear this and that and talk a lot, yet from here and there I hear ambiguously short this and that. It is kind of awkward but usually gets better. Anyway as a day or two passes I learn a lot of things anyhow. Sometimes I do not remember but usually the encounters leave deep impressions for me. Sometimes “it erases, all erases. It erases, all erases.” A proper person. 잔인하게 솔직한 방어기제 2014년 6월 27일 03시 42분 며칠 전 아는 사람 한 명과 그 사람이 아는 사람을 만났다. 나는 알던 이와 그 동행의 관계가 싫었고 셋중 나는 제일 먼저 만취했다. 남아있는 기억 중 번뜩이는 것은 내가 “잔인하게 솔직하다”고 말하는 친구의 목소리다. 내가 잔인하게 솔직하다고 했다. 처음 듣는 말이다. 작년 10월부터 죽기 싫어 살아남으려고

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방어를 하기 시작했는데 수 개월이 지난 지금 난 “잔인하게 솔직한” 사람이 되었다. 덜 아프지만 사실 이게 내가 바랬던 나의 모습인 건 아닌 것 같다. 며칠 전 부터 잔인하게 솔직해지고 만 나의 방어기제에 관해 뭐라도 쓰려고 했었는데, 무슨 생각이 방해를 한 건지 실행에 옮기지를 못했다. 영화 한편을 보고 기억할 생각이 없었던 지나친 과거까지 생각하고 말았다. 이제는 너나 나나 모두 다른 사람이 되었다. 서로 그리워하던 모습은 없고 상처와 민폐만 끼치는 멍청한 남녀가 되었다. 화가 나는 이유는 그 사람이 변해서가 아니고, 상황이 변해서가 아니고, 시간이 흘러서도 아니다. 내가 하는 모든 일이 잘 되고 있음에도 불구하고 내가 아파 죽을 것만 같았던 내 모습을 그리워하는 느낌이 들어서이다. 그 사람을 그리워하는 건 분명 아닌데 왜 그 사람을 좋아했던 그 기간이 생각나는 이유를 모르겠다. 사람을 사랑한다. 내 눈에 비치는 모든 사람들을 사랑한다. 밀어낸다. 한여름 밤의 몬타우크에서 그러듯 도망친다. 오늘도 도망친다. 이 모든 것들은 전부 거짓이다. 진심이 아니다. Violently Honest Defense Mechanism June 27 2014 03:24 A few days ago I met a person I know and a person that the person knows. I did not like the relationship between the familiar and its party so I got dead drunk first. From the left memories, the voice of my friend claiming that I am “violently honest” shines. He told me that I am violently honest. Never heard of such expression before. Since the October of last year, I started defending myself because I did not want to die but wanted to survive. After months, now I became a person who is “violently honest.” It hurts less but I do not think this is the picture of what I wanted to be. Since a few days ago I was going to write about my defense mechanism that turned violently honest, but I could not move in motion because probably some thought was bothering me. After watching one movie I think of an unnecessary past that I was not thinking of. Now both you and I are different people. Missing each other has disappeared and we became man and woman who leave scars and suffer. What makes me furious is not that the person has changed, not that the situation has changed,

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어차피 돌아보면 다 허망한

All False When Looked Back Anyway Paul Jung

*Non-major Contest Winner

어차피 돌아보면 다 허망한

All False When Looked Back Anyway Paul Jung

*Non-major Contest Winner

and not that the time has passed. It is that despite everything I do is successful, I feel like I miss my old self who was fatally hurt. I know I do not miss the person but I can’t tell why I am thinking of the time when I liked the person. Love a person. Love everyone who’s on sight. Push back. Run away like you do in Montauk of summer night. Run away yet again. These are all lies. They are not from a true heart. 아주 더럽게 병적인 2014년 11월 2일 15시 50분 병적인 두려움 같은 것을 소유하고 있다. 병적인 거부감 따위를 소유하고 있다. 그게 그렇게 되면 가끔 한번씩 그렇게 해 줘야 한 다는 것을 알면서도... 실수로 수면제를 삼킨 채 방 안에 가득 찰 만한 커다란 타란튤라 거미 같은 것을 지켜보고 있다. 혼자서 그러고 있다. 살아 움직이고 만져지는 것을 자음과 모음의 모음으로 옮겨 보려 노력하고 있다. 부득이하게도 수면제는 금방 그 위대한 효과를 발휘한다. 망자의 음악이 귀를 때리는 그 동안 삼 미터 떨어진 저 불빛이 제발 좀 꺼졌으면 좋겠다는 소원을 빌어보았다. 어차피 내일도 블라인드 없는 창문을 통과하는 햇빛에 잠에서 깰 텐데... 어둑어둑한 밤 지극히도 어두운 음악 들어 뭐하겠냐며... Very Filthily Morbid November 2 2014 15:50 Possessing something like a very filthily morbid fear. Possessing some kind of a morbid rejection. Even though I know that sometimes you should if it turns out like that… Observing something like a tarantula big enough to fill an entire room after swallowing a sleeping pill by mistake. Doing so by self. Trying to transfer things that are living and tangible into a group of consonants and vowels. Unfortunately the sleeping pill displays its great power. While the music of a dead man hits ears, deeply hope that the light three meters away is turned off. Anyway, tomorrow sunlight will penetrate the window with no blinds and will awaken. Asking what’s the point of listening to dark music on such a dark night...

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Danny drives for miles in a large Chevy with its tires dancing dangerously. He taps his finger to the beat of “Walk the Line” by Johnny Cash, and then pushes a pair of pearl studded earrings deeper into the dashboard. Kicking a Corona bottle around the floor, he smiles under cheap pharmacy sunglasses. In his pockets he carries paper clips bent as S’s, little monuments to his girlfriend Stace, whom he imagined in his arms at Motel Six last night. She died some time ago. When the truck jolts at passing cracks in the asphalt, he feels the paper clips sting his thigh, and her soft voice tickles his ear. He tries to swat that voice away, and picks his lip out of anxiety. Its blood stains anything he chews. Danny refrains from looking back at the blood-clotted napkins tucked under the seat, some wrapped around chewed nectarines, others around tobacco. Danny spots a gas station on the right side of the vacant road and pulls over with a cloud of dust trailing behind the Chevy’s wheels. With his backpack around his shoulders, he steps out with a mad clop on the ground, puts his hands in the pockets of a nice pair of shredded Levis, and strides towards the station. Once inside, he begins a tedious pattern of shoplifting.

Digging Into His Thigh Danae Devine

He stashes three bottles of sunscreen, four leather belts, a stack of Pringles, some extra shoelaces, some yarn, a carton of milk, some more paper clips in honour of Stace. He stops to consider a grand-sized pair of scissors. There was a significant gloom to Stace when they met under a dripping pipeline in Brooklyn, in the nook of a dirty, vacant apartment. Her legs were wrapped snuggly in a pencil skirt, her chest squeezed into a white blouse. Her high heels elongated the curves of her thighs, and she wore cat-eye sunglasses. To Danny, they hit it off pretty quickly. Some Greek restaurants, a night in Central Park, some raging sex in the closet of Satin Glory Boutique, and they were a couple. A certain gloom hovered to the surface when Stace introduced Danny to DPD. Depersonalization disorder. She had a long pair of scissors aimed at the base of her throat, and a confused look on her face as she pressed them further

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FACT: Eyes are the second most complex organ after the brain.

into her neck, watching her own reaction through the mirror. Danny cautiously retrieved the scissors from her hand and kissed her behind the ear. Depersonalization. She felt separated from herself. A mindless insect trying to tickle its way through her skull. All masses of color, and the movement that swayed around her, seemed artificial.

Digging Into His Thigh Danae Devine

She used to place a chair beneath the window and count the amount of minutes it took for the sun to go down. “Danny,” Stace had pleaded, “If I’m observing myself from the outside in, I must be dead. But I’m not. But baby, I must be.” Danny gives the cashier a smile after paying for a slight amount of gasoline that he fills his Corona bottle with. He hops back into the Chevy, and after hearing the squeal of a stout little cashier waving green slips of paper through the air and running towards him like a mad man, he puts the truck into drive. Danny grins and zooms into the road. Leaning back, he places one hand lazily on the wheel. There’s a soft ringing in Danny’s ears; they feel like puffed cauliflowers. Stace’s voice, like sticky bone marrow, nuzzles at his senses. But baby, I must be. Danny’s grip tightens around the wheel. There’s a shadow. Baby. Danny swerves around the shadow in the road, his heart pumping. He opens the glove box and pulls out a nectarine. He chomps into it and his lip stretches and rips--a sharp, biting pain that makes him wince. Danny, I need you. I can see you, but I can’t see me. Danny, you have to help me. Danny turns up the radio, “Mad World.” Stace didn’t want therapy. Mr. Adams had cursed her out until tears streamed down her face and she started carving an X into the table with her fingernail.

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Danny remembers the long fingers clawing at his scalp. He turns up the volume of “Mad World.” Frantically scratching his head, he imagines he can still feel her long, manicured nails scratching behind his ears. Danny, Danny. I want to see you. Danny spots a mile marker. Six miles till the Exit 42. He mutters, “You can see me.” A drop of sweat forms on his brow. Danny! He jolts the truck to a stop, and turns up the volume of “I’d Love To Change the World.” He drives on. Danny’s vision blurs the cracks in the road. They look larger, look like the outlines of a body. Thousands of them, his Chevy running over bodies of asphalt. “THEM AND US! JUST STOP THE WAR!” Danny drives for who knows how many miles, but the man replays the song over and over again. He rolls down the window, and the wind whips against his ears, setting his hair on fire-A flash of metal screeches, and his Chevy topples onto its side. He doesn’t scream; there’s only a flash of wild eyes and Danny’s out. The classic rock tape changes to Led Zeppelin. In the end there’s nothing but a lone Chevy and the mad riffs of Jimmy Page. Danny can’t move; his arms are stuck to his sides, his eyelids glued shut. He can hear his breathing, every slow intake assuring him that he is aware of the black space in front of him. There are purple dots in the corners of his eyes. He feels a slight jab to the side. A sharp point to the rib, scraping against the bone. Like scissors. “Danny, Danny! Wake up, man!”

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Digging Into His Thigh Danae Devine

Danny grunts at the sound of a familiar voice. A sharp pain shoots up his spine when he tries to move his shoulder, and he unwillingly opens his eyes under the rising sun. It’s Robin, an old friend from the motorcycle shop. Stace loved motorcycles. He swallows a sharp, dry breath under the heat. His shadow looms, with his long black hair under a hat adorned in marijuana leaves. Danny’s mouth twists in disgust whenever he looks at it. Robin pulls out a cigarette from his pocket and pops it into his mouth. Blowing long billows of smoke onto Danny’s face, Robin laughs and Danny coughs and sputters. “Shit, alright, alright!” Danny swats at Robin’s rising grin, but is met with another ache coursing through his back. Robin helps him sit up. “Car’s parked over there.” He motions behind Danny. “Where’s my Chevy?” Danny spits at Robin’s jeans. “Chevy’s gone, man. Ran into a big black van. You know who I’m talking about.” “Shit,” Danny slaps his hands over his face. “Shit, shit, where’s my backpack?” Robin chuckles, attempting to raise him on his feet, wrapping an arm around his torso and grabbing his forearms. “Where’s my backpack?!” Danny repeats, his irises shifting wildly. “C’mon, work with me here.” “Where’s my backpack!?” Danny screams, voice breaking in discomfort. He croaks, “Where is—” “Danny!” Robin grabs hold of Danny’s chin. Robin wears a jean jacket with brown buttons and a half-button dangling from the bottom. Its leather collar pops out from the top and it’s draped over an assemblage of feathered necklaces and stone centipedes. Drops of sweat slip down his dark cheeks onto a blistered mouth. He wears a pair of cargo pants with stolen mixtapes in their pockets. Stace and Danny used to listen to mixtapes for hours.

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“Danny, you son of a bitch, you’re bleeding like hell. You gotta help me help you into the Cruiser, man!” “How did,” Danny coughs, “How did you find me?” “Stace called me.” Danny scrunches his brow. “But...Stace is--” “Doesn’t matter what she is. Come on, man.” They stumble towards Robin’s Land Cruiser. Danny doubles over, blood sputtering from the corners of his mouth, as Robin helps him into the passenger’s seat. “Robin,” Danny mumbles, losing track of his mind. “Where’s my Chevy?” “Tow truck took it,” says Robin, shutting the passenger door as he walks back up the road to pick up Danny’s shirt. Danny takes the time to look down at himself. He wears his Levis and no shirt except for a skimpy cloth tied around his abdomen, dampened in blood. He groans and checks the rearview mirror. His face is gaunt, a hollow bone structure plastered in chalk. His skin is pale, a stone gray shell. He peers closer into the reflection; his eyes are a dark, rich blue. A tiny drop of blood escapes from the corner of his mouth. How you doin, hon? Danny’s eyes dart behind his reflection, and through the mirror a curvy brunette sits on the back seat, legs crossed. She’s wearing a white fifties dress with red roses. She has on pointed sunglasses, red at the rims. She delves under the seat cushion, pulling out a cigarette and lighter, firing up the stick and puffing a ring of smoke from her shapely mouth. “Stace...”

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Digging Into His Thigh Danae Devine

What’s wrong, baby? she cooes, but she isn’t smiling. “Stace, please,” Danny begs.

Digging Into His Thigh Danae Devine

You’re gonna be OK, honey, she whispers. He chokes, and hears the back car door slam. Danny looks up and sees a weapon pressed against her forehead. He sees her finger wrapped around its trigger; she nestles its barrel into her mouth. He sees the last ring of smoke before the gun clicks. And through the mirror Danny sees her shot to the floor. Next thing, he’s grappling for the handle of the door and falls towards the ground, feeling the sting of paper clips digging into his thigh. He’s choking. The dust of the afternoon clings to his palms, to his face, to the dampened cloth around his waist. Robin, formerly walking, breaks into run. “Woah! HEY! DANNY!” Danny cringes inside of himself, as if the dampening cloth is pushing inside his guts. Robin’s voice slides in and out of his ears. His irises cloud over, the sky darkens, and his breath stops. I am the woman sitting in the corner of a hospital with a Vogue magazine in my hands. My legs are crossed and my mouth twitches at the corners every time an old man rolls through the entrance in a wheelchair. I know that’s never going to be me. “Poor thing, think he’s going to make it?” I turn and see a middle aged woman with large pearl earrings and a button up blue dress. She talks with her mouth pursed. She must be sad; I would know. A man with long black hair and feathered necklaces leans back in his plush chair. “No. Danny never did have the heart to make it.” She takes her red nails out from beneath her purse and examines them, wiping them on her dress.

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The dark man murmurs in sorrow. “I did everything I could.” She pulls out a cigarette. “My daughter Stace died a couple weeks ago. Seemed to know the guy well, pity that.” “Stace called me right before he died,” remarks the dark man, furrowing his brow. “Well of course, he was dying,” I join. They don’t look at me. I stick a set of earphones in, sigh through Lynyrd Skynyrd’s, “Free Bird”, and smile. A form enters my presence. I tilt my head back, and am giddy because there’s Danny. He looks around with rich blue eyes in wonder. I shift excitedly and tug at his forearm. Danny scrunches his brow. “Stace?” he murmurs in perplexity. I grin widely. “You see?” I look towards the people. “All my life, contained in a box. Looking at myself through a tiny keyhole. Blank. I’m here now Danny. With you!” Tears spring from my eyes. “And you’re with me! Seeing the world the way I was always meant to see it.” The woman with pearl earrings seems to look me in the eye, but I know she can’t see me, just like I could never see her, or anyone. Her small, blue eyes crinkle at the edges, and her dull, red lips quiver. “Danny,” I murmur, tugging at his arm. He ignores me. “Danny,” I repeat. His eyes are cast out and light. “Danny.” “What?” His voice is small. I take a deep breath and wrap an arm around his side, pulling him close. “Now, we can observe.”

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Digging Into His Thigh Danae Devine

Girl Parts Callie Levan

A lady wearing a sunhat and pushing a stroller walked by Mabel, Jade, and Suzi as they separated from the sea of other children, all bubbly and laughing and eating their packed lunches. Mabel and her friend Jade were up ahead, looking together at some book as they walked along the grassy yards. Jade had one of those backpacks with the wheels, like a suitcase, and Suzi had always wanted one— then she wouldn’t have to carry all those markers and crayons on her back, which are really heavier than one might think; Jade, however, was not using the convenient wheels and Suzi crossed her arms as she stared at Jade’s back, wondering why her mom didn’t ever get her cool stuff like that. She just wanted to pull everything along and let the ground do all the heavy lifting. In her fantasy world, she would get to eat all the Oreos she wanted and Mabel would let her have a turn on video games first. The sunhat woman was tall and had a funny-looking nose, but she walked by so fast that Suzi couldn’t get a good look. The light breeze swept her clothes, and she glanced over her shoulder to see the woman’s swaying hips and white sandals. Suzi always wondered why people took babies out on walks. It just seemed stupid. They couldn’t even walk! You would have to push them everywhere. When Suzi had babies, she wouldn’t take them on walks. Jade almost crossed the street, but Mabel stopped her. They had to wait for Suzi, and Mabel gave her a look that meant hurry up you little poop. Suzi made sure to look both ways, even though Vivian, their older sister, said it so wasn’t important to look both ways because you can just hear when a car is coming. Mabel told Suzi that that was stupid and Vivian was just trying to kill them so that she was an only child again. Suzi wondered if maybe she was just trying to kill Mabel, because Vivian had always hated her. She let go of her sister’s hand when they had made it safely to the other side.

FACT: The Mayans believe that crosseyes are attractive and would make efforts to ensure their children became cross-eyed.

Another woman was approaching them, but she didn’t have a stroller. She was wearing long sweatpants and a blue shirt, with a really big belly. Jade whispered something in Mabel’s ear and they both giggled. Suzi grabbed onto Mabel’s backpack. “What are you laughing about?” she asked.

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“Nothing,” Jade said quickly. “Nothing,” Mabel parroted. “Does that girl have a baby?” Jade let out a loud laugh and bit her lip. Mabel snorted and nodded. As they walked on, the woman gave them a weird look. She had pretty blonde hair like Rapunzel. “Why are you laughing?” “We’re not!” said Mabel, but she was. “How did it get in her?”

Girl Parts Callie Levan

At this question, the girls stopped walking and burst into the loudest laughter of all. Squirrels scampered away at the pealing bells. They wiped away tears and rolled their eyes. “She doesn’t know!” said Jade. “Tell me!” “You’re too little,” Mabel replied. “You’re not supposed to know.” “You’re only two years older than me!” “Third grade is a lot different from first grade, Suzi.” “Please?” Jade started to walk again, and Mabel followed. Suzi crossed her arms and trailed behind again, sticking out her tongue at Jade’s wheeled backpack.

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That night, as Mom was watching the evening news, Suzi nibbled on some dry Cocoa Puffs in the dining room and could see Vivian doing homework on the kitchen counter. She bit each piece of cereal individually, carefully. They were a little stale.

Girl Parts Callie Levan

Several times Suzi had considered asking Mom how babies were made. Once, she was telling her where babies came from—not how they were made, but how pregnant ladies would give birth. She wanted to know more, though—it was like magic, that a little human could appear in a mom’s belly like that. Mom had explained that only girls could have babies because of their parts. Suzi had shaken her head and insisted that boys should be able to give birth too, right? Vivian was in the room at the time and Suzi’s face turned hot as her oldest sister laughed and laughed at every question. Mom’s evasive techniques like saying “girl part” and “boy part” instead of the words irritated her—Suzi couldn’t ever remember the words because nobody ever dared to say them. So Suzi definitely didn’t want to have to ask Mom. She wandered over to the backyard window and saw the buckets full of mud drying nicely; she and Mabel had put yellow dandelions, green clovers, and little gray pebbles over the tops of the mud cakes to present to their mother when they were finished. They labored away, squishing the mud between their fingers and dubbing it a spa, before plopping it, cold handful by handful, into silver foil pie tins or plates. Vivian used to play, too, but she’d stopped after going into middle school. Suzi slid on her socks from the dining room to the kitchen, unapologetically bounding up to Vivian. The kitchen smelled like incense, something that Vivian had recently become obsessed with and constantly burned. There was a pack of sticks next to her bulky calculator and a thin line of smoke rising up from the stand, right next to the smoke detector, which made Suzi wonder if it even worked. “What are you doin’?” she asked. “Algebra,” said Vivian. “You wouldn’t understand it.”

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“I know math.” “Negative X plus eight equals three. What’s X?” “You said it was negative.” “But it’s a negative number. Look—see? You have to solve for X.” Suzi squinted at the small print and recognized a minus sign, the letter X, and some numbers and symbols. “I don’t know how to do that. I’m seven.” “I know.” “What is it?”

Girl Parts Callie Levan

“Five.” “I don’t get it.” “Negative five plus eight equals thr—go away, Suzi.” Vivian took a handful of Suzi’s cereal and then shooed her away. Gray carpet clung to the stairs in intervals; some of it lifted like a bubble in a sticker. Mom kept saying she would get rid of it, but she said that about a lot of things, like the expired food in the cabinets, the clothes that didn’t even fit Suzi anymore, and the cat. Byrne was a large cat with short black fur on his entire body except for his belly, which had patches of white. It was as if he had been burned, which was why Mabel had suggested the name Burn—which Mom decided would be cooler as Byrne. He glided down the stairs, a quiet pitter-patter of paws, past Suzi as she ascended. Mabel shared her room with Suzi, something she was bitter about since Vivian had been rooming alone since they were little. They did not dislike each other, but everyone likes to complain about something. Suzi had a real reason to complain, because nobody told her anything! She opened the door

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to their room and there was Mabel on the floor with the family laptop, typing and typing and typing. Suzi sat next to her on the rug, getting ready for big puppy eyes. “Hi Mabel,” she said.

Girl Parts Callie Levan

“Hey,” said Mabel. “What are you doing?” “I’m writing a story about kittens. One of them is named Byrne.” “Are you stealing our cat’s name?” “Yeah, because it’s cool.” “You came up with it.” “It’s cool. Mom said it’s cool.” Suzi started twiddling her thumbs as she crossed her legs. Mabel could type almost as fast as Vivian. Words were appearing on the computer screen faster than Suzi could read them. She looked away and began to speak again. “Mabel?” “Yeah?” “How are babies made?” Mabel’s face broke out into a smile. She stopped typing and looked over at her sister, biting her lip to hold back laughter. “Do you really wanna know?” she asked. Suzi’s eyes widened and she smiled as big as Mabel did. “Yes!” she almost yelled. “Okay, give me some Cocoa Puffs.”

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Suzi complied and eagerly awaited the upcoming knowledge. “Okay, so…” Mabel snickered and then said, “you know what sex is, right?” She scanned her mind for the word, but did not know it. Mabel looked like she was asking if she knew what cheese was. If Suzi didn’t know what sex was, then Mabel would laugh at her and stop explaining. She would laugh just like Vivian had laughed about her questions to Mom. “Pffft…” said Suzi. “Pfffshhh… yeah… duhh.” Mabel shrugged—Suzi was totally cool now. “Well,” she continued. “That’s it.” Suzi’s eyebrows furrowed and her thoughts turned immediately from feeling awesome to wanting to rip out Mabel’s short brown hair. What did she mean? “That’s it.” The words replayed in her mind over and over. “What?” said Suzi. “Yeah. That’s how babies are made.” It was such a disappointment that Suzi didn’t even bother asking what sex was; Mabel would ask why she lied earlier, and then laugh at the reasoning. She eyed the laptop—a vast world of knowledge just sitting in the middle of the bedroom—and then stood up. “Okay,” she said, holding back the anger. “Thanks.” “See ya.” Suzi walked to the door and stopped when her fingers touched the cold brass knob. “Mabel?” she asked. “Hmm?” “How long will you be using the laptop?”

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Mabel shrugged again. “I dunno. Maybe another hour. I’m almost done with my story. Do you want to read it?” “No,” Suzi mumbled. She opened the door and went downstairs to ask Mom if she could use the laptop when Mabel was done. They had just learned all about Google dot com at school last week.

Girl Parts Callie Levan

Finding the letters on the keyboard was always hard. Suzi used her index finger to punch in the first few letters into the URL: G O O G L, but she always forgot where E was. The website had appeared in the drop down menu anyway, so she clicked it. “wut,” she typed in carefully, “is seks?” Did you mean: what is sex? Suzi rolled her eyes at the misspellings. Mabel always said she would never learn. She glanced over the search results and found a familiar site. Wikipedia offered a page called “Sexual Intercourse,” which she guessed was the full name—Mom had explained that lots of things have short names, like her own name, Suzi, instead of Suzanne. “Sexual intercourse, or coitus or copulation, is chiefly the insertion and thrusting of a male’s penis, usually when erect, into a female’s vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction; also known as vaginal intercourse or vaginal sex.” These words—intercourse, coitus, copulation, erect, penis, vagina, reproduction— did not make sense. Suzi read the sentence a few times and opened a new tab. Vivian had shown her how to do that. It made playing multiple online games at the same time easier. She remembered how to spell intercourse. The page was exactly the same. She assumed coitus and copulation were synonyms. Erect was a good word. It meant “rigidly upright or straight,” and Suzi was sure she could use it in a daily journal entry at school and her teacher would be really impressed. She had not even heard grown-ups say it, so it must have been a grandpa word! Suzi took the laptop off of her lap for a second and looked

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around for a pencil and paper. There was a pencil on the shelf next to her bed and paper strewn all over the windowsill, accompanied by dolls and books and Crayola markers. After she had scribbled down the word erect onto a scrap piece of paper with the definition, Suzi returned to the computer. Penis and vagina were two words that sounded vaguely familiar. She typed them in and clicked on the first search result. It was a video, but not on Youtube. Vivian told her not to watch videos that weren’t on Youtube, but she had to learn in case it came up again when they were walking home from school. Suzi watched the video all the way through, squinting at the images and wondering if maybe there was a reason she wasn’t supposed to watch these. There were never naked people in movies or on TV. A naked girl was hugging a naked man, and Suzi remembered the definition of sexual intercourse— insertion and thrusting. They made weird noises, like someone was hitting them or like they were upset and whining. When they started saying bad words, she closed the tab and was again faced with Wikipedia. She didn’t like to hear the words fuck or shit. Mom said them sometimes and she even heard Vivian say damn once, but they were never, ever, in a movie. Suzi read some more about intercourse. She began to understand it as if she were putting together a puzzle. The page said that people of the same gender could have sex together, but Suzi didn’t look into that any further, because she was still wondering how babies were made from this. Just when she opened a new tab, somebody knocked on the door and opened it slightly. “Hi, Mommy,” Suzi said, looking over the screen. “It’s getting late, Suze,” said Mom. Suzi glanced at the time on the computer. It was nine o’clock. She shrugged and Mom walked closer. Suzi closed the entire window and shut the laptop, sighing. “Bedtime?” she asked. Mom nodded and sat on top of the blankets. “Yep.”

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“But I’m already in bed.” “Pajamas and teeth,” said Mom.

Girl Parts Callie Levan

Suzi handed her the laptop and slid onto the floor. “Can you pick them out for me?” she asked. Mom stood up and said yes. Suzi went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and speculated about her findings. The movie’s rating said XXX, but that wasn’t an age and it didn’t make sense. Suzi guessed it was a lot different than PG-13. Over the next two weeks she checked the laptop every couple of days and learned more about reproduction. Between Vivian’s research papers and Mabel’s obsessive story writing, she was allowed little time on the computer because Mom thought all she did was play games. She wanted to tell her that she was learning about things, but didn’t want to admit that she hadn’t known. On a Saturday around noon, Vivian left to study at a friend’s house. Mabel was on the couch with the kitten, reading some book. Bored, Suzi went down the back steps two at a time and squished mud into cookies. She picked out leaves that had fallen into their mixture and carefully added just the right amount of water to make it cool and get rid of lumps. It glittered wetly in the sunlight. Mom came outside flanked by the two dogs, Cooper and Bambi. They ran circles around her, jumping and yelping happily. Suzi scraped mud off of her hands and ran up to Mom, waving and grinning— her fingers were still caked in dirt. “Hey, girlie,” Mom said. She sounded a little weird. “Hi. Want a cookie?” “Sure.” “They’re not done yet.”

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“I can wait.” The dogs ran into the yard and started peeing. Suzi looked at them for a couple seconds. Their penises looked different than a human’s. She and Mom walked to the mud-covered bench and Mom touched Suzi’s shoulder. “Hey, Suzi…” she started, voice strained. “Did you look up… inappropriate things on the Internet?” Suzi furrowed her eyebrows. Inappropriate things on the Internet? She shrugged. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Videos.” Mom smiled for a second like she didn’t expect a confirmation. “Videos about grown-ups.”

Girl Parts Callie Levan

Suzi nodded vigorously. Mom would be so proud of her for researching new things on her own! She put her hands in the mud again and spoke happily. “Yeah! I was learning all by myself.” Mom didn’t say anything. Suzi dropped a few globs of mud onto a plastic plate. She washed her hands in a bucket of unclean water and wiped them on her shirt. Mom watched her, eyes wild. “What’s wrong, Mommy?” Mom stood up. Suzi was still wiping her fingers, one by one, on the shirt. Cool air whisked around and she wished that she knew where to find the winter gloves. Cooper came sprinting up and Suzi bent down to ruffle his long brown fur; it was warm and Suzi nuzzled his slimy nose. She giggled when he licked her face and looked at Mom. Usually Mom was really happy when they bonded with the animals, saying that it was good for kids and dogs and cats. But Mom didn’t look happy at all. Suzi’s smile faded. As she stood up, a leaf landed on her head. “Mommy?” she asked, picking off the leaf. It was a deep shade of red. Cooper ate it before it landed on the ground.

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“Suzi…” Mom said. She waited patiently. “Do you want to…? You know what, let’s go on a walk. Come on.”

Girl Parts Callie Levan

“Mabel is still home.” “She’s fine. Cooper will protect her.” Suzi looked down at the brown dog chewing on a leaf. She doubted Cooper could chase off any bad guys. And it was weird that Mom didn’t want to take the dogs, because she always wanted to give them exercise. “Come on,” said Mom. “We’ll go around the block.” It was chilly out. As they walked down the street, Suzi’s fingers grew tingly and numb. Mom didn’t talk. Suzi had to walk briskly to keep up. They passed Jade’s house and Suzi looked into their driveway to see the big dog, the biggest dog she’d ever seen in her life. It was as tall as her and as black as Jade’s hair. Although he didn’t bark a lot, Suzi had heard him bark once or twice and his voice was deep. They walked by too quickly and Suzi couldn’t see him through Jade’s gate. She sighed and jogged up to Mom again. “Mom,” she said as they turned the corner. “You shouldn’t be doing that,” said Mom. Her sudden response startled Suzi. “Doing what?” “Looking up grown-up things. Those videos aren’t for children.” Suzi frowned. “Why not?” she asked. “It’s wrong. It’s not… you’re not supposed to see that kind of thing.”

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It’s not a big deal, Suzi wanted to say, but she didn’t like arguing with Mom, especially after watching Vivian and Mom argue all week long. She just shrugged again. They continued to walk at the fast pace. The street perpendicular to theirs was busy, and cars kept passing with music blasting out of some. Suzi loved watching the mini parties zoom by. She wished they could stop walking for a couple of seconds. “You know how movies are rated PG-13?” “Yeah,” Suzi said, panting a little bit. “That’s because kids aren’t supposed to see them. When you… when you come across certain things in the computer… you shouldn’t…” Mom trailed off. They turned the corner again and a pregnant woman was walking on the other side of the street. Suzi gestured to her and declared proudly, “But now I know how babies are made.” “Why didn’t you just ask me?” Suzi bit her lip. She’d learned from experience that asking adults those kinds of questions—that question in particular—made them change the subject faster than you can say sex. Since Mom was upset, Suzi didn’t have the heart to admit that Mabel actually told her the real answer. She didn’t want to subject Mabel to this run-around-the-block-watching-Mom-acting-really-awkward-and-weird. “Vivian was laughing at me,” she replied quietly. “What?” said Mom. She abruptly stopped walking. “Because,” said Suzi. “Why? I didn’t hear you.”

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“Because… I didn’t think you would tell me.” “It’s wrong,” Mom repeated. “Okay…” she muttered.

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Mom started up again. They were halfway down the street when Suzi asked if Mom would carry her. Mom said no, but she began going slower. Suzi ambled along a few feet behind and watched a tabby cat lazily crossing the street. It looked both ways, impressing Suzi. Just a year ago people had to constantly remind her to look both ways. She picked up a long stick and dragged it parallel to the sidewalk and tree lawns. Mom kept looking back, her anxious expression gradually becoming less and less prominent. Suzi knew it was lunchtime and that made her hungry for nachos. She imagined them hot and cheesy. One of the videos had had cheese in it. Suzi liked squishing cheese between her fingers, but anywhere else was gross. She hadn’t watched the whole video. She remembered the mud cookies—Mom hadn’t eaten one yet. Suzi didn’t dare say anything more right now. She hoped Mabel would stop reading and come play with her when they got home. Mabel knew how to make nachos so Suzi could avoid Mom and eat as much as she wanted. They turned the corner. There’s nothing wrong with it, thought Suzi. She fumed at the thought of Mom’s disappointment; why wasn’t she excited about her youngest daughter’s curiosity and initiative? Suzi sighed deeply and dropped the stick she was dragging. It landed in the middle of the sidewalk. She stepped on it walking past and the stick snapped in half.

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“A band would be cool. I know everybody I know is like forty, but how many bands are there that have the knowledge and taste in music but aren’t too old to play? I mean, what if somebody formed like, a young Rolling Stones?” “You know what? I’m finally going to complain about my service at that Hooters I went to thirty years ago.” “I’d tap that.” “I think I should make an independent film about the side effects of drinking so my kids never do it.” “Oh wait, I just need to show them that David Hasselhoff video.” “I finally get cartoons. They’ve got humor and story within this a larger, hidden symbolism. It’s like a poem or Lord of the Flies, you know. Like for those who found God… I found cartoons.” “Should I go door to door like Jehovah’s Witnesses and spread the word, or would that just piss people off?”

Goodnight Moon Sidney Thompson

“You know what really pisses me off, since I’m on it: the word mackerel. As in ‘Holy mackerel.’ What kind of tool refuses to curse?” “What would happen if 2001 Space Odyssey was a cover up for something the government decided to do in 2001? Fifty bucks that’s why we don’t fund NASA anymore. We fucked up in space and no one can know.” “What happened to my keys?” “I should watch The Notebook.” “That is not a notebook. That is a journal.”

FACT: A dragonfly has 30,000 lenses in its eyes, assisting them with motion detection and making them very difficult for predators to kill.

“Bummer they both died.”

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“Is there a light like everybody says or is it really uneventful?” “What’s up with that Pixar light that bounces around? What’s the story behind that?” “Wow, the Internet is full of information.”

Goodnight Moon Sidney Thompson

“Huh? Sour Cream in sugar cookies? Alright, Martha.” “Oh my God, why would you even put cookies in the oven? The dough is way better.” “Oh, hold up. This is my jam.” “First dance at my wedding, or was it Prom?” “Whatever happened to that girl I went to…” “Oh Jesus, was I stoned the entire time I…” “Oh yeah. I was.” “I’m seriously concerned about that cat outside.” “Okay, so not a cat.” “Is it dead or is it sleeping?” “Sleeping, sleeping. I should probably sleep.” “I know! I’ll just pass out in the kitchen. That way when I wake up really hungry I’ll already be here. Ha. God I’m smart.” “I wonder what’s the dumbest reason you can win a Nobel Prize for. Because I think I’m winning with this sleeping in the kitchen plan.” “If only I had a cozy nook like these girls on Pinterest posts.”

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“Okay, no. I must sleep. Gotta get through the hangover.” “Goodnight, my idea of a middle aged band. Goodnight, Hooters complaint. Goodnight, girl on TV I’d tap if I met. Goodnight, drinking documentary to save my kids the trouble. Goodnight, David Hasselhoff video. Goodnight, Spongebob religion and door to door religious pitch. Goodnight, stupid words like mackerel. Goodnight, Space Odyssey conspiracy theory. Goodnight, lost keys. Goodnight to The Notebook love story that was actually a journal tragedy. Goodnight, death. Goodnight, Pixar light curiosities. Goodnight, fantastic Martha Stewart sugar cookies. Goodnight, wedding dance, and goodnight ugly prom date I’m glad I didn’t marry. Goodnight, dumbest Nobel Prize winning idea. Goodnight to sleeping and/or dead something out on my porch, and all the teenage girls posting cozy breakfast nooks on Pinterest.”

Goodnight Moon Sidney Thompson

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