Bellerive, Issue 16: Sonder

Son der

Bellerive 2015

Issue 16 s onder

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—an epic story that continues invisibly around you with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

-Adapted from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Cover Art : Collage in Recent Findings

Chiazom Okoye

Pierre Laclede Honors College

University of Missouri—St. Louis

A Gas-Lit Routine Katryn Dierksen7

Boneflower William Morris8

Spine Sarah C. Gill9

Music Stephanie Polston 10

Ode to Scars Terrance Brown11

View From Gaudí’s TowerAmber Scholl12

Bricks Kaylyn Bauer 13

Urban Light Sarah C. Gill14

What Branches Grow out of Thomas S. Mays15

This Stony Rubbish?

Heaven and Earth Ryan Brooks19

There is a music video on the TVWilliam Morris20

The Slut Next Door / Dissociation Katryn Dierksen21

Here Again Brittany Taylor22

Lover Courtney Dorris23

Perception Katryn Dierksen 24

Laundromat William Morris25

On the Cusp of Summer Sarah C. Gill26

Folded Planet Sarah Myers27

“About the universe and infinity...”Noelle Chandler28

The Temporary TimekeeperAmber Scholl30

Webster Sarah Myers31

Waiting Noelle Chandler32

Crow Lady Danielle Dalechek37

The Rosewood Box Sarah C. Gill38

The coo of life Terrance Brown40

Cardinal Diane Saleska41

Major League Munchkins Sam J. Imperiale42

Diamonds Diane Saleska44

Share of Winters Amber Scholl45

Chewables Sarah C. Gill57

Staff Acknowledgments

Art

Ryan Brooks*

Brianna Price

Zoë Scala

Editing

Adam Berger

Samantha Kolar

Zachary Lee

Thomas S. Mays

Abby Naumann

Melissa Somerdin*

Kaitlyn Waller

Marla Gail Zimmerman

Layout

Katryn Dierksen

Marie Carol Kenney

Amber Scholl*

Public Relations

Abbey Baker

Jessie Eikmann

Brian E. Pickens*

Faculty Advisor

Geri Friedline

All members of the staff participated in the selection process.

*Denotes committee chairperson

A Gas-Lit Routine

Katryn Dierksen

On a diet of granola bars, I abstain from sleep, my eyes plucked open by the LED & the 11 p.m. pot of coffee— I don’t pretend much anymore. You were closed like a clam, unrelenting no matter how I coaxed with my hammer. Her fingers snuck in, a furious yellow jacket— it’s that, but a permanent sting. With my face thrown over my shoulder, I stare at the sharp corner & suppose that’s where I’ll flee. Now only binaural whispering carries me to sleep.

Boneflower

William Morris

Its tiny paws tiptoed the dirt road and sprouted an emaciated bodystalk blossoming a visage not mewing nor breathing just hanging.

Spine

Sarah C. Gill

Molehills in pink flesh, the chain which runs down you and holds you up as you stand from the floor. If one were to break it, you would crumple like a sheet fallen off the line on a still summer day, fallen to the brown grass, dirtied beyond redemption and left there, the quiet light touching the nape of your neck as your sun sets and night rolls in.

Music

Stephanie Polston

Ode to Scars

Terrance Brown

To the raised blackened braille book of my feet’s unsteady mental results in loss of equilibrium. To the water tank tipped on its side to face with fate and all I got was this watermark.

To the earth’s basin scooping up the smile in a scar making a stream along a mountaintop.

To the dried-up fissure in the earth made beautiful through lucid tears of life.

To the stalactites, calcium picked at too soon so it mirrors uvula.

To scalding pizza’s marriage to the roof of my mouth.

To stitches and sutures, the speckles of skin browner than brown on elbow, knee, shoulder, and scalp. The small incision of an incision that never was, a sliver of a reminder that skin was not meant to stretch that far.

To the balance in life; pain fades and the skin tells new stories.

View From Gaud í ’s Tower

Amber Scholl

Bricks

Kaylyn Bauer

a smokestack stands solemn against a landscape that sways gently with the touch of wind

it does not bear attachment to anything it was left alone in their wake

it does not heat the house, nor provide a meeting place for the gentlemen of neighboring lands, family pictures do not rest upon its mantle

the memories of the house are gone, consumed by the rolling dust, all that remains is a red brick tomb

it has become a home for wildlife, a black stray cat, a monument upon a desolate highway, a remembrance of what was and what will never be again.

Urban Light

Sarah C. Gill

What Branches Grow out of This Stony Rubbish?

Thomas S. Mays

T.S. Eliot is full of shit; August is the cruelest month, breeding mosquitoes out of the wet land, exciting enmity while I perspire, burning skull and foot with stinging pain.

How can I describe my contempt for summer? The saturated heat, the blinding glare, the biting bugs—all of it is detestable. For me, summer is the force of Mother Nature menacingly exhausted. If Eliot is right about anything, it’s that “winter kept us warm.” Winter—the whole of nature (or at least its qualities which I find disagreeable) seems absent; the greenness is traded for nakedness, the bugs for snowflakes, and the sun for gray overcasts like thick woolen blankets draped over the dead earth.

Succinctly, I maintain a distinct aversion toward nature. I hate camping; why sleep on the floor outside when I could sleep on a bed in a climate-controlled room? I can’t even stand mowing the lawn; the smell of cut grass makes me ill. I consciously avoid nature as much as Sasquatch avoids populated areas. I could never tolerate reading Thoreau—humans are social creatures, and a willingness to isolate one’s self in nature is (I think) evidence of a mental disturbance. Even suburbs are too natural for me—regardless of how unnatural I consider them to be. It was without reservation that I decided to move deep into St. Louis, away from the vast wasteland of immortal green grass and into the loving shadow of lifeless red bricks; what sweet joy it is for me to live in an apartment building, absent of a lawn.

However, there are some jarring interjections of the natural world that infest the city—places that are supposedly beautiful. For instance: Forest Park (if the city is my home, then Forest Park is my huge, pain-in-the-ass front lawn). Of course there are many treelined streets, which are actually quite pretty and cause me no grief (probably because I don’t have to rake their leaves, and in the summer they provide shade—I guess trees are okay; it’s like nature battling itself—they need the sun to live, but also offer shade against it). I am not too far removed from conventional thinking to disagree with nature’s beauty. “Nature is beautiful” is rather axiomatic and absent of any revelation or insight, and a friend of mine (with whom

my relationship is strictly platonic, however transcendent of time and space) often reminds me that the idea is most often better than the actual thing, and nature is no exception—I can enjoy observing it as long as I’m not subjected to prolonged exposure of it. For this reason, I decided to visit the Missouri Botanical Gardens, which I heard are aesthetically appealing. Also, I thought I might try being alone in nature and attempt to identify with the purported oneness we share with it.

It was 90°F, but in the shade of the garden it felt about ten degrees cooler; however, the humidity was lingering and thick. The air smelled of wet dirt and was faintly sweet from the flowers. I had thought that maybe I was easing into it, being offered an evanescent glimpse into the reverence of nature—but there were too many people there; I was under the impression that visiting the garden on a Thursday afternoon might allow for some solitude, but I was wrong. The worst of it was all the children—children have the propensity to ruin anything.

I managed to find a bench along a gravel pathway in a small wooded area where no one appeared to be venturing—I supposed here I might meditate. But as much as I tried to free myself of thought and diffuse with my surroundings, I simply could not. This place is too artificial. The plants and trees are authentic but do not seem to be here on purpose—or maybe with too much purpose. I tried to forget that I was in the city and to imagine that I was removed from society, but it was of no use. Some of these trees are older than the city itself, but how strange it was for them not to have been replaced by brick and mortar. It felt disconcerting to think that this area was not allowed to be enveloped by urbanization—and most of these plants were put here by people, as if it were some desperate effort to maintain something that was never here, or was at least gone for too long. It was like a zoo for plants—but can plants be held in captivity? I suppose that would only be if plants had willpower—proponents of natural selection may be inclined to assume that they do.

My quest to find my place among nature was also disturbed by all the labels; each plant was accompanied by a small sign bearing its formal and scientific names—our human need to classify everything, nothing is let alone. Looking at a small patch of sprawling

leafy vegetation as green and boring as every other plant (all plants might as well be the same to me with the exception of those used for food—Astilbe chinensis. What does that tell me? Not much. I feel the same way about employee nametags: “Hellooo...Jeff! Can you tell me where the bathrooms are located?” How is the employee’s name relevant in this situation? And why do customers always assume they are allowed a first-name basis with a worker but often refuse to reveal their own identity? I had the same relationship with Astilbe—it can’t know my name, but I get to know its. I suppose the only difference here is that Astilbe doesn’t even know its own name. Someone gave it that name, a name that is rather trivial—much like the name of a store clerk, who (in the very least) is allowed some sense of self.

Once again irritated with “nature” (and, interestingly, with people who exert control over it), I returned to my apartment to be greeted with the frigid breeze of my air conditioner, the pliant cushions of my polyester couch, and the iridescent glow of my television with high-speed internet access with which I can stream tens of thousands of movies and television shows. Fatigued from the sun, I lay down and gently fall asleep watching cartoons.

I awoke a few hours later after the sun had gone down (unfortunately, the heat had not relented). I stepped outside to sit on my front step (as I often do) and looked out into the street. I noticed a cockroach (Nature’s most contemptible creature) coming down the walk—at night, this building is surrounded by scurrying cockroaches; however, they seldom make their way inside, and if they do, they are promptly exterminated. As the roach came nearer, its shadow grew in the light of the street lamp, just as a person’s would walking down the street at night. The small, brown insect approached the strip of grass that acts as a partition between the sidewalk and the street, paused, and turned away, preferring to remain on the concrete.

It’s funny to me that cockroaches are considered so repulsive, as if they don’t belong among us—and yet, they appear wherever there are humans (especially urban environments). You would think we would have grown used to them. Are they not unlike us? They inhabit every corner of the globe, capable of surviving in extreme climates, alone or in crowded groups; like me, they seem to prefer travelling on defined paved surfaces rather than stretching

fields of grass.

Are cockroaches Nature’s revenge on people—prevailing, unchanged for millions of years in anticipation of a creature capable of destruction and artifice so that they may torment them? Some may consider such things as tornadoes and hurricanes to be Nature’s wrath—but are they? What is more often a concern for you: the threat of destructive wind and water or that lone cockroach you found in the kitchen suggesting an infestation (where there is one, there are many)? And that when you crawl into bed one may be waiting for you between your sheets?

I sat there thinking of the cockroach while enjoying a beer and a cigarette—alcohol and nicotine: elements of nature distilled by man into substances of pleasure and devastation, much like nuclear energy. My, what we are capable of; millions of years of evolution have brought us naked out of caves into white lab coats in a sterile laboratory, desperately cultivating plant life that has run its natural course, concocting poisons and contraptions to wage a futile war of attrition on a pest that will ultimately win, reducing plants into intoxicating libations, and working harmless stones harvested from the earth into efficient energy as well as weapons capable of our demise.

As I pondered man’s control over the natural world, the cockroach continued its path down the walk toward me. It has been hypothesized that roaches can survive nuclear holocaust. Are they here as a constant, mocking reminder? “Go ahead, we can wait. Fight us all that you want—when you have finally devised your own destruction, we will be here to finally claim all that you have created...”

Perhaps we are like Astilbe chinensis or the cockroach: products of nature, surviving and anonymous amongst a universe of similar plants and bugs. I prefer to think that we are not. Instead we are a different force altogether distinct from nature—but in our manipulation of the natural world which brings to light our greatness and innovation, it may as well finally prove that in our arrogant trek toward progress there is an end, and in life there are seldom good endings...at least not for the cockroach, whom I had deliberately crushed with vindication before returning inside.

Heaven and Earth

Ryan Brooks

There is a music video on the TV

William Morris

There is a music video on the TV in the music video on the TV in the student center and it’s on mute and there are three levels of volume the general hum of everyone talking and shuffling and panicking like lonely insects the specific voices making distinctly indistinct cries

the music from the radio station upstairs which we need but do not listen to and light reflects off the face of my watch and signifies motion against the wall or implies signified motion against the wall I think a man or cat might chase and catch it the smell of something burning hair or flesh or steaming milk does not give rise to emergency agents screaming sirens and filing into the snowy Wednesday morning or stampeding wild herdlike mania we are comfortably aware of words like café millennium error ignore apology

The Slut Next Door / Dissociation

Katryn Dierksen

I’m afraid I might boil myself in a bathtub, my skin going pink beneath the suds. I suppose my freckles might pop off and my hair might go loose. You’ll find me and think maybe the slut next door crept into your bathroom while you were out for groceries— her blank red eyes staring at the cracked tiles in the ceiling, her limbs suspended in the strange, aqueous concoction. You’ll scream half-heartedly, trying to recall the way they scream in the movies, your face cutting with a hot sweat when you realize the features of her bulbous, blistering face are so like mine.

You’ll find a book on the toilet encrypted with dissociated hashtags #imsorryiboiledinthetub. I think then you’ll know you don’t know how to screech in earnest.

Here Again

Brittany Taylor

Lover

Courtney Dorris

I daydream often about the sea, taste its salt on my lips. Let my soul follow it out with the tide.

More and more of me stays each time my toes hit the sea’s lip. They curl, and the waves giggle.

I look out— and I long. The mystery and potential capture me fixated there. I finally feel in sync— my waves all break at once. The sea summons my soul as your new lover holds you.

Perception

Katryn Dierksen

The gentle moment between belief & disbelief is a sliver of glass in the sink—you hold it until you see: you bleed. There’s a familiar head around the corner, I think— he said he thought everyone shaved, which is funny to me, to think of our young selves deciding which hairs were normal enough to belong on our bodies. (Yeah, I don’t shave shit.) But you’d guess: so it goes, that’s how people misinterpret consent—when you’ve got a lot of kids wondering how bald to be.

Laundromat

William Morris

“Oh my brothers, is not everything in flux?”

-Friedrich Nietzsche

The washing and drying machines whirred and whipped my clothes alone— the thousand other faces shut and still all afternoon. The man came and went without wash once then twice and eyed me before pulling a knife. My throat went tight— and our machine at home was broken. Are those your clothes, he said, approaching, and I nodded. He must have seen the checkered blue and green dress slosh and fall and press against the glass because he said, Where do you go to school, and I told him. A forgotten sock sat watching in a nearby cell when the man’s eyes went soft, and he left me shaking, unmolested.

On the Cusp of Summer

Sarah C. Gill

There’s a beet seed in your pocket, Round and full, with waiting life. Maybe it bounces Softly, as you walk down the dappled street to meet me

Where ashes dance like summer snow— Like us, born of fire and circling, Drifting from school rooms from car beds from bedrooms— To put down roots That bleed blood red In beating hearts.

I’ll speak with carbon words And hum a lullaby of forests As we sit together On the cusp of summer And listen to the breeze through olive leaves.

Folded

“About the universe and infinity...”

Our bodies are maps, but you won’t find L.A. in the genes.

Escher’s Atlas: the most logical paradox.

“Reality is the most persistent illusion.”

I’d like to think my hair can be described with more than four letters, but we are not that creative. Not even Einstein could hide his sources completely.

We are reasonably sure the universe won’t collapse under the weight of our own morbid curiosity. We are uncertain what it is we’re standing on, but we are afraid to look back.

Science has a bloodier past than Kali.

Religion without Science may be blind, but Cassandra would tell you that Sight is overrated.

“The view lacks inspiration.”

But I digress.

Life is like an onion— or maybe that was Earth.

Noelle Chandler

Either way, there’s more to it than a few pieces of protein.

Gravity is not responsible for people falling in love. I’m not sure what is, but it has to do with hate, and maybe a bit of dirt.

Nothing is fair about magnetism.

There’s something to be said about the universe and infinity. Our slate is not as blank as we’ve been led to believe, but neither Nature nor Nurture can account for stupidity.

Whatever it is, we will never be perfect until they can incorporate those last 22 letters into our DNA.

The Temporary Timekeeper

Amber Scholl

Of the quartered table, one side you claim

You’ve chosen hushed solitude for today

Fixed between exit and vast window frame

Moment at rest, a respite from the fray

Collared blue button-up without a wrinkle

Flatters ink-colored hair and page-hued skin

Eyes’ dark frames and nose that crinkles

One tapping foot, a brown loafer-clad twin

Is impatience the commander, perhaps?

A plague of nerves, or caffeine-flooded veins?

Eyes fixed on the door as your foot tip-taps

Ticking clock beats, still alone you remain

You abandon your post, time spent for naught

For what did you wait? Whom was it you sought?

Sarah Myers

Noelle Chandler

Holly made people uncomfortable. It was something about the way she held herself, perhaps. She had a kind of buoyancy, a confidence she wore like armor, which tended to offend anyone less certain of themselves.

When I met her, she was sprawled across a bench on Venice Beach, outside one of the many overpriced custom t-shirt shops. Her arms were thrown across the back of the bench, legs parted, back slouched. She reminded me of a cat, with that perfect feline relaxation I never thought a human could achieve. Her faded jeans were tattered artfully enough that she had probably bought them that way for far more money than I would ever guess clothing could be worth. The ripped cloth exposed squares of pale, creamy white skin up to the thigh, just short of scandalous. She wore a tie-dyed shirt, thin enough to hint at the lacy black bra underneath.

I had been walking for a while, and hers was the only bench in sight not covered in questionable substances—or questionable people—and I was glad to take a break. I sat next to her, and although that feline relaxation never ceased, I could tell she was ready to bound away in an instant.

“What did you buy?” she asked.

“Huh?”

“Your bag,” she replied, making a vague gesture toward the gray plastic bag in front of me. “What is it?”

“Oh,” I said, a little wary. If you’ve ever been to Venice Beach, you understand—even the most normal-looking people out there can be a little...off. “It’s just some artwork I saw in a shop over there.”

“Can I see it?”

I shrugged and eased it out of its plastic sheath, handing it to her gently. She glanced at it, then focused on me. Her eyes were a shifting blue. In the sun, they were clear and bright as ice, but when the wind blew a cloud in front of the sun, they turned a flat,

slate gray.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked.

“What?” I asked, startled.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked patiently, in exactly the same tone of voice.

“Um. No?”

She nodded as if this was the answer she had expected. “You don’t know much about women,” she stated, as if it were written on my forehead.

“Excuse me?”

She repeated her assessment with the same surety as before with no hint of playfulness in her tone. She was serious.

“And you can tell this from a painting?” I asked testily.

“Not just the painting,” she said, shaking her head. Her long chocolate hair hung loose, and it whipped around in the wind, occasionally stinging my bare arms. I wondered how she dealt with it all day. “Part of it is the painting,” she said. “And also, the way you handle it. You’re gentle—that’s good. You know how to handle precious things. You just pick the wrong ones.”

“Paintings? Or women?”

“Both.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “I like the painting.”

“Why wouldn’t you? It’s art, and art is beautiful. Usually,” she amended, seeing the look on my face. She smiled. “The same is true for women. But just because most women are beautiful does not mean most women are suitable for you.”

I paused. She had a point. “You didn’t really even look at the painting, though,” I grumbled.

“I don’t need to. It’s mine.”

“You painted this?” I asked, and she laughed. It was a fullthroated laugh, easy and relaxed, as if we had been friends for ages and I had just told the funniest joke she had heard in years. “So, you’re an artist?”

“Nah, that’s the only art I’ve ever done.”

“But...it’s so good!” I said, looking back at the painting. It was an abstract in muted yellows and grays with a splash of red in

one corner, like a blood splatter.

She shrugged. “Not really.”

“I paid fifty bucks for it. That’s gotta mean something. You could make a lot of money as an artist.”

She shook her head. “That’s not what I did it for. Do you pay every woman you date?”

“No, of course not,” I said, blushing a bit. “But it’s not really the same.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “Either way, art takes too long. I don’t have the patience.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I pretended to watch the ocean while she threw back her head, facing the sky. Her skin was milk white—no hint of a tan, or even a bit of sunburn. Even so, I had a feeling she’d been sitting there awhile. She didn’t have anything with her—no purse, no bags—and I wondered where she lived. The beachfront property here was expensive—like movie-star-expensive. I could believe she was rich. There was something proprietary about the way she sat there, as if she owned that bench, that little piece of space. But I somehow doubted that was the case.

“So, if you had to pick a painting that suited me,” I said slowly, “what would you pick?”

She smiled. Her teeth were small, very white, and slightly crooked. “I thought you’d never ask,” she said, and stood. “You shouldn’t have to wait to find out what it is you want. Come on, let’s find you a girlfriend.”

We walked for hours, searching every shop that sold art. I pointed out pieces I liked, she explained why they didn’t fit me.

“You pick them like you’re trying to impress someone,” she said eventually. “You pick the ones you think you should like. Just relax. Enjoy the search.”

I bought her a chili dog and fries at one of the food stands for lunch. Between bites she sang along to a Fleetwood Mac song that drifted out of a nearby shop. We shared a churro, and she licked the cinnamon sugar from each finger individually. When she was done, she wiped her hands on her jeans, stood, and

offered her leftover fries to one of the homeless men digging for coins in the dirty puddles and clumps of trash along the sidewalk.

We resumed the search, and as she spoke she made animated gestures with her left hand. I noticed that the nails of that hand were painted purple with little slivers of silver at the ends. Her right hand usually remained in her pocket, but the few times it emerged to pick up a painting or tug on her long hair, I noticed its nails were blank.

I learned early not to ask about her past. She never became angry at my inquiries, but it was clear from the brief, oneword answers that this was not a topic to be discussed. From what little I did glean from her answers, I guessed it wasn’t that she’d had a bad past—just that it was over, and therefore its discussion was pointless.

“What about your family?” she asked.

I shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “It’s just me and my dad. My mom died when I was a kid.”

She didn’t say “I’m sorry” or any of the other insincere, inadequate platitudes people usually use when they don’t know what to say; she just nodded, looking at me with serious twilight eyes.

“What was she like?” she asked after a long pause.

“She was an artist,” I replied, smiling ruefully.

“A painter?”

“A sculptor, actually. She worked in a museum in L.A., the Getty Museum, giving tours and such. She tried to teach me about art, you know. I was never really interested, though. I told her it was boring. Sometimes I wish...”

“I know,” she said, and we continued our search in silence.

The sky was beginning to fade to purple when she finally found it. The shop we were in was only borderline legit. There didn’t seem to be any real theme to the objects for sale—just random stacks of things lined precariously across the shelves, many of which I could only guess at their uses.

“This is it,” she said simply, matter-of-factly, and stood back to make room so I could see it better. It was actually a set of

three paintings obviously meant to go together. It was the only artwork in the shop. I stood there looking for a long while, entertaining only briefly an immodest notion about the possible meaning of the painting’s three-part nature, before I agreed. It was simple: a bare tree painted in different shades of yellow swirls on a background of dark black ink. A single tiny, white bird flew from a branch in the upper-right corner.

“It’s beautiful,” I said at last.

“But?”

“But I already bought this one,” I said, holding up the bag with her painting.

She smiled. “Loyal, too. Such a wonderful trait. It’s okay,” she said, looking back at the painting. “Just because it’s perfect for you doesn’t mean it’s perfect for you now. You’ll get it eventually. But you do see what I mean.”

I did. We left the store, found another bench, and sat for a while. It was starting to get late. The sun was setting over the ocean: an orb of brilliant pinkish orange, setting the ocean on fire.

“What is your name?” I asked.

“Holly,” she replied easily. She did not give a last name. Though it seems odd now, at the time it didn’t seem strange at all that I had spent the whole day discussing relationships with a stranger whose name I didn’t even know. That was her—her surety in herself, and everything she did and said. For all that, I knew she was not as confident as she seemed. Tiny unconscious movements would sometimes give it away—tugging on her hair, a slight frown in her brow, little things. But when she spoke, whatever she said was, to her, the truth, and there was no arguing the fact.

“What do you do?” I asked her before I left. “Do you spend every day here, giving advice to strangers? I mean, what are you doing here?”

She smiled.

“I’m waiting.”

Crow Lady

Danielle Dalechek

The Rosewood Box

Sarah C. Gill

It’s quiet ground

Somewhere near farmland between Chicago and St. Louis. In eye-squinting-bright noon And taller-than-you brown fields And mossy stone,

We want to go catch frogs

In the dark and shade

Where we can hear a creek, Which babbles of life And play,

And the wind whispers it too, Through heads of wheat Like braided hair.

And we want to play tag On the rounded hills,

But there’s a box And a hole to be dug. And grown-ups and strangers —Tall like silos— Are sober and grave And put hands on shoulders And “hush.”

And the car ride looms, And we say goodbye To the rosewood box Which looks too small To hold all our love,

And we bury the box —Like a dog buries a used-up bone— So that husband can-be-next-to wife, They said.

And we hope there are cookies Still in the pantry, And Mom will let us have some Before we go to bed.

The coo of life

Terrance Brown

In the peak of winter a mom tucked her young daughter under a polyester wing as she sang a swansong from her beak, on how summer leaves spring golden in the fall time.

Cardinal Diane Saleska

Major League Munchkins

Sam J. Imperiale

Shards of glass fall as guillotine trumpets, making him tumble from sleep to the tinkling remnants, and then his slippered feet shuffle across the room’s worn wooden floor as wrinkled fingertips rub the Saturday afternoon’s crust from the crow’s-feet crevices.

Through the shattered pane, his mind envisions an invisible crowd of cheering voices watching over a barren patch of scarred earth and scraggly grass with four furrows worn into the shape of a vacant lot diamond, pieces of trash marking the corners of this hallowed ground.

Eighteen major league munchkins nervously stare up at their handiwork as his arthritic knees strain to reach a dirt-stained white orb with tattered red laces.

A smile as big as Wrigley Field breaks out on the face of bygone days as an elderly mind remembers his boyhood homerun heroes.

Feeble hands laboriously lift a weathered wooden window sash, counterweights clunkity-clunk unseen inside the musty walls,

and shaking fingers form a familiar fastball pattern on the offending object, and it’s lobbed back into the past as a has-been major league munchkin imagines for a moment the musk of leather and the thump of a strike in the catcher’s mitt of his youth.

Diamonds Diane Saleska

Share of Winters

Amber Scholl

She was eighteen again tonight.

She had spent an hour shaping her thick blond hair into tight ringlets, which now bounced freely around her head when she moved. She’d bought a brand new blouse from an overpriced store in the mall, squeezed into a pair of last year’s jeans, and adorned her earlobes with silver hoops big enough to double as a bracelet. Though the crinkled corners of her eyes and the wisps of gray at her temples betrayed her true age, tonight, she felt like a teenager.

Robert sat beside her in the driver’s seat. Unlike her, he had not bothered to dress himself up. She’d made him comb his hair before he left the house, but he’d outright refused to change out of his old, wrinkled T-shirt, the one that read It’s okay if you disagree with me— I can’t force you to be right in cracked block letters. He’d “meant to shave” but had never gotten around to it; his scraggly beard, far from having the effect of graceful maturity, gave him an unkempt air. If she squinted, and if the glow of the streetlights outside the car window hit him at just the right angle, she could see the smooth, handsome youth he used to be. Then she would blink and he’d age twenty years.

She opened the passenger seat visor and peered into the tiny rectangular mirror, turning her head this way and that, like a model trying to strike a pose. She touched the corners of her mouth, catching stray lipstick, and fluffed up her hair.

“Will you cut it out?” Robert’s exasperated remark came from the driver’s seat. “You look fine. It’s not like we’re dining with celebrities here. For God’s sake, we saw these people almost every week at one point.”

“We haven’t seen them in twenty years,” she reminded him, but she folded up the visor anyway. Ahead of them, brake lights lit up like red fireflies in the night. Robert waited too long to stop the car, and when he finally did, he had to slam on the brakes. She grunted as the seatbelt yanked tight across her waist and torso.

It was true, what he’d said. Once upon a time, before the careers and kids and moves, before life had intervened, this circle of friends had been the only sphere of importance to them. Many a late night had been spent in their company, surrounded by the patrons of

the local bars; the infinite vastness of the world had come down to the half a dozen people crowded into one cramped booth, to the overpriced beers in their hands, to the one and only night that mattered—the charged, limitless one outside the window.

When they finally pulled to a stop outside the bar, Jillian had to swallow the nerves that had fluttered up from her stomach to catch inside her throat. She touched both her earrings, slipped her feet back into her heels, and smoothed down the front of her blouse. Then she pulled the blouse back up again, because the extreme cut of it threatened to expose a bit too much to everyone in her vicinity if she wasn’t careful. Robert had already gotten out and now waited on the sidewalk for her as she clambered from the vehicle, teetering slightly in her sleek black heels.

“Haven’t worn these in a while.” She acknowledged her own ineptitude as she clacked her way over the pavement.

“I dunno why you bothered,” said Robert once she reached the spot where he stood. She reached for his arm, but he’d already turned away to go inside.

A cacophony rose to greet them as they pushed open the doors to the bar. It was warmer in here, and the sudden press of sights and sounds and people on all sides left her hot and breathless.

“There they are,” said Robert after a moment of craning his neck over the sea of heads. Jillian looked and was able to pick out several heads from the blur of unfamiliarity, which hummed and lurched about them. She thought of a beehive, with its many moving parts acting as one—buzzing ceaselessly, efficiently, dangerously. One of the men at their table waved.

The initial reunion commenced with all the usual jubilant exclamations, copious hugging, and insincere variations on “you look exactly the same” that characterized any reunion that occurs after a significant lapse in time. Jillian could feel the eyes of everyone in the room flick briefly towards the noisy welcoming taking place in the corner. She self-consciously checked her earrings, pulled up her blouse, and patted her hair again. At last, she and Robert took their seats at the booth.

“Look at you two! Robbie and Jill, still together after all these years!” exclaimed Traci-with-an-I (how many times had they heard her correct people over that damned I?) once they had all gotten comfort-

able. In her excitement, she squeezed the arm of the man beside her, her red nails popping over the black fabric of his shirt. Her husband—Elliott with two Ts—squeezed back, and Jillian fought the urge to ask if one those two Ts stood for toupée, as he was sporting a spectacularly bad one these days. “Guess we all made it then, huh?”

“Sure did,” said Jillian, her mouth stretching into a bright red gash.

“If you’d have told me then...” said Robert, laughing and clapping Elliott on the shoulder. “Never thought when I agreed to be your best man I’d end up with a ball and chain of my own.”

“Well...stranger things, right?” said Traci. Her once flowing red mane had been cropped short, and she now donned a pair of thick glasses. Her slender face had grown round, but the effect was not unattractive. She looked, thought Jillian, like a spunky librarian.

“Speaking of strange things, what about you, Steve?” asked Robert. Tall, blond, and well-muscled beneath his snug T-shirt, Steven Cooper occupied the corner of the booth on Jillian’s other side. He laughed, shook his shaggy head, and rubbed a hand across his chin, which had a light shadow of stubble that gave him an appealingly rough edge.

“Ah, you know me,” he said, winking. “Marriage was never on my agenda.”

“Really? No ladies in your life, bud?” asked Elliott.

Steve’s grin widened in a way that could only be described as lascivious. “Now, I didn’t say that...”

They ordered drinks, and then a second round of the same, and caught up with each other’s lives over the soundtrack of the live band performing on the other side of the bar. It was an 80s cover band, and Jillian marveled at the serendipitous perfection of it all until Traci revealed that she’d suggested the bar specifically because of the music.

“Brings back some memories, doesn’t it?” said Steve, downing yet another shot of amber liquid. Jillian watched him grimace, but then he gave a satisfied sigh, as if his body sustained itself on alcohol rather than water. He caught her watching and winked again.

Robert didn't see the wink, absorbed as he was in conversation with Traci-with-an-I. They were discussing this year’s best comedies, and their bouts of rumbling laughter kept rolling over the rest of

the table’s conversation like bubbling thunder.

“This one here hates ’em,” said Robert, elbowing Jillian in the side in what was evidently supposed to be a good-natured sort of way. “Refuses to see ’em with me...”

Jillian dug a press-on nail beneath the sticky edge of her beer bottle label. “That’s because they’re juvenile,” she muttered, downing the rest of her drink in a single swig. She frowned when Traci smiled ever more widely.

“Not Elliott,” she said, taking his arm where it rested on the tabletop. “We make a point to go see a movie once a month. We get a sitter and just make the night all about us.” From the mention of babysitters, the conversation inevitably moved onto kids, and suddenly everyone had a phone in their hands. Jillian flicked through her photos until she’d shown off each of her three children—two daughters and a son.

“The boy looks like you,” said Steve to Robert. He was the only child that did. The girls had both inherited Jillian’s light hair and sharp features, while the boy shared Robert’s pale skin and mop of dark hair.

“Don’t worry, Rob,” said Traci when Robert mentioned this, pretending to pout. “My baby girl’s the only one who looks like me. She got my red hair...” And suddenly she and Robert were immersed in conversation again. Jillian, who suddenly found herself chatting with an animated Steve about his new city apartment, caught only snatches of what they were saying.

“...but then she found out about Monica, so she kicked me out,” Steve was saying while Jillian nodded, straining to appear interested while eavesdropping on Robert’s conversation with Traci. “But hey, what are you going to do, right?”

“Move on to the next one, I guess,” she muttered.

Steve nodded. “Exactly. There are plenty of fish out there, you know.” She followed his hungry gaze across the room, where a couple of barely-legal-looking college girls were drinking and giggling.

“God, don’t tell me you’re still going after twenty-year-olds,” Jillian groaned, shoving his arm, her fingers lingering just a moment longer than necessary on the thin material of the T-shirt stretched across his bicep.

He flashed her a crooked grin. “Not always.”

Another bout of laughter exploded next to her. Traci let out a high-pitched, girlish giggle, and Jillian stole a sideways glance at her husband, whose cheeks were pink. He looked unusually pleased with himself.

“Really?” she said, turning back to Steve.

He laughed. “The young ones have all these ideas in their heads about marriage and babies and all that shit. Half the time, it’s the older ones looking to have a good time.”

She felt her cheeks grow warm and eyed him over her bottle as she took another drink. She spoke louder than was strictly necessary, even over the clamor of the bar, when she replied, “Well, you’re never too old to have a good time...” but Robert was still talking to Traci and didn’t notice.

After a while, they all decided to order food, except for Steve. “Don’t want to kill my buzz,” he said. So while the rest of them ordered burgers and fries, he flirted shamelessly with the twenty-year-old waitress, who no doubt thought she’d receive a bigger tip if she indulged him.

There was a lull as the band finished their song, and in the absence of the music, the buzz of conversation around them seemed unusually loud. It only lasted for a moment, though, before the band lapsed into a low, sweet ballad.

Traci laughed. “We danced to this at our wedding! Do you remember?”

She’d been talking to Elliott, but Jillian was the one to smile. Her own recollection stood out vividly in her mind like a starkly colored square of the film strip that made up her memory of that night. She remembered the song, remembered the suffocation of too much noise and too many people, and remembered stealing away through the exit behind the buffet table. The night had been more than a little chilly in early December, but it had been crisp and clear, free of the heat and odor of sweating bodies.

She snuck a cigarette from her purse on the way out of the church and, after checking to make sure she was quite alone, lit up. The tip glowed bright orange in the still shadows of the parking lot, and the scent filled her nostrils, her lungs. She inhaled gratefully.

“Those’ll kill you, you know.”

She jumped, swore, and nearly dropped the cigarette. A figure

emerged, seemingly, from nothingness. It chuckled.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Like hell you didn’t,” she snapped, her heart still beating against her ribcage like a frightened animal trying to escape. “What else would you mean, sneaking up on someone in the dark?”

Finally the figure emerged fully from the shadows, and she recognized the best man, whom she had met just the night before at the rehearsal dinner. She’d been impressed, then, by his tall, dark looks and the boyish twinkle in his eye that promised mischief.

He was trying—and failing—to conceal an impish grin. “I didn’t mean anything in particular. I just saw a pretty bridesmaid standing alone in the dark and thought I’d see why.”

She flushed and took another puff off her cigarette to keep her rebellious lips from betraying a smile of her own.

He produced a pack of his own cigarettes, tapping one out of its package as he spoke. “It’s Jillian, right?” She nodded. “I’m Robert. Robbie, most people call me. Mind if I join you?”

She raised her eyebrows, considering him as she smoked and scuffed her high heel across the pavement. “They’ll kill you, you know.”

He grinned unabashedly now. “I’ll take my chances. Besides, if I spend one more minute in there,” he jerked his head towards the church wall, where inside she could just hear the first strains of a fresh song, “I’m going to be begging for death anyway.”

“Not a fan of weddings, huh?”

He merely shrugged and lit up, leaning casually against the wall. He took a puff off his cigarette and let it out slowly, tilting his head back against the brick behind him and staring up into the sky.

“Stars are bright tonight,” he observed. She looked up, too. Sure enough, the stars dotted the sky like a diamond-studded map overhead. “There’s Cassiopeia,” he said, pointing.

It wasn’t. It was Orion. But she kept silent and let him point out constellations to her while they smoked. Too soon, their cigarettes had been smoked to stubs, and then they were on their second, third—moving through their respective packs at particularly unhealthy rates as they stood and talked.

Later that night, when the party wound its way down to its inevitable end, when the bride and groom were tucked away in their car

on the way to their honeymoon, Jillian and Robert found themselves at a nearby diner, where they ordered pancakes. She recalled, now, the too-bright lights, the too-sweet syrup on her tongue, the wonderful overabundance of sensation that seemed to come from within rather than outside of herself. Their pancakes were doughy upon arrival, and while she would have been content to eat them anyway, he insisted upon requesting a new batch. She remembered being impressed with his easy confidence, his effortless command of respect. He’d insisted on paying and made a show of tipping the waitress over half the cost of their meal, and she’d laughed to herself at the casual strut that had crept into his walk after that.

Jillian was jolted out of this visitation of her own past by the arrival, in the here and now, of their food. Her dreamy reminiscence faded the moment Robert took a bite of his burger. He chewed it gingerly and made a face as he swallowed, and she felt a sudden rush of annoyance that tasted bitter on her tongue, stronger than immaterial memories of saccharine syrup and invigorating tobacco. She gritted her teeth and waited.

“Hm.” He took another tiny bite, twisted his face, and lifted up the bun to examine the burger more carefully. “It’s a little pink.”

What a very long way they’d come since the night she’d found this attractive. To think she’d once taken his complaining for confidence. To imagine she’d once been amused by his self-assurance, even when he was dead wrong, misnaming constellations in the sky for her benefit. Somewhere along the line she’d stopped being amused by his desire to impress and found herself endlessly frustrated at his almost pathological need to be right. There was a reason Jillian had checked the meet time with Traci before coming; how many movies, recitals, social gatherings had she and Robert bickered about? How many times had he insisted the thing, whatever it was, started at seven when she’d known it had started at six, or vice versa? They were always late, always early, never on time. They were like a broken version of Goldilocks who flitted endlessly between extremes; things were never just right, somehow, anymore.

Robert again nibbled on his burger. “Yeah, that’s definitely not done enough.”

“Take it back then, honey,” said Jillian dully. He would—eventually. But first he had to go through his routine. She struggled to keep

from rolling her eyes as he peeled off the bun and tilted his plate for the entire table to see.

“Am I wrong, or is that raw?” He wouldn’t be satisfied until at least a couple of members of their party were in agreement. Jillian refused to indulge him out of sheer irritation. “I’m very particular about my meat,” he said, speaking to the table at large but looking at Traci. Jillian’s stomach churned, and she suddenly felt lightheaded. She’d been drinking on an empty stomach all night. She hastily took a bite of her burger, then set it down, resisting the urge to throw the damn thing across the bar, plate and all—it really was too pink.

“I like a very well-done burger,” Robert was still saying. “Well, really, I’m that way with all food...just a tad bit particular...”

“A tad?” snorted Jillian before she could stop herself. How many dinners had she painstakingly cooked to his standards? How many dinners had been just a tad undercooked or just a tad overdone? Of course, his thoughts had gone there too, and she realized her mistake the moment the words were out of her mouth.

Robert glanced at her, his lips stretched across his teeth in what she supposed was meant to be a sort of playful, inside-joke smile.

“Of course, my son’s just like me,” he said throwing an arm around Jillian’s shoulders. She forced herself not to duck away from it, but instead went rigid beneath his touch, knowing full well now what was coming. “Very par-tic-u-lar.” He pronounced each syllable with an unnatural stress; her fist clenched tighter in her lap with each new syllable until her press-on nails threatened to pop off against her palm. “So one night, Jillian here makes burgers for dinner, right?”

She tried her best to tune him out, to find some way to interrupt him, but the table was hanging on his every word, and she had no choice but to listen. “And our youngest, Noah, he was big into hockey at the time. We got him on a team and everything. He was about, oh, what do you think, Jillian? Seven? Eight, at the time? So we sit down to dinner, right, and Noah takes one bite of his burger and goes, ‘Mommy, it’s hard, you cooked my hockey pucks!’”

The table erupted into laughter. Jillian commanded her lips into what she hoped was an unruffled grin, but her stomach turned sour. She needed to eat, but the thought of the burger was more unappealing now than ever. She remembered the night well—another

one of those vivid film strip moments in the movie of her life. She’d been cooking dinner while on the phone with her mother, who had been criticizing some decision or shortcoming long since forgotten; the dog had puked a pink, mushy mess all over the new living room rug; and the two girls had been bickering loudly over the blaring TV.

“Robert, will you do something?” she’d hissed at him as he came strolling carelessly in from the garage.

“Just a minute, Jill, honey. Noah and I have got a game of street hockey going with some of the kids down the block,” he’d said lightly, stepping over the mound of dog vomit on his way to grab a spare hockey stick from Noah’s bedroom...

“We have a little indoor grill,” Traci was saying to Robert, one hand looped around Elliott’s on the tabletop, the other gesturing animatedly as she talked. “Six minutes, perfect burgers every time.”

“Maybe we need to invest in one of those, huh, honey?” said Robert, prompting another round of chuckling. Jillian, who had been draining the last few drops of alcohol from her glass (her brain grappled to recall, now, how many drinks ago she’d switched from beer), suddenly slammed the glass down with a hard thunk and was surprised when it didn’t crack under the force.

“You forgot to mention, honey, that I was singlehandedly taking care of four kids at the time.”

“Four?” said Traci after a brief beat of silence. “I thought you guys had three kids?”

“We do. I was counting him.” She jerked her head towards her husband. Another beat of silence followed, not at her words, which could potentially have been passed off as a joke, but at the bite in her tone, as frosty as the wintry air outside.

“I’m—I’m going to ask them to cook this a bit more,” said Robert after another moment in which everyone pretended to be fascinated with the swirling designs in the wooden tabletop, and he slid from the booth and disappeared into the crowd. Jillian suddenly felt extremely hot and extremely sick, and she knew without looking up from her own undercooked burger that everyone was staring at her.

“So, Jillian, um...you said you work at a bank now? What’s that like?” Traci asked, but Jillian didn’t answer. Blood pounded in her head, and the table seemed to sway before her, or maybe she was swaying, but either way the effect was that of standing on a small boat

in the middle of the ocean, and she felt sick...

“I gotta go,” she choked out, trying to push herself out of the booth but getting her high heel caught on the table leg. She lurched forward, then left the shoe behind completely to dash madly, desperately, towards the bathroom on the other side of the bar...

She never made it that far. She got halfway between her booth and the grubby restroom door before it was there, in her throat, and there was nothing she could do but wait for it to be over and try not to splatter her jeans or remaining black heel in alcohol-tinged vomit.

The noise was horrific. The burn in her throat was worse. The most crushingly humiliating part, though, was knowing that the three people at her booth had seen it all.

When it was done, she clapped a hand over her mouth and— there was nothing else for it—ran the rest of the way to the bathroom in case another round should overtake her.

She spent the next several minutes hunched inside the tiny, filthy bathroom stall. She’d held her curls out of her way, but her other shoe had not escaped unscathed. When she was done in the stall, she bunched up rough paper towels from the single functioning dispenser and tried to salvage her remaining piece of footwear, but she knew even as she scrubbed that she would never wear this particular pair of high heels again.

Though she tried to avoid looking at all, she caught sight of herself in the mirror anyway, and her heart settled somewhere around her still-churning stomach. Her lipstick was smeared, her elaborate curls had fallen flat, and her eyes bore raccoon-like mascara stains from watering while she vomited. The dim light cast deep shadows over her face and gave her skin a yellow tinge. She looked most unlike herself. Or rather—she looked exactly like herself as she had been some twenty years previously. Funny how she’d forgotten this part of it.

The bathroom door creaked on its hinges, and though she waited, no one entered. “Honey, are you in there?” A voice came at last, echoing in the small, tiled bathroom.

She sniffed and tried to wipe some of the mascara from her face. “Yeah. I’m here. You can come in. I’m alone.”

The door opened wider, and in came Robert. Robert, with his wrinkled shirt and unshaven face and disheveled hair that she had crit-

icized just hours before. She noticed, quite suddenly, the distinguished brushing of gray in his black beard, the way his brown eyes twinkled not with mischief but with something else. Then she wondered when she’d quit noticing things like that. When he’d faded into the scenery of her life instead of popping from the ordinary, springing out of the humdrum of the everyday. Once, all their moments had been bright, self-contained squares of film. She’d never imagined, then, that any scene between them could have taken place in black and white.

“Traci tell you where I was?”

“Steve, actually,” said Robert, his voice soft despite the harsh, boxy bathroom acoustics. “He says he remembers your tolerance being a little more—existent.”

“Yeah. Guess I don’t handle my drinks like I used to.” She tried to laugh, but it came out hollow and hurt her already burning throat.

He didn’t laugh or even smile, and this more than anything else made her want to cry. “Are you okay?”

Under other circumstances she would have gotten annoyed at the ludicrousness of this question, but she just couldn’t muster it. Instead, she braced herself over the sink, watching him in the spotted mirror.

“It was my night to be a kid again,” she said quietly. She’d certainly done that—acted like a kid, a teenager. Acted jealous and flirted and drank too damn much. Acted like Steve, with his Peter Pan-esque pursuit of women half his age and Elliott with his toupée and even the band, the 80s cover band playing songs from yesteryear. All of it, all of the energy of the night she’d previously been so energized by, felt tired. Stale. Past its prime. “We’re not who we were, Rob.”

He took a step towards her. His hand on her back was strong, steady, and it made her feel weak.

“I want to leave.”

He nodded. “Lemme get my jacket and keys, and we will, okay?”

“No, Rob—I want to leave.”

You. This. Us. She let these final, unspoken words hang ghostlike in the air between them, intangible yet horrible in their presence. He swallowed and met her gaze in the cracked bathroom mirror. Her mouth felt dry and gross, and she pressed her hands over her eyes and

pushed back the tears, the desperate, humorless laughter that threatened to pour from her at the idea that she was here, in this filthy bathroom in this God-forsaken bar, having this conversation. At the realization of how very far from its planned course her night, like her life, had veered. She knew already, somehow, that this would become yet another one of those stark film strip moments. She thought of that night outside the church, and how this felt like a bookend. The final scene before the closing credits.

Robert said only, “Let’s go get something to eat. Not here. Let’s go somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“The diner—our diner.”

“And then what?” She waited for the answer, waited for the magical thing that would take them back to that night twenty years ago and give her back all she’d had, all she’d been and all they had been together. All the hope and excitement of years yet unlived.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Whatever comes next.”

She curled her fingers around the porcelain sink and breathed deeply. Then she nodded, straightened up, and followed him back into the bar. If tonight had been like stepping into a time vortex, she had fallen abruptly back into her own skin, and the effect was of blunt disillusionment. She noticed, as if peering through a harsh new lens, the details she hadn’t before. The wrinkles etched into Steven’s face. The slightly off beat of the drum onstage. The music, the lights, the endless buzzing clamor that settled over everything like a numbing blanket, like a veil that you might never pull from your eyes to realize that a new morning was creeping up outside the window.

They said their goodbyes and paid their tab, and then they were outside, the fresh winter air rising in front of them like plumes of smoke with every exhale. They talked in the car as they hadn’t talked in a while, their vision a blur of darkness and oncoming headlights mirrored in the star-strewn sky overhead. Jillian leaned her forehead against the window and let these constellations—brighter, somehow, than the headlights all around them—burn their way into her retinas as they moved into the night, towards the diner, towards whatever came next.

Chewables

Sarah C. Gill

We prescribe ourselves pain As though it comes in chewables And wander through lonely nights With icepack-vests

Or wear our eggshell-skates to bed Again.

In streetlight-sodium glow

You’ll sit, sipping grape pop While stitching up your wounds Again

Like some old war movies: Grainy and before anesthetic.

In the morning, When bacon sizzles on the stove And quiet light meets your cold hands, This all is distant Again

The aches of darkness tucked neatly away In your nuances.

Stephanie Polston

Intervention

Cody Dey

You come down all at once, ferried through by twin wolves in cardamom cloaks, spice-blanketed, aromatic and prance-stepping. Try for us, we’re all worried. This is it.

We know how it is.

Reclined theatre seating, front-row-disassociated like a giant eye.

Touch, taste: without power, peaceful, free. We know and we don’t care.

We see you wolf-bound, pack animal instincts in the alleyways and fire escapes. We don’t care.

We don’t care when you come in, dripping in sheep’s wool trailing carrion, a halo of vultures around your head, tired eyes downcast, dog-shamed. Just come back.

Opening of arms and welcoming bosoms

Heaving, tear-stained.

We’re afraid to die, and you are death incarnate in our lives and we need our bodies here, our tethers to this plane or place or whatever.

Family Reunion

Cody Barton

The sunlight breaks through the window, unbound and unscathed, illuminating the pieces of dust dancing in the air.

I smiled.

One day we’ll dance together again.

Cicada Summers

Sarah C. Gill

It is almost oppressively verdant Here, where the world roars Through thick, hot air. Sticky on the skin, It clings to the lungs. We slouch in the shade, Eyes drooping from the heat, Silent in the deafening heat.

The cicadas remind me Of the waves pulling at the shore, Far, far away, Where the salt coats the skin.

Through it, I couldn’t feel Your fingertips Against my neck.

Happy Birthday Ryan Brooks

For a Fatherless Son

William Morris

The balloons went up and tears too dear Dead Father or absentee parent a nation of women the old gothic city-house lived in and living on long into abandonment, weeds climbing its sides like babies looking for money or balloons or (nothing).

Dear Dead Father, what would you think of your blueeyed boy now?

I think if you could see him, you would know death. Do you understand?

A copse of hollow trees is like an abandoned nursery or conceit: the extended metaphor of your departure and the abscess it left a dirty inflammation.

Nightscape

Heather M. Kaufman

Neiman Marcus going 90 in a 50, the layered lipstick smacking of smartass, still tasting the belly button tequila shots—hot against oiled skin—Sierra heat down low, now sinking into the seat of privilege.

In the moonlight all heat is transferred into physics. A body in motion... ...stays in motion.

The fractious dog bark stands witness as the lights off of I-40 flicker like confused tinsel. The guardrail groans into the ear of the night, weary of catching the restless.

Female-Bodied Jesus

Katryn Dierksen

Give me a set of thicker, better thighs to match my thin wrists, and I’ll show you how thin my eyes are, too, when I take off the thick black lines like a coloring page— each day I shade and lift my brows into place—

Give Me A Bigger, Better body of language with which to throw my weight through your pinhole, harpooning fish like some female-bodied Jesus, saving your soul from redundancy, as your laugh bleeds from my breaking hands. Breaking,

as I hoist from the swine’s dirt my lead pen, heavy, as I draw your scowl in the dead man’s eyes.

The Journey

Danyel Poindexter

Domestic Dangers in The Shining and The Exorcist

Amber Scholl

Both The Shining and The Exorcist can be viewed superficially as concerning the battle between an American family and supernatural forces; however, on a deeper level, the films can be seen as depicting the internal struggle between members of the family unit as well as the conflict between the family and the burdens of societal influence. The most traditional family unit consists of father, mother, and child. Both films’ viewpoints concerning the state of the nuclear family and the true nature of domestic dangers can be understood by examining the representations of these roles. Through the depictions of their characters, the films identify opposing sources of familial strife at the cores of the MacNeil and Torrance families as well as opposing suggestions for solutions. What role should each family member play in the home? What are the dangers of adhering to or deviating from these roles? If there is a deterioration of the modern nuclear family, where are the bonds failing, and who, or what, is responsible? Whereas The Exorcist implies that the new generation’s questionable morality and more fluid gender roles constitute the issue and that a return to tradition is necessary to mend the deteriorating family unit, The Shining suggests just the opposite—the Torrance family can be viewed as suffering from a strict adherence to traditional patriarchal values, and the suggested solution is to shed these values and move forward into a new society.

If the traditional family unit consists of father, mother, and child, then The Exorcist centers around a broken unit. A single mother, Chris, raises her young daughter, Regan, after a divorce. Regan’s father is out of the picture. Regan herself is twelve years old, poised on the brink of adolescence. The girl’s possession and her subsequent terrorization of the adults in her life can be seen as both a symptom and a disease; her issues may be the result of inefficient parenting, but that does not change the fact that she represents the single greatest threat to her family. The film, by no coincidence, was released at a time when it seemed the very fabric of society was deteriorating—Kennedy’s assassination, the Vietnam War, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. were just a few subjects on the minds of Americans at the time (DiMare 153). The nation’s youth in particular were eliciting a fearful response from their elders: “Young people seemed to be dangerously out of control; the free-spirited hippies who had reveled in peace, love, and

happiness at Woodstock in August 1969 appeared to have morphed into violent rebels,” writes Philip DiMare (154). It is significant, then, that it is the child in The Exorcist who is warped into an unrecognizable monster. The child, on the cusp of adolescence, is the source of trouble, the threat to poor Chris’s sanity and happiness. The film twists “that quintessential teenage haven—the bedroom” into “a source of evil,” again equating youthfulness with violence and terror (DiMare 166). As Kermode notes, “[t]he film presents shots of Regan’s closed door before revealing each round of hideous atrocities within the room” (qtd. in DiMare 156). During the time of the film’s release, the values and behavior of young people had become a source of anxiety for the elder members of society, and these fears are plainly transferred onto Regan—a symbol of terrifying, uncontrollable youth.

The other notable parent-child relationship of the film, that of Father Karras and his elderly mother, fares no better. Karras is unable to provide his mother with the care she needs, and she perishes alone in her house—a fact that torments him for the remainder of his life. The film’s stance is clear and repetitious: Parents are victims of their children’s neglect and cruelty as well as saviors when they are allowed to be, whereas children are threatening figures that must be “saved” by their parents’ traditional ideals and values. Regan is quite literally demonized in the film, becoming violent and malevolent almost overnight, while her terrified mother watches, helpless, as her child spins out of her control. Karras’s mother dies alone without her son by her side. Elderly Father Merrin becomes young Regan’s victim, as does Father Karras himself. It is noteworthy that the only two characters who actually experience possession by the demon are the children in the only two parent-child relationships presented in the film—Regan and Karras; thus, it is apparent which half of the parent-child relationship constitutes the most significant problem, according to The Exorcist, in familial relations.

The Shining, however, presents a different familial situation entirely. In this film, the child—though also taken over by a supernatural force at one point—is nonetheless the victim, not the perpetrator. In fact, young Danny’s interactions with the supernatural can be seen as a coping mechanism or even as a survival strategy to help him deal with the abuse inflicted by his father. Initially, the mistreatment is alcoholrelated, but Jack’s “completely unintentional” accident of dislocating Danny’s shoulder transitions into attempted murder by the end of the

film. Like The Exorcist, The Shining can be viewed in the broader terms of how it portrays the nuclear family and its constituents. Indeed, authors Flo Leibowitz and Lynn Jeffress claim that by “[t]reating the film [symbolically], we need only interpret [Danny’s attack], whether by Jack or by the woman in room 237 . . . as the victimization of innocent kids by contemporary cultural mythologies en bloc” (49). Such mythologies include the American dream, particularly as it relates to patriarchal success and dominance (Leibowitz and Jeffress 51). “Children are, and sense when they are about to be, victims of this myth,” say Leibowitz and Jeffress (51). Unlike The Exorcist, in which the afflicted child represents a youthful culture of crumbling morality, the child in The Shining is a victim of the previous generation’s dangerous and oppressive values. However, The Shining is similar to The Exorcist in the way it promotes one ideology over another by rewarding specific characters over others, in some cases with their very survival. Despite his size, youth, and relative powerlessness, Danny possesses the ability to outsmart Jack and escape the harmful confinements of his father’s generation. Unlike Jack and even unlike Regan, who spends the majority of The Exorcist bound to a bed, Danny is granted the gift of motion throughout the film. For instance, in one scene, Danny is featured riding his bike and actively exploring the hotel; the camera cross-cuts to Jack, sleeping in bed. In another such scene, Danny and his mother run to the maze and explore its vibrant green passages; the camera cross-cuts to show Jack, confined to the drab, beige hotel, staring listlessly at a model of the maze, a mere artificial replica. During the final scenes of the film, Danny and Jack both navigate this maze—Jack pursuing his son while Danny flees—and it is here that Danny’s final triumph takes place. He is able to outsmart his father and run from the maze, thus escaping death and moving—literally, moving—onward, into his own future. Meanwhile, Jack—who has allowed his life to stagnate, weighed down by values that no longer apply to modern culture—is left to freeze to death in the snow, eternally frozen and still, unable to move on. If by keeping Regan still and confined to a bed throughout the film, The Exorcist suggests that the cultural change she represents will bring life to a halt, then The Shining, by granting Danny the privilege of motion while keeping Jack relatively immobile, implies that the antiquated values of the older generation will do the same. The symbolic death of the traditional nuclear family occurs with Jack’s death, but in contrast to The Exorcist, in The Shining this is presented as the preferable option. Unlike The

Exorcist, in which the adults are the victims and the saviors of the children, Danny is the victim and eventually the victor who emerges against all odds from a hostile nuclear family situation.

Like children, fathers take on drastically different roles in the two films. In The Exorcist, mother and child are not sufficient to form a family unit; in fact, it is dangerous for them to exist without the influence of a patriarchal male figure in their lives. The type of society that has allowed this brand of family to exist—the type in which the patriarchy is a crumbling foundation, in which divorce is permitted, and in which mothers work outside of the home—has resulted in a shattered version of a family unit that only a return to tradition can piece back together. The father-shaped gap in the unit is, of course, filled by Karras and Merrin, who arrive to provide this broken family with the requisite patriarch. As “Fathers” in the church, both men hold positions of authority that overlap with their eventual positions as “fathers” in the home of Regan and Chris. Kelly points out that Karras, “[l]ike a father desperate to save his child from a certain death . . . makes the ultimate parental sacrifice and offers himself up instead.” Merrin represents the “ultimate Father” to Regan and Karras, both of whom he tries to protect from the demon (Kelly). It could be said that God, as a spiritual “father,” represents the purest form of fatherhood that eventually saves the girl. Regan’s reaction to the priest at the end (she briefly embraces and kisses him) suggests that, though Karras and Merrin are dead, their paternal influence has left a lasting impression. The powerful presence of a patriarch in her life, no matter how temporary, has saved her soul and allowed her to flourish. Though both Fathers featured in the film—Karras and Merrin—are killed at the hands of the demonized Regan, they manage before their deaths to restore the family unit, assist the distraught and overwhelmed single mother with her child, and set this child back on the “right” path.

Even Karras’s family unit is mended with the addition of a father figure. Merrin, an older priest who attempts to protect Karras from the demon’s taunts by sending him out of the room, can be seen as a substitute father figure. However, the true power to mend his family lies with Karras himself. His family unit, much like Chris and Regan’s, consists of mother and child—the biological father is, once again, conspicuously absent from the picture. Left to struggle with his guilt after his mother’s death, Karras’s familial experiences are as emotionally trying as Chris and Regan’s. However, Kelly argues that by giv-

ing his own life for Regan’s, Karras “[makes] up for being a bad son by becoming a good father,” and that he learns from Merrin’s example “how to be a good, protective father before he [dies].” That is, by taking on the role of father, Karras resolves his guilt and makes amends as a son, thus restoring his own family situation. Fatherhood, or the addition of a strong father figure, can therefore be seen as the antidote to a poisoned and dying family.

Once again, The Shining suggests that the nuclear family’s problems lie in the opposite direction, as do the solutions. The destruction of the family unit, according to The Shining, is not due to its gradual drift from traditional and patriarchal systems and values, but to its continued adherence to them. Unlike the The Exorcist, the family presented at the beginning of the film contains all three of its traditional components: father, mother, and child. However, the father in this situation is clearly presented as the element driving the family apart, not holding it together. It is Jack’s presence rather than his absence that presents a danger to the Torrance family.

In The Exorcist, the modern “safety nets” of society fail to protect Regan (such as the doctors, psychiatrists, and every modern medical treatment), forcing Chris to “flee” modern society and turn to traditional practices for help—the only practices that work. In The Shining, however, the Torrance family flees modern society to their own detriment, isolating themselves from the doctors, social workers, police, and other “safety nets” that would have otherwise been available in a domestic abuse situation. This flight from modernity takes the family back in time (literally, in Jack’s case, if his hallucinations are to be believed) to an era in which being the patriarch meant having undisputed power over one’s family. Of course, this return to an antiquated family model would theoretically only benefit Jack, and tellingly, it is only Jack that truly wants to go to the hotel in the first place.

According to Leibowitz and Jeffress, Jack’s behavior and experiences can be seen as a result of the pressure of unrealistic expectations. The pressures that Jack, and by extension all males (particularly fathers), experiences as a result of a patriarchal system give rise to a particularly hazardous situation for all involved. Leibowitz and Jeffress claim that the scene in the beginning of the film in which Jack informs Danny that the Donner Party was forced to “eat each other in order to stay alive” is a metaphorical description of “what can happen to families under the pressure of the myths of success and masculinity treated

in the film” (48). When the patriarchy reigns, the film seems to argue— when the father figure is granted all of the power and burdened with unattainable expectations—the inevitable breakdown of the family will follow as they metaphorically eat one another to survive.

The father, of course, is at the top of the figurative food chain, and his devolution follows a linear path: he holds expectations that are both entrenched in the patriarchal culture and are completely unattainable; he becomes frustrated by his failure to obtain his goals; and finally, his frustration becomes destructive to the family as a whole. According to Leibowitz and Jeffress, “[i]n the film’s allegorical world, fathers (the white, middle-class, educated ones in particular) are the primary targets of the seductive side of the myth of success” (51). Jack, a failing writer, holds an image of himself, presented in the final shot of the film, “as a member of the elite that [is] a major component of his own undoing” (Leibowitz and Jeffress 50). When he fails to achieve material success and join the ranks of the elite, his frustration sets in. This frustration leads to a breakdown of the family as Jack begins to take out his anger on his family—the one aspect of his life that he feels he can dominate and control. Leibowitz and Jeffress claim that “Jack’s talk with Grady in the men’s room . . . [allows] Kubrick to represent the pressures exerted on men (by other men) through the myth of the authoritarian father. Here, the need for ‘discipline’ has become a cover for merely destructive impulses expressing Jack’s inner frustration” (48). Concerning Grady, they add the following:

The model authoritarian father, Grady allows Jack to rationalize his murderous intentions by disguising them as disciplinary measures that are a father’s prerogative. Later, when Jack has been knocked unconscious by his desperate wife and locked in the storeroom, Grady shows up to reprimand him, faulting him for loss of nerve and clearly implying that Jack doesn’t have what it takes to be a man. He has allowed his wife to best him. (47)

Fatherhood in this instance is inextricably linked with dominance and even violence. Though the “traditional” view of the family features the father as the financial provider, Jack has failed in this role and subsequently has bought into a mutated concept of fatherhood. To be a man, to be a father, Jack feels he must reclaim his position as head of the household and exert control over his wife and son, who have be-

come the objects of his frustration. He cannot admit to his own failures; rather, he views his family as responsible for his lack of success. He cannot be a man by dominating the workforce, so his new concept of fatherhood permits him to indulge his rage and take advantage of the position of familial power allotted to him by society. Unlike The Exorcist, in which fatherhood involves the selfless sacrifice and wise guidance demonstrated by Karras and Merrin, the patriarch of The Shining is not the savior of the family but is its gravest threat.

Like fatherhood and masculinity, motherhood and femininity in general are portrayed very differently in each of the two films. The Exorcist’s representation of motherhood, much like its representations of other family roles, suggests that society is better off returning to a more traditional model of life. Such concerns would have been of primary importance at the time of the film’s release, when an abundance of new options and freedoms were becoming available to women. With the Civil Rights Act of 1964 came the prohibition of gender discrimination in the workplace, which resulted in an increased number of women working outside the home (DiMare 155). Birth control pills and the legalization of abortion were also creating a new atmosphere of sexual and reproductive liberation for women during this time (DiMare 156). The “societal breakdown” that many Americans felt they were experiencing at the time of the film’s release was attributed to “lax parenting” and the embracement of these freedoms and values

(DiMare 155). With all of these changes, the female body and the new liberation of women during this era became “a source of anxiety” for many Americans (DiMare 156). The Exorcist represents the voice of this anxiety as the concept of a “new” type of mother is called into question. Chris is a single mother who works as an actress, unwittingly “[inviting] evil into her home because she is not a full-time mother”

(DiMare 156). The logic suggests that if she were home with her child the way she was “supposed” to be, her daughter never would have become possessed. As it is, Chris must undergo her own transformation in the film in order to “become the observant and caring mother that Regan needs” (Kelly). Chris’s mistake is attempting to perform both the roles of mother and father, of nurturer and provider for Regan. Her redemption, then, stems from her realization that she and Regan cannot constitute a family unit on their own and that they desperately need the influence of a strong male authority. She also must accept her daughter as her first responsibility, not her job. Chris is

forced to realize what her daughter, as a part of the future generation, will become as a result of her “lax parenting” if she does not change her ways and revert to a more traditional model of motherhood and family. Like Wendy in The Shining, she is rewarded with her life and the survival of her child at the end of the film; however, this reward comes only after she submits to traditional values and the embodiment of the patriarchy—the father (or Father, as the case may be), who possesses the power to hold the family together in a way that she alone cannot.

Once again, The Shining presents a different take on the family unit, with its perspective on gender roles demonstrated by the evolution of Wendy throughout the film. Initially, she is the model traditional housewife. She does not work outside of the home but instead committedly raises her son. Throughout much of the film, she relates passively to Jack, slipping easily into the role of deferential wife. She allows her husband to drag their family to the hotel to benefit his career, even if it means subjecting themselves to months of isolation. She makes excuses for him, attempting to pass off his violent behavior towards Danny as “purely an accident.” When he speaks harshly towards her, such as when she interrupts his work on his manuscript (“Whatever the fuck you hear me doing in here, when I am in here that means that I am working. That means don’t come in. Now do you think you can handle that?”), she does not stand up to him, but rather feebly accepts his treatment (“Yeah.”). However, just as the expectations of Jack’s masculine role constitute a danger to him and to the family as a whole, the expectations of Wendy’s feminine role begin to take their toll as well.

As the film continues, Wendy is practically forced into taking on more nontraditional roles and behaviors. Yet the masculine role suits her, and she thrives under its freedoms without succumbing to the dangers to which Jack yields. The “new,” transformed Wendy finds the courage to stand up to her husband when she believes he is responsible for harming their son for the second time. (“You did this to him, didn’t you? You son of a bitch!” she shouts at him after finding Danny injured.) We see her abandoning her previous tasks of making and delivering food to her husband and instead taking over Jack’s maintenance tasks around the hotel, thus stepping into his role of husband, father, and caretaker. Eventually she even traps him in the food storeroom that Hallorann showed her at the start of the film. This storeroom can be read as a symbol of feminine existence within the traditional framework of the family unit; Wendy is almost immediately introduced to

this room during the hotel tour because, as a wife and mother, it is expected that she will be the one to cook for the family. Thus, the room itself is linked with the traditionally feminine role of familial servitude. Ironically, when Jack leans too far into his roles of patriarch and disciplinarian, Wendy’s solution is to lock him in this storeroom—symbolically locking him within the confines of passivity, inactivity, and traditional femininity that she has had to live within for years but has finally escaped. By the end of the film, Wendy has shown herself to be verbally confident, physically active, and highly practical—all traits typically associated with the masculine roles of husband and father. Both Wendy and Chris fight for their children in their respective films, but the solutions presented for saving the children differ greatly. While Chris must turn towards tradition in order to save her daughter, Wendy must step into a new role in order to save herself and her son. Like Chris, Wendy is rewarded with her own survival and that of her child, but her journey involves a very different transformation.

The films The Exorcist and The Shining represent two opposing outlooks on the state of the nuclear family. When considering the intended messages of the two horror films, particularly as commentaries on domestic situations, it is useful to consider which of the family members are the most negatively affected by the films’ supernatural elements. In The Exorcist, the answer is clearly Regan, the victim of a violent and hostile spiritual possession. In The Shining, the answer is Jack, who suffers a mental breakdown and attempts to kill his family before succumbing to death. In The Exorcist, then, it is the child—and youth in general—that represent the threat to the nuclear family unit, which can only be restored by a return to the traditional family model. In The Shining, the family’s problems stem from its over-adherence to these limiting societal expectations; its own restoration (at least, that of Wendy and Danny) comes from breaking free of these restricting molds. Both The Exorcist and The Shining are among the most popular supernatural horror films of all time, respectively featuring a demon and several malevolent ghosts; however, the greatest threat to the family unit is not an otherworldly force in either film, but rather the family itself.

Works Cited

DiMare, Philip C. Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2011. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

The Exorcist. Dir. William Friedkin. Perf. Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow. Warner Bros, 1973. DVD.

Kelly, Allison M. “A Girl’s Best Friend Is Her Mother: The Exorcist as a Post-Modern Oedipal Tale.” Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 25.1-2 (2004): 64-70. Web. 8 Nov. 2014.

Leibowitz, Flo and Lynn Jeffress. “The Shining.” Film Quarterly 34.3 (1981): 45-51. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.

The Shining. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd. Warner Bros. 1980. DVD.

Incendio

Kaylyn Bauer

Feng Shui

Thomas S. Mays

Almost there...

Sunday, sometime around noon, a salesman knocks on my door and urges me to consider alternative body disposal. I invite him in, he sits down, and I offer him a drink. He requests absinthe, and I comply. He consumes the whole bottle before continuing his pitch.

Salesman: “Now, most people are buried in the ground; this concept is rather trite. Cremation, though less conventional, is still hackneyed. What I suggest to you is that when you die, I will personally mash your body into a purée. I will then strain your essence from the pulp until it is an acceptable viscosity. I will proceed to mix your body with ink, with which I will vandalize government property.”

“How much do you hope to charge for such an endeavor?”

“All I ask is that you eliminate the individuals on this list.” He hands me a collection of names compiled in a leatherbound tome. I peruse it at my leisure, recognizing only a few names—no one of consequence.

“I will definitely consider this offer. Do you have a means of remaining in contact?”

The salesman grips the absinthe bottle until it breaks. He does not react.

Suddenly, after a brief and uncomfortable lull in our conversation, during which eye contact was painfully unavoidable: “Tell ya what! I regularly skulk around this neighborhood during the wee hours. If you come to a decision, just leave a half-eaten animal carcass on your lawn. This shall be the signal, and upon seeing it I am heretofore given license to enter your home by any means necessary. Do not be alarmed if your loved ones must be rendered incapacitated. It’s all business, I’m sure you understand.”

“Well, sir, these conditions seem rather agreeable, but I do have one question: does it matter what kind of carcass I leave in my yard? I ask in regards to species, if you have a predilection.

Also, does it matter what half I leave behind?”

“Nothing of convention; I’d really prefer it not be a pig, cow, chicken, et cetera. Actually, if you don’t mind, leave the closest thing to a human you can find—without breaking the law, of course. And the torso is what I’m inclined toward, but whatever you can obtain is fine.” While talking, he slices his body with the shards from the broken absinthe bottle. I am positive he has gone deep enough. Blood projects profusely from his jugular. He cuts out his left eye and slips it into his left shirt pocket, “for safekeeping,” he says.

“I don’t suppose you’ll require medical attention, will you?”

“Absolutely not! In all sincerity, my intention is to bleed out and die on your floor.” He is convulsing terribly.

From the moment that I met him until the moment he died, the salesman failed to notice that all of my things are arranged in such a way that suggests infinite space; every object is pointed toward the center: in and out and in and out so many times that the room achieves ceaseless reverberation (the steady pulse makes it so that the walls, floor, and ceiling are indistinguishable from one another), and if you position yourself in the center of the room, the sensation of intense gravity grows in your chest—maybe that is why he killed himself; it is a bit too much to handle for a first-timer, and since it is really quite difficult to find the door that leads in here, perhaps the quickest exit is suicide. I wonder if his untimely death will impede the agreement we just made. Probably.

The salesman (Or should I say the body of a man that was once a salesman? Was he even a salesman? He never gave me his name or a business card, and he wasn’t really trying to sell me anything. And it’s Sunday; no one is out selling things on Sunday. Did he even have a face? A voice? His movements were so fluid, his grace unequaled—was he human? Was he God?) lies motionless on the floor, and insects begin to reveal themselves, running wildly through the cracks, trampling over one another, stampeding, crushing those in their path. Surfaces are covered in a green and

white ooze and fragmented exoskeleton. A curious hunchback of the dwarf variety spreads the questionable substance on a piece of bread; he eats it, and I am inexplicably unsurprised.

Hunchback: “The ichor contains most of the flavor. The exoskeleton provides the delightful texture.” All in attendance decide that the logic applied is agreeable and proceed to indulge as well. The room is cacophonous with the kicking of tiny feet and the stiff, frenzied unfurling of wings, all muffled by the guests’ politely closed-mouthed mastication. I examine the situation without disgust, but by no means am I participating—I have reservations.

Hunchback: “If these crawlers are not to your liking, you may find this appealing.” He picks up a nondescript rodent by its tail, swings it through the air, and slams its head on my granite replica of the Ten Commandments; the fourth Commandment is now obscured by blood and fur. I find this more interesting, yet less appetizing than the former event.

Bored with it all, I step outside: the trees are interacting in such a way that I have never before noticed (they could have been exhibiting this behavior for years, but I have not been paying attention); they move in colors now, a swirling mass of colors against the sky like giant paintbrushes playing connect-the-dots with the stars. I slam my fist against the brick façade of the building to make sure everything is still real. I find that my connection with the inanimate is still intact; it’s stronger now, and if I pay close attention I can see that the artist is a reptile. Nonexistent notes reverberate against my eardrums as the lizard goes crazy on the wall, telling me about life (I suppose he knows more than I do), and an intoxicated primate reminds me, as he draws a lonely haze from the water, that nothing is about to happen. I can feel the distance growing.

The levee breaks. Tears fall on the floor—annihilation (a flooding reminder of intense childlike loneliness). The landscape has become a blurred painting imitated by carefully flailing arms. Devastating paranoia. Insomnia persists. Remember: this won’t hurt—not even for a second. People grow colder. The river swells, its current running backward in suspended copulation.

Welcome to Narnia

Sarah Myers

For Nora

Cody Dey

Do you believe in my love at last?

With your eyes crowned in candles, settled, wreathed in cityscapes miles beyond stained meridian lines, tracing in map-scale guessing games. Voluminous white. Thick-skinned veins. How soon?

How soon until I am brought back along leylined streetlamps shining forth, leading ahead?

Boardwalks and a sea scene landscaped with time-hobbled bricks, stuck up and tottering. Brown homes along the creek.

Beauty in Her Soul

Dating You

Jessie Eikmann

It was the white shirt (No, no, not elegant enough. Holey undershirts are white, too.)

It was the dress shirt (Close.)

It was the starched dress shirt that, when a pen

(Wait, which pen?

Do I mean the cheap offerings at hotels?) that, when a fountain pen dribbles its black ink (Wrong again; the shirt can’t see it coming.) coughs its black ink (Still wrong. Has to be toxic, as it were.) coughs its black phlegm in the pocket, is thrust in the back of the closet

(Is “thrust” even the right verb? Nobody was thrusting anything.) is casually dropped in the back of the closet (But what if the person picks it up later? There’s no possibility of that.) is casually dropped in the dumpster. (Is that really the end? Do I give it a laundry list of companions? Dead flowers? Stained rugs? Heck, a guitar with one broken string? No, I won’t. It has to be profoundly— eternally—alone.)

To Undress

William Morris

You’ll want the lights down low but not low enough to lose yourself.

You need an afterglow to catch the tender shadow of a shirt on the ground below and capture the angles of your body, the beauty of your youth, that thing that makes you you. Wrench one hip up and shoulder down, a concave in your pelvic bowl.

The lights are to deceive, to make the hairs on his cheek of coarser grain and all her supplenesses double by contrast between darkness and a dimmer amber bubble in all the right places.

Wait a minute— hesitate— let yourself drown in that image of yourself: something filtered the underwater gasp for breath your lungs full of water that momentary fear of death.

Recurrence

Cody Dey

Every man says to his beast that he wants the sign of the father/ son:

more production, more everything. Enunciations in a midnight sun illuminated throughout. Expectations built. A dark cavern of wants left there. Hungry ghosts stalk these hallways, dark portraits on walls.

Vestigial

Katryn Dierksen

Out of the ocean I rise with little, mangled arms and webbed feet:

“Everything is water.”

On the precipice of a concrete slab, my small thighs shook— I scraped my damn knee.

From the bottom of the pool you look just about green. My cheeks ache with vestigial gills while my lungs compound on water: a carton of Marlboro Reds.

A wig cap glued to my head a thousand wet strands. I peer down the rueful street, born through the surface tension again, screaming.

Sun Drying

Sarah Myers

Excellence in Writing 2014-2015

Pierre Laclede Honors College

Join us in congratulating the winners of this year’s writing awards!

1000-Level Writing: Meagan Burwell

“Championing Wollstonecraft’s Feminism in Chikamatsu’s The Love Suicides at Amijima”

Written for Honors 1201, taught by Geri Friedline

2000-Level Writing: Amber Scholl

“Domestic Dangers in The Shining and The Exorcist”

Written for Honors 2010, taught by Dan Gerth

3000-Level Writing: Hung Nguyen

“Visions of a Wanderer: Hazel Motes and Perceptions of Grace”

Written for Honors 3010, taught by Dr. Benjamin Torbert

*3000-Level Writing: Melissa Somerdin

“The Game Debate: Video Games as Innovative Storytelling”

Written for Honors 3020, taught by Dr. Kim Baldus

*Denotes featured essay contest winner

Featured Essay Contest Winner

The Game Debate: Video Games as Innovative Storytelling

Melissa Somerdin

Your nose is stuck in the text, and your widened eyes dart across left and right as your mind thirsts to learn what happens next. Did that character really just do that? Did your favorite character just die? Who kicked the can? This is spooky! This is engaging. Then, suddenly, it is over. You turn off your game console, stuck in a daze of imagination as if you have just read a book. Instead of a novel, however, it was a video game. Video games are a popular source of entertainment for people of all ages, and both scholarly and informal debates today question whether or not they can go beyond simply being games and instead become a legitimate literary medium. Similar to how a book can present a wide variety of information, depending on the genre, a game developer can include platform levels (Super Mario Bros.), puzzles (Tetris), fighting (Street Fighter), or narratives (Final Fantasy). The stories in games are found textually in dialogue, speech, or prose, or within cinematic narratives called cutscenes (Domsch 31). These storytelling sections generally alternate with gameplay segments, and depending on the writer’s intent, one may be more prominent than the other; a game more focused on playing may spend little time on exposition, while one with a storytelling goal may have non-interactive events unfold for fifteen minutes at a time. This may seem obvious for some, but for many unfamiliar with the gaming realm, the fact that narrative games exist can sound astonishing. The question then becomes whether or not video games offer the literary world something new and legitimate to work with, and I posit they do and therefore should not be overlooked and viewed as simply juvenile, mindless entertainment.

Between the constant rapid advancement of technology and the evolution of the philosophy of art, new storytelling mediums such as cameras for cinema and computers for animation have developed over the past few centuries; however, innovative modes of expression were not immediately regarded as worthy in the critical eye, and it was not until art criticism itself developed that new forms were accepted as legitimate literary vehicles. This journey to openarmed reception is in order for video games as well. Due to their consistent media-and-user interactivity and the inclusion of player

agency, video games offer storytelling enhanced narrative characteristics as well as new, unique ones. The strengthened qualities are those of the suspension of disbelief and emotional immersion concepts, while the innovative ones are the Future Narrative genre—which allows players to experience different possible story endings—and the potential narrative twists the physical medium can offer.

Although scholars have assessed storytelling and video games, few in-depth analyses of specific games exist to support their contentions about narrative’s importance in the game medium; therefore, in arguing my thesis, I will utilize scholars’ broad investigations to analyze Kotaro Uchikoshi’s narrative-based Zero Escape series. Both volumes, 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors (abbreviated 999) and Virtue’s Last Reward, focus on storytelling with the predominant gameplay relying solely on nodal—or “fork in the road”—structure; therefore, the series serves as a perfect model for games’ innovative characteristics.

Before delving into the innovative storytelling qualities of video games, it is crucial to first establish the distinction between traditional narrative mediums and video games. While “gameplay” is the obvious difference, it is still important to formally define what a video game is within the spectrum of media in terms of its activity or passivity. Sebastian Domsch accomplishes this quite well in his book Storytelling: Agency and Narrative in Video Games, categorizing media in terms of its relationship between the creator and the audience and of whether or not the medium is nodal (7). He borrows the term from Bode and Dietrich’s text on Future Narratives, which states, “A node is a situation that allows for more than one continuation” (vii). In terms of media, a vehicle that is actively nodal allows for the audience to make choices that alter the outcome, while one that is passive prohibits outside interference to its rules. Crossing these two categories are those of “static” and “dynamic,” with the former depending on the user for temporality and movement (books and paintings require an active viewer to “work”), and the latter being entirely independent (movies and music can play without an active listener) (Domsch 7). By bringing in nodes, the static category claims tabletop games and choose-your-own-adventure books, and the dynamic category has video games; thus, video games can be categorized as dynamic, actively nodal media. This label implies games

have a special relationship between the agent and user—or game and player—that gives the latter much more agency than any other form of media can accomplish. Within the parameters of pre-instated programming or rules, players can make decisions in nodal situations in order to pursue whichever path they desire.

This nodal agency is where the interactivity of video games comes from. Depending on the game’s genre, the option of choice is offered to players in a variety of ways. Generally, the most frequently used engine is what one would find in action or adventure games, in which players can fight, explore, and speak to non-playable characters, or NPCs; however, nodes appear in other forms as well. Similar to a choose-your-own-adventure book, decisions for the action or dialogue of the playable character are offered to players. These nodes can be found primarily in visual novels, which are interactive fiction games consisting of mostly narration and some interactive elements. Because Zero Escape is categorized as one of these visual novels, its interactivity resides in dialogue as well as puzzles. Throughout the game, long prose segments with character dialogue and plot developments are presented. These segments alternate with puzzle portions, in which players must use meticulous problem solving to escape from rooms and progress through the story. During both of these sections, players are intermittently given dialogue choices for the protagonist—Junpei in 999 and Sigma in Virtue’s Last Reward. It is with this interactivity that Zero Escape and video games as a whole either enhance or offer the four aforementioned opportunities for storytelling: a stronger suspension of disbelief, emotional immersion, the Future Narrative, and narrative reversal.

The suspension of disbelief is a concept all fictive narratives strive to accomplish. The phrase was coined by nineteenth-century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria, and although he meant it in regards to his and William Wordsworth’s poetry, today it is applied to fiction in general. This is a simple task to accomplish for tales taking place in the real world, but for ones of the fantasy or science fiction genres, authors must use more effort in order to stay consistent. Despite the events in a story being impossible in the real world, within the context and natural laws of the plot’s setting, they must at least be probable and believable. Zero Escape accomplishes this credibility quite well. The surface story of both games is that

nine seemingly random people are kidnapped, placed in a boat (999) or warehouse (Virtue’s Last Reward), and forced to play the “Nonary Game,” a game requiring players to seek a way out of rooms with puzzles in order to escape. Neither game reveals the facilities’ exteriors until the end, but players quickly learn both take place in the real world through historical or geographical details.

This grounding becomes useful as the games later introduce science fiction concepts of time travel and telepathy. The basis for these outlandish ideas stems from two actual theories about reality: morphic resonance and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics, which I will break down as simply as possible. Morphic resonance is a concept experimented with and explored by biochemist Rupert Sheldrake, proposing that what is essentially a telepathy-like collective consciousness links the natural universe through morphogenetic fields. Unconsciously, organisms constantly inherit memories, which can then be used to explain epiphanies, or moments in which one just simply “knows” something despite never having had experienced it. As an example of past experiments, Harvard University’s William McDougall had rats escape from a tank, and each generation of rats made fewer and fewer mistakes in the process. When scientists in Australia tried duplicating the experiment, their rats made fewer mistakes from the start. Presumably, the collective consciousness of Sheldrake’s morphic resonance was at work here, and the rats in Australia “inherited” the memories of those at Harvard (“More on Morphogenetic Fields”). Zero Escape takes this concept several steps further by connecting it to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics. The quantum theory states that every nodal situation branches off into other paths of events which then split into more possible paths of events, and that all these extensions exist simultaneously. Essentially, an infinite amount of parallel timelines or worlds exist (as opposed to a time loop, in which only one infinitely repeating timeline exists). Zero Escape then proposes that, by manipulating the morphogenetic field, morphic resonance can be used as a means of time travel. Rather than physically transporting bodies, however, the game suggests human consciousnesses can be transported over time. As an example, someone could “send” his or her memory into a past nodal situation, teach himself or herself to “choose” differently at that node, and thus create a new branch,

timeline, or possible future.

Explaining this concept outside of its context is convoluted, but when playing the game, it is presented in such a way that not only makes sense and suspends disbelief but also creates legitimate belief. Because of how seamlessly the real-life, scientific, and story’s aspects blend together, the idea becomes extremely convincing for players such as myself. This concept being an actual possible means of time travel is probably not likely, but during and immediately after playing the game, it almost feels probable. Although the story introduces radical concepts such as time travel and telepathy into what strongly begins as a realistic setting, the game grounds them through real-life scientific theories in order to ward off player skepticism. Just as traditional storytelling does, game narratives also strive for the suspension of disbelief.

Alongside utilizing the same literary strategies as traditional storytelling, video games can also transcend their suspension of disbelief through the concept of the avatar. Avatars are the characters that users play as, and depending on the genre, they can come in one of two forms: wet clay to be shaped by the player or a pre-made statue. Scholars Sabine Trepte and Leonard Reinecke explain the former, describing, “In The Sims 2, players are not only able to change their avatar’s appearance, but also personality traits. Especially in MMORPGs [massively multiplayer online role-playing game] (e.g., World of Warcraft, Eve Online), users are able to choose from a variety of features in order to manipulate the appearance, character, skills, and in some games even the ancestry of their avatars” (171). Players can make these characters appear however they want, whether as a reflection or idealized version of themselves or simply whatever they find aesthetically pleasing or cool. This is a feature that is unique to video games; however, the “pre-made statue” characters are essentially what one would encounter in any other traditional narrative medium. What becomes innovative is the fact that players control these characters, making the player figuratively become the main character. This duality is exemplified by how people typically speak of their game-playing: “I found this item” or “This enemy attacked me.” While the character is obviously not literally the player, it is still the embodiment of the player within the realm of the game and thus the medium through which the player participates in nodal situations.

The fact that players themselves actively step into the shoes and take the role of avatars helps break down the wall between the story and real life.

This concept of the game avatar then lends itself to emotional immersion, which, due to their interactive qualities, games accomplish in a manner greater than traditional storytelling media can. Scholars writing on the topic often stress the importance of this advantage. With exponential advances in technology over the years, these qualities have only grown with nodes, realism, and even physical immersion through movement or voice (Tavinor 26-27), thus creating an atmosphere players can potentially relate to and thus sympathize with. A generally “good” characteristic for art or literature to have is the ability to evoke emotion, and video games present an innovative way to achieve that goal (Adams 72). As an example, Aaron Smuts claims that by giving players the responsibility of decision, games such as popular war-themed ones like Metal Gear Solid can better convey the themes of their narratives. Another scholar, Ernest Adams, makes a similar point about the powerful experience of war games in particular, noting that he felt an “immediate and visceral experience of the challenge” faced by the Soviets in a WWII game played from the Russian perspective (72). Grant Tavinor discusses this emotional phenomenon from a psychological level. He asserts, “Emotion and action are close cognitive bedfellows. This should lead us to suspect that the role of emotion in interactive fictions will be distinctive . . . The nature of videogames as interactive fictions determines the type of emotional responses we have toward them” (Tavinor 36). Tavinor cites the prevalent emotions as being frustration, anger, fear, and elation (36), and these all can easily be attributed to the dynamic and sometimes even demanding aspects of gameplay. While books can elicit similar empathetic reactions, the literal interactivity of video games facilitates and strengthens them.

Zero Escape takes advantage of the game medium to give its players a similar emotionally immersive experience. Alongside puzzles, the series thrives on nodes in the form of dialogue choices, which then have a direct impact on the following outcomes. Several are minor nodal situations that do not alter anything in the story besides a character’s reaction, so they have little emotional effect. There are, however, other instances in which a decision can completely alter

the plot direction, and this places a lot of responsibility on players. In both Zero Escape games, players are periodically given the choice of which doors to go through, and they then witness the scenario of only the one they choose. Whatever events occur behind other doors go unseen, and, in some cases, this has a drastic effect on the eventual ending of the game. For example, in 999, if players do not go into the door containing a special bookmark, they will not be able to have Junpei give it to Clover later on. Giving the bookmark to Clover initiates a conversation that ultimately makes her realize her brother is alive and has not actually been murdered by one of the other characters as previously believed. If the player does not have the bookmark, then depending on other choices made, Clover vengefully kills everyone. When I experienced the game as a player, knowing my own choices led to this tragic ending made the result more horrifying than if I had been passively reading the story. This added a lot of weight and stress onto each decision I made in subsequent playthroughs, and I thereafter constantly questioned myself at each node.

Virtue’s Last Reward establishes the emotional weight of each nodal situation in the game immediately. While it has both benign dialogue decisions and potentially dangerous ones like 999, Virtue’s Last Reward also applies game theory in some nodes that imposes stress onto players, making them question the morals of their decisions as well as the trustworthiness of other characters. As defined by Merriam-Webster game theory is “the analysis of a situation involving conflicting interests (as in business or military strategy) in terms of gains and losses among opposing players.” An example of game theory is the Prisoner’s Dilemma. In the Prisoner’s Dilemma, two crime partners—A and B—are imprisoned, placed in separate cells, and offered an opportunity to confess. If A and B both stay silent, they are both imprisoned for two years. If A confesses while B stays silent, A is imprisoned for one year, while B is imprisoned for fifteen. If both confess, they are both imprisoned for ten years. Virtue’s Last Reward utilizes the same “ally or betray” situation, but it uses different numbers, dubs it the “AB Game,” and also heavily increases the stakes. The characters have digital watches displaying numbers (a parallel to the prisoners’ years), and throughout the game, they must participate in several AB Games. If a character accumulates nine points, he or

she can escape from the facility the group is being held in; however, there are two catches: 1) if a character reaches or falls below zero points, he or she dies; and 2) the escape route can only be used once and will then be closed forever. With such drawbacks, the characters become wary of one another, especially since they all have only just met. This feeling of distrust reaches the player as well, and with each AB Game decision, he or she knows lives are on the line. It is incredibly intimidating and stressful, especially as players eventually must betray or be betrayed by characters they grow fond of. Characters often appropriately react poorly to being betrayed as well, such as Phi, who disdainfully says to the protagonist, “When someone betrays your trust, it feels like a part of you dies. For me I guess it was the part that cared” (Virtue’s Last Reward). When I heard it, the line packed a powerful emotional punch as I realized the character I respected most had then lost all respect for me. Because players are making these decisions themselves in these games, the emotional reaction becomes much greater than when experiencing more passive media like books or film.

In addition to enhancing preexisting storytelling concepts, video games also introduce new ones, such as a promising medium for Future Narratives. As discussed in Bode and Dietrich’s book on the topic, Future Narratives have several possible outcomes of events available, whereas traditional Past Narratives only have one, which cannot be interfered with by users. Recalling its definition, a node is a junction leading to multiple pathways. If at least one is present in a narrative, “then we call it a ‘Future Narrative’ (FN), in contradistinction to narratives that have ‘only’ events—they are ‘Past Narratives’ (PN)” (Bode & Dietrich vii). Domsch argues, “As conveyors of narrative, video games constantly negotiate between the openness necessary for agency and narrative demands for some form of closure. The range between these two poles is where they are to be understood as FNs” (5). As presented earlier, few forms of media can successfully give users the option to choose paths in a given situation, but the interactivity of video games allows it. Rather than simply theorizing multiple possible timelines of the narrative, they can actually stage those futures. This is the essence of the Future Narrative. Bode and Dietrich claim that “by virtue of operating with nodes, [Future Narratives] are able to preserve essential features of

future time, viz. openness, indeterminacy, potentiality, the possibility of multiple continuations, and so on and so forth” (74).

Because of its heavy use of influential nodes, Zero Escape is perhaps the perfect example of the Future Narrative model. Not only do the games include nodal situations, but also the story acknowledges them within the context of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics. As explained earlier, the many-worlds theory suggests that every event in time is a fork in the road to other paths of events, and all these timeline extensions exist parallel to one another. In Virtue’s Last Reward, Phi hypothesizes why the characters are being forced to play the Nonary Game, which is ultimately to prevent a world-ending pandemic by using the morphogenetic field to send information to the past and create a new timeline branch free of the disease. First, however, she explains the many-worlds concept by telling Sigma to make any kind of movement. The player is given several different options, ranging from crossing his arms, clapping, moonwalking, and more. Assuming the player chooses arm-crossing, Phi summarizes:

You crossed your arms just now, right? But you could have chosen to put your hands on your hips, or clap. Now maybe there are other Sigmas, in other worlds, who did all of those things. All of these worlds and realities are branching off from one another. The choices you could have made branched off from the moment you decided what you were going to do just now. (Virtue’s Last Reward) Coincidentally, if a player desires to do so, he or she may go back, replay the scene, and choose a different movement option, thereby making another possible branch or “future.” This is precisely what a Future Narrative is, albeit applied to the real world and quantum mechanics. In terms of Zero Escape, 999 has six possible endings, while Virtue’s Last Reward has twenty. In order to complete the games and unlock all their narrative segments and mysteries, players must go through every ending. Each of these endings is a possible future to be explored by the player depending on decisions made while playing, which is precisely what a Future Narrative is by Bode and Dietrich’s definition.

There are, however, two problems that arise in regards to

this openness of Future Narratives. The first is that the methods through which narrative is presented in video games—dialogue and exposition in Zero Escape—heighten the divide between narrative and gameplay (Domsch 31). As Domsch explains, “All passive narrative forms are in themselves experienced as passive and therefore identical to the media from which they are appropriated (film, text, audio), but they can, and usually are, contextualized in an actively nodal way, since they are forms in an actively nodal structure” (31). The other issue is that, due to technological limitations, these futures are fully preprogrammed and prewritten by authors, scriptwriters, and game designers, so there is no true indeterminacy like an ideal Future Narrative calls for; the futures already exist within the programming before they are realized or experienced by players (Bode & Dietrich 50). Within the boundaries of current technology, it is impossible to achieve that level of infinite randomness; however, with advances, perhaps these obstacles could be overcome, allowing for complete agency for players and indeterminacy for the narrative—just like real life. Video games such as Zero Escape in particular serve as a foundational start to this innovative genre of storytelling.

The other innovative storytelling characteristic of video games lies in the physical state of the medium. As previously mentioned, advances in technology have already brought about interesting ways to get involved in games beyond simply holding a controller and moving one’s fingers. Controllers might be motion-sensitive for driving or fighting simulations, allowing players to utilize the remotes in a fashion similar to real life. Xbox 360 Kinect games allow players’ movements to be recognized in dancing games. Nintendo 3DS AR cards use the console’s camera to “add” interactive figures such as dragons onto real-life surfaces. These are all opportunities traditional media does not offer, and although they have not yet been utilized as ways to add unique twists to narratives, they definitely have the potential to.

Zero Escape is one of the few video game series that takes full advantage of the medium for storytelling in this way, particularly in 999. The game resides on the Nintendo DS console, which has the unique feature of having two screens—one on the top and one on the bottom. An iOS version of the game exists as well, but it splits the iPhone screen in half to achieve the same effect. Typically this

feature is used by having one screen display a menu or map, while the other is where the action takes place, such as in Pokémon games. Perhaps because it is a visual novel, 999 uses the function differently, which ultimately ends up creating a plot twist that could never be accomplished so well in traditional storytelling media. Throughout the game, the bottom screen is used for third-person narration as well as the puzzle segments; meanwhile, the top screen is where the dialogue takes place. Because the protagonist is Junpei, the player makes decisions as Junpei, the narration looks into Junpei’s mind, and the player interacts with puzzles on the bottom screen, there is no doubt as to what the literary perspective of the game is: third-person and omniscient to Junpei. This is how the game is witnessed by the player for at least twenty hours of gameplay.

As the surface of the game’s plot is dismantled, however, the perspective begins to change to first-person, but still omniscient to Junpei. As it turns out, the true reason the nine characters are kidnapped is to save a young girl, Akane, from the past. Years prior to the game’s events, the first Nonary Game takes place, in which several children are kidnapped for a scientific experiment regarding morphogenetic fields. Half of them are placed on a boat, and the other half are put in a building in Nevada. The groups are determined based on the children’s relationship to one another, and if they are close like a brother and sister, they are separated. Theoretically, because of their strong emotional bonds to one another, the siblings’ morphic resonance is particularly stronger than normal, allowing them to telepathically communicate with one another in order to solve puzzles and escape from the facilities. A mistake is made, however, and Akane is placed in the same location as her brother, therefore hindering their escape attempt. This becomes life-threatening as Akane eventually finds herself locked in an initiated incinerator and unable to solve the escape puzzle. Because Akane is a dear childhood friend of Junpei, the game’s current events—the second Nonary Game—exist as an attempt to access the morphogenetic fields across time and help her solve the puzzle to save her. As this plot twist is exposed to players, another one appears as the bottom screen’s third-person narration suddenly switches to first-person. At this point, the narration reads:

[I] was watching. I had watched everything that was 100

reflected in his eyes. I was listening. Every sound that vibrated in his eardrums, I heard. Smell, taste, touch… I felt everything he felt. I knew. I knew everything about him. What he was thinking, what he was feeling, what he was sensing… All of his feelings and worries and fears became mine… My mind, my consciousness, was inside of him. Through the morphic fieldset we were resonant, and we were as one. I was him, and at the same time, I was an observer. (9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors) This shift in point-of-view reveals that the entire “third-person” narration of the game is actually coming from the eyes of the young Akane of the past. The perspective change is emphasized in two ways: 1) with the first “I” being surrounded by actual in-text brackets, which are used throughout the game when new characters or concepts are revealed, and 2) when it eventually becomes time to solve the incinerator’s puzzle, and that puzzle—a Sudoku spread—is displayed upside-down in correlation to the illustration of Akane in the top screen.

The plot reversal is especially astonishing in hindsight to players, as they may realize that since the young Akane has been witnessing the events of the game unfold, she has been watching all the horrors take place as well. This is particularly relevant in terms of some peculiar imagery and description choices used in the beginning of the game. In the early events, one of the characters breaks the rules of the Nonary Game and is killed for it through the detonation of an ingested bomb. Snake’s dead body is later discovered briefly in a similar situation, during which the “third-person” narration illustrates, “The blood coating almost made it look like raw pizza dough covered in tomato sauce” (9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors). When Junpei ultimately inspects Snake’s mutilated corpse, the narration depicts: Chunks of flesh, torn from the body, sat in the blood like tiny islands in a great, red sea. A vast, ragged hole had been torn in the torso, and what remained of his intestines spilled out of it like fresh spaghetti. Smaller chunks of meat had splattered against the wall, and become stuck there as they dried. (9 Persons, 9 Hours, 9 Doors)

The gore is reported in comparison to food, which is rather disturbing on its own already; however, once the player finds out that the twelve-year-old Akane is narrating the story, it becomes even more horrific and brings in some heavy themes of the loss of innocence on her part. While a simple point-of-view reversal such as this could be accomplished in traditional media like novels as well, its flabbergasting effect would not be nearly as powerful as in a video game like Zero Escape due to how immersive it becomes and the fact that the player exists in the game through the avatar.

Because of their unique interactive qualities and use of nodes, video games have much to offer to the literary realm, whether enhanced traditional storytelling techniques or new, innovative ones. Their immersive characteristics help strengthen the suspension of disbelief and emotional immersion as well as offer new opportunities like the Future Narrative and medium-based plot reversals. Perhaps the next step in recognizing video games’ innovation for storytelling rests in the hands of game developers and critics alike. Developers should produce and advertise more games with the aim of narrative in mind, and critics who are well-versed in the literary field must critique what already exists and what may exist in the future. By embracing games’ innovative qualities, we can transcend traditional narrative boundaries and create truly ultimate storytelling experiences.

Works Cited

Adams, Ernest W. “Will Computer Games Ever Be a Legitimate Art Form?” Journal of Media Practice 7.1 (2006): 67-77. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.

Bode, Christoph and Rainer Dietrich. Future Narratives: Theory, Poetics, and Media-Historical Moment. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013. Digital file.

Chunsoft. 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors. Aksys Games, 2009. Nintendo DS.

Chunsoft. Virtue’s Last Reward. Aksys Games, 2012. Nintendo 3DS. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. Project Gutenberg. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.

Domsch, Sebastian. Storyplaying: Agency and Narrative in Video Games. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013. eBook Academic Collection(EBSCO host). Web. 24 Feb. 2015.

“Game theory.” Merriam Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2015. Web. 8 Apr. 2015.

“More on Morphogenetic Fields.” The Co-Intelligence Institute. N.p., 2008. Web. 11 May 2015.

Smuts, Aaron. “Are Video Games Art?” Contemporary Aesthetics 3.1 (2005): Michigan Publishing. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.

Tavinor, Grant. “Videogames and Interactive Fiction.” Philosophy and Literature 29.1 (2005): 24-40. Project MUSE. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.

Trepte, Sabine and Leonard Reinecke. “Avatar Creation and Video Game Enjoyment: Effects of Life-Satisfaction, Game Com petitiveness, and Identification with the Avatar.” Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications 22.4 (2010): 171-184. PsycARTICLES. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.

Biographies

Barton, Cody

Cody Barton is pursuing a BS in business administration, specializing in management. He believes writing is crucial in helping others empathize with him. His writing is inspired by life experiences and human perception. Cody often finds himself exploring nature, reading, and people-watching.

Bauer, Kaylyn

Kaylyn Bauer is a senior biochemistry and biotechnology major. She is also pursuing minors in psychology and art history.

Brooks, Ryan

Ryan Brooks is an economics major who dabbles in photography, filmmaking, lighting design, creative writing, and baking. He thinks he is funny, but some people may disagree.

Brown, Terrance

Terrance Brown is an English major and an aspiring author. Stream-of-consciousness is his favorite poetic method, and he aims to feel words as he feels his own breath. He considers himself a student of human intricacies. It satisfies him the most when a poem seems to write itself.

Chandler, Noelle

Noelle Chandler, who is pursuing a master’s degree in mental health counseling, hopes to work for a non-profit that helps low-income families. She has been published in Truman State University’s publication Windfall. She captures poems and stories after they pop into her head. When she is not spending time with her three-year-old daughter, she enjoys gaming. She especially likes role-playing games, which help her generate ideas for her writing.

Dalechek, Danielle

Danielle Dalechek is a psychology and neuroscience major with plans to go into research. She has been drawing ever since she could pick up a crayon. Art is therapeutic and vital to her, which is why she always tries to make time for it. She also enjoys reading, writing, cooking, biking, hiking, and practicing yoga. Outside of Bellerive, she currently showcases her art at Junction Coffee Shop in Belleville, Illinois.

Dey, Cody

Cody Dey is pursuing a BS in biology and a minor in environmental studies. After graduation, he would like to work in environmental advocacy. He writes short stories and poems. His pieces are inspired by the intersection of place and feeling.

Dierksen, Katryn

Katryn Dierksen is an English major in her senior year at UMSL. She is an occasional artist of various media—performance, pen, and brush. Katryn enjoys the process of creating in any accessible format. She currently concentates her efforts on the production of the Pierre Laclede Honors College’s two publications, Brain Stew and Bellerive. Katryn is excited to have her poetry featured for the second time in Bellerive, and she hopes to contribute to other publications in the future.

Dorris, Courtney

Courtney Dorris is a psychology major pursuing a career in psychiatry. Her favorite place to write is on her grandmother’s porch because the view of the country from there is beautiful, especially when it rains. She has a lovable, bratty cat named Prince Eric, whom she loves despite his shenanigans.

Eikmann, Jessie

Jessie Eikmann is an English undergraduate aiming to graduate in August 2016. She was published in Bellerive’s previous issue, Solipsist. Jessie hides biographical Easter eggs in everything she writes. Her works come from random scraps of journal entries, her superfluous lists, and pretty-sounding phrases that she forgets seven times before she writes them down. When she is not writing, she can be found reading things aloud, cuddling with her girlfriend, or hanging out with her friends in the LGBT community.

Gill, Sarah C.

Sarah C. Gill is a senior pursuing a BLS in economics and psychology and certificates in behavior neuroscience and honors. Sarah says that if she knew what she was aspiring to do, it would be much easier for her to succeed at it.

Imperiale, Sam J.

Sam J. Imperiale received an MFA in writing from Lindenwood University in September 2015. He was an assistant editor of The Lindenwood Review. He

graduated from UMSL in May 2014 with a BA in English, a Creative Writing Certificate, and a Pierre Laclede Honors College Certificate. Sam was on the staff of Bellerive’s fourteenth issue, Chimera, and that of Litmag’s 2014 edition. Sam is currently looking for a full-time job to support his writing.

Kaufman, Heather M.

Heather M. Kaufman graduated from McKendree University with a BA in English in 2009 and is currently pursuing an MA in English at UMSL. She is an Associate Editor of Periodicals at Concordia Publishing House. Heather finds herself constantly surprised by poetic inspiration, and she considers poetry to be one of the purest forms of expression.

Mays, Thomas S.

Thomas S. Mays is 23 and anticipates receiving a BA in English with an American literature emphasis, a minor in American studies, and an honors certificate in May 2016. He plans to pursue a Ph.D. in American studies. He ardently maintains that he is not a writer. His interests include (in no particular order) loud, awful guitar music; plaid flannel shirts; single-malt scotch whisky; cats; and that situation wherein two people try not to walk into each other, but every time one moves aside, so does the other, and a brief awkward dance ensues.

Morris, William

William Morris is an MFA candidate. His work has been published or is forthcoming online at Crab Fat Literary Magazine, Aji Magazine, Fiction Southeast, Oblong Magazine, Drafthorse, and 5x5. William worked as a staff member for previous issues of Bellerive and Litmag, and his work has been featured in both journals. He is the recipient of the 2015 Besse Patterson Gephardt Award for Fiction. William lives in St. Louis, where he devotes his time to cats, coffee, and creative writing.

Myers, Sarah

Sarah Myers is a psychology major and a sociology minor. She plans to research and lead projects on trauma, the brain, human rights, and social justice. Photography is a creative outlet for her, and she uses it to experiment with current portable technology, such as phones. She usually favors abstract photography and photography that has dramatic lighting and poses. Sarah is interested in innovation as a driving force for the future and in dis-

cussions that provoke deep thought, self-growth, and lifelong learning.

Okoye, Chiazom

Chiazom Okoye is a senior majoring in computer science and minoring in mathematics. Her career plan is somewhere between visual art and graphic design, and she wants to go abroad. She shoots her photographs with 35mm film on a hi-matic. The Criterion Collection is one of her interests, and she loves being outdoors.

Poindexter, Danyel

Danyel Poindexter is an undergraduate student majoring in English and minoring in studio art. In the future, Danyel would love to create and publish books; however, she would also enjoy drawing traditionally and digitally, working freelance for those who want her services. When she was younger, one of her books was accepted for publication, but Danyel declined because she wanted to develop her work more. With the help of her sister, she then fell in love with art. Her artwork gives her that extra push she needs in order to figure out what she is going to do with her own. Daydreaming, writing, and playing the piano in her spare time also inspire Danyel. For her, music is always best, whether she is playing or listening to it.

Polston, Stephanie

Stephanie Polston is pursuing an MBA. She earned a BFA in K-12 art education in 2011. Stephanie has been an art teacher for four years and currently teaches Introduction to Art, Drawing, Graphic Design, and Digital Art at Fort Zumwalt East High School. She has a passion for teaching her students how to look critically at subject matter from realistic to abstract and how to create artwork that speaks to the viewer. Her submissions to Bellerive are part of a series about the human experience. Each is titled according to the sensation that inspired it.

Saleska, Diane

Diane Saleska is an Associate Teaching Professor in the College of Nursing. As she was growing up, Diane wanted to be a veterinarian for large animals. This was not something many young women did in the mid-seventies, and she was advised in high school to go into something more traditional for women and chose nursing. It has been a great profession for her, and she has done it for over 34 years. She continues to love all of God’s cre-

ation and is amazed at the variety of creatures on this earth. She has tried her hand at capturing the beauty of creation through photography, and she finds it a source of comfort during difficult times—especially while battling cancer on two separate occasions in 2003-2004 and again in 2012-2013.

Scholl, Amber

Amber Scholl is a lover of languages, which is evident in her choice to major in English and minor in Spanish. She is seeking a Creative Writing Certificate and enjoys taking classes in the Honors College. Besides reading and writing, her interests include crafting, cooking, and computers. She spends most of her free time with her family and friends, who accept and encourage her nerdy ways.

Somerdin, Melissa

Melissa Somerdin graduated in December 2015 with a BA in English, a minor in classical studies, and a certificate in honors. She worked on three of Bellerive’s issues—Chimera, Solipsist, and Sonder—twice as a chairperson of the editing committee. Much of her free time is spent reading, traveling, costuming, gaming, and shooing alligators from her backyard in Florida. In terms of her career, she hopes to combine her education with her other interests, either as an English teacher abroad or as a localization editor in the gaming industry.

Taylor, Brittany

I am a senior here at UMSL currently working towards a BFA in studio art with a minor in art history. Some of my favorite things in life that fuel my never ending inspiration are yoga, travelling, and music. My work is inspired by the photographic chemical process Chromoskedasic Sabatier. This experimental technique utilizes chemicals that are brushed on to exposed light sensitive paper. The chemical reaction that takes place allows me to manipulate the image by creating colors and texture. The end result is very unique and one of a kind since each manipulation cannot be the same.

Layout Committee:

Staff Notes

This has been a special year for the Layout Committee because all three members from last year’s issue returned. In some ways, this has been like participating in Solipsist: The Sequel. Thus, certain trademarks of sequels turned out to be true for us:

1) We knew better. If last year’s issue was our time to embrace our destinies as Bellerive’s Layout Committee staff, then this year has been our time to take what we’ve learned and do it better. Last year, we battled the infamous Quark software; this year, we were able to easily tame the program and spend more time developing a fresh layout.

2) We faced new challenges. This year’s challenges included arranging the wide variety of pieces in a way that not only allowed a cohesive identity to take shape but also highlighted each individual piece.

3) We discovered something new. We were continuously impressed with the talent our university had to offer in this year’s submissions, and we believe that this book stands out as a unique addition to the Bellerive collection. We are honored and grateful for the chance to return and to be a part of this amazing process yet again.

Editing Committee:

We of the Bellerive Editing Committee have decided to supply our humble reader with a collection of terms necessary for better understanding this book and the clever minds behind its grammatical and stylistic accuracy and cohesiveness.

Bellerive: French for “beautiful shore.”

Editing: the process by which a group of peolpe argue over the appropriate use of the semicolon; they fail to recognize the typo preceding it. Committee chair: the despotic but necessary force that makes editing meetings run smoothly and offers pizza—but the meetings run too smoothly, so pizza never materializes.

Literature: an assemblage of words that elicit deep feelings about commonplace things.

Poetry: like prose, but formatted without regulation.

Prose: like poetry, but longer.

Art: like prose and poetry, but without words; neither reality nor ultimate reality; really, whatever you want it to be as long as it is not pornography (according to the Supreme Court).

Em dash: when in doubt, the best punctuation to add to any piece of writing; an all-purpose solution to troublesome clauses or—when the

author wants to be extra witty or dramatic—asides. Coffee: a stimulating beverage that when ingested causes brief complacency with deliberating over a comma splice, the resulting caffeine crash yields intense feelings of existential despair and grammatical errors.

Art Committee:

The Art Committee is clearly the best committee of Bellerive Why, you may ask? Art inspires hearts and spurs the minds of humans everywhere as it has done for an untold number of centuries and to various degrees of success. Humans created art in the form of cave paintings dating back thousands of years. These paintings have been discovered across the world, which demonstrates the importance and value of art.

We have been privileged to work with some incredible pieces this year, and we hope that we have been able to do them justice. It has been a wonderfully satisfying process, and it has been so much fun to see everyone’s reactions as we have gone along. The artists featured in these pages represent the amazingly talented artists who submitted, and we are very lucky to have received their submissions. We are looking forward to working with all of the artists who submitted this year again next year!

Public Relations Committee:

Committee members supposed we would have a lack of things to do, but patience is key (as is a lot of behind-the-scenes work). We maintained scores and records during the rounds of voting and kept up correspondence with submitters. We also assisted other committees when needed.

The team communicated mainly through email and everything was delegated. Brian worked on keeping up with all scoring with his spreadsheets (where would we be without those?) as well as everything to do with email correspondence. Jessie and Abbey accepted the tasks of preparing biographies and addressing over 200 invitation envelopes for the spring launch celebration. But the bulk of the work takes place in the spring semester, so it has not occurred at the time of this writing. Regardless, we anticipate the work in next semester to be time consuming; however, we know that it will all lead to a great launch for this amazing issue of Bellerive.

Advisor Notes

Issue 16 has arrived! It is with great pleasure and pride that I introduce the newest issue of Bellerive, Sonder.

With each issue of this publication, the staff is entrusted with the privilege of considering all the wonderful creative works our submitters have chosen to share. They are also challenged with living up to the expectations and standards of the Bellerive tradition and simultaneously showing a bit of growth and independence. Success requires a significant amount of dedication and vision from each staff member as well as a consistent commitment and focus as a collaborative team. As you might imagine, some creative tensions and growing pains are a natural part of our publication process, but they are essential elements in bringing together a book that represents the amazing talent in our campus community. The 2015 Bellerive Staff should be as proud of all their behind-the-scenes efforts as they are of the actual production you now hold in your hands.

Sonder is a particularly relevant title for this production. As an uncommon word, this title suggests that the issue offers a distinctive and new experience for readers. As a word that expresses realization that drama and vivid experience are also happening for others, the title reflects connection to the Bellerive literary tradition. The diverse creative works featured in Sonder present human drama, vivid (sometimes dark) experience, and moments of epiphany, and they provide interesting direction for readers to discover common human experience in distinct, sometimes divergent, individual experience.

So, Readers—enjoy the show. Featured Authors and Artists—take a bow for your success. Staff and other Supporting Cast—thank you.

Geri Friedline

Front row (L to R): Marla Gail Zimmerman, Adam Berger, Zoë Scala, Zachary Lee

Middle row (L to R): Melissa Somerdin, Marie Carol Kenney, Abbey Baker, Brianna Price, Jessie Eikmann, Kaitlyn Waller

Back row (L to R): Amber Scholl, Abby Naumann, Katryn

Dierksen, Geri Friedline, Thomas S. Mays, Samantha Kolar, Ryan

Brooks, Brian E. Pickens

Thank you for reading this year’s issue of Bellerive.