Quilt Literary & Arts Journal 2010

2010 QUILT LITERARY & ARTS JOURNAL • THE UNIVERSITY OF TAMPA

QUILT The University of Tampa Literary and Arts Journal Vol. 32

Quilt

The University of Tampa Literary and Arts Journal 2010

Untitled

Amanda Pulham Oil on Canvas

Quilt is an annually published, student-run literary journal that publishes selected works by the students of the University of Tampa. All artwork and writing is chosen through blind review based on skill, craft, and creativity. Quilt does not affiliate itself with any specific religion, race, or creed.

Š 2010 QUILT, The University of Tampa, and by the individual writers and artists. No part of this book may be reproduced without the written permission of the individual author or artist.

Cover design by Laura Theobald.

Cover artwork by Jeff Gibbons, Waiting.

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Special Thanks I would like to thank the following people for making Quilt possible: My amazing genre editors: Laura Theobald and Jenny Goodwin, for sticking with Quilt and me another year; and newcomers Sarah Gottlieb and Amanda Sieradzki for their hard work.

Quilt’s brilliant, new members! Thanks for joining and making the open mics unforgettable this year.

Assistant Editor Kristin Pappas, for organizing open mics and being a reliable source of fun.

John Capouya, as our faculty advisor.

Audrey Colombe, for being a guide, teacher and friend.

Chris Valle, for helping with the art selection.

Esra Santesso, Kacy Tillman, Sadie Harlan, Heather Gromley, and the rest of the Sigma Tau Delta for championing English and Writing on campus.

The English and Writing Department, for their continued support.

Student Government for funding Quilt and supporting the arts.

Stephanie Holz and Cheryl Chernoff for their invaluable help and wonderful spirits.

Facilities, Media Services,and Sodexho, for making our events possible.

Dorothy Allison, for being our Coffeehouse writer.

Jericho Brown, for workshopping Quilt members’ poems.

Charlie Hambos, Mel Steiner, and Mike Trobiano, for supporting Quilt in The Minaret.

Shelley Manes and Designers’ Press, for printing the journal.

My family for supporting a poet (I’ll get that condo in Boca for you someday, Mom!).

Clifton Tressler, Narisa Imprasert, and Conner McDonough, we’ll always have Paris.

And, all the artists on campus who continue to astound me and blew Quilt 2009 out of the water!

Derrick L. Austin Editor-in-Chief

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Contest Winners Art and Photography: First Place: Honorable Mention: Honorable Mention:

Cliff Klein Julia Ponzek Jeff Gibbons

Untitled Nun 1 Waiting

Fiction: First Place: Stephanie Selander Daughters of Eve Honorable Mention: Krisi Russell No Truth in Beauty Honorable Mention: Mikey Rumore Mr. Muleberry’s

Grandfather Clock

Creative Non-Fiction:

First Place: Philippa Hatendi

Honorable Mention: Sarah Gottlieb Honorable Mention: Derrick Austin

I hope tonight, sleep hits me like death Red Learning to See

Poetry: First Place: Clifton Tressler

Honorable Mention: Laura Theobald Honorable Mention: Morgan Tanafon

Tim O’Connor Award:

(Presented to a Quilt Writer showing outstanding writing talent)

•Derrick Austin (2010)

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The Boot-legged Boy and the Harbormaster The Colors of Things O Fly

Quilt 2010 Staff Editor-in-Chief Derrick L. Austin

Assistant Editor

Kristin Pappas

SG Representative Ilias Savakis Submissions Manager Alysia Sawchyn Art and Photography Editor: Laura Theobald

Art and Photography Assitant Editors: Abigail Gonzalez,

Calvin Bafana, & Chelsea Wulff Creative Nonfiction Editor: Sarah Gottlieb

Creative Nonfiction Assistant Editors: Liza Pichette,

Caitlyn Guthrie, & Moriah Parrish Fiction Editors: Amanda Sieradzki

Fiction Assistant Editor: Mikey Rumore Poetry Editor: Jenny Goodwin

Poetry Assistant Editors: Cody Waters, Calvin Bafana, & Philippa Hatendi Faculty Advisor: John Capouya

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Table of Contents

By Genre

Art and Photography: Amanda Pulham Julia Ponzek Will Stryffeler Julia Ponzek Amanda Pulham Julia Ponzek Cliff Klein Jeff Gibbons Cliff Klein Jeff Gibbons

Untitled Adam Sunny Patina Nun 1 Untitled Self-Defense Untitled Waiting Housing Bubble Coping with a Black Swan Event

1 30 36 53 61 70 74 75 94 103

Quilt 7

Creative Nonfiction: Sarah Gottlieb Philippa Hatnedi Derrick Austin Mikey Rumore Amber Koski Nikkia Parchment

Red I hope tonight, sleep hits me like death Learning to See Eclipsed My Little Princess Untitled

24 48 62 82 91 96

A Thorough Beating Mr. Muleberry’s Grandfather Clock Into the Earth No Truth in Beauty Yesterday Daughters of Eve Plot Twist The Option

15 31 38 54 56 66 77 85

Fiction: Erin Palmer

Mikey Rumore Anya Martinez Kristi Russell Stephanie Selander Stephanie Selander Liza Pichette Daniel Chocianowski

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Poetry: Jillian Shannon Max Roberts Clifton Tressler Conner McDonough Laura Theobald Derrick Austin Conner McDonough Cody Waters Ashley Eakin Laura Theobald Philippa Hatendi Jillian Shannon Krystle Canan Sadie Harlan Morgan Tanafon Amber Koski

Lady Capricious El Sonador The Boot-legged Boy and the Harbormaster Love Letter from a Trainspotter The House Dark Aster and Dogwood Sagauche Drive-In Legionnaire’s Prayer Another Inch of Coffee, Please The Colors of Things Yejide VIII. Strength Stop Making Sense Pomegranates O Fly Northern Wisconsin

21 22 34 37 47 51 52 59 60 65 71 72 73 76 84 95

Quilt 9

Table of Contents Sequential

Erin Palmer

Jillian Shannon Max Roberts Sarah Gottlieb Julia Ponzek Mikey Rumore Clifton Tressler Will Stryffeler Conner McDonough Anya Martinez Laura Theobald Philippa Hatnedi Derrick Austin Conner McDonough Julia Ponzek Kristi Russell Stephanie Selander Cody Waters Ashley Eakin Amanda Pulham Derrick Austin Laura Theobald Stephanie Selander Julia Ponzek Philippa Hatendi Jillian Shannon Krystle Canan Cliff Klein Jeff Gibbons Sadie Harlan Liza Pichette Mikey Rumore Morgan Tanafon Daniel Chocianowski Amber Koski Amanda Pulham Amber Koski Nikkia Parchment Jeff Gibbons

A Thorough Beating Lady Capricious El Sonador Red Adam Mr. Muleberry’s Grandfather Clock The Boot-legged Boy and the Harbormaster Sunny Patina Love Letter from a Trainspotter Into the Earth The House I hope tonight, sleep hits me like death Dark Aster and Dogwood Sagauche Drive-In Nun 1 No Truth in Beauty Yesterday Legionnaire’s Prayer Another Inch of Coffee, Please Untitled Learning to See The Colors of Things Daughters of Eve Self-Defense Yejide VIII. Strength Stop Making Sense Untitled Waiting Pomegranates Plot Twist Eclipsed O Fly The Option My Little Princess Untitled Northern Wisconsin Untitled Coping with a Black Swan Event

Contributer’s Notes Submission Guidelines

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15 21 22 24 30 31 34 36 37 38 47 48 51 52 53 54 56 59 60 61 62 65 66 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 82 84 85 91 94 95 96 103 106 108

Quilt 11

Writer to Writer The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in shock-proof shit-detector.

—Ernest Hemingway

A man writes to throw off the poison which he has accumulated because of his false way of life.

He is trying to recapture his innocence, yet all he succeeds in doing (by writing) is to inoculate the world with a virus of his disillusionment. No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in.

—Henry Miller

My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.

—Jack Kerouac

The coroner will find ink in my veins and blood on my typewriter keys.

—C. Astrid Weber

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Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

—Sylvia Plath

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

—Scott Adams

All men are lonely. But sometimes it seems to me that we Americans are the loneliest of all.

Our hunger for foreign places and new ways has been with us almost like a national disease.

Our literature is stamped with a quality of longing and unrest, and our writers have been great wanderers.

—Carson McCullers

An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.

—F. Scott Fitzgerald

Quilt 13

A Thorough Beating Erin Palmer Fiction

“The safe word is cookie,” Janice said. She cuffed the slave’s hands and forced a blindfold over his eyes. She turned to her husband who was waiting by the Wall of Pain. “Hand me the Squealer.”

Ken pulled a studded paddle off of its hook and brought it to his wife. He handed it to her with a bow, careful not to make eye contact. She rewarded him with a paddle swat to the ass.

Janice gagged the customer and strapped him to the spanking bench. This was her favorite part. She loved watching red welts appear on pale skin. She began with light tap and followed it with a powerful swing that made his entire body jump. Janice began alternating between soft and hard hits. When the customer’s body began to relax and tense to the rhythm of the blows, Janice motioned to Ken to hand her a whip. Without breaking her routine, she switched instruments and whipped the customer across the back when he was expecting a soft tap. The man struggled against the straps that held him down.

Janice smiled and whipped him again. Then she tilted the position on the chair so he was sitting up and clamped on a pair of vicious nipple clamps. The customer howled through his gag, and then Janice heard a muffled “cookie” shouted several times.

“I was just getting going,” she said while removing the clamps. “But I guess I can play nice for a while.”

Soon Janice felt a vibration against her thigh. “Times up anyway,” she said. Her cell phone was tucked into her garter belt. “You have five minutes to get dressed and lick your wounds.”

Ken followed her out of the dungeon. They went through a door marked “PRIVATE” and into their dressing room. Janice was hurrying out of her corset and pulling clothes from a dresser.

“I’ve got to run,” she said. “I’m on carpool duty.” She zipped up her khakis and switched from her spiked boots to flip flops. As she wiped off her face she said, “Can you pick up a rotisserie chicken on the way home? I forgot to defrost the pork chops this morning.”

“Sure,” Ken said.

Janice gave her husband a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t forget to charge him extra for the Tickle Torture. See you at home.” *** Getting everyone out the door in the morning was Janice’s personal torture chamber. No matter how organized things were at the end of the night, as soon as the sun came up chaos resumed.

“Mom! I need my Hannah Montana underwear,” Chelsea shouted from her bedroom.

“They’re in your underwear drawer, like always. Is your brother up?” Before Chelsea could answer, Janice saw her son on the couch. Nate was using his laptop with one hand and eating from a can of fried onions with the other. His hands were too large for his body.

“Those are supposed to be for my green bean casserole,” Janice said taking the can. She noticed that Nate’s eyes were bloodshot. “Have you been up all night on the computer again?”

Nate answered with a roll of his eyes and muttered about taking a shower. Janice knew that he had spent another night playing World of Warcraft. She had poked around on his computer a few weeks ago and found that his web history was full of online role playing games.

It was getting to be a habit, but he kept good grades and never caused trouble, so she didn’t say anything.

Quilt 15

Chelsea thundered down the stairs still demanding her underwear. “I promised Becky that we’d match!”

Janice decided not to ask why it was necessary for Chelsea to wear the same panties as her friend. “If I find them in your drawer, I’m going to make you eat them.”

Once her husband left for work and the kids were off to school, Janice’s mood improved.

She was a total control freak, so dealing with the same stupid issues every morning made her want to beat her family. She couldn’t understand why they had such a hard time when she had everything so organized for them. Janice grew up in foster homes and never had any order in her life when she was young. When she was old enough to get her own place, she was determined to always remain in control from then on. That was what drew her into S&M. Janice loved to dominate others because it was the one place where she called all the shots and everyone had to obey.

She didn’t have to go in to work that morning since all that was scheduled was a rape fantasy. Rapes weren’t her cup of tea, so she had employees for that. Any sex act at work was regulated to strap-ons, vibrators or other devices. No one was allowed to make physical contact with a customer’s genitalia. Janice made it clear to all employees that she wasn’t running a whorehouse, just a safe place to indulge in fetishes and fantasies.

Janice and Ken began the business as a way to keep their personal fetishes out of the house. They began renting a small second house when the kids became old enough to snoop through their things. When Nate was nine years old, he found a whip in their closet and thought it was a Christmas present for him. Janice found him running through the backyard with their neighbor’s son, playing Indiana Jones. She knew it was time to move their bedroom accessories elsewhere. When Chelsea started kindergarten, Janice decided to turn her hobby into a business. Ken continued to sell insurance full time, though he came in to help when he could.

They agreed from the start not to tell the kids about the business. Ken came from a really traditional family. He thought the kids would grow up to be “weirdos” if they knew what their parents did. He was a firm believer that what happened between a man and a woman should remain behind closed doors. Janice was far more open-minded. She wasn’t ashamed of her sex drive, but she didn’t think her kids needed to know that their mom spent her days spanking strangers. Though she never knew her own mother, she was aware that it wasn’t normal motherly behavior. She was afraid that they’d be ashamed of her.

Lately, Janice began to worry that it was time to tell Nate about what she did. A few months ago, the dean of her son’s high school called and asked her to come pick him up. The dean didn’t want to explain over the phone and assured her that Nate was not hurt. Janice refused to leave until he told her what was going on. Nate had been caught masturbating in the teacher’s lounge and had three days suspension.

After picking up her son, it took Janice eight minutes of driving in silence before she could speak. “When I was sixteen, my foster mother caught me masturbating.”

“God, Mom!” “I’m not going to give you details. I’m just saying that everyone does it. I think we should talk about why you chose to do it in the teacher’s lounge in the middle of the day.”

Nate pressed his head against the window and turned his body away from his mother.

Janice noticed how hairy the back of his neck was and made a mental note to schedule him a haircut.

“Was it just a forbidden pleasure thing?” she asked. “Because I understand that.”

Nate interrupted, “If you tell me that you gave your English teacher a blow job or

16 Quilt

something, I swear I’ll throw myself out of this car.”

“There’s no need to be obnoxious.”

“It was stupid, I know that. I feel like a total jerk already, Mom. Can you just drop it?”

Janice had nodded, not knowing what else to say. That night she tried to convince Ken that they had to tell their son about the business, but it turned into a fight. Janice thought that Ken should be more concerned about their son’s loneliness. She said that the whole thing seemed like a cry for attention, that Nate might have found out about what she did. She said that Nate was almost eighteen and he’d find out sooner or later. Ken said that she was being paranoid, that he didn’t care if his son jerked off as long as it was in his own room. He insinuated that it was Janice’s fault and though she worried the same thing, she threw a shoe at him. Usually they made it a point to have sex after a fight, using their angry energy in a positive way. But their son’s public masturbation lingered and they went to bed without touching. *** After Nate’s suspension, Janice rearranged her schedule so that she could spend more time at home for a while. She kept trying to get Nate to talk to her, but he brushed her off. She wished that she knew how to help him feel better about himself. Nate was always moping around and he had no friends that she knew of (expect for online, which Janice didn’t count.) Nate had never had a girlfriend. For a while she thought he might be gay until the porn on his computer proved otherwise. Janice had hoped he was gay. If all of his depression was about coming out of the closet, she’d have nothing to worry about. His social isolation was something that confused the hell out of her. She didn’t understand why her son could talk over the computer but not in person. Despite her husband’s protests, Janice was determined to tell Nate about the business. She was putting it off, telling herself that she’d give him some time to get over the suspension. Nate was going to turn eighteen soon, so Janice decided to tell him after his birthday passed. The truth was, she had spent the last couple of months trying to tell him but not being able to find the courage to do it.

In an attempt to regain some family normalcy, Janice had insisted that they go do something as a family. Chelsea was the only one who was excited about it. Ken was still angry with his wife and Nate was not a fan of family bonding. Still, Janice thought that spending time together would be good for them, and they headed to the bowling alley.

Ken went to reserve a lane and grab a beer while Janice brought the kids to rent some shoes.

Chelsea followed her mom to the counter but Nate stood a distance away pretending not to know them.

“These shoes are awesome,” Chelsea said. “Can I keep them?”

“No, you can’t,” Janice said. “They belong to the bowling alley.”

“The alley can keep my shoes, like a trade.”

“No one wants your old shoes. Besides, if someone tried to bowl in them they’d fall on their face.”

The game didn’t go too badly. Ken loosened up after a beer and spent time coaching Nate on how to properly throw the bowling ball. It was the first time that the two of them had said more than a few words to each other since Nate was suspended. Chelsea threw the ball granny-style, using both hands to swing it between her knees. She did a celebration dance after each throw regardless of whether or not she knocked down any pins. Janice was pleased that everyone was having fun.

A while later, Janice noticed that her son kept staring at a pretty girl who was a few lanes away from them. She was around Nate’s age and was with a big group of other teenagers. The girl noticed that Nate was watching her and gave him a dirty look. Nate looked away and slumped low into his chair.

Quilt 17

Janice, her husband and their daughter were pretty good looking people. Somehow Nate ended up with all of the worst features from both sides of the family. He had an awkward look about him. His small eyes didn’t match his long nose; his wide mouth looked overstretched on his weak jaw. He even inherited Janice’s elephant-like sneeze. Janice’s brother had joked that their last Christmas card looked like a Hobbit jumped into an Abercrombie catalog. Nate overheard him and barely spoke for the rest of the holidays.

Ken threw a strike and went to get another beer. Chelsea followed him to the snack bar so she could get some nachos. When Janice got up to bowl, she saw one of the young guys from the other lane make a jerking off hand gesture in Nate’s direction. Janice threw the ball as hard as she could and turned towards her son without waiting to see how many pins she knocked down. Nate was hurrying towards the bathroom with his head down. Janice realized that being seen out with is family was probably going to make things even worse for Nate at school.

All of the fun the family was having up until that point was ruined.

She used to be able to take care of him. When he was younger he got picked on a lot. After one of the neighborhood kids stole his bike, Janice paid a high school boy to get revenge for her son. The older boy threw the bully’s bike in the lake and told him that he’d be next if he kept up his bullshit. The little bastard brought Nate’s bike back the next day and left him alone after that. Janice wished she could pay someone to make Nate’s current problems go away.

Chelsea came back from the snack bar with her nachos, oblivious to her mother’s stress.

“Mrs. Longwell said at school today that we all should start wearing deodorant. She said some people had B.O., but she wouldn’t say who. So me and Becky smelled each other’s armpits at recess to make sure it wasn’t us.”

“Don’t make your friends smell your armpits,” Janice said. She worried that her children’s affinity towards bodily functions was a mark of her own poor parenting. *** Janice starting going into work again several mornings a week. Nate was borrowing her car and dropping Chelsea off on his way to school. Chelsea was the only person who was able to make Nate laugh these days, so Janice was happy to lend out the car. She rode her bike the couple of miles it took to get to the rented house where she worked.

Janice got to the house early and went through the different rooms cleaning up and sterilizing the equipment. After putting a load of dildos in the dishwasher, she went to her dressing room to change. She tied her corset until every breath hurt a little bit. She hoped that today’s customer wanted some severe punishing because she had a lot of pent up energy to leash out.

“Hey Gail,” Janice greeted the receptionist. “Is my eleven o’clock already here?”

Gail nodded. “It’s a first timer. He signed up for the good cop/bad cop routine. Shea has already brought him in and is warming him up.”

Janice was pleased. She loved being the bad cop. When she entered the room, the customer was bent over the spanking bench so that only his skinny legs were visible. Shea was using a cushioned paddle to lightly spank him.

“Get ready,” Shea said. “My friend is here to join us and she isn’t as nice as me.

Janice grabbed a whip off of the wall. She lashed out at him as she walked toward the bench.

He cried out when the leather hit his back. Janice dropped the whip and leaned over to see the customer’s face. It was Nate. Her son was blindfolded and strapped to the bench. He looked so small. Janice wanted to loosen the wrist restraints that cut into his skin.

“Shea, get out of here and tell Gail to cancel the rest of my day,” she said.

Nate’s back stiffened. “Mom?” Shea looked shocked and confused as she ran out of the room. Janice wanted to follow her, but she knew it was pointless. Anxiety was making her skin itch.

18 Quilt

“Yeah, it’s me,” she said.

Nate started bucking like a fish on a line. “What the fuck are you doing here? Let me up!”

“No. Not until you listen to me,” she said, ignoring Nate’s protests. “You are an amazing boy. You shouldn’t beat yourself up over a curious sexual appetite.”

“But I should let you beat me up? What the fuck is wrong with you? You work here?”

“I do. I was going to tell you soon. I was just waiting a while after the suspension. I didn’t want to make you feel worse.”

“You just whipped me! How is that not worse? Unstrap me, now!”

Janice wanted to say something to make sense of the situation, but she couldn’t find the words. She undid his wrist restraints and watched him storm out of the room, throwing his blindfold behind him. Janice looked at the paddles hanging on the wall and wished that she could beat what just happened out of her head.

Gail came into the dungeon. “Shea told me what happened,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have let him in if I knew he was your son. The ID he showed had a different name on it. It said he was eighteen.”

“It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I should have explained to him about this a long time ago. I am a terrible mother.”

“I’m sure everything will be fine.”

Janice noticed that Gail didn’t contradict her. *** Biking home, Janice tried to figure out what she was going to say to Nate. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to be home or not. She knew that she had to try to fix the situation, but had no idea how. Nothing in her parental repertoire prepared her for how to deal with it.

The car wasn’t in the driveway when she got home. Nate wouldn’t answer his cell phone.

Janice sent him a text apologizing and saying that she wanted to explain. He never responded.

She sat in the empty house and drank vodka until she felt numb. It was clear that she was fucking up her kids. She sat in the kitchen for three hours, crucifying herself with her thoughts.

She didn’t move until Chelsea got home and filled the house with her chatter.

Janice was making dinner when Nate got home a couple of hours later. He ran straight upstairs and slammed his bedroom door. Janice glanced out the window to make sure that Chelsea was still in the backyard before following him up the stairs. She just stood there with her hand pressed against the wooden door frame, waiting for the words to come to her. They didn’t, but she knocked anyway.

“I know you don’t want to talk to me,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to either. But we can’t just ignore this.” She waited a minute but Nate didn’t respond. “I’ll unlock it myself if you don’t let me in.”

Nate opened the door and looked at his mother with hollow eyes. “Of course you would.

You have no fucking respect for my privacy. Say what you want and then leave me alone.”

Janice tried to keep her lip from trembling. She understood why her son was so mad, but it hurt to hear her boy speak to her with such loathing. “I want to help you understand. I have been so worried about telling you. I should have.”

“What is there to understand? My mom is a whore.”

“I don’t have sex with customers if that makes you feel better.”

“It doesn’t. Get out of my room.”

“No. We have to talk about this. Let me help you.”

“Who said I needed help?”

“It’s just, you’re always online and I worry that you aren’t getting enough interaction with real people.” Janice sat down on her son’s bed and he jumped up and started pacing the room.

Quilt 19

“Because real people suck! The world is full of assholes and hypocrites. You’re always worrying about me because you think I’m abnormal. What’s normal Mom? Is it normal to play perfect Suzy Homemaker all day and then sneak off to whack strangers with paddles?

You’re the freak, not me!”

Janice was clawing her nails across Nate’s pillow. “I never said you were a freak. And I never said I was perfect. I do what I do because I enjoy it.”

“Me too. I like the person I am online and I don’t see what the big fucking deal is.”

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Nate was staring out of the window like he’d want nothing more than to jump from it. Janice remembered feeling trapped in her foster homes before she was old enough to move out. She used to feel like no one in the world could understand her. She now realized that her son might feel the same way. It wasn’t her job to understand him. She didn’t always understand herself.

“I’m so sorry Nate. I fucked up and I don’t know what else to tell you.” Janice stared at her son and wished he would forgive her. “I’ll close the business down if you want me to.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t want to know another thing about whatever it is that you do. Just leave me alone for a while.”

Janice left and Nate closed the door behind her. She felt like she just walked into a steamy bathroom after someone else showered, like the other person’s cleansing made her feel dirty.

She collapsed onto the stairs and put her head in her hands.

“Mom?” Chelsea called. “Can I open these Oreos?”

Janice pulled herself up from the stairs and went into the kitchen. Chelsea was tearing into the package of cookies without waiting for an answer. Janice went back to making the dinner that she knew she wouldn’t eat. She kept glancing up the stairs. She wanted Nate to come down and show her that they could be a normal family.

“Wanna play Wii bowling after dinner?” Chelsea asked. “I am practicing for the next time we go real bowling.”

Janice halfheartedly agreed to play. Maybe it would take her mind off of what she did to Nate and how she would explain it to her husband. She looked at her daughter, who had chocolate crumbs all over her face. If only Chelsea could remain in fifth grade forever. Janice hated the idea of her daughter someday looking at her the way that Nate just did. She was sure that the family would not be bowling any time soon.

20 Quilt

Lady Capricious.

Jillian Shannon Poetry

Bitch. Judged by berry-tinged puckered lips— Kiss kiss. Miss Bitter Bones. And I glove your hands in my own.

Now I hear piano. Muffled by mint Flavored smoke. You cuss And airbrush— Gold leaf over green patina On pounded leatherback And stamped coquina. I sense A cycle—a residual haunt. No, a livid ghost.

But hey, you’re cute.

You’re really cute.

Pink plaid miniskirts and charcoal eyes.

Busk-lined bodices and lace.

With your white, so transparent Photosynthetic—neck Frosted with freckles and the like.

But I taste the traffic.

North, South, East and West groped By a bouffant-haired Latino and His Napoleon Complex. Baked, Venetian Volto-skin— Your snake-tongued veins and stony flesh flakes And speckles our trying lips. But don’t.

Blame me.

Galatea, Elissa, no—Elise, You reap what doves sew.

Quilt 21

El Soñador Max Roberts Poetry

Day breaks, dropped from the hands of a child, and grey dawn slithers in through panes of glass and curtains of lead.

As cold skies stretch across the dull roar of a metropolis, steel snakes scrape over the feet of the ones at the platform waiting for the deluge that never comes.

Gravelly voices whisper sweet nothings through bent back pipes covered in yesterday’s future, telling us what we can have if we only shut our eyes and stay our tongues.

Poets sing about poets from street corner pulpits while shuffling people grumble their own dead songs, ignoring the blindly hopeful.

Jazz musicians whistle in alleyways, hoping no one will hear.

Day breaks, your mind aches, the ground quakes, as our subterranean dragons lift drooping eyelids if only to signal their disapproval.

Dark tears, cried for nothing, fill the streets and rush into stormdrains, where the only ones to catch them don’t need the pity and hurry off for some unspoken vice.

The dreamer, the unwoken fool, on his gilded throne in El Dorado, is the only one who lives the life promised by painted billboards and government tongues.

He gives nothing back and takes nothing in return, and for this egregious slight, he lies in his slumber, blissfully unaware of the cold black shackles affixed at his wrists.

Heavy gray clouds, bloated with rain, sit above the spires, thundering an empty promise like the steel horses nailed to the streets.

They all do the same thing, dropping enough rain to drown out the green and leave the avenues a uniform hue.

22 Quilt

Shifting eyes and loosely moving tongues meet the club and the mace, as policemen in high-topped boots keep the peace in places where it never existed.

The only truths here are put up against the wall and forced to read the dusty lies inscribed there.

The words of the rebels, silhouetted on subway walls and crooked backs, shout their meanings in dead languages, their cryptic tongue saving them from the whitewash.

Unintelligible messages are still messages.

While the tired crowds stand, shielded by nothing but their own doubt and self-loathing, A man in a hat shouts hollow prophecy from a stage secure with a barrier of sharp broken dreams and thorny barbed words.

The loudspeaker’s trumpeted questions are answered in faded blue monotone, the truths muffled between sheets of old velvet.

“How would you rate your willingness to stare into the unblinking eye of infinity?”

“Somewhere between amicable and obsessive.”

Blood-red crowns, sprayed below rebel graffiti, answer questions that nobody asks, while sermons in bent brown churches, ask what no one can answer.

Here, my closed eyes see more than your blue ones ever will.

Quilt 23

Red

Sarah Gottlieb Honorable Mention—Creative Non-Fiction Red, a flashy and demanding color, is paired with stop signs and stoplights, blood, fire, and ideas of love; all begging calls for immediate attention. Red is a color for the bold, the brave: those who drive a red car, those who fearlessly wear a red dress. I am not bold. I stand out, but most often not by choice. Being associated with a color all of my life has proven difficult.

My hair is red; red in a way that other red hair is not. Unlike most reds that might be considered closest to blonde on a hair color spectrum, mine would be considered closer to brown, though it has no brown in it. In the winter, my hair sometimes becomes so dark that if I take a section out from way underneath and examine it closely, I am able to see purplish undertones.

People often look at my hair. I don’t like to think it is me that is looked at, but my hair, since I have never believed myself to be beautiful, or pretty, or anything really attractive. My hair, I might agree, is beautiful. My hair is the only area of me, the only part of me both inside and out that I have any confidence in.

My red hair has been my center since the day I was born. My mom has a story from my baby years she loves to tell. As she tells the story today, I imagine a cool orange sun beginning to set. Soft light sneaks between tall buildings, illuminating sparkling sidewalks and highlighting the glow of my hair.

I am too young to remember what the day truly looked like, but my mom tells the story something like this: It was warm out, September or October, and I was four or five months old with a thick mop of curly hair. My parents had driven to Manhattan and had taken me with them. The three of us were on the corner of Fifth Avenue, right outside of Tiffany’s, when my dad stopped to use a payphone. He turned his back to my mom, who was holding the handles on my stroller. A stranger on the street passing by suddenly stopped and peered into my carriage. She stood there cooing over me, and then another person stopped and looked.

My mom says people kept stopping until there were more than twenty strangers surrounding the two of us. I can only imagine my dad’s shock, and maybe panic, when he, finished with his phone call, turned and saw the gathering around my stroller.

I remember being constantly complimented on my hair when I was young. Strangers, teachers, my parents’ friends…anywhere I went, I was greeted with admiration.

“Wow, look at that color,” people would say, circling around me to inspect my head from all angles. “Amazing.”

I used to feel annoyed whenever someone complimented me. When it was just a word or two it was okay, but then there were the people who would stop and talk to my parents for a good ten minutes about my hair. Or, worse yet: the strangers who actually bent down and started petting me, usually in the doorway of a restaurant or in the middle of a shopping center. Women would sometimes stop me and say that they’d tried to dye their hair red, but found it impossible to get my shade. “People would pay lots of money for that color,” they’d say. It’s true; according to the Toronto Star, in the year 2006, Americans spent $123 million on red hair dye.

I sometimes catch myself blushing when I receive a compliment. The rush of heat to my face is perhaps an odd mix of delight and embarrassment. Delight comes in the compliment itself, embarrassment sometimes follows in realizing that I am being looked at.

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I’m always asked from whom I got my color. “Is it from your mom?” strangers ask. They are puzzled by my dad’s brown-black hair and my mom’s hair, red, but not my shade. People are surprised when I explain how the shade really came from my grandma Jackie, my dad’s mom. My mom says that the day I was born was the day my grandma Jackie’s hair started turning gray.

My siblings have it, too. By the time I was five I had both a sister and a brother with red locks. They, like my mom, do not have the same shade I do; my hair is much darker than theirs.

Despite my siblings and I not all having the same color, I’ve been told our trio looks good together. We did even more so when we were younger and were always within feet of each other. Older photos of us together show small, smiling faces with pink cheeks shrouded by red hair. In one picture, my sister hugs me around the waist, her head touching mine, wavy strawberry-blonde locks mingling with my deep red curls. My brother stands behind us grinning mischievously, his chin resting between my sister’s head and mine. His hair is not as light as my sister’s, yet not as dark as mine, and we are a perfect portrait of colorful, arranged happiness.

Around the time I was five my family began modeling. I remember going on dozens of “go-sees” as a child. The rooms were always old, small, inconspicuous buildings along streets of Manhattan. During the actual photo shoots the buildings were bigger, brighter, and always stocked with tables spread full of food. As I was led to different sets and backdrops, wooden floorboards gently creaked under my sneakers. Sometimes posing was fun. I was given crayons to draw with and candy bars to eat while cameras clicked in front of me. Before I could read and write, I graced the covers of Parent & Child magazine and could be found on boxes of bead kits.

Since I was young and we lived close to the city, it was easy for my family to make the trip into Manhattan. The modeling lasted only a few years though; my mom quit the agency, Wilhelmina, after they called one winter morning at five a.m. and told her to wake me up for a photo shoot in Central Park. At the time, I was too young to care about no longer playing in front of a camera. Until I was twelve, I didn’t step foot inside a studio again. Then, in February of 2002, I did my last modeling for Limited Too. The photo shoot was my attempt to get back into the business. At that time, though, with my siblings and I enrolled in school, it was far too difficult for my family to make constant trips into the city. More important than this, however, was likely the fact that I stood under five feet tall and had almost reached my full height. At twelve years old, even child models had to be taller than this to find work.

Then, too, I’d become too shy for modeling. This became clear to me the minute I stepped inside the Limited Too studio for the spring photo shoot. After I was led past food and makeup, I came upon a truly horrific scene. In front of the white backdrop, a photographer snapped away as two girls clad in bright blue and green danced around to a Britney Spears album. Somehow, when I’d begged my parents to let me try modeling again, I hadn’t thought about having to move around. The idea just hadn’t crossed my mind. Oh my God, I remember thinking as I approached the backdrop, my fingers finding my sweating palms, forcing my hands into fists. Am I going to have to dance in front of people?

Later, after five humiliating hours of staffers and models telling me to loosen up, I turned away from modeling for good. A couple of months later when I received the spring catalog in the mail, all I could see was how awkward I looked. There was one photo I did like: a picture of me, arm in arm with another girl, the two of us displaying the front and back of a graphic t-shirt. The girl was facing the camera, smiling sweetly; I had my back turned, my hair in a loose bun, red curls pointing in all directions. I liked how the focus on my side of the photo

Quilt 25

was on my hair, not the rest of me. I was comfortable with that; I looked good with my back turned. My hair was, after all, the true selling point behind my modeling campaigns, even as I struggled to accept the fact that my color made me different. *** Around the time I turned eleven, it began to bother me that I didn’t really know anyone else my age with red hair. I started looking for characters in books and movies who had red hair. I identified myself with Madeline and Caddie Woodlawn, real and fictional characters who had my color. They were adventurers of some kind: Madeline tended to stray from the group and get in trouble and Caddie Woodlawn (a nineteenth century character) hated housework and often found herself outside with the boys. I now see what must have influenced me at that age to love the outdoors and to make trouble, two things I have come to recognize as stereotypical for redheads.

But what of the other stereotypes that came with being a redhead? A bad temper? Sometimes.

Passion? Maybe. Stubbornness? Definitely; though I’m pretty sure I get that from my brownhaired dad.

And then there are more physical stereotypes of being a redhead, something I realized when I was twelve and moved on to middle school. In a class of three hundred, only three other redheads had joined my grade. These girls were redheads, too, but their hair was a different color, more orange than red. They also had light colored eyebrows and eyelashes, almost to the point of blonde. My eyebrows and eyelashes were brown. Their eyes were also light green (like my brother’s and sister’s) or blue. Mine were brown. And one girl’s skin was covered, from head to toe I was sure, in freckles. While I had some freckles across my face and on my arms, I was hardly covered in them. Soon, I began to feel the expectations of being a redhead tagged onto my identity.

St. Patrick’s Day had become something of a funny holiday to look forward to, not that I ever remembered what day it fell on. In fact, the only memory before high school I have of St. Patrick’s Day is from when I was about five years old, one morning when my mom brought home green-dyed bagels from The Bagelry for breakfast. After eating one, I threw up green.

No, I didn’t enjoy St. Patty’s because I celebrated—I didn’t—but because of the confusion it seemed to give everyone. In high school, peers would come to class that day in their emeraldcolored shirts with their hands wrapped around water bottles full of vodka and ask me why I wasn’t wearing green.

“Aren’t you proud to be Irish?” they asked. “Show some spirit!” I wasn’t Irish, I would tell them, I was actually Luxembourgish and a mix of some other European countries nowhere near Ireland.

“What?” they would cry. “You’re not Irish? No way.”

Later, when I would tell my mom how I refused to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day, she questioned me.

“You don’t have to be Irish to celebrate,” she said. “It’s kind of a universal holiday.”

“But then people might think I really am Irish,” I argued.

“Do you have a problem with the Irish?”

It took me some time to realize what my qualms were about wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day. No, I didn’t have anything against the Irish. I realized that I liked being a unique redhead.

While there are many more redheads in the world who also have no claim to Ireland, I liked that my hair color couldn’t be explained. I liked that it wasn’t tied to something obvious or tangible such as a country and couldn’t be expressed through a green shirt. My hair had its own story, and if I had to boycott St. Patrick’s Day to show it, then I would.

Just as people are surprised when I tell them I am not Irish, they are as puzzled when they

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learn I am Jewish. Reactions usually range from raised eyebrows to questions to the effect of, “they make Jewish redheads?”

I’ve gotten used to people questioning my hair when they learn I am Jewish, though I’d never questioned it much myself. This may be naïve of me, but I don’t see it as anything that strange.

I know redheads to be a minority just as I know Jews to be a minority. Together, it would seem to me this would make for an even smaller minority, something that would explain why, in my lifetime, I’ve only met (aside from my own family) maybe two or three other Jews with red hair. Though I don’t see anything special about being a redheaded Jew, it would fascinate me to be able to trace where the red hair started in my family. *** The week after my Bat Mitzvah, right after I turned 13, my grandpa suddenly passed away.

I began to feel the sadness lasting in the months and years after his death. Though I didn’t recognize it at the time, I realize now that I felt somehow less innocent. In the Jewish religion, tradition holds that one’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah marks a child’s becoming a man or a woman. In today’s society, thirteen is hardly considered old enough for womanhood. I knew little then about what it meant to be a woman, yet after my grandfather’s death I knew I no longer felt like a child.

After my grandpa died, I became critical of the certain world I thought I had known. I also became critical of myself. Everything appeared serious and felt like it carried more weight.

Fitting in at school suddenly began to matter more than it ever had before. My hair, I felt, made me different. Because my hair was so much darker than the other redheads in my school, I didn’t even feel like I had anything in common with them.

What happened in the months after I turned thirteen seemed to hit at once. I lost almost all of the confidence I had. Girls and boys in school were mean, scathing it seemed, and yet…

I wanted to be like them. I didn’t want to stand out. They all talked the same way, wore the same things. I could get away with some of that, or at least try to, but my hair would always make me an outsider. My hair was not sleek and straight and blonde or brown like theirs. I was a red, curly, frizzy mess. I couldn’t tan without getting sunburned first, and there were colors I couldn’t wear unless I wanted to completely represent the upper half of the rainbow; colors like orange, yellow, or fuchsia.

When I wanted to change my hair to blonde, my mom absolutely forbid me. Now, I thank her for this. Even as badly as I wanted to be accepted, I don’t think I really wanted to lose my color. My color had made me who I was, and even though I sometimes hated that person, I didn’t know how to really be anyone else.

Though my mom would never have allowed me to dye my hair, she agreed when I pleaded to let me get it permanently straightened, which boosted my confidence for about a week; that was all. As my mom had warned, straight hair would not make me truly feel better or solve my problems. I had other issues, none of which she voiced, but issues that I knew to be there.

There was my persistent acne, merciless even after years of dermatology appointments. There were my short legs. And then there was still my growing unease and sadness, something that would rapidly turn into a severe depression that lasted years.

As peers walked the hallways chattering and laughing, I made my way to class with my head down, books held tightly to my chest, sneakers squeaking as I dragged my feet across floors too clean.

My new, straight tresses did not help my ego for long, but it was much easier to brush my hair and care for it. There was one less worry to fret over. Today I do not regret the act of straightening my hair—in fact I am happy I did it—but rather the reasons for which I did it.

After a year or so in high school, I settled, for a while, into a new me, a person I didn’t

Quilt 27

always recognize, but someone I liked better than my eighth-grade, thirteen-year-old self. I was still depressed, though, and I carried this lifeless, defeated person I did not know with me constantly. I wore oversize sweatshirts to school and I tied my hair back and hid it in my hood whenever I wanted to melt into the walls, which was often. Hiding wasn’t easy to do. I was too aware of the attention my hair brought me; I could feel its mark as though it were a large, single flame burning through me. In my unrelenting state of self-consciousness, I began to take note of all things red and the different meanings found in the color.

Red, an emotional color, comes in dozens of shades. The color was first introduced to the crayon color spectrum in 1903. Crayola claims that “personality traits” for this hue are hot, energetic, loud, and powerful.

Red can take on other meanings as well. Recently, Crayola surveyed thousands of children: “If courage were a color what would it look like?” They answered scarlet. In an effort to support children fighting cancer at St. Jude’s hospital, “scarlet,” has been replaced by “courage,” the newest name added to the 64 Crayola crayon box.

Red is a color I see almost every minute of the day; unavoidable, as my eyes often glimpse my long hair whenever I look sideways or down. In high school, I often felt confused and unsure of how I should carry myself. I was rarely energetic or loud. I certainly never felt powerful or courageous. *** I became used to the names people would give me for my hair. Carrot-top, they’d call me. Rusty. Ginger. Or sometimes, just Red. My identity revolved around my hair, and so I constantly cared for it. When I was sixteen, I learned to blow-dry my hair sleek after a shower.

I paid attention to the style, played with bangs, and layers, and angles for a few years. Friends always wanted to play with my hair. During lunch, they’d often stroke or plait it into long braids. Girls I didn’t know asked me what kind of shampoo I used and where I got my hair cut.

Eventually, I ditched the oversized sweatshirts and most days let my long hair fall around me.

I realized the power my red hair gave me and I began to love and appreciate it. My hair was the feature I received the most compliments on. Now, beginning to peek through the thick, muted veil that had enclosed me in my depression, I started to take in more of the world again, and also the pressure to perfect my hair each time I washed it.

Today, I take up to an hour to blow-dry my hair. I spend so much time washing and blowdrying that I even plan my showers around my weekly schedule. I tell my family in advance when I plan on styling my hair so they know at what hours they’ll be allowed to use the bathroom again. They’re used to it. My friends, on the other hand, are still baffled when I at times require two hours notice before going out. If nothing else about me looks or feels right, at least I can count on my hair to look good. My hair gives me my character; it allows me the confidence to acknowledge myself as a person worthwhile.

There was a period in high school when everyone began to tell me I looked like Lindsay Lohan. It was a compliment, and I secretly loved the comparison. After all, everyone had thought she was beautiful. Before Lindsay came along, redheads weren’t recognized much in the media for being beautiful or sexy—at least as far as I knew. She was the only celebrity I ever followed. I watched how she cut her hair and I wore the colors she wore. Her growing fame gave me some confidence, knowing suddenly that maybe I didn’t need a more traditional hair color to be considered attractive.

After Lindsay’s movie career began to take off, she dyed her hair blonde. This shocked me; it was almost as though she was trying to offend me. Why would she do such a thing? I thought back to middle school and how I’d once considered dyeing my hair blonde. I realized I would

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never be able to do it, especially not now. Who would I be without my hair? I imagine hardly anyone would think I was the same person. I decided Lindsay Lohan was beautiful anyway without her red hair. Me, I wasn’t so sure.

I would not know myself without my hair. There is a part of me that is terrified to lose my color, or, worse yet, lose my hair completely. This thought has not yet fully come to surface because I know I am still young and healthy, but with each passing year, I feel the issue slowly inching closer to the front of my mind. I do not know what I will do with myself the day my hair beings turning gray. The idea is one that even now I am having trouble acknowledging.

Red hair dye is available, yes, but I’m not sure I will ever find my exact shade in a bottle, or even if I will want to. I like that it is natural.

Even after my own hair turns gray, the Oxford Hair Foundation has predicted that by the year 2100, redheads will either have become extinct or extremely rare. Though the company’s claim is currently being debated, the idea bothers me nonetheless. I know the gene for red hair is recessive, yet I somehow cannot imagine my children not having red hair. I cannot imagine a world without red hair.

Quilt 29

Adam

Julia Ponzek Oil on Board

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Mr. Muleberry’s Grandfather Clock, A Fable Mikey Rumore Honorable Mention—Fiction

Mr. Muleberry’s grandfather clock was a relic of the pre-war world, and though a great deal of wisdom normally accompanies such age, its hands had ceased to tick and its chimes had ceased to ring. The clock told no time, but Mr. Muleberry still kept it respectfully by the fireplace in the den and that was where it stayed. The clock longed for the golden years when he would have nightly conversations with Mr. Muleberry on the tell of time, but the old man found that he had nothing more to say to it. What more could be said to a frozen clock? 11:11 read its hands. 11:11, and nothing more. Mr. Muleberry reclined in his comfy chair in front of the comfy fire and basked in the comfort of the daily newspaper. The old man flipped crackling page after crackling page and the grandfather clock stood staring, stewing.

Night after night turned into year after year and the grandfather clock continued to stew with frustration. He was, in his mind, an elder clock, a wise clock, a clock that in its prime told time as precisely as any ever had! And, as the clock deliberated on many desolate nights, he would do it again!

“Morning! Biscuits and tea, sir! Biscuits and tea!” the clock shouted at its top volume into the darkness of the comfy home. “Biscuits and tea!”

Mr. Muleberry shot awake from his lonely bed and hurried down the hall into the den.

He stumbled over his comfy chair and fumbled in the dark towards the repeating cacophony, “Biscuits and tea!”

“Are you mad?” said Mr. Muleberry. “It’s ‘round two in the morning!”

“No, six o’clock, sir! Time for toasts and eggs and sausages and biscuits and tea!” sang the grandfather clock.

“Stop that! Stop that!” said the old man as he waved his arms wildly. “You’re raving mad and your days of time-telling have passed you by, old friend! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to bed!”

Mr. Muleberry stomped off back to his lonely room and the clock resumed its silent stewing.

So the clock bungled this time-tell—it realized as much—but it was still an artisan-made, work of art, grandfather clock! This clock can tell time—it stewed internally—this clock can tell more than just time!

Other clocks could certainly pass following hours in a ceaseless tick tock, tick tock, but this grandfather clock could no longer muster up even this most standard feat of clockery. Later (for the clock couldn’t tell how much time had passed), he found Mr. Muleberry once again reclining in the den.

“Almost time for bed, sir?” said the clock.

“No,” replied Mr. Muleberry. “It’s only still the afternoon, and I am awaiting the arrival of my good friend Mr. Belcher.” He said no more.

Bungled again, thought the clock. I was once the master’s best friend, he murmured.

Attention, attention—the clock wanted nothing more than attention, attention!

“It’s 3:30, then! No! 6:42! 12:39! 8:12!” the clock cried endlessly in the force of Mr. Muleberry’s objections.

“Stop that! Stop that!” said Mr. Muleberry.

The clock guessed on—10:19! 4:20! 9:11!—until, out of deep frustration, he extended his exertions beyond the tell of time.

“Sir! Sir! Did you know that I once scaled Mount Kilimanjaro? Both peaks, sir!” said the

Quilt 31

clock gratuitously. “And Senator McGovern once asked me to be his running mate, but I politely declined owing to my past lobotomy! Sir! Sir!” “Lunatic!” shouted Mr. Muleberry. There was a resounding knock at the front door. “There’s my friend now! Mind you, I will not have you acting so foolishly in front of the respectable Mr. Belcher! Now, stuff it, or I’ll have you for a landfill!”

The clock’s wild nonsense stopped, and it returned to the bane of its existence. Silence—no ticks.

Mr. Muleberry straightened his tie and made his way to the door where the honorable Mr. Edmund Belcher awaited. The door was opened and Mr. Belcher removed his hat and exclaimed, “My good friend! Mr. Muleberry, how are you?”

“Quite well, quite well,” said Mr. Muleberry, gesturing Mr. Belcher inside.

“But my keen senses detect a bit of fuss in your eyes!” said Mr. Belcher.

“It’s nothing. Just a little trouble with my clock,” said Mr. Muleberry.

The two men made their way to the pantry where Mr. Muleberry poured his stiff brandies.

The respectable gentleman told jokes, Mr. Muleberry laughed sycophantically, and this call and response continued until nightfall. With the last sip that polished off his final bottle of brandy, Mr. Muleberry had completely forgotten about his senile clock. Understandably, it was with alarm that he heard the great shouts from the den, “Champagne! Champagne! Happy New Years to all! Champagne! Champagne!”

“What is that ghastly riot?” said Mr. Belcher with an elitist air.

“Th-that, that’s,” said Mr. Muleberry, struggling over the absurdity of his own words, “that’s my grandfather clock. I mentioned my clock troubles. It thinks it can tell time, but it certainly cannot!”

Mr. Belcher laughed. “Let me see this monstrosity for myself!”

Mr. Muleberry reluctantly led the respectable gentleman into the den, where the old clock waited.

“Ah, gentlemen!” cried the clock in a perky manner. “Come to wish me a Happy New Year, I see! Yes, not only can I tell time, but I can also tell year! 1984! 2021! 1886! If I may humbly say, what a clock I am!”

“You silly git!” said Mr. Muleberry. “It’s the middle of July!”

“Happy New—,” the clock stopped, then sobbed, “bungled, bungled, bungled! Oh bungled again!” The clock wept. There were no tears, but it was unmistakably weepy.

“Ghastly,” said Mr. Belcher again. “I do hope this—clock—does not reflect the private manner of your household, my friend. But it’s late, and I must be off!”

Mr. Muleberry, sufficiently embarrassed, led the respectable gentleman out of his home. He said good-bye. Mr. Belcher merely nodded. Mr. Muleberry closed the door and paced angrily towards his den. As he stomped across the white wooly carpet towards the grandfather clock, it immediately perked up.

“Now that it’s just you and me, sir,” said the clock, “I happen to know that it’s 4:17.” Of course, it was not.

“You git!” ejaculated Mr. Muleberry.

“Me a git, eh?” said the clock, “A git that knows the time is 6:47! A git that’s seen the Eiffel Tower! A git that’s dined with Sir Edmund Hillary! If I am a git, I’m a knowledgeable git! I’m a git that can tell time!”

“I’ve had it!” said Mr. Muleberry. The old man grabbed his coat and his hat and his cane, which were hanging on the rack on the other side of the den. “I’ve had enough of you, loony!

I’m going for a walk, and when I return, you’ll be damn lucky if you’re not my next piece of firewood!”

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“Firewood!” said the clock indignantly. “To burn up such knowledge that exists in my cabinet! To let my experience turn to ash! You are too easily dismissive—I happen to know what you can only wish to know, sir! Don’t you wish to know that the time is 11:11! Don’t you wish to know that your supposed friend, Mr. Belcher, is but a bloodthirsty cannibal!”

“Lunatic!” cried the old man as he threw his hat across the room. “You have become unhinged!

I’ve had it! I say, I’ve had it! I’m getting my axe! I mean it! I’ll reduce you to mulch!”

Mr. Muleberry—with the aid of his cane—hobbled back through his comfy home and out the door into the star-filled night. His mind raced with turbulent frustration as he paced down his garden pathway into his wood shed. He fumbled through rakes and shovels and pots and mowers. “Where is my confounded axe?” mumbled the heated old man. He removed himself from the shed and combed the exterior, but no axe could be found.

The many wrinkles on Mr. Muleberry’s face were scrunched with resentment. The careless lies of the grandfather clock had only become more ridiculous. At what point, he thought, does wisdom die? To be regarded as a respectable man, with respectable friends—the desire consumed the old man’s soul. And his respectability was being squandered—slandered by the grandfather clock he once professed to be his friend! “Well, that clock is no friend of mine!”

Mr. Muleberry shouted into the darkness with the intensity of the voice of God. “Where is my bloody axe!”

“It’s here!” exclaimed a voice directly behind him.

Mr. Muleberry’s thoughts were interrupted by a sharp blow to the back of his head. The cold, dark dirt was the last thing his eyes glimpsed before he fell into the eternal black. The old man was dragged into the bushes and, though he never knew it, his thighs were dismembered and his blood drank and his kidneys eaten like oversized Lima beans. With murder in his eyes and the missing axe at his side, the respectable Mr. Belcher took another bite of his late friend and belched. By midnight’s toll, Mr. Muleberry was no more. The grandfather clock had been right, you see, for the deceased Mr. Muleberry failed to consider that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Quilt 33

The Boot-legged Boy and the Harbormaster: A Tragedy in Two Acts Clifton Tressler

First Place—Poetry I. I’d been having trouble breathing lately.

Since rebirth I’ve been building a diving bell out of scraps of post-war stories of another lost generation.

I’ve tested it in the winding rivers of Pennsylvania, each with names resounding with the poetry of peoples more in tune with earth and God than the whole of the heavenly hosts of the West: Allegheny, Susquehanna, Monongahela.

Always too busy checking for leaks.

I spent summers in the Schuylkill, heat fluttered above the surface in big-city electric lights.

Surrounded by Philadelphia, I would look for love every day, careful, though, always to keep from camping on the banks.

Six packs of something light or whatever’s on tap and spliffs half-packed with hash were enough to plug the leaks.

One winter, in an Appalachian valley, I learned self-reliance in a way that would have made Thoreau sweat.

One stack of books, bribed out of bargain bins, coupled with cigarettes, wrapped in paper, flavored like licorice, were forged in a bonfire to armor my suit from the inside out.

The heat in my core dropped to a point where doctors declared me dead, but I sustained myself.

It’s here in the Tampa Bay, that brackish bastard, where I met a harbormaster who looked at me in my bell as though it was nothing more than my skin.

In an effort to reach her I wandered too far from the boat and the half-sea began pouring in.

Freezing and soaking, I died again.

II. White light revives me.

Its source keeps me blind.

Overwhelmed, every atom of me excites to a vapor: In my bell, I am distilled.

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In a hole that I used to breathe from, a perfection and reduction of who I am drips out.

All that is left is love staring at its source, the harbormaster.

The pure love left makes most men OD, but I’ve been snorting rough-cut love since the second grade.

The world’s bigness I saw from a child’s eyes shrank as did my faith.

Confession taught me we’ve been bad since the beginning.

But in the beginning there was a word, and that word was, yes, love.

This is my open confession of its divinity.

I don’t have much left to believe in. And I believe.

I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately.

Outside the comfort of the bell, I surround myself in the heat of others and black coffee wondering: where is my white light?

Rain runs slantways on my skin.

I like the feeling.

I don’t need to build another bell.

With my faith changed, I am beginning to believe everything that I read and the trouble is that I have no reason not to.

Now I’m convinced that if Keats made mix tapes it would be twenty-two tracks of her voice.

I swear she saw Degas, only once.

He lit her cigarette and tried to capture her grace in paintings of a ten-year-old French ballerina.

He painted until the day he died. He couldn’t quit.

I sit at a table of strangers keeping the coffee coming and filling my lungs with smoke in an effort to exhale something other than my own breath.

I am watching dawn get passed through the ass-end of midnight as I sound my one regret: if only I could love you harder.

Quilt 35

Sunny Patina Will Stryffeler

Acrylic on Canvas

36 Quilt

Love Letter from a Trainspotter Conner McDonough Poetry

If at times it seems like I’m in awe of you, it’s because I am.

As the rails clank beneath your fury, I rush to you, never sure if those blazing rails are bringing you closer or taking you further away.

The night I came near you, on a head full of alcohol, I tried shouting to the conductor but stood beneath the tree whispering as you rushed into the humid December evening.

The poets had to carry me home that night as I sang of your speed and of your grace, and though you cloak yourself in steel and allow the cold and uncaring to board and exit, I see you as you really are: a slender speeding bullet of frenzied beauty cutting your way through the yellow fog on this orange urban night.

If I had an ocean, I’d scream my profession of love for you into the roar of cold, green waves crashing into sandy foam.

But I only have a murky river where the water is too high for me to hang my feet over the broken concrete banks, and an empty station where one day, I will board and ride the vacant rails with you into the desolate and grey January morning.

I will cling to my St. Christopher as we break through the fog of the city and into the fields ripe with sun.

Quilt 37

Into the Earth Anya Martinez Fiction

When we get to the gravesite it’s drizzling, so they’ve set up a sort of green tent over the chairs and the casket. The raindrops make small dandruff flakes on the shoulders of my black coat and iridescent pearls on my shoes. I smell the thick earthy scent of pinecones and fresh rain. It occurs to me that death isn’t at all like they play it off in the movies. When I woke up this morning I didn’t need to remind myself that my wife was gone. I didn’t roll over and reach out to her. I simply woke up and thought; Anne isn’t here anymore. Today is her funeral.

Dawn knocked on my door at seven a.m. with bagels and coffee in her hands. She’s been my friend since college. We ate slowly together in the little breakfast nook Anne designed for herself. Dawn didn’t say much. She helped me get dressed for the service and she straightened my pants. She steered me onward when I lingered in the doorway for too long, stroking my shirt with my fingers and thinking of how Anne would always redo my tie before I left for work. *** Robert drove. I sat in the passenger seat. Dawn and my parents sat in the back. Bob’s eyes were red rimmed and he gripped the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles where white.

When I first started dating Anne, Bob was completely against it. He said, ‘It’s not because she’s black, but she’s an orphan, and that brother of hers is a homophobe,’ and then he added, ‘she probably is too.’ I couldn’t forgive him for that. I was there for Bob when he came out at nineteen; I was the one he told first. I couldn’t believe he would think I could be with someone who hated him. Our fights were scary for Anne. We knew how to open each other’s wounds.

Sometimes I pretended I didn’t care but she knew how much it hurt me. One night she went over to Bob’s place, to make dinner for him and his partner, Stephen. She didn’t let me come along so I knew she was up to something. I still don’t know what happened that night, but the next day Bob called me to apologise. After that he and Anne were civil to each other and he was my best man at the wedding.

My mother cried softly in the backseat, but I could still hear her. I pulled down the sun visor and tried to catch her eye in the mirror. She was too busy dabbing at her face to even notice me. My father looked out the window. He looked older. He spent the last few months looking forward to having a grandson. The likelihood of that happening now was slim. Dawn caught my eye gave me a small smile. The sun reflected off the auburn highlights in her hair. I closed the mirror and snapped the visor back into place.

I chose a mahogany casket for Anne. Now it has those silver bars around it that they use to lower the box in into the ground.

The first thing I notice about Andy is the scratches along the left side of his face. His brown skin is has turned black and blue under his left eye. His arm is covered in bruises and hangs in a sling. His fro is cut short, maybe for the funeral, maybe because of the stitches in the back of his head, I don’t care. I didn’t expect him to come, but that’s the kind of person Andy is. In your face. Offensive. He killed my wife. I would say ‘murdered’ but the police report says it was an accident. They said he fell asleep at the wheel. I watch him put his hands on her casket and caress it a few times. I never knew anger could be so very, very tangible. My brother feels it too. He grips my shoulder and says my name once, twice. I turn away from him, I wipe my face, I put my hands on my hips, I stamp my feet, anything to try to hold back the anger floating up from my gut.

38 Quilt

About here is where Anne would say, ‘Put a lid on it, Jimmy!’ She hated my temper; she called me the stupid Irish hothead. It was probably the only thing she knew about Irish people.

When we were married, we wrote our own vows. In hers she said, ‘I promise to overlook your stupid Irish temper, if you promise to ignore what my hair looks like without my weave.’

Everyone laughed. Everyone loved her.

Andy looks up as though he feels my hatred burning his skin. He sees me. His face forms into a mask of guilt that I’ve seen before. I wonder how he could be related to Anne, much less how he could be her twin. He was such a fuckup. He drove into a tree. He was sleeping next to my wife in a car. Why didn’t she notice? Why didn’t she say something? Why didn’t she take the wheel?

My brother tugs at my arm and we move forward, up the crest of the small incline and to the gathering of people who surround Anne’s casket. Andy sits down in the row behind my father and places a hand on his shoulder for comfort. I would very much like to see him dead.

I sit in the front row seat designated for the ill tempered widower. I reach into my pocket and pull out the bottle of Xanax my doctor gave me. I went in to see him after my first night in the house without Anne. I laid on the bed sweating, and feeling as though a horse was standing on my chest. I told him I just needed something to calm me down. His eyes were sympathetic as he held out the bottle. I felt as though the Xanax was a consolation prize. Your wife is dead?

Here, have some drugs!

I make as much spit as I can in my mouth and swallow one pill, then two. I choke a little on the third. Dawn sits next to me and pats my thigh. I wonder if she still loves me the way she used to in college. I don’t even know why I thought of that. My mind is moving too fast.

The priest is Anne’s childhood crush. She was heartbroken when he joined the clergy. It was the only reason I had a shot. He married us. He was supposed to christen our child. I can’t hear a thing he’s saying. It feels like I’m deep underwater and my eardrums are slowly exploding under the pressure. My eyes are fixated on her casket; closed at my request. Bob reads the eulogy. I want to say something, but If I open my mouth I’m sure I’ll start laughing hysterically or crying, and I won’t be able to stop.

I am very aware of Andy’s presence. Almost everyone, at some point, comes to me to express their sympathy. I can feel Andy dithering about, trying to decide whether to say something me or not. Out of the corner of my eye I see him talking to my parents, to Dawn, even to my brother. I wait for him to try to talk to me. He never does. *** Anne was always an early riser. By six she’d be up making breakfast. She said it was practice for when we finally had kids. Every once in a while she would drop me a hint like: ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to build a tree house with your son?’ She even tried to sound practical about it. She said to me once at dinner, ‘Wouldn’t it be a shame if your family name were to die with you Jimmy.’ She said it in her studied offhanded voice. I stared at her while she continued to twirl her pasta into her fork and then I laughed. She laughed to. I knew she wanted to have a little girl, a carbon copy of herself to play with or to tell stories to at bedtime, but I wanted a boy.

Typical I guess. When I finally told her I was ready for kids we started trying. We had more sex in the past couple months than we had in the last three years.

Anne is this house. She’s in the walls. I see her every morning when I wake up. Her reading glasses lie face down on the night table. The glass of water she insists on leaving next to the bed every night is still full. Her hairbrush, on the dresser is threaded with her thick dark curly hair.

I see her in the bathroom; her pink Oral-B toothbrush is in the holder by the sink, right next to mine. The Colgate toothpaste she used because Crest made her gums bleed is in the medicine cabinet. Her tampons, her shaver, her body wash, all her things make me feel as though she

Quilt 39

should be here, but she’s not.

I step inside her closet, pull the doors shut and for ten minutes I just sit there breathing in her scent. I notice she has dirty laundry so I spend the rest of the day washing, folding and drying her clothes. Afterward I have a beer. The phone rings. The caller ID shows Andy’s number. I unplug the cord. I float into the living room. Every movement I make seems like floating. I float towards the television. Anne and I kept our DVD’s separate. Anything we both enjoyed we kept in the rack under the TV. Anne keeps her DVD’s in the maplewood drawers Ikea took a week to install. I open one. Everything is neatly stacked in alphabetical order, and according to genre. Anne was such a nut job. Lying face up on top of them all is ‘The Time Traveller’s Wife’, opened, without the DVD inside. My chest tightens as I realise the disc is probably in the DVD player, because it’s probably the last movie Anne ever watched. I didn’t watch it with her because I’m jealous of Eric Bana. Now I put it on and watch it through once, then twice.

The next morning I go down to the garage to visit my girl. I’ve had this bike since college. It’s a gorgeous Suzuki Boulevard with a five speed transmission, and a wicked chrome guard. Fuck buying American. These days she’s sitting in the garage in perfect condition, alone. I haven’t ridden her in months. I pull off the old tarp covering and inspect her from the side. Her name is Madeline. Don’t ask me why. I was probably drunk when I had her name painted on to her left side. The leather is curling in a couple places on the seat, but the gas is full and she’s ready to go. I drape the tarp over her again and give her a pat. Then I leave her alone.

Four weeks go by slowly. I hadn’t taken a vacation in three years, so my boss says he doesn’t want to see my face till next month. I think about Anne constantly. Andy’s tried to call three times since the funeral. The thought of speaking to him makes me want to vomit, or break things. I often think about his death. I imagine a car crash and a windshield shattering into pieces, splintering his face. I imagine him being catapulted out of the car and landing two feet away, like Anne was. I think about what it would have been like if I went to his funeral three weeks ago. Anne would have been sad, but she would have had me to comfort her. I shake my head. That kind of thinking is what usually gets me into trouble. *** Dawn shows up on a Friday morning at nine. I answer the door in my sweats and a soy sauce stained T-shirt.

‘Jesus, look at you,’ she says. She reaches out a hand to fix my hair but I step back and her arm drops mid air. She holds up the bag she’d been hiding behind her back.

‘I brought you breakfast,’ she says, ‘are you going to let me in?’

I step aside and she walks in, observing the mess in the hallway, in the living room and finally in the kitchen.

She pushes aside the open boxes of stale Chinese food on the little kitchen island I designed for Anne. She sets her Starbucks bag down and looks at me.

‘Jimmy, if you need some help around the house, I can come over sometimes,’ she says.

‘I’m fine,’ I start throwing the boxes in the bin. ‘Besides, I’m going to hire someone to clean up. It’ll be fine.’

Dawn looks at me sceptically, but starts unpacking the food from her bag.

‘Okay, I brought you a chocolate chip muffin, I know you like those, and one of the Izze drinks you love. Raspberry right?’

She holds out the raspberry drink hopefully. Pomegranate is my favourite, but I take the bottle anyway. I uncap it and take a sip. It’s disgusting. I smile at her and set it down on the island.

She sits on one of the barstools and unpacks her stuff: an egg salad sandwich and water. I

40 Quilt

sit on the stool next to her and pick at my muffin. After a few minutes, things start feeling awkward so I turn to her and ask, ‘What are you doing here Dawn, really?’

She wipes a bit of hardboiled egg whites from the corner of her mouth and swallows a few times.

‘I just—I wanted to make sure you were okay.’

I pull off a chocolate chip from the top of my muffin.

‘And that’s it, there’s nothing more?’ I ask quietly.

She blinks rapidly, and twin pink roses spring up on her cheeks.

‘No. I mean, I’m your friend and I love you I just want to help.’

She says the last few words very quietly then stares at the countertop. She’s starting to make me feel a little guilty, so I decide to drop it.

‘So,’ I say, after clearing my throat, ‘how’s work been going without me?’

‘Works been fine—look—I—I’m sorry if I’m sending you the wrong signals,’ she says, spreading her palms on the counter top, ‘I’m not going to pretend like my feelings for you don’t exist, but you’re still my friend Jim, and that’s what you need right now.’

‘Dawn—’ ‘Don’t do that. Don’t feel sorry for me. And stop making the elephant in the room bigger than it is. You know how I feel; now let’s just forget about it and move on.’

‘Look Dawn,’ I begin, ‘I’m a man alright? You can’t say stuff like that and not expect things to get heavy. You were right, what I need right now is a friend, not—complications.’

Somewhere in the middle of my speech she got up and started packing her things. Now she’s standing with her purse in her hand, staring at me like I’m this really mean person, which I’m not, so that just pisses me off.

She says, ‘I’m just gonna go, alright?’

‘Don’t be dramatic Dawn.’

She takes a quick breath, ‘Bye Jim.’ I trail behind her as she walks into the hallway and straight for the front door. I don’t say anything, because I’m getting what I want, but I feel a little shitty so I’m trying to think of something nice to say. At the same time I’m still pissed off because, isn’t it just like a woman to make you feel bad for not wanting to fuck her a month after you’ve buried your wife.

She opens the door and stands with her back to me for a minute, turns around and says, ‘If you need anything, call me,’ then she leaves. I stand in the hallway for a moment, and then turn to the long brass framed mirror on the left. It was a hideous thing Anne got from a thrift store in the city. My reflection looks the same, which I find amazing. If I were to really reflect how I’ve been feeling the last few weeks I‘d be gray haired, wrinkled, red-eyed and shrunken.

Instead my red hair is just as obnoxious as it’s always been, sticking up at every angle, the whites of my eyes are still white, my irises are still blue and I’m still six foot one. The human body and its fucking miracles.

That evening I charge my blackberry for the first time in two weeks. The little red light comes on and I power it up to see if I have any missed calls. Twenty-nine. Twenty-nine missed calls. For Christ sake, who the fuck calls—oh, shit. I unplugged the landline like a month ago.

My mother must be going insane back in Boston. I’m surprised off my ass that she didn’t fly down here. And Robert or Stephen. Shite. I look through my call log, and as I expect there are ten calls from my mom’s cell phone, four from her land line, two from my dad’s cell phone, six from Robert’s cell, two from Stephen’s cell, who was in England for God’s sake. And five more.

From Andy.

I plug back in the landline and after two minutes it rings. My mother. After spending a half

Quilt 41

an hour convincing her that no, I’m not suicidal and that yes, I am eating regularly, I spend the rest of the night catching up with everybody else. Then I contemplate how to deal with Andy. I could call him back or send him a text, or leave him a voice message saying ‘Don’t ever fucking call me again.’ But I know I won’t have to call him because I know he’ll call again.

And when he does at midnight, I answer as neutrally as I can.

I say, ‘Hello?’

He says, ‘Jimmy?’

That’s as long as it takes for me to lose my patience.

‘Who else would it be asshole?’ I ask.

I sit in the huge leather sofa Anne and I got as a wedding present from my parents.

‘I didn’t expect you to answer,’ he says quickly, ‘I’m sorry I’m calling so late.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I just want to talk to you. You haven’t spoken to me at all or- asked me about anything.’

‘That’s because I really don’t want the details on how you killed my wife Andrew.’

There’s a long pause on the phone, and after a minute I realise he’s crying.

‘Jim, can I come over?’ he asks. His voice sounds like he’s pinching his nose.

I don’t say anything.

‘I just want to talk to you.’

You know those times when you drive over a bump in the road and your stomach kind of flips? That’s what my stomach feels like right now. Like I’m racing over a million speed bumps and then taking off in a plane.

‘Jim?’ ‘Come over to the house,’ I say suddenly.

‘Now?’ ‘Yeah, come over.’

Andy sounds nervous. He should be. ‘Ok. I’ll be right there.’

He hangs up. I put the phone down and stare at my reflection in the television. *** He makes the drive in twenty minutes. When he knocks on my door I take a few deep breaths before opening it and after I open it, I don’t wait for him to come in; I just walk down the hall and make a left into the living room. If I took a right, I’d be leading him down the hallway and into the kitchen. I didn’t want him going in there. That was Anne’s place. It’s also where we keep a lot of knives. I feel Andy walking behind me, breathing heavily as he usually does. He’s had a sinus condition since he was twelve. I know these things. I know these things about Andy because Anne knew them. He was my brother.

I gesture to the couch and Andy sits. I sit in the arm chair facing him and we stare at each other stupidly for a few minutes. Andy’s keeping his hair short these days. Probably because of his new job. He works as an assistant librarian in the city library. I got him that job.

‘What do you want Andy?’

He opens his mouth and then closes it quickly. I jump out of the chair and start pacing. I can feel him tracking me with his eyes.

‘I just.’ He says, ‘I wanted to talk to you. I know you’re—I know you blame me for everything.

I just. I guess I wanted to explain things a little. There’s something I think you should know.’

I turn to him with my arms on my hips in a fair impression of my father. I don’t say anything, so he continues.

‘I wasn’t drunk. I wasn’t high. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I—She—I had a long day at work and I was studying for my finals the night before, but she called me from the restaurant.

You were at work. She asked me to pick her up.’

42 Quilt

‘Why didn’t you tell her you couldn’t drive? That’s what smart people do Andy.’

‘It was an emergency. She was—I think she was—She was bleeding. She wasn’t supposed to be. I knew you guys were trying for a baby. She called me to take her to the hospital. She was pregnant Jim. I think she had a miscarriage.’

Breathe dammit.

I take a deep breath. ‘She what?’

‘She didn’t tell you because she’d been having some problems. She was worried about the baby. I knew how much you guys wanted a baby, so I kept her secret. She only knew for maybe two weeks, and then that night happened. I’d never been so tired before Jim. I didn’t think I would fall asleep, but I closed my eyes for just a second. Just a second, and I lost control. I—’ ‘Stop. Talking.’

I walk out of the living room, down the narrow hallway to the kitchen and destroy the cabinetry looking for a bottle of rum, vodka, anything.

Jim Bean. I drop myself at the barstool and drink from the bottle. I keep swallowing until I feel Andy pull at my hand to try to get me to stop. The bottle falls to the floor and shatters. A puddle of whiskey lies on the white tile. It’s shaped like a mushroom. I stare at it, nonplussed.

Andy takes a few steps back from me. I lunge for him. I grab onto his neck with both hands and squeeze as hard as I can. Then I let go. I feel an urge to apologise. I don’t. I punch him really hard instead. He tries to block me but I am taller and bigger. I take another swing and I hear his nose crunch. Drops of blood mix with the whiskey on the floor. I step on a piece of glass and loose my footing. I fall backward and hit my head hard on the counter before landing on the floor. Andy uses my confusion to jump on top of me and hold my arms down. I can hear him screaming, ‘I loved her too you asshole! I loved her too!’ but it feels like he’s far away.

The fight drains out of me like the blood seeping out of the back of my head or like the blood pouring out of Andy’s nose and onto my shirt. I stop struggling with him and he sits up. I sit up and the world slides to the left, then to the right. I close my eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

‘So am I.’ I look at him. His face is frightened and bloody and I remember that he’s just a kid.

‘You should leave,’ I say.

‘Jim, you need to go to a hospital.’

I feel the back of my skull with my hand and it comes back bloody. ‘I’ll call someone.’

Andy gets up and looks around at the mess.

‘Do you want me to—?’

‘Just go Andy.’

He leaves.

I lay down on the floor just for a minute. Just to close my eyes. *** I wake up in the emergency room and Dawn is sitting next to my bed reading a magazine.

Andy must have called 911 before he left. My head is thickly bandaged.

‘They’re worried about a concussion,’ Dawn says without looking up.

‘How long have I been in here?’

Dawn puts down the magazine and looks at me; I can tell she’s still annoyed about Friday morning, but she’s also very worried.

‘It’s three o’clock on Saturday. You’ve been sleeping for hours. We’ve been really worried.’

‘We?’ ‘The doctors and I’ ‘When do I get to leave?’

Quilt 43

‘When your doctor says you can leave.’

She holds up her magazine again and sits back in her chair. I lie back down on the covers and stare at the ceiling. Then I remember. For two weeks, maybe more, I was a father. *** I didn’t have a concussion. I was just tired as hell. On the drive home that night, Dawn is restless behind the wheel. She glances at me a couple times and taps the wheel with her nails.

She keeps looking in the rear-view mirror for something behind us.

‘Would you just come out with it already?’ I ask.

‘What? No—I don’t have anything to say. This just feels weird- being around you.’

‘Ah.’ She takes the wrong exit and we spend twenty minutes trying to get back onto the freeway.

When we get home she fusses over getting me out of the car and safely into the house. I tell her I’m fine, but she still insists on holding onto my arm and walking me to the door. She takes the keys from me and unlocks it and then she walks me to the kitchen.

‘Did you clean up?’ I ask.

‘No, that was Andy.’

‘Oh.’ I sit on the barstool and rest my elbows on the kitchen island. I stare straight ahead at the fridge thinking about the night before and how I attacked my wife’s brother. I rest my forehead on the cool marble tile.

‘Do you want me to make you something?’ Dawn asks.

I make a sound in my throat which she can take as either assent or denial. I don’t care. I feel like there’s too much happening in too short a space of time. How simple is forgiveness?

Should I just forgive Anne for not telling me about the baby? Should I just forgive Andy for killing her? Is a person capable of such things? Jesus maybe. Look what happened to him. Fuck, I’m turning into one of those emo kids on T.V. A cloud of dust rises up in my throat. It makes me cough a gasping sort of breath. My face is also wet. I didn’t cry at the funeral, but here I am having a breakdown in my kitchen. How very maudlin.

I feel a hand on my back rubbing in slow circles. I’d forgotten Dawn was here. I lift my head and she’s sitting next to me on the barstool, facing me. Her hand touches my cheek tentatively and when I don’t protest, she cups my face with both palms and wipes under my eyes with her thumbs. All the while she’s doing this; I’m staring into her brown eyes and seeing nothing of Anne, but everything of a woman. And any woman can be compared to Anne. Anne’s eyes were darker and her lashes were thicker. Dawn’s skin is pale but Anne’s was brown. Dawn has a mole above her mouth. She licks her lips nervously and for a moment it disappears behind the red of her tongue. I lean in first. Our lips brush the slightest and then I hear the scratch of the stool’s wooden leg on the tile as she pulls herself closer and kisses me firmly. Her lips are soft, like Anne’s. Like any woman’s.

She slides off the barstool and stands. She leans into me, keeping her lips on mine, moving them slowly and opening them with her tongue. My hands make their way up her back and into her hair which is nothing like Anne’s. She pulls away and looks at me nervously. I don’t say anything, but I stand up and pull off my shirt. She pulls off hers. Her bra is beige and uninteresting. Anne had a birthmark the shape of Panama between her breasts. Dawn let’s her hair fall down around her shoulders. It’s redder than I thought it was. She walks close to me and kisses me again. I turn us both around and she hoists herself up to sit on the island’s surface but her mouth never leaves mine. She reaches for my jeans and unbuttons them. I help her out by undoing the zipper and I push them down to the floor. Then I pull off my briefs.

She unhooks her bra, takes it off and tosses it aside. The metal hooks make soft clicking noises

44 Quilt

on the tiles when it falls. Her breasts are stark white and her pink nipples are the size of small communion wafers. She guides my hands to her chest, as if I’m a twelve year old and then runs her hands through my hair. I stroke her sides with my fingertips and then I undo the button of her jeans. I pull the zipper downwards. She lifts her hips and I slide her jeans and panties off.

We’re both naked now. There’s no reason to stop. I lean in and kiss her hard. She gasps. I play with her nipples as she buries her face at the side of my neck and makes a small sound. She licks at my pulse, which is something I love.

There isn’t much more foreplay. When I enter her she arches her back and digs her nails into my shoulders. It doesn’t take very long for both of us to come. She takes a few quick puffy breaths and then lies flat on her back. I straighten up and pull on my jeans and take a few steps backward. I lean on the counter behind me and watch her lying naked on the kitchen island I designed for Anne. She sits up and looks around for her clothes. She isn’t modest about her body. She pulls on her panties as I watch. She gives me a look as she hooks her bra.

She says, ‘Say something.’

I don’t. She pulls on her jeans and her shirt, then she sits on a stool and stares at me. I fold my arms across my chest and look away.

‘Jimmy, I’m not leaving until you say something.’

I know whatever I say is going to make me sound like an asshole, so I say the first thing that comes to mind.

I ask, ‘Can you leave?’

Her face pales.

‘I don’t mean to be a prick,’ I say, ‘but I just need you to leave. For now. I’ll call you tomorrow, and then we can talk.’

She wants to argue, I know it, but she’s smart enough to know she’s just fucked a widow, and that’s complicated. She picks up her car keys from by the sink, walks around the island and stands in the archway leading into the hall.

‘Eat something,’ she says, ‘and call me in the morning.’

‘Will do,’ I say.

And then she leaves. *** I’m not supposed to be operating heavy machinery, but at six a.m. I take Madeline out on the highway. I usually don’t wear a helmet, I love the feel of the wind in my hair, but this time I do.

After a half an hour of not knowing where I’m going, I realise where I’d been heading all along.

I take the exit onto Keats Street and drive up to Lake Arden. There’s a small bike lot so I park Madeline and jump off. I pull off my helmet and sunglasses and walk up the narrow pathway in the bushes that leads to the water. Anne and I picnicked here once or twice. It’s cold, so I pull my collar up and haunch my shoulders. God knows why people think that works.

Why in the hell did I sleep with Dawn? That’s the thought that’s been running through my head all day. Was it to make myself feel bad? To get back at Anne? Anne’s dead you dumb shit.

She’s dead.

Anne’s dead.

I take a few gulps of air, but it still feels like I can’t breathe. I drop down onto the black sand and sit cross-legged. I dig my fingers in the ground and the stones are very sharp. I’m crying, again. I’m turning into some type of fucking psychopath or drama queen. Crying all the time. Doing stupid things. What the fuck am I going to do about Dawn? Call her? Apologise for giving her what she wanted? That’s all I can do. We can’t see each other. That’s out of the question.

And then there was Andy. I haven’t even allowed myself to even think about him, but

Quilt 45

suddenly I remember him yelling over and over, ‘I loved her too!’ I should call him, but I’m still so fucking angry. I’m angry with her. I wish she was here to tell me what to do.

A soft wave laps at the shore, making the stones roll back and forth. I look up and there’s a man in the fog, on a boat. For some reason he’s fishing. He wasn’t there a second ago. Maybe I just missed him. He waves and I wave back. I feel a little foolish waving. My phone vibrates.

I’m sure it’s Dawn. I pick myself off the ground and dust off my jeans. I stare at the fisherman for a while longer and then I turn and walk back up the path to the bike. I tell myself I’ll give both Andy and Dawn a call when I get home, then I gun the engine and take off in the opposite direction.

46 Quilt

The House

Laura Theobald Poetry

The house falls down and no one notices.

Out back, the boys are drilling more holes, hanging dry wall on thin air, making a ruckus, painting in long careful strokes. The wind has changed, but kept the same sound, asserting an illusion of sameness. At the disaster site, Jamie dutifully powders her face: eyeshadow, blush, a swipe of mascara. She drops one rouged tissue that balances on the rim of an empty wastebasket in slow motion. A ladybug appears on her shirtsleeve.

She whispers and it flies away home.

Quilt 47

I hope tonight, sleep hits me like death Philippa Hatendi First Place—Creative Non-Fiction

The day had been good. I had had a hot dog; I remember the sour, hot taste of the mustard as it sat on top of that juicy dog...I remember the cold, slick descent of the smoothie as it slithered down my throat. I remember listening to a friend tell me about letters; I remember watching a cartoon...I remember wanting to pass out. But mostly, I remember the smile on his face (the one he kept for me) when I walked into his room...oblivious to the detour that was about to send me crashing over the jagged cliff edge into the water.

“The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves. Until one day there are none,” I whispered.

These words had touched me before I even knew what it meant for a heart to die. Sure, hearts do break and mine has once or twice before, but this is more than heartbreak, this is more than pain...this emptiness could swallow the world. Why does it feel like this, this time?

I sat in the stairwell outside his room, unable to breathe, unable to move, and I couldn’t help but recollect the nights...all the nights when I laid under him. Tonight, as I shed the cotton camisole, and all the things that came before it, on top of it, under it, I felt as though, finally, I was taking a chance at redemption...a taste of normalcy...of hope. When his hands followed the trail the cotton left behind, I felt warmth...what lush deception.

But, as I walked through the cold night, the metal tip of my umbrella scratching the pavement, I realized perhaps I wasn’t meant for that. Perhaps...okay, not perhaps...certainly, he was not meant for me.

To be out of the ordinary is a blessing in some spheres, in others...it is a curse upon oneself, upon myself, upon my core, the sealed rosebud, the inner sanctum of womanhood that’s caged, repressed. The way I felt inside at that touch, the little shivers screaming through my system, was the way that I had always longed to feel but had never mastered. The way I had always dreamed I would feel, soaring so high that all the universe bloomed beneath my weightless feet.

I felt brave, courage taking the reins of my frightened soul and whipping me forward, urging me to explore, to savor, to taste a world I had always wanted to know. My body sensed his coming before I even saw his face, my heart skipped, feet floundered, breath closed the door to words. Maybe somewhere in the midst of the flurry, of the heat, I knew his departure was imminent...that the end was nigh. I could trust in that, even if I never had trusted him.

To care for someone, to shed your barriers like a tree in autumn, to watch them fall and crinkle at your feet is in itself a grand feat. I have always heard it said that to open oneself, to unfurl the petals of that pink and succulent flower, is to possess the courage of a warrior...living with the knowledge you have the strength to endure it all...even when it goes to shit.

I cared.

I did. I cared!

48 Quilt

I walk aimlessly, the puddles wetting my shoes, listening to the click of a girl’s heels as she goes past me. A boy follows after her, lapping affectionately at her heels as she sways before him. The boy is boisterous, bright, filled with anticipation for the night to begin...literally bursting, a smile slides across his face...I’m sure he’d stolen many a heart. Those two reminded me of him and I, he lapped at my beaded heels, sighed at flesh, stretched pin-point...so ready to snap, so ready to take. Now, as I look back at his window it somehow feels colder...

Even as I sit here writing this, my fingers skittering across the black keys, I feel nothing, like the chords within my very depths remain untouched, unchanged—doesn’t sadness have a sound? Not the silent trail of teardrops, not the hurried, clumsy steps of an escapee...but a sound, a scream, a cry? Doesn’t it wrench at you, tear at you, split you in two? So why am I still whole? Why am I still here...feeling nothing? He couldn’t do it anymore, he couldn’t try.

Those were the words...or something like them. Nevertheless it’s just semantics...but even with those semantics the message was clear; the time that was allotted to presumably be wasted on me was finally up.

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick fucking tock ...

It’s Over.

So where is the Reaper? Grim as he is, his joy emanates from finding a bare, frail neck on which to hang his noose...he can hang it here. Hanging it here, pull the ground out beneath me and hopefully my neck will S N A P What a nice, easy departure it would make.

1. No blood on the cream, linoleum tiles of my dorm room...

2. No mess.

3. No fuss.

My mother tells me he was not worthy of me. Fair enough. I agree. We were not worthy of each other.

But as I stand in the shower, water spilling over my head and scalding me I think: Doesn’t make it suck any less.

Replaying his words in my head, their finality rusting on the edges of my frayed thoughts.

Quilt 49

Repeat. Stop. Wind. Pause.

Over and over, wearing out my mind.

I look down at the drain-hole, all his malevolence swirling at my feet, greedily at my feet. I hope that he will drain out of me, too.

In this astral plane, this concrete castle, with its banners bleeding red and blue...in this second world that they call “college” there is no one left to care for the wounded, the fallen, the broken. A battlefield strewn with unburied dead, corpses rotting with maggots, all dead from the lusts of the flesh, from the greed that comes from thinking you desire to conquer a heart...’til you realize it was always barren.

That’s what killed them...there was nothing there for them in the end.

Like him...and I. I’m shedding...

Maybe one day I will be a butterfly, But not today.

My eyelids are heavy....

Head and pillow collide, blankets lie over me...

I hope tonight sleep hits me like death.

50 Quilt

Dark Aster and Dogwood Derrick Austin Poetry

wisdom comes wrapped up in double folds…

—Job 11:6 I sing until sorrow transforms into light and rain. My breath unfurls like a rug, dust flitting, then glistening gold dust under a wax sun. This absence is a garden trail. I wander through clotheslines feeling for his shape.

Shirts quiver, strung end to end like our calendar days.

Dark asters cut rogue paths.

The double sadness in his shoelaces, his black ties, I almost unknot.

Dogwoods and their decrepit pinks weary of sowing: they do not know they are trees. My hand runs down his windbreaker’s lining. Air fills the clothes, useless as the sun.

Quilt 51

Sagauche Drive-In Conner McDonough Poetry

There’s a place out West, just north of Alamosa along that dead stretch of Highway 17, snaking past Saguache, where the old Indians go to die.

They crawl down from La Garita and through the chico brush to the lot of the Saguache Drive-In, collapsed into a broken ribcage of splintered pine and torn canvas.

Lions from the Old West, exiled from their pride and roaming the earthen plains, sharpening their claws against the grit of a lost identity.

Crawl, crawl past the black dogs into the sun-baked and heat-cracked adobe, Chief, and prop yourself into that old dusty oak chair.

Let that weary skeleton look out on that sea of golden shortgrass.

I’ll stand with the young Ute out by the dead tracks, leaning against the sandblasted husks of old freight cars and slick my hair back with petrol like the rest of them, and cheat death by flicking cigarette butts into the sand.

I’ll kick through the empty lot of the drive-in and watch a Mexican funeral procession into the cemetery with headstones like chipped teeth biting through the earth as I rest against a shattered fresco of Lee Van Cleef, using my hand for an ashtray.

The old Indians rise from the greasewood and blue grama, the wind roaring down from Poncha Pass at their backs, and that bone-colored moon burns shadows into the sand.

Even the dogs around here don’t howl anymore; they know people don’t stay here for very long.

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Nun 1

Julia Ponzek Latex on Linoleum

Quilt 53

No Truth in Beauty Kristi Russell

Honorable Mention—Fiction

In the small town of Everett, Kansas, everyone is a liar. They didn’t begin their lives as liars, or learn to be liars from watching their brothers and sisters. The lying began when 15-year old Katy Stern told a particularly untrue story about Brian Finch to a group of rapt teenage girls. In the middle of the lie, Katy’s chest made an audible pop, and, with no apparent pain, a very well-developed set of breasts adorned her formerly waiflike frame. The girls drew back in shock, not without envy.

Within the hour, the story was all over town. Doctors found nothing wrong with Katy, other than her hesitation in leaving her room, where she was admiring her new form from all angles.

By the next day, there were two more cases. Ethel Birnbaugh, while gossiping at Sue’s Cut N’Curl, was flabbergasted when her nose ridge—from fifty-odd years of wearing glasses— smoothed out with an odd little buzz. And, after poker night with his friends, Fred Stymenson woke to find that the pelt of hair normally present on his back had mysteriously disappeared during the night.

Spontaneous beautification, as the townspeople called the phenomenon, was soon happening in every household. Nails bitten to the nubs were made long in an instant. A few women, sitting down on what sounded like whoopee cushions, stood up to find new curves where flat derrieres used to be. Some men began wearing tighter pants to showcase the enhancements they couldn’t quite advertise publicly.

The people didn’t take long to figure out that beautification immediately followed a lie.

As a result, those who normally resisted the temptation could now not control the impulse to improve their physical appearance. Reverend Showalter showed up in the pulpit one Sunday, sheepishly sporting a full head of white hair where an appalling comb-over once sat.

Conversations became punctuated with expectant pauses—liars waiting to be beautified.

As the weeks wore on, however, there were rumbles of dissatisfaction. Some had been beautified twice, while others had not been beautified at all—no matter how often or how outrageously they lied. The beautification that occurred couldn’t be anticipated—Sharon Ambrose, with her lazy eye, lied and lied but only succeeded in eliminating nostril hair and a few varicose veins. Nor did the beautification relate to the lie that was told, as Angus Conway found out. After spinning a few tales about having won a Guinness World Record for number of freckles and secretly hoping that beautification would cause them to disappear, he instead found himself a full shoe size smaller.

A few unlucky folks were visited with the same beautification on more than one occasion— like Katy, whose mother was researching plastic surgeons to reduce the size of her daughter’s now EEE breasts. Jealous girls who hadn’t yet been beautified were becoming cruel, taunting Katy with the name “Boobinochio” as she teetered by them at school.

Some folks avoided telling lies. They even avoided talking to anyone for fear of the tiny little fibs that everyone tells from time to time causing disproportionate beautification, like postal carrier Gloria Newberry’s habit of answering that she was fine to everyone’s howdy-dos.

Gloria’s pretty red hair grew an angry four inches at nearly every mail stop, until she learned to wave or nod instead.

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Visitors to town discovered beautification, with no help from the now taciturn townspeople.

Then they filled the streets with idle chatter as they attempted to become beautiful liars. But even they soon realized the arbitrary nature of beautification. Sam Hodges, owner of the town’s only hotel, reported incidents of a blind girl with disappearing acne, tall men with their legs stretched three inches overnight while their short friends got one-inch waist reductions, and a lady with one arm whose bowed back straightened in mid-step with a very loud crack. The wary town scrutinized Sam as he spoke, watching for the telltale signs of exaggeration—but he only told the truth. *** Over time they all grew to distrust the varying effect of their lies. They talked to each other less and less. Nell’s Coffee Shop rustled with the sound of newspaper pages being turned, but the only voices were those of people placing their orders. Husbands and wives stopped saying, “I love you.” Children opted for spankings instead of blaming their siblings for things found broken. Girlfriends no longer asked each other if their clothing made them look fat.

Today in Everett, everyone is a liar, and no one speaks a word.

Quilt 55

Yesterday

Stephanie Selander Fiction

Let’s face it: nobody expects to marry their high school sweetheart. Nobody says yes to the jock with freckles on his nose thinking, hey, this could be my kids’ future father. In high school, you don’t even want to have future kids. The relationships you forge then are malleable: easily changed, easily reformed. Break-ups happen every other second. Rebounds fill in the time gaps.

So I’d be lying if I said I’d believed that Zack and I would remain in some adolescent fantasyland forever and always, come time or come fate. Still, that doesn’t mean I expected it to ever fall apart.

But last night happened. No matter how I try to rationalize it, I, Ivy Reynolds, broke up with the guy I’d called my boyfriend for two whole years. Two years. People get married after time periods like that. You get a lot of arguments in two years, and they all could have led up to this moment—but you know, they didn’t. Maybe that’s the shocking thing. No argument did this to me. I did this to us.

I’d never noticed before how quiet the school got when all those cars left. Guess I never stuck around long enough. It’s funny how many people you watch leave, though—how many of those students have you really spoken to, laughed with, told your name to, even? We all run out of this building as fast as we can to our trucks, our vans, our expensive Porsches that our rich daddies bought us, or our sputtering Volkswagens that we bought ourselves. We don’t stop and just sit on a school bench, wondering why time does the exact same thing to us every single day.

I had my routine, too. Everyone at this school probably knew it, I guess—how do you miss a Harley in your school’s driving circle? I admit it: I kinda liked the attention, deep down. I liked people watching me, the invisible girl in anatomy class, hugging a tall dark stranger close as we sped off down the street on a fast set of wheels.

There aren’t going to be anymore Harleys here for a long, long while.

People love to bother you when a break-up occurs. It’s like, poof, suddenly you’re interesting.

Was he cheating on you? Were you cheating on him? Is he moving way? Was he abusive? Did you have a fight? Is he failing senior year over at Central? Nobody ever thinks, ‘oh, maybe it was just time to end things.’

Well, I know I didn’t think it.

Do most people plan break-ups? Do they? Is there some percentage somewhere: ninety-five percent of girls plan to break up with their boyfriend before college? Something like that?

Whatever, I can honestly say I never planned any of this. Do you plan when to grow up, too?

I think hormones have expiration dates. They can rage all they like, but someday, they just dull in the favor of jaded logic. See, love’s like that, too. The passionate kind, anyway. The hormones click off, and suddenly you realize all you’re holding close is a boy, and all you are in his arms is a girl. The other kind of love is the comfortable kind, where you feel safe, fuzzy, and secure. Like a pair of slippers. That kind lasts longer, and that’s where Zack and I were. But lately the slippers haven’t fit. They’ve worn out.

“I don’t want to think about the future. I just want to live, you know?”

I’m sorry, but who says that? Maybe I did, in the years past, but what is living without the future? The future can be fixing people’s cars for a living, or raising tons and tons of kids, or

56 Quilt

being a Carmelite nun. It can be community college, no college, travel abroad, internships, living with your parents. It can be anything if you let it—but to just let it sit there, stagnant and unmoving? That’s not living. At least, not how I want to live.

Zack, though, likes the haze of uncertainty. I guess I forgot that. I guess I assumed that people matured at the same rates, if they happened to be in the same room. See, I—I actually wonder about what I want my future to be. I’m okay with opening up possibilities, and you know, I’m leaning lots of different ways. Psychology, for one. The human mind is so complex, so full of mystery and invitation—but it’s easier to call people stupid, genius, or normal. Why should we care about how people feel? Why should put stock in the mind over the body?

Why care at all?

Some people point to religion, some to science, some to the world around us. I suppose you could just call me curious. I like knowing things, I like figuring them out, and I like fixing them. Life isn’t fair, but if you could make it easier for even one person, isn’t that something?

Aren’t you balancing the scales a bit?

“Stop getting so defensive. I’m not trying to offend anyone, Ivy, but come on. People make their own messes, alright? I’m just saying that getting stuck in them is just making it your mess, too.”

Is that so wrong, though?

Plans change over time. Me, I could’ve rattled off all the jobs I planned to apply to once I busted out of school once and for all. No college for me. No wasted money and no wasted school time. That was before I started thinking outside my little world. That was before…

Well, the coast is clear now. I stand up, and I look down at my own bike: short, tiny, and armed with a little bell on the handle. No motors, no gas. Yet I can say that it’s my bike: my own ride home, complete with basket. The seat wobbles beneath me, and I blow my mousy brown hair from my eyes as the helmet tilts to the left. The pedals move like clockwork: round and round, slow but steady. As I look about me, the world doesn’t pass by in a blur like I’m used to, but patiently watches me go by with each turn I take. Everything is green here; everything is new and beautiful.

You want to know something? I’m not hurt. I’m really, really not. There’s an ache inside of me, yes, but it’s a good kind—a promising kind. Do I miss Zack? Absolutely. Do I miss knowing when I’m coming home, and knowing who I can call when life shows its ugly side?

Yes. But, God, have I ever felt so free? Have I ever studied the leaves on the trees, or the sound of the wind, or how beautiful the sky looks just before sunset? Have I ever just—just stopped to breathe in the life I have?

Zack used to speed past the cemetery, but I can see it today. The stones are all mismatched: tall, short, stout, long. Some look kind of lonely, but others—newer—are strewn with flowers the colors of snow and sunshine. A visitor stands beside one such bare patch. I pause a bit, and it strikes me that I know the man standing nearest to the gate; he works on the construction site down my street. My dad went with me to give his crew lemonade, once. Today, he doesn’t see me at all, wiping his eyes on his sleeve and looking far younger than his years.

I’m not sure why I’m about to do what I am, but I can feel my pedals slowing.

“Hey, uh…Sir?” His eyes lift themselves to mine, and I stare at him right back, not daring to smile nor frown. This man’s name is foreign to me, and mine to him, but something links us in this one moment that causes me to park my bike. I clear my throat and walk closer, heart beating faster than a Harley flying down the road. I extend my hand forward, and say, weakly, “Uh. You, um, look like you could use some flowers for someone. And…I don’t think my mom will mind sharing hers today.”

What connects everyone in the world is simple: life. Your heart beats, and so does mine—it’s

Quilt 57

the rhythm of the earth. We can spend that life however we want to. We can hate, we can love; we can give, and we can take. But I’ve done so much hating already, and I’ve given up far too much time. I’ve complained over other people’s choices, and spited myself by cheating my own. Things don’t have to remain at a standstill, though. Hate is a dead thing, and I want to live.

So, I guess, a bouquet of roses and a bicycle are as good a start as any.

58 Quilt

Legionnaire’s Prayer Cody Waters Poetry

Our Mother Who art wherever Uncommonly Greek be thy name.

And you’re not our mother, either.

If thy cabals come, Thy will might be done If we feel like it, Whenever.

Give us this day our hot dog buns And forgive us for eating them, Though we are sure you do not care.

Lead us into temptation And deliver us a pizza, For thine is the Apple And the chaos And the Phhhbbtbtb-sound raspberries make Forever. Or not.

Awomen.

Quilt 59

Another Inch of Coffee, Please Ashley Eakin Poetry

Contrary to popular belief it is not the american dream to shoot up desperately in the public restroom of the local doughnut shop.

60 Quilt

Untitled

Amanda Pulham Oil on Canvas

Quilt 61

Learning to See Derrick Austin

Honorable Mention—Creative Non-Fiction

“To look life in the face, always to look life in the face, and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away.” –The Hours, Michael Cunningham He didn’t mean to wake up at 6:45 a.m. It just happened. Maybe it was his roommates’ shuffling and abrasive whispers, or, as he later believed, perhaps a sign—it was meant to happen.

He liked believing in signs. They gave him an excuse to be passive. So rather than attempt sleep again—which never worked anyway—he threw on a t-shirt and crimson track pants, then trudged toward Plant Hall, the campus’s main building. The sky was cobalt, almost bluegreen like standing water. Moss covered oaks etched themselves against the dark, purposefully standing—the day had arranged itself: checks cut and mailed, papers graded. Everyone’s day allotted.

But he didn’t notice that much. Just the green leaves and the intractable sky and a lone jogger wired out of the world, an iPod on her arm like an IV. Students buzzed by him in pajama pants.

Some hauled cardboard signs. Massive lights washed Plant Hall’s silver minarets and brick façade. Cameramen danced over cables. Middle-aged women swooned over Al Roker. Charlie Crist was a leather purse.

The young man cringed. The Today Show was filming on campus. It was Tuesday morning, election season, and a man carried a large Al Roker puppet. Life was too public. He sighed, and breathed the spectacle. There were, of course, Women for Palin and a legion of young Democrats, their signs demanding an end to the war—Enough death! Bring our troops home!

That was their mission. Panning the crowd for the crane shot, the camera distilled them into screams as if an angel hovered above them. Despite war and a need for healthcare reform, how often would they be given a chance with the camera? Have their joy immortalized?

Weirdness aside, he enjoyed himself—there was a reason for being awake so early. The white sun clothespinned heat across campus like fresh laundry. He walked toward the library, avoiding the caffeinated crowd. Climbing the stairs to the second floor, his footsteps echoed— click, click; solemn. One woman at her computer populated the second floor. Hours existed between him and his first class, so he nestled in a book on Georgia O’Keefe, its corners marked by dark green ink. Too early to indulge in poetry or a novel, words fell through his airy brain.

An art book would do.

He was a kid again, not reading really, just looking at the pictures. A quick sketch in black ink: a melting woman, full lips, narrow shoulders, a sweet vanishing like swirls of milk in a cappuccino. Bones burned clean, skulls and pelvises looming over the desert, roses tucked behind the horns. Of course, her famous flowers. Black hollyhock billowing over blue larkspur, like stardust over the face of the waters. Her husband photographed her hands dozens of times.

Georgia’s hands with a thimble. On her clavicle. In the eyeholes of a cattle skull.

Her hands were beloved. All 24 bones, the flesh, the fingernails—it is beautiful that a man could love someone’s hands like that, a place of the body where the skeleton and age are so visible, a place of the body easily weathered and torn. And she took such pride in them, he thought. How unguarded her face and her oily hair and the low breasts. She wanted her husband to witness her hands. Look. That’s where her paintings get their power; the sexual flowers, the feminine bones, her unabashed looking at death and creation, the calico roses and

62 Quilt

lilies, counting all their faces, and making us look where we would not.

His phone rang.

“Hey Mom. Shouldn’t you be at work now?”

“Did I wake you?”

“Nope. The Today Show was on campus, so I decided to see.”

“Oh?” She didn’t really pause, but he felt one. “Your grandmother passed away.”

He sighed. “How are you doing?”

“Fine. Your grandfather told me. It happened this morning.”

She talked for a few minutes about plans to go to Philadelphia. As the eldest child and most responsible member of her dwindling family, she needed to care for them. He returned to his O’Keefe book not sad but aware. Aware he should be sad, aware a vacuum opened, and the sun was rising, and the dragonflies needling, and class was coming, and death had finally touched him. He gazed at the larkspur and the abstractions. *** Winter Break. The living room, about the size of his dorm, remained unchanged, except for a strange brown box. Among unfolded laundry and a broken clock, the entropy of their lives, it was placed on the unused table beside the kitchen door. It could have been a jewelry box except his grandmother’s name and dates of birth/death were engraved on it. Wrapped in a thin green blanket, he sat on the sofa, banned from the loveseat where his mother liked to nap. The heater seethed. He didn’t recognize the blue slippers in front of the loveseat. Had his mom gone shopping? She must have done yard work in them. Taking out frozen vegetables and frosty steak from the freezer for dinner, she asked: “You want to look at your grandma’s ashes?”

“No,” he said, slightly disgusted by the idea.

“It’s not like there’s bones or a finger in there. It looks like dust.”

“Thanks, but still not a very enticing idea.”

“Why not? Your brother has already seen it.”

“I don’t do death.” He engrossed himself further in an anonymous reality TV show.

She chastised him with a glance, her lips slightly pursed and head cocked to the side. “By the way, don’t ruin those blue slippers. They’re hers, and I want to keep them.” *** One night, they watched the 1959 version of Imitation of Life on Turner Classic Movies, one of many old movies the pair bonded over that year like The Goodbye Girl and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. At the movie’s conclusion, Annie, the protagonist’s black friend and housekeeper, has passed away. White roses adorn her hearse. Mahalia Jackson sings “Trouble of the World” at Annie’s funeral. Jackson’s grave and powerful voice shook him, one of the few times he was convinced of the certainty of God. “I want you to play that song at my funeral,” his mother said, wiggling her toes in her mother’s ratty blue slippers.

He couldn’t say anything to that.

“After this year—I’m a divorcee, I’ve got a gay son, and my mother’s dead—I’d like to be prepared for that at least.”

Annie’s daughter, Sarah Jane, throws herself on the roses. She’s moaning and whimpering and crying devotion to the mother she hated to death. Only then could she love and look upon her.

“You know, when your brother and I went to see her in spring, she was as thin as you are.

You should eat something.”

“Thanks,” he said.

Quilt 63

*** Winter Break ended. Spring semester sped by, and it was mid-July. Typing on his laptop at night, headphones growing from his ears, lines for a new poem popped into his head. An elegy for his grandmother. It was the least he could do—he who saw her unmarked by illness, only a cane in hand; who saw her five years prior, for the last time, a few days before Katrina spurned the Florida panhandle. The poem would be fictional but dedicated to her. He wrote until he had to describe the weight of an urn. How much do human ashes weigh?

He considered the mahogany container. His mother was asleep, his brother watching Family Guy or drawing. The house was his, the silence his only sign. He crawled toward his grandmother’s ashes, moved to the entertainment center’s bottom shelf, which his mother built from scratch. His fingers flirted with opening the box. Not tonight. It was surprisingly heavy—and only half of her ashes, the rest with his grandfather. Once his mother asked if he said hello to her like she did; yes, he lied to spare himself. Yet, was it not tragic that her vessel blended in with the décor and the TV’s pasty glare? How death was simply there, a given like air or the live oak in the front yard? He was glad he didn’t see her as the multiple sclerosis rusted her nerves and anchored her lungs in fluid, when she was thin as him, bones rising from her flesh like oil in water. His fingers curled around the box, joints prominent and round. That box contained his grandmother’s remains. He always knew but mistook awareness for ballast. This was the first time he allowed himself to look, consider the felt-like outside, the bronze plaque, and its strange heft, which pulled his breath and all 24 bones in both hands.

64 Quilt

The Colors of Things Laura Theobald

Honorable Mention—Poetry

You shrug. Forgetting that where I’m from we fetch the kayaks when a hurricane rolls in. Not to tie them down, but to set them loose in time for the short quick tide that will come. We want the neighbors to watch us glide past their houses, to cause them to remember what charm a clouded river can possess as it floods your kitchen. I decided then that the color of a thing can heal you. That a polyethylene boat painted the color of one millionth of a square inch of shallow ocean can be another man’s way of saying leaf.

The paths were old as the race of miniature deer who didn’t belong. I wondered how the tiny holes bore through all that limestone. I dropped pebbles that made the holes the size of the head of a nail look big and tried to stretch the fractions of a second before they made a sound.

Tiny pools of water. Imagine. Like little ant wells. Though they were probably alligator tracks, now that I think about it. Probably not very old. The whole scene not nearly as safe or as enchanted as I had felt.

Some days, in the summer, I would run through the park. The sun would start a blaze that became a battleground: the trees crashed, long prehistoric tails slunk back into the weeds, birds screamed and splashed suddenly into the round patch of sky. I ran through the boulders that were set up to block cars from driving straight into the lake as if they served the dual purpose of keeping the wildlife in.

Then there were the Rottweilers. Like a two-headed beast. Relentless, bloodthirsty hounds.

A bleached calf head hung from a nearby tree. Above, a weathered plank that had discovered it had no use for words. On one side, a well kept house. On the other, that same wet grassy stone-land. If you stretched out your hand that way a snake would leap out and bite you.

I admit I almost forgot: pure adrenaline fear, the taste of which is copper; what it means to be sand-to-white, to live in that space; the mysteries of ant wells and everything that lies awake beside you; the way things that shouldn’t have been grew big black eyes and quietly remained; the way the smaller animals arranged heir bodies so artfully before they died, as if they understood their inner shape.

Quilt 65

Daughters of Eve Stephanie Selander First Place—Fiction

—A story in four lives— They ask her what happened, and Jill says, “Life.” The blouse flattens her frame, but the secrets buttoned within float through all the doors and windows of Mary Immaculate, racing through high school hallways on boats of giggles and sighs. He doesn’t look at her, and she pretends not to know his name, since she’s already told her parents that lie. Her knees knock together beneath pleats of plaid. How much longer the elastic will hold, she can’t tell.

“Don’t you hate seeing a young girl like that, getting into trouble?” says the principal when her ears, but not her eyes, are turned his way. “She’s just not ready for it.” His son certainly wasn’t, she’s learned, so she supposes it’s to be expected.

Sometimes, when she locks herself in the bathroom stall, she lets her hand slide up her shirt, then feels her body react—violently—to her cold fingertips. Then she relaxes, and that hand stokes the round of a belly that’s swallowing all the yesterdays that she could have sworn were tomorrows.

She can pray all day, and all night, but this won’t change that fact.

“There’s a clinic down the street”—and that’s supposed to make her smile, but instead she decides to cry. Instead, she keeps on that plaid skirt and pretends a little longer, just until her body forces her to recall what the crucifix sticking to her skin is trying to remind her.

“You can’t raise a baby, not when you’re a baby yourself,” reality tells her. “Don’t get too attached to something that deserves better than you.” But they’re already attached. It’s something she can’t control. And its little heart is beating…beating…

Part of her wants a baby girl. Part of her wants to go to sleep and never wake up.

All of her wants to be whole.

Squeaks of Doc Martins on newly mopped floors, the slamming of the stalls behind her: they provide the rhythm as girly voices chime, “Jack and Jill went up the hill, to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down, broke Jilly’s crown, and knocked her up right after!” Because it’s easy for them to laugh, and it’s easy for her to hear, but nothing is funny today. In fact, nothing hurts anymore, not even their laughter.

She sucks in a deep breath. Nine months. Nine long months.

For a moment, she considers the scene: the sterile sheets, the white coats, and the blood that will stain them all. Her teeth fasten on her lower lip. She shudders. Her whole body begins to shake, and she swerves to the toilet in desperation, letting all her fear lurch and empty into the bowl beside her.

“Oh, God,” she moans, “oh, God, save me.” Another tremor and she’s on her knees, hurling into the toilet once more. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Please, pretend you know how I feel.” *** They ask her what she expects, and Chloe responds, “Change.” A smile spreads at the edges of her lips, and the dimples that her lover adores are being shared with the world today, because something somewhere deserves to be free. Each step has a bounce to it, each stranger looks a friend. The good news bubbles over her lips, and Darla twirls her about the living room, shouting, raising her fists in the air, shaking those hips that the dancer had declared pudgy last night.

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“Screw Florida, we’re going to have a baby anyway!” Darla cries, and she spins her girlfriend around and around until their laughter lapses into tears that neither admit to having. “God, I’m so glad it’s you, the baby’ll be beautiful.”

The decision had been unanimous; the journey, terrifying. Darla had slipped easily from ballet shoes into sneakers, leading her lover to one clinic after another. A baby, they’d said they wanted. A family, they said they needed. Chloe would cry after each rejection, and Darla would cuss up a storm or two, hitting the ground running again. “Conservative values, my ass.

Family is a conservative value.”

Try adoption, some places would tell them, and then Darla would reply with a bite of fact—that their wallet was about as generous as the government allowed. “You want a baby?

So get a cock, you dyke, straighten up,” they’d say, and Darla’s finger would reply. Oh, Darla would’ve handled it all herself, if her career wasn’t her body. Then Chloe wouldn’t have had to be the one holding herself tight, her womb the one being judged.

A deep, steady breath. Time to smile now, girl, because you succeeded. Chin up, you showed those fools. Nothing artificial about what’s within you—what took six tries to achieve. Darla is dancing in the hallway, pirouette and toes curled tight, spinning with the axis of the world.

One, two, three, and turn. Smile, because the world needs more smiles.

“I don’t care that you’re the only mother on the certificate. I’m still gonna be her mother, doesn’t matter what the United States tells me, that won’t change a damn thing.” A stretch of Darla’s leg on the woolen rug, a cheeky grin. “And anyone who bullies our baby? Their ass is mine.”

Chloe nods a bit, her arms protectively crossed over her belly. “Anyone who…?” She blinks a bit, tangles over a few words and memories. The snickers of the pretty girls in the hallway, the sneers, the mutterings of “homo” and “dyke” that took a few years to shrug off. “Mm. I hope so.”

“Hope what?”

“Things.” Chloe shrugs. Stares out the window. “I don’t know. That people weren’t so…that everyone could understand how we feel. Wouldn’t that be something?”

“Yeah.” Darla stands up, and warm hands circle her lover’s shaking frame.“Don’t worry, baby.

They’ll understand.” She kisses Chloe’s forehead. Smiles once more. “Someday. You’ll see.” *** They ask her what in God’s name she hopes to accomplish, and Tara says, “Freedom.” Each step commands the room, but she’s become accustomed to both the weight of the stares and the burden her body now bears within her. Parasitic, feeding, swelling. Masochism--to think any woman could ask for such a curse.

“How far along are you?” The hotel clerk’s voice is pleasant; they always are, aren’t they? She slides the card on the table, her closed lips a warning, and he accepts it with a tiny sigh. “I see.

Well, wait then, would you, Mrs. Reaves?”

“It’s Ms. Ives, now.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize you were—” “Separated. Ready to divorce, if that’s any of your business.”

“My apologies.”

Numbers swirl on the screen, a little sound beeps, the card is returned to the lady’s hands.

She’s no longer interesting so she sits down as asked, thumbs through her purse for a cigarette.

Remembers she’s not home. Sighs.

Hell’s just around the corner.

It’s always been there, she’s just always hoped heaven would be a bit closer.

Of course, Jake had been suspecting for awhile. Somehow she didn’t think he’d be that

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observant; two months without sex, and he hadn’t so much as mentioned it until that day.

“Tara, why don’t you love me anymore?” Even now, she can’t answer that question. Each accusation tossed another article of clothing into her suitcase; each quiet word tied another knot in her throat. “Tara, what did I do wrong?” his voice still begs in her mind. “What does he have that I don’t?”

She should’ve tossed out that damn test.

Or made love to him all that first night.

“I hope he has a place for you to stay, anyway.”

Her eyes shut, then open—no, the dark isn’t her friend anymore. Sitting still’s a waste, so Tara stands, stretches, winces a bit. When’s that appointment again, didn’t she make it for noon this time? Last time it’d been two. She’d forgotten, then. Always forgetting. All that money being tossed down the drain every time.

That damn claustrophobic waiting room, this was its fault. She’d come yesterday, and the sonogram had been measured, same as always. She hadn’t liked that stuffy enclosed hellhole then, either—didn’t like standing before the gallows. Whole procedure’s supposed to be fifteen minutes, but she wouldn’t know, because she keeps forgetting.

She ought to walk over there soon.

“Ms. Ives, we have an opening in room 232.”

Now. She should walk now.

People open doors for her, smile at her, and Tara finds the irony of the whole thing kind of hilarious. If they knew her true intentions, they’d slam that door in her face, horrified. No doubt Jake would be stunned, having assumed she’d run off with some beautiful man to have a beautiful baby and bask in her ex-husband’s misery. She doesn’t care what he thinks, what any of them think. What matters is what she knows.

And she knows she’s going to be late.

It’s flanked by ten white crosses, and Tara knows that those lips mumbling along are surely praying rosaries for hell-bent souls like her own. Black and white is everywhere, sweet little nuns walking back and forth and good Christian women and their children and men who can’t imagine her selfish pain all praying for her sake. Praying because, she knows, they can’t understand.

Jake doesn’t understand, either. And that’s okay, now.

The doors open to swallow her whole, and the cries of the people crowding the clinic all die into silence. Somehow, even this whitewashed room of empty eyes has become a sanctuary after that gauntlet of crucifixes. A sanctuary, but a bastion of judgment just the same.

“Ms. Ives, your appointment.” The nurse takes her hand; Tara shivers. It’s cold here, just as it was cold on that cement a mere few months ago. It’s bright, but it’s not, and it’s quiet, but someone is surely screaming.

The nurse clears her throat. “It’ll be rather quick, you know.”

It’d been quick then, too.

A slam to the ground, a fist in her mouth, an icy hand slipping into her tight Armani pants.

Fear snaked between legs and stole dignity; she’d bit hard into his hand, tasted his blood as he tasted her terror. She writhed, she squirmed, and then lost all memory. Left lips unkissed but clothes ripped open wide. Left on the ground with a life of regrets to live.

Left with his child.

“You sure you don’t want anyone with you? It can be difficult, after you wake up.”

Tara faces her squarely. “Who would I ask?” Who would you ask, she wants to add. Friends, who know nothing of her struggle? A husband who she can’t even begin to explain this to?

A man who cares nothing for life, but wrecked it anyway? “I don’t…think…anyone would

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understand.”

“They don’t have to, Ms. Ives. Only you need to.”

“Thank God.” She laughs a bit, clutches her sides, doubles over some in the sheer idiocy of it all. “Oh, thank God, because I’m the only bitch on this whole earth who does.” *** They ask her how she feels, and Kristen says, “Blessed.” Sometimes she dreams of a baby boy curled up in blankets of blue, and other times she’s holding a little girl dressed in frills, but either way she’s smiling. John teases her about it, pretends all he wants is a John Junior, but she knows his love of tradition isn’t quite as strong as all that. They’d saved up for ages to get the right little house on the right little hill, picket fence and SUV and gated walls and community pool and champagne and a garden out back complete with roses.

Things just package up real nice sometimes. With a big old bow on top.

John’s promotion made furnishing that new bedroom easy as could be, and leaving work, well, was to be expected on Kristen’s part. She saunters through the town now with an ease buoyed by met expectations and pride; she waves at everyone who gives her that knowing grin, that silent congratulations.

“We’re the lucky ones,” Kristen mumbles, and she pretends she’s forgotten about the “surprise” baby shower her bible study is throwing this weekend and concentrates instead on names. Hasn’t decided one yet, but that’s fine. She’s always liked the name Bridget, though Jill is her husband’s favorite if a girl comes along. Doesn’t matter. She’s flexible. A girl is a girl. If it’s a boy, he gets his way anyhow, right?

People love to congratulate an expectant mother; it’s as if procreating is somehow a success no one else has ever achieved. Doors open when she comes into view, and Kristen blushes, flattered, every time someone offers her their seat or their goodwill. “The world’s full of kind people, if you look,” she told her husband once. “It’s not as heartless as it could be.”

So when Kristen sees another woman walking along, she can’t help but return the favor.

Immediately her gait slows, and she grabs the door the woman is reaching for—one of those impossible hotel ones that spin and spin. Kristen doesn’t see her eyes, but she sees that mark making them kindred spirits: the round of a child within. “Thanks,” the stranger mumbles awkwardly, and Kristen grins “Don’t worry, dear.” For a moment, the woman looks up, as if surprised to hear such words.

So Kristen, empowered, places a hand on her shoulder. “Believe me, I understand exactly how you feel.”

Tomorrow, and tomorrow’s tomorrow, and the tomorrows still to come would pass, and Kristen would always wonder why that woman laughed.

Quilt 69

Self-Defense Julia Ponzek Oil on Wood

70 Quilt

Yejide

Philippa Hatendi Poetry

She lies with her feet dangling over the end of Morocco, A flame lily in her hand, Her hair flowing through the Nile Falling short of the Cape where Hope makes her home, Slipping pearlescent at its tips into Victoria, its kinky, ebony black wreathed with hyacinth, violets and spotted orchids Seeming coarse to the touch, yet beautifully her own.

Thousands of caves echo her voice, In the drip of water swimming at their base Where monkeys come to drink, To shelter from the sweltering heat.

Ancestral spirits swim deep in these waters.

Inhale the pureness of the air atop the roof of Africa, Nourish every blade of grass whistling in the woodlands.

She walks; stick tailing after her in the sand Through the dunes of the Sahara, Slithering over the vines and under the branches, Bathing in the rain that darts into quiet jungle.

When her children beat their drums, Echoing ancient lullabies into the night, The stars stare down at them Watching as her body weaves to the melodies.

Her daughters behind her stirring dust, Their beads crashing together with each footfall.

The lion sleeps on the savannah with her draped over it, Her head cushioned in it’s bustly mane…

The cubs at her feet…

Little leopard spots lie dark on the crescents of her cheeks.

She is Yejide.

Mankind burst forth from her wind.

She is mother to us all.

She...is Africa.

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VIII. Strength Jillian Shannon Poetry

This crown of blonde grasses and pink bellflowers shed a petal or two honored to guard the daffodils and lilies roll away and splash sticking their tongues out at that hermit, the sun.

Some stay to quarrel with the clouds and blanket me, but anchor me as the sun’s three wands zigzag to the shores of my gown’s ruby-ponds.

The emerald taffeta and gold sheer plate my breast and thighs from the tails of yelping winds and sapphire rust of lake, but my gown still swells at the ankles.

And my lavender lips faint apart from the daze of honey and wax. Now branches fall at my feet—against one cheek—to whistle in fire.

Under gold piece and gold piece my eyelashes kink and the Byzantine cross on my chest meshes its tiers eightfold like wings into a cup.

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Stop Making Sense Krystle Canan Poetry

a collage poem

Gooey goo for chewy chewing let’s go into Twilight, let them inside, let them dance upon my grave.

Forbidden to remember, terrified to forget.

It was a hard line to walk.

My tongue isn’t quick or slick, sir.

You can make a quick trick chick stack, sir.

They had an acute sense of ‘non-sense,’ moreover, that they knew their job dreadfully well.

Meanwhile I was eating that mouth, whose blood already mingled with mine.

The hots rarely survive an intense course of imaging the beloved on the cludgie.

I depersonalized and annihilated myself in this bottomless kiss, which has just opened beneath my spirit.

They call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle like the dizzy gulf into which I had always wanted to hurl all my crimes and in which I felt myself now ready to sink.

And later, when she cried out, I heard the crystal bowl on the table by the side of the bed ring, pure and faint, as if in reply.

We were fucking.

Cupid is a knavish lad thus to make poor females mad.

Quilt 73

Untitled

Cliff Klein Oil on Canvas

First Place—Art

74 Quilt

Waiting

Jeff Gibbons Projection, Latex, Wood, Dirt

Quilt 75

Pomegrantes Sadie Harlan Poetry

Crimson mist settled in the earth, through my arms reach, you have encompassed.

O crimson, through my arms reach, you block us with vast space; no seed ever fell so hinder the red skin, no seed ever parted crimson from such an odd crimson; O red pomegranate your seed-clusters, large on the branch, bring winter and dried fruits in their cerulean hearts.

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Plot Twist Liza Pichette Fiction

The moment she entered the room, everything changed.

Her smile was gone like it never existed. Her eyes fell to the floor. She prayed that she would not be noticed. She cast aside questions asking what was wrong. She moved to take her turn.

The light from laughing all afternoon was gone from her eyes as she concentrated. The people who loved and understood her the most could not reach her, not now. The girl they loved was locked away inside walls no one could ever climb.

Thump.

Crack.

Disappears into the pocket.

She moves to her next available shot. She keeps her eyes straight ahead no matter what.

Thump.

Crack.

Misses the pocket by an inch.

She moves around the table to return to her seat, absently checking her phone. Tim leans down close to her, murmuring the question of the hour. She shakes her head and looks up at him, giving him her best fake smile. Their eyes meet. He touches her cheek tenderly and leaves to take his turn.

Her phone comes to life, vibrating in her hand.

Don’t hate me.

The rest of her friends carry on like they always do. Their laughter draws more than one annoyed look from the other patrons. They do not notice. She does.

She ducks her head, fascinated by her phone. I don’t, but I’m trying to.

“Your turn,” Tim says.

She leans down, concentrating.

Thump.

Crack.

Crack.

Disappears into the pocket.

Her phone vibrates. She ignores it.

Thump.

Crack.

Disappears into the pocket.

“You’re getting good,” she hears. Jen pulls her in for a hug as she makes her way around the table.

“About time, don’t you think?” She grins her usual teasing smile at Tim as she moves for her next shot. “Tim just about gave up on me.”

Tim smiles. “I didn’t give up. You practiced when I was in class. There’s a difference.”

Thump.

Crack.

Two disappear into the pocket.

She curses as she hands the ball over.

Returning to her seat, she looks at her phone.

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I don’t want you to hate me. I like you a lot.

She rolls her eyes. Then why aren’t you with me right now?

Jen puts her arms around her shoulders. “You look lonely over here.”

She returns the hug. “I’m not lonely,” she gives her best smile. “I’m tired from laughing. Y’all wore me out.” This was true.

Jen ruffles her hair playfully before running to land in her boyfriend’s lap.

She stands to take her turn. Tim stands on the other side of the table. Their eyes lock.

Thump.

Crack.

Nowhere near the pocket.

“What happened?”

She shrugs, staying in Tim’s eyes. “Bad shot.”

Her phone vibrates. She sits down.

I’m right here if you need me.

She bites her lip. I need my bf back, can you do that?

Tim stands in her way as she rises from her chair. He takes her hand. She slips through his fingers.

Thump.

Crack.

Disappears into the pocket.

She moves, avoiding his eyes.

Thump.

Crack.

Disappears into the pocket.

Her phone vibrates.

Thump.

Crack.

Disappears into the pocket.

Again.

Thump.

Crack.

Disappears into the pocket.

Again.

She looks at her phone. He’s calling her. She rejects the call and moves around the table.

Thump.

Crack.

Misses the pocket by an inch.

Her friends groan in frustration.

Tim is standing between her and her chair. He pulls her into a casual hug. “You can’t run away forever.” he whispers in her ear.

She tries to move away. He won’t let her go.

“It’s okay to give in to what you want when it’s right in front of you.”

“Let me go.”

Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

He lets her go before anyone could get suspicious. He misses a shot that he should have made. Their eyes lock before she takes her turn.

One shot.

“Side pocket.”

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Thump.

Crack.

Perfect shot.

Tim grinned with pride. Jen danced with joy, whispering some joke into her ear that made them both laugh. Jen’s boyfriend was next on the circuit, challenged by Dan earlier in the night.

She looked at her phone.

You trust me with everything but your heart. I want all of you. He doesn’t. Don’t make me lose because he doesn’t want you.

She lifted her head just in time to see him leave with her. They were arm and arm like they were so in love. It felt like they had slapped her. “I need some air,” she breathed to Jen. She walked to the bathrooms, which happened to be located on the furthest corner of the room.

She felt her stomach roll. The questionable food from the cafeteria was all the excuse she needed to get sick. She rounded the corner, collapsing against the wall that protected her. The sickness lessened immediately. She sighed and rolled her shoulders.

A heartbeat later, Tim rounded the corner, almost running into her. “Are you okay?”

She opened her eyes to lock with his. “Fine. Just lightheaded.”

“Eat something.”

“I did. The food here sucks.”

He grinned. “Yes it does. You should know better than that.”

“The things I do to stay conscious, I swear.” She smiled her teasing smile, looking down. He breathed a laugh, tipping her chin until she looked at him again.

“You didn’t answer my text.”

“I didn’t know what to say.”

He snorted in disbelief. She laughed, shoving him playfully. He didn’t move.

“Answer me.”

She straightened up against the wall, mischief flirting with the light in her eyes. “I’m going to swoon if you keep up this strong-silent-type act.”

“Do I look like I’m acting?”

She stilled. He was serious. She tried to talk, but the words dissolved. She just shook her head.

“How long have we known each other?”

She shrugged. “Six months, give or take.”

“You think you know me pretty well?”

“Better than most people.”

“And you’ve never thought of me as more than a friend?”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She forced the words out. “No.” He took a step closer to her. “You’re a liar. You hit on me the first time we met, and you haven’t stopped.”

“I hit on everybody. It’s part of my charm.”

“A charm you stopped having the minute you met him. A charm that you’re nothing without because without it you’re not yourself.”

“People think I came on too strong so I toned it down. He asked me to tone it down too.”

“The girl I know would never change for a guy.”

“Maybe you don’t know the girl.”

“I know her, just not well enough to make her see what’s right in front of her.”

“Which is what?”

“Exactly. You don’t see it.”

Quilt 79

She tilted her head to the side. There was a hunger in his eyes that she had never seen before.

Her voice was hesitant. “Do you...like me or something?”

He laughed bitterly. “So close, but you still don’t get it.” He backed away.

“Hey,” She grabbed his shoulders, pulling him back to her. “I thought...” Her breath left her as his hands took hold of hers. “You were flirting just because I was, that was it.”

He brought their hands down, slowly linking their fingers. “It may have started out that way, but the flirting starts to mean more when you like that person.”

“So you do like me.”

He grinned. “Or something.”

She rolled her eyes as she laughed. “What do you want already!”

“An honest answer from you.”

“What’s the question?”

“Have you ever thought of me as more than a friend?”

“Yes,” she said before she could stop herself. She looked up at him in horror, only to see him grinning. She leaned back against the wall. He took a step so that their intertwined hands hung comfortably between them. “Now what?”

“A real date. Just you and me.”

“Why?” “We’re doing this right. No one is going to have any doubt in their minds that we’re together.”

“If you think you can boss me around, you’re sadly mistaken.”

“I won’t have to boss you around if you stay out of trouble.”

“I thought you liked getting into trouble with me.”

“I do, that’s not what I’m talking about.”

She rolled her eyes, looking up at the ceiling. He brought down her chin so that she looked right at him. “You’re a flirt and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but you’re with a real man now, not one of your boy toys.”

“I need to have freedom to do what I want, not revolve my life around you.”

“You’ll have all the freedom you need, but you’re still my girl at the end of the day.”

Her eyes softened slightly. “I’ll hug other guys.”

“I don’t care who you hug as long as you hold my hand.”

“Don’t be jealous if I hang out with other guys without you.”

“I’m not the jealous kind, but I do protect what is mine.”

“I’m not yours.”

“You’re still scared.” He backed up a step. “You think I could honestly control you, even if I wanted to? C’mon!”

“Once this whole thing starts, I get attached. You could hurt me so easily.”

“I know. You have to trust that I won’t hurt you on purpose. I may do stupid stuff to make you mad, but I won’t try to break you if you open up to me. You trust me as a friend, don’t you?”

She nodded. “But this is--” “--it’s the same thing, beautiful. The only difference is that I can show you more affection.

I’m still the same guy. Trust me.”

She studied him for a long time. He stood still, waiting for her to come to him. She knew he wouldn’t go any further with this if he knew she didn’t trust him. He knew she wouldn’t let the relationship go anywhere.

He was saying everything that she had dreamed a guy would say. He was strong, he was assertive, he knew what he wanted: her. Being in a relationship with him would be scary. It

80 Quilt

would be real. There would be no hiding behind self-preservation. He would lower all her defenses. She couldn’t remember the last time she was actually vulnerable with a guy for more than a few seconds, for more than being just friends.

Tim had been just a friend. Hadn’t he? They had chemistry, no doubt about that. They liked the same things, they had the same sense of humor. But it had always been more than that.

He had driven two hours to get her after the car she was in crashed and she was in the hospital. He had stayed all night, watching late night TV with her until she fell asleep. He drove her back to campus the next morning when she was released. He had refrained from tickling her stomach to avoid aggravating the bruises left from the seatbelt. He had given her back-rubs to make her aching muscles less painful. He hadn’t even known her more than a few weeks at that point. She thought he was just being nice, burying her hopes for their friendship to become something more deep in her heart where no one could see them. They slipped out at that moment before she could stop them.

She smiled to herself. If he knew that she wanted him, there would be no living with him.

His ego was enough to deal with as it was.

But as long as he kept looking at her like that, she didn’t think she would mind.

Steeling herself, she pushed off the wall and took a step toward him.

He kissed her hands, leading her back toward the people who loved her the most.

The moment she entered the room, everything changed.

Quilt 81

Eclipsed

Mikey Rumore Creative Non-Fiction

Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood was covered in a soft midnight rain, accented by the oldstyle streetlamps, droplets flying away from the lights like swarms of locusts and mosquitoes declaring their independence. 7th Avenue glistened with the reflection of billions of tiny, misty raindrops. It had been raining all day. Matter-of-fact, all week. It was the kind of perpetual summer shower that destroys the myth of the Sunshine State. I gazed intently through the windows of the Market on 7th—a former Ybor grocery store and, at present, a dive bar and pizza joint of my highest regards. I followed the raindrops, followed the people walking by, covering their heads with whatever they could find—hoods, trash bags, slices of cardboard, the odd umbrella. My introspective doze was interrupted as Pat, my close friend and Tampa native of Italian descent, slapped a slice of pizza on my plate.

“What people don’t realize is that Tampa is really a small town,” Pat said. He swallowed a chunk of pizza. His cousin Gino owned the joint—and claimed that his family was the first to sell pizza in Tampa. Straight from Italy, or New York, or something. The Market’s bricklined walls glistened a dim amber. Nobody uses red bricks anymore. Everything is white, sanitized, condensed—like a pharmacy or a hospital. Artistry and soul always seem to feel like a throwback.

“This isn’t a small town,” I said knowingly, “Tampa is the 53rd largest city in the United States. Imagine how many cities there must be in the country . . . and we’re 53rd!” I didn’t need to tell him that my iPhone was on my lap feeding me snippets of Wiki knowledge—I might as well keep up the rumor that I’m a know-it-all bastard.

“No, Mikey, it’s not as simple as that,” my friend said, and then bit off a particularly juicy bit of pizza. I took a bite myself. It was thin, crispy, and creamy. I normally prefer pan-crust, but Gino’s pizza erupts with the tradition and care of a secret family recipe—one that doesn’t need to be locked in a vault or torn in half, hidden in the Aztecs or under some pyramid like a pharaoh. It’s not about the crust. It’s not about how many cheeses. There’s no free two-liter. It takes 45 minutes to bake, longer than Pizza Hut takes to deliver—because tradition matters.

Family matters.

“How can Tampa be a small town?” I argued indignantly. “We have an NFL football team that won the Super Bowl. We have a baseball team that should have won the World Series.

Even the Lightning won the Stanley Cup. We have museums, zoos, theme parks. University of South Florida is one of the largest universities in the nation, and University of Tampa draws students from everywhere. How can a small town support all those things?” I imagined that a comeback to such a carefully crafted response would take a moment, so I ate more pizza. Pat had other ideas.

“That’s the point! We’re a transplant city!” Pat erupted.

“I know that!” I said, spitting pizza like confetti. “So what?”

“C’mon, Mikey! Don’t you get it?” Pat said as sternly as a schoolteacher. “You can ship as many people here as you want, but that doesn’t mean they have anything to do with small town Tampa. Our teams are the perfect example! None of them can sell tickets unless they’re championship contenders. And when they’re not, they survive on the transplants sucking up tickets to root for visiting teams. That doesn’t mean we have fair-weather fans, it just means they have roots elsewhere. People migrate down here for the weather, but they still keep the

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biases of where they once were. Let’s take away the transplants—remove them entirely. Look!

You have a small town—a town too small to fill a stadium.”

“I’ve never thought of it like that,” I said, slow-sipping a beer that had just arrived.

“That’s us—sons of Ybor City cigarworkers, barbers, cooks, mailmen, builders, doctors,” Pat said. “We didn’t go away. We’re still here. We’re just eclipsed—a small town overshadowed by skyscrapers. But just because they’re in the way doesn’t mean that we’ve gone anywhere.”

“That’s right. We’re still here—” I thought of my family—how my grandfather came to Tampa from Sicily as a child, how he became a barber, how he taught my young father to swear at customers because they laughed and tipped more, how my father pulled himself out of the impoverished trenches of Ybor City to start his own business, and how Tampa grew too large and forgot him. It seems that a city, like a person, cannot be transformed into something it’s not. “‘Ey, Patrick. Mikey.” Gino interrupted from behind the bar, wiping his flour-stained hands on an immense white apron. His face erupted into a warm guido grin. “You want me to put in another pie? It’s gonna take some time to bake.”

“Put ‘er in,” I said, “and take your time.”

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O Fly

Morgan Tanafon

Honorable Mention—Poetry

What would it be To be a fly Sometimes I wonder why They be at all Forever to flit And scratch, and buzz This being only ‘cause It is their nature Hated by all, loved not ever Existence of a funny sort And it will be extremely short Unless they be quick and spry Pausing for a moment The end is near For that which you fear Is in my hand Oh fly, I loathe thee This is true But be not blue My thoughts are with you A sudden move A sudden splat And now you are flat To buzz no more Oh fly, though dead You are with me yet For I cannot get Your corpse off my newspaper

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The Option

Daniel Chocianowski Fiction

A while ago I saw you lurched over my bed, zombified, with your flesh rotting off, saying it was all my fault. Then you disappeared. At least I think that’s what happened. I don’t know what you were talking about, because I don’t remember doing anything particularly wrong when we were together, and last I heard, you weren’t dead, either, but that’s what happened.

People always told me I had an overactive imagination. I hoped that was it. I let things get to me, a lot. Sometimes I still freak out about the dark, which is ridiculous, but I do.

I woke up the next morning, still creeped out by you, and really regretting that one time I tried acid. I heard the cat meowing to be fed. I yawned, got out of bed, grabbed the food, and walked in to the TV room to see you standing there pointing at me with your jaw hanging partway off.

“What the fuck!” I said, and threw the can at you. “What are you doing here, are you dead?”

“I don’t know, you tell me,” you said (As well as you could without a jaw). You always were sarcastic.

Then you disappeared again.

I paced around the house, after feeding the cat.

“Ok,” I said. “This is not a normal thing to be happening. Let’s examine this.” It always helps me in weird introspective situations to imagine a little psychiatrist version of myself psychoanalyzing myself on a couch. So I did.

“Alright. Chrissy has apparently come back from the dead, or you’ve gone crazy,” I said to myself. “In either case, it would be good to figure out why this has happened. Let’s think back.”

I remembered the day I didn’t call to tell you your grandma died. I mean, I would have, but it happened when I was there, I mean, I just kinda came out of the bathroom, and there she was. So I just went back and hid in the bathroom, and paced back and forth for a long time, thinking what to do, and then I heard the front door open, and I knew you were home. Fuck.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m not kind of a shit. I dunno, I try to be a good guy.

You didn’t leave after those things, or after anything in particular, really. I think it was just a string of similar events, I guess. The last thing I did that really pissed you off before you left, was walking you out the door at the mall while you screamed at some guy who whistled at you, near the ice cream stand. You said I was a coward. You left me a note a few days after, saying you were driving three hours away to Leesburg, and not coming back. And not to come after you. I doubt it was just about the mall thing, but you still left. Like I said, it wasn’t the first time I’d heard you call me that. I don’t understand what the hell you saw in Leesburg, though.

That’s a podunk town. *** For the next half hour after you woke me up, it was quiet. You didn’t show up, so I decided to do some dishes that had been piling up. Afterwards I sat down in front of the TV, and flipped it on. Loony Toons. Then you did show up. I managed to not throw anything at you or break anything.

“Alright. That’s it,” I said. What is going on, and why are you here?” I was starting to get freaked out by this whole thing.

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You looked at me like a little puppy who didn’t know anything. You always used to do that.

Then you shrugged and started rifling through my DVDs with your one good arm. Your jaw was back to normal, but your left arm was missing.

“No,” I said. “Straight answers,” You sighed with your back to me. “You’ve snapped, Ben. How long has it been now, a year and a half, and you still haven’t gotten over me? I’m in your head, so I know you haven’t gotten laid since me. The whole thing’s pathetic. You should’ve figured something like this would happen sooner or later. You agonize over things too much.” You kept flipping through DVDs. I started fidgeting with the remote. “Nuh-uh. No way,” I said. “That’s not happening.”

You put on a mock sad-face. “What, you’d rather I be dead?”

“Is it ok if I say kinda? I don’t look forward to a life of being insane.” I got up and started pacing without realizing it. “Ok. Ok. I’m just going to, I dunno, close my eyes or something, and you’re gonna be gone when I open them. Alright?”

You laughed. “Yeah. Alright.”

So I did. And I counted to ten.

I opened them.

“Can I borrow this?” you said. You pointed to a couple of movies. “And this one’s mine, you never did give this back. I want this too.”

“What, no, you can’t have that. You broke up with me, remember?”

“So that entitles you to all my stuff?”

“No, but- hey- I like that movie, and- and hey- you’re not even you! AND WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?!”

You stuck a finger in your ear. “Jesus, don’t yell. And I don’t know why I’m still here, I’m you, remember? I don’t know if you don’t. So it’s not my fault. Your brain must want me here for something.” She shrugged. “I’m taking these movies.”

“You know what, fuck this,” I said, and stormed down the hall to the computer room. You followed me.

“Where ya goin’?”

“To the internet. Somebody must know how to make you leave. This isn’t normal.”

“Heh. Have fun with that. I’m gonna go watch TV or something.”

It’s kinda true what you said back there, about me having a bit of a year-and-a-half long nervous breakdown about you. Nothing like what was happening there, but I will say that I didn’t leave my house much for a month or so after you left. I don’t know what that says for me exactly, I guess I’m too dependent or something. But yeah. I missed you. I spent a lot of time thinking about the time we spent together. When we went to the beach that night, and I was too scared to go in the water, but the two of us pretended we could see past the horizon, all around the back of the world, pretending we knew what was going on in continents miles away. Then we made sandcastles and kicked them apart. It was a good day. *** I couldn’t find any reliable information on schizophrenia, or MPD, and I couldn’t think of anything else to call it, so I Googled you and checked to see if you still had a Facebook account, to make sure you weren’t dead. You weren’t; your last login date was about five minutes before I checked. After some more pacing around, I walked back to the TV room. You were curled up on my couch watching Loony Toons.

I shut off the TV and kept walking.

“Hey, what the fuck?” you said, and raised your arm at me.

“I’m going to find you. You you, not you. The real you. You know what I mean.” I opened

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the front door and fished out my keys. You got up.

“Well I wanna come,” you said.

“No, you’re staying here. Watch your cartoons.” Luckily I was used to this back-and-forth with you, or I might have cracked, the way you were picking on me. But I know you never meant it maliciously. And that’s one of the things I liked about you.

You smiled. “No, I’m not staying, this is gonna be good. I can’t miss this.”

“Fine, whatever.” I walked out the door and you followed me. I locked it, and we got in the car. I guess I didn’t mind the company, really. We started driving.

“What do you think’s going to happen if you do this?” you said. You held your arm out to catch the wind.

I looked around, trying to see if anyone in the other cars seemed to notice this. They didn’t.

“Well, if you haven’t noticed,” I said, “this is kind of weird. Maybe, I dunno, maybe if I make up with her or something you’ll go away.”

You laughed. “That’s stupid.”

“Well do you have any god-damn better ideas? This is insane. I want you the hell out of my brain.”

You crossed your arm and looked out the window. “Fine.” You looked hurt, and I began to realize I’d been making some very bad driving decisions without noticing.

I looked over at you. “Oh, hey, come on, I’m sorry, alright, I didn’t mean it, I was just, I dunno, just… This is weird, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think so, necessarily.”

“Wha- Well, well, you’re not the one- Just, nevermind, alright? I said I was sorry.”

“I know you did.” You put your hand on my arm. “Hey!” you said, and pointed at and old building shaped like a miniature White House. “Hey, let’s go over there!”

“What?” I said, and swerved to make the parking lot. *** We parked. I reached over to open the door for you, but you just walked right through it, so I got out.

“What the hell is this place?”

“The Hall of Presidents,” you said. “It’s great.”

It just looked like a hokey old tourist trap. There was an old-style sign over the doorway that said “HALL OF PRESIDENTS”, but it was filthy, and there were American flags painted in between each column, like a mural. There was a sign on the porch bragging about having a working animatronic likeness of over 5 U.S. presidents.

We walked in, and there was an old lady dressed up in colonial-wear smiling at us. Or me, I should say. There was some flute and drum music playing, and little trinkets everywhere, and some books. I guess we were in the gift shop.

“Hello, good sir, and welcome to the Hall of Presidents. What brings you here on this fine day?”

“Uh, just looking around,” I said. You started wandering around the gift shop, looking at me and threatening to knock stuff over, smiling like a jack-o-lantern. I know you couldn’t have really done it, but I wasn’t exactly used to you at that point, and I was getting really nervous just out of habit.

“Well, tickets are just eleven dollars and 95 cents,” she said, pointing to a sign I had already walked past. “So if you wouldn’t mind just coming over here to the counter,” she said, as she walked over to the cash register.

“Oh, yeah, sure, of course. Sorry.”

“That’s quite alright, sir.” I handed her the money and got a ticket. I walked through to the

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next room, which was the animatronic room, with you. It didn’t look like anybody else was there.

“What the hell do you think you were doing?” I whispered. I looked around to make sure we were alone. We were.

“Having fun,” you said. “It really does pay to be a pretty girl, doesn’t it? Free tickets and everything.”

“Yeah. Right. I mean, not that you’re not pretty or anything, er, well- Ahh! Stop fucking with me!”

I looked back into the gift shop and saw the old lady peeking over a magazine, looking back into the room I was in, looking worried. I smiled and waved a bit, then moved out of the doorway.

“It sure is too bad we never had this much fun when we were dating,” you said.

“Huh. Fine.” I looked around. There was Nixon at his desk, jerking around like a robot, resigning over and over again.

“Tell me again why you like this place, exactly.”

“It’s fun. Aren’t you having fun?”

“I guess.”

You gestured to all the robots talking and jerking all over the room. “I guess I just like seeing all these people this way. It’s a lot more fun than the way they probably were.” You grabbed the guardrail with your hand and leaned, smiling at me. Even with your flesh rotting off, you still reminded me of you, somehow.

“Huh?” I said.

“I mean, I never got a chance to see these people, they were dead, or at least most of them were. So it’s fun. To see them how I want.”

I looked over at George Washington giving a speech before charging the Delaware. His jaw moved up and down. “I really doubt this is what they were like. Didn’t the paper say something about one of these crushing somebody to death?”

“No, that was at Disney, and neither of those things is the point, Ben.” You grabbed my arm and dragged me further into the museum.

“Well what is, then?”

“It’s just fun to imagine people however I feel like. I like pretending people were how I wanted them to be. Nixon’s a lot more fun here than he was in real life, I’m sure. If I were alive when he was president, he probably would have pissed me off. But I get the option to see this guy.”

“Huh,” I said. “Whatever.” I was getting bored of this place. “Your prerogative, I guess.”

“Yes it is. Now come on.” You grabbed me and pulled me again.

We walked around for a little bit longer, before I finally convinced you that it was getting late and we had to go. We stopped at a motel. The guy at the counter winked at me when I said I wanted a double.

“Expecting somebody?” he said.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” I said, and handed him the money. You laughed and pinched my ass before walking down the hall to our room.

I shut the door shut off the light. Then I collapsed into bed. I felt your finger run up the back of my arm. I felt you shift your weight behind me.

“I bought two beds,” I said.

“I know. What, you quit liking girls on me? That would explain a lot.” Even though you were picking on me, there was some weird not-caustic note in your voice that was throwing me off a little.

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I sighed.

You said, “I just thought I’d sleep here, is all.”

“Fine. Sleep here.” I said. “But we’re sleeping.”

“Of course we are. What kind of girl do you take me for?”

“You owe me money for the- Ah, forget it.” I closed my eyes, and fluffed my pillow a little.

I almost fell asleep.

“Benji?” you said.

“Huh, what? Yeah?”

“I did miss you, you know. After I left.” You touched my arm.

I was silent for awhile. “You’re not real. You can’t say that.”

“I did. You are kind of a pussy, you know, but you’re hard to forget. There were days I really wished I would bump into you, just at the grocery store, or something, and I could tell you all this. But I didn’t call you, or anything. I’m too proud for something like that. You know.”

I wiped a bead of sweat off my forehead. “Don’t say things like that. You’re not real. I’m going to bed, we’re not talking about this.” I closed my eyes. I fell asleep and dreamt of you. *** The sun the next morning shot through the windows into my face.

“Aggh,” I said.

You walked through the wall. “They have pancakes down there!” Let’s go, get up, get up!”

We ate and headed back on the road. We were getting close.

“What are you going to say once we get there? I mean, I’m probably the one to ask.” You looked at your nails. Earlier you had said you had to go for a minute, and when you came back your arm was back. You were starting to look more like yourself, actually. Less rotting, things like that.

“I’m just going to tell her what’s going on. I, I dunno, it may not work, but-“ “But you want to try.” You looked out the window.

“I guess.”

“Hm,” you said. “What do you think she’s going to say?”

“What do you think? She’s probably going to laugh you off the face of the earth. That’s what I would do.”

We didn’t talk much after that, and soon we got to your house. It didn’t look like anyone else lived there, but it was hard to be sure. It was a nice house.

I took a deep breath and exhaled.

“You stay in the car,” I said.

“Ok,” you said. I walked up some gravel walkway you had put in, and got to your door. I knocked. There were footsteps coming through the house, getting louder. I shuffled a bit in the doorway. They stopped. I was about to knock again, or ring the doorbell, when you opened it some and looked at me.

“Hi,” I said. I waved.

“Hi.” You looked shocked. I couldn’t tell if it was the good kind or the bad kind. “What are you doing here?” You had your hand on your chest. You smiled a little, but I didn’t know if it was fake.

I laughed a little. “Well. Um. Can I come in?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” You opened the door a little wider for me to come in. “Do you, um- Do you want anything to eat or something? Wow, I mean, I haven’t seen you for so long. How have you been?”

“No, no, I’m fine,” I said. I looked around the house a little. I didn’t see anything I’d given her lying around. “I’ve been ok. Pretty good I guess.”

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“Well, that’s good.” You walked in with some cheese and crackers and looked at me like a stranger you wanted to be polite to.

“So- What’s up?” you said. You didn’t eat anything.

“Well,” I said. I cleared my throat, and you leaned in a little. “Well, you see- um, well-“ I took a bite of cheese. “I, uh- I’m seeing a zombie-you. In my head. Heh, yeah. I mean, it’s not, like, a big deal or anything, I mean I know she’s not real, I think, but I just, uh- I just figured I’d tell you.”

You looked at me. “Wait, what? Swallow your food and say that again. I don’t know, um- I don’t know if I heard you.”

I swallowed. “It’s just a, um, thing. A thing that I’ve been seeing. Something that concerns you, so I figured I’d, you know- like I said, it’s not a big deal, but I just figured that you might, um- I’ve missed you a lot, Chrissy.” I shoved some more cheese in my mouth and chewed, looking at her. I laughed a little to break the tension.

“Wait, ok,” you said. “You’re seeing a “zombie version of me”? And, what do you mean, seeing as in seeing? Or- ‘seeing’?

I chewed. “Well-“ And swallowed. “It’s kinda complicated.”

You sat there, still waiting for me to speak.

“Ok, just, don’t freak out, ok? I have to explain.” I cleared my throat. “I’ve just been really missing you a lot, lately, and-“ “Ben, if this is just one of your damn attempts to get me back, I swear to god-“ “No, no, I’m telling the truth, I mean it, look outside, in the car.”

You looked outside and didn’t see you. That was kinda stupid on my part, I guess.

“Ben,” you said, “Are you telling me the truth?”

“Yes. I am.” I wanted to take your hand. “I just need somebody to tell me I’m ok, Chrissy.

Be happy with me. I thought you might, I dunno, maybe want to patch things up. All this has made me realize, just, how much I miss you. I know you’ve been making me see things, but I’m glad, now.”

You got up. “Ben.” You said, and stood there for a minute. “ Ben, I’m sorry, I just- I can’t talk to you about this. This is too much. I don’t want to- I don’t want to see you this way. Please leave. I’m sorry.”

“But, Chrissy-“ I tried to smile.

“No. Please leave.” You looked at the floor and pointed towards the doorway.

I got up. I walked out the door and closed it, and started walking to the car. I really thought it would be nice to see you again. Maybe, I dunno, maybe we could have gotten back together.

That’s what I had in mind, anyway. And you threw me out of your house like a crazy person.

I got in the car. It was getting cloudy. I looked over at you next to me. Your lips were missing, but you looked beautiful. You knew what had happened. I didn’t even need to tell you. You kissed me, and you soothed me, saying “It’s ok, it’s ok. I’m here.” I guess I was crying. But it’s ok, really. I know you’ll never hear me say this, but I’ve realized that I don’t need you anymore.

I’m better off. I’m happy. No matter what you said. I’m fine.

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My Little Princess Amber Koski

Creative Non-Fiction

I had the notion that something was different about her. Maybe she was just growing up and we were growing apart, but it’s become a serious depressant in my life--the fact that I don’t feel her respect and that she’s no longer my little girl. Well, you see, that scares me. I think my daughter, my only child, is gay. I’m not positive, but she’s changed and it has led me to believe certain things about her. *** There was this one day. She was about sixteen and she always hung out with this openly gay boy. When I say openly, I mean flamboyant to the ‘T.’ I was never one to like the queers because that’s how my parents were. I was raised in a very traditional household, in a tightly sewn community in Westfield, New Jersey. Oh, anyways. She kept seeing this very gay boy Ryan and very often he was at our house, spending afternoon and night with my little Princess.

I tolerated it, but you better believe I let Princess know that it wasn’t pleasing to Daddy. But I wasn’t going to cause a fight over some faggot. *** One evening I threw a dinner party for my unit. I occasionally liked to have my officers from the 84th Division over to eat, drink, and talk. I love the Army and I love my soldiers and my Colonel rank has made me very proud, just like my girl has made me proud. I always liked for Princess to make an appearance at my dinners because she is the light of my life and has this uncanny way of entertaining people twice, even three times her age. She has always been keen and educated on the topics of the day. Well, Princess decided to invite Ryan; I’ll call him Flamer from now on. I’d be damned if Flamer didn’t invite his “partner.” I have always hated that politically correct term for faggot-lovers. Damn American Democracy and rights! He invited his goddamn butt-fucking buddy, just to spread the AIDS all over my little Princess and my entire unit. But I wouldn’t dare cause a scene and I wouldn’t dare upset my Princess. *** It only gets worse. I swear he rubbed his faggot juice all over my pure little girl. Not much later, Princess began going out to gay clubs with Flamer. She would tell me this so I wouldn’t worry, or at least that’s what she assumed. Not only did I worry, I got ulcers from drinking my fears away. The fear that she would conform into that sexually driven trend of a lifestyle that just so happened to plague her innocence and the generation she was born into, the generation I cursed upon her. I felt so guilty letting her associate with those fags, and presumably those lesbians, in that dark musty club light that I would almost fall over in desperation at the thought of her sweaty body rubbing next to their twisted, chemically imbalanced bodies. But I couldn’t object. I knew Flamer and his friends wouldn’t molest her and I knew she wouldn’t get pregnant. Isn’t that all a father has to worry about in today’s day and age? *** I came home for lunch out of nowhere during her summer break. It was her senior year of high school and there it was. This gorgeous cherry red ‘96 Mustang. I loved it, and knew whatever boy was in my house with my Princess was a keeper, for sure. I walked in the front door only to feel my fears rise, my anger boil, and my heart explode at the sight of her. She was tall, with blonde hair––shoulder length, but her clothes were a few sizes too big and she had a masculine feel to her walk and hand shake. I’ll call her Carter.

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*** I learned to hate that name. She didn’t even deserve a name, nor did she deserve to be in my little girl’s presence or on my property. Carter would pick my Princess up nearly everyday and they would go off for hours at a time, leaving me to worry about her impressionable mind being affected by these fags. I would hear Carter’s Mustang with its roaring exhaust pull into our sky-steep driveway late at night for last minute sleepovers. I couldn’t tell Princess not to have girl friends. Whoa! I mean, friends that are girls. Carter and Princess continued their supposed friendship until I broke down. I didn’t knock one day, I was home early and hadn’t informed Princess. I quietly walked up our cream-colored carpet stairs to silence seeping from beneath her door. The door was slightly opened and I pushed it open enough to stick my head into her room, my face blending with her beige walls. Carter was posted up perpendicular to Princess, hovering over her, more than close enough to kiss. I stepped out knowing they didn’t know what I had seen. *** I had nothing to say and I hoped I had seen it all wrong. As Princess and Carter hustled for the door to go on their usual outings, I pulled Princess aside. My fears and judgments were bursting out from my ears then tumbling out of my mouth. I said it.

“Princess, are you gay?”

Before she could answer, her jaw dropped and her smile grew larger than what her face could hold. I asked another.

“Is your friend gay?”

This is where it all began to get murky and distant, resulting in my present state of loneliness and the loss of that light in my life.

She refused to admit that either of them were gay and how dare I even think such an ignorant thing about such a good friendship. *** Her late night sleepovers shifted to Carter’s house and I had lost all my abilities to monitor her behavior. I felt she had something to hide and her absence in the house made me fell that even more. I was only trying to protect her, I swear. Carter disappeared from my daughter’s life not too long before she was about to head off to college in another state eleven hours away.

I was happy she would be away from all this filth. And I had nothing but confidence in her academic successes in a new place with new people. It was a feeling of relief for me. So we packed Princess’ pearl white SUV and I sent her off to a better environment. *** I missed Princess and the house got awful lonely. I hoped her days hanging out with fags had come to an end. But I spoke much too soon. She came home for visits as often as she could and as often as I could afford. Princess had always loved to travel, to fly, even if it was just back home to me. When she came she’d leave shortly after arriving and she would leave with Carter or some other boyish looking female. At least I thought they were girls. They were, she later confirmed, their female names. I was so confused at what those freaks had to offer to my Princess’ life and why she chose to fill her days with their presence. *** I always asked my wife about Princess. I was jealous of the relationship the two of them had now that Princess lived with my wife. They were more than just mother and daughter.

And when Princess did come home, she now drove. She told me she hated being stuck at the house without a car. But I just took it as her wanting to get away from me and go live the life she knew I would judge. I asked Princess about her relationships as discreetly as I could and I questioned my wife about her love life. My wife would simply refer to Princess’ high school

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romances with those boys I didn’t approve of and also about how her love life was none of my concern. I began obsessing over the uncertainty of my Princess and I began to sicken myself with my judgments of her impurity. Everything became so calloused between Princess and I. I don’t look into her eyes anymore because I fear that she is living a lie to prevent me from dying a disappointed father. I believe that mind isn’t filled with thoughts of a man nor are those lips possessed by a mans lips. I know that I will never see her marry; even if she does, she wouldn’t dare invite me. I worry that it will be her mother walking her down the aisle into an illegal marriage between two faggots. *** My little Princess is gay. I’ll now call her dyke.

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Housing Bubble Cliff Klein Oil on Canvas

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Northern Wisconsin Amber Koski Poetry

We spent July in northern Wisconsin. In this makeshift cabin. Where mosquitoes ate us covered in bug spray. We fought with sleeping bags and humidity the entire summer.

Our feet filled with burrs and dirt stains.

As we drug our kayaks to the strong river. The souls deeply cut by the river bottom rocks. Horse flies fed off our wet skin.

We sat on the tattered screen porch reading.

Admiring gold-chested Tanagers with one set of community binoculars. We read the books about fairytales on your old hidskinned love seat.

We took walks observing the wildlife and simplicity. Smoked pot and watched the steps before us coat us in smoke. We built fires and drove long turning roads into town.

We bought wine and homemade fudge there. we all sat after dinner drunk with happiness at the table on the porch. Playing French Rummy and kissing the natural tasting air with lips tainted by a spoiled society.

Quilt 95

Untitled

Nikkia Parchment Creative Non-Fiction

I realized my mortality through a friend.

It is late August, I am sitting in the passenger seat of my car, digging through my purse for the small pink phone which is vibrating incessantly.

The Caller ID flashes “Anthony Crisci” across the screen in bold lettering and I answer immediately, excited to hear from one of my oldest friends. We had gone to high school together and even though I moved from Connecticut to Florida for college, we still kept in touch regularly.

“Hello!” I always sound a little too enthusiastic.

“Hey babe, uh.”

Something is wrong; his voice is a little too hesitant, a little too unsure.

“What’s up?” My friend Michael is sitting next me in the driver’s seat and he hasn’t reversed out of the driveway yet, he is too busy playing with the IPod and trying to look for a song. I was going to just choose the song for him when Anthony continues speaking.

“I’m so sorry, Nikkia—” his voice breaks a little and I know something is definitely wrong now. My hand freezes in the air somewhere between my lap and the dashboard.

“What is it?”

I am nervous, my stomach clenches and I focus my attention on the sound of his voice as I try to dissect the meaning in his tone.

There is a long pause, during which I have come to my own conclusions about why he calling. My thoughts are running together, neither clear nor opaque, just hurried. They are a smudge on my consciousness and I feel the emotion building in me next to the anticipation because I always expect the worse.

“Christina’s dead.” Anthony says this in a rushed slur before he bursts into heavy sobs on the phone.

A still image of her face appears before my eyes. Smiling, always smiling. The words Christina and dead make no sense to me in the same sentence so I must have heard wrong. Inhale then exhale and my pause takes the space of two heartbeats.

“WHAT?” I spit the word out of my mouth like bile. Michael turns to me, instantly alerted by the change in my voice.

I am sitting perfectly still.

The green light from the clock on the dashboard makes the skin on my hands look sickly and unreal. The car is so quiet, as if someone somewhere has pressed a universal pause button and we all sit almost comically frozen with only our expressions to describe the scene.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I am so sorry.” Anthony is apologizing to me as if it was his fault. He is begging and I cannot understand what he is saying after a while. This is obviously some misunderstanding.

“What happened?” I didn’t think to ask, the words just fell out of mouth in an attempt to get away from the horrible images of car crashes, murder weapons, and the one I feared the most yet expected, drug overdose. *** I know Christina likes to do drugs.

There has always been the worry that in her pursuit for the ultimate high, she will have to

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exchange her life. This is something which I have stressed about since my friends and I all left for college while Christina stayed behind in her hometown to work. She tells me all the time that she never wanted to go to college, that it wasn’t her “scene.”

“She had a brain aneurysm. They found her dead in her room this morning.” Anthony responds through his tears.

Next is an image of her house in West Haven, Connecticut. A small white, cottage style home with shutters— I have forgotten if they were green or black. Her room is on the top floor facing the backyard and farther away, the beach. There is a twin bed pushed against a wall and towards the window a desk which is home to a broken printer. The floor is concealed by clothes, receipts, empty cigarette packs, and other random items that have been cast aside.

I don’t know that now is the time to start crying.

My mind has not even finished processing these words and the scope of what they mean for tomorrow and the day after that when tears start gushing down my cheeks and onto my shirt only to be absorbed by the fabric.

“What happened?” Michael’s voice is quiet yet insistent. I almost forgot my friend Shaun is in the backseat of the car until I feel his hand squeezing my right shoulder.

“Are you serious?” I ask Anthony. Please be joking please be joking please be joking. Please. Be. Joking.

In that moment everything shifts.

The light blithe mood of before is exchanged for a thick heavy disposition that clouds my vision and clings to every breath that I take. *** This is not real.

I have never experienced the death of someone close to me. Death was a concept which was removed from my life, something that I knew I had to deal with eventually. It was also something I didn’t really understand or acknowledge. Distant family members cannot in any way compare to losing someone that you know. Someone who you have known for a considerable amount of time. We had been friends for seven years.

It is agonizing, to imagine a person who’s shared important memories, fears, dreams, and holds some bearing on the person that you are, simply not existing anymore. There are no last words or second chances. One minute she is a phone call away and the next I will never get to listen to her voice again.

Anthony is still crying into the phone and I don’t think he can hear me.

My friends are hugging me and I hang up the phone, unable to continue the conversation.

Something in my chest has tightened and the pressure is almost unbearable on my heart and lungs. I am trying to control my breathing, to focus on something arbitrary as the panic sets in.

Michael is squeezing me and it takes a second to register that his grip is slightly uncomfortable but I won’t pull away. For right now, he is the only thing holding me together in this time and place. If he lets go, the gravity of that phone call and the effort my mind is making to process it all, will make me explode into tiny shards of the person I was. *** I didn’t like Christina at first.

I met her my freshman year of high school. My typical Catholic school was small and set to the background of the quaint New England town called Fairfield. Everyone knew each other and the familiarity was as comforting as it was suffocating.

Christina was the total opposite of me, in every way. She was tall and thin with dark curly hair that she never really seemed to know what to do with and pale skin that bruised too easily.

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Her lithe build made her appear to be in shape when in reality she ate more than any person I have ever met. She was outspoken and naturally loud and I felt uncomfortable around her because I was shy and it took me a while to open up to people. Where she flourished in social situations I tried to stay more reserved and in the background. Our standard Catholic uniform had set dress regulations that were enforced. Christina spent a lot of her time trying to find new ways to set herself apart and change the uniform to be different in a small world of plaid peers.

She always had a book with her and would read throughout homeroom, sometimes missing her name being called for attendance.

“Christina?”

Silence as the teacher looks up and Christina sits sideways in her desk, not facing the front of the room and reading.

“Christina McQuade?” He is a little louder now and even though the teacher knows she is present in the class, he refuses to check her name off of the roster until she responds. Patrick Mede, who sits directly behind her, kicks her chair.

“Um, yeah, present and accounted for.”

There is a collective giggle around the room and then Patrick answers to his name being called promptly. *** In the middle of our junior year, Christina stopped coming to homeroom. I asked around and found out that she had been sent to a mental institution by her parents.

She didn’t seem crazy. To my knowledge, mental institutions housed people who were unable to function in reality and instead found solace in their own versions of reality.

“She tried to kill herself.” Anthony told me after school one day. He was grabbing his books and getting ready to leave. Anthony spoke in a very detached tone as if relaying the weather; real emotions lay far beneath the surface for him and only rarely were shown.

I didn’t know how to respond to this news. I figured depression was tangible, something you could see; that it would be written on Christina’s face like the lines of a frown or the path created after tears. There were no clues that she was depressed about anything. Most days she was energetic, stealing the attention of everyone around her with her smile, wit, and charm.

She was always funny and approachable and easy to get along with. Is that what depression looks like?

When she returned a few weeks later, it was as if nothing had changed. She just sat in her normal seat in homeroom, a desk that had been empty for almost a month. The teacher called her name during roll and she answered without hesitation. Everyone was surprised that she had come back. Christina had been through something which most of us were ignorant of and she became an icon of sorts. Depression wasn’t something that was recognized or spoken about very often.

When asked, she admitted that she had gone to an institution but never told anyone why.

She would simply laugh at the many theories people had created in her absence. She figured she did not owe an explanation to anyone.

Like most events in high school, it faded as some new gossip or scandal came in to take its place. *** We started getting close during the end of my junior year in high school.

We had both been invited to a birthday party and that was one of the first times I had had a serious conversation with her that went beyond complaining about a certain teacher or congratulating each other on doing well on a test we expected to fail.

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The birthday party was in Stratford, at a Country Club which was located on the edge of a lake. Our friend, John, was having his eighteenth birthday and his family threw him a party at the end of March, just when spring was starting to creep in.

Most of the junior class was there. Some people stayed inside and mingled with his family members and others went outside to enjoy the change in weather.

I had been circulating the party and talking to different groups of people. After, I had walked outside to call my mom and tell her that she didn’t need to pick me up because I was getting a ride home with Anthony, when I saw Christina.

She was standing past the gravel parking lot on the area of grass that led down to the water.

It was a calm gray that reflected the sky and the land around it. A weathered white sign with red lettering read “No Fishing” on the shore.

As usual, she was smoking a cigarette. I walked over to her after I made my phone call and tried to make conversation. I never really liked small talk and found it almost painful to engage in. Rarely did anyone care about your answer to the standard question of “What’s up?”

We discussed school and our plans for the summer. I was surprised when she told me about how bored she was going to be at home, but she was glad that she had gotten a job at the local library to break up the time spent at her house. This was something we could agree on. Most of our mutual friends didn’t really work. I had recently gotten a job at a pizza place by my house so I could make some extra money. We sympathized with each other on the fact that being at home was the last place where we wanted to spend any extended amount of time.

For some reason, it was easy to talk with Christina. I never felt awkward or at a loss for words. She filled the gaps in conversation and I immediately found myself opening up to her and telling her about my family life and other things that I never really spoke about. I told her about my mom and how the lack of effective communication was something that had pushed us so far apart I wondered if she even knew who I was anymore. I spoke about my father and how his absence was a corporeal issue that I struggled to get around on a daily basis. She never gave me pity, which is something I always respected.

I was intrigued with her confidence in herself and her ease with most of the things that she did. I rarely saw her get embarrassed or nervous or afraid for any reason. She slowly became someone that I looked up to, someone I tried to emulate.

Using her as a mirror, I tried to work on my own flaws. I wanted to be more confident in my opinion and to not care what people thought about me. During high school I spent a lot of my time trying to mold myself into what I expected would be pleasing to other people. Christina didn’t expect me to be anything but myself. *** I remember the funeral.

I am sitting in my mother’s bedroom trying to decide what I should pack for the unplanned trip from Florida back up to New England. The cat is in a ball in the middle of the bed and I shoot it a dirty look. I secretly hold a grudge against my mother for getting a cat, even though I am allergic. Her rationalization to me is that I am in college and rarely home.

“I don’t think anyone is going to notice what you’re wearing, Nikki.” It was an honest statement, I guess. My mother is surprisingly comforting during this, which I wasn’t expecting because she doesn’t really like Christina.

My mother sees Christina as the reason why I stayed out late in high school and changed so much from that shy freshman girl to the loud opinionated one in her place. I had stopped trying so hard to please my mother and now attempted to get my point across through telling her how I really felt, no matter how she received it. My mother holds strong to her opinion of Christina and doesn’t understand why I am friends with someone who is so different from me

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and why we have remained friends even after I left for school.

I can’t explain it to her and I think about the possible reasons for why we became so close while I am packing. We became friends by mistake because I don’t think either one of us thought we would have much in common with the other. This lack of expectation added to the fact that it was easy for us to be friends.

After I left for college, I imagined we would eventually lose touch but the opposite happened.

I found myself calling Christina at least once a day to tell her about something and she did the same.

I would get a phone call while she was taking a cigarette break and she would ask me about my day and then tell me about some guy she was seeing or the crazy weekend she’d had. I laughed at her stories and tried my best to give sound advice from three thousand miles away.

“I went to this crazy party last weekend, I really wish you could’ve been there. I ended up totally wasted but I met this cute guy too…” Christina would say.

“Really? Where was the party? And how cute are talking with this guy?”

“My boy Tommy’s house. You remember, I told you about him. He is the one that deals me coke sometimes. And the guy is actually really cute but I think he likes me too much already.” Christina would ramble for a little and I would listen, giving the same noncommittal responses.

“Christina, I thought you quit?” I said, not even trying to hide my lack of patience.

I attempted to get her to quit doing drugs countless times. As time went on it seemed like her drug habits went from experimental to recreational and finally to habitual. It was painful to listen to her if she called me when she was high. Her voice would be indistinct and her speech spontaneous. Sometimes she would forget what she had been saying and repeat herself. These phone calls lead to many arguments as I tried to convince her that what she was doing would only hurt her.

“Nikkia I miss you sooooo much!” she would slur.

“What’s wrong with you?” I would say. I was usually on my way to hang out with my friends or about to do something when she called. I didn’t try to hide my disapproval. She had found new friends when all of us went to college. They thought her drug habit was fine.

“Nothing!” Her voice was always too loud and she easily got defensive if I didn’t believe her when she told me she was sober.

“I have to go Christina, I will call you later.” *** I couldn’t help her from Florida.

I knew the fact that she had been left behind while her friends pursued their education added to her loneliness. I have often thought that maybe if I had been more supportive, more understanding and less judgmental, that Christina would be less inclined to be self destructive.

When she told me she was going to quit, as she did often, I learned to not believe her. The lies and broken promises had built up and stacked neatly on top of each other to create a wall between us.

I couldn’t take her at her word. When she told me she would quit, it would only be a matter of time before I would get another phone call and hear that tone in her voice which revealed that she was not sober.

I wanted to believe her; believe that she had the willpower to be more than what she had become. Believe that she would not succumb to that form of weakness, being addicted to a fleeting feeling. I wanted to believe that she was still the person I met. I was losing faith that she would ever change so I simply listened to her and continued to be her friend.

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Later, I found out that her brain aneurysm may have been caused by the stress on the body which is induced by drug withdrawal. She had been clean and sober for 24 days when she died. *** I end up not packing much to go back to Connecticut, even though I love to over pack in case something like a flash flood, ice storm, or heat wave just happens to occur for the duration of any trip. I carry one small rolling luggage bag through the airport with me as I catch my flight.

I cannot stop thinking about that phone conversation with Anthony.

Every detail has been imprinted into my memory and the dialogue plays over and over in my head every night before I go to sleep. I close my eyes and see the inside of my car, the IPod, and the look on my friend’s faces when I told them what happened, as if I am fated to relive that moment again and again until it starts to make sense.

Questions drift through my mind: Why did she have die? Did she die with her eyes open?

What were her last thoughts? Was she scared? Did she even know what was happening or did she just disappear? Did she feel any pain? Will she remember me?

I know I will never get the answers. *** Everything reminds me of her. The woman checking me in at the US Airways desk has her eyes. The color shirt the flight attendant is wearing reflects the color of the walls in her old room. I even bought her favorite brand of cigarettes to smoke as a way to keep some facet of her with me for a little longer.

It is cold for the end of August when I finally land in New York.

The following weekend blends together to leave a blur in my mind that I cannot see past.

The only clear moment is the funeral.

I wake up in Anthony’s apartment to the sound of my phone alarm. I contemplate not getting up. What would happen if I just stayed in bed, if I just didn’t go? This train of thought doesn’t last long because even though I hate goodbyes, this is necessary.

No one says a word for most of the morning as we tip-toe around each other and get ready. I put on no mascara or eyeliner because I have taken to bursting into tears randomly these days.

The dress I wear is conservative and black and doesn’t draw much attention.

It is raining when we finally leave for the service. I remembered something that my grandma used to say as we drive on the I-95 to West Haven from Norwalk.

If the rain falls for the dead, then they are blessed. She is a superstitious woman and her tenets both intrigue and confuse me. This saying brings me some semblance of peace though. I am calmer than I expected as we pull up to the church.

The smell of the incense at St. John Vianney Church soaks into my clothes as I walk down the vestibule. I haven’t been in a church since high school, almost three years ago. I forgot how hushed everything is, how this structure inspires quiet respect.

I greet Christina’s mother, Carmen, with a sad smile and she holds me for too long. I squeeze her back and if I could, I would take some of her pain away because I know that whatever I feel is only a small fraction of what she must be going through. It is unnatural for a mother to have to bury her child and I know Christina was very close to her mother.

Christina’s father is standing next to her mother and even though he is there physically, his eyes show that his mind is very far away. He is staring at something above my head as he hugs me and his eyes have a sheen of sadness. Christina’s older sister Dani comes up behind me and I hug her as well. I know, it is the least I can do. Just a useless gesture to try and comfort someone, but it is not enough, not even close.

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*** Sitting through that service was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

I have to detach myself from the situation because the tears are clawing at my eyelids and I have sobs collecting in my throat and constricting my lungs. The only thing that breaks the silence during the service is the occasional sound of weeping which seems to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

The congregation is split with Christina’s family sitting on the left and her friends sitting on the right. My face is petrified and I don’t make direct eye contact with anyone around me The priest declares that Christina was too good for this world in his homily, and that is something we agree on. There are a few people that I know here, through school or socially and everyone wears the same expression that matches their black attire. I am sitting with Anthony and a couple other people from our high school group and we all bow and genuflect when appropriate.

I went to catholic school my entire life and my body goes through the motions with practiced ease and before I realize it the service is over and Anthony is nudging me to walk to the front and say my final farewell.

I notice that Christina has been cremated and that there is a decorative box, surrounded by an elaborate display of flowers. I think they should have had a picture of her; the mini altar seems very impersonal since I know she doesn’t like flowers very much.

I count my steps to the front of the Church and the line moves more slowly with every step that I take. When I finally get to the front and stand in front of the box and flowers it doesn’t seem like enough. This is it?

This is supposed to be the last time I get to say anything to Christina, yet I cannot picture her ashes in that little box and my mind has gone blank.

For once there is a stillness that I have not been able to find since I heard the news. In this stillness I decide that I am glad to have known Christina. She helped me learn so much about myself through laughter, fights, and lastly tears.

Sadness does not seem to encompass how I actually feel at this moment. Sadness is an easily recognizable and often overused emotion. People use it to describe a whole array of things which in the long run, don’t really matter. I do not know what I feel. All I know is that I miss her and that feeling will not go away.

Anthony has started crying next to me. I feel the tears filling up in my body and if I could I know I would cry though my eyes, ears, mouth, and nose just to get all of this emotion out at once. *** I know if Christina was here she would have found everything so funny.

I begin to think that if she could have been sitting next to me in that pew, or standing next to me in that line that she would have been wearing something entirely inappropriate for the occasion (and of course she wouldn’t notice) while making commentary on every person who attended. It helps a little to picture her at her own funeral and know that when I start crying she will give me a hug and say, “Why are you sad? Everything is going to be okay…”

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Coping with a Black Swan Event

Jeff Gibbons Found Objects: Latex, Cotton, Parachute String, Bronze, Talc

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Contributor’s Notes Derrick Austin dresses well. He’s a poet yet doesn’t drink or smoke. He and three other writers on campus are Romantics, meaning they’re suckers for heartbreak and good writing.

Krystle Canan is a second year student at UT. She is currently working on her BA in Writing, exploring all forms of writing though she loves art in general. She is not a native to Florida, but has lived there long enough, approximately 10 years, to be considered a Floridian.

When out and about, she does not fret about not having paper when a line or story idea comes to her mind, she just types it up into a draft text message in her phone, hence that folder always has something in it. She want the readers to connect to and take something away when they read her works, if they do then her mission has been accomplished.

Daniel Chocianowski likes writing fiction.

Ashley Eakin is a Writing major, which she intends to follow through with, although the other fine arts are quite enticing. She aspires to someday teach at a secondary level and to always aim true. You may say she’s a dreamer, and, well, you’d be right.

Jeff Gibbons is a graduating senior, earning his BFA with a concentration in ceramics.

Sarah Gottlieb is a junior majoring in writing and communication. She is originally from New York. She would like to thank her family and close friends for their unyielding love and support, and for keeping life interesting.

Philippa Hatendi is a budding Sophomore at UT, and an avid poet and traveler. She originates from Harare, Zimbabwe and thoroughly enjoys participating in Quilt!

Cliff Klein is originally from Boynton Beach, Fl. where he’s been making art since his early days. This passion for art led him to attend the Middle School of the Arts as well as Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts where he graduated high school. He then went on to study in Baltimore at the Maryland Institute College of Art before finding his place right here at UT where he continues to explore his ideas of the world through art.

Amber Koski is a Sophomore majoring in Writing. She especially enjoys writing creative non-fiction and travel writing. Amber was the editor for her High School Literary Magazine, More Than Words, which earned awards from the National Press Association for the magazines annual issues 2006-2008.

Anya Martinez is a senior Writing major with a Minor in Music. She is both excited and horrified at the prospect of her graduation in May. She would like to dedicate all her submissions to her loving family, whose support has lifted her up on days she could not stand, and to her friend Shannon, without whom she would be lost in all possible ways. You are my person too.

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Conner McDonough is a poet whose work has been applauded by Derrick Austin as being “refreshing like whiskey.” Conner first got into writing to impress his high school English teacher who loved the Modernists and the Beat Generation. He plans to keep writing poetry after college, hopefully publish, but probably not earn a buck for it in his lifetime.

Erin Palmer will be the girl standing on the corner after graduation with a sign that says “will write for food.” She believes that humor can be found even at the worst times in life and tries to reflect that in most of her stories. If all else fails, she’ll always have an audience in her mom, her fiance and her three dogs.

Nikkia Parchment is a senior at the University of Tampa. She is a double major in Government and World Affairs and Writing.

Elizabeth “Liza” Pichette is a sophomore majoring in Writing with a minor in International Studies. She hopes to use her writing to fund her travels around the world and gain more inspiration.

Julia Ponzek is a senior majoring in Art with a painting concentration.

Max Roberts was discovered wandering the sewers of Paris in 1886, apparently unable to say anything other than “Powerful big rats, gentlemen.” He has never been to Belgium and any claims to the contrary are merely political ploys put into action by his enemies to discredit him.

He always knows where his towel is.

Mikey Rumore is a fiction writer, songwriter, and musician from Tampa, Florida. He plays in the Tampa-based rock band Hat Trick Heroes and still uses a typewriter, despite its technological shortcomings.

Kristi Russell is a reformed writer of really terrible poetry, and spends her free time pondering le mot juste. She is also awfully good at funny limericks.

Stephanie Selander is currently a freshman at University of Tampa hoping to achieve a Writing Major. She’s a Florida native who lives off a steady diet of caffiene, and you’ll probably find her poking around the Open Mics. This is her first time working with Quilt.

Jillian Shannon is a Capricorn, born in the year of the Dragon. Her favorite colors are: Venetian red, violet, iris blue, lime green, silver, pewter and black. She was pick-pocketed at an ATM machine on Vatican Boulevard in Rome etc., etc. and led two Italian cops and five police cars into a crowd of gypsies in front of the Castel Sant’Angelo.

William Stryffeler was born and raised in a small farm town in Ohio. After working several years in the business industry he came to realize and return (very thankfully) to his main interest, art. He currently attends the University of Tampa studying for the completion of a bachelors degree in fine art, practicing all aspects of art while there, but focusing mainly on painting. His current works, although experimental at times, are a good reflection of a direction in which he is striving for. His work tends to be a mix of high contrast pop images with minimal coloring. He also uses a mix media approach at times to create texture and a sense of space and depth in his work with the use of found objects.

Morgan Tanafon is a senior honors student at the University of Tampa, pursuing a Bachelor’s of Science in Criminology. He has been writing poetry ever since he was forced to attend a poetry reading in his teens and saw the light. Morgan has won awards for martial arts and undergradute legal advocacy, and in the future hopes to teach English in Japan and attend law school.

Laura Theobald is an English and writing major minoring in philosophy. Her concentrations are in poetry, editing, and publication. She hopes to continue to write and to begin a career in publication while pursuing her masters upon graduation.

Clifton Tressler is a senior-year deist and American from the Delaware River Basin. He dropped out of ROTC to become a radical pacifist. He will move to France, or Iowa City, or the Pacific Northwest.

Cody Waters is a junior English major who lives in the middle of an orange grove somewhere in Wauchula, FL. In his spare time he likes to trip the light fantastic and partake of impromptu adventures of all kinds. “Legionnaire’s Prayer” is inspired by his experience as a Discordian pope (fnord) and by followers of non-prophet irreligious disorganizations everywhere.

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Submission Guidelines Quilt 2011 Submission Guidelines Deadline: February 12 E-mail submissions only! Send your work to quilt@ut.edu with your name and the genre you’re submitting in the subject line. Please attach your submissions in a single Microsoft Word file (.doc not .docx). Do not put your submissions in the body of the e-mail. Save the file as your first and last name. Do not mix genres; save poems in one file, save fiction in another file, and save creative non-fiction in another file. No pictures or fancy fonts, please.

In the body of the e-mail, type your name, phone number, mailing address, titles of your submitted pieces, the medium if it’s an art submission, and a short bio (1-3 sentences) about yourself in third person.

Fiction: Stream-of-consciousness, minimalist, surreal—we encourage all types of fiction. We’re looking for the best stories on campus with strong characters, powerful language, original plots, but most importantly with sense of personal style. We want a feel for you as the author.

Submit no more than three stories, 5,000 words or less.

Creative Non-Fiction: Remember when you entered a pie eating contest and saw God in the flakey tin? Or listened to Janis Joplin for the first time and felt real heartache? We’re looking for the stories of your life that go beyond being an interesting anecdote. Submit no more than three pieces, 5,000 words or less. We do not accept research papers. (If you have a good research paper, submit to Respondez!)

Poetry: Rhymed or unrhymed, love poems or elegies, raunchy or elegant, we want to read poems that make our heads explode! Avoid clichés: If you’ve heard it before then make it better, make it your own! Submit no more than four poems. If your poem goes beyond a page make sure you include “continues with stanza break” or “continues without stanza break” in parenthesis beside the last line on the page.

Art and Photography: Any reasonable number of submissions will be accepted. Take a high resolution photo of the painting or sculpture; if you don’t have access to a high resolution camera contact our art editor at quilt@ut.edu and we’ll help out. Submit these as JPEG files please!

Quilt’s Corner: If you’ve submitted the maximum number of prose or poems, don’t despair! Quilt’s Corner

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is our section in UT’s student newspaper, The Minaret, which runs weekly, so submissions are unlimited. We accept poetry, art and photography, flash fiction, and short stories (which will be serialized). If you’re published in Quilt’s Corner that piece will be considered for publication in our journal (and it doesn’t count towards your limit total). E-mail these submissions to quilt@ut.edu with Quilt’s Corner Submission and your name in the subject line.

Check us out online: www.quiltligmag.com, www.youtube.com/Quilt2008, and friend us on Facebook: search Quilt magazine.

Best of luck and looking forward to reading your work!

Derrick Austin, editor-in-chief, and the Quilt staff

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