2020
P ara llax #23
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Spirits in the Head The Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein Upper School of Ramaz Parallax Literary & Art Magazine 2020 Vol. 23 60 East 78th Street New York NY 10075
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Spirits in the Head
“The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head.” Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
To O’Brien, the story truth that emerged when language melded memory and imagination was truer than any newspaper headline. We agree. In our poems, in our stories, we bring imagination to bear on our memories and find the truths revealed in our dreams. Just as we use language to shape our imaginative work, our Memories and our Imagination have shaped us. So we invite you to dream along with us as we present our SPIRITS IN THE HEAD.
Editors
This publication is dedicated in loving memory to Edith Schrank. For more than a decade, she taught English in a distinguished and distinctive fashion. She had the capacity to impart to her students a sense of urgency about reading and an appreciation for the written word.
Literary Gabi Potter Maya Hoff Evelyn Landy Samantha Sinensky
Design Maya Hoff Gabi Potter Samantha Sinensky
Faculty Advisors literary, Dr. Edith Lazaros Honig art & design, Ms. Barbara Abramson art & design, Ms. Rachel Rabhan photography, Mr. Kevin Goggin
Parallax is the creative writing club of Ramaz Upper School, as well as the name of our literary & art magazine. The club meets every Thursday after school. Parallax 2020 is a juried publication created from students’ homes during the Covid-19 pandemic and published online in June in time for Celebration of the Arts. Parallax is published on ISSUU’s website and will be printed by Allied Printers in the fall. Copy and layout were prepared by students on an Apple iMac in InDesign Cs6. Fonts featured in this edition of Parallax include Gurmukhi Sangam MN & Hiragino Kaku Gothic StdN. All rights belong to Ramaz Upper School, 60 E. 78th Street, New York NY 10075.
Memory 10 Photograph
Anna Braun
11 Maman
Gabi Potter
12 Summer Loving Maya Hoff 13 Photograph
Ari Porter
14 Eucalyptus Air
Arielle Levy
14 Photograph
Maya Hoff
16 Photograph
Anna Braun
17 Charred Roots
Olalla Levi
18 Overheard Conversations Sophia Kremer 19 Photograph
Eitan Goldberg
20 Sound
Emily Vayner
20 Photograph
Maya Hoff
22 Photograph
Eitan Goldberg
23 My Little Town
David Gitelman
24 Photograph (garden)
Daniela Woldenberg
25 Photograph (sunset)
Samantha Grossman
25 Photograph (window)
Anna Braun
25 Photograph (flower)
Jessica Moskovits
26 5 X 7
Esther Cabot
27 Drawing
Cayla Todes
28 Photograph
Anna Braun
29 Small Kindnesses
Eve Schizer
30 Multimedia
Rachel Araten
32 How Apologies Were Invented
Evelyn Landy
32 Multimedia
Rachel Araten
34 Photograph
Eitan Goldberg
35 Unfamiliar Relative
Daniela Woldenberg
36 Dandelions
Arielle Levy
36 Photograph
James Auerbach
38 Photograph
Eitan Goldberg
39 Autumn
Eve Schizer
39 Photograph
Maya Hoff
40 Streets Picked Clean
Samantha Sinensky
40 Photograph
Anna Braun
42 Skin
Gabi Potter
43 Photograph
Maya Hoff
Contents
24 Summer Transformation Maya Hoff
46 Photograph
Imagination
47 Mrs. Reed
Jessica Moskovits Eliana Sobel
48 The Price of Kindness Evelyn Landy 48 Photograph
Anna Braun
50 Photograph
Maya Hoff 51 Symphony of Soundlessness
Arlette Gindi
52 Photograph
Maya Hoff
53 The Rabbit
Eliezer Altzman
54 Photograph
Maya Hoff
56 Photograph
Maya Hoff
57 I Am
Maya Hoff
58 Photograph (water)
Maya Hoff
58 Photograph (flower)
Jessica Moskovits
59 Dreaming of Water
Evelyn Landy
60 Photograph (trees)
Samantha Grossman
60 Photograph (sunset)
Eitan Goldberg
61 Quail Eggs
Gabi Potter
62 Charcoal Drawing
Beatrice Kleeger
64 Photograph
Aaron Solomons
65 Falling Stars
Samantha Sinensky
66 Notes on Nothing
Eliezer Altzman
67 Photograph
Anna Braun
68 Photograph (flower)
Cover
Maya Hoff
Inside Cover
Maya Hoff
Title Page
Anna Braun
Maya Hoff
Introduction
Sophia Rein
68 Photograph (legs)
Sophia Rein
Editors’ Page
Maya Hoff
69 Sunday Run
Olalla Levi
70 Photograph
Eitan Goldberg
Contents
Sophia Rein
71 Contrasts
Eve Schizer
Memory
Maya Hoff
72 The Oblivious Ones
Arielle Levy
Imagination
Maya Hoff
72 Photograph
Maya Hoff
Mem
mory
Gabi
Potter
Maman
10
Encounters with Grandma, who has found valleys and mazes in kitchen pantries, tunnels that span the intercontinental voyage from Tehran to Queens, in which she left a trail-forged passports and fake relatives; broken words of English; tuition scraped together for my mother to attend Jewish day school; and slices of onion and liver, always saved for her favorite grandchild -- she’s always been a martyr disguised as a grandmother. I’ve watched her slave away under the glimmering midnight, moonlight seeping into her eyes as she prepares the next day’s meal, ravenous for the fumes her grandmother’s stews would leave in her childhood kitchen,
11
Anna Braun
a taste of the life she left in Iran that she now stirs into every batch of rice she makes for us.
Summer
This was the first summer we were no longer kids. We had moved up in the world,
we thought, but behind locked doors the adults knew we were acting. It was a sum-
mer characterized by heels breaking into mud and makeup left abstractly painted on young girls’ faces. We wore push-up bras, lace, and rings. We spoke to boys. We pretended it was our natural disposition, but everyone saw through it. On the first days of summer, as we relived our winter memories in dramatized movies for
the other girls to hear, I realized that my year was lacking. You were my chance at redemption. My ticket to womanhood. Whispers shielded by manicured hands
passed from me to you in a chain woven by silk and flowers. You asked me to be with you when our hands were interlocked, and your brother stood a few feet away
with pizza and older kids. We stole excited glances from across the pavilion, and my calm demeanor seemed to conceal worry.
The night before, you and I sat next to each other, and the table hid our touching
thighs during dinner. When we strolled through the grounds together, you apolo-
gized for your sweaty hands. I did not care. I wanted everyone to see. We spoke
meaningless words to fill the prerequisite time deemed a necessary antecedent to this kind of intimacy. I did not actually care to learn about you. We circled the field and you led me into the woods. My heart raced faster than the children running
towards the ice cream in the other direction. You led me hand in hand to the bridge. We looked out onto the lake, seeing the kayaks, lily pads, and reflections of the sun on the water through our distorted silhouettes. I thought I might fall into the water,
lose my balance and simply drown. Was it a fear? Now I think it was a wish. You
told me about your rebellious escapades as I listened with no stories of my own to add. You talked for at least an hour, but my mind was floating in worry about the unknown, a first kiss. Soon after, you asked me if I was ready to try and I nodded.
You leaned in and I tilted my head. My lips were locked between my teeth--no, I did not pucker. We sat in that position for what felt like hours. I opened my eyes and immediately saw a security camera pointing at us from the corner of the roof
of the neighboring house. You still had not pulled away. You sat as still as a statue. I realized that the camera was fitting. I was the actress starring in a fantasy. A story
to tell in the winter and spill minutes later as I ran to my friends without saying goodbye.
Ari Porter
Loving
Maya Hoff
“What’s your happiest memory?” she asked me. I breathed in the eucalyptus scented air, shuffled my feet on the skin colored carpet, and lost myself staring at a faux Van Gogh. “You mean before the sadness.” She nodded, as she moved her hair behind her ears, and clicked her pen to write. Sometimes, she would cross her legs and place her notebook on her lap. In these instances, I could see her notes. They were boringly repetitive with commas in all the wrong places. I didn’t want to answer her question too quickly because I feared she would write “neurotic” with two commas after it, and then circle it. The commas must mean something, they must. I waited and counted to thirty while she stared at my face. I always felt like a parade to her. Each of my floats, circles with a comma in her notebook. “I was ten,” I said. She nodded. “Auguste and I were playing with the swords my grandfather bought me for my birthday. I had asked for an art set. My father later came down and set up the projector for us to watch a movie. Then he roughed up our hair, gave us a bowl of popcorn and said, “Have fun, boys!” When he left, we turned off the dumb war movie. It made us jump every second someone was shot. We had always dreamed of being actors on Broadway. So, I took the role of the audience as he jumped on the couch and began to perform. It was a horrible play, and we laughed the whole time. “Do you remember what the play was about?” the therapist asked me. I had forgotten she was there. The eucalyptus air always seemed to take me deeper into my memories. “He played the part of a prince of some random planet in space. I can’t remember the rest of the play, but he ended up getting stabbed and he bled to death. Auguste always made death seem funny. He made everything seem funny. In the end, the prince’s sister in utmost unrest confessed to his murder, was tried in court, and exiled to Mars.” She flipped the page of her notebook, scribbled something down, and said hesitantly,“Was that the last play Auguste performed for you before he...” “Yes,” I said. She opened the window and the eucalyptus air was gone.
14
Maya Hoff
Eucalyptus
15
Air Arielle Levy
Anna Braun
Ollala Levi
Charred
16 16
Roots
I’m headstrong to say the least.
Some would call me absolutely crazy. It was Simchat Torah weekend, and I was elated to be surrounded by my camp friends whom I hadn’t seen in months. I slept over at a friend’s house on the Upper West Side, far away from my parents’ domain and judgment. Maybe it was peer pressure or maybe it was my impulsive love for change and newness, but whatever it was that led me to make such a reckless decision I will never know. We kicked off the night with a feast, and all of our friends who were staying at other houses in the neighborhood came to celebrate. The table was piled with steaming potatoes, shriveled green beans, chicken, fried vegetables--you name it. However, dinner didn’t really matter because the main event was yet to come. Everyone left at a certain point and the room went from fifteen bodies to three. The mood flipped from a growing high to the lowest low, so my two friends and I started exploring the apartment for entertainment. Soon enough, my friend discovered an unopened blonde hair dye kit in the bathroom. The only logical option the three of us could think of was to dye one of our heads completely blonde. I stepped up to the challenge and to this day I’ve never regretted anything more. My best friend Sadie took the role of professional hairstylist, or at least that’s what she called herself as she began rubbing the dye through my hair. Fast forward two hours, and my hair was orange, bright clementine orange. I cried a little then and although my friends attempted to comfort and reassure me that it wasn’t that bad, I knew it was. We woke up the next morning at 6 a.m. and as I stood outside a Duane Reade on a Saturday morning waiting for my not so religious friends to get me some dark brown hair dye, I knew I had done something that wasn’t going to simply be undone. After around five mostly unsuccessful attempts of reversing my hair to its natural color, I began to fear the possibility of my hair falling out due to so much chemical. I ordered a full stop to the hair trials. The reversal process had taken away the strong orange stain, but didn’t quite achieve the brown hue I was aiming for. My mother never noticed, which to me, unlike most of my friends, was most humorous. Now my hair is growing back, and every time I glance in the mirror at the patchy hair work that looks tie-dye from an aerial view, I can’t help but blame myself for being so crazily impulsive.
17
I live in a city of hustlers and bustlers. Dog walkers rush past me, eager to get their jobs done, dragging young pups by jewelled designer brand collars. Women maneuver baby carriages like race car drivers, weaving between imaginary lanes. In this fast track environment, Gothamites tend to mind their own business. How could we possibly have time for anyone else’s? So when we find ourselves eavesdropping, it’s likely we’re pulling out our earbuds for an exchange that’s well worth it. A real New Yorker knows that snow in the city is only beautiful the day it falls, before it turns to yellow and black slush; the worst traffic in the city is on Marathon weekend; and that there’s no better place to catch a conversation than on a New York City bus, especially one that is not too packed, where the density of the crowd can make it difficult to listen in. Sitting in those rows of paired blue bus seats, sometimes I find it even more fascinating to observe closely as the rider in front of me listens in to the ones in front of them. I first began to notice that the bus is a prime spot for snooping on my commute to school. I take the bus each morning with my younger brothers and mom. There is my mom, all done-up and dressed glamorously for her work day, my 15 year-old brother Will who is in that awkward earbud wearing stage where he tries to pretend he’s not with us, and my nine-year old brother Leon, who talks so loudly my parents have already taken him twice to have his hearing tested, only to be told that he hears fine; he just wants to make sure everyone else is listening. He also happens to be adorable and the most interesting one for others to listen in on because he says cute things to my mom like, “I can’t even imagine what you were like when you were a kid; was it the 1940s?” Or he blurts out something that is obviously meant to be private, like the fact that even though we live in New York City, we hardly ever lock our front door because my brother always forgets to take his keys. This leaves me with no choice but to pretend to be checking Snapchat and try to ignore the chuckles and smirks from fellow riders. As I reflect on this moment, it dawns upon me that each of them has been eavesdropping on our interactions. It is almost like the entire bus was connecting over the strangeness of my family; this bothers me to my core. But then I shrug it off as I realize I live in a city of eavesdroppers. It’s just part of the charm of living in a city as dense and alive as New York. York 18
Overheard
Sophia Kremer
Eitan Goldberg
Conversations
19
With its sharp, deafening sound, the school bell rang, screaming like
rusted hinges, bleeding its hideous noise, for what sounded like the millionth time today. I walked down the stairs to the social jungle, filled with loud chatter and the sounds of food being slapped onto plastic plates.
I look around curiously, watching mouths open and close over
and over again. A plate of greasy, over-burnt french fries are in my hands, followed by a thank you and a smile. The lunch room is filled with smiles, some fake and some real. It is filled with tables, all the same but all so different. Some are full and some are empty. But some have just one seat left. Sometimes I sit and listen to gossip or stories. Yet, sometimes the silence of the table overpowers the cacophony of sounds in the background. In this moment, there is a separation from the liveliness of the room like a thick layer of glass, secluded in silence. A whole room can be filled with noise but silence can still be the loudest sound. Sometimes silence is my favorite sound. Silence can speak. Silence has a voice. People will speak loudly, words will speak louder, but silence will always be the loudest. People make noise, words make meaning, but silence will always be a secret. A whisper can be louder than screams.
20
Emily Vayner
Sound
Maya Hoff
21
My
Little
David
Gitelman
Town
Eitan Goldberg
22 22
My little town was actually a collection of different townships in Bergen County, New Jersey, but as far as I was concerned, Englewood, Tenafly, and Teaneck were all my town. Areas of Demarest, Bergenfield, Cresskill, Leonia, and Fort Lee were also parts of my town. My real home couldn’t be crammed into tidy borders: it was expansive and sprawling. It included the forests and little streams of Flat Rock Nature Preserve, as well as the peaceful Tenafly Library, with its babbling little fountains in front. It ranged from the huge Shoprite in Downtown Englewood, to Grand and Essex, the tiny grocery store in Bergenfield. When my family would pile into our tiny, ancient, black Toyota Prius, and my mother would tell me that we were going to Teaneck to eat dinner on Queen Anne Road, I couldn’t have told you where to find Teaneck on a map. All I cared about was the overpriced, oily pizza from EJ’s Place, which I was convinced was the finest pizza on the planet. On Friday, we’d come home from school in the much-reviled City. My mom loved New York, while my sister and I loathed it. To us, it was synonymous with school. My mom would get to work cooking something good for Shabbos, while my sister and I tried to avoid her as best we could, for fear we’d get saddled with some chores, such as setting the table. At night, we would gather around the table as my “Abba” and “Mummy” said the brachos, and then we would eat. After everybody else went to sleep early, I would read late into the night. The next morning, my father would take my sister and me to shul, a beautiful old Victorian-style house, where we’d usually meet up with our cousins who lived two blocks away. After lunch, my sister and I would pass the time by reading, playing games, or chatting, until my cousins knocked on our door in the afternoon. Together, we pretended to be everything--brave Jedi knights, fighting evil Sith lords in the farthest reaches of the galaxy, with the slide in my backyard as our battleship, whacking each other with our plastic lightsaber toys. My older cousin and I sometimes pretended we were teachers, and we would “teach” my younger twin cousins, Noah and Sarah, and my sister Kira. Sometimes we were wizards, brandishing twigs that we found in our backyard and shouting Harry Potter spells at each other. Other times we were ancient Egyptians, mummifying ourselves in toilet paper. We were doctors, archaeologists (my mother hated that phase, as we dug holes all over the yard), or elite Roman soldiers. We could be Greek demigods with superpowers, Vikings, or even beavers from a made-up fantasy world we had created. I cannot even begin to describe the magic and charm of my youth. It was innocent bliss, plain and simple. As Paul Simon sang, “Those were the best days of my life.” I call it my little town because it seemed tiny (and I like Paul Simon), but at the same time, it felt like my whole world. 23
Summer I know I am about to transform When the light rays hit my face. Like the groundhog, I can tell when summer is near, Based purely on The temperature of the sun on my skin. I cherish the heat. The moment I am struck by it, I want to run to my house, Carelessly throw on a dress printed and sewn from Flowers, Search for my sunglasses with a scratch on the frame, And evolve. I rush to metamorphose Because I know When the first crawls of wind chill my spine, I will retract back into a shell.
Transformation 24
Daniela Woldenberg
Maya Hoff
25 25 25
I am learning my times tables
at the girl next to me. Lia. She’s been my best friend
with my dad and a towering set of flashcards.
since second grade
6 X 6? 36. 5 X 7?
and I know she wouldn’t mind. But her hair’s covering
My dad waits while I SECRETLY count on
the page
my fingers.
and my eyes are blurry from tears so I hazard a guess.
As I count, my brain focuses on my dad’s
Answer: 34. Now I’ve reached
face. Everything else falls away,
the final page of Test 1.
and I completely forget what number I am up
I turn in my test quickly
to.
so as not to be the last person taking it. That
I’ve waited too long and to not answer would
would mean I was stupid.
look stupid.
After I turn in my test, my teacher motions at me to sit on
34. A choked cry forces itself up my throat as
the ritzpah. In English, ritzpah is floor, and I smile to
my dad
myself for knowing that. Maybe I didn’t do so badly on
shakes his head no. I tell myself it’s okay if I
the exam.
forget because
I can memorize things just like other kids.
Lia comes to sit down next to me and speaks with no
I’ll only need to answer on tests.
But I know that I’m behind. Other kids in my
heat in her voice,
class can recite their times tables with ease.
as though her heart is beating steadily. Her composure
The anxiety does not consume me through-
gives me further anxiety and I feel my third-grade
out my day at school
forehead
but a peek at the DIGITAL clock (I still can’t
begin to crease. My eyes drift to the small, laminated
read time)
times table
lets me know that math class is steadily
on my teacher’s desk and I see. 5 X 7 is
approaching. I sit in the front of the class and get my test first. 5 X 7. My hands tremble and my eyes water. I wipe away any sign that this “easy” test is difficult and peek a glance 26
35
.
5x7 Esther Cabot
Cayla Todes
27
Eve Schizer
Small
Kindnesses Anna Braun
28
It was the first day of September, and school was beginning.
We sat where we wanted in the beige-painted classroom, friends consolidating in squares or rows. Loners like me sat in whatever seats were farthest from the rest. Just before the bell rang, a girl rushed into the room and slid into the last empty seat—the one next to me. The teacher took attendance, fingers pecking on the phone screen. When my name came up, I mumbled a quiet “here”—I had long discovered that if I didn’t appear interested, after enough time, the teacher would leave me be. In contrast, the girl next to me waved excitedly at the teacher when her name was called. I didn’t try to catalog it in my memory—she was only next to me because there was nowhere else to sit. She’d surely move tomorrow. The class passed slowly—instead of paying attention, I delved into the filing cabinet of my memory and decided to consider the known uses for each element of the periodic table. The sharp ringing of the bell cleaved my thoughts and the other students began filing out, chatting with their friends. The girl who had sat next to me was just ahead of me. Instead of letting the classroom door fall back into my awaiting hand, she held it open for me. She smiled brightly and said, “After you!” I blinked at her, then offered her one of my small, close-lipped smiles. I walked through the door, expecting that to be the last of it.
The next day, the girl slid into the seat next to me again. I looked around the room—there were still plenty of other seats next to the more pleasant people, but she chose to sit here. Odd. When the teacher took attendance, I marked her name this time. Grace Valentine. It seemed fitting somehow. I watched her during the class, how she paid rapt attention and took notes with colorful pens. I didn’t take any, allowing my absurd mind to catalog it all without effort. She held the door for me again as we walked out. On the first Monday of November, I slid into the seat next to her at the lunch table. I had noticed previously that she moved around at lunch, never sitting with the same people. She smiled at me. “Nice to see you!” She began to chatter about our classes and I listened, not talking much but nodding occasionally. She didn’t seem to mind, filling the silence for both of us.
By the first Monday in December, I hadn’t eaten lunch alone for a single day. Grace had stopped moving from table to table, and sat with me. I didn’t know why, but I certainly wasn’t going to complain. She was friendly and lively and everything I wasn’t. She opened the door for me and smiled at everyone she saw. I sometimes wondered why I wasn’t more like Grace. Grace didn’t show up on the second Tuesday in December. The classroom was void of her brightness and the scratch of her pens. No one opened the door for me and smiled like it was nothing. The lunch table was barren. I wondered when my world had shifted to revolve around Grace. The second Wednesday in December, Grace returned with a red nose, a tissue box, and an unfamiliar frown. She slid into her usual seat next to me, but there seemed to be a gray cloud looming over her. In that moment, I knew exactly what I needed to do. I smiled at her, a real smile, and she smiled back.
29
Evelyn Landy
How Apologies Were Invented 30
Rachel Araten
31
The closest thing I’ve ever been to in trouble was in kindergarten when I hit someone during recess. I don’t remember why I did it--if I was provoked or did it for no apparent reason. The other kid cried and got the teacher, who then asked me if it was by accident or on purpose. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what those concepts were and realized that there was a 50/50 chance I would get in trouble, and somehow my very reckless five year old self took that chance. “By accident,” I said, looking up at the teacher with pleading brown eyes. The teacher let the incident go after that because, like I said, that was the closest I’d ever come to getting in trouble at school. Fast forward ten years, and the kid that I hit is my best friend--the kind of friend you can tell anything and everything to. She’s the kind of friend who knows what you’re thinking without having to say a thing--except I don’t think that she remembers me ever hitting her. But for some reason, it is one of the few memories from that age that I have been able to hold onto. She’s never brought it up and neither have I, but for some reason it stuck with me. There will be times when we’re walking on the street together and playing that game where you guess people’s life stories, or eating dinner at the one Italian restaurant she insists is the only place you can get authentic Italian pizza, or watching a movie on her nearly threadbare rug, digging into Orville microwave popcorn, the movie theater kind, of course, and I’ll think about how I hit her. I know it’s not a big deal, especially since my five year old-self couldn’t have been that strong, especially since my present-self can barely manage a push-up. I don’t know why it even matters anymore because I know with or without me hitting her, our friendship wouldn’t have changed or taken a different course. It’s an insignificant moment in contrast to our ten years of being nearly inseparable. I had been treating this memory as if it was some secret that had the potential of tearing apart our friendship. Maybe that was a sign or the universe’s way of trying to tell me something. I didn’t usually believe in that stuff but she did. She believed every person we passed on the street had passed by us for a reason. She just knew that the tomato sauce came from tomatoes and spices that were imported from Italy. She microwaved the popcorn for 1:47 seconds, not more and not less because if it were more the popcorn would burn, and if it were less we would not have an optimal quantity of popcorn. So I told her. I told her how my earliest memory of her was when I hit her on the playground at recess on a day so frigid that one could
32
almost mistake the redness of her face for the cold. And I said two words, “I’m sorry.” I realized that as I let them leave my lips, this was why I couldn’t get over hitting her. I’d never owned up to my actions. I’d never said that I hit her on purpose, the words I should’ve said on that cold winter day years earlier. I knew this wasn’t going to be the end of our friendship. An incident from over ten years earlier when you were still trying to comprehend the difference between by accident and on purpose didn’t end a friendship. I just didn’t understand why, when I faced her, she was smiling. She read my mind because we were the kind of friends that could read each other in a way no one else could. “You already apologized,” she told me. I must’ve done that confusion face she always said I did because she continued, “Ten years ago. When we came back from recess. We were putting our jackets in our cubbies and you apologized. That’s when I asked you if you wanted to be my best friend.” I was shocked that she remembered that when I had no recollection of what had happened afterwards. Maybe she was on to something with all of this everything happens for a reason stuff. Maybe my hitting her had led to us being friends by accident, but what if her asking to be my best friend was on purpose?
n e tar A l e h c aR
33
Unfamiliar
Eitan Goldberg
34 34
Daniela Woldenberg
Relative I freeze when my mother lets go of my hand and leaves the room. I feel alone although my grandfather lies beside me. I stare at his once robust body And shiver at the thought of his fragility. I look into imposter eyes, Once bright and brilliant, Now gaping holes of deep blue. He does not recognize me any more than I do him. I want to scream: “Who are you and what have you done with my grandfather?�
35 35
I walked up to his casket, put a rose on his chest, and kissed his pale, white face. His forehead and cheeks were wrinkled like a sheet fresh out of the dryer. My father stood up, put a hand on my back and whispered,“It’s time.” As I walked asleep to the cemetery, I saw a tree in the distance that reminded me of him. It was tall and still. I held the shovel, pushed it into the ground, and lifted it. I heard the noise of the dirt sprinkle onto the wooden box like rain. I stood there, looked at all the faces, and dropped the shovel. I walked off into the distance and sank down next to the headstone of a stranger. I closed my eyes. Nobody found me for two hours. That was the day we buried Grandfather. I sat on the grass, pulled the dark crimson flowers off my black dress, and looked at the headstone of the husband and wife buried across from me: “Mary and John Bleeker, 1838.” No one had placed white lilies or lilacs on their grave in decades. I realized that one day someone would forget to place yellow sunflowers on mine. I felt the tears fall from my eyes like the dirt from the shovel onto the ground below. I went to a tree nearby and picked the dandelions that grew by the trunk. I placed two on the couples’ grave. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Soon, each dandelion speck will fade away with the wind, like their bodies, their souls and their loved ones. He always taught me to care for those who had no one. He always taught me to love all living things and to honor them after death. I opened the book he gifted me from our last trip to Wilson’s, the local bookstore. He brought me there every Sunday after we shared a bagel and a coffee. We always spent some time exploring the new books and then appreciating the old ones. But we spent the most time in the old dictionary section. Every time, he would pull out this one vintage 1930’s dictionary that was bigger than the bookshelf. He would scan his finger down the price tag and say: “Five hundred and twenty dollars!” I never understood his love for that dictionary section. It was filled with boring words. I always sat on the wooden stool and waited for him to be done. I opened the new book and looked for the same words he always wrote for me on the dedication page: “Hope you enjoy this. Grandfather.” But this time the words were different. He bought this book right before Wilson’s closed down. He wrote: “I never told you this, but the reason I loved that old dictionary section is because it’s where I met my wife. I was holding that one special dictionary when I saw her. Her light hair and smile had the power to take my eyes off any words. I began to walk towards her to ask for her name, but I froze and dropped the dictionary on my foot. She ran over and helped me... Don’t worry, Wilson’s will always stay in our memories. Love, Grandfather.” I looked at the title of the book. It was a dictionary for young poets. Unlike everyone who told me there was no money in writing, he always told me there was something more than that. There was passion, love, and dandelions. I began to read all the words, “Allusion, Anaphora, Anapest, Assonance...” I took off Grandfather’s hat and held it in my hands. It still smelled like him. I picked two more dandelions and placed one as a bookmark over his last note. The other I blew after each word, “Ballard, bard, bathos...” When my mother found me, I had read though the letter N and my feet were planted in a sea of white fluff. “What’s all this?” she asked me. “Dandelions,” I said as I took her hand and walked away.
36
Dandelions Arielle Levy
James Auerbach
37
Eve Schizer
Autumn
Eitan Goldberg
38
Maya Hoff
Her
eyes shift between crumpled browns, soft yellows, and muted reds. Her smile is crackling embers and her laugh sounds like the swirling of leaves. She ushers her warm sister out the door, green fading in her wake. She frolics in piles of leaves and presses warm cups of tea into the hands of her friends. She pretends on one night, thanks on another, then finally yields the world to her cold-eyed sister. She hides away, waiting, just waiting, to rule again.
39
Streets The streets are picked clean like the supermarket shelves. I hear only the sound of my sighs. Each day I see friends through computer pixels, Realizing how loud the chatter in the hallway And the murmurings before class were.
Anna Braun
I never thought I would miss running up the stairs Or riding in a crowded elevator. That stranger I inadvertently shoved on the way to school It all seems so distant, so physical, so disconnected, Now that we are forced to recoil from each other.
40
treets Picked Clean Samantha Sinensky
Awash
with the kiss of the sun,
I like to dance in its rays and tango to the intense beams of energy twirling me in circles, as if to say, you are accepted.
I wasn’t always tan--in my early years there were frequent visits to beaches and scarce usage of sunscreen. I guess my mother had decided her white child wouldn’t really complete the picture of a perfect Persian family.
As the sun washed over my body, covering my arms, legs, and sandy torso, I was cleansed of my fair skin and the heritage from my father’s family that came along with it. It was the American Dream bent over backwards--come to this country and turn white children Middle Eastern.
This notion of Persian supremacy was reinforced with sweet rice and ginger stews, but something in me always resisted the tongue of my ancestors that seemed to be slathering me with contempt.
“Persian boy?” I would ask myself. I’m as white as they come and you can’t even see it; delusional would be appropriate if I didn’t have the pictures to prove it--two-year-old Gabi, sitting in the sand, wiggling his toes. If only he knew how conflicted he would one day feel.
42
Maya Hoff
Skin
43
Gabi Potter
Imagi
nation
Mrs.
Eliana Sobel
Reed
Eliana Sobel
Jessica Moskovits
Eliana
Sobel
46 46
Mrs. Reed artfully placed the wicker-shaped, solid gold cornucopia in the center of the glorious dining table. There were gourds of most shapes and sizes, but not the pear-shaped ones for they did not properly match the aesthetic. Surrounding the tasteful cornucopia, there were flowers standing tall in the finest ceramic vases at each end. They were orange chrysanthemums; it wasn’t a harsh color, more like the sunset, or an overripe squash. Mrs. Reed didn’t really care much for them, but everyone knew that tulips were not an appropriate flower for such festivities. Mrs. Reed had to cover her mouth to prevent herself from gagging at the thought. She simply could not handle the idea of placing tulips at a setting like this. The atrocity! Mrs. Reed jumped up for she had just recalled something rather salient. She speed walked to the preparatory room, which, geographically, was located between the dining room and the kitchen. Mrs. Reed crouched down, not needing to worry about her skirt going up because she was wearing pants. Mrs. Reed finally spotted the miniature, green-yellow and orange gourds. Yes, she had some in the cornucopia, but those were real. These were the decorative ones. Naturally, they were sitting next to the heap of leaves. And I know what you’re thinking, but don’t be distressed, for Mrs. Reed had taken the time to rid the leaves of any dirt. How else would they get into her home? Without walking through the automatic sanitizer? The guests were arriving soon, and Mrs. Reed still hadn’t polished all of the napkin rings. One might perceive this to be the first task, but Mrs. Reed had just received the telephone call an hour earlier that another visitor was anticipated to arrive, so now she had to recalculate everything, and she had been pushing this specific task off until the final stretch. She rummaged through her drawers and pulled out the spinning polisher. She plugged the polisher into the wall outlet and flicked on the little, exit-sign red switch. X X X The meal has begun, Mrs. Reed carefully takes her gold-seamed, tan, cloth napkin out of its ring. She strategically places it onto her lap, covering the correct amount of surface area, to prevent staining her Ralph Lauren bottoms or, God forbid, her Louis Vuitton blouse. The horror! One after the other, each guest places his or her serviette onto his or her lap. Each guest takes turns taking a whopping serving of turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, mac and cheese, and roasted ham. They all take turns passing around the gravy boat. Between each person, Mrs. Reed holds her breath in fear that the glass gravy cup might plummet to the ground or onto the tablecloth. Thankfully, it does not. ************************************************************ The sound of a key jingles throughout the small apartment. “Mrs. Reed?” calls out Meredith, her caretaker. “Mrs. Reed?” she calls again. Mrs. Reed refuses to answer because she knows what is to happen next. Meredith walks through the dusty doorway and into the tiny kitchen. There are leaves scattered everywhere, and multiple empty seats at the dirty table, but each plate has a pudding, spam, and a can of off-brand soda. “Oh, Mrs. Reed, what are we ever going to do with you?” 47
“Five minutes remaining.” I try to focus, but then the boy behind me drops his pencil. I want to be nice and pick it up, but then, if I do, what if I’m accused of cheating? Not that I have cheated, am cheating, or will ever cheat. It’s just that the act of picking up a pencil could look like I was taking a look at the test answers that aren’t taped to the bottom of the desk. I guess I could pick it up really quickly and make sure to keep my eyes on the floor the whole time. Well, not just the floor, it would have to be the pencil, too, because if I was too focused on the floor I wouldn’t see the pencil and then I would end up knocking it across the room, and then I’d be responsible for getting the pencil since I was the reason it would end up there in the first place, so then I would have to do the right thing and pick it up. But if I get up in the middle of the test does that mean that I’m done and the proctor will take the test away from me or something like that? I wish I’d paid more attention when we were getting the instructions, and I should redefine my definition of self-explanatory instead of zoning out because hearing the instructions would only add to any anxiety I already had. Let’s say that getting up from the test is not against the rules because what if someone had to... go to the bathroom? Then, how is it fair to take the test away from him? But if I can get past all of that, what if as I’m walking across the room to get the pencil, I’m accused of cheating because I saw other people’s tests and bubble sheets? It’s the same situation as the pencil under the desk thing, I guess. I would just look straight ahead--over everyone’s desks... but then how would I make sure that I wouldn’t crash into someone else and cause his test materials to go flying everywhere, and as I help him pick them up I catch a glimpse of his test, and the proctor happens to see me in that one second and then kicks me out? Fine, I would look straight ahead and use my common sense because it is possible to be aware of desks without looking at what’s on them, right? So let’s say I pick up the pencil from the other side of the room, it’s a whole other issue on the way back. By that time, the proctor would definitely notice me if she hadn’t already and ask me what I was doing... or worse, take my test away. So if the proctor is the issue in all of these scenarios, what if I just distract her for like two seconds? That way I can get the pencil on the first try because I’m actually looking under the desk, and then I can return it to the person behind me and everything will be fine. But how do I distract the proctor? I guess I could always “accidentally” kick one of my many extra pencils to the other side of the room and hope she notices. Then I could pick up his pencil and turn around to give it to him. But then what if he says thank you, and what if the proctor sees me turned around and suspects that I’m having a conversation with someone because what am I supposed to do... not say you’re welcome to him? It’s just common courtesy, just like you’re supposed to pick up someone else’s pencil, so I put my pencil in place to conveniently drop it... I really do, but then... “Pencils down. Your time is up.” 48
Anna Braun
The Price of
Kindness Evelyn Landy
50
Maya Hoff
Symphony of It’s 8:24 on a regular Wednesday night and all is quiet. The window to my right displays a boundless black. The world is nothing until you squint your eyes and make out the street lamps and parked cars that seem to float in the abyss. Silent sounds envelop the air around me. The air conditioner whirs if you pay attention, and my keyboard softly clicks with each finger I lift from the keys. The bed frame creaks as I shift my weight from side to side. It’s 8:29 on a regular Wednesday night and I can’t concentrate. As I focus on the nothing, the nothing becomes something. The window to my right is full of different shades of black. The world is sparkling with cars and houses and street lamps and curbs and trees. They command the full attention of the darkness that is now light. “We are here, too,” they cry. “Don’t forget about us.” The air conditioner and my keyboard join in the chanting. They recruit my fresh piece of gum, which now smacks vigorously as I open and close my jaw. My creaking bed frame grabs its friend, dripping water, and they join the orchestra. The sounds of silence create a symphony in my mind. It’s 8:37 on a regular Wednesday night and the orchestra falls apart as my father walks in the door. The alarm system beeps, the briefcase hits the step, the mail gets shuffled, and the deep breaths of my father swallow the symphonies whole. The barely-there sounds float away into emptiness again. They’re replaced with the shoes clicking against the marble floor, the cabinets opening, the microwave whirring, and the forks clinking. A new orchestra comes to life as my father conducts the instruments with great ease and stability. The silent sounds play no more; they sink
Arlette Gindi
back into the boundless black.
Soundlessness 51
Eliezer Altzman
The Rabbit
52
Maya Hoff Around him, the air is thick and smokey. Noise and heat turn the room into a walking marsh, and at its center, like a spot of rushes and cattails, he sits at a circular table, surrounded by others on the higher end of excitement. All are watching, some are cheering, few are sober, and none are silent. One of his hands is flat on the rough wood of the table, fingers stretched like an open flower between cracks and marks. His other hand grips harshly the pearly handle of an open stiletto knife, and he drives it up and down as it skips between the spaces left by his fingers. Back and forth and back again. And in loosely timed rhythm, the crowd bellows with an overstated jaunt in their Northwest Atlantic enunciations:
Well, in the merry month of May...
The flat ends of glasses and tankards hit the table and leave it trembling along to the music. There are two sitting next to him. One’s eyes seem to be perpetually shut in inebriated joy. But the other looks around with eyes indifferent, so leisurely it would seem he could pick and filter what he could and could not see. This one rests the weight of his feet against his edge of the table, the loops of his low-strung laces flop over to one side like the ears of a rabbit. But the one with the knife carries on. He sees neither of them, they exist only as bodies heating the room and noise-makers for the cheering, syncopating to his song while the sharp instrument keeps time.
...from my home I started...
Back and forth, one way and then another. Index, middle, ring, pinkie, in that order without infraction. Dark studs in the table appear between his fingers in the places that the tip
and from them the light reflects brighter.
...left me darlin’ mother...
came down harder. First pass between the fingers finishes, and he dances the knife back the same way. In his chest, a hard weight seems to be forcing a way out, and his breaths contract. The shock he feels in one hand as the knife hits the wood is the sting he does not yet feel in his still hand. Another pass is completed, and the howling cheers fight each other for dominance over the air.
He continues on his high of stupid confidence, stabbing at the table where his hand is simply not. The honed and elegant knife is his baton; waving it from its slick pearl handle he conducts the cries of the crowd. He raises the blade, and they hold a note quiet. He stabs it down, and at the sign of the impact they raise their voices into sycophantic clamor. He holds them all, they dance at his command on the
...saluted father dear...
edge of his knife.
The lukewarm light from the bare lightbulbs
...And leave for where I was born...
shines through the dust in the air above them all. The one to his left has stood up, but the one to his right still sits back, and watches all transpire with a bored amusement. But the warming light treats and tempers the burning sounds of laughter. The light is the color of rust, the color of an old and oxidized instrument hidden away and forgotten. It turns the sanguine faces of everyone around him to living gold. It glimmers off the edge of the blade as it goes, as if spears of sunlight are cast toward his fingers and he is lucky enough for all of them to miss. The brown wood walls around him seem to grow closer together,
He prods the pace as he prods the table, and like a horse kicked with spurs it speeds up. They laugh with still faces, and he smiles in silence. Drinks go up and down at the pace of his knife,
the moon waxes when he hits the table and wanes as he moves to the next space. There are no infractions. Back and forth and back again.
Maya Hoff
All rests beneath him now. Back and forth and
...me grief and tears to smother...
back again, as his mind leaves the confines of his head. He sees nothing. The world outside
He stands high while they all sit down. They pray
has fallen away like tides pulling back into the
to him by the rhythm of the game. They laugh for
ocean. In the noises, he hears the steady music
him in all their noises. As he brings it up and down
of the knife, cracking against the table, keeping
again, he holds the knife to them. He is sure that
perfect time. Perfect.
he is verily and truly there.
—one-two-three-four-five!
...and frighten all the dogs, on...
A silence. The knife stops before the final note
Idly, he turns his gaze back to the game. Without
of the song, but there is no cheering. The knife
a thought, he moves his ring finger by the slight-
is still, but the slightest of movements take it
est of increments, and feels the streak of marks
nowhere. The burning lead sheet of panic falls
in the table, as his skin falls over it. Harshly, he is snapped to attention when the blade comes down, stabbing mindlessly in the area where his finger was before he moved it. In a feverish instant, he moves his quivering finger back to where it was. His hand has flushed to numbness at the false panic. There is a new hole in the table, directly under where his finger is now, in its normal and resting position. Sweat washes over his face as his smile grows more constricting. He moves the blade hastily to the space between the next fingers. There are no infractions, lest their cheering
over him again, and he hears a pained screech that leaves his throat rattled. But he holds his hands together, he runs his shaking fingers over his palms, back and forth and back again. But there are no scars, no wounds, no pain that he feels outside his head. Around the table, the liquid in all the glasses flattens out. Beside him, the pearl handle of the knife sticks out like a tall headstone, out from the front of the boot of the man beside him, even and parallel to the sole. And now the silence is gone.
stop.
...The rocky road to Dublin—
55
Maya Hoff
56
M A I Maya Hoff
I am the droplet of water That hides on a leaf After the dew Condenses into a single puddle. Left behind, worries surface Of missing images And experiences.
Forsaken to imagine What memories I would have had of Light surrounded by faceless figures, Of meeting someone new. That knowledge is not a burden. My brain can carry more, and my heart is not nearly Filled enough.
57
Dreaming Evelyn Landy
of
Water Maya Hoff
58
Water. It fascinates me. Sure, when it comes down to it, it’s simply two hydrogen atoms bonded with an oxygen atom, but I’m not one to always look at the world in a scientific, practical way, especially when it comes to water. Did you know that 71% of the earth is made up of water? From oceans to ponds, water is just always there. But to go back to science for a minute, it’s not scientifically possible to live without, and even if that wasn’t dictated by science, I don’t think I could live without water. I’m not just talking about drinking it: I mean the feeling of diving into water-- that moment when I know I’ve angled myself perfectly so that the second I hear the crashing in my ears, I will know I’m home. The water envelops me--all I can hear, see, touch, taste, smell is the water and I love it. I’m able to move through the water, but I understand that it restricts me in the way I walk or the way I breathe, but at the same time, no object is too heavy and I have unlocked a new way to breathe, to adapt. I know the water’s restrictions, but I know my strengths, and I use them to my advantage. I let my cupped hands propel me in free style, and I emerge with a power unlike any other during butterfly. The idea of distance is played with underwater--something to do with the way the light reflects--but it makes the water seem to go on forever. The things I see underwater aren’t clear because I never liked wearing goggles, and I embrace the blurriness of it all, love how edges don’t always have to be so sharp. I understand that reality is sharp and hard, but under the water things are fuzzy and not so... I don’t know, it’s like a whole other world in the water where the laws of nature that have been embedded in me just don’t apply. I don’t have to hear the voices of those above, the garbled cheers, conversations I can’t quite make out, and the water mutes the fights that make reality just that--reality. I let my eyes burn with chlorine and ears fill up with water to create this fantasy world where the water is the only thing that matters. As much as I love butterfly, it is only the moments right before I reach the surface and the second I return to the pool, which have become my home. I know I need to breathe, scientifically speaking, but why can’t my breath of fresh air be underwater? Why can’t it just be as simple as blowing bubbles or those exercises to increase your lung capacity? Why can’t I spend my life underwater where everything seems to be so majestic and celestial? Underwater I was in a dream-like state, and I understood that dreams wouldn’t be dreams if you didn’t wake up from them. I had sought an escape in the water because it was just that, an escape. I knew I couldn’t live without water, that was true, so there I was on the diving board, anxiously awaiting the buzzer, imagining the perfect angle of my dive, visualizing every crevice of the pool, just dreaming about the rush of power I got right before I came up for air for butterfly, and then at the buzzer, I dove into the only place I’d ever called home.
59
Eggs
Gabi Potter
Samantha Grossman
Quail
60
Quail eggs
A sky is to a bird what children are
cackling,
to mothers.
crunching,
You raise your wings and hope
teeming with life.
they’ll carry you
Mama Quail has been gone
like the wind
for 2 days
and the horizon
and 3 nights.
and those rays of light outlining your path.
A snake has hissed its way
A quail is distraught and she has lost the sky.
through broken shells and cracked eggs-yolk is splattered everywhere.
You always forget the tragedy of birds
And quail eggs have now begotten
when you’ve completed
snake eggs--
your own nests--
like nectar dripping down grape vines:
tennis shoes and organized schedules--
unreal,
your kids had fathers growing up;
pleasant.
I had me and my brother and my mother.
Honey bees dissecting sunflowers;
Mama quail,
snakes invading quail nests;
baby eggs,
wine dripping down
a snake, remember?
antique goblets,
You don’t.
at weddings where my mother is worshipped,
You always forget--
uplifted in a chair
you who takes
ascending,
the time to ask the snake
untethered avian
how its day was.
roaming clouds. But I also forget that she too 61
is a mother.
“But I also f o r g e t that she t o o is a
mother.”
Beatrice Kleeger
Beatrice Kleeger
62
Gabi Potter, from “Quail Eggs”
63
Falling
Stars Samantha Sinensky
Aaron Solomons
64
Eitan Goldberg
Throughout the oceans of the world, specifically along the Pacific Coast, sea stars are rapidly dying as a result of a virus, exacerbated by the warming oceans of climate change.
Studding the ocean, their limbs long and extended aquatic spokes sprawled along the endless floor of sand, the sea stars bask, observing the water that flows above them. The bodies, lively and displaying an armor of intricate texture, lines and nodes that spin into a web of wet pattern, their legs awash, giving them strength to pulsate. Yet a deadly foe arrives, entangling into the constellation of stars, coiling around their protruding limbs, until they are dismembered, a scattering of bodily pieces, a remnant of the complete creatures they once were. The fragments melt together into a pool of their own, an ornament of the sea reduced to a swirling hue of white splotches. No longer powered from the cold rush around them, their sanctuary turned warm, More and more sea stars fall apart by the limbs, Crumbling into nothingness, their glory gone. Caustic heat infiltrates, irritating the armed stars. The sea belches in agony; as the warmth penetrates the shattered stars only turn more fragile, And their remains dissolve with the constant wind of moving water, the particles of their memory floating through waves of the vast ocean. Weaving their sweetness through the waves, a trail of sea stars thrashes against the shorelines and sea rocks.
65
I
never remember my dreams
. Sometimes I wonder what it feels like to dream about nothing. I know well nothing, I am a scholar of nothing. Over a nothing of years, I have compiled an expanse of notes and records on nothing. When I speak, I speak in the tongue of nothing, my voice in the key of nothing, and my words spelled out in the script of nothing. And when I have run out of things to say, I can reliably speak forever on the intricacies and nuances of nothing. And yet, I don’t know if I’ve seen nothing. Ask me to point out nothing, and I will gesture to quite the opposite. Sometimes I feel like I am riding the line that approaches nothing but will never reach it. Where is the authoritative body that judges what is and is not nothing? In what chamber in the Capital of Nothing does the Parliament of Nothing convene? I have much to present for their consideration, if only they would sit an audience for me. I have a photograph of the pipe organ from a cathedral in Canada; is this nothing? Perhaps there is a map to nothing I could read, a sheet of well-folded parchment, and I could tread its footpath across the corners of the earth and find nothing at the place on the map under a small red X. I would wonder who had scrawled it there. And I wonder now what I would come across everywhere else. I wonder if they have lost it, and we must return nothing to them. Perhaps we have all lost nothing, and we must all retrace our steps across our lives and find the place where nothing was cast aside from us. Can nothing be spoken to, I wonder? Will it be socially unaware and fumble for the proper words, or will nothing spin Joycean epics of the heroism of the everyday person? For that is the person whom nothing is best acquainted with, for it is they that are most cognizant of nothing. When nothing was first discovered, was it wielded like a weapon? Swung like a bludgeon, run like a spear, fired like a gun? Was nothing given a proper home, did it sleep every night on an imported mattress on down pillows under a duvet? Where is the constitution to which the Parliament of Nothing adheres? I want to hold nothing, to feel it slip between my fingers or congeal in my veins. Sometimes I want to brandish nothing in view of all those that have something and laugh as their faces fall. They have a wealth of something, borrowed or lent, gifted or inherited. But I have my fill of nothing. My wealth of nothing whispers in my ear and guides my typing fingers and hears well the clicking of the keyboard. I have made my own nothing, in my image. I elect myself the prime minister of nothing. I see now what is, purely and most distilled, the very essence of nothing. Nothing is the happiness I feel when I cast my memory the wrong way backwards, to the time my basement flooded. Now I recall that fleeting sense of long-gone childhood wonder at the world I had not seen enough of yet for me to see its true visage. Now that, I am confident, is nothing. Things grow old, sometimes they outgrow people, but other times they are still waking up at midday while people have already been scratching away at their own lives until time has grown bored of them, too. But nothing guides me through life, and nothing ages a day with me at every sunset. Nothing is eternal. 66
Anna Braun
Notes on
Eli Altzman
Eliezer Altzman
Nothing 67
Maya Hoff
Sunday
68
Throughout the day I focus on everything and everyone around me. I hear the rhythm of footsteps, the bells of incoming trains, the intense commotion of New York City. Every morning, 6:56 sharp, I bustle through the swarming underground subway, and chaos filters through my ears and senses. I try to stay on beat with the city’s rhythm--its sporadic stops and pauses. The rhythm bats through my head, rupturing my brain’s cerebral pathways. Hoping to regain my sanity, I await my reparative Sundays. On Sundays, I venture out to the reservoir in Central Park, a serene landscape amid all the madness. I step away from the ping of my phone and make my way onto the wet, mud gravel path. The reservoir is gleaming. I pick up speed. I jog; I sprint; I do what I please; I take control. I pick a dandelion or wrap my hot hands around the ever-cold metal reservoir boundary bars. Later, the sun hits the water, shattering its body of blue purity to a cauldron of gold. I feel the rhythm of my heart and hear the rasp of each of my breaths. I keep it consistent. Through the
Olalla
1.6-mile circumference run, I refamiliarize my brain with my body.
Levi
traces my inners. I sense the slightest tick in my shoulder or knot in
My mind interrogates each limb and muscle. I feel the oxygen travel through my lungs, carried by my blood cells, lacing every pipe that my lower back and I take note. I hold onto this time, detaching from
Aaron Solomons
the noise of the common commute and commotion.
Run 69
ontrast Eve Schizer
Eitan Goldberg
70
The Desert
sprawls in shifting dunes for eternity. The sands whisper and ripple in the dry heat, the only movement to be seen. My steps are finite, each a carefully measured stumble further into the desert’s embrace. I know there is an end, a concrete point where beige sand will yield to lush green. I have not come across any others who were left to die in this dry place, no fellow supplicants who beg the sky for rain. I know I am not alone here, though, because each step must watch for the fangs of a rattlesnake or the barb of a scorpion. Some twisted form of life thrives here, while I was left to die. The sun is ambling towards the horizon, anticipating a long night’s sleep. I let my knees buckle and begin to dig at the sands; while I may have survived another burning day, the frigid fingers of the desert night might claim me if I do not take proper precautions. A grave to save a living man—a pit of sand that, while it had burned my bare feet hours before, would be my salvation in the face of the icy dark. By the time I have finished the pit, I’ve begun to shiver. I crawl into my sandy grave and begin to drag the sand over my body. I leave only my face exposed in order to breathe. I am nearly asleep when the first howl rends the air. I jerk to alertness and see animals patrolling the sands. How odd this place is, with its silent, scorching days and wild, freezing nights. I make myself as small as possible in an attempt to minimize the chances of my being noticed. I have not made it three days and nights in this hell to be taken out by a desert dog. I will need to find an oasis in the morning; my makeshift water skin is growing dangerously light. Food would be a boon as well, but I can go a little longer without. My thoughts begin to slow and muddy as sleep sidles closer. Despite the cacophony of the night, I drift off... ...and awake to droplets striking my cheeks. Rain. I dislodge myself from the sands as quickly as I can and stare in astonishment. The drops make patterns in the sand, wet patches of dark against the burning brightness. I let my waterskin fill, drain it, then refill as the pounding rain soaks the arid landscape. Then it stops, as sudden as a flash of lightning. Reinvigorated, I begin my calculated stumble-walk across the shifting sands. There must be a way out of here. There must. 71
Arielle Levy
The Oblivious Ones
I always envied those unaware. They rose and slept simply. I rose as well, But with more thorns than petals. Maya Hoff
72
Parallax n. fr. Gk parallaxis, the apparent displacement of an observed object due to a change in the position of observer.
The Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein Upper School of Ramaz 60 East 78th Street New York NY 10075