Parallax 2019 Issue 22: Prisms

Prisms A prism is nothing without light. In the dark, a prism hides, but when exposed to light, a prism comes alive: a rainbow of brilliant colors shines in its beams, the white splicing into red and yellow and blue and a million other shades of Crayola neons. A prism in the light is a sun captured in a tiny crystal.

The true beauty of a prism, though, lies in its ability to bridge the realms of science and art. Geometry and physics determine the path of the light, its angle, through Snell’s Law; art can capture the beauty of a prism with colors, without any numbers or formulas.

When we write, our thoughts and emotions are like a ray of light hitting the surface of a prism. Sometimes we reflect, bouncing back on ourselves, introspective and pensive; sometimes, after passing a boundary in our lives, we refract, adjusting our angle to meet the situation; and at other times we diffract, splitting our rays, spreading our words in different directions. But whether we reflect, refract, or diffract our light, the prism shines.

“Let the world burn through you. Throw the

prism light, white hot, on paper.” - Ray Bradbury

.

Literary & Design Esti Beck Natalie Kahn

Faculty Advisors literary - dr. edith lazaros Honig art & design - ms. barbara Abramson art & photography - ms. rachel Rabhan photography - mr. kevin Goggin

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.

Editors

Reflection 10 11 12 13 14 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Table of

I Cannot Drink photograph photograph photograph Age-Old Story Under Hooves photograph photograph No Man’s Land photograph Judah photograph Commute Little Jean photograph painting 15 photo Him painting Watching You Sitting There photograph Exodus Maestro is WHACK! photograph

Natalie Kahn Natalie Kahn Brooke Stonehill Olivia Bourkoff Esti Beck Samantha Sinensky James Auerbach Anna Braun David Gitelman Maya Hoff James Auerbach Esther Cabot Eli Altzman Michal Rahabi Noa Horvitz Lia Michel Anna Braun Eitan Goldberg Loren Elmann Rachel Havivo Gabi Potter Rachel Araten Evelyn Landy Sam Koffler Michal Rahabi

Contents Diffraction 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84

School of Fish photograph photograph Perhaps photograph Things I Didn’t Know I Loved photograph Unbalanced photograph Grapefruit collage Her Prayer Tyula, Do You Read? photograph Color Wheel photograph Always Nightfall photograph photograph One Fine Day photograph Ode to New York Have You Seen My Words?

Arlette Gindi Aaron Solomons Esti Beck Natalie Kahn Aaron Solomons James Auerbach Noa Horvitz James Auerbach Maya Hoff Maya Hoff Liviah Sobel Evelyn Landy Eve Schizer Eitan Goldberg Anna Braun Aaron Solomons James Auerbach Emily Abraham Natalie Kahn Natalie Kahn Michal Rahabi Elizabeth Newman-Corré Esti Beck

Refraction 38 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 54 56 57 58 59

The Ghost of Abuela Esther photograph The Stories We Tell painting Snow or Sun Frankie photograph photograph If Only Growing Wonder photograph Kingdom Under Siege photograph photograph Lux Tenebris photograph These Happy Golden Years painting Last Night

Esti Beck Esti Beck Maya Hoff Abigail Jacob Arlette Gindi Eli Altzman James Auerbach Esti Beck Gabi Potter Eve Schizer Eitan Goldberg Samantha Sinensky Maya Hoff Aaron Solomons Eve Schizer Esti Beck Esti Beck Emily Abraham Natalie Kahn

Cover Inside Cover Title Page Theme Page Contents Reflection Refraction Diffraction Flies

Aaron Solomons Maya Hoff Maya Hoff Eitan Goldberg James Auerbach Maya Hoff Maya Hoff Maya Hoff Samantha Sinensky

Parallax is the writing club of Ramaz Upper School, as well as the name of our literary & art magazine. The club meets every Thursday after school. Parallax is a juried publication that comes out in June in time for distribution at our annual Celebration of the Arts. Parallax 2019 was printed by Allied Printing on 80 lb. bond. Copy and layout were prepared by students on an Apple iMac in InDesign CS6. 450 copies were printed. All rights belong to Ramaz Upper School, 60 E. 78th Street, New York NY 10075.

Reflection noun the return of light or sound waves from a surface

I Cannot I’ve always drunk water from the tall glass on the kitchen counter, though it dries my lips and makes me pale inside, and now the heat has come aflame, the rush of red cannot be tamed–at last, how beautiful it is–and then I cannot drink anymore, for I will not be the one who dances to please the flowers unless the water blossoms blue and beautiful at their roots and I can drink it. I admire the ocean but will not drink or blink its water–believe me, I am not lying deep inside it, believe me, I am not lying at all when I look you in the eyes and tell you I will have no more.

Drink Natalie

10

Kahn

Natalie Kahn

11

Age-Old

Story

Esti Beck

Brooke Stonehill 12 Bourkoff Olivia

13

S

he hadn’t given her mirror a second thought before it was possessed.

That much wasn’t unusual, anyway. Most people take their mirrors for grant-

ed, as a fixture of their bedrooms and bathrooms, just another household furnishing to be used and abused and later discarded on the front lawn when its resting place transitions from a home to a house. She wasn’t any different, even though she seemed to pay her mirror an unusual amount of attention, glancing into it every time she passed by. It was her virtues the mirror exposed, not vice versa. Thus, the mirror was a prop in her little dance of vanity: stand up taller, suck in her stomach, flatten her hair, and angle her face just so.

But one morning, as she prepared to leave the house, the mirror lied to her, or so she thought: she glanced into its depths and saw a flash of gray in her honey-brown tresses. When she glanced down, however, her hair was just as monochromatic as it had always been. Puzzled, she blinked, rubbed her eyes, and checked the mirror again–but this time, there were wrinkles too, and her youthful face had grown lines along its normally sculpted contours. With a cry, she ran her hand across her cheek, only to see that her palms were covered in scaly, pockmarked skin as well. She had aged; in one night, the mirror had given her decades of life she had not lived. But her skin, when she felt it, was smooth; when she looked at her hand on its own, it was as unwrinkled and soft as ever, unblemished by the hardships of age.

With this mystery causing an ever-increasing level of anxiety, she dashed into the living room, where her roommate sat transfixed by the TV.

“Look at my face!” the harried girl demanded.

Annoyed to be distracted from the catfight taking place on-screen, her friend gave her a sharp, aggressive “What?”

“My face! What’s wrong with it?”

“The same thing that’s always wrong with it–it’s blocking my view of the screen!”

She sidestepped to unblock her roommate’s line of vision, then tried again:

“It’s not...it’s not...gross?” she asked, running her hands across its surface as if somehow touch would tell her what her eyes could not.

“What do you want from me? It looks like it always does,” the other girl answered in a bored, whiny drawl. “And shut up, won’t you? You’re drowning out the Real Housewives.”

14

Now even more confused and concerned, she walked back into her room, but the mirror refused to change what it showed her: an old woman, one who unmistakably shared her features but was aged, sunken, defeated. Desperately, she tried the other mirrors in the apartment, but the monster she saw followed her from room to room. Not only that, but as she approached the reflective metal of her refrigerator, the same horrible image appeared; it cried as she cried, and it mimicked her new, despairing tremor.

Finding no cure within her house, she ran outside–but the world spat her right back. Everyone she encountered insisted that she looked exactly the same as she had the day before, from her friends to her colleagues and even her very perplexed boss, who suggested she take a day off to calm down. The stress must be getting to her, he said, and she agreed–that must be it, it must be a lack of sleep or a trick of the light, anything but reality. She went back home and decided to shower the image away, but no amount of soap would remove the horror in the fogged-up bathroom mirror.

Exhausted from a day of panic, she collapsed onto her bed.

The next morning was no better, and neither was the day after that. Her body remained that of someone young enough to not remember 9/11, but her image was ready to be committed to an assisted living facility. Nobody else saw it; they looked through the mirror at her and told her she was going crazy, and perhaps, she thought, she was. There was no other way about it; the mirror was lying to her, had betrayed her, and she was being punished for some great cosmic sin she did not recall.

She learned, over the years, not to look in the mirrors, to keep her eyes cast on the ground when she entered reflective elevators and close them while washing her hands. She stopped wearing makeup, dressed simpler, and avoided talking about her body as if it had been censored. Her friends noticed the change; she was more amiable now, more accepting, they said, if a little crazy. One became close enough with her to propose, and she accepted, planning only a small courthouse affair.

“You won’t look in the mirror, even now?” he asked, on the day they were set to be wed.

“It’s been years,” she said. “I don’t think I could bear it.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” he answered with a small smile. “I think it’s time to give yourself a second chance.”

So she stood up and walked to the vanity, slowly lifting her chin to accept what it would show her. And there she was, young and happy, a smile spreading across her face–the mirror showed a warmth it never had before.

15

Under Hooves Samantha Sinensky

I heave a bag of straw into the rolling cart.

It’s just me and the sound of wheels on pavement, A trail of yellow flakes behind me.

Tails whip back and forth, swatting flies While I spread a mattress of straw for the sheep to laze in.

I pull strands apart from the bundle, letting pieces hide in my socks.

They wedge between my toes, pricking my skin.

Next, I rake around their hooves, collecting stray dirt and leaves, Fill a water bowl, and wipe down the railings, The damp rag making my hands smell like plastic lemons.

The kids start piling in, all matching in camp t-shirts, Cramming quarters into the feed dispenser like it’s a gumball machine, Letting tongues slobber their cupped palms, Wiping the drool on their pants.

The goats throw their heads forward, Licking whatever their tongues can touch.

The chicken waddles in circles, nipping at people’s laces.

Flies are sprinkled everywhere, All six legs tickling the hairs on my arm, Scavenging in tossed sodas and half-eaten hot pretzels.

The heat hugs me so tight that I could stick to the sun and hang there, Morphing into a molten observer.

Once the water bowls are licked clean, and the flies sated and retreated, It’s just me and the sound of a broom brushing against pavement, Bristles scratching ground, Collecting the trail of yellow flakes and sweeping it neatly into a corner.

16

Jame

s Au er

bach

17

Anna Braun

David Gitelman

No

Man’s

Land

Heinrich looked up at the gray clouds rolling over the horizon and cursed the war for what seemed like the millionth time. He sat hunkered down in the filthy trench, eating bean stew from a small tin can with his fingers so that sauce slopped down his front and stained his shirt. After having wolfed down the meal, he briefly considered wiping himself clean. Not that it would matter, of course. His clothes were already permanently soiled from what felt like a lifetime huddled in the claustrophobic, filthy ditch in the ground. Heinrich let his shirt be. He did not want the food; he was too nervous to enjoy it. He ate to survive. Heinrich lived in this ditch, fought in it, and had seen his friends die in it.

Sometimes he felt the hysterical urge to leap up and run screaming across the charred, smoky expanse of splintered trees, ashen bushes, barbed wire, and minefields. He had seen that happen before, to men who had been driven mad by the fight. The luckier ones were cut down immediately by Allied machine gun fire, and the more unfortunate got snared up in wire or blown to bits by hidden mines. He had endured the seemingly endless rainfall of France, which, like acid, melted the packed dirt of the trench into soft mud, and made the whole area slippery and wet. Many men, whose shoes had rotted away long before, became ill with trench foot and had to be carried by their comrades, their feet bandaged and their faces screwed up in pain. Heinrich had piled the corpses of fellow soldiers up among sandbags, and contact with their bacteria-eaten flesh had infected him with terrible illnesses, many of which he had never known existed two years prior. He had had his lungs half-destroyed by chlorine gas, spent two weeks in an infirmary, and was then booted out into the wasteland once more. Although every day would see more soldiers perish, there seemed to be no end of rats. Rations needed to be hung from ceilings to prevent the hairy creatures–which sometimes grew as large as small cats–from nibbling and tainting the supply. More than once he had awakened at night to find a dozen or so of the vermin in his sack. Heinrich wondered when this insane war, with all its horrors, would end.

Not soon enough. It had been “soon enough” the day the war had started.

Everyone had assumed it would be quick and sweet. Their leaders had forseen a huge victory for them and a crushing defeat for the enemy. Of course, Heinrich thought bitterly, none of them were actually fighting. Heinrich finished his meager ration, a quarter of which had now congealed on his uniform, and jammed his spiked helmet over his head. He hoisted his rifle over his shoulder and buttoned up his long, gray coat. He weaved through the huddled masses of uniformed, filthy men, sitting on what might have once been the floor.

Some played dice, although the commanders were harsh with those who were caught gambling. He saw two men laughing as they fried pieces of rice with a shard of glass, which, when angled correctly to the sun, sent wisps of smoke rising from the grains into the cold air. Not rice, Heinrich realized, woodlice.

He had made his way past a machine gun nest before the shelling started. The sirens blared. Men shouted and scrambled below the battlements. He hit the dirt, praying. In his peripheral vision, he saw a boy of only seventeen or eighteen scramble into the machine gun nest.

The boy desperately tried to feed a round of ammunition into the heavy weapon; he had nearly succeeded when a round, whistling piece of metal caught him in the shoulder and he fell to the ground, screaming. A millisecond later the shell exploded, destroying the machine gun and the young soldier in a fiery blast. A chunk of burning wood hit the mud mere feet from where Heinrich lay. He lay shivering, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, as more shells exploded close to his sprawling figure. Never before had he been this close to the blasts. A pepper spray of tiny metal shards hit him in his back and legs, and he screamed. The world was burning. All was exploding chaos. Heinrich suddenly found he was gasping for breath. Gas? No, there was no haze. He closed his eyes and suddenly the sirens stopped blaring.

Men began surging around Heinrich, and he got up dazedly to avoid getting trampled. His back and legs still hurt. He heard a ringing in his ears and swiveled his head to try to find the source of the noise, but he could find none.

Heinrich shook his head a couple of times. Still the ringing invaded his consciousness, loud and clear. A blurry outline of a man marched over to him and began buzzing incessantly, gesticulating wildly. Heinrich tried to ask him what he wanted, but all he could manage was a faint whimper.

The outline had now taken on the panoply of a sergeant and was now yelling. Heinrich tried to say something… anything… to make him stop. But the ringing in his ears had not yet subsided. Again he opened his mouth dumbly, and no words came out. The sergeant was still screaming and now Heinrich thought he could make out words.

“Cow.” The sergeant would yell. “Ward!”

As Heinrich made to respond again, the sergeant did something completely unexpected. Heinrich felt his slap, and it stung. Terribly. And then he was running; he did not want it to hurt any more. And then he was free. He raced across the flat expanse. He was running. He was free. Beneath the buzzing in his ears, at the edge of his consciousness, he heard yells coming from behind him. Heinrich dodged a prickly looking bush and splashed through a puddle. He saw a trench a short distance away. But that couldn’t be right… He had just come from the trench. Had he turned back to front? He turned around to look back at the trench he had come from. Faceless figures were pointing fingers at him. Their collective cries now in harmony so that Heinrich heard what could have been mistaken for a song. He turned back to face the opposing trench, and he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen. He looked down, bewildered. And saw red. Too much red. And then the world dropped and went sideways.

His vision blurred. Heinrich took a rattling breath.

The red turned to black, and then into nothingness.

19

Judah James Auerbach

From the bottom of my pit, I turn and look for you.

After years and years of following, I discover that you were not in fact the leader of this train through the desert.

You followed the direction of a thicket bush pointed east, and so you went.

As I look up at you, the sun blinds me from seeing that there are miles and miles between us.

Looking up at you, I discover that Moses led his people through the barren lands, and Joseph’s brothers led him into the ground, and I followed them.

20

21 Maya Hoff

Commute

El

i

Al

tz

ma

. n

“Get up, it’s our stop.” I can’t guess why the man standing to my left is telling his son to get up at such volume that I can hear it through my headphones, but if I had the wisdom needed to comprehend why, I probably would have known to wait the extra three minutes for a less crowded subway car. The train comes to a slow halt, and I see everyone sway slightly rightward.

I don’t; I am grasping the greasy pole that I share with four other people, contorting my left arm into an indescribable shape so as to fit it between me and everyone else who is standing so close to me that I can smell them. The car jerks back into place, and I almost fall headfirst onto someone who’s visibly as annoyed as I am. Even before everyone who’s getting off at this stop can exit this mobile hyperbolic time chamber, more people are getting on. The only thought stopping me from howling in anger like a stuck boar is remembering that I only have to endure the sick practical joke the MTA is playing on me for two stops.

The train starts back up again, and within however much time it takes for me to stave off my dizziness, the train is already moving. Thoughts of getting off at the next stop and walking or taking a cab the rest of the way invade my mind. The song slithering its way from my headphones into my ears ends, and in the couple seconds before the next one begins, I hear a slight thump underneath the regular ambient metal-on-metal scraping from the tracks. I think the train might have run over a rat. I feel sorry for it. It just experienced the absolute worst harm a subway car can inflict, though my commute is vying for second place. No, it couldn’t have been a rat. Even rats know to avoid the subway at this time of day. They’re likely out dragging slices of pizza around the platforms by now. I look around at everyone whose commute I’m making worse with my very presence. Everything below my neck is numb, and everything above my neck is pounding, but my neck feels fine. I inhale and I’m intruding on someone’s personal space. I exhale and someone rushes in to invade mine. Whatever higher power with a twisted sense of humor that was running the trains today must be getting bored of watching me suffer because the train reaches the platform before too long.

I will get off at the next stop. Looking around for one last goodbye to the subway for the next nine hours, I think the train looks like a campaign advertisement for someone running for mayor of New York, and that image would be shown alongside his hollow vows to fix the subway system. Before I can make some faux-philosophical observation in my head again, I hear an automated voice force itself out of the loudspeaker in the ceiling of the car–the same automated voice that tells me what stop is coming next and to stand clear of the closing doors. When I look out the windows, there’s nothing there but the familiar darkness of a subway tunnel. The voice sounds almost mockingly happy, as if it could see right into all the cars and get some kind of perverse pleasure from seeing all its unhappy new acquaintances. I shouldn’t blame the voice; after all, it is just doing its job. It is its casual, falsely modest tone that invites my ire. And in its mockingly happy tone, it spits out its foul mantra: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are being held momentarily by the train’s dispatcher.”

Esther Cabot

22

23

little jean with the gray, captivating eyes,

instilled with a curiosity that was rather uncommon, never attempting to see past the horizon, appreciating all simplicity. her mother let her play with the butterflies and she laughed and laughed at the butterflies’ jokes. little jean grew and grew– naturally lanky, blonde hair, with skin white as glue. her strides were fueled by the wind, as she skipped through the cool night. the meadows were filled with grass, long and green. she searched for the flowers smothered by weeds. her mother asked, “why do you linger in the dark?” her lips opened to reveal the milky bone. she answered, “I want to witness the dew fall on the lush meadows, to hear the secrets the wind withholds; I want it to take me wherever it goes, to accept me, to remove me.” little jean, now a little teen, sought after, however viewed with confusion. she did not want to be seen, only taken. she sat in the meadow, her hair dirty and wild. her eyes were stormy, yet her face still smiled. night after night, she ran through the meadows laughing, the darkness inspiring her imagination. she did not know the feeling of being alone, her coral lips whispered a whistled monotone. she lay down, surrounded by the fields, her eyes mirroring what the stars would shield.

Jean Little Michal

Rahabi

little jean, freshly eighteen. she ran to the meadow, her eyes now a deep green. she watched the last light of the day beg approval and channeled darkness. her blood slowed within the pale yellow dress, goosebumps on her skin vibrated with excitement. she began to listen. yet this night was rather peculiar; the night had grown cooler and cooler. as silence rung throughout the meadow, tears rolled down her cheeks.

24

her nails dug into her skin, she felt a deep pain within. her eyes now bloodshot, terrified by her newfound thoughts. her mother asked, “what has become of you?” little jean sat alone, muscles relaxed and numb. she began to repeat:“time was never a component; all was forgotten when it was obvious: love is dead, all will falter despite all the effort expended. you, my friend, have caused my heart to rot. no longer can I live and love; I am forever unconnected.”

Noa Horvitz

25

15

Anna Braun

15 years. Tomorrow I will be just one day older than today. The earth will have made another rotation around its axis and about 0.003 of a full rotation around the sun: a day so insignificant and an entity so lost in time.

15 years. What is the point, one may ask? If it is so insignificant, why celebrate it at all? Yet, to those who surround you, a birthday is an appreciation for your being. What makes us who we are is looking at the little things and appreciating them because this gives us the most joy in life.

15 years. I am motivated. I am excited to make more happy memories, to learn to see and appreciate the world more. Life being so short, it is not worth mourning our misfortunes. Living life should be meaningful and I am ready to gain that understanding.

15 years. Today is March 15th. Tomorrow will be March 16th, exactly 15 years since I was born. I wonder how different I’ll be.

Lia Michel

27

Him Loren Elmann

Ei

ta

n

Go

ld

be

rg

Softly our lips met while around us a hurricane of sound aroused us to reality.

As bones were crushed, as bodies flung, he had been left untouched by the cracks in the pavement.

By the women undone by the men who cry about lost loved ones.

By the children who starve from a hunger for art and those who must curate personalities with heart.

28

29

Watching you sitting there, Your smooth curled locks concealing a hard face of scars and sorrow wrapped up in every wrinkle Your eyes dilating, calling to me.

Watching you sitting there, Your legs tapping and knees swaying beneath the desk, almost jumping out of your seat Your mind rushing through cosmos but your body staying put, weighed down by the world’s judgments.

Rachel Havivoo

Watching You Sitting There Gabi Potter

Watching you sitting there, Humming and buzzing, singing to me and leading me towards you, out of my maze and out of my head, whispering your darkest secrets and anticipating my reaction.

Watching you sitting there, Crying tears from the heart, sewing up wounds on your soul. Enchanted by prayers for savior and release, but knowing that praying is futile.

Watching you sitting there, Holding on to what you can, to what’s left, to the last time you’ll feel worthless and to the days when no one will put you down.

Watching you sitting there, Watching me sitting here, because all we can do is sit and watch.

30

31

Waters separating, Hearts beating, We escape.

I see a future Beyond this.

I hold freedom In my palm.

I never looked back, Not once.

Exodus

Rachel Araten

Evelyn Landy

32

33

Using fashion to influence his music, between

sets Maestro actually changes hats. The problem with this is that there is no audience to appreciate his antics; it’s only me in a private lesson, with nowhere to hide my giggles. I’ve acclimated to his quirkiness and can anticipate his upcoming genre ahead of the tunes by merely gazing at his headwear. A jet-black, shiny top-hat represents the classics–Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Bach’s Concertos, Pachelbel’s “Canon in D,” parts of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and Nutcracker. A shtetl-like, peddlers’ cap personifies Klezmer, Horah medleys, Gypsy folk tunes, and Eastern European waltzes. For me, Maestro’s most endearing chapeau is the wide-brim, tan leather cowboy hat he displays for Country and Bluegrass.

Maestro’s mood and temperament transform and complement each of his headcovers. Each piece of his repertoire embodies alternate personalities. His “classic” top-hat accompanies a strict, stern-faced rigidity of instructional commands, “fingers should caress, not claw” and “bow, not saw.” There is no margin of error. He expects perfection, and I accommodate. When I hear Minuettes, I instinctively straighten my back and readjust my violin on my collarbone. His peddlers’ cap reveals a pensive look of sadness, coupled with a strong sense of victimhood. Think “Tevye” as the Cossacks launch pogroms. His Klezmer is soulful, and I almost cry as I plunge into the “pick-up” bridge between two musical phrases. I feel a profound need to protect him from his growing despair. His cowboy hat elicits good ol’ boy foot-stomping hoopla. He emits a sense of joy, a carefree, fun-loving cheer. My foot taps with the downbeats as my fingers cue the fiddle. I fight fatigue as my pulse and heartbeat match Maestro’s allegro tempo. I won’t capitulate. Sweat runs down my forehead, my arms and fingers ache, but the show must go on. Maestro is light and friendly.

My lessons sometimes feel Freudian– almost as if Maestro exercises his psychological warfare on his violin, and I am there to support his emotional displays. I guess music really does bare one’s soul. Maestro has taught me perseverance, musical mechanics, and, most of all, to appreciate his unique shenanigans. Perhaps, one day I too will have a wardrobe for each musical category and will chuckle silently to myself. Or not.

34

Maestro is WHACK! Sam Koffler

Michal Rahabi

35

noun the phenomenon of light or waves being deflected in passing obliquely through the interface between one medium and another or through a medium of varying density

Re

c a fr

n o ti

The Ghost of Abuela Esther

.

Esti Beck

The house had not changed in at least 100 years, not since Julia’s great-great-grandfather had been entrepreneurial enough to install indoor plumbing and a few lighting fixtures. Located only a block off the pueblo’s main square, la casa de Abuelos, as it was known, was the same adobe-and-log home that it had always been. Small rooms with large, Spanish-style windows circled around a courtyard paved in red brick, smoothed over from centuries of feet running across its surface; peeling white walls were covered with sculptures of Jesus varying in size and goriness, from little figurines to a fullsize stone man, face contorted in agony as his marble blood spilled from his hands and feet. At night, with little electric lighting, the courtyard was dark, and the crosses cast eerie shadows across the narrow space.

Julia liked visiting la casa, particularly late at night, because it was so strikingly different from her urban lifestyle back in the United States. Standing here, three steps from a large wooden tub where the laundry was done by hand and two doors down from the cocina, where food was still cooked over an open flame, she could forget that it was 2018, forget that she had school and friends and life to worry about, forget that, well–

She burst into tears for the fourth time that day, standing there awkwardly in the center of the ancient courtyard, her anachronistic jeans and Green Day t-shirt marking her as the outlier. Everyone else was asleep, had been asleep for hours, but she could not rest, not when–

The tears flowed harder again, and she tried fixating on the portraits behind her to distract herself. There was Tio Fernando, with his Mr. Monopoly moustache, and Prima Isabella, famous for her unmistakable unibrow. Beside them, the last painting caught her eye: Abuela Esther Julia, after whom she was named, with her stern, wrinkled face and conservative black jacket. She seemed to hold Julia’s gaze in the unique way only an abuela could, and soon the girl grew uncomfortable.

Family lore went that Abuela Esther had moved into the house with her husband, Juan Andres, when she was only seventeen years old, and had lived here happily with him for more than two decades. She bore twelve sons and three daughters, most of whom survived their infancy–the rest casualties of the limited medical access in a 20th century pueblo–and raised them lovingly, and after a time, raised their children as well. However, soon after the birth of their last child, Julia’s grandfather Juan Andres was drafted into the army, and only a week later, he was killed in an ambush by the guerilla rebels. Abuela Esther sank into a deep depression, and for the remaining thirty years of her life, she did not leave the casa once: not to buy groceries, attend her children’s graduation, weddings, or anything else. She sat in the courtyard and wept, waiting for her Juan to come home, until she died alone in the house she had haunted for years.

A recluse for thirty years, Julia mused, trying to avoid eye contact with the unforgiving portrait of Abuela Esther. That was where she was headed now. Only seventeen and already she had sealed her fate–and again the tears flowed harder.

“Que pasa?” She heard a voice ask behind her. “Why are you crying, mija?”

38

Julia turned, startled, and in the once-empty courtyard a short, hunched figure of a woman stood, one hand on a gnarled cane and another on her hip. The thin white hair...the pursed lips...the piercing eyes...it was unmistakably Abuela Esther, the abuela she knew for a fact had died twenty years prior.

“I–uh-–what?”

“Tears don’t just come from God, mi amor. There’s got to be a reason.”

“Abuela Esther–how–”

The little old lady seemed to lose patience with her great-granddaughter.

“Ya, niña, I don’t have all day. I’m old and standing hurts these ancient bones.”

Julia gathered herself and said, quietly, somewhat ashamed,

“I didn’t get in.”

“What?”

“I didn’t get in. To the college I wanted.”

Abuela Esther stared at her, stunned, before blurting out: “Malcriada.”

Julia was stunned, taken aback, but she hardly had time to react before Abuela started waving her cane at her accusatorily.

“I bore fifteen children–fifteen–and raised them to be strong, upright citizens. I married at the age of seventeen and worked with my two hands every day to ensure there would always be food on the table. I lost my husband a week after having a baby, and you have the audacity to stand in my courtyard and cry, cry over college?”

“Abuela, I–I worked so hard–”

“And I didn’t?” she shot back. “Working in the fields in my youth was easy? Scrubbing the laundry in that very tub was easy? Telling my children they would never see their father again was easy?”

“I didn’t say that, I just meant–”

“You think your life is over,” the little old lady said in a disdainful tone. “You think your life is over because someone said “no” to you for the first time. You’ve had everything in the world, and just because one door closed doesn’t mean that another three haven’t opened somewhere else. You can’t make my mistake. You can’t stay in the house for thirty years, or you’ll still be wandering around decades later when your granddaughter comes crying because of something as small as a rejection letter!”

Julia was stunned silent, and she hung her head, trying both to avoid seeing the disappointed look on her abuela’s face and to give her time to dry her eyes. But when she looked up, the courtyard was empty again, and she was standing alone in the center of the old casa in the dark.

39

“A The Stories We Tell Maya

Es

ti

Hoff

ll that was left was the metal handle shaped like this,” he said as he made a gesture with his hand, causing it to resemble a hook with a curved end. The little girl next to him was staring in awe as he began to unbend his short yet thin finger, bringing it back to its original shape. As she continued to look at her father in the silence that was always left over after he finished one of his famous stories, she took in all of his well-known features: the sharp angle of his jaw softened by the recent appearance of sagging skin on his cheekbones, his intense blue, almond-shaped eyes which seemed less severe now that they came along with small lines of wrinkles, and the single crooked tooth in the corner of his smile. Every night after work he would come into her room to tell her three goodnight stories–not two, and she could never convince him to tell a fourth, but if she was lucky the last story would last for a long time.

Since he had just finished telling the story of Peter Pan and Captain Hook, which he made up himself, it was time for Goodnight, Moon. This story always made her sad because she knew that after it was over she had to go to sleep. The first story of the night was “The Princess and the Pea,” which had a shorter plot, so it looked like she was going to go to sleep early tonight. Her dad opened the cardboard cover and began reading. His voice was not soothing and had a slightly raspy undertone so subtle that nobody but she noticed it. Recently it had begun to remind her of a person who has been talking for such a long time that he does not even need to think before the words come out. Too soon, her dad was saying, “Goodnight noises everywhere,” and rising up from the bed, letting out a small sigh as he lifted himself up and walked out of the room. On his way, he turned off the light and whispered, “I love you.”

Entering the kitchen, he opened up the box of pizza that they’d forgotten to eat. He took a large bite out of a cold slice and was immediately disappointed by the lack of flavor and the rubbery texture of the crust, but he ate it anyway and had one more for good measure. Then he went into the fridge and took out a beer-bottle, its smooth glass texture covered in condensation. He opened it with the big tooth on the left side of his mouth and spat the cap across the room into the kitchen sink. Beer in hand, he walked over to the living room and settled down onto the brown couch full of crumbs from his daughter’s animal crackers. He took a sip of his drink as he turned the TV to Channel One, muting the news and staring at the screen. He had been outside all day, and now his back ached and his arms stung from a sunburn. He was getting too old to work on construction sites all day, but he had to keep working. There wasn’t enough money to retire.

He remembered that early afternoon when she had left him and their young daughter. It was the time of day when nobody is outside and the world appears deserted. She stood on the porch with the peeling white paint–which had turned light gray from age–and said she couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Being the manager of the new branch of the soap store she had been working at since she was in high school was more important to her than her new child and long time husband. She took with her everything but the baby and the stories of their early life together. In her slim hand, she was gripping a plastic grocery store bag that contained laundry detergent, a stapler, a box of wine, and a photo of herself in a glass picture frame. The rest of her belongings were in a large red suitcase.

As she walked down the porch steps, in order to keep himself from crying, he kept his eyes glued to the words “Have a good day” plastered on the bag of his family keepsakes.

A faint cry came from the other side of the house, telling him that his free time was over.

He quietly walked down the hallway, trying to avoid the creaking floors, and opened the door to his daughter’s room. The blanket was twisted around her body, and the sheets had come undone at the corners of the mattress. He fixed the bed, then settled down next to his daughter to comfort her. He stroked her hair gently until she surrendered to a wave of sleep.

Be

ck

40

41

The world is a snow globe and I am stuck inside A child comes and shakes the globe My world is going up down up down up down up It can’t make up its mind Up or Down?

Snow or Sun

My feet are planted on the ground of my snowy home Up or Down, I don’t care Just let me go from this frigid globe Let me feel the sand between my toes The sun on my face and salt in my hair Let me ride dolphins in the calm Caribbean waves Let the orange sunset swallow my island whole Let my new world be one of relaxation and comfort

Arlette Gindi

Abigail Jacob

Suddenly, the child’s fingers slip from my globe I’m falling Blood rushes to and from my skull My jaw is tight and my limbs are frozen And I’m crashing.

42

43

strike, knowing how sad to be in the face of a dead pet. Not sad enough, and you didn’t care about it enough to bury it in your backyard in the first place. Too sad, and you risked the embarrassment of someone telling you that it was just an animal. We had dug for close to fifteen minutes, and my mother and older brother went back inside to get the cardboard box. The slight strain of my brother’s arms and the sag of the bottom flap of the cardboard make me think all too clearly about what lay inside of it. My brother put down his shovel and kicked the dirt, as if trying to hurt the universe for taking away his rabbit. The universe didn’t seem to care.

The wind was picking up and everything I looked at, everything I saw and heard, everything I touched, reminded me what was in that box. It reminded me of what lay in the grave when we all took turns shoveling dirt onto it, what was in the cardboard box when the dead sky allowed its macabre rain to fall onto dead earth. I didn’t know what to do. Do I continue my day as I intended when I first woke up, or give in to the grim lethargy imposed by the death of an animal? What made this animal any different from any other? Why would I mourn a dead rabbit, but not any dead deer on the side of a highway, or a firefly glowing in distress as it got caught in a spider’s web?

I thought about my brother. He will have to wake up tomorrow morning and see an empty cage in his room, with nothing but an empty water bowl and a half-eaten stalk of celery. He’ll have to remember Frankie every time he sees the empty cage; he’ll have to remind himself of a time when it contained a beloved pet, and every day that time will get farther away. And soon, so will the memories. Whether of rabbits, people, places, ideas, thoughts–time erodes everything.

I reach into my pocket and grab the dollar coin, now cold in my sore and shaking hands.

I flip the coin once, and let its faint ringing sing Frankie to his end.

Frankie Eli Altzman

s

me Ja h ac rb

e Au

I sat at my desk, flipping a dollar coin.

I would flick it up a foot above my hand with my thumb and listen to its faint ringing as it fell back down into my waiting palm. It helped me think. Two minutes earlier, my brother had come into my room to tell me his pet rabbit had died that morning.

When he knocked on my door, I could barely hold my eyes open from drowsiness. After he told me, I couldn’t close them. The rabbit had stayed in a cage in my younger brother’s room, but now the cage was empty, as dead and purposeless as its former occupant. The early autumn air was cold, and I could see the curtains and the sheets on the edge of my bed wave in the breeze that I could not possibly feel, like flags of a long-gone nation. I swiftly dressed in clothes I didn’t want to look at and went down to the basement with my brother to fetch two spades. My brother shuffled his way toward his room, where my mother was, holding a cardboard box. He held it half an arm’s-length from him, and he looked around for something in the room to hold his attention, but the box and the empty cage had captured it in a vise-like grip. I saw him look at the empty cage with hollow eyes before closing them and breathing a tortured sigh that flared his nostrils. We trudged to the backyard with the shovels.

Next to a rose bush and a leafless tree in the backyard there was a small patch without grass. The gray tint from the fall morning clouds and the faint, but ever-present howl of the wind lent everything a dead feel. As dead as Frankie. Thinking about the name my brothers had given him only made me feel less. An indescribable feeling–not sad, not empty, just less. Less of everything.

My brother and I started digging. He would make the hole deeper, and I would make it more steep. On a whim, I reached into my pocket: The dollar coin was still there, but it was getting colder with the air. Five minutes passed. I told my brother about the gravediggers in Hamlet, how they served as comic relief, and he feigned interest. Ten minutes passed, and my mother came out to measure the hole we had been toiling at with an empty box. She told us to make it steeper. It was a hard chord to

44

45

I look out, gathering what last hope I can and going through the ritualistic act of returning to the window. It feels like going back to a fridge after you’ve already rummaged through empty containers and hollow cans, but you do it anyway because maybe food appeared while you were gone. Of course, once again, nothing turned up. She was gone.

Her car didn’t magically turn around and pull back into my driveway; she was probably halfway to her sister’s house. She wasn’t coming back in to start over, tell me that things were crazy and that we just needed to slow down. Maybe that’s what I should’ve said--she was usually the more rational of the two of us; she would have listened.

It seems fitting that she left this time. After every instance of me storming out of our arguments, I guess it was her turn to take the wheel.

I was never the one left in the dust of our conflicts. It was definitely humiliating. It made me think, how did we get here? I guess she had been doing this for longer than I had. Maybe if I had been the abandoned one before, I would have had more time to think about this situation.

I just sat there and watched, pondering how things could have gone better. Our fights were never over anything significant–maybe conflicting schedules, or a visit from her mom, or taking out the trash. But it seemed like every little issue piled up and started to weigh her down. She gradually isolated herself from our shared life: no more greetings after work, mid-day phone calls, good morning hugs with omelettes. The issue is that she never said anything was actually wrong. It wasn’t like we had a perfect relationship, but she had so many opportunities to reach out to me. If only.

I didn’t move from the windowsill. I watched in solitude as the rain froze over and came down gracefully to cover the layer of snow and slush. I stood frozen in a trance, in admiration of the blissful scene, yearning to take part in the simplicity of all of it--the natural cycle of snow melting and dirt and slush being exposed, and then more snow falling to take its place and cover what lay beneath. I wished the snow might fall into my life and cover the wound she left.

If only Gabi Potter

Esti Beck

46

47

I look into my past and see a child who wanted to learn, to understand, eyes bright with

wonder. Always asking questions, always bored in class. It was never enough, so she asked at home–there she got some answers, but they were not all that she wanted.

The child grew and her challenges grew as well. Still, the wonder persisted.

At age nine, the child switched schools, facing the fear that was a new place with no known faces or friends. The classes were more interesting, the kids kinder, and so the wonder grew.

That wonder led to a love of books. Fantasy became a way to explore, visit other worlds when hers grew too strange or simply boring. Her mind began to spin with possibilities, so she vowed to make her world more interesting with stories of her own. Hesitantly, she showed one to her mother, who told her yes, that’s good, keep going. Thus affirmed, her wonder mixed with joy at finding something she loved.

At age eleven, everything changed. Diabetes, the doctor said. What did that mean, the child wondered. She had seen the word in books, but never remembered to ask her mom what it meant. Turned out, it meant injections, lots of doctors, and having to measure everything she ate. Confusion and responsibility and pain made the wonder dim. The world had lost what little charm it had, so she escaped into other worlds.

Eventually, things got better and easier. The addition of an insulin pump and Continuous Glucose Monitor made things so much easier. The wonder grew again.

Wonder Eve Schizer

Eitan Goldberg

Growing

48

49

.

She rules over a vast territory

and her subjects are loyal Bright, aquatic pillars line her palace, sheltering those frightened to walk the common road while the finned sear through cool blue Yet her allies have turned on her agreeing to take the waste her creatures cycled through the kingdom They promised to control themselves but they continued expanding pumping what they didn’t want into her They wear down her standing army Slowly their glacial forms get pushed and shoved until they are thawed into nothingness So she’s drowning buildup shoved down her throat and she can’t breathe, it’s too warm it’s too hard How do you release something trapped so deep, so viral, it turns all harmony into sour ruin?

But I’m still here, looking at her worrying for her And you’re still here, looking at her probably not worrying for her But if dipping your toe in doesn’t send a shiver down your spine and it feels like melted ice cream that lost its icy bite then I think you ought to worry Luckily, we can still appreciate her magnificent majesty, perhaps, aid in restoring the glory of the watery realm.

Under Siege Samantha Sinensky

Maya Hoff

50

Kingdom

51

Aar on omo

Sol ns

Lux Tenebris Eve Schizer

52

53

I walk quickly

past the convenience store and its questionable crowd, but not before the taunts start. The group of red-skinned, horn-headed, fire-wreathed men start yelling.

“Hey, halfling, get out of here!”

“We don’t want your kind ’round here!”

“Piss off!” a bolder one cries.

I just tuck my wings closer to my back and bow my horned head, walking past them swiftly. I am used to this sort of thing, unfortunately, but it can’t be helped. That’s what happens when you’re a halfling. It’s even worse when you’re a lux tenebris, a demon-angel hybrid.

Halflings are never treated well, no matter the breed, but it’s worse for me. Ryjick, my vampire-werewolf friend, has to deal with the prejudice, too, but until twenty years ago, it was forbidden among the demon and angelic communities to even interact with the other species, let alone marry them!

My parents married the day after the amendment to the Constitution of our country changed. My mother was already pregnant.

So… I am used to the name calling. I never understood why it happened when I was little, but it didn’t take long for me to start trying to make myself look as unobtrusive as possible.

I clear the block with the demons and walk the final few to where I am meeting Ryjick. Apparently, a new halfling bar has opened, and they have a very, very good setup.

I stop in front of what must be the place. The sign reads “Half-Full” in neon letters with a little glowy cup on the side. It isn’t all that funny or clever, but it’s cute, I’ll give them that. I step inside and see Ryjick soon enough. His pale skin overlaid with shaggy hair is pretty unmistakable.

He’s sitting with a female I don’t recognize. I hope he didn’t find a date already because then our guys’ night is over.

I walk over to the booth and slide in next to Ryjick.

“Hey, dude, this is Lycella. Lycella, this is Alsed,” Ryjick introduces.

“Nice to meet you,” I hold my taloned hand out across the table, waiting to see if she’ll shake the hand of a lux tenebris. To my surprise, she does.

“Likewise,” she replies. I notice she has a firm grip and doesn’t seem bothered by my claws.

I scan her form, trying to get a read on her. She has raven hair, ethereal, lovely features, and skin the color of a selkie’s pelt.

Definitely part siren. But what else? I wonder.

Lycella rolls her eyes. “You can just ask me, you know.”

“What?” I ask, wrenched from my musings.

“You can ask what I am. I won’t bite… well, I might,” she smirks.

I laugh a little and say, “Well, what are you?”

“Half-siren, half-basilisk. Don’t worry, I can’t kill you, only paralyze you, and only if I really try.”

I look into her face and see that yes, her eyes have yellow undertones beneath the rich brown. They’re really hypnotizing. Must be the siren in her because I can’t look away.

“What about you?” she asks me.

I duck my head, “Half-demon, half-angel.” I wonder if she’ll look at me differently, but she just says, “Okay.”

A half-smile curls my lips upward, and I decide that I’d like her as a friend.

“So, Ryjick, what’ve you been up to since I saw you last week? Did you get the job?” I question.

Ryjick smiles brightly, exposing his needle-teeth. “I got it!”

“Oh, man! That’s great!” I turn to Lycella, “He interviewed for a job at the local bookstore. He loves to read.”

“I know,” she says, unique eyes twinkling, “that’s what we were talking about before you arrived. He was recommending some good books for me to read. He saw me sitting here reading this and came over to talk.”

She gestured to the book in front of her. I recognize the cover because I’ve seen Ryjick reading it a dozen times.

“Yeah, he loves that series,” I say, nudging Ryjick’s shoulder.

We’re interrupted when a waiter approaches. I can tell from the scales on his face and the fur coat over his uniform that he has selkie heritage mixed with something else.

“Ambrosia shots and some fries for me, please,” I say.

“Blood shots and rare steak,” Ryjick always orders the same thing.

“What kind of blood?” the waiter asks. “We have lamb, beef, and tonight’s special of pig.”

“Lamb is good,” Ryjick supplies.

“And for the lady?” the waiter asks Lycella.

“Vodka/saltwater shots and a medium-well steak for me.” Lycella’s tongue flicks across her lips while she

orders, and I notice it’s forked. I wonder what that feels like. Does it catch on her teeth? Does it have the same kind of taste buds as mine? How does it work? I suppose it’s not much different from people wondering about my wings. I can’t sleep on my back, my feathers fall out at annoying times, I get cramps from holding them in weird ways, and they need exercise just like any other part of me.

I’m pulled out of my thoughts again when I hear Ryjick say, “Don’t worry about him. He thinks a lot.”

I blink and intelligently say, “Hmm?”

Ryjick just rolls his eyes and says, “Whatever, dude,” like he always does when he catches me not paying attention to what’s going on around me.

I smile at him amiably, knowing that he isn’t really annoyed. Because we have known each other since I was a fledgling and he was a pup in one of the segregated halfling schools, he is quite used to my oddities.

I’m about to rejoin the conversation about books when a crash shatters the peace of the bar, followed by a string of expletives, some of which are quite offensive.

I turn and look to see what caused the commotion, and my eyes settle on a purebred werewolf whose clothes are drenched. The halfling bartender is apologizing profusely to no avail.

The werewolf raises a clawed finger and points it at the bartender, shaking in rage.

“You pathetic excuse for a being! How dare you! You shouldn’t be allowed to exist!”

At this point, I see that the bartender, a double-headed, four-armed woman, is close to tears. I shove my seat back and spread my wings threateningly as I approach the guy.

“Hey, back off! It was clearly an accident!” I defend.

“You’re worse, lux tenebris! Leave… before I make you!” he threatens.

“No!” Ryjick says, coming up next to me. “We’re not going anywhere until you apologize.”

“I ain’t apologizing for nothing! You’re all abominations! Your kind shouldn’t be allowed near the rest of us!” the man’s words rise in volume and fervor. The words sting deep, despite the fact that I have heard many similar sentiments over my lifetime.

“If you don’t approve of us,” Lycella’s icy voice butts in (I startle since I didn’t notice her join us), “then you can take your business elsewhere. This is a bar for ‘our kind,’ as you put it.”

The werewolf growls at her. “I’m in no mood for your tricks, temptress!”

“Hey! Leave her alone!” Ryjick interjects angrily, clearly protective of his new “friend .”

“You!” the wolf spits, “you defile all the principles of our society. Breeding with a different species, bah!”

I see Ryjick shrink a little. He is very proud of his werewolf heritage and the way that his pack took his parents’ mating. His father is accepted among the wolves and is allowed to hunt with the pack, which is a great honor in their culture. He can keep up, too.

The wolf doesn’t miss Ryjick’s flinch and pounces on it. “Didn’t like that, did ya? Well, now you know how I feel every time I look at one of you! To think that some people even encourage our pups to interact with your mockery of offspring! What horrible things must you have done to them, huh?”

That did it for me. This...this piece of trash was talking about how we must have poisoned the thoughts of innocent children! As children ourselves!

“Leave.” I leave no room for argument, my voice carrying the whole weight of Heaven and Hell, my horns flaring with black fire, my eyes glowing white.

The wolf looks startled for a moment before snarling at me. “No!”

We engage in a staring match, fighting for dominance. I angle my wings in a challenging way, daring him to say anything else derogatory.

Finally, the wolf turns on his heel and storms out.

I let my wings fold back into a more comfortable position and collapse into a nearby chair, rubbing a hand over my face. A familiar hand settles on my shoulder, and I lower my hand, allowing myself to see Ryjick smiling weakly at me, Lycella beside him.

“You were great, Alsed. Thanks for defending my honor and all that,” Ryjick jokes, trying to make light of the situation.

“Well, someone had to!” I quip back at him, spreading my wings out lazily behind me.

Suddenly, Lycella is upon me, tickling the underside of my exposed wings.

I squeal, having not been prepared for the assault, and topple out of the chair. “Ah! Lycella! Stop–!”

She finally stops, and when I recover my breath, I look and see that Ryjick is clutching his side from laughing so hard.

“Traitor,” I gasp out.

“But you love me!” he says cheekily.

“Yeah,” I say, looking at the two of them, “I do.”

55

56

Esti Beck

Esti Beck

These Happy Golden Years

If you turned right when you entered the foyer of her house, you would see a long living room, the white walls as unstained and new as the day they were painted. Leaning against the nearest of the walls is a large, mahogany bookcase, a family heirloom that had moved from her grandmother’s house in Connecticut to hers, the scratches up and down its surface betraying its years of use. On the bottom shelf, there were messy piles of old photo albums and, strangely, stationery, as if the two had some strange correlation she had not yet discovered. In the album hidden under her sister’s JCC bunk photos, there was a pocket, meant for CDs or some other ancient device. And there, in that pocket, was a picture, the picture, the picture they were not allowed to talk about.

There was nothing ominous about the photo at first glance. It featured one ten-year old girl, standing against a blank wall, zoomed in close so that she was the only thing in sight. She smiled sweetly at the camera, face beaming, an expression which danced to her eyes and lit them up with joy. Her outfit matched her mood: she was wearing a pink long-sleeved t-shirt, ribbed slightly, and a lime green skirt patterned with butterflies. Perhaps it was not the height of style, but she loved the outfit nonetheless, loved the way the butterflies on her hem seemed to fly as she twirled around and around, loved the way her shirt matched the bright pink of her lips, always stretched upwards in a grin. Her hair was short and golden brown, framing her face like a veil, always loose and carefree. Most importantly, though, then and now, was the book she clutched tightly to her heart: “These Happy Golden Years.”

That was all, that was the whole picture, but something so simple had come to be so ominous, over the years, that the picture had been declared cursed and fated to a life hidden under a pile of unwanted things. If the story had ended on that day, with her reading the book and living forever in a world where Laura Ingalls Wilder was the only thing on her mind, the story would have been a happy one.

But what the picture did not show is the lump in her neck, hidden by the shadow of her chin. It did not show the tumor that was growing there, like a parasite, devouring everything it could touch and spreading towards its ultimate goal–her vital organs. It did not show the months of treatment, days spent locked in a small room all alone, radiation surrounding her like a malignant halo. It did not show the surgery, or the aftermath, the tears and the croaks that had replaced her words. It did not show the IV she carried in her arm like a new limb, the needle digging ever deeper every time she moved. It did not show the trauma that lasted for years after the last cancer cell had died, taking her young, innocent self along with it. That picture does not show what she became years later, a girl bitter and cold from her time spent in the gulags of the pediatric hospital wing. That picture does not show the future.

It was the last photo that was taken of her before diagnosis, and every time she saw it, her mother would start to cry. She had taken the photo on a whim, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, when the sky had been blue and the sun-room perfect for a few hours spent reading, relaxing. “Those were the Happy Golden Years,” she’d say.

“But how could we have known?” The picture took on a different meaning–it became the photo of what cancer killed, though it did not kill her. Cancer took away the girl with the twinkle in her eye and the smile dancing on her lips. Cancer took away the days of pink clothes with crazy patterns, and of innocent, cherubic faces. The picture exists, but that girl does not, forever stuck in those happy golden years.

57

There was an earthquake inside my fingers, the bones snapping, fighting each other beneath the skin that grayed in the silver moon.

What moon? you said, your voice bare, a whisper through the pillow, and yet

you moved not when the bed exploded in a brilliant red. The room grew ashen, though the flames died quickly; I wonder if they were even there. I could not see the floor, the yellow, bone-colored floor.

I cleaned up yesterday the broken glasses of red wine with my bare hands until the morning swept away the wasted spirit in my eyes, the shard gone in, the stars cut out

Emily Abraham

so sickly pale the lights, the fire lights that buzzed and flickered at my touch, the fevered sheets of cotton thread, the ceramic plates come crashing down, the fading moons that fell last night.

Natalie Kahn 58

Night

Diffraction noun a modification undergone by light when passing through opaque bodies or narrow openings in which the rays are deflected

60

61

The man across the street is a rainbow mantis shrimp in a sea of dull gray sharks. His tie-dyed, tribal-printed harem pants transform his legs into the envelope of a hot air balloon, the color reminding you of the gym parachutes you’d run under at birthday parties as a kid. Engraved, mocha-colored drumsticks stick out of the man’s pocket like a lever attached to his similarly colored body, extending through his baggy pants. A maroon-colored beanie occupies three-quarters of his head, while curly black hair shoots up like springs near the front of his scalp. The man wears wireless gold Beats over his beanie that tune out the tirelessly honking cars and taxi cabs of Wall Street. The business sharks around him look at the man distastefully, drawing more attention to him than he has already drawn to himself. As the light changes, the businessmen race over to the other side. They refuse to slow down and risk being late to work. The mellowed-out man in hot air balloon pants leisurely walks across the street, leaving swaggered footsteps behind him. Tupac’s “California Love” blares from the eye-catching headphones on his ears as I walk by him. The rainbow mantis shrimp continues onto Broadway with a sea of sharks, in their suits and ties, walking with him.

Aar

on

Sol

omo

ns

of

SchoolFish Arlette

62

Gindi

63

Perhaps Natalie Kahn

Perhaps the nights whisper across the sea

until the salty mist begets a ghost and we can hear the silent creature playing songs on the silver strings inside ourselves, or around the tinted veins–in such darkness one cannot know who sings to cry or pray if all the starry flames have passed away.

64

k

Bec

.

i Est

65

It is approximately 4:15 in the morning No it is approximately 4:15 in the twilight On the corner of my bed I’m perched and the world suddenly catches my eyes I didn’t know I loved the lens-shaped portion of sky visible between the tops of buildings, houses blue, cerulean, the depths like the sea I didn’t know the symmetry that exists between the great Atlantic and the atmosphere the bright ongoing expanses housing our hopes and dreams I hate that I say “our,” I want my poem to be mine What belongs to me is mine, my ideas I didn’t know I loved the empty large gaps of matter between each entity, looking out the mesh wires, screen of my window daunted by the gray overcast I look beyond and the infinite space suddenly takes hold of my heart My head is clear and I didn’t know I loved where I was I loved where I am

Things I didn’t know I

loved

I know who I love and who I try to love I know there are things I can never express, not through writing, not through drawing certainly not through speaking but I didn’t know I could miss someone after leaving them It sounds obvious, rejecting someone is in my nature rejecting his cold stare but warm arms led to chaos but staying wouldn’t have done me good.

James Auerbach

I never knew I loved the feeling of ending up at home no longer wandering the earth leaving him and ending up at home opening my window so I can breathe and I can Nothing was alive at approximately 4:15 in the twilight while I was perched on the corner of my bed soft tan sheets below hard black street below that and outward and away from me was a man I ran from Nothing just my restless conscience.

.

Aaron Solomons

66

67

.

Last

night was about you; You’re encompassing my hours.

I shove you away, scared and unsure, But you push right back; you’re the paperweight to my stacks and stacks of newspaper clippings.

Getting into your mind is like trying to get into a pool on a sweltering day.

I try to start slowly, dipping my foot in toe by toe, Though I tell myself what we’re always told: the only way is to go all in.

I think I want to submerge all of me into the unsure depths, But I never do. After all, who said I wanted to get wet in the first place?

Last night was about deliberation, It was a trial of you against my indecision.

But a verdict is terrifying, a final word, A hammer pounding in the nail That had been used to hang a painting.

Noa Horvitz

U nbalanced James Auerbach

68

69

Grapefruit Maya Hoff

Of you and me sitting under the cobwebs:

Maya Hoff

Sunlight shines through the canopy of forgotten silk illuminating the flies which are trapped.

The light passes over these lifeless figures, Onto our glistening faces.

Staring at each other With our fingers laced in blades of grass, and eyelashes covered in tears, We cry for the flies, But we know it is natural.

The act of putting sugar on a grapefruit Pretends to turn the sour into sweetness.

Once the sugar dissolves We are left with an unwanted and unexpected taste in our mouths. Reflexively, our eyes seal shut And our lips pucker.

And here too, We try to cover the cruel by finding beauty, but our silent tears tell the truth.

Our eyes close but our lips don’t furrow. Instead, they frown.

71

Livia S

obel

Prayer

Her Liviah Sobel

She wants to be a good person, A person who will know what’s right, A person who can be truly kind.

She wants to smile in the future, She wants her smile to be contagious, She wants to hear a laughter symphony.

She wants to have a bright future, So bright that she won’t need light In the dark when it’s scary, When the monsters hide in her closet, And when they crouch under her bed.

She wants to be successful, But not the bad kind of successful, When you have a pile of money, But no one to share it with.

Evelyn Landy

72

73

C

omplete darkness.

That is what I see outside of the viewport of our vessel. It is not an uncommon sight to a space-farer, the unyielding blackness of the void. The eeriest thing, however, is that there are no stars. Not one point of light amid the sea of black.

I’ve been a crewman on the Constellation for many years now, the whale-class ship serving as both my home and my workplace.

I’ve always thought our research ship doesn’t look quite glamorous enough to warrant the name “Constellation,” with its large, oblong oval shape. It may look clumsy, but it maneuvers well when we need it to get us out of a dangerous situation.

Now, I wonder if even our trusty Constellation will be able to get us out of our current danger: death by black hole. We seem to slowly march towards the patch of obsidian that looks even darker than the rest of the void, and we’ve sent our data on the escape pod along with a pregnant colleague and her husband. At least they’re safe.

My friends and coworkers are in a panic. There’s seemingly nothing to be done, but as the ship’s resident engineering consultant, it’s my job to take care of the ship and answer any questions my coworkers have on their projects.

So I square my shoulders and head down to the main systems room. I might be able to cajole the ion-drive and the plasmic-system to fire together, something we usually avoid because of the possibility for combustion.

But… if I can get it to work, we might just have enough of a jolt to get us out of the black hole’s grasp.

I rush about, dragging cables with me, plugging them into different consoles. After a short time, the room looks like a spider’s web, and I stumble over cords on the floor.

I look at the final two cables I need to connect and pull out my comm.

“Tyula,” I say, “do you read?”

“Please tell me you have something, Zep,” Captain Tyula says, her voice tight with tension.

“Yep, but it’s risky. And almost done. I’m connecting the ion-drive and the plasmic-system to give the engines extra juice.”

“You do know that could—” “Blow us all up? Yeah, but it’s the maybe-get-blown-up or the definitely get pulled into a black hole. I say option one!”

I hear Tyula sigh over the line. “Agreed. What do you need me to do?”

“I’m going to connect the last two cables. Be at the helm and gun it when I give the signal,” I instruct.

“I’m there.”

I pick up the last two cables and hold them a few inches apart.

“Now!” I plug the cables together, then dive behind a bulkhead. When nothing explodes, I peek out from behind the hulk of metal and see the lights on the generator all glowing more brightly than usual. Other than that—and the rat’s nest of wires everywhere—everything seems normal.

“Well,” I sigh in relief, “nothing exploded down here. How are things up there?”

“We’re free! It worked!” Tyula exclaims.

I flop back against one of the machines, and smile. “Good.”

“Thank you, Zep. We’d all be toast without you.”

“Jus’ doing my job,” I tell her, “and the Constellation is home.”

“Amen to that. Now let’s get back to base.”

Tyula, Do You Read? r

ize

Sch Eve

rg

be

n

74

E

a it

d ol

G

75

Color

Wheel

The tint of death is darker than the color of night.

Yet, look closer at the shade, and the darkness goes away.

What is left behind the dark cloudy mass is every color imaginable: Yellow swirled into red, twirled into purple, jumbled into blue.

Though from afar the concoction seems just the same deep obscurity, Every color has its place.

Anna Braun

Aaron Solomons

76

77

Always Nightfall James Auerbach

Something about the crisp air, About the weight of myself collapsing, Something about the pain of a foot hitting the ground, time after time– It’s always during nightfall.

There’s always a feeling of limbo, I’m in purgatory with nothing but myself At nightfall, under covers pulled tight, Hiding my frail mind under a sheer blanket.

Something about the words I last heard, About how they run circles around my mind like a fly you can’t quite swat, They toss another anvil onto my shoulders, Like it’s nothing.

Nightfall is all engulfing, all powerful.

It roams around, hidden behind eyes during day But still there.

It’s always nightfall.

Emily Abraham

78

79

One Fine

Day

Inspired by the aria “Un Bel Di� by Giacomo Puccini

One fine day I saw the moon break in two or five or six pieces The jagged edges cut my fingers pale and beautiful The snow falls on them as it falls on the glassy sea the fragile sea and disappears.

Natalie Kahn

80

Natalie Kahn

81

An Ode to New York Elizabeth Newman-CorrĂŠ

I saw the face of God in the smoke from the cigarette butt I read the gospel on a street sign I heard the angels singing in the two tones of a siren I watched their halos in the street lamps I found my religion on Lexington Avenue I prayed in Battery Park I formed my congregation of the huddled masses I preached to them from the Highline The smell of subway seared in my skin I say a prayer to the city that built me The rest of the world can have their false idols I say a prayer to the city I call mine

Michal Rahabi

82

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