Vortex 2020 Scottsdale Community College by Scottsdale Community College

VORTEX 2020

Vortex

2020

A collection of Art, Essays, Plays, Poetry, Scripts, & Short Stories

A vortex is spiraling energy, like a whirlwind or a tornado that exists throughout all of nature. The Milky Way, our greater home, spirals. Moving water spirals as it flows over and around things. Our bones spiral.

The Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) is an EEO/AA institution and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, or national origin in their programs or activities. For Title IX/504 concerns, call the following number to reach the appointed coordinator: (480) 731-8499. For additional information visit: http://www.maricopa.edu/non-discrimination.

A Publication of Scottsdale Community College

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Writers and Artists Acknowledgment Poetry Doria Dphrepaulezz for “All Pain Has a Name”©2020 Wonder Whalen for “Alaska Air ” ©2020 Kristina Morgan for “Grandmother” ©2020 Todd Lejnieks for “Beyond My Broken Dreams” ©2020

Kathryn Dwyer for “Bearing Witness” ©2020 Ron Dunlop for “Broken Chairs and Vodka” ©2020 Olivia Martinez for “The Face of a Stranger” ©2020 Robert Lewis for “From Ridicule to Victory” ©2020 Nancy Simpson for “Here You Come Again” ©2020 Script/Play Marie Tomisato for “Sniff the Bench, Steal the Fish” ©2020 Karina Rivera Acevedo for “The Groundhog Mask” ©2020

Native Voices and Visions Mary Doka for “On the Reservation” ©2020 Marina Santa Cruz for “Her Spirit” ©2020 Mateo TreeTop for The Fight for the Eighth Generation ©2020 Art Barbara Goldberg for These are Not Flowers ©2020 Phyllis Benson for What’s Happening? ©2020 Suzanne Black for Down by the River on a Summer’s Day ©2020 Holly Clifford for I Knew They Weren’t Stars ©2020 Kathy Dioguardi for In the Boonies with Timothy Leary ©2020 Judith Feldman for The Golden Hour ©2020 Joanne Gallery for Day Dreamer ©2020 Stephen Hoffman for Breaking Strings ©2020 Michelle Horsman Juarez for Mik’maw a’sutmat (prayer) ©2020 Valerie Kossak for Untitled ©2020 Steven Kujawski for Dangling by a Thread ©2020 Gloria Martins for Parallel Universe ©2020 Bonnie Lewis for you can put your feet on the coffee table ©2020 Ellen Nemetz for Before Things Fell Apart ©2020 Adrienne Pagel for The 800 at 80 ©2020 Rick Rosenberg for Glorieta ©2020 Saige Shuquem for Overgrowth ©2020 Caroline Wargo for Resisted Living ©2020 Jada Warner for Sai ©2020

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I want to thank all of our student writers and artists here at Scottsdale Community College! It is because of them that we are able to create such an eclectic and high quality anthology. The writing and art in this journal represent a wide range of subjects, styles, and experiences. Without our writers’ and artists’ visions and revisions, without their insights and sensitivities, without their devotion to what they create, we would be diminished as a community of learners and as human beings. I am deeply indebted to our very smart and dedicated executive administrative assistant, Buffie Diglio, who manages the Vortex contracts and ticket sales, processes winners’ paperwork and awards, designs and prints award certificates and guest name badges, and maintains our website. I also want to thank Michelle Blake for all of her assistance. And I am so grateful to Shachi Kale, the graphic designer of Vortex, for her beautiful spirit, artistic innovations, and remarkable skill and long hours spent on the design of Vortex. I also want to thank Dr. Stephanie Fujii, SCC’s Vice President of Academic Affairs, Susan Moore, Chair of the English, World Languages, and Journalism Division, and Dr. Larry Tualla, Chair of the English Department, for their continued support of Vortex and its significance to our students. My gratitude also goes to our amazing judges: Dr. Cameron MacElvee, Robert Mugford, Joshua Rathkamp, and Rosemarie Dombrowski, all of whom sacrificed a portion of their Spring Break for art’s sake! And I want to thank my wonderful colleagues at SCC who continually encourage our students in their writing and artwork!

Sandra Desjardins Vortex Coordinator

Support the Arts!

We need your support to keep the fire of creativity burning in all of our talented students for many years to come. Please consider a tax-deductible donation to Vortex. Your support helps to pay for supplies, special programs, annual events and the very book you’re reading. For more information on how you can show your support for education and the arts, please contact Sandra Desjardins at (480) 423-6415 or visit our website at: https://www.scottsdalecc.edu/alumni-friends/donate-vortex College: Scottsdale, Designation: “Vortex Student Publication”

“It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our hearts sing.” Steve Jobs, in introducing the iPad 2 in 2011

“In my own philanthropy and business endeavors, I have seen the critical role that the arts play in stimulating creativity and in developing vital communities…the arts have a crucial impact on our economy and are an important catalyst for learning, discovery, and achievement in our country.” Paul G. Allen, Co-Founder, Microsoft

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Vortex Donors 201 9 -2 0 2 0 Eleanor Babbitt

Laura Fitzgerald

Robert Mugford

Dr. Judy Balan

Dr. Stephanie Fujii

Richard and Ann Pihl

Danielle Boyd

Georgia Fuller

June Rudyk

Robert B. Buchanan

Joanne Gallery

Kim Sabin

Sirio Calogero

Paul and Martha Gould

Jeanne Sabrack

Dr. Ana Cuddington

Doris & Martin Hoffman

Alex Stefan

Sandra Desjardins

Val Kossak

Angelika Zgainer

Stanley P. Desjardins

Robert Lewis

Joyce Erbach

Kathy Newman

Jared Aragona

Judy Feldman

E. E. Moe

Anneliese Harper

I am deeply grateful for and indebted to you, our donors! Because Vortex depends entirely on donations, we exist because of your generous support of the arts. Albert Camus once said “Real generosity to the future lies in giving all to the present.” So I thank you for giving our students a glimpse of what is possible through encouraging their passion for writing and art.

A Special Thank You to the following for their contributions to the Vortex Awards Event: Barbara Olsen for her extraordinary table floralscapes Vases Courtesy of AJ’s Purveyors of Find Foods Kim Herbst (IACE) for her suggestions and guidance. Steve Heywood with Americopy for printing Vortex. Ronald Zhang, for his design of the online contest submissions and his technical support. About the 2020 Vortex Graphic Designer Shachi Kale Shachi is an artist, graphic designer, and children’s book illustrator. You can see her work at www.shachikale.com or on instagram @shachidreams

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Table of Contents Creative Non-Fiction “Hospital Visit Number 19” Kristina Morgan - First Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Down by the River on a Summer’s Day Suzanne Black. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

“Bearing Witness” Kathryn Dwyer - Second Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

I Knew They Weren’t Stars Holly Clifford.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

“Broken Chairs and Vodka” Ron Dunlop - Third Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

“The Face of a Stranger” Olivia Martinez - Third Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

In the Boonies with Timothy Leary Kathy Dioguardi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

“From Ridicule to Victory” Robert Lewis - Honorable Mention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

The Golden Hour Judith Feldman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

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Table of Contents “Here You Come Again” Nancy Simpson - Honorable Mention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Short Story “Frances Down the Rabbit Hole” Kristina Morgan - First Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Day Dreamer Joanne Gallery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

“Sans” Joy Gregory - Second Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Breaking Strings Stephen Hoffman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

“Why Me?” Adrian Villarreal - Honorable Mention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Mik’maw a’sutmat (prayer) Michelle Horsman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

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Table of Contents Native Voices and Visions “On the Reservation” Mary Doka. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

“Her Spirit” Marina Santa Cruz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

“The Fight for the Eighth Generation” Mateo TreeTop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Poetry “All Pain Has a Name” Doria Dphrepaulezz - First Place.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Parallel Universe Gloria Martins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

“Alaska Air” Wonder Whalen - Second Place.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Untitled Valerie Kossak. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

“Grandmother” Kristina Morgan - Third Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 8

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Table of Contents you can put your feet on the coffee table Bonnie Lewis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

“Beyond My Broken Dreams” Todd Lejnieks - Honorable Mention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

“Rabbit Drive” Robert Buchanan - Honorable Mention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Before Things Fell Apart Ellen Nemetz. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

“Alligator” Joy Gregory - Honorable Mention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Dangling by a Thread Steven Kujawski. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

“My Body Fails Me” Emily Phillips - Honorable Mention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

The 800 at 80 Adrienne Pagel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

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Table of Contents Plays and Scripts “Sniff the Bench, Steal the Fish” Marie Tomisato - First Place.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Glorieta Rick Rosenberg.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

“The Groundhog Mask” Karina Rivera Acevedo - Second Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Overgrowth Saige Shuquem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

“Barriers” Matthew Granillo - Third Place. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Resisted Living Caroline Wargo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Writers’ and Artists’ Personal Statements

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Sai Jada Warner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

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In Honorarium Rick Pihl, a Life Well Lived by Ann Pihl Rick loved words and language. It was a gift he shared with so many through his conversations and writings. Words that describe him are: generous, loyal, loving, brilliant, witty, creative, and kind. But for me, Rick was beyond what words describe. He had a presence that filled a room. It was his smile, voice, and laughter. He often dressed head to toe in western attire, wearing a cowboy hat styled after one of his favorite cowboy characters from a classic western movie.

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Rick began his creative writing journey at Scottsdale Community College not long before we meet. In 2002, Rick had taken Sandy’s creative writing class at SCC, not once but twice! Rick expressed his creative side in so many ways, and it was his writing that he was most proud of and shared with those around him. His writing gave him so much joy and allowed him personal expression. He was even a winning writer in Vortex. Rick also had an opportunity to further his writing talent and ventured into publishing in 2013. Our newsstand publication, Western Horse and Gun, gave him the ability to share his talents, and he encouraged other writers as the magazine’s Editorin-Chief. In each issue, Rick’s publisher’s letter was his personal message for readers to inspire their everyday lives. He also received awards for his excellent work with the magazine. As print media had become a more challenging business, Rick saw it as an opportunity to venture into digital, and he did so in a big way! He became an actor and produced a feature western film, Soldier’s Heart, to be released in June 2020. He also became a proud member of the Screen Actors Guild and appreciated the effort and dedication it took to make a great film and immersed himself in the film’s story development and editing. Rick understood the importance of quality work and great story telling. He impressed that upon me. He loved reading, writing, music, and movies. He appreciated all art forms, but had a special fondness for the written word. I learned a lot about creative expression from Rick. Creative writing was an outlet for Rick where he could express his authentic self. He was most proud of his creative contributions. That was one of his many gifts. In recent years, Rick and I were proud donors to SCC’s Vortex literary magazine. Rick called everything he captured in writing and film his “time capsule” and knew it would be left behind for all to enjoy.

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The National League of American Pen Women We gratefully acknowledge the contributions to SCC writers, artists, and musicians made by the Scottsdale Branch of The National League of American Pen Women– the oldest women’s arts organization in the country. We appreciate the continued support of these dynamic and creative women!

Awards Each year, the Scottsdale Branch of American Pen Women honors a winning student in writing, art, or music at the Vortex Awards Reception. This year’s award is in art.

Barbara Goldberg is the recipient of this

award for her painting, “These Are Not Flowers”

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Vortex 2020 Creative Non-Fiction How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. ~ Henry David Thoreau “I think the pattern of my essays is, A funny thing happened to me on my way through Finnegan’s Wake.” ~ Leslie Fiedler A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them. ~ William Stafford

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“Hospital Visit Number 19” Kristina Morgan – First Place The doctor will try to shake loose my shadow and fail. My schizophrenia is in full bloom. I seek sleep in the hospital gown and am left with wrinkled cotton creating patterns on my back. The hospital gown is not flattering and catches breezes from the movement of other people. I stand still as a hinge. I am told the elephants have moved on. The teeth of the comb have been cleaned. It is another calendar year and I am again in the same place protecting my heart from the suddenness of a light snow fall. The snow fall will wait as it is summer in Phoenix. The hospital is the same, a series of closed doors the same color marching down a long hall. When my hands are locked at the knuckles I cannot plant alfalfa. I am told alfalfa is good for arthritis. I need to let my grandmother know this. Her knuckles are tinged by muscle ache. I can’t tuck the charm bracelet she gave me into velvet. Instead, the elephants with their ruby eyes get tossed beside the comb on the tiny nightstand. Strands of hair now wrap around the teeth of my comb. It is cold in my skin. In two hours my shadow will appear obvious. It will reach the knob of the door before I do. The door does not lock. The psych techs need to be able to enter on a whim. They are in place to protect me from myself. I didn’t realize I was in danger until it was almost too late. I thought back to yesterday. The bottles of Tylenol and Ativan lined up on the counter begged for my attention. Had my grandmother not walked in, I would have swallowed mouthfuls and then laid down to wait. I have no idea who is on the other side to greet me if anyone. I am at the end of the long hall in front of the nurse’s station, in front of the desk where the psych techs spend most of their time. The telephone is on the wall across from them. They can hear whole conversations. No words leave my mouth. How will they know my heart has stopped since noon? I protect it the way a child does her first hat.

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Creative Non-Fiction

There is not enough room in the hall for the tall man to shout, but he tries. It does not get him the cup of cocoa. I do not enter the rec room on my left. The voices I hear are louder in there. They compete with the television which is only still from midnight to five a.m. The nurse says she sees me talking to myself. She is wrong. I respond to the voices in a friendly way so as not to irritate them into calling me names. Slut. Cunt. Bean stalk. Irritant. Fucker upper. Slut is my favorite one as I am rarely sexual. I remind them of this. They don’t care. I miss you, my professor. I have been tucked away in days. The days slope near weeks like a long slide on the playground. How does it happen that you are always who you are? Lights out. Bare skin. Toe nails. I see you in your favorite boots—black, cowboy, loose soles. You always wear a pressed black shirt with enough girth to disguise the belly you say you have. Black pants, smooth pockets. Empty? No, I think not. Maybe a tissue waiting for you to sneeze. And a peppermint. My grandmother carried peppermints in her pockets. The Tibetan prayer beads you wear look blue in the right light. Your long white beard is warm. Your hair, white wisdom attached to roots like a dictionary in a small hand. You touch lives. The earth rotates so slowly that I imagine we remain standing still in a rush of daisies. You see wind in breeze and send it on to hurricane across young pages the color of wheat. I am lucky to have you as a writing professor. The first time I met you, you touched me like lightening striking a tree that had been asleep even in wind. Nothing rustled in my branches. It is like now. Nothing rustling in my branches. The air is so still in the hospital. If I wasn’t breathing, I would think I was living in a capsule on a mission to Mars. I send you a letter telepathically. The water you drink has a tinge of sweet this day. Thank you for blessing my life. I am brushed by your kindnesses. The hail has yet to completely crack the lens of my glasses. I know my case manager is trying to make this happen. Where is Kristina? She is lost in the prison of her own thoughts. I try to explain to him that my thoughts don’t belong to me. They extend Creative Non-Fiction

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past the length of my arm, through my outstretched fingers. I am lost in sentences that remind me of mud. Schizophrenia is nothing to write home about. The hospital has too often been my home. I am not allowed to cook hamburgers with onions and mushrooms. I miss my boyfriend, Guy. It is not easy to touch anyone in here. Even a visitor. Guy visits me everyday after a 45 minute drive. I don’t feel his arms around me in a tight embrace, matching that of Santa Claus at Christmas. It takes weeks for him to lose his visitor status. Weeks for me to be able to give him loving attention. But as I melt out of my illness, I am more intimate. Am I being a good girl even when I am in trouble? The hospital staff considers me good but sick. I don’t feel sick. I feel tired. I am moved here to watch the tall man beg for cocoa. I am moved here to catch up with myself. The marathon is over. I am learning only now how to untie my shoelaces. They were knotted to my ankle. It didn’t matter that they had sturdy soles. I needed to feel the carpet between my toes. It is hard to be this vulnerable. The hospital staff and Guy remind me that I have schizophrenia. It is something that does not go away. Not like the pain of a pulled rotten tooth. I cannot pull this from my mind. I am wired, attached to hallucinations. Why do they feel so real? I see Emma the giraffe at the end of the hall. She is beautiful. And mine. I hear voices no one else pays attention to. Is it just me with the good ears? I am the extension of the antennae on an old fashioned television set. Aluminum foil. Yes, it is rigged. I am rigged. Through medication and support of people, they are trying to make the rigged part go away. They are trying to help me stand even when I sense that I am falling. Not falling into sickness, but falling into a different me, one I can only understand with the help of medication and clean people. I will fall asleep in the hospital once again. I wake for medication and meals and the occasional conversation with the doctor and staff. I wake for my boyfriend. Sadly, I wake for the voices, too. They are with me like loose sleeves on a jacket that is too tight across my chest. Occasionally, they drop through the wrists of the jacket. It is in these moments that I exalt. I can count ten fingers and ten toes. I can make peace with my God. And most importantly, I can feel the love from those who touch me, warm like a

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wet washcloth used to remove the dust from my cheek. I am loved and I do love. This settles into my mind like replacing a page in a worn novel. I keep friends in an address book along with their telephone numbers. My mind slowly gets better. A cake bakes at 400 degrees for twenty minutes. Eventually, the toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Eventually, my mind comes out clean. I am able to communicate in simple sentences not requiring a great deal of thought from the listener. My silence is no longer the result of a sickened mind hiding from the florescent bulbs of the hospital. It is breakfast time. All of us gather in the main area and receive a tray. I am able to enter the rec room and claim a seat at one of the round tables. French toast and sausage. Cereal and a carton of milk. The voices are soft. They no longer berate me. Pick up the fork, they say. Eat, they say. It tastes good, they say. I’m okay with them repeating what it is I’m doing. It is so much better than being told to die or told to call the fat man obese and the skinny girl anorexic. My voices can be cruel, can ask me to do cruel things. After eating, I return the tray to the cart. John, the psych nurse, approaches me, clipboard in hand, like he does every morning. “Good morning, Kristina.” “Morning.” “Are you feeling suicidal today?” Only in a psych hospital would a person start the conversation with this question. “No,” I respond. “And the voices?” “Still there, but not bad.” “How was breakfast?” “Good. I’ll be going home soon, I think.” “Are you ready?”

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“Yes.” “Maybe so. Maybe so. The doctor should be in soon.” John leaves me with this parting thought. It is up to the doctor as to whether or not I get to go home. Dr. Purewal really listens to me. When I am able to hold a conversation with him and let him know I’m ready to go home, he usually agrees. He knows me well. He has been my doctor in the hospital for years. It is cool in the hospital. I am glad for my thermal shirt, jeans, and thick socks. Bobby approaches me and says hi. I say hi back. “Wow,” he says, “You can speak.” I give him a smile. “And smile.” “Don’t get too used to it,” I grin. Dr. Purewal arrives at noon. We meet for twenty minutes in which time he determines I am good to go home. I am on the patio of the hospital. The Phoenix sun is strong, wood thrown onto an already burning fire. The heat reaches my bones. I will be released in an hour. John will go over my medications and aftercare plan. My mind is in a slow hum. The sound is soft. Today, my mind is my friend. My mind is something to pay attention to. It is a waterfall. Thoughts dropped entering into a pool of calm water, the ripples smoothing out and again returning the pool to calm. I will go home today and feed my cats. I will sit in a straight backed chair at the kitchen table with my grandmother and eat soup with rye bread. My depression has lifted. I am able to wash the dishes in the sink, dry them, and place them in the cupboard. Exhaustion has lifted. I’m no longer surrounded by dust. Life is clean again, not just a mirage in the desert. I press my hand to my chest. My heart beats strong again. I will protect it, but not to the point of eliminating all relationships. I can be strong and vulnerable at the same time.

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I am happy to have my psychosis end. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not me that is horribly affected by my loss of reality. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the people around me. I am oblivious. I am lost. Those outside of me are well aware. Are present. I am glad to hold hands with loved ones again. We wish on the stars together and delight in the moon. My wish is simple, stay home and love.

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Down by the River on a Summer’s Day

Suzanne Black

Medium: Oil Size: 24” X 30”

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“Bearing Witness” Kathryn Dwyer – Second Place I’ve always admired people who spend time in nature and develop not only a knowledge and understanding of it, but also form a relationship with the plants and the animals inhabiting the land. While my father was stationed in Korea during the Vietnam War, my mother taught my siblings and me how to rescue baby birds, robins, I think, that had fallen from their nests at Edwards Air Force Base in California. We learned to feed them soft bread and keep them warm by placing them in a shoebox next to a warm lightbulb. She showed us how to identify various birds from colorfully illustrated books, and continued teaching us as we moved from base to base around the world. We learned about the mynah birds, rock doves, and sandpipers of Hawaii; the common loons, blue jays, and chickadees living on Big Floyd Lake in Northern Minnesota: red winged black birds, the blue herons and orioles of Mississippi; and the roadrunners, mourning doves, quails, Anna’s humming birds, (surely named after my mother, I thought), of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. Each time we moved, I found comfort and solace in my natural surroundings. Later, I settled on the East Coast where I lived for 34 years. I was still interested in using my birding knowledge in Central Park, but life became too busy to continue my childhood pursuits. When I was hired as the new Director of Steward Operations at the McDowell Sonoran Conservancy, which was responsible for caring for the largest public land preserve in the United States, it brought me a relocation to Scottsdale, Arizona. I had the opportunity to work with our Citizen Science Program with some of the best ornithologists in Arizona including Walter Thurber, Tara Deck, Rick Pierce, Kathy Anderson, and Lisa Miller, who taught bird identification workshops. Because of my extensive working hours, I could only attend the nighttime bird counts which were the Christmas Bird and the evening of Global Big Day. For over 120 years, an annual census of birds in the Western hemisphere and the world has been conducted by volunteer bird watchers and administered by the National Creative Non-Fiction

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Audubon Society. These studies are used to identify declining bird populations and threats of extinction from climate change, habitat loss, and other causes. The Preserve closed in the evening to allow the wildlife to come out, so participating in these afterhours counts required a permit from the City of Scottsdale, a trained professional bird watcher, and headlamps. Hiking in the lush Sonoran Desert in the dark listening intensely to the sounds of nature while sharing observations and knowledge with several patient, quiet, kind and very knowledgeable people deeply appealed to me. The sound of the cactus wren like a car that can’t quite start, the deep hoots of the Western screech owl, and the loud raspy calls of the Gila Woodpecker filled the peaceful setting as the sun was setting. It was magical. About two months ago when my work hours became flexible, I was invited to go on a private morning Conservancy bird count in the Preserve. I was told to bring water, snacks, suitable natural colored clothing, and binoculars. Getting my gear together was simple, but locating binoculars took some time. I’d inherited a set from my family but rarely used them since my move to the desert. After some searching, I finally found them in an old cardboard box with my winter New York City Marathon gear. I had to relearn how to use them. I observed the state bird, the cactus wren; the small round ground dwelling Gamble’s quails; Gila woodpeckers, phainopeplas, known as the black cardinal with red eye; black-throated sparrows hidden in turpentine plants; the beautiful American kestrel, the smallest falcon in North America; and a flock of ravens. A tiny Abert’s towhee floated against the backdrop of a clear blue sky and took my breath away. For some reason, although I knew several of the birds’ calls, I did not identify them to my colleagues. I realized that I had been a silent observer on every bird hike I attended. My colleagues had invited me to listen to the sounds of birds and nature, and I while was very grateful, I’d hardly participated. One bird count ended on a clear crisp Tuesday morning. I thanked the group of informed volunteer bird watchers, walked to my car, and took off my binoculars. Suddenly, a long forgotten memory flooded back; I’d used the same binoculars watching birds once in New York City.

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On a similarly clear, crisp Tuesday morning in September of 2001, I was enjoying a day off. As I drank my coffee and watched the local news. An airliner crashed into Tower One of the World Trade Center, and then a second plane crashed into Tower Two. I lived on 52nd Street which fewer than three miles away. I grabbed my binoculars and cell phone and took the elevator to the rooftop on the 13th floor. I saw that Tower One was down and Tower Two was beginning to crumble. I pulled my binoculars to my eyes and focused in on the smoke around the area. I noticed several strange flying birds surrounding the remaining tower. I tightened my focus to try and identify the species. I could not remember what type of bird would dive into white clouds of dust; perhaps they were some species of large ravens or raptors, drilling down and disappearing into the billowing grey clouds on the ground. I knew raptors were rare in New York City, and there were a few red-tailed hawks which soared in high wide circles, using wind currents in Central Park. But these birds were mysteriously flying vertically, not horizontally. I watched as the second tower crumpled, and more birds appeared. I suddenly realized there was much to do before the building’s power would be turned off. I ran back to the elevator and went out to gather food and supplies. I needed to inform my colleagues at the America Museum of Natural History, where I was in charge of the “Information Desk” volunteers, about these crashes. I left my apartment keys with the bartender at the All State Bar so people needing shelter could stay at my apartment. The details of those moments return in a horrific rush. There was so much to do and no time to spare. Sitting in my car outside the McDowell Sonoran Preserve almost twenty years later, a clear moment of understanding arrives. I couldn’t identify those birds on 9/11 because I wasn’t watching birds. I was watching human beings making the devastating, significant, and courageous decision to end their lives by jumping off the Towers to their death. My subconscious made sure I avoided the reality of what I’d witnessed for almost two decades. That was why I could only listen to birds at night and not watch them fly during the day counts. According to Native American oral history, birds can symbolize change. They are carriers of prayer and are messengers to the Great Spirit. I want to believe that those people took on the spirit of flying birds in their final of moments of grace. Perhaps they were delivering prayers to the Great Spirit. I pray that Creative Non-Fiction

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their souls are at peace. I continue to seek my own healing in the simple art of quietly observing the natural inhabitants of the Sonoran Desert. Here, I can listen intently, breathe deeply, and shift my gaze upward as I take in the wild beauty of the vast, open blue sky.

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I Knew They Werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Stars

Holly Clifford

Medium: Photography

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“Broken Chairs and Vodka” Ron Dunlop – Third Place When I was eighteen, I had a psychotic episode triggered by Xanax withdrawal. My mother rushed me to the ER. It must have been horrifying for her to watch the hospital staff pinning me down to the bed and restraining my arms and legs so they could take a blood sample. I begged them to kill me—an urgent need to die dominating every thought. Once they were done, the doctors left me strapped to the bed for observation, refusing to release me until I told them I felt safe. I lied. Visual and auditory hallucinations lasted for days, and surprisingly, they weren’t all bad. In silence, I could hear a dulcet choir of angels; in darkness, I could see beautiful dancing patterns of anomalous shapes and colors. My dreams became incredibly vivid and seemed to go on for weeks. Nevertheless, I still felt the need to die. After I was released, my parents told me bluntly, “You are no longer welcome in our home.” The risks I was taking were too extreme, so they decided to send me to rehab. I didn’t fight their decision. I packed a bag of clothes and a copy of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. We drove twenty miles south to a house owned by the Scottsdale Recovery Center. I lived there with a group of men for a couple weeks until I was expelled from the program after vandalizing a chair which I’d deemed unfit for sitting. A wood plank hidden by thin, black cloth dug into my spine for six hours a day during group therapy at the SRC office building. I snapped it with a vicious stomp. Everyone knew that abominable chair had it coming, and I’d do it again if given the chance. Sure, it wasn’t my brightest moment, but my actions served a purpose. I’d been trying to get out of there since I’d arrived. During the consequential interrogation, I repeatedly denied having committed this act despite multiple eyewitness testimonies. The SRC frontman himself, Dr. Rupurt Ringwald, grilled me, saying, “We know you did it (punk), so just confess (or else).” I did not bend.

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Sergio, a fellow addict and chair destroyer, instructed me to hold my tongue. But I couldn’t hold my laughter. When Ringwald glared at me from across his desk, I busted up. I looked at his $100k Mercedes parked outside the window and thought about how that maggot took money from miserable, desperate addicts and their families. He didn’t give a fuck whether we lived or not. I wanted to kill him. He was scum—him and that counselor/cunt in the corner (fuck her name) with her finger pointed, scowling like my mother. I wished for their deaths and laughed at their angry expressions. They made us leave, me and Sergio. They must have known that’s what we wanted. It was our plan. Sergio was a heroin addict in his early twenties. I had yet to partake of this substance; although, during my time spent at the facility, I spoke to many people about it and developed an interest. Mainly, I was interested in suicide. Heroin seemed like a good way to go. Our plan was to leave together, score some junk, and get to it. Unfortunately, SRC staff caught on, so they made sure it didn’t happen. We were forced to leave separately. I called my father as a last resort, knowing he was likely to be more vindictive than supportive. He told me I was on my own. I felt like he’d sentenced me to death. With nowhere to go, and no one to call, I thought I’d be sleeping on the streets that night. To my relief, one of the house managers, Curtis, offered to assist me in finding another place to stay. This was unexpected because I had him pegged for an asshole and the last person who’d help me out of a tight spot as a personal favor. Apparently, I had misjudged his character. Now, he was the one and only person I could rely on to prevent my self-destruction. He dropped me off in a nearby parking lot, told me to wait there, and promised to return after his shift ended. I never saw Sergio again. As I sat on my suitcase, staring at the parking lot, waiting for Curtis to return, I felt an overwhelming despair. My family gave my life value. Without them, my life was worthless. I began scanning the surrounding area for any tall buildings or ledges. I imagined running into traffic. I even considered mugging passersby for dope money. My mind went on like this for hours—thankfully all fantasy, no action. Eventually, Curtis returned as promised. Then he took me to his barber and I watched him get a haircut. He had a military fade which required routine maintenance. From there, he took me to a friend’s apartment where we smoked cigarettes on the balcony. I explained Creative Non-Fiction

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my predicament to his friend, who happened to be a young, pregnant woman. “A chair?” she asked, astounded. “Yeah.” “That’s it?” “That’s it.” Meanwhile, Curtis made phone calls. Afterward, we smoked silently, waiting for a call back. My fate loomed over me like a malicious clown suspended in air, snickering. Anxiety crept up my sleeve and proceeded to crawl inside my ear in order to shout the word “deadbeat” directly into my brain. Finally, the phone rang. There was a place with an open bed for me. All I had to do was test positive for either drugs or alcohol. This was great news because my system was clean after spending weeks at SRC, so in order to get admission, I had to get drunk or high. Curtis wouldn’t let me get high. “We’re not doing that,” he said. I was at his mercy, so I didn’t argue. Instead, the three of us went to the grocery store, and Curtis asked the pregnant woman to go in for a fifth of vodka. He thought it’d be funny. She sent in for us and said people gave her dirty looks. She wanted to explain the full story, like: “Oh don’t worry, I’m helping an underage kid get treatment.” Right, as if they’d believe that. We laughed about it together, and I felt good for the first time in a while. I felt even better once I started drinking. I mixed the vodka with lemonade and attacked the bottle they gave me like my life depended on it because it actually did. In thirty minutes, I managed to guzzle down more than half. I was beyond wasted heading north to another rehab with Curtis. I had no intention of becoming sober.

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“The Face of a Stranger” Olivia Martinez – Third Place The sun had disappeared below the horizon when I left HTC, the piercing shop 10 miles from my house. The wind hit me like a whip, but I didn’t feel the chill. I was consumed by the pain-induced ecstasy brought about by my fresh lip piercing, relishing in the pleasure before it faded. I felt composed in the shop while interacting with the staff, but I knew it wouldn’t last. When I was alone, I was unsteady. My head was foggy by the time I started the car. The steering wheel looked impossibly distant; I didn’t recognize the coffee shop I had seen a dozen times before. I knew what was coming. Slipping away from myself and from my surroundings, I began to dissociate. Time stopped, and I was suspended in the moment. I couldn’t recall my past as my identity fragmented. The psychological defense took hold of me and disrupted my consciousness in an attempt to protect me from feeling. There was nothing I could do but try and get home safely. Before I left, I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. A mistake. I felt no connection to the girl gazing back at me. I recognized the short forehead, the pale skin, the dark curls. The lopsided nose was decorated with three pieces of silver jewelry, and the tails of the eyebrows had been shaved off. But that was not me. That was the face of a stranger. I slammed the sunshade up, hoping to ease the panic that flooded my chest. Mirrors were a gateway into the unfamiliar land I frequented the past year. The pocket of the valley I had wandered for 19 years, Chandler, Tempe, Mesa, and Gilbert, became unrecognizable. The streets shifted into a maze of confusion, with only a tendril of my mind left to comprehend my whereabouts. I shook my head to control my thoughts, but my consciousness was more distorted than a contortionist. Start driving the car. Hurry up and get home. You can do it if you Creative Non-Fiction

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focus. You are in control. The words drifted through my skull and seemed to come from someone else, from some place far away. My autopilot engaged as the car rolled out of the parking lot. My feet remembered how to push the pedals while my brain was a tangle of distant voices. They instructed me to travel down University Drive for three miles, then turn right onto the 101 South. They reminded me the disconnection wouldn’t last forever, and I eventually would feel a semblance of normalcy again. Despite their reassurance, terror seeped through my body. I tried to suppress it. If I failed, my head would swell until it shattered and shot through the sky to join the stars. I couldn’t think about driving. Only surviving. With each passing streetlight I lost more of myself. The glowing streetlights became portals that threatened to transport me to another world. One where no one was human, and nothing was real. I clung to my body by counting my breaths and listening to the music that blared through the stereo. A mistake. As the melody swirled around my skull, I vanished. The words pounded with my heartbeat and emotions flowed through my bloodstream. Shame. Confusion. Fear. They disappeared in a flash, and I was left a blank canvas. I mustered all my strength to keep it together. To keep my cells from floating off one by one until I had completely dissolved into nothingness. To keep myself from sobbing and biting at my hands. To keep myself from wrecking my car and hurting others. What happened to me didn’t matter. I longed for release, for anything to end my suffering. But I could not ruin the lives of the people around me because I failed to comprehend reality. It wasn’t their problem. This had happened every day for the past eleven months. Every day I felt trapped in a glass box that shielded me from society. Every day I stuffed myself like a Thanksgiving turkey to try and fill the void inside of me. Every day the landscape appeared to be flat, as if it were a picture I could reach out and pull down. Every day I went numb. Every day the world looked as if I were in a scene of a point of view film. Every day a stone of shame sunk through my torso. And yet, I survived every day. The DSM-5 defines three separate dissociative disorders: dissociative amnesia, 32

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dissociative identity disorder, and depersonalization-derealization disorder. A few of the uncontrollable symptoms are memory loss, a sense of detachment from emotions, a distorted perception of reality, and a blurred sense of identity. The illnesses often arise to cope with childhood trauma, and my nineteen years on earth had been riddled with tribulations. My high school experience started with the exposure of my father’s long-term affairs, which split my family open like a busted lip. The day he expressed his desire for a divorce, my mother’s screams tore throughout the house. Sunlight streamed through the sliding glass door as I watched her forehead slam onto the white tiles of our kitchen over and over. While zipping 15 miles over the speed limit, Elliot Road appeared to my right. I couldn’t remember how I got there. The blinker clicked as I merged onto the exit and left the freeway behind. You’re almost home. How much further? You can do it. Only 2 more miles. The florescent lights multiplied on the surface streets, jolting me back into the realm of violent disconnection. I had achieved a fleeting sense of stability on the freeway but found myself spiraling into the whirlpool of my mind. My eyes shifted in and out of focus. Blurry halos surrounded the signs and trees and cars. My eyelids drooped. Almost as if I wanted to save myself by dozing off into unconsciousness. I had to shake myself awake as I passed through the intersection of Dobson and Elliot. Wake up. Breathe. Drive. Focus. Regain control. Only 1 more mile. I was teetering on the edge of my mind when I glimpsed the hands that gripped the steering wheel. Panic racked my body, my brain melted, my blood froze. Who did those hands belong to? Whose arms were they attached to? Who could wiggle the fingers and bend the wrists? Tears dripped down my cheeks, the air choked out of my lungs. I struggled to move the hand. As the right index finger twitched, I tumbled over the edge. Creative Non-Fiction

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I need to get home. Something isn’t right. I need to get help. The thread that connected me to my surroundings, my body, and my reality snapped. My brain turned into a box of puzzle pieces. The thoughts that raced through my head were impossible to understand or control. Waves rolled under my skin, making me sway. My body shivered and smoldered simultaneously. I was about to break. My house appeared without warning. I couldn’t remember how I got there. Relief poured through me when I realized I had gotten home. Drained of energy, I turned off my car and approached my front door. My keys jangled with each step and the wind howled around me. I was going through the motions like I did every day. And I knew what came next. My existence was dominated by the disconnection that stalked my every move. It was harder for me to determine when I was real than when I was separated from the world and myself. I could no longer imagine what that even felt like. That isn’t how life was supposed to be. When faced with stress, I shouldn’t plunge into the safety of disseverment. I shouldn’t evade my problems, intentional or not. Start by accepting this piece of yourself, then reach out for help. The white walls of the bathroom surrounded me, the lights stung my eyes. I pulled back the shower curtain and turned the knob to the left. I watched the water cascade through the air. I climbed into the tub and let the steam engulf me.

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In the Boonies with Timothy Leary

Kathy Dioguardi

Medium: Mixed Media Size: 16” X 20”

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“From Ridicule to Victory” Robert Lewis – Honorable Mention I used the last bit of my strength to stay afloat in the middle of a slightly familiar, pristine, mountain lake praying, hoping I could avoid a second failed attempt to swim across a two- mile unmarked course in this frigid water. It would be a life saver if I could swim successfully from my boys’ camp to its sister girls’ camp across this two-mile separation. After several hours, my lungs felt like they were on fire with each inhalation and every leg muscle ached. Stomach cramps joined these maladies and the old counselor in the rowboat that tailed me screamed, “Hey kid, I am pulling you out of the water! You are turning blue.” With the shock of that announcement, I thought maybe drowning would be a better way to end the ceaseless ridicule I endured from the self-proclaimed “know it all” bunkmates I shared a cabin with. I had to pretend that their slanders and continuous silent treatment had no effect on me. I wanted to yell “Fuckoff “ in each of their pudgy brace-aligned faces. The campers acted like I was a ghost; they all pretend to not see, hear, or notice me. Almost all the activities at this summer camp were sports related and were especially suited for the wealthy clientele. Horseback riding including jumping, dressage, and polo were stressed. Ice hockey and mountain repelling were other favorites. A few of the less adventuresome types picked pottery and theater. When it came time for our bunk to play a group sport like basketball, volleyball or baseball, the two best players would begin by flipping a coin to choose the first player. With an even number of players, I would consistently be chosen last and then ignored. With an odd number of players, I would sit on the bench and daydream about being somewhere else. Because I usually missed catching baseballs hit to me, whether they were grounders or high flies and had to retrieve the ball and put it back in play, everyone called me “loser.” This lasted till it wore thin, then other names used to belittle 36

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or embarrass me could be found printed on sticky three M post-it-notes in my cubby, on my cot and in the bathroom assigned to me. The names changed every few days. My bunkmates would never speak to me directly but made sure I heard their taunts which brought a round of silly laughter from the entire group. The lake I was swimming in was part of the Raquette Lake Boys Camp, one of the most expensive and exclusive summer camps in America. It is hidden in the middle of an expansive forest preserve called the Adirondack mountains located in upstate New York. Raquette is the French term used to denote the type of snowshoes worn by the early settlers who stacked them up outside their cabins. Not far away is the more famous Lake Placid where the thirteenth Olympic winter games were held in 1980. My mother and I began our trip to RLBC by celebrating with the registered campers and their parents at a welcoming dinner at a five star Manhattan hotel ballroom. That evening, we boarded a private sleeper train leaving Grand Central Station. I thought it strange that none of the other campers would introduce themselves to me while chatting feverishly with each other. It was the summer of 1950, and my mother accepted the position of camp nurse at RLBC in lieu of my seven-week camp fee. She did not discuss her decision with me, but I suspected it served two purposes. One, it relieved both of us from the hot, sticky Philadelphian summers. Two, we could avoid the consistent conflicts and their ensuing hostilities between her and my father. Dad was a psychiatric outpatient who could become undone at the slightest provocation and begin to throw any object that was within reach. I felt slightly safer at camp than at home with him. When mother and I arrived at camp I was expeditiously shown to my bunk where I was greeted with curious stares. Most of my bunkmatesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; last names ended in a Jr. or the 3rd. After the stares grew old, their first activity was to compare the designer labels on their new summer outfits to discover who had the most stylish clothes for the occasional dance nights at the sister girlsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; camp. Immediately, I recognized my clothes were not worthy of display. In our family we purchased new clothing when the old ones wore out or I outgrew them.

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To assess my qualifications as a member in good standing with this group, the bunkmates had a series of prepared background questions I needed to answer to their satisfaction. Like a criminal being cross examined by the prosecuting attorney, bunkmates yelled: What prep school do you attend?” “From which Ivy League university did your father graduate?” “What corporation is your father CEO of ?” “How many countries have you visited?” “How many girls have you kissed?” Or better yet, “How many girls have you felt up?” I couldn’t answer a single question to their satisfaction, and it did not take long for the leader of the bunkmates to employ his friends in making my summer a nightmare. What scarce personal time I had, I spent exploring the camp and its surrounding perimeter, enjoying the peaceful solace that nature provided. The pine trees were so dense that the sun rarely touched the ground. The pristine lake was slowly being contaminated from the gas and oil leaked by the outboard motorboats used for waterskiing. Even the fresh air was becoming tainted by the evaporation of this fuel. I could smell the gas fumes as I walked on the path to the lake even before I could see the lake. The footpaths were covered with dried pine needles that crunched when I walked on them. At night the sound of crickets intermingled with the hoot of owls. I once spotted bear tracks near the big garbage dumpster next to the camp perimeter. Oddly, I felt less fear of a bear attack than I did from my bunkmates. To satisfy the campers’ food choices and their parents’ concern about value and quality of the camp food but still maintain the competitive spirit of the camp,” Pig Night” was every Saturday nights’ camp feast. A huge campfire was lit, and everyone was served the same meal: a thick T-bone steak, corn on the cob smothered with butter, and a slice of fresh watermelon. No utensils were provided, everyone was required to wear and use their official camp T-shirt as a napkin. Each cabin would be judged on who had the dirtiest T-shirt. The 38

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winner would have his canteen account increased by five dollars. The canteen was a hang-out where you could play indoor games like stick-hockey, ping pong, darts, or pool. The canteen also sold snacks, like candy bars, ice cream sandwiches, and popsicles. The canteen five-dollar privilege was also awarded to those campers from each bunk who excelled in their chosen activity for the week. In a recessed space in the center of the canteen, stood the honor trophy award case with spotlights illuminating the contents. In this revered space were listed those campers who met the camp’s most honored and respected summer challenge: to solo swim from the boys’ camp to the girls’ camp--a two-mile distance--in a single attempt. A rowboat would stay close by in cases of fatigue, panic, or other emergencies that required pulling the swimmer from the lake. A camper could sign up no more than three times in a summer session. Not many names were listed. Rumors began circulating that poisonous snakes were spotted during the route the swimmers took across the two-mile stretch. I believe my bunkmates started that rumor in order to reduce the number of competitors vying for the honor trophies. This award remained the dream all of my bunkmates desired so they could impress their girlfriends. The only day I had a slight respite from the constant belittling was the halfway through the summer on parents’ Visiting Day. It was a contest of “Who had the Best” among the parents: the best car, clothes, jewelry, face lift, and best, youngest new wife. Most parents arrived in their chauffeur driven black Mercedes, Cadillac, or black Lincoln Continentals. Occasionally, a hippie type cool parent would swing by in a top down Porsche, revving his engine as he crossed the campgrounds, smiling and waving through the open roof. Most women wore big, thick sunglasses accompanied by a large straw hat first made popular by the Italian movie star Sophia Loren. And the extravagant jewelry they was like I had seen in the top fashion magazines.. Many women had phony looks of concern as they left their automobiles pretending to search for their children. The men favored golf club attire. Most men wore baseball caps with the Yankee insignia, a polo labeled shirt, and madras Bermuda shorts. Some looked for receptacles to empty their pipes. While the campers were straining their necks and stretching their legs to find their parents, I heard a father approaching his son, yelling in Creative Non-Fiction

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an obvious British accent, “How is my fine young lad today? Ignoring the question, his son responded, “Did you bring cans of “Poppycock and Swiss chocolate bars?” That night I felt sadness and relief. Sadness, because my family did not possess the wealth that my bunkmates had, but relief that my father was not present to make a spectacle of all of us. Just as I prepared for the ending of this no taunt day by hopping into my cot for the evening, I was rudely aware someone had “Frenched” my bed. “Frenching” a bed is to fold one sheet back on itself so it appears like a normal bed, but in reality, you can only get halfway in. All of the bunkmates began laughing in unison at me. Swimming was an activity that appealed to me. No one could make fun of me for dropping a ball or get too rough with me as in ”capture the flag.” I tried to make the honor roll by swimming the two-mile route to the girls’ camp, but fatigue and anxiety had caused me to fail twice. A kind, older counselor in a rowboat brought me back to the boys’ camp after my second failed attempt and told me he would be glad to act as my personal swimming coach for the last three weeks of the remaining camp session. He had been one of the first campers to attain this honor. But the most dreadful fear I suffered from that summer was the embarrassing fact that I was a bed wetter. I had and thoroughly evaluated weeks before camp began by a medical specialist who reported that there were no serious medical defects, and I would eventually outgrow this condition. But the fear that my bunkmates would discover my bedwetting and then the subsequent ridicule and gossip I would have to endure in both camps almost triggered me to ask my mother to quit and take me home. I didn’t, though, because I felt embarrassed to recount all the reasons for my disappointing summer to my mother. She had hoped I would gain some self confidence and sporting skills, but about the only skills I learned were how to remain numb to this horrible negative environment that was ruining my self-confidence and deflating my ego and self-worth. I didn’t need the additional moniker of “Mama’s boy” or “Pussy” added to every growing collection of derogatory labels. I also dreaded the idea of returning to my unstable and erratic father.

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At home, I had no worries about bedwetting. A rubber sheet protected the mattress, and my mother immediately put the smelly, yellow stained sheets into the washer. No explanations were required or needed. My plan at camp to keep this secret intact and undiscovered remained workable throughout the summer. If I wet my bed in the middle of the night, before the sound of revelry in the morning, I would very quietly put my urine stained sheets in the general laundry bag, near the bottom of the bag. Then I would replace my cot with clean sheets from my nearby cubby. If I happened to sleep late and discovered the wet bed at the same time that my bunkmates woke, I would excuse myself before finishing breakfast and run as fast as I could back to my cabin to change the soiled sheets. I dismissed telling the bunk counselors my sad secret because I suspected they had the same â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am in a better class than you areâ&#x20AC;? attitude like my bunkmates, and they would all end up laughing in unison at me. It was the last week of camp and the air and water temperatures were dropping precipitously. This would be my final chance to swim across the lake and make the honor roll. I obviously would never return to this camp again. On a crisp, chilly afternoon, my buddy and swim coach was in the rowboat tailing me and encouraging me with screaming advice while pounding his fist into his opposite palm for emphasis. He kept yelling for me to focus on my goal of winning the swim challenge and to ignore the fatigue. I kept forcing failure and exhaustion from my mind and focused on the shock of this accomplishment would have on my bunkmates. The voices in my head that announced another failed attempt were now replaced by the cheers coming from the rowboat as it gently touched the girlsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; camp lakeshore. Relief, gratification, and self-respect surged through my body like electricity! By the time I returned to my bunk late that afternoon, the news of my accomplishment was everywhere, but no one congratulated me, slapped me on the back, or gave me a cigar. However, no one teased or belittled me either. I was ignored as before, but with some deference and respect. After all, how dare anyone disrespect an honor roll achiever! That one summer long ago, I learned what it was like to have to endure the debilitating teasing and belittling, to have become the undeserving victim of behavior that gave my accusers a false sense of superiority, leaving me with a tattered self-image Creative Non-Fiction

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and deflated ego. The scars that hardened over that grief are still with me. But when I took the memory of that summer with me, I also took the powerful lesson I learned that had settled into my being. It has to do with what we hold in common. In our judgments, we can choose to make people feel smaller than they are and diminish ourselves in the process. Or we can make judgments that hold us in common and humane empowerment.

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The Golden Hour

Judith Feldman

Medium: Oil Size: 36” X 30”

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“Here You Come Again” Nancy Simpson – Honorable Mention

My father called me into the dining room. When he spoke, you didn’t question why he wanted to see you or what he might have up his sleeve. I say this in jest, now, as there was always an ulterior motive with my dad. It was never straight forward. The pattern that was set when I was a child never changed as I got older. My antenna was always up when I was summoned or received a phone call from my dad. He never really called just to say “hi” or to see how I was doing. He didn’t check on his grandchildren or my job. There was always another reason. He needed something, needed to tell me something or wanted me to do something. It was usually a one-way conversation. I walked into his dining room, bright and light with floor to ceiling windows and a view of majestic Camelback Mountain a few blocks to the north. My dad stood there, towering over my 5’ 5” frame, next to our mahogany dining room table with the inlayed golden-brown leather. The chairs, handsomely upholstered in gold Fortuny fabric, remained tucked under the table. I knew that this was going to be a brief conversation. There was no need for me to sit down. He didn’t offer. “You’ve been accepted to three boarding schools in England,” he said. He proceeded to toss down the colored snap shots, as though they were a deck of playing cards and he was a croupier in a casino. I stared at the photographs, each with groups of smiling faces – all girls, all in different colored uniforms. “What do you mean?” I asked confused. My dad proceeded to tell me that I would be attending school abroad next year and that I needed to pick from these three schools on all of which had accepted me. It was just like him, planning my life without my involvement. There were no thoughtful discussions, no reasons why. I just had the best summer of my life, and in a couple of weeks I’d be starting my junior year in high school. I was trying to grasp what he was saying. 44

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A few weeks before this dining room encounter, I’d boarded the Island Princess with my mom and grandmother, my first cruise and where we celebrated our nation’s 200th birthday. While the stops in Alaska – Skagway, Ketchikan, Juneau-- should have been intriguing, they could never match the excitement I felt having met my first love. Russell Lennon. Russell was a 19-year-old English officer on the ship, and because there was only a handful of teens on the cruise, three to be exact, Captain Brian Biddick assigned Russell to me. Russell joined the intimate Captain’s cocktail parties that were organized each evening for my family. He escorted me to dinner, and he was there to take me to the ship’s disco in his full-dress whites. It was during that week that my lasting preference for ocean liners was sparked, tinted with my partiality for English accents. I hated saying good-bye to Russell. I was sad, moping and grieving the separation from my first love. He made me feel special, important and beautiful. I was determined to figure out a way to see him again, somehow. My father’s arrangement ensured that I was going to miss my senior year. I struggled with the word accepted. Accepted me? When did I apply? What were these three schools? Where were these three schools? I didn’t want to go anywhere. Not only was I surprised, I was angry. I told him that I didn’t want to leave Arcadia High School, that next year was important to me. But I knew whatever feelings I had were mute. This was a lost cause before I even began. You didn’t challenge my dad, and you didn’t say “no”. My dad had recently returned from a trip. Another trip. This time an African safari, a near miss at the Entebbe Airport in Uganda, followed by a look at English public schools. He never mentioned the visit to English schools when he came home. I would have remembered. He must have been savoring the news for a few days and was calculating his next move. I never followed his travels as there were so many. Whether on a business trip or for pleasure, his passport was never far from his reach. My father was an international lawyer. His career was spent at Fortune 100 corporations, and trips to exotic places throughout the world were just part of the job. My mom, sister, and I were often after thoughts. If he was in Moscow or Rome or New York, he made sure that he wouldn’t arrive home until Sunday night, always tacking on a weekend stay wherever he happened to be. He’d always bring home small souvenirs, as though they were a replacement for his being away. An odd shaped Puerto Rican Creative Non-Fiction

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coqui frog made out of clay, colorful wooden Russian nesting dolls of varying sizes, and a Spanish Flamenco dancer adorned in bright turquoise layers with a veil made of black lace all watched me from a bookshelf in my childhood bedroom, all symbols of the places he had visited. I looked at the Kodak Instamatic photographs my father had taken spread out on the table. Scanning each one for clues, I started to think about England. To me England was synonymous with Russell; they were one in the same. This journey was beginning to seem a bit more palatable. I pointed to the smiling girls clad in the pea green uniforms, complete with stripped ties falling like waterfalls down crisp white blouses. “I’ll go here,” I said. “Good,” he replied. “You know I’m giving you a leg up.” If my dad was getting what he wanted on that scorching summer day in August 1976, I, too, wanted something in return. “I don’t want anyone to know,” I proclaimed. “I want to live out the next year like I’m staying here,” I said. I thought about my friends – Beth, Lisa, Nancy, Kendra, Kathy - the clubs I had joined, the activities I wanted to be involved in, the tennis team. I didn’t want to give it all up. Not just yet. I had worked too hard. While my negotiating skills had yet to be honed, I did ask for one thing. “And I want to attend my high school graduation,” I declared. “You have to promise.” He nodded, and I walked away. My life as a junior in high school remained as active and as fun-filled as I had hoped. I helped build the Winnie The Pooh homecoming float, and attended T.W.I.R.P. (The Woman Is Required to Pay), won the position as Student Body Secretary, and was accepted to Girl’s State. Weekends were spent working double shifts at The Sugar Bowl ice cream parlor where I happily brought customers to their tables and learned how to carry eight tall water glasses at one time. I was earning and saving my own money. But by the Spring of 1977, my double identities – the one where I was a proud Arcadia Titan and the one of a budding English boarding school student – were starting to intertwine. 46

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For months, I amassed items for my travel trunk – a shiny green repository that my mom purchased for me, with brass hardware on each corner and a large brass padlock center stage on top. I gathered all the things that gave me comfort: my transistor radio, Fleetwood Mac and Dolly LPs, a small stuffed kiwi bird that Russell had sent me from Australia, photographs; things that I thought might be of interest to the girls I had yet to meet. England was a world away from my life in Phoenix. I wondered if we listened to the same music, wore the same clothes, used the same makeup? The week that Elvis died I spent in San Diego with my friend, Lisa, my sister, Barbara, my dad’s two-door Chevrolet Nova and a Mission Bay condo all to ourselves. The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll was dead, the world was in mourning, and we couldn’t care less. We spent the week visiting with other friends who were ensconced with their families in Mission Bay and treated ourselves to dinners in fancy fish restaurants along The Embarcadero. We swam across the Bay one night; the sky was void of any stars shining against its black canvas. On Sunday, Lisa was ushered onto a plane back to Phoenix, while my dad, sister, and I boarded the Freddie Laker flight--one of the first airlines to adopt the no-frills model--out of Los Angeles bound for London. Before I was delivered to Cheltenham, we planned to spend a few days in London and then take a trip through France. I knew my fate, but just as we were taking off from LAX, literally upon ascent, my dad leaned over to my sister and old her that her was staying in England and not coming home. There were no spaces left at Cheltenham Ladies College, so our resourceful father finagled a spot for Barbara at Rosemead, one of the other schools I had been admitted to. Rosemead was located on the south coast of England, and nearly a three-hour car journey away from Cheltenham. I imagined the conversation my dad had with the headmistress at Rosemead. “Mrs. Tobenhouse. It’s me, Tom Tobin. Nancy decided not to attend your school, but I’m going to send my other daughter to you. Barbara is 14. She’s a better student anyway. I need to patch up my marriage. Thanks.” Our trip to Europe was a bust. I pined for Russell from my perch in the back seat of the rental car, sleeping away the hours. My sister was angry and upset that she wasn’t going home and that I wasn’t defending her position as hard as I should. My father Creative Non-Fiction

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ignored both of us, upset that we weren’t appreciating the ancient tapestries hanging in Bayeux and were whining about the walk to see the rocky tidal island of Le MontSaint-Michel in Normandy. My dad focused on getting Barbara to Rosemead and asked Russell to deliver me to Cheltenham. I could barely contain my excitement. I was starting a new chapter and would be free from all the parental drama, but I felt sorry for Barbara. Cheltenham Spa was aptly named, following the discovery of mineral springs in 1716, and it hadwith elegant Regency architecture. Cheltenham was positioned on the edge of the Cotswolds - rolling hills, a rural landscape and stone-built villages. We set off from London in Russell’s Hillman Imp, a small boxy blue car that barely fit my trunk and suitcase. We drove down the A40, past Oxford, with a lunch stop at a village pub. I was hoping to stretch out the two-hour journey into an entire day, but soon the Welcome to Cheltenham sign jolted me back to life, and I realized that my time with Russell was nearing an end. I stood in front of the imposing wooden door of St. Hilda’s. Its shiny brass knocker shaped like a lion with a ring through its mouth, stared at me, as I surveyed the situation I was about ready to walk into. Russell stood on the step below mine. I knocked hard with my fist. Mrs. Douglas opened the front door to my home away from home, a large stately red brick mansion on Western Road. I introduced myself and my boyfriend. She stood straight as an arrow, tall, with grey short hair and was dressed in one of those itchy tweed skirts, displaying someone’s clan colors and a grey-blue cardigan with little pearl colored buttons. She let Russell stay long enough to haul my trunk and luggage up three flights of stairs to the fourth floor. There’d be no tea. No small talk. Then he was gone, and there I was. The girls, I was told, would arrive at all times during the day and that I might wish to get settled and check out the Sixth Form Common Room. I climbed the flights of stairs, realizing that I’d be getting some exercise each day, and looked at the two names on the small white card taped to the door of my shared room: Nancy Tobin and Yuli Toh. The T’s were rooming together. I had no way of knowing how to pronounce this strange name and wondered who would waltz in the door. I just hoped she’d be nice. I stood in my room and glanced out the window with a view to the 48

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backyard wondering what on earth I did to deserve this. It was bleak outside. The rain had subsided, but the wet remained shimmering in the pale light. The leaves were tinged with autumn, a season I hadn’t truly witnessed back home. I looked around my room. There was a bar heater placed on one wall with a pull string hanging down, a single bed, a small wardrobe in the corner, built in drawers and a pulldown desk made of sturdy wood and painted white. This wall of storage also served as the room divider, with a 12-inch gap from its top to the ceiling in case roommates wanted to gossip at night. St. Hilda’s was imposing. I had yet to explore my new home and was lost in my thoughts when I heard music drifting into my room from down the hall. As I made my way down the narrow corridor, I tried to see if anyone else had arrived on my floor, peeking into the rooms as I passed. The worn wooden planks squeaked with each step as the music grew louder. I stood outside a door labeled Sixth Form Common Room and knocked. The knob turned and the door opened. There stood Avril Jones, Head of House, with her straight blond hair in a severe cut, pulled back with grips. She welcomed me to the room that was only to be used by the eldest girls in the house – of which I was now one. I introduced myself, though it wasn’t really necessary; she knew my arrival was imminent. Scattered on the floor, in a variety of pastel colors, was the friendly sight of beanbag chairs, looking soft and mushy like giant marshmallows. I chose the pink bag and collapsed into it. It instantly enveloped me like a hug. I sat there sizing up the layout. I eyed the record player on the shelf and realized that I was going to be just fine. Avril told me that I was one of two Americans attending Cheltenham Ladies College that year and that I would be an instant hit. She was right. Over the years I had often wondered why I was sent to Cheltenham Ladies College and posed that question to my dad, in what would turn out to be our final conversation with one another. I was living in Toronto; my dad was in Phoenix. I was in between my weekend flights home. “I wanted you to have a global experience, the cost was reasonable, and English was the only language you could speak,” he said in a whispered voice. I held the phone close to my ear so I wouldn’t miss what he said, his usual booming Creative Non-Fiction

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voice silenced by illness. “OK, thanks,” I replied. “It certainly changed the direction of my life, and I am grateful.” And I smiled.

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Vortex 2020 Short Story You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write. ~ Annie Proulx “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.” ~ Ernest Hemingway Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money. ~ Virginia Woolf Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief ’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul. ~ Toni Morrison Short Story

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“Frances Down the Rabbit Hole” Kristina Morgan – First Place

1. It was silent on the drive home from the hospital until Frances spoke, “That filth stole from me.” She touched the bruises on her face and winced. The pain of the assault felt like a cat whose tail had been wrapped in cloth and set afire by the neighborhood boys. Frances had witnessed this once. It was the most dreadful thing she had ever seen. The rape had scarred Frances. Her mind snapped shut, refusing to open. Her heart, soiled. Gail, her roommate, drove her home. The entire visit in the emergency room had taken five hours. It was nearing six in the morning. Frances felt the rape kit was demeaning. Impersonal. As sterile as the instruments put inside her. Gail had owned her black Honda for as long as Frances had known her. She still thought Gail should be sitting on a couple of pillows as she could hardly see above the steering wheel, she was that short. Frances was grateful that the black leather swallowed her up. Looking out the front windshield at the street, the traffic blurred. “I feel like a ghost, like I need to stay out of my body. That scum forced rot into my body. From now on, I will fuck men, the men I want to and take their money. And I won’t come cheap,” Frances crossed her legs at her thighs, causing her to wince. “If I look in the mirror past the bruises, you know what I see?” She pulled down the visor mirror. “Fucking rage.” Gail took a hard right. She almost missed their exit. She was mesmerized by Frances’s pain and proclamation. Gail had no idea what to say to Frances, so she said nothing. She pushed her white framed glasses up with one finger. Gail reached to turn on the radio. The silence was immense like an empty church, or a classroom during finals. “Please don’t. I’d rather it just be quiet. Music can’t beat out my decay,” Frances said. “Your decay? I don’t see you as decaying,” Gail said. 52

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“I just feel so, so spoiled. I really could use a blunt right now.” “I have some pot at home,” Gail said and patted Frances’s leg. The gesture went unnoticed. 2. Frances had started getting drunk on a weekly basis at age thirteen. She took advantage of the fact that Abby, her older sister, had just gotten her driver’s license and was given a vehicle for her 16th birthday. A blue Toyota Celica. It was not unusual for a friend of Frances’s to call Abby and ask her to come pick Frances up. The kids often met in the orange grove near the middle school. Abby would get the call and then find her sister in the ditch, her head resting on a rock. She had passed out and puked on herself once again. Fortunately, Frances would come to long enough to be dumped into the passenger’s seat with Abby’s help. By sixteen, Frances was smoking dope. By eighteen, meth.

II. REVELATION 1. Abby sat outside her sister’s apartment door on top the doormat that read “welcome.” Her long black hair was pulled into a loose bun on the top of her head. Frances liked when Abby wrapped a scarf wrapped around her hair. “What are you doing here, Abby?” Frances asked. “Gail let me know what happened,” Abby said, as her sister stood above her. “Fuck. Why did you do that?” Frances turned to Gail, punching her in the arm. Gail dropped her chin to her chest as if she were a turtle pulling her head into her shell. “I’m fine. Now go away,” Frances said pushing her hands into the pockets of her pants. “Please Frances. Let me help,” Abby stood. She reached out to touch Frances who jerked away. “I don’t need your help. Now move.” Frances pushed her way past her sister. Watching Frances walk through her front door, Abby noticed Frances wasn’t as Short Story

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graceful as usual. She usually had an easy gait with a little swagger of the hips. Now her steps were deliberate and stiff. Her head was up, though, and her shoulders, squared. Her choppy black hair stood up like a Kewpie doll’s. “Okay. You have my phone number.” Abby walked away, turning her back to Frances. The air was thick with sorrow and helplessness like a cloud holding onto its rain. Frances unlocked the door and entered the apartment with Gail. 2. “Everything is so normal,” Frances said. She somehow thought the apartment would look different. Changed. Charlie, the white Siamese, rubbed up against Frances’s leg. “Hi Charlie. Come to bed with me? I’m going to bed, Gail. I have two clients tonight. Not that it’s any of your business.” “I don’t get it.” Gail finally had something to say. “How can you turn around and fuck someone after what happened?” Gail pushed her glasses up and plopped onto the couch, keeping her eyes on Frances. “Don’t you hurt? I mean, aren’t you sore? I don’t know what I mean. I guess I just wish you’d rest. Give yourself a break,” Gail said. Frances headed down the narrow hall to her bedroom. Charlie followed her. He made her feel safe. Made her feel loved. A dog in cat’s clothing. Charlie knew how to come when called. Charlie would place his head in her lap when she didn’t feel well. Charlie was not indifferent like a typical cat. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same, Frances thought. There truly is evil in this world and it caught up to me. Chickee, chickee. The words the rapist used rang through her head. He said little else. Frances shivered. 3. Frances still had no intention of opting out of the sex industry. She craved money. It was the silent power. She was hooked. She was also hooked on crystal meth, which she smoked or injected in order to be okay with who she’d become. Frances had no idea yet that she wasn’t in control of the meth. The meth had her. She was careful not to smoke it in the house as it smelled like cat urine, rotten eggs, or burning plastic. She didn’t want to offend Gail. III. TEACHER 54

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1. Abby went to her empty classroom. The day was over. The students, gone. Abby wrote on the board a parting note—today is Wednesday. Today we live, we love, and we breathe exhaust fumes from large buses crowded with people, and we love all of them, even the homeless who wear their clothes inside out, their tags showing. We love them anyway. Abby didn’t realize she was writing for Frances who over the years would become loveless and in need of compassion when she wore her clothes inside out. 2. Abby sighed. She was so tired. She made herself a cup of tea. Chai with green tea. Her legs felt heavy with exhaustion as she walked across the living room. She settled into an oversized chair with an ottoman. She placed her tea on the iron column beside the chair. She could smell the spices. They soothed her. What about Frances? She pictured Frances in her red thermals at Christmas. Just ten and Frances already stood taller than Abby at twelve. Frances would always seem even taller because she loved wearing heels, especially sparkly ones. 3. “What the fuck. This is my room. You can’t just walk in without knocking,” Frances said. “Your door was open,” Abby replied. Abby was so shocked she just stood there as if she had stepped into cement blocks. Bent over in the seat at her desk, Frances finished injecting the drug, slid the needle out of her arm, and placed it beside her keyboard. She turned her chair to directly face Abby. Abby took a seat on the bed so she could be closer to Frances. The bed was unmade. Sweat stains covered the white sheets. “What is it? What’s so bad that you need to do drugs?” Abby asked. In a rare moment of honesty Frances replied, “I don’t know, Abby. I really don’t. I used to like being high. I felt like a balloon being lifted to the clouds, not popping on the way up. I had no worries. Life was a good cup of coffee. Just the right amount of cream. Now I pop before reaching the clouds and the coffee tastes bitter, but I still try to get the good high back. I still want to float.” Abby stood. “You’re a mess.” And then she added, “I love you, you know that, right?”

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“I do,” Frances said. Abby waited to see if Frances would return the sentiment. She didn’t. Abby closed the door behind her. 4. School’s out soon, Abby thought. I can focus solely on helping Frances. Mark, Abby’s boyfriend, said that Abby should back off. “Frances doesn’t want help. It doesn’t matter that she needs it, Abby,” Mark said. “I can’t just let her die,” Abby said. “You realize that’s the ultimate end to this?” “How can you help? Really. She doesn’t want anything to do with you or me,” Mark said. Abby told Mark, “But Frances does want something to do with you. Hell, she talks more to you than to me. Don’t you think that’s a bit odd?” “I haven’t thought about it,” Mark replied. He dumped spice onto the hamburger meat and then rolled the meat into a ball, pressing it into the pan to make a patty. “She’s flirting with you. Throwing her sexuality at you. I can feel it,” Abby said. “You have nothing to worry about. Don’t even go there,” Mark responded, turning the stovetop temperature up. Abby retrieved greens from the refrigerator drawer. “I’m just saying, be careful.” 5. The phone rang pulling Abby out of her memory of warning Mark. She picked up the phone. It was Mark. He was at the gym training clients. “How’s she handling the rape?” Mark asked. “Talk about getting right to the point,” Abby responded. “I have no idea. She wouldn’t talk to me about it. Just shook me off. Told me to leave. Said she had to get ready for work.” “I don’t see how she dances for men or randomly fucks them after something like that.” The gym was sounded crowded. “Money,” Abby said. “It’s all about money.” She was at home in their study, flipping through photography books looking for just the right image to paint. “I’ve got to go. Have a couple clients to train,” Mark said. 56

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“How late will you be at the gym?” Abby asked. She was only partially listening. She paused at a photo of a young girl in pigtails offering candy to a grown man with a handlebar mustache. The man was kneeling in order to be at the height of the girl.

IV. EVERDAY Of all things, Frances craved green beans and tomatoes with cottage cheese. These three things she threw into her cart and proceeded toward check out. On her way there, she bumped into an old woman wearing a blue shawl. She didn’t want to stop and say sorry because she wouldn’t stop talking with just that. She knew she wouldn’t stop at “I’m sorry,” She was too high. Meth loosened her tongue. The old woman said, “Pay attention!” Frances nodded. Fortunately, the aisle she pushed her cart into was empty. The clerk greeted her. Frances read her nametag, Ceceil, and said “hello.” Frances said, “Man, I’m high. Don’t you think it’s weird that this is all I want to eat. I mean, there was no sale on green beans. Not tomatoes, either. Maybe I’m thinking about Christmas. You know, the red and green thing. What month is this, anyhow?”

V. DEAR JOURNAL – LOVE ME Frances took a seat in the back of the coffee house. A three person jazz ensemble was playing in the corner at the front. The male musician wore a cowboy hat and boots. The two female musicians looked more the part in flowing tops and short skirts. Frances pushed her cappuccino out of the way and opened her composition book. She pulled a pen from her bag and went at it. Dear Journal, I keep secrets. You know this. I meet a variety of people in my job. Most of them are interesting. Mr. Alvarez, Jimmy, is one of my most loyal clients. He likes anal sex. I’ve asked him if he ever wants to do a threesome with me and a guy. He always says maybe. I think he would enjoy himself. Short Story

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Abby is mad after me. She’s like a rabid dog senseless in that she’s going to bite for no particular reason and not let go. She calls everyday. I usually let it go to the answering machine. I am so tired in my life. I thought I could buy happiness. My money is good. I have plenty in a savings account. But I am without love in my life. Yes this makes me sad, but not desperate, yet. Well, there’s Abby but she doesn’t count. She’ll always be my big sister. And then there’s Gail. I’m wearing her down. She’ll be done with me soon if I don’t stop prostituting myself. I’ve got to be careful not to be high when I’m with clients. I talk too much and am often paranoid when on meth. It reminds me of the joke, “Why do tweekers do doggy style? So they can both look out the window.” Gail asked me if I ever get lonely. Answer, no. I really like my own company. There’s that love thing, though. I don’t think I’m capable of loving anymore. Maybe. Love, me.

VI. DIAL TONE 1. “Listen. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. I’m sorry your life is so stale that you think you have to hone in on mine— Abby cut Frances off. “You know Mom died from addiction. I get afraid you’re headed for the same end.” “Goodbye, Abby.” Frances hung up the phone. Abby was left with the dial tone. She hated the sound, but lingered anyway, hoping she wasn’t really hearing it, and she would hear Frances laugh on the other end. Nothing. No laughter. The day was pale. 2. Greta, the math teacher, had commissioned Abby to paint a woman in a yellow hat sitting on a park bench, a Shi Tzu at her side and pigeons at her feet eating the bread crumbs she had thrown. Greta wanted it to be dusk, so the sky was spectacular with its several shades of orange and purple. Greta was a wild older woman who was unconventional in her attitude and dress. She never said “hello” or “goodbye.” Instead 58

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she said “peace on.” She wore brightly colored scarves on her thin shoulders and fluorescent long skirts that she had sewn herself.

VII. CHEAT In the evening, Mark and Abby sat on the couch together holding hands and watching TV. Tonight was “Law and Order” with the news after. The phone rang. Abby left the living room to answer it in the kitchen. “Is this Abby?” a man’s voiced asked. “Yes,” Abby answered. “Your sister has been having sex with your boyfriend.” The line went dead. Abby dropped the phone. It clattered to the floor. “Mark,” Abby called out. “Yes,” Mark answered from the living room. “You’ve been having sex with Frances.” She said this as a statement rather than a question. “What?” Mark responded. He picked up the remote and silenced the TV. “Sex. With Frances.” “What the fuck? Fuck,” Mark said loudly. “Abby, let me explain.” Mark walked into the kitchen and reached for her. Abby flinched and pulled her hand away. Abby bent down, retrieved the phone and dialed her sister. Frances answered on the first ring. “Have you been fucking my boyfriend?” Abby asked her sister. Frances answered in a way that sounded like she was reading a grocery list, “Yes. It’s gotta stop.” “Stop? Stop? It’s gotta stop? That’s all you have to say? Well fuck you,” Abby slammed down the phone. “I. Warned. You.” She locked eyes with Mark. “You did. Yes.” “And you didn’t listen,” Abby punched Mark in the chest. “What the fuck.” She said, Short Story

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pounding his chest three times in unison with her words. He reached for her fist. “Don’t you fucking touch me.” Abby said as she slapped him. This surprised them both. “I’m gone, Abby,” Mark said. He felt so much shame that he couldn’t be in the same house as Abby or her anger.

VIII. FRANCES AND ABBY For eight years, Abby carried a grudge pasted into her heart. Then Frances suddenly resurfaced like a plastic doll in a dirty dress bobbing upstream. Abby was at her doctor’s office, for her annual wellness check when she heard Frances call out her name. There she sat, wrapped in a yellow blanket the color of daisies, on a chair not ten feet away. “Frances.” Her beauty had been stolen. Abby thought the pain in her own life paled against Frances’s fractured face, the lines of an old woman who smoked and squinted, her forehead gathered in wrinkles. Meth had stolen all but one tooth. Abby learned Frances had been homeless for several years, that she slept on church steps because she felt safest there. Abby imagined Frances slipping down the rabbit hole. “Are you sick?” Abby asked. “I think I have an STD,” Frances said waiting for Abby to pass judgment. “You wouldn’t happen to have a cigarette? Or a piece of candy, would you?” Frances asked. Abby became lighter in that moment. She reached out and traced her sister’s jaw, wishing she could find her sister inside the skeleton she had become. She longed to pull her into the car, and take her home again. “Abby,” the nurse called. “You’ll wait here, yes?” Abby asked. “Sure.” Abby would return to the ghost that was Frances. Forever gone. 60

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Day Dreamer

Joanne Gallery

Medium: Acrylic and Ink

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“Sans” Joy Gregory – Second Place “wyd come over” read 11:07pm ...typing You just want to fuck me. ...typing “20 min” Wyatt looked like the kind of man I thought would ring my doorbell and ask if I would like to hear about our Lord and savior. Blonde, weak chin, a smile that hid his teeth, as if he’d open his mouth to reveal a sign saying “Please don’t bully me for wearing braces!” In the beginning, I could fantasize. He’d pretend he enjoyed Avengers movies, and I’d pretend I wasn’t a drug addict. And we’d go to dinner and hold hands under the table and kiss in between pizza bites. I didn’t believe in God, but I’d imagine navigating the uncharted land of his button down shirt and finding a crucifix on a chain and feeling safe. Instead, I was watching him hold me down while I was sweating and screaming and pleading for something to ease the sensation of air laced with mud and salt and shards of glass. I fantasized about him saving me from withdrawal, but instead he smelt it on my breath and a hunger awoke in him. The dates stopped pretty quickly after I showed him my vices. Soon, he’d onlysee me at his place, a stucco-walled apartment painted the color of the soft dirt at the bottom of a sandbox. We shared bowls of crystal meth on his futon. I will not be wined. I will not be dined. I won’t even find myself in the bed of a bug ridden Best Western downtown.

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I’d show up, and he’d open his door with the latch on. I was overwhelmed by the scent of strawberries, a candle still clinging to a post-it reading “Love Mom.” If it weren’t for the smell of spilt Jager on the carpet and Axe body spray, I’d think he lived on top of a little girl’s scalp. Still, I appreciated his effort to get me to take my clothes off. “I’ve got a bowl ready if you want to smoke,” he always offered. I couldn’t help but examine the pipe every time, once see throug like an unpolluted lake, now black from the fire of a lighter with a peeling image of the Statue of Liberty. The pipe reminded me of the time Mom made me and my brother go to Camp Kingdom. Pastor Link took us to a small lake at the site. Pulling out a crumpled bag of Funions from the water he told us, “This water blackened from trash is what your heart looks like when it is fouled by Satan. Imagine the burden of carrying garbage in your body. It’s heavy. It’ll ruin your posture.” Once I stared at the pipe so long my eyes went out of focus, and in my blurred vision, I saw the pipe in multiples. I imagined saying no to them. I imagined my life sober. I imagined my mom returning a phone call. I imagined coming home to a husband. I imagined our children. I imagined our dog, Henry. I imagined on our 25th anniversary going somewhere far away, like Florida, and spending our night on the beach eating crab legs and drinking champagne. I imagined going to school. I could go to school. I could get clean. I could still make a life for myself. But I never had to imagine taking that hit, I always did. And soon, I didn’t have to imagine getting pregnant by a man I did not love, because I did. I didn’t have to imagine trying to stay sober. Because I did try. I tried for the parasite growing in me. I tried to purge the poison from my body for it. I was so good. I ate good and I slept good. I gave it what it needed. I wanted to use so bad, but instead I floated above my body for weeks and let this baby consume me. I tried. But I needed to get back in my body. They pulled and pulled and pulled until the thing that consumed my soul, departed. They emptied my womb. My arms stayed Short Story

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empty too. When it was over, I crawled back to the stained futon of the man I did not love. “Longtime no see,” his pupil guarded by the latch’s chain. I could only stand there, knowing he would mourn forever if he lost his nice button up to junkie tears. So I wiped my nose on my sleeve and held my hands out like communion, offering a dime bag. And, soon, I found myself staring at the pipe which I could once see through, now black, looking like the ocean, that night, of my 25th anniversary, where my husband and I ate crab legs and drank champagne and watched the tides roll in.

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Breaking Strings

Stephen Hoffman

Medium: Acrylic Size: 24” X 36”

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“Why Me ?” Adrian Villarreal – Honorable Mention It was near midnight when Francisco realized his phone was missing. I could have sworn I tossed it on my bed, he thought, as he pulled at the grey hairs on his chin. Francisco was no aged man, only a 29-year-old prodigy who had to go before the state legislature in the morning and present on the local state university’s embezzlement scheme his auditing office discovered. His speech was drafted on that phone. His mother told him the grey hairs were hereditary. He thought otherwise. Francisco inhaled deeply and held his breath for five seconds before he exhaled, a trick his therapist taught him to help keep his cool. “All right,” he said, picking up his bed sheets and pillows off the floor. “It’s gotta be in here somewhere.” Francisco stared at his bedroom desk which did not take him long as the surface was clear with only a pen and paper where he’d been going over the auditor’s report. He was an impressively clean man for a bachelor. He moved to the bathroom and shot a quick glance as he turned the light on but saw nothing of the phone. “Oh, of course it’s not in the bathroom,” he said, chuckling at himself. “I probably left it somewhere in the kitchen when I was washing dishes.” He walked over to the kitchen with the impending feeling his phone would appear before him, but as he looked around, he felt a rising irritation begin to boil. Francisco found only a kitchen marble counter stained and littered with crumbs which he immediately began to wipe away. He checked all the drawers and felt his cheeks blush at the foolishness of looking in the dishwasher. From there, he moved to the living room and shuffled through old magazines left on the circular coffee table. As he put the magazines down, Francisco heard the faint sound of television coming from behind the closed door of his roommate’s room. “Hey, Adam?” he called, in a composed tone as he walked over and knocked gently

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on Adam’s door. “Yeah?” replied Adam, his voice muffled and on the brink of sleep. “You mind calling my phone?” “Did you lose it, again?” “Misplaced it.” Francisco stood still in an eternal silence with his eyes closed and focused his attention on the sound of a vibrating phone. After a few seconds of what now turned into an awkward stillness, he peeked with one eye. “Are you calling?” “Voicemail.” “Try again.” A monotone voice called out to Francisco from Adam’s phone which was now on speaker: Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice messaging system. “One more time?” His voice turned desperate. “Goodnight.” Francisco paced back to the living room as he scratched his head for an itch that wasn’t there. “All right. No--, this is fine. Phone’s dead. Not a problem. I’ll just retrace my steps.” And so he did, as he rushed down the seven flights of stairs, wide-eyed, wondering if perhaps it could have been by chance the damn thing slipped out his pocket as he came up to his bedroom just an hour ago upon returning from the Walgreens where he’d picked up a sleep aid which by this point was rushing through his blood stream. It was only a matter of time before the dreariness began to settle in, always commencing from the back of the eyes. Francisco reached the underground parking structure and approached the passenger

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door of his ’02 black 4Runner. I must have forgotten it on the seat, he thoughtas he gave himself a reassuring nod that reflected off the heavily tinted window. His heart fell immediately to his stomach, however, as he swung open the door and the interior light flashed on a vacant passenger seat and empty center console. He reached under the passenger and driver seat where he retrieved lost business cards and loose change, but no phone. “Shit,” Francisco said, as he realized the only other place it could possibly be was at the Walgreens. He jumped into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. The digital clock flashed a sinister 12:30, exactly an hour since Francisco was at the Walgreens; exactly an hour since he’d taken the sleep aid, the amount of time it takes for the medicine to take effect. He reversed out of there and put it in drive, shoving his foot on the gas pedal as he made drove three blocks where he passed two red lights. He felt no remorse for the way he drove down the lonesome desert city road, for this was a race against the arrival of an impending exhaustion. He swung his door open before the truck came to a complete stop at the filthcovered parking lot of the Midtown Walgreens. It was that time of the night when the city turned itself over to the midnight city dwellers who rose from the shadows and wandered the streets with seemingly lost minds. A man in dark ragged clothes who aimlessly rode his bike in the parking lot approached Francisco on his way to the entrance of the store. “Hey man, got a dollar I can have for some food?” “No, I don’t have a fucking dollar you can have for some food,” replied Francisco as he walked swiftly passed the man. He stormed right up to the register and cut ahead of the two people who waited in line. Francisco stared perplexed at the stout man behind the counter. His dark-stained teeth and unevenly trimmed mustache momentarily distracted Francisco from his distress. 68

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“Where’s the other guy who was here an hour ago?” “Sir, I’ve been at the register all night.” “Bullshit,” replied Francisco, as he looked about the store erratically. A young woman who stood at the entrance of the store wearing a black jacket with the word SECURITY on the back of her jacket approached Francisco. “Is there something I can help you with, sir?” she inquired. Francisco looked her up and down a few times with his round, heavy eyes. His oversized dark coat overshadowed her petite body. “You help me?” he said. She stared in a frozen state of confusion and fear. Francisco’s physical figure seemed to somehow visibly grow. “How could you possibly help me?” The bright luminescent lights beamed on Francisco which emphasized the dark rims of exhaustion and impatience around his eyes. There suddenly appeared a gentleman in a soft blue dress shirt tucked into his black slacks. “Sir,” said the gentleman as he approached, “is there a prob –” but Francisco interrupted before he could finish. “Finally!” He extended his arms toward the approaching gentleman. “A sensiblelooking man!” The gentleman in the soft blue dress shirt had a tag pinned to the chest pocket that read MANAGER in small, red print. “I was here an hour ago and made a purchase at the register with my phone,” Francisco said, in a somewhat controlled temperament. “I believe I may have accidently left it here.” Francisco closed his eyes, held his breath for five seconds, and opened them again as he exhaled.

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“You wouldn’t happen to know if someone turned in a black iPhone 11, would you?” Francisco’s teeth began to chatter. “iPhone 11? Someone turned in an iPhone, but not an 11,” replied the gentleman. Francisco nodded stiffly as his nostrils flared and his lips disappeared into his mouth. “Would you mind checking the cameras?” Francisco waited five long minutes under those beaming lights before the manager returned with news that the cameras showed Francisco pay with his phone, then slip it into his coat breast pocket. Francisco’s eyes stared into space as he tucked his hands into the empty pockets. “Thanks for nothing.” He returned up the stairs to his apartment and searched the place desperately. Francisco looked in places he knew the phone wouldn’t be like the inside of the washer and in the shower rack where he kept his shampoo. He even went to the extent of pulling off every piece of his clothing just to ensure the phone hadn’t somehow been in one of his pockets the whole time. The night continued. Francisco could barely keep his eyes open as he looked about and saw the disastrous mess he now stood in. He staggered over to the dark living room and stood before the circular coffee table where he picked up a half-smoked spliff from the glass ashtray, put it to his lips, and sparked it. Light from the nearby skyscrapers came in through the cracks in the blinds and onto his nude body. “Why?” he questioned, as he peered up at the blank white ceiling with his hands stretched above his head. His shoulders began to shake violently. “Why me?” he shouted through his uncontrollable sobs. Tears ran down his pale, swollen face, and as his body collapsed on the couch from the convulsions, he felt an unexpected smooth surface brush his hip as he pressed against the armrest. Tears fell on the dead screen, and he began to laugh hysterically through the sobs.

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Mikâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;maw aâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;sutmat (prayer)

Michelle Horsman Juarez

Medium: Photography

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Vortex 2020 Native Voices and Visions “Writing engenders in us certain attitudes toward language. It encourages us to take words for granted. Writing has enabled us to store vast quantities of words indefinitely. This is advantageous on the one hand but dangerous on the other. The result is that we have developed a kind of false security where language is concerned, and our sensitivity to language has deteriorated. And we have become in proportion insensitive to silence.” ~ N. Scott Momaday “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart.” ~ Louise Erdrich

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;Honoring our Native Voices and Visionsâ&#x20AC;? was created to allow an opportunity for American Indian students to share their stories, culture, history and experiences. Each year, Dr. Ana Cuddington, Director of the American Indian Program at Scottsdale Community College, awards scholarships in writing and/or art to winning students. SCC is honored to be located on the land of the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community. If you are a member of a federally recognized tribe and attend SCC, you can submit artwork and writing in the Native Voices and Visions section of Vortex. For more information, contact Dr. Ana Cuddington at ana.cuddington@scottsdalecc. edu or call the American Indian Program at 480/423-6531.

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“On The Reservation” Mary Doka Our community is small, one thousand or two. Rust-red shingles and mesquite trees cover the wide dirt packed land. Untagged cattle chew long grass in the shade of the river trees and strong stallions with clear flanks flick their tails at passing trucks. The paths are gravel, paved by hooved footprints in ruddy mud, accessed by moonlight and constellation traffic maps. Spiders are welcome in our desert dwellings, the broken screen doors and dull floodlights, yellow and ever-distant like fireflies following a riverbed. Seasons change as quickly as white people fly down the one main road with not a care in the world. I live off that main road, no street lights, signs or telephone wires. I hear every bee, bug and butterfly breathing through the slim leaves, shy and young , still in the morning air, the grass a silver shining blanket heavy with dew. I stretch and bend on a rose quartz boulder, my eyes closed to the sun, open to every rivet, crack, and point in the purple hills before me. The wild blue sheets of rain run across the mountain tops, kicking over bear caves and the goats scream until the bobcat’s growl swallows the sound.

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Down my unpaved driveway, I drive slowly inching away from my comfort into the chaos. Rattle snake skins split beneath my tires. One long and rusted metal gate blocks the world and its multitude of sins from my one blue hydrangea bush in the front yard. The Nation’s trailer park is across the ‘87, past the exposed gas station with unwavering fluorescent lights. Government helicopters with machine guns fly overhead, blotting out the sacred shadow of the eagle from our anscestors’ sky. Fire-Water drips from the art room faucet, smearing our paintings of feathers and crown dancers. All animals are free but the human on the Reservation.

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“Her Spirit” Marina Santa Cruz It was hours before dawn would arrive when we discovered my stepfather’s lifeless body in his room. Hours before the sun would rise, attempting to shine light on our somber house surrounded by the reservation’s fields. The loss created a stagnant atmosphere in our home, inducing a dream-like state in my adolescent siblings, a feeling I’ve experienced over a decade ago after losing my own father, too, from poor health. Even though the Earth continued to spin and light seeped through the windows, time felt heavy and still. While I wanted to be of comfort to these wounded souls, but my two small children also needed me to comfort them. My partner, Steven, recommended a visit to nature and immediately my heart yearned for a familiar landscape. The four of us piled into our white van and drove up the North Beeline Highway until we reached Baja gas station, and made a right hand turn, pulling us south until we reached Post 6 along the Salt River. We ventured deep into the desert’s low forests, admiring nature painted river rocks and freely growing grass in the shades of large mesquite trees. Steven led the way in our miniature journey, and the kids picked up large loose tree branches on a hunt to find the best walking sticks. The idea for us to disappear into wilderness was a good one. As a family, we were able to find some relief. The creosote’s overpowering perfume alone almost made me forget about the pain that lingered at home. After trekking along the depleting waters of the river, I noticed a small mountain that called for a friendly hike just a short distance from the post where we parked the van. However, as the four of us made our way to the mountain’s base, we saw a large metal sign, warning us that any further exploration was prohibited.The long stretches of red tape behind the sign attempted to secure the message, but it only brought us to a pause. “I think we’re allowed to be here,” Steven said.

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“Sure, we’re O’odham,” I replied. So we continued. This time my six year old son, Seymore, attempting to take the lead on a trailless path. Climbing to the top of the small mountain, accumulating red dust and vibrant green lichens on our shoes, a sense of peace blew through the cool wind and calmed us. Steven and Seymore faced the clear east blue sky and stood in silence. A few yards behind them, my daughter and I found a flat surface to rest on with a view of the sunset highlighting the desert’s spikey horizon with a piercing yellow. “Mommy, what are you doing? Why are you guys all quiet? It’s scaring me,” Melody said. “Come here honey, sit next to me. We’re listening,” I replied. As we managed to settle ourselves on the rough, yet welcoming rock, I looked into my daughter’s confused eyes. The sun’s essence seemed to bring out hers, lighting up the golden tones in her long soft hair, glistening in the perfection of her amber eyes, and accentuating a honey glow in her skin. “Close your eyes baby, I want you to feel for the people who lived here before us. Listen to the wind, listen to the water, and feel the warmth from the sun on your skin,” I said. I watched as she closed her little eyes. Then I closed mine. I know she can feel this. She has to. After the moment of silence passed, we opened our eyes, and she looked up at me with a smile. “I heard them, Mom!” she said. “You did? What did you hear?” I asked. “I heard the wind and the swishing from the river, and I felt the sun on my skin. It was like they were telling me this is the way to live, with nature. We can just be happy here, spend time with family, and stuff like that wouldn’t be here,” Melody said pointing to the red tape blocking off the mountain’s entrance below. I looked at my daughter in amazement. My throat grew tight, and my eyes began to sting. I grabbed her close to embrace her as the tears started down my cheeks. She Native Voices and Visions

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understood. Not only did she understand that as Indigenous people we need our connection with Mother Earth for our health, but she recognized the significance of the red tape. That it was there to preserve what little uncontaminated nature we have left. “I’m going to miss Grandpa,” she said. “I know honey, I am too. But we’ll make him proud, and he’ll always be here through us.” The sun was rotating away from us, and twilight told us it was time to head home. As I watched my children, the next generation, fearlessly create their own paths down the mountain, I was instilled with hope for the preservation of our land and our people.

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“Fight for the Eighth Generation” Mateo TreeTop We have seen the Great Turtle choked by black snakes, Sneaks and cheats want to milk the serpents’ venom. They want gold and riches but at what cost when the trees cough and wheeze When companies’ seize land that is not theirs. They promised that the barrels that hold the serpents’ venom won’t spill Yet they want the thrill of being snake oil salesmen. And yet people push back, and they rise as Black Snake Killers, They garner the attention of old allies and enemies. Still they meet old opponents, Still they protest in peace and prayer. Mace, hoses, dogs, chains, cages, concussive grenades met With love protection, respect, and music. Corporate greed take heed for we will not plead for you to stop, but demand it. You can see that water is life, but when you chose green over blue you doom everyone to a world of black. It has been many Moons since the great stand but now in an independent land caught in the veins of the Maple leaf there echoes a hiss and once more greed has taken the lead in the wallet of the businessman.

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Vortex 2020 Poetry If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason. ~ Novalis A poem is â&#x20AC;Ś a truth that has learned jujitsu. ~ William Stafford To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard. ~ Allen Ginsberg

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“All Pain Has a Name” Doria Dphrepaulezz – First Place

All pain has a name, mine was silence, abandoned within myself I survived childhood, living between two realities of the silent and the spoken like a tornado of truths and lies. The moonlight sprayed through my window, I watched the shadows dance on the wall. I know what he did disappearing down the dark hallway, away from my room, crossing hidden boundaries no glue to hold our family together, just love welded to hate. He was wrong, wrong like the curve of a fighter’s nose, there was no fatherly love only the brutal kiss of a branding iron searing away layers of adolescence. His footsteps still echo, weight shifting shuffling feet, the creaking of the stairwell, steps on the landing, Poetry

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the heel of that old shoe click, click, click, like a drum beating. My sisters and brothers, not me, beaten and bruised, their voices alive in the dark from the third floor window. Life on Main Street was not what it seemed, beauty did not live on the inside. Every room was steeped in silence, blind friends and family looked away. All pain has a name. Mine was father.

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Parallel Universe

Gloria Martins

Medium: Mixed Media Size: 31.5â&#x20AC;? X 17â&#x20AC;?

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“Alaska Air” Wonder Whalen – Second Place

being with you feels like every sunrise I’ve ever spent with my face pressed against the glass of airplane windows the size of Tic Tacs, fogging up the latticework-scratched plastic with my breath. ears popping from the altitude, and roaring from the white noise of a behemoth in flight. outside, it’s all colors and mountains and clouds as soft as the first hopes you ever had, the ones you mistook for clairvoyance because you were too little to realize things are destined to change. I am old enough now to accept that nothing stays. not gold or joy or smiles or youth or life or peanut butter pancakes in a lighthouse in the rain, or cars or memories or the cup of tea I made you seconds after you stepped into my house as a stranger, seconds before we became friends. but we’re here and the clouds are down there. all I know of this altitude is that sooner or later you have to come down. that’s when my ears will pop again and scream with pain the duration of the descent, and everything will disappear except the white fire of agony. the slow burn of endings. sometimes, seeing buildings and busses and the oblong ovals of neon swimming pools taking shape through the window is enough to distract from the ringing, the invisible inside-out screaming

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sometimes, the plane lands and I walk, shellshocked and tender, to the baggage claim, where the clatter of footsteps and shouts of greeting are deafening. I am suddenly a foreigner to humanity, glazed and unfamiliar. a ghost. simultaneously surprised and indifferent when noticed. this is what awaits me. I know this, getting into the plane. I knew this as I handed my card to the man at the ticket counter. he asked for my name. you knew I would lose the tickets, but you waited to ask anyway. I knew this, as you made me laugh. as your voice translated as music into my brain. I felt the lurch of the wheels leaving the Tarmac and I remembered that the only future any of us has is one that ends, and that a future with two of us means an ending we are both likely to outlive pretending the other does not exist. but now up here itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quiet there is no hard stop between the spaces we occupy just breath and hope and clouds and you are a sunrise

and my ears are ringing from the takeoff

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Untitled

Valerie Kossak

Medium: Acrylic Size: 28” X 40”

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“Grandmother” Kristina Morgan – Third Place I offer you this wooden calf the size of an orange that holds the heat of my palm in its belly. The shopkeeper told me elephants symbolize infinity. You set it on the end table next to your recliner where you spend most of your time. I am hoping to collect you from the afterlife. You say to bury the calf with you, let it be your guide back to me, to the place on my shoulder where the soft weight of you will sit. Do you know weight can whisper? you ask. If you say so, I answer. You make certain I know where the pink hair clip is, the one you gave me when I was three, a gift from your mother. We have agreed I will serve marshmallows at your memorial, keeping the day light, allowing children to play jacks. You dislike cut flowers, say they hold death in their stalks. I don’t know how I will keep flowers away, imagine calla lilies walking on toe. Your shoulders slope forward now. They have born the tugging of those who depended on you for shoes and shelter. You show me the spots

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on your hands and I think of the beauty of bark. I know you are tired of being an old woman. If I could pull age from you, I would. You wake me to what is important. My heart feels full when I am with you, my youth never more magnified. Is age clever? Does it leave you still, raked leaves ready to be bagged? You walk before me, turn to see why I have stopped. The light of the low sun envelops you. It is hard for me to see. Will I still be kind in your absence? You have shown me how to extend my hand and touch the spiritual in others. Lily pads support frogs as they settle on the pond. Life can be like this. It will be hard not to miss you. I will remember the way the sun lit you from behind, how your smile strengthened mine this Thursday noon. I hear you in the evenings. The sky is not crowded. I say moon, you say yes. I say galaxies, you say roam. I say star, you say plenty. I say I miss you, and you say Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not gone.

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you can put your feet on the coffee table

Bonnie Lewis

Medium: Mixed Media Size: 12” X 12”

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“Beyond My Broken Dreams” Todd Lejnieks – Honorable Mention

I. The smell of her Aquanet hairspray mixes with my tears, the crack of the wooden hanger against my butt and thighs. I feel my corduroys bound around my ankles, saliva and fear fill my mouth as I scream, What did I do? I shrink into something so small I can hide in a place inside myself where I can see it coming from behind the wall of my steeled heart, the signs of anger, the shifts in mood, the hints of sarcasm. If she raises an eyebrow, I will cower behind my shield. I will like what she likes, hate what she hates. I will do nothing to threaten, everything to please. I will be good, I will be good. I. Will. Be. Good.

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II. Now, I am a caretaker for my mother. She walks twisted and bent, metal screws and rods wrenched into her back. The accident, years of pills, alcohol and lost loves, trips saved for, planned and longed for, but never taken. Her life sags on her, denying my tenderness. Finally I see she was as frightened and frozen as I was. I not only endured the beatings, I took on her fear, her anger, her failures. I cradle Momâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s head, this morning, her silver wispy hair tangled with glints of my tears, skeletal shoulders against my chest, a broken girl who wanted so much more. Something grows inside me, something beautiful and strong, and as vast as our broken dreams.

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“Rabbit Drive” Robert Buchanan – Honorable Mention

A bitter November morning, dawn rakes over a broken checkerboard of wheat stubble, ragged remnants of the Kansas harvest. A flannel-clad boy of fourteen, eager to be a man, I ride with twenty men in the back of a bucking flatbed truck as we deploy with shotguns around a square mile section of land infested with thousands of rabbits. We will clean them out, selling the mountain of carcasses, food for a local mink farm. I am proud of my shotgun, a 20-gauge bolt-action Mossberg. My shells are Number 4 shot with full magnum load. I am a man out to save poor farmers from pestilence, right out of The Magnificent Seven. I feel heroic, piling up at least twenty kills with the first round, 92

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sometimes shooting from the hip, always ready for more. But the last jackrabbit I shoot doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t die. He thrashes wildly, shrieks in agony. I see blood covering his incisors in his trembling mouth, his screams are human and slap me with horror. I want to turn and run but his agony traps me in the shame of what I have done. I have not felt such terrible responsibility. So I shoot again and again, unable to bear what is in his eyes

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Before Things Fell Apart

Ellen Nemetz

Medium: Acrylic Size: 36” X 48”

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“Alligator” Joy Gregory – Honorable Mention

There is an alligator in the forest where my grandparents’ cabin sleeps, shielded by the shade of pine trees. The alligator would invite me onto his back, and my hands would trace his gnarled brown scales as he led me through families of javelina and juniper to a place where we swam among fish flashing like Christmas lights and traded tales with honeybees. Together, we traveled far beyond the memory of Mom crying on our shared, floorbound mattress, over a man who’d renounced fatherhood. The fallen-tree-turned-alligator could take me anywhere.

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When it was alive it housed birds and beetles hundreds of years before we met. And it took me to a place that was home, a place where I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to worry if Dad wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t going to call, if Mom smoked too many cigarettes, if the rent was overdue. Being was just enough.

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Poetry

Dangling by a Thread

Steven Kujawski

Medium: Photography

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“My Body Fails Me” Emily Phillips – Honorable Mention

my mind ceases to function every breath feels like fire burning my lungs i couldn’t scream if i wanted to silence rings in my ears growing to a deafening volume any word dies as it tries to tear itself off my tongue the only way out of this nightmare is sleep, my life passing by responsibilities worthless i’m buried in sand it’s that side of seroquel eight hours turn to fifteen i sleep through my shifts my appointments my plans everything slips into the background i stop taking the pills but without them my ends fray my actions become worrisome unable to think before i act needles through flesh metal and ink in my skin trusting people I don’t know 98

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i spend money like it never mattered i spend nights in unfamiliar cars the withdrawals are the worst time crumbles around me canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sleep canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think i lose weight so fast i fear people will notice so i start them up again my mind makes me irresponsible my meds make me unreliable whatever is precious about life eludes me, bitter and blaming I just want my life back

Poetry

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The 800 at 80

Adrienne Pagel

Medium: Acrylic Size: 30” X 15”

100

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Art

Vortex 2020 Plays and Scripts A stage play is basically a form of uberschizophrenia. You split yourself into two minds - one being the protagonist and the other being the antagonist. The playwright also splits himself into two other minds: the mind of the writer and the mind of the audience. ~ David Mamet I started as a playwright. Any sort of scriptwriting you do helps you hone your story. You have the same demands of creating a plot, developing relatable characters and keeping your audience invested in your story. My books are basically structured like three-act plays. ~ Suzanne Collins Screenwriting is an opportunity to fly first class, be treated like a celebrity, sit around the pool and be betrayed. ~ Ian McEwan

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101

Sniff the Bench, Steal the Fish’ Marie Tomisato – First Place

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Cast of Characters Jeanie:

A young mixed woman. Wears a nice blazer and a tight bun. She’s the definition of well put-together.

Orla:

Young woman. Make-up running. Her clothes have stains, and she’s carrying Kleenex and a bag of used tissues. Two words—Hot Mess. Scene

Bus Stop in a city with poor drainage systems. Time The present. Setting:

We are at a bus stop. Underneath the layer of grime, gum, and germs, there is a trash bin and bench with an ad for dentistry. The street lamp flickers above the bench, too weak to be the fires of hell and too annoying to be the light of heaven. Leaning against a rack like a drooping, tired, overworked janitor, is a bike – its baskets filled to the brim with bags.

At Rise:

JEANIE sits on the bench, earbuds in as she types away on her laptop, killing time as she waits for the bus. ORLA enters, blowing her nose into a tissue before she plops down on the bench. Jeanie covers her nose for a second but continues working. Orla notices, so she also gives Jeanie a once-over. ORLA

I’m not homeless.

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JEANIE takes out her earbuds. JEANIE I’m sorry? ORLA I said I’m not homeless. JEANIE Good for you. ORLA So don’t look at me like that. JEANIE I wasn’t. ORLA No, you were. You covered your nose before you stuck it back in your laptop. I don’t even smell. JEANIE Look, I just thought you might be sick. I can’t afford to get the flu right now. ORLA Well, I’m not sick. So. JEANIE Okay. You’re not homeless. You’re not sick. Got it. JEANIE goes to put her earbuds back in. ORLA The tissues are because I’m depressed. JEANIE sighs, puts away her earbuds, and closes her laptop, reluctantly engaging.

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JEANIE Why are you depressed? ORLA My girlfriend and I broke up. JEANIE That must be difficult. ORLA On Valentine’s Day. JEANIE That must be difficult. ORLA And she moved out. JEANIE That must be difficult. ORLA And she took all my favorite things. It sucked. JEANIE That must be difficult. ORLA Okay, I see what you’re doing! You’re not actually listening. JEANIE So? Why are you talking to a complete stranger? You shouldn’t trustORLA Why not? I trusted my girlfriend and she still took Fishy!

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JEANIE You’re sad about a ... a fish? ORLA No, I’m mad! I’ve decided that I’m mad. I’m mad that I spent two years trying to learn someone’s love language only to figure out that she didn’t love me! JEANIE Oh... well, I guess that’s... difficult. ORLA Are you kidding me right now? JEANIE No! No. I mean it. I’m sorry that happened to you. On Valentine’s Day. See? I was listening. ORLA Oh. Well, thanks. ORLA sniffs, and tosses the tissue into her plastic bag. It misses, and lands in JEANIE’S lap. JEANIE plucks it off. ORLA (CONT’D) So what was your worst Valentine’s Day? JEANIE No. ORLA I just bared my heart to you! It is customary to reciprocate vulnerability. JEANIE Really? God, that sounds awful. ORLA You have to. 106

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JEANIE No, I don’t. ORLA Yeah, but then the silence while we wait for the bus will be super awkward. JEANIE I’m fine with that. ORLA Also, I could like, dump all of my used tissues on you. ORLA picks out used issues and starts dumping them on JEANIE’S lap. Then throwing them. Then blowing them like leaves. JEANIE tries to ignore her, but ends up smacking them away. JEANIE Jesus! Fine! ORLA Okay. I’m ready. Lay it on me. JEANIE So, my worst Valentine’s Day was freshman year of college, andORLA That must be difficult. JEANIE glares at ORLA, whose smirk slowly grows on her face. JEANIE I’m going to kill you. ORLA No, no, I’m sorry. I mean, you set yourself up for that, but go on. I promise I won’t do it again. Playwriting

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JEANIE Too late. I’ve lost trust in you. ORLA What? No... JEANIE You’ve given me trust issues. You’re a terrible, rotten, no good person. ORLA No way! You had trust issues before. Because of that Valentine’s Day. JEANIE Actually, no. Not really. ORLA Prove it. JEANIE It was my freshman year. My mom texted me to come home so that I could see my dog one last time before we put her to sleep. ORLA Oh. Sorry, I take it back, you don’t have toJEANIE whisks the tissues away as she sighs dramatically, fully getting into the story. JEANIE My brother picked me up. I came home, and my mom was angry crying because my dad was watching soccer and he didn’t want to help my mom put Reginald in the car. I had to turn off the TV and beg for him to come. But it worked. My dad put Reginald in a wagon and rolled her out to the car. ORLA Reginald was a girl? Do you even know how to name dogs? JEANIE shoves a tissue in ORLA’S mouth. 108

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JEANIE She came with the name. Anyway. We arrived at the veterinarians. It was awful. Everyone in the waiting room was staring at us. And people normally do that when I’m with my family, you know, because I’m mixed. It’s not usually malicious - they just like to see how the DNA matched up. But it was worse this time, because there was no denying what we were. We were a nuclear family, children all grown up, faces solemn as we rolled our sickly, cancer-ridden family dog in a red wagon from that Calvin and Hobbes comic. ORLA spits out the tissue. ORLA They were probably just sad for you. JEANIE Well, it sucked. Tears were already streaming down my face. I didn’t need people looking at me as well. I wanted to scream at them to stop, to look anywhere else. But instead I kept looking at my half-dead dog, wrapped in a towel, as my dad and brother stood like statues in their emotionally stunted masculinity, so scared to move that my mom had to be the one to go up to the front desk. As if the receptionist didn’t already know why we were there. As if they couldn’t piece it together. ORLA I’m trying to be supportive, but I don’t know if I’m supposed to be mad at men or receptionists. JEANIE Don’t be mad. It’s actually kinda funny. ORLA Funny? JEANIE Yeah, it was funny. When they took us into a back room, they gave us their nicest vet. She treated us like abandoned puppies - talking in a quiet voice as if we were going to Playwriting

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burst into a fit of tearful howls any second. And then she put the needle into Reginald, and her life was over. ORLA Oh my God. JEANIE She left the room so we could say goodbye. I had already said goodbye, so I wasn’t sure what to do. It wasn’t like anyone was going to say anything at this point. Not in front of each other, at least. But my dad is a man of action. ORLA So at least he did something? JEANIE (laughing) He tried to close Reginald’s eyes. ORLA I’m sorry- what? JEANIE tries imitating with her hands. JEANIE Yeah. Like in the movies. Like he genuinely thought we could do that. ORLA (groaning) Ugh... JEANIE I mean, yeah, it was weird to see my dog’s eyes open but not looking into one of ours, but my dad didn’t have to keep going.

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ORLA (laughing) Oh no. JEANIE Like, it didn’t work, so he kept trying to close her eyes. Honest to God, it started to bruise. I just burst into laughter. My family looked at me like I was insane. ORLA Grief affects people differently, I guess? JEANIE By the time the vet came back, I was reminding my dad of that Jack Black movie where he played a mortician and had to seal people’s eyes shut with glue so they didn’t open during the funeral and scare the relatives. That vet was so confused, bless her soul. ORLA And then what happened? JEANIE And then my family went home. Without our dog. ORLA ...Is that it? JEANIE No. That really sad song by A Great Big World came on during the drive home, and I had to change the station. In fact, every song felt sad. I could’ve just turned it off, but then I would have had to like... talk to my family. Luckily, early 2000s Ke$ha was on. No trace of anything but numbness, thank God... There. That’s it. Worst Valentine’s Day ever. ORLA Well, thank you. For sharing that.

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ORLA grabs one of the used tissues and blows her nose. JEANIE You’re welcome. ORLA That doesn’t really prove your point, though, does it? JEANIE There was a point? I thought we were just waiting for the bus? ORLA This is why you have trust issues. Not me. JEANIE It is not! Reginald was a family dog, not a...a relationship. ORLA Oh, yes it was. Reginald was a beautiful, stinky dog who loved you no matter what. Death stole her away from you, and now you can’t open your heart to other dogs. Or people. JEANIE That was just my first glance of mortality. I had trust issues way before that. ORLA See? I didn’t give you trust issues. You had them inside you all along. JEANIE I’m beginning to see why your girlfriend broke up with you. ORLA One? Rude. Two? Presumptuous. I broke up with her. JEANIE And yet you still think you’re entitled to cry in public like a child actor and look down

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on homeless people. ORLA I do not look down on homeless people! JEANIE Sure you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t care if someone thought you were. ORLA I’m not going to argue with you, but only because that’s exactly what I say to homophobes. It’s a flawless argument and I can’t go poking holes in it. Besides, there are no homeless people here. JEANIE Think again. ORLA ...what? JEANIE I’m homeless. Technically. ORLA You...you have a laptop! JEANIE Yeah. But the rent went up and I got evicted. Still got this killer blazer though. JEANIE pats her blazer proudly. ORLA has the decency to look guilty. ORLA Okay. Fine. You win. Maybe my girlfriend had every right to take my dog. JEANIE Wait, what? I thought she took your fish?

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ORLA Fishy. Our dog. JEANIE And you made fun of me for Reginald? When you named your dog... that? ORLA My ex named him before she met me! JEANIE So it’s her dog. ORLA But she never took Fishy on walks! Or brushed his teeth, or dressed him up for Christmas... JEANIE Ah. So the dog loves you more, and your ex took him out of spite. ORLA Exactly. JEANIE Well, that sucks. ORLA Oh, yeah it sucks, but you’re the one who’s...Seriously, you’re homeless? Yeah. JEANIE JEANIE opens her laptop and shows ORLA. JEANIE (CONT’D) I was looking up a shelter on the other side of town.

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BEEEEP. The bus station speaker comes on. STATION SPEAKER (O.S.) Attention, passengers. Due to a flood on 48th Street, the bus will not be able to come to this stop. No more buses will come tonight. Repeat: No more buses. JEANIE buries her head in her hands. JEANIE Aw, c’mon... ORLA You could stay with me? For tonight? Or like, for forever, whichever is most convenient for you. JEANIE Against every core of my being, I actually like you, butORLA But what? JEANIE I’m not into you like that. ORLA What? No. I’m being a good person. Instead of a terrible, rotten, no good one. JEANIE I don’t know. ORLA C’mon! You need a place to stay, and my ex moved out. JEANIE You barely know me. ORLA So? I’m not the one with trust issues. Playwriting

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JEANIE I could have a knife in my bag right now. Or explosive diarrhea. You don’t know. ORLA You underestimate the rose-covered glasses that come with my overwhelming co-dependency. JEANIE looks around. It’s dark. Scary. And the only light is ORLA. JEANIE Fine. ORLA YES! Slumber party. I have margarita mix, huluJEANIE On one condition. ORLA What? JEANIE Where is your ex staying? ORLA With her new girlfriend. Five blocks away. Why? JEANIE I want to steal back Fishy. ORLA stares at JEANIE, appraising her. JEANIE (CONT’D) Right now. ORLA ABSOLUTELY.

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They high-five. JEANIE Let’s DO THIS! ORLA (CONT’D) YEAH! They spring up, and JEANIE grabs her bike. JEANIE (CONT’D) Hop on! ORLA dunks her bag of tissues into the trash bin, and chases after JEANIE. ORLA Mama’s coming, Fishy!!! Hang in there! JEANIE AND ORLA (CONT’D) FI-SHE, FI-SHE, FI-SHE! ORLA and JEANIE ride off the stage, a trail of tissues behind them.

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Glorieta

Rick Rosenberg

Medium: Bronze Size: 9” X 8” X 7”

118

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Art

The Groundhog Mask Karina Rivera Acevedo â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Second Place

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119

Cast of Characters Joel:

A man in his mid-20s

Sam:

A woman in her mid-20s

Charlotte Downey:

A woman in her late 50s Scene

Living room and study area of a mansion. Time The present. Act 1 Scene 1 Setting:

We are in the living room of the DOWNEY residence, an elegant mansion where a memorial service is being held. The living room reeks of wealth with white walls, white lounging chairs, and a white sofa. Cultural artifacts including masks and sculptures from various countries hang on the walls. The area is immaculate and symmetrical; aesthetically pleasing. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a fireplace with family pictures placed on top and a portrait of the deceased homeowner hanging above with a wreath of flowers.

At Rise:

SAM is alone in the living room with a plate of food. She is dressed formally, but not in black. She lingers around the fireplace admiring the family photos. JOEL enters looking visibly uncomfortable, fiddling with his tie and holding a glass of water.

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SAM Oof, you look tense. JOEL I’m sweatin’ like a hooker in a confessional. SAM Hmm, sex jokes at a memorial service. That’s not in poor taste at all. JOEL I’m sorry! I’m nervous, I don’t know what to say at these things. No one ever thinks they need to take those grieving seminars in college. (A family walks in front of them and shakes their hands) Thoughts and prayers. SAM Thoughts and prayers. (Pause) JOEL Have you seen Charlotte yet? SAM Yeah. JOEL What did you say to her? SAM I gave her my condolences. JOEL Yeah, but what were the exact words you said to her? Did you say I’m sorry for your loss? Did you say a kind word about Lionel? What?

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SAM I don’t understand why all this nitpicking is important. JOEL It’s not nitpicking. SAM Then what’s up your behind? (She smirks. JOEL rolls his eyes at her and downs the rest of his water.) JOEL So, I walk in and I see Charlotte in the living room greeting all the incoming guests, right? Only I didn’t know it was Charlotte at the time because she was dressed in all black. This strange woman walks up to me to give me a hug. No biggie. At Lionel’s funeral, strangers were hugging strangers left and right, it was like a handsy AA meeting— (Another family walks by them. They do a slight head bow.) Thoughts and prayers. SAM Thoughts and prayers. JOEL So, I lean in to hug this stranger and I accidentally bump my hand into her elbow which prompted me to say Oop, I’m sorry to which she replies Oh, it’s okay, but if I hear that too often I’ll start crying again and I’ve done enough crying for Lionel. SAM Well now you know it’s Charlotte and not a stranger. JOEL She completely mistook my I’m sorry as condolences! I didn’t bother to correct her because I was dreading the awkward banter which would go something like Oh, I’m sorry, but that I’m sorry was actually meant for your elbow, but I’m sorry about Lionel. 122

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And I guess I’m also sorry for saying ‘I’m sorry’ because now I know you don’t like it—I’M SORRY! God! Now my chance to give her proper condolences is gone! And after what I committed against that woman’s JOEL (Cont.) personal life I feel obligated to jump at every speck of opportunity at redemption. I know it’s eating me up inside but I’m just nervous and— (He snatches the hors d’oeurves from a passing SERVER and stuffs some in his mouth.) Thoughts and prayers. (The SERVER speeds away.) SAM Jesus, Joel. You need to take a breather, there’s no one out to get you! Why didn’t you give Charlotte your condolences at the funeral? JOEL I was such a wreck. I wanted to hide my devastation from the crowd, so I mostly stayed off to the side. I was only one of Lionel’s many employees. Who am I to be so shattered by his death? People were bound to ask questions and I didn’t know what to tell them. I just really miss him, Sam. He’s the only man who ever… (JOEL begins to get choked up. SAM goes in to embrace him.) SAM Shhh, it’s okay. I know I’m not the most sympathetic person in the world. It takes a lot of courage to do what you’re about to do. I just hate death services. (She pulls out a flask from her purse and refills both of their glasses.) JOEL Yeah, they’re the worst. (They clink and chug.) SAM Do you have your speech prepared? Playwriting

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(JOEL pulls out two letters from his suit pocket.) JOEL I wrote two: one with the big reveal and one without it in case I chicken out. (CHARLOTTE enters. She creeps up from behind.) CHARLOTTE I hope everyone’s enjoying the food? (JOEL jumps and the two letters go flying from his hands and scatter on the ground.) Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to startle you! (JOEL crouches down trying to retrieve the letters.) JOEL No, no! It’s fine! SAM The food was excellent, Mrs. Downey! Wasn’t it, Joel? (JOEL tries to straighten himself out by adjusting his tie and patting down his suit.) JOEL Oh yeah, yeah, terrific! Who knew death would make everything taste so much better? CHARLOTTE Well I’m glad to hear it! I’m glad to hear it. Just wanted to let you know that the ceremony will start in about ten minutes so I recommend finding a seat in the garden, but before you do, Joel, do you mind if I have a word with you in Lionel’s study? (JOEL and SAM share an intense look. She gives him a nod and a smile of encouragement.) JOEL Not at all, Mrs. Downey.

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CHARLOTTE Won’t you excuse us, Samantha? (SAM nods as she watches CHARLOTTE escort JOEL into a small room away from the guests.)

(BLACKOUT) (END OF SCENE)

ACT I Scene 2 Setting:

Lionel’s study, inside the DOWNEY residence. The room is filled with shelves and books to fill them up. There’s a portrait of Lionel as a young man in the army hanging on the wall. His desk sits near the furthest wall in the room. There is a small table with a wooden chess board engraved within it.

At Rise:

CHARLOTTE leads into the room first with JOEL entering shortly after. He closes the door behind him. JOEL

I want to apologize for my insensitive joke back there. CHARLOTTE Oh, don’t apologize, it’s quite refreshing to hear laughter at such events like these. Ugh, death services, am I right? JOEL Yeah, they’re the f*****g worst. Oop! Excuse me. Playwriting

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CHARLOTTE I understand you had a speech prepared in honor of my husband—no doubt it will be filled with kind words and wholesome anecdotes. (She walks behind the desk and pulls out a tiny box. She opens it and holds it out for JOEL to admire.) CHARLOTTE (Cont.) Therefore, I thought nothing would complete a more touching moment than by giving you this. It was Lionel’s most treasured possession from his accomplishments in the war. I’d figured you would take some pride in owning it. JOEL (Softly) Thank you, ma’am. (As he reaches out to caress the pin CHARLOTTE abruptly shuts the box, nearly missing his fingers.) CHARLOTTE It’s honestly just another piece of junk in my eyes. (She sets the box down and leans against the desk.) I would say his real prized possession is our business we’ve built as husband and wife. Sure, a war pin will get you some special treatment in your neighborhood or community, but a business that serves everyone will capture the attention of the world for decades to come. (JOEL nods and looks down at his feet.) Oh Joel, you don’t have to be intimidated by me! I promise you the company will go on functioning smoothly under my watch. I want you to know that if you need anything, you come and see me. I’m an open book. JOEL That’s very relieving to hear, Mrs. Downey. 126

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CHARLOTTE Woo! Joel, would you kindly pour me a drink? There’s a cognac and a couple of glasses in the cabinet over there. Please, pour yourself one as well. JOEL Oh, I don’t think I should. I want to have a clear mind when I read my prepared statements. In fact, I should be heading over to— CHARLOTTE That is decades old cognac purchased straight from the country itself. It’d be rude to refuse when offered. Besides, I’m the widow, they can’t possibly start without me. (JOEL nods and walks over to the cabinet to retrieve the items.) I don’t know if I can calmly face that crowd, what with the crying and the runny noses and the tissues. It’s not my style. (JOEL places the items on the desk and begins to pour into one glass.) JOEL I don’t think it’s anybody’s style. But, if I may, there’s something quite intimate when it comes to gatherings like this, in wake of such a tragic event, to see people act… human. It’s a chance to take off the mask that we wear in our everyday lives and expose our vulnerability. (He hands a glass to CHARLOTTE.) CHARLOTTE I’m afraid I find that behavior rather rickety. I believe it takes a great deal of strength to inhibit any emotion that CHARLOTTE (Cont.) threatens to leak out in the name of your brand. The art of remaining conscious. (She raises the glass. JOEL pours himself a drink.) JOEL Hmmm. I think it also takes a great deal of strength to allow yourself to become Playwriting

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vulnerable. Society expects you to wear a mask in order for everyone to be comfortable because if they see you outside of that mask then you risk their contentment. However, being uncomfortable is a part of being human! Why would you want to avoid being what you are? It’s all a big paradox. People should be allowed to be themselves. (He takes a shot.) CHARLOTTE Do you wear a mask, Joel? JOEL I mean, we all wear a mask… CHARLOTTE Yes, but do you wear one? JOEL Why, um, yes, sometimes. CHARLOTTE Are you wearing one right now? JOEL I really think I should go find my seat. CHARLOTTE But you’d be leaving me unanswered, Joel. This conversation, wouldn’t you say it is quite human? JOEL I would say it is, being that I am in a very vulnerable position. CHARLOTTE Well? Are you or are you not wearing a mask right now? JOEL Yes. 128

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CHARLOTTE Yes, what? JOEL Yes, I am wearing a mask right now. CHARLOTTE But I do recall you saying that intimate gatherings such as this allow people to act more human, hence the removal of the mask. Why are you still wearing a mask? Do you not mourn my husband? JOEL Of course I mourn your husband! CHARLOTTE Well, I don’t see it. JOEL I don’t understand, are you asking me to cry? CHARLOTTE No, I’m not asking you to do anything. JOEL I miss your husband immensely, Mrs. Downey. I’ve already done my crying. CHARLOTTE Do you wear a mask at the company? JOEL I mean everyone wears a mask at work! It’s work! CHARLOTTE So, you wore a mask around Lionel? JOEL Um, no, actually. Lionel was one of the only people who allowed me to be myself. Playwriting

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CHARLOTTE How so, if you don’t mind me asking? JOEL Well, he somehow knew when I was feeling down. He’d call me into the privacy of his office and gave me a safe space to, break down, if you will. And he never judged me. He never interrupted me during my ramblings. He was a very comforting man; he always knew what to do and what to say. It almost seemed practiced and rehearsed, as if he’d seen this type of pain before. As if he too was bearing this mask… CHARLOTTE Joel… JOEL Yes? CHARLOTTE Let me read your statement. JOEL I’m-I’m sorry? CHARLOTTE Your statement. Please. (CHARLOTTE holds out her hand. JOEL goes into his suit pocket and pulls out an envelope.) The other one. Please. (She holds out her hand. He absorbs her request for a moment until he ultimately goes into his suit pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. She takes it and paces around the room, reading the note. JOEL is visibly nervous. He doesn’t watch her reactions. He fiddles with his glass. CHARLOTTE stops reading and turns to him.) A groundhog.

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JOEL What? CHARLOTTE You know, a groundhog! Furry, little, brown rodents that live underground. JOEL Yes, yes, I understand all of that, but I’m not quite getting the context. CHARLOTTE Your mask is that of a groundhog. Intelligent animals, aren’t they? We know they live underground, but what we don’t see are these intricate tunnel systems they’ve built for themselves. Utterly fascinating. However, rodents are known to be pesky creatures. Keep them around for too long and they start eating your food, your plants; even their tunnels can cause your house to cave in! And what would the neighbors think of the rodent infestation? The owners are incompetent? That they can’t properly take care of their homes? Homes of people like me. People who have worked tirelessly, who have put blood, sweat and tears to make their way of llife a standard of living! All for it to go down the drain for some putrid parasite! Well, I say it is your duty as a property owner—as a predator to these things—to rid them of your home for good. Everyone has their place and a groundhog is deep, deep, deep underground. (JOEL takes in her words. He pours himself another drink.) JOEL I believe I’ve fully grasped where you stand on the topic of groundhogs. Of course, you have that perspective; you’ve never had a conversation with one and you’ve never been down in the tunnels with one. But I don’t blame you because that’s absurd, you can’t go down in the tunnels with them. You’ll never truly understand the life of a groundhog; therefore, you make peace with the neighborhood’s word of mouth that they’re grimy, vile and destructive to a clean way of living. But what has a groundhog done that was so catastrophic? Open some holes in the ground and eat a couple of tomatoes? Well sure, ya gotta eat, and everyone needs a place to call home, a place where they’re safe and accepted. Groundhogs who have dripped blood, sweat and tears to deserve a home. Playwriting

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Perspective is key, Charlotte; being two different species is one perspective, but figuring out you’re both living, breathing organisms with similar fears and joys as everybody you know, well honey, here’s only hoping you’ll never treat something or someone differently ever again. (He takes a shot.) You can’t ask a groundhog not to be a groundhog; it’s inhumane! A groundhog doesn’t want any special treatment, it just wants what any one of us wants: the best out of life and the means to survive. And just for the record, if a groundhog lingers around an area for too long it’s probably because another groundhog has deemed it a safe area for its kind. (He walks over to a picture of Lionel.) Or maybe, just maybe, someone inside the house is provoking the little bugger to stay by nurturing it and giving it what it needs. CHARLOTTE That is unless it obtains more than enough resources that it never comes back. (She pulls out a pre-written contract from one of the pockets of her blazer and hands it to him.) It’s enough for you to leave the company. Move anywhere you please. Start a new life. A chance to live the American Dream. With that much money it doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, yellow, green, overweight, underweight, or even a groundhog, people will grovel at your feet. You’ll be untouchable. I guess you could say I’m paying you to give you rights. All I’m asking is for you to scurry back underground and never mention Lionel again. Take it. (She holds out a pen.) Take it. (JOEL paces in a circle. He stops for a minute and turns to face CHARLOTTE.) JOEL Well one thing’s for sure… 132

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(He gestures his hand towards the pen but instead retrieves the statement paper from CHARLOTTE’s blazer.) JOEL …death services. They’re the f*****g worst. (He crumbles up the contract and exits. CHARLOTTE pounds her fists on the desk.)

(BLACKOUT) (END OF SCENE)

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Overgrowth

Saige Shuquem

Medium: Acrylic Size: 16” X 20”

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Art

Barriers

Matthew Granillo â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Third Place (with Lina Ellis as translator)

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Cast of Characters Sophia:

24-year-old, mixed race (Caucasian/Hispanic), dressed like a contemporary twentysomething. Knows very minimal Spanish, when spoken it is broken.

Lupe:

72-year-old, Hispanic, dressed in older, modest clothing. Sophia’s grandmother. A non-native speaker but understands more English than Sophia with Spanish. Scene

An older woman’s house in the middle of suburbia. Time The present. Setting:

The house of an obviously older woman. A dusty bookshelf with either useless or priceless (depending on who you ask) glass trinkets and china. An old, pastel-colored sofa covered in plastic sits in the center of the room. An aged coffee table sits in front of it. An older block-sized television plays Spanish dubbed news. A small kitchen with a counter and other supplies sits next to the living room

At Rise:

Inside, LUPE sits stitching up an old, ripped blanket with a floral pattern. The TV plays, but she isn’t paying attention to it. Essentially white noise to her. SOPHIA walks up to the front door of her grandmother’s house. She’s on the phone. SOPHIA

…Yeah, I just got to my grandma’s. I haven’t seen her in a while. I’m just not in the area often enough… No, it’s not that I DON’T understand her… Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. 136

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No, I don’t know what I’m going to do about the situation with my dad, he’s not even picking up his phone. All right, I have to go. Bye. (She sighs and knocks on the door. LUPE puts down the blanket, walks over, and opens the door) SOPHIA Hey, Nana Lupe! LUPE Oh, mijita! Come in, Sophia, come in. (LUPE gestures for SOPHIA to enter, she does) LUPE (Conti.) ¿Dónde has estado? ¿No te he visto desde la Navidad? ¿Dónde está tu papá? Thought your dad was coming? SOPHIA Oh, no, he’s busy at the office. He’s been working crazy hours for the past couple of weeks. He said next time he’ll make it. LUPE (scoff ) Uh-huh. Por supuesto. Es lo mínimo que pueda hacer, solamente le he dado vida. (SOPHIA nods her head awkwardly, They walk over to the couch and sit.) LUPE (Conti.) ¿Cómo te va en la escuela? ¿Espero que muy bien? (SOPHIA tries to translate in her head) LUPE (Conti.) How is school?

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SOPHIA Oh. It’s going well, so far. It’s hard keeping up with all the homework. Uh, demasiado tarea. LUPE Doctor? SOPHIA Oh, no, no. Nursing. I’ll be helping the doctor. LUPE ¿Estás sacando buenas notas? SOPHIA Uh… LUPE Good grades? Working hard? SOPHIA Yeah. I think so, things are getting tougher but it’s manageable. LUPE Ahorre mucho dinero para Nana. Necesito un ayudante con la limpieza. SOPHIA Uh…? LUPE Make money for your old Nana. I need a maid. No! Two maids! Tal vez entonces yo no estaría tan solitaria. SOPHIA (laughing) Yes, of course, Nana. How about three maids? Maybe another house. ¡Dós casas!

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LUPE Well, I can see you’re not in a Spanish class. SOPHIA Well, I could take one. They do offer it at school, but I’m already up to here in credits. Plus, I don’t need a language class to become certified. LUPE (annoyed) It would be helpful, no? What if a patient doesn’t understand English? (LUPE grabs her chest dramatically) LUPE (Cont.) (playfully panicked) ¡Ay, señora, señora! ¡Me duele el corazón, no puedo respirar, me estoy quedando ciega, todo está oscuro!! SOPHIA Ma’am, what’s wrong? Take deep breaths, breathe in! LUPE I cannot understand! What? What? Wha(LUPE falls over “dead” as she whispers Spanish prayers, They both break into a giggle.) SOPHIA Okay, Nana, I get it, I get it. (LUPE sits up) LUPE Spanish could have helped there, hmm? SOPHIA Yeah, but in most cases somebody else will speak it already, hopefully taking that all off my shoulders. Playwriting

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(LUPE gets up and walks into the kitchen) LUPE ¿Tienes hambre? Ni si quieras estás comiendo bien allá? Te ves demasiado flaca. (SOPHIA tries to mentally translate) LUPE (Conti.) Do you want food? (LUPE gestures at her stomach) LUPE (Conti.) Skinny, skinny, skinny. Not good. SOPHIA Oh, no thank you, Nana. I just had lunch with a friend right before I came here, so I’m stuffed. LUPE Oh… are you sure? SOPHIA Yes, I’m good. LUPE ¡Cocino toda esta comida y no hay nadie que lo coma! Does your dad want any? SOPHIA I’m sure, just pack a box before I leave, and I’ll bring some home for him. LUPE Okay, No puede venir a visitarme pero puede comer mi comida, eh? SOPHIA What, Nana?

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LUPE Oh, nothing, Nothing, nothing. I’m okay. (LUPE walks back to the couch, obviously annoyed) SOPHIA How’s the rest of the family doing? Anything new? LUPE Well, we went to your Nino Tomas’ house for his birthday. We had a big party with lots of food. The whole family was there… well, almost the whole family… SOPHIA Oh, yeah… I’m so sorry. I had just had a huge test to study for that night and I couldn’t risk failing it. You know how schoolwork is, at the least convenient time it piles up on you. LUPE You could have come for just a few hours; we didn’t go on that late. A phone call maybe? Your dad also didn’t… never mind… it’s fine. (an awkward silent) SOPHIA How’s Nino doing anyways? Been awhile since I’ve seen him or even talked to him. LUPE (obviously annoyed) Bueno. Porque no tratas de llamarlo alguna vez? SOPHIA (audibly translating) Why not try… calling him...? Oh, oh, yeah. I guess I could. My dad’s not really on talking terms with Nino right now. So, would that be weird? As much as I would want to talk to him, I don’t want to put myself in the middle. You know how my dad is, can’t reason with him. Tries to be so above everyone in the room. What do you think? Playwriting

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LUPE ¿Qué? SOPHIA Sorry. I sometimes forget about the whole language-barrier, Spanish-English thing. I want to call Nino, but I don’t think my dad would like it. LUPE Why are they not talking? SOPHIA I don’t know, if I ever did, I don’t know remember. LUPE Exactly! Shouldn’t involve you. I bet if you asked your dad, he probably doesn’t remember also. SOPHIA Yeah, maybe. I don’t know, I’ll think about it. (SOPHIA notices the blanket and picks it up) SOPHIA Oh my God. Is this blanket I used to sleep in when I was baby? Still feels just as soft! LUPE That old thing? It was your dad’s before it was yours. SOPHIA Really? I had no idea. I always figured it was bought for me whenever I came here for you and Tata to babysit me. LUPE Yes, I’m just fixing it. Few rips and cuts, nothing too bad. It was supposed to be a gift for when I saw your dad today, but not here. Un desperdicio de tiempo para mi. Oh well, always next Christmas. 142

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SOPHIA Oh, no. He’ll see you before that. LUPE Will he? When did you see me before last time? SOPHIA Um, I don’t know. LUPE It was the Christmas before. Before that? SOPHIA I think it was Easter. No, no, your birthday. LUPE How old? SOPHIA Sixty-eight-…nine…seventy! You were turning seventy! LUPE I’m seventy right now. ¿Ves el siglo? SOPHIA Uhhhhhhhh… LUPE ¿Solo vienes a verme cuando me necesitas, verdad? Why today? SOPHIA Why… did I come, today? Um, I don’t know. I just felt like seeing you, felt like it’s been awhile, which it has. LUPE What’s the reason?

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SOPHIA There’s no other reason. LUPE ¿Estás siendo honesta? No me mientas. (LUPE glances at SOPHIA) SOPHIA There’s no other reason. LUPE Get out. SOPHIA W-what? LUPE Get out. Leave! SOPHIA Nana… (LUPE stands up in anger) LUPE Don’t “Nanaaa” me. You only see me for two reasons it seems. One: If you must, two: to lie to me and disrespect me. Tengo setenta años y lo mínimo que puedas hacer es darme el respeto de decir la verdad. What do you need? (SOPHIA stands up) SOPHIA Okay, okay, okay. I’m sorry! I’ll be honest! So, the reason my dad isn’t here is because before we were going to leave, we got into another argument, I don’t even remember why. So stupid. I think it had to do with the way I dressed. (SOPHIA begins pacing.) 144

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SOPHIA (Conti.) It got really intense but then it ended and that was that. At first, I didn’t think much of it after it was settled. (SOPHIA realizes she’s going too fast for LUPE to keep up, SOPHIA sits and LUPE follows) SOPHIA (Conti.) Sorry… again. Me and my dad got into a fight and we both said things we regret, but can’t say I didn’t mean them. This happens often and I figured we’d be okay. But we weren’t okay. He continued to ignore me afterward and then after a while he just told me that I needed to move out. Me echó de casa. No tengo donde ir.. LUPE Ay, mijita. Ay, Jorge, ese cabrón. (LUPE hugs SOPHIA) SOPHIA I’m so sorry I never come to visit you and talk to you as often as I should. I feel so guilty about not being able to talk to you properly. Sabiendo casi nada del español y obligando te a hablar conmigo. I almost cancelled once I stepped in front of that door. Now here I am, basically asking for you to help me. No tengo donde vivir ni mucho dinero. I don’t know what else to do, Nana. ¿Qué debo hacer? LUPE Oh, no, no. Don’t ever feel guilty about this. It’s not all your fault, your dad never saw the reason to raise you speaking Spanish, pensaba que te hiba a confundir. I still love you. What do you need of me? SOPHIA I don’t know. I don’t want to be a burden… LUPE ¡No es cierto! You’re not a burden!

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SOPHIA Maybe a place to stay, until I have enough money to live on my own or with a friend. It won’t be long, I hope. LUPE Of course! On one condition. SOPHIA What’s that? LUPE I demand three maids instead of two! SOPHIA (laughing) Of course, Nana. (LUPE gets up and walks toward the kitchen) LUPE Come on, let me make you lunch. Your hug felt a little bony.

(BLACKOUT) (END OF SCENE)

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Resisted Living

Caroline Wargo

Medium: Acrylic Size: 48” X 36”

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Writersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and Artistsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Personal Statements Karina Rivera Acevedo I am a 23 year old aspiring screenwriter, and gosh darn it, I love to be moved by a story!

Phyllis Benson I am a 65 year old woman who is a retired speech pathologist, and I have been painting for the past 35 years. While I use acrylics, my main medium has been oils. I love to paint buildings, interesting people and animals, and paintings that give a hidden message.

Suzanne Black As I have been developing my skills as a painter in oils over the last few years, and my area of focus has evolved into concentration on figurative work as well as enjoying the expressive mark making that seems to be part of my nature. I sought to develop contextual narrative subject matter that expressed my feelings about the world around me. Last spring, I concentrated my efforts on a series about homeless people, while this year I have been exploring the lives of rural people who have had to bear hardship. I feel myself moving into abstraction now as I explore color shape and design more and more deeply.

Robert Buchanan I am a creative writing student at Scottsdale Community College. After my retirement as a business executive, I have embarked on a course of study that integrates history, music, philosophy, and the arts. Since feelings, senses, imagination, dreams, and soul connection with life are at the essence of art and writing (rather than simply good

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craftsmanship), I use creative writing, especially poetry, to reflect on my long life at the deepest possible levels. My work has appeared in multiple literary journals.

Holly Clifford I am a girl who loves to write! Journal writing and fiction writing are my favorites! I love karaoke, dancing, and baking sugar cookies with my sisters.

Kathy Dioguardi Color, color, and more color! That is the mantra that influences my work. I enjoy creating visually stimulating pieces that amuse me while I am painting them. I find it very satisfying to explore using a variety of mediums and tools to create my paintings. Contemplating what works best to create the outcome I desire is a very enjoyable part of the creative process for me.

Mary Doka I am a Native American woman with a passion for expressing my culture and personal experiences through creative writing.

Doria Dphrepaulezz Painter, poet, Mom. Art is not just what I do, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s who I am. I believe that every journey begins with a childlike leap into the joyful noise that makes you a unique individual. I have written and painted all my life. I search for a rhythm inside the colors, a poetic adventure of textures and shades.

Ron Dunlop I am 23-year-old unemployed alcoholic/addict who writes for pleasure. In recent years, I have attended several creative writing courses at SCC. I find the process of articulating my thoughts on paper to be both rewarding and excruciating. My only published work is an awful rhyming poem which I submitted to my high schoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s literary magazine when I was 17. I am not kind to myself.

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Kathryn Dwyer After living in Scottsdale since 1971 and loving its beautiful public libraries, I have always appreciated the art of writing. I ended up living on the East Coast for 34 years (getting a Master’s in Museum Studies) and working as non-profit manager in Central Park, the American Museum of Natural History, the Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum, and the South Street Seaport Museum. Five years ago, I moved back to Scottsdale to care for my ailing father, and I work at Scottsdale’s McDowell Sonoran Conservancy. I am now able to make the time to take my first creative writing class, which I have wanted to do for a long time. I’m inspired, am thankful, and, yes, intimidated by my insightful and gifted professor, Kim Sabin, as well as my diverse, talented, and gifted classmates.

Judith Feldman The post-impressionist and fauvist artists have had a strong influence on my art. Following these masters, I enjoy using strong, pure color in my paintings which reflect my interpretation of interior scenes and exterior settings. Although my travels to other countries have inspired me, this year, I’ve also focused on the beauty of our Arizona desert.

Joanne Gallery I create artistic images that bring brightness, joy, and fun into my world. I enjoy experimenting with color, textures, and paint. I want to surprise my viewers and take them on a visual journey.

Barbara Goldberg I am an artist who paints abstracts with acrylics and/or multi media elements. When I face the canvas, I know exactly where the journey will start. Although my plan is clear from the beginning, I always end up in a different place: just like our lives. Although not intentional, you can see the common thread in all of my pieces: boldness, turmoil, and that quiet place to land.

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Matthew Granillo I am an aspiring filmmaker currently studying at Scottsdale Community on the Screenwriting track.

Joy Gregory If my piece is selected, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to thank my cat, Peppercorn. If my piece is not selected, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like to thank my cat, Peppercorn.

Stephen Hoffman Through art and sculpture, my magical journey, I enjoy a sense of self-expression, sharing a vision of my creative soul that is filled with color and the passion of life. I have learned from the masters and found a path to give a tempting experience in thinking and smiling for my viewers.

Michelle Horsman Juarez I am an adult reinventing myself while on a quest for a career in criminal justice. I have a passion for amateur photography, particularly when it has the power to transcend me to the moment when I captured the image. I view photography as somewhat of a time machine, there is nothing like it. I have never shared my photography publicly and feel privileged to enter this contest. Thank you for the opportunity.

Valerie Kossak I usually paint abstract work because I like my viewers to interpret the work for themselves, and that is why I do not title my work.

Steven Kujawski I love God. I love my country. I love big, beautiful rock cliffs and big adventures. I am blessed to live in the greatest country in this world.

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Todd Lejnieks I just turned the big “Six-O” and am returning to school to practice what I love-writing. I live in Cave Creek and enjoy hiking in the Sonoran Preserve and on other trails in the area, and I work to bring meaning and community into the world through volunteering for the “Pachamama Alliance” whose mission is to build an environmentally sustainable, socially just, spiritually fulfilling human presence on Earth. I am also getting my credentials to become a Medicare Advisor. I live with my beautiful, soulful, wise partner, Rachelle, who is a part-time Functional Nurse Practitioner and a full-time goddess. And I enjoy watching my cat “Little Bear” perform his daily comedy routines.

Bonnie Lewis my artwork comes from memories, dreams, and sometimes secrets. It is usually narrative, sometimes whimsical, and sometimes mysterious. To be honest, the stories they tell are often mysterious to even me!! i enjoy blending the processes of painting, drawing, and collage often with the addition of fabric, then re-mixing and re-arranging these layers of visual elements to create something interesting as well as artistic. i hope my work continues to evolve and change but continues leaving the viewer with a sense of intimacy, wonder....and often times a smile.

Robert Lewis I am a retired opthalmologist. I enjoy studying writing as it allows me reflect on and examine my past.

Olivia Martinez This is the first time I have written a piece of creative non-fiction. Writing has been therapeutic and helped me accept the issues I›ve been struggling with. Opening up about dissociating and allowing others to read my hidden thoughts allows me to believe in the problem instead of convincing myself that I›m overreacting. I believe that submitting this essay is the first step in my journey to becoming a writer, whether I win or not. I am proud of my work and grateful for the healing it has done. 152

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Gloria Martins As an artist I want to talk about what interests me, my experience and perception of the world. My goal is to open a dialogue with the viewer about reality, the time we are living in, and the themes of our society.

Kristina Morgan Writing is breath for me. I wrote as a kid, and usually, illustrated stories of Batman and Robin getting the bad guy. I stopped writing for no particular reason but picked up the pencil again in 1999. Since then, Hazelden published my book Mind Without a Home: a Memoir of Schizophrenia and my poems have been published in various writing journals including two nominations for the Pushcart Prize. My writing is intuitive; it comes from some source I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand. Peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s comments about my writing teach me much about my writing. Big thanks to my professors, Sandra Desjardins and Kim Sabin. Your support has been incredible.

Ellen Nemetz I am a contemporary representational painter. I enjoy showing the beauty in ephemeral moments of time.

Adrienne Pagel I am an old person, and old people are seldom depicted in art. To counter ageism in painting I have used vibrant, simple, pure colors to present the viewer with the Senior Olympics athleteâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a seriously trained competitor full of passion, perseverance and determination. Just like athletes (and painters) of any age.

Emily Phillips i am a queer, non-binary person that has bipolar disorder. i want to be a good representation for all of these groups, and i strive every day to better myself for myself and the people i stand by.

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Richard Rosenberg I have been creating sculpture at Scottsdale Community College for over 20 years, working in various media including stone, welded and cast metals. My skills in three dimensional design have been put to good use in my career as a dentist. The art I create represents my mood and spirit at the time. My work is generally modern in feel, and often abstract with an organic nature. In addition to my art, I spend time gardening, focusing on cacti, succulents, and desert adapted trees and shrubs.

Marina Santa Cruz I am a current student at Scottsdale Community College simply trying to make a difference in the world.

Saige Shuquem I am a 20 year old part-time student at SCC. I am not currently enrolled in any art classes, but in my free time I run a small art business called StopGap where I design portraits, tattoos, and logos. I use the Procreate app on my iPad to hand draw all of my digital designs. My piece in this journal is a 2-D mixed media series, based on four of my StopGap designs. I am passionate about art, but right now it serves only as a hobby and creative outlet for me while I work two jobs and earn credits towards an AA.

Nancy Simpson Four years ago, I took early retirement from a wonderful career and company, and I now have more time to spend with my husband, my children, and my friends which is a huge gift. I am thankful to have had the ability to start the next chapter of my life at age 55. I play tennis each day, am a proud Artichoke, and I am taking a creative writing course. My goal is to write a memoir. My summers are spent in Toronto, Canada, where I live in a home built in 1883.

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Marie Tomisato I am an aspiring screenwriter. I wrote this play by splitting my personality in half and asking myself, If I met myself, would I want to be friends with her? Am I kind enough? Am I overly-dramatic? Too trusting? Or too closed-off ? Do I make assumptions about people I’ve never even had a conversation with? Above all, would I make myself want to be a better person? When these two girls meet in my narrative, they are opposites with the same needs and desires. Hell, they both love dogs. Jeanie and Orla are severely flawed, yet that makes them perfect for each other. Once they have seen the other, listened to the other, the other no longer exists, and they become one, balanced person who can ride into the future, whatever it holds.

Mateo TreeTop I am Mateo TreeTop, my mother is Tona TreeTop, and we are Hunkpapa Lakota from Fort Yates, North Dakota. I have relatives from the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nation in Fort Berthold, North Dakota. I have been a student at Scottsdale Community College since 2015, I am majoring in Graphic Design and Theater Arts. I am passionate about Native people and not just my own. That is why I wrote this poem since there are new problems with the oil pipelines again, and that is an important issue that effects everyone. I implore all of you to read and share what the Prophecy of the 8th Generation, Stand With Standing Rock, and No Dakota Access Pipeline are.

Adrian Villarreal I find nothing more intoxicating than getting lost in the craft.

Caroline Wargo I love expressing my thoughts through art and find inspiration almost everywhere. In the words of my beloved Aunt Anne, “If not for art, the world would be nothing.”

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Jada Warner I have always been passionate about exploring the world and learning about the diverse cultures practiced in different areas. While on a study abroad program fall 2019, I was fortunate enough to get immersed in Fijian traditional culture as I travelled to various cities and villages throughout Fiji. Though there is no way to fully grasp the complexity of Fijian culture without experiencing it first-hand, I attempted to use photography as a means of capturing the incredible glass-half-full-look-on-the-bright-side-of-things way of life that is Fijian culture.

Wonder Whalen Hello! I am a 27-year-old chronic artist. I found myself at Scottsdale Community College through a string of serendipities, and am so thrilled to be part of the student body here. I have made my living as a storyteller and artist since 2014, primarily through live music and spoken word. Writing is my first love. I am irrevocably devoted to the craft, its nuance, and the endless variety in individual style. Thank you for this opportunity to share my writing! I hope you enjoy what you see.

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Jada Warner

Medium: Photography

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2020