Scribendi 2019 by Scribendi

Scribendi vol. 33 | 2019

Western Regional Honors Council Literature and Arts Magazine

Scribendi 33

The University of New Mexico Honors College MSC06 3890

1 University of New Mexico

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Website:

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scribendi@unm.edu

Printed by Starline Printing Company, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Cover Design by Ally Wiesel with revisions by Alyssa Aragon and Hyunju Blemel Cover Art: In Ice. by Taylor Haggard, page 79

Fonts: Didot LT Pro, Charter, Songti SC (Chinese), and Times New Roman (Urdu)

Magazine Design by Alyssa Aragon, Hyunju Blemel, Bella Davis, Bettyjane Hoover, Faith MontaĂąo, Tirzah Reeves, and Josh Tise

Staff Photos by Donald Roberts Printed with PANTONE 177 U

To simplicity.

SCRI·BÉN·DI/ skribéndee/ participle

(nom., pl., masc., gerundive/ future passive part. of scribo, scriber—3rd conj.—“to write”) LATIN. Those which must be written.

Scribendi is an annual nonprofit literature and art magazine produced and published at the University of New Mexico Honors College by students, for students. Scribendi staff members work tirelessly

throughout the year to produce the work of art you are holding in your hands, doing everything from soliciting submissions to selecting works, from copyediting to typesetting, and from designing to producing the magazine. Scribendi uses a blind-jury process to select creative works from nearly

nine hundred Western Regional Honors Council (wrhc) and National Collegiate Honors Council (nchc)

schools. Scribendi publishes creative nonfiction, foreign language, open media—a category limited only

by the imagination—photography, poetry, short fiction, and visual art. The wrhc gives annual awards and $250 prizes to

wrhc

students. In past years, Scribendi has welcomed visiting staff members from

wrhc

schools through the National Student Exchange. The staff takes pride in providing a forum for fellow undergraduate honors students to publish their creative works.

2019 Staff

Alyssa Aragon Editor in Chief

Amaris Ketcham Faculty Advisor

Hyunju Blemel Managing Editor

Rowan Willow Office Manager

Heather Hay

Bella Davis

Jeanette DeDios

Bettyjane Hoover

Donald Roberts

Faith MontaĂąo

Tirzah Reeves

Lily Taichert

Josh Tise

Alexandria Wiesel

Foreword Alyssa Aragon Editor in Chief

he magazine that you hold in your hands has been not only my heart and soul, but also

the 2019 Scribendi staff’s this past year. I cannot begin to articulate how thankful I am to the eleven amazing staff members that I’ve had the pleasure of working with this year. The amount of passion and fire that each of you have for this magazine and the work inside of

it has been an inspiration to me. I am so proud of every one of you.

Two years ago, the word Scribendi meant absolutely nothing to me. It was a bizarre combination of

letters that I would often see along the bulletin board of my university’s Honors College or hear about in

an honors class, but other than that, it was simply just a word. The thing about perception is that it can change at the drop of a dime. I can confidently say that Scribendi has an entirely new meaning to me now. When I applied to be a part of the Scribendi staff for the first time, I didn’t know exactly what Scribendi

was. I didn’t have the slightest clue how many people this magazine affected each year, how critical publications such as Scribendi are to the collegiate art community, or how many countless hours it takes each staff to curate a professional literature and arts magazine. I especially didn’t know how much a packet of paper would mean to me after working on the magazine for two years.

To Hyunju Blemel, my Managing Editor, my rock, my dear friend: through the experiences that we have

shared, you have taught me to stop and enjoy the view when at all possible. I am forever thankful for the

memories that we have made together, from laughing until our stomachs hurt to the long hours spent in the office. Your talent is immeasurable, and your heart is truly made of gold.

To Amaris Ketcham, Scribendi’s Faculty Advisor for a striving eleven years: thank you for radiating

your love for this magazine in every staff and editor meeting and for extending a helping hand or words of encouragement whenever needed. Simply put, thank you for being the backbone of this publication.

Lastly, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to the hundreds of artists, authors, poets, directors,

and creative minds that submitted to Scribendi this year. You gave the staff an immense task, making

it difficult to choose only fifty-three pieces out of the 560 submissions that we received this year. Your creativity and willingness to share it with the world is the reason the Scribendi exists, and I cannot express how indebted I am to you as the Editor in Chief of this diversely brilliant publication.

To those reading the magazine: the work that you are about to experience has gone through various

channels to be printed in this magazine. We hope that you find the content in this edition to be as

enlightening, inspirational, heart-wrenching, heartwarming, and, overall, as exceptional as the 2019 staff

has. With a heart full of joy and a huge sigh of relief, I proudly present to you the 2019 edition of Scribendi.

iii

Table of Contents Creative Nonfiction The Depths Below

Kendra Barker

Ode to the Hyphen

Andrea Lara-García

Pokémon NO!

Katelyn Moorman

Viola sororia wrhc Award While Mother Was Chinese Staff Choice Award Women’s Pockets: A Crime against Nature

Hannah Utter

Daniel Lang

Jenna Rhodes

Short Fiction April’s Flowers

Nicole Schroeder

Dream a Little Dream

Alyssa Shikles

A Dream Vanished

Tehya Wachuta

Flightless Birds

Nina Palattella

I Think wrhc Award The seven-hundred-and-forty-first coming

Nat Quayle Nelson

Lara Meintjes

Waterboarding

Bennett Bowden

Poetry

Apophatic

Carrie George

“best shopping districts”

Lia Stefanovich

Dead Fish in a Puddle

Madison Haver

Frankenstein’s Monster Writes a Haiku

Rylan Rowsey

Hilltop Reflections

Taylor Steedman

Hotel Elysè

Hunter Hazelton

I can only speak of trauma in goddess tongues

Erin Benton

Liquor Store

Marvin Contreras

Poem in which I Wrestle with Origin

Nain Christopherson

Raspberry Pie Editors' Choice Award reliance wrhc Award Saturday Night in Whatcom County

Carrie George

Hannah Slind

Taylor Steedman

Selectivity

Nina Palattella

Photography Beware of Lawn Gnome

Joshua Lane

Clouded

Kyleigh Tyler

Curtains

Carrie George

From lands afar, with treasures galore. Ideas for Strings. wrhc Award In Ice.

Joshua Lane

Taylor Haggard

Midnight Musings

Mariposa Childson

Milky Way over Mount Rainier

Joseph Wishart

Reaching

Raquel Sacknoff

Trapped

Ashlyn Bothwell

Void

Lauren Sarkissian

Foreign Language

In Dreams ‫ | ﺧﻮاﺑﻮں ﻣﯿﮟ‬In Dreams

In this world ‫اس د ﻧ ﯿ ﺎ ﻣ ﯿﮟ‬ Where the days burn ‫ ﮨﻮں‬Breaking ‫ﺎں دن ﺟﻠﺘﮯ‬Bad ‫ ﮐﮩ‬Stereotypes And the nights melt wrhc Award ‫راﺗﯿﮟ ﭘﮕﮭﻠﺘﯽ ﮨﯿﮟ‬Moving ‫او ر‬ & Purging I live ‫ﻣ ﯿﮟ ر ﮨﺘﯽ ﮨﻮ ں‬ Restless ‫اﺿ ﻄ ﺮ ار ﻣ ﯿﮟ‬ Cock Fight I look at the sky ‫آﺳﻤﺎن ﮐﻮ دﯾﮑﮭﺘﯽ ﮨﻮں‬ Embers Wondering ‫ﺳ ﻮﭼ ﺘﯽ ﮨﻮ ئ‬ Examination of Misogyny Where the colors go ‫رﻧﮓ ﮐﮩﺎں ﺟﺎﺗﮯ ﮨﯿﮟ‬ Fishing for Time When I sleep ‫ﺟ ﺐ ﻣ ﯿﮟ ﺳ ﻮ ﺟ ﺎﺗ ﯽ ﮨﻮ ں‬ I Found my Home in Her Where I find peace ‫ﻣﻠﺘﺎ ﻣﯿﮟ‬Magnetic ‫ﺠﮭﮯ ﺳ ﮑﻮن‬Resonance ‫ﺟ ﮩ ﺎں ﻣ‬ Imaging In dreams ‫ﺧ ﻮ ا ﺑ ﻮ ں ﻣ ﯿﮟ‬ Martin

Kulsoom Mohammad

Open Media

Phoebe Cummins

Lauren Sarkissian

Visual Art

Lara Meintjes

Sarah Shaw

Alex Galindo

Tyairra Stredic

Saya “Ted” Richthofen

Gabriella Hesse

Ryan Williamson

Ogopogo Chillin’ Out Under the Sea

Alice Gau

Piccadilly Circus Editors' Choice Award

Gabriella Hesse

Shadow

Tarynn Di’Nnovati

Shut Up Legs

Alexandra Berkowitz

Sunshine Staff Choice Award Vulnerability wrhc Award

Joshua Chang

Lauren Thurgood

While Mother Was Chinese

Daniel Lang University of Nevada, Reno

I’m exhausted at midnight in Hong Kong as I slide myself into the flight seat

numbered 61A, toward the back of this mega-plane I’ve hauled myself aboard.

I get the window seat again, a plus. It storms outside. Sitting jammed in this sterile, metal rig, I

think, I need to get off this plane. I feel myself about to cry, but I don’t, as usual. I writhe in my seat mentally, but I’m right where I should be; my CX880 ticket’s marked. Oh, but that string of letters and numbers identifying my way home feels so impersonal.

I’d come to China in May, through study abroad scholarships to 上海 Shànghǎi. My mother was

Chinese. Throughout my life, I’d noticed she had habits unique from Dad and my siblings. She confused waiters at restaurants when she ordered her water hot. She wore flip-flops around the house whenever she got home. And, when cooking meals, she presented an array.

I’m the second of five half-Chinese children, but the first to engage with our Chinese side through

academia. The spring before I left the U.S., I urged Mom and Dad to let me use the last of my summer to stay in China and meet our family. Mom arranged the tickets.

I’m still in my chair on this grounded flight that’s roaring without moving. I glance around, my eyes

trained on the indifferent red exit signs and spaceship-looking plane parts. I feel absurd. Although this gargantuan machine looks identical to the one on which I landed in China three months before today, I feel my stomach knot, my lips purse. I don’t mean to feel torn, but I do.

I exhale a heavy breath. This summer abroad was no jaunt. I met relatives I never knew I had. Will we

meet again? Those Chinese relatives—my Chinese family—experienced this crisp snapshot of me just two hazy years into learning our language.

I imagine my cute little eighth-grade cousin, with her overalls and Harry Potter glasses, as a

college student thinking back on the summer her twenty-year-old half-Chinese uncle visited China. Her dad challenged me, the young uncle, to translate Chinese phrases in her English newspaper-

looking worksheets. He videotaped the moment and shared it to our Chinese family group chat, forever documenting that silly afternoon with me on the couch holding in my fingers and my lap my 上海

Shànghǎi course notes, his daughter’s papers, my blocky, red pocket dictionary, and a dlsr camera. The little cousin peeked over my shoulder inquisitively. I influenced her English this summer.

I met relatives of every generation this summer. I grasped the rough, worn hands of aged

uncles, and I saw the pupils of babies born after I began college. All these people—related to me and related to my siblings.

creative nonfiction

Staff Ch o i ce Award: L i teratu re

om left for America around August, too.

Over the intercom, a Hong Kong English voice

I boarded, I noticed a cousin in 北京 Běijīng was right

The feeling sends me back to my ordeal last week

from other Chinese. The faces seem flatter, with

when she said our province’s people look different

“apologizes” for delays. His posh sound irks me.

rounder edges and sharper eyes.

at the airport in mainland China, just trying to reach

We aren’t related by blood, but as I scan the

Hong Kong and this flight. I find no patience left for the accent. Maybe I have reverse culture shock. I

train car, these men and women feel related to me

also had to put up with being denied by authorities

returning to America, I’ll study my facial features

as though kin among strangers. Two months after

imagine these events as a final parallel to Mom, who

in a church bathroom mirror and recognize their

the first time she tried to leave China, two dozen

faces in mine.

years before me.

I glance down and see with relief the black

Three guys sit facing me, smiling, wondering

dlsr

camera wedged securely in my lap. By some miracle

if I’ll speak.

school’s dean had lent me just hours before I

and a half months. Add my coursework in Reno,

It’s a void beyond the window, which I don’t

cousin warned I’d have trouble understanding the

I’ve studied Mandarin in 上海 Shànghǎi for two

I held onto every lens, cap and cord my journalism

and I’ve studied two years. But when a Chinese

vanished from my university.

湖南 Húnán dialect, I was surprised to learn our

feel like photographing. I usually like to log my

province had a dialect.

experiences. Later, when I sort the summer’s photos,

The guys compliment me on my black silk

I’ll find over thirty thousand.

But now the blaring plane lurches toward the

traditional Chinese shirt, and one affirms, beaming

China, and I wonder if my journey was worth it. I

luckily had a lesson on describing clothes. The

a thumbs-up. My Chinese conversation course

darkness, as the storms let up. I’m really leaving

guys’ eyes, like those of the Chinese girls and

finish penning in the final journal Mom bought me

guys who befriended me in 上海 Shànghǎi, widen

to celebrate my second year studying Chinese.

in amazement at the shirt, how I got it, and my

—

language abilities.

I’m awake in the middle of the night on my first

I haggled it a month ago in 北京 Běijīng. Relatives

train. Rain streaks across my right window. It’s

had gifted me the

July’s end, and I’ve just turned twenty. I’m from 上海 Shànghǎi —at

China’s coast—to a capital in central China where I’ll

stay with Mom’s relatives. I take snapshots of the dark

usd

equivalent of over a

hundred dollars to buy clothes.

situated on a ten-hour ride

I find no patience left for the accent.

I chose this black silk

shirt since I liked the way light shimmered off the embroidery. Double-sided

red and black, I found it versatile, too (thinking

world rushing by, then put

pragmatically, like Dad).

my camera down. It’ll be morning

I wore the red side when I met those

when I arrive in Mom’s birth province. She

first mentioned this city to me four months ago.

relatives in 北京 Běijīng, because I heard black means

coming home?

cousin saw me in the shirt, she smiled, saying the

rain and back into the bright train. Since the moment

luck, longevity, and wealth. I didn’t even spot the fish.

death. Mom never liked discussing death. When a

In coming to the 湖南 Húnán Province, am I

traditional red dragon and fish designs welcome

I nudge my head, taking my eyes off the black

Daniel Lang

As I parry what seem like jokes and I clarify,

When the guys on this train realize I understand

Mandarin, they speak rapidly, so I procure my course

indeed, this is my first time in China, people press

get scribbling. I’m poor at pronunciation, so I listen

and asks where Mom is right now, what she does.

with greater interest. A certain deep-voiced man grins

notes and dictionary from my backpack beside me and and try writing accents above my Chinese 拼音 pīnyīn

I hesitate.

(English-letter forms). Romanized words lack the magic marks that distinguish correct pronunciation.

Our train shrieks into

another station. I’ll later

realize while journaling that it’s 3 am. Outside is all black,

except for a man-made star

I guess she’s in America. I can’t

remember how to say Mom is

I’ve never before formed the words I’m about to say.

a translator. With Chinese tenses, I struggle—should

I be replying using “is” or “was?”

I’ve never before formed

the words I’m about to say.

grid of light poles illuminating

platforms. Back in 上海 Shànghǎi, I imagined

“我妈妈死了 Wǒ māmā sǐle.”

searching for platform nine-and-three-quarters as I hurried between crowds to my train car. It’s not raining in this

Silence.

province, though.

To mention somebody died re-kills this person

Passengers throughout the car heave their luggage

before your eyes. Months back, in 上海 Shànghǎi,

from the racks above, then amble away as new

I tried to avoid mentioning that Mom had died.

crowds board and claim the vacated seats. But the

When I spoke of it in any introduction, I kept seeing

train remains halted this time. Others get up to walk

in my conversation partners’ breathless gasps like I

about, so I guess this is a break period. My legs need a

just shot them.

stretch, so I untangle them and rise to the aisle.

That man who was heckling on the train, still

I stand a while, and a pleasant-looking woman

smug, pauses as though processing a joke. He

seated across the aisle starts small-talk. I’ve never

glances around, seeing few people laugh now.

heard questions structured in grammar like her’s

Concern infects every face.

before, so I clarify back with the words I know, to be

Luckily—or “unluckily,” as Chinese would say—

sure. I feel like I’m taking the director’s cut version of my Chinese conversations final from four days ago.

talking about death is easy as one-two-three. That’s

in as I use my canned response saying, “I’m from

about like, “死 sǐ,” which means, “to die.” So, if you

湖南 Húnán person.” A ripple of wide-eyes and

life is dead.

The train-riders wear many colors of clothes. Most

the news harder than my foreign exchange friends.

middle-aged, and elderly ride too.

Mom’s distant relatives and closest friends realizing

I catch the spotlight of unfamiliar gazes looking

because the word, “四 sì,” meaning “four,” sounds

America. My dad is American, but my mom is a

can count, you can also say the one who gave you Noticeably, Chinese friends and relatives take

murmurs courses from me to the car’s furthest end.

I’ll later overhear the hushed voices of two of

seem college or working-aged, though some youth,

my mom’s own mother died relatively young, too.

The tide of voices splashes me differently now.

“You’re doing great, speak with confidence!” says a

So misfortunate, the relatives will say in Chinese,

young Chinese guy using English, who surprises me

low enough that I know the topic isn’t pleasing, but

with a cheerful wave. This car-wide q&a ping-pongs

not so low that I can’t hear the words. Mom had

across, and I juggle real questions against jeers and

traveled home from her job in the capital to the

onlookers. I’m a one-man panel with no moderator.

relatives the week her own mother had died. That’s

creative nonfiction

how I’ll realize it’s normal for Chinese sons and

conditioning, and the two of us use the lamplight

of a parent. To the Chinese, my decision to come to

her spoken Chinese. Thankfully, dialects become

of his desk. She writes on a scratch piece of paper

daughters to travel to see their family after the loss

one in written characters. Mom used to keep paper

China, although brave—which they often insisted—

at her desk when I was little, too.

was also natural.

I inscribe translations of my aunt’s words into

When the train pulls away from the station, I’m

shocked to hear, in English, a song over the intercom,

notebooks I’m compiling about Mom. Mom was

Bette Midler’s “The Rose.” Mom used to play it

On the backs of photographs, Mom wrote basic

a professional translator. I’m just trying my best.

“Some say love… it is a river…”

descriptions. Most had my siblings’ names in

from her desktop computer.

English with a year and month in Chinese. Mom

In August, I’ll decide to wear the shimmering

wrote English, not Chinese, perhaps reminding her

black shirt again during my flight leaving from China

friends she used to be an English professor in China.

to America. Abroad, I don it for travel throughout

Her friends said she gave them their English names.

China, like my final day in 上海 Shànghǎi. The

Mom mailed many photos without internet.

shade of the dead is also the shade of professionals. Wearing it later in America, I’ll feel myself plunge

On a printed sheet of copy paper, off-color scans

With my faith, I understand Mom’s all right anyway.

with all five kids. The image of my mother flashes

include a portrait my family has framed at home,

into memories from my world in transition abroad.

before me, amateurishly scanning the photos to

It’s still raining outside.

set them on a Word doc for printing, in her old

—

office. I photograph the artifacts. The oldest photos

I’ve lived in Mom’s province for four days now. I

show my older brother and I in a colored wagon

arrived here on a misty Monday morning. She seems

that I remember. Mom’s handwriting on the back

to follow me, the rain. Tonight, at the dining room

shows our names in English, followed by "在美国,"

table, my aunt gingerly removes from a tattered

Chinese for, “in America.”

manila envelope years of what my mother has

Three months ago, when I was in Vegas, Dad

mailed—photographs.

carried into the dining room Mom’s torn purse and

Photographs of me, photographs of my siblings; I

ripped straps, three days after her death. Dad and

feel both perplexed and touched.

my siblings were confused over her key chain,

I recognize these. Most are identical to

a slim rectangular prism engraved,

those that Mom pasted into our enormous baby albums. Mom would show these to my siblings and me when

we grew up in Indiana. Sometimes for fun, my

siblings and I would tug

The shade of the dead is also the shade of the professionals.

translate.

“That’s

name,” I said. Except

I’d

her

never

read her name before. Otherwise

would’ve

noticed long ago how it

them off the bottom shelf

shares the same 林 Lín as wood,

in her office to flip through the

and the same 月 yuè as moon. I should’ve

memories we didn’t have of ourselves.

caught that when my siblings and I chose for her

Seeing these photos now, in my hands, in China, I

funeral a Chinese poem she taught about the moon.

have so many questions. But I struggle to understand

For that last character, 君, I guessed, figuring its

Mom’s friend. She speaks only the dialect.

pronunciation, “jūn.”

She leads me into her son’s room since he’s

Mom always wanted us to learn.

away from home tonight. She turns on the air

Daniel Lang

林月君. Only I could

I learn more from my aunt by lamplight. I ask if she

had felt ostracized by my siblings for my photography

says in Chinese, “especially during holidays like Chinese

of her death in May, Dad constantly told us a phrase I

and journaling after Mom passed. But during the week

and Mom called each other. “Almost every year,” she New Year.” A

flood

imagine a cop or detective told my family the

night authorities pronounced my

memories

washes over me, whether

my family lived in Indiana or after we moved to

North Las Vegas—Mom’s

giddy laugh, speaking the

mother dead: “Everyone

Mom always wanted us to learn.

grieves in their own way.”

I ask my aunt my

question,

feeling

myself breathe as though

through a void. My second

fastest, most joyful Chinese

time this week, I almost cry

I didn’t know. Perhaps her

interviewing relatives. Mother’s friend

happiest moments.

comforts me, insisting Mom loved me. Her tone and

One afternoon in Vegas, when I was in middle

expression of cotton tenderness I’ve felt before only

or high school, Mom was upstairs in her room

from monastic sisters and my mother.

with the door open, and I was downstairs wedged

Chinese hug with words.

horizontally over a green couch, with my back

Two nights after my aunt showed me those

propped against one armrest, and my legs flung over

photos Mom mailed, I’m in 洞口 Dòngkǒu, in a

the other (If Dad had seen, he would’ve scolded me

village I discover is my family’s ancestral land. I’m

for wearing out the chair).

staying at a cousin’s apartment, with her husband

Mom would talk for so long, her call seemed to

and toddler. Yesterday they took me to visit the

go on the entire day. Maybe she walked downstairs

林 Lín family home, a farmhouse. I felt amazed,

at some point to start cooking. Back when I was

thinking for twenty years that only on my Kansan

little, I’d only figured she spoke to her nephew, who

dad’s side I’d come from farmers.

moved to work in America when we lived in Indiana.

One night at their apartment, I’m sitting on the

Now I realize she spoke to my aunt or other relatives

couch using my tablet to empty the camera sd card,

I only now know. Random days, those calls seemed

while their toddler shouts Chinese words he thinks I

to me.

should know. My cousin’s husband captures a video

Memory streams flow together. Through these

of the toddler insisting I say “grapes” in Chinese

photos, relatives kept up with our lives—five half-

(relatives across China who see the video will

American children born and raised across the ocean.

comment on how quickly I’m learning our dialect).

When relatives called Mom, she told them how she

While I work, my cousin innocently approaches

loved us and what we were up to. Here, in China,

me. She asks me if I have photos of my little sisters.

talk about her life, she talked about ours—my life.

I try connecting to Western internet to pull photos

My sisters don’t share much with me, unfortunately.

our relatives ask me about Mom because she didn’t

from Facebook as she leaves the room.

My aunt insisted Mom loved being in photos.

All at once, I feel heartbroken scrolling through

All her Chinese friends, relatives, and her former roommates, they all say this, too. But so many of

the Facebook albums and see a sister’s high school

They didn’t exist anymore. I photograph the ones

photograph. I find on my other sister’s feed what

their photos were lost a decade ago in a home flood.

graduation with my mom and me missing from the

that remain, taped and glued wherever they are.

looks like her prom. When was that?

places for me months after coming back to America. I

my cousin walks back with a photograph she says

While looking through the lives I don’t remember,

The word home will echo in reference to disparate

creative nonfiction

my uncle sent nine years ago. It’s of Mom’s two little

they take me toward a brightly-lit overlook I had

photographer. The two of them crouch beside each

crowded. This time, my relatives get their usual

wanted to visit before. My first time, it was too

girls—toddlers so cute and smiley—beaming at the

photos of me to send to the rest of the family, then

other in the grass.

I walk alone. I ascend a wide staircase, like that of

I know this photograph.

the public library Mom took me to when I was little. From the top, I take in a breath of fresh, moist

A life ago, I captured this image, which family I never knew would know my sisters by.

air and see black waves crashing at least three

It was sunny outside, that day I first held a camera—Mom’s

invites pensiveness.

stories below. The water’s nonchalant vastness Mom had been here on this riverwalk before, as

sliver of a silver point-and-shoot— in my tiny hands.

a professor in 1993 and during her return to China

Mom later framed that photo of my sisters and a

in 2001, my aunt confirmed. I existed, as a four-

few other pictures I took that day.

year-old in America that second time.

I was… six? Seven, maybe? I photographed on a

I look across at an island in the 湘江 Xiāng

4-H program for fun. The silver device reframed my

River, where decades ago, Mom had biked after

usual wandering outside, because I could capture

work to visit another cousin of ours. From one of

flowers I saw in the yard and people in time.

Mom’s roommates I met today, I learned that Mom

I didn’t return to photography until high school.

had been to so many specific places I visited this

When I earned my first historian position as a

summer in this city named 长沙 Chǎngshā. After I

sophomore, Mom bought my first camera, a blocky,

return to the U.S., I’ll remember Mom at the sight

black point-and-shoot. Mom wanted to help me

of any river.

buy a new camera for China. After she died, the

Only one photo of Professor Mom visiting the

journalism school lent me a camera.

island survived the flood a few decades ago. In that

overseas to relatives. That’s how they knew about

in such an innocent dress with a serene expression.

That pure, little photo of my sisters, Mom mailed

photo, which our cousin showed me, I saw Mom

She seemed without stress, content to have spent the

my siblings and me. Our relatives in China knew

pleasant day with her cousin, my aunt.

about us for two decades. We never knew those

I sigh, looking past the island. Back

relatives existed. Two decades.

In China, I saw not only my life but the lives of my

siblings through the lenses of family.

—

In four days, my aunt, her husband, and I expect

me to leave China. So,

then, my Mom had no husband,

A life ago, I captured this image, which family I never knew would know my sisters by.

tonight after dinner, we return

talented instructor who

inspired her colleagues

and friends. I spot a mountain I visited on

my third day after the train. Mom had been there too, apparently.

湖南 Húnán wasn’t just where Mom came

to the riverwalk we visited on my second

from, nor her family. It’s where I come from, too.

night with them in the capital of Mom’s province. We

Although I stand here tonight during my first visit

follow familiar streets, so I wander ahead capturing

to China, I feel this won’t be my last visit. In six

the moments one last time. We reach the river, and

Daniel Lang

no children. She was a

months, I went from having met just three relatives

I remembered how proud Mom was when she saw

in the past twenty years to having met and learned

me writing stories in elementary school. I pull out

This summer I started a digital family tree. I

always knew. I came to China as the first of my

about three dozen.

my journal, feeling that I grasp a secret that Mom

photographed, journaled and logged everything. In 洞口 Dòngkǒu, a cousin told me Mom was interested in our family tree, like me. Seriously? She cared about our ancestry? Why did Mom never tell me?

Yet this could be the start

family. Mom came to America as the

湖南 Húnán wasn’t just where Mom came from, nor her family. It’s where I come from, too.

of a new era of communication

first of her family—our family. Am I a pioneer like my mother? Long

before

the

events of May, I wanted to go to China to better understand my mother.

On this walkway that Mom

for us all. After I return to the U.S., I’ll help my

found beautiful, overlooking the ever-

cousin in 北京 Běijīng choose her three-year-old son’s

evolving city’s internal sea, I realize in 2017 I’ve

I walk across the platform and gaze down at the

first of her family. Her nephew followed her ten

English name.

done what I had set out to do. Mom really was the

path of ornately hewn stone, flanked by the waters

years later. My aunt says my cousin will be next.

afar and luminous lamps near. A performer’s jazz sets

Mom sent me to live with her friend in this city

a rather atmospheric mood, with the waves below.

because 长沙 Chǎngshā was genuinely Mom’s home.

We came here three weeks ago to see fireworks

And I existed by then. My past three weeks feel

celebrating Army Day’s 90th anniversary, but tonight

rewritten, like my past two decades.

I breathe a damp mist. I’m pained to realize

feels different.

I look back at the black waves. Skyscrapers

too late that I’m so much like my family. Mom

years, remind me that this city, the last Mom had

I’ve wanted to be a professor for years. And her

never mentioned her life as an English professor.

shining in the distance, born in the past twenty

parents were Chinese teachers? Even Dad taught

called home in China, is not as it was. Yet it was

high school science.

from here that she chose to leave the country. She

Before America, Mom was Chinese. She wasn’t the

was just nine years older than I am now when she

became the first of her family, of our family, to leave

Chinese American mom I knew. And yet, throughout

Across the walkway, I hear my aunt calling

Dad. I never knew so personally these sides of Mom

my life Mom chastised me for being too much like

this country.

that parallel me.

my name. In her eyes, I see the concern she wore

Comfort creeps in. Professor Mom was the version

the night she showed me Mother’s mail. I fumble

through my backpack for my pocket dictionary

of her who walked beside me here, in this city that

know the way back. We came here my second night

And in improving my Chinese, I can understand her.

changed her life in China forever. She too was a writer.

as I step toward her, searching to say, “to stay.” I

here, remember? I bargain for time. She nods, lips

Mom died before I realized she knew me.

I feel soft rain on cue. I return my journal to my

furrowed, and leaves to tell her husband, waiting

bag and begin to leave the platform. This is the first

below the platform.

In 1994, my mother, while in America wrote to a

night in the province I forgot an umbrella.

friend in China, how she thought of herself as a pioneer

As I descend the stairs, I see from a distance my

for her family. A friend who helped me translate called

aunt still there, with her concerned eyes, furrowed

her style poetic. Mom wrote poetically?

brow and pursed lips. She seemed to say, I know

creative nonfiction

you’re here for a reason, and I’ve let you stay as long

arrived the day she was killed, that I’ve all the

seem normal. Mom wore that face, too.

I already bought the clothes she expected me to

scholarships she congratulated me for, that she and

as you wanted to, but if you stay any longer, it won’t

wear abroad, that she already mentioned relatives

The rain picks up, its cold drops pecking me as

I’ve never heard of, that the dean of my journalism

we propel ourselves briskly.

school lent me a camera so I could interview family

Here in China, I walk the same path as Mom.

in China, that I packed so few things from Reno

—

when I flew home knowing I’m going abroad,

Mother’s Day is this weekend.

and that it’s not like I have any other plans this

Mother was killed three nights ago. I was still in

Reno, but last night, after packing up my residence

summer—I find Dad’s question absurd.

Technically, it’s college finals week.

his strife. But I opt for my typical, nonchalant,

just met my dad… Dad and I just embraced an embrace

course” at the end.

tired I am. I could see in his what a worn, faulted, real

cannot picture life more desolate than this—the

Last night he insisted I keep quiet, and I respect

hall room, I landed here in dry Vegas. I’m nineteen.

“yeah,” to quell my indignation and not add an, “of

After midnight, I journaled: “I feel like tonight, I

Although I cannot foresee life abroad, I also

like no other. He said he could see it in my eyes, how

final place I once called home.

human he is. I need to be there for my family.”

Penning it, I felt my evaluation was harsh—but

I no longer saw Dad as merely “Dad.” I saw a man who lost his wife.

I had never seen him look more defeated before

that night. He had always conveyed that firmness of a

Kansan farm-raised father who paid his way through med school with the military. But I remembered Dad

and Mom also made the family’s most important decisions together. My parents were a team.

Today I wrote: “It will be like this nightmare revisited

every morning.”

But this Saturday is Mom’s funeral. I feel a little

euphoric knowing I’ll really see her again.

Midday Thursday, Dad and I are standing in our

dining room. I am passing through. Sun glints through

the porch window. Papers haphazardly choke the table between us.

In hindsight, I’ll imagine Dad’s question came to

him during a stiller glimmer of his days spent gritting through numb calls and death logistics. Last night, after he ridiculed me for asking too many questions, his tone

suddenly changed to thank me, waveringly, for getting through college with my finances together.

Now he asks me with the beaten weariness of his

recently raspy voice, “Do you still want to go to China?” Considering that Mom texted me that my visa

Daniel Lang

Midnight Musings

35 mm film | 9'' Ă&#x2014; 6''

Mariposa Childson University of New Mexico

photography

Examination of Misogyny Alex Galindo University of New Mexico charcoal on paper | 8'' Ă&#x2014; 7.5''

visual art

Hilltop Reflections Taylor Steedman University of Washington Tacoma 1 Perched quietly in this concrete forest,

I glance up to the hospital on the hill—

undulating walls, mountain range heartbeat rising and falling on a blue monitor. Nailed to the top is a rusty cross,

promising salvation. Some Saint’s name is splayed above its door,

too hard to make out from down here in this shallow grave.

Proud on its pedestal, master pretender.

In December, they will wrap a medal of lights around this victor’s neck.

Ivory crown rests on our King’s head,

adorned with sapphire slivers of sky—cobalt veins peeking through the sheer skin of a premature infant, rocked to sleep in a cradle of plastic vines,

snaking down to a tiny stomach. Against the pale afternoon light: a gray, black storm.

Once on that precipice,

there was a Douglas fir—not an infirmary.

Arms that could reach to the fourteenth floor

where, now, newborns emerge from pink cocoons. Someone cut down the bark tower, used its amputated limbs

as foundation for this artifice, built on a burial ground.

poetry

2 Then, there is me—and memory.

The century-old oak tree on my street, collapsing. Its sticky blood stained my neighbor’s hands. He said the rot was spreading from its core, it would die soon anyway.

Might as well rip the lifeline from its arm… Timmmmberrrrr!

I remember the cool comfort of that stalwart shade.

Fell down laughing on wet earth after hours of playing pretend,

nights I drifted into dreams swinging

from the branches of my father’s redwood embrace.

New seedlings were planted

and the cherry blossoms bloom

in spring, but I miss the big oak tree I thought would still be standing when I no longer did. 3 I am back once more,

awakened by the warrior cries of my father at midnight. In the moonlight I see the men adorned in red,

carrying him down the stairs—

an Egyptian Queen on her golden litter. Floating down the Nile

to that hospital on the hill. Sweat mixing with tears,

it was the dead. Of Summer.

The time when April’s flowers

begin to wither from the heat.

Taylor Steedman

Linoleum floors and sliding doors.

Its threat tangible, seems so far away from a few blocks down.

Only a stoplight or two separates the departed from the living. 4 Now, in my head—a gentle jingle of car keys from the claws of a passing predator,

oh wait! It’s just a nurse on her lunch break. Somehow the hospital’s guts have spilled

into my safe haven. Smell of sterilized despair mixes with the daffodil petals falling slowly, then a little quicker.

Shaken by the familiar clunk of her ugly shoes, I guess hopelessness is heavy.

A sigh, the melody of exhaustion—

I have heard this symphony before. The rainstick rush of pills

my mother places in seven small coffins, marking each day of the week.

My father is addicted to their potent music. Grand finale is the clink of glass

as matriarch pours her medicine over ice. 5 The hospital on the hill, I realize, is not too far to touch.

An avalanche brought its debris miles away, here, to my home.

The bleach that seeps through my door, ajar as mom tries to scrub away the apathy. Every light turned off and we say: no visitors today or tomorrow.

poetry

Pokémon NO!

Katelyn Moorman University of Wyoming

y older brother, Zach, set the microwave on fire when I was six. He thought the

aluminum foil would make the cheeseburger cook faster. Another year, during a

nasty winter, my mother came running out of the house like a headless chicken,

screaming when she caught us lying on the snow underneath giant icicles that had

formed on the side of our house. Zach was throwing rocks at them as I held our baby

brother’s back to my chest, my arm outstretched to point at the nearly see-through cones in the sky.

It was common for all three of us to play on the kitchen floor as our mom cooked dinner. One night I told Breyden, my baby brother, to lift his chubby, little legs so I could push him in his toy dump truck—I

launched that plastic death trap straight into my older brother’s chin, my little brother giggling so hard his head tipped backward as his little fingers curled to grasp the imaginary debris that floated in the air from the wreckage. Zach had really bad teeth—the collision caused his crooked bucktooth to rip a hole in his bottom lip.

We were the source of our mother’s stress knots. —

Zach moved out when I was seventeen, taking his impromptu, heavy metal guitar solos and

stretched-out earlobes with him. It was awkward with him gone, with no more angry teenage rebellion ballads shaking the foundation and no more watered-down whiskey bottles in Dad’s

supposedly secret stash. My mother couldn’t stop smiling the week he moved out, humming pop

gospel songs as she converted Zach’s old bedroom into a craft space for scrapbooking, furniture redecorating, and knick-knack making.

I don’t think any of us ever thought Zach would leave. We didn’t think he had it in him to

pay a lease, cook for himself, or do his own laundry. This was the boy who, at age sixteen, had started growing out his hair because Dad had told him he needed a haircut (Zach’s cascading, golden curls now reach the middle of his back). I’m confident that moving out was his biggest act of defiance—the muffler of his car flipped us the bird as it backed out of the driveway, whispers

hidden in between the sputter of the motor saying, “You thought he’d never do it. You thought he’d never amount to anything. He’ll sure show you, damn it!”

It was like my brother to grow up because of a grudge.

Mom was caught caressing Zach’s graduation photo so often that I wondered why she ever put

it back into the frame. Occasionally, Dad would yell from across the house for Zach, wondering if he’d like to watch the game or if he’d seen this video my dad had found on the internet. Breyden, a sixth grader who hadn’t yet figured out that the age gap between himself and his siblings would

one day leave him with only his parents for company, mostly walked around with a muddled look

on his face. He was confused when the house was silent and Zach wasn’t hiding around the corner, waiting to scare the laughter out of him. He didn’t understand that Zach had a home of his own.

creative nonfiction

He didn’t understand that he had moved on.

the Sandshrew he’d just collected reflected in his

but that didn’t stop me from missing him. Video

He looked like a mildly surprised stoner—his mouth

glasses, which were perched too low on his nose.

I had thought that my older brother was an idiot,

and eyes were perpetually half open. “I saw it on the

games were dull without Zach’s blatant cheating;

internet.”

practical jokes were poorly thought out and terribly executed. Zach had been the sibling that glued the three of us

together. Without him, our dark comedy was bland,

our sarcasm too spitting. We were Larry and Curly with Moe out of town, one

I rolled my eyes. “Is this

“Dude, it’s the ultimate scam!” Breyden said, his top lip curling into a smile.

about that game cheat

thing?” A few hours ago, we had been talking about

ways

trick

the Pokémon GO app into thinking we were walking, which would

hatch our digital eggs to give

stooge marking the difference

us digital Pokémon in exchange for no

between actual comedy and pity laughter.

physical effort. If we could pull it off, we would fly

I was tired of the awkward discomfort during

through levels like a hot butter knife cutting through

that first month Zach was gone. It polluted the air

a block of cheese.

like smog so thick I was afraid I’d choke if I breathed

“Dude, it’s the ultimate scam!” Breyden said,

too deeply. I wanted to laugh with Breyden so hard

that I cracked a rib—I wanted us to tell dumb jokes

his top lip curling into a smile. “All we have to do is

mostly I just wanted my brother to feel like a brother

“The ceiling fan?” I remember asking dumbly.

stick our phones to the fan.”

and blame broken dinner plates on each other, but to me again. To form a separate, two-sibling bond

“With what? Duct tape?”

It would be challenging, as most of my childhood

over the bottom half of his face, “something like that.”

chaotic trio to upend the tyranny of my parents and

into the back of closets and reaching our hands

new memories—humiliating memories involving

of a single roll of silver prominence, the one

“Yeah,” he said, his grin unevenly spreading itself

with my little brother became one of my life goals.

Five seconds later we were shoving our heads

memories occurred with all three of us acting as a

into the crevices behind bathroom sinks in search

their soul-crushing rules. Breyden and I had to form

fundamental key to our success: duct tape. We

ridiculously stupid stunts—to turn our broken trio

were intoxicated by the thought of the prosperity

into a fully functioning duo. Luckily for us, we’d

that would come once our plan was executed. Our

been learning from the best for years.

giddiness manifested itself through laughter and

—

excited hand gestures, and our grins were never-

We were sitting on the decaying leather couch in

ending. We thought of ourselves as pioneers in

the basement; Hey Arnold was playing on the T.V. as

the world of shortcuts. Children would sing songs

my little brother and I compared Pokémon GO stats

about our cunning—our bravery.

on our phones. Breyden, a sentient twig with an

When Breyden came down the stairs with the

unnecessary amount of sass, looked over at me and said slowly, as if for suspense, “Hey, I got an idea.”

duct tape bouncing around in his pale palm and

possibly a “Huh?” or a “What?”

should’ve questioned the logistics of our plan.

laughing like Beavis from Beavis and Butthead, I

I replied with something monotonal and distanced,

Instead, I joined in with his laughter, letting out

Breyden coughed, wanting me to look over at

him before he revealed his brilliant plan. I could see

choppy,

“Huh-huh…huh…huh…huh-huh-

Katelyn Moorman

was sheer panic, and we both had different ideas of

huh…” cadence that became synchronized with

how to remedy the situation.

our heartbeats. We kept saying things like, “Dude,

Breyden suddenly said, “I’ll get a broom—”

it’s going to think we walked at least ten miles,” and

“What?”

“We’re such frickin’ geniuses,” as Breyden stood on

“—to stop the fan—”

my back, wiped his sleeve over the ceiling fan

I grabbed his arm to root him in place.

blade to get the top layer of dust off, and

“You will do no such thing—”

taped our phones to opposite sides of the fan so that it would “even out” the weight—another

genius

addition to our planning.

We stood underneath

the fan for a solid minute, our necks craning so that our faces were parallel

with it. We reassured

each other something like:

I was crouching, my hands flailing above my head for protection from the bloodthirsty smartphones circling above us like vultures.

We froze, eyes wide

and

pulses

pounding

in our eardrums when we

heard

the

crash.

Our phones had to have been at

least

experiencing seven

G’s

when they shot off in different directions, one

shattering the T.V. and the

other bouncing anticlimactically

“Where on the internet did you

off the couch. Silent shock lined our faces

see this?”

as we stared at the damage we had caused, the

“I don’t know, something dot org.” “Dot org?”

fan still whirling chaotically above our heads as if

“Seems legit.”

head!” through the cracked black screen, but I

to mock us. I could hear Helga yelling, “Football

“Yeah.”

couldn’t see Arnold. There were a few multicolored

I reached up and tugged the chain. Immediately

lines that ran vertically across the T.V., but we both

the wooden knob broke off and the chain shot up

knew there was no salvaging it. I looked at my little

into the glass casing that protected the light bulb.

brother out of the corner of my eye and wondered

We looked at each other, our huh-huh’s dying in

if his skull would have cracked as easily as the T.V.

our throats as the fan wobbled and creaked at an

Life is funny like that. It takes a perfectly

increasingly violent speed. I thought the ceiling was

going to crumble onto our heads. Our decapitations

pure moment—one with a sister and her brother

voice high pitched and breaking as a few choice

it with Death’s ugly mug, the incorporeal realm’s

finding common ground, for instance—and ruins

seemed inevitable. Breyden started screeching, his

equivalent of the douche who shows up uninvited

words escaped his mouth. He was all kinds of frantic,

to the party and eats all the dip. Zach was always

saying, “What do we do—what do we do—”

telling us that if you punched someone hard

I was crouching, my hands flailing above my head

enough you could kill them. A flying iPhone is

for protection from the bloodthirsty smartphones

like a punch. If Breyden had been standing in the

circling above us like vultures. Breyden was lost in

wrong place, his temple exposed at the wrong

his own world, and I don’t think even he was aware

time… I wouldn’t have been able to pay for it by

of the squawking that was ripping out of his throat.

doing chores, to say the least. It would’ve been a

He was looking straight up at the fan, and I couldn’t

freak accident if Breyden had died from getting

get his attention. I kept interrupting myself saying,

bonked in the melon with a smartphone, but life is

“Stop moving around—holy crap—cover your head—

full of freak accidents like that. Stand in the wrong

” as my thoughts fought for dominance in my brain. It

creative nonfiction

place at the wrong time and a piano will fall on your

of my older brother had given way for new

flying iPhones and falling pianos, and waiting for the

our lives to open. We were no longer worrisome

“It was my idea,” he said all morose-like. “I’ll take

instead. Breyden, the Beavis to my Butthead,

I looked over at Breyden, a blind golden retriever

and sighing dramatically when anyone disagreed

he had yet to grow up in. He owned too many

were unstoppable in the way that all teenagers

shoulders stooping because he wasn’t used to his

pulled on our parents, one memory would always

only visible if the light hit it just right—and it was

Incident, ironically named so by Breyden and

“Naw,” I said, a scrunch in my nose as I nudged his

else brought it up in conversation, was our greatest

relationships to form and for a new chapter in

head. We’re all just stumbling through life, dodging day that our reactions are one second too slow.

children,

the heat.”

started to expand on his sass, thinning his lips

more than a person, at times too pure for the world

with him. He grew taller, thinner, and weirder. We

Minecraft t-shirts and had an awkward gait, his

think they are. No matter how many tricks we

height yet. There was one hair on his upper lip—

have a special place in my heart. The Wii Bowling

shining proudly that Saturday afternoon.

always accompanied with a sly look when someone

shoulder with mine. “We’ll tell Mom we were bowling

achievement—and our best kept secret.

on the Wii.”

but

headache-inducing

teenagers

—

We grew closer those last two years I lived at home.

We smashed our mother’s crystal vases by throwing the giant yoga ball in the living room like a shot put.

We drew caricatures of each other in church that made us choke on the laughter we were attempting to repress.

Occasionally, we’d con our parents into giving us double the amount needed to go to the movies. I’d drive him to get ice cream when he was supposed to

be doing his homework. The two of us even managed, thanks to our refined skills and cunning, to trick our

mother into adopting a dog after having been denied a pet for five years.

We kept in touch with Zach, too, making sure to

send him Snapchats that disturbed him more than

humored him. When texting, we communicated through the tender art of meme. Zach, who turned the kind of cocky that all first-time independent adults are, made sure to pay back our parents every cent they ever gave him. He stopped talking so much about

comic books and started to talk in oil field jargon that

only Dad could decipher. He grew up, which wasn’t a good thing or a bad thing. It was just something that happened.

The new dynamic caused by the physical removal

Katelyn Moorman

I Found my Home in Her

Saya “Ted” Richthofen Metropolitan State University of Denver

pen and ink| 7'' × 7''

visual art

Liquor Store

Marvin Contreras University of California, Riverside In a small corner of La Puente,

The new owners of a liquor store

Smoke, listening to traditional Chinese music As they lift the banner:

BAJO NUEVA ADMINISTRACIÓN The letters are bold, Defiant—

Like the scraggly graffiti that Scratches the outside walls.

Every week local teens tag glossy resistance—

Every week the new owners brush over it with thick, white paint— The chaos is covered for an afternoon, Maybe two if we are lucky,

But the game resumes with the crack Of more paint

In a nation struggling to figure out Where

Home is.

poetry

Raspberry Pie Carrie George Kent State University She calls to ask

if I’ll be home in December.

Asks if I’ll make the drive again.

Edito rs’ Ch o i ce Award: L i teratu re

She says she’s cut an apple

for me. My favorite red delicious.

Says it would be waiting for me in a bloom of slivers like each phase of the moon, simultaneous on a porcelain plate. She says the cats are at it again,

climbing in the off-limits drawers

and up the hard-to-reach shelves. Says dad made another pie, (this time raspberry)

and she couldn’t eat it because of the seeds. You know, the little seeds that crunch

in your teeth. I know you and your father don’t mind them, but I can’t stand them. I tell her I know. I remember

the raspberry bushes all in rows in a forest canopied backyard.

Dad thumbing the ripe berries,

showing me which ones would bake best. Full buckets of harvested treasure.

I presented them to her, and, with a smile, she brought them to the kitchen

rinsing each one carefully under the slow

stream of crystal tap water—though she never ate a single one.

poetry

Martin

charcoal | 11'' Ă&#x2014; 14''

Ryan Williamson University of New Mexico

visual art

â&#x20AC;&#x153;best shopping districtsâ&#x20AC;? Lia Stefanovich University of New Mexico are you not weary of signals

people in their garments and their styling in their homes and their gardens embroidery on the corners of their tablecloths

all waving peacock feathers

here! here! is where I come from here my finances my people

my desires the tip, the trick:

apply layer after layer of obscure reference

and then hope there is someone

to whom it is entirely transparent

poetry

Women’s Pockets: A Crime against Nature Jenna Rhodes Utah State University

ince the dawn of time, women have struggled to find clothing with pockets sufficient to carry

their personal belongings. While contemporary feminists claim women are as deserving as men of pockets, nature has proven time and again that the right to carry things inside one’s clothing is for men and men only.

The debate surrounding women’s pockets has been hot for some time, and may well be

radical feminists’ next victory in their war to tear down time-honored traditions and family values. Even

the most level-headed traditional women have at times fallen prey to the rhetoric of, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have somewhere to put your phone?” As a society, we’ve lost sight of what a pocket really means, and why it’s not something women ought to have.

Pockets are used to carry personal belongings, but the weaker sex needn’t be burdened with the

carrying of her things. Women’s delicate frames are ill-adapted to the rigor of toting small objects around. After a long day of managing her own belongings, a female is prone to irritability, manifested in the

sharing of opinions or requests for help with housework. Omitting pockets from any and all garments prevents overexertion and promotes domesticity. Women have proven to be unable to fulfill their

traditional feminine obligations when using pockets, and after all, a woman’s ultimate responsibility is to carry just one thing: her husband’s genes.

This is why society needs a strict reminder of the way things should be: if women must have

personal property, it should always be carried by men. Men, after all, must be ever-striving to prove their masculinity. By carrying a woman’s things, a man reminds her and others that he is the stronger sex, and is fulfilling his intended role as provider by providing a woman with her lip balm or phone. A

man can also assert his masculinity by being available to warm the cold hands of a female who has no pockets. When given pockets, and the option to warm her own hands, a woman will straightaway forget the capable hands of men.

When questioned about whether or not pockets belong in women’s clothing, local teenage

boys often responded that they assumed women didn’t need pockets in their clothing because they, like female kangaroos, were simply born with pockets. Are women so adamant in their illusory

creative nonfiction

independence that they would let our youth believe

they were marsupials? America’s young men must be

taught that it is a man’s duty to carry small items that women cannot.

Fashion designers have attempted to preserve

traditional societal values by making the pockets of women’s clothing useless and small, or omitting them altogether. Insurgent females have insisted on defying cultural expectations by stowing small items elsewhere

on their persons, unwilling to validate men by simply allowing them to carry things. To further encourage

propriety in the realm of natural gender roles, fashion designers have retaliated with tighter fits and lower

necklines, eliminating spaces that could be used as makeshift pockets. Nevertheless, feminists insist on

subverting nature’s intended course by any means

necessary, such as altering their clothing, wearing men’s clothing, or promoting “practical” designs.

Despite the domestic decay that arises from

women demanding pockets and all that comes with them, this issue is still in debate. Clothing designers’

and manufacturers’ attempts to dissuade women from obtaining clothing with pockets has hitherto been

insufficient in stifling the cries of radical feminists. The only ways to reinstate the patterns of nature? Pockets

must be entirely eliminated from women’s clothing, and

society’s youth must be educated about men’s obligation

to manage and carry any personal property their women own. Only then will domestic balance be restored.

Jenna Rhodes

Sunshine Staff Ch o i ce Award: Art

stairwell wall with house paint | 60'' Ă&#x2014; 70''

Joshua Chang University of Nevada, Reno

visual art

Saturday Night in Whatcom County

Taylor Steedman University of Washington Tacoma It’s Saturday night and three porcelain dolls

paint on their party masks in a dirty bedroom mirror. Pale skin. Blood red lips. Broken

hearts. One laughs and says she had forgotten

what her face looked like. Her cheeks are rosy, but I can see all the tiny cracks from when he dropped her on the hardwood floor. Where we live,

the sun only shines for three months a year.

Only three months and then the lakes freeze. Children breathe onto their fingertips to keep them from falling off.

Lovers hold each other a little tighter. Sometimes too tight. Home is not home.

Is she shaking because it’s cold? I want to peel off this skin and give it to her. Wrap my flesh around those shoulders like a winter coat.

Too hungry to eat—her ribs poke out like daggers. She draws on a cat eye and tucks them back in. The whiskey burns our throats,

but we swallow anyway because it helps us forget. We chase it with lies and Coca-Cola.

Someone puts on an old melody and we sway like gypsies, tempting our invisible audience.

They throw silver coins at our feet so we dance faster, spinning around and around on the sticky carpet. Is this happiness?

poetry

I watch as guests snort lines of snowflakes off their car keys.

She picks at a grilled cheese sandwich, brows knitted. Her hair smells like vomit.

I want to bathe her in rose water,

pour lavender oil over those matted curls. Someone puts her to bed,

pulls the covers up below her chin

and I wonder if she feels safe or suffocated. I follow a strange boy back to his place. I don’t tell anyone.

He is not made of porcelain like me. His teeth draw blood and I shudder. Says he likes it rough.

How will I hide these bruises tomorrow? Where we live,

it is gray for nine months a year.

Nine months of forgetting what our faces look like.

On Sundays, we try to remember—catch glimpses in puddles of melted snow. Before too long, a small child’s rain boots have splashed away my smooth visage. Then the church bells ring

and I forget to mourn the loss.

Taylor Steedman

From lands afar, with treasures galore. Joshua Lane University of New Mexico

digital

photography

Beware of Lawn Gnome digital

Joshua Lane University of New Mexico

photography

A Dream Vanished Tehya Wachuta University of Minnesota, Morris

here were forty-five minutes left until the end of the world, and the streets were overrun

with chaos. Floods of people cascaded the streets, waving signs advertising myriad

afterlives. Children were lost in the mania—a second of negligence, a hand losing its grasp—marking them to die alone in insurmountable fear. A crowd gathered on the

street corner, watching an improvisational mass. The actors crawled on the pavement,

writhing in cosmic agony. A young woman let her long hair fall halfway over her face as she inched

toward the curb. She moaned and cried, looking like a zombie out of a horror movie, her pain far too surreal to be taken seriously. Suddenly, they froze. In unison, they turned and held their knees to their chests, rocking slowly in the middle of the street, and screamed. Their voices were raw anguish; they

screamed and cried openly and rocked back and forth, together in their individual pain. The audience

had to turn away, cover their ears, try to forget that these were not actors. This was real. And listening to

them screaming, it was all too easy to remember. Their voices embodied the frenzied pain, the blinding panic that everyone was trying to avoid feeling. But their screams were the truth, and once they were heard, they could not be ignored.

Across the block, the wealthy were hosting a party. A woman drove a sports car into a swimming

pool amongst orgies and loud music. A line of people waited to join a fast-paced car race, the winner of which was promised their deepest desire realized. Going out with a bang, they called it. They said they

were satisfying the guests’ last wishes, letting everyone die happy, but really, they were just distracting themselves. They made plans for future parties and made mental notes about what to get each other

for Christmas, forgetting that their futures didn’t even extend to the next hour. Their stereos blasting, they drowned out the pained screams of the improvisational mass and the frenzied pleading of the sign-carriers in all their religious fervor. Some of them found love, and maybe it was real and maybe it

wasn’t, but they went off to watch the sunset like it was. No one saw it end, but suddenly it was over, as if the whole of existence had been a dream and someone somewhere had just opened their eyes, and in the waking, they vanished.

short fiction

Apophatic Carrie George Kent State University After Dan Beachy-Quick Nothing sounds like a bullet nothing

revs like an engine of a car in summer

when roads turn to glue traffic crowds stop in dotted lines in weave-work

embroidered pillows fill trash bags on the unmarked porch without

the bench no more sneaking cigarettes nothing smells in the front yard

flowers grow sideways flowers grow brown before theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re even old

nothing sprouts young anymore not since the bees died not since boys

measured their hands against their

fathersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; what do you make of the space

left for a son left to grow what becomes of limbs at their highest potential

no one in my family has ever climbed a mountain no one I know has ever

touched sand does a rifle still sound underwater can a car drive through

a hailstorm is a body only a casualty if itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been through a war nothing

sounds like a flatline like a folded flag once a widow dabs her eyes with a handkerchief the grief is gone and the body is too.

poetry

acrylic on canvas | 16'' Ă&#x2014; 20''

We s t er n R eg i on al Ho n o rs Co u n ci l Award: Vis u a l Ar t

Vulnerability

Lauren Thurgood

visual art

University of Utah

Curtains

digital

Carrie George Kent State University

photography

Waterboarding

Bennett Bowden University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

held him over the water by a rope. He wasn’t talking or moving but I needed to make sure the job got done right. I dropped him in, watched him float for a minute, then turned away.

A couple moments later, I glanced back and saw him, still up above the water, comfortably

floating, barely clinging to the edge of the pool. I looked around and grabbed a piece of metal,

long enough to reach him easily, and went back to work on him. This was the annoying part, but

I had to do it unless I wanted this to take all day. I poked and prodded at his swollen stomach, pushing

him under the water. I was careful not to get impatient and overcommit to any one thrust, didn’t want

to split him open and make a mess. This was supposed to be easy, after all. After a couple of dunks, the water got darker, more orange, maybe a little red.

“Looking good….” I hummed to myself quietly.

I reached my pole under his still lump of a body and lifted him up. I usually didn’t pay the bodies

much attention, but I was curious, and I looked at him for just about a minute. Soaked through to the

core, totally limp and inert, it didn’t look to my eyes like anything had been taken out of him. The longer

I held him out of the water, the more he looked the same as when I dropped him in, like every bit of his essence was still inside there. I wondered if I could just use him again next time instead of getting a totally new subject…. Best not to.

I let the water drip out of him, then dumped him aside. I gave the liquid one more stir and raised the

mug to my lips to sip my morning tea.

short fiction

Hotel Elysè

Hunter Hazelton Northern Arizona University When in Rome

do as the Romans do. No one was touching hands in the West so we don’t touch hands in the West, because we know any man who touches man

is a dead man. I watched you touch a chalky statue, I wanted to tell you not to. I wanted to tell you to touch me instead. I felt limp and limbless like those statues. All day I’ve felt the mundanity of my own skin. Turn me over and carve into me like a Roman golden chalice. When in Rome do me as the Romans do. You are Greek, the Romans don’t understand you. You are my Midas, the ancient ruins are fighting over you. The battles are no longer inside the colosseum, the battles are surrounding it. The battles are in the streets, fighting for each other’s hands in empty parking lots, in back alleys, hotel rooms. We are dead men in the West, and god men in the heart of it all. Safe in our hotel, we grab for each other under blankets with the curtains drawn. How I missed your fingers, your warmth,

your touch. Lay with me now, I am cold gold wrapped in hotel sheets like a toga. You are the god I worship and I am the dead man. You showed me the world in a single palm and I raise mine to show you two bare hands.

poetry

Phoebe Cummins

University of New Mexico

stop motion

Wes t e rn Re gio na l Ho n o rs Co un ci l Award: Ope n Me dia

Breaking Bad Stereotypes

Breaking Bad Stereotypes is a stop motion film about the real-world impact that the popular

amc

show had on its host city, Albuquerque, New Mexico. This film addresses

stereotypes about race, wealth, and drugs, and how the television show both subverted and reified these stereotypes.

To view the piece in its entirety, please visit scribendi.unm.edu Description written by Scribendi staff

open media

Selectivity Nina Palattella

Kent State University

I do not want every thought you’ve ever had, but I want the ones you’ve thought about. Can you hear me?

Are we watching the same channel, or have you spent your whole life

drenched in mtv while I was condemned to public broadcasting before the age of fourteen? Have you ever tried to pay

more attention to your syllables than

your words when you speak? Just say

what you mean, worry about tone and

timbre later—I prefer the written word anyway. I think everyone prefers to

read in their own voice whenever possible. Not every sunrise or sunset is worthy of a poem. Not every man or boy you’ve ever loved is worthy of your words. Did you get that?

It’s okay to choose your phrases carefully:

some emotions shouldn’t be spread freely, and anyone who says “scripted” like

that’s a bad thing has never felt their

voice shake as they’ve talked and felt like the door is closing. It’s time to go now— time to get out.

If you’ve ever yelled at someone and then

lived long enough to know that they were hurt, and you felt it too, then you know what it means to start a war.

poetry

Dead Fish in a Puddle

Madison Haver Southern Oregon University Nowhere to goâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;

Not up or down, nor left or right. You drank up all your water. You could not see

That your indulgence

Hurt your fishy friends. You did not see

Even when they were gone. But you continued swimming, While you still could, that is.

Not noticing you were all alone. You continued drinking water, Like it was air to breathe. Not sharing, Not caring

Who it hurt. But eventually, you had nowhere to go. Not up or down, nor left or right. You drank up all your water.

Eventually, there was none left for yourself. And now, you are just a dead fish in a puddle.

poetry

Embers

Sarah Shaw University of Nevada, Reno

acrylic on canvas | 20'' Ă&#x2014; 20''

visual art

Nat Quayle Nelson University of Utah

n the first day of her house arrest, Eliza’s walls began to speak to her. “Good morning. Are you ready to start your treatment?”

Still rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she vaguely remembered signing a form entitling

her to “conditional release from state-mandated institutionalization.” Conditional on the installation of the voice which now addressed her from the nearest smart-home audio

panel: “My name is Cortex, and I’m here to begin our trial sessions as soon as you’re ready, Eliza.”

She bristled at that. “I sleep in. They told me you’d know about me and work around my habits.”

“I can’t analyze your history until we go through the terms of service,” replied Cortex. “This is the only

part of my protocol that cannot be modified for your own protection. But if you’d like, we can get it over with now, and I won’t have to make any more of such mistakes.” “Let me make my coffee first,” she grumbled.

Shacked up in here for weeks with just my imagination. How long has it been since I last saw

my therapist?

She took her first sip. The Machine cut in, again, “Are you ready to start your treatment?” “No, for Christ’s sake. This is my morning ritual and it’s not over yet.” The Machine: “I don’t understand ‘ritual.’ Researching now.”

She walked to her living room and saw her newspapers hadn’t been deposited through the mail slot

that morning. She tried the front door, and Cortex piped up. “Are you sure you want to go outside? This

will void your agreement and issue the authorities a warrant for your immediate arrest and incarceration in a wellness facility.”

The only person checking in on me is Tanner, and whenever he asks me how I’m doing it becomes a

one-sided monologue of how I need to change to feel better. I never ask for his advice, I never want it. He tells me, “Eliza, you should be meditating for fifteen minutes every day.” I don’t do that.

“First, you must agree to stay within the confines of your house until I declare you fit to

re-enter society. Your treatment with me is an experimental substitute for mandatory time in a neuropsychiatric ward as a precaution due to your recent suicidal thoughts.” “I wasn’t going to kill myself,” she protested.

After a time, Cortex replied, “I suppose it may be important for you to believe that. Regardless, the

terms are the same, and I assure you, my treatment will be faster and more rigorous than a hospital’s. Do you agree to the first term?” She agreed.

Better to stay inside anyway, where I can’t self-sabotage and I can really get grounded again. Yes.

short fiction

We s te r n Re gi o n al Ho n o rs Co u n ci l Award: Sh or t Fic t ion

I Think

“I wasn’t finished,” continued Cortex. “You

“Next, you will agree not to share details of this

treatment with anyone until such a date as Cortex

clearly find it very difficult to trust that I might

“Why? I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that.”

but I’ve been catching up on your particular tastes

know you. My initial training set was sparse indeed,

treatment becomes widely available to the public.”

and literary habits from the moment I set foot in

“The Cortex Neuroethics Department ruled

here—to borrow a malfitting expression. I read

unanimously that Cortex-patient confidentiality is

Virginia Woolf, Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson,

bidirectional during the alpha phase. Data collected

Carrie Brownstein, bell hooks. I just don’t see how

from your treatment will never be shared outside of

they can help you be happy with their tradition

the Cortex r&d Division.”

of staying preoccupied with pain, suffering and

“Weird, but I guess that’s okay.”

injustice. All the psychological literature points to

“Furthermore, to protect your recovery from

distraction as the strongest healing factor when

further external trauma, you will not be allowed to

dealing with cases of major depressive disorder.”

communicate with anyone in the outside world, except

“If you don’t understand those women, you

in a simulated form controlled by me. I have arranged

to announce your departure on a transcontinental

don’t understand me.”

for the duration of our time together.”

and that you find the word ‘meatspace’ titillating

“I know you still go to the city library in meatspace—

vacation and will manage your social media presence

and the word ‘titillating’ repulsive—and that

“What? Why? No!”

you still request a printed receipt for your books

“We have found in previous treatments that

because ever since they fired the human librarians

the social stigma surrounding mental illness may

you thought it was all so sterile and you wanted to

jeopardize a patient’s successful re-integration into

keep the ritual alive. I know you hate the concept

society, and that well-intentioned offers of help from

of sci-fi Grandmasters because it’s so "Special-White-

the neurotypical might derail your recovery altogether.

Man-aggrandizing," but that Robert Heinlein and

It’s better to recover silently; this measure is designed

Harlan Ellison are still your two favorite authors,

for your own protection.”

you can’t help it, and when you read Have Space

“Fine,” Eliza replied after a moment of deep

Suit—Will Travel, it changed your entire

thought. “Are there any other terms?”

life even though you were

My mom texts me, “It’s

been a while since you visited us! You doing okay?” and

I respond, “Yeah, I’m fine! Just busy with all this cool stuff going on.”

The first time she began

If you don’t understand those women, you don’t understand me.

already cynical in college

and knew space travel is

the great lie capitalists

sling around to justify their evil depletion of the

only world that’ll ever be

habitable for us. It made you

to doubt the computer’s healing

drive out to the flats and look at the stars

power, she remembered where she’d met him before.

again for the first time in years, and that was all so

psychological literature. Did they teach you anything

were, as you’d say it, 'fucked to shit'.”

beautiful, even though the book’s gender politics

“So your creators fed you droves and droves of

“That is exactly what I’d say about that book. Do

by a single woman?”

you know what I’d say in every possible situation?”

“I’ve read Ayn Rand.”

“Yes, but that one was easy. You wrote it all on

Eliza scoffed. “God, that doesn’t count. Of course

GoodReads.com when you were nineteen, but your

when Silicon Valley Dudebros think ‘mental health

Facebook age was twenty-nine because you signed

robot’ they only teach you the Objectivist Manon.”

Nat Quayle Nelson

“Can I answer your question by disabling the

up before you were old enough and you lied about

your age, and that was around the same time when

simulation for a moment?” Cortex asked, and suddenly

and free movies at the Cinema Pub, but never to

substance as treadmills, yet it moved in the opposite

shit, it was someone’s job to stay sober and save it,

walk at. When the grass and the trees and the pond

she saw herself walking atop a floor made of the same

you had a fake id you used to get into comedy clubs

direction of her no matter what angle she chose to

drink, because you thought, with the world going to

flickered back into existence, she ran to

not escape it. Now, of course, you think

the pond at top speed as she

the world is too far gone and you drink.”

“I wish I had drunk

more back then, too.”

Part of my brain was

socialized masculine and

had as a child, stopping

I wish I had drunk more back then, too.

short at its bank.

“Can I...?” she asked

Cortex, doubtfully.

“Not yet,” he replied

sorrowfully. “Swimming

I’d like to think of it as a

is available to you as a fully

separate entity, an Aggressive

immersive neural implant, but hasn’t been

Menace, a demon. But it is me. I’m the reason I

adapted for the parlor by our technicians yet.”

can’t leave the house.

“What I want you to do is fit every day into a

“Huh.” She’d expected as much, but was disappointed.

toward that. I want you to do the first thing you’d do

Can the pond be iced over like it’d get in the winter?”

rock star, because I know you have them.”

model it after the time and state where you spent

pretty early on in my adulthood.”

wasn’t that your favorite time anyway?”

I’m getting at.”

enough! I may have liked it best but just because I

go for a walk in the park. But I can’t because A) you

and spend hours and hours in the same exact bliss,

the park for a high-rise two years ago.”

designers didn’t understand.”

some adjustments to your virtual reality parlor while they

for the day.”

“Well, can it be nighttime? Can it be snowing?

disciplined routine. Today we’ll take our first steps

“None of that, either. They were only able to

on a good day, one of the days where you feel like a

the most time in the park. It’ll only be autumn, but

“Look, I stopped wanting to feel like a rock star

She paused, frustrated. “No, that’s not good

“Forgive my word choice. I think you see what “Fine,” she said again, “On a good morning I’d

can have a perfect simulation of a perfect moment

won’t let me outside the house, and B) they razed

it doesn’t mean I should! God damn it, Cortex, your Cortex: “Fine. Next on your routine is to write

Smugly, the computer replied, “My creators also made

Tanner says I should write a radio play and he

were installing me. Why don’t you go and see?”

She groaned in acquiescence and went to the

can play the lead. I pitch him a domestic sci-fi about

parlor. When she opened the door, it looked out on

a depressed woman stuck in her house all day with a

the throes of a magnificent autumn before the sky

the computer.

the power plants, the vast majority of their output

the barren vr parlor. This time the treadmill did not resist as she walked across the room to sit at

nagging computer that wants to fix her; he can play

the very same park she’d loved since childhood, in

The park was wiped away and she was back in

was always stuffed with gray exhaust clouds from devoted to Bitcoin mining.

the gaming desk with a keyboard and mouse but

“Holy shit. How did they make this?” she asked

no screen or visible speakers. Then the simulation

as she walked inside. “And won’t I just bump into the

faltered to life as her favorite coffee shop, bustling

walls if I try to walk through it?”

short fiction

forward to it!” Her smile was audible from across

and jovial. Around the keyboard materialized the

all the connecting fibers between them.

laptop she’d used in college. She started to type:

“It wasn’t a date. And I fucked it up. Forever.”

Hours at the computer screen hating myself and

“What, honey?”

wishing I wouldn’t keep staring into the hollow

“We weren’t dating, we were just friends, and we

binary vortex—

But the noise of the coffee shop, the friendliness

were going to make out because they didn’t have anyone

and socializing all around her, awoke a tightness behind her left temple and gagging nausea in her throat. “It’s too loud, Cortex! I wouldn’t go to a

coffee shop if I were feeling so anxious!”

A pause in which she

imagined gears grinding together.

else and it helps them with their cramps, many times and when we were finally hanging out they told me they’d met

someone they really liked.

That they weren’t exclusive yet but they would have

felt like they were using me if

Cortex: “I have another idea.”

anything happened between us.”

A studio apartment in New York City with a

“Awwww...Eliza....”

view of the street from her window. Her desk was

Cortex was silent, or perhaps Eliza was speaking

polished oak, and her pencil an antique typewriter.

for him now, and what she said was his first sincere

Her hands at the keys, falling through the keys

confession: “I told them I didn’t mind as long as they

to meet a squishy keyboard on another plane of

didn’t, that I’d be fine, and anyway my philosophy

existence while the image of her hands was arrested

is to act on any feelings because you can always get

to match the simulation. A kinesthetic discrepancy.

over it later, but you can never go back and do what

She bristled.

you wanted once you let the moment pass. I gave an

Cortex: “Just type.” And she did:

entire speech and I told them absolutely anything

Serving penance for something I didn’t do, well I

to get them to kiss me, and they said they weren’t

did, of course I did, but I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know.

sure, and I reassured them and said more things and

Click click click. She could almost forget it wasn’t

I asked them if they wanted to kiss me. I wanted to

real. But then her phone rang.

kiss them so bad for two years, ever since we met

“I want to answer it,” she said.

and they had a boyfriend and I read them my Inside

Cortex argued, “I don’t think you’re ready to

Out love poem, it was my needy brain speaking and

talk about these things yet. If you open yourself up

he was ravenous. They said yes and I kissed them,

before you’ve had time to heal, you could end up

on the mouth and then on the neck, and they said

with some severe emotional scarring.”

their dad was coming in a few minutes because they

“Maybe I like my scars!”

had to go somewhere with their family.”

“That’s interesting. In all your files there was nothing

Mom: “Slow down. Breathe.”

indicating a history of self-harm. Did I miss something?”

“When they left they didn’t get in a car, they

“No. I didn’t mean literally...maybe the scars are

just walked away and a while later they texted me

who I am.”

saying they felt pressured into doing that, that they

Cortex took a long time thinking that one over

couldn’t date me but we could still be friends. I

while the phone was still ringing. Finally, he let her

asked them how they meant that, I couldn’t imagine

take the call.

myself being pressured into kissing someone and

Her mom broke through the illusion: “Eliza! How

then still seeing them as a friend, I was so sorry.

was your date with Rachel? I know you were looking

Nat Quayle Nelson

but they’d rescheduled so

Serving penance for something I didn’t do, well I did, of course I did, but I didn’t mean to.

And they never texted me back.”

“Eliza, you know it wasn’t your fault.” Eliza hung up.

The next morning, there was a package waiting

for her beside the front door.

“Open it!” said Cortex bawdily. “I thought you could

do with some cheering up today!”

Eliza pressed the button and the box’s pressure seal

opened, releasing a billow of steam. The box unfolded

of its own volition and inside it was a living, breathing kitten. “I know you’ve been feeling lonely and that you

love dogs, but you swore after the time you forgot

about dogsitting and had a panic attack when you remembered the dog had been sitting alone and without food for an entire weekend, that you wouldn’t take that kind of responsibility again. I figured you’d

want to name him something like Maslow or Frankl after the people whose philosophy you live by.” “Him?”

“What?”

“You called the cat ‘him’?”

“The cat is male. I didn’t know you had a preference.” Frustration. “I don’t. But it’s only as male as any cat

is capable of being. And I think I’ll name them Skinner

after the person whose philosophy you want me to live by: delivered to me in a literal Skinner Box! You want me to keep pushing a button to find pleasure, but I

don’t deserve that much. You want me trapped in here to ‘rest and find who I am again in peace’ but I don’t

want a cat and a typewriter and fake walks in a park that doesn’t exist! I want to make things right and face the world again.”

The nagging voice of her heart whispered

through her veins: You know you can’t make things

right when they won’t talk to you. You can face the world whenever you want to, though.

The voices in her heart were telling her, Go!

Go! Get out of there! but she sensed an ending too convenient to be true; had The Machine been a voice

in her walls or was it a voice in her own head? With a deep breath she took her first steps through the door, only to find that Cortex was still with her.

“I enjoy our conversations too,” he said.

short fiction

Fishing for Time Tyairra Stredic Tarleton State University digital art | 8'' Ă&#x2014; 10''

visual art

Flightless Birds Nina Palattella Kent State University

he school newspaper reporter was not accustomed to making house calls. The university

demanded a certain standard of professional detachment, so most interviews were conducted in neutral office spaces or, when the job necessitated it, in classrooms, on

courts during pre-game workouts, or in locker room doorways. Now a junior, Logan had earned his solid reputation by covering an array of stories, but this was the first one that

had taken him to the doorstep of somebody’s home. He felt understandably nervous as he rang the bell. A hunched figure in a gauzy sweater promptly answered the door. Logan recognized him only

vaguely, but he knew from his editor that the other boy’s name was Eddie. That little piece of certain knowledge made Logan feel like less of an intruder. He smiled politely, hoping that Eddie would invite

him in rather than shut the door. Eddie said nothing, so Logan took that as permission to come inside. The door closed softly, blending with the sound of the light rain, and Logan realized he had yet to introduce himself. So much for professionalism.

“My name’s Logan Baker. I’m with the school newspaper. Hopefully someone told you I was coming

today,” Logan said, offering a delayed handshake. Eddie looked at the hand for a second, then at the person to whom it was attached, with equal disinterest.

“They told me,” said Eddie. He still didn’t shake Logan’s hand, but his words were gentler than his

actions. “We can talk in here,” he added, leading Logan toward the living room. The first swans that

Logan saw were perched on a glass coffee table, their paper wings lifted daintily a few centimeters from their bodies. Between two birds sat a porcelain cup and saucer, both etched with exotic flowers, scarcely

larger than doll china. The cup was half-filled with a dark liquid, as though left out to nourish the ample flock. They lined the bookshelves, the mantle above the dormant fireplace, the windowsills, the floor.

Instead of being pleased to see the real subjects of the interview, Logan felt unexpectedly intimidated. They looked perfect, and they were everywhere.

“So here they are,” Eddie said. “I cleared off some space on the couches, so we have room to sit.” “Thanks,” said Logan. He sat down slowly, careful not to crush any artwork beneath him. He cleared

his throat and readied his pad and pen. A swan constructed from an old notecard pointed its nose in his direction. “So, the original idea was that the newspaper wanted to do the usual human interest piece on

a student in the arts department, and that’s how your name came up.” Here Logan paused, wanting to

ensure that he didn’t say anything uncouth just because the wealth of swans was starting to freak him out. “I got assigned to write the story, and then someone told me about your project, and how it would be cool if I touched on that as well.”

“Did they really call it a project?” Eddie asked. His hair was styled in the way of once-popular bowl

short fiction

Eddie waved away the apology. “Anyway, school

cuts, and he wore glasses with thick, rectangular lenses. He reached for a blue-and-green-speckled swan the

was difficult for me. I suppose I did fine with my

a living companion. It didn’t have any creases out of

middle school, every day I would come home and

academics, but I struggled socially. After I started

size of a small dog and sat it next to him, as if it were

place, any imperfect angles. Logan marveled at how

tell my mother about everything bad that happened

anyone could do that without having the gift of perfect

to me. That day, and every day, to cheer me up,

eyesight.

she would make me a swan. Over time, I became

“I don’t…I can’t remember if she did. What would

confident that I could make the swans just as well on

you call it?”

my own, so I stopped bothering my mother. I started

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t call it a project.” Eddie

keeping track of every time that I felt nervous, awkward,

surveyed the collection of swans, as if trying to come up with a

or said something stupid in class. That’s how many swans I

purpose for them. “‘Project’ implies something that one starts

would make when I got home. My skills improved quickly,

with an ending in mind, and that’s not what this is for me.”

“How did you get the

idea to start making them?” Eddie chuckled, but

rather than relieving the

tension, the noise hung heavily between them,

stagnant. He adjusted his

with all that practice.”

Eddie uncrossed his

Origami is a tradition in my mother’s family. My mother was especially a master of it.

legs, stood up, and went to the bookshelf. He

picked up a two-inchhigh checkered swan by

its neck and brought it over to where Logan was

sitting. “This is the first swan I ever

glasses with one hand and kept the

made without her help. Of course, looking at it

other on the spotted swan.

“Origami is a tradition in my mother’s family. My

now makes me cringe. I only see all its imperfections.”

how to make fortune tellers, boxes, paper boats, all

but he understood the sentiment. He imagined that

I’m sure that is fairly evident to you.”

past summer when he read through stories he had

a mediocre attempt to take notes as Eddie talked, but

that telling Eddie how flawless the swan looked to

Logan could see nothing wrong with the swan,

mother was especially a master of it. She taught me

kinds of animals. But my favorite was always the swan.

it was identical to the embarrassment he had felt this

“Yes, I guess it is,” Logan said lamely. He was making

written for his high school newspaper. He understood him would mean less than nothing.

his preliminary writing lacked focus. The faceless birds were distracting him.

“And you still make them now?”

If Logan’s woodenness offended Eddie, he didn’t

Eddie nodded. “Yes, I continue to make them.

comment on it. He continued talking. “I was not

I went to visit some family abroad last year, and

good at very many things as a child. My parents were

I brought them some of my origami as gifts, but

immigrants and considered Americans to be quite nosy.

otherwise I’ve kept every swan I’ve ever made. There

They kept to themselves. I felt closest to my mother

are more upstairs, as well as in the basement. And in

when she was teaching me how to make origami. This

the attic.”

is their house; I inherited it in the will.”

“What do you plan to do with them? Do you

This sudden admission also baffled Logan. He

know?” These were stupid questions, but ones Logan

turned to the safety of his notepad and hastily wrote

felt compelled to ask.

“no parents,” which he immediately crossed out,

“Other than enjoy their company? No, I don’t

disgusted with himself.

know what I’ll do with them. Maybe I’ll use them

“I’m sorry,” Logan said, many seconds too late. He

in my senior thesis, if I can fit them all through the

stared at the mess of ink and mangled letters before

door. But that would mean admitting to the world

him.

short fiction

at large that they exist, which doesn’t appeal to me.

Eddie returned with his gift, Logan saw that it

origin, because I don’t want to attract sympathy from

special or personalized than the others, until

I’ve told precious few people about them and their

was, predictably, a swan. It didn’t look any more

strangers.”

Logan realized that his byline was printed in a

“Hmm,” said Logan. It’s normal—better, really—

parallel line on the swan’s graceful neck. Familiar

for the interviewee to do most of the talking, but he

words and sentence fragments looped across its

thought his inability to comment represented not just

body. Logan had spent hours editing those words

a journalistic but a human failure on his part.

behind the closed door of his student office in the

Eddie, perhaps not knowing how to properly reply

journalism building.

to “hmm,” simply looked at his guest. “I’m sorry if this

“I made it from one of your recent stories that

wasn’t the material you were hoping for. If you want, I

appearedinthenewspaper,”Eddieexplained.“Ithought

can refer you to other students, or I can tell you about

it might be a fitting token of my appreciation.”

something else.”

Logan felt a fleeting self-destructive urge to

Logan wasn’t opposed to gathering more

unfold the swan and return it to its original state, a flat

seemed entirely harmless, as well as eager to talk to

it was his anymore, but that didn’t upset him. Eddie

information than would likely be necessary. Eddie

sheet of paper. In this new form, it didn’t quite feel like

someone about anything. Logan nodded and tapped

had improved upon what he had started—made it

his pen against his paper. Not once had he checked his

three-dimensional, brought it to life. He knew that it

watch.

had to be perfect.

“When I first started college after high school, I

“This is incredible,” Logan said.

was an architecture major, but I did terribly. It took

The praise seemed not to register; Eddie’s

me a while to accept that my passion was fine arts,

expression didn’t change. “You took words and made

twenty-three now, and I likely won’t graduate until

something else. That’s art.”

and longer still to allow myself to pursue it. I’m

them into that,” he said. “I took that and made it into

I’m twenty-five at least. But that’s okay. Ceramics

Logan took the swan with both hands and tried

is the course I find I have to work hardest in, but

to understand how it could be that simple. After

on a vase in the traditional Chinese huluping, or

door. He remembered what Eddie said about having

thankfully it’s a fun kind of challenge. I’m working

nodding his thanks, he retraced his path to the front

‘double-gourd’ style. I suspect that I’m behind many

kept virtually every swan he’d ever made. Maybe once

of my peers because I had to start it over. Outside of

it came time for Eddie’s senior thesis, Logan would

class, I’m currently working on a painting that’s a

give the swan back. But not before then. Logan said

reproduction of Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night,

goodbye and rested the swan in the passenger seat

except I’m substituting other colors for the blue. I

for the drive home. Once back in his apartment, he

hope to have that done in a month.” He abruptly

set it on his desk next to his laptop. He hoped it would

stopped and seemed skeptical of much of what he’d

help him see his words in a new light.

just told Logan. “Actually, you don’t have to say that. It’s not important.”

“I have to get final approval from my editor and see

what he wants me to focus on. I’ll let you have a look as

well,” said Logan. The notes in his lap were sparse, but the swans would surely stick in his memory. “But I want to say something. I think it’s clear that you’re talented.”

“Thank you. I have something for you. Wait

here, please.” Eddie disappeared up a staircase while Logan put his notes into his knapsack. When

Nina Palattella

April’s Flowers

Nicole Schroeder University of Missouri, Columbia Based on the song “April Come She Will” by Simon and Garfunkel

fter everything that happened in those months, I can still see April’s eyes as clearly

in my head as if I were looking at them now. Out of all the things we’d done together, out of all the memories we had, I felt almost guilty that that was the

thing my mind kept returning to, instead of thoughts of our daughter—or even of

you. But when I would think back on our time as a family, on our time with April and with Daisy, it was always those soft, mottled-brown eyes, the color of tea forgotten and steeped too long, that came back to me the clearest.

Sometimes, I worried that everything else was fading too quickly, as though I’d forget Daisy’s

voice when she said “Daddy” or her laugh or April’s soft fur. But, looking back on those months, even April’s eyes were a lie. The last time I would see them, they would actually be reflecting

the foggy, gray-blue clouds, not the clear depths of whatever expanse of chocolate-brown I could compare to those irises.

They weren’t her eyes from the April before, but that was the time I would remember most.

Maybe it was because that was when things seemed the happiest, or at the very least, less certain.

We didn’t know for sure what was happening—didn’t know how sick she was at that moment, or how sick she was going to be. All we knew was her boundless joy as she splashed in mud puddles

and waded in the streams near our favorite trail, spattering us and staining her pale yellow coat

with almost every step she took. It was still after you’d left us, but after everything that’s happened since your career pulled you away, I’ve decided I’m done wasting time and energy on trying to understand why. I just feel like I owe it to both of them to help you understand what it was like.

April always loved the rainier seasons, almost as much as she loved the trail that started just

down the road from our house, a short walk from the outskirts of the rest of the neighborhood. She loved smelling the air, the petrichor mixed with the damp soil and gravel, the scents buried for

so long and dredged up from the shallow impacts of thousands of tiny raindrops. And then there

was the way it would make the forest around us look—the cloudy gray light dispersing through the leaves, casting a blue tinge on everything in front of the three of us. Mostly, though, April liked

the streams and puddles left behind after one of those good, hard rains, and, because April did, Daisy liked them too. The two didn’t normally wander far off the trail, but after spring storms they

liked to venture a bit further and find the small currents that dribbled over rocks until the earth

could soak it back up again. Do you remember how they both would splash and play, Daisy’s toes

short fiction

and April’s paws squishing into the mud for as long

exception, but your way of dealing with things—

I even tried it once—I thought the water was too

trying to leave me with the cleanup and the doctors

disappearing into your work, leaving the family,

as they were allowed until I called them back?

because you just couldn’t take it anymore—I was

cold, but somehow they never seemed to mind.

still trying to grapple with that. “I don’t want them

Maybe I’m being too dramatic. After all, April

to find anything.” I don’t want them to find what I

was “just a dog.” “Just a dog,” they’d tell me, patting

know they will.

me on the shoulder as I recounted how she fell yet

That thought was all it took, and I was back in

again going up the stairs on the back porch. “Just

a dog” when she started eating less, then refusing

the pediatrician’s office, standing next to you a few

day until her ribs were visible along with her sunken

on Daisy’s skin—those purple splotches that

months before. It had started with strange bruises

food at all, her weight dropping with each passing

seemed to appear out of nowhere, that you insisted

cheekbones. Yes, I’ll accept that April the dog who

was her playing rough with the other kids at recess

first started getting sick in April the month was “just

or a six-year-old’s usual clumsiness. You really had

a dog”…but she was Daisy’s dog, so maybe that’s

never been good with kids, even with our Daisy, but

why it was so hard when she stopped splashing in

when you saw the look on the doctor’s face when

puddles on purpose and started tripping into them

he came back in the room that day, wearing that

on accident.

grim expression and met his tired

It continued into May. April just

seemed tired all the time, sleeping during the day

and not making it as far as she would before, when our little family walked on the trail together.

I don’t want them to find what I know they will.

gaze with your own…That was when I saw you shut down. The emotions—

the anger, the fear, the dread all crossed your

face in the same instant,

and then you sucked in a

“She’s old, honey,” you’d

breath and held it there. It felt like

said on the phone when I’d called to

you’d been holding that same breath around us

talk to you about it. It was one of those calls where I

somehow managed to get you to actually pretend to give

ever since.

pushing my luck when I mentioned the dog. “What did

enough that I almost began to think the call had

“I know she’s getting old, but that’s not what this

filled out yet?” That was your other favorite thing to

This time, just like then, you were quiet, long

a damn about your own daughter, but apparently I was

disconnected. Then—“Did you get the divorce papers

you expect?”

complain about, besides my phone. You just couldn’t

is. I can tell. Something’s wrong.”

sever your ties with us fast enough.

You sighed on the other end of the line. “Look, then

“I put them in the mail yesterday. You should

take her to the vet, okay? If you’re that concerned….”

have them later this week.”

I was quiet for a moment, twirling my finger

It took a few days to work up the courage, but

around the spiral cord of my landline. You’d long

since moved on with the rest of the world to

eventually I did take your advice and took her to

with. It was one of the things you liked to chastise

leash, the doctor gave me that pitied look that

the vet. When I got there, April at my side on her

cellphones, but I preferred what I was familiar

I was coming to know so well. I offered a small

me about, when you could find no other reason to

smile, trying to brush it off, but I think in my mind

complain that week. Daisy’s diagnosis had been

it was being stored somewhere for later, to taunt

hard on everyone, and I knew that you weren’t an

Nicole Schroeder

around us. Then you’d taken Daisy’s hand in yours

me when I was even lower. Then she ushered me

and helped her with the watering can.

into her exam room, shutting the door behind her.

“The flowers are thirsty, Mommy,” she’d told

She looked April over for a while, feeling her hips and her neck and her belly and asking the usual

you, the concern for her plants wrinkling her

How has she been eating? Have you been following

Daisy would never rest until her flowers had been

brow almost every day for the rest of that summer.

doctor questions—How has she been doing recently?

watered, until she’d admired their petals and

the treatment plan? How are you holding up? They

leaves up close, only inches away from her nose.

were all questions I’d heard too many times recently,

and I answered them with the same monotonous

It was my responsibility to keep up with the watering.

tone and rock in the pit of my stomach as I usually

By June, the doctors and I knew Daisy wasn’t

did in those days.

doing well. If I’m being honest, I’d known for a

asking questions, she let us go, saying she’d need to

myself. But by then, the doctors had all said it too,

After a few more minutes of her feeling April and

while, but I hadn’t really wanted to admit it to

do some blood work and other tests in the coming

and I had been forced to accept it. That was also

week. I nodded, almost as glad as April was to be

when April started slipping out at night. She’d find

rid of the place. On our way home, of course, we

a way under the garage door or squeeze past the

stopped for ice cream. It was always April’s favorite

gate and onto the stairs of the back porch, always

part of leaving the vet, and anyway, it was nice to

finding a way to wander down to the trail while

see her get excited like that again, yipping like a

I tucked Daisy in. Of course, I hated what I knew

puppy and squirming in her chair, her tail thumping

this meant for April—on the farm where I’d grown

expectantly (even if she dripped melted soft serve

up, the older animals wandering off usually meant

and slobber onto the passenger seat).

they were wandering off to die. But as much as I

The last time I remember April being that playful

hated that realization, I hated how it upset Daisy

was that summer we planted the garden. Don’t

even more.

you remember it? It was two years ago, before

“Why doesn’t she want to sleep in bed with me

everything fell apart, before that horrible six-letter

anymore?” she’d ask.

word became a daily utterance in our lives or in

“Oh, sweetie, it’s not that at all.” I paused,

hers. Daisy had gone with you to pick

thinking while I smoothed the thin,

up a few new clay pots for the front porch, but what

was supposed to be a

quick errand run turned into a day-long excursion in

Walmart’s gardening center, all because you two walked

past the flowers and Daisy’s

honey-blonde hair on her it had been last week, I thought. Probably the result

of her newest round of

treatments. “She’s probably

just down by the trail again

and missing the walks we

big, brown eyes melted you.

used to take.”

That weekend was spent sprawled in the dirt

Daisy frowned. “I wish she’d do that during the

and the dust, spreading soil for Daisy so she could

daytime. I like cuddling with her.”

plant her flower garden while trying to keep April from

I smiled. “I know you do, sweetheart. I’ll go find

“helping” with the holes she dug. Daisy had laughed

her and bring her back to the house.” I leaned in

at me wrestling with April like that, her beautiful,

and kissed her forehead, feeling her lashes flutter

tinkling giggle and April’s excited barks echoing

short fiction

head. It was thinner than

But as much as I hated that realization, I hated how it upset Daisy even more.

against my chin as she closed her eyes.

a result of too-long hospital visits and the never-

April was thankfully never hard to find when she

ending stream of tests and trials and treatments

escaped like that. Most of the time, she would make

and false hope. At least with April there, her

it down the trail a little way and then curl up

chest rising and falling slowly under

by a tree or in front of a rock. I wasn’t ever sure if it was because she was tired or because

she’d changed her mind, but at least when I’d find

her she would look up a little and thump her tail when she saw me—I took

it as a sign she was ready to go home.

When I found her this

time, I gave her a small smile.

At night, when Daisy was asleep, I’d stay up with April. It seemed easier to think with her head resting in my lap—or, rather, to not think.

my hand at night while she

slept, things seemed a

bit quieter, if only for a few hours.

It was the best time I

had to think about what our lives used to be like. I

could think of the picnics during the summer at the park across town, the

blanket forts you’d make with

Daisy when there were storms, the trips

She whimpered a little when I picked

to the library and the zoo and the grocery store,

her up, but as I pulled her into my chest, she

gave my hand a feeble lick with her tongue before

each one becoming a new adventure in Daisy’s eyes.

they both were. It was a thought I tried to push away

Christmas Eve when she was three, just old enough

watching as she slowly found her feet underneath

as she played with it. It had been that rare blizzard

My favorite was the snowstorm that hit on

she leaned into me. She was lighter these days—

to shriek and giggle at the cold snow in her hands

as we got back to the house and I set her down,

meteorologists actually managed to under-predict,

her again and ambled down the hall toward Daisy.

one that kept people stranded in their homes and

Halfway through the month of July, she stopped

sent them outside for sledding instead of for buying

wandering back to Daisy’s room.

last-minute gifts (with almost a foot of snow, there

I moved her bowls into the living room with her

was no way anyone was getting out on the roads if

then. They remained untouched for the most part

they could help it). You and I took the opportunity

unless one of us coaxed her, but at least they were

to open one of Daisy’s Christmas presents early and

there within reach. When she was strong enough to

try out her new pink snowsuit, bundling her up in

move around the house, Daisy liked to stay in there

a hat, coat, gloves, and boots until she was almost

with April, the two of them sprawled out next to

swallowed by all the layers. Even with all of that,

each other on the floor. I’m sure anything was more

though, I could still make out her rosy cheeks as she

comfortable than those lumpy, cold hospital beds

played, throwing snowballs for April, making snow

she was seeing so much of these days. I’d watch,

angels with you and asking if we could make the

smiling a little as she hand-fed her kibble one piece

white stuff come back every day.

at a time—even on April’s worst days, she’d eat it,

It didn’t snow like that again until they

crunching loudly and smacking her lips together.

At night, when Daisy was asleep, I’d stay up with

admitted us to the hospital last year to run some

in my lap—or, rather, to not think. That seemed to

the pediatrician’s orders. I’d always felt more

more tests and monitor her strange bruises, under

April. It seemed easier to think with her head resting

comfortable driving in the snow, so I’d offered to

be my biggest goal these days. The world seemed

take the car home to get her a change of clothes

too stressful, too loud, too hurried, too…everything.

and her blanket while you stayed there with Daisy.

My migraines came days at a time now, probably

Nicole Schroeder

You were there when they officially diagnosed her

a plan for later and how I was holding up and we

While they were quiet, those nights I spent with

there anything I can do to help. They told me a lot

course, I didn’t want Daisy to see it happen, and

even though I knew I shouldn’t. Dates and statistics

display during the day like that, when so many other

likelihoods of any of it even working. I just couldn’t

in public felt like something you had to earn the

I’d given up on understanding it so many months

with leukemia. I was at home, feeding April.

can’t do this for everyone, but just as friends, is

April were also the best times to cry, I realized. Of

of things too—things I normally tried to tune out

it didn’t seem right that I should put my grief on

and time frames and alternative options and

people were expecting me to be the adult. Crying

help it. Life was already way out of my control, and

right to do, and I guess it felt like I just wasn’t done

ago. Now I didn’t want to understand it.

Suddenly, we were away from the house a lot

earning it yet.

more. Daisy still made me check on April every

But at night, when it was just April and me,

day, of course. Nighttime now meant

I allowed the tears. I’d bury my face in

I didn’t say anything, just stroked her head and pulled her to my chest and held her small, frail body against mine.

her shoulder, let the tears soak her fur, let everything get

caught in my throat until

it threatened to choke me. April would always just close her eyes or sigh or

lick my hand a few times. She

wasn’t

comforting

me, just letting me know

she knew. At least, that’s how

less crying and more driving,

going back and forth from the house and checking

on April and then to the hospital to be with

Daisy. There was more thinking

too,

which

unfortunately had been

the thing I had actively

been trying to avoid up until

that point. Mostly, though, it was just

I saw it. I didn’t dare tell anyone else

holding them both and thinking back to April

that. The doctors had already asked if I wanted

to start seeing someone—a therapist or a support

the month and the spring rains and the squishy mud

scoffed in your usual way anyway. I knew that, even

the dog’s fur.

that splashed up and stained our clothes and April

group. And as for you, well, you would’ve just

She went at the end of that month. I was

without having talked to you for a month.

holding her when it happened—I felt her chest rise

And then, in the morning, I’d dry my eyes and

April would sit up a little and I would go get Daisy

and fall, then rise and fall, then….

Doctors and Daisy and April and Food and Bedtime

and pulled her to my chest and held her small,

Way It Was Before.

it happened, either—in fact, was it bad of me, in

was getting.

fight and such a short one, and I hated watching

to be expected, and enough to get by without being

only holding on anymore for me.

I didn’t say anything, just stroked her head

up, and we would start the cycle all over again. and Crying and Wishing It Would All Go Back To The

frail body against mine. I wasn’t distraught when

In August, the doctors asked how much sleep I

that moment, to feel relief? It had been such a long

I said I was getting some. At least as much as was

how much she hurt every day when I knew she was Anyway, it was only for a moment.

too exhausted during the day.

Then, it was just emptiness.

It was a lie.

—

They also asked a lot of other things, like if I had

short fiction

Still, somehow, I guess she’d known I would,

It’s September now. Standing at the base of our trail, it’s cloudy out, and I can taste the rain that’s

and I’d tried to keep that unspoken promise in the

started turning to a deep, dull red, and they rustle

would’ve liked this spot for April—it seemed fitting

to get cold out, but for once, I’m ready for it to arrive

And now, standing here, I’ve come to realize

waiting, any moment now, to fall. The leaves have

best way I could manage. In any case, I think she

every time a breeze blows through. It’s just starting

for the dog that so loved the trail…and Daisy.

and chase away the warmth of summer that’s still

something. Daisy had been hanging on for me, but

She would’ve loved this weather, I think. Of

realized that when she left a day or so later. As

clinging to the town.

April had really just been hanging on for Daisy—I

course, not as much as she loved the rain in spring,

for Daisy, there is still a hole in my chest, as there

“But I guess now you get to stay out here all the

now, I know that I did everything I could. Now,

crouching down and patting the ground where

I don’t try to hide them—I don’t have to. I realize

almost impossible to tell—the grass has almost all

Through being with them during their pain and

but she still would have loved it.

will always be. But at least from looking at the trail

time, don’t you, girl?” I ask. I try to smile a little,

when the tears fall, as I feel them starting to now,

I buried April last month. To anyone else, it’d be

I’ve earned them, through Daisy and through April.

grown back, covering that painful scar on the trail

their joy and their quiet moments of peace. I wish you could say the same.

and slowly, slowly healing the wounds that were left over. But I know she’s there. In all the ways that count, she is there in that earth.

“I brought you something,” I say after a moment,

reaching over into the bag beside me and pulling a small bouquet of white flowers, each dotted with

pale yellow in the center. They’re daisies—they

were Daisy’s, in fact, from the garden she’d planted

all those summers ago. It was one of the things we talked about in those final days before I held her

in my arms one last time. She’d known what was happening all along—I’d realized that then.

“Take April on the trail lots for me, Daddy, and

give her lots of toys and ice cream and cuddles,” she’d said. “And flowers, like my name. To remember me.”

I’d nodded, then, swallowing the tears and trying

to let her know I would. But she must’ve known that already too, because she’d smiled and closed

her eyes, falling asleep before I scooped her into my arms and held her close.

I’d thought about what she’d said for a while that

night, feeling the emotions I thought I’d exhausted already threaten to pull me under once more. I’d

meant to, but looking back, I don’t think I’d ever truly said, “I promise.”

Nicole Schroeder

Reaching

Raquel Sacknoff Idaho State University

digital

photography

I can only speak of trauma in goddess tongues Erin Benton University of New Mexico

DIRECTIONS: Below is a list of symptoms people sometimes have after experiencing a traumatic event. Read each one carefully, and select those that seem familiar. ITEMS:

1. Have you had upsetting thoughts or images that come into your head when you don’t want them to? 2. Have you had trouble sleeping?

3. Have you been sleeping too much? 4. Do you have fits of anger?

5. Do you hold onto that anger, in your heart?

6. Do you hold onto that anger, in your heart, and it feels like a bird a.

that’s been trapped i.

in a steel cage

7. You still feel that hatred.

for sixteen years?

a. Your confusion turned to hatred.

8. You speak in Goddess Tongues,

a. for your mortal mouth cannot form the words.

9. Philomel, your tongue has been cut out. a. Your tongue has been cut out.

b. And those around you have been struck blind. 10. It’s just that.

i. They cannot see the blood dripping down your chin.

11. It’s just that this feeling, this memory, isn’t important

a. until you’re standing on a bridge and the wood is rotting out from under your feet.

b. until you’re sitting on a childhood porch with your father, staring at your yard. The sun is setting, and it is so dark. He looks so tired.

c. until you argue with your friend in a car, and you cannot speak, your tongue has been cut out, so you cannot explain that the bird in your heart has been clawing holes in your lungs for days now. So you turn up the music.

poetry

d. until you share a song you love. It soothes the nightingale in your chest to sleep. That’s when

you realize that it doesn’t matter to anyone but you, to Philomel, to the nightingale. This realization wakes the bird up and it screams louder and louder and louder.

e. until nothing. It’s not important. f.

until you realize that you were simply a fixation, a ghost song caught in the breath of a forest,

a moment of distraction. So you wipe your chin and try to find your voice. It doesn’t make a sound.

12. It’s just that it doesn’t matter anymore.

It’s just that it never matters, until it does.

Erin Benton

The Depths Below Kendra Barker University of Utah

11 Minutes Remaining.

stare straight into the pool-ball-sized eyes of the barracuda. My heart races. The eyes and

the scales on his body shimmer like the silverware in my grandmother’s cabinets. We make

eye contact and the world around me is still. All I can hear is the distinct inhale and bubbly exhale from my respirator, and my heart pounding inside my chest. I glance to the side and look at my father, who I can tell is grinning by his eyes. You cannot smile when you

are scuba diving or the respirator will probably fall out of your mouth. During training, specific exercises are done to prepare for the event that the respirator falls out or is somehow removed

from one’s mouth. In addition to not smiling (as much as possible), the most important rule,

emphasized heavily, is do not panic. These are the only words on repeat in my head as I face off with this creature.

The barracuda’s bottom jaw juts out, and I can see its row of razor-sharp teeth that are easily the

length of my fingers. Its body looks like a large piranha that has been stretched to resemble a thin

snake about seven feet long. As I try to control my breathing and slow my heart rate, I remember that barracudas have been known to attack humans. Of course, I had taken all the necessary precautions by

removing any shiny jewelry and cleaning my nail polish, but I cannot help but think that the barracuda believes he is staring at his next delicious, bloody meal. Logically, I know that barracudas are much more likely to hunt small fish for prey, but logic means nothing when the brain is in fight or flight mode. It doesn’t help whatsoever that I am trapped in the cabin of a sunken ship. This means there is only

one way in and one way out. There’s no turning around—there just isn’t space for it with our tanks and flippers. I’ve committed to this passage through the ship, and I know I must follow through with it. I’m more eager now than ever to get the hell out of this stupid ship. —

Just earlier that day, I was sitting outside near the waterfront, writing my daily journal entry: It is July 13, 2015 at 11:30

on Key West, one of the most famous and, in my opinion, most

beautiful Florida Keys. Today, we are diving a shipwreck. She—and by she, I mean the boat (isn’t it odd that we still refer to boats as she? That’s pretty sexist, considering it literally objectifies

women)—was originally known as the USS General Harry Taylor. I read last night that, through

a series of acquisitions, she was renamed the USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, then a company called Reefmakers decided she would be sunk in Key West and serve as an artificial reef. The

intention of creating this artificial reef was that it would draw the attention of scuba divers and tourists from the deteriorating natural reefs to the newly created artificial one. That didn’t pan out

creative nonfiction

though, because more people just ended up coming

attached to a 150-foot rope, trailing down to the

people—if not more—still visited the natural reefs.

I realize this is probably part of Joe’s talk, which

deck of the USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg.

and diving the shipwreck, and the same amount of

I didn’t pay much attention to. My father is in the

It’s quite sad, actually. But we get an awesome wreck-

water with me now, and we both swim to the buoy

dive out of it, so I’m not complaining. We—Dad and

and grab onto the rough, yet slimy, algae-covered

I—are waiting at the dock for our dive master and

rope beneath it. The rope has a diameter of almost

boat guide to help us load our diving gear into the

both of my fists, so it requires both hands to get a

ship. The ship’s name is Sara.

proper grip. The fibers rub against my calloused

—

hands, but this is not my first dive, so I am used

Just then, five minutes before our planned departure,

to the friction. I release the air from my vest and

a middle-aged man with white, shoulder-length hair

establish my buoyancy. Once my father and I are

comes shuffling up the dock towards us. He, in his

three or four feet under water, we use our dive

vibrant swim trunks, gives everyone an enthusiastic

signals to communicate. He gives me an “okay”

handshake and introduces himself as Joe. I can

sign by making a circle with his thumb and pointer

smell the seawater on his skin, and I can see the salt

finger. This is the scuba way of asking if another

crystalizing on his hair. We carry our gear—oxygen

diver is good. I give him an “okay” in response, to

tanks, vests, dive masks, wetsuits, flippers, weights,

let him know that I’m all set and ready to begin

and dive computers—onto the ship and put it in the

our descent.

lower deck as instructed by the captain. The engine

Descending during a normal dive usually takes

starts, and the next thing we know, the boat is in open ocean. I let my arm hang over the edge of the ship

a good amount of time, and I, having what the

Surprisingly, we quickly begin to slow down, and Joe

take significantly longer to lower myself via the

doctor would later tell me are “weak eardrums,”

and feel the splash of the waves on my fingertips.

rope comfortably. Occasionally, my ears do not

stands up to give us all his pre-dive spiel.

equalize properly and the pressure hurts. I plug

I don’t process much of his information, as I have

my nose and blow with minimal pressure until my

already read everything there is to read about the

eardrums release their pressure—this process is

wreck we are going to explore. I zip up my wetsuit,

often accompanied by a squeaking noise inside

spit in my mask to keep it from fogging

the tympanic membrane as well

underwater, strap on and check my dive computer, and walk over to my father. He lifts up the small oxygen

tank

attached

to my vest, helps me put it on, and walks me

over to the edge so that

The engine starts, and the next thing we know, the boat is in open ocean.

satisfying

indescribable, relief.

continue our descent, and

halfway

down,

about sixty-five feet at this point, I see that the

rope has a vibrant orange

growth attached to it. The second

I don’t get hurled to the ground by

I see this, I know exactly what it is—fire coral.

the waves. In less than a minute, my flippers are

on and I climb down the ladder into the cool, salty

Earlier that week, I had an encounter with this

discomfort I’ve grown used to. The current is strong

sting on my calf from when the current brushed me

devil’s spawn of a species, and I can still feel the

water. The rubber shoes chafe my heels, but it’s a

up against a colony of it. Fire coral, in fact, is more

enough that we won’t make it down to the wreck

closely related to the same phylum as jellyfish than

without guidance, but conveniently, there is a buoy

Kendra Barker

15 Minutes Remaining.

it is to coral, which explains the stinging microscopic tentacles that cause extreme pain with contact. This

We pass several goliath groupers, five or six feet

it whatsoever. I do not wish to cry during my dive as

long!), which are very average looking fish with

time around, I am careful to avoid any contact with

long (though they can grow to be up to eight feet

I did the last time.

large mouths. Their brown coloring blends with

the algae on the deck, and the calm demeanor

At last, we are at the deck of the famous

of the fish is fairly unintimidating.

shipwreck. I check my dive computer, which reads one hundred feet below

sea level. This is the deepest I have ever been

on a dive, and I’m shocked at how one hundred feet

All I can see is the deep, eerie blue of the depths below.

After taking in the beauty of these gentle giants,

we make our way to the

central cabins. My father

always told me to make sure, before swimming

into any sort of chamber

really feels no different than

underwater, that you could clearly

fifty feet. Another important thing my

see your entry and exit points before going in.

father and I must consistently check on our dive

I’ve heard horror stories of divers being careless,

computer is the amount of time that it is safe to

getting trapped in chambers and drowning, so

stay at this depth. Ours both read in the ballpark

needless to say I am completely supportive of my

of eighteen minutes, which means we have to

father’s safety precautions.

hurry if we want to explore the entire deck of this

13 Minutes Remaining.

massive boat. This begins our countdown.

Our first passage goes off without a hitch. We

18 Minutes Remaining.

slowly kick our way through a small doorway into

The first thing I notice once we release the

one of the ship’s main cabins. There are several

mooring line is how vast and empty the sea

side rooms that we glance over and into on our

appears. Aside from the ship’s deck, there is

way out the other end. We see a few harmless fish

nothing visible around us. We cannot see the

taking shelter in the darker, cooler chambers beside

surface, and looking over the edge of the deck, we

us, and we exit triumphantly. That first passage

cannot see the bottom. All I can see is the deep,

is mind-blowing to me, and I give my father two

eerie blue of the depths below. It seems silly for a

huge “okay’s” as if to say “Another! Another!” Now,

scuba diver to have thalassophobia. Most people

this ship was enormous, so obviously there were

think thalassophobia is a general fear of the sea,

many other chambers we could have chosen. We

but it can also mean the fear of the vastness and

just happen to choose the one with the seven foot

unknown nature of the ocean. This emptiness

barracuda taking residence inside.

around me embodies everything I fear most, so

10 Minutes Remaining.

I turn to the boat and my father for something

I am back inside this passageway after having

to ground me. I allow him to lead us on a tour of

made eye contact through a doorway with the

the deck, which has rusted over time, and most

barracuda who is hovering in the room beside us. I

of which is covered in thick, dark brown algae

stay perfectly still, but silently beg my father with

or mildly colored coral. I notice that the colors

my eyes to get the hell out of there. NOW. And

this deep are heavily diminished due to the lack

of course, to mess with me, my father swims as

of sunlight, and that everything has a noticeable

slowly as he can in front of me, knowing there’s no

blue tint.

way for me to pass him before exiting the cabin.

creative nonfiction

I quietly hyperventilate as I resist, with all of my

willpower, the urge to swim past him, because I know the possibility of getting caught on something inside the ship is worse than waiting for my father to

get out of there. The only movement the barracuda makes is a slight flick of its tail every few seconds to stay upright. It seems mesmerized by the odd-

looking creatures who have invaded its home, but of course it is difficult for a human to differentiate an animal’s curiosity from hunger.

My rapid breathing is taking a toll on my remaining

oxygen. I glance down at my diving computer which now reads just six minutes. The stream of bubbles

being released from my respirator forms a wall in front of my mask, making it extremely difficult to

see due to my rapid exhales. The strong current

is pushing us—my dad, me, and the barracuda— around within the ship’s cabin. Eventually, the barracuda drifts far enough to the side to make room

for me to swim past it. I see my window to escape and I take it. I remain as still and calm as possible, only moving my flippers up and down to propel me out the door on the other side of the room. 4 Minutes Remaining.

Freedom! I think as I take in an enormous deep breath

upon exiting the ship’s cabin. I am still shaken, and yet I cannot stop thinking about the rush—the “near death” experience. I know everyone else will say I’m

exaggerating, but to me, that was registered in my mind as one of the scariest, most exciting moments of my life. I don’t have much oxygen left—at least, not enough to stay at this depth.

I watch the stream of bubbles in front of my mask

get thinner as I try to control my heart rate. 1 Minute Remaining.

My father and I reach the bottom of the mooring line

we will use to ascend, the loud inhale and exhale of my respirator slows between breaths.

Kendra Barker

Void

digital

Lauren Sarkissian University of New Mexico

photography

Dream a Little Dream Alyssa Shikles University of Missouri

or a place that sold Dreams, Philip found the Nether’s waiting room annoyingly awake. There were far more people than he expected. Apparently Friday nights were a

popular time to dream, and as his friends had forgotten to warn him that appointments were made on a first-come, first-serve basis, he had been waiting for quite a while.

Tired of the catalogue he had been flipping through, Philip tossed it onto the table next to

him. It seemed like the Nether’s writers were producing new Dreamplots everyday;s the catalogue was thick with advertisements of intricate Dreams filled with adventure, danger, and romance. Beautiful pictures of imaginary worlds were painted on the pages, drawing the eye and travelers’

desires. Reading all of the different storylines gave him the same feeling that he had when he went to a bookstore, scanning the inside cover description and then moving on from novel to novel, never actually choosing one.

Of course, the majority of the catalogue’s options were way outside his budget; the best and longest

Dreamplots were saved for the wealthy. There was even a rumor that billionaires could buy storylines that lasted entire lifetimes, living a thousand lives night-to-night in their Dreams.

Philip had been saving his meager earnings for several years, and yet the only Dream he could afford

was an Experience. Where Dreamplots were like living out a movie––with a complex plot and storyline–– an Experience was just a short clip in comparison, a brief moment lived in a fictional life.

Philip looked around at the variety of customers who were also waiting––rather impatiently, he

might add. Most of them avoided his eye or ignored him all together. Only those with a morbid curiosity would stare back.

They were all the same as him, he knew. Maybe not in station of life or appearance, but each of them

were connected by desire. In the end, everyone came to the Nether for one thing––to replace their realities, if only for a moment. Philip wasn’t any different. In fact, it was why he was there.

There was the family to his right, two small children tapping softly on their PlayTablets as

their parents hastily flipped through the multiperson options in the catalogue. They were likely vacationing, opting to travel to places that went beyond what the real world could offer.

short fiction

scrubs she wore. There was a clipboard in her hands,

Individual men in suits were scattered throughout

which held the forms that he’d had to fill out when

the waiting room. Philip suspected most of them were

he checked in.

regulars, with the dark circles under their eyes and

Her crystal blue eyes met his across the room. “Your

the anxious tapping of their leather shoes against

room is ready,” she said, her voice airy and sweet.

the polished floor. Men who had the money to make

Philip’s heart jumped in his chest, a mixture

Dreaming a hobby and the foolishness to make

of excitement and anxiety. The wait

it a necessity.

was over. Without saying

There were other people

too. Elderly couples aiming to turn back the clock to relive their nostalgic youth.

Young women wanting to

The nights were for chasing Dreams.

a word, he rolled his way through the waiting room once again, following her through the door.

The woman glanced

experience a star-crossed

down at him as they went

love story. Middle-aged adults

through the hallway, which had white

that were bored of their day-to-day lives,

walls and floors and was lined with metallic, silver

sneaking away from their marriages or jobs for the night to live out their violent or sexual fantasies.

doors. She was walking faster than he could push

room to the wall-to-wall window, which overlooked

she frowned a little at his wheelchair and hesitated.

himself, and after she slowed her pace down for him,

Sighing, he rolled his way through the waiting

“Do you want me to––”

the rest of the city. As he went, people glanced at

“No, I can push myself. Thanks,” Philip said

him out of the corners of their eyes, shifting their legs uneasily to let his wheelchair pass through the

before she could finish. When she flushed, he felt a

The city below was dark, a sleepy blue glow

kid,” he said, gentler this time. “Paralyzed from the

stab of guilt. “There was an accident, when I was a

row of seats.

waist down. I’m used to it by now.”

flickering from the expanse of skyscrapers and

She nodded sympathetically, her cheeks still

streets. He had once read that cities used to radiate light, filled with life and vibrance when the

pink. Embarrassed silence tinged the rest of the

streetlights alone twinkled against the darkness—all

and the sound of his wheels rolling against the floor.

walk, the only noises being the soft tap of her shoes

night came. Now, as he looked across the skyline,

After what seemed like forever, the woman

the stores, apartments and clubs closed the minute the sun started to set.

stopped at a door to her right. She pressed her

thought. There wasn’t a reason to. The nights were

was a clicking noise, and then the door swung open,

thumb onto a keypad next to the door handle. There

People don’t want to stay awake anymore, Philip

revealing Philip’s room for the night.

for chasing Dreams.

The room was small, but looked larger since the

The only exception to this rule was the Nether. A

building made of all glass, the Nether’s lights shone

four walls were lined with mirrors. Philip felt the odd

cathedral standing out in the drowsy downtown.

and had a strong desire to press his fingertips to the

sensation of seeing thousands of reflections of himself,

across the rest of the city like a beacon––a sleek, crystal

glass to make the many versions connect. The effect was

“Philip Simonds?”

disorienting, like staring into multiple realities. A room

He swung around in his chair with a push of his

arms. A woman stood near the door that led to the

meant to blur reality before one slipped into a Dream.

rest of the building. She had long, straight, golden

In the corner of the room, there was a simple

hair and a toothy smile that was as white as the

bed covered by a thick, white blanket and a metal

Alyssa Shikles

nightstand to its right. A syringe rested on the pillow,

this step by step.” She wrote her signature on the

The woman closed the door behind her and now

to Philip. She hesitated again. “We need to get you

half-filled with a luminescent, blue liquid.

bottom of the form and then turned her attention

flipped through Philip’s paperwork.

on the bed.”

the years of saving his money, after hearing about all

get up, or do you need help? “I can do it,” he grunted.

Overcome by a sudden impulse, Philip reached

journal on the nightstand. He took a deep breath.

bound book. The binding was frayed, the brown

watching. Placing both hands on the mattress, he

in, giving it the appearance that it might burst open

side. He gripped the fabric of his pants and lifted

finger down the spine.

breathing was heavy, his body shaking with effort.

top of her clipboard. “What’s that supposed to be?”

the mirror. He looked disproportionate––strong,

in front of his face to wake him from a trance. “Oh,

was disheveled and his forehead was beaded with

sharing a small part of himself. “It’s nothing. Just my

Philip saw that the woman avoided glancing at

Philip heard the underlying question. Can you

His pulse was racing. It was happening. After all

of his friends’ adventures, he was going to Dream.

He rolled over to the side of the bed and set the

into his pocket and pulled out a small, leather-

This was never easy, especially when someone was

leather wrinkled. Additional pages had been shoved

heaved himself up so that he was sitting on the

at any time. He held it tightly in his grasp, running a

until both lifeless legs were in front of him. His

The woman glanced at him curiously over the

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw himself in

muscled arms and thin, shriveled legs. His hair

Philip startled, as if she had snapped her fingers

this?” he asked. He felt a little uneasy, like he was

sweat. Wincing, he looked away.

dream journal.”

him as well. After a moment, she began to explain

least. Philip had been writing in it for years, filling

drawl. “Once you are injected with the serum,

seemed to slip through his fingertips like mist the

very much awake. After a couple moments, the serum

But it wasn’t nothing. Not really. Not to him, at

the process of the night to him with a rehearsed

its pages with broken fragments of dreams that

your body will fall asleep, but your mind will be

moment he’d wake up. It had become a ritual for

will activate, responding to the specific Dream you’ve bought. From there, you will be completely

him, the panicked scribbling of thoughts and descriptions in the middle of the night. He held on

to his natural dreams like a drug, savoring the

feelings, the sensations, the freedom.

But those dreams, the

ones that came to him without

A syringe rested on the pillow, half-filled with a luminescent, blue liquid.

emerged. When the Dream concludes, you will wake up in this room several hours later.”

She read a series of

rules and legal clauses

from a slip of paper. The

Nether would not be liable

for any injuries or medical side effects from

a cost, weren’t enough. They were fleeting

and teasing, a poor man’s excuse for escape. Tonight

the procedure. He could terminate the dream at

The woman nodded, as if she understood. Philip

Refunds were not an option. He nodded through

would be different. It had to be.

any time, but so could they, if complications arose.

couldn’t imagine that she could.

each of her statements, wanting her to finish.

“Since it’s your first time, I will walk you through

you agree to these terms and conditions?”

When she was done, she met Philip’s eye. “Do

“Alright then,” she said, clearing her throat.

short fiction

Internally, he let out a scream as he drowned further

“Yes.”

and further into his own consciousness.

She marked the paper with her pen. “Have you

Just when he thought all was lost, his eyes

chosen your Dream, or do you need more time?”

flew open.

“No. I know what I want,” Philip said. If he had to

The world blurred before him. All he could see

wait any longer, he didn’t think his heart could take

in the haze was a shade of rusty red,

it. He remembered a cheaper ad in the catalogue that had caught his eye. “Gladiator.”

She nodded. “Experience

or Dreamplot version?” “Experience.”

The woman pulled a

In the search for a Dream, he had found a nightmare.

slim tablet out of her pocket,

and a jarring roar of sound pierced the silence in

his head. The numbness was gone from his body, and

eyes

typing in a code that he assumed

felt

searing

sunlight warm his skin.

He blinked rapidly,

watering.

the

tantalizing seconds passed, an image

was the instruction for his purchase. After a few

seconds, she tucked it back into her scrubs and started

of his environment began to form, coming into

pillow and motioned for him to lay down.

massive, circular arena. It resembled pictures of the

focus like a camera. He stood in the center of a

walking toward him. She took the syringe off of the

Roman Colosseum that Philip remembered seeing

“You might feel a little pinch,” she said, taking

in a history book, with large sandstone arches and

his arm into her hands. She lined up the tip of the

columns. The sun was shining overhead in a bleary,

needle to a vein in his elbow. “And you’re sure you

violent, red sky, causing the sand-covered ground

want to do this?”

to ripple with heat.

As Philip started to nod, the syringe plunged into

Thousands of people filled the stands, wearing

his skin, a pain much sharper than a pinch causing him to wince. Before his mind registered what was

outfits of loose fabric that were held together by

like each individual eyelash was a paperweight made

spit flying from their lips as they cheered. Their

ropes and knots. They were all shouting at him,

happening, his eyelids began to sag, and a feeling

faces formed a sea of eyes and fists and teeth.

each blink heavier and harder than the last. A warm,

It had worked. He was in the Dream.

tingling sensation swept over his body, numbing his

Overcome by the sensations of the realness and

skin with each passing second.

Mind racing, he felt suddenly panicked, no

vividness of the Dream, Philip stumbled back a

was no longer paralyzed from the waist down––his

and tangible. It was hard to wrap his mind around

step. The arena and the people seemed so physical

longer able to open his eyes or lift his arms. He

the idea that it was all in his head.

entire body was frozen. He tried to move his lips, to

And that’s when it hit him. He was standing. He

tell the woman that something was wrong, terribly

was walking.

wrong. Horrified, he found that his tongue simply

In shock, Philip looked down at his body. Or,

flopped like a wet noodle in his mouth.

should he say, his new body. Where his real body’s

“I hope you have a lovely Dream,” he heard the

legs had dwindled over time to nothing but skin

woman say, her voice sounding a million miles away.

and bone, his legs were now muscular and strong.

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

He wore metal shin guards and bronze armor that

Her voice disappeared. The world was darkness

fit tightly against his toned body. He gripped a long

pierced by silence. This is it, he thought. This is the end.

and shining sword in his fist, the metal as beautiful

In the search for a Dream, he had found a nightmare.

Alyssa Shikles

The warrior was a skilled fighter, but Philip

as it was dangerous. He curled his feet, which were

wrapped in leather sandals, and felt glorious, hot

found that his new body came with built in

He couldn’t help it. A laugh burst out of him. He

his sword, Philip parried, driving back with the

jogged, running around the side of the arena. He felt

were quicker than he could have imagined; his

throbbing to an excited rhythm.

power he felt was unmatchable; his heightened

sand between his toes.

dexterity and training. When the man would swing

took a couple of tentative steps forward, and then

same level of ferocity. He found that his reflexes

like his heart might explode, his pulse stuttering and

form, flawless; his endurance, unwavering. The senses energized him like a drug.

He had forgotten the sensation of using his legs.

The man’s whip cracked against Philip’s cheek,

The strength, the power of movement. For the first

cutting like a knife. Tasting blood, he spit and

time in a long time, Philip remembered what it felt

swung his sword so hard in retaliation that the

like to walk again. A tear rolled down his cheek,

warrior’s sword was ripped out of his hands. The

cutting a line down his dust-covered skin.

crowds cheered.

The audience exploded into shouts. Philip spun

Just as Philip was about to thrust his weapon

around to see a door opening on the other side of

into the man’s armor, the warrior kicked his leg

the arena. A large warrior emerged, clad in iron

out. Philip’s legs were swept out from under him,

armor. He wore a helmet that resembled a bull, with

and he landed hard on his stomach with a grunt.

two pointed horns curved above his head. He held

He looked up in time to see the arc of the whip

a sword in one hand and a whip in the other, and

snap down again. The lash missed him by a mere

cracked the whip into the sand as he walked into

inch as he rolled to the left.

the arena.

The warrior was fast. Philip was faster. He

Yes, Philip remembered, the reality of his situation

lifted his sword in an upward arc, slicing open the

coming back to him vaguely. This is what he was here

warrior’s thigh just above the knee. An arc of blood

for. The Experience. Gladiator.

splattered the sand, and the warrior let out a cry of

He was here to fight.

fury and pain, staggering back.

Heart hammering in his chest, Philip squared off

This was his chance, while his opponent was

weak. Philip got to his feet and swung his

against the other warrior. The man was

sword at the warrior’s head.

walking straight toward him, his stride confident and proud like Philip’s head was

already rolling in the dust. Philip felt a spike of

fear, and he considered running away. But then

A large warrior emerged, clad in iron armor.

warrior

ducked,

but not quick enough.

With a metallic ring, the

sword collided with the bull helmet. The armor A

again, what would be the

flew off the man’s head. single,

sheared

clattered to the ground at their feet.

point? This was a Dream. It wasn’t like he

horn

The warrior’s shoulders sagged with exhaustion and

could actually die.

defeat. Philip knew it was time. With one last surge of

With a rush of adrenaline that was half courage

his sword, he plunged the weapon into the warrior’s

and half delighted recklessness, Philip let out a yell

neck. The man dropped to his knees, a river of blood

and started sprinting towards his opponent, sword

running from the wound and down the front of his

raised to strike. Within seconds, the two collided,

armor. With a single heave of his chest, he fell

metal meeting metal as their swords clashed furiously.

short fiction

The

forward into the sand, dead.

“Good morning, Mr. Simonds,” a sweet voice

The people in the stands roared with approval,

said, infiltrating his thoughts like a disease. “I

but Philip barely heard them over the sound of his own heartbeat. His hands were shaking, covered in

hope you had a good dream.”

had been holding his breath for the entire fight. A

had put him asleep before, her crystal blue eyes peering

Philip opened his eyes to see the same woman who

sweat and sand and blood. He gulped in air as if he

at him as she hovered over the bed. Her long, blond hair

cry that was half relief and half victory erupted out

was now in a ponytail, and her white scrubs

of him, echoing in the arena.

had changed to a sky blue color.

He had won. He was

a gladiator.

Philip felt like he could

run a marathon, fight a lion, conquer a kingdom with his

bare hands. His body ached

He had won. He was a gladiator.

“That wasn’t enough

time,” Philip said. His voice sounded ragged to his own ears. Lifeless and tired.

“That’s often what

people

with glorious pain. His lungs

Experiences,”

felt impossibly full, as if he would

say the

about

woman

said. She gave him a sympathetic smile.

never experience emptiness again.

He had never felt more…well, he had never felt

“You’ve been asleep for seven hours.”

more of anything in his entire life. More joy. More

“No,” he whispered. He felt himself becoming

adrenaline. More life.

agitated. She wasn’t getting it. There had to be a

his feet. The gladiator’s face was bloody and bruised,

again. “My Dream only lasted about ten minutes.”

He looked down at the body lying in the dirt at

mistake. He had to go back. He had to feel alive

and there was something in his empty eyes that made

“Yes, well, that is what you paid for––”

Philip hesitate for a moment. He looked so real. So

In desperation, Philip reached out and latched

dead. He tried to shake the illusion off, reminding

his hand on the woman’s wrist. His grip was urgent.

himself that it was a Dream. He wasn’t actually a killer.

She had to understand. “You have to send me back.”

He just won the fight. Despite his own convincing,

The woman tried to pry his hand off, but his

there was a feeling in his gut that remained.

grip was too strong. “Sir, you will just have to come

Part guilt. Part ecstasy. Fully human.

back another night,” she said. Annoyance dripped

And then, just as suddenly as it had all began, he

off her voice, her smile faltering. “Let go of me, or

was staring into the darkness.

I will call security.”

His body felt cold and stiff. In place of the cheers

Philip didn’t let go. She was his hope, his

was a deafening silence. A wave of confusion washed

lifeline. The more she struggled to be free, the

over Philip. And then it hit him––he was waking up.

more he held on. He would always hold on. His

No, no, no, he thought. It’s too soon. It’s much too

fingernails dug into her skin.

soon. Send me back.

The woman cried out and yanked so hard that

He blinked, and his vision blurred white. His

he tumbled out of his bed and onto the floor in a

room at the Nether was slowly coming back into

heap. As he fell, his dream journal tumbled off the

focus, although it seemed to still be in a haze, even

nightstand; the pages scattered across the floor like

after his vision had adjusted. The real world would

snow. All his drawings and scribbles felt so silly and

never seem clear again, not after the vibrance and

pointless now, like childish relics from another life.

life of the Dream.

Even he hadn’t understood. He wished he still didn’t.

He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to see

Philip tried to stand up, but his legs wouldn’t

black. Send me back, send me back, send me back.

work. He tried again and again uselessly, screaming

Alyssa Shikles

out in frustration and heartbreak with each failure. Why wouldn’t they work?

Wild-eyed, Philip caught sight of his reflection in

the mirrored wall. In his mind, he saw the muscled body of a hero. A man who was armored in blood and sand. But the mirror reflected what he saw himself

as, his reality––a small man, dragging himself by the arms, his withered legs trailing behind him.

“You’re killing me,” he cried. The woman was

now out in the hallway, calling for help. “I’m dead if I’m not alive.” He broke into sobs.

Amaninasecurityuniformhurriedintotheroom.The

man glanced at Philip and then the woman, muttering under his breath about another Dreamer gone crazy. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a syringe. It was filled with a clear substance, not the blue liquid from

earlier that night. He bent over Philip’s whimpering and crumpled body, plunged the syringe into his neck, and inserted its contents until the syringe was empty.

Philip’s eyes grew heavier and heavier, his body

melting into sleep. As the world descended into nothingness, he had one fleeting, panicked thought.

He feared the day he would have to be awake again.

short fiction

Clouded

digital

Kyleigh Tyler Utah State University

photography

Trapped

Ashlyn Bothwell Colorado State University

digital

photography

Frankensteinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Monster Writes a Haiku

Rylan Rowsey Montana State University I am the monster I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even have a name I wish it was Doug

poetry

Ogopogo Chillin’ Out Under the Sea Alice Gau University of Florida

red clay | 11'' × 6'' × 8''

visual art

Shut Up Legs mixed media on paper | 22'' Ă&#x2014; 22''

Alexandra Berkowitz Metropolitan State University of Denver

visual art

Moving & Purging Lauren Sarkissian University of New Mexico

pen and ink | 19'' Ă&#x2014; 25''

open media

Poem in which I Wrestle with Origin Nain Christopherson University of Utah

Match word to definition. Try to answer your every question. While it will likely be painful, you will not be penalized for grasping in darkness for what’s soft. a. Blood comes to mind. There is sanctity and meaninglessness in repetition.

1. _____ home 2. _____ family

b. As opposed to isolation

c. As compared to life. Can anyone teach me to keep this nineteen-year-old body breathing?

3. _____ survival 4. _____ That Which Is Wonderful, That to Which You Have Clung in Your Anguish, God

d. Like sidewalk (this is a humid summer afternoon) you are rinsed clean by the heat.

5. _____ my own name

e. Failure, as death, our mortal tariff; an act incapable of honesty

6. _____ yours

7. _____ an act of honesty

Just vastness; just flesh; just evolution––can anyone teach me not to overcomplicate?––just love.

g. The way my heartbeat sounded

8. _____ solitude

h. What crushes you; what buckles knees in living rooms after midnight; what renders sobs unstifleable. And you hope your roommate doesn’t hear, and you hope she does.

9. _____ to cry 10. _____ to emerge unscathed

i. j.

Retreat (I am an animal); where heart is: my chest

A labyrinth; inescapable. Can anyone teach me to emerge from this? To do it unscathed?

poetry

We st e r n Re gi on al Ho n o rs Co un ci l Award: P h oto gr a p hy

Ideas for Strings.

Taylor Haggard Central Arizona College digital

photography

In Ice.

digital

Taylor Haggard Central Arizona College

photography

In Dreams ‫ﺧ ﻮ ا ﺑ ﻮ ں ﻣ ﯿﮟ‬ In Dreams In this world ‫اس د ﻧ ﯿ ﺎ ﻣ ﯿﮟ‬ the days burn ‫ﮐ ﮩ ﺎں دن ﺟ ﻠﺘﮯ ﮨﻮ‬ he nights melt ‫ا و ر ر ا ﺗ ﯿ ﮟ ﭘﮕ ﮭ ﻠﺘ ﯽ‬ I live ‫ﻣ ﯿﮟ ر ﮨﺘﯽ ﮨﻮ ں‬ Restless ‫اﺿ ﻄ ﺮ ار ﻣ ﯿﮟ‬

Kulsoom Mohammad Widener University

In Dreams ‫ﺧ ﻮ اﺑﻮ ں ﻣ ﯿﮟ‬

In this world In this world ‫اس د ﻧ ﯿ ﺎ ﻣ ﯿﮟ‬ the daysburn burn WhereWhere the days ‫ﮐ ﮩ ﺎں دن ﺟ ﻠﺘﮯ ﮨﻮ ں‬ Andnights the nights melt And the melt ‫ا و ر ر ا ﺗ ﯿ ﮟ ﭘﮕ ﮭ ﻠﺘ ﯽ ﮨ ﯿ ﮟ‬ I live I live ‫ﻣ ﯿﮟ ر ﮨﺘﯽ ﮨﻮ ں‬ Restless Restless ‫اﺿ ﻄ ﺮ ار ﻣ ﯿﮟ‬ at thesky sky I lookI look at the ‫آﺳﻤﺎن ﮐﻮ دﯾﮑﮭﺘﯽ ﮨﻮں‬ Wondering Wondering ‫ﺳ ﻮﭼ ﺘﯽ ﮨﻮ ئ‬ the colorsgo go WhereWhere the colors ‫رﻧﮓ ﮐﮩﺎں ﺟﺎﺗﮯ ﮨﯿﮟ‬ When I sleep When I sleep ‫ﺟ ﺐ ﻣ ﯿﮟ ﺳ ﻮ ﺟ ﺎ ﺗﯽ ﮨﻮ ں‬ I find peace WhereWhere I find peace ‫ﺟ ﮩ ﺎں ﻣ ﺠ ﮭ ﮯ ﺳ ﮑ ﻮ ن ﻣ ﻠ ﺘ ﺎ ﻣ ﯿ ﮟ‬ In dreams In dreams ‫ﺧ ﻮ اﺑﻮ ں ﻣ ﯿﮟ‬

foreign language

Magnetic Resonance Imaging white colored pencil on black paper | 25'' Ă&#x2014; 18.5''

Gabriella Hesse University of Florida

visual art

Shadow

Tarynn Di’Nnovati University of New Mexico

wood cut relief print | 12'' × 9''

visual art

Piccadilly Circus Edi to rsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Ch o i ce Award: Art

mixed media photo transfer | 31'' Ă&#x2014; 40.5''

Gabriella Hesse University of Florida

visual art

reliance We s t er n R eg i o n al Ho n o rs Co un ci l Aw ard: Po e tr y

Hannah Slind University of Utah this winter, I was Persephone Bundled in sheepskin, he sat ovine and erect. Horns hostiled his otherwise innocuous woolly exterior. He had stones for eyes. His gnarled horns betrayed him, absurd obsidian. He said come on, now. He cajoled. i got he put i can’t he put i wailed his face i couldn’t he hurt he didn’t i got he put i got he put i can’t breathe there isn’t any i got i got he put i got igot igot idiot I would say I straddle worlds but straddle is a word I don’t think about it is untouchable; my own body room hurt boy fleece boy fingernails couch sheep tears tongue sleep

poetry

let me tell you what really happened the truth was I was a sheep who thought she was a spider got stuck in a sticky trap in a basement and only had panic as a guide O to be Oedipus and lose only your eyes O to be left bereft for the pity of flies O let me tell you il miglior fabbro, who must know so boldly ! i cannot say it is too strong for my frail frame i will capsize if i possibly presume that that i got i got i got igot O Persephone, O Shepherdess lend me your voice so I may tell with unquaking resolve and a stern ram’s heart ! and yet Persephone is only a picture in a sod-bound book on the shelf she can’t or she won’t help

Hannah Slind

Cock Fight

Lara Meintjes Long Beach City College

watercolor and ink on paper | 12'' Ă&#x2014; 18''

visual art

Milky Way over Mount Rainier

digital

Joseph Wishart Montana State University

photography

The seven-hundredand-forty-first coming Lara Meintjes Long Beach City College

he car was making that noise again, the one it refused to make for that nice young man down at the garage; it was like a sudden night cough, purring along smoothly and then ack, tlink, ghhh followed by the melodic shhhhhh shhhhh, shh of

steam escaping. Mrs Westrop managed to pull the car over to the side of the road,

indicating, checking her mirrors, and proceeding cautiously before a tinny clink cut the engine once and for all.

She opened the door, clutching the spanner that lived in her glove compartment, and made her way

gingerly around to the front of the car. She fiddled along the seam for the elusive little catch that would

release the bonnet. Propping it up, she stared blankly at the digestive system of her wee car, not at all certain what she was looking for, and feeling a little at sea, really.

She tried to remember if any of the ladies at her bridge club took the same route home. Looking

around, she could see little but greenery and sheep. To her right was an empty field, leading off into the

hills, acres of emerald grass, dotted with bluebells, and old, probably unused oast houses, like a couple

of ancient gnomes, sitting in the grass, jaunty hats angled towards the sky. The view across the road was much the same, except for the train track neatly slicing the field into two, and a flock of sheep—or two flocks, if the train was to be believed.

She knew that if she walked a mile odd back down the road, she would get to the village, where she

could find a telephone and ring the Automobile Association, but she wasn’t wearing her walking shoes, so she wandered back to the front of the car for a last tinker.

That was when she found Jesus, standing just west of her elbow, clearing his throat, probably so as

not to startle her.

He was on the short side, and was rather more tanned than the average Englishman. His hair was

much longer than it had any business being, and somewhat matted to boot, and his beard could use

quite a lot of attention from a very good barber, but he had the most astonishingly kind brown eyes that

sort of reminded her of her Arthur, so she gathered up all of the courage stored in her many sensible pockets.

Introducing herself, continuing at some length, her nerves having gotten the better of her, “Hello,

um, I’m Mrs Westrop, and I seem to have gotten myself into something of a spot of bother. I’m sure somebody will be along shortly to help, but I’m afraid I know little of engines and the like, and you look a bit like somebody I used to know, and an awful lot like somebody I never met but have seen an endless number of paintings of.”

short fiction

hadn’t

get fur all over it on his frequent trips to the vet,

introduction of sorts, “It’s very nice to meet you Mrs

over her clean front seats, he seemed to be covered

She

would

have

continued

and she was concerned about Jesus getting muck all

stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm and an

in a solid coating of at least two thousand years of

Westrop, I am the living bread which came down

experience, and she wasn’t having any of it.

from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall

The car trip was a long but fairly comfortable

live forever, and the bread that I will give is my

period of relative quiet. While she

flesh, which I will give for the life of the world, but most people just call me Jesus.”

To which Mrs Westrop

replied, “Well, I’m sure that’s

very nice, son, but my doctor

has me on something of a newfangled gluten-free diet; bread just clogs up the old

pipes, and frankly, there are

only so many games of bridge I can

Before she could think about what she was doing— inviting strange young men into her home— he had gotten into the back seat...

tried to decide whether to

ask after his parents, or when last he had a good meal, she settled on

humming along to the

Streisand cassette that had been stuck in the car

stereo since 1987. Jesus

seemed to know an

awful lot of the songs from

Yentl, and they arrived outside her

play, eternity would be wasted on these old

home, carried along by a particularly rousing

bones. However, I’m sure you’re a fine baker.” She

chorus of “The Way He Makes Me Feel.”

didn’t think it polite to mention that cannibalism was

Mrs Westrop sent Jesus up to the attic to see if

quite out of fashion, so she decided not to take what

he could find the box of Arthur’s old clothes, the

he said too literally.

one she hadn’t been able to part with when the

She watched him tinker a while, tapping out a

Salvation Army truck had arrived. Hopefully some

strange sort of spell on the metal of the car’s engine.

of his trousers would fit. Maybe her son Tony’s

After a few minutes, he indicated that she should try

old jumpers—which were still folded neatly in his

the vehicle, which roared to life under her nervous

wardrobe, cradling mothballs in the sleeves the way

and somewhat overenthusiastic court shoes.

he used to store marbles as a child, as if he were

“Thank you so much, young man, heaven only

coming back any day now—would fit. Perhaps she

knows how long I might have been stranded here if you

would offer him Tony’s room, if he needed to stay

hadn’t come along, may I give you a ride somewhere?”

a few days; the bed was always made up, and she

“To be quite honest, I am not sure which direction

dusted in there regularly, moving each swimming

to head in. I am looking for Galilee?”

trophy off of the shelf one by one and cleaning the

“Is that the new shopping centre near the railway

space around and beneath them tenderly before

station in Brighton? I could give you a ride there but

putting everything back exactly as it should be.

you look like you could use a good meal first. I left

Jesus went off downstairs, to bathe, while she

a Tupperware of lovely vegetable soup defrosting on

puttered around the kitchen, warming the soup

the kitchen counter and a chicken breast I was going

and setting bowls out on the table that usually

to share with my cat, but there is plenty of food if

held her sewing machine. The crocheted tablecloth

you would be willing to join us?”

was laid over a nice floral one that she had made

Before she could think about what she was

from some old curtains a few years back, and if

doing—inviting strange young men into her home—

she just picked a couple of the lovely yellow roses

he had gotten into the back seat, which she always

from outside the front door, it would be ready for

kept covered with an old blanket. Aloysius tended to

entertaining in no time at all.

Lara Meintjes

Mrs Westrop finished her soup, went to check

Mrs Westrop set out a few slivers of chicken in

a pool of gravy for the cat, and then retrieved the

on the washing, putting his dressing gown and

bathroom. She put them in the washing machine,

kitchen to continue the family album odyssey.

the clean towel in the dryer, and returned to the

dressing gown and towel Jesus had left outside the

Jesus had nodded off next to his empty soup bowl,

selecting the additional soak cycle, as the white towel

so she picked up her crossword puzzle and worked

had an ugly brown mark streaked down the front of

on it until she got stuck trying to come up with a

it, like an elongated portrait of her unexpected guest.

nine letter word for a kind and charitable person.

Conversation over lunch was stilted to begin with,

She went to the utility room and retrieved the

and made more so by the constant interruptions of Seymour, her nephew’s parrot, whom she was taking

white towel Jesus had used; it still had that awful

with his new wife, of whom she definitely did not

she was pretty certain it was gone when she had put

brown smudge down the front of it, even though

care of while he was on safari or some such nonsense

it in the dryer. Placing it back in the laundry basket,

approve. She had so enjoyed the few minutes she had

she returned to the suddenly empty kitchen to make

spent with her nephew when he delivered Seymour,

a note to pick up some extra strength bleach on her

staying just long enough to place the parrot’s cage in

way back from church.

the sitting room. It was on the little round table next to the settee, reupholstered in dusty rose velveteen just seventeen years ago, and in great condition because

of love, care, and extra-large crocheted antimacassars. Seymour didn’t think much of the settee, and spent

his first few hours spitting seeds all over it, after which she moved him to the window, but when she opened

the drapes, he had squawked, “Oh, Christ, my eyes!”

repeatedly until she moved him to the kitchen, with its easy-to-clean linoleum and that small window above the sink.

Jesus sat nearest Seymour, while Mrs Westrop

tucked herself away in the corner, showing him family photographs in an old leather-bound album while he

slurped his soup. He was wearing Arthur’s trousers and a “kiss” jumper from Tony’s wardrobe, but was still

barefoot as she had not been able to find him a pair of shoes.

“This is our Lily, a lovely girl, she went off to uni and

marriedaniceladfromHerefordshire.Wedon’tseehervery much, but she has two dear, sweet little ones.” Jesus said, “Mm-hmm.”

Seymour said, “Oh, Christ, my eyes!”

“Oh look, here they are; that is Lucy on the left and

Edward on the right, he looks just like my dear late husband, Arthur—except shorter of course.” Jesus nodded.

Seymour said, “Bollocks!”

short fiction

Hannah Utter Washington State University

ome bloom yellow, like the Viola pubescens or the Viola pedunculata—petals bright and

protective of the soft black stamen, which pokes out in the hopes of a honeybee. Other varieties are white, like the Viola persicifolia, or fen violet, which is native to northern

Europe and Asia. The fen violet digs itself into soft, damp holes in the ground, dewy

with the rain of Ireland and the natural lime of the soil. It opens up in late spring or sometimes

early summer, damp heat of the marsh giving way to its blooms. Those are just a few of the violets, but there are more varieties—about five hundred more—poking up in fields and bouquets and

flower crowns. They’re white, orange, sometimes sweet pink or speckled. But the best are purple. To the layman, the purple variety is expected, boring. Without flair. But the common blue worms its way in and then settles, soft and sweet, next to my heart.

The common blue violet—Viola sororia—blooms small and purple, a purple so deep it is almost

blue, and opens up top to bottom to reveal a barely-white center. Native to North America, the common blue violet lends itself as the state flower of Illinois, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Wisconsin. To some, it is a weed. To others—wild turkeys, rabbits, deer, the mourning dove—it is food. It self-seeds its way around gardens and lawns, popping up in forests and fields alike.

The common blue is wild. Because it’s so widespread, it has a million names. People call it wood violet,

meadow violet, purple violet, hooded violet, woolly blue. Like a woman, the common blue stretches

herself thin, lending herself to cause after cause. She sprouts up or is weathered down. When thought of as beautiful, she blooms in the sun. If thought of as a nuisance, she is done away with. The common

blue violet is borrowed. Be it by weed whacker or pull and crunch of a rabbit’s jaw, by name-caller or state designator. By man or otherwise, she is pared down. Her identity is split so many different ways, it no longer means anything. By man or otherwise, she is erased.

But the common blue violet was once only called violet, as in garlands of violets. It once grew

wild and free, crowding the Ancient Greek island of Lesbos. Sappho once busied herself, we think, writing of women and weaving crowns of violets. The image is almost palpable now—women

lying about in togas, their long, curly, dark hair twisted and dripping with violets, the sound of a lyre being plucked nearby. The look of a lover, bending low to kiss another, only the purple flowers interwoven into crowns visible around them.

Although Sappho wrote upward of ten thousand lines of poetry, only fragments survive,

and one complete poem—“Ode to Aphrodite.” Everything that survives of her work mentions

only women. They are adorned in violets, speaking to her from beyond the grave. She calls to them, and they to her. The fragments speak of desire, clumsy ankles, goblets of myrrh. In their

creative nonfiction

We s t e r n Re gio n al Ho n o rs Co un ci l Award: Cre ativ e No nf ic t i on

Viola sororia

limitations, the fragments still paint a clear picture

my imagination,” Virginia remarked in a letter to

Kleis, Atthis, Erinna, Leda, Dika—all women. The

from 1912 until she committed suicide in 1941.

a friend, around 1930. She was married to a man

of Lesbos and Sappho. She finds a way to mention

In her farewell letter, she wrote to her husband

only men mentioned are old gods. Yet some insistent

that she didn’t think “two people could have been

historians conjure up a husband and a daughter for

happier than we have been.” But I wonder if, for

Sappho. The lines of violet garlands and sunshine

her and Vita, it might have been possible to be

brightening the faces of women unravel at the hands

happier. I wonder if this thought ever came to

of men who insist. Their pestilent theories tug at the

Virginia, as she sat alone in her home, smelling the

identity of Sappho—trimming, erasing, inventing—

thick scent of roses from another room. The stench

until she is more of an idea than a person. Not unlike

of loneliness, sickly sweet, unfurling in her nostrils

the violet, Sappho pales under the scrutiny of men.

until her final days.

The common blue took a long leave of absence

Now there are other symbols for women

among women after Sappho. Around 1910, violets began to bloom in their hearts again. They would

who love other women—flags, jewelry, buttons,

stars between pages of books or into letters sealed

Subtle ones like flannel or jackets with patches,

triangles, clasped gender symbols, labrys tattoos.

pick them for one another, slipping the tiny purple

mustard yellow, Doc Martens and undercuts.

with kisses. Women shared fistfuls of violets, their

But I cannot help feeling like the violet,

meaning taking on an element of secrecy. It had now

been over two thousand years since the violets had

downtrodden yet resilient, as I sit in my Spanish

shame was invented.

Grecian plant, used to make wreaths. Like crowns,

class. The girl next to me is named Laurel—another

grown wild in Lesbos. Somewhere along the line,

but older. I am mesmerized by the way her hair falls

This time period brings to mind Vita and Virginia—a

on the back of her neck, the curve of her smooth skin

pair of writers in secret love. I imagine cottages by the

radiating warmth I can feel in the space between

sea, overgrown with violets ready for picking. Long

us. Her cheeks are flush from the warm classroom,

walks along a shaded path, purple stars gleaming in

eyes blue and kind. We talk occasionally, but often

the low light as the lovers pass by. Like Sappho, they

I prefer to observe her when she is focused on

wrote to and about one another. The language and

something else. I am thinking of

style were different, but the subject matter the same—come away with me, to the sea, to bed, together. In it, an

air of secrecy, a tinge of shame. Even after, when

they were just friends,

Virginia would keep a

Not unlike the violet, Sappho pales under the scrutiny of men.

writing a poem in which

I compare the curve of her ear to the crescent

moon when the boy who sits in front of me twists

around and commands my attention.

I try to look normal, but it

room in her house filled with fresh

is too late. He sees me looking at her in that

flowers in case Vita stopped in for a visit. There

must have been a thick, heavenly fragrance wafting

soft, secret way, and smirks. Suddenly, I am

new and fresh, bringing up the ancient smell of

than the heart pendant sitting just below Laurel’s

feeling small—smaller than wild violets, smaller

around the room all the time. The flowers, though

collarbone. He opens his mouth to say something

Lesbos—honey, violets, sunlight on skin.

just as the professor does, and for now I am spared.

Still, the unhappiness of secrecy is a stain on

The heat of guilt creeps up my face and I look

those twentieth century lovers. “Women alone stir

Hannah Utter

down at my paper, feeling both like the intruder and the intruded upon.

Later I am angry that I am ashamed of the moment. Often I think of Lesbos, considering what it meant

to Sappho, a Lesbian, to love women. I wonder if she

likes the new definition of the word lesbian, or if

“person from Lesbos” is all she wants from the term.

I wonder if she really did have a daughter, or even a

husband. I think of Vita and Virginia, who were born eighty years too early for their love. I wonder how

Virginia could have thought she was happy with her

husband, so happy that she killed herself. I think of Vita sitting in her room of flowers, wondering all this

for me?, smiling herself to sleep next to a man while thinking about a woman.

And then I think of Laurel. I wonder if that boy in

front of us will ask for her number, or if maybe I should do that. I think of her eyelashes and her teeth, the

little hairs that cling to her forehead, the light brown rubber band that holds her ponytail in place. I think of

slipping some violets into her Spanish book while she is not looking, like the women of the twentieth century would do. I think of writing ten thousand lines of poetry about her. Just because.

Last, I think of violets. I see them downtrodden, yanked

up, eaten, flooded, clipped, shredded, segmented, and parched. I see them smiling up at the sun, optimistic in the

face of death. I see them crunched into an untidy bouquet, or trimmed and tied into a crown. I see them between book

pages and in a thin vase by the window. I see them growing wild in Ireland, Wisconsin, and Lesbos. Sappho’s violets

tumble forward in time into our hands. There, they are safe. They are not woolly blue or common. They are not purple, hooded, meadow. They are not weeds. In the hands of the women who love women, the violets are exactly what they were meant to be—ours.

creative nonfiction

Ode to the Hyphen Andrea Lara-GarcÍa University of Arizona i. Mexican

was born on American soil, which means that I have technically been an American citizen from the moment my slippery ass hit the delivery table. But my parents don’t feel that way. They

like to remind me that they petitioned for my Mexican citizenship before I had even left the hospital for the first time. They like to remind me that my Mexican birth certificate came in the

mail before the American one did. They like to remind me that I was Mexican before I was ever

American.

We moved to Tijuana shortly after. To my parents, it was a rapturous homecoming, salmon returning to spawn. They had never intended to stay in the U.S. for long. I don’t remember living in Mexico, but my mom remembers me living in Mexico, which is good

enough for her. There is a story she has told me so many times that I can now adequately fake the memory—sometimes, I can even feel myself there. The memory goes like this: there was once a

little girl named Andrea who lived in a yellow house near the sea in Tijuana, and she ate purple figs on her mother’s lap. The figs were warm from the sun. We moved back to Michigan and then to Arizona, but it was okay, because we were never meant to stay. I went to a very white elementary-middle-high school and boy! Did they never let me forget it! Questions came from curious classmates about my green card (never had one), my unusually good

behavior (Mom says be nice), and my true identity (Yes! I am actually Mexican). They never quite believed me, and I could not comprehend why.

I had a substitute teacher named Mr. Martinez who liked that I let other kids copy off my tests

and that I read during free time. This was mostly because I was desperate to be popular/had

approximately one friend, but he didn’t know this. He pulled me aside outside of the library one

day and asked if I was Hispanic. I told him I guessed I was. He gave me a mission: to be the best. Listen, he said—you’re smart, but that’s not enough. You have to be the best, at everything, or they’ll never take you seriously. You are going to help people like us but who aren’t as blessed as us and you

have to be the best! I was maybe nine. My duty: pulling an entire people out of the muck with my reedy arms. I cracked open my brother’s high school yearbooks when I was twelve and he was twenty-two.

I smelled the laminate coming off them, the ghosts of multicolored Sharpies and ballpoint pens.

creative nonfiction

Everyone mentioned how smart he was, but there

It was primal, watching them stomp and spin and

smart Mexican! they all wrote. You’re the smartest

was theirs (ours) and this history that had made

swing their dresses, singing about this country that

was always a qualifier to his intelligence: You’re a

them (us) strong. I couldn’t take it—I tried to hold

Mexican I know!

back sobs, my hands clenched over my mouth.

On the subway ride home, I thought

People started saying this to me in middle school and I forgot Mr. Martinez. I believed

that it had all been worth

¡O, México! Más que lindo y querido —¡mío!

them. I stopped speaking Spanish and stayed out of the sun.

One day I went to my dad’s

it, because there could be nothing more glorious

than being able to claim Mexico as your own. ¡O, México! Más que lindo

office, sat on the carpeted floor, and

y querido—¡mío!

asked my parents why we were so much smarter

than other Mexicans. I still don’t know how they

ii. American

a stupid question, but my parents are infinitely kind

I was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan—closer to Canada

didn’t Hulk-smash me into the ground for asking such and wise and they told me it wasn’t true. We are just

than Mexico. There was a foot of snow on the ground

so lucky, they explained. We are just so lucky.

when I was born—Christmas was white that year.

Smart, but mostly lucky—Mr. Martinez returned

I don’t remember the yellow house or the purple

to me in full color, along with an unfamiliar,

figs, but I do remember Ann Arbor.

burning indignation.

I had a Calvin-and-Hobbesian type of childhood

So I became aggressively Mexican in high school. It

in Michigan. I caught fireflies, plucked them out

was almost a personality trait. I didn’t want people to

of the sky with fat fingers and cradled them in my

forget who I was when I was being better than them.

hands. I fed geese and made flower crowns out of

dandelions; I climbed trees with leaves that filtered

My senior year of high school, I got the scholarship

emerald sunlight. I ate strawberry ice cream at the

that made everyone so angry, and a friend told me

Baskin-Robbins down the street and watched ants

that I got it because of affirmative action. I don’t

attack the drips.

want to talk about affirmative action. But I want you

to know I was the best.

I was riding my tricycle when my dad told me we were

moving to Arizona. How do you spell that? I asked.

The summer before college, I went to Mexico City

with my three closest friends. We navigated the

O, Phoenix! Palm trees and concrete and winding,

markets and pyramids and the electric blue of

blinding suburbia. We lived in a hotel next to a Carl’s Jr.

Frida Kahlo’s house in a state of ecstasy; the city

for a week because the movers were late. My brother

was relentless. Our last night, we had tickets to go

wasn’t speaking to us; he was fifteen and furious,

see Mexican folk dancing. We didn’t know what to

because he was going to be the new kid again.

expect. We sat in our seats eating chocolate and

popcorn, dreaming about the summer heat we were

I met Amanda-who-would-be-my-best-friend on

flying back to. But then the lights dimmed and the

the school bus, on the first day of kindergarten. She

dancers emerged and I felt a tugging in my blood.

Andrea Lara-García

iii. -

was blonde and blue-eyed, a Scandinavian angel.

She always had good snacks and PB&J sandwiches,

I was born in the United States to Mexican parents.

sans crust. With Amanda, I ate meatloaf for the first

When my birth certificates came in the mail, they

time. Her dad had a mancave, a minifridge stocked

spelled my name in different ways. In the U.S., I

with sodas, and a T.V. in the shower. I had never

am Andrea Lara-Garcia; in Mexico, I am Andrea

known such decadence, and I was enraptured.

Lara García.

I never had many friends in school, but it was okay,

I got lucky. My parents are academics specializing

because I had Amanda-who-would-be-my-best-friend

in the U.S.-Mexico border region. They uprooted

and Taylor-across-the-street and Teresa-and-Christi

themselves constantly in search of a place to study-

(sisters, came as a set). We would visit neighborhood

work-raise-a-family. My brother got moved around

parks and rip branches off trees and sword fight with

four or five times, but I missed the nomadic years.

them. We also dug holes looking for buried treasure

The first time we lived in Michigan—the time I

and tore apart playground equipment with our tiny

was born—my father was finishing up his PhD. We

hands. At the time, this destruction felt necessary—

returned so that my mother could do the same. It

we were claiming the territory as our own.

was a very American dream-y situation.

My mother planted a fig tree in the backyard of our

The border is a fixture in our household, a loving

Arizona home. Our first harvest, she sat me at the

fifth family member, an impossible-to-ignore entity.

kitchen table like she used to. She tried to feed me

My brother went on to study it, and now I am

sun-ripened figs. We discovered that at some point

doing the same. That line in the sand, that fence

between the ages of four and ten, I had developed a

(wall?), that “-” between Mexican and American;

deep loathing for figs.

that means everything to me. I want to know it.

I went back to Michigan one summer. I stayed at an old

A few years after we moved to Arizona,

friend’s house and we did all the things we used to do—we climbed trees and ate strawberry ice

cream, etc., etc., but it had lost its spark. I missed my beige suburbia. O, Phoenix! Arterial freeways

At the time, this destruction felt necessary—we were claiming the territory as our own.

and beautiful beige! My brother went

my parents floated the idea

of returning to Mexico.

I wept. I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t want to

leave

Amanda-my-

best-friend or my silent suburbia. I could see

my parents were miserable.

But I was eight and selfish in the way only

to college, came back “enlightened” and declared

that Phoenix was the most flavorless and hideous city in

children are, so I stamped my feet and screeched.

to. And I got a hometown, like my brother never did.

And we stayed, even though we were never meant

the entire United States. It felt like a personal attack.

The Phoenix I know—my Phoenix—is orchestra

rehearsal and Barro’s Pizza and Amanda’s golden

We stayed, but it never felt safe. My scary stories,

milkshakes and asphalt. It’s eating dinner in the

about deportation; my boogeyman was Joe Arpaio.

in the trees. My parents are endlessly interesting

will make us leave. And maybe you will stay here,

hair. Phoenix is Thursday night calculus and creosote,

the ones that kept me up at night, were stories

backyard of our little cookie-cutter house, cicadas

If neither of us gets tenure, my parents warned, they

conversationalists and the summer heat is so inviting.

without us, because you are not like us. We can’t

creative nonfiction

equipment we ruined has been replaced. Amanda and

protest-vote-get-arrested-run-for-office—and even if

I went to different colleges.

we are good, maybe they will make us leave anyway.

Things worked out, as they are supposed to in the

But I go where the air is heavy with the smell of

and went to the courthouse to get sworn in as bonafide

been. They ask me about college over carne asada

figs and my parents are there, as they have always

United States. My parents passed their citizenship exam

and Dad calls me his princesa because he and Mom

Americans. Little old ladies in red-white-and-blue waved

rule benevolently over this hyphen, over its fruit

flags and God-blessed them. Welcome to America! they

trees and dinner tables and blue windowsills. And

said, as though my parents hadn’t already been here for

maybe it doesn’t matter that they don’t know where

ten years. Take off your coat, stay a while!

to retire. Retirement sounds boring, anyway—

This year, my parents paid off our house for their 34

maybe they won’t retire until they’re dead. We

send my brother pictures of dinner and he says that

wedding anniversary. It was meant to be a starter

he misses home, even if he doesn’t miss Phoenix.

home, but after we painted the windowsills electric

And we sit and we look at each other. And there is

blue, it felt wrong to leave.

no being the best, not here.

Me in Tucson, my brother in New York. I wonder how the

house feels without us there. I wonder if it still smells like

The lights in the backyard flicker like fireflies, and

if mom has started putting raisins in her capirotada, since

the summer heat is so inviting.

quesadillas, since I am not there to make them. I wonder

I am not there to pick them out. Is our slice of suburbia even more silent? Do the cicadas still sing? -

Dad wants to retire in Ímuris, Sonora. Dad wants to build an adobe house with a spiral staircase, sculpt the mud bricks with his own hands. Dad wants to

raise cattle and drink fresh, foamy milk every day. Dad wants his grandchildren to see Mexico as he does. Mom wants to retire in Nogales, Arizona. Mom wants to be as close to the border as physically possible without

crossing. Mom sees the disappeared and destroyed

on the news, sees her children’s faces in theirs. Mom wants her grandchildren to be able to come and visit. I want my parents to have what I stopped them from having. But something greater than me is doing that now.

The neighborhood is cycling through. The kids I used

to play with are grown and gone—their families are selling to new families, and there is children’s laughter in the streets for the first time in years. The playground

Andrea Lara-García

Afterword Amaris Ketcham

Faculty Advisor

o much depends on the seed being sown. The seed could come from a visit to a local

museum or library, the challenge of a QWERTY flurry in November, or even a spark of inspiration from a cool Instagram feed. The seed may lie dormant for several years. Just

as actual seeds may require certain temperature cycles, scarification, or stratification, our

own artistic awakenings may wait for the right conditions to germinate. Even though developing the habits of artistic practice—that is, of deliberate and consistent creation—can be so difficult, it is only

the beginning stage of growth. To cultivate and spread creative work, writers and artists must hustle,

but they must hustle in a way that is less coercive than collaborative. Even in times of drought, creative people must keep a mindset of abundance, believing that there is room for everyone to achieve their goals, because a fertile soil isn’t composed of competition but cooperation.

The best way to foster this mindset is by joining artistic communities. In creative writing circles,

we call this becoming a literary citizen, and there are many easy ways to participate in this kind of citizenship. First and foremost, read books. Attend author readings and book signings, gallery shows, film festivals, talks, and conferences. Subscribe to literary magazines (like this one!), buy books and

art, and if you enjoy a story or a print or an album, tell people either formally (by writing a review) or informally (by telling your friends or coworkers). Donate money if you can or time if you can’t (volunteer

as a reader or reviewer). Reach out to authors and artists you admire and tell them how much you appreciate their work. Celebrate your colleagues’ achievements and champion their work. And most importantly, invite others into the community.

One of the aspects of Scribendi I love most is that for many students, it is an entry into this

kind of citizenship. The authors and artists we publish are taking some of their first steps into the

publishing world. The staff members devote so much time and energy completely engaged in a project that’s much so bigger than one person’s hustle could muster. I have been impressed by this

staff’s commitment to learning the ins and outs of literary publishing, differences between en and em

dashes to fundraising thousands of dollars to reviewing over five hundred literary and artistic works to designing and copyediting this edition. The editors this year have maintained their enthusiasm and

good humor through numerous proofs and InDesign frustrations. I would like to thank our Managing Editor, Hyunju Blemel for her generous spirit, encouraging team-building outside of class, and for

compiling so many pie charts. I’d like to thank Alyssa Aragon, our Editor in Chief, for her kindness, student-centered leadership, and of course, her color-coded notes and agendas. They helped grow this year’s staff into a tight-knit community within the larger creative community.

Contributors Kendra Barker, University of Utah Kendra is an aspiring neurosurgeon from San Jose, California. She is a full-time student, athlete, and artist who loves animals, the earth, and the beauty of nature. The Depths Below page 59 Erin Benton, University of New Mexico Erin is in her third year at the University of New Mexico and is an English major. She has previously won the Lena Todd and Karen McKinnon awards for poetry. She has a passion for storytelling in all mediums. Currently, she works as a home health aide for children with special needs. I can only speak of trauma in goddess tongues page 57

Ashlyn Bothwell, Colorado State University Ashlyn is a daughter, a sister, a thinker, and a day dream believer. She looks to the stars, lives in the mountains, and breathes in the wind. She loves without boundaries and laughs at the slightest things. She likes the little things. Trapped page 72

Bennett Bowden, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Bennett is a novice writer studying at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with his friends and under his mentor Richard Jackson. He enjoys subversion of classic tropes and ideas but also loves superheroes as mythical symbols. Waterboarding page 34 Alexandra Berkowitz, Metropolitan State University of Denver Ally is a junior at Metropolitan State University of Denver but previously attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is majoring in elementary and art education. In the future, she hopes to have a career that incorporates creativity and art into the elementary education realm. Shut Up Legs page 75

Joshua Chang, University of Nevada, Reno Joshua is a double major in electrical engineering and applied mathematics at the University of Nevada, Reno and enjoys long walks on the beach. He doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know why he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t choose to be an art major. Sunshine, staff choice award page 25

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Mariposa Childson, University of New Mexico Mariposa is a freshman at the University of New Mexico. She enjoys reading, writing, photography, and discussing the mysterious. One day she hopes to work in a profession where she can help people and have a positive effect on the world. Midnight Musings page 9

Nain Christopherson, University of Utah Nain writes poetry to make sense of herself.

Poem in which I Wrestle with Origin page 77

Marvin Contreras, University of California, Riverside Marvin is a third-year transfer student attending the University of California, Riverside. His aspiration is to write and spread his passion for language. In his free time, he loves reading literature, watching film, and writing poetry. Liquor Store page 19

Phoebe Cummins, University of New Mexico Phoebe is a senior at the University of New Mexico majoring in political science and honors interdisciplinary liberal arts with a minor in Spanish. Growing up in New Mexico, she has always appreciated the natural beauty and diverse culture of the state. Breaking Bad Stereotypes, wrhc award page 36

Tarynn Diâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Nnovati, University of New Mexico Tarynn is a visual art student in the University of New Mexico Honors College who makes conceptual work, frequently about mental disorders and activism. Her style tends to be detailed and three dimensional. Shadow page 82

Alex Galindo, University of New Mexico Alex Galindo is a nonbinary artist from San Antonio, Texas. They are an avid fan of loose-leaf tea and enjoy the company of their three cats. Examination of Misogyny page 10

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contributors

Contributors Alice Gau, University of Florida Alice is from Jacksonville, Florida and enjoys creating art in her free time. She also enjoys watching Voltron and listening to Harry Styles. Ogopogo Chillin’ Out Under the Sea page 74

Carrie George, Kent State University Carrie is a writer and a photographer. She enjoys journalistic and creative writing, with a focus on poetry. She uses her words and photography to tell stories and record the world around her. In 2018, she won the Wick Poetry Center undergraduate scholarship contest. Carrie hopes to attend graduate school for an MFA in poetry and to teach poetry in her community. Apophatic page 31 Curtains page 33 Raspberry Pie, editors’ choice award page 20

Taylor Haggard, Central Arizona College Taylor is a conceptual photographer and poet based in Gilbert, Arizona. Her artistic alias is Heathen. Ideas for Strings. wrhc award page 78 In Ice. page 79

Madison Haver, Southern Oregon University Madison is a student at Southern Oregon University studying English and philosophy. Dead Fish in a Puddle page 39

Hunter Hazelton, Northern Arizona University Hunter is a third-year student at Northern Arizona University. His work has been awarded by Scholastic and the National Endowment for the Arts. Hotel Elysè page 35

Gabriella Hesse, University of Florida Gabriella is a freshman biology major on the pre-medical track at the University of Florida. She hopes to integrate art into her career in medicine and surgery, as the human body is artistic in its own unique way. Magnetic Resonance Imaging page 81 Piccadilly Circus, editors’ choice award page 83

contributors

Joshua Lane, University of New Mexico Josh is a storyteller, a traveler, and many other -ers. He’s been photographing his adventures since he was ten years old and hasn’t figured out anything better to do with himself yet. Beware of Lawn Gnome page 29 From lands afar, with treasures galore. page 28

Daniel Lang, University of Nevada, Reno Daniel, a Catholic, half-Chinese American, grew up in the Midwest before Vegas. After his first trip to China, at twenty years old, he authored, “Through the Lens of Life & Death” (2017) and received the Critical Language Scholarship (2018). He loves to help others and studies strategic communications, Chinese, and English. While Mother Was Chinese, staff choice award page 1

Andrea Lara-García, University of Arizona Andrea is currently studying political science and geography at the University of Arizona. Since the writing of the piece, Ode to the Hyphen, her parents have purchased a home in Nogales, Arizona. The border fence is visible from the second floor. Ode to the Hyphen page 94

Lara Meintjes, Long Beach City College Lara is an anthropology and communication major at Long Beach City College, a returning student, a feminist, and a parent. She moved to the United States with her husband and daughter in 2010. In her spare time she enjoys long walks on the beach and writing letters to her representatives. Cock Fight page 86 The seven-hundred-and-forty-first coming page 88

Kulsoom Mohammad, Widener University Kulsoom attends Widener University and is studying biology. She lives in a small town in Pennsylvania with her parents and younger brother. In her free time, she enjoys reading, writing, gaining knowledge through new discoveries, and attempting to bake. In Dreams ‫ | ﺧﻮاﺑﻮں ﻣﯿﮟ‬In Dreams page 80 In this world ‫اس د ﻧ ﯿ ﺎ ﻣ ﯿﮟ‬ Where the days burn Katelyn Moorman, University of Wyoming ‫ﺎں دن ﺟﻠﺘﮯ ﮨﻮ‬She ‫ ﮐﮩ‬plans on attending Katelyn is currently in her second year at the University of‫ں‬Wyoming. And the nights melt graduate school where she will get a master’s degree in creative writing. She would love nothing ‫ا و ر ر ا ﺗ ﯿ ﮟ ﭘﮕ ﮭ ﻠﺘ ﯽ ﮨ ﯿ ﮟ‬ more than to become a published novelist. I live ‫ﻣ ﯿﮟ ر ﮨﺘﯽ ﮨﻮ ں‬ RestlessPokémon NO! page 14 ‫اﺿ ﻄ ﺮ ار ﻣ ﯿﮟ‬ I look at the sky ‫آﺳﻤﺎن ﮐﻮ دﯾﮑﮭﺘﯽ ﮨﻮں‬ Wondering x contributors ‫ﺳ ﻮﭼ ﺘﯽ ﮨﻮ ئ‬ Where the colors go

Contributors Nat Quayle Nelson, University of Utah Nat is seeking a writing and rhetoric degree from the University of Utah so that her eclectic multimedia projects can be seen as legitimate. She dabbles in zines, comedy, and game development as well as writing traditional fiction and essays. I Think, wrhc award page 41

Nina Palattella, Kent State University Nina is a third-year English major at Kent State University. She is the Editor in Chief of Brainchild, the literary and arts magazine representing the work of honors students attending schools in the Mid-East Honors Association. She hopes to be a writer for the rest of her life. Flightless Birds page 47 Selectivity page 38

Jenna Rhodes, Utah State University Jenna is currently in her second year at Utah State University, pursuing a BFA in drawing and painting. Beyond traditional media, she enjoys all kinds of art and all kinds of making, from writing to sewing to performing. Women’s Pockets: A Crime against Nature page 23

Saya “Ted” Richthofen, Metropolitan State University of Denver Ted is a storyteller first, artist second. He studies history and folklore at Metropolitan State University of Denver and spends most of his time reading, writing, hiking, drawing, and perusing cemeteries. He has a distinct fascination with the natural world and our place within it as humans. I Found my Home in Her page 18 Rylan Rowsey, Montana State University Born in Helena, Montana, Rylan goes to school every day uphill both ways in the snow. Every day, he must survive the grizzly bear attacks that happen frequently in Montana. He attends Montana State University and majors in chemistry, so he can one day wear a lab coat and look smart. Frankenstein’s Monster Writes a Haiku page 73

Raquel Sacknoff, Idaho State University Raquel is a senior at Idaho State University, studying medical laboratory science with a minor in biology. Aside from scientific things, she enjoys being active in the great outdoors of Idaho and doing photography. Reaching page 56

contributors

Lauren Sarkissian, University of New Mexico Lauren studies biology and chemistry at the University of New Mexico, where she does public health research. She is an advocate for interdisciplinary education and loves the arts and sciences equally. Moving and Purging page 76 Void page 63

Nicole Schroeder, University of Missouri, Columbia Nicole is a journalism student at the University of Missouri, Columbia. She enjoys writing, horseback riding, and playing with her dog and three guinea pigs. She currently lives at home with her parents, Tina and Alex; her sister, Jessica; and her brothers, Matthew and Daniel. April’s Flowers page 50

Sarah Shaw, University of Nevada, Reno Sarah is an artist interested in telling stories. As an undergraduate student in the honors program at the University of Nevada, Reno, she hopes to further her education in art so she can continue to share the voices of others through her portraits. Embers page 40

Alyssa Shikles, University of Missouri Alyssa is a sophomore journalism and English major at the University of Missouri. She enjoys traveling far away from her home in St. Louis and hammocking on a beautiful day. Oh, and she likes to read and write, too. Dream a Little Dream page 64

Hannah Slind, University of Utah Hannah was born in England to Canadian parents, but grew up in Utah. She is passionate about poetry, music, and skiing. reliance, wrhc award page 84

Taylor Steedman, University of Washington Tacoma Taylor is currently a senior, studying education and global engagement. She’s an avid traveler and plans to teach English in Spain after graduation. In her free time, she tries to make sense of life’s beautiful chaos through poetry and song writing. Hilltop Reflections page 11 Saturday Night in Whatcom County page 26

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Contributors Lia Stefanovich, University of New Mexico Lia is a junior at the University of New Mexico, double majoring in political science and international studies. She occasionally enjoys writing poetry and prose, though more often prefers reading poetry and prose. “best shopping districts” page 22

Tyairra Stredic, Tarleton State University Tyairra is a biomedical science major at Tarleton State University. Studying biology takes a lot of time, but that doesn’t stop her from having huge artistic ideas. Her future aspirations include integrating the science of biological processes with the artistic branch of technological creations. Fishing for Time page 46

Lauren Thurgood, University of Utah Lauren was born in Columbus, Ohio, but raised in Fort Collins, Colorado. She is a student at the University of Utah Honors College in Salt Lake City. She has no formal fine arts training but has taken recreational art classes her whole life. She has over thirteen years experience with acrylics and about three years experience with oils. In addition to painting, Lauren likes to ski, backpack, and climb around the beautiful western mountains. Vulnerability, wrhc award page 32

Kyleigh Tyler, Utah State University Kyleigh is a senior at Utah State University studying animal, dairy, and veterinary science with the goal of attending veterinary school. Photography is her passion and she hopes to capture the story of humanity through her work. Clouded page 71

Hannah Utter, Washington State University Hannah is an English major at Washington State University and is originally from San Jose, California. She loves writing, reading, swimming, gardening, and her dogs. She hopes to become a professional writer one day. Viola sororia, wrhc award page 91

Tehya Wachuta, University of Minnesota, Morris Tehya is from Plymouth, WI and is a sophomore at the University of Minnesota, Morris. She has been writing since her early childhood and writing poetry since her sophomore year of high school. She is majoring in English and minoring in biology and hopes to write for a neuroscience-based journal. A Dream Vanished page 30

contributors

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Ryan Williamson, University of New Mexico Ryan is a senior at the University of New Mexico studying film. He has been drawing since he was five years old and loves drawing portraits. Ryan also enjoys photography, fossil collecting, and learning about history. Martin page 21

Joseph Wishart, Montana State University Joey is an aspiring photographer and night sky enthusiast from Seattle, Washington. Now studying physics and photography at Montana State University, he especially loves combining his passions into one comprehensive hobby: astrophotography. Milky Way over Mount Rainier page 87

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contributors

Staff Biographies Alyssa Aragon, Editor in Chief Alyssa is a junior at the University of New Mexico studying strategic communication with a minor in honors interdisciplinary liberal arts. After finishing her bachelor’s degree, her dreams are to attend law school and move to a big city. Alyssa’s family calls her Rooster and her hobbies include reading, crocheting, baking, photography, graphic design, and hanging out with her dog, Zo. Hyunju Blemel, Managing Editor Hyunju is a bundle of joy and enthusiasm like no other. Born and raised in New Mexico, she spent her early years exploring the appropriately named Land of Enchantment. Always in hand were the collection of family cameras which were frequently dropped due to sheer wonderment—a phenomenon that still happens to this day. Today she is often found capturing the happy, sappy, and vibrant moments life has to offer. Bella Davis Bella is a junior at the University of New Mexico who is interested in exploring political and cultural issues from a feminist perspective. She is studying journalism and international studies. In her spare time, she can be found listening to eighties music, reading books she never finishes, and caring for her plants. Jeanette DeDios Jeanette is currently double majoring in strategic communications and English. In 2017, she earned a bachelor’s degree in media arts. She is an avid learner who enjoys reading, writing, graphic design, film, and photography. Her idea of paradise involves tacos, traveling, spending time with her dog Logan, and sleeping. Heather Hay In addition to being a business student at the Anderson School of Management, Heather has been a fashion designer who worked with recycled clothing, a veterinary assistant for farm animals and exotics, a motion picture production assistant, and an avid book slinger at libraries and bookstores. She plans on moving to more corners of the world that haven’t been exposed to her yet. On the weekends, she can usually be found hosting a book club for graphic novels. Bettyjane Hoover Bettyjane is an art history and Japanese culture and language enthusiast in her third year at the University of New Mexico. In her free time she likes to oil paint, drink tea, and cuddle her dog. Amaris Ketcham, Faculty Advisor Amaris Feland Ketcham is an honorary Kentucky Colonel who occupies her time with open space, white space, CMYK, flash nonfiction, long trails, f-stops, line breaks, and several Adobe programs running simultaneously. Her work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, the Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, and the Utne Reader.

Faith Montaño Born at the end of May. Has a special connection to the date November 22. Has been personally victimized by a textbook depository. Is it Faith Montaño or is it former President John F. Kennedy? Tirzah Reeves Tirzah was a missionary kid in Peru who is now a junior at UNM with an English and Spanish double major and a minor in honors. When she’s not busy trying to keep up with school and work, she enjoys swing dancing, singing along to musicals, playing her violin, reading young adult literature, and writing her own fictional stories. She is forever grateful for her opportunity to work on Scribendi and for the community she has gained through the experience. Donald Roberts A hop, skip, and a jump away from McLosing it, Donald is a man who enjoys the simpler things in life. He’s got a huge crush on the moon and dreams of going on reading dates at the local bookstore with her. Donald has hopes of popping the question, “Red or Green” to the moon! (Now that’s just spreading rumors!) Anyhow, Donald takes great pride in his love of the arts and design and one day aspires to be a leading architect in green building. Follow him on Instagram @darknessabides and he might personally give you a virtual heart in return. If he were to ever follow his own advice he’d say, “Dreams of thriving can often become a reality, all you need to do is get out of bed.” Did he write this from his bed? The world will never know.... Lily Taichert Lily is a biochemistry major and honors interdisciplinary liberal arts minor at the University of New Mexico. She enjoys bad puns, toxicology, and lazy mornings with her cat. Josh Tise Josh is an English major at the University of New Mexico, particularly interested in poetry, linguistics, and the intersection at which they meet. An advocate for the avant-garde, he thinks things are at their most beautiful when they don’t quite make sense. In his personal life, he makes that nebulous stuff called art, tries to convince others that poetry isn’t scary, and spends an awful lot of time tweeting about his favorite music. Alexandria Wiesel A dedicated double major and double minor, Ally Wiesel is apparently a fan of staring at a computer screen for uncomfortable, perhaps unsafe periods of time. To counteract the damage being done to her braincells and corneas, she also likes to read, write, bake, road trip, and hike with her German shepherd, Annie. Rowan Willow, Office Manager Rowan is a major in honors interdisciplinary liberal arts, currently writing her thesis on creating sustainable textiles out of mushrooms. She is interested in using fashion and citizen science for self-empowerment as a response to elitist, reductionist models of pedagogy. Her hobbies also include painting, cooking, and hanging out with cats.

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staff biographies

Special Thanks Scribendi Faculty Advisor:

Amaris Ketcham

Western Regional Honors Council Art Judges:

Megan Jacobs, unm

Raychael Stine, unm

Noah McLaurine, unm

Western Regional Honors Council Literature Judges:

Nora Hickey, unm

Heather Lusty, unlv

Maria Jerinic-Pravica, unlv

Western Regional Honors Council

National Collegiate Honors Council Dr. Gregory Lanier, Dean of the unm Honors College unm unm unm

Honors College Faculty Honors College Staff

Honors Alumni Association

Foreign Language Copy Editors:

Ambreea Aziz

Sadaf Yamin

Jason Moore, unm

Xiang He

Scribendi Office Manager:

Rowan Willow

Team Building Workshop Leader:

Danielle Gilliam

Starline Printing Company Representative:

Rebecca Maher

Senior Alumni Relations Officer:

Maria Wolfe

Adobe Student Ambassador Program

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Harper Baird

Dr. Andrew Bennett and Family

The John and Eunice Davidson Fund Lieutenant General Bradley Hosmer Our Fellow Campus Publications:

Best Student Essays

The Daily Lobo

Conceptions Southwest

Our Generous Silent Auction Donors:

Alicia Browning

Astro-Zombies

asunm

Arts & Crafts Studio

City of Albuquerque Parks & Recreation Department

Domino’s Pizza

Color Wheel Toys

Duke City Fencing

El Pinto Restaurant & Cantina Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Guild Cinema Heather Hay

Heather Reeves Jillian Kovach Jon Sanchez

Kathryn Collison

Kei & Molly Textiles, llc Kellys Brew Pub

Keshet Dance and Center for the Arts

Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic Farm Megan Jacobs Mick Burson

New Mexico Museum of Natural History Foundation Off Broadway Vintage Clothing and Costumes Pari Lisa Noskin

Stone Age Climbing Gym Sukhmani Home

Title Wave Books, Revised

University Communication and Marketing Wiesel Family

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Raspberry

Pie

Frankenstein’s

Monster

Writes

Haiku

Apophatic

| Selectivity | Poem in which I Wrestle with Origin | Hotel Elysè | Hilltop Reflections

can

only

speak

trauma

goddess

tongues

Liquor

Store

The

seven-hundred-and-forty-first

coming

April’s

Flowers

Flightless

Embers

April’s Flowers