Upper Mississippi Harvest - No. 30

UPPER MISSISSIPPI

HARVEST

About Us Students of SCSU’s English Department have been producing a literary journal that showcases student creative work since 1991. With each spring’s publication, our mission is to present inspiring, creative talent of the students of St. Cloud State University to the campus community through our publication. Student submissions are accepted in the fall of each year, and evaluated through a blind judging process between the fall and spring semesters. We receive more and more fantastic submissions with every call-for-submissions and it’s quite a challenge to narrow them down for the journal. Thank you for cracking open our 30th edition of Harvest. We hope you enjoy it.

poetry

Confession

1

Zachary Piper

Snowbird

To The Person Who Told Me That Singular

14

Pronouns are Incorrect

75

Aj Layland

Alex Jensen

Isolation

32

Supposed To Be

77

Alex Jensen

Samantha Fitzpatrick

Sick and Tired

49

Black

93

Tiffeni Bisterfeldt

Araya Smith

skinnydipping with Shade Off 18 and South

56

Ulysses Texx

Alex Jensen

Encephalon

64

Chinyin Oleson

A Time Without

67

Zachary Piper

George Jr

68

Judea DeMaris

the disconnect Brittany Stredelman

evergreen men Crucible

95 106

Alex Jensen

No Discussion December

112

Araya Smith

From the Perspective of a Pinned Butterfly

125

Chinyin Oleson 73

Curious Tiffeni Bisterfeldt

131

nonfiction .)

3 Mahnoor Abbasi

Breathing Lessons

17

Aj Layland

Monarch

35

Kimberly Salitros

Collage V

43

Alex Jensen

Un Giorno Nella Vita Di

58

Derek “Chubbs” Thury

Mousetrap

87

Vendela Rose Cavanaugh

if i can breathe

97

Leanne Loy

Salsa

102

Chyann Erickson

A Snake in Between Stones

115

Mason Ciernia

A Room With a View Drew Jokela

126

media Cold Summer Stolen

2

Hiep Nguyen

It’s Going Pretty Good Shanna Pirness

I’m Nobody, Who Are You? Olivia Way

once in May

Kseniia Maksimova

Hiep Nguyen

Placid Life 15

Marguerite Crumley

Rat City 16

Josie McMullen

Hybrid 20

76

85

86

92

Alex Jensen

The Red Present

New Normal

31

Self-portrait with mask

33

To My Sons

34

untitled

50

Earthy Pot

57

Too Close to Home

Rainy Monk Migraine

65

Uprooting at the Center of Pain

Winter is Here

66

94

Skylar Parker

Whitney McLaughlin

Nicole Wolgamott

Whitney McLaughlin

Marguerite Crumley

Hiep Nguyen

Elizabeth Sederstrom

Roshan Adhikari

Bikes and Body Armors Collection

Ashley Grisé

96

Amanda Rom

My Beacon of Hope

105

Amanda Rom

Breakout Room 5

107

Alex Jensen 113

Whitney McLaughlin 114

Elizabeth Sederstrom

70

Succulent in Oil

Elizabeth Sederstrom 72

123

Nicole Wolgamott

Adventure

Anton Holmgren

Space and Time

Blowing Smoke

Peachy Dreams Marguerite Crumley

124

130

fiction Familiar Ties

21

Unsafe for Girls

51

How to be Human

78

Leah Berthiaume

Michelle Gay Taylor

Hailey Thielen

A Short Break from Eternity 108 Harmony Oleson

Confession Zachary Piper Disclaimer: These aren’t really classified as actual sins, regardless, I still feel bad about them.

If I were a parent, and had multiple kids, I’d let the child who loves me the most stay home from school.

I hope KKK members go to heaven when they die, just so they find out that God is a woman, and also Black, and the first words she says to them are: “Welcome to Hell.”

When I hear police or ambulance sirens go by my house, I quickly rush to my window and hope to see a Batmobile close behind it.

I don’t care how long it takes for George R.R. Martin to finish writing Game of Thrones, I just hope he writes a better ending than HBO. I believe that If FDR can get elected for a third term, then so should Barack Obama.

Whenever I hear the song “Should I Stay or Should I Go” I get confused on whether I should stay or should I go.

I have 4 brothers and I love them all equally, but only one of them answers the age old question: “Who’s a good boy?”

Whenever I’m concerned if someone is saying mean things behind my back, I pretend they’re good things and convince myself I’m an interesting person.

If I were a secret service agent to a bad president, I wouldn’t take a bullet for them.

Please forgive me.

No. 30

1

Stolen

Hiep Nguyen

2

Upper Mississippi Harvest

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Mahnoor Abbasi

You are about a year old. You were just taken to the “seeing” doctor by your very worried parents, who had noticed the way your left eye often loses focus. After a thorough eye exam, the doctor concluded that you just had a “lazy eye” and told your parents to patch your right eye for a few hours a few times a day so that the left lazy eye is forced to work and focus—the normal “treatment” for a lazy eye—with a progress checkup every two months.

Simple. Easy.

At first, you’re excited to put on this little piece of black cloth that fits in the palm of your hand—you would look like a Pirate Princess, Baba says. But then it is put over your right eye, and your entire world suddenly goes dark. While you can talk, developmentally ahead for a baby less than a year old (in fact, you don’t know this yet, but your family will waste no time recounting, in mock annoyance, but genuine exasperation and fondness, the fact that once you started talking you never stopped—and the sheer number of questions!), you have no words which even begin to come close to your panic and terror.

Particularly because the patch is specially designed for children, which means it’s hard for tiny, semi-chubby fingers with nails bitten to the quick to take it off. You further have no idea if that is how it is now, how it will be, and even though you can hear your parents encouraging you to point your open eye at baba and walk over, all you can focus on is why the light left and where your parents’ faces disappeared to. So you do the only thing you can do, the only thing that has never failed to elicit an immediate reaction: You start bawling your head off. However, it doesn’t have the desired effect, and after a few more minutes of panicked sobbing, your little mind registers the words Mana, Walk to Baba. Once you do, I can take the patch off.

So, you do. But it’s not the soft chest of your father, standing straight ahead of you on the other side of the room, which you bump into, and it’s not his warm arms which envelop you and tuck you into his chest, where just the unique smell that’s all his radiates comfort and safety.

No, your face instead connects with the edge of a dining table, and it’s the cold hardness of the marble floor that ends up engulfing you. .)

No. 30

3

Eyes are the windows to the soul. .)

In the coldest December that anyone in the Vale of Peshawar, Pakistan could remember in recent memory, a little baby girl was born. She was born a month premature, at Johar Khatoon Private Hospital, the best hospital of the time, in 1997. The baby’s mother developed quite a few complications from the birth. She had just turned sixteen, six months ago, her husband turning twenty-six in the same month. This was their first child. The father was not allowed in the labor room nor was anyone else; she was alone. Her labor lasted forty hours. Forty hours during which she had no rest and no painkillers, let alone an epidural. She gave birth in a bare room, on a flat steel surface that resembled a crude stretcher more than it did a bed, with her legs spread and tied above, like an animal in a slaughterhouse, ready to be skinned. .)

What is human potential? And who defines it? .)

I love reading. I’ve been a reader since I figured out how to string letters into words and those words into sentences. But it goes deeper than just a hobby. It’s an intrinsic part of me, though it might not have ended up that way if it wasn’t for the way we lived. My father runs his own business, which means my family and I end up moving a lot. By the time I was twelve years old, I’d already lived in a few countries, multiple cities, and been to a total of ten different schools. As such, we lived in mostly hot, muggy, desert climates. In the Middle East. In Central and Southeast Asia. We lived in a nuclear family-style home; we lived in an old traditional family home with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We lived in a beautiful, huge, white marbled house with the prettiest front garden and a front porch; we lived in a tiny, one-bedroomed rented apartment. We lived in expensive apartment complexes; we lived in cheap, slightly rundown apartment complexes. We lived in vibrant, fascinating places that were so alive, you could feel it in the air; we lived in places that felt like a ghost town. We lived in so many places, that even my parents cannot recall all of them. .)

A few days after the birth, the sixteen-year-old mother developed sepsis in her fallopian tubes, uterus, and ovaries, as well as an abscess

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in her lower abdomen. She, along with her newborn daughter, was sent home four days after she gave birth. A week after the birth, both the new mother and daughter were back at the hospital. The mother was readmitted, but her baby was sent back home; she just had jaundice. Day fifteen, the premature little baby was brought back to the hospital. She felt feverish, the new family anxiously and fretfully told the doctor, and she was unresponsive and not eating.

The somewhat exasperated doctor readmitted the child. That night, the baby was hit with a high fever, 105℉—a temperature deadly to an adult. The baby was moved to the Intensive Care Unit, and blood work revealed she had septicemia meningitis. .)

Thrust into new surroundings, new cultures, new schools, and without any friends, I turned to books. And what had started as a pleasant way to spend an evening turned into a need, a way to keep sane. Books became my safe place, my happy place, and my escape.

I lost myself in them, but also found pieces of me hidden in them, too. Books became my mentors, a source of fun, friends in times of need, and a myriad of other things. Reading is my escape, and it is what grounds me. It’s what I turn to when I’m sad or angry, or if I just need time to myself—it’s my “counting to ten” or taking a long walk.

Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I crack open a book, either to say hi to old friends or meet new ones. Stories, I believe, are told to conjure meaning from randomness, to give us a history, an identity, a way to live on forever. In short, they’re a promise. An unspoken vow that no matter what happens—no matter the hardships, the plot twists, the new characters you meet, the ones that leave—the ending is worth waiting for. .)

Septicemia meningitis. According to the CDC, it is caused by “the bacteria Neisseria meningitidis,” and infects the “the lining of the brain and spinal cord and causes swelling,” as well as “bleeding into the skin and organs,” due to the bacteria multiplying in the bloodstream and as a result damaging the walls of the blood vessels. Symptoms of the disease include fever, vomiting, confusion, photophobia (also known as photosensitivity; eyes being sensitive to light), and headaches. However, the CDC offers a warning: newborns and babies may not have these symptoms. Instead, they could be “slow or inactive, irritable, vomiting, feeding poorly.”

The treatment for the disease is heavy antibiotics—though, even with them, “10 to 15 in 100 people infected” with the illness “will die.” .)

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The father loved his newborn baby girl. Secretly, he had been wishing for a daughter instead of a son, much to the horror of the family when the “secret” got out, especially his mother. So, when his daughter was born premature and sick, of course, he went to the nursery as much as he could. And when she fell deathly ill, of course, he camped outside the ICU, even if all he could do was look at the tiny living thing, hooked up to machines, though without a covering on her tiny set of eyes, in the incubator through a glass window. But the nurse on duty became increasingly upset about a man being there (yes, she was fully aware that he was a father and his child was in there). She tried to stop him from being near the ICU as much as she could. The father, however, was known for his temper. He had a chat with a supervisor and the nurse was told to allow him in a few times a day. .)

Even with my love of reading, I can’t stand audiobooks. I’ve tried them. The idea of them is alluring—they can save so much time!

Podcasts and the like don’t seem to bother me. However, apparently with storybooks, I need to read the words. I need to read them so I can picture the scene. But more importantly, so that the characters can come alive—have their own voices rather than just the one voice of the narrator. The best way I can explain it is this: when I read a book, a good book, I don’t see words. To say that I experience an engaging story as if a movie were playing would be correct—but not a complete assessment. I see it as a movie, yes, but I also smell the scents, hear the sounds and voices, taste the foods, and experience the tactile as if I was interacting, feeling the emotions. But I know I’m not in the book myself. It’s second-hand. And having a narrator, rather than my “inner voice,” which can subtly adapt and switch between many character voices, each one distinct and its own, dulls the entire thing.

So I can’t bear to listen to storybooks. But I wish I could. Just in case. .)

The newborn baby was not feeding well. She would not wake up to eat, or even cry to be fed. If she did start to feed, she would stop after a little while. So, the nurse on duty thought to make thin slices in the baby’s ankles using a blade before her mother came into the ICU to feed her. If that didn’t work, she would twist the sensitive, fragile, and recently severed piece of the umbilical cord still attached to the baby; that usually did the job. Unfortunately for her, the father saw it happen once—and when he met with her supervisor next, you can bet he wasn’t nearly as calm this time.

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The nurse was sufficiently chastised, and there were no new incidents. The baby’s fever had broken. But she still wasn’t feeding, and so she was not released from the ICU. It was just as well, since her mother was still in the hospital, too. Even though the mother was a patient herself and had been assigned bed rest, she still had to walk to the ICU, sit and wait outside on the cold, hard metal chairs, before being allowed inside to feed her baby.

One day, while the mother was in the bathroom inside her room, having just been to the ICU to feed her baby, her sister-in-law, who had come with her when the mother was readmitted to the hospital in order to take care of her, had to go to the bathroom as well. She decided not to wait and went to use the common bathroom outside.

On her way back, she decided to look into the ICU and check up on her niece. What she saw, she would never be able to cleanse from her mind. .)

I’ve never felt as if I was lacking in any way or missing out on something. After all, unlike some people, it doesn’t look like there is anything wrong with me. So, I’ve never really been bullied. Of course, there have been times when my squint became terribly bad and I looked like an extra on a horror movie set with my pupils pointing in different directions as well as often not blinking at the same time.

And there were, of course, the few people who called me names such as Cyclops, Captain Hook, and of course, the ever-original “FourEyes” (you can imagine my restraint in wanting to correct them that in fact, it would be Two-Eyes, no matter what way you add it). But for the most part, no one’s ever even realized that I’m blind in one eye. .)

The sister-in-law had found the reason why the nurse on duty had stopped taking issue with her brother-in-law, and why there had been no retaliation from the nurse (something which had the sisterin-law puzzled). Not anymore. She realized why the nurse hadn’t said anything to anyone. The nurse was taking her anger out on the baby. When the sister-in-law looked in, she saw her niece’s mouth connected to a pipe, which was sucking the contents of the baby’s stomach right out of the tiny body. The nurse had found the perfect way to get back at the father: by torturing both his wife and child.

The sister-in-law, smartly, said nothing to the nurse. Instead, she immediately went and got the baby’s father. When they both returned, his baby was still connected to the machine. The hell he raised was a sight to behold. And because of that, the nurse was removed from duty in ICU (well, as long as that family had their baby there). A week or so later, the little family went home, both the mother and daughter No. 30

7

finally whole and healthy.

Or so they thought. .)

My mother says that giving birth to me was one of the worst experiences of her life—and, considering everything the woman has been through, that’s saying something. .)

Perhaps the only times I’ve ever wished to have 2020—my bad, I meant 20/20—vision is when my terrible balance and hand-eye coordination has stopped me from playing sports. Because even if I was never made fun of for the eye thing, you can bet kids are ruthless when you can’t reliably catch a ball, thereby eliminating about 90 percent of sports that girls can even play. Well, the sports as well as 3-D movies and 4-D motion rides. Especially the motion rides. It’s not a big thing, I guess, but when all your cousins and friends are heatedly debating all the “cool” scenes where stuff jumped out at them, and all you saw was a flat 2-D piece of screen and wondering what everyone was screaming about, it can get lonely. Even if it is only for those few minutes after that ride. Or sitting outside every other time they went out to a 4-D motion ride arcade. Yeah, it didn’t last long. But it’s still a feeling that I can recall clearly, even though it’s been years now. .)

After that spectacle, the patch is removed. But every day, it is tried without fail; and every day, it is the same reaction. So, your parents schedule an appointment earlier than previously agreed upon and let the doctor know the behavior they’d witnessed. The doctor assures them that that reaction is normal since going from seeing with both eyes to one can be disorienting, not to mention seeing from a “lazy eye”—but he does suggest starting by keeping the patch on for short periods and then increasing the period it stays on overtime, until the goal of at least two hours a session is reached. Your parents leave relieved.

It proves challenging, though, since you become nearly hysterical after barely fifteen minutes—and that is where the line is drawn since your father will not—cannot—allow you to suffer like that.

But the patches still go on for fifteen minutes every day, until you turn a year and eleven months old. That November, even with the continued patching, it is evident to the doctor that there has been no improvement in the lazy eye after over a year of treatment. He, therefore, comes to the decision that exploratory surgery is the best thing, to see “what’s going on back there.” Your parents agree to the 8

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surgery, but not until your little sibling is born. He’s born not even a month later, and exactly ten days after his birth—almost exactly at two years old, give or take a couple of days—you are put under. After the almost four-hour operation, the doctor walks out of the operating theatre and meets with your distraught, harried parents.

It’s not a lazy eye, he says. She’s blind in that eye. She was not born this way, because the eye itself is perfectly fine, but her optic nerve is damaged. And it’s damaged in a specific way—what has her medical history been? Has she ever suffered from strokes, or seizures, or a high fever, any kind of extreme stress? With this prompt, your parents recount your first month and a half of life, and everything that had gone on at the esteemed Johar Khatoon Private Hospital.

“That much stress on an already premature infant! And they didn’t cover her eyes when they put her in the incubator?!”

No, not that we remember.

“Incompetent fools!” Anger. Then a sign full of sadness and regret, of lost potential and possibilities. “I’m sorry, but there’s a very slim chance that she’ll regain vision in that eye. I only say there is even a slight possibility because she’s so young, and the brain can sometimes compensate in amazing ways. But I still do not want to get your hopes up; the damage I saw to the optic fiber was extensive.”

Overwhelmed, disheartened, and terrified, your parents do the only thing they could do, the only thing that would bring them any comfort: they ask the doctor if they can see you, even if you wouldn’t wake up for a while. In the intense silence, each of them holds one of your hands, taking turns stroking your forehead, while holding each other’s hands too, waiting until you’d open your perfectly normal right eye and the eye that was never lazy after all. And in that heavy silence, both wish and pray for the same thing: a miracle, a way to fix their baby daughter so she won’t miss out on anything in life, won’t fall short of anything she might ever dream of doing.

A wish and a prayer that will stay with them all their life. A dream they’ll spend their life trying to make a reality. .)

I don’t know how many people remember the Age of Emoticons— the time before we had emojis and made the smiley faces out of letters, numbers, and symbols—but I still find myself using them instead of the more recent emojis from time to time. This means I wind up, with a sigh, patiently explaining to people what : ) means. Often, they are further confounded by the way I've altered that formerly common sign, which is with just one “eye” that is, .) — a subtlety that always requires explanation.

No. 30

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.)

I love languages, and I love accents. I can’t really do any to save my life, but still. There isn’t anything wrong with my ears. I remember so many layovers in different countries—particularly London and Ireland—where, while my brother was off exploring the airports or on his phone, all I did was lean back in my chair, close my eyes, and just listen to the people around me. .)

I honestly think my parents want to fix my eyes more than I want them to be fixed. I’ve never known any different, after all. In fact, I think I’m more afraid of what would happen if they—they being my parents and doctors and scientists—did ever figure out a way to do it. Would I see the world differently? Would I change in some fundamental way? Would I still be me, if both my eyes worked as they were supposed to? If I never had to wear glasses again? These questions must sound so silly, but it is what keeps me up at night.

Particularly the nights my parents get into another heated discussion about my vision. .)

A language I want to learn more than any other is ASL, American Sign Language. But maybe I should learn Braille instead. After all, chances are higher I’d need the latter more than the former. But I can’t bring myself to. It makes the possibility so real. Not something that might happen someday, but something that will. It’s funny.

Kind of like the concept of death. We all know we’re going to die. But we never think about it. So maybe if I pretend that it can’t be possible if I don’t even think about preparing for it, it won’t come true; like a child who hides behind her hands, thinking if she can’t see anyone, then no one else can see her.

Maybe sheer will and stubbornness will be enough to ensure that I never have to live through one of my most horrifying nightmares.

Because I’m terrified that I’ll go blind someday. Just the thought that there might come a time where I will no longer be able to read, will never be able to see any children I might have, nor any nieces and nephews—whom I’ve been waiting for since I was ten years old, and remember feeling envious of my best friend at the time who, at the age of eight, had two nephews—is enough to paralyze and prompt a silent near-hysterical mental panic attack. .)

“And he will never know what it is like to look up at the night sky and wish…To the stars who listen—and dreams that are answered.” —A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas 10

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.)

Contrary to what people might think, I don’t fear the darkness and never have; in fact, I thrive in it. I love it. I’ve been a night owl, according to my mother, since I was a baby. When my younger brother was a baby, he’d be fast asleep as soon as you flipped the light switch. Me, on the other hand, I’d be up from the moment darkness descended on my side of the world. Plus, I love the night sky, the stars, and especially the moon. I don’t know what they were expecting, when they quite literally named me Moonlight, knowing I already liked being up at night. Of course, I’d live up to the name.

Something I want to do before I die is, one, see the Northern Lights, and two, sleep under the night sky in all its glory, since I’ve always lived in places where there is heavy light pollution (and that’s why I hate 5G; corporations are hell-bent on killing the night sky!).

I mean, just look at the art I like! While I fully admit I do not have the most knowledge about nor exposure to art, The Starry Night has been a favorite of mine since I came across it. Just as much as the colors draw the person in, it is the blending of the piece—the hills blending into the village, a thought of water in the mountains, that holds the viewer—at least, that’s a big draw for me. Well, that and everything else about the painting. I can’t really describe it, but just something about the bold, languid colors, the vagueness in the painted sky, seem to call me. The painting seems almost eerie while being peaceful, like a dream on the cusp of bleeding into reality—or vice versa. And it’s not only the night sky itself, but everything about it, and especially beyond. After all, the science fiction genre holds as much of my heart as the fantasy, dystopian, and romance ones do. I mean, this is the girl who, when asked the question if you could travel in time, where would you go, promptly and without fail responds with some version of, sometime far in the future.

Unlike most people, I’m not afraid of what might lurk in the dark. In fact, it’s this fascination with what might happen or could happen—all the what-ifs, everything that is there or can be, if only you’re willing to see what’s there—which compulsively draw me to the darkness, as well as to space, with all its alluring possibilities. .)

What is “disability?” What is “normal?” .)

The eyes are perhaps the most important sense organ we have, biologically, evolutionarily, and socially speaking. We rely the most on vision to provide stimuli. Thousands of years ago, humans relied on the sense of smell the most. But along the way, we adapted to No. 30

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put vision first because of its numerous advantages. As such, a huge chunk of the brain is devoted to just vision—something reflected in my Sensation and Perception textbook since its first eight out of the fifteen chapters are solely devoted to vision. And socially, for example, the way you can tell a fake smile apart from a real one is by paying attention to the area around the eyes.

Even with my personal history, I never really paid attention to the eyes. Until I read this beautiful series by Grace Draven (not to mention the eight chapters on vision!). I came across the first book randomly and decided to just read it—and ended up falling in love.

While it’s not a story about the eyes or vision, it ends up playing a part (maybe more to me than to an average reader). I thought the entire series was wonderfully told—and the more books I read, the harder, sadly, it is becoming for me to be truly surprised and impressed.

This was one such pleasant surprise. It was one of the first books I’d read during the year, right around the time COVID became Problem Number Uno. This makes me wonder, especially working with young children the way I do: Has anyone else realized yet that with masks, eyes really are the only way we can visually communicate—the only part of our faces still visible?

Eyes really are the windows to the soul. So, what happens if that glimpse into the soul is shuttered? .)

I have a friend, a coworker of mine, whose father lost his eyesight in both eyes. He’s a veteran and has what’s called optic neuritis bilateral blindness. However, unlike my blind left eye, he isn’t completely blind in both eyes. He has what he calls “illuminated shadow” vision. He can see light and can see shadows because of that light; he uses the light that bounces off to see outlines at certain angles and distances, as well as silhouettes. But if you take away light, he says, it does become dark. Though, too much light isn’t good either; it’s just as bad as no light. Since then, he gets what’s called tunnel vision, and too much light takes away the shadows as much as no light does.

It was immensely hard to lose his eyesight. He had to completely adapt to a different way of living. He literally had to relearn how to see and walk again. On top of this, he had to end things with many people he thought were friends, as they started taking advantage of him, thinking they could take things and stuff and he wouldn’t notice.

He has since learned to carry smaller bills; money doesn’t suddenly disappear as often and it’s easier to keep track of change that way. He didn’t leave the house for two years, as he had high anxiety and stress because of personal issues with custody of his daughters following the divorce from his wife. Even then, one of the hardest things was the fact that his daughters were bullied because of him, and there was nothing he could do. That made him feel less than anything else.

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Even with all these hardships, my friend’s father hasn’t given up.

He refuses to have people do stuff for him, saying that as long as he has the tools and things he needs, he’ll never stop doing what he loves; he’ll just have to go about it in a different way. It’s a personal goal of his that he does as much as he can himself—especially because there are so many people who look at his eyes and just assume he can’t do anything. It’s been fifteen years since his eyesight was lost, and it’s been hard, he still doesn’t think he hasn’t adjusted fully.

Doesn’t know if he ever will. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to let something like this bring him down, keeping him from all he wants to accomplish or defining who he is and what he can and cannot do. .)

I don’t really consider myself disabled. I don’t think Lucy Edwards thinks so either. She is a YouTuber who posts videos about how she in general lives just like you and me. But Lucy is a completely blind make-up artist. That’s right—not only is she completely blind and can easily take care of herself, but she also runs her own YouTube channel where she regularly defies what it means to be “disabled” while educating and raising awareness on what it actually means to be blind.

I don’t think Jillian Slone would agree with being labeled as disabled, either. Jillian Slone is a blind college student studying to be a graphics designer, who shocked, impressed, and unblinded her graphics professor to biases and unfairly set limitations so much that the professor spoke out at a Ted Talk.

Nor would the thousands upon thousands of people—swimmers and other sports players without half their legs or arms (or both), painters without hands, doctors and lawyers and scientists on the autism spectrum, a paralyzed genius who revolutionized the way we look at physics—who challenge what the world defines as ‘normal’ just by getting up every day and living.

And in my own small way, I guess I do, too—even if I am petrified by the thought, and on most days keep myself from even thinking about it at all. But then, isn’t that what it means to be brave, to have courage? Not being fearless, but being scared shitless and still doing whatever it is that scares you so—be it mental or physical—anyway?

If so, then aren’t we all, in our own little ways?

I like to think so.

No. 30

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Snowbird Alex Jensen It’s not a lie if people believe it she told me, running her fingers through life. Time forsakes those who mind it and remembers those who forget. The ducks are busy on the pond, there’s much to discuss before flying away in the winter.

One sits off alone from the rest, She doesn’t have time to be bothered.

Her water is like glass, still transparent but worth so much more than stained opinions.

Sometimes I think people tend to forget they’re temporary, forsaken by a god they created.

She doesn’t have time to be bothered.

It won’t be long now, there’s ice on the shore. The sand finally believing that warmth is temporary.

Take the torch and meet me at the mill, we can warm up a misery all our own. We’ll look at shadows no longer our own and hope to fly away from the winter.

14

Upper Mississippi Harvest

It’s Going Pretty Good

Shanna Pirness

No. 30

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I’m Nobody, Who Are You?

16

Upper Mississippi Harvest

Olivia Way

Breathing Lessons Aj Layland My therapist’s office was tucked into a small hallway of Anoka Ramsey Community College. It was in an intimate space, like a therapist’s office is meant to be, complete with a desk and two faux leather chairs that always smelled like printer paper no matter who sat in them. I found myself in one of these chairs every other Friday of the academic year despite the fact that I was not the sort of person that therapy worked on. I was dealing with an anxiety disorder that demanded I be liked by everyone at all times, which meant that I kept secrets from my therapist better than I kept secrets from my mother. The way I’d constructed it, therapy was a game to be won.

If I sat there long enough and pretended that I was getting better, I’d officially be a well-adjusted individual who didn’t get lightheaded every time the phone rang and I was expected to communicate with a stranger.

During the same year that I took advantage of school-funded therapy, I purchased my first chest binder. If the reason for this decision was as simple as suffering from panic attacks, I would surely include it here. The closest I can get to doing so was this: I was tired of being perceived in a way that didn’t match how I felt, but how I felt was itself inconvincible. I was an off-brand boy. A deconstructed girl.

An eldritch entity who’d grown tired of being corporeal. The reality was that I’d been taught to speak a language that didn’t let me fit into its limited space. It turned out that English was the pair of jeans you bought just before winter break: tight in all the wrong places. My body is sort of like that too. Hence, the binder.

Occasionally, I’d confess something to my therapist that would make her feel like I was worth working with. I needed her to believe me almost as much as I needed her to like me. And so, on one particularly frigid day in the middle of March, I talked about my tendency to have panic attacks. For the uninitiated, a panic attack is an episode of intense terror, usually accompanied by an inability to breathe. One might find themself hyperventilating abruptly or feeling like something is stuck in their throat. I’ve had panic attacks in a variety of places: the car, school bathrooms, my dreams, but it seemed that I never got any better at dealing with them. My therapist assured me that this was completely normal for people with anxiety, a fact that I’d researched extensively before our session out of fear that I would look like an idiot otherwise. Breathing is supposed to be No. 30

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a mechanical process, something that we’re born knowing how to do, but think about it long enough and breathing is controllable. This is not something that one remembers during a panic attack, however, on account of one’s brain being overwhelmed with thoughts such as Holy shit I think I’m dying. Fortunately, there are ways to circumvent this.

Apparently one of the ways to deal with a panic attack is to use an app. My therapist pulled her phone from her pocket and I watched as the synthetic blue light illuminated her face. When she turned the screen towards me, I saw a circle expanding and contracting at mechanical intervals that a robotic voice counted off. Ten seconds in.

Hold for five. Ten seconds out. Breathe, rinse, repeat. That was my first lesson in breathing.

Some of my breathing issues, including the binder, were selfimposed. The first time I saw a binder up close, I was pulling it out of a package with a terrifying sort of reverence. It was just a piece of black fabric, sort of like the top half of a tank top with a compression panel on the part that rests over the chest, but my heart hammered at the sight of it. What if I put the binder on and couldn’t get out? Would I have to out myself to a family member just so they could help me get it off, or would I choose to slowly suffocate until I died? I’d heard horror stories of the damage that binding could do. Broken ribs and lifelong lung issues were only some of the health risks, but I didn’t listen to the voice in my head screaming that this was a dangerous idea. The thing about anxiety is that it screams all the time and you have to determine when to listen. Sometimes it’s stupid things like, “If you go outside today, a piano will fall out of the sky and kill you like in the cartoons” and sometimes it’s important things like “Don’t let a cop find out you’re trans.” At that moment, I elected to ignore the warnings my body was giving me.

My therapist once told me that I was a very genuine person, but I wish to stress that this is not the case. If I were genuine, I would not have sent the binder to a friend’s house lest my parents go through the mail and find it before I did. I would not have hidden it beneath my sweatshirt as I trekked up to the bathroom, the epitome of secrecy, and I would not have torn the receipt into a hundred fragments before shoving them to the bottom of the trash bin. The only genuine thing in that moment was the fear of being discovered.

Once locked safely in the bathroom, I shrugged my sweatshirt off and let the cool evening air bite at my skin. Cold is supposed to be good for people with anxiety. Apparently, it keeps us grounded.

My therapist once suggested drinking ice water in high-intensity situations, which prompted a Thanksgiving in which I ate more ice than turkey. I made a game out of that too. Eating an ice cube every time someone says something transphobic. Bonus points for consuming so much ice that I had to leave the conversation to pee.

18

Upper Mississippi Harvest

It took a great deal of squirming to get the binder on the first time. I’d studied diagrams of how to do it, but the real thing was more intuitive than I’d anticipated. I pulled the fabric over my head with unsteady hands, praying that it wouldn’t get stuck on my face and choke the air out of me, before finally tugging it over my chest. My eyes were closed. It felt like a hug from someone who possibly wanted to strangle me, like a boa constrictor who couldn’t decide if I was a friend or food.

Ten seconds in. Hold for five. Ten seconds out. Breathe, rinse, repeat. I opened my eyes and turned to face my reflection with a flat chest. There was still a small bump there which I would later learn to cover with baggy clothes and shirts with vertical stripes, but I looked more like myself than I ever did before. My first few breaths were tighter than I expected them to be. My lungs were not familiar with resistance. I had to learn to breathe all over again, but for once, the person I saw in the mirror didn’t mind.

No. 30

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once in May

20

Kseniia Maksimova

Upper Mississippi Harvest

Familiar Ties Leah Berthiaume Seventeen years later, Ryn still dreams of the night she was branded a witch. Once auburn eyes slip shut, and her mind drifts off, she plunges through the veil of the past and into the body of her six-year-old self. This is the moment her chest began to burn, unlike anything her younger self had ever experienced.

The heat doesn’t build gradually, doesn’t slowly rise like the annual winter fever the village children have succumbed to after hours spent playing in the freshly fallen snow. The fire rages instantly, blazing from inside her small ribcage and leaching forward through her flesh and bone, akin to magma rising to the surface to become lava as it bursts forth from its black shell to scorch the surrounding land.

There’s no true word to describe it other than pain in its rawest form.

For countless seconds, all Ryn can do is convulse and gasp before a scream finally rips from her throat to pierce through the quiet ghost hour, loud enough to wake the entire town. It feels so much like dying that simply remembering to breathe takes every ounce of her concentration. Thankfully, the dream never lasts long. Usually, by the time the soft light of daybreak peeks through her windows, even the memory of it has all but slipped away. But not today.

Today Ryn is ripped from her dream by the shrill scream of a falcon’s cry. Jolting upward at the sound, she almost falls out of the high-backed chair she had fallen asleep in. The book she’d been reading has slipped face-down onto the stone floor, its pages bent.

“Shit!” Scrambling from her seat, Ryn carefully grabs the hard backed book and tries to smooth back the pages, but the creases remain. Scrubbing a hand across her face, Ryn groans, and slumps back into her seat. Vanya had loaned her Draconic: The Complete Guide to Defensive Elixirs after Ryn had bemoaned her lack of interesting reading material. Apparently, the book was a first edition.

So, of course, Ryn has to go and ruin it.

However, before Ryn can completely despair, she recalls the nifty trick her friend, Afiya, taught her during their last year at the academy before becoming apprentices. Breathing deeply, Ryn sets the book face-up in her lap and calls upon her magic. In the past, the command was effortless. Her magic would swell like an ocean wave before flooding through her arms and settling in her fingertips.

Nowadays, however, it feels more like a rusted faucet that only pours out the slightest drop.

No. 30

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“Dammit, Ragnar!” Ryn says, glaring over her shoulder at the cat bed perched beside the tower window, long since empty. Figures, Ryn thinks. Ragnar hasn’t slept in her room for the last three weeks.

Releasing a deep sigh, Ryn raises her hand and gently trails her fingertips across the brand on her chest. Even without looking down, she can see the curving shadow of an eclipse, dark like ash against her pale skin—the mark of a witch.

Although her dreams of that wretched night never last long, Ryn’s suffering lasted for three days, the heat lessening with each hour that passed. It would have cooled entirely if not for a witch intervening.

He appeared after receiving word of Ryn’s branding. As he explained it, the burning was Ryn’s magic igniting inside her soul. Raw and powerful unbound, it was like a newborn star shooting across the sky before burning up in Zelaria’s atmosphere. To keep from losing her magic, the witch helped Ryn through the sacred act of summoning a familiar. A creature of magic, they could tether a witch’s power and keep it from fading away. With that near-permanent connection, a witch’s magic could last eons. . . and yet, the heat within her mark is all but embers now. Even her bedroom’s small fireplace emits more warmth. Compared to Ryn’s bond with her familiar, Vanya’s connection with Volker is leagues stronger.

Volker! The name echoes inside Ryn’s mind as she recalls the loud cry from earlier. That’s her master’s familiar. He isn’t due back from Kalbaek for another four days. Unease twists Ryn’s stomach, but before she can find out what happened, there’s a knock at her door.

“Ryn, are you awake?” her master asks, voice muffled by the thick wood.

“Yes! I’m awake!” Scrambling from her chair, Ryn clutches the bulky book in her opposite hand and opens the door.

As the heavy oak swings open into Ryn’s quarters, her master’s graceful form steps into view, Volker perched on her outstretched arm. The sight of them is enough to make Ryn’s mouth drop open in awe. She’s never met a woman quite as bewitching as her master.

Vanya is beautiful with her dark skin, keen eyes, and dimpled smile.

No one else commands Ryn’s attention quite like her. Although, in fairness, back at the academy, Ryn had been too enraptured by her studies to notice if someone was particularly good-looking. It was only after she qualified for apprenticeship and met Vanya that Ryn’s eyes finally opened and a new fire ignited inside of her. It was like falling under a spell Ryn hoped would never break.

Like his master, Volker is a striking visage with pure white plumage speckled in gold and sharp talons a solid black. No one would ever say he looked like a regular falcon. Compared to Volker’s majesty, Ragnar looks like an ordinary old housecat, even with his regal Maine coon features.

From her studies, Ryn knows that as a witch’s power grows and 22

Upper Mississippi Harvest

changes, so too do their familiar’s bodies. The history books mention that the first witch’s familiar had been a plain black cat until their combined magic rose to a level that hasn’t been seen decades since.

Of course, Ryn’s lapse in attention doesn’t go unnoticed. Eventually, Vanya clears her throat, snapping Ryn out of her spiral.

“Y-you needed something?” Ryn asks, staring down at her bare feet.

“Not quite,” Vanya says before reaching cupping Ryn’s chin.

Gently, she tilts Ryn’s head until her gaze meets her master’s eyes.

The deep brown pools look murky. Troubled. “There’s a problem in Torp. Hellhounds have been killing the villagers.”

“Hellhounds?” Ryn repeats as Vanya pulls her hand away.

Vanya’s expression is grim. “Yes, they spawn from hopeless despair, and Torp has suffered a particularly bleak harvest.”

“What do you need?”

“Well, my book for one,” Vanya says, gesturing down at the book still clutched in Ryn’s hands. “I need to check that I have the moonbeam elixir right.”

“Of course! Thank you for letting me borrow it!” Ryn says, handing the book over. It’s only once the book is eye-level that Ryn notices the ruined pages from earlier. “Wait—” But the damage is done. Vanya doesn’t immediately rebuke Ryn for the creased and crumpled state of the book’s pages, but Volker’s golden eyes feel particularly judging as they pierce through her. The only bright side is that Ragnar isn’t here to scorn her too.

“I’m so sorry, master! I fell asleep while I was reading, and the book ended up like that on the floor. I was about to try fixing it when you knocked on the door.”

“Oh?” Vanya says before handing the book back to her. “Show me.”

Mouth floundering, Ryn grasps the book with clammy hands.

She always hated being put on the spot, even back in the academy.

However, as nervous as she is, she cannot fail. Not when her master is watching her.

Taking a breath, Ryn steadies herself and places her tattooed hand across the ruined pages. For witches, rather than call upon their magic using tools, they channel their power through their bodies.

Each witch has one central location that comes easiest: the head and throat, the arms and hands, or the legs and feet. Wherever a witch channels their magic, they will be marked with symbols and swirling patterns that grow and change color the more accustomed a witch becomes to conducting her magic through those limbs. Vanya’s marks are yet another reflection of her superior skill.

Unlike Ryn’s faint, swirling lines against the skin of her hands, Vanya’s marks loop all the way up her fingers, across her lightly muscled arms, and past her shoulders in luminous teal and white. In No. 30

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time, Ryn hopes her own marks will grow, and the only way to do that is by performing magic.

Focusing on the ruined pages, Ryn tugs on her magic once again. With her master watching her so intently, Ryn can’t help but flush underneath her gaze, can’t help but feel her stomach flip and something warm inside her chest bloom. Suddenly, Ryn feels strong.

Although it doesn’t feel effortless like when she used to call upon her magic with Ragnar, it burns hotter than it has in months, coursing through her arms and into her waiting hands. Her marks glow faintly as she runs her fingers over the pages, straightening them so that they’re good as new.

Releasing a breath, Ryn blinks with wide eyes at the fixed book, skin buzzing as her magic returns to the center of her chest.

“I did it,” she says in breathless disbelief. “I did it!”

Vanya’s full-lipped smile gleams. “Of course, you did, I would expect nothing less from my apprentice.”

Ryn laughs, offering a smile of her own as she hands back the book. As Vanya starts to page through the text, her smile, while not quite as bright, doesn’t wholly dwindle.

“It’s been a few years since I’ve seen that trick,” she offers, glancing down at Ryn for a second, her dark eyes alight with something Ryn can’t quite name. “I used to use it to straighten my hair back when I was in the academy.”

“No way! That’s why my friend, Afiya, used it!”

“Oh?” Vanya’s lips curl into a toothy grin. “And here I thought you’ve been straightening your hair this entire time.”

At the remark, Ryn’s hands instinctively reach up to run through her long, pencil straight black hair. “No,” she offers, “this is natural.

Honestly, I’ve always been jealous of both yours and Afiya’s curls.”

Truthfully, Ryn doesn’t understand why either woman would feel the need to ruin their curls. Vanya’s are especially beautiful, a gorgeous ebony cascading down her back like ink spilling across a page. Too often now, Ryn fantasizes about what it would be like to get her fingers caught in those long silky tresses.

Vanya chuckles dryly, tucking back one of the shorter strands behind her ear. “They’re a lot more hassle than you might expect. It’s a lot of work to take care of curly hair.”

Ryn hums. Now that she thinks about it, Afiya always spent at least three hours washing her hair and never went to bed without wrapping her curls in a silk headwrap. “I guess I’m lucky then.”

“That you are,” Vanya mutters before closing the book with a hard snap. “Dammit, I was worried about this.”

“What’s wrong?”

Vanya sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’ll need a dozen more mountain avens and twenty sprigs of mullein to make enough for the entire village. If I’m lucky I’ll find enough by morning, but 24

Upper Mississippi Harvest

even then, there’s the time it takes to make the damn elixirs, plus getting them to Torp.” Letting out a frustrated sigh, Vanya turns to leave. “I better hurry.”

“Wait!” Ryn snatches the arm of Vanya’s dark teal cloak. “Why don’t I accompany you? If we each focus on one ingredient, we’ll be able to gather everything a lot faster. I know I’m still learning, but I could spot mountain avens a mile away. Please let me help you.”

Volker trills and ducks his head to become eye level with Ryn. She meets his golden eyes without fear, her brow furrowed and her jaw set. She can do this. After a few seconds, Volker finally looks away with a shrill cry before unfurling his giant wings and taking off down the spiraling stone stairs. Ryn’s expression wavers.

“Well?” Vanya says, looking at her. “Aren’t you going to get dressed? We have elixirs to make.”

“What?” Ryn says before glancing down at herself. “Oh!” Her face flames again, realizing that she’s been standing there in her night skirts. “I’ll be ready in five minutes!”

Copying her master, she dresses in form-fitting trousers, sturdy knee-high boots, and a warm tunic. Over her pants she tightly clasps a belted holster specially designed to hold and preserve ingredients.

Finally, Ryn grabs her cloak from beside her door and follows her master. Altogether, it took only five minutes. When she reaches the bottom of the spiral stairs, she stumbles. Ragnar, his long tail poofed to twice its size, is perched near her master and Volker.

“Ragnar?” she says. Ragnar’s large ears twitch at the sound of her voice, but his dark blue eyes refuse to meet her gaze. “How’d you find him?” Ryn has not seen hide nor hair of him for two days.

“Volker tracked him down. You’ll need Ragnar’s eyes to find anything in the dark,” she says, demonstrating by flashing her now sharp golden eyes of Volker at Ryn. Ryn’s heart falls. Before starting as an apprentice, she had no trouble tapping into her familiar’s keen feline senses. However, something changed after she moved into the Dale estate with Vanya.

Ragnar became distant, refusing to respond when she called for him and gradually visiting her less. Soon enough, Ryn’s magic had dimmed to a pitiful spark.

Ragnar’s change was stark compared to how he’d treated Ryn when she first summoned him. Back then, the pair of them had made for an adorable picture as Ragnar followed her like a duckling, purring loudly at the mere sight of her. When they moved to the academy and began their studies, Ragnar had grown faster than the other familiars, even with his Maine coon genes giving him a boost. By the time the marks on her hands appeared, qualifying her for graduation, Ragnar had been the size of a lynx. But since they left the academy so Ryn could train under the tutelage of a master, Ragnar’s growth has halted. In fact, Ryn can almost say he looks smaller.

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As it stands, Ryn has little hope that she will be able to use his sharp eyes to move through the dark. Even with a lantern to guide her, it’ll take her hours to search the surrounding forested mountain to find the plants Torp is counting on.

If a witch is only as strong as their familiars, Ryn knows that she’s the weakest she’s ever been. But lives are at stake and Ryn can’t let anything stand in the way, even her familiar.

“Alright, listen, Ragnar,” Ryn says, crouching down so that she’s more eye-level with the large cat. “You may hate me right now, but a village full of innocent people is counting on us to find those ingredients. So, I need you to lend me your power.”

Ragnar’s long tail swats against the stone floor, kicking up flecks of dust as he lets out a low yowl. Volker returns the sound with an eerie caw, which just seems to rile Ragnar more as he hisses, baring his sharp fangs up at the other familiar.

Ryn watches the exchange before finally Ragnar sags and meets Ryn’s eyes. At that moment, Ryn feels the tight hold on their bond loosen, and she staggers as some of her power is returned, and a wonderfully familiar heat settles back in her chest. It’s not the full power she used to wield, but it’s enough to slip back into Ragnar’s eyes and switch out her senses with his own.

“Let’s go.”

Beside the exit are a few lanterns. Vanya moves past them without sparing a glance, but Ryn pauses. While her master may have complete faith in her bond with Volker and the night vision he affords her, Ryn can’t say the same for her and Ragnar. While the finicky feline has agreed to assist her tonight, she cannot put it past him to take back his sight during the search. That reason is enough to make her want to grab one, but she stops. What if Ragnar feels insulted by her taking one? It would be like telling him that she doesn’t trust him.

So, Ryn abandons the lanterns by the exit and follows her master into the dark.

Before Ryn can step more than a few feet, she gags and slaps a hand over her nose. The forest has never smelt this pungent. Amongst the regular scent of pine is damp fur and rot. If she follows the smells, no doubt she’d find a family of rabbits burrowed nearby and a cluster of spoiled berries at the base of a dying tree. It’s too much, and Ryn shuffles closer to Vanya before she can stop herself. When Ryn finally has to breathe again, her eyelids flutter as she catches the sensual aroma of lilac and rosewater. Vanya’s perfume. Ryn wants to get lost in it, but before she can, she feels a violent tug on her magic, and her heightened sense of smell slips away. Moving her hand from her nose, Ryn spares a glance back at Ragnar, who is a comfortable six feet away from her. Instead of rebuking him, she supposes she should be grateful that he at least didn’t take away her night vision. Ryn nibbles on her bottom lip. Perhaps she should take a lantern.

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Upper Mississippi Harvest

“We’ll try to locate the mullein, you two look for the mountain avens,” Vanya says before Ryn can duck back into the estate.

“Remember we’ll need at least a dozen, but if you can gather a few more, do it.”

“Will do, master,” Ryn says with a small salute. “Happy hunting!”

With that final goodbye, Ryn heads north through the rising slopes of Braus Mountain. During her explorations on the craggy northern slope, she had stumbled upon a few patches of the white petaled flowers. Maneuvering through the underbrush and dense trees, Ryn listens to Ragnar’s nearly silent footfalls accompanying her. She half expected him to book it back inside once Volker was out of sight. Ryn’s not entirely sure why he hasn’t abandoned her, but she’s grateful. She never wanted their relationship to become so strained.

Now that they’re finally together, Ryn considers broaching the subject. Surely Ragnar must feel as suffocated by the distance between them as Ryn is, but she hesitates. What if Ragnar becomes upset enough to close the bond and cut Ryn off from their magic, leaving her stranded in the pitch-black night? She certainly can’t dismiss the possibility, so she keeps her mouth shut.

Eventually, as the air becomes thinner, Ryn finally spots sprigs of white and yellow clustered near the ground. While there aren’t as many of the small flowers as Ryn remembers, hopefully, there will be enough to save the citizens of Torp.

Hoping to finish quickly, Ryn sits beside the largest cluster and gets to work, pressing her fingers into the compact earth and gently tugging them out. As her leather pouches fill, Ryn watches Ragnar settle further up the slope. He doesn’t spare her a glance as Ryn continues her mindless task, and it hurts. As a witch, Ryn treasures the tie she has to her familiar, so why doesn’t Ragnar feel the same?

Why has their bond decayed when Ryn has always treated Ragnar well? Didn’t she always take the time to brush his fur? Didn’t she always set aside some roasted chicken for him to snack on? Didn’t she— But as Ryn struggles to come up with examples, she realizes that she hasn’t done any of that in months, not since she started her apprenticeship. When Vanya stepped into her life, Ryn stopped returning her familiars affection. Those first few weeks, how many times did Ryn push Ragnar away in favor of accompanying Vanya on her travels? How many times did Ryn snap at Ragnar when he distracted her from her studies? How many times did Ryn prioritize her budding connection with Vanya over her familiar? It’s shocking that their bond hasn’t wholly withered away after all that neglect.

Ryn’s body sags underneath the weight of her mistakes. If she had been a better witch, a better friend, she would have noticed that Ragnar hadn’t been the one to create the rift between them, Ryn had.

She doesn’t even know how she’ll begin to apologize to Ragnar. All No. 30

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she knows is that she’ll have to do everything in her power to earn back Ragnar’s trust.

Before Ryn can do more than open her mouth, the mountain begins to quake. She screams as a deep rumble shakes the ground, unbalancing her as she falls onto the scattering stones. A few feet from her, a sharp crack echoes through the night as the slope splits open and a creature crawls out.

A rock golem. Ryn’s blood turns to frost in her veins. She’s read about these vicious monsters, knows the strength they wield in their solid bodies, the power behind their sharp jaws filled with serrated daggers of granite. The only blessing is their lack of sight. If Ryn’s quiet and stays still, maybe it’ll wander down the mountain away from them. Sprawled in the dirt, Ryn looks for Ragnar. While cats can see well in the dark, they can’t see things clearly at a distance, so it takes Ryn a few breathless moments before she spots Ragnar above where the golem spawned from. Thankfully, she doesn’t think he’s been harmed. Bond in shambles, she would still be able to feel if he’d been hurt.

The relief of finding Ragnar doesn’t last. If Ryn could think beyond the fear buzzing in her skin, she would have remembered that while rock golems are blind, they have hearing even superior to cats. So, when Ryn moves just an inch and the dirt and stones beneath her shift, the creature’s large head snaps towards her location. Before the beast can lunge, can do more than release a bellowing roar that deafens Ryn’s ears, Ragnar pounces, launching his body onto the beast’s head.

“Ragnar!” Ryn screams, horror twisting her gut as the two magical creatures scuffle. As big as Ragnar is, he’s dwarfed against the golem.

There’s no way he can win. Ryn has to help him, but before she can develop a plan, Ragnar’s long tail gets caught in the golem’s large jaws. “No!” The monster bites down. There’s a sharp crunch before Ragnar is thrown to the side with a twist from the creature’s head. Between its sharp teeth are the remains of Ragnar’s tail. With no blood staining the dirt, Ryn can almost delude herself into thinking Ragnar is okay.

After all, he’s a creature of magic. It will take more than that to kill him. But before Ryn can scramble to her feet and attend to Ragnar’s injuries, her world goes dark. Ragnar has closed their connection.

Swallowed by night, Ryn drowns underneath the panic. The last thing she saw before Ragnar took back his senses was the rock golem lumbering towards her familiar. She can’t let that beast hurt him anymore.

“HEY!” she shouts. “I’m over here you bastard!”

The golem’s roar echoes after. Now that its attention is back on her, Ryn knows that there’s really only one option that’ll save Ragnar, and she’ll have to burn through her magic to do it.

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Upper Mississippi Harvest

Ryn closes her eyes. For what may be her last use of magic, she will need all her concentration. Distantly she can hear the rock golem stumble closer, can feel the mountain shake and tremble with each of its hulking steps. Her instincts scream at her to run, but Ryn buries the urge. She’s a witch, and no matter the peril, she will always protect the ones she cares about. It’s time Ragnar remembered that he was one of them.

Summoning all her remaining magic, Ryn’s mark feels cold and hollow, but her hands burn with power. Digging them into the stiff soil, she grasps onto roots and offers a silent plea before releasing her magic. It feels like an explosion rocking the earth.

Ryn’s eyes open, and she can see in front of her thanks to the glow of her magic burning off in her hands. The monster is only five feet away, but he never gets the chance to come closer. Before the beast can take a step, thick tree roots burst from underneath its rocky feet and expand and twist around its legs and torso. Ryn grins even as her body shudders as she sends another burst of her magic into the roots, commanding them to bind the beast. Behind the creature, Ragnar stumbles to his legs.

“Run, Ragnar! Get as far away from here as you can!” Ryn can’t escape now. There’s no one else who can ensure that the golem doesn’t break free from its chains. Besides, Ryn doesn’t have enough strength left in her legs to move even if she could go. “Please!” Ryn’s eyes burn with tears. She hopes Ragnar will someday forgive her for her selfishness, for leaving him without a witch to grow from. She wishes there was more time to make amends.

Before the last of Ryn’s magic can leave her trembling hands, she gasps as something inside her chest gives way like a staunched river finally pushing through a dam and rushing forth. The energy pulses through every nerve and fills Ryn with renewed strength. Body alight and her and Ragnar’s magic burning to be used, Ryn grins again as she commands more plants to ensnare the golem, twisting around its body before constricting it. With one last surge of magic, the golem lets out a mournful cry before exploding into shards of stone.

When the dust settles, Ryn recalls her magic and watches with Ragnar’s eyes as the tree roots return to their natural state. After everything, she feels only a little breathless as an achingly familiar heat settles back inside her mark. “We did it!”

Ryn cheers and laughs, her bright laughter catching on the wind that begins to howl from the mountain cliffs. She feels dizzy but overwhelmingly happy as she turns to find her familiar amongst the rubble. Their eyes meet, and Ryn smiles before opening her arms.

She’s never seen Ragnar move so fast.

Now three times its original size, his body is about the size of a cougar, even without a tail. He barrels into Ryn, but she only laughs louder as they fall back into the dirt. Burrowing her face in his soft fur, No. 30

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tears slip down her cheeks as Ragnar’s deep purrs rumble through her body. Their bond is probably far from completely fixed, but finally, it feels like they’re moving back in the right direction.

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f

New Normal

Whitney McLaughlin

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Isolation Samantha Fitzpatrick In a world where technology Is making self-driving cars I am still unable to see my family No one talks about the toll on health and well-being In a world with thousands of healing drugs to offer Worry still follows me like a dark shadow No one talks about the loss in sense of stability In a world with such certainty for science and such How can this future remain so unseen No one talks about the effects of unpredictability In a world where fashion grows rapidly everyday I choose to hide my face with the new key accessory I’m not isolated because I’m unwell, I’m unwell because I’m isolated

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Self-Portrait with Mask

Nicole Wolgamott

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To My Sons

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Whitney McLaughlin

Monarch Kimberly Salitros I believe that after someone you know dies, they have opportunities to come and visit you. Most of my visitors come to me while I am dreaming. Some come to deliver messages in different forms—a smell, a bird, or a butterfly. Most stop by a few times but never stay long.

These visits bring me joy and sadness and fill my heart with both, equally. One visitor, Grandpa Lee Fleskes, came to me almost daily one summer. By season’s end, he delivered a message so powerful that I didn’t share it with anyone for close to twenty years.

Let me first tell you what I remember of my paternal grandparents, who also happen to have been my godparents. Every eight weeks, my family would pack up and make the five-hour car trip from Plymouth, MN to Carroll, IA to visit both sets of my grandparents. The smell of Mom’s burning Old Gold cigarettes, and the baloney sandwiches she had packed for us would make my little sister, Renee, throwup. Those horrid smells and the white lines of the road zipping by would usually lull me into a deep sleep, which made the trip seem so much shorter. Sometimes, when there would be nothing on the radio, Renee and I would sing the “Libby’s, Libby’s, Libby’s, on the label, label, label” jingle in many different voices.

We would arrive late on Friday night at my maternal grandparents’, Bertha and Tony’s house. Grandma Bertha, in her blue house dress, would greet us whispering, “You girls are growing like weeds.” Mom and Grandma Bertha would sit up at the kitchen table catching up on what happened in between our last visit and the weekly letters they had exchanged. We’d go upstairs to bed and wait to see which aunts and uncles would stop by the next day. Our visits were considered a special treat by my mom’s family. She was the youngest of nine; two brothers and six sisters who mainly lived around town.

Sunday mornings we would pack up and load the car. As we’d back out of the driveway, Grandma Bertha would wave, the saggy skin under her arm flapping. She and mom cried as they wiped their noses on bent wrists. We headed seven miles out of town to Mt. Carmel, where my paternal grandparents, Lee and Lucille, lived.

Turning off of Highway 71, the sign announced Mt. Carmel 2.

Cornfields were on each side and straight ahead you could see the steeple of the church, the white spot which was my grandparent’s house, and the yellow dot of Grandpa’s school bus in the front yard.

As we approached, these objects became bigger, then sunk down in No. 30

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the horizon, only to resurface at the top of the next hill. Dad would park the car alongside the long, yellow school bus with Kuemper High School printed on the side. Grandpa Lee drove the school bus in the mornings, while Grandma Lucille made coffee for the local card players in town in their tavern before opening for the day.

As soon as we walked in the front door, and into the sitting room, there stood my grandparents. Grandpa Lee, with his super white, slicked-back hair. Grandma Lucille, with her polyester, sewn seam pants, and her ankles that cracked when she walked. Their outstretched arms and lips greeted us with bone-crushing hugs and wet soggy kisses that came from the inside of their lips and covered our whole mouth. Renee and I would smile politely, feeling their saliva on our faces, never daring to wipe them off.

We’d move into the living room. Grandma Lucille and Grandpa Lee would return to their respective recliners. Grandpa Lee would push at the armrests, his thin gold wedding band embedded into his swollen fingers, his round belly rising toward the ceiling as his chair leaned backward.

Grandma Lucille would fix a big lunch; she called it dinner. In these rural farm communities, dinner was the largest meal of the day to give farmers the energy to work late into the evening. Supper was usually a much smaller meal. She almost always made a beef roast with brown gravy, which was served in an orange, ceramic gravy boat with a spoon sitting inside. There would be boiled potatoes, my favorite green bean casserole, and a Jell-O salad of some kind. I always hoped for the one with mandarin oranges, but most often it was green Jell-O with cottage cheese peeking from its milky, marbled surface.

After dinner, Grandma Lucille and Grandpa Lee would go back to their recliners and turn on the KCIM-AM news at noon. We weren’t allowed to talk during the obituary notices in case the station mentioned someone my grandparents knew. The radio would be turned off and the adults would close their eyes for a nap. Renee and I would dig into the wooden buffet for a game to play, maybe Battle Tops or Hi-Q, then sneak off through the living room door, through the old musty storeroom, and into the small Mt. Carmel General Store that was connected onto the house. We would make our way down the main aisle and into the doorway leading to the tavern. Behind the bar of Lee’s Place, in the corner, was an old pop fridge. I would pull on the door handle and find glass bottles of Squirt, Sunkist Orange, Grape, and my favorite, Strawberry pop. We’d walk our bottles over to the bottle opener on the edge of the bar and listen as the caps fell into the metal bin. Raising the bottle with both hands, we’d take a long swig, burp, giggle, then head back into the store. Across from the check-out counter with the old, metal cash register was the candy display. Penny candy was on the lowest shelf, with nickel candy on 36

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the next shelf, followed by dime candy, and at the very top, quarter candy. I would study the selection so that I knew what I wanted when we were getting ready to leave. The top shelf had rolls of Citrus Certs, Mint Certs, Pearson’s Salted Nut Rolls, and Nut Goodies. The dime shelf held candy cigarettes, packs of the different flavors of Wrigley’s gum, and sometimes orange wax harmonicas. They were fun to blow on, but the wax didn’t chew anything like gum. The nickel shelf sometimes carried red wax lips, two-packs of jawbreakers, and sleeves of milk balls.

After their nap, Grandma Lucille would get us each a penny sack from behind the counter and we could fill it with whatever we wanted, as long as it was from the penny shelf. Sometimes I would talk her into a pack of candy cigarettes, but I would always fill my penny sack with Smarties, Sixlets, cinnamon hot jawbreakers, and Bit-OHoneys. Then it was time to say our goodbyes with more spit-soaked kisses and pile into the car. I’d spend the next few hours eating all of my candy and stealing some from my sister.

Fast forward to my high school graduation. It was a pretty big deal. My dad’s side of the family drove from all over the midwest to attend. My mom’s side of the family didn’t come. I think it was because it was too far for them to travel, but I don’t remember. We had two sixteen-gallon kegs of Special Export, a premium beer all of my friends drank, plenty of Jack Daniel’s whiskey and Pepsi for me, along with brandy, bourbon, and whatever my family members drank on hand. I remember getting a gold watch for my graduation present.

I remember all of my friends having a great time. I remember drinking my fair share (as I did love to party), and singing Kool and the Gang’s “Get Down On It” at the top of my lungs with my friends. I remember finding my dad passed out in the bushes after he had been missing for a while. One of my friends had brought a bottle of Wild Turkey, which was how my dad went down. I remember not seeing Mom much. She was inside cooking, stocking everything, and cleaning. I remember Dad forcing us to go to church the next morning, even though most of us were hung-over as hell.

In the weeks following my graduation party, my mom told me how none of dad’s family members had helped with anything and that had really upset her. Aunt Mavis and Aunt Cindy both had little tots running around, but Aunt Jane sure could have stepped in to help.

I suppose Grandma Lucille could have helped, too. Looking back at that time, you really didn’t ask the men to help with stuff like food and cleanup. I probably should have stepped in to help, but to be honest, I was having fun at my party.

So, in my guilt of not helping out, I got the idea that if I stood up for my mom, and confronted my aunts, uncles, and grandparents, that my extended family members would be over-the-top remorseful. This would then result in multiple heartfelt apologies to my mother for not No. 30

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helping and my mother thanking me over and over for standing up for her and protecting her.

I believe I wrote them all letters, telling them how much work mom put into the party and that I was disappointed to hear that no one had even asked if she needed any help that I felt she deserved. I don’t remember exactly what I wrote, but I do remember thinking that the letters would generate the response I was looking for, a sincere apology to my mom.

It was Grandma Lucille who called our house in Minnesota and asked for me. She wanted to know the next time that we would be coming to Iowa. I looked at mom’s calendar and told her when the next eight-week scheduled trip was. Grandma Lucille told me that we would need to have a family meeting to discuss this. That was all she said. One, my grandma never called me specifically. Two, we had never had a family meeting. Three, I was seventeen years old picking a fight with people much older and wiser than me.

The meeting was scheduled in Mt. Carmel at Grandma Lucille and Grandpa Lee’s house for a Saturday late afternoon. When we arrived at Grandma Bertha’s house on that Friday night, I was dreading the following day. I kept picturing them bending over me, drilling me with questions to which the only answer I had was, “Mom said.”

The phone rang that Saturday around noon. My Grandma Bertha took the receiver from her ear and in her thick German accent yelled, “Bob,” my dad’s name, “Dis is for you. It’s bad.” Dad held the receiver to his ear and bent his head, I think to try and hear better. The next thing I know we were loaded into the car and on our way to the hospital in Carroll.

When we got there, I saw my aunt Mavis, who was an emergency room nurse in Southern Minnesota, grab Dad by the arm and whispered in his ear. Dad lifted his glasses with his thumb and forefinger, seeming to pinch the bridge of his nose. I learned then that was how my dad cried. I had never seen that before.

In the hours before the family meeting, Grandpa Lee had been on the golf course with my aunts and uncle, celebrating his recent retirement and enjoying time with his children. He took his club back to swing and fell over. He had a major heart attack. He was alive in the ambulance and died shortly after arrival. He suffered a pulmonary embolism and died about a minute before we arrived at the hospital.

He was only 65 years old.

I had killed my Grandpa Lee. If it wasn’t for my stupid letters, he wouldn’t have been disappointed and upset. He wouldn’t have had to have a big family meeting. He wouldn’t have had a heart attack. He wouldn’t have died. He died being mad at me. He died thinking that I was mad at him.

We got to go into the room where my Grandpa Lee was. Aunt Mavis warned me that he didn’t look like the Grandpa Lee that I 38

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knew. I walked with my arms wrapped around me hugging myself, bending my head in shame. What have I done? I stood next to the gurney. There was my grandpa covered in a sheet up to his chest.

Grandpa Lee was blue. Everything was blue except for his ultra-white hair that was greased back as it always was. His closed eyelids were blue. His lips were a deeper blue. His face, neck, and shoulders were blue. I looked at my dad who was still bent over and pinching the bridge of his nose. I looked at my aunts and uncles, some of whom were looking at me. I did this! I killed Grandpa Lee! I bent over with choking sobs. Aunt Mavis came and put her arm around my shoulder and, as if she read my mind, said, “Kim, this is not your fault. You did not do this.” Now tears were streaming down her face, too.

I remember how hot it was on the day of his funeral. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church had no air conditioning. The front and back doors of the church were propped open, a muggy breeze flowing down the aisles, paper fans made from service programs working unsuccessfully to cool the many mourners. Banners hung behind the altar which was draped with beautiful cloth that was embroidered with monarch butterflies.

Looking up at the lavishly sculpted ceiling, the tall white pillars had carved waterfalls painted blue like an angry ocean. The sun was highlighting the twelve stained glass windows depicting the twelve Stations of the Cross. What I always thought of as castles on each side of the altar, were in fact called retables and contained statues of Mary and Jesus, with rows of glowing prayer candles flickering below in their red votives. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something float past. I looked around to see living, fluttering, monarch butterflies flying in and out of the church doors! The sight was incredible, making the excessive heat leave my thoughts for a moment.

When the funeral mass concluded, we walked to the cemetery which was right behind the church. Grandpa Lee’s casket led the slow and winding procession. Family gathered around the green-draped casket lift and listened to Father Marvin give the final blessing, “Eternal Rest grant unto Lee, Oh Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and all souls of the dearly departed, rest in peace.” I looked out into the crowd of hot, sweaty faces and saw some folks looking up. I wondered what they were looking at, so I looked toward the sky too. A huge tree above us looked like the leaves were opening and closing. All at once, the tree leaves looked like they were floating and hovering around the treetop. There were hundreds and hundreds of monarchs leaving the branches of the tree and flying up and up. It was a sign that Grandpa Lee had found peace and resurrection. From that moment on, a monarch was not a monarch, it was Grandpa Lee. Most summers I would see Grandpa Lee late in the season fluttering around the yard or on a walk. I would toast to him with a drink in my hand, say hello, smile, and go about my business; just as he would his.

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But one summer, almost seventeen years after his death, was so much more, so much deeper. There’s a hitch in my chest whenever I think about the summer of 1999.

It started in May with Grandma Lucille’s eightieth birthday celebration at a resort in Okoboji, Iowa. Grandma Lucille thought it would be nice to attend church together as one big family, minus Grandpa Lee, our Monarch. Even though some of us were no longer close with the Catholic Church, when Grandma Lucille asked you to do something, you did it. I continued to carry guilt over Grandpa Lee’s death and still felt a little awkward when the whole family got together.

The group of us settled down in our pews and faced front, toward the altar. Then we turned and looked at each other. Covering the altar were bright-colored banners, wall tapestries, cloths draping over the pulpit, and flags flying. Every single item had monarch butterflies on them. Grandpa Lee was there, in church, celebrating with his wife and family. We all knew it. We all felt it.

About a week after returning home from Grandma Lucille’s party, I went over to my good friend, Eva’s house. We sat down and had a few drinks. After a couple more, I shared with her the goose-bump moments at the church. She looked out into the grass where we were sitting and said, “Hey, there’s your grandpa.” Sure enough, there was Grandpa Lee resting on a tree nearby. My eyes twinkled and my heart swelled as Grandpa Lee came toward us, fluttered around our heads a few times, and left. Eva and I looked at each other wide-eyed with no words for the moment. We believed.

My husband, Dave, and I were at our local VFW club having a few drinks, and I shared these butterfly experiences with my friend, Jill who bartended there. Jill had goosebumps on her arms when I told her about the monarchs. Jill was also a firm believer in receiving messages from friends and relatives who had passed away.

A couple of nights after I spoke with Jill, she called me at home while Dave and I were eating dinner. She told me to get down to the club as soon as I could. We finished eating and drove over. After we sat down and got our drinks, Jill told me that her son had found a cocoon on a small tree branch outside of her house. She said that she didn’t know at the time if it was a monarch or not, but that it had just hatched that morning. Jill reached from under the bar, brought up a large mason jar, and set it down in front of me. There was a beautiful monarch perched on the small tree branch with its perfect orange and black-spotted wings closed. Tears ran down my face as I looked at Jill and said, “I never told you that Grandpa owned his own bar! I’m sure he’s happy to be back behind one once again.” I slowly picked up the jar and looked closely. Grandpa Lee’s wings slowly opened, closed, and then opened again, stretching out as if to caress my face. I was crying, Jill was crying, the locals in the bar had tears. This was not 40

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a coincidence. This was love in its truest and purest form. I took the jar outside to a nearby tree. I opened the lid and removed the branch that Grandpa Lee was perched on. He climbed from the branch onto my finger and sat there pumping his beautiful wings. I whispered to him that I loved him, thanked him for coming to see me, and hoped that one day I would understand why I am the one he was coming to.

Grandpa Lee came by almost daily over the next month or two, while I was walking on the beach, on the boat fishing, on the golf course, or out by the dumpster smoking a cigarette. If I was driving my truck and at a stoplight, a monarch would come up over the hood and float over the windshield on the driver’s side. If I was in the passenger side of the truck and we were stopped, a monarch would flutter over the passenger side of the windshield. I was really questioning the purpose behind these sightings. Was I in danger? Were all of these visits for good? Why me?

One night, I decided to go to bed early. It was only 8:30, but I couldn’t stay awake. I’m sure I had been drinking; I drank almost every night. Although I was tired, sleep did not come to me, but a smell did. It was the wood smell of the floors in the old store. There was a slight smell of meat from the meat counter that used to be across from the old cash register. I smelled the strawberry pop that I loved.

All of the familiar Mt. Carmel, Iowa smells were in my bedroom. I opened my eyes and looked next to my bed. It was fuzzy at first but there was Grandpa Lee, smiling with his extra chin, his greased white hair, and plump belly. He was just standing next to my bed.

The lump I had in my throat kept getting bigger, along with the swelling of my heart. How could this be? I thought if I blinked he would vanish, but he did not. Grandpa Lee gently climbed onto my bed and let me rest my head on his chest. I knew it wasn’t my pillow; that was on the floor. I felt his warm body. I heard his heart beating with each rise and fall of his rib cage. We lay there for a while not saying anything. It was as if he was breathing peace into the depths of my cells.

With thought, not spoken word, I asked him if everything was all right, if there was a particular reason why I was receiving so many monarch visits. Grandpa Lee’s thoughts absorbed into my soul, expressing his happiness for my life with Dave. He said that Dave was a wonderful man and that he (Grandpa Lee) loved us both very much.

He said he was proud of the new bond that Dave and I had found with Grandma Lucille.

I had to think that there must be some other message that he felt compelled to deliver, but a big part of me was scared to hear it… and then it came.

His voiceless message continued by removing any of the guilt I was holding onto surrounding his death. I literally felt it leave the center of my chest, just below my heart. The last message he conveyed was No. 30

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much tougher to absorb. He told me that he was very concerned with how much I had been drinking. That is all I remember about that visit.

The next morning, I woke up hungover, yet I still remembered every vivid detail of Grandpa Lee’s visit. Did I dream it? I knew I had plenty to drink that night, but I did not; could not have dreamt that, could I? I shared my visit with Dave, everything except for Grandpa Lee’s final message. I wrote a little something about that summer and shared it with Grandma Lucille, my aunts, and uncle. I shared everything except for that final message. I held that secret for sixteen years.

During those years, my guilt over Grandpa Lee’s death stayed gone, but my drinking got worse. I would think about his message every so often, especially in the later years, when I was concerned about how much alcohol I was consuming.

One early afternoon, I stood in my kitchen with Dave, Renee, and my parents. I asked them if they remembered me sharing the story of Grandpa Lee and his visits. They told me that they remembered.

I finally revealed the message that I had intended to keep to myself forever. After I told them what Grandpa Lee’s big concern was, I walked downstairs into the basement, opened up a secret cabinet door, pulled out an almost empty bottle of citrus vodka, and finished it. I replaced the empty bottle, walked upstairs, picked up my suitcase and purse, and led the way out to my truck. It was time to listen to the words of the Monarch. It was time for me to go to treatment. It was time to soar like he had shown me so many times. It was time for my rebirth.

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Collage V Alex Jensen

No. 30

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Sick and Tired Araya Smith We are tired of being tired Sick and tired of being sick and tired Tired of history repeating itself How many of us?

How many of our children have to die, Before you fucking get it?

How many Emmett Till’s?

How many Quawan Charles’?

How many parents have to find their children beaten, and mutilated to death?

You want to be black until it’s time to be black You love my money but hate my melanin You scream black lives matter only because you don’t want to lose your piece of meat You limit my education so I will always be at your feet And yet you forget You seem to forget, If it wasn’t for my ancestors you pieces of shit wouldn’t be here.

You seem to forget, If it wasn’t for my ancestors you wouldn’t know how to wash ya ass.

You seem to forget, It was my ancestors that built this motha fucka.

You seem to forget, It was my ancestors raisin’ your babies.

And I will leave you with this If I offended you in this poem Then you are the motha fucka I was talkin’ to.

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Untitled

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Marguerite Crumley

Upper Mississippi Harvest

Unsafe for Girls Michelle Gay Taylor The dull roar from the back of the bus falls silent—except for a boy who mimics the driver over and over to the opening tune of, The Flintstones cartoon, “Laina, Laina Garner,” which is what I hear.

My head snaps up. I was lost among the deadfall in a Stephen King book so frightening I have to read it during the day because it petrifies me after dark.

The bus driver glances down at a clipboard then back up, meeting my eyes again.

“Garner?” he asks the mirror. I nod, affirmative.

“You get off here.”

I look through the fogged interior of the rectangular window: I can barely see across the road. I stand, place the paperback in my bag alongside my fifth-grade math book, then snap the flap closed.

It’s early morning. The storm started sometime late last night. By dawn, the roads were covered with several inches of heavy, wet snow.

The resulting ride has been especially long.

Pulling the bus to the curb in front of SuperAmerica, at the only controlled intersection on this side of town he parks, then explains, “I’m running late, so I have to drop you here. The building is right over there.”

He sticks his left arm through a small side window, pointing behind us. We are at least three blocks from where I am usually dropped off. I don’t know what else to do, so I nod with conviction as he continues, “just walk straight to school—don’t stop or talk to anyone—is that clear?”

“Yeah, I won’t,” I reply—internally rolling my eyes while zipping my coat. I’m disappointed in this man. Doesn’t he realize I know better than to talk to strangers? I may be a farm kid, but I understand the dangers of town. I pull on too-small, knit, mottled-green mittens, then awkwardly flip my hood up with both hands. Descending the stairs, the sound of compacting snow meets my boots and I am deposited into the elements.

Arcing over both sides of the street, cones of lamp light capture curtains of ice particles, creating a dizzying array of swirling confusion. The sky above is heavy and dark. It seems almost night yet. With a hiss and a lurch following the abrupt change of dim green light, I watch as the partially obscured black SCHOOL BUS letters disappear over the Mississippi River Bridge.

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Head down, I set off walking.

The air is silent. It’s so quiet; it might be peaceful. The only sound is passing car tires compacting the Styrofoam white. The dangerous highway my parents have warned us girls about being unsafe has transformed: traffic slowed to a tractor’s pace on a field road, furrows grooved into deep vanilla-flecked rows.

The world acts differently under a blizzard spell.

I trudge on, turning right at the corner. The wind hits and I jam my hands deep into my pockets. I shouldn’t even be in this situation; I should have been on bus Number Two, like normal. But yesterday “the steaming chili hit the lawnmower blades” as dad likes to say.

I turn right at the end of the block, and when the school doesn’t appear, back left at the next. I must not have gone far enough. I let the sidewalk lead me, there’s nobody else around. The world is deserted— just last night when my stupid sisters left and went to Diane’s boyfriend’s house. Because of them, I got sent to the Peterson’s.

My eyes fill, but I blink quickly. Standing straight as I can, I stomp my feet. I push my arms down and out to my side and imagine myself ten foot tall.

“I AM NOT A BABY!” I yell to the empty world.

The snow hits me right in the eye. Tears spring instantly. I pull the strings on my hood, closing the fur rim tight around my face. My stocking hat pushes down on my glasses causing them to fog over.

I stop, take them off, wipe with my mittens; then pull out dad’s black, Jack Daniels t-shirt from under my sweatshirt—the one I’ve been forbidden to wear to our Catholic school. Better. I form dark green binoculars with mitten-covered hands, then peer into the falling snow, smearing my glasses once again. There’s a building in the distance. That has to be it. I look back. The slow-busy highway is gone. I watch behind me as I rub my lenses again—wait to see a car drive by, but nothing.

I got dropped off at Mr. and Mrs. Peterson’s at ten-o’clock last night—it wasn’t even snowing then—long after the cops responded to Lindy’s secret phone call. For some reason she decided November 14th, 1983 was it. I mean, I heard mom scream at dad to “put that god-damn gun away Carl!” too, but I don’t know what was so different about last night, than any other day.

Irritation wells when I realize my mistake: Holy Angels is a narrow one-level building with dark orange-red brick. This huge two-story structure is an ugly yellow-gold. Machinery noise thumps loud from the interior. I had been looking for the kickball field, along with the new set of blue vinyl swings that were just installed, next to the ancient iron merry-go-round. This block is all building. Just after school started this fall, a fourth grader’s jacket got sucked up around the inner spindle of the carousel turnstile, breaking Jimmy Hodge’s arm in three places. School actually stopped for the rest of 52

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the day and we all got sent home early. Keekie Ann Carmine, the most popular girl in sixth grade, flat out fainted when it happened. Now that section of the playground is completely off-limits. I remember how crushed we all were when it happened—that merry-go-round was our favorite place to play.

A rolling in the pit of my stomach churns as I head toward a widening I see at the end of the yellow building. I’m hungry, and I’m going to be in so much trouble for being so late. When the machine shop angles back and away, I’m bummed to see a long sprawling field instead of the intersection I was sure was there. I start across, cutting it in half.

I’m so mad. I can’t believe how stupid I am, getting lost on the way to school. I’ve always wished I was a town kid—I so badly want friends my own age. No one understands what it feels like to be really alone.

Mom has Dad. Darla and Diane have each other—identical twins— with Lindy only thirteen months behind. Irish Triplets, according to Grampa. I’m only two years younger, but they never include me in anything. I desperately want to stop and ask someone to call somebody, but my fear of strangers and their foreboding homes keeps me on my path. This field could be the one that borders our playground, though. I keep walking, it can’t be far—I stay close to the edge of the road when I come to the end of the empty lot.

I saw the cops pull in last night. They were so quiet. I never heard of such quiet cops, but according to the lady who drove me to the Peterson’s, that’s what happens when it’s a domestic situation with a weapon. I was upstairs sitting in the window bay. Mom would’ve slugged me hard had she seen; I don’t know how many times I’ve been told to stay out of there. I can’t stop thinking I should’ve warned him. I could have yelled right into the garage, it’s so close to that side of the house. I could plainly hear him, chiming in with Jackson Browne and the struggle for the legal tender... I stop in my tracks.

I suddenly remember I forgot to close the overhead on the garage before I left last night. I was too busy trying to remember everything else. As it was, when I grabbed dad’s shirt from the laundry room, I was so distracted I forgot socks. I really hope someone shut the door; snow isn’t good for records.

My cheeks are frozen. I walk with my mittens over my face—a slit between to see. The pillars of light standing at the corners of the block switch off abruptly. In the distance, I make out the dark girder sides of a steel bridge.

I smile at the sky. YES! I must have turned myself around and gotten back on track. In my excitement, I sprint full speed ahead, then skid to a quick stop—leg in flamingo position. I bend, stretch, then grasp the edge of a dirty pink moon boot that has dislodged itself from my foot. I shake the snow out, pull up yesterday’s sock, and slip my freezing toes back inside. I wish hard for my own winter No. 30

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footwear, sitting at home in the front closet. Half a block later, I am disappointed to realize what I thought was a bridge is actually a train trestle, not meant to carry cars or people. I turn a full circle under the streetlamp. There’s no intersection here and certainly no stoplight. I stamp my frozen feet, looking toward the other side.

Across the river, the city lights create halos in the falling snow, producing Christmas ornament scenery. A round, green and white Clark Station sign bobs above the treeline. That’s the place Grandpa always went to get gas before he died. Albert Ottmann’s the owner— he was Grandpa’s best fishing buddy. Albert always teases me for being a too-skinny kid, but he never lets me leave without a candy bar to get me growing. I tell him thank you, even though I’d rather have gum, which Mom forbids on account of Lindy getting a whole pack of Bubblicious stuck in her hair, causing them to shave her head and leading everyone to believe she was a boy for over a year. If I can get there, I could use the bathroom and I know Albert would call the school for me. He might even have an extra Snickers hiding behind the counter.

I follow fresh foot-steps leading up to the bridge. They continue to the right of the train tracks, one print on each railroad tie, all the way across. I know if I follow them, the gas station is only a couple blocks up the hill past the end of the bridge, right next to the dam where Grandpa used to fish.

I step across the first opening, my foot disappearing in the toolarge prints, scaring myself when I have to push off at the last second.

The space between is way wider than I thought. The black water flows faster than all the cars on the highway ever have. I jump-step to the next tie. A huge clump of snow pushes off my toe and falls down, down, down, before hitting the water, then disappearing with contact. I stand very still for a long moment—thank goodness that wasn’t my boot. I take another giant step, stretching my legs as far as I can. Easier. I take a few more steps before I look back, then forward toward my destination. The end of the bridge looks smaller somehow and now seems incredibly far away. In the air, the snow rides the wind falling in waves.

“Hey, Kid! Whadda you doin’?” A man’s voice bellows out of nowhere. I whip my head around to see a beat-up red and black pickup stopped in the middle of the road. The driver is leaning over and has the passenger window part-way down. He scared the crap out of me—shouting and sounding like dad. I have to crouch down to regain my balance.

My heart pounds loud in my ears as I realize the guy is pulling over. I wipe under my glasses; they’re completely smeared now.

Taking them off, I jam them in my pocket. He opens his door and yells out over the top of the cab if I’m ok. Vigorously, I shake my head yes.

Giving him a thumbs up with my mitten, I stand carefully. I flash two 54

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thumbs up without looking back, then breathe a huge sigh of relief when the truck pulls away.

Slowly, eyes locked on the river below, I make my way toward the center of the bridge. It’s way wider than it looks from a car. Windier and colder, too. But I’m more confident now. I think I’m getting the hang of this. I look back again. The beginning end of the bridge seems as small as the end. Narrowing slits indicate the middle openings of the railroad ties—as long as I plant my feet squarely within the snowcovered space, I’m fine. Half-way there, I’m going to make it.

Movement on the other side of the river bank catches my eye.

White exhaust puffs out of the tailpipe as the same rusted, red and black truck lurches into view. It slows to a crawl, then stops at the end of the bridge. Hot tears spring to my eyes. I look back the way I came, then down to the rolling water below.

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Shade Off 18 and South Alex Jensen Weeds in tire ruts, dust on the sill.

Well turned sour, house grown ill.

Sun hits the grove, but rooms stay dark.

Life lead astray, fingers that spark.

Flame to the glass turns powder to paste.

Boy now lost, dreams now laced.

Blood pulled from gums, ghosts in his veins.

Best of intentions, collection of stains.

Pain can’t be covered by willows that weep.

House left empty haunts his sleep.

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Earthy Pot

Hiep Nguyen

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Un Giorno Nella Vita Di Derek “Chubbs” Thury For years, nearly a decade if not longer, I have been suffering from a mental disorder. It feels like it directly poisons my soul along with my mind. I have bouts of absolutely unfettered rage, followed by a depression that makes it feel as if the entire world is a marble circling a black hole, then I experience a joy that feels like it is the first time I have experienced happiness for weeks on end. Then the cycle continues. Earlier on, I was diagnosed as bi-polar and went through a litany of medications. I am still working on finding the exact right one.

What follows is the most accurate narrative I can manage of what I have come to deem as my “off days.” The days when the entire world, starting with me, seems “off.” I experience memories as if I am in them and feel as though I am flowing through time in a non-linear experience. This is a form of psychosis, and I have never told a single person how this happens to me or the way it happens. Until now.

I am awake now. I feel anxiety in my body. I know it will pass, but I cannot control these hands. They are my hands, but they do not belong to me. Who controls them, I cannot say. God damn them though, for stealing my hands. Eventually, I learn to control them, except that they are my hands. My arms. My body. This is my domain, and I am lord of it all. Lord of all I would lay my eyes upon.

Now the darkness of my mind has brightened, but too bright. I am overwhelmed by a sense of self-importance. I AM KING! THERE IS NO REASON TO SHY AWAY FROM IT! I AM THE SMARTEST AND MOST BRILLIANT MAN ALIVE! I see my cat; she bites my hand. It brings me painIt is two years ago. I am in a parking lot in a city I rarely ever go to.

My beloved has left me. There is no hope anymore, my muse is gone.

All poetry will turn to ash around the world, paintings will make their viewers blind, and the songs of the world will drive us all mad. This is a pain I have never felt before. I am crying in my car, not knowing how this pain could exist in what was once a beautiful universe. I let out a primal release of my heart, my very being. This is no yell, or cry, or howl. This is a pure and spiritual cleansing of myself to rid myself of the anger and sorrow I have become. For the first time, I know a 58

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loss greater than my heart is able to bear.

I am now walking downstairs with my cat, wiping tears off my face for a reason I cannot remember having shed them. I open a can of cold ravioli and start eating it with a single chopstick. I realize now I am not king, that I bleed as any other human does. This does not, or should not, stop me from realizing how beautifully broken the world is. A pain of anguish stings my chest, I know what comes next. The depth of this blackness will never abate, I know this. It is forever nothingness. A cosmic sentence meant just for me.

Meant to drive me insane. Do I deserve this? Am I a bad person? I have done bad, but this feels unwarranted. It is unwarranted! These shackles shall hold me no more! I will strive to break free of this depression and live a life for those who cannot! For those who have already passed! For those who are unable to sit up! For those whoAlmost a decade ago, I am sitting in my room. In my mother’s house. I am watching a video on the legal system, and then it happens.

For the first, and what I may say was the worst, depression my mind and body have ever known. I am beyond crying, I am beyond sadness, I am beyond happiness, I am beyond all emotions. These are human feelings, and I no longer feel like a human. The voice in my head is telling me to end it all, to feel the freedom that comes with the blackness of death. There will be nothing, and this is a peace to be had. A reward for the courageous. I am walking down the street, trying to combat and fight against the pure evil in my head telling me these dark thoughts. Around me the world is changing, the sky is a multitude of colors, I can see myself walking but am also afraid of the fact that I am forever trapped in my own body. This is the first time I have experienced psychosis. I know that now, and remember this as the turning point, for me to see a therapist.

I am in my kitchen, learning how to blink and breathe again.

I remember fighting against that blackness and darkness was to learn how to be a human again. I had to learn how to stand up every morning and move. To live. Years of therapy and I still fight this fight.

Now, though, I am equipped to combat the onslaught of darkness in my mind. It fights, but it was never ready for an opponent like me. I can still feel the depression in my head and my heart, but it is trapped in a cage. It is placed in a dark corner of my mind, for to abolish it would be to abolish a part of myself. Even this evil deserves to live.

All life should live. I decide going outside is the way to further myself from this feeling, from all these intense feelings. I am in my car and will drive now.

It is the farthest back these go, and I am in my bedroom in my No. 30

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mother’s house again. It is 3 A.M. I am awake. Why am I awake again?

Oh! My heart! It feels pain like I have never known. Not physically, but emotionally. Yet, the feeling is relegated only to where my heart is. I wake my mother up, and frantically tell her that something is wrong. I may be having a heart attack. I sit downstairs with her and weep as I tell her I do not know what is wrong. We just converse, and eventually, I go back to bed. The morning is here now, and I feel this feeling again. I call my father and tell him I need to be near him.

I should not be alone. He says to me that he wants to go bring his wife lunch at work, and I tell him I need to go along. Even though I know I have been here before, I feel the experience for the first time.

There has always been great pride in me knowing when I need help, and when to ask for it. He does not understand what is happening at the time, nor does my mother, or myself. No one does. I just pray to whatever God may be listening that it subsides quickly. It will not.

The car behind me honks and I lurch forward, ready to go where I need and find respite. Feeling better already, I go to a local pond and walk around it. The time here feels linear. I am not falling backward into events already lived, I am here. In the now. Then I remember that this is not necessarily true, as a different vibrational frequency would travel us to another world. A parallel world, but different. Stopping, I close my eyes and remember the small pool of water. This is my mind. It is currently shifting and in ever-increasing waves, but they will be calm. I calm them. A therapist years ago taught me this trick, to avoid a complete mental break when on the verge. I appreciate that time is linear here, and my mind is my own, regardless of what world I am in. Back at my car, when I should have just gone home, I decide to hunt for film and art. Driving calms me down, as does the hunt.

It is two weeks ago, and I am awake again, but fear grips me.

Again. Again. This fear has been here many times before, and its return is always almost guaranteed. Walking down the stairs, I know this beast. We have had many bouts before, and this time I am ready.

Walking into the bathroom, while my paramour is actively using it, I explain to her what is happening. I am not myself. The vibrations have changed, I am not me anymore. The blackness of the pure emptiness is trying to take over. I will combat this evil forever if I must, but I cannot do it alone. She understands, and together we will fight.

The madness is encroaching, and I am trying to fight. It has been hours since I told her what was happening. We had to shower together. I could not be alone. Now I am sitting in a car outside the hospital, wondering where she is. Why is she not here? Why am I driving?

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It is three years ago, and I am sitting in a pale room, happy that I am alone. I can be free here. I can do as I wish. There is a knock on the open door behind me. It is a blond man with glasses, and he is asking me how I am doing. I feel like I am a God-king, with the ability to warp reality to my beckoning. There is an air of unfettered power I am feeling, and an all-encompassing superiority I feel to this man and everyone else I have felt all day. I know I am experiencing a manic attack, but I welcome it as an old friend. I feel like it will guide me to a level of success I have never known, despite it constantly leading me astray from greatness. I tell him I am just fine. I have plans to take over the world. Laughing, I look at my medication and take one.

Knowledge that I am becoming too overzealous leaks through my grandiose thoughts, and I am self-aware enough to recognize I need the pill to calm me down.

Laying down in my bed, I realize that I am home again. Though not entirely sure how I got there, I know it is late afternoon. I can smell the setting sun on the horizon. I look up, and the ceiling is melting together.

It is three hours ago, and I am in my paramour’s mother’s home in the bathtub. I am trying to remember how I got there. I know I was at a hospital, but now I am wet and in a tub. There is a spider above me, and another on the far side of the room. I hope they understand what is happening because I do not.

I try to walk downstairs, but the world is spinning around me. I am worried that the darkness will take me over, and I will not win. Where is she? Why is she not helping?

It is six years ago, and I am laughing with my therapist in her office. She makes a comment about how she knows in her heart I will be fine. I tell her I know I will too, and she has taught me how to survive when I have depressive swings. She has not taught me how to fight the mania, but we will. I start to cry. It is happening. She asks what is wrong, and I tell her I do not know. I am attracted to whores and have a fetish for them. I cannot truly love anyone that has not already been loved by everyone else. She says she thinks this is just my way of saying I prefer everyone to have their enjoyments met first, and I am selflessly waiting to be the last. Wanting to believe her, I start laughing like a lunatic again. I say I agree, but I do not think that is it. I think I like whores.

Sitting on the toilet, I think the hot water of the shower will wash away what is happening to me and cleanse my mind. I try to fall into the tub and use my foot, the only part of me that is still my own, to try and turn on the water.

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It is six months ago and I am regaling a new therapist in my new town with my whores theory, years removed from when the madness was at its worst. She thinks, knowing I have little to no patience for those of lesser intelligence or requiring explanation on something, that I prefer to have someone more adept at sexual exploration than finding someone who has less experience. I find this somewhat more theologically plausible, but morally more reprehensible. Regardless, I have come to accept who I am and love every moment. It has been hard, but now I am experiencing a deeper insight into individual thoughts as opposed to fighting an entire state of mind at once.

There is a sausage on my fork. It is heading towards my mouth. I should probably take a bite. It looks funny. Everything looks funny.

It looks two-dimensional. Everything is. Even if it is physically three-dimensional, it will always be perceived to our eyes as twodimensional. Everything is flat and has lines along its edges. This is it. I know what the problem is. This thought only comes under one condition.

Running up the stairs, I count my medication. I am over by four pills. It is Monday. I just had it refilled, how is that possible? The calendar says it is Thursday. It is lying! Or…or have I really done this every day for four days? I have done this every day. I thought I was just repeating Mondays. That is…. That is insane. How can I repeat a day? I know what has happened. Time is not falling apart. I am not hurling through dimensions. I am just…a little unbalanced. I slowly control MY HAND and take a single pill. I wait. It will help me take back my body and my mind.

It is three days later now, and I am finally better than I was. I still have moments of distress and require deep focus and concentration.

This is my body and my mind. The doctor says this is a side-effectridden drug that takes a massive toll on the body if doses are missed.

I thought this meant a loss of sexual desire or vivid dreams, not a complete mental breakdown that would hurl me through the cosmos.

It feels like being chained to a comet, forever falling through the universe but never making contact with anything. We have decided to try a less volatile medication, and taper away from this vile poison.

I am better now, knowing I am myself.

It is six weeks later, and I am laughing, drinking my favorite beverage, and eating a gyro pizza. Discussing with one friend how brilliant it is to take two of the greatest foods imaginable and mashing them together in what is to me a form of manna from Heaven. My phone buzzes and my friend tells me she is having a hard time. I tell her about a single day I had several weeks ago. Afterwards, she tells me that it helped her. What happened to me helped her. This cosmic 62

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irony makes me smile, a genuine smile for the first time in a long time.

It is a day later, and my friend has messaged me again. She said I should tell my story so maybe other people will understand that what is happening now is now who you are. You are who you are, and sometimes you have to fight for that. Sometimes you have to fight even harder than you can by yourself and a friend needs to just hold your hand to show you that you are not alone. Ever. I grabbed my notebook and started writing.

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Encephalon Chinyin Oleson On the slipping sands of a barren land face ravaged by the breath of Gods She falls to her knees, dulled eyes lifted to me.

I’m thirsty, she says, hands held out in supplication.

Slow down. Wait for me.

She looks upon me as if I could be her savior. I am but a dream. A hallucination.

I move, always a step ahead.

She follows for fantasies in a bubble popping at a touch.

Illusions in bottles emptying when she nears.

No shelter from the glaring eye in the sky. No quenching from me.

Unattainable. Unreachable.

I move, always a step ahead.

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Rainy Monk Migraine

Elizabeth Sederstrom

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Winter is Here

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Roshan Adhikari

A Time Without Zachary Piper Here again, in a field of Green Memorials painted in Greys She laid below, Never to be seen Wishing for our future days I stood above her, watching Resisting the urge to weep I remain in disbelief, balking Now I struggle to sleep How can I ever go on This wasn’t the plan Are we all just a pawn Reunite me with Anne As my hands clutch the dirt I try and look for new remedies A way to become less hurt I relive our shared memories As the tears dry away Now I choose to remember Not to be lead astray On this day in December I arrived with Cold winds The clouds break for the sun My new life without you begins My time of despair is done

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George Jr. Judea DeMaris He isn’t dead yet but He will be soon And the tears down his cheeks Show you he knows.

He isn’t dead yet but He’s sitting in that chair The one they use To kill men Not boys.

He isn’t dead yet but He was born to die this way The way men’s necks were born to Break on Branches made for Crows.

He isn’t dead yet he’s scared of what’s to come His execution photos tell you so, He isn’t dead but his eyes are so swollen They’re slits in his face.

He isn’t dead but he hasn’t seen his mom in 80 straight days And they won’t let him see her now.

He isn’t dead but they’re placing Something on his head He isn’t dead but he’s sobbing He isn’t dead but he’s shaking As the last thing he sees are men Who wanted him to die The day he was born.

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As the last thing he feels is the concrete Whispering on his feet As he jerks in the seat Made to kill men Not 14-year-old boys.

In 1944 George Junius Stinney, Jr., was an African American youth convicted, at age 14, of murdering two white girls, ages 7 and 11. He was executed by electric chair in June of that year. His conviction took 10 minutes.

He is the youngest person given the death sentence in the 20th century in U.S. history.

His case was overturned due to unconstitutional practices during trial in 2014. It is believed he was innocent.

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Bikes and Body Armors Collection 70

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Anton Holmgren No. 30

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Space and Time

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Ashley Grisé

the disconnect Brittany Stredelman sometimes i go to this place where all i notice is the space space between m e and l i f e and l o v e and w a r m t h and w o n d e r and c o m f o r t and c o n n e c t i o n and y o u y o u y o u where are you? but mostly where am i? there is nothing here no sights no sounds no senses at all just me and all this s p a c e and i think i might be scared because i look around and everything i see i don’t really see because everything is without meaning and i’m lost in this place where all i can feel hear see is infinite s p a c e i just want to go home back to where i belong where love is real where my sickness doesn’t steal where i can feel without wondering what’s wrong with me No. 30

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without questioning if i’m overstepping boundaries without thinking i’m hurting you without pondering this reality without imagining all this space between me and everyone i love around me because the space is nothing but the darkness is nothing but the doubts is nothing but the depression is nothing but the disconnection that creates distance so i’m not left alone heart broken stranded in the remains of my devastation when my world comes crashing around me a g a i n.

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To the Person Who Told Me That Singular They Pronouns are Incorrect Aj Layland

I would respectfully disagree Qualifications: my perfect 36 on the grammar portion of the ACT But this isn’t really about etymology, I suppose And more about identity, specifically those Which you are uncomfortable with Which you would prefer to repress As singular they has always been correct You should find no problem with the following: The doctor called today Did they (singular) leave a message?

And someone left a bag here I hope they (singular) find it later Yet even knowing this, you might Argue anyway against the singular they Simply on principal So what, then, is wrong with singular they?

Only the idea that someone might identify that way Rendering this conversation useless Because the rules of our languages are not the same, You are fluent in a language of hate Your grammar is a tactic to enforce your rule And your words are weapons wielded from fear.

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Cold Summer

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Hiep Nguyen

Supposed To Be Alex Jensen The sky and shore marble together like a cake at a party where everyone is happy.

When some kid is turning some simple age and it’s enough of a reason to be there.

We probably don’t really like the kid, but it’s a reason.

The sound of a door opening. The swoosh of here we are because we are supposed to be here. We’re not sure if the candles are edible but they sure look like the frosting.

Here is your cheap present wrapped in tacky paper.

You won’t remember it, but we are here because we’re supposed to be.

The orange glow of a streetlight. Where moths make white noise overhead as we rush to places we don’t want to be. Muggy morning air flattens hair we do up for people we don’t like. Shifts are filled in order to pay for houses that sit empty. We better stay late tonight to make sure we do the thing that nobody will notice anyway.

That’s how we do a good job.

The blue light of the stereo. The one that came in the mail the day the transmission went out. We don’t have cars that run but we have shitty radios that remind us of cars that used to.

Songs that point out that we don’t like each other anymore.

We spend weeks trying to get each other into bed only to kick each other out after we do. We have places we’re supposed to be.

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How to be Human Hailey Thielen Human /’(h)y o͞ o mən/ Definition: A bipedal primate mammal.

Also known as: Earthlings, People, Comrades, Individuals, Sentient parasites.

Step One: Be Born In order to be human, you have to be born somewhere. Luckily your options are limited to one planet and one planet only. It’s the one located in the Milky Way Galaxy, approximately 27,000 lightyears from the Galactic Center, the planet known as Earth. The Earth, as you know, was formed during the Hadean period. During this period, the Earth was pelted with asteroids and other space gobbledygook. During the Paleozoic era, humans emerged from some pond scum that decided to get smart, sprout some legs, and walk on land. Humans have since raped and pillaged and plundered their way across the globe settling into exotic foreign lands, like Cleveland, for example.

Humans are made out of blood and guts and a little bit of MSG. You will have an organ called a brain. This is what separates you from the other species of Earth, at least that’s what you’d like to think.

Only a small percentage of humans use their brains. The rest use it to watch reality TV. Humans have used their brains to do many things: Go to the moon.

Enslave other humans.

Blow themselves up.

Create jingles for brands of breakfast cereal.

How you use your brain is up to you, use it wisely.

The place you will be born into is called a country. Countries are imaginary lines drawn by humans that humans like to fight over.

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The entirety of human history is one big game of Whose Line is it Anyways. No one’s winning.

What country you are born into will decide whether you will be forced to make cheap, plastic knick-knacks for a living, have free healthcare, or die from an abscessed tooth because your teeth are considered a luxury.

There are many countries on the planet Earth. The United States of America is one, for example. Many people here have formed a great sense of patriotism for their country. Every day before school they pledge their allegiance to their flag. They hear they force children in China to do the same thing, Communists.

Step Two: Grow-Up What happens in this step influences the rest of the others. Don’t screw it up. Luckily you have little control over how this step unfolds.

You could, for example, grow-up in a suburb of Cleveland across the street from a meat processing plant. Your parents would speculate this is why your younger brother was born with six toes. Your mother would work hard to rid your family home of the smell of ammonia, pink slime, and bacon grease. When your mother started coughing up pink phlegm into her embroidered hankies she would say, “It’s just a cough,” and then go back to spraying the air with Lemon Pledge.

Or you could grow up in a wealthy home in New England. You spent your time in the scouts, making it to Eagle. You were nimble with your fingers, a master of knots. You didn’t realize it at the time, but this mastery would come in handy later in life. You could have an overbearing mother that still calls you her pooky-bear well into your thirties. Your father could be a special operations military man who installs dictators in peaceful countries then enlists millions of poor Americans who just want to go to college to fight the fascists. You loved to draw. But your father would say, “Drawing doesn’t pay the bills, Sonny-Boy!” and then slap you on the back.

You might have siblings. These may cause a lifelong grudge.

Don’t let them cause a lifelong grudge. You may have one mom and no dad. Two dads and no mom. Two moms and no dad. Or no dad and no mom, which is called an orphan. This unlocks the ability to be adopted by a bald man named Daddy Big-Bucks (This only applies if you have red hair).

Step Three (optional): Go To College Warning: May cause liver damage There are a few schools a human can choose from, Harvard or everywhere else. Depending on what country you are born into, you may have to take out copious amounts of student loans from a woman No. 30

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named Sallie Mae. No matter how much you pay this woman, you will still end up owing her money. Or you could be born into a civilized country that values education.

You spend your time filling out college application essays, groveling to a handful of people about why you deserve a higher education.

Here are some tips: 1. Don’t talk about your grandparents. Everyone has them.

They always die. Suck it up.

2. Don’t talk about how you overcame mental adversity. The

stress of college might send you into a relapse and force you

to drop out of school. That could hurt their graduation rate,

and we wouldn’t want that.

3. Don’t point out how the system is bullshit. They want

someone smart, but not that smart.

There are many worldly degrees a human can choose from: philosophy, art, literature, 14th-century interpretive dance, accounting. You spent your time meticulously tabulating the costreward benefit of different degrees. You tour a handful of schools trying to find the right one. One of them you visit has an exercise room, rec room, Laser tag, grocery store, masseuse, and free cookie dough. You ask your tour guide, “Do you have a career center?”

And she looks at her clipboard and says, “A what?”

Step Four: Get A Job A job is also known as; work, occupation, forced labor, profession, or bullshit. You would think a job is the human’s favorite thing to do since it is what they spend most of their life doing. However, humans use their one hundred years of consciousness to slave away at a job they hate in order to make other humans at the tippy-top of society richer.

Throughout your growing up phase, you will be asked: What do you want to be when you grow-up? You won’t know and never will know and you just wish people would stop badgering you. But to give you an idea, here are a few things you can consider as an occupation: Accountant, doctor, teacher, cold caller, hairdresser, nurse, plumber, drug dealer, car dealer, stripper, archeologist, blacksmith, gas attendant, customer service representative, clockmaker, new age healer, professor, politician, truck driver, scientist, taxi driver, CEO, seamstress, or undertaker.

Some of these professions have different risk versus gain outcomes.

You can make a lot of money being a drug dealer, but you 80

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risk being arrested or erased by a man named Johnny No-Thumbs.

Plumbers are the secret saviors that keep the underflows of society running smoothly. The con of being a plumber is dealing with shit. A nurse has to deal with shit, too. But at least they get paid that filthy lucre. Politicians and CEOs make the most. It’s easier to make money when you don’t have a conscience.

You could work in an office. This means having no tattoos, no piercings, no beards, no hair past your ears, and certainly no personality of any kind. Or you could work retail and be forced to listen to more 70’s disco music than any sequenced disc jockey. Artists like Grand Funk Railroad and KC and the not-so-Sunshine Band haunt your dreams. Militaries often use music as a torture device. The CEOs of retail outlets got the same idea. They play the same songs over and over to drive retail workers to the brink of insanity. This is to prevent them from revolting and eating their corporate overlords. It’s hard to start a revolution when you’ve heard Rocket Man six times in one day.

It’s going to be a long, long time.

Step Five: Make Money Money is a piece of paper. It has value. It has value because humans say it has value. Humans dedicate their lives to making as much money as possible. In fact, when the human is dead and in the ground leaking formaldehyde they shout from their coffin, “I’m so glad I have all this money!”

Many countries on Earth have complex economic systems. These are rules put in place by humans that humans force themselves to follow. The goal is to hoard as much wealth as possible. Once you’ve made it to the tippy-top you can look down at all the little people at the bottom and say, “Too bad, so sad.

The country of The United States, for example, runs on trickle down economics where the rich piss on the poor. Tinkle down economics, if you will.

There are so many problems in the world, and not enough money to solve them. This will make you sad. However, a celebrity who is one plastic surgery away from being a known carcinogen to the state of California, will ask, “What can you do to end poverty and save the planet?” as they trot off in their private jet to their private island and tell their private chef to prepare an endangered Maltese Manta Ray that’s been imported from Algeria.

It will make you feel better knowing they care.

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Step Six: Buy Stuff There are so many things a human can buy. Happiness is not one of them. Many humans don’t know what to do with themselves so they buy things to fill the void. Many of these items are made by slave labor by those at the very bottom of society, but don’t let that spoil your fun! You don’t even have to have money to buy things. There’s a piece of plastic humans use called a credit card. Using this card is a way of saying, “I’ll pay for this later!” which is a lie. Many of the things you will buy you will not use. All of the exercise equipment, tables, chairs, and couches are doomed to become clothes racks.

You can become a collector, gathering specific items that interest you like baseball cards, vinyl records, old telephones, or rocks. Or you could become a fashionista, capitalizing on the latest trends. For pennies a day a girl in Bangladesh is forced to make clothing that reads, I like pizza. You like pizza, and want everyone to know you like pizza, so you buy this shirt.

It falls apart after one wash.

Step Seven: Buy A Home (not applicable if born after 1993) A home is a place you won’t spend much time in as you commute three hours one-way to your job each day.

There are many places a human can live. You could live in a glorified shoebox in New York City with three roommates, seven roaches, and a master’s degree. You could live in a charming small town. Charming is a fancy way of saying a town’s soul has been sucked dry by BigMart, there’s poor job prospects, poor education, poor people, and a meth problem. Or you could live in the boonies. This means one of two things: 1. You have no neighbors.

2. You have neighbors but the number of teeth between you equals three.

Remember, teeth are a luxury.

Step Eight: Get Married (optional) Getting married can be optional or forced depending on your gender or country of origin. The goal is to find someone to love for the rest of your life. If you find someone you love, congratulations! They will die. And you will too. If you find someone you absolutely can’t stand, but marry them anyway because if you don’t follow traditions

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you will be ostracized by your family, community, and doomed to burn in hell for eternity, congratulations! They will die.

And you will too.

Step Nine: Have Children (sometimes optional) Having children can be optional or accidental depending on the level of sexual education you receive. (Hint: the female human is not actually a flower. She will not wilt if she’s had an al dente noodle in her spaghetti house before marriage. You can pluck her all you want, just wear a condom).

It usually goes like this: If you do not want children, you will have them (that’s where the condom comes in). Despite this, you will try to nurture your seed so they grow into a well-rounded shrub of a human being. Be careful though, you may psychologically scar them.

One way to do this is by telling them an invisible old man in galoshes is watching their every move.

And if you do want children you will not have them. This can happen for a number of reasons. You grew up across the street from a meat processing plant and your reproductive organs have disappeared. You didn’t follow step five. Or you realize that Earth is headed towards a climate catastrophe that will cause famine and suffering and strife. And who in their right mind would bring a human into that gobbledygook?

Step Ten: Get A Hobby Also known as how to distract yourself from the monotony of life.

Humans often complain about time. They complain when they have too much. They complain when they have too little. How you spend your time is up to you. There are so many things you can do, it will be hard to choose just one. But don’t worry, you’ll be too busy working to have free time, anyway.

One thing you could do is try to learn the guitar. You find it daunting, one misplaced pinky, and a song goes to pot. You could decide to learn the accordion instead, but feel sad you can’t let others know how cool you are. You could learn yoga from a husband and wife duo who call themselves The Granolas. You could become a film snob and deface all the DVD covers at your local video rental with the word, Rosebud. You could write slam poetry. Note: this may cause the sudden urge to play the bongos and move to Portland. You could make clothes for dogs, hyper-realistic baby dolls, a life-sized butter sculpture of Orville Redenbacher, or a topographical map of Qatar.

Or you could decide to watch all forty-eight seasons of The Young and the Restless.

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That could take years.

Step Eleven: Retire (Not applicable if born after 1993) After you’re done working forty hours a week for forty years you will no longer be deemed useful. There are several situations that follow: a) You retire and move to Florida. (You may or may not be eaten by an alligator.) b) You do not retire but drop dead and get written up for loitering on the job. c) Despite working for forty years and saving up a mass of money, you get a debilitating illness that requires you to sell everything you own and live in a nursing home* (unless you live in a civilized country, of course). *A nursing home is a place where you pay five hundred dollars a day to get taken care of by a nurse named Bertha who just doesn’t give a shit. She used to care. In fact, she became a nurse because she wanted to change the lives of others. But instead, all she found was red tape, low wages, overworked co-workers, and rich nursing homeowners. You will press your call button again and again. Don’t worry, Bertha will get to you eventually.

Hopefully, it won’t be too late.

Step Twelve: Die (Not applicable if Scientologist) This is the final step. Many humans have trouble coming to terms with the fact they will eventually succumb to death. Due to this, some humans have their bodies cryogenically frozen, hoping to unthaw when scientists have found a magical cure for death-ness. Much of a human’s fear comes from not knowing what happens after they die.

Some like to think they will go to a place called heaven. Heaven is a place where angels in diapers incessantly play harps and sing in hymnals. Or you could burn in hell. In hell, they play Metallica. Some say humans are made of star-stuff which is released into the universe after they die. How poetic, having your atoms traveling across the cosmic void of space. And then there are those who think they will be reincarnated and have to do this life thing all over again. If this is the case…

Proceed to Step One.

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Placid Life

Marguerite Crumley

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Rat City

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Josie McMullen

Upper Mississippi Harvest

Mousetrap Vendela Rose Cavanaugh The heels of my feet burned like the charring pizzas waiting in the oven. I dashed out the kitchen to seven tables worth of sixteen seats wholly sat upon by worn-out-looking parents eyeing the drink menu and candy-coated kids screaming, ripping off their party hats, all under my watch. It hadn’t been two hours at my first Chuck E. Cheese shift when I thought about sneaking out with the trash at the back of the building and waiting for a garbage truck to take me out of existence.

Any other dimension had to have been better than this electric acid-trip-colored child-palooza known as an arcade and restaurant.

Over the course of my first official paid hours, I’d set up seven tables for birthday parties, cleaned up twenty dining booths in the “Party Zone,” and delivered nine meals to families with faces full of exhausted red cheeks and the familiar kind of saudade in their eyes I’d grown to know.

Waitressing isn’t even my job! I thought angrily, but continued my way. The trays clinked together in my hands if I walked too briskly, the way I was trained to.

An overweight woman with dark, curly hair sweatily stuck to her face I’d falsely named “Scary Mary” stood at the heel of the kitchen entrance, wrench in one hand and dirty rag from the bathroom in the other. Scary Mary screamed in Spanish as I passed her with every order.

“Andale, andale! Use your feet! You must pick up pace, why just stand here? Move! Shoo, shoo!” Scary Mary swatted me with the splotched rag, a broken cotton candy machine my only barrier. Every time I dared to hide in the “employee lounge,” (which was only a bench under the coat rack) Scary Mary was there, hunched over the cotton candy machine and murmuring under her breath the words “stupid gringo.” I never saw her talk to anyone, or work anywhere else, as if she’d been sent by the Mouse Gods to keep me in line.

Yesterday I’d been hired, filling out the paperwork maybe twenty hours ago and being interviewed by the district manager, a bald man by a simple name with thick, drugstore glasses perched too low on his nose. We sat in a booth I’d later find covered in old gum and Laffy Taffy wrappers while discussing the terms of the job, our interests, and shockingly, our similarity.

“I graduated with an English degree about fifteen years ago but No. 30

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found I couldn’t do much with it. Look at me now!” Mr. District Manager said in his wrinkled khaki suit, a yellow-toothed smile on his face that didn’t quite meet his eyes. I laughed awkwardly, unsure how to feel about the constant reminder that my English degree may only lead to me a job that constitutes as regional.

It was decided I’d be part of the “Entertainment,” meaning that I would host and cater to the needs of all parties, including setting up, cleaning up, and taking care of it all.

“We only put the most presentable people here,” Mr. District Manager’s voice went as low as his gaze. I watched as his eyes slowly trailed away from mine, following the outline of my bra past my chin to the tip of my tightening chest, probably wondering if they’re a C or D like I would my math grade. “And Vendela, you definitely seem presentable.”

I wondered how presentable he’d find me now, with sweat dripping down the top of my newly dyed red hair to the back of my matching polo, my feet sliding into size thirteen mouse shoes in the back corner of a room. My shadow for the day, a constantly scowling girl named Yasmine or Jasmine, watched as I grimaced. Her scowling face and jutted finger shot across the arcade at me like an arrow only minutes before.

“YOU,” she shouted from three tables over. Dozens of adult parent eyes looked up, watching as I froze with their Chuck E. Cheese birthday plates in hand like I might run off with the lot. “Mouse suit.

NOW.” I wanted to scream, to cry, to act like a child being taken to the dentist and run—or better yet, quit. My mom’s disappointed face as she plucked the week-old disconnection notices from the mail scourged my mind, her silent pondering of whether to pay or feed the family for the month my constant reminder I need to step up.

How bad could it be?

Ten minutes prior, one of the many birthday girls I was to host, tiny six-year-old Molly with the biggest doe brown eyes I’d ever seen and hot pink princess dress ushered me to her side. Molly whispered in my ear how she was going to stab Chuck E. with her mother’s cake knife, the frosting-drenched tool teetering menacingly in her hand.

“Kids say dumb shit all the time,” Yasmine or Jasmine shrugged as I followed her past the stage where the robotic Chuck E. Cheese stood, firmly planted in the center.

He followed me with his eyes, chirping every now and then: “Heyyyy kids! Who’s having fun?” One grey animatronic eyelid blinks every six seconds like clockwork, head-turning eerily slow once a minute. Scary Mary had tauntingly warned me earlier I’d look like him if I didn’t “work like whore on farm.” Yasmine or Jasmine punched in a code on the door, the light turning green and beeping 88

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before letting us in.

The back supply closet was no bigger than a handicapable department store fitting room, filled to the ceiling with racks of giant cardboard boxes spilling with color from the brim. Plastic bags of Chuck E. goodies laid on the floor ready to be collected and dropped on the tables for the children, their parent’s paying more than the one-cent treats could ever be worth.

The dim fluorescent light flickered in harmony to the Kidz Bop version of Cardi B’s song of the summer, “I Like it Like That,” subdued and censored for the most innocent of ears to enjoy. It was only ever this song, “Sunflower” by Post Malone and the special Chuck E. Cheese and Friends theme song that played, on a constant loop.

Never a break, and never a change in order. From the corner of my eye, a bulky grey head hung high on its own shelf, dead-inside black eyes watching me again.

“I have to put that on?” I cried. The mouse suit was better suited for a mousetrap. The gloves were the size of a basketball, one paw for each hand. The shoes were easily meant for Big Foot, not a tiny twenty-one-year-old girl who could still shop in the children’s shoe section. The long blue overalls with suspenders to go over the top looked like a noose awaiting my neck; a sturdy foam cut-out with limited arm mobility and a giant green shirt over. I was still hours away from the lunch break we had to pay for.

“I just want a nice meal out, or something,” my mom sighed dreamily the night before. With a sigh of my own, I took my glasses off and tucked my hair into the bacterial ocean of sweat at the nape of my neck. Yasmine/Jasmine took the head in both her hands and, without warning, bestowed the five-pound rodent feature on me like a crown.

Hanging heavy on my shoulders, it was time to move. “They’re counting down now. I’ll guide you out the room, but then it’s up to you to make your way around the whole arcade. You got it?”

No, I don’t got it! I begged to scream, but my rat face could only nod. Inside was a blur of black mesh, grey auras, and the bleakest of neon lights pulling from the outside. I could hear the children and TV screaming my name. Chuck E! Chuck E! Chuck E! I took the deepest breath I could get from inside the mask, the scent of pizza breath still lingering in the mouse mouth, droplets of sweat already building at my lip.

“No speaking,” Yasmine/Jasmine whispered into the lens of Chuck E. “It kills the image.”

“Three, two, one…HERE’S CHUCK E!” the announcer screamed. I dragged my foot out the door and began to wave along with the sound of thunderous cheering. Blinded by color and minimal space, I felt as the kids ran to me, clung to my leg, and begged for my attention.

The birthday girl Molly squealed as I approached her, wrapping her No. 30

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tiny arms around me, and crying, “OH Chuck, I love you! I’m sorry I wanted to kill you!”

I paraded across tables to the arcade, trying to follow the maze of playfully beeping machines and technicolor lights, kids following my trail and hanging on my every move. Has anyone ever felt this worshipped before? As the mouse, I felt more loved than Vendela could ever be by her peers and potentials. The children’s eyes electrified like the neon lights around to take me in with their pure adoration, throwing themselves at my feet as if I were a king, their righteous Messiah—Mouseiah!

In the costume pockets were dozens of white tickets with my mousy mask printed in purple; I tossed them into the air like a rated PG baller at the club. People never rushed to be at my side before, yet there I stood, my most “presentable” self hidden under the guise of the murky street rat people paid to see; what I thought I had to offer didn’t have a seat at this table.

I rounded the electric gaming field with rhythmic glides and short strides until finding my way back to the side of the building; tables waited for me to clean and floors to sweep. I took one last step away from the kids, throwing a mousy paw in the air as a final hurrah, my big goodbye.

Under the eyes of the mouse, I couldn’t see where it began and I ended.

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Hybrid

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Alex Jensen

Black Tiffeni Bisterfeldt ‘I’m so fucking tired of white’ the reaper disputes, his voice ringing into the immeasurable ebony void stuffed between pinpoint stars, the wiser confidant white is such a fickle color the slightest tint the slightest thought the barest effort to transform itself at all and white, no longer is it grey, perhaps eggshell, is it snow out of the corner of your eye, but mud landing on the tip of your nose?

It’s so easily corrupt, insidiously promising perfection that only the delusional think they can achieve.

This white lie.

‘Black is the most confident color!’

It is the serenity that stitches the cosmos together.

It needs no shades or permutations black is happiness an elegance happy to be itself because only it knows that truth white may be fascinating, but black is provocative you can peel back the light layer by layer endless exposing imperfections until you go insane but, eventually night arrives.

Chaos slides away, the space between your thoughts and the center of everything connect in that fleeting memory of your mother’s womb such marvelous, meditative serenity it’s not peace it’s Black.

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The Red Present

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Skylar Parker

skinnydipping with evergreen men Ulysses Texx

T-square edges buzzed boycuts measured to the neck & up close enough to breathe on glass facial hairs some collarbones still saran wrapped in compression gear jealousy passing along menpickled flesh shrill March breeze pitching arms over post-op chests slush IPAs tucked between moist fingers tasting like fear or fish.

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Blowing Smoke

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Amanda Rom

if i can breathe Leanne Loy I can survive a lot.

I’m twenty-five years old and my mother is dying. I’m lying on the floor of our living room in the fetal position. The evergreen carpet is scratchy on my cheek and wet with saltwater. I’m trying to time my breathing with the last of my mother’s breaths; they’re getting longer and slower. My eyes are fixed on the dust that I can see under the hospital bed that Hospice brought in; we’ll have to vacuum when they move it out. The room is filled with extended family and their voices softly raised in song. This is how we say goodbye to those we love; we send them on with music. I can’t sing, I’m too busy counting breaths. *** I’m forty years old and my father is in the hospital. We should be celebrating my birthday at the cabin but instead, my siblings and I are taking vigil over my father’s hospital bed. Four days ago my sister found him on the couch in his living room, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, blood coming from his head, and broken glass from an end table all over the floor. He lives alone, we can only guess he was lying like that for twenty-four hours before my sister found him.

He was talking then, but it was mostly gibberish and German.

The EMTs couldn’t tell the difference between the two, but we could.

I had a panic attack in the emergency room when the ambulance first brought him in. I shouldn’t have gone; I know better than to go to places like that, it’s a breeding ground for my anxiety. My dad was moaning in pain and speaking gibberish again. In the next room, which was only separated with a curtain, a woman was screaming out in pain, “Ahhhh it hurts, I can’t do this. Don’t let them touch me. It hurts!”

The screaming continues, on and on and on. Whoever is with her is trying in vain to calm her down. My older brother and I look at each other, eyes wide. We laugh in spite of our situation. We laugh silently but hard, and let the tears roll freely. It’s a stupid reaction to what we are experiencing, but no one is going to judge us. I wouldn’t care if they did. The moment is fleeting, my dad speaks out again, almost in No. 30

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answer to the woman behind the curtain, and I can’t breathe. I feel the panic creep up my shoulders and run down the veins in my arms, numbing me all the way to my fingertips. He starts to gag and cough, his breathing becomes shallow, or at least that’s how I hear it. My pacing quickens and I become aware that my hands are on my head, grabbing my hair, and I’m willing myself to be anywhere but here.

Will I survive anxiety?

I’m twenty-seven years old and I just had a baby. Two years ago I lost my mom, one year ago I bought a house, nine months ago I got married. I feel as though I’ve just stepped back into my life after two years in a shadow. We arrive home from the hospital, eager to start this new chapter of our lives. I take my son out of the car seat, settle on the couch, and look up at my husband, heart beating, eyes wide.

“Now what?” I ask. My husband smiles at me, nervousness on his face as well.. I look down at the baby in my arms and hold his tiny hands in mine. He lies here, completely trusting me.

Two weeks later I’m home alone with my son. His breathing sounds funny and I keep changing the position I’m holding him in, thinking maybe I’m doing it wrong. I’m tired, Ethan doesn’t sleep through the night and I don’t sleep at all, always listening for that breath. At night, I reach over his bassinet to place my hand on his chest so I can feel his steady breathing, it’s my only comfort through the long nights. But now, in this waking light, no matter how I hold him, his breathing sounds weird. I call my brother-in-law, the one we’ve nicknamed the baby whisperer. He drives thirty minutes to tell me that everything is fine, his breathing is just fine. It’s going to be a while until I trust breaths again. *** I was twenty-five years old when I first met Lucy; although I’m sure we crossed paths here and there before then. It was roughly four months after my mother passed away. I don’t recall all the details from my first panic attack or what even set me off. All I really remember is sitting at my desk at work, convinced I was about to die from choking on my own breaths.

Doctors diagnosed me with acid reflux, it wasn’t until recently that I made the connection between the two. Stress triggers anxiety, which triggers stomach upset, which equals acid reflux. You would think I would have figured it out so much sooner but as you will learn, Lucy is a manipulative bitch and she doesn’t want me to know all her secrets.

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I named my anxiety about three years ago, after a terrible relapse.

For two weeks I sat in my house, afraid that I was going to be thrown in a padded room and never see my kids again. I’ve tried to describe the feeling many times, but I’m usually met with blank stares, and looks like I’ve gone completely mad, which believe me, I thought I had. Sweating palms I can handle, rapidly, beating chest; bring it on.

But when the room went blurry and I couldn’t feel anything but the sickening sensations throughout my body; like when my arms felt as though they were vibrating as someone rubbed cotton balls up and down them, or when my brain felt like it was swelling with electricity; I knew it was time to seek some help. I mean, a mother shouldn’t be afraid to drive her kids to school.

Sometimes it’s hard to like myself.

My mother wasn’t my mother anymore, at least not the woman I knew to be her. Earlier in the day, I told her it was okay to go. I didn’t mean it, but all my siblings and my dad had already given her permission and I was the last one to do so. Leave it to the youngest to be the weak link. I sat there, next to her bed with her hand in mine. I could hear voices from the other rooms, but I was alone with my mom for the moment. I knew it was time for me to let her go and I certainly didn’t want her to suffer, but I didn’t want to do this because it wasn’t ok, and I didn’t want to say goodbye. I tried to keep my thoughts silent, I wasn’t sure if she was in a place where she could hear them or not, I didn’t want her to know that I didn’t want to do this, I had to be convincing.

“It’s okay mom, you can let go.” The words were barely audible, I said them in a rush, and regretted it instantly.

I’m a terrible liar. *** When did breathing become so difficult?

We take turns staying with my dad so he is never alone, but today is my fortieth birthday and my older brother’s band is playing at an outdoor concert. I go, and I carry my guilt and the smell of the hospital with me. The music starts and I dance. I dance so hard that I cannot help but breathe heavily. The breaths are freeing and allow me to release all the nervous energy I’ve built up over the last week.

I look up at my brother on the stage, he wishes a happy birthday to Piss Kitty and I send him a cheeky smile. Tension is released in that smile, and my entire body starts to relax as it moves to the music.

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This is how I heal.

I don’t know what will happen with my dad tomorrow. But today, he is breathing, on his own, without that tube down his throat. I am breathing, with the help of music. I still need to be reminded that a breath can be trusted. Shaky breaths, deep breaths, even those that need to be assisted with a tube, don’t always mean they’ll be the last one I’ll hear. I need to stop waiting for that last breath, and start listening to how many of them keep going.

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Salsa Chyann Erickson Every morning in the late Wisconsin summers, my mother brings in a bounty of yellow and red treasures. Carefully, she lines each Carolina Gold, Big Rainbow, and Lemon Boy on a tattered hand towel on the kitchen counter as she inspects each one. ·· Sustenance. n. food and drink regarded as a source of strength; nourishment. Alternate definition: the maintaining of someone or something in life or existence. ·· I am eight years old. My mom has just woken my brothers and I up early on a summer morning. We have to help weed the garden.

My brothers and I mumble grievances as we slowly, painfully head outside. The morning air is cool on our skin and the dewy grass makes my feet slip around in my sandals; there’s a squeaking sound with each step I take.

We finally make our way to the largest garden and settle heavily in the soil. Mom chats to us as we clear the sleep from our eyes and the weeds sprouting from the ground. She says to us, “the ground is still wet from the rain last night, the roots should come out as smooth as butter.” Her attempts to reassure us fall on deaf ears—we’re sure weeding this garden will take the rest of our lives. She endures our complaints and we endure the tedious plucking and dirty fingernails.

We were too young then to recognize the benefits of tending what we’ve sown. ·· What truly matters in the end? ·· My mother begins making salsa by first skinning the tomatoes. She blanches them and tosses them into a cold water bath. The delicate skins pucker and peel off into ribbons. Cutting away the part of the tomato that clung to the plant, she then places them into a food processor with all the other ingredients that create salsa. ·· My mother grew up in Alaska and she never imagined that she would become a salsa-brewing Wisconsinite. With her shoulders freckled from too many hours in the garden and the essence of sunscreen in her wake, I figure she’s making up for lost time spent in the darkness of Alaska, reveling in the benefits of soil free from permafrost. And 102

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if you could hear her comment on the beauty of the trees on a drive through the countryside, you’d surely know she has been deprived.

Mom would tell us stories growing up about how her family would have to get on an airplane to go grocery shopping. They lived in Cold Bay, a small World War II base camp on the Aleutian Chain. Although there was a grocery store in town, everything was so expensive that it was cheaper to fly to Anchorage a few times a year and buy flats of canned and boxed food than it was to shop solely at the local grocery store. Having fresh fruits and vegetables was almost unheard of, and they usually didn’t have anything fresh in the house at all. It wasn’t until my mom met my dad, a midwestern guy from North Dakota, that the prospect of having a garden became real. ·· Where will life take me? ·· While the salsa cooks on the stovetop, another large pot rattles with pint and quart-sized Mason jars as they boil to be disinfected for canning. One by one, she plucks the jars from the boiling water and sets them on the counter to cool until the salsa is ready. ·· Tomatoes are rich in lycopene, an antioxidant that gives tomatoes their red color. Lycopene has shown to be good for the heart and protects cells from damage caused by cancer. Cooked tomatoes are actually better to eat than raw ones because the process of cooking releases more beneficial properties. Tomatoes are also rich in vitamins A and C, calcium, and potassium. ·· I am twenty-one years old, home for the weekend. Memorial Day weekend—the unofficial start of summer and the start of salsa season.

The tilled gardens lay in wait for roots to warm the soil—they wait to be planted. I use twine stretched across the ground in a line to create the rows and worry over the unevenness, the line isn’t straight. My mom chuckles at my obsessiveness and simply moves one end of the line. Effortlessly, she makes the row straight. ·· Life is not meant to be spent worrying. ·· Tomatoes need around six to eight hours of sunlight a day to bring out their best flavors. The plants will need some type of support system to keep the vines off of the ground. Stakes, trellises, or tomato cages are all good options. It is best to put the support system in place at the time of planting.

The plants need enough room to grow. Depending on the variety, some tomato plants may need anywhere from two to three feet between them and the next plant. Preferring slightly acidic soil, tomato plants thrive with a soil pH ranging from 6.2 to 6.8.

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·· At last, the salsa is ready for jarring. Each jar is lined up awaiting its duty as a salsa carrier. The canning funnel moves adeptly from jar to jar as my mother only adds a couple cups of salsa at a time to ensure the most even distribution. She places a lid on the jars and screws down the ring, but not too tightly. Picking up the jars carefully, she places them into another boiling pot of water. She knows just when to remove them and realigns them again on the counter. In anticipation, she waits for the gentle pop of each of the lids to signify that they’ve sealed properly and all of the air has been forced out. ·· How do I know which path to follow? ·· In a day or two, in her loopy handwriting, my mother scrawls the date and names like “Chyna Sweet” and “Hot as Balls” on the lids of her handiwork. The latter, being aptly named by my little brother, is rather spicy and packed with jalapenos; whereas, the former is sweeter, like the relationship between a mother and her only daughter. ·· In Italian, the tomato is called Pomodoro, or “golden apple.”

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My Beacon of Hope

Amanda Rom

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Crucible Alex Jensen Meet me in London? Nah. Meet me by that grain bin at the haunted farm place.

Pretend I drive a Silverado and I’ll wear my orange vest in the bar after dark. I’ll put deer hooves above the box and your feet on the headliner, that way people know we’re for real like ghosts and sex. Official, the way Jeremy What’s-His-Name told everybody in gym class he slept with that girl, right before he hit her in the face with a dodgeball. Remember? Our gym shorts were just short enough to make us feel bad about ourselves. Witches are dancing in the woods. Do you see them? Let’s ask them to get Jeremy and maybe they’ll get us too. Grind up our bones, melt us with regret. Pour us into glasses rose-colored and better, like blood. Reborn as a potion boiled dark and bitter, like him. They’ll drink of us, know our pain, and cast us into the night.

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Breakout Room 5

Alex Jensen

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A Short Break From Eternity Harmony Oleson You wake up with a jolt, trying to sit up and hitting your head on the wooden surface above you. Once the shock and pain subside to a dull ache, you try to look around. There’s darkness enveloping your surroundings, and when you desperately reach out for some form of comfort in the void, you find that you are in a very small, rectangular space. As the earthy smell reaches your nostrils, horror fills your veins as the realization fills your mind; you’ve been buried alive. Caught in the waves of panic that flood your mind, you scream and kick the wooden board above you, as though one of your weak hits could break through the wood and dirt. As adrenaline slowly ebbs away, you begin to realize just how painfully tired you are.

Besides the pounding in your head and the bruises blooming from your attempt to bash down the solid barrier between you and the outside world, your muscles were aching and sore from exercise you don’t remember participating in. Slowly, you realized you couldn’t remember anything from before this dark space. Even your own name was missing from your mind, and you felt yourself starting to slip into another panic. You make your best effort to calm yourself down, telling yourself that you might’ve been hit on the head and suffered a concussion. Again and again, you told yourself that your memories would return, reminding yourself that if you lost control again, you would end up using too much of the limited air within your casket.

Once you were calm enough, you noticed some sort of scratching above you. Bugs? Some sort of tunneling rodent? After a bit longer, you realized it was the sounds of a shovel, slowly but surely digging you out. Had there been more room in the enclosure, you would have jumped for joy. Instead, you settle for victoriously punching the wood above you, instantly regretting it as pain lances down your arm.

After what felt like ages, the shovel began scraping against your coffin, knocking loose dirt and dust. You shielded your face as you waited for your savior to finish freeing you from the prison you were nowhere near ready for. When the lid was peeled back, you had to close your eyes tightly. The moonlight that streamed in blurred and hurt your vision, and the excited whoops and hollers of whoever had freed you pounded on your ears like a jackhammer.

“Good gods, finally! I was afraid I dug up the wrong grave again!”

You did your best to peer up at them, squinting your eyes to make 108

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sense of their shadowy form as you question just how many resting places this stranger had disturbed in their search. “Come on out now sir, we don’t have time to dilly-dally! I know you’ve been dead and all, but I really am in a hurry.”

“Dead?” you tried to say, but only a soft wheeze emitted from your lips. The person you presumed to be a man pulled you out by one of your limp arms, easily lifting you out of your shallow grave before climbing out himself. You expected to see gravestones and other dugup graves around the both of you, but all that covers the horizon is tall grass, dancing in the soft breeze and whispering to the fireflies that glided just above him. You turned to your savior, hoping to get a better look at him, but he had his back to the moonlight, keeping his features in shadow. All you could tell was that he was extremely tall and surprisingly slim and gangly for a man who had elevated you from your earthy prison like a newborn from their cradle.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking; why me? Why wake me from my rest? I was having an absolutely grand time parading around the afterlife, what with being such a famous wizard and all, and I really do think I’ve spent enough time on this dastardly earth!” You presumed he was looking to you for confirmation, but all you could give him was a confused expression and mouth, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He continued, seemingly oblivious to your lack of understanding.

“Well, my daring, darling, decaying wizard, it’s because this world needs your magnificent expertise again!” His grand, booming voice shifts to a mumble momentarily, making you lean in to catch him saying, “By the world, I mean my little clan, of course, and by my little clan, I mean myself,” before jumping back as he shifts to a much louder volume than before, his breath wafting towards your nostrils, the sharp smell causing your nose to scrunch up. “But the who and why matters not! What matters is that you, oh benevolent, beautiful, badly preserved wizard, have returned with all your little secrets!”

He suddenly sits down in front of you, crossing his legs and leaning towards you like a child eagerly waiting for a story.

For a moment, you’re silent, wondering how tall this person must be for him to still be eye level with you when seated. His face’s proximity to yours makes the scents that seem to be battling amongst his teeth and tongue much more clear to you; blood, spoiled milk, rotten eggs, and just a hint of zesty lemon. As the silence between the two of you grows tangible, your eyes finish adjusting just enough for the uncomfortable lack of personal space to allow you to finally make out a few details of his person; large, dark eyes, a small mouth with two large tusks curving up and out of the confines of his lower lip, and a slim, upturned nose, all resting in a pool of dark, bluish skin framed with tendrils of vibrant purple.

You take a deep breath, instantly regretting it as his unpleasant No. 30

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scents assaulted your nose, making you wish you were still curled up in a ball of panicked tears in your grave. Finally, you push out two mushy, rough words. “Don’t… remember.” Even in the darkness that cloaked the Earth with night, you saw his face fall.

“Oh, come now, you must remember something! Perhaps you could start with how you destroyed the entire elven army in one night, without spilling a drop of blood?” You shook your head, the word ‘elven’ bringing a bad taste to your mouth. “What about the bomb you made in your younger years? You know, the one that was lit with a child’s blood and burst into an expansive mass of demons and angels, who would all resume the age-old battle between their masters, destroying everything in their path? You could tell me how you fit all those entities into such a small space, couldn’t you?”

You shook your head again, feeling cold sweat forming on your back. “You damned wizard, you must remember something! The carnage, the murder! You left such a deep scar on this wretched land, scarred it with fire, lava, blood! You must remember the millions and billions of people you stole life from to prolong your own!” He rose to his feet as he spoke, huffing and angry, his fists clenching and his body almost seeming to broaden and form muscle masses as you watched, the sound of skin tearing announcing the arrival of horns that twisted from his temples, webbed wings that burst from his back. You cowered from the shapeshifting mountain of rage before you, shaking your head more vigorously and choking out a shuddery, “Remember… Nothing.” Although you couldn’t remember any of the scenarios the man in front of you described, you couldn’t help feeling guilty and disgusted with yourself. Part of you hoped that he had dug up the wrong corpse again, and all the violence he had described wasn’t your doing.

Your shrinking back from him seemed to finally make him accept what you were saying as truth. His face relaxed to a numb, blank slate, and he began to tut like a troubled mother, placing a hand on his hip and shaking his head in disappointment. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. You really have nothing left in that rotted noggin of yours, do you? I doubt you even remember your own name. Brilliant.” He sighed heavily, his head dropping to meet the palm of his hands. You wondered if he really needed a shovel to dig when he had hands that big. “Oh, this is no good, not good at all. So much potential, so many spells and tricks and you can’t remember a single thing.” Another air-bending sigh, a gust of hot putrid air rushing past you. “Well, guess this was all for naught then. Back to bed with you.”

You opened your mouth to protest, raising your hands and backing away. Without any hesitation, he hit you in the face with his gigantic shovel and sent you plummeting back into the hole that was to become your permanent home once again. You couldn’t move. After a few seconds of awkward wriggling, you realize that your arms had 110

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snapped off and shattered when you tried to soften your fall. You cursed your aged, weak bones and the reflexes that remained from a life forgotten.

You tried to yell, to complain, to beg for your life, but your vocal cords had been ripped by one of your broken bones. He mumbled and muttered about useless wizards being too old and moldy to be of any use as he slammed the gates of your wooden prison and began shoveling dirt back over you. Each miniature mountain of soil increased your fear, wave after wave of terror washing away what sanity you had left, polishing your brain into a smooth, stupid rock as you felt your life being forced out of your lungs once again.

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No Discussion December Araya Smith No discussion december; Black family edition Black mothers, Stop telling your underaged daughters to put clothes on around the men in the family Your daughters aren’t acting too fast, Your brother’s a pedophile Black fathers, Stop teaching your sons to fight, Well before you teach them how to read Black mothers, Stop babying your grown sons, You’re feeding a toxic cycle Black parents, Stop brushing pedophilia under the rug Stop disowning the gay cousin And stop defending the family rapist Black parents, Stop dismissing mental illness I’m not crazy Now don’t sit at my funeral crying Remember I don’t have depression Remember you told me to go wash them damn dishes Black parents What happens in this house Does not stay in this house Signed a fed up black kid.

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Too Close to Home

Whitney McLaughlin

No. 30

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Uprooting at the Center of Pain

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Elizabeth Sederstrom

A Snake in Between Stones Mason Ciernia

Whenever the clock hit noon during school, my skin would start to crawl. The school bell let out a series of loud rings signaling that it was lunchtime. I didn’t have any friends during ninth grade at Big Lake high school, so I dreaded sitting all by myself in the lunchroom. The only thing that comforted me was a National Geographic magazine about reptiles that I would bring everywhere I went.

When entering the lunchroom, I was welcomed by the monotone buzz of a hundred chattering voices. There was an aroma of chips and baked beans that came wafting in from the kitchen. The students would line up across the back wall with brown trays in their hands, kicking the wall with their toes or leaning on it as we shuffled along.

I grabbed the tray and stuck the pulpy magazine between my right armpit.

The lunches were typically bland and sometimes even downright disgusting. The mashed potatoes with lumpy gravy poured over the top would always make me gag. As we would progress through the line, we would have to grab at least one healthy food item. I always chose the green apple with black spots all around its core, but I never once took a bite.

To make matters worse, my mother just happened to be one of the lunch ladies. Every day I approached the register, I would see my mother wearing a black hairnet around her short, brown hair and an apron that was far too big for her small body. I slammed my plastic tray onto the steel counter beside the digital register. My mom took one glance at my face and immediately asked me if something was wrong.

“Nothing’s wrong, mom. I just can’t seem to fit in; that’s all,” I said.

“Things will get better, I promise,” she said. “Kids can be so cruel, but eventually they will grow up. I promise.”

I rolled my eyes at her and then proceeded towards the oval tables.

I hoped at least one was still vacant, but to my dismay, they were all full. As I scanned the entire cafeteria for an empty seat, I saw the couple that was always making out on the left side of the lunchroom.

I saw another table with a parade of band geeks with their bulky instrument cases, and then rednecks, who wore nothing but camo.

And then there was me, who didn’t fit in at all. I was the pimple-faced kid with greasy hair who wore baggy jeans and progressive rock-band No. 30

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shirts, such as Frank Zappa and King Crimson.

I eventually spotted an empty seat. However, it was at the jock table where Dallas Miller resided. He was the captain of the football team, who dated an attractive cheerleader, and was known for being the biggest bully at school. Dallas sat there with his freshly bleached yellow hair and ran his right hand through his chin stubble. He also sported a green soccer jersey with faded jeans that ripped at the knees.

“Hey, Mason. Sit here,” Dallas said as he pulled the chair out and patted the seat.

I always kept my head down and tried to stay out of sight, but it was either sit at the jock table or eat on the ground. As I sat down on the blue, plastic chair, I suddenly felt something sticky and gooey on the back of my pants. I immediately got up from the chair and realized that Dallas had placed a cup of chocolate pudding onto my chair.

“Look, everyone; Mason shit his pants,” Dallas screamed across the entire lunchroom.

Everyone turned their heads around and erupted into laughter. My face turned bright red as I tried to cover my butt with my hands while unknowingly dropping my magazine onto the ground in the process.

I looked over to the register, but my mom was no longer there, as she was probably back in the kitchen. With no other place to go, I ran to my usual hiding spot… the bathroom. *** The school bathroom was somewhat dilapidated. The plastic peeled from the vanities, and the enamel was chipping in the sink. As I stepped onto the slippery tiled floor, I had to stop myself from falling by grabbing onto the side of the bathroom stalls.

I approached the sink and grabbed a paper towel from the almost empty paper towel dispenser. Water leaked from the faucet base when it was in use, and dirt spots covered the mirror that had a few cracks in the center.

I then dipped the paper towel underneath the running water and then dabbed it on my butt to get the chocolate pudding off.

I then pushed the first stall door open. Although it was hanging from its hinges, it still opened, and I was finally able to lock the door and escape into solitude. I took a deep breath and then let out a giant sigh of relief.

No one can hurt me here; I’m finally safe, I said to myself as I pulled down the toilet seat and then sat down with my pants on. As I relaxed, I reflexively reached for my National Geographic Magazine that I had placed underneath my arm. To my dismay, I realized that I had dropped the magazine in the lunchroom during my frenzied escape. Damn, what do I do now? I asked myself.

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I started to scan the inside of the stall out of sheer boredom as I glanced over lewd graffiti scrawled into its walls. Most of the writing was edgy nonsense, such as “Fuck school” and “Bachman can go shove that test up his ass!” However, underneath a crude drawing of a hairy scrotum, there was a philosophical quote in red sharpie.

It read, “My greatest fear is that one day I’ll find words expressing how I’m feeling. For when I do…”

Tears spilled down my face like water from an exploding dam. I felt the muscles of my chin tremble. Suddenly, I heard the squeaky bathroom door open. I thought it was Dallas or one of his jock friends, so I put my feet on top of the toilet to avoid detection. To my surprise, the person slid the magazine I had dropped in the cafeteria under the door.

“I think you might’ve dropped this out there,” the squeaky voice said.

I peeked through the crack of the stall and saw a tall and skinny boy wearing glasses.

“My name is Alex, by the way,” he said. “Dallas is a real prick. He picks on me too.”

“Thanks, now just go away,” I said to him as I quickly picked up the magazine.

He will just hurt me like the others. I can’t trust anybody, I said to myself. *** As the final minutes passed before class started, the sounds of screaming students and the school bell’s endless ringing reverberated inside the classroom. The rowdy teenagers in the back were on their phones taking selfies. A group of hipsters blared ear-splitting music while drumming powerfully on the unstable desks.

Paper airplanes were being manufactured with great precision at one end of the classroom and flew to the other end, hitting several annoyed children on the way, who would yell back, “Fuck off.” Though the classroom walls were bare, the windows were quite large. The sky was blue outside the window except for a few white trails left by an airplane that flew by.

The classroom finally started to quiet down as our social studies teacher, Mr. Bachman, slowly walked into the classroom, looking as inspired as a used teabag. The student’s faces that were once filled with life and energy were suddenly as expressionless as corpses.

He approached his desk while holding his Dallas Cowboy’s coffee mug. As he sat down onto his expensive-looking computer chair, he began to stroke his red, greasy beard that appeared to have small crumbs of food embedded within.

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be reading about the industrial revolution,” Bachman said with little to no enthusiasm.

Rather than standing up and lecturing in front of the class, he would always sit at his desk full of clutter and Dallas Cowboy bobbleheads.

The bobbleheads would continuously bounce up and down as his large stomach would bump into the desk due to his constant maneuvering in his swivel chair. As he slumped back in his chair, I noticed how his button-up dress shirt had ketchup stains on the collar and was missing a button.

His long ginger hair would also flail around due to the small fan on his desk that would blow cold air onto his sweaty face. On a pinboard to the right side of his desk, he had flyers for the bands The Black Keys and Jimmy Buffet & the Coral Reefer Band.

Before our lesson began, a girl in the front saw a framed picture of him at a wedding on his desk and innocently asked him if he was married. Bachman approached the girl and shoved his ring finger in her face.

“Do you see a ring on this finger? Well, do ya?” he said as his face became blood red.

The girl sunk into her desk and quickly shook her head so that he would pull his deformed hand away from her face.

“That’s a photo of my sister’s wedding; she gets to be happy while I suffer here alone, babysitting a bunch of brats,” Bachman said with contempt.

The red-headed man took a deep breath and then grabbed a green stress ball from his desk drawer. As he squeezed the ball tightly in his hand, his red face began to return to its original pale color, and his furrowed eyebrows seemingly vanished. As soon as Bachman started to drone on about the industrial revolution, I instantly slipped into one of my daydreams.

Sometimes I would stare at the wall and dream about going on elaborate epic fantasy or sci-fi quests. I would come up with long storylines that included complex characters and plot twists. Of course, this would result in me not paying attention to anything other than my thoughts.

“How did the Industrial Revolution lead to urbanization? Um, let’s see, who never talks here. Ah, yes, Mason,” he said as he pointed directly at me.

I must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights as I pointed to myself to confirm that he was calling on me, to which he responded with a quick head nod. I didn’t say a word and instead held up my hands and shrugged my shoulders in defeat.

“We just went over this. How could you be so dense? You must be retarded or something,” Bachman said in front of the entire class.

I remember hearing laughter erupting from my classmates, as their faces lit up with complete and utter surprise. Even the girl who 118

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was humiliated earlier was laughing.

“Alright, settle down class,” Bachman said.

After the laughter began to simmer, I heard whispering insults escape from some student’s mouths, such as “Finally someone said it,” or “Spot on Mr. Bachman.”

Will they ever grow up? I asked myself. *** I sat on the edge of the plastic chair in the science room as I studied the classroom corn snake that slithered through its escapeproof tank. The brown coils of the snake curled tightly underneath itself. Its tongue flicked in and out as it watched me with its beady dark eyes. In the corner of the tank, I noticed that the snake had just shed its skin. It had been in the process of shedding for many days, so I was excited to see it grow out of its old skin.

Suddenly, I heard the clicks of high heels behind me. I turned around, and my science teacher, Ms. Chabot, was staring at me.

“Hi Mason,” she said with a sweet smile on her face. “Skipping class to look at Marvin again?”

“Yep. Marvin just shed his skin. Have a look,” I said.

Ms. Chabot walked over to the snake tank and looked down at the snake. Other than her, the classroom was empty since it was her lunch break. As she was observing the snake, I flirtatiously glanced at her.

Ms. Chabot was in her mid-twenties and had just started teaching this year. I had a crush on her, as she was one of the only people at school who treated me like a human. The other kids said she was ugly because of her acne, but her yellow-rimmed glasses added something to her face, a certain elegance, I suppose.

Ms. Chabot reached into the snake tank and grabbed the large piece of snakeskin so we could look at it.

“Do you remember the scientific term for the snake shedding process?” she asked me.

“It’s called Ecdysis, which is when reptiles shed their skin,” I said.

“Correct. I can see you’ve been reading up on reptiles lately,” Ms. Chabot said as she pointed to the reptile magazine on my lap. “I always like to compare snake shedding to how humans grow out of their clothes,” she said.

I let out a small chuckle that tried to mask the deep sadness I was feeling. I wasn’t doing a good enough job though, as Ms. Chabot sensed something was wrong.

“Is something on your chest Mason?” Ms. Chabot said. “I ask because I have noticed that you’ve been spending a lot of time by yourself and not with the other kids. Are you being bullied? You can trust me.”

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students. So, I guess I’m just waiting for them to grow up, but I don’t think they ever will,” I said.

Ms. Chabot let out a smile that filled me with hope and then sat down beside me.

“Those people that you are waiting for to grow up probably never will. But those who have grown up do exist. You just have to look for them,” Ms. Chabot said. “You see, growing up is all about taking chances and doing things that you are not always comfortable doing.

Maybe you should find someone else who looks lonely and reach out to them. Don’t hide from people like a snake in between stones. Make a friend instead,” Ms. Chabot said.

She then gave me a late pass to excuse my tardiness and sent me off to my next class. *** I stood outside on the athletic field with my gym shorts on, shivering in the cool autumn breeze. The grasses were tufting and waving just as an ocean would on a sunny, windswept day. The class began with twenty or so students roaming around the athletic field. It was the dreaded archery unit, where everyone had to wait around and share a few bows because the school couldn’t afford enough for everyone.

To pass the time, I would watch the grass’s green hues deepen and lighten in the sunlight. As I was distracted by my surroundings, Dallas Miller seemingly appeared out of nowhere. I tried to keep my distance from him, but just like a mouse attracts a snake, he still found me.

“What are you looking at, dumbass,” Dallas screamed at me.

I quickly turned my head away from him as if my head were on a swivel. He didn’t take too kindly to my cold shoulder as he cupped his right hand on the top of my head and forcefully turned it back towards his direction.

“Hey, how come you’re so ugly?” Dallas said.

His cronies suddenly appeared out of thin air as they ambushed me on the grassy field. At that very moment, I felt very anxious as I knew that the situation was escalating at a rapid pace.

“Yeah, I don’t even think your mother could love someone as ugly as you,” Dallas said.

My eyes began to bulge out, my fists clenched tight, and the purple and blue veins on my temple pulsated quickly.

“At least I’m not a meathead like you,” I said.

The group of boys began chasing me across the field in a circular motion and then violently tackled me until I fell. One of the boys pinned me onto the ground as Dallas plucked a large clump of grass and shoved it into my mouth.

“Eat the grass like the filthy animal you are,” Dallas said violently.

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As the green grass sat inside my mouth, he forced my jaw shut and told me to chew and swallow my meal. With no way out, I did precisely that and began to chew. I remember the grass tasting quite dry and crunchy while having a similar texture to green veggies.

Fortunately, before I could swallow the grass, our gym teacher Mr. Kline finally arrived outside as he held large bags of archery equipment in both hands. His paunch stuck out like a full moon, and his bald head glistened in the sun like a shiny bowling ball. He put down the bags and tugged Dallas off me.

“Dallas, will you stop acting like a dumbass and help me set up the targets,” Kline said.

“And you, Mason, start standing up for yourself a little more.”

I got up from the ground and spat out the chunks of chewedup grass. I even used my tongue to scrape off some of the grass that had stuck to my molar teeth. I hurried to where the rest of the kids had gathered to watch Mr. Kline’s archery demonstration. As Kline picked up the recurve bow, he briefly plucked the string like a guitar to choose a suitable draw weight.

Kline pulled back on the string and aligned the bow with the target in front of him. However, a gopher that was tunneling around underneath the athletic field popped its head up from the ground.

“Looks like we have a live target, everyone. Watch and learn,” Kline said as he licked his lips in concentration.

He shot the arrow towards the gopher’s direction as the arrow pierced through the defenseless gophers’ stomach. The gopher’s beady eyes remained open and stared directly towards me and cut through my soul. I had never been so shocked in my life.

Behind me, I heard most of the boys laughing in glee, and in front, I saw that the girls were wincing in disgust. Kline let out a little chuckle because of his perfect kill, but I don’t think he was laughing after being fired by the school and featured on the front page of the Big Lake newspaper.

Dallas put his hands on my shoulders and said, “Nice shot Kline, spotless kill. Looks as helpless as Mason when I was shoving grass into his mouth. Maybe we should use him as the next live target.”

As my classmates started to get in line to shoot the bow, I stood there looking at the lifeless gopher. I couldn’t help but empathize with the helpless animal, as I feared that I, too, would meet a similar fate if I continued to alienate myself from others. *** The flickering fluorescent light in the bathroom was blindingly bright. I hid within the same stall as last time as I fought the urge to cry. I read my magazine to take my mind off the pain, but the indescribable feeling persisted. I looked up from the magazine and No. 30

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saw the same quote again. “My greatest fear is that one day I’ll find words expressing how I’m feeling. For when I do…”

I put both hands on my face and sulked about my miserable existence. Just before I was about to cry, someone beat me to it. I looked in between the stall crack and saw Alex, the boy who returned my magazine. His crying was both ferocious and noisy, but I understood how he felt. My instincts told me to stay in the stall and wait until the boy left, but two tiny voices in my head that sounded a lot like Ms. Chabot and my mother told me to approach him.

With great reluctance, I unbolted the lock of the stall door and slowly began to open it. As the opening of the door widened, the darkness of the stall started filling with light. As I took a single step out of the stall, Alex stared at me as he blinked salty tears from his bloodshot eyes. I stepped forward and stood directly in front of him.

“Do you… Do you like reptiles,” I said as I stuck the magazine about reptiles in front of Alex.

“I… I do,” Alex said as he grabbed the magazine and rubbed the tears from his eyes. “My favorite reptiles are snakes.”

“Mine too,” I said.

Alex smiled as we both walked out of the bathroom and back into the hallway.

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Succulent in oil

Nicole Wolgamott

No. 30

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Adventure

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Elizabeth Sederstrom

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From the Perspective of a Pinned Butterfly Chinyin Oleson “The effort to shield the elderly, frail, and disabled residents from the coronavirus has created another wrenching health crisis: The confinement meant to protect the most vulnerable is also threatening their lives.” —Suzy Khim, nbcnews.com Ahead of me

A bright

Piece of Open sky Clouds I yearn

cottony

soft

beckoning

to dance Over petals Bury my face in Soft yellow centers

I yearn for sweet nectar on my tongue Out that window I wish to fly

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A Room with A View Drew Jokela The present is the most important place to be.

It is a landscape oil painting on canvas. A dry, late summer day.

I am in my new bedroom that was once my brother’s bedroom. I have occupied this space for about two years. The first thing I notice is my pink walls, which are dappled by sunlight that is entering from the window above my bed. I see my queen-sized mattress without a headboard. There are blush-colored sheets, a white comforter, and a beautiful quilt that is white, navy blue, and pink. I have four pillows: you can tell they were shuffled about and moved during the night, one is at the foot of my bed. My sheets are not horribly messy, but the space is disheveled all the same.

The sun is enveloping the entire sky and is leaving shadows of the olive trees on the yellowed grass. The trees have dark green leaves that remind me of August when the season is ending. Twisted tree trunks trail off into the painting, giving it depth. You can see purple mountains on the horizon that are touched by the intense light of the sun. It is a beautiful picture, one that I am witnessing from a computer screen on my bed.

What has been getting me through life?

I like to make lists like this to keep myself on track. I have the same process when I play Stardew Valley. I am in the winter season right now, so there are no crops to water. But I still need to feed my chickens and cows and goats. Then I go into town to see if any helpwanted ads have been posted. Sometimes I will go to the beach to practice my fishing, or I will visit the mines to get minerals and ore for crafting.

Thursday, April 16. I woke up at 9:30 and thought about the things I needed to do. First, on the list, fold and put away my mountain of laundry. Next, finish my work for this class. Then yoga, video editing, painting, and lastly do these stretches for my feet to help relieve arch pain that I get from working out. After I finish these activities, I will probably play Stardew Valley again.

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Uneven ground turns and slips underneath the shadows and structures with an ocean-like texture. This is a Van Gogh though, so everything appears to be in the middle of moving. Even though I can almost feel the intense dry heat, it feels peaceful at the same time.

I can imagine myself sitting underneath the shade in the grove and watching the sky change colors as the sun sinks beneath the mountain range. This piece makes me happy because I love the mountains, and I love sleepy summer afternoons.

Everything I do is systematic. A routine. If I do not have anything to do (in real life), I usually end up scrolling through social media on my phone, which is a last resort. I checked the Minnesota virus update today; the cases are starting to grow beyond my line of understanding. The people dying are starting to look like a statistic.

On Tuesday, I dreamt about my honeybees. My lovely, amazing, imaginary honeybees. I had a hive over by my real-life garden and it was springtime. My family was all outside and we were moving heavy terra-cotta pots out from behind the shed, we were pulling out patio chairs and raking dead sticks from underneath the willow tree. It was still early enough in the season so the wind was cool but the sun was bright. Birds sang happy tunes and I felt completely content, excited even, for the summer to come. And the best part of this short dream was that I had my own hive of honeybees that were just starting to wake up.

I woke up to Snickers licking my face as light glared through my wide-open door. And for once, I wished I could go back into that dream, where everything was normal again.

Afterward, I go and play my favorite video game, Stardew Valley.

In this game, you are a farmer and you live in a peaceful valley filled with interesting people and activities to do. You can go to town, hang out with other people in the village, go to events... The list goes on. It is a nice escape from my home and my family. It helps me remember that soon I will be able to do these things again. Anyway, now I am home from my best friend Anne’s house.

Why do humans crave companionship?

For a long time, I tried to seem cooler than I was, or tougher, or like I did not really care about what anyone else thought of me.

I tried so hard because I did not want to be seen as a sensitive, innocent girl. But that is just my personality. I like to be sweet and kind and optimistic and sensitive because I care about people and I want everyone to be happy. And this room contains the things that make me happy. It has my artwork on the walls, some I made, some I did not. It has colors mixed with cool navy blues and it has soft, comfortable furniture. It has space to breathe, area rugs to lay on, No. 30

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candles to burn, windows to open.

The next piece I see is much older, early 14th century. The painting might have had color a long time ago, but now a brown film is layered over the tall tapestry. It is tall to accentuate the entire length of a pine tree that a middle-aged Chinese man is sitting under. The tree is so detailed I could imagine seeing it outside my bedroom window.

It is an old tree, you can tell by the height, and it feels balanced and symmetrical even though it clearly is not.

I love opening the windows to listen to the birds in my backyard.

My room has my sketchbooks and paints and books to read. And it has a sturdy door that when closed, blocks out the world and the sounds that accompany it. As soon as I enter my room, I feel like the energy that I collected throughout the day just melts off.

We were in her basement where we had lots of space to be six feet apart. We talked about her ex-boyfriend Justin who had broken up with her recently. I know this isolation has been incredibly hard for Anne especially after an even harder breakup. He is going to graduate school in California next year and he does not do long-distance relationships. He did not see the point in staying together when he knew he was going to leave. What is the point of love if you know the expiration date? His words, not mine. Anne and I talked about Oprah podcasts the most. It is funny how you can listen to something for thirty-nine minutes and fifteen seconds and get something new out of it each time, depending on where you are in life. When someone shows you who you are, believe them the first time. That is what Oprah says. How long will Anne and I make the same mistakes before we listen? We do not know, but we promised to Facetime soon.

The man underneath the tree is looking out onto the water of a river, only a side profile can be seen. His thinning hair is pulled up into a knot on his head and he is wearing some sort of silk robe, he is most likely a distinguished person. The shore that he is kneeling on is covered in soft grass. Rocks taper off into the water where some taller grasses grow. The whole piece seems to be about the quiet meditative experience of sitting alone at a river’s edge, but you cannot even make out any water in the piece. Maybe when it was created there was a distinction between sky and river, but now it is all brown.

Last Saturday, I had a nightmare. I was with my dad and his parents, (although the grandparents in my dream were actually strangers to me), and we went to a drive-in movie. An old, black and white movie that my not-grandparents loved. It was the summertime and the nursing home we took them back to was in a deep swamp in Louisiana.

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I wonder what the painted man is thinking about. Is he sad or happy, sitting by the river?

I liked this swamp because I could hear all the wildlife in the thick, humid night air. We got my not-grandparents settled in their room and my dad left quickly in his truck to do something before going home for the night. I was not worried. I walked out to my car and instinctively reached for my keys, but I realized I must have left them in the car. I got in, the doors were unlocked.

Back in my room, I notice my nightstand which is actually a little bookshelf. There are two shelves, completely overcrowded with colorful book spines varying in size. Glancing over the book titles on the shelf, I recognize each one and around the age I read them. This makes me think I need a bigger bookshelf.

I reached around in the dark and grabbed onto my keys. They fit into the ignition. I could feel myself turning the key when two large hands reached around my headrest and locked my mouth shut before I could scream. As soon as my skull connected with the back of the seat, I knew I was dead. I woke up gasping for air in the dark, but it quickly faded as I turned on my lamp and light flooded my bedroom.

Now when I get in my car to go to work at the take-out bar, I check the backseat.

There is nothing I can do except stay in my room and switch between various hobbies. I feel helpless. But at least in Stardew Valley, I can bring Willy a herring that I caught in the ocean and it will make him happy. At least I can take my dogs for a walk and they will be happy. At least I can keep myself busy to avoid the fact that this is really, really bad. And there is nothing I can do.

Did the painted man lose someone he loved?

Last night, I dreamt I was back at the University of Minnesota to visit my friends before spring semester ended. It was raining the entire time, I love the rain. When my dream started, I was just about to leave, the weekend had already transpired and I was going home.

What a shame, I would have liked to experience hanging out with them again.

After a long talk, I told Anne: Maybe it is okay to end things without closure. Maybe you do not need to have a satisfying end, because the world is not perfect and neither are the people in it. Just focus on the now and create a peaceful place for yourself. That is all you can do.

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Peachy Dreams

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Marguerite Crumley

Curious Tiffeni Bisterfeldt I write to explore my madness and valiantly let it ponder me.

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Call For Submissions To be eligible for submissions students should be enrolled in at least one credit during any of the following semesters: the previous spring or summer, or the current fall term.

All submissions should be emailed to: uppermissharvest@stcloudstate.edu Include your name and title(s) of your work in the body of the email while putting the genre you are submitting to with the subject line of your email. If you are submitting to multiple genres, please send separate emails with your submissions for each one, for example, all poetry pieces should be sent with an email subject heading of Poetry Submissions. If you are submitting fiction as well, send a separate email with the fiction pieces and the subject heading, Fiction Submissions, and so on. Please remove your name and other identifying information from the individual documents, so that only the title is present on each submission.

Failure to meet any of the guidelines may result in disqualification.

We reserve the right to reject submissions. Faculty members enrolled in classes are not eligible for publication. https://www.stcloudstate.edu/english/student/publications.aspx *** Our submission deadline for each year is October 31st.

Eligible submissions include: Poetry: 1 - 5 pieces per person, typed.

Short Fiction or Nonfiction: 1 - 3 pieces per person. Maximum 4,500 words per piece, typed and double-spaced.

Drama (monologues, short script excerpts): 1 - 3 pieces per person.

Maximum ten pages per piece. Formatted appropriately.

Photography, Art, or Comics: 1 - 3 pieces per person. Black and white and full-color submissions accepted. Please ensure your submissions are 2400 x 3000 pixels or higher.

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Your submitted work must be original and previously unpublished in order to qualify. We do not accept simultaneous submissions.

All submissions must be sent from a St. Cloud State email address to be accepted for submission.

Acknowledgments First and foremost, we would like to thank all of the hard work and dedication of Harvest’s contributors. Your ability to produce something beautiful and creative in the midst of a global pandemic is admirable, and we recognize that it was no easy task. Without your work, Harvest would not exist. Thank you.

We would also like to thank our fellow editors and wonderful graphic designer, Marguerite Crumley, for helping us to develop the journal before you. Despite numerous hardships, virtual meetings, and tight deadlines, they have been extremely dedicated to Harvest and our collective success.

For her tireless devotion to Harvest and her ever-upbeat encouragement, we would like to thank our faculty advisor, Professor Shannon Olson. She has been the foundation of the entire editing and publication process, and without her, we surely would be lost.

Shannon, you may never know the immense admiration we have for you. Thank you for always helping us along.

And finally, thank you, Dr. Judith Dorn, Co-Chair to St. Cloud State’s English department for continuing to support the arts and allowing Harvest to have a home and a community within our university where we can grow and evolve from year to year.

It goes without saying that this past year has been one we will never forget, and though we have faced many new challenges, our team has remained dedicated to providing a journal we can all relate to and find solace in. We sincerely hope you enjoy our 30th edition of Harvest as we reflect upon where we have been and where we are going.

Chyann Erickson, Leanne Loy and Chinyin Oleson No. 30

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Upper Mississippi Harvest Team Faculty Advisor Shannon Olson

Head Editors Chyann Erickson Leanne Loy Chinyin Oleson

Designer

Marguerite Crumley

Editors

Alexis Anderson Leah Berthiaume Vendela Rose Cavanaugh Marguerite Crumley Judea DeMaris Isabella Drown Chyann Erickson Leanne Loy Chinyin Oleson Zachary Piper Araya Smith Hailey Thielen

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© Upper Mississippi Harvest 2021

TPS 210749

St. Cloud State University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity educator and employer. This material can be made available in an alternative format. Contact the sponsoring department. St. Cloud State University values diversity of all kinds, including but not limited to race, religion, and ethnicity. Member of Minnesota State. The Upper Mississippi Harvest is published annually by St. Cloud State University. It is distributed free to SCSU students and staff. All pieces were chosen through blind submission. Names of all authors and artists were hidden until after the final selections were made. Contributors retain all rights to their works.

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