Letter from the Editor-in-Chief Before you begin reading this issue of Silhouette, I just wanted to say a few words. As I said in the last issue, this has been one of the hardest tasks that I have ever taken on. It has taken extreme dedication, hard work, and determination to even begin thinking of putting out this magazine. I have had an awesome staff this year, the biggest Silhouette has seen in years. To be backed by such incredible people, including our faculty advisor and our professional staff, has been the only way that Silhouette can turn out the way it does. And when it comes down to it in the end you realize who has been in it for the long haul, and who really cares about the magazine as much as you do. I want to say thank you to those people now. Without you the road would have been much bumpier. As I walked out of the Silhouette office for the last time before I left Virginia Tech, a feeling of sadness overcame me. I have dedicated the last four years of my school career to designing and publishing this magazine. At first, honestly, four years ago, I didn’t see the big picture. I didn’t understand what Silhouette was really about. But as I walked out of the office for the last time, I really understood what an awesome organization Silhouette is, and hopefully continues to be. To be completely run, edited, and designed by students is incredible and I feel honored that I have been able to be apart of it for so long. Taking on the position of Editor-in-Chief has been amazing, a real experience. Not the easiest thing I have done, like I said, but then again you don’t learn anything if it is easy. Being a now college graduate, I encourage everyone to try something new, even if it seems hard. Looking back on my years at Tech, I am extremely happy that I did not quit Silhouette within the first few weeks I had joined, like I was going to. Instead I chose to live by something my grandfather had always told me, and I have taken it through life with me: “Nothing beats a try but a failure.” So if you don’t try something, you will never know if you were ever capable of doing it or enjoying it. Lastly, I want to thank the readers and submitters. Without you, we honestly would not have a magazine. Please keep reading and submitting to Silhouette, help us to be even better than we are now. Also, again thank you to everyone for all the help I have recieved. Without all of you, no matter how small your task was, the magazine would not have been completed. I wish everyone the best, and thanks for letting me be your leader through all of this insanely fun chaos. I hope you had fun as well. Peace, Katie Mitchell Silhouette Editor-in Chief 2005-2006
Staff Names Katie Mitchell Editor-in-Chief
Joselyn Takacs Special Events Coordinator
Molly Bernhart Business Manager
Jessy Hylton Public Relations
Jennifer Tomko Photography Editor
Sola Ayeni-Biu Communications Director
Hali Plourde-Rogers Fiction Editor
Grant Gardner Advertising Manager
Lindsay Key Poetry Editor
Jenna Saxton Promotions Coordinator
Laura V. Cook Fine Arts Editor
Kamau Rucker Radio Show Co-Host
Corinne Jeltes Production / Distribution Editor
Joselyn Takacs Radio Show Co-Host
Kamau Rucker Graphic Designer
Frank Mariano Webmaster
Misono Yokoyama Assistant Graphic Designer
Katie Fallon Faculty Advisor
Laura Murphy Special Events Coordinator
Lana Tang General Staff Katherine Brumbaugh General Staff Meghan Mogensen General Staff
Table of Contents
Silhouette, Volume 29, Issue 1, was produced by the Silhouette staff and printed by Interstate Graphics, located in Johnson City, TN. The font used throughout the magazine is A Frutiger (roman, bold, and italic). Silhouette Literary and Art Magazine is a division of EMCVT, Inc., a non-profit organization that fosters student media at Virginia Tech. Please send all correspondence to 344 Squires Student Center, Blacksburg, VA 24061. All Virginia Tech students not part of the Silhouette staff are invited to submit to the magazine. All Rights revert to the artists upon publication. Visit us on the web at silhouette.collegemedia.com. To become a subscriber of Silhouette, send a check for $10 for each year subscription (two magazines) to Silhouette’s address listed above, c/o Business Manager. The cost covers the price of shipping. For more information about subscriptions, submitting, or being part of our awesome staff, call our office at 540.231.4124. Enjoy!
6 Empty Pool / Jenny Marceron 7 I Slept With an Orange Today / Amanda Losch 8 white paper napkins i wish i had thrown away / Pooja Khanna 9 Untitled / Ted Martello 10 Father Figure(s) / Danny Fasold 15 Eyes / Kira Zmuda 16 Nice Day / Annabelle Ombac 17 The Cornfield / Jonathan Pillow 18 Rings / Annabelle Ombac 19 The River Slides by... / Asha Pack 20 Do All Birds Cuss? / Dillon Greenhawk 22 The Christmas Party / Jennifer Henszey 24 Birds / Annabelle Ombac 25 Disaster / Maura Sinnenberg 26 Part of the Play / Laura Brockman 29 Austin, Aurora / Bryon Sabol 30 Cambridge Street / Terrance Wedin 31 Follow Me / Annabelle Ombac 32 I Knew I Loved You / Kyra Rosow 33 Pine Freeze / Elizabeth Pacentrilli 34 Sweat / Michelle Billman 37 Bodies / Kira Zmuda
Empty Pool Jenny Marceron
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I Slept With an Orange Today Amanda Losch I slept with an orange today, Made eyes at a peach and teased a grapefruit. I would have liked to bite into a plump mango – to have pushed at its juices with my tongue. And, the rapture of sucking its flavor off my palm; Oh, I am to make love to a mango – still I went home with an orange, leaving the grapes moaning in their worthlessness.
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white paper napkins I wish I hadn’t thrown away Pooja Khanna I miss your red shirt. the one that you left rumpled and crumpled cold and alone in an untouched corner of your room neglected hangers swayed in the closet. the sheets that stayed unmade and wrinkled near the place we’d roll another joint where laughter slammed against shut doors fell back into the sheets and wrinkled them some more. photographs are scattered in unhappy drawers among the matchbooks we collected from our trips drive bys along the winding endless coastal roads hummed me a song while you contemplated another traces of unfinished letters lay on bare wood white paper napkins stained with coffee cups doodling of my blue pen artwork adorn the edge I wish I hadn’t thrown them away. loneliness tingles my bare spine and makes me loose face faced with questions riddled with words too big to write and my mind wanders back without looking back. I miss your red shirt.
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Untitled Ted Martello
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Father Figure(s) Danny Fasold As a kid, I always envisioned my father as the typical “Real American Dad”. I saw him as a sort of Indiana Jones-style hero. I’d sometimes ask my mom what he was like, but I don’t remember any particular description that she gave that really sticks out. I suppose that’s because she was always very hesitant to talk about him. She’d only even mention him if I was bold enough to ask. So it was up to me to create my own description, and all I had to base that off of was a single photograph of him that my mom kept in her wallet and would occasionally show me to feed my curiosity. It was a photo of my father standing outside, before the autumn-painted spectrum of trees. He was grinning a slightly slanted grin as his old west-style mustache followed. Dressed in denim and leaning on his cane, he seemed to embody a pulsating aura of mystery and mystique. Every time I looked at that picture I’d stare at it as if I was trying to solve some kind of puzzle. I’d try to bring everything in the photo together into a clear cut answer, the way one might visually converge the innumerable pixels of color in a Magic Eye canvas to see the bigger picture. That’s all I ever wanted back then out of that photograph: the bigger picture. I just wanted to know who my dad was. ***
I am looking down at my 17-year-old hands, playing over and over again in my head the possible scenarios that might take place in only a matter of minutes. My mom and I are stopped in the dark, rainslathered parking lot of the hotel for a brief moment of quietude. “I know you’re probably really nervous right now,” my mom says. “If it’s any consolation, so am I.” It’s not much consolation. I’m secretly wishing I was not even in this position right now. It’s not like it was my decision to meet him here. Hell, it wasn’t my decision to meet him at all; that was entirely my mom’s idea. She can be so damn intrusive sometimes. We finally get out of the car and walk silently and expectantly towards the hotel entrance. As we pass through the revolving glass doors, I’m trying to summon in my mind an image of my father. It had been a long, long time since I had seen the photo. Brown hair…mustache…denim…it’s all so blurry now. I suppose I’d just look for the first person that looks like an arthritic, altered version of myself…with a mustache. I’m scanning the faces of total strangers rapidly as we step into the lobby before I’m interrupted by the old, bearded man on the couch who gets up and walks over to us. He approaches us in a diplomatic fashion as if my mom and I are businessmen from Japan and he’s here to greet us. “So this is my father,” I say to myself. I shake hands with this man before he says, rather brightly: “So, do you guys like Mexican food?”
*** As my knowledge of the world developed, so did my knowledge of my father and the background behind his noticeable absence. I learned that he had been in a terrible plane crash before I was born, barely surviving a collision with the glacierous ice of the Potomac River in the heyday of winter. I learned that soon after the crash he met my mom. They worked for the same networking company that would eventually become Sprint. My mom brought him company and comfort while his shattered legs pieced themselves back together, and out of this company and comfort came what would become me. Soon after my conception, my father (whose legs were near fully recuperated at this point) went on a business trip to Japan. He came back weeks later with his old college girlfriend and presented her to my mom. “We’re getting married.” “We’re moving to California.” “Good luck in the future.” Or something along those lines is what he told my mom. “What about our son?” my mom asked him. “I’ll send him postcards.” I never did receive any of those postcards. I never received any Happy Birthdays or Merry Christmases or friendly hellos. All I had of him was that photograph of him and his sly grin and denim
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threads. Still, ever day of my childhood was another day that I might possibly hear from my father; another day when he might show up at the doorstep with a suitcase in each hand and announce his return and how he’s back to stay and be my dad. So I waited and waited. *** It’s my mom and my father and me, and we’re all sitting at the booth of a Mexican restaurant somewhere in the outskirts of DC. “So Danny, what kinds of things do you like?” “Oh, I don’t know. Hard to say I guess.” I look across at his eyes meeting mine, and he has on the friendliest, most curious look I’ve ever seen stare at me. I wonder what it must be like for him to meet the son he’s abandoned for 17 years. I also wonder if he wonders what it’s like to meet an estranged father after 17 years of exile. “You know, you speak very well,” he says. “I was half expecting you to have a southern accent, you being raised in Virginia and all.” “Yeah?” I don’t know how to answer his questions, so I supply him with vague, bullshit answers and let my mom supply most of my information. I don’t mind letting her take over my end of the conversation. It gives me the distraction-free opportunity to size this
man up; to understand who he is before I let him know who I am. Suddenly, he takes out an envelope bursting with pictures from his bag. “Here are some photos I thought you might like. This is me as a kid with my brothers Dennis and Pat and my sister Shannon. Shannon, that’s her right there, she died when I was in college.” I glance at the image of my aunt I’ll never have an opportunity to meet, then at my father, looking young and energetic. He looks almost like Beaver Cleaver; uncaring and full of life in this frozen black and white world before me. He shows me more old photos. Some are of his father, my grandfather, recounting his old military days. “Your grandfather there died only a couple months ago. Too bad you didn’t get to meet him. He was a good man.” I nod thoughtfully at the shot of my dead grandfather preparing to parachute out of a plane and into the bullet-blazing wasteland of World War II. He slides another photograph over to my side of the table. This one’s different than the others. It’s newer and bursting of color. “And there’s my 92’ Viper. Let me tell you, that thing’s a real rocket on wheels. Do you like cars, Danny?” “They’re pretty cool, I guess.” Really, I’ve little opinion when it comes to cars, even Dodge Vipers. They’re just tools to me; another way for people to get around. But I try to feign interest nevertheless.
back to stay and be my dad
I feign interest all night until it evaporates and I’m finally in my room alone, thinking myself into sleep. *** My elementary school would sometimes hold these fundraising events. The school would set up all these little booths in the cafeteria. The booths were set up like the ones you might see in the mall, selling useless trinkets such as the 30-cent hairbrushes, 3-footlong plastic forks that are labeled as back scratchers, tiny pre-BeanieBaby stuffed animals, and the like. All of it was useless junk, really, but kids would still flock to these events like they were some kind of crazy carnival. I was one of these kids. The idea was that you weren’t supposed to buy any items for yourself. They were all gifts for other people, mainly family members. So I spent a few bucks on my mom, grandma, aunt and uncle, and even on my babysitter. But what to get my dad? Having never met him, I had no idea what he liked. But he seemed to be the really easygoing type in my mind; someone who appreciated all the things I liked. When my eyes caught a glimpse of the tiny, hand held pin ball machine, I knew I had found something that he could enjoy. The goal was to get all the tiny pin balls into their holes; it was a tedious but ultimately fulfilling task. I bought it for a couple dollars, ecstatic over the thought of getting such a cool gift for my dad. I just knew he’d love it.
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I took it home and showed it to my mom so she could gift wrap it and send it out to wherever it was my dad had landed himself. When I showed it, my mom gave me this static look, like I had just presented her with a transparent ball of nothing. No, no, she explained, we couldn’t send this to my dad, you see. Well why not? We just can’t, cannot, we can’t send it to him, that’s something we can’t do. Yeah, but why not? It took me a long time to understand why not. My mom always told me he lived “somewhere in California”, but in actuality she had no idea where he lived. He had disappeared from our world and our lives, and hid in the dark where we couldn’t see. *** “You see that plane there?” my father asks. “I flew that for the Air Force during the war.” “Oh yeah?’ I say, looking up at the giant prototype. “Yup. And you see that one there? I got to fly a later version of that one.” It’s the day after our first meeting, and I’m taking time off from school to ingest my first ever samples of father-son time. We’re at the Air and Space museum in DC., taking a gander at all these planes that my father knows everything about. It seems like for every plane photograph we look at, every model, every original, he can supply me with this informative back-story history lesson. He tells me
this because it’s just all so very interesting, at least that’s what I must think in his mind. Really, I’m just bored out of my skull, hungry, wondering when we’ll leave this place and go get some food. “Hey, an Imax,” he says. “Let’s see the film on space exploration. It starts in 20 minutes. Don’t worry, it’s on me.” My stomach growls as he pays for our tickets. As we’re leaving the museum, we take one final stop at the gift shop. I glance at all the model planes, air and space DVDs, and t-shirts that I’m not interested in until my father comes up to me, holding two glossy books with planes on their covers. “A lot of these planes I got to fly back in my Air Force days,” he says. He opens a book up and starts pointing at some of his accomplishments. “I think you might be interested in these. I’ll go ahead and buy them for you, how about that?” “Sure,” I say. I get home later and open up the books, staring blankly at photographs of massive, ascendable chunks of steel. I’d have rather gone to one of the art museums. *** “What was my dad’s plane crash like?” I asked my mom one day. “Well I can’t really tell you,” she said. “But they made a made-for-TV-movie about it a while ago
and I recorded it.” I remember how my eyes widened at the prospect of seeing my dad as a main character in an action movie. they widened even more at the prospect of seeing what my was really like; in the movies that is. I had two versions of the accident; The madefor-TV-movie and the actual live footage shot from a pectator standing over the wreckage. In the TV movie, my dad had lines and spoke. He was a respectable businessman, treading the cold, numbing waters, struggling to survive; struggling to help his secretary that also barely survived; struggling to be heroic. The actual footage was not quite as theatrical, and my dad had no lines at all. It was just a shot of a tail end of a plane sticking out of the ice with people floating around it. I remember my mom pointing out which one my dad was. He was closest to the plane, just floating and looking blurry. He didn’t seem to be struggling at all. He just seemed to be annoyed at the situation he was literally stuck in, and a lot less heroic. I’m not entirely sure when exactly my attitude towards my father started to change. It was certainly a gradual thing. It was something that just slowly grew and grew over the course of years until it finally hit full bloom, yet it’s impossibly hard to measure the growth. It’s hard to say, but perhaps the roots began to grow there in front of the television as I watched my father freeze in the Potomac River, realizing with striking clarity that he was no Indiana Jones. No, he was just an ordinary man.
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college. My mom, sensing my discomfort, reaches behind my back and starts running her hand around my back in that gentle, maternal way. I quickly shake her off. I don’t want anyone to touch me right now, or even look at me. I just want Joe to shut the fuck up. Finally he stops and stares at me for a few moments. “Why don’t you go outside for a walk, Danny,” he says. “Your mother and I need to talk.” I gratefully step outside and wander around the dark, daydreaming about being hundreds of miles away. *** Then there was the full blossomed image of resentment I had of him as an adolescent, during those bitter, “smells like teen spirit” years that Cobain had wailed about. When the world suddenly turns sour, and you’re milk, and you and the world just don’t mix. A friend of mine asked me during this time period what I would do if I ever met my dad. “I’d punch him square in the face,” I responded. And I meant it. At least, I thought I meant it at the time. Those were the days when you feel somehow put aside by everyone else, and you’re looking for someone to cast all blame on. “I’d punch him right in his goddamn face and tell him that he’s the bastard, not me.” He wasn’t Indiana Jones to me then.
*** My father and I are cruising along the mountainsides of America’s edge in his ‘92 Viper with the top down, feeling the wind rub fleetingly against our faces; feeling America race by in the cold, spring air. We’re bolting around the cars on the road so fast, you’d think they weren’t moving at all. We’re ripping along the interstate and carving our path through the state of Washington and into Idaho. Soon we’ll be in Canada. For once, my father isn’t saying anything, and as usual, neither am I. Why ruin the flow of the moment with awkward chit-chat? We both understand this. I ask him at some point if I can drive the Viper and he says no. He says he’s afraid I’ll ride the clutch. It’s no matter, really. It’s peaceful on the passenger’s side. It gives me time to capture the images of snowpeaked mountain tops crashing into the sky and the like. After a while, we make it back to my dad’s lake house in Spokane and resume our attempts at friendly conversation. The rest of my trip stumbles along as the stress of being my father’s son pushes down on me. There still aren’t any firm connections. There still isn’t any common ground that we’ve both hit on. I can tell though; I can see that he’s looking for it. ***
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I call him Joe now. We’ve made it to a first name basis. This time he’s in town to watch me graduate high school. He keeps calling me on my cell phone to try and get directions to my pre-grad party, even after I’ve given him directions several times before. He finally gets there an hour late. Later we go out to eat in what’s more or less a sequel to our first dinner at the Mexican restaurant, only this time it’s Chinese. Again, it’s uncomfortable. Watching him and my mom exchange small talk, I can only speculate as to how they really feel about each other. I can imagine my dad seeing my mom as this sweet lady he knew from his rehabilitation days who he’s now in debt to, and he’s trying to pay that debt by being polite. I can imagine my mom seeing him as a ghost; an old flame that’s now barely flickering as she contemplates putting it out for good. “Have you ever thought about joining ROTC?” Joe asks me. “No,” I reply. “You should really think about it. I joined when I was your age and I think it really provided me with a lot of opportunities. You can study almost any field you like and they offer some nice scholarships.” “I don’t think I’m interested,” I again reply. He stays on the subject of ROTC for what feels like an eternity, just ranting and raving away at how great it is. It’s such a great opportunity for me, yes, I heard you the first time, I wish I could stop listening but you just keep talking. I start fidgeting. He keeps talking. Can’t he tell I’m not the least bit interested? If he really knew me, he’d know ROTC is the last thing I’d want from
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I remember very clearly the day my mom informed me that I was to meet my father. It was morning and I was lying on the couch watching television and my mom walked in and clicked the off button on the remote. “We need to talk,” she said, and I couldn’t help but think that I’d pissed her off somehow. I quickly learned though that that was not the case. She spelled out to me, very meticulously, how she’d contacted my uncle Pat (my father’s brother) through his law firm, and through him, had arranged for me to meet with my father. The meeting was to take place in a matter of weeks in DC. Right after that she explained to me that I have three half-sisters and two-half brothers from my father’s previous marriage. And right after that my eyes watered in a soupy mixture of fear and joy with grains anger on confusion, stirred into something indistinct that has no name. I realized then that this was the beginning of a new part of my life. Why my mom decided that then would be a good time for me to meet my father I don’t know, and why my father took my mom up on her offer and finally entered my life I don’t know either. There are many things I don’t know, that I may never know, that I can only speculate on. So much of life is mere speculation, really. ***
It’s the last, fleeting days of summer, and I’m spending them in Cape Cod to get to know my dad’s side of the family. There’s Teri, Mallory, and Bridget, my half-sisters, George, my brother-in-law (which sounds really strange), my three nieces (which sounds even stranger), Jodi, my step-mother, and finally there’s Joe. I’m still learning to call him ‘Dad’. We spend the day outside at Teri’s, who lives just off the beach. The weather is calm, sterile, and completely harmless. I sit on the porch watching family members play croquet, throw Frisbee, and grill burgers. I observe the awkwardness between Bridget and her teenage daughters. They’re going through that phase, you see. As I sit I strum guitar and try to summon songs that Teri and George might know. I get nods of approval for “Wish You Were Here.” “Have you been practicing?” my dad asks me. “Yeah, a bit.” “Well, it shows.” I smile and play another song. “Mind if I play one?” he asks. I hand the guitar to him and watch him play an old blues song that I’ve never heard before. He sings along with his eyes closed as he does his own summoning. He sings in a raspy, country-western style, but not in the stereotypical redneck fashion. Still sitting there on the porch, observing all this, I think back to all the images I’ve had of my father in the past: Indiana Jones, the cool, easygoing figure, the disaster victim with luck on his side, the bastard with a fist-shaped bullseye on his face. I wonder if any of these images were ever anywhere near the
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mark, but all those images ever were was speculation. All I truly know is what I’ve experienced first-hand, and what I’m experiencing right now is simply a man trying desperately to make a connection. I see a battered man who’s chronically distant, much like myself, who’s at this very moment attempting to close that distance, even if only for the briefest of moments. And, really, for these brief moments, there doesn’t seem to be much of a distance at all. ***
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Eyes Kira Zmuda
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Nice Day Annabelle Ombac
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The Cornfield Jonathan Pillow His voice was that of a tank crossing a distant cornfield. Low and steady, almost mechanical, but you knew there was a human driving. He said, “You know you don’t have to go to college.” His eyes, flickering wheat brown, tell of experience and knowledge. The wood planks on his porch scream under the weight of his rocking chair, and I nod. “There’s plenty of honest ways for a man to live. You don’t have to ride the back of some diploma.” I imagine riding it as a paper airplane, soaring through life. But each image comes and goes a little too fast, I blink and three years have passed. It seems like the momentum of the plane can only be slowed for a glimpse before it is gone again, and all through this I’m getting tired. City blocks and power lunches carousel around me until they lose focus but even as my imagination nosedives through 8 dollar daiquiris and one night stands I am sitting on the porch with him. Together we look out into fields of hay and breath deeply the first crisp moments of a summer evening.
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Rings Annabelle Ombac
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The river slides by... Ashley Pack
we are tanned with peeling shoulders our wet hair lies close on our heads, like caps our cheeks hurt from giggles and sunburn five grown girls, lying on a rock smothering our bathing suits with mud and guessing at the ratio of actual soil to cow dung laughing at how gross that is we assist each other in covering every inch of our bodies with brown. the only parts of any of us that still show are bright pink lips and glaringly white eyes with speckled irises in shades of blue and green. we sun ourselves changing slowly from deep brown gleaming wet to matte khaki. when we smell dad starting the fire we move, cracking our hardened shells. we dive into the river. we take handfuls of mud and fling them into each other’s hair. we spit out grit and fishy water. dad calls across the river, “last--call--for--supper” a holdover from his days camping in Montana we rinse as we swim to the other side and grab onto branches to pull ourselves up and out. we wrap ‘river towels’ around our five bodies; old bath towels with fraying edges, holes, and stains in colors - olive green and grayish white. we sit around the fire to dry. later we smell like mud and riverwater and woodsmoke. one shower will not get rid of it and we will be happy to have the smell walking around with us for days. it will remind us of jokes about smoke following beautyof biscuits twisted round a stick, caterpillars, cooked over the fire and stuffed with strawberry jelly and butterof sleeping on the ground and waking in the middle of the night to watch the moon turn to water, to silver. of reluctant morning swims - waking early to bathe in the river, when the well got too low and started spitting out brown water of skinny dipping in the middle of the day and ducking under to hide from canoers. the smell will remind us of summers before we were split between colleges and jobs we will carry with this smell thoughts of sisters who still hold hands and can speak secrets with one look.
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Do All Birds Cuss? Dillon Greenhawk I’m hunting geese. The birds look like drawings, V’s and M’s out of pencil. The sunrise looks like watercolor. Sitting inside a giant plywood box that is disguised to look like nothing, I shiver and pick up an empty shotgun cartridge from the dirt floor of the bird blind. It smells like a cap gun. I think about pretending to be a cowboy or a cop or whatever I was when I played with cap guns. I drop the shell and there is a small dirty clink. I keep remembering the cap gun smell. Some birds come in close. They looked like birds instead of V’s and M’s. They sound like untuned saxophones. I could have shot them, but I didn’t. A common misconception is that headshots produce instantaneous death. Instantaneous death is rare, especially with birds. You shoot them in the head, and they spasm around flapping their wings, uncoordinated and stupid. They flop around, not for too long, maybe a minute or so. Then they die. I bet it feels really long to them, or maybe they don’t even think about it. I don’t know if you can think with shotgun pellets in your brain. Sometimes, a goose is too wounded to get away, but not quite dead, so you have to grab its head, and twist its neck till it snaps by swinging its body in a circle. That’s the only way I’ve really seen them die comfortably. Some more geese fly over, I could kill infinity. I think of cap guns. If you’re a purist like I’ve always been, a revolver style cap gun can only shoot 6 times before reloading. To reload you have to fidget with the cylinder magazine so it looks like you’ve reloaded. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Reload. Pop. Pop. Pop. “I got you,” said my brother a long time ago. Then I flopped around on the ground and it looked so real, blood could have come out in a red licourice string from my jugular veins. That must have been after I watched something die. Both my brother and I giggled, and even now I smile about how ironic that whole thing was. The shotgun shell is at my boots. It’s cold and I’m thinking about home. Home smells like kerosene heat. When I walk in, the smell and heat are heavy. I think about how I will wipe my feet, take off my boots, and set them on the newspaper next to the door. I think about how dad is still sick. I know he will look at me from the recliner and ask how many Geese I killed. “Ninety,” I’ll say, and we’ll giggle uncomfortably. I drop the empty shotgun shell; there is a pathetic thud against dirt. I don’t know why I picked it up again. More geese are flying around me. The sky is speckled black with them. They are brave and stupid. Sometimes after you’ve shot some geese out of a flock, geese from the same flock will come back, most of the time this happens when you’re out in the field picking up decoys and leaving. “Fuck you,” the geese say with honks. They are brave and stupid. I never shoot those geese that fly back. “It really tears him up,” says mom about dad. She always puts it like that. Dad is always torn up. Torn to shreds. Mom is torn up too. Torn to shreds. But unlike mom, dad never says anything. I look across the brown field and through brown trees and I see water. That’s when I remember when the corn was high and green, and the trees were
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loud with locusts. It wasn’t cold, but it was warm. Then that one tree catches my eye. It always does. It’s that tree to the right, the second tree right next to the water. It’s always black and still. Instead of being surrounded by grass, it is surrounded by rocks and sand. It never sounds like locusts. That tree always looks like winter. In the summer the trees blow around and birds fly in between them, but that tree never does. Not to me. It just stays still like a corpse in the winter. I always make plans to cut down that tree, but I never do. I’m scared of it. My dad’s axe is fine wood and its blade is sharper than anything around. “You can’t find a better axe,” dad said when buying it. “You can cut down anything with it.” Dad let me carry the axe. I had it cocked up like Paul Bunyan would have it. I even wore red-flannel like a lumberjack and both dad and I set out to cut down the tree. But we got to the tree, and dad asked for the axe, and he took three good swings. He swung two hard, solid hits, and then he started to cry. He threw the axe into a spray of sand and we both cried and walked back. “Leave it.” Dad said, and so we left the axe in the sand, and the tree with two deep cuts in its bark and muscle. And that tinged rope dangling over the water. I can’t see it from here, but I think the tree is scabbed brown now. I can see the rope; it’s a tangled knot hanging off. I unload my shotgun. It’s too cold today to hunt. I pick up the decoys and a few geese fly over and away, their wings stretched like middle fingers. Those ones are just stupid. I didn’t shoot anything to begin with. “Yeah, fuck you too.” I said to the M’s in the distance. Dad doesn’t ask me if I got any birds like I thought he would. He’s in the recliner though. Just staring off, pretending to watch TV, but he’s really just staring at the walls. I walk past him and up to my room, commenting that it’s cold outside. He grunts. My room is cold too the heat might hit you when you walk in the front door, but the upstairs of the house is non-Kerosene heat accessible. My brother used to complain about that. He used to shiver and say how much he loved the summertime. I miss him more than I miss killing geese. At the funeral, he looked tiny in his casket. He always looked so big to me until then, all small in his box. There was a hole dug six feet deep and the casket was lowered in. It was covered with dirt and grass and if it wasn’t in a cemetery, it wouldn’t look like anything. I remember watching some blackbirds fly over. The geese had all gone to Florida on their migratory vacation. I wondered then if the blackbirds were saying the same thing that the geese say when they fly over. Were they brave and stupid too? I watched my brother’s casket get covered with wet earth. I thought about whether or not he died fast and painless like we all hope to die someday, or if he died fast and painless in the realistic way I’d seen so many Geese do. I imagined him in his bathing suit, twitching around on the tangled rope suspended by his neck above the water, stupid and uncoordinated. But here’s the worst part: I imagined him being so hopeless, that I hoped then that his neck snapped, instead of dying slow like those birds do sometimes. I didn’t even wish that I could have been there to stop him from swimming, from swinging.
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The Christmas Party Jennifer Henszey I’m tapping my wine glass with a fine fork. The cold hardness of this little pitch fork feels viced to my hand as my knuckles turn white. I’m tapping at first, just to hear it ring. and then again as I gather attention. I tap harder and faster. My chardonnay somersaults in my glass. CLANG CLANG CLANG my wine glass is screaming. But now, it’s My turn: “Please take the children into the kitchen” Their innocent ears don’t deserve to hear this “Cut the carols, if you will” The room is silent now And for him: “Come closer, beneath the tree.” He steps forward, dark skin, dark murky mane, dark horse-hair mustache. A man in his late 40’s still wondering what in the hell he is doing at this Christmas party. Colored lights exotically gleam on his olive skin as he glows like a dangerous, foreign animal.
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A rainbow giraffe perhaps to those poor, innnocent minds. Poisonous Snake to Me. Under the tree, center stage big bright lights and audience: the family. The “family” The “pack” like wolves, never turning on their own. He appears tense; a trapped wild cat searching nervously for escape in a dirty cardboard box. What is he feeling? What does he fear? Does he suspect suspicion? Does he think they know
Wolves will eat their Own. Two figures silhouetted in a galaxy of rainbow and pine, our audience waits: I look him in the eye as I have caught him looking at me all night; He can see it. I open my mouth and shut his last bit of security down. Somewhere in the rainbow and pine galaxy, the truth floats and the audience telescopes in. They watch in awe in horror.
It is not the man on the moon. It is not the man in the moon. It is the man without the moon. He hides in shadow. The man in the deep dark basement. His Cave His Wolf lair He preys and I pray He lights a virginal wick with a fiery sin and burns out the innocent light. But now, this man burns like unwelcome asteroids in a shell-shocked galaxy, for the audience on Earth below. It is not a silent night but now there is peace. It is not a Holy night but now it is whole. Our pack is strong and the corrupt cannot survive. Wolves will eat their Own. Merry Christmas, Uncle.
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Birds Annabelle Ombac
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Disaster Maura Sinnenberg The pastel green paint chipping under My fingers felt so alive in January. I curled my hands around the edges Of the building that smelled like Cajun and Expensive wine. I tasted the duck and champagne On my lips and around my teeth. It felt so real then. Voodoo swam in the streets on blind women Reading tarot cards And muffulettas seeped out of disgusting dirty delicious Markets. It smelled like flowers in winter. It smelled like sin in the streets. It smelled like Blue Dog and heaven. Now it doesn’t. Now it’s just a molded blank plaster wall and A few tastes from a restaurant and soggy bread And impotent chants and ruined canvas that fell to a rain And a nation too busy. Now it’s water and mildew. Now it’s carrion.
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Part of the Play Laura Brockman
It was spring break, and it would later be said that it was “convenient” that the events transpired while I was home. I still can’t help but wonder if there is a convenient time for someone to die? Did my grandpa choose that particular week to let go because his whole family was around? I had never really dealt with death, and by age 19 the big losses of my life consisted entirely of pets. But during this spring break, a time synonymous with bikinis and drunken parties, I had my first meeting with death. I knew that my grandpa was sick; he had cancer—though I didn’t know what kind—and had had a heart operation before I knew what that meant. Details were not my specialty when it came to my grandpa’s illnesses; perhaps I chose not to know so that I didn’t have to deal with reality I loved sleepovers, but only when they were at my other grandma’s house. But staying with the Brockman’s was, well, less than thrilling. I was young and there wasn’t a whole lot at their house to amuse me so I turned to imagination. We always played in the basement, which was a nod to sixties décor with its orange carpet and cast aside furniture. I had just finished reading a book in school called The Paper Crane; it was about a Japanese girl who had leukemia. I was proud that I knew leukemia meant blood cancer, but what that entailed I didn’t really know. I decided that my younger sister and I would put on a play for my grandparents based on this book. Being the one with seniority, I decided that I would play the main role and my sister, not being as good an actress, would play the girl who died from leukemia. I got a call from my mother early one morning of my spring break: “Grandpa is in the hospital.” My mom, as usual, had a calm clear voice. “Okay.” I knew she was telling me this because something bad had happened. “His leukemia looks bad; they’ve asked the family to visit,” she said. “Okay.” I said dully. I was in shock. “I’m coming home from work and I’m picking your sister up from school on the way. Be ready to leave when I get there,” she said. Her voice still had its usual strong tone. “Okay,” I mumbled. She’s getting Lindsy out of school, I thought, this must be serious. I wandered aimlessly around the kitchen and ended up perched on the edge of the kitchen chair, playing with the salt and pepper shakers. Grandpa had always been sick, I knew that, but he was also always around and seemingly happy. Even though he had been getting progressively sick over the years, I always remember him as a man with a constant smile. He would always make corny jokes and laugh heartily at them; I never saw him in a bad mood or in bad shape. I found myself wondering what my sister would think when she got the emergency note that pulled her out of class. I wished that I was there to comfort her when she got the news. After hours of practicing, we were ready to perform the play. My grandparents dutifully watched our amateur performance with an appropriate amount of admiration. All I remember about the play is the end. My sister played the girl with leukemia who dies in the hospital at the end of the novel. My sister lay on the itchy olive green wool sofa in the basement with a slight smile besides her “illness” as I presented her with a small crane statue. Her death was so clean, quick, and unrealistic.
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I wasn’t prepared when we got to the hospital. The strong alcohol smell swept over me and I felt faint. I was still expecting the olive couch sickness of my youth. When we got to my grandpa’s room I kept thinking “who is this man?” His skin is what I remember most. I had never seen a person turn such a color; there wasn’t the slightest hint of flesh tone or rosiness in him. He was no longer the laughing man I remembered. It looked like he was wearing grey body paint, and like this was really a costume party. The doctors say that all the blood transfusions put too much iron into his system and that’s why he was so grey. I saw the whole ordeal as a play, with roles that we each had to fill. I saw myself as the caring older sister. It was my role to watch over Lindsy, but, oddly, not to think of my grandpa. I couldn’t accept that my grandpa was really dying. The room was filled with the sound of labored breathing. My grandpa had a mask over his face to help him breathe. The mask covered most of his face, his eyes peeped out over the top. His eyes were smiling, despite the situation, and occasionally he’d try to laugh—but the sound was stifled and sad. His breathing was so loud it was like another voice in the room constantly reminding me that he was dying. We stayed with my grandpa the entire day. We were in the room and he was in the room, but not much interaction went on between us and him. I stayed with my sister; each of us trying to distract the other with homework and observations. Midway into the day they moved my grandpa into a larger private room. The nurses knew what was coming. The family jovially commented on the room’s size and poked around in the closets in an attempt to distract from the real issue at hand. Around 8:00, we decided to head down to the cafeteria for dinner. A nurse had just entered the room to give my grandpa medicine that would make him sleep. We figured this would be a good time to grab a bite to eat. My family and I announced our departure and walked single-file out the tiny walkway between his bed and the wall. And this is what I remember, and regret, the most. As I left the room, I glanced towards the man in the bed. He looked at me with such pleading watery eyes and reached a bruised, grey hand out in my direction. I waved. I didn’t go to him. I didn’t say anything. I only waved; like a casual so long to a friend. My family is not very openly affectionate with one another, and even in a situation like this it felt odd for me to go to him. To go to him would be considered stepping out of my role. I was here to watch over Lindsy, or so I thought. When we returned from dinner, he was asleep and we drove home. The next day he died. “Crush this bread up into small pieces.” My grandma pulled the yellow package out of the fridge and handed it to me. I was grinning from ear to ear, my sister and I fought over who got to break up the most bread for the ducks at the duck pond. Despite the mess of duck poop we had to wade through to get to the pond, my sister and I loved feeding the ducks. Whenever we stayed at my grandparent’s house they took us there. My grandpa liked to bring his camera along and stand across the road taking pictures of us. One of these pictures I remember vividly. I’m hanging off the rail encircling the pond; my side ponytail swaying in the wind. With one arm waving at the camera and the other around my sister, who was standing quietly next to me in a pink puffy coat with baggies over her feet to protect her shoes from duck waste, my grandpa snapped the picture. In my naïveté I had no idea that this pond was situated in the center of a cemetery and that my grandpa’s gravesite lay just across the road.
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I wasn’t there when he passed. The next day, each of us went separate ways; my mom back to the hospital, my sister back to school, and me back home. That night, I got a call from my mom. She told me that my grandpa was dead. I didn’t say much; I just glanced over at my sister, who was in the family room watching South Park on TV, said “okay,” and hung up the phone. I knew it was up to me, as the older sister and receiver of bad news, to pass the news on to Lindsy. I felt unprepared for such responsibility; I didn’t have any life experiences to help me figure out what to say or how to say it. I waited about ten minutes to collect myself and then headed into the family room to let my sister know what had happened. I had lied. I told Lindsy that there were little people who lived in teacups. And she believed me, silly girl. She was only five, and I was eight and totally in control of this kindergartener that worshiped her big sister and believed everything she said. So I told her that people lived in teacups; and while putting a pink plastic cup on the seat of my mom’s exercise bike I told her “now, if you close your eyes, the teacup lady will come out.” And boy did she close her eyes tight. I threw on some dress-up clothes and ran up the stairs. I immediately came back down and spoke to her in a soft voice “Lindsy, I am the teacup lady.” And she believed me, up until a few years ago when I broke it to her that there aren’t any teacup ladies in the world. I walked slowly into the family room and sat down on a chair. “Umm, Lindsy, that was mom on the phone,” I was looking at the floor and shuffling my feet. She muted the TV. She knew what was coming. “Grandpa passed away this afternoon around four, mom’s on her way home now,” I said quietly. She came over, sat at my feet and put her head in my lap. I stroked her hair and suddenly felt older than I was and that she was younger than she was. I awkwardly told her that grandpa had lived a long, happy life and that everything would be okay. I felt closer to my sister than I had since I went away to college. I was ready to deal with the situation now. I cried with my sister. We stayed up together that night; drinking tea and talking. The funeral was a day away and I didn’t know what to expect. At the funeral, ducks squawked over the priest’s voice and I thought of our visits to the duck pond and smiled. I wished for the bread bags to put over my feet – still the same old duck mess around here. I glanced across the street; my grandpa would be looking over that pond for the rest of his days, also remembering that chilly day at the pond. I sat next to my sister at the funeral and I remembered that meek girl in the picture. I put my arm around her, feeling that she still needed protection and comfort that I still could offer.
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Austin, Aurora Bryon Sabol
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Cambridge Street Terrance Wedin
The snow is falling From street lamps, And I’m standing In the middle of the road. It’s the end of February And it’s so quiet out, It feels like I’m the Only person breathing tonight.
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Follow Me Annabelle Ombac
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I Knew I Loved You Kyra Rosow As I sat in your kitchen and the winter sun bounced off the snow outside. Light streamed through the windows, I sat across the wooden table from you Letting the sun fall on me warming my skin. Your gaze left me unaware of your mother’s presence who was standing at the counter wrapping gifts. She filled bags with cookies and fresh apples she bought. Her cheeks pinked with frustration, and Without a word being spoken you rose up and helped her with the ribbon. I watched you with your hand placed on her back helping her guide the ribbon into bows. You left me sitting with my eyes transfixed on tenderness.
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Pine Freeze Elizabeth Pacentrilli
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Sweat Michelle Billman
Do you suffer from a condition called Hyperhidrosis? This test may help you determine if your sweat is more than just an annoyance. Please remember that only a medical professional can make an accurate diagnosis. Answer the following questions and consider talking to a health care professional about Hyhperhidrosis during your next visit. 1. Does sweating in public cause you distress? Church lasts one hour each week and for the past decade I have spent the entirety of that hour silently apologizing for the salty juice that continually pulses from my palms, feet, and underarms. Being religious would be just fine if it weren’t for that one Our Father, where we friendly Catholics reach unto our neighbors and clasp hands. The prayer probably lasts about a minute and a half, but that’s if we don’t sing—which adds to my exasperation like an extra inning for a dull game. Just as the mothers in church profusely apologize for the uncontrollable wails of their babies, I too, say sorry for an offense over which I have no control. On Sundays, the apologies flow almost as thick as the sweat that drips from my fingertips onto whatever family member, friend, or stranger is next to me. When these people awkwardly loosen their grips from my hands and then discreetly, or some times blatantly, rub my filthy moisture from their pristine oases of cool, my mouth blurts an embarrassed apology before my mind can shut me up. Why should I be sorry that this person is subjected to my glistening palms for a minute and a half when major facets of my life are molded by them every day? 2. Does sweating take up most of your time? My older sister Nicole always jokes that I should invent “hand fans” that clip around my wrists and provide constant air circulation to keep my sweat glands calm. I might make some money from the endeavor since some doctors are now estimating that three percent of the
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U.S. population suffers from a condition called Hyperhidrosis. People with Hyperhidrosis continue sweating even after their body temperature is properly maintained as if the “off” switch for their sweat glands doesn’t work. There are two forms of this condition. I have Primary Focal Hyperhidrosis where my sweating occurs in specific areas of the body. For me, it’s my hands, feet, and underarms. Those with my type may experience their sweating on the head or face as well. Others suffer from excessive sweating over large areas of the body. This second type is known as Secondary Generalized Hyperhydrosis and is caused by predominant medical conditions such as diabetes, menopause, anxiety and thyroid disorders, or as a side effect of certain medications. I cannot recall a day when I didn’t stuff tissues in my shirt or change my socks at least once in futile attempts to alleviate the wetness. Occasionally, my body will take a break from clammy hands, drenched feet, and pit stains the size of a small European country. But even when I am not bathing in sweat, I spend most of my energy dealing with my fear of when and how that salty little liquid will make a guest appearance in my life. It turns into a cycle where I sweat for no reason at all. After a while, I know the monsoon is coming so I get nervous for its swift arrival. The rumbling causes the storm—not the other way around. 3. Have you ever lost friends or a job due to excess sweating? I once read on a Hyperhidrosis support website, that some people’s sweat glands are so overactive that they produce four to five times the amount of perspiration that they should. I imagine that one day I’ll be able to salt my food by shaking my hands above the plate or maybe I’ll be able to water plants just by ringing out my fingers. But will these talents secure me with good friends, a job, a husband, and a home? If I can’t stop sweating long enough to shake hands with a future employer, when will I ever have the money to buy plants that need watering? There wasn’t an exact day that my body decided it wanted to constantly swim in salt water, but it started becoming a problem in high school. That’s when my wardrobe consisted of mostly plain white shirts that wouldn’t give away my secret as badly as anything with color. Some boyfriends didn’t mind that my hands were soggy, in fact some didn’t even mention it since their hands were nervously sweating as well. But others wanted to discuss the situation in more depth than I could muster. Why are your hands so red and dripping like a faucet? Do I make you that nervous babe? Are you worried? I have seen one reference to Hyperhidrosis in mainstream media. The story was a sympathetic filler buried deep within a popular fashion magazine. The woman featured dealt with many of the issues I find myself engrossed with on a daily basis. She talked about her fear of job interviews, her church anxiety, and her aversion to sandals. I had a three-year hiatus
where sandals were omitted from my wardrobe simply because the sweat made them too slippery to walk in. It was difficult to be dainty and feminine when any dress or skirt I wore was accompanied by grubby sneakers. But the sneakers contained the sweat and most of the smell. My shoes might have a small river flowing inside of them, which is the case quite frequently, but nobody other than me would ever know. Sandals can’t hide the fat beads that culminate on my big toes and they certainly don’t provide good traction. The woman in the article wore sandals that became as slick as waxed skis. She ended up riding those skis down a flight of stairs and having a miscarriage. I will never wear sandals when I’m pregnant, just as I won’t drink or smoke, because I wouldn’t want to put my baby in any sort of danger. 4. Does extreme sweating effect your work performance or career choices? Over the past few years I’ve made a list of occupations that I would never pursue. For some, I have neither the talent nor the desire, but for most, I don’t have the dry fingers that allow for optimal performance. Being a hand model for a home shopping network is obviously out. Jamming princess-cut diamond rings onto man-hands that swell frequently might not encourage bored women to buy, buy, buy! I worry that on my wedding day the ring won’t fit over my swollen knuckles and the groom will realize what he is getting into with just enough time to run away before the shower arrives. I can handle my inability to delicately model jewelry that most women don’t need anyway. The second occupation on my “keep dreaming” list was much harder to let go. The oboe, a double-reed instrument about the size of a clarinet, was introduced to me in the sixth grade. My band teacher described it as the most difficult instrument to learn. I was up to that challenge and played the oboe for the next five years, secretly dreaming that one day I would earn a living on my god-given talent to lead a symphony through the intensity of my embouchure alone. My band teacher, along with my private oboe instructor, helped me believe in my playing saying that I had perfected the clown-faced, lip-smacking embouchure required of furious oboe solos. Unfortunately, my fingers couldn’t keep up with my mouth. In fact, the damn things would slide down the wrong keys in a sea of frustrated sweat. I eventually decided to put the oboe down and turn to other activities. One of the activities I became most interested in was the high school newspaper. I became a reporter with a passion for justice, education, and well, a byline. Seeing your name underneath the headline of an article is a feeling of accomplishment and pride that cannot be duplicated by any other endeavor. For three years I interviewed the students, teachers, and faculty of my school to provide high-quality
content. My favorite story came from an interview with an administrator who had been one of the first black students integrated into T.C. Williams High School. I can still remember how our initial handshake was awkward—his creamy, lotioned hand was surely saturated when my hand slopped through it. But I also remember his story. His name was Mr. Robinson and he was integrated into a hostile environment with seven other African-American high school students. On his first day, a Caucasian student attacked him with a knife. During the interview he moved his fingers up his thigh to trace the trail of blood that stained the white corduroys he wore that first day. He then went on to explain that during that difficult year, he became the captain of both the basketball and the baseball team. If this man could defeat the woes of racism and violence, then I could certainly overcome a little pubescent glistening. After that interview I realized that as long as I could get past the first handshake, I could use my mastery of questioning to divert the other person’s attention from my own problem.That interview was a small step surrounded by many other occupations that lay dormant to me. The FBI is one organization that would actually quantify the amount of sweat my body emits. Any person giving me a lie detector test would assume that my absurd physical state was due to a massive cover-up operation. And what if I wanted to be a secretary? Or any sort of handy-person? Would my employer accept soggy papers and rusted parts as a “job well done”? Since my interview with Mr. Robinson, the intense temperature of any newsroom has kept me away. And I can’t stand the way the ink smears onto my fingers leaving gray marks all over my face by the end of the day. 5. Have you tried many products designed to control sweating? When my high school years came to a close, I desperately hoped that my Hyperhidrosis would remain at home with the family and friends who were willing to see me as someone other than a sour sweater. A few doctors had promised that the condition would vanish once puberty said its long-awaited farewell, but at the ripened age of twenty-one, I can confirm those promises to be quite disappointing. I read somewhere that the symptoms of Hyperhydrosis might disappear for months at a time, but the condition always returns. The first medication my pediatrician prescribed for me was a liquid slightly thicker than water that I smeared on my hands and feet each night during ninth grade. I would sleep with plastic bags tied around my wrists and ankles so that the medicine would work effectively and probably to keep it from bleaching my sheets as well. This method of treatment did nothing for me besides stealing the small bit of my self-esteem that hadn’t drowned quite yet. I despised my helplessness and utter need for assistance with the bagging and the tying—I could get three out of the four, but the second hand required an outside source. During the months I tried this medicine, late-night itches
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went unscratched, tormenting me through most of those nights. As for my days, nothing changed. I was sweating more than ever before. A year later my next doctor, a dermatologist, suggested a medicine similar to the first, however, the prescription didn’t come until I could prove my seriousness in the matter. I figured that a specialist, someone who was taught to understand the intricacies of human flesh, would immediately gasp at my accounts of excessive sweating. Instead he laughed heartily, asking if I had ever heard of puberty. I probably sat on my hands, something I do to distance myself from uncomfortable situations, before bursting into hot tears that momentarily replaced the other salt water that usually drew attention to me. After my spectacle, the dermatologist opened a medicinal encyclopedia and pointed to a product called Drysol that I could try. He instructed me to rub it on my hands, feet, and underarms before bed, even though it would help my underarms the most. I put a lot of hope into that miracle bottle. Actual results took place for the first few weeks of this medication. My normal fist-sized pit stains reduced to mere nickels and dimes. I could raise my hand for class without debating whether the question was important enough to endure the stares from startled classmates. That joyride came to an end however, when the medicine began leaving itchy and inflamed bumps on my underarms. Soon after the irritation began, I had to stop shaving and using deodorant since both felt like a waterfall of rubbing alcohol gushing over an open cut. Needless to say, my use of Drysol ended before I even finished the bottle. The third, and final doctor I saw for help was a hematologist who actually knew about Hyperhidrosis. He explained that I was not the first person to sweat excessively and that in other parts of the world people were paying tens of thousands of dollars to have surgeries to help regulate their overactive sweat glands. After these patients sacrificed huge chunks of their yearly incomes, many found that the sweat didn’t disappear as they had hoped. Instead, it slithered through different internal pipes just to pour from their stomachs and thighs before squishing out little puddles whenever they sat down. I would try a different solution. It was Drionic and it consisted of two blue water tubs the size of shoe boxes along with cloth pads and batteries that came in a box resembling a board game. The hematologist instructed me to plug in the batteries before placing the cloth pads on the bottom of each tub to cover the metal plates that would send electric waves into my fingers and toes. I would then fill the tubs with tap water, and submerge either my hands or feet. If I did this for an hour each day, half for the hands and half for the feet, over the course of a week, I was to enjoy six splendidly dry weeks—or 1,008 hours of professional and social bliss. Then the cycle would begin again. My Drionic use lasted about two years, and included a year in my college dorm where I never had a moment of privacy, let alone an
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hour, to shock myself so intensely that I would cry and my palms would itch and burn for hours afterward. My roommate was understanding though. She smoked too much pot to get a full grasp of what I was doing. I guess that was one case where I didn’t think of drug use as being a bad thing. After my freshman year, I quit the painful treatment and spent my extra forty-nine hours a year with friends outside, no longer would I stay cramped in the dark all day with hands and feet incapacitated to the point where holding a book or talking on the phone were nearly impossible. If you answered “yes” to one or more of these questions consider consulting a physician about Hyperhidrosis.
Bodies Kira Zmuda
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Kira Zmuda
“Always remember you are unique. Just like everybody else.” -Unknown
Laura Brockman
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” -G. K. Chesterton
Michelle Billman
“It’s like when you are excited about a girl and you see a couple holding hands, and you feel so happy for them. And other times you see the same couple and they make you so mad. And all you want is to always feel happy for them because you know that if you do, then it means you’re happy, too.” --The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Jonathan Pillow
“The first step -- especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money -- the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.” -- Chuck Palahniuk
Jennifer Henszey
“If men swear that they want to harm you when you are asleep, you can go to sleep. If women say so, stay awake.”
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Katie Mitchell
Molly Bernhart
Lana Tang
Jennifer Tomko
“Be Yourself. No one can tell you that you are doing it wrong.” -Anonymous
“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we’re uncool.” -Lester Bangs, Almost Famous
Misono Yokoyama
“An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.” - George Santayana
Grant Gardner
“How happy is the blameless Vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot, Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.” -Alexander Pope
Laura Cook
“I don’t believe in villains or heroes...only right or wrong ways that individuals have taken, not by choice but by necessity or by certain still-uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances and their antecedents. This is so simple I’m ashamed to say it, but I’m sure it’s true.” -Tennessee Williams
-Sola Ayeni-Biu
If you build it...nerds will come. -Benchwarmers
“Ultimately my hope is to amaze myself.” - Jerry Uelsmann
“And I’m not gonna take it back And I’m not gonna say I don’t mean that You’re the target that I’m aiming at And I’m nothing on my own Got to get that message home” -Coldplay
Kamau Rucker
“There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.” -Anais Nin
Meghan Mogensen
“Dont’s be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Linsday Key
Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life? - Mary Oliver
Corinne Jeltes
“When I haven’t any blue I use red.” -Pablo Picasso
Katherine F. Brumbaugh
“You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.” -William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
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