USU Creative Writing and Art Contest Issue 2024

Letter from the Director,

This special edition of Sink Hollow presents the winning entries of the Utah State University Creative Writing and Art Contest, which is open to all USU undergraduate students from all departments and disciplines. We want to thank each and every one of our contestants this year for all their hard work, for making the judges’ jobs so difficult(!), and for helping to create such a vibrant and inclusive writing community here at USU and in Cache Valley.

We are grateful to our contest judges, who generously shared their expertise: Alyssa Alexander, Chloë Hanson, Christopher Nicholson, Russ Beck, Robb Kunz, Britt Allen, and Matt DiOrio. Thanks also go to Sink Hollow faculty advisors Russ Beck, Robb Kunz, Charles Waugh, and Britt Allen, and to Nicole Despain and Taryn Sommers, the English Department administrative staff, whose assistance in running the contest has been invaluable.

Since joining the USU English Department faculty I have been impressed, heartened, and encouraged by our creative writing students, who so freely contribute their art and energy to our literary community. Stepping into the role of contest director this year has been no different — I continue to find myself impressed by our students. I leaned on the stellar Sink Hollow staff who helped run the contest, organized and promoted the Helicon West reading, and produced this beautiful issue of the magazine. I owe them all an extra special thanks for their hard work. Chloe Scheve and K’Lee Perry led the contest team this year and processed submissions, and Gregory Dille, Woodrow Laing, Eli Moss, Colby David, Abby Smith, and Noelani Hadfield copyedited winning work. KJ Anderson led the team that designed this incredible issue of the magazine and put together the slideshow for the reading at Helicon West. Eliza Oscarson and Lizzie Russell created posters for the contest and the reading. Getting to work with these students has been a gift, and I am so proud of their dedication and commitment to make this opportunity available to all USU undergraduates.

- Ashley Wells Contest Director

Bittersweet Nightshade

Basil Payne, First Place

Second Place, Nick Carlson

“a recipe for funeral casserole ”

Third Place, Clarissa Casper “Flash Flood”

Third Place, Abigail Smith

Taking Leave

Abigail Smith, Honorable Mention

FICTION

Tashi’s Vows

Amber McCuen, First Place

Fourteen-year-old Tashi sat in class, copying the Tibetan sentence from the chalkboard with his knuckles still aching from yesterday and twinging as he wrote. His right index knuckle had even bruised to a slight green and swollen just ever so slightly. The rasp of pencils across paper filled the room as his twenty or so monastic classmates in their identical red and yellow robes copied the sentence down and then circled nouns, underlined verbs, and tried to identify subjects and objects. This was his eighth and final year of primary education learning Tibetan, English, Hindi, mathematics, social studies, and science. Next year he’d begin his religious education in earnest.

Their teacher opened his mouth to speak again when a knock at the door stopped him.

All heads turned to it.

Lama Sangmu poked his head in and confirmed Tashi’s suspicions as to why. “Could I borrow Tashi, please?”

Tashi sat in the middle of a row of five students, and with their long, shared desk, his friend Sangye next to him and a boy on the end of the row had to get up to let him out. The room remained quiet with the unspoken certainty of what Tashi was being called for.

As Tashi made it into the center aisle and got to his feet, Sangye whispered, “It’ll be okay.” Tashi held that bit of encouragement close to himself as he left the classroom and donned the sandals he’d left outside the door. He followed Lama Sangmu through the monastery and down paths between tightly packed buildings of white clay and stone—once they’d passed the open courtyards and several dirt and grass yards, Labrang Monastery became a sprawling labyrinth of buildings that Tashi still couldn’t find his way through on his own.

“Geshe Palden would like to speak with you about yesterday,” Lama Sangmu said. With the buildings hemming them in, Tashi couldn’t see the mountains of their valley that he so often felt trapped by. He could imagine they weren’t there.

Tashi swallowed and nodded, noticing that his own right sandal looked close to breaking as he walked with him. The geshes of the monastery had always scared him. All extremely reserved and ancient-looking, all of the men at Labrang Monastery who’d obtained the highest academic degree in Buddhism intimidated him greatly.

Sangye had laughed the first time Tashi told him they scared him. “They’re just old,” he’d said. “What’s so scary about that?”

Tashi envied Sangye and his ability not to care.

The middle-aged Lama Sangmu was Tashi’s favorite teacher, so to be with him on this disciplinary trip hurt his pride.

Lama Sangmu led him into a building of the monastery and up a staircase to the second floor. The building in the monastery that Tashi lived in didn’t have a second floor, so it seemed the longer monks stayed, the nicer things they’d get.

Even though they weren’t supposed to care about things like that.

The doors that lined the hall led to teachers’ individual living quarters, and Tashi had never been here. Next to some of the doors were the sandals of the resident monk, removed before entering to keep the floor of the room clean.

Lama Sangmu stopped in front of a door. “Geshe-la,” he said, “Tashi is here to speak with you.”

A quiet voice muffled by the walls answered, “Yes, come in.”

Lama Sangmu opened the door inwards and then held a hand to direct Tashi inside. Tashi had thought that he would be coming in with him and his heart jumped at the prospect of facing this alone. He slipped his feet out of his sandals and took a bare step onto the wood-paneled floor. The geshe himself

sat upon a flat, square, red cushion with his legs crossed beneath him and a small tea set next to him on the wood floor. Across from him sat another cushion. The distinct, slightly rancid smell of yak butter tea pervaded the warm air of the room.

“I will wait for you outside,” Lama Sangmu told him, pulling the door closed.

Geshe Palden extended an aged hand towards the red cushion across from him, remaining otherwise immobile.

Tashi took in every possible detail as he padded across the floor, wanting to find clues. To find proof that this was in fact just a man. Next to the twin bed stood a table which held a thermos, books, pill bottles, various cups and mugs, writing utensils, and some small statues of deities. Against the left wall of the room stood a bookcase, and in addition to its books of scripture it held a framed picture of the 14th Dalai Lama, a framed picture of the 13th Dalai Lama—who had passed before Tashi was born—and various small statues, drawings, and other miscellaneous items, including a pair of dice and a bell.

Tashi sat on his cushion and crossed his legs, working at his bottom lip with his teeth. What sort of punishment did they intend to give him?

Geshe Palden’s eyes remained half-lidded, as if he were in a constant state of meditation he could not be called upon to disturb. His humble bed with its white fitted sheet sat just a few feet to Tashi’s right.

Tashi slept in a bunk bed in a room with seven other boys. He’d hoped to share a bunk with Sangye, but they didn’t even share a room.

The monk took the teapot from the floor next to him to pour yak butter tea into two teacups.

Tashi gave a bow of thanks and accepted the cup Geshe Palden held out to him. The geshe picked up his own cup and took a sip, his eyes still downcast—or closed, Tashi couldn’t tell. Tashi took tentative sips of his own. The strong tea with its salted yak butter tasted akin to broth, and even after all his years at the monastery he hadn’t acquired the taste yet. But he’d been taught not to waste food and he knew that it brought him necessary energy, so he drank.

“You know that we do not resolve disputes with our fists,” the monk said.

Tashi froze, terrified, staring down into his cup.

“You are not the first at Labrang to get into an altercation, and I am certain you will not be the last.” Geshe Palden’s words had a certain flow: a smooth change of tone that seemed to be a followed instinct between each word.

Tashi took hope from the nature of that statement.

“But I ask that this be a last for you.” He took a second drink. “Does your hand hurt?” he asked.

Tashi swallowed and nodded, staring at the floor between the two of them. “Yes, Geshe-la.”

Geshe Palden raised his eyes and lifted a wrinkled finger to point, and Tashi suddenly felt quite exposed. “Do you see how hurting him has hurt you in return?”

Tashi’s right index knuckle still ached. “Yes.”

Geshe Palden nodded and looked down, taking another sip. “That will always be the case. We refrain from retaliation not only to protect others, but to protect ourselves as well.”

Being free of his gaze gladdened Tashi.

“You struck in defense of young Sangye, is that correct?” the monk asked.

“Yes, Geshe-la.” Tashi worried about how much Geshe Palden knew. He felt that, somehow, he must be able to see into his heart and know his desires.

The geshe finished his tea and set the cup down. “I will also be speaking with the student who was unkind, but I do wish I was only speaking with him. Do you understand?”

Tashi took another sip of warm, salty tea and nodded, then remembered Geshe Palden’s closed eyes and answered, “Yes.”

Geshe Palden raised three fingers and pointed to them in turn. “In these situations, there are three things you can do. You can speak your feelings. If that does not work, you can physically distance yourself. Finally, you can find an adult and ask for help.” His hands returned to his knees. “Please prom-

ise me to adhere to these.”

Tashi didn’t feel confident that those could work, but he promised nonetheless.

Geshe Palden nodded to himself and slowly got to his feet with a quiet grunt. “You two certainly seem to never leave one another’s side. Connected at the hip,” he said, shuffling over to his bookshelf. “I am concerned for you, young Tashi.” He adjusted his robes around himself as he looked through his shelves. He retrieved the pair of dice and took his small steps back over, and Tashi got up to help him sit down, the geshe accepting his offered hand and lowering himself back onto the cushion with a quiet grunt. Tashi returned to his cushion and Geshe Paldenn unwound the loop of prayer beads from around his wrist. The mala held one hundred and eight beads along its tied cord, and Geshe Palden rolled the dice onto the floor. He counted along the beads, his fingers displaying a deep familiarity with the mala, then rolled again. He counted further along, then rolled. Counted further, and rolled again. Tashi waited with his breath held and his heart beating faster.

Eventually, Geshe Palden rolled the dice and counted along the prayer necklace a final time. He took a slow, deep breath. Tashi didn’t know what any of it meant.

“Tashi, you are a student clearly dedicated to your studies. Sangye does not approach our teachings with the same care.” Again, Geshe Palden looked up at him. Tashi felt even greater discomfort this time, and offense on behalf of Sangye that he tried to hide. “These dice have foretold to me that Sangye may inhibit your spiritual improvement as you two grow and learn. Try to edify and support Sangye, but do not let his carefree nature infect you. If necessary, please be willing to distance yourself. Will you do that for me?”

No.

No, he couldn’t do that.

Tashi’s brows furrowed and he forced himself to nod, albeit unsmoothly. “Yes, Geshe-la. Yes, I can.”

Geshe Palden nodded and closed his eyes. “Thank you for meeting with me, Tashi. You may return to class.”

Tashi drank the last of his tea and set his cup down as he got to his feet, feeling unsteady. He stepped out into the hallway where Lama Sangmu waited for him alongside another teacher-student pair. Sangye’s aggressor, sporting a black eye, had been retrieved for his meeting.

Tashi joined Lama Sangmu, not missing the dirty look his classmate sent his way as he passed to enter the room. Tashi didn’t return the glare, but he didn’t smile either.

When they returned, class had been let out and students had begun migrating towards the lunch hall. Lama Sangmu squeezed his shoulder. “It’ll be all right,” he said. “Don’t worry about it too much. I’ll see you in class this Thursday, yes?”

Tashi nodded.

“All right. I look forward to seeing you.” He left and Tashi felt that he’d very much like to cry right now.

Sangye caught sight of Tashi and weaved over to him. “How’d it go? Are you doing all right?

Who’d they bring you to?”

Tashi shrugged, still shaken from the geshe’s final admonition. “Geshe Palden. He asked me not to do it again.”

Sangye smiled and slung an arm around Tashi’s shoulders. He stood an inch or so taller than Tashi and just slightly leaner, and Tashi secretly reveled in the feeling of his arm across his back.

“That’s it?” Sangye asked.

Tashi nodded, a pit growing in his stomach as they swayed and walked together. Geshe Palden had been right in singling out Sangye as a potential barrier, although he hadn’t quite managed to divine the correct reason.

“You know… they might not have liked what you did, but I appreciated it,” Sangye said, and then

November Blue Light

Cassity Whitby, Honorable Mention

laughed. “And you got to see a geshe’s room? What was that like?”

“Lots of books, lots of cups… pretty much what you’d expect.”

“Disappointing,” Sangye said, shaking his head. “I expected more.”

Tashi retreated from the monastery and into the nearby woods now that the schedule for the day had moved into the hour of personal time. It had been two years since that visit with Geshe Palden, but he still thought about it every day. Today, however, he had even more on his mind. Lama Sangmu’s comments from class stuck in Tashi’s mind as he walked the worn path to the stream. He found the stream to be solitary most of the time, given its seclusion in the woods and distance from the monastery itself. Every once in a while, there’d be another student there, but he usually had it to himself. He hoped he’d have it to himself today. He wanted to be alone.

Lama Sangmu had an inflated opinion of Tashi; he was sure of it. Multiple times in class today he had referred to Tashi as an example.

Tashi arrived at the stream, glad to find the shore unoccupied. He sat on the same rock he always did and watched the clear water rush by, still feeling Lama Sangmu’s words from class tug at his attention.

The water looked deceptively clean and clear, but if he drank it, the microbes and bacteria in it would give him diarrhea for a day or two. He learned that lesson personally as a child despite being warned about it by the lamas before. It had just looked so clear and refreshing.

He had always had trouble believing without personal evidence. Had always had trouble building personal conviction without something concrete to base it on. No matter how vigorously he studied, he couldn’t seem to convince himself of the truth of the texts. He couldn’t tell if that was human nature or a problem with him personally, so he’d never spoken his concerns aloud. He could recite the texts better than anyone in his class, but he had this growing hole of worry in his chest. Worry that he was a fraud, or that all of this was a sham.

He listened to the water flowing by, closing his eyes and trying to center himself. He breathed in for four slow counts. Held for five. Breathed out for six. The extended exhale told the mind and spirit to rest. Controlling the breath and guiding it in this way encouraged the heart to slow.

Thoughts of being held up as a star pupil despite how little he felt he deserved it rose into his perception, and he let himself feel that concern and then tried to let it go. He focused on the rising and falling of his ribcage, on the sound of the water, on the feeling of air flowing in and out of his nostrils. When his feelings and memories directed him to think of the past few hours, he directed himself to think of the here and now. He couldn’t feel it helping yet.

The first time that he had been in meditation as a child, he thought that his teachers were trying to kill him. It felt impossible to breathe the way they wanted them to, and he and Sangye and the rest of their classmates had giggled on the exhales, red-faced and out of breath, only to be instructed to do so once again. And again.

Eventually, a firm hand succeeded in shaping him the way it wanted. He and his classmates learned not to breathe.

He felt his heart finally begin to slow. In for four. Hold for five. Out for six. Slow and patient. Time is a friend. The Universe is infinite in its understanding and scope.

His thoughts drifted to Sangye’s smile, and Tashi pulled them back to the river. To his laugh, and he brought his attention to the filling and emptying of his own belly with air. To the look of satisfaction and pride on Sangye’s face whenever he won a debate, and he tried to focus on the feeling of cloth against his palms.

A toad croaked close by, somewhere down and to his right, but he kept his eyes closed.

Upon hearing the panicked squeaks of a mouse, he opened his eyes. He pulled his sandaled feet back towards himself upon seeing a fat toad next to his foot with a flickering mouse tail sticking out of its mouth.

The mouse managed to pry itself out of the toad’s mouth in a flash of brown only to get snatched up again. The mouse couldn’t have been more than two inches big, and its muffled squeaks traveled to Tashi’s ears. The toad swallowed the mouse whole, hawking its neck back to get it down. The death squeals of the mouse took far, far too long to quiet.

Tashi watched with a secret fascination and the thought that he might be sick.

The toad crawled on its way, its newly fat belly dragging across the dirt and stones. Frogs jumped, as they should, but Tashi had always felt that there was something off about the way that a toad crawled.

Predator and prey was a natural and necessary dynamic, but as he watched the toad crawl along, he couldn’t help but feel disturbed. Feel that something wrong had just happened.

He wanted to kill it.

If he found a particularly sharp stick, he could stab it through. He could pick up one of the rocks on the ground and hit it. Maybe he could kick it hard enough.

Tashi began to cry. Even with all of his studying and all of his efforts, his instincts remained violent.

Hot tears filled his eyes and blurred his vision of the toad as it crawled away. He got up from the stone to kneel on the ground, dirtying his robes as he did so. His robes gave his shins a cushion, protecting them from the ground and rocks, and he moved his clothes out of the way to feel the bite of the earth against his skin. He cried, tears rolling down his cheeks, and he put his hands to the earth and embedded stones, bending forward to press his forehead against the ground. His tears ran into the dirt, creating mud, and he prayed for forgiveness. His back and knees eventually began to ache.

He raised his head at the sound of sandaled footsteps many minutes later, horrified to have an audience. Seeing that it was Sangye coming down the path, he scrambled to his feet, brushing his robes down into normalcy and dropping his head to try and hide his crying eyes as he wiped them.

“I thought you’d disappeared to this place,” Sangye said, his sandals disturbing little clouds of dirt. “They’ve started a mandala, do you wanna come watch with me?” he asked, and his brows furrowed as he came closer. “Tashi, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Tashi said, and Sangye’s hands came up to hold his shoulders.

“What’s wrong? Sangmu seemed impressed with you today, that must’ve felt good.”

“You shouldn’t refer to Lama Sangmu with just his first name,” Tashi said, huffing a small laugh and keeping his head down, wiping his eyes.

“Oh, I don’t care about that,” Sangye said, bending to try and get a look at Tashi’s face. “Maybe you should try it. Sangmu. Once, with feeling,” he said, letting one of Tashi’s shoulders go to tighten a fist.

“No,” Tashi laughed, sniffing.

Sangye dropped his hand, glad to see a small smile from him. “What’s gotten to you?”

Everything.

Tashi boiled it down to the smallest truth he could divulge. “It’s a bit of pressure.”

Sangye pulled Tashi into an embrace and Tashi closed his eyes, holding him tightly. Eventually Sangye sat them down across from each other and took Tashi’s hands in his. “Meditate with me. Perhaps we can ease your mind.”

Tashi nodded and closed his eyes, praying that Sangye couldn’t feel his quickening heartbeat through his hands.

Scattered claps sounded around nineteen-year-old Tashi as the steady hum of debate filled the air. He sat among countless of his classmates in the courtyard, each of them paired with a standing partner.

Debate was less about factual correctness and more about trying to outsmart or trick your opponent. The standing partner posed questions, and the sitting partner had to construct logical proofs or

draw on scriptural support to challenge them. The end of each point made by the standing partner was accentuated with a clap of the hands.

Sangye was in his own debate close by. Tashi had heard Sangye’s partner saying that because the sun brings life and illumination, its absence means that we are not meant to be outside at night. The possibility of sunburns occurred to Tashi. By that logic, should not the sun’s ability to hurt us be proof that we shouldn’t be outside during the day either? He waited to hear Sangye’s response, trying to listen through the rabble of voices, and wished that he could offer his idea to help.

Tashi flinched at a loud clap.

His own displeased debate partner had his hands on his hips. “Did you even hear my question?”

“No,” Tashi admitted, shaking his head to clear it and adjusting his robes around himself. “Sorry, will you say it again?”

His partner sighed and pulled his mala up his left arm and onto his shoulder, the wooden beads rattling quietly. “Rivers flow and are ever-changing, so is it not vain to scribe their winding path onto a map?” he asked, punctuating it with a clap, the mala sliding down his arm and swinging around his hands.

Tashi leaned over the table, running his skinny hand-held metal rod back and forth over the bumpy, skinny metal cone in his other hand. He’d filled the cone with dark green sand and the vibrations dispensed it onto the table. He and Sangye had been selected at twenty-two years old to assist in creating a sand mandala with two of their elder monks in the monastery. Seeing all of the younger novices stopping by to watch, Tashi knew that he’d reached a moment of achievement, but he still felt extremely nervous that he’d mess the project up. When he’d expressed his concerns to Sangye, he’d told Tashi not to worry. They’d sweep it all up into a pile at the end anyway.

Tashi still felt anxious, as was his nature.

Because he and Sangye were new to this, they’d mostly been given the basic work of filling spaces with color. The two senior monks they worked with spearheaded the intricate designs and deities because they’d memorized the specifics of this mandala, and Tashi and Sangye just followed in their path. In making this mandala, they hoped to bring blessings to the monastery, and this was the third day they’d spent in the endeavor. They’d nearly completed it, and its symmetrical beauty had grown quite impressive.

Tashi looked over at Sangye bent close to the table. Sangye paid close attention to his work with a focus that Tashi wasn’t sure he’d ever seen from him. He looked very nice like that.

Tashi started just slightly when he noticed that he’d accidentally carried over into another section. He went over to their table of colored sands to retrieve some yellow and cover the dark green before the older monks noticed.

Tashi plopped down next to Sangye against the wall of one of the wide-open courtyards. Having just finished their yearly examinations, they sat exhausted from calling scripture to memory and writing for hours.

The sky was blue and infinite. Fluffy cumulus clouds floated by, and spring had brought splashes of green across the stifling mountains. Tashi closed his eyes and let his head rest back against the wall, soaking up the bliss of having made it through the tests. No matter his score, it was over. The stress of it had weighed on his mind the entire last month.

Tashi and Sangye had reached twenty-four years old, and next year would bring their final exam— debating with the lamas of the monastery. Tashi couldn’t let himself think about it or he’d panic. What if he couldn’t think of acceptable answers to their questions? What if his questions were too simple?

If he and Sangye passed, they’d graduate from novices to monks. They could then leave the monastery and find a job with their newly obtained degree, or stay and continue their studies and pursue higher degrees, renewing their vows of celibacy and pacifism.

Other novices and monks sat in or strolled the open stone courtyard, but sparsely so. Many of the age groups were currently in examinations, or tired from them and resting in bed.

“What are you thinking about over there?” Sangye asked.

Tashi raised his eyebrows, Sangye pulling him out of his thoughts. “Exams next year.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re nervous about them. You’ll do great. I’m the one who should be worried.”

“Of course I’m nervous about them. And you shouldn’t be filling my head with prideful thoughts,” Tashi said, rubbing a hand back over his close-cropped black hair in a self-soothing gesture.

“I’m just trying to instill some confidence in you.”

Tashi dropped his hand and rolled his head to the side against the stone wall, looking at Sangye.

“You say you should be worried, but I have a sneaking suspicion that you’re not.”

Sangye shrugged with a smile. “Whatever happens, happens.”

“See? You’re a better Buddhist than I am.”

Sangye huffed a laugh, looking at his own chewed-short nails. “Whatever you say.”

Tashi raised a finger to point. “That’s a bad habit.”

“I know, I just do it without thinking,” Sangye replied, and Tashi realized he’d been looking conspicuously long and tore his gaze away to study the stone beneath his sandaled feet. He stared at hairline cracks until Sangye spoke up again.

“Are you glad your parents sent you here?”

Tashi looked over at him, surprised. “That’s a big question.”

“I know.”

Tashi blew out some air and squinted up at the bright clouds as he thought. Was he? He’d been here since he was six years old, and the monastery was truly all he’d ever known. Once a year, Labrang Monastery permitted its residents to return home and visit their families, but the people that Tashi saw on those days weren’t his family. Not in a way that he could feel. His parents hadn’t raised him—that had been a group effort among all of the monks at the monastery—so he didn’t feel a strong connection to them. But did he wish that he did?

In the end, Tashi decided to be brave and tell the truth.

“I’m glad that they sent me here because it meant that I met you.”

“Really?”

Tashi shrugged a shrug that somehow managed not to buckle under the weight of a statement as big as I don’t mind not knowing my family because I know you. He didn’t think he could look over at Sangye for fear of somehow revealing himself.

“Me too,” Sangye said.

Tashi bit down his elation. “What will you do once you’re ordained?” he asked, trying to sound casual. Trying not to sound like his world hinged on the answer.

Please say you want to leave this place, too.

“I want to keep studying,” Sangye said, squinting up at the clouds. “I want to teach.” He sighed and rolled his head over to look at Tashi, just as tired from their exams. “There’s so much I don’t know, Tashi. I want to know everything.”

“Lama Sangye?” Tashi asked, swallowing down the lump in his throat.

“Geshe Sangye,” Sangye said, grinning at him.

“You want a geshe degree? You’d be here decades from now.”

Sangye shrugged. “There’s nothing for me outside these walls, anyway.”

The only thing that would be outside these walls for Tashi sat right next to him, so he nodded, looking up at the sky.

“I’m staying, too.”

Through the Looking Glass

The Magic Lantern

Megan Boyce, Second Place

Silence lay over the audience like a blanket of snow. Briggs shifted in the hard wooden chair, craning his neck to see over the tall man sitting in front of him. Nothing was happening yet; it was still just the Magic Lantern Man pacing around in his shiny boots, soaking in the captivation of the room, filled to the brim with people from their town. Briggs slumped back down in his chair and crossed his arms. He looked at the chair next to him, where his brother Burton sat. Burton was looking down and fiddling with a piece of string, his back hunched. He never used to be this quiet.

Their parents had always wanted to see a magic lantern show.

Now they’d never be able to.

Briggs was only nine years old, but he felt a lot older. Only a month ago, his parents had pointed at the magic lantern posters plastered all over the windows at the general store. Come and See the Fantastical Magic Lantern Man, the colorful posters read. Hear of Journeys to Lands Real and Mystical! That was before the scarlet fever had come knocking at the door like one of those traveling salesmen, and Mother and Father had made the mistake of answering.

Stay here and take care of your brother, Mother had told him before Aunt Greta and Dr. Williams had ushered him and Burton away, out onto the dusty street.

Aunt Greta said it was a miracle that he and Burton hadn’t gotten sick. Briggs glanced to the side. There she was, Aunt Greta—though she wasn’t really their aunt—sitting on the other side of Burton. She leaned over and nudged Burton, who didn’t look up from fiddling with his piece of string. “It’s about to start!” she whispered, patting Burton on the back and giving Briggs a smile.

The sound of footsteps on wooden floorboards met Briggs’ ears, and Briggs looked up to see the Magic Lantern Man with his shiny boots pointing to a white sheet that was hanging on the wall. “When I snap my fingers,” he announced to the room, “A circle of light will be projected onto this sheet through the magic lantern. And inside the circle of light, a picture will appear, just like magic. In three…two… one.”

The Magic Lantern Man snapped his fingers. Briggs slowly sat up straighter; staring, eyes wide at the sheet that was now filled with a glowing circle. The light was beautiful; it had a hazy quality to it that made it feel like something out of a dream. It showed a tower made of crisscrossing metal beams extending high into the sky. The colors of the image were vibrant, and the light remained steady, without flickering. Briggs turned to study the magic lantern. The lantern itself was a metal box sitting on a threelegged stool, and the projection of light was shining out of a metal cylinder at the front of the machine. Briggs wanted to go fiddle with the machine; to see what made it work.

“Look at what the magic lantern can do!” boomed Magic Lantern Man, pulling Briggs’ attention back to the front of the room, where he once again became riveted by the circle of light.

“This tower was built for the Paris World’s Fair just last year…”

The voice of the Magic Lantern Man faded into the background as Greta leaned over and whispered to Briggs, “You need to use your artistic talent and paint The Goblin Princess for me one day—you and Burton can tell it for me through a magic lantern! What do you say?” Greta smiled and Briggs smiled in return before once again directing his gaze to the front of the room. He didn’t take his eyes off the circle of light until the show was over—like if he looked away for even one second, it would disappear.

The summer air hung oppressive and heavy around Briggs as he walked through the town’s dusty streets on the way to his workshop. Sweat dripped down his back. He trudged along, hoping that the infernal heat would end soon. Briggs glanced to the side. His footsteps slowed and then stopped. That was funny, he thought, peering at a boulder next to the millinery shop. It looked like someone had carved

a rabbit out of stone. There was the little nose, the ears…

Briggs peered closer and shook his head. “Ridiculous,” he thought, because for a second the boulder looked exactly like the boulder on one of his magic lantern slides. In fact, someone could have reached into one of his glass slide paintings, plucked out the stone rabbit, and set it where it crouched on the ground.

Burton had presented the stone rabbit story just two nights ago at their weekly Magic Lantern Show.

Shaking his head again, Briggs kept walking until he reached his workshop. He pushed the door open and entered the cramped space. Dozens of glass slides for magic lanterns sat on shelves lining the entirety of the room. In the middle of the workshop sat Briggs’ worktable where he painstakingly painted the small glass slides. A window sat high on the wall, letting in just enough sun to bathe the workshop in golden light.

The golden light also illuminated Burton, who was busy trying to balance a glass slide on his head.

“BURTON!” Briggs shouted in outrage. Burton jerked in surprise, and the glass slide came tumbling off his head, almost shattering on the floor before he caught it. Burton lost his balance in the process, though, and the reverberating thud of him falling on the floor made the glass slides on the shelves shudder. Briggs winced on behalf of his pieces of art, and then snatched the slide out of Burton’s hands. Burton popped back up to his feet with a cheery “Hello!” which made Briggs’ wince morph into a glare.

“You KNOW you’re not supposed to touch those!” said Briggs, and he gingerly placed the glass slide back onto its easel on his worktable.

Burton looked anything but chagrined. He grinned widely and said, “I have a present for you!”

“I don’t want it,” said Briggs automatically.

“Oh, don’t be like that,” scoffed Burton. “You don’t even know what it is yet!”

Briggs was already busy inspecting the shelves to make sure that his oaf of a brother hadn’t displaced any of his other glass slides. He paused his perusal and looked over at Burton. “Okay,” he sighed. “What’s the present?”

Burton walked closer to Briggs and whispered, “I have proof that parts of our stories are coming to life.” With that statement, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a stick.

“Oh, little brother,” snorted Briggs, “I hate to break it to you, but that, in fact, is a stick.”

Wordlessly, Burton threw the stick up in the air, but when he caught it, it wasn’t a stick anymore. It had transformed into a shield—it looked to be about two feet across, made of a glistening silvery material that reminded Briggs of the way that fish glimmer as they swim through a stream.

Briggs stumbled back, sitting down hard on the rickety chair next to his worktable. He knew immediately that the shield was from The Goblin Princess, the story they performed the most often. It was Mother’s favorite story. She would have loved seeing the glimmering shield, the same shield that was gifted to the girl in the story as she entered the goblin kingdom.

The shield morphed back into a stick as Burton tossed it in the air. He grinned.

“How did you even discover this? Do you just go around tossing random sticks in the air?”

Briggs asked as he stood up and walked across the room, grabbing the stick from Burton’s grasp and studying it intently.

Burton suddenly clapped his hands together. “Do you know what this means?” he asked excitedly. Briggs noticed that his brother hadn’t answered the question about how he discovered the magic item in the first place.

“What this means?” said Briggs. “It means that we can catch the next train to the Illinois State Asylum because we’re going absolutely mad!”

“What? No! It means that now, we have a chance at going to the next World’s Fair! They had

magic lantern acts at the last one. Imagine it: The Fairy-Tale Lantern Brothers present their Fantastical Tales before an audience of a thousand people—where the tales can come to life before your very eyes.”

A memory flashed through Briggs’ mind. His mother, the words—stay here and take care of your brother. Burton wouldn’t handle fame and fortune well. It was better for them to stay here.

“No,” scoffed Briggs, forcing the thought of Mother to the back of his mind. He threw the stick up in the air and caught the shield as it came back down. “We’re not going to use this power to get rich and famous—that would be cheating.”

Burton rolled his eyes and said, “But we do have to show Greta.”

“All right,” agreed Briggs, “Let’s show Greta.” He smiled. Greta would be ecstatic; she loved all things fantastical. There was a reason she had been Mother’s best friend.

Briggs felt the excitement building, but along with the excitement came confusion. Why were their stories coming to life? Why now? Possibilities started floating around in his mind, rising in the golden air and out onto the dusty streets.

The air smelled like rain. Clouds were gathering, and Briggs could tell that a thunderstorm was on its way. Even so, he and Burton stood out on the street with Greta standing between them. They walked slowly from the general store towards the workshop. Greta couldn’t go very fast anymore. Briggs hadn’t realized how old Greta was getting, but it was showing in the creases on her face and the way she hunched just a little lower every time he saw her.

Greta sighed. “I love the smell of rain, don’t you?” She continued, “Oh, my boys, all grown up, and putting on those wonderful magic lantern shows every week. Your parents would be proud.”

Briggs glanced at Burton and gave him a small, sad smile that Burton returned. They walked in silence for a while, enjoying the muted summer day before the storm rolled in. As they passed the millinery shop, Burton paused in his walk. Greta and Briggs slowed to a stop as well. “What on earth are you stopping for?” asked Greta.

“We have something to tell you,” said Burton. “But I’m not sure the best way to—”

“Parts of our lantern stories are coming to life!” blurted Briggs. Burton gave him an exasperated look—he had wanted to be the one to reveal the news, no doubt in his dramatic way—but Briggs hadn’t been able to contain his excitement.

Greta didn’t look nearly as surprised as Briggs expected. “I thought so,” she said, turning to look at the stone rabbit that was in plain view from where they stood. She had a twinkle in her eyes. Briggs and Burton looked at each other again, this time in confusion.

“I always told you boys that I believed in magic,” Greta continued. “Did you know that there is now a reflecting pond that always shows the stars, even during the day? It’s out behind my house. It appeared quite suddenly about a month ago. I seem to recall a certain story that you both told through your magic lantern about the same thing.” She broke off with a laugh, but then a more serious expression came over her face. The three of them started walking again, hopefully to take shelter in the workshop before the rain came pelting down.

“It would be just like your mother to send a hint of magic as a gift to her boys, wouldn’t you think?” asked Greta. “Maybe I’ll see her again soon.” Both Briggs and Burton jerked to a stop at this statement.

“Greta, don’t say—”

“Nonsense!—”

Their exclamations were a countermelody to the thunder booming to life in the distance. Greta shrugged, unaffected. “I’m not as young as I used to be, boys. I won’t be here forever.”

Briggs didn’t know what to say after that. Burton remained silent too, and the sound of the rushing wind and distant thunder reigned until they reached the workshop.

The summer passed; the leaves on the trees changed to russet and orange; a cool autumn breeze played with the swirling dust on the road. Burton stood in the back of the town hall assembly room getting everything set for their show later that evening. He fiddled with the condenser lens until it slid out of the lantern. This lens was the magnifier of the lantern; it was the translator between the small glass slides and the giant projections that appeared on the wall. Is this what makes our lantern magic? Briggs thought. Or could it be the objective lens? He slid a replacement condenser lens into place. If nothing from the show tonight came alive, then he would have finally pinpointed the source of the magic: the condenser lens.

Briggs’ journal sat next to the lantern, and he scribbled on the open page, “Experiment 31—Condenser Lens Replacement.” He looked over his notes from the past 30 experiments. Every experiment had a different variable that was manipulated—who painted the slide, who narrated it, what lantern they used, and more. But even after all these trials, Briggs still couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was magic about the lantern.

However, Briggs wasn’t too upset about this. It was curious to observe the patterns of when the magic worked or not. There seemed to be “conditions” to the magical phenomenon. First, no matter what kind of paints he used—watercolors, varnishes, oil paints, and more—as long as he was the one who painted the slides, the magic worked. He always ended up back with oil paints, though. The colors just turned out so much more vibrant. Second, for the magic to work, they had to present the story through their specific lantern. Third, Burton had to be the one to tell the story.

Curiously enough, though, an audience wasn’t required to activate the magic of the lantern. Burton used this to argue that it was okay to use the lantern to make money appear in their lives, or make unusual events happen—after all, nobody would know that these events were happening because of them.

But Burton conveniently forgot that in a small town, nothing goes unnoticed. “Big footprints,” said the townspeople as the news circled its way around town. “Did you hear what happened?”

Briggs couldn’t blame them for their suspicion. On that particular occasion, they had made the mistake of telling a story about a werewolf. They presented the story as part of their magic lantern show, because up to that point, only objects had been affected. Never anything living. Telling that story had been Briggs’ idea, which made him feel even worse about it. “It’s going to be a full moon!” he had exclaimed to Burton. “Let’s do the werewolf story!”

But the next morning, Mr. Johnson had woken up to find the side of his barn smashed in. Two of his horses had been killed, and a spot spattered in red and feathers was all that remained of about ten of his chickens. In the mud were etched huge footprints. “Bigger than any I’ve ever seen, with HUGE claws,” Mr. Johnson had exclaimed to anyone who would listen.

When Briggs heard the news, he had rushed back to the workshop. “It killed some of Mr. Johnson’s chickens! Our creation KILLED something, Burton.” People started to look sideways at the workshop after that, rightly saying, “Something odd is happening there.”

Burton, though, was more excited than anything else. He pointed out to Briggs that the animals could have been killed by a bobcat that had snuck in after the werewolf smashed through the wall. Burton was basking in the attention brought by the “anomalies,” as dubbed by the townspeople. People from the neighboring towns, too, had shown up to their magic lantern show for the past two weeks in a row.

Burton said it was only a matter of time before some fancy-hat from Chicago came to one of their shows and funded a tour for them. The Fairy-Tale Lantern Brothers were about to make it big, in his mind.

But the whole thing still made Briggs sick to think about. He polished the new condenser lens and shuddered. What if the killer had been the werewolf, brought to life because of them? What if a person was hurt by their next story?

With each day that passed, Briggs wanted to paint the slides less and less. He didn’t like having this kind of power. He shuddered to think what could have happened if this power had fallen into somebody else’s hands. If someone discovered that Briggs and Burton had the ability to change the weather,

Lily Webb, Honorable Mention

Summer Reign

make objects appear, even manipulate life and death itself…but that was one part of the magic that Briggs knew he would never use. Using the lantern to interfere in the natural order of life…no.

But the possibility still lingered.

What about their parents?

As soon as the thought snuck its way into his mind, he banished it, back to the dark recesses where it would hopefully be buried with dirt and moss, never to emerge again. Instead, Briggs brought his thoughts back to the lantern sitting in front of him. How easy it would be to push it onto the floor, to crush it under his boots until it was nothing but a mangled remnant of a magic lantern.

Suddenly, the door to the assembly room opened, and Burton breezed inside. “I’m ready to rehearse!” he declared with a flourish. Briggs made a show of polishing the condenser lens again, putting his face close to the lantern so Burton couldn’t catch a glimpse of it. He would immediately know that something was wrong.

Burton walked over to the lantern and held out a stack of slides. Briggs turned with a questioning look and took the slides from Burton. “Why have you brought me the slides for The Goblin Princess?” he asked. “That’s not the show we planned to present tonight.”

“Well, I was thinking,” said Burton, scratching the back of his head. “What if we presented The Goblin Princess for Greta again? She’s had that horrid cough for months now. Maybe this will help lift her spirits.”

Briggs immediately shook his head. “No,” he said, handing the slides back to Burton. “We have to be careful what we present. What if some little girl goes missing because of the story? That’s essentially what happens, you know.”

“Yes, I do know,” said Burton, shoving the stack of slides back into Briggs’ hands. Briggs immediately shoved them back at Burton. Burton kept hold of the slides and weighed them in his hands. He continued, “I know since I’m the one who tells the stories. And we don’t know that something horrible will happen! What if we just gain a second stick that turns into a shield?”

“No.”

“But—”

“I said NO.”

Burton didn’t say anything else, he just stood there in fuming silence. Briggs cringed, but he added, “I’ve been thinking, Burton…using this lantern just doesn’t feel right anymore. What if…what if we just destroyed this one, got a different one, where we wouldn’t have to worry about werewolves coming to life and all the horrible things that could happen—”

Burton grabbed Briggs by the shoulders and shook him hard, cutting him off. “Briggs,” he shouted. “You have to promise me that you’re not going to destroy the lantern, not when we’re so close—I just got a letter, there’s someone from Chicago coming to see the show in two weeks! Please Briggs. You have to promise me.”

Those same words from so long ago echoed around in his head again: Stay here and take care of your brother. Briggs hadn’t seen this desperate look in Burton’s eyes in a long time.

“Okay,” said Briggs quietly. “I promise.”

Twilight enveloped the earth as deep purples and indigos painted the sky. Briggs stood outside the assembly hall to breathe in the cool night air before the show. The argument with Burton earlier that day bounced around in his head. Briggs didn’t know if he’d be able to keep his promise.

Burton was already inside the assembly room. Briggs watched as the last few audience members went in the door, laughing. He couldn’t see anyone else on the road, so he sighed and resigned himself to going inside. He slowly counted to 60 seconds and then reached for the door handle.

It wouldn’t turn. He jiggled the handle and banged on the door. “Hey!” he shouted. But the audience was still chattering and laughing away. Nobody could hear him. Briggs moved to a window,

waving, yelling, and banging furiously. But nobody saw him, or if they did, they paid him no attention. Through the wavy glass, he saw Burton walk to the lantern and light the kerosene lamp inside. The first slide of the story appeared in a big, glowing circle on the wall.

It was the first slide to The Goblin Princess. It was a beautiful work of art—one of his best. It showed a farmhouse sitting on a field of glimmering snow, peaceful under the moonlight. The audience hushed, and silence stretched through the room as the audience waited for Burton to start telling the story. Briggs used the silence to start yelling and banging on the window again. But nobody even glanced his way. Was there magic at work? He couldn’t even hear his own voice. His stomach contorted in painful knots as he stood outside the window, completely helpless to stop his brother.

Briggs normally loved this moment: the silence right before the story began; the way the dust motes floated in the light of the projection; the way his and Burton’s stories could come to life in front of everyone. However, it was a much more wondrous experience when Briggs wasn’t trapped outside, unable to stop what he was sure would end in disaster.

Briggs couldn’t hear Burton’s soft narration through the window. But he had heard this story often enough that he knew it word-for-word: “On a clear winter night not many years ago, a young girl heard the clear sound of bells singing their silver song through the darkness. She woke up and crept out of bed, putting her robe and nightcap over her gown. She followed the song of the bells to the edge of the woods, where a path appeared that she had never seen before…”

Briggs saw a distorted shape through the wavy pane of the window that he thought was Greta. Her back was to him. Briggs wanted to keep screaming at Burton to stop, but it was already too late.

Fury settled into Briggs’ heart. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. After tonight, the magic lantern would be nothing but a crumpled memory.

The stars were the only witnesses later that night as Briggs crept out of the workshop carrying the magic lantern. He picked his way through the darkness until he reached a small copse of trees away from the main street of town. Setting the magic lantern on a large boulder, he drew a stick out of his pocket. He tossed it high in the air. It spiraled up, until it suddenly transformed into the shield from The Goblin Princess. Briggs grunted as he caught it.

The shield glimmered under the moon, and Briggs thought that it looked like liquid starlight. He’d never be able to capture the iridescence in paint. He wasn’t going to paint anything again, anyway.

The moment stretched on: him standing in front of the magic lantern, his fingers shifting on the shield. It has to be done, he thought. No more of this. No more. Briggs raised the shield high above his head and brought the edge down on the magic lantern. It made a horrible crunching sound. He did it again.

Again. Crunch.

Again. Crunch—until nothing but wrecked pieces of the lantern lay in front of him on the boulder. He threw the shield onto the ground and dropped down to his knees in the dirt. Burton would never speak to him again, he was sure. But it had to be done.

He slowly raised his eyes to look up at the trees. Shadows clung to the leaves like cobwebs, and darkness still held the world in its firm grasp.

A long time later, Briggs raised himself from the ground, turned his back on the pieces of the magic lantern, and walked away. As he walked, he couldn’t tell if it was imagination, or if he really was hearing the silvery singing of bells like in The Goblin Princess story. He shut out the sound.

The temperatures dropped below freezing that night, and the town woke up to a world coated in frost. Briggs sat stiff on his chair after a sleepless night. The door to the workshop burst open, and Burton came running inside.

Briggs was angrier than he had ever been, but the look he saw on Burton’s face stopped the firestorm of words that was about to explode out of him.

“Look,” pleaded Burton. “I know I messed up, okay? But you can get mad at me later because we have a much bigger problem—Greta’s gone.”

Briggs stood up so quickly and forcefully that his chair fell over behind him. “What do you mean Greta’s gone?”

“I mean,” cried Burton, a frantic look in his eyes, “that I walked Greta back home after the show last night. But when I went by this morning, the house was completely empty, and there was a new path in the woods, just like in the story. I think that the magic lantern made Greta the girl from the story, and now she’s who-knows-where…At the end of the story, the girl never comes back!” Burton paced back and forth, looking like he might throw up. “I know it’s my fault, okay? But I really wanted to do something nice for her, and I didn’t think anything bad would happen.” He suddenly stopped in his tracks and whirled to face Briggs. “We can fix it though. We have the lantern—you can just paint a slide of her back in her house, and we can fix this whole thing!” Burton looked around the tiny workshop, to the place where the lantern usually rested on its stool. The hope on his face faltered, and he slowly looked back at Briggs.

“Briggs…where’s the magic lantern?”

Briggs felt like he was going to throw up. He didn’t say anything. The watery light seeping in from the window contoured the workshop with gray shadows. The space seemed to grow smaller and smaller. Briggs finally looked up to meet Burton’s eyes. A look of devastating realization overtook Burton’s expression. Tears started running down his face, and his entire body shook.

“You destroyed it?” Burton shouted. Briggs looked down at the ground and wouldn’t meet Burton’s eyes. “You destroyed it,” repeated Burton, taking Briggs’ silence as confirmation. “We could have saved her. You destroyed our only chance to bring Greta back, and now she’s gone. She’s gone.” His voice broke on his last word. He turned around and screamed with rage as he hit one of the shelves lining the room, and dozens of magic lantern slides cascaded to the floor. A few of them shattered, scattering like tears as they hit the floorboards.

“Burton…” Briggs said softly. “We’re not God, you know. I had to destroy it.” Briggs paused for a second, deliberating how to phrase his next sentence. Burton was still looking at the shelves, unwilling to even look at him. “And,” Briggs said hesitantly, “who knows how far it would have gone? Every time someone gets sick or goes missing, would it suddenly be our responsibility to save them all? To change the course of fate? What if we had started charging people to heal them from disease? What if—”

“You mean,” Burton interrupted, whirling back around and glaring at Briggs. “What if I had started charging people to heal them? I know what you think of me, that all I want in life is money.”

“No, no, that’s not what I—”

“NO,” Burton shouted. “It’s your turn to listen,” He stood and rounded on Briggs. “Did you ever consider that God or the Universe or whatever gave us this power, gave it to us for a reason? So that we could save people? So that maybe people whose mothers, fathers, sons, daughters were beyond hope, that maybe we could bring a miracle for them?”

A horrible laugh burst its way out of Briggs. “You’re telling me that we were meant to use the lantern to help people? After you locked me out of the show? Greta’s gone because of you.”

Silence never had a more horrible presence than the silence that engulfed the workshop in that moment. The two brothers looked at each other. The quiet stretched on until Burton shook his head and fled out the door of the workshop.

Briggs was left standing alone, his artwork in fractured pieces around him.

K’Lee Perry, Honorable Mention

The Great Unconformity

Ashleigh Sabin, Third Place

1.3 billion years, she tells her students. It’s a length of time impossible for the human mind to comprehend. For reference, the earth is only 4.5 billion years old. If you were to save $100 a day, it would still take you 35,616 years to save 1.3 billion dollars. If you were to walk 1.3 billion steps, with an average human stride of 2 feet, you could circle the equator nearly 20 times. She tells them this so they will understand the importance of what she tells them next: “1.3 billion years. That is the amount of time missing from the geologic record.”

She moves to the next slide and shows them a picture of a man at the Grand Canyon, resting his hand on the geologic mystery: the Great Unconformity. A sun hat covers much of his face, making it difficult to parse his emotions, but she imagines that his eyes are wide with awe–it’s a feeling to which she can relate. On the bottom of the canyon wall, the rock is a molten gray, with organic quasi-vertical lines that tilt and curve one way and then the other, indecisive and ever shifting. Another distinctly different layer of rock sits above, this one a brighter hue of orange, streaked with vertical lines and peppered with some of the oldest fossils known to man.

“The first layer,” she explains, “near the man’s thumb, is 1.8-billion-year-old Vishnu basement rock; And just above that, near his little finger, is a Cambrian stratum, only a half of a billion years old. So, the question is: what happened to everything in between?”

It’s a question that geologists have puzzled over for decades, and one that she only allows herself to ask in the context of rocks. She does not, for example, allow herself to consider the in-betweens of her own life–she fancies herself one of those weight loss infomercials, just the before and after photos jammed together with nothing in the middle. The human lifespan, she has decided, is too small, terrifying in its intimacy. The lifespan of a rock is far preferable; it offers distance and perspective where humanity only offers confusion and grief.

After class, she collects her things, carefully swabbing each item with a wet wipe. She pours a generous amount of hand sanitizer into the palm of her right hand and spreads it between her fingers, up her forearms, and around her mouth and nose. The ethanol burns her eyes–a sensation that she’s been craving since before class started. She usually tries to avoid disinfecting in front of her students because it feels too vulnerable. Graduate student instructors don’t have the luxury of age to set them apart from those they teach, so she relies on detachment.

She pulls a tissue from her pocket and turns off the light switch, careful not to make contact with the plastic. The lecture hall is small, and it feels much more welcoming now, without the annoying buzz of fluorescents. On one side of the room, the wall is plated in a rich ebony paneling; on the other, a line of old iron-wrought windows let in brief flashes of sunlight that slip through an otherwise oppressive layer of English Ivy. As she opens the door to leave, tissue carefully placed over doorknob, her eyes graze the poster taped above the light switch that reads, “What are your plans?” The poster is intended for undergraduates, advertising a degree exploration fair, but she can’t help but feel personally attacked: what are her plans?

If you had asked her this question four years ago, the answer would have been easy: she planned to become a field researcher, discover new fossils on a weekly basis, solve the mystery of the Great Unconformity by the age of 30, and spend all her free time giving TED Talks and polishing her Vetlesen medallion. But it isn’t so simple anymore.

As she starts the trek to the parking lot, the sky has already begun to melt into the liminal blue of dusk, and she tries to spot the moon, but is disappointed to only find streetlamp after streetlamp. Once in her car, she leans against the headrest and admires the overlook of the valley.

The snow on the mountains has mostly melted now, and the base of the range has begun to ripen with foliage. Higher up, the sheer, craggy peaks pierce the sky like arrows. The rock is tens of millions of years old, a relic of another time. She feels a yearning, something akin to love, but cringes at the thought. What kind of loser feels love for rocks? And besides, what is love if only at a distance, from behind the windshield of a sanitized, climate-controlled Mazda 6? For a moment, she considers driving into the mountains, scouring the hiking trails for horn coral or collecting rock samples like she had done so many times as an undergraduate. But then she thinks of the endoliths–colonies of bacteria and fungi that inhabit the pores of rock–and decides against it. It takes a true masochist to dedicate their life to something they fear.

It is in this moment of depressive self-reflection that she opens her phone to check her email. Environment for the Americas Application Notification. She remembers discovering the internship earlier that year: 12 weeks researching in the Grand Canyon. She had applied in a state of impulsivity, one of those rare moments when she allowed passion to override inhibition.

She opens the email and is greeted with the first word: Congratulations. Immediately, she regrets applying. She sits there in the front seat of her car for a long time, her mind spiraling through an endless list of worst-case scenarios. She could contract salmonella or yersinia from undercooked food. She could accidentally drink coliform-infested water, or unknowingly inhale aspergillus spores. Of course, there’s always a risk of contracting cyanotoxin poisoning. Amidst each of these concerns circles the worst fear of all: naegleria.

There’s nothing in the world that she fears more than meningitis, and naegleria is the cause of the deadliest form, amoebic meningitis, with its pathetic survival rate of 1%. Better known as a brain-eating amoeba, naegleria is a free-flowing organism that, when given the chance, enters the skull through the nose and lodges itself in the brain, before leeching the life out of its chosen victim. She shivers at the thought.

Still, four years ago, this opportunity would have been a dream come true. The Grand Canyon isn’t the only place to research the Great Unconformity, but it’s certainly one of the best.

She fiddles with the sleeve of her shirt and glimpses the tattoo beneath, etched on the inside of her right wrist: Keep chasing your rocks. It’s in her mother’s handwriting. Her mother, who would have killed her if she didn’t go. Her mother, who lived without fear. She can feel her resistance waning. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. In truth, she’s tired of living like this, endlessly cowed by her fears. Something has to change. She returns to the email, types a reply of acceptance, and braces herself like an animal on the train tracks before hitting send. ~~~

“There are several theories about the cause of hypochondriasis. The first involves a biological predisposition to anxiety, an elevated response to stress.” This is what Dr. Summers had explained to Marisol on her seventh visit to his office that month. Her legs stuck to the translucent white paper, and she wished she had worn longer pants. In her mind, she could hear her mother’s incredulous laugh: “Predisposition? That’s the understatement of the century.”

Her mother had always maintained that Marisol was the most anxious child alive. She liked to joke to friends that watching Marisol in a grocery store was like watching “a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.” It was a Southern phrase, one that she had learned from Marisol’s father, and it always sounded strange rolling off her distinctly Chilean tongue.

Her mother especially loved to tease her about the “bathroom incident,” when she had found Marisol sobbing on the tiled floor of a public restroom because “the toilet had tried to flush her away.”

She had no memory of this, only her mother’s retelling of the occurrence, but she shuddered at the thought of being anywhere near the floor of a public restroom.

Now, as she eyes the campground bathrooms, she finds herself longing for the modern comfort of a public restroom. The flies swarm the outhouse, the waste is piled nearly as high as the toilet seat,

Circles

Madileine Malo, Honorable Mention

and the trash is overflowing with rotting food left by careless campers. She holds her breath like her life depends on it (she briefly worries that it actually might) and adds “the bathroom situation” to her list of Reasons-She-Cannot-Go-To-The-Grand-Canyon, before revising the name of the list: Reasons-SheShould-Not-Have-Come-To-The-Grand-Canyon.

While she’s at it, she decides to run through the list of reasons one more time, just for good measure: undercooked food, filthy water, spores, cyanobacteria, brain-eating amoebas, and truly scarring bathrooms; yep, they’re all here. It’s like a role call from Hell.

She rejoins the other researchers in front of the building and is still considering the feasibility of halting all bowel movements for the next twelve weeks when someone calls for the group’s attention.

“Alright kiddos, gather up.” The woman who calls them “kiddos” cannot be more than 10 years her senior. She is short and lean, with blond hair cropped close to her head and a tattoo of a mountain range visible on her left forearm. She had introduced herself to the group at 4:30 that morning, but Marisol had been far too groggy to walk straight, let alone remember the name.

“How are we feeling?” Mountain Range Woman asks with a smirk. She is clearly aware that ten miles of backpacking has left them all a little worse for wear. Marisol can feel a hot spot on her big toe where her boot has been rubbing, and it’s beginning to throb. She sits down on a log behind her and unzips her backpack in search of her extra pair of sandals.

“Congratulations on making it to the campground,” Mountain Range Woman says. “Now, we can fit a maximum of six campers to a site, so everybody needs to group up. If you’ve been waiting for your chance to make a new friend, this is your chance.” Marisol has removed nearly everything from her backpack–mess kit, water filter, first aid kit, packing cube stuffed with clothes, etc.–when she finally feels her sandals near the bottom of her bag. She should be socializing, but instead she is hurriedly untying her hiking boots and removing her socks to check for blisters.

“Now that is smart.” She jumps a little at the comment from a man sitting to her left. “I totally should have brought sandals. You must be a seasoned backpacker,” he adds. She hurriedly pulls her socks back on in barefoot discomfort.

“Sort of,” she replies. “Although, I haven’t been in a long time.”

“I’m sure it’s like riding a bike, though, right? Comes right back.”

Unless you’ve developed a crippling fear of bikes in the meantime, she thinks as she clips the sandals in place, but she still nods her head politely.

“Would you like to share a campsite?” he asks. “It looks like some people have already made friends on the hike down, but I’m sure we could find a group of three or four to join.” She had noticed this man before–his silver hair stood out in the group of twenty-somethings–but she had assumed he was some sort of staff for the organization. She recalls clearly that the application had stated researchers were to be between the ages of 18 and 30, but this man is at least 60 years old. All these thoughts mean that it takes her a beat too long to respond, and now the man is looking at her more inquisitively than before. She banishes her confusion and hastily accepts the invitation, relieved to have been asked.

“So, what’s your name?” she asks as they walk down the wooded path to find a campsite with three other researchers. The area is lush, almost like a jungle, and not at all what she had expected from the Grand Canyon. Draping willow plants frame the milky blue river.

“I’m Sam,” he replies. “You?”

“Marisol.”

“That’s a lovely name,” he says with a warm smile. “Are you a fan of the beach, then?” It’s a question that she gets asked every so often; the irony is not lost on her. A girl whose name means “sea and sun,” but is afraid of the ocean: it’s like being a vegetarian named Hunter.

“I’m more of a homebody,” she replies. She does not tell him about the various bacteria that inhabit bodies of salt water, nor does she tell him about the alternate meaning of her name, one that she considers much more fitting: Lady of Solitude.

He chuckles. “So then, what prompted you to spend three months away from home?”

What did prompt her to come here? She considers his question, and her hand subconsciously grazes the inside of her right wrist.

“The rocks,” she decides aloud. “Same as everyone else here.”

“Ahh, the rocks,” he muses. After a moment of silence, he asks, “You wanna know a secret?”

She does not, but she nods her head anyway because it feels like the only socially acceptable option. “I’m actually not a geologist,” he admits.

“Well, you’re not alone in that,” she says. “But you have an interest in geology, right?”

He smiles at her proudly and says: “I have a rock tumbler at home.”

“There are several theories about the cause of the Great Unconformity.” She explains this to Sam that night as they sit around a small fire, waiting for the water to boil for their dinners. (Luckily, he doesn’t question when she filters the water three times before pouring it into the kettle.) In the morning, they will begin conducting their research, so she has taken it upon herself to catch him up to speed. “The first theory,” she says, “involves a mass glaciation of the planet.” He looks confused, so she explains: “Like a giant ice age, where the oceans are frozen over and the land is covered in glaciers. The theory is called ‘Snowball Earth.’” At that, his eyes light up.

“Really? That’s a great name.” He laughs to himself. “Whichever scientist named that should be in charge of naming all the theories… Gravity could just be called The Big Heavy Theory. Evolution?”–he smiles widely– “The Monkey Man Theory.” She laughs at the absurdity of his suggestion.

“The Big Bang would probably be safe to keep its name though,” she says, and he nods his head in agreement.

“Are you kidding me? The Big Bang is the poster child of silly science names.”

It occurs to her that she is sitting at a campfire, laughing and joking with a complete stranger who is at least twice her age. The strangeness of the whole situation catches up to her, and she takes courage from their moment of levity.

“Sam, can I ask you a question?”

“Absolutely,” he says, turning to face her.

“I was just curious how you got accepted for this program, you know, considering you don’t really know much about rocks and…” She falters, trying to think of a polite way to ask about his age.

“And I’m the oldest one here?” he asks, and she smiles sheepishly. “Well, as for the age question, it turns out that Environment for the Americas will make exceptions on their age policy for veterans. The only caveat when I applied was that I would need to be able to hike and climb to each of the locations.” She nods her head in acknowledgement. She wants to ask exactly how old he is but doesn’t want to offend him any further than she might have already.

“Where did you serve in the military?” she asks instead, hoping to glean some clues about his age from his history.

“Vietnam,” he replies, and she tries to hide her surprise. If he served in a war that ended in 1975, that makes him at least… 67 years old. “That ages me, I know,” he laughs and rolls up his right pant leg slightly to reveal a prosthetic. “I actually wasn’t sure that I would be able to come at all, what with my age and my bad leg, but I figured it was at least worth a shot.”

“Wow, that is… impressive,” she says. She had already been surprised that someone his age could make such a difficult hike, but now she is in awe. He shrugs and rolls his pant leg back down to cover the prosthetic, like maybe he doesn’t want to talk about it more, so she moves on. “So, what made you decide to come here in the first place? You get bored of the rock tumbler?”

He chuckles, then thinks for a moment. “Well, sort of. I’ve never been one to stay still for very long. I always liked to be doing something. And retirement, I have learned these past few years, can be a lot of things, but stimulating certainly isn’t one of them. So, I needed a change.”

She nods her head. She, too, had come here in need of a change, and she feels a strange sort of

kinship with him. Although it’s a bit ridiculous to compare her struggles to those of an elderly war veteran, she finds comfort in knowing that she isn’t the only one struggling here.

“What about you?” he asks.

“What about me?”

“Well, all you’ve told me is that you’re here for the rocks. What exactly does that mean?” She is trying to decide what to tell him when the kettle starts to make a gurgling sound.

“I think it’s boiling,” she says, and he is quick to retrieve it.

He offers to pour the water into her freeze-dried dinner package first, so she rips the top off and holds it out while he methodically pours, careful not to splash it on her hands. The consideration makes her chest feel tight.

Once the food has absorbed the water, she takes a tentative bite of her meatless lasagna–she had read an article about the dangers of freeze-dried meat and had opted for all-vegetarian meals. The food tastes strange.

Immediately, her mind is more alert. One of the first symptoms of amoebic meningitis is a change in taste and smell. She checks herself for other symptoms: Headache? Slightly. Stiff neck? Very. But how could she have been exposed to naegleria when she hadn’t even gone swimming? The strange taste, she reasons, is probably from the food being freeze-dried. The headache is more than likely a result of a long day. And the stiff neck is understandable after lugging a 35-pound backpack around. She knows each of these things logically, but there’s no way to be sure, and her thoughts are already running wild.

“Are you okay?” Sam asks from her right. He seems to have noticed her frozen state.

“Yeah, I just”–she can’t think of any way to rationalize this to him–” I just need to go to bed,” she says, standing as she does so. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“The second theory is environmental,” Doctor Summers told her all those months ago, as she sat in his office wishing she had worn longer pants. “The theory would suggest that something, or potentially multiple things, have occurred in your life that have triggered this… tendency.” Not multiple things, she had thought. Just one.

They spend the first few days in the Grand Canyon collecting carbon samples near their campground, and she consumes herself in the work, preferring not to let her mind wander. Mountain Range Woman, who, it turns out, is named Carson, shows them how to properly store their finds, mark the location, and record all of the data. They are each given a tablet and a field journal and shown how to use the Geo Mapper software. Every day, Carson asks them to conduct their research in pairs, so, every day, Sam and Marisol are partners.

They have formed a sort of unspoken pact: she is patient with him when his leg gives him trouble, and he is patient with her when she has to filter her water three times before drinking it. He doesn’t ask her any questions about her strange habits, but, instead, seems to intuitively understand her anxieties. He is quick to pass her a bottle of hand sanitizer after touching rock samples, he offers to disinfect the picnic table before meals, and he makes sure to tell her when one of the outhouses has recently been cleaned.

In their second week at the site, Carson announces that they will be taking a day trip deeper into the canyon to a spot where they can see the Great Unconformity. At this news, Marisol perks up. After years of studying, researching, and obsessing, she will finally be able to see it for herself. Carson warns them that the hike will be treacherous, involving a steep 200-hundred-foot drop through caves and on slick ladders. Marisol looks at Sam with concern, but he seems perfectly at ease.

When the day arrives, they gather in the darkness before dawn at the far end of the campground to begin their hike. Carson hands them each a pair of gloves and warns that, if they lose them, she will “make their skin into a pair of gloves.” Morbid humor as usual

They arrive at their descent at 7:30 am and Marisol looks on in panicked awe. A massive waterfall

plummets from the cliff on which they stand, and a narrow path drops below them into a cave. She knew this would be a difficult climb but didn’t realize how severe the drop would be. Further down, she can see a series of ladders fastened to the rock wall. The spray from the waterfall blasts in all directions, leaving the ladders soaking wet.

She sprays disinfectant into her gloves before putting them on. Carson leads the way, and one by one, they all start their descent into the first cave. Marisol tries not to think about the misty air below, as the group at the top of the cliff slowly dwindles. Naegleria only lives in stagnant water, she reasons. Eventually, it’s just Sam and her left at the top, and he eyes her sympathetically.

“It’ll be over before you know it,” he reassures. She takes a deep breath and heads for the first cave, with Sam close behind her.

The caves aren’t nearly as bad as Marisol had expected–there is enough light to carefully place each step and to avoid hitting her head. The ladders, on the other hand, are far worse. She is forced to turn around backwards to climb down, and the spray is much stronger than she had anticipated. With every drop of water that hits her, her panic grows, and by the time she is halfway down the first ladder, she is dripping wet and frozen with fear. She feels an itch in her nose and thinks that it must be one of the amoebas lodging itself into her brain. She tries to turn her neck, but it feels stiff. Her head is pounding. She holds her breath to prevent any more mist from entering her system, but this only serves to make her more lightheaded. She forces her eyes shut, overwhelmed by the noise inside her own mind.

“Marisol,” she hears Sam call from above her, and she quickly peeks up at him. He is standing at the top of the ladder, leaning dangerously to speak to her over the sound of rushing water. “You can do this.” She shakes her head vigorously, squeezing her eyes shut again.

“No. No, I can’t.” She can hear the panic in her own voice, but she doesn’t have the bandwidth to feel embarrassed. “I think I need to go back to the campsite. This is too much.”

“Yes, you can,” he says. “You know more about the Great Unconformity than anybody else here. You can’t let this stop you.”

She opens her eyes again, looks up at him, crouching there on a sheer ledge with his bad leg dangerously propped against a rock. The trail above him winds far out of sight; It would take her longer to climb back to the top. Besides, she thinks, this is the whole reason I came.

“One step at a time,” he calls, and she nods her head shakily.

“One step at a time,” she repeats. ~~~

“The second theory is about separation,” she had told Sam, all those nights ago, as they sat around the campfire. “A massive rupture of a supercontinent that eroded away all those years of geologic record.” Now, as she finally stands before the Great Unconformity, her obsession of seven years, all she can think of are those words: rupture and separation.

She remembers getting sick in October of her sophomore year. This was not unusual; she’d been living in the dorms, and, as her mom liked to say, it was the time of year that “sicknesses started to spread like warm butter.” She had called her mom on a Thursday and listed off her symptoms: fever, headache, and fatigue. (She hadn’t even thought to list “stiff neck” with her other symptoms; she just assumed she must have slept funny.) Her mom thought it might be the flu. “Why don’t you come home for the weekend?” she had suggested. “I’ll make caldo de pollo and we can watch Gilmore Girls.” Marisol remembered clearly that she had hesitated, protested a bit, but eventually relented to her mother’s stubbornness.

The Great Unconformity is not what she expected it to be, and that makes her feel stupid. This was supposed to mean something, she thinks. I was supposed to feel something. After years of obsessing over this place, reading every piece of research that emerged, and pasting pictures of it all over her apartment, it all feels so underwhelming. She places her hand over that same gap that she shows her students, her palm spanning 1.3 billion years, and she feels nothing.

Goliath

Amber McCuen, Honorable Mention

She wanders away from the group, not wanting anyone to see her cry. She sits down at the end of a small waterfall’s pool and wallows in her own self-loathing. Of course it’s just a rock. Why would she expect otherwise? How would a stupid rock fix anything?

Again, she thinks of her mother, and this time, she doesn’t stop herself. She deserves this pain. Suddenly, those hellish hours at the hospital flash across her mind and all of the hurt that accompanies them. She smells the sterility of the hospital room, sees the ceiling tiles and bed sheets and the word “bacterial meningitis” scrawled across a white chart. She hears her mother’s labored breathing, feels the squeeze of her mother’s hand, and then nothing but slack fingers and slack fingers and slack fingers. She feels all of this, allows it to strangle her. More than anything, she feels a tightness in her chest that has become all too familiar, the claustrophobia of her own loneliness, the suffocation of her guilt. She closes her eyes but cannot shut out the fact that it was all her fault. How could she have been so stupid? Why did she go home?

She should’ve known. Yet how could she? How could she ever know? This is the question that haunts her; it stretches and yawns in the crevices of her mind. I’m not a geologist; I’m just a coward.

“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” Sam speaks from behind her, and he sounds happy. She tries to swallow her tears, to make her voice sound at least remotely normal.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” she stutters.

“Woah, hey, are you okay?”

“No,” she sniffles, “but I don’t want to talk about it.”

He nods his head, looking deeply concerned, and sits down next to her on the rock. She can tell by the uneven way that he sits that his leg is bothering him. They are quiet for a long time before she finally asks him: “How do you do it?”

“Do what?” he asks, turning to look at her.

“Everything. How do you carry a forty-pound backpack on a ten-mile hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon? How do you climb down a sheer rock wall and keep your cool? Hell, how do you decide to spend your summer with a bunch of twenty-somethings collecting pebbles? I just don’t get it.”

“Marisol, you did all of those things, too.” He smiles at her, and the kindness in his eyes makes her squirm.

“I know, but it’s… it’s not the same.” It’s a lame explanation, she knows.

“Why? Because I’m old and disabled?” She squirms with shame for asking such intrusive questions, but he continues: “You know, when I enlisted, I was eighteen years old. I had no idea what I was doing; I only knew I couldn’t stay in Chicago. And when I got home two years later, I was really scarred.” He looks down at his leg and chuckles. “Obviously. But not just my leg. My sense of personhood, my sense of worth, my mind was really scarred. In a lot of ways, those injuries were even more painful.” He gives her a pointed look.

She fiddles with the fabric of her pant legs. “What changed?” she asks selfishly.

“Everything,” he says, “and also nothing. For a long time, I was controlled by that pain and fear, and I still feel it every day, even 50 years later. But I’ve gotten a whole lot better at controlling it. Margo, my wife, helped me a lot in the beginning. She was my biggest cheerleader and the most fearless person I’ve ever met. Every time that she did something that scared her, she would say to herself, ‘well, I might as well die living.’” He smiles at the memory. “In four decades of marriage, she never stopped pushing me.”

“You lost her,” she says. It isn’t a question, but a realization.

“I did.” He nods his head somberly. “Four years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. Neither of them says anything for a long time, but a sort of understanding settles between them. The other researchers seem to have congregated for lunch, although they are far enough away that Marisol can’t even pick up their chatter.

Finally, Sam breaks the silence: “How cold do you think that water is?” She glances over at the pool, and her mind is again filled with thoughts of brain-eating amoebas.

“No idea,” she replies, silently begging him to drop it. He is already standing up, though, and he looks determined.

“I’m gonna find out.”

“Is that really a good idea?” she asks. She knows his leg has been hurting him more these days. She knows that he is less stable when he’s tired.

“Well, I guess if I drown then at least I’ll drown living,” he says with a smirk. She pictures him slipping on the rocks and sinking in the depths of the pool. She sighs in defeat, before standing to accompany him.

“Okay,” She concedes. “But just up to the ankles.” They walk out to the water’s edge, and she can feel her heart rate rapidly increasing. She dips the toes of her left foot into the frigid blue and attempts to focus her every thought on stabilizing Sam, should he need it. He grips her forearm and wades out till the water is lapping at his calves. She slowly takes one more step to join him. To her left, she can see the ground drop off quite quickly from where they stand, but with all of her focus directed toward Sam’s safety, she is surprised to find that her mind is unusually quiet.

“It’s not so bad, is it?” He asks. She nods her head tentatively, looking around at the crystalline water. It really is beautiful. She wonders that she hadn’t noticed it before. Suddenly Sam’s hand leaves her forearm, and a massive splash sprays her. The panicked feeling returns, but this time, not for her own safety, but for Sam’s. She whips her head around to see his body underwater, his limbs splayed out wide. She grips her chest. She can’t believe he actually fell in.

Just as she’s about to call for help, he re-emerges from the water, and this time he is laughing. All at once, panic turns relief, and relief turns anger.

“What the hell, Sam?” she says, still trying to calm her racing heart.

“I’m sorry,” he says breathlessly, and he really does look apologetic. “I guess I just got carried away.” She looks at him there, doggy paddling in the clear, blue-green water, smiling like a little boy, and for a moment, she almost feels tempted to join him, but she shakes her head. Bacteria, she reminds herself. Naegleria. Of course, Sam somehow picks up on her internal conflict, and his smile softens a bit.

“Come on,” he invites her. “It actually feels really good.” She shakes her head more decidedly this time, needing him to understand that there is no way she is actually doing that. But the longer she watches him swimming there, the more she feels pulled.

“I can’t choose it for you, Marisol.” His expression is more serious than she’s ever seen it, and something inside her shifts. In a moment of sheer insanity, she swallows every fear that screams at her to stop and leaps into the water.

Marisol thinks of her mother now, with her body plunged deep into the freezing pool. The cold seems to have banished all the fearful voices, at least momentarily, and all that is left is the tinkling of water against stone. The water surrounds her, meets her at every point of contact on her skin. It holds her up, embraces her. She thinks that maybe it is the embrace of her mother.

When she resurfaces, she leans back, allowing herself to be cradled one more time. She is crying now, heavy, silent tears, and the canyon walls are rising above her on all sides, sheer and dignified, monuments to something.

POETRY

Seven Circles

Bria Dean, Honorable Mention

Noelani Hadfield, First Place

trial by fire

I. Mid-July, days-past my 20th birthday, three continents away from where I’ve eked out my life, I’m following two men with rifles slung over their shoulders, beanie-to-feet dressed in olive-drab green. My white Fila sneakers are dirty, covered in clumps of elephant shit and a thick layer of dirt. We’ve been told to stay silent and single-file, but my father keeps lagging behind, peering through dusty binoculars or making conspiratorial quips with the Dutch guy— who can, by the way, understand the guides’ Afrikaans almost perfectly. Through the trees, within range of sight and rifle, there’s a hyena. One guide holds up a hand and we wait, silent except for camera shutters and shuffling feet, until it passes, evaporates into savannah. We’re gathered around a muddy elephant dig-out when the guides ask if my father has ever been in the bush before, because he keeps acing their questions— Why did the elephants dig so deep? Why do other animals flock to their muck?— and for a moment, I expect him to say no. He says: Yes, in Vietnam.

II. My father tramped through Vietnamese bush, through malaria, through the weight of legalized, propagandized murder at my age— and younger.

Does he forget, sometimes? Like I do?

War: an abstract, an elsewhere for me, but not for him, who lived it, who lived in it.

I hate that he won’t get hearing aids, that I have to half-shout when he’s around, but I forget that he didn’t squander his hearing on concerts like I do, that his membranes were blown out by artillery.

III. He appears in my doorway, a silhouette. I’ve been crying, trying to compress myself— arms wrapped around knees, and fingers dug bruise-deep into triceps.

I don’t look at him, I can’t look, but I can feel his tail-between-legs, hand-behind-neck posture in his voice as he chokes out an apology. I’ve been listening to the arguments from upstairs, I know that my mother has had to convince him to choke out: I’m sorry. Do you forgive me?

I wish I could say no, I still can’t meet his cold, flat eyes. Instead, I whisper-speak, eyes ever averted: yes.

IV.

A man asks his son to burn down a barn.

The barn burns, but so does the power pole. When the trucks come with big-nosed hoses and questions, the man points his finger to flesh and blood, his son, who had been seen buying matches.

Later, the neighbor’s chicken coop catches fire, and fingers find son again. Pyromaniac tried, if not true.

Father forces son to apologize for what he didn’t do.

Father will never say that he’s sorry.

Men love to start fires they can’t put out.

V. How can I blame a man who has been told he is burning, who lived and killed in a free-fire zone, for not knowing how to extinguish himself?

I’m searching for the end of the rope, the frayed bit that can unravel anger, hurt, the un-forgiveness constricting my heart because at least my father apologized.

Juniper

Basil Payne, Honorable Mention

Leaves and Eaves

K’Lee Perry, Honorable Mention

metaphysics of being

Do you imagine that hearts beat alone?

Quaking aspens, mycelium, the vast, impossible migrations of monarchs, of barnacled humpbacks and arctic terns— not evidence enough to sway away the fear, the hope that humanity is in a category all on its own.

Admit it, you’re a bit of a cynic.

Do you trample on other things that thrum with the pulse-beat of living? Is that why you’re petrified, why you won’t see the soul in the sparrow song, in the willow’s throng?

Lofty and glum, you theorize, waste time, but empathy lifts lonely hearts from their ruts.

patience is a virtue that rips me apart

Pinch half-dead vermillion-skin between teeth and peel, peel— on the third pass, the blood barrier breaks: another exercise in restraint.

Bloodshot, heavy-lidded and lusting, my eyes are a wraith that trails in your wake, groping after sloughed-off scraps.

I’m bathed in stained-glass refractions, some sort of sacrilegious saint, alone in the back of the chapel, draped and dripping with self-pity and desire, asking if I can finally take the bait, if I’ve completed my pious wait.

This is my atonement, my appeal to saving grace: I have been patient, peeling myself away. I have tried, but I am still weighed as wanting.

Basil

Payne, Second Place

Icarus as God

I’ve always believed that my anger is holy— a gift from God pushing me towards the right.

A gift from my father, capsaicin passion, heat cauterizing heart.

The way he sees the world is right, straightforward, clear to the touch—

No fractals in morals or in the judge’s mallet.

The way I see the world is right— prismatic, sweet like pen ink.

Each curl in meaning sings a change of heart— my thoughts fluttering toward light.

All color is monochrome when light lacks presence,

Vibrancy lacks flavor when eyes are closed, but mine burn from seeing god through Golden rage, molten halo singeing hair— a sad, burnt smell.

I smell repetition. Sorry, dad.

Ode to Ophelia

Brianna Pickering Honorable Mention

love-dewed meadows

i believe in the meadows of hearts that aren’t my own, but sometimes i wake up drenched in fear— turned into a scared animal from my dreams— and i doubt the flowers people feel for me. i back myself into a corner, away from flowers and love-dewed petals that reach for me, and i scatter them.

once i feel human again and the dreams are gone, i gather the petals and stems and leaves, and try to rearrange them back into a flower as a wilted patchwork apology.

Montrous belief

Monstrous belief. Love drenched ventricle. Sky, a cavern, dusted with darkened stars. Hollow atrium: is it yours or mine? Draped colors, walls to the surrounding world. Darkness cloaks light, mountains now fast asleep. I’ve counted each wiry rib, pitted bone. A blink of calm perches on the valley. The concave way they rest, buried inside. Pull, crack outward. Expose bone to cool air. Nervously gentle, intent shivering. Touch smooth bone, warm marrow right to my lips. I’m shameful of my bright adrenaline. Now in the dark earth, we can breathe clearly. Feed soil with iron, sweet collagen.

L. James Ashby, Third Place

Faces

look there

my uncle told me that one’s the big dipper but my ten-year-old eyes saw no silver spoon soaring in the sky of the indigo august night while we walked down the path of gravel dirt long after midnight what about that one

he asked me pointing to three crystaled grains clustered in a line along the southern ridge of Idahoan sky

this time I did see the diamond droplets that formed his belt and from my uncles finger the curves of a bow and the shaft of a spear shimmered into sight against the curtain of the smoky sky. then he told me the magnificent story of a fearless hunter and his goddess friend the Virgin Huntress who very soon fell for him but that her brother the Golden Twin could not bear to see his beloved sister abandon her holy oath

and so loving and protecting as he was by brazened fingered strummed across ambered lyre he turned that dashing man into a stag then that hunter once thus transformed raised up his voice in a desperate cry for help but all that sounded was the brutish call of a frantic beast that trembled twiggy trees and warped water’s waves.

my uncle paused the tale and pointed nearby in the sky to the caramel coated tails of his loyal companions in the sparkling forms of canis maior and minor but when their sleeping ears were pricked by the hunter’s beastly cry their master’s tongue was not recognized

they charged their prey with protruding claws and fangs and upon his nimble legs like stumbling fawn the dashing man through forested woodland flew but still those hounds gained ground at first until across the brackish bay he swam to flee the maws of beasts once friends

that midnight huntress was by the baying presently drawn and on string of silver she sighted the far-off quarry true the arrow flew upon release in sky of cracking dawn the deadly dart struck a sapphire sea shining with morn’s aurora into crimson red too late the goddess of the moon found she had killed her dearest friend

the Sun rose and when seen his sentence escalated far beyond sincere intent he pitied the man and from his gaudy chariot brandished his honeyed bow to mix the hunter’s ichor amidst heaven’s twinkling tears and there sealed he the image of the Silver Goddess’ mistaken foe.

Even now on nights when phantomed by spurious thoughts of her I do not know why it’s easier for me to see the complex pattern of warrior’s club and shield than the simple slurs of some great soup scooper

but I am thankful for a sympathetic ear in he whose starry Lot with love is far more tragic than my own for more distorted are the reflections

in the face of the silvery spoon than in the face of a broken man

Sanctuary

The rope swing is gone now but the icy pool is just where it should be. I found the place easier than anticipated.

Memories— kept and corrupted through time and trauma.

My heart knew the signs better than my mind, seeing through the morphed landscape worn by winter years and weather. The hallowed bay in the curve of the river created a natural glacier fed swimming hole.

Ice and snow need not remind my toes of that water’s frigidity.

The current that carved a hook through the sediments deposits large rocks at the point of the curve.

The tree from once tethered a rope swing now lay splintered at its jagged base, her toothy rings shining salt white in the moonlight. Still, to me her leafy boughs cry out— beckoning by some unknown strength I extract her collapsed corpse from the shadowed shallows. Surely, this place is right.

Taking care to raise my sneaker-shod feet higher than normal to be sure my icy toes cleared that crunchy slush, I trudged passed the building, the gate, the spigot, the tent sites where once sat the parents who should have been but weren’t. Still, I wandered, searching the spot where the fragile silver thread of a gentle life, a girl whose years were no greater than his own, was thrust into the impotent hands of a nine-year-old boy forced to make decisions not even a father ought.

Memories decades deep in the past unlock. Gray trees groan as trunks grimace and boughs grate, the trickle of the semi-distant river gurgles behind a screen of dead scrubs. The woods, the night, the darkall grant sanctuary to my troubled heart. Looking to the north, amber pinpricks of light from cars passing by accompany the wet hissing of rubber on asphalt kissing.

My serenity is not found in a grove, or in the shadows, but in the distant watchful eyes of the stars— these diamond tears we share together. My limbs quiver and I shrink to the foliage. With arms of Orion surrounding and golden snouts of dog big and small nuzzling— You did everything just right, they tell me.

You did everything just right, they say.

Lily Webb, Honorable Mention

I Still Have Die to Cast: just not

anymore for you

I thought I’d already lost you, and so I let go. Like ribbon leashing balloon you slipped out my fingers when I let go and drifted out into twilight’s amber glow.

I thought, when you told me of your new job and your big move, that alea omnes iacta est! And so I let go.

I fret— once your red bubble is seen once again as it floats over treetops and tween buildings of golden steel— that the airhead was I for letting you go.

But perhaps, I tell myself, if I climb enough branches or scale enough creaky scaffolding, I’ll keep your bobbing face in view long enough for you to change your mind about needing to go.

You were once the touchstone against which everyone else was measured but now I realize I will never strike gold if I can’t grip my lamp and pick ‘cause I’ve yet to let you go.

For many pots just as promising as the one now in front of me I’ve clung to you— but no longer. Six-sided knuckles rattling in my sweaty palms, I release my grip on you and cast my throw, finally letting them have a go.

A dream which had heard me weep

Basil Payne, Honoralbe Mention

Keeping Watch

Brianna Pickering, Honorable Mention

NONFICTION

Ventriloquist

Gregory Dille, First Place

The birds couldn’t see me peeking through the tiny slit in my makeshift fort, but I could certainly see them. It was spring— ‘99, and dogwoods bloomed. Trees unfolded their buds, slowly exposing themselves to the pink hue of a Blue Ridge Mountain morning. The birds stirred in the thick underbrush—chickadees, starlings, warblers, and thrush birds sang their flute-like songs—EE—oo—lay, EE—oo—lay echoed off the eastern hardwoods, breaking the silence of the dense forest.

I spent most of my time roaming and working this farm—halfway between Route 40 and Alexander, tucked against the corner of the Brooke County line. I knew every square inch, from the dustcovered mailbox to the primitive pine that walled the Back Field. ***

Aside from my family, the only company that entertained me was my second family—the creatures that called this place home too. It would be a serious offense not to understand my second family, I thought, so I opened the drawer next to our analog phone, flipped through the yellow pages, and dialed the number to the library in town. “Hullo, yes ma’am, I need some magazines about birds,” was all that I could mutter—it occurred to me in this moment that despite always being excited to answer a ringing phone, I never actually dialed a call to an anonymous person. After a few thoughtful questions from the librarian, she deduced that I was looking for nature magazines and told me she’d grab a couple off the shelf and put them behind the counter. “Okay, then,” I replied, and abruptly hung up the phone. I searched the entire house until I found my mother and begged until she agreed to pick them up the next time she was in town.

After a few days, she casually announced at the breakfast table that she’d be making a trip into town to grab a few things. I shoved the remainder of buttered toast in my mouth, crumbs fluttering to my lap. Finally. Doesn’t she understand that I’ve already been waiting for forty-two hours and fifty-six minutes? I thought to myself. Any attempt at getting her to quicken her pace proved futile, but eventually I watched the car drift down the driveway, past the mailbox, and onto Route 40, the two-lane blacktop that stretched to Alexander. Back to work, anything to occupy my mind.

The morning crawled through noon until we stopped for lunch. Sundrenched and soaked from sweat, my father rolled up the sleeves of his hickory-brown flannel. His coffee-black mustache curled at the ends, which helped to support his shiny, sunburned cheeks. He separated slabs of ham onto slices of Wonder bread, smiling—stretching his mustache to his ears and humming all the while. “He really loves this stuff, huh?” I said to my brother.

“Not me. Another year and I can drive. You won’t see me for weeks at a time.”

The humming in the background intensified, and a dust cloud chasing a gold Corolla caught our attention; this was the sign I was waiting for. I sprinted toward the back door of the house to meet her in the kitchen, and I saw them, spread on the counter like wings. Two magazines were mine for a month—National Geographic and Ranger Rick. What Happens When a Volcano Erupts, Life Among the Chimpanzees, and Migratory Birds of North America were some of the articles that shined on the front pages. I snatched them from the table with a “Thank you, mom,” and took them upstairs to my bedroom.

Most birds that migrate from the Eastern part of the United States do so on the Atlantic Flyway. Following the Appalachian Mountain Range south toward Florida, where they regain their strength, then continue on, leaping over the Gulf of Mexico in a single night, eventually arriving in Central America. Among these species of migratory birds is the wood thrush. This bird closely resembles most of the migratory birds in this region in that: they lay three to four pale emerald eggs in their nests, both the males and females care for the younglings after they hatch, and they’re monogamous. What makes this

bird unique is that it has a Y-shaped voice box; because of this, it can sing two different notes simultaneously, creating ventriloquial songs that are often described as “internal duets” of different tunes.

Belly-down on my bed, my heart thrust itself against the wolf-pattern blanket as I realized that I left my brother and father alone in the meadow. The screen door thwacked shut with a muffled thud, and I skimmed through the daisy-filled meadow like a sparrow, eventually finding them against the tree line that borders Lloyd Miller’s farm.

“Must be nice to take a long break in the middle of the day,” my brother said indignantly as I walked up to the tractor. “Did you get your MAGazines, nerd?”

I kept my mouth shut—though I wanted to call him a walnut brain—and sat next to my father on the wagon. He smirked at me and leaned in, “Bet ya a quarter your brother runs over that groundhog hole a hundred feet ahead.” I stretched my neck around the wide hips of the John Deere— “You’re on,” and watched the hole slowly approach. Sure enough, the tractor lurched to the side as the bottom half of the tire disappeared into the hole. Whether it was the sun rays permeating my head, a release of tension, or a combination of both, I threw my back against the hard wagon and laughed for two minutes straight. I spent the rest of the wagon ride with my arms folded and tucked behind my head, smiling as the clouds floated by. My father, through years of practice, was always good at this though. Despite the manual labor throughout the day, he would keep our minds off the work by making small bets with us, telling jokes, and singing or humming while he curled his mustache in his fingertips. He had a sixth sense for it, and it was always reassuring to hear his voice in the field.

Some days, we would finish our work early. I would run down to the hollow below the Back Field and into the forest that filled the valley. Castleman Creek oozed through this portion of trees, and I decided to make a place to call my own by a bend in the creek. It was equipped with a makeshift fort that I built with two pieces of tin that blew in during the last storm, and a dam in the bend of the creek. My fort had all the essentials any good fort would have: a milkcrate with broken webbing to sit on, an inoperable flashlight, and a rusted pair of Bushnell binoculars. It was perfect; I could watch all the creatures of my second family buzz around the understory.

One particular family of wood thrushes lived in the fork of a rhododendron bush directly beneath my fort. In the evenings, I would read about them in my magazine and the next day watch them through my binoculars and listen as they sang their melodies. I watched the eggs hatch in the spring, the chicks hunker down while both parents went off to find insects to feed them, watched them grow feathers, and eventually I watched as they took wobbly flights to neighboring trees.

And so it went for the remainder of summer. Work dominated my time through the dog days and into fall. Most of the amber and scarlet leaves had covered the ground in a thick blanket, and the ones that hadn’t fallen yet were pale-yellow, barely clinging to limbs. Realizing I hadn’t been to my fort in weeks, I ran out, excited to see the family of thrushes that I watched for so long. I knew the little ones would be ready to fly south any day now—just a few weeks ago, the chicks darted from tree to tree, with a single flit of their wings; there was very little use for the nest at this point. When I finally climbed to the top of my tree fort, the woods were silent, no squirrels darted around the underbrush, and no birds chirped. Worst of all, the family of wood thrushes was nowhere to be seen. I waited for a while, but no song caroled in the trees. I knew in my heart that I wouldn’t see them again, so I climbed down from my perch and raced the sunset back to the house. The next few weeks came and went in the blink of an eye. The days grew shorter, and our time indoors grew longer.

The four of us sat around the dinner table with the television scratchily playing the local news in the background. “Can you pass me the green beans?” My father mumbled with half open eyes.

“What?” my mother answered in reply.

“I said. Can you pass me the goddamn green beans?”

My brother and I looked at each other with open eyes, searching for answers. Surely, this was some kind of joke, I thought to myself as I silently shoveled mashed potatoes into my mouth. The rest of the dinner was silent, and when I finally watched my mother fork the final green bean from her plate, my brother and I stood up, cleared the dishes from the table, and went upstairs to our rooms.

My brother’s room was at the top of the stairs. Down the hall was my bedroom, and right beside that was my parents’ bedroom—separated by two thin sheets of floral-print wallpaper. That night, after sleeping for several hours, I awoke to the sound of hush-fighting, muffled by the walls between us. This went on for several more hours as I drifted in and out of sleep.

The chocolate-brown tree trunks were choked by a cool dew the next morning. I looked around for any signs of life, but I could only find a few crows scrounging for scraps in the shadows on the barren ground. For the next few weeks, this went on; during the nights they would spend most of their time arguing from their corner of the house, and the pale, cloudy days, we would go out in the field, put our heads down, and work with hardened expressions in our eyes. No jokes were made, and no songs were hummed.

That night started out like every other night for the past few weeks. The only sound at the dinner table was the sound of utensils clanking, cups sitting, and my father’s white tube sock bouncing on the floor beneath the table. I went upstairs to my bedroom as usual and propped my pillows up against the headboard and started flipping through my magazines. A few hours passed, and before I knew it, I was asleep with my magazine folded on the bed beside me.

The hairs on my arms raised as something loud startled me awake. I could hear him talking in a primal tone that sounded like it came from the untouched coal seam beneath the farm.

“Well then, I’ll just go, and you’ll never see me again,” he shouted coldly. Silence followed, then an explosion of words spilled into every corner of the house. “If I leave, I’m not coming back, you know I’m not coming back.”

“Leave then! I’m tired of fighting about it,” she countered.

I sat up in my bed, forcing the pillows between my back and the wall, clutched my blanket between my toes, and stretched the face of the wolf over my knees and around the back of my head. I plugged my ears as the shouts echoed louder through the halls. I fiddled through my nightstand to find a flashlight, grabbed my magazine, and started reading. “Birds. Flyway. Y-shaped voice box,” I said to myself as the sound of a crashing lamp jolted my body like a defibrillator. “Focus. Bird. Voice box…” I searched for new words, any words, as tears streamed down my face and plipped ink blots onto the pages. “Birds, flyway, voice box—birds, flyway, voice box.”

The bedroom door slammed. I could hear the heavy footprints clodding through the hallway, down the stairs. The engine of that old truck barely turned over before it was thrust into gear and the tires tore through the gravel. I can still remember the sound of those tires when they hit the asphalt of that Route 40 flyway.

June With Adreann and the Kids

Cassity Whitby, Honorable Mention

a recipe for funeral casserole

Nick Carlson, Second Place

1. Step one. Have someone you know die. The first step of funeral casserole is, of course, the funeral. One could potentially make it for any real get together, but the misery is just as much an ingredient as the tomato sauce or the ground beef. It feeds a grieving crowd, the same way the rumors and gossip do. Your mother is the recipient this go-around, but there have been others, and there will always be others dying for casserole. She passed the night before last—two days ago, if you’re counting (which you are not)—and you are the only one home to cook for the wake.

2. Step two. Cut some onions. Cut way too many onions for this recipe but put them in the pot with some butter anyway. It’s okay if you cry a little at this stage; especially when you can’t otherwise find the tears to shed. The catharsis is healthy, they tell you. Brown them, and then forget a little bit how long they’ve been in there. Wash your puffy eyes with cool water while they cook. When they are translucent, you get out the half-frozen ground beef—bought a week and a half ago and frozen solid before you thought you’d be planning refreshments for a funeral.

3. Step three. Cook the meat in with the onions. Accidentally cut your finger getting the tube of frozen beef open and cry a little more. Wash your hands of blood—yours and the cow’s, get a band-aid from the bathroom down the hall, and stop when you see your reflection in the bathroom mirror. You look just like her, they say. You see it and you resent it. Your eyes are red under the stark bathroom lighting, and you know this is because you have not slept since she entered hospice exactly four days ago. At least you could blame it on the onions if anyone asks. And they will.

4. Step four. Add corn and tomato sauce. Realize this makes the least appetizing looking concoction you have ever seen. It only gets worse when you add the cheese. Still, people will eat it. You are unsure if it is hunger that drives them or something more emotional. You don’t bother asking. There will be other, equally unappetizing things served. You know you will not touch any of it. You know, also, this is something your mother would balk at serving to guests—to family. Still, the show must go on.

5. Step five. Stick it in the oven. You remember the time you burnt yourself when she closed it on you. You figure your skin is still there somewhere. If not physically, then, the atoms of it—forever within the atoms of the oven. A testament. You try not to think about that—or much of anything, really. You shut off then at that thought and do not remember much else from that night.

6. Step six. Bring it to the church in the morning. You hide in the bathroom when they wheel out the coffin—a sarcophagus more like. Copper plated. Orange. Of course. You laugh madly when you get a glimpse of yourself in the church bathroom mirror—much bigger than yours at home. The bulbs are a dim pale yellow, set deep in blown glass that hasn’t seen a dust cloth since ‘78, and you are thrown into a sunset light. It is your mother’s dress you wear, her sweater, her makeup, her hair curler used to get that perfect movie star look. Molded in her image. An anger seethes in you, and you cannot place if it is frustration, or that stage of grief so often spoken of, but you have never felt grief, even now. You have never felt much of anything, except boredom, and that ever present current of anger, and a raw aching emptiness. This is like that anger, like what you expect the magma flow under a growing volcano feels like.

7. Step seven. You go home after. There is no change. This has been the new normal for a long time. A pang of something you do not recognize fills your stomach. Hunger, maybe. Or guilt—like you know you should feel any single damn thing, but you don’t. The sun shines after the funeral. You do not

hurt the way you ought to, you think. Only relief. You see your family cry, but not your siblings. You know them too well and know that they would not. Not for her. Your father cries most of all. This gives you that pang again. You learn to understand this is guilt you are feeling. You still do not cry even when you wake up from dreams where she apologizes for wishing you were never born, for her last words to you being just how much she hates you.

8. Step eight. You learn to call this acceptance, and you tell them you have forgiven her, because she was in so much pain toward the end. You know this is a lie. It doesn’t leave you the way you think it should. You throw yourself into being kind. Especially to your nephews, because they deserve so much more love than your sister alone can give, especially when you wonder how she managed to scrape by with these meager scraps of motherly love the way you did, if not worse. (You find out later she didn’t. She suffers, too. And you ask her if this love overflows in her too as a kind of sick retaliation, and she does not answer, but you know it already when she looks at you the way she does.)

9. Step nine. Six years later, give or take, you like to think you’re healthy, that you’ve adjusted. You read a letter in a video game from a dead mother (breast cancer, just like her) to her estranged adult son (your age), at the very end of this game you’ve been playing for days. This hits you harder than you realize. I love you and I’ll always be with you, it says. You really truly cry for the first time in years. You go to the kitchen, tears streaming down your face, and reach for the onions, and the ground beef and the corn and the tomatoes even though it’s 2 am on a Tuesday night, and you work the graveyard shift the next day. Your grief demands to be fed.

Bria Dean, Honorable Mention

“Flash Flood”

Clarissa Casper, Third Place

Life changes swiftly, much like the onset of fall on September evenings — even as abruptly as a diving peregrine falcon.

Sandstone cliffs towered over my family and I like buildings in New York City as we walked through the Grand Wash in Capitol Reef National Park, rusty clay rocks beneath our feet. We were at the halfway mark, a section of the wash where the cliffs narrow, when it began to rain.

The burnt orange clay turned a deep copper as it thickened. The mark of water high up on the onehundred-foot cliffs made my stomach churn. Capitol Reef is one of the more hidden Utah National Parks, located in south-central Utah in the Colorado Plateau. Its landscape can have abrupt changes in weather during monsoon season any time of the day. This brings heavy rain and thunderstorms to its miles of colorful canyons and high-walled gorges decorated with gleaming apricot Globemallow, a type of desert flower that sometimes appears pink.

The Grand Wash cuts through the Water Pocket Fold — a geological feature that runs from Thousand Lakes Mountain, a landmark where stars light up the night sky like the sun — to Lake Powell. It is filled with steep, alluring Navajo and Wingate sandstone winding cliffs up to 500 feet tall that are painted with everything from wine to crushed violets and leaves of sage. My nine-year-old eyes were glued to the dazzling, unexpected colors as drops of rain streaked down them. The early Navajo people, who utilized the park for thousands of years, called it the “Land of the Sleeping Rainbow.”

The Grand Wash contains sections where walls are less than 15 feet apart. When it rains, water rushes through, covering the entire canyon floor with a prism-filled flood. Despite the grey warnings in the distant sky, and advice from a park ranger to not do the hike, my dad had decided to take the risk to be among the fascinating cliffs with his family once more before venturing home. But the rain soon turned our admiring walk into a nightmare with nowhere to go but faster; we were out of control at the hands of the ecosystem, our bodies no different than the thumping rocks, logs, and sticks that would also be picked up by the potential flash flood.

Rangers in Capitol Reef say less than one half inch of rainfall within an hour can cause a flash flood, and dry washes can fill with rushing water several feet deep. Seeing my family’s fear in the wash — the fear that could not hide in my dad’s royal blue eyes — terrified me. As we swiftly walked after the rain started to fall, and the mud got increasingly thicker, I declared how much I love my family members — something we did not often do. I apologized for everything I had ever done — forever complaining about the adventures my dad wanted to take me on. I genuinely believed we would not survive — that we would become a color on the sandstone.

This was the first time I had feared being caught in a flood in Capitol Reef. But I had heard stories of the people my dad’s family knew who had died in the park’s water. I had visited Capitol Reef every July of my life up until that moment and did four summers after. We went to visit my father’s grandmother who lived in Loa, a town about a 30-minute drive from the park’s entrance, where I recall running down small-town streets adjacent to farms and fields of rocks with my cousins, coins bouncing in our pockets to buy grape sodas from a small Royal’s Market.

We spent hours at a section of the land locals called “Big Rocks,” where giant orange boulders entertained us for hours. My grandmother grew up here, living the “cowgirl lifestyle” in the 1950s. She rode her horse everywhere, even to Capitol Reef, and helped her family manage their farm. The first time I rode a horse was at her brother’s farm, near Torrey, where bison grazed in the distance. Gatherings where my grandmother and great uncle sang original songs about life in the desert inspired me to want to learn the guitar myself.

Their lives were shaped by the rural, unforgiving, and unpredictable nature of the environment.

While in Loa for the family reunion, my family would spend hours in the park, exploring the canyons and arches and uniquely shaped structures of assorted colors. By the time I was eight, I had done most of the hikes advertised by the Visitor’s Center, and many that they do not. My father did not care about difficulty — he wanted to show his children the world he grew up in, the land where most of his youthful summers were spent. Often when we went, it was July, and the blazing sun heated the red rock like a convection oven. Heat exhaustion is quite common here. If not well prepared, one becomes dehydrated very quickly. Sometimes I wished to stay home from the hikes and relax at the motel pool or play at Big Rocks. But looking back, I will always value the time my family spent exploring the colorful canyons that echo the story of my family and a record of Earth’s history.

Fortunately, my family reached the parking lot at the mouth of the wash before a flood could reach us. When we made it out safely, a rush of relief — one stronger than a bursting flood — washed over me as I sobbed and hugged my mother. We slogged through mud, falling everywhere, to a road that we walked along for about 30 minutes to our car. The fragility of life was the topic in my mind during that miserable walk. Safety had always been a guarantee. I learned young to not rely on the idea that “everything would work out.” Nobody was safe.

Five years before my family nearly washed away in that flash flood, we had taken the journey out to Capitol Reef, not in July but in February — a week after my birthday. My Grandfather, my father’s dad, had abruptly died in his 60s the day I turned four, and he was to be buried in the Loa cemetery. The rain fell hard during his funeral; bleak drops of water drenched my hair as I watched his casket be lowered into the ground; brisk air comforted me. After the mourning, my dad drove my family out to Capitol Reef. The sandstone cliffs and prickly cacti I had remembered seeing the July before were blanketed by the same snow as home. My dad drove us here so he could relive the memories he had with his father.

And I know I will do the same one day.

In any environment, water is a powerful erosive force. But in the desert, it is paramount. Over time, water has shaped little hallows in the raised, tilted sandstone layers in the Waterpocket Fold like a patient sculptor. This is where the fold gets its name from. Capitol Reef has shaped who I am just as its water shapes its majestic cliffs. Four years after our encounter with the wash, my family and I were driving home from a trip to California when my dad heard from my great aunts and uncles down in Loa that his grandmother was not doing well. When we crossed the Utah border, my dad asked us if we could take a four-hour detour to visit her. Selfishly, my brother and I, tired from being in the car for nine hours, begged him not to. We did not understand how much it meant to him.

A week later, my great grandmother passed, and I found myself back in Wayne County at the same cemetery where I said goodbye to my grandfather. This was the second to last time my family all went back to Capitol Reef together. The last time, my aunt Nellie was lowered into the ground next to her dad

— preserved in the town of her cowgirl mother, next to sandstone cliffs and desert lakes.

Capitol Reef has always been a place of grief and change. It stores my family’s history; One day I will return to bury my grandmother. Maybe even my parents.

Rocks at Capitol Reef record 275 million years of the earth’s history. Its rock beds show Capitol Reef encompasses ancient environments including open marine, nearshore, river, lake, and desert. In its sandstone cliffs I will always see picnics with a family that no longer exists; I will remember riding horses across fields with buffalo in the distance. Here, there is open space and room to breathe; there is space to think; there is space to fear falling and drowning. There is space to fear death and to be okay with it. It is one of those places that makes me remember what being a human truly means. It is where sandstone cliffs full of history lie under stars that show the past clearer than I have ever seen. Anything can happen here in the flap of a hummingbird’s wing.

And I will always return to this desert when I need a reminder of what is most important.

Interested in submitting to the USU Creative Writing and Art Contest Issue 2025?

Submissions will open January 2025.

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