Sisyphus - Spring 2016

Sisyphus Spring’16 Cover artwork by Brendan Voigt Masthead photography by Brendan Voigt Front Inside Cover Artwork (Clockwise from top): print by Michael Behr, print by Harrison Taulbee, photo by Aidan Moore Back Inside Cover Artwork (Clockwise from top): photo by Brendan Voigt, pastel by Ian Mulvihill, pastel by Michael Esson, watercolor by Ian Mulvihill, painting by Daniel Knight, painting by Ian Shocklee 3 God Went to Chicago, poetry by Michael Wiley 4 painting by Jack MacDonald Reunion, fiction by Duncan Allen 6 photograph by Jack Bailey 7 I Took You to a Cemetery, fiction by Jonathan Shaver 8 photograph by Matt Sciuto 9 Unsettling Snow, poetry by Suzanne Renard 10 Chain of Being, poetry by Matt Smith photograph by Aidan Moore 11 Mississippi Story, fiction by Joe Weis 12 print by Luke Brummell 14 photograph by Brendan Voigt 15 Leaving for College, poetry by Michael Wiley 16 Sesquipedalian, poetry by Ed Gartner photograph by Joseph Weber 17 Free, fiction by Lucas Kammerer 19 print by Dan Walsh 20 The Delusion of Grandeur, poetry by Matt Dorsey 21 print by Micahel Behr 22 Gravitational Waves Detected, remixed news story by Frank J. Corley 23 photograph by Nick Bentz 24 It’s Nothing, poetry by Ed Gartner 25 photogtaph by Brendan Voigt 26 Gastronaut, poetry by Matt Smith photograph by Nick Bentz 27 Fishing, fiction by Dan Walsh 28 photograph by Joseph Weber 32 photograph by Brendan Voigt

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photograph by Brendan Voigt Brotherhood, prose by Jack Uluer Sinay drawing by Aiden Evans print by Joan Bugnitz A Day in the Life of a Nobody, fiction by Ryan Hopkins 43 sculpture by Liam Connolly 45 print by Nick Bentz 46 print by Nick Bentz 50 photograph by Aidan Moore 51 I’m Not a Poet, poetry by Gabe Lepak 52 Realizations, fiction by Thomas Nowak 53 photograph by Aidan Moore 54 photograph by Nick Bentz 56 photograph by Sulli Wallisch 57 Go Outside, poetry by Evan Brende 58 Confusion, poetry by Federico García Lorca translation by Myriam Aliste photograph by Brendan Voigt 59 A Response to Confusion, poetry by Chuck Hussung 60 The Bridge, fiction by Christopher Weingart 62 photograph by Tom Hillmeyer 63 Wishful Thinking, poetry by William George 64 print by Aiden Evans 65 Murderer, poetry by Seamus McFarland 66 The Danger in Losing, fiction by Michael Wiley 67 drawing by Tim Nile 69 wash by John Burke 70 print by Aiden Evans 71 Monsignor Pins, poetry by Salvatore Vitellaro photograph by Aidan Moore 72 Out of Place, fiction by Jake Lepak 73 photograph by Joseph Weber 74 Argos, poetry by Matt Smith photograph by Will Kelly 75 photograph by Connor FitzGerald Mere Anarchy, poetry by Matt Dorsey 76 My, How You Have Poisoned Me, poetry by Matthew Loranger

God Went to Chicago Michael Wiley

3 And when, finally, he descended from the star-lined chariot to the city, Chicago, After all his wandering in the clouds and foggy skies, dizzied heights to snowswept lows, when he had flown far enough, He traversed the split pavement on his godly feet, took the subway to Addison, and met there the men who slept on stained benches and ate what they could afford.

But farther south he saw the boy misstep into the alley, near the playground, where the men bent his knees and held a warm barrel to his head.

Not too far away, he saw a girl skipping to her school, holding her bag with the one torn strap.

Silently he confessed: I cry for you tonight.

Re-

Reunion Duncan Allen

union

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painting by Jack MacDonald

H

as it really been ten years? You’re Tim, right? Wow, everyone looks so grown up. Do you remember Mr. Whoever? We were on the same racquetball team, right?

Wait, that was Jimmy.

I shook hands, met trophy wives, and congratulated acquaintances. I apologized for family deaths, listened to bragging stories of success, and endured trivial complaints.

“Can you believe how much it costs to live in New York?” Daniel droned.

“Shouldn’t be a problem on your salary,” I mumbled to myself.

“Huh?” “Nothing.” I excused myself and stepped outside to get a breath of fresh air. The clattering of drinks and the soft murmur of voices from inside still hummed lightly in my ears, but otherwise the world was quiet.

For once. The wind chilled my cheek, briefly making me regret shaving my beard two days earlier. Pulling up my collar, I sat down at the

old cement bench near the walkway, the very same I had passed everyday eagerly on my way to lunch. I couldn’t remember a single time I’d ever seen someone sitting there.

I glanced out past the open courtyard and at the buildings where the J-Wing used to be. It seemed so long ago when I walked those halls: before Drake, before Madrid, before meeting Diana and before Boston.

Before Dearie’s passing and Paul’s escape.

Before Haylee. It seemed I’d lived my whole life between graduation and now, yet it felt recent. I still remembered scrambling to Algebra freshman year, still could hear the cries of “U-Swag” at pep rallies. I smiled to myself.

No one used the word swag anymore.

“Hey, you out here alone?” I turned.

A man in a long gray coat plopped himself down beside me on the bench.

“Mike?” I squinted. “That you, man?” He had a large brown beard with hints of red, but it was Mike all right. He had been in

Model UN with me for three years, and we had spent a lot of time at each other’s houses planning resolutions or talking about changing the world. I scoffed. We were such idiots.

Mike nodded. “Ten years. Shit, man, I feel old. Do you feel old?” He paused. “Of course you do.”

“Can you believe Jack started his own television show?” I changed the subject.

“Heard it got terrible reviews.” Mike sipped from his cocktail. “His budget was halved and he’ll have to sell his soul just to get another season.”

“Damn.” I stared at the cold cement.

“Did you hear about Chris? Now there’s a success story. You invest in the right company at the right time and, Boom. He always did have unnatural luck.” He raised his cup, sloshing a bit of the drink onto his pant leg.

“They’ve got it made, those bastards.”

“How about you?” I inquired. “What’s your success story?”

“What’s there to tell? Four years of college and forty years of debt. Joined the Police force after quitting a cubicle job three years ago. Been working overtime at the station to help provide for Ma. Ever since Dad left there’s been little money to spare.”

“You’re a cop now? Huh.” Somewhere inside a woman was laughing in a shrill tone and a man was singing some old pop song.

“Now I’ve seen everything.”

“Detective, actually.” Mike shrugged. “I like the job. Some days.”

We sat there for a minute, listening quietly to the distant rumble of the highway and the murmurs of human voices, rising and falling in pitch with the wind.

“All right,” Mike said, breaking the silence. “Your turn.”

I opened my mouth to speak but halted.

I could tell Mike everything and probably end up keeping him here for the next hour, pouring out my regrets, frustrations, and sadness. I could tell him about the impend-

ing divorce. How I lost my wife to my own stupidity and how she ran off with that older guy from her work. I could tell him that my daughter, who wasn’t even old enough to walk, would most likely grow up not knowing her own mother. Instead I said, “Oh, you know. Settled down, got married, and had a kid.”

Mike slapped me on the back. “Twentyeight and married already! Never took you for a fast guy. Got any pictures?”

“Yeah.” I pulled my phone out from my pocket, flipping through the photos until I found the right one. I handed the device to him, its blue light illuminating his face clearly.

“Cute,” he said, handing the phone back.

“What’s her name?”

“Haylee. She’ll be two in a few weeks.”

“Nice.” he said softly. “Hey! Wanna grab a few drinks at the closest bar? The stuff in there is piss.”

T

he Royale was crammed, but there was a small pair of seats open at the end of the counter, occupied only by a pair of empty shot glasses. We sat down, quietly ignoring the old guy enthusiastically cheering at the football game on the television set. On our left a greasy man was either whispering in a blond woman’s ear or nibbling it. She looked at him with a sly grin and whispered something like “You’re drunk.” Together they moved away from their seats, giving Mike and me some more elbow room for the few seconds it was vacant.

A well-dressed man slid into the empty seat. His hair was blond and combed, and he wore the SLUH 2016 class ring. Startled, I recognized him as Jameson Howard, one of my old casual acquaintances. I’d heard from the other alumni that Jameson had started up his own burgeoning fast food chain. I’d eaten there once. The food was crap.

Mike extended his hand, “Hey, you’re

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Jameson Howard, right? The guy who started Lucky Burgers?”

Jameson gave an amused glance as he shook the hand. “You guys made an escape, too?”

“Yeah,” I said as I gestured for the bartender. “The drinks were piss.” And there were too many successful assholes like you.

“Here,” Jameson reached out of his coat pocket and brought his wallet forward.

“Drinks on me, guys.”

“Much obliged.” Mike immediately ordered the most expensive drink.

After a few minutes of silent drinking, the awkward silence got to me. “How have you been, Jameson? How’s the business?” I hated small talk.

“The business is doing fine,” Jameson started, then his smile faltered. “But my wife is filing for divorce, and it’s all my fault. I cheated on her with her brother’s wife for

six months. I eventually summoned up the balls to tell her, and the next thing I know she’s calling a lawyer. Fuck.” He looked at his half-empty glass inquisitively, as if searching for traces of poison. “I don’t know why I’m telling you guys all this. I haven’t told anyone else.”

I suddenly felt a stab of regret and guilt.

I had assumed this man was just a suit and tie—an effigy of all I would never achieve.

I put my hand on Jameson’s back. “Hey, at least you told the truth. That’s more than most people would do.” I stopped for a second, and thought to myself ah, what the hell.

“I’m getting a divorce, too.”

“No shit,” Mike whispered loudly. “What happened?”

“It’s complicated,” I paused, but the words had already begun tumbling out. And so I leaned back, took a sip from my beer bottle, and began to tell the truth.

ceramics by Jack Bailey

I Took You to a Cemetery Jonah Shaver

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I

took you to a cemetery, the same one I walked around every other night for exercise. Physically, but mentally too: to think and contemplate. What better place than with all the memories and experiences of those I walked above?

In the cemetery, you and I walked the path until we saw a candle-lit grave. The little flecks of life surrounded bouquets and pictures of a woman, now cold and peaceful under her polished stone. I led you over to the little memorial under the moonlight, knelt in front, and sat down. You did the same beside me.

“Is this what you wanted to show me?” you asked.

“Yes, this is it.”

There were yellow and maroon flowers.

Everyday colors, nothing exciting. There were faded pictures of a young girl. She wore a princess costume in one and a school uniform in another. Then she was standing with a man and kissing him in another. She held a child in one and pushed him on a swing in another. She blew out the sixty-three candles on her birthday cake and played peek-a-boo with a baby in another.

“What’s so special about this?” you asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Just an ordinary lady. Probably seen so many old ladies they’re just more bodies in your way at this point. They don’t have any uses or purposes.

They’re done.”

“Well that’s kinda dark,” you responded.

“But isn’t that all that comes to mind?

‘Just some old lady’?”

“Well…” you started. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“But think a bit more. Think more about them. This particular old lady was loved— loved so much that people took all these pictures of her just living life. Just living life! Like we all do. People loved her, those people still love her—and that’s all we really want, isn’t it? To be loved even after we’re gone. That’s all I want. I just want each of us to be remembered. Remembered and loved and missed.”

“You will be. Trust me, I know you will be,” you reassured.

“Thank you. That’s all I need to know.”

“Come on,” you said as you stood up, “Let’s go home.”

We did go home. But I took the shorter route. A car accident put you in the hospital and me in the ground. My soul went up into the clouds while you took my body to the cemetery. And as I look down on you now, you look down on where my body lies, bouquets of yellow and maroon with little flecks of life surrounding my polished stone.

You place pictures of me among those flowers. Pictures of me in my school uniform; pictures of me blowing out birthday candles; pictures of me and you.

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photograph by Matt Sciuto

Unsettling Snow Suzanne Renard

9 This is no ordinary weather.

Too hot, flash freeze.

The heavens are throwing snowmen at yesterday’s balmy breeze, that stirred the trees untimely from their sleep.

We’ve made the Earth convulse, stolen the warmth she stored within for purposes unknown.

Oh, too late to begin again, to leave what we don’t know alone.

It was our job to name aright the animals and plants, the woodland sprite.

But by listening, as they sound their names, not ordering their phyla and the holy living units that compose their tune.

We meant no ill.

We went about our work as Péguy said: “for the sake of the pension, the security of the wife and children, we sacrificed our human dignity” and planted our copyrights too glibly.

To name is to define.

We translated the forest, like Britain did to Ireland, sure that the new tongue improved the ancient tale, killing the plants with language of the marketplace.

And now, and now... we wish they could remember and return to all they deeply know restore the seasons’ raison d’être, and give us back the joy of warmth and snow.

Chain of Being Matt Smith

10 I watch the pollen skid across the thin membrane of my eye.

I pluck a blade of grass, twisting it over my fingers like yarn.

I stare at the treetops, their leaves sighing in the morning breeze.

The damp breath of the ground rises up against my palm brushing it, grasping it like hair.

And the birdsong sounds like a razor.

A dandelion scruff rushes past me, crashing to the ground.

From nothing, this.

photograph by Aidan Moore

Mississippi Story Joe Weis

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W

alter logged off of Facebook to preserve what respect for his social life he had left. All he found were people in new relationships, adventures, and hitting up LouFest. The latest “cool” thing he had done was in the summer, on vacation, at a Boy Scout ranch almost everyone had gone to before. He did a lot, just never documented it with selfies. So, though he was not popular with friends, he was very popular with his characters in the numerous stories he dreamed up and typed out.

Walter wrote himself into almost any work.

Sometimes he was just a guy on the bus, sometimes he was the main character’s best friend. Sometimes his name was “Rich,” other times he went by “Dizzy,” in reference to his first name. But that did not make up for the pain he often felt in his friend group.

While Elizabeth, Kyle, Lucy, Dean, Cory, and Amelia mastered the art of dating and expanding their connections, Walter was the guy who sometimes made a great joke that no one ever forgot, but most of the time he chased the dream of making such a joke. So on the rare occasion that people remembered to invite him to a party, he was consciously absent, trying to formulate some pun or subtle quip.

His friends easily forgot to invite him to parties, games, and dinners at Steak ’n Shake.

The latest in the series of forgotten moments was the homecoming dance. Walter went with one of his closest friends, Elizabeth Laclede. They went with a large group from

the show both had participated in. Before the dance, the group took pictures and the two took none together. Instead, Elizabeth wandered off with their other friends and took pictures with them. Walter, in his gray suit and pants, countered the move by taking a picture with some of the guys in a historical pose. He stood in the doorway of the house they were at, extending his two arms and making a “V for Victory” sign. He did not know whether to resent himself for using his passion to artificially balance a pain, or to feel proud employing such passion to bring some comfort.

At the dance, Elizabeth ditched Walter for Jud Palmer, a much better dancer. Walter did not mind, but what did tick him off was the show picture, later posted on Facebook.

Everyone in the show posed in the picture, except for Walter, whom they never told they were taking a picture. Walter did not ask Elizabeth to be a romantic date, but he did wish to interact with her. Each individual slight, though perhaps unintentional, added up into a cache of general disregard towards him.

The bell rang, notifying everyone of the school day’s end. The halls quickly filled up with teens weary from a long day’s work and discussing the after-parties they had attended. Walter had to find a place to sort out his thoughts, thoughts that turned blood to sour gall, so he hopped into his SUV and sped away towards the Mississippi River near Alton. He knew a good fishing spot there, but

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print by Luke Brummell

he stopped first at Cracker Barrel and picked up a four-pack of his favorite soda. Arriving at the exit on Highway Sixty-Seven, he veered off onto the gravel road and parked where the road ended. Walter pulled out his folding chair and carried it in one hand, his soda and fishing gear in the other. It was a struggle, but Walter made it to the levee and set up. He watched the river, flowing endlessly towards the ocean. He could hear the rushing water and the squawking of the geese as they flew overhead in V-formation.

On the opposite bank, the Argosy sat idly in the water, as it had for years and years. He hated the casino; it looked gaudy and out-ofplace against antique downtown Alton.

Walter was not much for drama or expression of feelings, unlike his friends. He really did not enjoy doing musicals, but he wanted to be in on the inside jokes. He did not enjoy going over to watch some movie at someone’s house or anything simple like that. He did not enjoy forecasting who would get what part in a show, either. And he wanted to free himself of it. Walter felt like the Argosy, pushed by the current but sticking to his position.

“Excuse me, son, how’s the fishing?” a deep voice asked behind him. The man standing behind was in his seventies, with the ruggedness of Clint Eastwood and the smile of Stephen Colbert.

“I haven’t caught anything yet, sir,” Walter answered.

“Going for catfish?” the man asked as he unfolded his chair and sat down beside Walter with his own pack of beer and tackle.

“Yes, sir,” Walter said nervously.

“I’ve been fishing here for twenty-five years; this is the first time I did early evening fishing,” the old man said. His eyes lit up as if he had seen the Mississippi for the first time.

“I just found this spot last summer.”

Walter wanted to add that he caught a fivepound channel, but he decided against it.

“It’s a good spot. I like to come down here when I have something to think about.”

The two sat patiently, the only sound filling the air the casting of their lines into the rushing water and the splash the weights made as the bait sank to the bottom. The old man cast much farther from the shoreline than Walter and with such ease that Walter knew he was not lying when the guy said he had been fishing at this same spot for a quarter of a decade. The man made a movement and started to reel. He stood up and took a step in the water as he held firmly and fought with something in the water. He knew not what, but it was a clash of two powerful forces. Walter stood up and waited awkwardly until the man finally pulled the gigantic catfish to shore.

“Nineteen pounds, not bad for me. I’m Pallas Samson, by the way. What’s the name of the young man I’m speaking to?” the old man asked. He stuck out his slime-covered hand after unhooking and releasing his catch.

“I’m Walter Kilcoyne,” Walter answered.

The old man shocked him. His clear blue eyes hooked his soul and held it tightly, striking the core. Walter cast back into the water to avoid a conversation but felt another urge to talk to the interesting oldie next to him. He felt a tug on his line, and the fight was on. He held his ground as the unseen force fought back, fiercely. He could feel the strong muscles challenging him, connected to him by the fishing line. Soon his opponent tired, and submitted to Walter: a mighty fifteen-pound catfish. The old man slapped him on the back and laughed.

“Nice catch, son, nice catch.”

For the next thirty minutes, the two caught nothing, casting and reeling, casting and reeling. The sun started to set off in the west, its orange blazes streaked across the sky and transforming into pink and violet against the clouds as they slowly made their way into Illinois.

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“So what’s on your mind, Walt?” the old man broke in eventually.

“Nothing.” Walter knew it to be a lie, but talking made him think more, and thinking made him doubt, and doubting made him fear.

“Son, I’m not Snapchat. I don’t sell your secrets. What’s up?” The old man surprised Walter. How did this piece of history know what Snapchat was?

“Ah, nothing.”

“Ya know, there’s an odd side to fishing.

You cast hundreds of times, and only a few times do you catch a big fish. But you keep casting until you hit the big one. And once you do, you can look back and realize it was all about those hundreds of casts before that got you that one big fish. Son, it seems you have a decision before you. And the question is whether to give up and move on or stick to it, hold your position.”

The old man cast his line out again.

“I’m having a rough time with friends, that’s the bulk of it.” Walter finally answered, choking on the words as he said them. He coughed because it felt like something had formed in his throat, but soon felt the passage clear.

“The job of friends is to be good to one another, to be there for you and with you.

Sometimes, you do all you can and it’s not enough. Sometimes the line gets caught. Cut the line.” The old man reeled his line in, folded his chair, and swiveled towards Walter. “I gotta head out, Walt. I’ll see ya around.”

“See ya.” Walter waved to Pallas as the man walked up the hill and disappeared. He sat down in his chair and mulled over the advice, tossing it around in his head. He nodded, and stood up to leave. But he took in the view one last time: the firm boat, the breakneck waters.

photograph by Brendan Voigt

Leaving for College Michael Wiley

15 One retired FedEx truck, stripped bare beyond a barbed fence in an empty parking lot.

This I saw through the Amtrak window, moving.

We rumbled along before the city fell away from us. And then— Twin oak trees standing still near a stout grain silo that glows silver in the descending sun.

Even they seem alive in the endless yellow fields spotted with broken tractor bits.

Motionless, yet alive still.

If they can be, how can’t I?

Sesquipedalian Ed Gartner

16 Sesquipedalian? Hardly. Merely a product of intelligent instruction and literature.

On the contrary, your ignorance pointedly propagates perpetual stupidity.

In fact, I find quite kvetching your concerns for my apparent arrogance.

You quarrel and quibble but your counterpoints...I find them quite...cute.

Appeal to ignorance is useless. Knowledge is ubiquitous; therefore it should be obtained.

Your reluctance to do so is...ah...what’s the word…incomprehensible and unrecompensable.

How dare you accuse me of spouting gibberish! I am an apt, able, humble lexicon!

I am not an ape—an idle, bumbling hexagon! By which, I mean, you’re being obtuse.

What—well, then, what does it—it means—oh—I apologize—you are quite correct.

photograph by Joseph Weber

Free Lucas Kammerer

I

never saw the car coming. The driver clearly didn’t see me, either. We were both on our phones as I was crossing the street, and he hit me at around forty miles an hour. It broke three ribs, my left femur and one of my radii, as the doctors told me.

Good news: Those injuries don’t matter that much. Bad news: They don’t matter because I also snapped my neck as I bounced across the intersection. Paralyzed for life from the neck down. This’ll be fun.

Now I lie in the hospital bed, staring at the flowers and cards neatly arranged on various surfaces in the room. My lip curls into a sneer. Almost all of them are hollow, the result of the human imperative that compels people to express sorrow for every single unfortunate incident, even when it doesn’t affect them at all, not emotionally, not otherwise. One of them, as the nurse was holding it up for me to read, had even said “get well soon.” Apparently Mrs. Henderson doesn’t know how paralysis works. I wish these people would just stay out of this. I know they mean well, but they have no right to inject their sappy nonsense into my open wounds just to make themselves feel better about not being invalids. I pause and have a moment of clarity, realizing that I’m probably tired, considering how irritated I’d just gotten myself over sympathy cards, of all things. Letting my head sink into my pillow, I try to sleep.

I

wake up to the ever-constant “beep beep beep” of the various machines hooked up to me and a hushed conversation going on just outside the room. I decide to feign sleep and see what happens.

I manage to overhear Denise, my nurse,

saying, “This is highly irregular” and “Can’t this wait? He’s asleep right now,” but she seems to cave eventually, because a scrawny guy dressed in orange and a barrel-chested cop with a gigantic mustache walk into the room moments later. It takes me about a nanosecond to realize who Orange is. The fucker who ran me over with his SUV. How can he be here? Why on Earth would they let him come here? My head’s facing to the left, so naturally they choose to stand by the right side of the bed where I can’t see anything.

“Should I wake him up?”

“Just leave him alone for now, bud.

You’ve caused him enough pain already. If he wakes up, then you can talk to him.” I assume that this second, gruff voice belongs to the police officer.

There’s a brief silence.

Then Mr. SUV starts talking again. “I’m so sorry this happened. I just… I don’t know what to do now. I can’t undo this. If only one of us had seen the other...” He starts to trail off.

Before his last word dies on his lips I’ve flipped my head over as quickly as I could, found his face and locked eyes with him.

“No. If only you had seen me. This was not my fault. This was not my fault in any way. The sign said walk, I walked, and look what happened. An asshole—that’s you, by the way—who couldn’t be bothered to look up from his phone ran me over. You say you’re sorry. I guess you think it means more because you thought I wasn’t listening, but we both know why you’re really apologizing. Somewhere in that empty little head of yours, maybe subconsciously, maybe not, you’re thinking, ‘Perhaps I can get some brownie points with the police and get off easier!’ No. It doesn’t work like that, pal,” I spit with all the venom I can muster. “You can’t fix this mess you’ve gotten yourself into, kinda like how the doctors can’t fix my spinal cord. Also, you’re a fake, by the way. If

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you’re really, truly sorry, then why does my family have to sue you to help pay for all of this? I’d make a sweeping hand gesture right now to refer to all of this medical equipment, but thanks to a certain someone, I can’t do that right now.” His dumbfounded, stupid face makes me even angrier. The officer says nothing, his arms crossed. “Oh yeah, buddy, I know about the lawsuit. You’re not the only visitor I’ve had, you know. Now kindly get the fuck out of my room.”

He opens his mouth for a moment, closes it, and slowly shuffles out of the room.

The police officer hesitates for a moment before saying, “I’m sorry we bothered you,” and follows the man out. Anger fading, I try to watch the news for a few minutes before becoming so utterly disgusted with the apparent selfishness of humanity that I do the only other thing I can do and take a nap.

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t seems I have another visitor, but I’m awake this time. I expect it to be my family again, so I’m quite surprised when Bruce walks into the room’s harsh white light by himself, clearly uncomfortable with the situation. I decide to start the conversation before it gets too awkward.

“Hey, Bruce, how’ve you been?”

His eyes meet mine for a moment before dropping back to the floor. “Oh, you know.”

He pauses. “Good. What about you? Have you been feeling better?”

I’m tempted to complain about my paralysis to make Bruce feel bad, but I decide not to. He’s done nothing wrong. “I’ve been okay. Everything’s been healing the way it’s supposed to, and I’ve kept myself entertained with audio books. Right now I’m halfway through Jurassic Park. It’s actually pretty cool; they’ve got this controller for the headphones that I can operate with my mouth.

It’s on the table to my left if you want to see it.”

A faint but genuine smile dances at the

corners of Bruce’s mouth as he glances at the table. “That’s good to hear. Me and the guys were wondering how you spent your free time.” His smile fades as he finishes the sentence, coming to the correct conclusion that I would be irritated about having nothing but free time anymore on account of the whole paralysis thing, but he continues to describe what’s been going on back at work since my accident.

I interrupt him. “You know, before all of this happened, I never would have thought you were my best friend.” Bruce stops, clearly perplexed, so I explain. “I certainly saw you as my friend before all of this, don’t get me wrong. I just never realized you were my best friend until now.” I hesitate before pressing on to the issue that’s been bothering me for a few days. “It’s been four weeks, Bruce. Four weeks. And you’re the first friend of mine to visit me. Four weeks, and none of them could… It’s just that nobody seems to...” I stop, knowing that if I continue along this line of thinking I’ll start crying. Rather than expose that part of myself to Bruce, I start to look for all the anger and scorn I’d acquired in the days following the accident. I find it.

“They’ve all just disappeared on me. I guess I can’t blame them though. Who wants to hang out with a talking head?”

“Oh, come on,” Bruce begins, “there’s hope. Don’t be like that.”

“And why not?” I ask, voice dripping with venom. “Why shouldn’t I be hopeless?

Before, I at least had a chance to do something meaningful with my life. I was so close, Bruce. I could feel it. I knew most artists didn’t make it big. I was fine with that and I didn’t expect to go anywhere with it. Most of my stuff was trash anyway. I just hoped that I could eventually make something that would resonate with someone, make them feel something. I had a chance to make a difference for someone, no matter how small. Then this happened, and now the most momentous

thing I’ll ever do is change the channel on the T.V. Nothing I ever do will ever matter to anyone except me! This bed is my world now, Bruce. I am going to ‘live’ here, and I am going to die here, alone. Can you even come close to understanding that?” I thought my anger would stave off my sadness, but my emotional barriers have shattered and the tears come anyway.

Bruce says nothing. He still has that faint smile, but his eyes are sad. Still silent, he sits down on one of the chairs in the back of the room, folds his hands and pulls up his

slate eyes to meet my own, never losing that hurt, sad smile. I’m the one to look away.

Neither of us says anything, and the beeping of my machines is the only sound for an uncomfortable stretch. I know I screwed up.

“I’m sorry, Bruce.”

Bruce slowly stands and pads to my bedside. I can’t physically feel him gently pat my shoulder, but that’s okay. I still feel it.

Then he vanishes through the door without a single parting word, leaving me among the flowers and machines, but now I don’t feel so alone.

print by Dan Walsh

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The Delusion of Grandeur Matt Dorsey

20 I will stand on the roof, looking up I will do it I know I can I will jump and I will reach the Stars I will abandon the toys of childhood I will abandon those without ambition, who teach the children how to play I stood on the roof, looking up I was reckless I was blind I was ignorant of those at my side, jumping as I was, and failing as I was about to I stand on the roof, looking up I jump I reach for the Stars I watch them come close I watch them fall away from me I fall I land among toys I see children looking idly at theirs I sit on the ground, looking around, with resignation and, ultimately, contentment

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print by Michael Behr

Gravitational Waves Detected, Confirming Einstein’s Theory Dennis Overbye, Remixed by Frank J. Corley

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Cocooned in layers of steel and concrete two and one-half miles long runs the world’s largest bottle of nothing.

2.5 million gallons of empty space, at the end of which are mirrors hanging by glass threads, isolated from the bumps and shrieks of shotguns and trucks.

Lasers, thus coddled, can detect changes as small as one ten-thousandth the diameter of a proton as a gravitational wave sweeps through.

These ripples in the fabric of space-time: space and time interwoven, dynamic, able to stretch, shrink and jiggle.

“Finally, astronomy grew ears.

We never had ears before.”

In a far corner of the universe, a tale of Brobdingnagian activity: the last waltz of a pair of black holes, the bottomless gravitational pits from which not even light can escape.

Shockingly larger than astrophysicists had been expecting, one was thirty-six times as massive as the sun, the other twenty-nine times.

As they approached the end, they were circling each other two hundred fifty times a second, at half the speed of light.

And then the ringing stopped.

And the two holes coalesced into a single trapdoor in space with the equivalent mass of sixty-two suns.

Lost in the transformation was three solar masses’ worth of energy, vaporized into gravitational waves in an unseen and barely felt apocalypse.

All in a fifth of a second, Earth time.

The black holes colliding a billion light-years away created a storm “in which the flow of time speeded, then slowed, then speeded, a storm with space bending this way, then that.”

The sound, the remnant of a collision a billion years old, a fleeting chirp which rose to the note of middle C before abruptly stopping.

It was power fifty times greater than the output of all the stars in the universe.

As visible light, the energy would be equivalent in brightness to a billion trillion suns.

And yet it moved the mirrors only four one-thousandths of the diameter of a proton.

The first direct evidence of gravitational waves, it fulfilled the last, most foreboding

and unwelcome prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

You can reproduce the chirp.

Run your fingernails across the keys of a piano from the low end to middle C.

Dr. Ronald Drever, formerly of CalTech, bet his career on the dream of measuring this most ineffable of Einstein’s notions.

Dr. Drever has dementia.

He lives in a nursing home near Edinburgh, Scotland and is not aware of his victory.

Einstein would be very happy.

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photograph by Nick Bentz

It’s Nothing Ed Gartner

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I sit with my friends in Campus Ministry.

“That test was so fucking gay. It was so hard!”

Another playfully shoves him and his chair tips over.

“Hey, watch it, you fucking faggot,” he cries, laughing.

He rights himself and turns to me, realizing what he’s said.

I know what he means.

He doesn’t mean what he said.

I simply stare at him.

I say nothing.

I text my best friend, asking why sometimes he replaces “stupid” with “gay” when certain others are around.

I say he’s been so accepting of me, these last three years.

I can’t understand why he changes his language when more than me are there.

Apparently, neither can he.

He says nothing.

We don’t hold hands on the way to the ballgame— too sketchy, I lament, wishing I was braver.

He doesn’t look at me when we sit down.

It hurts.

He hurts.

I compromise as we depart: perhaps in the shroud of darkness and crowds, we will lie hidden.

A woman walks up, offering him a pretty necklace for his girlfriend.

He’s done. “Actually, this is my boyfriend,” he needles.

I wave, equally annoyed, face equally polite.

She says nothing.

A car screams past us at three times the speed limit.

“You’re disgusting, you fucking faggots!”

He races around the parking lot, coming for another pass.

We break holding hands and begin to walk faster, then to run.

The despair in our chests resonates louder than our breathing, louder than the car as it rips past us as we wait in our own.

We say nothing.

What about the kids, straight or gay, who heard the same words all their lives?

Did you try to tell them that “language changes” and that “it’s not supposed to be hateful,” too?

They’re gone. People like you have killed them.

They found serrated blades sharp enough to slice through your cutting words, meds strong enough to remedy your venom, ropes tight enough to choke out your voice, gunshots loud enough to silence your screaming.

They say nothing.

photograph by Brendan Voigt

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Gastronaut Matt Smith

26 the spaceship roams across the void, thrusters ice-white radio cuts through the silence Houston shouts for him to fly off, a voice like a donut, dancing in on itself helmet shining like grapes in the glow eager for a way to escape looking over his shoulder at the salad bar, he’s off

photograph by Nick Bentz

Fishing Dan Walsh

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he bait shop had been there for who knows how long, but Jed moved in when he was five. His mother, the one with the diploma in the family, took a job as the town’s main pharmacist. Nostalgic after the move, she missed the lights, crowds, and friends she left behind in Baltimore. “I was damned as soon as I accepted the job,” she would say.

Jed’s father on the other hand was a carpenter by trade but took up fishing and running the bait shop after the move. He was a versatile handyman and transitioned to the sudden move easily. He picked up things quickly, and despite his low-paying jobs was a very well-educated man. “There’s something about working with your hands,” he would say, “that makes workin’ worth it.”

Jed remembered those hands: large, callused and cracked from the sun and salt. The ends of his fingers would split open on account of their dryness.

The shop resided in the corner of the marina looking out over the bay. The water stood still there, and trash and seaweed usually floated along the rocky shore. The door faced east, and the sun would shine through the cracks in the walls as it rose. Jed enjoyed waking with the men and watching the ships as they sailed out for the day’s work. The shop’s walls were chipping paint, and the metal roof was rusted. Whenever a gust of wind hit, the shack would creak and whine.

Inside, the shop, filled to its capacity with small souvenirs and cheap fishing equipment, could fit only four people comfortably. Dur-

ing the fishing season, cod hung to dry along the walls and under the sun outside. Cans of spit for chewing tobacco lay by the door for the fishermen who kicked back, feet crossed, in squat wooden chairs on the porch.

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ed’s father took him sailing to teach him the tricks of the trade around the time Jed turned eight.

“The tides are caused by the moon pulling on the earth,” he would say, as they motored out to begin fishing. “Imagine a string attached to the water and to the moon,” demonstrating this by stretching his hands apart, “so that when the moon is above and below you, it stretches the water up, causing high tides. And when the moon is on the earth’s sides, it pulls the water flat, causing low tides.”

Jed was mesmerized. He admired his father’s vast stores of knowledge. Jed often imagined his father’s mind as a clear pool, with bits of wisdom lying on the bottom.

Whenever he need to bring something to the surface, he could easily pick it out through the stillness of the water.

Once out of the marina, Jed’s father gave him a lecture on sailing.

“The trick to sailing,” he said, “is to know which way you are moving relative to the wind. There are three ways to sail: with the wind, across the wind, and into the wind,” lifting a finger with each direction named. “The first two are easy, but the third is more difficult, requiring something called tacking.”

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photograph by Joseph Weber

He showed Jed how to work the rudders, man the boom, work the sails, tie the knots, how to tack, how to jibe and, Jed’s biggest fear, how to turtle a capsized boat. After his father’s rigorous training, Jed could sail any single masted ship by himself. He knew the tides and currents better than most sailors, and he could catch and reel in fish bigger than himself. Jed wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps.

W

hen Jed turned fifteen, his father entrusted him with the bait shop during the summer while he went crabbing in Maine. He worked the cash register and stocked the shelves. Whenever a fisherman docked, he would be waiting to help tie in the boat. He patched holes in sails and adjusted motors when they were acting up.

The ships that were not in the water he cleaned regularly as a compliment to the fisherman and families who owned them.

One morning that summer in early July, he was repairing an engine that had blown out the day before for one of the patrons.

His hands were greasy with motor oil and the back of his neck felt tight like leather from exposure to the sun. He stuck his left hand down into the gears when the engine suddenly sputtered to life, mangling his hand into a mess of blood, flesh, and oil. He lost his ring and middle fingers on his left hand.

His mother took a leave of absence to take care of Jed and the marina. Jed was back and working within two weeks of the incident, but not without hesitance. It took him most of the next year to fully recover from the traumatizing incident.

A

t school that fall people gave him weird looks and made fun of him. He lost many friends. In the hallways his classmates would shuffle by and move their hands like crab claws, imitating his disfigured hands.

Once during recess some of the boys chanted “Crab boy! Crab boy,” ostracizing from the rest of the class even further. Jed, unable to escape the embarrassment, turned red in the face and sat silently by himself. After enough laughter and enjoyment, the boys left Jed, his face still red and his body quivering with anxiety. He resorted to sitting in the back of class with his hands in his pockets. He was afraid to take notes and never raised his hand. His only sense of freedom came when he was down at the marina with his father, smelling the salt and fish. Lately, he became accustomed to drawing pictures of the boats and beaches during his free time. He found it relaxing, a distraction.

I

n class later that year he was drawing fish in his notebook when the teacher announced they had a new student. Jed looked up and saw a girl carrying too many books in her hands. She wore glasses. The teacher said her name was Jenny. Jenny, he thought.

He liked that name, Jenny. He kept repeating it in his head. He watched her as she made her way through the rows of desks and sit in the empty one next to him. He realized he had stared too long and shot his eyes back to his paper, hoping he hadn’t ruined his chances. He worked on his fish.

A

t lunch that day Jed sulked back to his table in the corner of the cafeteria, where he would be out of sight and left alone. He sat nibbling at his food and staring out at the other tables filled with kids laughing and pointing at each other. Some traded food with each other, while others grabbed a french fry or two when others weren’t looking. He noticed the separation between the boys on one side and the girls on the other. All the tables were filled. Jed stared towards the doors and noticed Jenny standing there, lunch in hand, looking for a place to sit. He didn’t know how long she had been standing there, but he saw the anxiety in her face. She scanned the room before noticing Jed sitting alone. After zigzagging her way through tables and chairs, Jenny sat diagonally from him, like a knight would move in a game in chess.

After what seemed like a painfully awkward silence, Jenny turned to him and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Jedidiah, but call me Jed. What’s yours?” But he already knew the answer. He just didn’t want to seem too awkward.

“My name is Jenny and people call me Jenny, expect for my Dad who sometimes calls me Jen.” Jed started repeating her name in his head again before becoming aware of the silence and blurting out, “Why’d you move here, Jen?” She responded right back, “My father and I decided to move…. It was hard for us back home.”

“Yeah, I moved here a few years ago af-

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ter my mom took a job as a pharmacist.”

“Oh really? My dad works near there at the grocery store. But he doesn’t believe in medicine, says it’s not natural. He takes me walking and shows me plants I can use if I ever get sick. We went walking the other day, and I love the bird calls…” she continued. Her favorite was the Cebus capucinus, known by its name the Capuchin Monkey; She wanted to be a zoologist.

“My favorite animals are fish, actually,” Jed said. “Clown fish are my favorite, but I don’t know their scientific name.”

“I love their colors! And how they stay in their anemones.”

“I’ve seen them at stores before. I want to get my own fish tank for my house so I can have them.”

“That would be interesting! I’ve never gotten into fish. My dad never took me fishing.”

“Really? My dad works down at the marina we fish all the time. You could come with us if you want.”

“Would you really let me come?”

“Of course! It would be nice if we had company.”

“Well, if we go fishing, you’ll have to come on a walk with me. Do you want to go this weekend?”

She stared up at him through her glasses and smiled. Jed noticed she had a crooked tooth, one of her front left incisors on her bottom row; he found it quite cute actually.

“Sure. Where should we meet?”

“Meet me down by my father’s store. We can walk from there!”

As soon as lunch ended, she scurried off just in time for Jed to say, “See you there!” before he was alone again. He realized shortly after that it was the first time he really heard her talk, besides when she answered questions in class. She spoke with what Jed would later call a Bostonian accent. Jed found it pleasant.

T

he next day Jed woke early and finished his chores before meeting Jenny. He threw on a pair of jeans, boots, and a nicer T-shirt: not too casual but not formal. It was mid-afternoon, the sky scattered with clouds occasionally blocking the sun and keeping it relatively cool. When he entered, he found Jenny working behind one of the checkout lines. She was wearing jeans and an apron. It was strange not seeing her with her school uniform on. He noticed for the first time how wavy her hair was. Jed started walking over, and when Jenny saw him she hung up her apron and waved. She hurried back to her dad’s office, where Jed saw them talking. Her dad seemed a little annoyed, but she came out shortly.

“My dad said I had to be back by six, but that’s plenty of time!” she said.

“Oh definitely. I know this great trail that overlooks the ocean.”

“I’m following you.”

Jed led her down the street towards the marina before turning off into the trees. It really wasn’t a trail, but Jed knew the trees well enough to find his way to the outlook.

“Wow, did you hear that, Jed? I think it was a cardinal. I love their red feathers.”

She continued to mention facts and identify animals by their sounds. Jed enjoyed her talking, but he didn’t have too much to add. They wound their way through trees and up hills, angling towards the ocean. As they walked, Jed caught his foot in a twisted root stuck up from the ground. He couldn’t adjust in time and smacked ground, scraping his arm against the rooty and rocky terrain.

“Are you alright?” Jenny laughed.

“Yeah, I expected it to happen sometime,” he said, embarrassed.

They arrived at the outlook. The sun had dipped just below the horizon, and the far reaches of the sky over the ocean were turning a deep purple.

“Oh hey, you know, I was actually hoping

you’d want to come sailing with me next time if you wanted.”

“Seriously! Sailing would be so fun. I’ve never really been before. I mean I’ve been on a cruise ship once, but that doesn’t count.”

They returned to peaceful silence, interrupted only by the crashing waves.

“Jed,” she said, “I don’t want to cross any lines, but what happened to your hand?” Her voice trailed off.

Jed glanced at her, head down, and thought back to the honesty and openness Jenny had showed him when they first met.

He realized that if she trusted him from the beginning, then he could trust her, no fear of mockery or retribution.Within her broken and quiet speech he heard, even felt, the open concern she had for him. Jenny twiddled with her hair, while taking quick peeks down at his hand.

“I lost two fingers when I was working on a boat, but I manage. It’s everyone’s jokes that are harder to deal with.” He tried to smile and laugh a little to lighten the mood, but it didn’t help much.

“I’m sorry...” she said before stopping.

In an uncharacteristic turn, Jenny seemed to be at a loss for words. She took up his hand and held it. Jed felt her fingers run across his skin. It tickled. She studied his hand with overpowering curiosity for the unknown.

“Does it hurt when I touch it?” she inquired.

“No, it did at first but not anymore,” he said. She poked and prodded the air lacking fingers.

“The good part is I’ll always be ready for a rock concert,” he said, lifting up his pinky and index finger while tucking in his thumb, demonstrating the rock gesture people made at concerts. It seemed silly to Jed, but she laughed.

“Ha! Well, that’s a positive!”

“But it also has negatives…”

“It just depends on the way you look at

it really. Maybe it’s a disability, but maybe it’s unique. It’s up to you to do what you want with it.”

They sat and watched the sun send rays of color across the waves, turning the clouds a vibrant orange. Jed was the first to move, pulling Jenny back down the hill. “We got to get you back home in time so your father won’t be mad.”

They retraced their steps, faster now that they were going down hill, arriving at the store just in time. Her father was waiting.

Jenny, gasping, turned and gave him a quick hug. “Thanks so much for taking me today.”

“Of course. Next time I was thinking we could go sailing.”

“Oh really? I’d love too! You’ll have to tell me about it Monday. But anyway I gotta run. See you later.”

Jed watched, still feeling her arms around his, as she scurried inside. He strolled home, his legs shaky: a long forgotten feeling that he once experienced while sailing with his father.

J

enny arrived mid-afternoon wearing a large windbreaker and jeans. The wind from the ocean was still cold. Jed guessed her father set an early curfew again,but she didn’t say anything.They strolled to the boat that he prepared earlier: It was a Daysailer with a small motor docked in the corner of the marina for recreational use. He checked the sails for patches, and double checked every knot. He placed a cooler with a few waters in the boat if needed.

“Watch your step,” Jed said, taking Jenny’s hand and politely helping her onto the boat.

“Alright, Ms. Powell,” Jed said, “you are now ready for Recreational Sailing 101. The first step is to untie the boat and set sail!” Jed leaped around the boat and untied it as they pushed off and motored out of the marina.

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“We are in the no wake zone, so we can’t go fast. Once we get out of the marina, I can open it up a little bit,” Jed said. He sat along the back while she remained along the side.

“How fast can it go?” she asked.

“I guess we’ll see!”

Once they left the marina he pushed the throttle forward, jolting the small boat up in the water and sending mist along the side.

It didn’t go very fast because it was meant for sailing, not motoring, but it was enough

to make her laugh. She stuck her face in the wind. After letting her steer, Jed cut the engine.

He turned to her and said, “Alright, now that we had fun with the motor, I need to teach you how to sail.”

He took her aside and taught her the steps that his father had showed him years before.

“The rudder,” he said, pointing to the back of the ship, “is used to steer the ship.

Photograph by Brendan Voigt

You move it by controlling the tiller, which is this piece of wood connected to it.” He moved over towards the center of the boat.

“Over here we have the mast, and attached to it is the mainsail, which we control using the boom.”

Jed watched her analyze what he was saying, her curiosity bursting with energy.

“The trick to sailing,” he said, “is to know which way you are moving relative to the wind. You can either sail with the wind, across the wind, or into the wind,” lifting a finger with each thing named. “But showing you is much easier than telling you.”

Jed pulled her up on her feet and they raised the sail together, pulling it hand over hand. The wind caught the sail immediately and propelled the ship forward.

“We are making a run, meaning we are sailing with the wind.”

“This seems easy to me so far.”

“It is! But just wait till we have to go back into the wind.”

They moved the boom back and forth, causing the boat to make, as Jed said, a reach left and right.It was a perfect wind, not too strong and the water was calm. Clouds drifted slowly overhead. The fishing boats were out over the deep ocean, so there were few other ships near them, leaving them some privacy. After a while Jed pulled Jenny back and began teaching her again.

“Alright, now the hardest part about sailing is going into the wind. It requires something called tacking.”

“Wait, how do you sail into the wind.

Wouldn’t you stop?”

“Yes, you would! Getting caught going into the wind is called getting stuck in irons.

But the key to tacking is zigzagging back and forth, not directly into the wind.”

Jed again lifted her off her feet and demonstrated.“You have to move the boom

back and forth, just like you would normally turn, except fast enough so the wind doesn’t catch you.”

As they were tacking, Jenny lost control of the boom. “Watch out!” she screamed as it swung towards Jed. Jed ducked out of the way, and heard Jenny sigh with relief.

“That was a close one! I’m sorry I’m not very good at this.”

“It just takes practice! Here, I’ll show you again.”

He pulled her close and placed his hands over hers. He felt the warmth despite the biting wind. Even though the only living animals Jed had held were fish, he did not find holding Jenny to be awkward. A light touch, a simple caress, enough to keep her relaxed.

The waves lapped against the side of the boat as it cut through the water. Jed felt a swell of emotion and pride rising through him.. His passion for the sea seemed to be revived in that moment. All the jokes and taunts that circled around him and dragged him down, drowning him in sorrow for himself and his problems, washed away. The salty smell, the simmering water, and the flapping of the sails all reminded him of the days spent fishing with his father. He didn’t care what others thought. He cared about the sea, the old bait shop in the corner of the marina, the cheap knick-knacks on the shelves, and Jenny. He looked into her eyes, those eyes he could stare deep into, just like the sea. He looked past the smile, the glasses, her physical appearance, and all the things that could distract someone from who she really was on the inside. Just like she did with him. Their time spent together was like a meditation, a renewal. He loved her.

“Jenny,” Jed said, “I think it’s time to get you home.” Letting her slip out of his grasp as they sailed back to the marina, the water splashed around them.

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photograph by Brendan Voigt

Brotherhood Jack Uluer Sinay

M

y brother, Justin, and I spat back retorts on the ride back from the airport, disregarding the hills of houses lined along the E5 turnpike in Istanbul, Turkey.

Justin was about 5’2” back then, a stocky soon-to-be seventh grader with dark hair and round, silver-rimmed glasses. We fought often, always about little things, never about anything that actually mattered. This time it was about the armrest on the flight there, each of us defending our right to claim it on the way home.

“You had it for the first flight, which was two hours!”

“But you had it over the Atlantic, which took forever!”

“But what about from Paris? That has to add up to yours!”

My father, Ugur, a black-haired, oliveskinned, chunky man, quickly lost his patience. He had finally made it back home after not returning since Justin’s birth, and although he normally didn’t like our squabbles, this one especially annoyed him, as it interfered with his nostalgia.

“We just got here, boys—quit fighting!”

Justin and I were hardly fazed by his alltoo-familiar stern tone. However, the quick glimpse of a bridge in the distance left us entranced, taking a timeout from our bout. As we neared the towering bluish-gray, Golden Gate-like suspensions, we held our breath, trying to see who could withstand the pain longer, knowing that whoever did would get a wish. Oblivious to us was our dad, who sat in the front seat of the New York-like check-

ered yellow cab, staring transfixed by the Bosphorus Strait and surrounding parts of the city.

Years before, he had crossed that bridge going the other way, headed to America, where he had gone for school and stayed to start a family. He had just returned home for two weeks with my mom to introduce Justin, a newborn at the time, to his side of the family. Onur, Ugur’s brother, was among the most excited family members to meet Justin.

Another black-haired, olive-skinned man, Onur had a trim body with a square face and rounded edges that always carried a wide smile stretching up to his oval glasses. Back then, Onur hadn’t seen his brother in years and had been excited to see not only his new nephew but one of his closest friends. But now, after two weeks came and went, they traveled to the airport together in an air of deflated excitement and nostalgia. It was only the two of them since my mother had left an hour before to try and find something to keep Justin entertained during the flights.

Ugur could sense the mood change.

“You can always come to visit. You still haven’t seen the new house,” my father said.

“Yeah, that’d be great. We’ve gotta get something together,” Onur responded.

The rest of the car ride was silent. Both knew Onur’s visit to America would at least be months away, leaving only phone calls to hold them over until then. They drove in silence, past Yeni Park and onto the bridge, before each brother looked to their side, Ugur to the right, Onur to the left, and

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saw where they grew up: ferries battled the waves across the Strait, their old fishing spot drowned in the afternoon shade, and the hard blacktop where they had played pick-up games of soccer peeked out among a maze of streets and intertwined houses. But a glass factory called Pasabaçhe was what stood out to them the most. It was the site of both of their first jobs, where they worked together to package newly-molded glass into cardboard boxes with rigid dividers. Each brother initially had trouble there. Every once in a while, the weight of the glass they’d package would be too much for the box, and the cardboard bottom would unfurl, causing various tea cups and drinking glasses to crash to the floor. It was inevitable when it happened, mainly because they were trained to pack so much weight into such a fragile box, and the inconsistent shape of each piece of glass altered the weight every time, leaving little room to spare. But the two had nevertheless bonded while learning, struggling, and finally succeeding at the job together. They had entered into a new stage of brotherhood at the time, a stage that promised to last regardless of where they ended up in life. But now— despite that—Onur drove my father to the airport to say goodbye.

Brothers are weird. Anyone with one will agree. It’s this deeply personal relationship that never actually manifests itself in its true beauty because neither brother wants to admit it for fear of sounding effeminate. And any brother will tell you their days growing up were the highlights of their relationship, when they were both too young to care about anything serious, about anything that might mar what was already so beautiful. They were just there together, doing stupid stuff together, wherever it might’ve been. But then comes growing up. Then comes moving away, taking separate paths, watching your brother do something amazing and not even being there to experience it with him. It’s hard. It’s what leads to awkward goodbyes like my father and uncle’s. I fought with Justin for years until we reached a point of camaraderie. And even then, it was only for a short stint until he went to college. Three years. Three years of giving and taking advice, of laughing and joking, of taking advantage of that familial bond that gives you your connection to who matters most in life. Three years until the only way of talking to him is over a phone call or by text. The day we unpacked Justin at college was the day I experienced a goodbye like my father’s.

Drawing by Aiden Evans

An awkward goodbye that you know will be a long-lasting goodbye, but you can’t do anything to stop. A goodbye that manifests the beauty of brotherhood, but also exposes some of the unfulfilling idiosyncrasies of it as well. A goodbye that left me with the wish that we hadn’t fought for all those years before, just so we could’ve had that much more time as true brothers.

Onur later developed a depression that caused him to live with my father in America intermittently. Ugur helped him in any way he could, trying to be there for when Onur needed him most, but was often left frustrated by how little an impact he could make.

Many times, my father could simply do nothing as Onur struggled in isolation.

One frosty day in January, Ugur was sitting in his office at Des Moines University, trying to finish grading papers early to go home and see Uluer, his dad, who had come to visit for a few months after my grandmother’s death. Uluer, yet another short, black-haired, olive-skinned man, always wore a frown that could quickly transform into a toothy, genuine smile. He had an intense focus about him, no matter what it was about, and just as fast as his frown could turn into a smile, his focus could turn into a warm, caring presence.

My father had been halfway through grading a paper, marking the mistakes as needed, when the phone rang. He was surprised as he picked it up and heard Turkish on the other line. He quickly recognized the voice as Petek, the wife of his cousin, and changed his hurried pace from grading papers to catching up on what she was saying.

“I have bad news, Ugur. Onur was seen parking his car on the Bosphorus Bridge today. Traffic cameras saw him walking to the rail…They think… They think he might’ve jumped,” she said.

My father just sat there, his eyes tearing up as she went on about everything they knew. His eyes went unfocused as he listened to the sound of Petek’s voice but refused to comprehend the words. He thought back to the last time he was on that bridge, when he said goodbye to Onur on the way to the airport. He tried to picture Onur by the rails, looking out at the ferries and their blacktop soccer stadium and the glass factory.

“Uluer,” he suddenly thought.

He then realized he had to tell his dad.

He had to tell him that all they had done to help his brother had been in vain. He didn’t know what or how to do it, much less act composed during it. They had given their hearts to Onur, and now had to come to the realization that that wasn’t enough. He sat there, letting his mind race between his own overwhelming despair and Uluer’s future grief. He thanked Petek, ignored her questions of whether or not he was okay, and hung up the phone.

“I guess the pressure from his job, his marriage, from growing up, really, was just too much for him,” my dad told me, almost trailing off before finishing.

I will never completely understand Onur’s death, but I know it will always make my relationship with my own brother stronger than a phone call, stronger than a bridge, and stronger than a cardboard box burdened with the weight of glass.

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print by Joan Bugnitz

Writing Spoken Word Ed Gartner

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When you write spoken word, it’s meant to be, well, spoken.

Every token of gratitude, every snap of attitude: Crisp.

Sharp and smooth I like to dance along the accents Waltzing over past accidents —And purpose-ents.

You see, spoken word is just a little conversation: I talk to you and let free my whimsy little story.

Now, let’s go.

Some people like to speak slow, But I like to run a little fast.

To me, spoken word is that beautiful medium of literature and rap.

I like to hit every word, rhythmic or arrhythmic, Getting alliteration precision and some equal assonance to complement.

Throw in a little imagery and you feel like you’re flying, Dying On that stage.

Never content just to present one creation, Heart racing, No exclamation from the stadium as the gladiator motions his emotion.

For me, I’m not cursed captive by form ABC. (It’s not easy.)

It’s fun, but to chain yourself is a curse.

Free verse is more up to speed.

I like to hit a bit harder when I craft some lines, So I repeat and repeat my bittersweet Dreams and desires As I aspire to climb this tower higher and higher Fire, fire, burns in my soul As I repeat and repeat these simple little sounds around Till gravity hounds me down to the ground, But I spit a little bit of the same-like sounds and They all sorta flow together into a pretty little stream As I throw my river rocks into glass houses to shatter the mirrors that keep me prisoner.

Shards clatter on piano keys as I compose this symphony in my own mind Because I am the master of this part.

Sometimes I think I’ll play a minor key and grin as things Start To fall Apart.

Clink clink clink as sharp as my form— When I say this you’ll never know the quirks I work into my work.

I’ll admit, I’m a bit eccentric, but to me, it’s electric and eclectic.

Breaking rhythms and patterns, ecstatic with this madness as I run down the black keys, Cackling maniacally at this now broken-down calliope.

I take a bow.

It’s your turn now.

print by Joe Fentress

41

A Day in the Life of a Nobody Ryan Hopkins “

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don’t know what to do anymore...dammit. Line!?”

“Get back to work, Craig,”Tom said as he dragged himself to his office. It was really just a cubicle set up behind the snack cart of the dilapidated cinema. A deep stench of mildew coated every inch of the place.

“You know, I really hate that guy,” Craig said, unsure if Tom was out of earshot yet.

“I mean, he does have a point. You’re practicing your lines for whatever that is at work, Craig. You aren’t selling tickets or anything,” Linus said nonchalantly. “Plus, who are you even asking for the line from? You’re the only one here with a copy of the script.”

“It’s from my original play, entitled A Day in The Life of a Nobody.” Craig looked as if stars were twinkling from the domed ceiling of the theater. “It’s a fine piece of literature,” Craig said with a knock-off French accent.

Craig knew that it was a play but just wanted an excuse to pronounce literature like that.

“Hey, Lie, we have to do something about the tyrannous Tom.” He stood on a nearby bench as if giving an impassioned speech to an army on the way to imminent death. He thought of Glory and Braveheart.

“Tyrannous,” Linus said loftily, “that’s new. Why don’t you put that in your next screenplay?”

The show would be letting out soon.

The theater, one of those Mom-and-Pop type joints, was located on Main Street, though the street was anything but main. It was bookended by an abandoned building and a dry cleaners. The theater had one small cart of snacks, one window to buy tickets from, one hallway leading to one theater, but Craig worried about only one person, Tom—

a short, stocky man with unkempt hair and the odor of cigarettes and cheap brandy. Tom was the owners’ nephew or cousin or something. The customers avoided Tom, Craig couldn’t stand him, and Linus wouldn’t have liked him either if he took the time to think about it.

“I’m serious, Lie. I bet he’s in his office right now with that smug look of entitlement on his face. He doesn’t care about film.

He doesn’t care about the customers. He doesn’t care about anything except drinking and not owning an iron.” Craig was proud of himself for that joke. He tore a customer’s ticket for the next show without glancing in their direction.

“You say these things, but your ideas never work,” Linus yawned.

“Look at my name tag,” Craig grinned, ignoring Linus’ lack of support. The name tag read: “Thomas.” There was nothing special about it. The name tag was old and faded; it barely hung onto Craig’s shirt.

“You’re really dumb.”

“So was Einstein; now watch me work,” Craig said. The moviegoers were trickling out of the theater. Linus was used to Craig by now—his nonsensical references and even more outlandish schemes to get Tom fired; it was just another Sunday.

Craig was abrasive and erratic. Everything he did was part of some “research project” for the school he wasn’t even enrolled in. Craig was the type of person, or so Linus thought, who, outside of the confines of the theater walls, would not be noticed. Within this Film Palace, however, he felt like a king.

Linus had to listen to Craig. Craig referred to his parents as rents because they didn’t sup-

port his dream. Craig would mock his moth- imaginary cigarette on the ground, as he beer’s nasal pitch by saying, “You were sup- gan to run in slow motion down the hallway, posed to be a lawyer.” Linus was convinced humming “Chariots of Fire” to himself as that Craig was the son of Fran Drescher. he approached the broken gumball machine Even with all the talking and ranting, and began to forcefully thrust it with his Craig never said anything. He talked in ab- pelvis. “Here’s Tommy!” he yelled at the cusstract, lofty movie tomers. None of them terms to flex his paid him any attenintellect and stroke tion. They either didn’t his ego, as Linus know how to react or rarely understood they just didn’t care. what was going on.

Craig’s frustration came Linus knew that through in his speech.

Craig had gone to He started screaming as a “prestigious film if enchanted by George school” but left Carlin’s “Seven Words because the teachYou Can Never Say on ers didn’t challenge Television.” He sprinted his film intellect. back and forth across He didn’t drive a the width of the hallway, car, and he didn’t beads of sweat forming care about his payaround his temples. At checks. Craig ofone point, he even imagten complained to ined himself as Russell Linus that he was Crowe in A Beautiful working for experiMind, and said to someences, but not getone’s date, “I don’t exsculpture by Liam Connollyyy ting paid enough. He actly know what I am rode a bike to work because he hoped one required to say in order for you to have interday to witness a murder or be mugged or see course with me. But could we assume that I a child befriending a bird or something. He said all that. I mean essentially we are talking saw himself as a blank canvas, ready to be about fluid exchange right? So could we go painted however he could force the world to just straight to the sex?” do so. He welcomed calamity with a cheer“Hey, watch your fucking mouth!” The ful spirit. One day, as he would say, cala- man said. He towered over Craig, as he drew matiy would express itself in his work, his back his fist. direction, his writing, because happiness was “It’s not worth it,” the woman said, mainstream and unrealistic. His main goal reaching up to pull down his hand and interin life was to make movies that he would be lock it with hers. proud of, no matter how audiences respondCraig stood his ground, grinning. Hoped, and to have an Academy Award by the ing the man would break his fist through the time he was twenty-one. He was already two square frames of his glasses. Maybe get a few years behind schedule. shards of the lens stuck in his eye, and, GodCraig felt like Tyler Durden in Fight willing, might even become partially blind.

Club. He was a new man. He put out an “Would you kids calm down?” An older

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gentleman said. His mustache quivered.

“Shut up, old man!” the outraged boyfriend responded “Don’t you dare speak to me like that!”

Linus, during all the ruckus, gently forced his way through the crowd and spoke some pardon me’s and apologized to the patrons as he slipped into the theater to scoop leftover popcorn, mop spilled soda, and scrape globs of gum.

Tom plodded across the lobby as Craig delivered his Oscar-worthy performance.

“My office.”

Craig did not argue. “It’s showtime,” he muttered excitedly, as he grinned at the two men still arguing.

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inus worked one day a week, Sunday, only for the money and to appease his parents. He lacked responsibility and initiative, so his parents decided to get some for him. Linus’ philosophy: life is going to turn out however it may, so who am I to change that? He was convinced that everything would work out in the end, and it usually did. He would graduate from Jefferson High School in three months without urgency about where he would be spending the next four grueling years of his life. He didn’t hold any contempt for the cute little theater, but he oftentimes felt that even through Craig’s stupidity, he did speak some truth about this place. Expanding from just the confines of the theater, Linus oftentimes found himself agreeing with Craig’s worldview, though he knew it was cynical and pessimistic.

The theater, simply named Film Palace, wasn’t a palace, just a place “to go slumming” for a bit, as Craig would always say, wondering if Linus caught the Good Will Hunting reference or not. The theater was long and narrow, only about four or five people wide until you reached the opening towards the back.

It was shaped like a capital T and as stale as a mortuary. The movies played there should

have died long ago, never again to be resurrected, but every Sunday, like clockwork, movies like Glen or Glenda? or Robot Monster found a way onto the lone screen. And, every Sunday, like clockwork, the same avid moviegoers piled in like cattle to the slaughter with their buckets of buttered grain, boxes of diabetic goop, and cans of fizzy water sloshing happily in their misguided hands.

They would walk out of the theater cheerfully, unaware that their minds were being destroyed neuron by neuron. The air of accomplishment in their posture, as if they had done something great because they had gotten up early on a Sunday morning, ignored whatever god they worshipped, and made their way to the glorious Film Palace to pay actual, tangible money for a ticket to a movie that had been obliterated by critics but, according to the Film Palace description, was just “misunderstood.” The whole setup was sickening. Craig made these points daily, not knowing what was worse, the movies or the school of fish who swam in to watch them.

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he following Sunday was like any other day. Craig was back to his mischievous ways, and Linus acted like he was trying to fight off the sleep that his lazy eyelids asked him to accept.

“Ya know,” Craig interrupted, making his first appearance of the morning, “Tom has no backbone: he’s an arthropod.” Craig made sure to open wide to get his mouth around the complicated word.

“How so?” Linus pretended to care.

“Arthropods don’t have backbones.”

“Oh wow, really? How would I ever have known?”

“But,” Craig rolled his eyes, “wanna know what ended up happening last week?”

“No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“So, he calls me into his office—” “Tom?” Linus said cheekily.

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Print by Nick Bentz

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Print by Nick Bentz

“Yes, Tom. Who else would it be?” Craig retorted. “But as I was saying, he calls me into his office, and that slimy bastard has the audacity to say he’s going to dock an hour’s pay!” Craig’s face was scrunched in confusion.

“You should count your blessings: he should have fired you.”

“Exactly! That’s what he was supposed to do! How am I going to write a believable third act to A Day in The Life of A Nobody or finish anything else if I don’t have any real life experience?” Craig sat down on his Braveheart bench again, but this time, he thought of the opening scene of Bambi.

“Go on….” Linus took a guilty pleasure from Craig’s rants.

“It’s like this. You remember that love story I was writing last month?”

Linus nodded.

“Well, how can I write a story about love if I’ve never been in it? I even searched for someone to fall in love with, but that’s so gregarious.”

L

was no stopping Craig when his mind started churning.

Craig was very slender, with well-defined features. He blamed his mother for his perpetually clear skin, and, much to his chagrin, he had deep green eyes. Craig wore black glasses with big, square frames so that everyone could see just how educated hewas.

He was always neat and clean, so Tom’s indifference to his own appearance drove him mad, but at the same time, he envied Tom. He wished he could live a day in the life of that man. Craig oftentimes wondered what it was like to have mess and clutter and delusion run someone’s life. Linus never understood how Tom was delusional, but every time Craig would say it, he couldn’t help but agree.

Linus wasn’t working the day that Cindy came in, so Craig thought it was the perfect opportunity to start his research. Miraculously, they began to date, but after a few weeks Craig mentioned her less and less, until one day Craig walked in and told Linus that the two of them had “irreconcilable differences” and the relationship had been terminated. He never gave Linus any description of her, merely a “She’s my Muse.” Linus didn’t think she was real but decided to let Craig have his fun, short-lived though it be.

inus held his tongue about Craig’s misuse of gregarious, but this wasn’t the first time he brought up Cindy, or whatever her name was. Linus had only heard her name sparingly from Craig’s vague stories about her. Cindy was, as Craig would say, the re“ search specimen. om is imposing on my values, on my Craig was quite the romantic. Cindy life. These people—and I use that came into the Palace one day a few months term loosely—who come in here, what do ago, and she immediately stood out, as she they contribute to society?” Craig continnever would have in the outside world, but ued his rant, as people walked by him, not to the Palace, she was like royalty. She wasn’t listening to the insults he was throwing old nor did she have that air of nostalgia their way. “They don’t care about art, about and awe; she was just normal. Please know life, all they care about is feeling like they that Craig—although abrasive and an overall are somebody because they watch a trash pretty socially inept human being—was not movie from half a century ago.” He got up, ugly. Quite the contrary, actually. There was and distanced himself from The Green Mile. many a time when Linus would try to inter- “Then, this is what gets me: then they take rupt Craig’s rants to tell him that a millen- out their handy dandy telephone, take a picnial was giving him the googly eyes, but there ture and share it everywhere so that other

T

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people can see just how ‘cultured’ they are.

They need to put away their phones and have a real experience, for goodne—” “Birdman!”

“Good catch,” Craig acknowledged, “but that’s not the point.”

“Then what is the point?”

Tom peered over his cubicle and made eye contact with his two workers. He said nothing and returned to his work. His desk was covered in papers. They detailed the theater’s struggling finances. The charts and graphs and spreadsheets all said the same thing: The theater was on life support. The Sunday crowd was keeping it breathing until the plug would inevitably be pulled. He took a sip from his mug that was filled with lukewarm coffee from the early morning hours that he spent there. He used the note from his aunt and uncle that read “We believe in you!” as a coaster. He wiped the coffee that had dribbled onto his hands on his wrinkled pants. He hadn’t been home that night. He rubbed his bloodshot eyes and buried his face in his hands, the little, frail walls of the cubicle closing in on him.

“Have you not been listening?” Craig said in a louder voice. Craig dipped his hands in the old-time popcorn machine and retrieved a handful of kernels. He wound up, aiming for Tom’s office, but let them fall out of his hand and onto the dirty red and brown carpet.

The next movie would be starting soon.

The cattle back to the slaughter once again.

Terror of Tiny Town was this week’s weapon of choice.

“I have to do something,” Craig said out loud, but intended the comment only for his ears.

“Maybe you should lay low for a bit, you don’t want to lose your job.”

“That fat slob was probably too drunk to even remember last Sunday, and you should worry about yourself; your job isn’t guaran-

teed either, Sleeping Beauty.” Craig walked past Linus, and began to stroll down the hallway.

“I guess not, but I don’t need this; I’ve got school to worry about anyway, unlike some people,” Linus called.

Craig was already making his way to the top left corner of the T: the projector room.

“I told you,” he called back, “this is a research project. I’m gathering intel on the working class!” He hopped, skipped, and twirled his way to the old, scratched door, as he melodically sang, “It’s a Whole New World.”

Linus began to walk down the hallway towards the theater to see what Craig was doing but realized that it would require physical motion to reach the destination.

Tom shuffled out of his office a few minutes later. His eyes were a deep red, with the little blood vessels in his eyes looking like rivers of pain. “Where’s Craig?”

“Around, I guess,” Linus shrugged.

Customers never liked to talk to Tom. Granted, customers didn’t like talking to Craig or Linus either, but especially not Tom. They considered him a ticking time bomb. He looked like a person that little children would point at and ask their parents what was wrong with him, then their mothers would quickly push down their arms and shuffle them away in embarrassment.

At least, that’s how he looked. No children ever came into Film Palace, so who knew?

Actually, the main demographic seemed to be elderly couples who couldn’t recognize a good movie and hipster twentysomethings who wanted a taste of the time in which they should have been birthed.

Craig entered the unlocked door as the hinges wailed for attention. He walked to the rectangular window through which the projector shone. Bat was just about to kill Tex when Craig took the movie out of the projector. For a place like Film Palace, Craig expected to find a rusty projector that still

utilized nitrate film. He realized that he had never actually seen a projector before, so he didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t a towering monolith or imposing, it was just a simple, greenish-black, small, rectangular box with a circle on one side where the light shot out. Craig felt overwhelmed by the numerous cords popping out of the back, but he felt around the sides of the box until he felt a familiar slit. It was a slot for a DVD. He thanked the movie gods for looking upon him with favor. He pulled out a DVD out of his back pocket. He took it out of its case.

It had Pubescent Male Part 3 written on it in black Sharpie. He took Terror of Tiny Town out of the projector, tossed it into a pile of cobwebs in the corner of the room, and replaced it with his creation. Immediately, a camera lens covered in fingerprints appeared on the screen. The audio was muffled and frequently faded in and out. Craig took his Braveheart stance again, the crowd was silent, so they had to be witnessing the mastery of the scene. The climax was about to happen.

Josh was about to tell his mom that he was going to take a gap year after high school.

The superb acting taking place as the camera had no stabilization to it. Craig wanted to wait to see the ending, but wanted to get back out to the lobby to gauge the reactions.

“What happened?” Linus inquired.

“I’m not telling,” Craig grinned.

“Okay.” Linus’ eyelids were calling him home.

“So I get in there, right? And that garbage movie is still shitting on the hard work of great filmmakers like myself.” Craig had a new air of pride and dignity take over his body. “So, I just cut it off and I put in Pubescent Male Part 3. It’s my finest piece of work to date, and it was also my very first short film.”

“I’m sorry, Pubescent Male Part 3?”

“Yeah, so as I was say—” “Quick question,” Linus interjected.

“You made a movie, named it Pubescent Male, AND decided to name it part 3 without a part 1 or 2 to precede it? Well, you’re on your way to an Oscar!”

“You think so?” Craig’s deep thought was cut short as the cows came out of the slaughterhouse, their eyes the same as usual.

Craig frowned. “Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Moviegoer, can you tell me how you enjoyed your experience this fine morning?”

“It was fine. I didn’t expect that double feature, but it was the same as always,” the man said.

“Oh yes! Neither movie was very good, but they never are here,” the woman smiled.

Craig turned his back to the two, his head bowed in thought, and his arm on the popcorn machine, supporting his weight.

“Wait,” Linus butted in, “why do you keep coming back every week if you don’t like the movies?”

The man looked at Linus with an eye of pity, as if Linus was missing the obvious point. “Son,” the man stroked his mustache, “I brought my wife here on our first date probably before your parents were even born. Yeah, the movies may be dated, the carpet dingy, and the service less than desirable,” Linus looked down, “but you won’t get this experience any place else. Video stores are already dead, big theaters are driving independent ones out of business, but I’ll be damned if I let that happen to this place of royalty.” The man’s wife grabbed his hand, and they walked out of the lone door, back out to the street.

“Wow, Craig, were you listening to that?”

“They hated it….”

Tom stumbled out of his office. “I saw you leaving the projector room, Craig. You’re done. It’s time to leave.” His voice wasn’t angry; he was merely stating a fact.

“They hated it….” he repeated, as Tom began to escort him out of the lone door, back out to the street.

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“They hated it…” Craig said a third time.

“Yeah, it looks like it,” Tom replied.

“Wow, they really are as dumb as I thought they were.” Craig laughed.

Linus had looked at this old theater as dirty, dingy, and stale, but the man found beauty in that. The man saw a story. The man saw love. He saw purpose, which is

more than Linus had ever found. Linus was too caught up in his thoughts to see Craig leaving the building.

Craig and Tom left through the door as a nice, young couple walked in, past a young man who welcomed them kindly, as they made their way to their seats in the Palace.

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photograph by Aidan Moore

I’m Not a Poet Gabe Lepak Seriously, why do so many people think that?

Was it that one poem I wrote for that one contest?

Please, I just did that for the extra credit.

Is it because I can rhyme?

What a lame reason, People rhyme all the time, Many do it every moment of every season.

Me?—I do it to bother people.

Mostly myself. Makes me feel like A pretentious dirt bag, that rhyming does.

Well…rhyming and saying things like “That rhyming does.”

So, to everyone out there: Don’t call me a poet, because I’m not.

Yes, I’m aware this constitutes a poem, But you can trick anyone into thinking A sentence is poetry If you just Hit enter Enough times.

But I’m still not a poet.

So what? I wrote a poem.

Anyone can do that,

Hell, I’m doing it right now!

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With enough dedication, Enough focus, And enough time spent: You can get yourself whatever.

It applies to everything Everything created by humans—that is, I’m not sure the process applies To planets.

Actually, no, I take that back The Death Star was a thing, No matter how many times it was destroyed.

So no matter how much You may think I fulfill all the Necessary requirements to be a poet, You’re wrong.

I may write the Occasional poem, but I’m not a poet.

Realizations Thomas Nowak

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“

lise, I’ve called your name five times.

You there?” Jen asked, tapping her shoulder, impatiently standing at her locker.

“Yeah, sorry,” Elise mumbled, pulling her earbuds out and her head out of the locker to hear the sound of lockers slamming and classmates discussing their weekend plans.

“You seriously listen to too much music.

Learn to interact with us. It’s called ‘talking’” Jen said sarcastically, making air quotes to emphasize the last word. She smacked her gum loudly, the minty smell finding its way to Elise’s nostrils. “So, you busy tomorrow night?”

“Why do you ask?” Elise asked curiously, trying to hide a smile. She leaned up against her locker, staring at Jen. “I’m hosting the cast party tomorrow night and it’s going to be awesome,” Jen said a bit too enthusiastically. “I know you didn’t make the play, but you’re pretty cool and I was wondering if you’d like to stop by….”

Elise lugged her backpack up onto her right shoulder with a small grunt. “Sorry, I’m busy. Have fun, though.” She faked a smile before quickly re-lodging her earbuds back in and started down the hallway.

“You’re missing out,” Jen called, but Elise didn’t hear.

“

ye, mom. I’ll be back later!” Elise rang out.

“Okay, don’t forget your jacket; it’s a bit chilly out there tonight,” her mom responded, trying to hide her exasperation as she returned to dusting the lamps, a chore Elise was supposed to have done earlier that Satur-

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B

day afternoon. She shook her head, rubbing the old rag in circles on the lamp’s bronze neck.

Her, or technically her mom’s, black SUV flew down the side roads of South Carolina. The car was completely silent with the radio off, a ritual she practiced only on Saturday nights. Elise quickly glanced at the speedometer, making sure she was going no more than ten above the limit. Her school approached on the right, and she slowed down a bit to see the parking lot full of cars.

Oh yeah, Elise thought, that dumb play is tonight.

She smiled to herself, shaking her head.

It felt good to be mean about something her school had obviously worked hard to put on.

It made her feel rebellious, a feeling Elise seemed to experience more and more recently. Her thin fingers flicked up the turn signal as she neared the interstate, her right foot pressing onto the gas, easing out of the turn and down the straightaway.

It was Saturday night that Elise looked forward to each week. Not because she had plans with friends but because she had plans without friends. A classmate had committed suicide a few weeks into the school year. It had happened a week after the anniversary of 9/11. Although he was also not a very popular kid, his simple acts of kindness and his smile made him likable by the few that knew him.

He had a charm about him that made it impossible to hate him while at the same time impossible to truly get to know him. He always seemed to be listening to music, which kind of got Elise addicted to music. They occasionally small-talked about their music tastes in homeroom, but that was all, or at least all she wanted to share.

“Good morning, Elise. What’s up?” Gabe asked in his usual friendly tone as he strolled into homeroom. “Did you get a chance to listen last night to those songs I told you about?”

Elise pulled her head out of her English book

and slowly exhaled out of her mouth. “No, I had... more important things to do.”

“Oh.... Do you want to talk about it?” Gabe asked eagerly, hoping for a response. Elise always listened to the songs he recommended and was eager to discuss their meanings during homeroom.

“It’s seriously not a big deal. I just didn’t make the play,” Elise responded, shrugging her shoulders.

“What do you mean, it’s not a big deal?” Gabe replied, surprised. “That play is all you’ve been talking about since school started. You told me how much you wanted the lead and—” “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Elise snapped coldly, looking back at her English book.

A few seconds of silence passed before she looked back up at him. “I’m sorry. I just have a lot on my mind right now. Want to come over after school to to hang out and talk?” she spontaneously asked.

Gabe immediately perked back up, “I’d like that, Elise, I have a lot on my mind too.” He squinted and looked out the window, looking at something off in the distance. “I’ll be there around four.”

Elise put the car in park and just sat there for a second, the headlights pointing towards a cluster of gravestones surrounded by weeds and dying flowers. It was completely silent except for the soft rumble of the engine. For a moment she thought of turning around and going home, but then she remembered how much these nights meant to her and the regret she’d feel if she skipped one. The silence began to creep up on her, so she twisted the keys out of the ignition and undid her seatbelt. Grabbing her headphones and phone, she opened the door to be welcomed by the cool February wind. She could feel her body shiver, but she knew it wasn’t from the cold.

The plastic end of the zipper on her Truman jacket dangled lifelessly from the string as she darted to her tree. The jacket had been a gift from her mom for being accepted back in November. She plugged in her headphones before plopping down onto the grass, pressed the play button on her phone, and slipped her gloves over her pale fingers. It

was about nine o’clock, and the only lights were the flickering streetlamps on the road parallel to the cemetery.

The playlist was entitled “feels trip,” made up of songs that reminded her of Gabe.

It constantly changed as Elise discovered new songs and left old ones out to dry until she needed them again. She mostly listened to the playlist on Saturday nights, but problems in her life and mind occasionally called it out during the week. But not that often. It had to be used sparingly so it could really hit her on Saturday night. But occasionally.

“We are gathered here today to remember and celebrate the life of...” the priest began. Elise looked around her empty pew, expecting to see many classmates from school, but she saw only his large family and a few of his friends she had never formally met before. She meticulously straightened out the ruffles in her dress before looking straight ahead again, trying not to stare at the casket. “This

photograph by Aidan Moore

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is awkward,” she thought to herself, realizing she had never even met his parents.

Elise had assumed they were the couple standing near his coffin at the viewing last night. It had taken a lot of strength for her to peer into it, but she knew she would regret it if she didn’t. That was her mentality: don’t risk the chance of regretting something later on. Just do it. She looked at his dark blue suit and snow-white shirt, both freshly pressed. Her eyes followed his bright red tie up to his face, ridden of any imperfections with too many coats of makeup. He looked as nice as someone in a coffin could look, but it all felt too fake. She firmly bit her lip and glanced over at the couple, trying to work up the courage to introduce herself, but in her head it sounded dumb. “Hi I’m Elise. Your son probably never talked about me but I existed and he was really nice to me. Bye” She grabbed a mint and left, her heels clacking on the overly shined marble floor.

Elise’s mind went back to the altar, her green eyes following the pall bearers carrying the closed casket down the aisle. She subconsciously let her

left hand graze the edge of it before snatching her hand bag and making her way to the doors, fighting back tears.

A hand on her shoulder woke Elise from her trance-like state. For a split second she thought it was him, rising from his grave.

Her eyes opened to see a tall Hispanic man dressed in dark blue overalls and a smile. She pressed pause, something Elise had never done before.

“Sorry if I disturbed you, miss, but are you here alone?” he asked kindly in a thick accent.

“Yeah, I come here each Saturday. Why?” “I just wanted to tell you that the cemetery is closing on Tuesday,” he said with a calm and friendly tone.

“Cemeteries can’t close,” replied Elise, puzzled, looking closely to see Jesùs embroidered above his left breast pocket.

“We are mainly just doing some renovations” he said, motioning to the tree behind her. “It will take awhile but should be re-

photograph by Nick Bentz

opened in September.” He squinted his eyes as if he was looking at something off in the distance.

“Thanks, I guess,” Elise said after a couple seconds of looking down at her shoes.

She flexed her toes a couple times, entertaining herself.

Elise looked up again to see his white pickup rumble down the cemetery’s gravel road before slipping her headphones back on. Her phone lit up to display 9:18 p.m. and the title of the paused song. Elise closed her eyes and restarted the music, blasting for only her to hear. “

O

h, I’m glad you’re here, honey,” her mom said when she got home. “I wanted to ask your opinion on these curtains I’d like to get for the—” “Sure, they look great, Mom.” Elise responded with an irritated tone, not even glancing at the glowing laptop screen on her mom’s lap. She threw her handbag onto the mantle above the fireplace and hurried upstairs to her room, the stairs barely creaking underneath her small stature.

“You didn’t even look—oh, never mind, I’ll get them. Change is good,” her mom said, taking a long sip of her tea.

The footsteps came to a quick halt at the top of the staircase. “No, Mom, change is not good! Why can’t things stay the way they are?” Elise screamed before slamming her door shut and throwing herself onto the bed, stuffing two pillows underneath her face to muffle the crying.

“Elise….Elise, did something happen tonight?” her mom asked, standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Do you want to talk about it?” She cautiously started up the stairs, listening for any signs that Elise wanted to be left alone. She lightly tapped on the bedroom door three times.

Elise muttered a muffled “come in” before sitting up on her bed, wiping her face

with her arms. Her mom sat on the opposite end of the bed, placing her hand on Elise’s ankle.

“I was at the cemetery and—” Elise stopped, breathing quickly from the crying.

“And a guy told me the cemetery was going to close soon and they’re going to change it and I can’t go back and I….” She threw her head into her hands, sobbing furiously.

Her mom was silent for a moment, rubbing Elise’s back softly. “I knew about you and Gabe, sweetie,” she finally said.

Elise immediately stopped crying and looked up at her mom. “How did you—we didn’t do anything, I swear. We were just cuddling and I didn’t even kiss him and—” “It’s okay,” her mom replied, smiling faintly. “I saw his car out front one day because I got off work early, but from the little you had told me about him, he seemed like a good kid, so I left you two alone.

“How’d you know it was Gabe?” Elise asked, sniffling.

“Oh… I was cleaning your room a couple days later and saw your journal opened under your covers and I didn’t mean to look but—” “It’s okay, just know that we did not take any clothes off and we were not dating and...”

Elise stopped mid-sentence. “I just liked the feeling of protection, the feeling of being perfectly content with someone I like.”

“That was how I felt with your dad until he…” Her mom slowed down, as if in a gaze.

“He didn’t want to keep you, but I did and we had this huge fight one night.”

“Did he…”

“Yes, sweetie, yes, he did,” her mom replied, glancing at the scar on her right arm.

She moved closer to Elise and squeezed her arm tightly. “I should have told you earlier, but I did not want you to think it was your fault….Do you want some time alone?”

“Yeah, I have a lot to to think about,” Elise answered softly, a hint of laughter in her voice. Her mom left the room, gently

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closing the door before beginning down the stairs, creaking with each step. Elise straightened her back up against the headboard of her bed, scanning her room slowly. She saw her desk, littered with pens, sticky notes, and an unopened algebra book. Her head tilted upwards, looking at the shelf above her desk. There sat her jewelry box and the journal leaning up against it, beaten up from the months of use.

A notification on her phone brought her out of her flashback and she glanced at the text: “Come on over, it’s lit. Learn to live a bit.” Elise flicked the text off her lock screen, unlocked her phone and went to her music.

She found her most recent playlist and deleted its songs, ending with a satisfying delete

tone. Jumping up from her bed, she snatched her journal from the shelf and tossed it into her closet, shutting the door. She plopped back onto her bed and typed out a quick text.

“So Elise, is this a normal thing for you?

Bringing boys up to your room to cuddle and listen to music?” Gabe asked curiously.

“Actually, no,” Elise answered, the darkened room hiding her blushing cheeks. “You’re the first one, Gabe. Congratulations.”

“I feel so honored,” he playfully replied, glancing at his phone to change the song. “I don’t know about you, but I’m perfectly content,” he said after a minute of slence.

“Me, too,” she said, burrowing her head into his chest and pulling the covers up to their necks.

photograph by Sulli Wallisch

Go Outside Evan Brende John walked around the leather chair and shook his head in grim despair.

The last great Saturday of fall; they should be out with a football.

But Benny sat with fingers numb from texting, eating—what a bum!

He stared down at his little phone so like a sullen block of stone; a troll with gold deep in his cave, but touched by light, unmoving, save the periodic reach for food.

John vowed to change this slothful mood.

“That’s it!” he yelled. “Now go outside!”

“You must be kidding!” his son replied.

“Go play with neighbors—have some fun!

There’s so much living to be done.

When I was your age we would all just love to go and throw a ball.”

John held the door and shouted, “Go!” but Benny huffed and muttered “No,” then screamed, “This is a dirty slum!

You’d have to be so very dumb to go outside and run about, ’cause you’d be robbed, without a doubt.

Our neighbors sell cocaine and meth— resulting contact might be death.

The nearest park is blocks away, so I don’t think today’s the day to go outside and then get shot while breathing in the smells of pot.”

John scoffed and laughed and chuckled, “No,” but sirens passing by below drowned out the disbelieving word, so his denial wasn’t heard.

He shrugged his shoulders, left the room, perplexed by Benny’s self-made tomb.

To text and email for so long, there must be something very wrong.

John turned the TV on, his aim to watch the college football game, but couldn’t find it anywhere.

He sat there watching Dare to Wear, but then the screen went black as night!

Down to the right, a blinking light— and up above, a message flashed— “Your cable channel may have crashed!”

John wandered back to ask his son if there was something to be done, but Benny laughed and shook his head.

“While you are by yourself,” he said, “I’m in a group chat with my friends.

You watch a show on women’s trends, but that won’t help you find someone.

The only thing that can be done is for you to see that you’re the stone— unchanging, gray, and so alone.

My phone is what keeps me in touch— I’m not depressed; it’s not a crutch.

You need to see the past is gone and you’ll be happy moving on.

‘When I was young’ is not a phrase that helps you find success these days!

A game of football in the street is dangerous and obsolete.

And now you want your cable fixed, by me? That favor just was nixed.

So please go take your own advice: go play outside, I’m sure it’s nice.”

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58

Confusion

Confusion

Federico García Lorca

Translated by Myriam Aliste

¿Mi corazón es tu corazón? ¿Quién me refleja pensamientos? ¿Quién me presta esta pasión sin raíces? ¿Por qué cambia mi traje de colores? ¡Todo es encrucijada! ¿Por qué ves en el cielo tanta estrella? ¿Hermano, eres tú o soy yo? ¿Y estas manos tan frías son de aquél?

Me veo por los ocasos, y un hormiguero de gente anda por mi corazón.

Is my heart your heart?

Who mirrors thoughts to me?

Who gives me this passion without roots?

Why does my suit change colors?

Everything is a crossroads!

Why do you see in the marsh so many stars?

Brother, is it you or is it me?

And these hands so cold, are they his?

I see myself in sunsets And a throng of people goes through my heart.

p

A Response to Confusion Chuck Hussung My heart is your heart, it’s yours.

I am your mercury, your mirror.

Pedro Calderón, perhaps—did he lend you your rootless passion?

Have you returned it?

I know why your clothes are changing color.

It’s because everything is a crossroads— Every road, every thing is holy, wholly crossed, Crossed up into violent contradictory amalgamatory irreconciliations Between the wriggling concretions of our materiality And our starry appleonian bliss.

Insects. Bicycles. Beeches that do not deign to acknowledge That they are your swarming hearts.

I know why your vest is yellow.

For now. At least for now.

You have made my beloved country forever after starrier and marshier, And once or twice you’ve made my fragile inagility breathe in a quick breath A star coinherent with incoherent muck—or mire.

You, Federico Lorca, are you and I am I, once or twice a day.

And you and I are you and you and I. And I am you And not just for now.

If the cold hands are his…

If they are…

If they or…

Are…or…if he…

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[…]

If you see yourself in sunsets, so shall I. And I shall not cease to wander the arching aching crossroads of your heart With Walt Whitman (is he you?) and Allen Ginsberg (is he?) and your archangels (who are).

Nor shall I cease to speak with you, my brother, and hope to hear you who have called me brother call me again.

The Bridge Christopher Weingart

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J

aime was starting to feel moisture in the armpits of his blue button-down shirt.

He could feel his socks firmly adhered to his feet, and tried to wriggle his toes around to separate thin fabric from skin as he walked down the gravel path. Focusing on anything but the state of his perspiring body was difficult since, because of the glaring sun, he was staring down at the ground as his weathered brown dress shoes smacked the path. He was here for the nature and felt bad for not looking up at the trees, but it was just too damn hot. The sunset meant the heat would diminish, sure, but the glaring orange splotch in the sky pulsed against his vision every time he looked up, penetrating his stare, searching for crannies of his body that weren’t quite damp enough yet. He felt the red tie around his neck and loosened it some. He was still mastering the art of tying a tie, since he hadn’t needed to learn until high school when people make fun of you for wearing a zip-up.

Then he could hear the sounds of rippling water as it slapped against itself, the sound of the fountain. He could already see the bench where he’d sit for a moment, leaning forward to try to catch flecks of water on his dripping face. The bridge came up as he turned a corner past a grove of trees, and he saw the back of a sweater vest hunched over on the side of the bridge, facing out.

Someone else in formal attire? From school maybe? Then he saw shoulder-length blond hair, and he felt something strange in his stomach, a rising or a rolling, he couldn’t tell which. Nevertheless, a significant disturbance. Could it be? Alex.

“Alex?” He couldn’t get it out until he was right next to him, and saying nothing would have been strange and stalkerish at the worst, wildly awkward at best. The mane of hair shifted, and a pale nose appeared, peeking out of the hair, before a hand came to brush the hair away and Jaime could see piercing gray eyes. They widened slightly.

“Hey, Jaime,” Alex said calmly, as if he’d been expecting him. Not a touch of surprise, pleasant or otherwise.

“What are you doing out this late?”

Jaime thought he must be the only student besides the track team to frequent the park.

“I come here sometimes. Just hang out.

It’s beautiful out around this time.” Alex turned and stared into the sunset, cocking his head slightly. Jaime noticed his hair fall from his left shoulder, cascading down to his right. Something about the way he said “beautiful.” Just a touch of effeminacy, the diction. Jaime remembered when he started calling things beautiful, savoring this word that he’d never really seen applied by a man to anything other than a girl. And hardly ever then, either. Beautiful.

“Do you mind if I join you?” He never asked this question. You had to ask him, and if you didn’t, he’d accept it sadly. But Jaime said the words now, and knew that he’d sit there anyway even if he hadn’t gotten a yes.

“Not at all,” Alex said, turning back to him, expelling a plume of smoke and smiling. Jaime hadn’t even noticed the cigarette poking out from between Alex’s left fingers, index and middle.

“Are you left-handed?”

“Yes.” “So am I.” “Heh. Well, I guess we’re both doomed then.”

“How so?”

“Left-handed people have a shorter life expectancy.”

“You believe that?”

“Eh, it’s probably bullshit. Nevertheless, there’s something poetically beautiful about dying young. No wrinkles, loss of beauty.

Never have to look your partner in the face one day and see how ugly they’ve become.”

Alex raised the cigarette to his lips and inhaled. The plume of smoke caught a stray breeze, carrying the smell into Jaime’s face.

He normally hated the smell of smoke, but didn’t mind it now. He closed his eyes and smiled as his dangling feet moved in the breeze. “Mind if I…?” He reached a tentative finger out towards the cigarette.

“Sure.” Alex handed it over.

Jaime took it, trying to hold it the same way as Alex had. Then he put it to his mouth, his jawbone jutting forward, lips knit together at the end of it. Probably looked nowhere as cool as Alex did.

Inhaling coated the inside of his mouth with smoke, and he choked. His tongue felt dry like he’d just woken up after sleeping with his mouth open all night, except this dryness tasted of smoke.

Alex smiled, taking it back and looking at Jaime with that cocked-head, piercing expression. Jaime stopped caring about his own mouth as he noticed and took in the expression, happy to have been able to broker a smile in this whole transaction, at least.

“Doesn’t taste as cool as it looks, huh?”

Jaime coughed again, pausing afterward to lick the roof of his mouth before answering. “Not at all.”

Feeling suddenly the intense heat filling his head, Jaime touched his damp collar and rotated the tie from side to side, trying to loosen it more. Alex’s piercing stare was starting to burn a little. “Is that why you do it?” Jaime asked.

“Because it looks cool?” Alex turned his head back forward to face the water. “Hmm.” Jaime could hear thumps as Alex’s heels knocked against the stone side of the bridge.

“There really isn’t anything like driving

in a convertible smoking. Something sexy yet intellectual about it.”

Jaime smiled. “Exactly what I was thinking. Give a smoke to a shrivelled homeless person, it’s disgusting, but to some kid with a bowtie? Deep, man.”

Alex gave a piercing laugh, amplifying a voice that was deep in the center and soft around the edges. A deeply soothing sound, his voice. Jaime hoped the smoking wouldn’t wreck that soft, youthful quality. The skin on his face was so full, so smooth. Untouched by the bloodshot, baggy-eyed nights that had written a saga of sleep deprivation in stress acne on Jaime’s face.

“So what do you like to do, Jaime?”

“Read. Watch movies. Write, occasionally.”

“Write what?”

“Poetry.”

“Ahhhh.” Alex smiled at Jaime with benign respect. “Beautiful.”

That word again. Jaime couldn’t help but savor the sound of the word on Alex’s tongue.

“You’ll have to read some to me sometime.”

“You sure?”

“Of course!”

“It’d sound better if you read it, I think.”

“You think so?”

“Yes.” Again, a definitive answer, free of any of the doubt Jaime usually had, the misgivings before asking someone to do something.

“What about friends?”

“Oh. Huh. Not many, I guess.”

Silence. That hauntingly familiar, miscarried pause that killed any momentum a conversation, especially this one, had up to this point been building.

“How deep do you think this river is?”

“Huh?” “How deep?”

“I…I’m not sure.”

“Hmm. Okay. Lemme check.”

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“Okay, wait. WHAT…” Alex slid off the side of the bridge. Jaime sat, frozen in place, staring at the water as Alex’s body broke its surface. He disappeared under. For once, Jaime didn’t care about the sweat dripping into his eyes, clouding his vision. He could only blink furiously, trying still to comprehend what he’d just witnessed.

Then his head resurfaced, blond hair splayed out in a golden, circular wreath. He looked up and smiled at Jaime.

“Jump in.”

Shit. Jaime felt more rooted than ever to the side of the bridge. He could imagine the wind rushing against him as he fell, the cold slap as he hit the water...it was terrifying.

“Come on, Jaime.”

Jaime scooted towards the edge, just a bit. Buying for time as he figured out what to do. He could always get up and leave, right?

But then he remembered Alex’s look, that look of benign respect, characterized by that half smile, cocked head, piercing, gray-eyed stare as he saw something he’d never considered before.

Jaime took a deep breath and scooted off the railing. He could feel his heart beat-

ing frantically as he fell for only a split second before the water engulfed him and he was plunging into darkness, then….kicking, flailing, rising slowly to the surface, coughing as he felt the thin blue shirt separating him from the water stick to his skin. Damn, it was cold. Just the cold he needed.

Alex’s face appeared directly in his line of sight, grinning now. He took Jaime’s hand and they awkwardly swam back to shore.

The homeless man on the bench that faced the pond lay back down, seeing that the two had survived without injury.

They both sat facing each other, and suddenly Alex was taking Jaime’s face in his hands, holding him firmly so that he was looking directly into Alex’s eyes. “That’s what living feels like.” Jaime could only nod, still stunned. Alex’s hold on his cheeks was slackening into a tender embrace. “Remember that when you’re writing.”

He let go and looked out at the pond.

Jaime missed the heat on his back that the sunset had provided before fading behind the clouds into night. He was shivering, he realized. Alex reached across Jaime’s shoulders, and they leaned against each other.

photograph by Tom Hillmeyer

Wishful Thinking William George I wish I were a man who enjoyed fly fishing knee-deep in a raucous stream in Connemara.

My Wellingtons would be passed down by my adventuring father who fished in remote waters between surgeries in field tents, where he ministered to victims of tyrants and civil war before he himself succumbed to a disease without name.

My floppy hat would be a present from a secret admirer delivered by a messenger in a white linen suit to my lodgings in London, where I am staying while awaiting the verdict in my trial for a most despicable crime.

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print by Aiden Evans

Murderer Seamus McFarland Such elegant strides. This man must be a hero.

He smiles too. Only satisfied men frown.

Look at his chin! His muscles! His face!

Look at his scars.

Yes, he must have braved many battles.

He must have slaughtered many vengeful men.

Evil men.

Men. Why do you hate him so? You have never truly met him, and he works wonders in the stories they tell.

I do not hate him. I fear what he may be.

Fear is for cowards.

Fear is for the living.

Look! He approaches the King!

Where are the guards?

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The Danger in Losing Michael Wiley

B 66

y the time Grace Hamill had come home with the groceries that afternoon, her husband had already stepped off the terminal at Chicago, hundreds of miles away from Oak Valley, caught a cab to the hotel, flipped through the nightlife pamphlet they handed him at the front desk, ridden the elevator to his floor, peered through the foggy glass of the indoor pool, and folded his delicates as he pulled them one by one out of his suitcase. And when the idea was finally settling into Bob Hamill’s mind that his new life was about to begin, his wife Grace was already heating up his favorite dinner for him back home.

At six o’clock she pulled a ham out of the oven and placed it squarely in the center of the neatly-set table. She had folded napkins like swans on top of the three plates, including one for her son. At six-thirty, when Dylan began digging his finger in the pot of mashed potatoes, she dialed his office number and listened patiently to his secretary ask why the hell she should know what the man does when he’s not in the office. Was she to be her boss’ keeper?

At seven o’clock she ate and listened to her son talk about some game he had been playing instead of doing his homework, all the while glancing over at the empty plate at the other end of the table. By eight o’clock Dylan had already retreated back down into the basement to do God knows whatever pre-teens do when they’re alone. She wrapped up the leftovers and crammed them into the fridge.

By nine she had curled up alone in her bed, read two chapters of her Nicholas Sparks novel, and fallen asleep without set-

ting her alarm clock for the next morning.

Her husband would still be up, wandering between the city lights for hours to come, the image of his wife already relaxing comfortably into his distant memory.

T

he next morning she found the note. It was scribbled on both sides of a blue Post-It, stuck neatly in the top left corner of the bathroom mirror. It said, plain, simple, and a bit too clichéd that he wasn’t getting anything out of the relationship anymore, and it was probably best for him to go. She shouldn’t bother looking for him, because he would just continue running away each time he’s discovered. All of that on a little blue sticky note he didn’t even have the decency to sign.

Grace couldn’t decide whether she was surprised. Certainly she didn’t see it coming, at least not today, but why couldn’t she bring herself to cry? Where had all her sorrow gone? All that came was a choking grunt as she crumpled the paper and tossed it down into the toilet bowl, ran her fingers through her dark hair, and left the bathroom.

As was her routine, she stepped lightly down the hallway and tapped on her son’s door until she could hear him groan and turn unwillingly in his sheets, shielding his face from the morning light. Then she walked slowly down the carpeted stairs and into the kitchen, where she ran a butter knife methodically over a slice of wheat bread. When Dylan entered the room, still in his pajamas, she looked down at his sandwich to find that she had carved a hole in the middle and had been slathering jelly all over the countertop.

She cleaned up the mess before her son

could see, then placed both her palms firmly on the cool granite. Things will be different now. I will not be undone.

T

he quiet residents of Oak Valley refused to be quiet that day. It is not certain who was the first to spread the news: perhaps it was Bill Mueller, who had talked loudly with Mr. Hamill over a couple of chilled beer bottles the day before his departure, or perhaps it was Shirley May, who had happened to peek through the slits in her blinds in the middle of the night as Hamill ducked into the taxicab, then reported to her bank teller the following morning all she had seen as she dug into the bottom of her yellow studded purse for loose change.

Maybe it was Mark Dimmer, who was mowing his lawn when he noticed that Bob had not yet come out to retrieve his paper, as he did every morning at six exactly. No matter who it was that first rang the bell and lit the

drawing by Tim Nile

fires, the story quickly wove its way into the barber shops and beauty salons, county bars and country clubs. Thus the floodgates had been opened.

And when Grace entered the church basement as she did every Saturday morning for the neighborhood prayer meeting, all she could hear was the heavy metal door screeching on its rusty hinges. The women in the room watched her drop her purse from her shoulder and sit neatly in one of the open plastic chairs. Gary, the only man in the group, stood alone in the corner pouring coffee into a styrofoam cup.

“Grace, is there…something you want to say to us?” Mary kept her hands resting on her thighs, back straight, as she studied the face of the new arrival.

“No. I don’t think so.” Grace really didn’t think so. At this point, Bob’s absence was little more than cold ham in an undersized fridge, and the little blue note was truly very small, anyway. “Should I?” “Suppose not.”

The rest of the meeting was just as cold.

Even though Grace said the same words, prayed the same prayers, and reached just as deep into her pockets when the collection pool came around the circle, she felt far away from everyone else. It was like she was in another place entirely. Like Chicago. Even Gary kept looking at her over the lip of his coffee cup. At the end of the meeting, Mary offered up the intentions.

“Let us pray for all the…” she said, then grinned quickly in Grace’s direction. “Unfaithful.”

Everyone in the room said Amen, except for Gary.

“Come on, Mary,” he pleaded. “The woman’s had enough.”

“I certainly do not know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay,” Gary scoffed, then stood up and left his cup sideways in his seat. The door

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screeched again on his way out, but everyone heard what he muttered. “What a bitch.”

D 68

ylan practiced soccer on Saturdays.

The ride to his school field was mostly silent, up until the moment their minivan rolled into the parking lot.

“Hey, Mom,” Dylan interjected, “where has Dad been these last couple of days?”

Grace didn’t answer right away. She sat with both hands on the steering wheel, watching little cold droplets trickle down her son’s blue water bottle. It wasn’t unusual for Dylan to go a day without seeing his father; he was a busy man after all. But Dylan had a habit of waking early on Saturday mornings. He would sit at the kitchen table with his father and take the comics section out of the paper so that they looked like two grown men reading together. My two men, Grace would call them. Dylan hated when she said it.

“Business trip. He had to go on a lastminute business trip.”

“Oh, okay,” he said, then looked down at the dashboard.

“Go ahead and get to practice,” Grace told him. “I have to make a phone call first.”

Dylan hopped out of the car, and she watched him bound over towards his coach.

He dropped his bottle into the grass, and she killed the engine. And then, for the first time since she could remember, she started to cry.

She turned her head downward and held her fingers against the sides of her nose, watching the warm droplets trickle down against her wedding ring. And then she was done.

Grace checked her eyes in the rearview, ran her fingers through her dark hair, and opened the door. She set up a chair at the edge of the field and watched her son play, just as she did every Saturday.

T

hat night, Dylan went to bed early to sleep off his soccer practice. Grace

didn’t fall asleep right away; she lay down on her living room couch and pressed on in her book again. When her eyelids were just beginning to fall, the doorbell rang.

She got up quickly and looked through the glass before opening up. On the other side stood Gary, from her prayer group, looking back at her. The door screeched open.

“Hey, sorry it’s late,” Gary spoke first.

Grace only looked blankly back at him, so he continued. “I just thought you might need some company.” Again, no response.

They looked at each other for a couple of seconds before Gary lost all hope. “You’re right; this is stupid. I’ll just go.” He spun around on the porch, and that’s when Grace saw the bottle of wine dangling from his left hand.

“No, no, it’s not,” she called him back.

“I could use someone to talk to.” She could see his face lift once again as he turned to her, smiling as he pressed the bottle into her hands.

She ushered him inside and went to tuck the book under the coffee table when he stopped her.

“Sparks, huh?” he asked.

“What do you know about Nicholas Sparks?” she giggled.

“Well, I cried at the end of The Notebook.

Does that count?”

She laughed and admitted that it must count for something. She brought two glasses over to where they were sitting on the couch.

“So, hey,” Gary lowered his voice. “About today. You really didn’t deserve that.”

She thanked him and said that she appreciated it, all the while wanting to change the subject.

“Really, you didn’t.”

“Really, I know,” she said, more sternly this time. He tightened his lips and shook his head, as if to understand. Then he looked deep into her eyes and said it.

“It must get lonely, just you and Dylan,

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wash by John Burke

here all by yourselves.”

She felt his hand on her knee, sliding deeper down her thigh. She stood up.

“Don’t be like that, Grace.”

“I think you should leave now.”

“Come on, Grace. Just this once.” He walked closer to her.

She backed away and nearly tripped over the end of her rug, but he kept walking. And when she could nearly feel his breath on her neck, she slapped him across his cheek, half of her hand catching his jaw. She wriggled between him and the table and made her way to the front door, opening it for him.

He laughed to himself and rubbed his face, sauntering towards the door. “And to think, here I was trying to be nice. All for another bitch like Mary.”

O

ak Valley’s dull chatter transformed into a scream on Sunday morning.

This time, it was Mary, Mary who had been

on her way home from a PTA meeting when she happened to see Gary walking angrily down the front steps of Grace’s house. And that was the moment when her fate was decided. For the rest of her days in Oak Valley, Grace Hamill would be a whore, just another dumb, dirty whore who drove her husband to refuge in Chicago.

At first, the conversations could be heard between two strangers at a Steak ’n Shake booth, or in line at a 7-Eleven, or down at the local dog park when they bent down to pick up Fido’s business. It was a common connection between all residents of Oak Valley, and, if anything, it brought the people together.

Everyone except for Grace Hamill, that is. Because soon even she could hear the whispers behind her at the carwash, or at a Saturday soccer practice with her son Dylan, who wondered why his mom had trouble telling him when this business trip would end.

“I don’t know when, Dylan. I really don’t

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know.” Then she would turn around and do other things, like make him dinner, clean the house, or sit alone in her room and cry.

Grace had completed all three of these activities by the time she heard the front door to her house creak open, three weeks later. She first checked her eyes in the mirror, ran her fingers through her dark hair, and rushed into the living room to find her husband there, surrounded by suitcases.

“I’m home now.”

Grace just looked at him, at the man standing there in front of her. She couldn’t decide whether she had the strength to let him in or the weakness to slide a knife into his chest. So she didn’t decide at all.

Dylan came running upstairs and leaped into his father’s arms, already asking him about the trip. She could hear Mark Dimmer mowing his lawn across the street, and she walked toward the sound, out into the street.

Then she climbed into the driver’s seat of her minivan and just drove. Past the church,

past the school field, past the bank, the restaurants, the park, and all the whispers of Oak Valley.

But when she reached the entrance to the highway, she couldn’t force herself to go any farther. She continued to drive, but she somehow wound up back at her own front door, the same damn street where the taxicab had stopped weeks ago.

Grace never was curious why he returned. It could have been a bomb threat, an STD scare, a dreamtime premonition, or, maybe, he finally realized that they loved each other. She didn’t really care. All that mattered was the distance between her car door and the house.

Grace walked inside and found her husband and son sitting on the couch. She said nothing, just picked up the suitcases and placed them neatly into the hallway closet.

Because Grace Hamill was a whore, just like everybody said.

print by Aiden Evans

Monsignor Pins Salvatore Vitellaro Once Towering smugly over him Detesting needing to shout for him to hear Gagging at his acrid breath Wincing at his impatience Now Longing for his smile Recalling his riveting rhetoric Yearning to be like him Wishing his doubled-over eyelids squinted instead of staying shut.

photograph by Aidan Moore

71

Out of Place Jake Lepak

72

F

all: cooling weather, soft breezes, brightly colored leaves and sweaters. This afternoon, however, an uneven layer of silty clouds covered the sun, and the temperature was bitterly cold. It was a Wednesday and only the third week since Jon started school, but already he had had enough. He was through with school.

Jon decided to leave at noon. It wasn’t that hard to leave. He just said he had to use the bathroom and walked around the front door. Who was going to monitor an eighth grade boy to see if he was going to leave? He didn’t bother to grab his backpack. He didn’t do homework anyway. He just wanted to go.

There’s no place like home.

Jon didn’t struggle in school, but he just felt drained of life during the day. He knew how to solve for the missing variable, he knew how Macbeth dies, he knew that the Nazis were the bad guys in World War II. He knew it all.

So what was the point of trying to learn?

Things had been different after his dad had gotten sick. His dad was always exhausted, too tired to get up before Jon left for school. He usually got up only to go to the bathroom or get a glass of water. Every time Jon saw his face, he hardly recognized what stared back at him: chicken-bone eyes rooted in the dark, saucer-like sockets, so small they looked as if they’d fall out. However, despite all the time he spent in bed or in treatment, his hair remained immaculate, with never a strand out of place. His dad’s inky comb-over had a boyish look to it, as if it belonged on a buck-toothed eight-year-old going to Sunday School.

Jon didn’t give much mind to his father’s condition.

Jon left school that Wednesday, feeling cold and tough as he pushed his way out the heavy front doors, heaving his chest out like a prizefighter fresh from his victory. He knew the way to get home without even thinking about it: walk straight for six blocks, make a left here, then walk for two more blocks until home.

There’s no place like home.

His brothers would still be at school, so Jon didn’t worry about them. Jon’s mom was still at work, so she wouldn’t be home for a few more hours as well. It was just Jon and the big empty house together that afternoon.

Except for his dad.

To be honest, Jon was clueless about whether his dad would still be home. He didn’t even really expect his father to be awake, for all the time he spent his waking hours sleeping, away from Jon. Even still, he decided to check for him.

Jon unlocked the front door and stepped inside onto the scuffed wooden floorboards.

He smelled nickels and salt.

“Dad?” Jon called out.

He checked the basement. Nothing.

He walked back upstairs and looked inside his dad’s room. Nothing. Still nervous with the notion that his father could be lurking around somewhere in the house, Jon cut through the living room and headed into the kitchen.

The smell became sharper and more distinct as he progressed. Jon walked into the living room, and there his dad sat—sprawled on the couch like some forgotten quilt.

“Dad?” Jon walked up to him. No response.. He went around the couch to take a look, but the smell overpowered Jon’s nose and made him retch. There was his dad, eyes wide open, head slouched back on the cushion of the couch, his Colt Diamondback lying coolly in his left hand.

The smooth steel barrel was half a foot long, but it looked quite small in his tender, spidery hand. There was a near-perfect circle on both sides of his temple, but red was spritzed all over the white leather upholstery, giving the appearance of strawberry cheesecake.

His right hand held a small note, gently

folded over two times neatly, smeared with red stains and written on a kitchen napkin.

Jon couldn’t help notice that his father’s hair still had that youthful charm to it. But where his dad’s hair was parted along a thin line and combed over, there was a single hair out of place, by itself, sticking straight up.

Jon scrambled away with hot tears trickling down his face. Away from the yellow note held carefully in his father’s left hand, away from the Colt Diamondback, and away from the blood covering that white upholstery, soaking his father’s clothes, soaking his father’s hair, he ran.

There’s no place like home.

Photograph by Joseph Weber

73

Argos Matt Smith

74

Sometimes, on the long summer nights chock-full of the whizz-bangs of so many alley-crouched kids, firecrackers with my friends and I, I wonder why you’re so scared.

Was it the long, lonely nights in that cage, the friendly trio of excrement, halogen, and bark?

Was it that nameless hole in Nowhere’s Ville, lovable homeland of surprise gunfire and mange?

Grubbing in the silt, pitching smoke and flame in June warmth, I cringe.

photograph by Will Kelly

75

photograph by Connor FitzGerald

Mere Anarchy Matt Dorsey The world, for what it’s worth, is peaceful.

That is of no consolation to those keeping vigil, For peace is the fear of those petrified with want for His return.

Men, fauns, and nymphs, alike in their unwilling stillness, wait on the shore for ages.

The pipes do not play, for they too are frozen.

A watchful eye fixed upon the horizon spots it first.

Curiosity yields to hope yields to disbelief yields to unbridled jubilation.

THERE HE IS! THERE’S PAN! The words are drowned in the sudden melody of insanity, but they cut through the air nonetheless, And pierce the veil of silent sanctity.

The spell is broken, And thus, it is loosed.

And all is well and mad again.

My, How You Have Poisoned Me Matthew Loranger

76 My, how you have poisoned me Perhaps it was that venomous nectar that you brought to my tongue, Or maybe those barbed vines that embraced me so tightly But I suspect otherwise You were full of such vibrant hues, such vivaciousness and life You entangled my mind and heart, captivating all my senses I could only look on, quiet and still, not wishing to disrupt the beauty I saw before me But despite my distance, I still tasted your fruit and felt a growing sting Yet you can not be blamed My silence was for ears that would not hear, And all you could do was be as painted and sweet as normal But how could I not stand in your shade?

Now I am burning, watching petals hang thoughtlessly in the wind, Wishing to be immune to all that ails me, And as you continue to bloom, beautiful as always, I close my eyes and taste your nightshade