Sisyphus by SLUH

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Sisyphus Spring ’21 Outside Cover, art (front and back) by Nathan Rich Inside Front Cover, oil pastel by Brendan McLaughlin Inside Back Cover, painting by David Linhares 3 Aka Manto, fiction by Corey Lyles 5 Accutane and Adderall, poetry by Philip Hiblovic 5 fountain pen and ink by Alex Deiters 6 photograph by Patrick Zarrick 7 Staying Power, nonfiction by Noah Aprill-Sokol 8 photograph by George Henken 9 The Ride, poetry by Taggart Arens 10 Scenes from an Early Spring, a collection of photos and poems by Luke Missey 20 All Over the World, a song by Frank Kovarik 21 photograph by Nicholas Sanders 22 Self Portraits, prose by Cody Cox 23 photograph by Jack Janson 24 photograph by Jack Janson 25 photograph by Patrick Zarrick 26 The Opportunists, poetry by Rich Moran 28 painting by David Linhares 29 New Multitudes, poetry by Jack Zimmerman

30 photograph by Miles Schulte 31 Saggin, poetry by Albert Harrold 33 photography by Drew Walters 34 a sandwich through the tent stitch, poetry by Francisco Schmidt 34 photograph by Philip Hiblovic 34 photograph by Philip Hiblovic 35 A Toast, poetry by Brendan Smith ’91 36 charcoal by Nathan Rich 37 Fifty Dollars, fiction by Nathan Rich 38 photograph by George Henken 39 photograph by Patrick Zarrick 40 Fear, poetry by Alex Preusser 41 Bray, fiction by Carter J. Fortman 42 photograph by Owen Rittenhouse 43 Singular Focus, fiction by Christopher St. John 43 photograph by Patrick Zarrick 44 painting by David Linhares 45 Friends, fiction by William George 46-48 reed sculpture by Tristan Muskopf 49 acrylic on wood panel by Nathan Rich 50 Enchanted Hearts, drama by Carter J. Fortman and Philip Hiblovic 50 digital media by Alex Deiters 53 digital media by Alex Deiters 55 digital media by Nathan Rich 56 watercolor by Nathan Rich 57 Colors of Kells, poetry by John Kavanaugh 59 digital media by William Blaisdell 60 The Poemtree, poetry by Patrick Tyrrell

Aka Manto Corey Lyles

ccording to Japanese legend, Aka Man- “ ’know, I saw him once,” Shiori says as to (“red cloak”) is a spirit, so called for they walk down the path back to her the red cloak he wears as he haunts the aban- house. The last working streetlight on the doned stalls of school bathrooms. When path finally dies, leaving them alone in the you’re alone in the bathroom, his soft foot- dark. steps could be heard across the floor. When Haruyo waves dismissively, trying to ighe reaches your stall, he’ll reach under and nore the guilt that the story always makes ask in a raspy voice barely above a whisper: her feel. “I know. You’ve told me this story “Red or blue paper?” before—” If you choose red, he’ll lacerate your “Erika saw him too. He was outside the body, drenching it in its own blood. If blue, fourth stall and we just barely got out.” he’ll strangle you, and leave your lifeless blue “Oh, really?” body on the bathroom floor. “Yes.” Shiori swats a mosquito, leaving a Whispers say that there are ways to sur- small patch of red liquid on her arm that she vive if he tries to talk to you. Leave before quickly brushes off. he can enter the bathroom. Say “no thanks” When they were little, Haruyo and the when he offers, and run. But those stories are other girls left Shiori in the bathroom by hearsay at best. As much as we all like to tell herself. They turned off the lights, stole their ourselves otherwise, the truth is that no one teacher’s bright red raincoat, and pretended knows how to survive him. to be Aka Manto, scaring Shiori until she peed herself. She was never the same after “ e’s not real,” Haruyo explains as they that. And Haruyo never stopped feeling bad stand outside the bathroom door. “If about it. you have to use the bathroom, just go.” Shiori rubs the drawstrings of her favouow she hates seeing Shiori so timid. rite hoodie between her fingers. “I know. It’s An old man walks closely behind just—what if he hears you say that?” Her eyes them, and they can hear him struggle to dart nervously from left to right. breathe with his every step. Haruyo loves Shiori. She really does. But sometimes, best friends can annoy each oth- “ hat colour should I paint the nails er to death. And after school, when the only on this hand?” Haruyo asks, lying on bathroom left open is a two-minute walk her bedroom floor when they get back to from campus, is one of those times. “Do you Shiori’s house. want me to go to the bathroom with you?” Shiori doesn’t look up from her homeshe finally asks. work. “There’s some Crimson Dreams polish Shiori nods. on my dresser. You can have that.” “Come on,” she sighs. “Wait...really?

“Yeah. You’ll use it more than I do now.” Shiori pulls two brightly coloured candy “Hold on. I can’t take this.” canes from behind her back. “Cherry or blue Shiori finally looks up with a smile. raspberry?” “What’s wrong?” “You already know which one I want,” Haruyo hesitates. “It’s nothing.” Haruyo says with a smile. “No. Wait. You have to tell me now.” “Yeah,” she says as she hands it to her. “...remember in first grade, when you “I know.” said that...that Aka Manto came to visit you “So...does this mean we’re cool now?” in the bathroom?” “I am still mad at you for it. But yeah. She nods slowly, still smiling. We’re cool.” “That was me. Erika and I pulled a prank “Cool. Because I need to stop at the on you.” bathroom.” “What?” “It wasn’t real. We left you in the bath- “ o we have history class today?” Shiori room and I took Miss Sato’s raincoat while asks from outside the bathroom stall. she was still outside.” “I think so,” Haruyo answers. “But it “That—” Shiori looks confused by her doesn’t start ’til later, so we have time.” own feelings. “That was you?” Shiori doesn’t reply. She nods. “Shiori, I’m sorry. I know how “Shiori?” much that scared you. I didn’t mean for it “Hey, Haruyo,” Shiori finally replies, to ever go this far. It was just a dumb urban whispering in a raspy voice. She slips two legend.” pieces of construction paper under the door. Shiori doesn’t say anything. She just “Red...or blue?” stares. “Ugh,” she says with a laugh. “Whatever. Haruyo stares back at her, unsure of Red, I guess.” what her friend will do now. The door opens. Shiori keeps laughing. Then Shiori stands up. “I think you “What the heck, dude! Close the door!” should go.” She stands still. Laughing. Her eyes are dyed blood red from lack of sleep, and her he next week, Haruyo sits by herself in smile is tight and unnatural. She tightens the the spot where she and Shiori usually drawstrings on her favourite red hoodie and wait for class to start. How could she have pulls her candy cane from out of her mouth. been so stupid? She should never have told Its blue tip has been sharpened to a point. Shiori anything about it. Secrets like those “Shiori? are better left untold. She looks up from her ... thoughts when she feels someone standing over her shoulder. What are you doing?” “Hey.” “Hi.”

Accutane & Adderall Philip Hiblovic Accutane & Adderall I throat with my coffee, black & poured freshly in the morning sun, beaming through the window panes, illuminating the kitchen sink— I tapped for the water to make said coffee. Before, I was tired, but now I’m just wired, & I’m still just as weird but my lips a bit drier, my brain a bit bigger, my legs a bit shaky. Why in the Hell is my lower back achy? I don’t really know. Is it the fútbol, the Adderall, or the burden of it all? I don’t really know. Is it the ball & chain, the Accutane, or the mountain of the mental strain? I don’t really know. All I know is the grass is still green & the coffee’s still good, & I’m still just angsty & misunderstood.

fountain pen and ink by Alex Deiters

photograph by Patrick Zarrick

Staying Power Noah Apprill-Sokol

he rumble of lawnmowers drifted through the open dining room window, interrupting the stillness of the summer morning. Sparrows chirped their Summer song, laughter rose from the back alley. Typical sounds of a Saturday morning in my Saint Louis neighborhood, when time meanders slowly without urgency. But this particular morning, and others in the weeks to come, would take on a special purpose for me and my grandfather. We worked diligently together on a scaled-down model of a ship that last sailed in 1607. I was 10, my grandfather was 71, and the ship, or at least the historical record of it, was over 400 years old. The vessel, called The Virginia, had captured my imagination when I visited the historical society in Bath, Maine, a month earlier on a family vacation. My grandfather and I sat at the dining room table: facing a drafting notebook, a pencil, and a calculator. A glossy paperback book—a souvenir from the historical society—lay open on the table. My grandfather’s leathery scarred hands clutched mine, guiding the pencil across the graph paper. The lines on the paper detailed our plan, based on calculations I was just barely old enough to comprehend. “This is how I used to build models when I was a kid,” my grandfather reminisced, smiling at the memory. “Really?” I asked. It was difficult to conjure an image of my grandfather as a youth. I always imagined him grown-up and gray.

“My friends and I loved planes,” said my grandfather. “We would go to the town library, find pictures of planes in books, and then go home to try to recreate them from balsa wood and glue. Now, I am doing the same with . . .” Ding-dong! Ding-dong! “...you,” my grandfather mused as the old clock chimed, heralding his departure. He rose slowly from the chair, searched his pocket for the floppy ballcap to protect his head from the sun, and stepped towards the backdoor. “’Til another day,” he called while exiting. “’Til another day,” I repeated. The windowpane rattled when he shut the door. My grandfather and I have built projects together for as long as I can remember. They are as numerous as my collections of Legos, Tinkertoys, and Lincoln Logs. My grandfather’s engineering talents, coupled with my growing sense of wonder, have made us a formidable team, even if my attention sometimes wanders. Yet the ship project was different. Building a model—like the volunteers from the community in Maine who created the ship with original tools—had taken hold in my mind. I couldn’t fully explain: this project had staying power. It had real history. I sat on a stool at the workbench, hunched over the project. We had moved to the basement several weeks earlier. Tools were scattered everywhere. A wood-burner

was clutched in my shaking hands as I engraved the phrase Noah’s Virginia, 1607-2014 into the stand that held the model. My grandfather looked over my shoulder, proudly smiling, knowing all the work, time, and growth that had occurred over the weeks. The workbench was paint-stained and had grooves where my carving tools had gone astray. My fingers now had a few scars too. “It’s finally complete,” I exclaimed, admiring the ship, decked out with riggings and cloth sails. “Nothing is really complete,” my grandfather retorted. Then, sounding philosophi-

cal, he admired the letters of my name in the stand and said, “We are all works-in-progress, ships that sail through history.” He stopped looking at the lines of my name and turned to examine the lines on his hands. The Virginia now sits next to my desk in the upstairs study, a memento of my grandfather and an important ingredient of who I have become. My grandfather taught me that we are all projects in time. The past never stays in the past; it lives through us in the present. That’s what gives history its staying power.

photograph by George Henken

The Ride Taggart Arens

A steel chorus stands tall against the breeze, Swaying gently as autumn leaves drift down. The crowded members—caught in its reprise, Creaking in every aching joint—fall down. A figure lurks below, culling the weak. Fear creeps into their joyful voices, strained, Receding into whispers, they are meek, Ragged breathing under thick bonds contained. Behold the ride stirring courage to flee. The reaper calls to slaughter sheep, eager, Bitter demons refuse to shift their key, Unyielding to the screams that beleaguer. Hands linger with each other all for naught, Hell’s everlasting torture they have bought.

Scenes From an Early Spring: An Allegorical Anthology Luke Missey

photographs by luke missey

Walking West I arrive at the crest of the hill. The road cascades down the slope before me and rises up again, hugging the gently rolling hills. The sun departs with the fanfare of a yellow-orange sky and is paid homage by the jagged, outstretched arms of the dry, twisted trees that line the horizon. To my right squats a boxy home, painted a lively, luminous hue by the vibrant, masterful brushstrokes of the retreating sun. I see the beauty reflected on its facade, framed neatly by the porch and eaves, and I move closer to this masterpiece, admiring the muted brilliance left by brushstrokes on a clapboard canvas. But alas, as I follow my course due west, the sun continues without me on its own westward endeavor. It retracts its rays and leaves behind nothing but shadows to mark its presence. That sprawling, suburban structure could hold the striking sunlight only for a moment, for the sun himself is fleeing from me as I am walking west.

After some time another road emerges perpendicular to my former trajectory. I turn and begin my trek south.

Not towards the horizon not chasing the sun but walking with it, side by side.

Kirkwood Bluffing

High up on the hilltop I see. I see for miles around from my little patch of grass, shared only with the vultures and the weeds. I am guarded by a white van with Kansas plates. It never moves, never leaves its parking place. From my perch I can see as the birds do. I see the steaming, industrial Valley Park. I see Simpson Lake, shimmering navy blue, and the powerful, volatile Meramec River. I see I-44 as it meanders along in the distance And then lose sight as it weaves between rolling hills. I am on the high ground— the spot from which I can see this little pocket. Where I can see each road, each tree, each car, each building. I see them all together, because I am above them all. I am on top of the Kirkwood Bluffs. Except for the fact that the Kirkwood Bluffs are Bluffing. For they are not really above anything, their views and vistas are all quite relative things. The valley was carved, and in its wake it left the bluffs and the hills and the ridges. I do not see from my spot because the bluff is high— I see because the valley is low. I see because that flattened floodplain prostrates itself, and leaves my spot high above. The depth of the valley makes the height of the hill.

Why my elementary school image of God isn’t entirely wrong 14

I’ve heard that the great plains are “big sky country,” but that seems redundant. The sky is big everywhere. The sky stretches as far as anyone can see, and then farther. It is the stage on which constellations play out their dramas, the canvas on which the sun paints its farewell. It is the pale blue sea, on which great battleships made of clouds lay siege to the horizon. It is the superhighway for the southbound geese and the hunting grounds for circling hawks and vultures. It brings biblical torrents of rain, smothering sheets of snow and ice, the fiery flickering wrath of the lightning and gargantuan tremors of thunder. The sky encompasses all and plays ubiquitous roles. It is the great above, the frontier that for so long the tainted, greedy hands of mankind could not reach. The sky is beautiful, serene, powerful, all on a grand, awe-inspiring scale. But the sky is also the air we breathe. It is the crisp bite on a fall day, the warm breeze across a screened-in porch. The sky brushes the fingertips of the swaying trees and rustles through the forest floor. The sky envelops you and it envelops me, it slides past every blade of grass, encircling every mountain and every molehill. So is it really so basic, so elementary to think that Heaven is in the sky, that God lives in the sky?

For the sky is at once above us and with us, towering over us, striking awe and fear and joy with its beauty, and also existing among us, our everyday sustenance, the humble air we inhale and exhale through our bodies.

Life Imitates Art 16

Midway between I-270 and the Meramec, I found myself in a brown, barren wood, The right path lost. I had come to rest below the hill that marked one side of the valley that I was in, the valley criss-crossed with paths leading nowhere, doubling back. I looked towards the crest of the hill and saw its shoulders already mantled in rays of that bright planet which shines upon our true path, illuminating the way. How I came into the valley I cannot say, for I had been strolling through a sunlit glade, tracing the crest of the hill before a series of twists and turns brought me there. I started again across the wilderness, but each path I took ended apart from that warm glade– apart from the crest I had once trod upon. One path revealed a dark tunnel that oozed a murky green stream; Another path faded until it became one with the rotting leaves; still another circled back on itself, never leading anywhere. I would have gone on in my futile search for the true path, the path by which I had entered the valley before, had I not spotted an old man, gazing up at the hill as well. I never saw his face, only the faded white hair on his head, but when I came a stone’s throw from him I found that he marked a junction, where a new path cut through the valley. This aging man never moved, never talked, only stared up at the trees and the sun and the hill. but he had revealed the true path, my way out.

I trod this novel thoroughfare, the promised path that would return me to the glory of the glade and the warm truth and direct righteousness of the sun’s rays. But behold, the path did not lead to the crest of the hill, or even to the end of the valley. Instead, both merged: The hill bent down to meet the ground in an awkward embrace. There was no more wood, no more glade, no more crest to trace. I now found myself with no path—only a wide open plain. That great, powerful, omniscient orb shone here, directly. It cast its rays onto this flat expanse, more so than any valley, hill, glade, or tree. The hill and the valley merged, and the sun that the old man observed shone most ardently there.

Tunnel to Nowhere 18

Water drips down the sides of the ravine, smoothing out the exposed stone and rejuvenating the moss and lichens in their strongholds. The trickling water augments a chorus of voices; It joins in with the melancholy sighs of the wind, the cheery chatter of the birds, and the rhythmic tapping of the woodpecker, keeping a steady time. This chorus invites me to join in, to add the soft patter of my footsteps on the ivy into their soothing harmony. But there is another force at work in the ravine. It is a silent, cold, foreboding presence, one that causes hesitation in my step. The far wall of the ravine has a gaping mouth, but brick and mortar have silenced it. Instead of calling me in like the chorus around it, this tunnel pierces me with its chilling gaze, and although the air around me is mild, I can see the cloud of my breath. The tunnel calls me as well, but it does not have the warm, welcoming embrace of the falling water or the mellifluous chatter of the birds. The cold, unbreaking gaze of the tunnel pulls me closer, as if an icy hand had reached out of the dark sliver above the brick barrier, and dragged me towards it. I stop a few paces from the face of the cliff that marks the end of the ravine. I cannot follow the guidance of the tunnel any longer, because it is a tunnel to nowhere, a dark and sinister nowhere that lurks in the abyss behind the bricks. The tunnel has no length, no depth, no end as far as I can see— only an ominous, pitch-black nowhere— A palpably intangible void that is barely restrained by the fading brick wall in front of it. The vibrant chorus salutes me as I walk away, the tunnel to nowhere will have to try another day.

All Over the World Frank Kovarik

He sits on his front porch thinking That he really needs to stop drinking beer This year. It’s easier said than done. She waits in the drive-thru crying, Thinking about her mama’s dying day. It’s on its way, But she hasn’t told anyone.

All over the world All over the world

His cable TV is broken, And he and his wife haven’t spoken in years. Get those rabbit ears. The signal is just coming through. She’s having a hard time sleeping, And her loving husband’s creeping downstairs, Having affairs On Facebook with heaven knows who.

All over the world All over the world

He’s doing the grocery shopping. His wife and her friends are out popping pills. He’s paying bills And wondering how long this can last.

She’s at her high school reunion. Sister cuts her from the Communion line. She says fine. That Catholic school girl’s in the past.

All over the world All over the world

Everyday it’s another heartache. What you get when you partake of life Is strife. You get kicked even when you’re down. All over the world there’s yearning. This life ain’t a hunk of burning love Sent from above. You tread water and try not to drown.

All over the world All over the world All over the world All over the world

photograph by Nicholas Sanders

Self Portraits Cody Cox

f I had minded my own business, stayed within my friend group, and played on the blacktop like all the normal kids, I might never have noticed her. Even though my school was so small—in its entirety, it had fewer than 150 students— and even though she was in my very own grade, Katie was practically invisible. She was forgettably pretty, of an average height within my class, with shiny, nearly-black hair that fell in a perfectly straight curtain down her hunched posture, deep brown eyes, and a pale, melancholy, circular face with a spray of freckles across her nose. Katie was nearly always alone. She was constantly focused on her binder, or the floor. In the winter, she wore a huge coat, even in class, that obscured her face entirely, and even though that was against school policy, she was not reprimanded for it. Even the teachers seemed to avoid asking her questions. Maybe like us, they felt guilty at the prospect of listening to someone not thought to have a voice. However, Katie was a pretty good student, earnest and hardworking. She had neatly color-coded binders and an impossibly sharp, chewed-up jet-black pencil she constantly took notes and scrawled tiny doodles with. She had Post-It notes all over her desk, and she was so concentrated on her work that when her hair would collect around her eyes, she would never blow it out of her face until we were given a break. Olivia, another girl in the class, made some kids laugh when she pointedly remarked in front of Katie that she probably needed surgery

on her nose to detach it from her binder. Other kids chuckled when they heard Owen say that her uncle was probably part of the Chinese Communist Party because she was Asian. I may not have laughed at any of these cruel jokes, but I didn’t stick up for Katie either. I was having a hard enough time fitting in with my own social circle, because I had different interests than most of my friends and constantly clashed with them. She rarely showed any expression beyond concentration. She never seemed bothered or saddened by her exclusion from the class, just lonely. Although she was made fun of, no one paid her any real attention. If everyone ignored her, they wouldn’t have to recognize her as a person at all. Early in grade school, I had few friends in my class, so I had spent time with Katie. We used to call each other often, but it was hard getting her to open up about her home life, and at the time, it didn’t seem worth it. By the time I was in 7th grade, we had stopped calling each other, I had stopped occasionally sitting with her at lunch, and we had different interests and extracurriculars. So it came as a bit of a surprise when, on a random Thursday in the spring, she invited me to a midtown art gallery in the city that coming Saturday. I remember receiving the invite over email and thinking, Why in the world, would Katie, of all people, invite me, of the seven billion people in the world, to an art gallery, of all things? I should be the one person she wouldn’t want to see. Does she like me or something? My puffed-up middle-

schooler brain went pole vaulting to that conclusion when she asked if I could keep my answer private and not to talk about it at school. Is she really that scared, I thought with an exasperated inward sigh, that she doesn’t have the guts to tell me in person? It’s not like I’ll tell. I contemplated my choices for a moment. I’ll answer yes now, and I’ll let her down easy if I see her after school. The next morning at school, I fell behind after most of the class left in order to tell Katie that I wouldn’t be joining her. As Katie clutched her binders to head to the next class, she tripped over her untied shoelace at the doorway, sacrificing her binders in order to save herself from face-planting the floor. Her papers flew out of her composition binder. I saw one of the papers, an incredibly detailed eye drawing. Tears welled deep within its corners, and it was covered in illegible small messages. Confused, I reached down to help Katie up, before my eyes flicked to her now rolled-up sleeve. Deep, inflamed scratches centered inside bruises covered the inside of her forearm. I managed to avert my eyes fast enough in order to avoid suspicion from her, as she flushed for just a moment before picking her papers up, taking my hand. Quickly letting go, Katie darted across the hall. The deep scratches on her wrist, the impossibly sharp pencil, the troubling eye she had drawn. The classroom spun rapidly in my vision as I tried to make sense of the things laid out in front of me. Was a possible crush really the only reason she wanted me to go to the art gallery? I didn’t know for certain.

aturday arrived in a flash, but even as I got ready to go, putting on my most comfortable clothes, a long-sleeved green shirt and blue jeans, I was anxiously itching. Even though it was a warm day, chills ran up and down my spine as I walked into the glassy building containing the art gallery. Katie wore a dark green sweater, even though the room was warm. The paintings hung imposingly over us, their sense of value, authority and preciousness clear. Katie gave me a look of surprise when she saw me, beckoning me over to the painting she was looking at. “Thanks for coming,” she said in her high pitched, soft tone. “I wasn’t sure that you would show up. “Of course,” I replied,

photograph by Jack Janson

“I like art history and I love art galleries.” I wasn’t lying, but I was more interested in why Katie had thought of me when she thought of whom to invite. “Who drove you here?” I asked, because Katie’s exchange student cousin had a busy schedule and often required priority treatment from Katie’s parents. In fact Katie’s parents often said, when asked if Katie and her cousin were sisters, that they had one child and also happened to birth Katie. Katie was seen as less smart than her cousin and had to study in order to match the effortless A’s her cousin earned. “I took the bus.” she replied, wincing as she fidgeted with the fabric of her sweater. She looked back up at the painting in front

of her, gently shifting her weight from side to side. An awkward moment of silence passed. She chose to speak up first.“You know? I love self portraits a lot. People really hate their self portraits: they think they’re the worst.” I looked at her. Did she know how conflicted I felt about being here? “Well, if people can make their worst this pretty,” she grinned, “then their best must be beautiful.” I faintly appreciated the sentiment. Katie suddenly turned pale, and her fingers that had previously been fidgeting at the neck of the sweater were now scratching at the sleeves. I helped her sit down on the rough wooden bench nearby, breathing heavily. She began to tremble as I stood next to her, dumbfounded. She looked at me, wincing in pain. “Give me a moment.” “What’s wrong?” She didn’t seem to pay me any mind, her eyes darting frantically. “I’m having a panic attack,” she breathed shakily, “and I just need someone to help me calm down.” I sat down next to her, and held her wrist as she began to take deep breaths. I stared at the floor, and waited for it to pass. When I heard her breathing becoming more steady, I looked at her wrist. She had cuts running up into the shadows of her sweater. The realization of why she was wearing a sweater inside a warm gallery on a warm day hit me so hard, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I was sinking into the ground. “Katie? Have you been...hurting yourself?” It made perfect sense to me, even though my heart dropped into my stomach just thinking about it. Her parents expected her to be studious, but they also ignored her. No one at school was any better. They ignored her, and when they did

photograph by Jack Janson

talk to her, it was only to make fun of how hard she tried to earn those grades. She was constantly trapped, and there was no friend, no safety net, no support to fall back on. Katie didn’t say a word. She just leaned in for a hug, and we sat there in friendly silence until she let go. “You should know,” I said, “that I will try to be there for you. You don’t ever deserve to hurt yourself that way.” She nodded, giving me a grateful look. The reception desk’s phone buzzed, helping me to remember our surroundings. “So what exactly did you invite me here for, besides the art?” Her tiny smile dissolved. “I’m not stupid,” she said flatly. “I know people make fun of me. I wanted to thank you for being kind. You haven’t made fun of me. You just helped me through something pretty embarrassing. Thank you.” I was speechless. I had thought only of myself when I had decided to come here. The best that could have been said about me was that I had tried to let Katie down gently. She had been having such a hard time making friends, and had done some unspeakable damage to herself. And now here she was, telling me how kind I had been.

I looked down, deeply ashamed. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you sooner.” I whispered. “I know,” was her nonchalant reply.

e had fun together as if for the first time, looking around the rooms filled with all sorts, sizes and styles of paintings. We went across the street to a little café and laughed until our sides ached over bubble tea and muffins. I began to see what I had been missing out on, even feeling some pangs of regret when I finally had to go home. I felt I had changed, that my mind was a little more open to helping others after befriending Katie. When I reminisce, some of the smaller details get a little blurred. I no longer remember what we were laughing about. I no longer remember what people asked me when they wanted to know about that weekend. But I remember becoming closer to Katie again, the eagerness in Katie’s eyes as she talked to me about her day at our next lunch back at school, the reassurance that my being, my self-portrait, was more beautiful than I thought it was.

photograph by Patrick Zarrick

The Opportunists Rich Moran

26 An opportunistic infection is … caused by pathogens … that take advantage of an opportunity not normally available…. Wikipedia I. Every living form seeks a chance, seizes a moment, to claw its way along a track, to snatch the baton, and race ahead to spin out copies of itself, seeking conquest of its realm and the next. But the Coronas with their accidentally apt name keep their red eyes on the crown that lies so uneasily on your head and mine, strangling their hosts quietly, seizing upon our crowns. Such opportunists are they…and we— so intent on exploiting each chance, contesting each win and winning each contest. Their nature and, yes, ours is “red in tooth and claw.” Such ruthless death-dealing: it’s the story of all life… Except when it isn’t. Looking out our second-floor window, I saw once a distant neighbor, a circuit judge, strolling along the street, usually busy though quietly empty that Saturday morning at 7. As he walked, he bowed now and then to pick up trash— a cup here, a greasy bag and empty pint there. All on a walk not along his own street, just a place in the world where with this unseen (for all he knows) deed, he seizes his chance to make the city, not nearly pristine, but just a bit less messy.

Or like my mom and most likely yours, who pushes the last slices of roast and cake toward each departing guest, or accepts a sick child into her home, though she’s the one who will soon be ill. II. In Tolstoy’s “Master and Man,” one December 7, the day after the feast of Nicholas, (who protects the weak from the strong) the old innkeeper Brekhunov orders his poor servant Nikita to harness horse to sled so they might set out in the cold on a chance to buy someone’s grove before competitors arrive. But the two get lost and doomed in a blinding blizzard. At Nikita’s suggestion, master and man decide to burrow down into the sled and stake their lives there ’til dawn. But Brekhunov cannot sleep. He lies awake, reckoning the profits ahead and savoring the wealth he has amassed, despising the indolence that has rendered pawns like Nikita so lazily content with life as it is— so passively they accept their poverty and even the frozen silence of this dark forest. “Blizzard or no blizzard,” Brekhunov recalls his code, “I start out. So business gets done.” Thus spurring himself to action, Brekhunov mounts the unharnessed and shivering horse, and sets out, abandoning his shabby-coated servant. But misguided perhaps by a fiercer grace, Brekhunov loses his way, loses his horse and wanders in circles to the opportunity his Master perhaps has with him charged, the chance that leads him back to the half-frozen peasant, the sled where Brekhunov now suddenly feels at home, sheltered finally from the desolation of being lost and scorning the life he built in pursuit of counted treasures. With clarity and joy, the master lays his life down atop Nikita, blanketing the peasant with the master’s own fading warmth, and, no longer the master, he knows “he was Nikita and Nikita…he…. His life was not in himself but in Nikita.” Thus does the master kindle life in his serf.

III. Rather like our local giant, who sets out on winter’s harshest nights To find the homeless camped in forlorn corners of our city to give them coats and blankets to keep them warm.

Or Al Letson, reporting at a Berkeley protest, who, seeing an alt-right man clubbed by “righteous” antifas, leaps atop the pummeled white supremacist, offering his own black spine instead to those who would beat another’s. What opportunities did these givers seize upon to crown their lives when they risked their status and maybe life itself? So might we all distinguish ourselves from this virus not by how we boast of what we’ve gained but by how we lay life down to serve another’s.

painting by David Linhares

New Multitudes Jack Zimmerman There’s a deli on the corner, and it’s hot. We wait outside. Overlapping. I’m the old woman who owns her space at the black-wire table in the shade. I’m the hard-hat workers that wait for the sodas on the curb. I’m the young woman. Her mother cuts in line. That’s me too. I’m the bald man, pants hiked, demanding Val from the back. And I’m Val, aproned around the waist, bandana’d at the top and mad. I’m the fat mom with three kids. I’m not the kids. Can’t quite see me. Can’t quite see— And there I am, new, There there there I he is new the man with a tie, undoes his top button chest hair holding ice water styrofoam. Flag the tie loose and melt. And there there there I am am together we we all together him together me.

photograph by Miles Schulte

Saggin Albert Harrold

tatistic, is that all I am? Another statistic awaiting my task, my destiny. Marked at birth, carried to the end. I didn’t choose this, yet the world acts as if I had a choice. Right or wrong, Your wrong is feeding my right and your right is the death of me. Should I do right? Should I be good? Should I do wrong? Should I be bad? Good or bad I’m still a statistic.

dultification and appropriation, the shackles of my existence. Am I too dark? Is my hair right? Is my nose too big? Am I a trend? Am I allowed? I know I can shoot a hoop just as well as I can run track, score a touchdown, kick a soccer ball, dance, draw, rap, sing, or play an instrument but am I human or simply a service? I’m too young in my household But I appear too old in another, forced to take on the roles of a mother, father, or even replace my big brother. I’m the fatherless mother and the fatherless father. Torn apart from slavery to section eight. Told I look older and forced to be older. But never good enough, always too loud, never appropriate.

oner, I’m lost in a land far away. Taken from my mother I bleed. Forced into labor I bleed. Taken from my father I bleed.

Pulled from my mother I bleed. Beaten to death I bleed. Serving my old master I bleed. Thrown into jail I bleed. Hanging from the tree I bleed. At the colored drinking fountain I bleed. In the back of the bus I bleed. In my designated neighborhood I bleed. In my burned-down church I bleed. Being followed through the store I bleed. On the ground handcuffed with a knee on my neck I bleed. My body is tired. I’m a goner.

angster, thug, criminal, suspect, worker, nigger, slave. The evolution of my inhuman status. When you see me, do you see me or a threat? I just want to live in peace, Why is my existence the cause of your fear? Can you hear the screams and shouts of my brothers and sisters? All we’ve ever wanted was equality. Tricked from the beginning, the truth whitewashed to the end. Property tax the new segregation. Told a prison is built for every low reading score we have. If we don’t miraculously succeed, we will end up as more criminals.

nstitutional, the system was never made to keep peace, it was made to keep me in line and keep their money flowing and protected. I can’t reform what was never for me. I must abolish this threat. I cannot be locked up for another crime I didn’t do, I cannot be beat up for another crime I didn’t do, I cannot be killed for another crime I didn’t do. I cannot be killed another time. My songs are very popular in your neighborhoods, But have you ever thought about me? I know you call my name when I’m not around, my inhuman name. You don’t care about me. You care about your money.

iggas, Saggin backwards. From the evils of slavery, upheld behind bars, carried to the streets, saggin. I am my ancestors, I am my brother, I am my sister, I am my mother, I am my father. I am not another statistic, I am appropriate. I am not some gangster or thug, I am human, I am black, I am beautiful.

photograph by Drew Walters

a sandwich through the tent stitch Francisco Schmidt

I was handed a soggy sandwich It was peculiar where it came from By a hand through the tent stitch Who could it be that owned the green thumb? Perhaps his name was Cristo or Ruben? A polite man would try at least a crumb To find that the meal was actually a Cuban I unzipped the tent so I could ask him to stay But much to my confusion It appeared that my Hero had rushed far away

photograph by Philip Hiblovic

A Toast Brendan Smith ’91 First you are bread then you’re toasted. ’S what you get when you’re cut and then roasted. I spread you with butter, One jam or anudder, You’re the breakfast I like to eat most-ed.

charcoal by Nathan Rich

Fifty Dollars Nathan Rich

blame Ulysses S. Grant. After all, it was his gruff face that adorned the crisp new addition to my wallet. Folded gently in my back pocket, the fifty dollars started yelling the moment I saw her. She was hunched over, barely distinguishable from a pile of used clothes. Sitting comfortably behind the steering wheel, I peered through the windshield, watching carefully as she shuffled through the black bag at her feet. Her hair whipped around in the wind as she searched. Normally I would have turned away then, minding my business, but something fixed my focus on her. I blame Grant. She clutched the street sign tightly for support as she stood back up, now armed with a half-empty water bottle. Rising slowly, her eyes turned from her bag to the long line of cars waiting to turn onto the highway. She squinted in the sun and surveyed the row, moving up and down the cars. When her gaze passed my unassuming blue Toyota, we made eye contact for a brief second, and I swear she saw Grant, too. Even if she hadn’t seen him, she must have heard him. How could she not? He was nearly screaming at this point. As his voice continued to rise, calling out to me, my gut sank. What did I owe her? Surely something—Jesus had taught me that much—but fifty dollars? That seemed a steep price for moral high ground. Plus, I’ve been told before that randomly giving money to homeless people is not the best way to

help. Grant didn’t see it that way, though. He tugged my gut tighter down, and I slumped further into my seat along with it. Well, what would she use it for? A good question. Maybe a new coat? The one she was wearing looked old and worn, even from far away. The yellow flannel pattern, which I imagined once stood boldly against the grays of Kingshighway, had been reduced to a dirty beige. It didn’t look particularly soft either. The clean white sweatshirt that I wore, with the fuzzy interior and strings that hung perfectly equal across my chest, suddenly felt too heavy for that sunny October day. Fifty dollars could buy a nice coat, probably. A coat would be nice, but... What would I use it for? A better question, one that distracted me from my guilt. Well, what would I use it for? I certainly didn’t need the money. In fact, I couldn’t think of one non-food item to spend it on. But fifty dollars could, in fact, buy a lot of food. My wallet burned in my pocket and I felt a significant decision coming. Unfortunately for me, I am notoriously bad at those. Something needed to change; I needed out of this situation. Answering my call, the stop light flashed green and the long line of cars lurched forwards. Yes! Moral dilemma resolved. But then… Green left almost as soon as it came. Yellow flashed and my driving school instincts hit before I remembered what I was running

from. I didn’t even realize my position until after I stopped. First in line, I had a perfect view of Forest Park, BJC, and…the lady in the beige flannel. The siren in my pocket was deafening. She was less than four feet from me. I didn’t know what to do. For just a few seconds, my finger hovered over the window button and Grant stopped shouting. Time froze around me. In that moment, I was alone in the universe with no one but Grant and the lady in the beige flannel. My finger twitched over the switch as my sweaty palms slid slowly towards my pocket. But… I couldn’t bring myself to push it. I sat, staring directly forward, still in my seat. I slid my arm away from the button. From the corner of my eye, I watched her, now with a sign in her hand, sway calmly back and forth. We hadn’t made eye contact yet, but it was inevitable. I needed a way out again. In a moment of less-than-divine inspiration,

I lunged forward in my seat and jabbed the touch screen on the dashboard. For several seconds, I fiddled meaninglessly with the radio of my car, searching for some station to justify my stinginess, to block out Grant’s scream. I found none. When I sat back up again, she was gone from my side. I glanced up in my rearview mirror and watched her walk further down the row of cars forming behind me. I sighed heavily. It was over, I had made my choice. When the light turned green again, she was far behind my car, though I still did my best to distance myself from her. Grant didn’t stop, though. The whole way home he spoke to me. By the time I was home, it was only a faint whisper, but I could still make out the question he posed. What do you owe her? Apparently not fifty dollars.

photograph by George Henken

photograph by Patrick Zarrick

Fear Alex Preusser Fear is a flighty thing

Constantly changing Morphing Evolving A rapidly beating heart Restless butterflies a fiery frenzy in your stomach It grows with you A constant companion Ever-present by your side Unwavering in its loyalty Threatening to take control

art by Will Blaisdell

Bray Carter J. Fortman

took the long route home after passing my driving test on a rainy afternoon. As the rain gently hit my car, I was soothed by my “respectablejazz” playlist. Midway along my drive, my comfort was interrupted when I realized I needed gas. The Shell Station I found on my phone seemed like a perfect option. Always bustling, the station saw hundreds of people every day; different faces, names, genetics, all there for the same commodity. I pulled up to the nearest pump and realized where I was. The station was my grandpa’s. The one I had never met. In my mind as the middle-aged man he was in all the pictures, it was hard to imagine him as my grandfather, especially as my father’s father. He was a distant name, not even a memory or a voice to associate. When I touched the handle to begin filling my tank up, I was somewhere else. “Hey kid, need any help?” said a jetblack-haired man in a thick St. Louis accent. “Stop standin’ around. We’re busy.” As I looked around, the vehicles had transformed into the muscle cars of the 60s. My white Honda was now a classic, american-made Ford. Smoke billowed in the air as I watched the man approach. His shortsleeved button-up with greasy hair from another generation. He was tall, about my height, with a long narrow face like my father’s. For a minute, I thought he was my father. He was a businessman. That’s what I know most about him. He owned what was, for most of the 1960s, the busiest Shell Station in the midwest. Using those proceeds, he opened a hotel. In 1969, my grandpa had the momentum to create an empire. But it was all cut short by a seemingly insignificant

patch of skin. He had melanoma. By the time it was caught, his fate was sealed. Confused, I began to unravel the mystery. “Mr. Bray…” I started. “I mean...grandpa?” I miss him, a man I have never met. I longed to know him, to hear his voice just once, to hear his sayings and know what he believed. I longed to know that missing quarter of my genetics. My father had been a toddler when my grandpa died and remembered very little. The knowledge he had came either secondhand from my late grandma, or from the sparse artifacts passed down. “What’d you call me?” “I’m your grandson.” “Carter?” “How’d you know that?!” “I’ve waited for you. Follow me.” We began walking down the bustling street. Cigarette smoke billowed but for some reason didn’t affect me. The sun seemed brighter than before, much brighter. I was curious and confused. It must be a dream, I thought. But this is all I ever wanted. Just a moment in time to unite my identity. To be whole. “How’d you know I’d come?” I said. “It’s the land of the unforgotten. People like me, who leave the earth too early for our descendants, have the opportunity to meet one. I chose you, Carter, ” he said. “Much as I did, you have the ambition to be very successful. Your father is a good man, a good role model, the type I hoped to have been to him, the kind his adopted father was to him. Life is short; I should know. “However, I have no regrets. I’m...happy.

photograph by Owen Rittenhouse

After this talk, my matters to the earth are finished. Fifty-one years I’ve been here, but I finally see peace.” It hadn’t been long, but it seemed as if we had been walking for hours. He stopped walking at the Mississippi, grinned ear to ear, and patted me on my shoulder. “Time, like life, is short,” he explained. “What’d you like to know?” “Who am I?” He chuckled. “C’mon Carter, you know I can’t tell you that. When I was about your age, I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I figured it out. “You’re a Bray, sure, but you’re also a Fortman. You’ve got quite a bit of German blood, a tiny bit of English. You can be Catholic or Protestant. You got some artist in you from your Grandma Shirley and some business genes from me. The possibilities are truly endless, kid. Besides, we’ll always be with you as guardians praying for you,” he explained, pointing to the skies.

Projected in the clouds, I saw my dream. My family, maternal and paternal, all brought together beside a turkey in the most festive autumn sweaters available. Careless and innocent, I let myself be swept into the story, but at the snap of a finger. I was brought back to desolation. “Your dreams are wrong. The feast is happening now! The most important part of your identity came from the Lamb, Jesus, as a sacrifice. “Don’t be sad! Your direction is bright, but accept that I am not your only grandfather, not up here. Up here, everyone is your grandfather as you are theirs. You aren’t missing any part of your identity. You have everything you need when you focus on what is important: love. Your family is endless, as is love.” “I must go there now,” he said, gesturing towards the sky, gleaming with anticipation. “But I will never be far away. I love you, Carter; see you soon.”

Singular Focus Christopher St. John

stand in a field, my body caked in mud and grime. I hear the growling of my stomach, as if it alone could kill the beast. Across the field stands a boar, its black eyes locked into mine. My family needs this food. My spear is leveled, my stance firm, ready for the charge. Everything but the boar disappears as I watch my target. With a screech, the boar begins to charge, its lumbering mass growing larger by the second. I can do this, I mutter, as I ready myself for the brunt of the impact, fighting the urge to run. I can’t stop my eyes from sealing shut. I just have to stop it, I have to stop it. A sharp pain emanates from my ankle, like someone slicing my Achilles wide open. A fire burns through my leg like molten iron coursing through my veins. I fall to the ground. As I lie there, face half-buried in the dirt, I can make out a diamondheaded serpent emerging from the grass, inspecting its prey. I cannot move, the fire burns in every crevice of my body as I lie there, helpless as the darkness closes in. I can hear the boar getting closer. I have to get up, have to…

photograph by Patrick Zarrick

painting by David Linhares

Friends Bill George

y birthday present, a sleek green three-speed Schwinn, meant freedom, a circumstance I celebrated the very next day when the street department laid down a smooth black layer of asphalt on Amherst Ave. I was the first to race from one end of our street to the other, leaving a dusty streak where I had been. Others–– Deucey Dunbar, Brian Knoll and Barbara Thomas––joined me that evening on their bikes to dance circles round each other, delighting in the ease of our movement, our grace. Now, instead of being driven to Miner Park to swim or play ball, I could pedal there by myself, navigating the sidewalk along Old River Road, jumping the curb in front of Harold’s Pharmacy, from which my brother was banned for reasons untold to me, and Gimble’s Grocery, where my sister worked on weekends for a nasty man who scowled while we chose our nickel’s worth of penny candy from his glass-covered counter. On the next block I would pass the Riverside Inn, inhaling the sweet stench of beer that escaped from its open door; then the Anthracite Coal Company, where kids would clamber upon a hunk of shiny black coal as big as a bull; and then pass by the cavernous terminal of Martz Bus Line, where Ronnie Loeffler had discovered a machine that dispensed mini-boxes of Kent cigarettes for a dime; and finally the Richfield gas station across from the park. One morning on the way to swim, three kids I did not know filled the sidewalk in front of the coal company. When I slowed to maneuver through them, they would not let me pass. The biggest one, a curly blond wearing shiny blue jeans with cuffs, pressed

his hands against my handlebars and straddled my front tire. “Fancy bike, eh, Steve,” the big one said to a skinny kid with black hair just like mine. The third one, a kid wearing a yellow T-shirt with a pack of cigarettes tucked into a pocket, said nothing and did nothing the whole time the three had me there. “Too fancy for this punk ass,” the skinny kid sneered. Then the big one leaned forward as if to hit me, but instead he swiveled the latch on my bike’s spotlight, opened the back and clawed out its two big batteries. I could see he was thinking about what to do next. He gave one to the skinny kid and kept one for himself. I tightened my hands on the handlebar’s rubber grips, wondering if I dare thrust the front wheel into the big kid’s crotch with enough force to startle him and escape. The skinny kid flipped the battery back and forth in the cups of his palms and then flung it across the street toward the parking lot of the Old River Road Bakery. Taking up the challenge, the big kid, still straddling my front tire, twisted his shoulders to his right and with a snap of his wrist flicked his battery in a high arc toward the bakery, but it fell short of the parking lot into the strip of grass along the street. “Beat yah,” mocked his skinny friend. “Ain’t yah going to get them?” the big kid asked softly as if he were my friend. I knew I had to stay on my bike for as long as I could, but could I stay on or struggle long enough for someone in a passing car to see what was happening? In the midst of that thought, I heard someone approaching from behind me. Before I saw who, the big

kid lifted off my tire and the three of them ran off toward the bakery and down Corlear Street. I pulled my bike around to see Mickey Steinbacher, the oldest and biggest of the three Steinbacher brothers with whom I had played football on my street. I had watched Don Larsen pitch his perfect game in the Steinbachers’ living room with the brothers. Mickey helped me fetch my batteries from the bakery’s lot. I forget just how I said thanks. “Friends need friends,” he said as if coining a proverb. Then he opened the bakery’s glass door and slipped inside. Between the ordinary trips to Gimble’s for bread and milk for my mom and to Harold’s for a cherry coke or a lemon phosphate with friends on a hot evening, we sought adventure far and wide on our bikes. Once, on the promise of special prizes at the opening of a shopping center advertised on local radio, we set out like mariners seeking the new world of the city’s East End, a place that seemed near enough, to hear Weasel Miller tell it, but was exhausting to reach in actual time and space. Although four of us launched our expedition at nine one Saturday morning in August, the heat of the day and the grueling uphill grade to reach the city’s East End in the foothills of Joe Palooka Mountain taught us something about geography, topography, and revenge as three of us took turns pummeling Weasel with insults vulgar and cruel, especially after our special prizes turned out to be red pencils with WARM, Radio with a Heart, stamped on the sides. A day-long adventure we repeated several times that summer took us past the Coca-Cola bottling plant on Wood Street, a friendly place where we would take our first break. Just inside the wide entrance to the cool, dark building, we’d slip a nickel into the machine, wait for the clunk, then pluck an 8-ounce bottle of Coke from the feeder at our knees. For ten minutes or so we’d lean

against the wall and sip and gulp while listening to the music of bottles rattling and clinking as they shuffled through the inspection stations on a track of rotating silver wheels. A few minutes later we’d stop at Lillian’s Fish Shop, really just her living room, the walls of which were lined with rows of fish tanks from floor to ceiling. I can’t remember anyone buying anything from Lillian, a smiling woman with puffy gray hair the consistency of cotton candy. She didn’t seem to mind us stopping by to gawk and point, maybe because she had nobody but the fish to talk to all day. From Lillian’s we had our steepest climb up Horton Street Hill past the abandoned foundry to South Main, one of the four spokes that emanated from Public Square in the center of town until the busy city streets became two-lane highways. Before the cemeteries we had to decide if we would or wouldn’t enter the Protestant church, a decision of ambiguous moral consequence for us. It’s not that we didn’t know any Protestants (or Jews), but since we didn’t go to the same school we knew them mostly to play ball with. Inside the empty church, we didn’t find any statues looking down at us with that faraway stare, or holy water fonts to dip our fingers into, or votive candles flickering near the communion rail, or a cross with Christ hanging on it. The starkness of the place co-

reed sculpture by Tristan Muskopf

fused us and prompted ignorant, whispering comparisons among us. We dared not linger. We passed by Oak Lawn Cemetery because we knew we didn’t belong there, so we pushed on to the peak of South Main and the Catholic cemetery, St. Mary’s, where we felt we did belong since we had relatives buried there. We would pedal up and coast down the car paths while looking for familiar names and oddly shaped tombstones, like the one we found with a $ atop it, and lounge on the grass near the faucets, where people filled containers to water the flowers on the graves. To anyone who saw us, the purpose of our visit was clearly recreational rather than memorial. We were resting for the big finale, the scary descent of the steep, winding, bumpy brick roadway known as Suicide Hill. As we lined up at the top before the plunge, I knew I would not dare as much as my friends would. Despite my desire not to be called yellow, I knew I would be pumping my Schwinn’s two hand brakes often and

hard, especially around the sharp curve near Hanover High for fear of slamming into the wall pockmarked with gouges, and sliding sideways along the bricks. No matter which of my friends were riding that day, I was always last to arrive at the bottom, happy to be alive. For our last stop before home we had to ride single-file in the margins of the San Souci Highway to arrive at McDonald’s, where we would buy a burger, fries and a milkshake for 45 cents. Sitting on the red tile bench tucked into the side of the building, we’d marvel at the sign that tallied the increasing number of millions that McDonald’s had sold and feel proud in a childish way to have contributed to that number. The worst day on my bike started weeks before when Sharon Dress, a girl a year younger than we were, got a monkey. He used to bound about the double clothesline that spanned the length of the Dresses’ back yard. Anyone walking or driving along Pick-

ering Street could see him on his long leash, running, leaping, swinging, squawking. My best friend, Angie, often insisted that we ride by to watch his antics, not to admire him or laugh at him but because the monkey upset him. “But why?” I asked him. “I don’t know. It just does,” he said. Rumor had it that Sharon’s father, who worked for a local television station, had acquired the monkey for his daughter when Dave Garroway, who hosted the Today Show, no longer had need of the beast. No one thought that this monkey was the monkey, Mr. Muggs, that cavorted on the Today Show, but people thought that perhaps the show had a bunch of monkeys, just as the Lassie Show had many Lassies standing by in case the Lassie was limping from doing the tricks they made her do. Anyway, that was the story circulating through our neighborhood. Angie had a bit of a proletarian streak in him, so I figured the taint of Sharon Dress’s privilege bothered him. After all, why couldn’t she just have a dog like the rest of us? This thought surfaced when I saw her, without the monkey, riding her bike toward us a few blocks from our school. Three of us had been playing basketball and were about to go our separate ways home on our own

bikes. Before that happened, however, Angie cut her off in such a way that we were surrounding her. “Who told you to get a monkey?” he asked insistently. “What?” she asked. “Get out of my way!” “Who told you to get a monkey?” he said, this time a bit more ominously. She pivoted her front wheel first toward me, then toward Michael. Seeing no room to go forward or sideways, she started pushing back with her feet, but Angie grabbed at the basket on the front of her bike. “Let me GO!” she said, punctuating the final word so loudly Angie did let go of her basket and Michael and I both swiveled our front wheels to give her room to escape. She swerved to the right then stood up to pedal away as fast as she could. “She’s gonna tell,” Michael said. “Let her. It’s three against one,” Angie said. “Yeah,” Michael said. I said nothing, but I did shrug my shoulders in a way that suggested I had no objection. I thought of that kid who stood there silently during my mugging, the one who was probably too yellow to resist his friends no matter what they did with their freedom.

reed sculpture by Tristan Muskopf

acrylic on wood panel by Nathan Rich

Enchanted Hearts Carter J. Fortman and Philip Hiblovic ACT 1, SCENE 1 (A medieval cottage in Venice)

(Enter Alejandro and Alice. They sit at a table centerstage to eat a midday meal.) ALEJANDRO Mother, wherefore must I always make prayers for King Norman? ALICE Because his holiness provides for the commonwealth. Alejandro, thou know this is fact, yet thou yak such irreverent absurdities. I mustn’t have reared thee to speak of such things. I tended to thee at my bosom

for many a fortnight—months away from my bailiwicks. There beest honor in mine own breast, yet there beest only squalor in thy tongue. (Alice rises, clear the table, and skips to the wicker waste basket.) ALEJANDRO Woman! Make haste with mine apologetics. (Alejandro follows Alice to the waste basket.) ALICE Assuredly. Castrate the fattened calf and dispose of his contents in thine oral passage.

digital media by Alex Deiters

That would suffice for thine apologetics. (Alice demonstrates on an invisible calf with calculated motions in the open air.) ALEJANDRO And thou insists upon my squalor? Woman, your countenance paints thy squalor before thy brevity evinces it! ALICE Thou simpleton! How could mine heir so haphazardly misconceive the words of the woman who conceived him? The fruits of thy castration would bequeath thee with a fortnight’s valuation of sustenance—a sweet reward for thine devotion to our enchanter, King Norman. ALEJANDRO If Norman beest mine enchanter, thou must beest mine enchantress, such a laughable falsehood I mustn’t bear it. Norman beest lowly in mine eyes. Devotee? I dare not beest one but in thy most feral fantasy. ALICE My bosom squelched my most holy milk and honey into the mouth of a heathen! Yet even I—in all the misery of my squelched bosom—survives to preserve my half a mind!

ALEJANDRO May I only cease when you cease prostituting thyself upon most unclean carpetry. Methought I would never see the day my mother lay prostrated atop a tortured mezzanine, owed to nothing but her undying bewilderment. Norman, beest it a most unholy sight! ALICE Methought thy father never would leave thine estate. Yet he did—with most forceful exodus! Almost as forceful as thine exodus from my loins. Thou was left to lament in both affairs! Forever a babe in mine arms, nothing more. (Alice laughs hysterically.) ALEJANDRO My father made haste from his estate on behalf of his old lady. She beest a miscalculated temptress, who onced pined to ingratiate King Norman with thy most vixenish cajolery. Ashamed beest a son whose mother drabs under the yellow of the moon. ALICE Most gorgeous Norman, wherefore must thee fail to requite mine ardor?

ALICE Heavens! Thy squalor is cacophony to my tortured ear holes.

ALEJANDRO Mother, he cannot hear thee from the eminence of his sumptuous palace. Thou beest an antiquated peasant maid presiding in a crumbling cottage—the furthest from Norman’s spousal fancy! Thy sight of a maid is surely fleeting, but beest thou the blindest maid? Reputedly.

(Alice stoops to her knees as if in prayer.)

(Alice cries hysterically.)

King Norman, I entreat you to make him cease!

I must leave you to wallow in the pity of your multiple dispositions.

ALEJANDRO If beest I a heathen, I must condemn the bosom from which I fed!

(Alejandro opens the front door and skips away in the general direction of the enchanted woods of Venice.) ACT 1, SCENE 2 (The enchanted woods of Venice. A sign next to the entrance reads in mud ‘Welcome to the Life of Electra Swine.’)

(Enter Alejandro.) ELECTRA SWINE Boo! (Alejandro falls down terrified.) ALEJANDRO Ay! Wherefore art thou beast? (Alejandro looks around confused.) ELECTRA SWINE Most terrified gentleman, with no intention to disconcert thee, I beg for thy forgiveness. Blasted King Norman! I wish you all the mischief of the morning, but never such anguish as thou hath been received with. I must apprise thee, Alejandro: Electra beest quite mischievous a swine. ALEJANDRO Thine apology is most sincerely cherished. Howbeit, beest thou too expeditious to judge thyself. For mine intrusion upon thy sty beest more adverse than mine minute startle. ELECTRA SWINE Nay! ’Tis mine own pleasure to receive a normal human such as thyself. Not oft may I indulge in such aristocratic discourse as that thou hath met me with. Mine own kind beest proverbially deprived of such sensational a luxury.

(Electra looks at her relatives bathing in mud.) Wherefore doth thou stumble upon my sty? ALEJANDRO Mine own mother is a crazy wench! Some days ‘tis cries for mine absent father and other days ‘tis cries of lust for the youthful King Norman! ELECTRA SWINE Thou bethink thou partook from the bosom of the wench? ALEJANDRO Fie on thee, swine! Electra, what thou utter beest it most fairly foul! Mine own mother is raging! ELECTRA SWINE How now? Thine mother solicits affection just as me. I yearn for the touch of another. Beest thou chaste? ALEJANDRO Aye, but I doth not hearken after swine. ELECTRA SWINE If beest I a swine, then thou beest the mud which touches my tendriled taillywag. May I die a swinestress knowing my manhood and humanhood beest more wizardly than that of thee. ALEJANDRO What art thee? Human or swine? ELECTRA SWINE I am both at once, a twofold sorceress at constant odds between each of her fullyformed natures. ALEJANDRO [aside] A fire is lit in my heart. Beest she swine or human I doth not know. I doth know only that my burning desire shan’t re-

digital media by Alex Deiters

cede until queleched by the pangs of love. [to Electra Swine] Earlier thou hath mentioned a longing for contact. In truth, I too fancy the desire. What manner beest deserving of thine adoration? ELECTRA SWINE Pilgrim, may thou discover mine own delectation in the cool of the mud. (Electra holds out her hoof for Alejandro to take as she leads him to the mud. She undresses.) ALEJANDRO Thy bosom beest that of a human, but thy hand beest that of a swine. ELECTRA SWINE Wherefore must I harbor just one being

when I was formed into the essence of both? (Alejandro and Electra Swine climb into mud and begin to snuggle.) ALEJANDRO If thou beest both human and swine, thou beest a gravely robber. Not of gold, but of mine own heart. I have stumbled and fallen upon scabbed kneecaps before the beauty of a swine named human, a human named swine, a heart named Electra—withal thy current perpetuating the hereafter pump of a heart named Alejandro. (Alejandro and Electra Swine rise and share a look of longing.) With a vacant chest I lay aback, sizzled in thy sweetest sty, beseeching thine organ restitution or should I be so opportune, may

thou requite mine ardor and upon such requitment, hold mine organ for eternity within thee.

(Alejandro and Alice skip out of the enchanted woods of Venice in the general direction of the medieval cottage in Venice.)

ELECTRA SWINE Oh pilgrim, not only doth I renounce thine ardor poured out before me upon the enchanted green, but must I further destroy thee by never returning thine organ for all the ages I breathe. Beest I immortally devour thine organ to appease my never-appeased thirst for human blood.

ACT 1, SCENE 3 (A medieval cottage in Venice)

(Alejandro cries hysterically. Electra repositions herself to drink his tears.) ELECTRA SWINE Tasty teardrops upon my tongue! Tasty torment upon my snout! (Electra stops drinking Alejandro’s tears and returns to her original position. Alejandro stops crying hysterically.) ALEJANDRO Wherefore hath thou cease beveraging mine most miserable teardroppings? ELECTRA SWINE By virtue of my requited love. Apprised thou beest: Electra beest quite mischievous a swine. I must indulge in thy tongue withal the fervor of mine own, satiated as I beest from thine ocean of tears. (Alejandro passionately kisses Electra Swine.) ALEJANDRO The object of mine affection, I beg thee: beest mine accompaniment in visitation to mine other wench, my mother. ELECTRA SWINE Oh pilgrim, thy destination beest my destination.

ALICE [aside] Beest it mine egregious tendency: To lech for King Norman with my whole heart. His eyeballs fashion such shambles of me. I wish to behold his most luscious art. As saccharine beest his lovely lips, From which I wish to adoringly taste, Consort of thee must be heartily hipped, To birth his sons withal dignified haste. If still I possessed the bodice of lass, Encompassed her most teenaged alias, Beest Alice fit for Norman at last. Alas, I curse my erstwhile radiance! One of these days will I come for his hand. Beest I then the fairest of the land. ALEJANDRO Alice! Alice! I return to thy clamor aside a most beautiful creature. ALICE You mustn’t call upon my name, Alejandro! I be not thy babe. Only ever beest I the babe of King Norman. Thy swine beest not more ravishing than the filth from which she came. Wherefore must thou take a woman who immerses thee in the sty of her kin? ALEJANDRO Mine own hog hath more beauty than the hag I call “mother.” Besides, is the sty of her kin much opposed to the sleeping chamber whereupon my hag entreats her solicitors? ELECTRA SWINE I cullionly not to interrupt, but beest it true

that thou are the bosom for which mine own devotee did feed, then find it I behoveful to present myself. While I beest swine, I too beest a human. While I beest enchanted, I too beest enraged in love. The object of my madness is the sir holding my hoof. ’Tis not a blessing we beseech, but just for thine awareness. Were thee ever in enraptured love?

left me in, a misery in mine own association!

ALICE Aye, but alas love is unequal. But only one hath taken the heart of me.

ALICE Aye! At once I thirst after mine egregious tendency at the escort of a swinley enchantress and her unavailing object of a man!

ELECTRA SWINE Speak the name of a man or beast worthy of such splendor as that of thee! ALICE King Norman! His most kingly! I reduce myself to mud for his second glimpse and kill his wife to bear his second son! Shambles he hath

ELECTRA SWINE At once why must flee to him so thou can bow at his feet upon scabbed kneecaps. Bow and pray for the sustenance of requited love or bow before Electra and pass away as thy lasshood did so many moons ago.

ALEJANDRO Make haste! (Alice and Alejandro mount Electra Swine. Electra Swine skips out of the medieval cottage in Venice in the general direction of the palace of King Norman.)

digital media by Nathan Rich

watercolor by Nathan Rich

The Colors of Kells John Kavanaugh

Wikimedia Commons

The Book of Kells is an illuminated Gospel Book dedicated to St. Columcille completed by 800 at a monastery founded by that Irish saint on the Scottish isle of Iona. The book was later moved to a monastery at Kells (along with the saint’s relics and shrine) during the Viking raids sometime during the 9th century for protection and preservation. Considered by historians and scholars as a masterwork of medieval Christianity and Irish artistic genius, it now resides in the fabled library at Trinity College, Dublin. From whence did they come, The colors of Kells? Berries or insects? Nuts? Shells? Powdery soot? Ashes of bones? Probably not. Their pedigree stems From powerful elements, Otherwise poisons: Orpiment, gypsum, Verdigris, gall. Intoxicating toxins Transcendently bright Pulverized oak apple, Iron sulfide; Purples from lichen, From indigo, blues. Inked in the vellum Divinest of hues.

Sacred script aflame! Animated, historiated, Illuminated names. Ink aglow, Tincture ablaze. Incantations divine Prayers in pigment, Colors that rhyme. From cruxes and chis Spring insular etchings, Spiraling eddies Like the swirls in the Boyne. And perched in the margins Or nesting in letters Peacocks and eagles, Salmon and otters, Lions, wolves, calves, Cats chasing mice, And all of creation Vivid, alive. But the colors that make The deepest impression, A mark that won’t fade Despite centuries of time, Paint the face of Christ as a Celt, A Celt as Christ— Golden locks curling, A beard thick and red. The book is a mirror The colors unfurling The face of a savior Alive, not dead! As hearty and stout As a warrior or chieftain Or champion at hurling; The face of the Irish Calligraphers, scribes Who crafted a book Unbound by time.

digital media by Will Blaisdell

The Poemtree Patrick Tyrrell

Roots grow from a solid foundation, the trunk, a thousand books yet written, branches like ladders to the sky, leaves of twisting and whirling verse, the fruit plump and sweet nourished by waters of knowledge past. I’ve built this tree and only by ignorance is it felled.