The Marque 2012 by St. Mark's School of Texas

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THE v o l u m e 5 0

st. mark’s school of texas 10600 preston road dallas, texas 75230 www.smtexas.org 214.346.8000 THEMARQUE • 2

DR. HENRY A. PLOEGSTRA

t h e d e d i c at e e | t h e m a r q u e m ag a z i n e | vo lu m e 5 0

from the marque staff

The 2012 Marque staff is proud to dedicate this fiftieth volume of the magazine to a revered and beloved long-time faculty member, Dr. Henry A. Ploegstra. A bastion of intellect who stands tall above the crowd and who lifts up all around him with generous strength and gentle gravitas, this paragon of teachers has encouraged generations of Marksmen to strive for quality, integrity, and discipline in their practice of arts and letters. We thank Dr. Ploegstra for the great and abiding mark he has made upon our school.

from lynne weber, faculty sponsor

When I first joined the faculty in 2000, Henry Ploegstra was my official mentor and unofficial friend. Now, twelve years later, he is still my unofficial mentor, and he has become a dear and treasured and irreplaceable friend. His example, discourse, and advice have raised the level of my thinking and my teaching in ways too numerous to list. Because he cares so much about the students of our school, he has instructed me about their needs and educated me about the ways in which I might best help them become good men. Though I will never equal his level of excellence in teaching, I will forever be grateful for the guidance and friendship he has so generously given me. I will always keep his example in my mind and in my heart.

from max naseck, general staff

I first met Dr. Ploegstra when he was my middle school study hall proctor. I was intrigued by his wisdom, friendliness, and the embodiment of the school that radiated from his persona. It was my hope to one day reach his class in Upper School. When I did, I was immersed in his weekly papers, the intricate personalities of Shakespeare’s Iago and Falstaff, and the amazing knowledge that he brought to the Harkness table – his Harkness table. And just like his table, Dr. Ploegstra will be forever rooted in the lore of St. Mark’s.

from jonathan ng, copy editor

When Dr. Ploegstra called on me during the first day of sophomore English, he pronounced my last name as Mr. “Inge,” in an attempt to incorporate vowels into it. The following day, it was Mr. “Ninge.” And finally, it changed jokingly to Mr. “Eng.” Dr. Ploegstra has a way of inserting subtle humor into intellectual discussions around the Harkness table—something that makes learning more enjoyable for all students. From his personal writing conferences to conversations with students ranging from scrawny fifth graders to hulking seniors, Dr. Ploegstra is much more than a teacher: he is a mentor, a scholar, and a friend.

2 • THEMARQUE

dr. ploegstra

Greg Kinman | Senior

THEDEDICATION • 3

ON THE CONCEPT In a way, The Marque itself has experienced a special journey since its inception in 1962. A journey from a plain, black-and-white pamphlet to a colorful, rich collection of literary and artistic works. A journey from the simple but beautiful vision of a handful of idealistic students to a diverse staff of driven, creative artists who take pride in painting empty pages with powerful words and vibrant color. It is a journey forever embedded in our school and one that will continue to inspire students to transcend in the arts. In one word, this year’s theme is “journey,” yet to simplify the theme to one word would do great injustice to the depth of meaning involved. We are alluding not only to the long journey of life but to all the little journeys: the journey from ninth to tenth grade, the journey from high school to college, and so on. We began to explore the items that are most important on a journey. Four stood out in the crowd: map, suitcase, umbrella, and shoes. Each item has a literal significance but also serves an important metaphorical role. The map is essential for direction, a suitcase carries life lessons, an umbrella shields from pain, and shoes are the one constant of our identities. As high school students, we are all still in the nascent stages of our respective journeys, so we found it fascinating and illuminating to break down a journey into four distinct components. We hope that with these four items—each of which corresponds to a section—we can reveal a representation of a journey that is poignant and enlightening. Fifty years ago, The Marque’s journey had just begun. Now, we hope to take that journey to new heights and ensure that it binds starryeyed students together for years to come.

ROHAN SHETTY

MANAGING EDITOR CLASS OF 2012

4 • THEMARQUE

ON THE ARTWORK Fifty years ago, the magazine itself was much like an unassuming wooden chest, a simple container: on the outside it did not look like much; only upon opening it and turning the first page would the reader find the beautifully crafted gems of art and literature that gave fundamental purpose to the creation of the magazine. This is all good and well, for such a magazine ought to tend to its contents before anything else, but with each year, the Marque has acquired more and more aesthetic worth that has further enhanced the impactful capacity of each piece to have a lasting impression on the reader. Being the Marque’s fiftieth year, we decided to pay homage to its roots. With this year’s magazine, we aimed to achieve a sense of timelessness and tradition while still maintaining a modern and upbeat edge. Unlike the explosively loud colors of last year’s color palette, we specifically selected an array of slightly subdued pastels to emit a hint of nostalgia. I wanted to keep the illustrations free and loose without slaving so much over perfectly straight lines. With more contours and fewer hardcut edges, I hoped to represent the ceaseless ebb and flow of the magazine as it has continued to progress and grow through change over the years. The theme’s four objects are subtly present on the front cover, and along the reader’s journey through the magazine, each of the objects appears more distinctly and conspicuously until the reader meets their second joining/meeting/assembly? on the back cover in a sort of resolution. A resolution, yes, but not the conclusion. Not a definite end. Throughout the magazine, the readers “visually” amass the items necessary for the typical journey, but in the end they must slip on their own shoes and continue on their respective journeys, separate yet forever connected through the universal act of journeying for the sheer thrill and sake of whatever lies ahead.

PHILLIP HADDAD

graphics EDITOR CLASS OF 2012

THEINTRODUCTION • 5

C O N TE N TS THE MAP

Fractured

The Door Scarce Closed Walls of Fire Staying Neutral

the umbrella

THE SUITCASE

SECTION TWO

32-33

Eaten Alive

Michael Gilliland

The Mightiest Mother Tree

Charles Jin

pastEBoard Mask

Patrick Ng

Gloomy Vista

Naeem Muscatwalla

Ceramics

Wilton Porter

Alone

13-14

Woodworking

Ardis Graham

Garden

SECTION ONE

8-9

Garrett Watumull

Vishal Gokani

88-89

Ryan Eichenwald

Beach

Andrew Graffy

Roses

Max Wolens

Canyon Trail

Halbert Bai

Max Marshall

If I Only Knew

Luke Williams

Truchas

Greg Kinman

Rock of the Spirit

Vishal Gokani

92-93

Woman at the Crossroads

David Muñoz

Summer Cigarette

Stagnant Progress

George Law

Contain My Selves

David Muñoz

Whom Not Who

Greg Kinman

Last Call

Brooks Jones

42-45

Spade Shuffle

Robert Keeler

Animal Kingdom Graveyard Memories Burning Stacks of Papyrus

John Mead Andrew Gatherer Patrick Ng

22-23

Lakehouse

Halbert Bai

The Wild

Riley Graham

The Pier

Max Wolens

24 24-27

Andrew Gatherer

Snow Canal

Greg Kinman

Space

Max Naseck

Ouray

Alex Nguyen

April

Nick Sberna

Gordy

Dr. Henry Ploegstra

Northern Kentucky, 1989

Nick Sberna

Rustic Cathedral

Split Personalities

Greg Kinman

On an Impulse

Broken Tomb

Quill and Scroll

Ray Westbrook

30-31

Patrick Ng

Light Tied Putting Boys Back Together Again The Road Less Traveled Trying to Get In Sanctuary at Sea Randy’s City Sights

50-53 53 54-57

Charles Jin Greg Kinman Dr. Martin Stegemoeller

69 70-73

Rishi Bandopadhay Phillip Haddad

Upon the Circus Pillar

Patrick Ng

Max Wolens

Seaside Beckoning

Patrick Ng

Aarohan Burma

Fire Mountains

Lynne Weber

Halbert Bai

Innocence

Max Naseck

Gio Lincoln Reid Stein Kahan Chavda Max Naseck

77 77 77 77

Iambic Monometer

Charles Jin

Rishi Bandopadhay

100

Pyromania

Alex Nguyen

78-79

The Serengeti

Riley Graham

79 81

The Red Canyon

Max Naseck

Blind

David Muñoz

The Tour Guide

Thomas Tassin

Drowning

Alex Nguyen

58-59

Cavern

Pequod

David Muñoz

Halbert Bai

68-69

Charles Thompson

D-Lish

Solemn Waves

6 • THEMARQUE

Andrew Gatherer

86-87

Rohan Shetty

Richard Eiseman

Phillip Haddad

A Better Place

Halbert Bai

Last Drink

Addiction

The Canyon

62-63

Greg Kinman

38-40

Greg Kinman

Prajan Divakar

Vishal Gokani

Guarded

84-85

Riley Graham

The Foreigner

18-21

SECTION FOUR

Fear

Alexander Muñoz

the shoes

Max Wolens

The Truth of the Matter

60-61

Naeem Muscatwalla

Evening on the Court

Smeared Mascara

SECTION THREE

Halbert Bai

three part Portraits

81-82 83

THECONTENTS • 7

SECTIONone Maps show more than green and blue—they display the vastness of human opportunity and the boundless directions a life can take. They reveal to us how far we’ve traveled, both in distance and in character. They give us the bearing and clarity to see the reality of our ambitions. Maps represent the totality of a journey, from the genesis of hope to the culmination of action and every capricious turn in between.

8 • THEMARQUE

SECTIONONE • 9

F RA C T U RED

G a r r e t t wat u m u l l | s e n i o r

THE DOOR SCARCE CLOSED C H A R L E S

J I N

S E N I O R

I once unearthed a door scarce closed, But dreading whither path command, I shut it fearing the exposed. Against the world I lay reposed. That shattered glass beat—wetly tanned— I came upon a door scarce closed. My path well-worn by steps imposed, I gripped my scepter in my hand, And shut it fearing the exposed. My life’s a ballast: sweet, enclosed. My torso’s sunk beneath the sand. I come upon a door now closed. I live with epitaph composed: My heart once naked, spitting, and

I shut it fearing the exposed. The tattered palimpsest deposed, Yet still on intimate I stand. Back then, I spied a door scarce closed, But shut it, fearing the exposed.

10 • THEMARQUE

SECTIONONE • 11

STAYING NEUTRAL V ishal

W ALLS 12 • THEMARQUE

O F

F I RE

NAEEM MUSCATWALLA | SENIOR

G okani

After twenty hours of cramped spaces, awful movies, and freeze-dried meals, I finally got off the plane for good. I finally looked up into the dark monsoon clouds. I finally gazed up at the soaring Himalayas. My brother and I had had a tough time staying away from the land of our ancestors and relatives for half a decade. Our parents, on the other hand, had had to stay away from their home. We considered it a vacation; our parents considered it a homecoming. So now, after months of booking plane flights, train trips, and hotels, we stepped onto Indian soil at last. The taxi pulled up alongside a stone wall fifteen feet tall topped off with barbed wire, like the walls used to trap raptors in Jurassic Park. We headed through the gate, the rugged mountains towering over us, and entered the Doon School. While our parents travelled the region, my brother and I stayed in the city of Dehradun and attended the all-boys school for three months as exchange students. Mountains surrounded the city, watching over it as parents watch over their sleeping child. As we drove over the gravel roads and saw various buildings and boarding houses, an excitement grew inside me, bubbling like boiling water. During my previous three visits to the country, I had never visited a school. I had never experienced the education system or the culture. I had never interacted with Indians my age. Always considered Indian in America, I looked forward to meeting someone I could relate to. This hope of finding others like me and the prospect of making friends excited me. The school authorities assigned my brother and me to different boarding houses, separating us. The

S ophomore

housemaster showed me my room, a space with four beds, some cabinets, and a bunch of desks. I dropped my suitcase and unpacked. Presently, a stout teen walked in. “Hey, Dude!” he called, covering the distance between us in three strides. “How’s it goin’? You need anything, man? Where’re you from?” I made a dozen friends in half a dozen minutes. They all reached out to me, characteristic of good hosts. They showed me around, helped me adjust, and made me feel at home. The teachers spoke flawless English, and I got used to the accent in no time. I felt great the first two days, and the whole school community treated me like a hero who had fought off invaders for decades and finally returned to his hometown. But then, things started to change. When the guys in my boarding house hung out, their conversations slowly lapsed into Hindi. I knew Gujarati, the language of my ancestors, but Hindi sounded like gibberish to me. I sat on my bed, an outcast, trying to understand their words. Eventually, I gave up and looked out the window. I gazed through the curtain of monsoon rain, and the towering mountains stared back. Time seemed to slow down. I kept a journal during the visit, and one day I wrote, “You know how the last few weeks of school drag by? Today feels a million times slower.” I yearned to go back home. One day, some of the guys out on the balcony called me an “ABCD,” an “American-born, confused Desi,” or an “American-born, confused Indian.” They were just joking CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

SECTIONONE• 13

14 • THEMARQUE

MAX WOLENS | SOPHOMORE

the buildings, the clouds, and the people. Again, I saw particles and atoms. I thought of the “ABCD” remark. I saw oscillating particles in the air, sound waves. Everything everywhere became particles. Particles made up Americans, Indians, Indian-Americans, and everyone else. Everyone and everything became one. I felt a sense of tranquility, and all the emotion that had built up like water behind a dam suddenly evaporated. With the emotion gone, I no longer needed to take sides. I experienced the Hindu concept of Maya, the world of emotions and desires. By clearing these feelings, I found peace. Hindu philosophy says to take sides according to dharma, or duty. My duty did not involve becoming an Indian, nor did it involve becoming an American. Therefore, I remained neutral as an Indian-American. Furthermore, I discovered a technique that cleared away my feelings, allowing me to make rational decisions. According to Hindu teachings, Nirvana, the ultimate goal of the religion, involves erasing emotion and desire. By viewing everything as particles, I found myself closer to this state. After splattering around in the mud for half an hour, I headed inside to clean myself off. I valued my new discovery, the calming technique, more than anything else in the world. I felt like a pirate stumbling upon a cave filled with massive treasures. The rest of the visit sped by. In spite of the cramped spaces, awful movies, and freeze-dried meals, I felt a sense of accomplishment on the flight back home. Emotion controlled me no more. No longer do mountains watch over me. No longer do I need them.

E V E N I N G O N T H E CO U RT

around, and they meant no harm, but the remark stung anyway. I retreated to my bed and plopped down, deep in thought. My American friends considered me Indian, while my Indian friends considered me American. “Who the hell am I?” I asked myself. I found no answer. Caught up in confusion, anger, and puzzlement, I tried to find an identity. I thought back to my eighth grade year; I had been labeled an Indian, and I tried to rip off the tag. I tried to change my name to a Western one and ditch Hindu philosophy. It didn’t work. Friends left me, and I became unpopular. However, at Doon, I failed to fit in with the teens. The language and cultural barriers blocked me off and made me an outcast. Both worlds – both America and India – tugged at me. They tugged at me like two trains moving in opposite directions, each tied to one of my arms with rope. They yanked me apart, filling me with raw emotion. I tried to take sides. I gave both sides a shot. Half a week later, still searching for answers, I strapped on my soccer cleats and shin guards. I hardly wanted to play that afternoon, but I went anyway. The mud soaked through my cleats and socks, and the sunlight illuminated every little speck of dust. Dragonflies hovered over the scrimmage, and the towering mountains watched from above. I played defense, so I headed across the field. From my position, I eyed the ball, sitting alone at the center of the field in a patch of mud. Then it happened. My vision zoomed in. The ball grew until I saw its seams. It grew until I saw its particles and atoms. I looked at the grass. I saw more particles, more atoms. I looked at

SECTIONONE• 15

T H E

C A N Y O N

HALBERT BAI | SOPHOMORE

S T A G N A N T P R O G R E S S

george law | j u nior Look at the path You set ablaze With fresh ideas From which we graze So selectively We choose to praise And all the while wither As we waste the days That come and go With too much ease And pass along With the natural breeze Too dismissive we seem to be As we hum and chatter about the bees. Each day goes by And I wonder why We cannot recognize The bees’ progress contains impressive size. We continue to be intrigued By the passive lies We choose to tell. When shall we rise To our potential’s prize? I heed the pioneers’ desperate cries When I do not strain to listen. Everyone creates the guise That human kind wears so unknowingly. How can I emphasize? The point is too clear. Or will it just be humanized?

16 • THEMARQUE

SECTIONONE • 17

Smeared Mascara

Greg Kinman | SENIOR

T he

T ruth

A le x ander

of M u ñ o z

“Get up!” The boss kicked Josh as he lay prone on the ground. Blood dripped from his face as he attempted to crawl away from the pain. “Back to work, useless peasant.” “Useless peasant.” The words echoed through Josh’s head like the chorus of a new Eminem song. He wanted to leave. Yet there was nowhere to go. “And now I’d like to welcome my friend, my student, and the valedictorian of Harvard’s class of 2020: Josh Parker.” The applause rang through the campus like a symphony of happiness. Smiles and flashing cameras inundated Josh’s vision as he approached the podium. “Thank you! First, I’d like to recognize...” The rest of the speech was a blur. The rest of the night was a blur too. Whether from alcohol or from blocking it out, Josh didn’t care. He had more important things to at-

18 • THEMARQUE

the |

M atter

S O P H O M O R E

tend to the next day. “Last call for flight 181 to Geneva.” Josh picked up his bags and started to walk over to the boarding alley. “Where do you think you’re going, Mister!” “Mom! I thought you were out of town,” Josh responded while hugging her. “You don’t think I’d ever miss my big boy going to his smarty dust project thing all the way in Switzerland?” “It’s only a particle accelerator! No dust.” “Well, don’t forget that Jesus is with you and always looking over you. I’ll be praying.” “Mom, I can make those decisions for myself now.” Josh turned his back on his mom. His mom probably answered, but he didn’t hear her. He was not in the mood for another argument over the existence of a deity. The plane’s wheels touched the Swiss runway.

“Welcome to Geneva.” The captain’s voice sounded robotic and crackly through the plane’s speakers. When Josh stepped off the plane, a truck came speeding up to the mob of disembarking passengers. As the truck approached, Josh made out the letters: “CERN.” The truck finally screeched to a stop right next to the group. “Hop in!” the driver yelled, waving to Josh. Josh entered the vehicle and it skidded off. On the horizon, Josh noticed a huge spherical building. He knew what it was. He had “Googled” the building at least a million times. He would probably spend the rest of his life there, after all. “Here we are.” The driver unlocked the door. “Your bag will be delivered to your room. It’s on the first floor—the second door on the right. You can go check it out.” Josh stepped out of the truck. A chilly breeze cooled his skin. He felt the hairs on his back stand up. “A warning from God,” his mom would say. Josh ignored it and stepped into the building. He looked up. A massive sign with big, bold letters covered the entrance wall: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free — John 8:32.” Suddenly, a gangly man in a lab coat walked up and introduced himself. “I’m Kevin. You must be the new guy. Josh, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Josh continued to stare at the sign. “What’s up with the Bible quotation?” “Yeah, the dean put that up there,” Kevin answered. “We don’t take anything for granted here. Remember that time we based all our physical models on Einstein’s theory that nothing could move faster than light?” Josh chuckled: “I guess we can’t assume anything.” “That’s right! I have to run, but feel free to come to me with any questions.” Josh opened the second door on the right and walked into his room. It wasn’t too bad: a desk, a bed, and a bathroom. Josh noticed a picture on the wall. In giant letters, it said, “the truth shall make you free.’”Josh yanked the frame off the wall and threw it in the trash can. Done inspecting, he lay on his bed. His eyes shut closed as fast as a neutrino. “Hey, Josh! Wake up, Josh!” Kevin knocked on the door between each word. Josh slowly rolled off his bed and rubbed his eyes. He stretched a little, then opened the door. “First day at work! Let’s go! Come on!” Kevin pulled Josh out of his room and slammed the door. “Let’s go to the collider!” Moments of the journey to the collider will flash CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

SECTIONONE • 19

G U ARDED

Greg Kinman | SENIOR through Josh’s mind for the rest of his life. Computer scientists bent over their keyboards. Electricians soldering cables. Engineers mapping designs for new colliders. The smartest people in the world congregated for one sole purpose: understanding the universe. Josh snapped back to earth. The sound of motors, magnets, and electric currents filled his ears. “We’re here,” Kevin said, handing him a packet. “Start by analyzing this data.” Josh stared at the paper. The origin of the universe and the meaning of life were buried in these numbers. Josh tapped the paper with his pencil and started digging. He continued to dig in vain for a year, then five years, then ten, and then twenty. The dean was about to give up all hope and close the project. “Kevin, look what I found!” Josh yelled. Kevin didn’t turn around. He had lost faith in the project when he didn’t find the answer right away twenty years ago. His eager smile transformed into a serious, straight face. Josh stared at the paper. He was sitting in the same spot where he had first started, but something was different about him. His eyes were scarred with the truth, and his heart was crushed by the pressure of his pursuit. Suddenly, Josh looked at what he had written

20 • THEMARQUE

down. Twenty years of his life had resulted in a single line on a page, a line too powerful for a human hand, a truth too real for a human brain. He crumpled up the paper and threw it in the trash. His mouth hung open. Kevin finally turned around. “Josh, you okay?” Josh didn’t answer; he stared at the table, salivating with a blank face, where truth had been displayed a few seconds ago. “I need a doctor!” Kevin shrieked. A bright lamp blinded Josh’s eyes. He couldn’t move. He struggled, yet couldn’t get up. He looked down and found a tight, white suit wrapped around his body. The door creaked open. Josh looked to the left. The walls were covered in white foam. A figure stepped into the room. Josh couldn’t make out his face, for there was only a single lamp in the room. “Where am I?” Josh screamed at the figure. “Josh, you’ve been here for five years. Do you remember where you are?” The figure stepped into the light—a doctor holding a clipboard. “No! You’re wrong! Who are you? Where am I?” The doctor sighed and scribbled something on his clipboard. “I think you need to find Jesus. That would probably help you find your path again. I was once lost,

but now I am found. Jesus looks over me and protects me.” Josh awoke to the door slamming open. A figure stood in the doorway, it wasn’t the doctor, though. The figure was taller and thinner. “Come on; let’s get out of here.” Josh would never forget Kevin’s voice. “Kevin! How’d you get in here?” “Hey, I know a little more than particle physics. I found a place for you to stay back in Geneva. We can go back to working on the collider. It will be just like old times.” Josh froze: “I’m not going back!” “Come on, Josh. They’ll accept you back into the laboratories. You’ll just need to do a few courses of psychological development. It’ll be fine.” Josh began to walk away from Kevin. Kevin turned toward Josh, still talking about Josh’s return. Josh walked faster, then started running. Kevin couldn’t catch up. Josh kept running for four days. n

Josh woke up under a bridge in a suburb of Geneva, his new home. He began to walk to work; he now worked at the garbage incinerator for three euros an hour. His holed shoes and tattered clothes smelled of fast food and cheap beer. He stepped into the factory and mechanically started moving trash from one conveyor belt

to another. Suddenly, he saw a sheet of paper pass by on the conveyor belt. He picked it up. It was a napkin, with the words “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’” embroidered on the side. Josh’s mind raced back to the moment where he had written down the meaning of life on a single sheet of paper. He tried to remember the words. He closed his eyes, wishing for the memory to appear. “What were they?” Josh screamed as loudly as he could. His boss approached him from behind and kicked him so that he fell to the ground. “Stop screwing around! This is your job! Do it! I’m tired of seeing you staring off into space!” His boss kicked him as he tried to stand up, and Josh fell to the ground again. “Get up!” The boss kicked Josh as he lay prone on the ground. Blood dripped from his face as he attempted to crawl away from the pain. “Back to work, useless peasant.” “Useless peasant.” The words echoed through Josh’s head like the chorus of a new Eminem song. He wanted to leave. Yet there was nowhere to go. SECTIONONE • 21

a ni m a l J

22 • THEMARQUE

MEAD

F A C

L T

SECTIONONE • 23

Graveyard Memories Andrew Gatherer | sophomore

L i t e r a r y

F e s t i v a l

N o n - F i c t i o n

Burning

P atrick N g | senior

e arrived at Paul’s Flower Shop in the early morning, sleep still crusted to my eyes. Bundled to the chin, my Yin Yin opened her car door gingerly, hovering her white Sketchers over the pavement like a child testing the temperature of a pool, and then squeaked to the shop entrance. Auntie Mae followed. “Be careful, Ma,” she urged, grasping Yin Yin’s arm. Mom, Dad, and I scuttled in behind them like a family of crabs, scrambling through fine rain. In the corner of the shop beneath a fluorescent lamp, a

W i nn e r

S tac k s

man with horn-rimmed glasses sliced flowers with a paper cutter. Buckets of lilacs, roses, and rhododendrons sat on tiers around the floor space. Ferns hung from the ceiling, leaves like flexible combs. Shifting through a bucket of daffodils, I asked Mom, “What type of flowers will Ye Ye like?” “Lilies were his favorite,” Mom answered warmly in Cantonese, words that fell lightly to my ear and lilted with elegance. “But he’ll like whatever you get him.” Lilies were his favorite. I savored the sentence, formed

P apyrus Abridged Version of the Original

from words that carried the comfortable appeal of a native language. I savored the rise and fall of tones and the expressions, shaded with fuzzy nostalgia. I grew up in a household padded with Cantonese, comfortable like the warm, firefly summer nights that drifted by our porch each year. Sometimes, though, the tones grew harsh, clanging against unpracticed piano keyboards. Or rooms strewn messily with Lego pieces. Or math booklets pristinely blank. After a scolding, their tones would turn soft again, velvety, like the strawberry cheesecake they

served me as a way of saying, “We’re sorry, but you must learn.” We eventually left Paul’s Flower Shop with four bouquets and placed them into the back trunk of our Volvo station wagon above aluminum-wrapped trays of “We’re sorry, pale steamed chickens and but you must spongy yellow cake and whole learn.” pan-fried fish with wide eyes. I watched Yin Yin shuffle through bags of incense sticks. CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

24 • THEMARQUE

SECTIONONE • 25

Broken Tomb

Andrew Gatherer | sophomore

26 • THEMARQUE

Over the past year, the folds around her eyes had grown more wrinkled, pensive, despairing. In August of the previous year, my grandfather, Ye Ye, had passed away, and Yin Yin sometimes seemed lost. Overhead, the mackerel sky grew dark and churned with a new ferocity as we passed Italian cemeteries with ironwrought gates and manicured bushes and a Serbian graveyard called Cypress Lawn with palm trees and oasis ponds. Eventually, our station wagon pulled into Hoy Sun Memorial Cemetery. I watched as we passed the white marble entrance – a polished gate as tall as a two-story house, flanked by rigid lion sculptures; rows of granite headstones seemed to march past like ranks of an army. I imagined Chinese spirits sitting on their grave markers and watching us pass. They were nearly transparent, as light as mist, and sipped tea from porcelain cups and slapped Mahjong tiles onto floating wooden tables, shouting in Taishanese. Halfway up a knoll of Coulter pine trees, we parked our car beneath overhanging branches. We’re hidden behind these trees, I thought. The spirits can’t see us because our car is green and we blend in. This is what it’s like to be invisible. Scented needles from overhanging pine branches pinched our faces, necks, and arms as we carried trays that popped in the light rain and damp bouquets that crinkled. Sixth row from the path. Eighth headstone. Ye Ye’s grave lay beneath a

neat rectangle of budding grass. I didn’t mind wandering around the cemetery. It gave me a chance to sneak glances at the inscribed gravestone names of people I did not know. Sometimes, with a glimpse of their faces on porcelain tombstone portraits, I imagined what it would be like to meet them and wondered about their lives. He was a cook and liked to spend his days chatting in Chinatown cafes. She loved opera and planted peonies in her spare time. I walked up to Ye Ye’s granite headstone and bowed my head. Huddled around Ye Ye’s cemetery plot, we stood suspended by an ample silence which seemed to compress our movements and stretch time, the backwards rustling of plastic bouquet covers, the throbbing air. We cleaned Ye Ye’s grave I remembered to with drenched count – and said Bounty paper our prayers and towels; placed burned sheets of bouquets in aluminum cup paper money and holders (Lilies stacks of papywere his favorrus in a rusted ite); set trays of steel barrel with cold steamed a gaping hole in chicken and moist yelits side. low cake and glistening fish atop his grave; lit incense sticks under the shelter of an umbrella with a broken wing; bowed five times – I remembered to count – and said our

prayers and burned sheets of paper money and stacks of papyrus in a rusted steel barrel with a gaping hole in its side. The flame roared, and we gathered around its warmth. Droplets pitter-pattering on our jackets, we scooped up the trays of food and left pieces of each item atop Ye Ye’s grave, departing as we had entered, hushed. In our silence, a flock of sea gulls swooped down to peck at the food we had left behind. A burning anger rose from the pit of my stomach. But as we sloshed by, front windshield wipers sweeping the rain away, I watched as one of the gulls laughed, a strip of chicken dangling from its smiling beak. We returned to Texas, and it seemed like waking from a dream. My brother complained of the dry heat, which sucked the sweat from our pores, and I shed my jacket, missing the brisk touch of Bay Area ocean air. Outside in the airport parking lot, expanses of concrete reflected the relentless sun into our eyes. Mom covered her face with the palm of her hand, while Dad checked his phone for messages from patients. I felt normal life slip onto us like a comfortable, worn sweater. Autumn eventually drifted into place like a tumbling maple leaf, and with it that nostalgic sweet smell that seemed to boil memories to the surface. Though I had found belief in my culture somewhere in a Bay-area cemetery, tradition seemed far away, as misty as a dream. Yet

my ancestors – relatives whose faces I did not know, Bak Bak and Ye Ye – were resilient, and they never gave up. Drifting from their floating Mahjong tables, carrying their porcelain cups of tea, they visited me when the moon shone brightest. It was the August Moon Festival. Mom cut up pale steamed chicken with a butcher’s knife as large as my face, while Dad organized golden incense sticks into stacks and took cooking alcohol from the fridge and boiled tea. “Help us get these trays out, boys,” Mom shouted from the sizzling kitchen. I let the familiar weight of the loaded platters fall into the crook of my arm. The aromas smelled ancient, and it felt like Yin Yin’s house during Chinese New Year: bustling, alive. Droplets of steaming oolong swung themselves out of their cups and plopped to the floor. I nearly dropped my platter of yellow cake and wide-eyed fish. Before I knew it, it was my turn to present my prayers, and I grabbed my five fragrant incense sticks. Ye Ye, take these offerings as a sign of our respect. May you watch over us, and we will watch over you. n

I placed my incense sticks in the pot where they belonged. n

Later, as we burned our stacks of papyrus and rolls of paper money in jaded containers – our four figures huddled – crows swooped down from oak trees and pecked at our offerings. SECTIONONE • 27

APRIL

NORTHERN KENTUCKY, 1989

Aloft, a flock of cranes.

My brothers and I were determined to know gravity, so with the twist of a spigot, the sidewalk became the Ohio itself and we ran beside our river as it swept downward, carried away chalk drawings of hangmen and pterodactyls, flash-flooded the anthills, turned grassroots to strainers, maple leaves to great barges carrying not coal but sawdust from the wooden swords we used to dig our Erie Canals, which channeled the water past the arch of rose bushes, past the pyramids of dog poop and the BB-checkered crabapple to the concrete steps, now Tonka-sized Niagaras where our headstrong river barreled to the street and forked and forked and forked again, a sun-charged delta plunging downhill toward the grated storm drain.

N I C K S B E R N A | FAC U LT Y There must have been twenty, thirty— no matter. For a moment they were swept up in a sunlit eddy, and as the current swirled their needle forms about, the daylight shimmer glinted off their wings like paper, which they might have been.

N I C K S B E R N A | FAC U LT Y

SPA C E

MAX NASECK | JUNIOR

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SECTIONONE • 29

QUILL AND SCROLL RAY WESTBROOK | FACULTY

SPLIT PERSONALITIES G R E G K I N M A N | S enior

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It pains me to admit this, but I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a journalism major when I set foot on the campus of Southwest Texas State University (now Texas State) in San Marcos as a naive, wet-behind-the-ears college freshman in that fall of oh-so-many years ago. Coming from a very small high school in a very small town in Central Texas, my connection to that field I soon came to know as journalism was limited to the daily Houston Post and the CBS and NBC channels our RCA’s rabbit ears brought in from nearby Temple and Waco television stations. Yes, it was a glorious day when we realized that the new ABC affiliate would reach our small town giving us — gasp — three stations from which to choose to watch the likes of the Beverly Hillbillies, Mission Impossible and Gilligan’s Island. When I found Labor Day approaching — my first away from home — with my roommate and lots of guys on my floor departing for their homes in nearby Austin and San Antonio, it dawned on me that I would not have many of my new friends around for the long weekend. I remember vividly having that spark of a moment on that Saturday afternoon: I was editor of my high school yearbook (all 96 pages of it),

so why not find the yearbook office and see if they need some help? So, after locating Leuders Hall on a college map, I decided to trudge up the hill and announce my availability. Surely, I thought, the yearbook staff members will view me as the second coming and will welcome me with open arms. If I’d known much about campus life, I would have never thought to go over to a college yearbook office on a Saturday afternoon. College journalists are much too cool to be on campus on a holiday afternoon, right? But, perhaps someone was looking after that shy freshman on that afternoon because, lo and behold, after finding my way into the second floor office, I was happy to find the faces of the editor, assistant editor and business manager, busily typing away and filing pre-cut index cards with lots of numbers and codes penciled in. As it turned out, the yearbook team was there that Saturday afternoon, tallying yearbook sales from course registration a few days earlier. (This was before online registration and yearbook companies providing computer marketing for book sales). I quickly introduced myself. Jane, Suzi and Ross were grateful to get an extra hand to help with the drudgery of filing, and my introduction to “journalism” was

made official. Quickly, I found my second home in the yearbook office and, after learning that to be editor of the Pedagog, you had to be a journalism major, I quickly declared this strange field to be my new major, tossing aside the earlier choice of English with a quickness that stunned my parents. Honey, what do you do with this journalism thing? my mother asked in a phone conversation when I called to tell my parents not to be surprised when journalism would be listed on my official student paperwork that would go out shortly. Such knowledge — or lack thereof — of journalism might sound incredibly naive to high school students today. But, that story just illustrates how far the journalism experience has come — and the increased awarenesses that today’s high school students have in taking their work to the next level. It makes no matter if you come from a tiny high school like mine or one with more than 4,000 students, the college experience can be an exciting one. Like that shy freshman of so many years ago at good ol’ Southwest Texas State, students of today can find their college homes in the journalism wing, pub-home, or communications complex wherever they may be. It

doesn’t matter whether you are majoring in journalism or aerospace engineering or computer programming; if you have high school journalism experience, you’ll be surprised how welcoming any college media group will be. I guarantee, they’ll put you to work — and, today, it won’t be filing index cards! Students of mine from past years have found journalism to be comfortable and cozy “homes” in their first years in college. I hear often from students who become design editors, feature editors, special projects managers, freelance writers, broadcasters who get to travel and report on major NCAA sports events and bloggers — all because they happened to pop into the publications area and offer their services. So, take that first step. Don’t be shy or intimidated. Find out where the newspaper office is — or the broadcasting studios. Introduce yourself, take some samples of your work, and be prepared to hit the ground rolling. You’ll find your college experience richly enhanced, and you’ll make lots of new friends with countless new experiences and opportunities afforded you. And, just think, unlike me, you’ll already know what the word “journalism” means!

SECTIONONE • 31

SECTIONtwo Suitcases don’t come with a standard set of items—they are built for and by the individual and equipped with the necessities of life. We all begin with empty suitcases and add elements to them over time. With each pivotal life decision, we undergo profound emotional experiences. It is these experiences that lead to lifelong lessons and form the foundation of human character: morals that are unshakeable in their truths and tested by experience. We carry suitcases to remember the past and to prepare ourselves for the future—the road ahead.

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SECTIONTWO • 33

EATE N AL I V E

MICHAEL GILLILAND | J UNIOR

paste b oard P atrick

mas k

senior

Truth behind the pasteboard mask is destined not for the rational mind. It is truth instead of the strangest sort, set before mortal touch in symbols abstruse. Let white be divinity. Nay, let white be horror. Things blue of free will and green of chance – the flip of errant coin, and liminal cyan of some hungering necessity. The clinging vine, the cackling hyena, and the crusty barnacle, the outstretched albatross and the wooly whale, some force, some puppeteer doth act!

Run instead upon the windowsill and evolve upon the ledge. And feel the weight of limbs upon the table, the reverberating ear beat and tremble. Is this corporeal figure a metaphor for the hidden self? Or perhaps the mask – the flesh and the act itself – is truth, the thing behind only to entangle and seduce. Run upon the windowsill and evolve upon the ledge, and the guardian shell may yawn forth a telling riddle for the soul.

Or is it so?

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SECTIONTWO • 35

cera m i c s

w i lto n p o rt e r | s e n i o r 2012 youngarts finalist

36 • THEMARQUE

woo d work i n g

ardis graham | senior 2012 youngarts FINALIST

SECTIONTWO • 37

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

38 • THEMARQUE

DAVID MUÑOZ | SENIOR

While I learned about both religions, I also became an art master. Every morning, we walked up to this big bulletin board and pinned our name to a “station.” The music station, the drawing station, the finger-painting station. I chose the woodworking station. Every day.

k a h l o

course, I didn’t really care either way. So on weekdays I learned about Hanukkah, Moses, the flood. And on Sundays I heard the stories of Lord Rama, the Gita, Lord Krishna. One day, we crowded around the teacher as she read us a book. We heard about the cruel pharaoh of Egypt. We heard about miracles, divine intervention, the Exodus. We heard about God splitting the sea, making a path for Moses to lead his people away. When she finished, we sat stunned. “All right, boys and girls.” She slapped the picture book shut, breaking the spell. “Time for arts and crafts.” We staggered to our feet. I had started making my way across the room when a kid with a buzz-cut caught up with me. That’s when it happened. “Y’know,” he said, real matter-of-fact, “our God’s better than your God.” Well. I didn’t know how to respond to that. I didn’t know there were two gods. So I just said, “How?” “Our God moved the sea,” he said. “What did your God do?” I thought for a sec, but I couldn’t come up with anything off the top of my head. So I did what most toddlers do to one-up their friends. I lied. “Our God,” I declared, “got rid of the entire sea.” He glared. Yeah, I thought, take that. The teacher stepped between us. “Boys,” she warned. “Let’s not argue about whose God is better. C’mon, time for art.”

f r i d a

The first week of preschool, I bawled. And bawled. And bawled. It’s hard enough for a three-year-old who’s never been out of the house alone. But for a three-year-old who’s spoken nothing but Gujarati his whole life? Well, that’s just torture. But sitting alone on the colorful playground, I caught a phrase here, a sentence there. Before the month was up, I could babble along with the rest of the kids, mostly Jews, at Beth Torah Preschool. My parents had heard of Beth Torah and its respectable reputation. They didn’t really mind exposure to another faith, as long as I didn’t forget Hinduism. And of

S O P H O M O R E

t o

Colorful paintings and posters all over the hallway walls. Three-year-olds messing around on bright plastic toy sets. Teachers gliding over the smooth, white floor. We’re sitting on a wooden bench in the hallway, looking into the classroom. I turn to Mummy, wondering how I’ll get out of this one. “Where are you going now?” I ask. “The grocery store, to get some mac and cheese for you.” Her voice calms me a bit, but I know it’ll be gone soon. “And then?” “The library, to get some picture books for you.” “And then?” “Home, to make some lunch for you.” “And then?” “Here, to pick you up.” She finishes with a cheerful, everything-will-be-okay flourish, but I’m still doubtful. Not because I have to leave Mummy. Not because of the new environment. Not because I have to spend the day with strangers. No, because those strangers in the room speak the wrong language.

h o m a g e

G O K A N I

wo m a n at t h e c r o s s r oa ds

V I S H A L

F O R E I G N E R

a n

T H E

SECTIONTWO • 39

Mummy would drop me off by the wooden bench, and while the teachers kick-started their day with a cup of coffee, I kick-started mine by smearing glue and paint on chunks of wood. I tried to make a computer one day. Yeah, with wood. Didn’t work out so well. As I put up my smock and wiped the wood chips off my hands, an African-American girl came up and said, “What’s that?” I looked. She pointed at the mess sitting on the newspaper. “Oh.” I gave the soaked wood a proud glance. “That’s a computer.” She scrunched up her face. “No, it’s not.” Suddenly, something on the other side of the room caught her eye. “Hey, what’s that?” We approached the wooden steering wheel like explorers happening upon a mysterious find. A plastic chair sat in front of the wheel, and someone had even attached a little wooden pedal near the ground. I plopped down in the chair. “That’s so cool.” We took turns spinning the steering wheel side to side and slamming down the pedal. Boy, we really floored it. “Boys and girls,” the teacher interrupted. “Time for recess.” The girl—whose name turned out to be Katelyn—and I headed out to the playground. The preschool had these colorful plastic cars, open on the bottom so that kids could pedal their feet and move the cars around. Since we already knew how to drive, we chose a bright yellow car with red bumpers. As we glided over the concrete, the inevitable happened. Some kids hanging out high up on the playground started singing the song. “Katelyn and Vishal, sittin’ in a tree…” But I say they were just jealous. n

co n ta in m y s e lv e s

At the end of each school year, we all sat down in this big auditorium for the kindergarteners’ graduation ceremony. They wore fancy white graduation gowns. And they got these huge brown teddy bears. And that’s how the years passed—Sabbath after Sabbath, tradition after tradition, annual event after annual event. By the time I got up on that stage, I spoke a foreign language, knew all about a foreign culture, had a foreign best friend, and celebrated foreign religious holidays. And as the principal handed me my certificate and huge brown teddy bear, none of those seemed so foreign anymore.

I started carpooling with my new best friend, and together we observed the Sabbath and celebrated both Hanukah and Christmas. I celebrated Diwali as well, so I had plenty of holidays on my plate. As I got in the holiday spirit one year, we built a model

40 • THEMARQUE

rainforest in the hallway. Everyone brought in rubber trees, fake grass, plastic animals. We built the little world, layer by layer—forest floor, understory, canopy. Every time I passed the display, I looked for progress. I looked for new animals, new trees, new developments. Once, I even used a puddle of glue to create a pond. Someone put two rubber frogs in it. The display reminded me of the little world under the Christmas tree, with miniature trains, toy shops, fake snow. Those little worlds captured me. I could stare at them all day.

DAVID MUÑOZ | SENIOR

SECTIONTWO • 41

L ast L i t e r a r y

F e s t i v a l

F i c t i o n

W i nn e r

B rooks J o n es | se n i or

abridged version of the original

ydia left without saying good-bye. No suitcase, no letter, no fanfare. Forty-six years of marriage without even a farewell. Yet, she is there with me, by the altar, in a neatly wrapped box.

Louie, Henry, and Don are there, too. Their saddened faces strike a chord. Strange how unfamiliar they seem out of context. Louie, without a rag in hand wiping down the mahogany bar counter or pouring a cocktail. Henry and Don, not perched on their usual barstools reminiscing about old times. It is the kind of bar that patrons come to forget who they are or to remember, depending on what kind of day they are having. The concrete floor has a patina from spilled beer and greasy snacks. The Budweiser beer sign flashes in neon next to the velvet painting of Jesus hanging on the wall. Corky’s is a space devoted to taking the edge off sadness, to making people feel like they belong. “Lost my house back in ’65 cuz some sonofabitch was counting cards in a blackjack game here at the bar,” Don confided the first time I met him. “Why didn’t you call the bastard on it if you knew he cheated you?” I asked. “Hell, afraid the guy would put a price

on my head since he was connected,” he explained while Bitzy, his teacup poodle, gnawed on a pickled pig’s foot. Don’s wrinkled-up face smoothed out as he stroked the dog’s gentle face. “All I got left is my sweet Bitzy. She’s the only girl who’ll have me,” Don lamented. How can you not trust a man who is devoted to a dog? “Do you have a dog, Jerry?” Don wanted to know. “Nope.” “Don’t know what you’re missing.” “Got too much to take care of since my wife has senile dementia.” Amazing how a man will open up to a stranger, I thought, as I added, “She got lost a few years ago coming home from church. Drove damned near to Little Havana. Not sure what would have happened if Henry hadn’t been collecting his disability at the veterans’ office that day. He watched her circle Fourth Avenue so many times that he got behind the wheel of the car and drove

her home. Now she just sits in her chair and stares into space and slowly slips away.” The music now begins trickling into the dusty silence of the church. The coffin waits as the untuned organ bellows “Amazing Grace.” I look up from the hymnal and see Henry exit out the back door to take a puff. Chain smoker. Lucky Strikes. That’s what war will do to you. Takes a man’s courage and bravado and replaces it with a phantom. Just like senility. Henry was the first guy I met at Corky’s. He was chugging a draft beer and puffing on a cigarette when I sat down at the second barstool, which became my unassigned assigned seat. I sensed the guy was struggling by the way he lit another cigarette with the dying embers of his first one. His hands trembled slightly as he handled his smoke. Louie brought me a scotch as Henry told me about his nightmares from Vietnam. “Ever seen somebody kill somebody else? Ever seen a friend get impaled?” “Not in real life.” CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

42 • THEMARQUE

S p a d e Shuff l e

Robert Keeler | freshman SECTIONTWO • 43

“Real life, what the hell is that? I got drafted to the army. Honestly wanted to serve my country. I believed in fighting for your freedoms and honoring our fellow man. I bought into that line of crap.” I put the coins into the jukebox and then pressed A 12. Roy Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” seeped into the musty, old barroom. Only the lonely Know the way I feel tonite Only the lonely Know this feelin’ ain’t right When I got back to the barstool, Henry had left. Louie said Henry had gone home to see if his test results were in. I didn’t want to press him for details, so I just let it go, for now. And so it began, a ritual for me. Most days, five o’clock happy hour, you could find me at Corky’s. I would stop by on my way home to Lydia and have a couple and shoot the bull with Don, Henry and Louie. Sometimes I would smoke one of Henry’s cigarettes, but I always played A 12 on the jukebox. When the news that he had tested positive for multiple myeloma from exposure to Agent Orange got around, he traded the beer for Dewar’s. That poor guy pounded the sauce, scared to death, not knowing what to expect.

I L a s t

D r in k

hold the funeral program in my hand and glance at the photo of my Lydia on the cover. The picture was taken shortly after we married back in ‘39. She had blue eyes and wavy hair that fell over them. But it was her smile that got to me. The corner of her mouth turned up when she got embarrassed, and I

never could get enough of it. Memories of our first encounter at the soda fountain came flooding back. She served the best Palm Beach sandwich and Cherry Coke I had ever tasted. I had barely finished the sandwich when I got the courage to ask her, “Hey, Princess, you busy Saturday night?” She put me off for a few weeks until I finally convinced her to go to the track at Hialeah with me. Didn’t take long till she admitted she was engaged to a Jai Alai player from Spain. But then she hit a trifecta that day and fell in love with horseracing, and later, me. We drifted apart over the years. Lydia spent her days in the rocking chair, moving the pain back and forth with her, the pain of losing our son, the pain of her empty life. When her diagnosis of senility came back, Corky’s became my second home. The sunlight casts a golden glow through the motif of Jesus carrying the cross. The red diamond-shaped medallions at the base of the panel sparkle. With the service almost over, the preacher interjects his message of hope. From the back of the church, from the vestibule, come barking sounds and hushed voices. I turn around to see Don’s four-legged companion gallop up the aisle and leap into Don’s lap. She had been sequestered in the anteroom and had somehow escaped. As she licks his worn face, I admire how much a gambler like Don could openly show his affection for Bitzy. Maybe dogs show us a better way to live. After the “Funeral March,” the minister shakes my hand and walks alongside me as I go up to the casket to give my last goodbye. “Farewell, my Princess. Now you can reunite with Jerry, Jr.” As I lay a white rose on her coffin, Louie approaches me. “Going to keep the bar closed today in honor of Lydia. Come on over and we’ll cel-

ebrate her life at Corky’s.” “Thanks, Louie. Kind of at a loss for words right now. Means the world to me.” I make my way through the crowd of solemn people ; funny who shows up at a funeral. The bank teller. My barber. The mailman. Even Richard, the foreman I replaced twenty years ago at National Airlines. He had gotten promoted to airline inspector. Never got the feeling he liked me very much. The guy thought I was too slow getting the engines overhauled. Hell, I was slow. When I get to the tavern, the sign on the door in Louie’s script reads, “CLOSED for a DEATH in the FAMILY.” For some reason, the word “family” jumps off the sign more than the word “death.” The barflies, Louie, Henry, Don, and even Bitzy are kin. The bar is unusually quiet. The television is turned off. The dance floor is empty. There is a distinct aroma of stale cigarettes and spilled beer. Lined up across the polished mahogany counter, Louie has arranged several shot glasses. He opens a brand new bottle of Jose Cuervo and fills each glass to the brim. I clink a glass and announce that I would like to make a toast. “Here’s to the Princess!” I bellow as we lift our jiggers and drain the tequila. “Hear, hear,” echoes Louie as he pours us each another round. With that, Don waltzes over to the jukebox and plays A 12. The music fills the dead air. When he gets back to his barstool, he feeds Bitzy some corn nuts and pretzels. Henry lights up another smoke while Louie wipes down the counter. Somebody grabs a pool cue and starts to play a game of pool. Roy Orbison sings in the background.

richard eiseman | sophomore

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SECTIONTWO • 45

PAN ORA MA S 46 • THEMARQUE

LAKEHOUSE

HALBERT BAI | SOPHOMORE

THE WILD

RILE Y GRAHAM | SOPHOMORE

THE PIER

MAX WOLENS | SOPHOMORE

SECTIONTWO • 47

A le x

S N O W C A N AL

N g uye n | S e n i or

The pain was unbearable. Quivering, unmoving, and helpless, I involuntarily curled into a ball on the far side of the pool. The snow continued to fall, my teammates continued to swim, my coaches continued to pace, and I continued to shiver. Under the heavy snow and misty water, no one could see me. I was alone. We were in Ouray, Colorado, for a training trip during Christmas Break. Although the trip was normally only for varsity swimmers, I was invited as an eighth grader. Soon I learned why it was only for varsity swimmers. Our daily schedule consisted of five hours of swimming, two hours of running, and four hours of skiing. To make it even worse, the pool was outdoors, the temperature hovered around zero degrees Fahrenheit, and chilling gusts of wind stole the warmth from our hands as they arced above the water. It was awful. During the first few days, only one thought distinguished itself by its perpetual recurrence: “Why am I here?” On a particularly frigid Tuesday morning, all eighteen of us trudged out of the locker room for our two-hour, prelunch torture. Already dreading the descent into the water, we only grew more fearful when we felt the sub-zero winds blaze across our bare torsos. By that time, however, we were mostly resigned to our fate, and together, we stepped off the ledge into the beguiling, vitreous void. It hurt so badly that I forgot how to scream. For minutes I just sat there, waiting for someone to notice me. Although I had just met most of my teammates, our shared suffering bound us together in unbreakable chains of fraternity, and I trusted that eventually, help would come. A few minutes later, as I began to slip into a silent repose, a senior whose name I had just learned was Will, picked me up and carried me into the showers. Worriedly, he asked me if I was okay. All I could do was nod weakly from the floor as the scalding water soothed my screaming muscles. The only thing keeping me afloat was the knowledge that my older friends were struggling along with me, their rigid bodies haphazardly strewn on the floor next to me. Trust. Friendship. Commitment. That is our motto. Before Ouray, I scoffed at these seemingly meaningless words: swimming is an individual sport. I learned the value of trust,

however, when I was unable to move. If I had panicked, I might have slid into the water and, with my unresponsive limbs, drowned. I had trusted someone to help me, and he did. Friendship came from the most unexpected place—from people older and cooler than I was. I had expected simply to observe and learn, but even the seniors included me in their discussions and jokes, although I didn’t understand most of them. With trust came friendship, and with friendship, commitment. Although suffering did bring us together in the beginning, it was ultimately our trust for, our friendship with, and commitment to each other that led us to three consecutive SPC championships and fourteen out of the past fifteen. Swimming isn’t an individual sport. To sucAll I could do was nod ceed, you cannot be alone. Even in my darkest moment, weakly from the floor I never was. as the scalding water As an eighth grader, I soothed my screamhad no idea what kind of ing muscles. impact Ouray would have on me. When I hear the word “Ouray,” I don’t remember the freezing morning runs or the miserable hours I spent in the pool. I remember the meals we ate together, the night we watched fireworks together, the slopes we skied together. I want that togetherness with every community of which I am a part—it is something I crave and something I strive to establish. As a captain of the swimming and water polo team, I make it a point to know every person in the aquatics program, even the diminutive seventh graders. They’re surprised when I greet them in the hallways and even more surprised when I greet them by name. But I hope that they’ll follow my example. Even the barest of acknowledgements is a step toward a true community, or in our case, a true brotherhood. Ouray had unwittingly opened my eyes—the people on my team are my family. Together, we step off the ledge into the beguiling, vitreous void of our futures. Together, we attempt to capture our next championship. Together, we cannot fail.

Greg Kinman | Senior

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SECTIONTWO • 49

DR. HENRY A. PLOEGSTRA | FACULTY At first, he thought it was a mistake. But the pale green document did not lie. In square black letters, it said, “Mrs. Rosemary Cooper…1939 Pontiac, two-door…” His mother had put the title to their new car in her name! He was dumbfounded. “She said that I…She promised me that…” He put the paper back into the envelope, took the rest of the mail out of the box, watched the local carrier stop at the Phillips’s place a half-mile down the road, and walked slowly back down the muddy driveway to the house. His surprise was only momentary. Gradually, in his mind, this event worked its way into the pattern of his life. How many times she had intimidated him and used him as her personal servant rather than as her youngest son? She had always been the one who made the decisions, even when his father was alive. Now, the memory of his father was becoming ever more vague, and all her other sons were married and gone. Gordon was all she had left, him and the farm. She reminded him of it often—like the day he was to start the annual plowing. It was early. His mother usually called him about 6:30, but this morning, there were no signs of light yet when he heard his mother’s voice, “Gordy, Gordy, are you awake?” (“I’m always up anyway,” she said. “You don’t need an alarm clock.”) Gordy! How he hated that juvenile nickname. Why couldn’t she realize that he was twenty-three now and wanted to be called Gordon. And why ask him whether he was awake! If he weren’t, he couldn’t answer anyway. Once, he had said, “No! I’m not awake!” Only once, though, because she had cried all morning. Her son mocked her, she said. Her youngest son. Her flesh and blood. God knew that she tried to do what was best for

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him and for the farm. “Gordy! Get up! You’ve got to get started on the plowing!” “Yes, I’m coming.” He stretched his long bony legs. His feet touched the foot end of the bed. The weight of the heavy quilts made it an effort to move his slight body. He shivered as a gust of wind blew a wisp of snow through the crack between the windows. It will be cold riding that tractor today, he thought. I’d better put on a lot of… “Gordy! It’s cold out. You better put on a lot of clothes! And, hurry up! Breakfast is ready.” He threw the quilts back and stood there in his long underwear, surprised by how cold it really was. He quickly put on several layers and jerked on his heavy woolen socks. (“I’ll knit you a pair of nice wool socks so you won’t get cold, Gordy.”) He struggled with his stiff working shoes; a lace broke. “Hey, Ma, got any shoe laces?” “I’ll look, Gordy. Here. I’ll bring you one.” Breakfast was oatmeal. (“To keep you warm, Gordy.”) He hated oatmeal: thick and stiff, or slimy and thin, always oatmeal. The eggs, however, were scrambled just right; the coffee was hot, strong, and black. Feeling well-nourished, he stepped outdoors. The November wind hit him full in the face. Her instructions were still ringing in his ears: “Start with the north-east twenty. Start on the south side of the field; plow the dead furrows deep. Do a nice job of finishing off your lands. Pa was always so proud of his plowing.” He wondered what would happen if he started on

the north rather than the south side. But he knew that his mother always went to town on Tuesday mornings and would drive right past the field, and there would be another scene, and she would cry and call him an ungrateful son and disobedient and…Oh, why bother! Starting on the south side really wasn’t such an imposition. But if he could fix that old car some way so it couldn’t run today, he could plow safely all day, and by the next day, she wouldn’t be able to tell where he had started. “I’ll do it,” he said aloud. He had to be careful making his way to the garage or she would see him and want to know what the trouble was. He made it safely. Quickly and guiltily, he removed the distributor cap. “It won’t run now,” he thought. “All she will do is run down the battery trying to start it. It’ll take all day tomorrow to charge it again, so it will keep her home two days. She won’t like that. Maybe she’ll even miss Ladies Aid.” He laughed. She knew nothing about cars except how to drive one. She would never figure out what was wrong. She never could. One time, the old car would not start. While he was working vainly on it, she asked helpfully, “Gordy, is there enough water in the battery?” He told her that of course there was and to let him fix it by himself. She was only trying to help him, she said. She thought mothers were supposed to help their sons when they had troubles. She always tried to do what was right and now all she had left was him and the farm, and even he was turning against her. He removed the distributor cap easily. He ran quickly to the tractor and finished gassing it up. He stopped in the house to pick up the thermos of coffee and bag of sandwiches she had fixed for him. “Oh, Gordy, Mrs. Stevens just phoned. She is going to town this morning, so I’ll ride with her. Now, I won’t have to bother starting that old car. Pa was always so proud of it, but it’s getting so old now. He wouldn’t mind, I know, if we traded it in. I think maybe next spring we will look at some new cars. Mrs. Stevens has one. I’ll wave as we go by in her new car because you

probably won’t recognize me in it.” Gordon did not say a word. He picked up his lunch and strode rapidly out to the tractor. He stumbled on a stone in the driveway. He throttled a powerful urge to curse. She would have heard him. She always watched him go. She had begun talk about a new car again. For the last five years, it was that way: “I think next spring we’ll get a new car.” He consigned all new cars to the seventh level of the Inferno—but it would be great to have one. Maybe he could take a trip to Grand Rapids and have a date with a really good looking girl. His cousin would find one for him. There weren’t any girls near home, except one. Everybody expected him to take her out, so he did. He had tried to hold her hand and called her “Betty.” She grabbed her hand away and sneered, “My name is Elizabeth!” That was the end of that, in She always tried to spite of his mother. do what was right Plowing was good work. and now all she had He liked the fertile smell left was him and the of freshly turned earth. He liked the roar of the engine farm, and even he as it settled down to pull the was turning against shiny plowshares through the ground. He liked to be her. dressed warmly and feel the wind beat against him as he rode, commanding at least a hundred horsepower. But today: “Do the south-east twenty. Plow the dead furrows deep. Do a nice job of finishing off.” He would have done it anyway and taken real pride in his neat and thorough work. Now each new furrow felt like a stripe cut across his back with a lash. He reached the south-east twenty, roughly opened the gate, adjusted his plow, and began on the south side. Or, there was the time of the kittens. One January morning while he was crouched low on his milk stool, gently and efficiently filling his pail with sweet foamy milk, the old family cat ambled into the stable. It was warm and snug there. The cows chewed contentedly; the hay rustled CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

SECTIONTWO • 51

softly in the mangers; a spider swung from beam to beam constructing her beautiful but deadly trap. Every morning, the old cat made her appearance about quarter to seven. She knew that the worn-out saucepan that was her table service would soon be filled with warm sweet milk. Gordon was always good to her. He knew that she had had kittens, but he never expected to see them. Kittens born in the winter rarely lived. It was just too cold in the barn, except in the stable. The old cat never hid her kittens there. They were always high up in the straw loft or some other obscure corner. He was surprised to see two kittens following her. They walked cautiously behind her and jumped at every strange noise. They arched their backs, stuck their tails straight up, and hissed. Gordon was glad to see them. Cute little fellows. It will be fun to watch them grow. He poured them an extra-large serving of milk, but they did not know what to do with it. None of their previous nourishment had come in an old saucepan. What their mother did seemed like a good idea to imitate. They plunged their heads deeply into the milk but came up quickly. Milk ran off their heads and out of their ears. Their hair was pasted to their heads. They did not look like the respectable kittens they had been. The old cat began to lick them clean and dry with her sandpaper tongue. That was when Gordon noticed that both kittens had seven toes on their front paws. A mutation, they called it in biology class. He had never seen a real one before. This was something quite unusual. He would raise them carefully. The kids across the road would be excited to see real seven-toed cats. Maybe he could raise a whole tribe of them and sell them at the fair. At breakfast that morning, he told his mother. He had expected her to be pleased, or at least interested. Instead, she was shocked and hurt: “Why, Gordy, keep those poor creatures alive? It’s not natural. Kittens aren’t supposed to be born in winter. They never turn out good. It’s unnatural. And these have seven toes! They’re freaks, just the results of sin. It says right in the Bible that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain…(She had mispronounced “travaileth.” He did not correct her.) I won’t have

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any of those things on my farm. YOU want to keep them and raise them. They drink too much milk and won’t catch enough rats to make it worthwhile. It’s so much easier to poison the rats. I’ll get some poison the next time I go to town. Then we won’t need any cats, let alone your freaks. Drown them today!” He didn’t. The seven-toed kittens grew sleek and fat. They produced a long thick coat of winter fur. They played their family games and lived happy lives. One morning as Gordon opened the barn door, he tripped over their bodies. They were stretched out tautly as if they had died in some great agony. In front of the cows, he found the old cat, also dead. The door to the granary was ajar. He walked in and found a new paper bag on the floor. Inside it he found a sales slip from Harris’s Feed Mill, “Cooper: Arsenic, $1.70.” At breakfast that morning, his mother was unusually cheerful. “While I was in town yesterday, I stopped to get some gas. Old George tried to sell me a new car. I just laughed and took one of his folders. Look at this, Gordy. Maybe he wasn’t so far wrong. This one is beautiful. Our old clunker is getting pretty bad. Do you think we should get a new car, Gordy?” It was the first time she had ever asked for his advice, but he felt no better. The memory of the sales slip and of the dead kittens was too fresh in his mind. “She’s just trying to smooth it over,” he thought. But what if she really bought one? He was old enough now; it would be his car, too. Pa’s old car was still Pa’s. But a new one! That one would be his. He was the worker. He made the money. His own car! “You’re the man of the house now, Gordy. You should know. I’ll think it over. It’ll be your car, too, you know.” Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe it would be his own car. He wouldn’t have to ask to use it. He wouldn’t have to keep track of the mileage. There was not more said about the new car until the next Tuesday when she came back from town with a purchase order all filled out. “It’s black, Gordy. We can get it in two weeks. Insurance is sure a lot more expensive on a new car, especially when you’re not twenty-five.” He didn’t dare ask, but it sounded as if she had really

made the car his. “Only a year and ten months, and I’ll be twenty-five!” The next Saturday the car arrived. On Sunday, they drove it proudly to church and parked it just near enough to the road so that people going past could see it, but not close enough to get it dusty. She let Gordon drive. Every day, he watched for the mail carrier, but the letter containing the car title for which he was waiting

did not arrive. He wanted to know so badly, but somehow he was afraid to find out. “She must have put it in my name. She’s been different lately.” He thought of the plowing and of the kittens. “Or has she?” He didn’t know, but he hoped. Finally, it came. “State of Michigan. Official Business.” He ripped open the envelope. At first, he thought it was a mistake.

R U ST I C C AT H EDRAL

ANDREW GATHERER | SOPHOMORE SECTIONTWO • 53

O N

A N

P A T R I C K I keep the things that I’ve stolen in the top drawer of my nightstand, arranged neatly like a collection of stamps. They’re small objects – ballpoint pens, a pack of Bicycle playing cards, a souvenir magnet of the Eiffel Tower, a compass with a cracked plastic face – just to name a few. At first glance, they don’t seem to have much immediate value. But I remember clearly what it was like to acquire these things – the calculated plans and the tingle of action – and these recollections make me feel alive. There’s nothing quite like it, driving away with something that you know isn’t yours, stuffed into cotton pants pockets. And no one notices. You float by. At times, I find it to be an irrepressible urge. Control, control is what I’ve learned – to choose wisely what to take: objects that owners will not likely miss, items they will forget. My name is Isaac. I am a taxi driver, and I steal. Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to have someone stumble upon my collection and find out about this secret of mine. Would they understand my need to steal? The years before Mother and Father took me in are but a lurid blur and seem to have been erased from my mind, leaving only faint outlines of chalk against the blackboard of my memory. They never told me how I ended up in Saint Francis Orphanage. “It’s not important what happened before,” Mother told me. “What matters is that you’re here with us now.” I sometimes visualize flashes, glaring flashes against the cinema of my hazy mind. I started taking things at a young age, and I still don’t know why. I would swipe up Hot Wheels that had been left behind by one of my classmates during recess. Or I would take notebook paper from my teachers’ desks, drinking in the exhilaration of slipping stacks of lined sheets into my backpack. Or I would snip pictures out of pages from the public library’s old encyclopedias, tacking them to my bed-

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I M P U L S E N G

S E N I O R

room wall. The dangling emptiness of those foggy, indistinct pre-orphanage years gradually filled up. I could not, however, shake the feeling that something was missing. I sometimes smell it – the charred scent of burning wood. So I continued. I stole and relished the thrill. Although I knew it was wrong, that stealing was cruelly sinful – and trust me, I knew and sometimes felt guilty – it felt right. When I moved to the big city, bidding farewell to Mother and Father in their suburban home – constructed comfortably with neat lines and planes, with a brick façade and gray-shingled roof – I expected boundless opportunities, fresh beginnings, and for a brief moment, I hoped that my urge to steal would gradually evaporate and that I would find a pleasant job or maybe a woman or a hobby that would replace it. Yet the churning, cacophonous city atmosphere seemed to pull my impulse further out of its inner, shelled confines, like a deliberate pair of tweezers wiggling the compulsion out. A city of oppressive weight, of derelict alleyways, of faceless, uniform men and women. I stayed afloat with my stealing. I needed it – the only thing that gave my life vibrant tint and that distinguished me in my own mind from the monotonous rest. Like a well-timed stage entrance, the thought of being a taxi driver occurred to me. Perfect, I thought, work that blended well with my need. And my instinct kicked in, guided my actions. It came almost naturally. I handled my passengers’ baggage and surveyed what lay before me, like person determining his next chess move. I saw them once and only took what seemed appropriate. Plucking objects from netted pouches of backpacks, looking for bulging contours in surface compartments of suitcases. An accordion stack of sticky notes. A packet of scented tissues. A blank postcard from Poland. But as always something was missing, hanging like a frame

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DAV ID MUÑOZ | S ENI O R

SECTIONTWO • 55

DAVID MUÑOZ | SENIOR

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lacking flesh. It felt like I was drifting without an anchor. I sometimes feel a singeing heat; it seems to melt the skin from my face. My third year in the big city, winter rolled around the corner, tumbling into place, and a murky layer of slate clouds settled in above clotted walkways and stalagmite buildings. Sometimes it was hard to breathe. Everything seemed so compressed. I had just dropped off a tourist from the Midwest – he had left his wallet, but I had told myself long ago that I would never steal money and gave it back to him with a shout just as he rounded the cracked street corner – when I received a call. “Hello?” I answered. “Is this Isaac?” a man asked, his voice sounding like plopped piano keys. “Yes, who’s this?” A brief silence. “I’m an old friend of your parents. Umm…your biological parents.” The emptiness magnified, and acrid sense perceptions returned. Charred wood. Singeing heat. Sudden flashes. “Yes?” I finally uttered, words seeping through still lips. “I have some things to talk to you about. It’s about a…will that they left you and that we’ve just found.” Another hanging silence. “Do you mind meeting me at my apartment, 300 17th Avenue? It’s apartment # 17.” Truth was waiting for me, something perhaps that I did not want to know. I could feel it. But like that impulse to steal, which I had come to understand, some whim inspired me to confront what lay ahead. “I’ll be there soon.” The squeezed winter atmosphere seemed to stretch out suddenly to its limits, time meandering sedately. My limbs moved of their own accord, and my taxicab weaved through congested streets of blaring automobiles and past people who plodded robotically. I did not stop to consider, ten minutes later, my crookedly parked car nor the doorman who turned heavy iron doors automatically without a

second glance nor the thundering echo of my shoes through empty halls. Before I could comprehend the wide swathe of time that had proceeded with such rapid haste, there I was, standing in front of a door, a slab of wood that separated me from my elusive past, the emptiness. I knocked on that slab of wood until it finally creaked open, a gaunt man with wavy chestnut hair peeking through a crack and eventually swinging the door open to reveal an apartment room the size of a walk-in closet. He looked remarkably like me, as if a mirror had been thrown up in place of that wooden door. Remarkably like me. “Please come in,” he said, after a weighty silence, gesturing his hands inward. I hesitated for a moment. I crossed the threshold, and it felt like walking through water, arms and legs pushing through heavy air. He shuffled backwards, a sound that dragged discordantly. Then I noticed it. To my immediate right stood a shelf with reminiscent pictures set in wooden frames, twinkling trinkets, a pack of Bicycle play cards, a chunk of charred wood. I suddenly knew and remembered, and compressed time collapsed, accelerating instead. “There’s actually no will. That’s not why I asked you to come here,” he muttered, his piano key voice progressing in a smooth legato. “I found out just a couple of days ago…from the records. Do you know who I am?” I did know him, had known him since the beginning. And to this day, I still cannot explain what I did next. My limbs acting once again as if independent from my body, on an impulse, I grabbed; I snatched; and I ran out through the empty doorframe with a stolen item in hand. “Wait!” he shouted, but I was already gone. The emptiness was no more, the space now filled with searing memories. I did not want to hear uttered truth, truth placed in concrete words because I already knew it – the taste, the sound, the texture, the sight – and that was enough. My name is Isaac, and I steal. SECTIONTWO • 57

Drowning

S o l e m n Wav e s

Alex Nguyen | Senior

Halbert Bai | Sophomore

Drowning F Alex Nguyen | Senior

rothy foam flew onto the floorboards of our tiny dinghy, a wet patina to soften the already terribly built boat. A nail popped loose and lodged itself in the crevice between my big and index toe. Every few minutes, we heard protuberant, portentous creaking. It was the sound, capricious and distant and near, of the wood slowly breaking under the strain of carrying its two emaciated passengers. We stared, silently, at the immense brown clump of islands behind us as we escaped the gaze of our wearied elders. As we passed, the uniformity of the trees along the nondescript sand beaches evoked a feeling of timelessness—we were sailing away in a sea of time, struggling to stay afloat. No one had ever come back. Our elders had continually fed us stories about those who had attempted to flee as we feasted on tiny scruples of fanged fish over the weekly bonfires. It was assumed Time seemed to that we knew better, that no one would ever again dare defy slow to a stop as the wisdom of our fathers. But we drifted toward I knew I could do it. I had been star on our little island, the hazy horizon. the overcoming every obstacle with my best friend, George. So we began to build a boat. It had been an arduous task—we had rope, one nail, no hammers, no technical skill—but eventually we pieced together a makeshift raft, barely strong enough to hold our weight. Brazenly, we rushed headlong into the ocean, silently and stealthily swimming past our fellow prisoners, who, unlike us, were stuck with the miserable monotony of island life. We laughed as they scuttled around the shore, scouring the beach for any way to fetch us back. But the abyss was 58 • THEMARQUE

before us, and there was no turning back. Time seemed to slow to a stop as we drifted toward the hazy horizon. We had no idea where we were going, and we had no idea how long it had been since we had last eaten. Slowly and inexorably, our hunger started to overwhelm our other senses. It clawed at us from inside our bodies, snarling, scratching, biting, growling, scrabbling for an escape. But there was no escaping this hunger. It drove us into a frenzy by the time we had nearly lost sight of our tiny island. George plunged his face into the sea and drank while I ripped off my fingernails and chewed on the dead skin. Our food-deprived brains forced us into a choice between continuing the path and turning back. Here, for the first time, George and I differed. He believed in the power of the sea, in the power of the abyss. The murky water and parasite-filled ocean struck a resonating chord within his body and the staccatos on his skin rose like tiny mountains and the hairs on his arms stood erect and he knew, without a doubt, that he wanted to continue. But his eyes were wild, roving, revolving like spinning tops in his sunken sockets. The seawater had changed his normally placid deportment, and agitated, his hands moved quickly about his knees, tracing circles and indecipherable letters upon his pale, anemic skin. Our island lingered in the distance behind us, seeming to beckon to my hunger-addled brain. It was the only choice, I knew. But George frightened me—I had never seen my best friend like this. He dug into the wood with his claws for no apparent reason, refusing to speak to me and consumed by his task. As he bloodied his hands, he muttered quietly about the weather. The monsoon is coming. The monsoon is coming. The monsoon is coming.

I could make no sense of him. And so I began to paddle back toward our home, hoping to escape the ominous clarion call of his continued utterances. Within seconds, he was upon me. The boat rocked as we grappled to and fro, and our wearied bodies expended all the energy we had left as we fought for control. He held nothing back and I felt him all over me—teeth, nails, fists, elbows, knees— nothing was restrained. I, however, refused to succumb to my primal instincts, to fight him with all I had. And so he won. We kept going. Things had changed on our little boat. It was incredibly uncomfortable to be so close to someone whose face you knew but whose entire being had changed. I was sitting across from a rabid tiger, ready to die at any moment. My hunger subsided as I watched his facial expressions fluctuate phantasmagorically, attempting to divine what had happened within the couple of days we had spent on our makeshift raft. Nothing made sense. The monsoon is coming. The monsoon is coming. The monsoon is coming. Those words were ingrained in my brain, etched upon my every thought. Finally, I realized that he was tracing those words upon his knobby knees, scratching them through the wet patina into the soft wood, engraving them in my mind with the nail still lodged between my toes. Suddenly, George leapt to his feet, incognizant that the shift in weight would tip over our shitty little raft. The water pulled us under, and I shivered as her arms wrapped around me, enclosing me in an unwanted embrace. My lungs slowly collapsed as my vision faded and my limbs grew numb, and black tendrils of smoke crept into the corners of my vision, obscuring George’s flailing limbs from my sight. I faded away into that overwhelming blackness,

sinking almost willingly into that eternal black abyss, but a pallid hand fought its way to the fabric of my woolen shirt and yanked me back up to the surface. The surface, however, seemed With every breath I took, just like the depths. more and more water It was as if the sky had opened and entered my lungs. God was peeing on our insignificant heads. The monsoon was here. The world was gone, and all I could see was water. The rain seemed to rise up from underneath us, pounding upon our hapless heads and slowly climbing up our necks, seeking entrance to our mouths and noses and ears and eyes to dull our senses and conquer our emaciated bodies. With every breath I took, more and more water entered my lungs. I was literally breathing water. And there George was, reveling in the moment with his bloodied claws thrust toward the sky like scarlet beacons of insanity. He whooped and laughed and sank underneath the weight of his own reason, which had long since left his body and now pressed him into the ocean. The sea roiled, concentrating around his rigid body, and her greedy lips devoured him whole. Without him I was incomplete—unstable and unsound, I began to bob up and down, wondering how much water I could breathe before I drowned. I could not escape the water. I could not escape. I could not distinguish water from air. This time, there was no pallid claw to yank me from the depths, and I sank deeper and deeper into the folds of the ocean’s welcoming embrace. She consumed me, and like George, I was gone. The monsoon is coming. The monsoon is coming. The monsoon is... SECTIONTWO • 59

SECTIONthree The umbrella protects us against the storm, the battering rain of our struggles. It is a shield from hardship, a defense against the unavoidable pains of life – loss, failure and misfortune – and is a means to stay the course. The umbrella attempts to prevent lingering uncertainty and instill the strength of hope. With an umbrella in hand, we can suffer without falling and feel pain without surrendering to it. With faith, the weary traveler wards off the inescapable adversities of life.

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SECTIONTHREE • 61

G L O O M Y

V I S T A

N A E E M M U S C A T W A L L A | sen i o r

THE MIGHTIEST MOTHER TREE

P R A J A N

D I V A K A R

e all had been born together. We all had fermented in the same roots. We all had lived in the same luscious soil that had safeguarded our growth. I was one of them, and it was during spring that she released our fertile, conical seeds to gently plant in the cushion of the silky grass. Her aesthetic beauty dazzled our thoughts and inspired our quest to become like her. After all, she was mighty. No. She was the mightiest. Her umbrella of leaves shielded our tender trunks from the scorching heat and penetrating rays of the summer. Her blanket of fallen leaves our emerging Why? Perhaps we, comforted roots during the vacuous too, would have atmosphere of autumn. And to be with nature. now, I anxiously awaited the next shift in our climate. She Perhaps then, this called it winter and warned us that it would be unlike ghastly nothingthe others. I didn’t worry; she ness would leave knew what had to be done. us to be. The creatures had begun to gather in her arms to take refuge. The twitchy squirrels and the sable crows admired her presence. She was a magnanimous specimen who expected no reward for her actions, and now, my saplings

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and I eagerly awaited the terror. The heavens first began to melt. The clouds slowly perished into a state of white. By the end of the day, the blinding colorlessness had engulfed all of the sky. The process was slow and gruesome. Its creepy, fungal properties had even suppressed the heat of the sun. Defunct. Defunct. Defunct. Nature had met its match. We would all perish. I tore myself from overwhelming terror and faced our savior. She was standing strong. I knew she would be. For a few hours, our minds rested in serenity. But soon, the disease began to spread to her as well. Seemingly endless amounts of pallid powder began to coat the earth. Fertility was perishing. Snow was prevailing. Our roots tensed, and the moisture on our tender skin hardened. She was still standing strong but no longer presented her maternal, green color. It almost appeared as if she had become one with the white terror. She was not giving us the physical protection we expected. Why? Perhaps we, too, would have to be with nature. Perhaps then, this ghastly nothingness would leave us to be. A distant, shrill noise woke us from our sedentary slumber. The snow apparently awaited reinforcements, and it was the perfect time for the creatures to begin to show their colors once more. Life trickled back into our lifeless world, and I had begun to acclimate to the harsh climate. She did not seem as optimistic. Her branches

drooped with the burden of the snow, but I readily realized that what bothered her most was the state of her offspring. I had only noticed now that some of them had been drowned; they would never achieve the dream we had all eagerly hoped to reach. Even she could not protect us all. The shrill noise was gradually getting more frequent and considerably louder. We ignored the dissonance, considering it another aspect of this tortuous season, but then we were approached by the makers of the sound. They were bright, two-legged creatures with almost no white on them. “Men,” she called them. Maybe they were resistant to the snow. Despite their unique qualities, however, I could not help but feel that they brought with them some superficial aura. They paced towards her and compassionately brushed the snow from her branches. One of them had a longer arm, which, to my surprise, he detached from himself and leaned against her body. They made low-pitched sounds that seemed to help them express their sentiments. After a couple of minutes, one of the creatures picked up his long arm. With a loud grunt, he hit her. At first, I didn’t quite recognize what has happening. But as I noticed my mother’s flesh being exposed to the deathly air, I knew they were killing her. She just stood there. I did not see retaliation. It was only then that I realized that she was helpless. Her mutilated trunk gradually

thinned to a point when she let out her final, creaking scream. The men darted away quickly, as she made a futile attempt to crush them; I knew she was only trying to protect us. The creatures seemed to pride themselves in their murder. A group of them came to drag her way. As her branches brushed against the snow, But even she, the mightiher loose leaves est mother tree, fell to the littered the floor, and I stared at the demonic powers of immiremains in agony. nent death. I knew that I She had never mentioned this in- was only a dreamer. justice before. She had not even hinted at it. Were we all bound for her fate? What was the point of aspiring for massacre? No. I would not succumb to such dangerous contemplation; she would not have wanted it that way. I would have to perform her sacrificial deeds as well. I had no choice. Maybe I would overthrow these ruthless demons and protect my future offspring. I had a life ahead of me that I would explore while I strived to spread my kind. But even she, the mightiest mother tree, fell to the demonic powers of imminent death. I knew that I was only a dreamer. SECTIONTHREE • 63

RYAN EICHENWALD | JUNIOR

ALO

In the garden of eternal spring, a rose blooms. In the garden of eternal autumn, a rose falls Ever so slowly To the ground. A brook burbles past, unheeding, Twisting and bending As it makes its way through, Singing as it goes. Through it, I can hear Everything The song of creation All in one. The secret chords of nature Stolen away by the water. I listen, and I hear the harmony At the base of the universe. And I sit on a rock In the center of my garden And watch the sun set over the walls.

Greg Kinman | Senior

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SECTIONTHREE • 65

Literary Festival Poetry Winner

Summer M a x

max wolens | sophomore

M arshall

S enior

Let’s capture action in rapture fashion She said in a swim Lawn chair masses and ashtray abstraction Views from Ray Ban rims Plum wine tasters and acid debasers Swirling through her shoes Sucking cold chasers and stowing wet wasters Sell them good as used I’ll get it twisted rolled and minted Get it twisted rolled and minted She’s a summer cigarette Cherry stem smacking, peach parade snacking Watermelon licks. Sun roasted sacks get rolled up for stacking Waving with her whiffs So hit it twisted rolled transfixing Hit it twisted rolled transfixing She’s a summer cigarette Star crossed others Crisscross under covers But then ends the summer Of cigarette lovers So flick it twisted rolled and blistered Flick it twisted rolled and blistered She was a summer cigarette

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SECTIONTWO • 67

LIGHT TIED

WHOM NOT WHO

GREG KINMAN | SENIOR

CHARLES JIN | SENIOR

Charles (noun): (Prince of Edinburgh and of Wales), born 1948, heir apparent to the throne of Great Britain (son of Elizabeth II). Jin: The word you’ve entered isn’t in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the search bar above./ 1. Jan/ 2. Jon/ 3. jun/ 4. Jain/ … 17. – kin/ 18. John/ 19. Jong/ 20. Jung. Every time I talked to that nice lady behind the counter, she misspelled my last name with a tentative “G.” I corrected her transgression patiently and politely: “Jin spelled with a J—as in Jack.” This association quickly became automatic; I used to be associated with alcohol—now I am associated with a different identity. There is something oddly ironic about using a western name to represent my oriental roots. My surname is one of my only reminders that connects me to my roots in China. I have learned to talk like the white man, act like the white man, and think like the white man. Even though I am only the first generation from my family to be born in America, I can already feel myself gradually losing sight of my heritage. I am not blind yet. I can insist on wading through unyielding quagmires of bureaucracy. I can refuse to debase myself. I can require people to spend minutes puzzling through rosters and computer databases, wondering why I do not exist. To acquiesce completely to the demands of all foolish secretaries is to erase my past and submit myself to an autocratic culture that refuses to recognize me. The dictionary refuses to recognize me. As the arbiter of the English lexicon, it is fitting for the dictionary to have overlooked my last name. Online dictionaries are especially irksome because in addition to denying my existence, they also politely suggest more “appropriate” words, which, for my particular name, include such gems as “Jaen,” “tin,” and, very conveniently, “gin.” I might

68 • THEMARQUE

as well just change my last name to Jack, lest Merrivam-Webster insist that my name is actually “Charles June.” But my name is not Jack. I have never had adventures with magical beanstalks, and I’ve never even met a girl named Jill; given the chance, I doubt very much that I could live up to my tertiary namesake. I am sure, however, that Jack does not mind if I assume his guise for but a moment; in fact, I fear more for my integrity than for Jack’s. I wonder if I lose more than I gain by defining my surname with “Jack,” to whom we have attributed a colorful lineage of feats both miraculous and morbid. If I don this cloak for too long, does it envelop me? Shall I append this foreign object to my own name, all for the sake of convenience? I believe such monstrosities are known to our society as “nicknames.” There is a certain danger in using nicknames, for nicknames raise an interesting question: who owns what part of whom? Take the hypothetical situation in which I suddenly change my name to “Chuck.” By this change, do I come into ownership of the mellifluous melody that is the name Chuck, or am I forever enslaved by a monosyllabic master? In fact, I spent an otherwise enjoyable sojourn on a cruise ship being called “Chuck” by a group of recalcitrant peers. Against my will, I found myself suddenly the servant of a foreign master, unable to shake the chains of a name everyone quietly chuckles at. Eventually, I was

forced to give in to this inexorable force, and for nearly four weeks, I was condemned to a life of misery. Now, I am hesitant to allow people to associate me with another name, no matter how tenuous the connection may be. My name is now categorically Charles—not Chuck, not Charlie, and not Jack. I am not a Jack. I am a Charles, and we deserve a class of our own. Every time a nascent being considers the name Charles, he tastes the texture and feels the flow of a name thousands of years in the making. We wrote psychedelic novels, drew silly cartoons, and penned scandalous treatises. We were misunderstood, mistreated, and misguided. We can claim royalty from Monaco to Bohemia. If you thought being Jack for a second was hard, try ruling France your entire life. Francophiles will be delighted to know that the name Charles has graced their great halls with guidance twenty-nine times. The deeds of my fat, simple, bald, and magne predecessors, while intimidating, are a source of secret solace for me. If I should be born unmentioned, live unannounced, and die unnoticed, at least my name won’t die with me. I fear not that Charles ends with the erasure of my

existence; I am but a single stitch in the quilt. I imagine that those people with such iconoclastic names as “Nadir” and “PreThe deeds of my fat, simcious Angel” have quite the ple, bald, and magne prelife set out for decessors, while intimidatthem. I, converse- ing, are a source of secret ly, am content solace for me. If I should to lean back in be born unmentioned, live my armchair unannounced, and die unand enjoy anonymity. noticed, at least my name Someone else won’t die with me. has already done the work for me, chosen the pieces and done the stitching. It is a very beautiful quilt, and I am grateful that it has not spurned me like a transplant rejected by a host. If I become bald enough, perhaps I will someday have a greater influence in its design. If I should die without leaving a mark, however, I would be foolish to assume a single loose strand would be the ultimate undoing of Charles. The deception comes from within; we blind ourselves with grand ideas and a great expectation. But the world is too big; invariably, we are folded neatly and gently shoved into the corner of a closet. Unless we are too fat. SECTIONTHREE • 69

THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED

CHARLES THOMPSON | J UNIOR

Putting

Back

e g t e h r o T

Again

T h e C a s e f o r L e a d e r s h i p a n d Et h i c s E d u c a t i o n DR. MARTIN STEGEMOELLER | FACULTY If I took a randomly selected graduating senior from my school and teleported him back to Athens and set him in front of Plato and Aristotle, they would be astonished by what the boy had to say. They would write down every word he had to say about physics and chemistry, biology and mathematics. The boy would school them in every discipline that Aristotle founded and named, except those associated with the humanities, in particular ethics and metaphysics. In ethics and metaphysics, our student would likely have almost nothing to say; our student would likely not understand the term metaphysics at all and would be somewhat shocked to learn that ethics was considered a science by Aristotle. In the physical sciences and mathematics, the boy would likely be able to field

70 • THEMARQUE

Plato’s and Aristotle’s questions, navigate the difference in terms that each would apply, and explain how what we now think is an improvement over what they thought then. It is fun to imagine the philosophers’ astonishment in hearing about calculus, genetics, evolution through natural selection, Newton’s laws of motion, statistics, and quantum physics. But in ethics and metaphysics, the boy would be at a loss. Plato’s and Aristotle’s terms would be foreign to him, and it would take him many days to get up to speed on what they thought. And, after learning what they thought, he would probably find what they had to say largely convincing as a conceptual framework to think ethically. He would have no way to critique what they said or improve upon it, except perhaps to ask them repeatedly

whether what they were saying wasn’t, in fact, just their own opinion. The boy would learn from this experience that he did not even have anything like a coherent, defensible understanding of the principles of right action or the source of meaning in human life. The boy likely thinks either that ethics are completely subjective or that they belong in the realm of religious faith; a coherent, defensible account is not feasible in either case. Twenty-four hundred years after Plato founded the first Academy, we have actually gone backward in ethics education. Humanities education in secular schools and colleges today largely owes the essence of its ethical mission to Socrates. Its goal is almost completely critical, and it functions by placing the burden of epistemic proof on the claimant, particularly those claimants widely believed to be socially harmful: racists, sexists, xenophobes, colonialists, etc. Socrates roamed the streets of Athens, asking people to define the essence of various key virtues, and he found that they were very, very bad at it. They relied almost completely on the social-legal system in which they were raised to inform their behavior, and they had almost no training or skill at articulating or defending what made things what they were, what made a good life good, or what the principles of right conduct were. Socrates

made many enemies pointing that out. Socrates’ “solution” was to hypothesize a murky but vital set of timeless essences of things that transcended culture. Aristotle set to work quickly, criticizing that theory of essences and putting forth his own claims about the nature of things. The history of philosophy and ethics can be understood as an extended series of criticisms of what came before and counterclaims to replace those that were criticized.1 But over the past 150 years, our civilization seems to have largely given up on making counterclaims: all we do now is critically undermine and deconstruct all but the most subjective claims about being, knowledge, and meaning. And now that the word is out about the lack of ability to make counterclaims, it is open season on any positive normative ethical claim. Our students have been exposed to the hyper-ironic savaging of all normative claims in cartoons such as The Simpsons and Family Guy since they were in the third grade, and its ongoing influence is culture-wide. The vast majority of students now believe without question that all ethical claims are mere subjective expressions of opinion of the person making the claim, nothing more, and they pride themselves in not being easily taken in by anyone else’s expression. Leadership and ethics education has a difficult time CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

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TRYING TO GET IN

MAX WOLENS | SOPHOMORE

finding a basis in the midst of near-universal, immediate skepticism about the status of all normative claims. If nearly every normative claim is merely the expression of the will of the person making the claim, then leaders are ultimately just glorified manipulators, and those who follow are dupes. Scholars in the humanities spent decades trying to show the clay feet of alleged great leaders of the past, such as Washington, Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, etc. The only ones who could stand the test were those who expressed such extraordinary personal disinterest and self-sacrifice, such as Jesus, Gandhi, Che, and MLK, that true leadership came to be viewed as synonymous with altruism and sacrifice, demonstrably against the self-interest of the leader. Thus humanities education today tends to glorify self-sacrifice of the martyr and to expose the hidden flaws and narrow self-interest of everyone else. But apart from teaching kids not to be racist, sexist, xenophobic, classist, or imperialist, what does our curriculum teach in regards to leadership and ethics? What positive qualities does it teach? What positive tools does it give a boy to construct a vision of himself as a leader of good character and to build the habits that will lead him to become that vision as an adult man? What sort of principles and justifications for those principles are we teaching now that might be taken so to heart and habit that they can stand up to actual difficult situations that the world will offer our graduates? Not many, I’m afraid. When I engage students on issues relating to the contemporary corporate scandals at Enron, the financial crisis, back-dating stock options, etc. and ask what principles they would use to navigate these tricky situations, they do not really have any. Many of them very much want 72 • THEMARQUE

to rely on the laws on the books for their ultimate guidance. If it is illegal, they say, they won’t do it, but if it isn’t illegal, then one should pursue what is best for one.2 But the problem with their view is that innovation in nearly every scandal pushed the issues out beyond legal regulation. At Enron, the creation of internal business entities and arbitrage trading schemes took accounting and energy trading past where regulation had yet reached.3 In the financial crisis, legal rules about accounting for selling and trading derivatives pushed beyond regulation. Back-dating stock options was not specifically addressed in the law. And the thousands and thousands of people involved in these scandals—from traders to bankers to regulators to mortgage brokers to pension fund managers to congressmen to lawyers to corporate board members—people with significant authority in their organizations, did not have the internal principles and habits to lead themselves, their clients, their companies, their industries, and the local economies in the right way. People express outrage at this malfeasance and narrow greed, but in a sense it seems almost inevitable, as these people understand things as the general culture does: that a self is independent of its communities, that happiness consists largely of external goods, that there aren’t objective principles of right conduct, and that if an action is not explicitly illegal, then it isn’t wrong. These issues need to be addressed by education if the mistakes are not going to be repeated endlessly. One reason that education in leadership and ethics education fails to happen is doubt about the efficacy of plopping someone in a classroom for a while and expect-

ing whatever he or she hears to overturn a lifetime of habits and attitudes and understandings gleaned from elsewhere. This doubt is likely well founded. But we have the opportunity as a 1-12 school largely to build and to establish a conceptual vocabulary of self, community, purpose, meaning, virtues, right conduct, goals, and happiness, and to offer opportunities and expectations for habitual engagement with the world that is ethical, effective, coherent, and articulated. As educators of children we are in position to create a background framework of word and habit that will put our students in a position to maximize the likelihood that they will be effective leaders of good character. Granted the stakes, why would we not do this? At St. Mark’s School of Texas, at least, we are doing it already. Educating children to become leaders and men of good character is already in the school’s mission, and we are clearly doing a better job than most. What the Leadership and Ethics program will try to do is to make us marginally more effective in doing what we already do by helping us learn to do this more purposefully and coherently. In order to do this effectively, we are going to have to admit that we have overdone education on the criticism and deconstruction side, and that it is time to develop the courage and skill to build and defend systematically. One way or another, our students are going to leave us at graduation with backdrop senses of self, goals, and responsibility; the question is whether we want a greater role in that process or whether we hope that the powers that be in North Dallas, the media, and America today are going to serve them better. Does anyone really doubt that we can do better? Who are we to undertake this project,

you might ask? We are teachers; that is who we are, some of the best in the country. Our goal is to build a conceptual vocabulary, strategies for working that vocabulary into the curriculum across all divisions and grade levels, and extracurricular programs to help teach boys to become effective leaders of good character. We want to do this in ways that are perpetually subject to criticism, revision, and improvement. Our goal is not to match some timeless truth about what a leader or ethical person is, but to do marginally better than we are doing now at a vital task that has been left too much to chance. We are going to build the best case that we can for what a self is, what makes a good life good, what a leader is, why ethical leaders live the best lives, and what virtues and principles can be habituated in order that each of our boys when he leaves us carries within himself what he needs to become the best man he can be. We are going to use the tremendous resources available to us—all the king’s horses and all the king’s men—to put ethical education back together again. 1. It might help to note that one of the reasons that Socrates was convicted of corrupting the youth of Athens was because they thought that he undermined their allegiance to the city without replacing it with anything clear enough to provide real guidance. 2. And, of course, by this, they mean to maximize external goods for oneself. 3. Ken Lay, Enron’s CEO, notoriously told an old friend of his who was working to establish the trading rules for California’s newly deregulated energy market that it didn’t matter what rules they came up with: he hired really smart traders who would figure out legal ways to get around the rules.

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S A N C T U A R Y

IT S U K U S HIMA

A T

S E A

S HRINE

’

HALBERT BAI | SOPHOMORE

AAROHAN BURMA | SOPHOMORE

I glare at royal oceans circling the Lush forest rounded by a calming mist. Standing still behind massive pillars that Support your godly gates, moving down, up. You float serene, graceful on the sea. Mortal and divine coexist on your paths. Winged creatures swoop and attack tiny beings Who dart with fright in between rocky coral. When people step on pavestones scattered round Your hallowed interior, they kneel in Order to appease gods who watch from high Up, deference shown to lovely beings. Seething, swelling, breathing, living, foggy Encircling peaks of mountains towering High into orbit. Are treasures concealed?

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SECTIONTHREE • 75

S I G H TS g i o

l inc o n

r e i d

s t e in

j u n i o r

s o p h o m o r e

k a h a n

ch a v d a

s e n i o r

m a x

n a s e c k

j u n i o r

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SECTIONTHREE • 77

PYROMANIA A L E X

N G U Y E N

e thought I was a pyromaniac—and for good reason. It was nearing midnight, but I was still awake, dragging giant tree limbs towards the blazing tenfoot inferno that I had created while my sixth-grade classmates were fast asleep. Out there in the quiet of woods, I realized for the first time that I didn’t know how fire worked. All I knew was that it was beautiful—I couldn’t stop staring. And that’s how he found me, gazing into the flickering fire and wondering how it came to be so hot, how it came to be so magnificent, and most importantly, how it came to be. It was past midnight at that point, however, and Dr. Fray, my orchestra director, was not happy.

S E N I O R

I’ve never been so willing to accept a detention. That experience in the woods had finally opened my eyes to the world of science. Before the sixth grade campout, I had mainly been a math person. Numbers had appealed to me because they made perfect sense. Science was far more complicated and far more confusing, so I stuck with math. It was strange, however, to realize that I didn’t know how fire worked. Something that even cavemen could understand, I couldn’t. As a result, I devoted myself to the study of how things worked. Incredulous, I discovered a world in which things aren’t simply accepted as axioms, a world in which thousands of people test new hypotheses thousands of times to create a new theory, a world in which everything continually evolves. And I want to be a part of that evolution. Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle had attempted to explain the marvels of the world with mere words and the four “elements” of fire, air, earth, and water. Today, we can create and contain antimatter for more than ten minutes. This burgeoning new age of technology has created a new generation of people stuck on computers, glued to TVs, and talking on phones, but more important than this new age is what’s behind

it: science. I constantly find myself guilty of being static—I’m so caught up in using these new technologies that I don’t even try to figure out how they work. How can I truly claim to be a part of this world if I don’t even know why the grass is green or how a battery works or why a bowling ball falls at the same speed as a golf ball? Science offers me the opportunity to understand the world, and I have grasped that opportunity and refuse to let go. From joining the Junior Engineering Technical Society team and placing fourth in the nation to researching cyclometalated platinum-based dyes in dye-sensitized solar cells at Baylor University in the High School Summer Science Research Program, the sciences not only dominate my intellectual pursuits but have also changed my life—everywhere I go, I see chemistry, physics, and biology at work. From driving to school every morning to throwing a water polo ball every practice to just looking at the trees on campus every day, the lens through which I view the world has been altered by the unutterable color of science. At midnight on a sixth grade camping trip, I

had found an incredible new world to explore. Science class became less of a chore and more of a place to understand my own place in this vast, beautiful world, and life became interesting for the first time. The fire that had wobbled from a tiny tepee of twigs had roared into a scorching colossus by the time Dr. Fray angrily ordered me back to my sleeping bag, but he could not stop that fire from searing itself into my memory. He could not stop that fire from growing unregulated into a constantly burning desire to learn more about my surroundings and the tools I take for granted every day. From angiogenesis to spin-orbit coupling to Doppler cooling, the world has irrevocably piqued my interest, and I have finally thrown off the yoke of static acceptance. Now I understand that my place in this world is determined by how much I understand of it. The age of technology is a sparkling new movie that most people seem to sit back and enjoy. Not many people give credit to the scientists who manufacture these resplendent new creations, but still, they labor on. I am no longer content to merely watch the show. I want to make it.

T H E SERE N GET I RILEY GRAHAM | SOPHOMORE

78 • THEMARQUE

SECTIONTHREE • 79

T H E

T O U R

G U I D E

THOMAS TASSIN | SENIOR

he summer sun slowly descended behind his back. We stood there, listening as the shadows cast their dark tails over the bottom of the canyon. He spoke like a jaded, broke, twenty-year-old tour guide because he was probably just that. His whole life seemed to be dragging him down like his dark green guide vest. I stood in the shadow of my overweight mother, who took up a sizable number of the sun’s final rays of the day. It was the last tour of the day in Coconino County, Arizona, and the Grand Canyon seemed less interesting in person than I had envisioned in the darkness of the previous night’s drive from Shreveport, Louisiana. I had built up so much anticipation, too. I begged my father to drive faster, but we had to stop constantly so my mother could eat, et cetera. We arrived just in time for the last tour of the day. And how disappointingly dark it was. “John Newberry was the first geologist to explore the Grand Canyon…” “Mom, my legs are tired,” said the boy next to us. “Just shut up, okay?” said his father, clad in overalls and a tasteful Budweiser trucker hat. The sun receded completely behind the horizon, and a dark aura of untamed nature clashed with the sordid humanity of the group. In the front of our pack was a child, playing on his GameBoy. He was standing right in front of the hapless guide, and he buried his head in his virtual world. It was atrocious, really. “In 1919, the Grand Canyon became a national park…” “Who gives a shit?” muttered a woman in a raspy voice. She lit her cigarette and checked her cell phone. “Mom, I want to go home,” said the tired boy. I was sixteen and on my first road trip. At each diner, each rest stop, each gas station, I saw some dark character, some

R E D C A N YO N

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MAX NASECK | J UNIOR

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

SECTIONTHREE • 81

C A V ER N

HALBERT BAI | SOPHOMORE

sad soul who seemed all but devoid of life. There was the homeless veteran in Birmingham who took our money to the liquor store. The miserable widow in Jackson who followed us for a block before my father asked her to leave. The hopeless teenager in El Paso who was stealing bikes from a bike shop. And when the light receded upon the Grand Canyon, these horrible figures coalesced all around me. The terrible darkness of humanity enveloped me. Even my own mother fell subject to the crippling gloom of the evening. She threw her food wrapper on the ground and groaned loudly. My father stood idly by, a fragment of the confident man he once was. Everyone there seemed to embody the dregs of society. I knew it, and the tour-guide knew it. “Theodore Roosevelt made the Grand Canyon Game Preserve…” My father yawned. “Mom, I need to go to the bathroom,” said the tired boy. “If you’ll follow me over here, you can get a better view of the North Ridge,” said the guide. The tourists shuffled their feet slowly behind the guide. My mother shifted her weight back and forth in a reluctant manner, ever eager to pack it up and call it a day. It was dark now, too dark to see. We were following only the

light from the GameBoy at the front of the group. Our family of three was following the light from a handheld toy through the darkness of the night. There was something dreadfully depressing about that. We reached a sign that read, “Do not go past this point.” The tour guide kept walking. He turned and faced us. The light from the GameBoy illuminated his face as he backpedaled closer and closer to the ridge. “What we have here is the largest drop in the Canyon. 5000 feet.” The guide perked up. His voice changed inflection. Meanwhile, the group followed as he inched closer to the edge. “Watch your step; there may be some loose rocks here.” He backpedaled farther. “Mom, my legs are tired.” “Maybe you should drink some water, young man,” said the tour guide. “Don’t tell my son what to do,” barked the boy’s mother. “So sorry, ma’am. Anyway, directly below us is the Colorado River,” the tour guide went on, still backpedaling. Then, all at once, his voice stopped. Silence washed over the gloomy tourists. In the darkness, the tour guide was nowhere to be found. Complete silence. No one spoke. Gradually, the group turned and went back to the parking lot.

N o one

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SECTIONfour

Shoes are perhaps the one constant in a journey— the faithful companions of any traveler. Soles worn, we remember the hurdles of the road; a frayed lace is testimony to life’s perpetual delays and obstacles, challenging us to tie and re-tie our threads, to persist. Whereas the map shows the totality of the journey, shoes are real proof of the journey’s difficulty, present from the beginning and enduring every emotional turn—both good and bad. They are always the same in their durability and tolerate the pain of the road so that we won’t have to lift the whole burden. They are eternal representations of all that we have overcome and all that we can achieve. Shoes, in short, represent that part of our identities that prevails and understands and relishes the touch of a journey’s path.

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SECTIONFOUR • 85

F EAR

RILEY GRAHAM | SOPHOMORE

Addiction P hillip H addad | S enior

You keep me shackled down here, but I wait. Some five years have passed since you last visited, but there may well have passed fifty years, as I count no time. The last time you came, you brought your wife to watch. I knew you were done with me. Please let me out. I can’t. I can help you. It’s gotten out of hand. I don’t need you anymore. I can help you. Goodbye. You locked the door. Perhaps I embarrassed you, and you didn’t want anyone to know about me. You told her you’ve changed. Nothing ever changes with you. Or at least such is the demeanour you project to your peers. Or at least, so I assume. At least that is as much a manifestation of actuality as I may derive from the phantasmagoria that sporadically dances upon the walls every time you slip out into the night. But what would I know? I am upset, weak, restless. I boast no conception of what is and what is not. Why should I? You leave me fettered alone in the recesses of the vault of your esteemed estate, but I wait. I possess nothing of my own: my home is this basement, my friends and family are the sticky things that grow and sprout out from beneath age-dusted boxes to creep up the walls, oozing a fluid that drips upon my form and rankles me with a sense of being, although a mouldering one. Or so is how I may feebly attempt to describe the state in which you keep me, but if I am right, who knows – there is nothing down here to see but a blinding darkness loud enough to pierce an eardrum. You have moved on.

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But the silence is always drawn away by necessity. You don’t need me, but I need you. And I provide you with all that you lack; things without which you might sink into a pit of utter despondency, a slough laced with nothingness and insecurity. I offer up these things to you willingly and without your having to solicit the request. You don’t need them, but you would seize them greedily nonetheless. Of course, you could easily do fine without me, as you did before you ever found me. You could, but you don’t want to. All you really want is more, and I have no intention of repressing your desires, because I owe my being to you. Years have passed and you remain upstairs. The countless times you would rush downstairs to meet me have disappeared. In your mind, the basement never existed. I never existed. You have found a new way of living life, and I am not part of it. n

I hear the wooden roof creak and groan as your footsteps anxiously pace the floorboards above, and I am reminded that I am not alone. I wait patiently because I know you will come back. You always come. You must come. I am offered a peek into reality when you furtively descend the cold stairs that lead to my chamber. The hesitant ticking of the tiny pins pervades the room as your key pierces the lock. Anticipation. The air hangs heavily about me. My eyes peeled open so wide they almost pop right out of my skull, I gape anxiously as the doorknob slowly turns, and then stops – click. The weighted air comes crashing down. You crack open the door. A deafening bar of light charges into the room. I scutter off into a corner as you step inside. You linger for a moment, meet my eager eyes with an affected frown, and slink closer to me without saying a word. I have waited so long. I have dreamed. I knew you would come back. I need you – no, I see it now. You need me. I fill the room in a spell of culminating euphoria as you siphon my offering and fill the coffers of your collapsed ego until they billow forth in perceived repletion. You continue to glut yourself on my benefaction, and you derange yourself in attempts to

satisfy your sateless appetite. Someone calls from upstairs. Stupefied, you wheel around and shoot up the stairs in smothered haste. I am the key to your success, and you know it. You have even admitted it to my face, and it is for that fact that I continue to dwell down below your feet, waiting. I stretch my neck outwards and strain my ears to make out the muffled hubbub of familiars and the muted clink of glasses as a dinner party ensues overhead. But that which is concealed will not and cannot remain stitched-up forever. The seams of the mind, when rushed, eventually unravel into forgetfulness, and such is to my immediate favour. I simply step through the unlocked door and ascend the stairs. The carousing guffaws and I are now but a room apart while I pass through your living room. You need me. A wave of boisterous laughter erupts. They all love you. They adore you. But it was I who made you what you are. Show them the origin of your being! I burst into the dining room. Reality is sundered. You freeze, and I fill the room. The ring of laughter converges in the center of the room to meet absolute silence. Your dilated eyes meet mine in veritable terror. Who are your true friends? You don’t need them. Only I can give you what you truly want. A woman screams. The guests flee the house. n

In your attempts to climb higher, you have found yourself lower than ever before. You had the choice to either let me out or to kill me; you chose to lock me away beneath your very foundation. It’s just us now, and that’s all you really wanted, right? I can give you all you need. I am all you need, and you yourself whispered so to me countless times in the past. Now I dwell above and you below. I hear your ceaseless cries for more. They fill the night and they fill the silence. You bang on the wooden roof of the basement beneath my feet. You scratch and claw at the lock, but I hold the key. You are my slave. SECTIONFOUR • 87

B E AC H

andrew graffy | junior

A BETTER PLACE

R O H A N

S H E T T Y

In the beginning, they were innocent friends bound together by delicate footsteps in the snow. A small footprint always disfigured the edges of the larger one, leaving imbricated memories that spanned the entirety of the field. It seemed as if the imprints never faded, for if the snow ever sopped up the remnants of their union, they were quick to fill the fields in uniform steps once again. Childhood neighbors, they spent late nights reading of African gorges teeming with wildlife and verdure. Together, and in the midst of cold Maine winters, they escaped to the most magnificent places in the world. Safaris were their favorite destination. They turned blankets of thick snow into flowery meadows and ventured deep into African forests. They changed towering trees into lanky giraffes and snow-covered boulders into stocky elephants. The young explorers then passed the remaining time gazing at the sky through leafy canopies of green and yellow. She was a shy, unassuming girl and he a bold, unafraid daredevil. It was a blend that filled the frigid afternoons with endless joy and lent color to the blinding fields. While she stared down menacing slopes of white turned green, he, already enamored, slid down with resolute purpose, proving his dominance to the world— and giving the wintry air a warm embrace. While she stared up trees of unimaginable height and watched powdery snow cascade down slender branches, he carefully climbed them, gazing down at her every few

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seconds with a toothy grin and eyes of immeasurable confidence. She provided the wonder, and he the action. And when she was afraid and shamefully resigned her eyes into the white below, he didn’t tease or laugh. He took her trembling hand in a firm grasp and pointed far into the distance, like an explorer assessing his land. “Look,” he said. “Over there, by the stream—three pink flamingos. And there, lingering by that great, big boulder, do you see that zebra? He’s motioning to us. He wants us to come. Will you come with me?” “Yes,” she replied, lost in the candor of his words. They never ran. They walked slowly across the jungles of Africa, trying not to disturb the fragile harmony. She thought it fun to step where he stepped, but always left her mark a little below where his was, unconsciously reminding herself that she was a separate entity—and perhaps even alone without him. He pointed out the wildlife around them and described to her how they were in a paradise of indescribable beauty. As he illuminated the world, she looked into his eyes and felt any doubt vanish with the sincerity of his words. For her, the safari was in his green eyes just as it was in the surrounding blankness. Soon, however, their parents beckoned. Night fell and blackened the children’s wanderlust. And the grass once again turned into snow. n

In the end, the friends couldn’t have been farther apart, and paradise remained a dream. But they united where it counted: in their nostalgia for exotic African safaris, for days when flights of gannets in the sky were the cynosure of the world. Over the years, their fantasies had morphed into something deeper. Their time together had become more than an escape—it was another reality, a better life. But the safaris had been overshadowed by the toils of worldly ambition. The treks through muddy creeks and dreams of bucolic tranquility had faded, and both were left in a state of constant yearning. He was alone in a big city and she—far, far away—was in a place where people—all advanced in years— usually make up in sagacity what they lack in imagination. They had lived lives deprived of adventure and driven by the common flow of humanity. They had not tasted the pure water of an African spring nor laid hands on the sturdy thighs of an elephant nor looked upon a graceful herd of galloping deer. They had wandered concrete sidewalks surrounded by whitewashed buildings and breathed sallow air recycled by millions of others and seen a sky that was perpetually dull and unforgivably ominous. They had seen life pass them by.

And with unintentional languor, they watched as it slipped away. They both looked out at their end, at their reality. But they could not accept it. He looked out of his balcony and saw streets of black and chaos like no other. When she ventured outside, she saw predictable paths and lost souls. The panacea was in the lush grass of Africa—in the liberation of open land. And so they changed everything. If it was over, they thought, let it be over in a better place, in the expansive fields of Africa. Let it end somewhere wonderful, where verve glides with the wind and the trees are as plentiful as the people. And so he made the streets of black into trails of golden pebbles and she made the paths of monotony lead to nowhere. He made the chaos beautiful, and she the normality refined. They created a panoply of African wonders—a pastiche of everything wonderful, of everything worth living for. She imagined his looking back at her to make sure she was following. And he imagined her looking ahead to make sure he kept going. They felt a vestigial joy from childhood. The safaris had come to stay, and they left this world in a better place.

The safaris had come to stay, and they left this world in a better place. SECTIONFOUR• 89

C A N YO N HALBERT

BAI

T r a i l

SOPHOMORE

I f

O nly

Knew

L u ke W illiams | S O P h O M O R E If I knew how to write, I would not need to keep writing; If I knew how to see, I would not need to keep looking; If I knew how to learn, I would not need to keep learning; If I knew how to feel, I would not need to keep feeling; But I do not Instead, I strive to continue To write, to see, to learn, to feel; If I have none of these, I have nothing; If I have all of these, I want more because,

I strive to write, to see, to learn, to feel, to want, to wish, to desire, to crave; If I stop, I cease to explore. Cease to live.

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T R U C H A S

greg kinman | senior

R O C K V ishal

O F

T H E

gokani

trong-Bow gripped his dagger until his fingers hurt, moonlight reflecting off the weapon’s surface and basking the newly initiated warrior in a soft, blue glow. He crouched atop the rock, his bare feet on its craggy surface. The lone outcrop stood proudly, challenging the flatness of the vast prairie. “Strong-Bow.” The tribe’s medicine man had found him. The ancient mystic vaulted onto the rock. Cloak flapping, voice resonating, he peered at the young warrior through slit eyes. “You have come to the rock. You are troubled.” “Tonight,” Strong-Bow said, sliding the weapon into its leather sheath and rising to face the tribal spiritualist, “the elders have asked me to perform an impossible task.” The mystic only gazed down at the teen, who continued without a pause. “I won’t attack our friends across the river. I see nothing wrong with their decision, with accepting the white man’s offer, with living on a reservation.” Strong-Bow raised his voice until it could be heard as far as the horizon. “We attack because of racism—your racism—against the white man.” Completely unaffected by the accusation, the spiritualist didn’t budge. Breathing hard, blinking in surprise at his audacity, Strong-Bow shuffled his feet and tried to hold the medicine man’s eagle glare. “My young warrior.” The gentle voice came as StrongBow gave up and looked down at his feet. “My young warrior, we have nothing against the white man. We have nothing against our friends across the river. We have noth-

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sophomore

ing against the contract, against living on a reservation. “We don’t. The Great Spirit does.” Strong-Bow whirled on the spiritualist. “The Great Spirit doesn’t exist,” he spat. “Here I sit on His rock, night after night, waiting for the day I can claim to have seen Him.” The enraged young warrior leapt off the rock and lifted his head, looking up at the heavens. “Prove yourself,” he screamed at the eternal, star-studded sky. “Show yourself, you fairy tale, you fake.” The medicine man glided towards Strong-Bow smoothly as an ice skater, took the young warrior’s hand, and pressed it against the cool rock. “You cannot see the Great Spirit,” he whispered, one eye narrower than the other. “You can only feel Him.” Then it happened. Through the rock flowed the surging power of nature, the force a climber feels as he summits a peak, the energy a rafter feels as he dodges rapids. And it didn’t just come from the rock: Strong-Bow tuned in to the natural flow of the breeze, the grass, even the heavens. “You see.” The medicine man gazed at the horizon, his voice soft. “The white man hurts the Great Spirit with his settlements, his towns. Our friends across the river follow the ways of the white man. We must follow our duty and fight. We must protect Him.” The mystic turned and headed in the direction of the coming dawn, where the dark purple sky brightened. Taken aback, the young warrior watched him go. Then he

set his jaw, strung his wooden bow, and followed. It was time to join the warriors. It was time to cross the river. n

An eighteen-wheeler roared by, startling a flock of pigeons sleeping on telephone wires. Electric lights illuminated downtown, fighting off the darkness. Car exhaust wafted from the streets, drifting over a small grassy patch next to an intersection. On the median, Ethan stretched out atop the craggy rock, lying on his back. All around him, massive apartment complexes and office buildings rose into the sky. Looking up, Ethan could only see a sliver of the night sky. Glowing traffic lights and blinding neon signs blocked the soft, blue moonlight from reaching his gaze. Once the pride of the prairie, the rock now sat in the urban mess, in the shadows of skyscrapers. It attracted him like a magnet. He spent free evenings by the outcrop, and when he found himself in times of trouble, he leaned against its soot-covered surface. “Ethan.” His grandfather, a retired professor of Native American history, always knew where to find him. The aged man buttoned his parka as he approached his grandson. “You all right?” “I’m fine.” Ethan threw off his sweatshirt hood and propped his head on his elbow to look down at his granddad. “I’ve been thinking about religion.” “Ah.” The old man raised his wrinkling chin. “Religion.” Ethan looked across the street, where a Muslim family carried prayer mats. Nearby, a tall man adjusted his

kippah. In front of a store, a long-faced window shopper reached for the cross pendant on her necklace. “Well,” the professor said, following Ethan’s gaze, “for us, we must look to our family tradition.” Many of Ethan’s high school peers teased him about his Native American heritage, but he knew little of his ancestors. He knew what the history books taught. He knew the Europeans had settled in the natives’ tribal lands. He knew the stereotypes from the wild westerns. And he knew the power of the “For us, the Great Spirit is rock. religion,” his grandfather “For us, the Great Spirit is resaid over the screeching ligion,” his grandtires. father said over the screeching tires. The old man gestured at the outcrop. “And you sure know about the Great Spirit.” Ethan squeezed his eyes shut, tuning in to the natural flow. He couldn’t feel the energy of the breeze, blocked by the skyscrapers around him. He couldn’t feel the power of the shriveled grass on the median, contaminated by toxins. He couldn’t feel the force of the starlight, hidden behind hazy smog after its million-year journey through space to reach the planet. But he could hear the tortured Great Spirit screaming in horror. Screaming in anger. Screaming in pain. Screaming for the few who still listened. SECTIONFOUR • 93

PEQUOD

RISHI BANDOPADHAY AND PHILLIP HADDAD | SENIORS

UPON THE CIRCUS PILLAR PATRICK NG | SENIOR

“Loveliness unfathomable, as every lover saw in his young bride’s eye! – Tell me not of thy teethtiered sharks, and thy kidnapping cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.” Herman Melville, Moby Dick Follow me up the stake of the Big Top, the middle pillar with the narrow balcony and half-tightened screws – a circus wobble, what the man with the hat calls showbiz, and I will show you things unveiled before the eyes of a trapeze artist. Climb the pillar and grasp the jutted rungs, and upon the shifting platform hear the fateful melody sung. Clutch that inner warmth, which glows deeply below transparent, yet durable skin. Hark such clarion emboldening to find a light, even in backstage cages and the slop of circus feed – light from the touch of a palm or over Marlboro conversation, the shared grin, some fruitful bond. Find in that ruptured balcony plank some balance upon the foot and ease in the arch. Here you will find such haunting sights in the shadows of trunks upswung and clowns with waggling tongues. The bear juggles upon the wheel and felines pulled through hoops. The acrobatic giraffe and hippos atop the barrel. Oh what cackling howls resound from yonder seats, teeth gnashing and limbs bashing and eyes dashing across the lid. What a circus, I must say, for who would expect the surprise act.

94 • THEMARQUE

Glimpse the carbonated coat and the broken-in straw and crushed lid upon the elephant’s back. What catastrophe, the greasy popcorn dystrophy, littering the sand. How vicious is the inner Id and the instinctive jab to destroy the gallop of the foal. But among these savage cries, and the absurdist sigh, and chance of the same-sided die, there is hope in these rafters, in the faithful swing of the artist. For here alone we discern the turbulent reef below complacent ruffles, and still persist and still insist upon warmth, light, and memory for things thought forgotten. Here we step off the rocking masthead and fling ourselves over the gap and tap kindly polyester shoulders. Look below and you will find truth of the darkest kind, truth thought of the truest sort. But take my hand above the churning mass, the circus bedlam, and with your grasp and with a pitch and with this monkey rope between, I know I will not fall. SECTIONFOUR • 95

S E A S I D E E C K O N I N P atrick

N g

S E N I O R

Let us leave these picturesque fishing towns with flaunted satin gowns, and the diorama model harbors with packaged sailboats. Let us leave these sweater-donned visitors, who admire Nantucket coasts from bleached villas, sipping mint-garnished ice tea and trickling oysters into wolfish maws. Let us leave and go instead to the dunes, where the path lies tucked away in ancient tunnels of grass and where crusted picket fences stand twisted, blanched calcium corrosion, planted, perhaps, by settlers. Let us go to where the sea meets land and land meets sea, and stand atop rocky cliffs, christened with Atlantic spray, and stretch ourselves before leaden skies and waters where the Wampanoag once canoed, where whalers once stoned their catch with primal cries. Let us go to the edge of the ebbing heart and cast our lines into waters that unfold like empty vernal plains, blankness besetting some perpetual weight. Here, before the churning, multitudinous roar, our souls bared and weathered raw, benched upon dappled shores for some grand reckoning, we will find something remarkable, something we did not know.

96 â&#x20AC;˘ THEMARQUE

f i re m ounta i n s lynne weber | faculty sponsor

SECTIONFOUR â&#x20AC;˘ 97

IAMBIC METER

CHARLES JIN | SENIOR She held the thought that verse could not endure as foot by foot by foot. I took offense. My words: your wings. Fly high and don’t look back, dear Birds.

I n n o c e n c e

MAX NASECK | JUNIOR

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SECTIONFOUR • 99

POR TRA I T S RISHI

DOPAD

SENIOR

REE

100 • THEMARQUE

PART

PORTRAITS

COACH KEVIN DILWORTH assistant Track Coach, St. Mark’s School of Texas

mr. arnold e. holtberg headmaster, St. Mark’s School of Texas

SECTIONFOUR • 101

CURTAIN CALL RISHI BANDOPADHAY EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

patrick ng EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

“Bando” Class of 2012

“tar” Class of 2012

lynne weber faculty sponsor charles jin managing editor “chuck” class of 2012

alex nguyen senior editor “A-MAN” class of 2012

robbey orth illustration editor “yebbor” class of 2013

phillip haddad design editor “phrip” class of 2012

garrett watumull arts editor “G” class of 2012

halbert bai photography editor “THE general” class of 2014

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“EARTH MOTHER” MASTER teacher

nabeel muscatwalla submissions manager “drizzy” class of 2014

purujit chatterjee graphics staff “chotu” class of 2015

rohan shetty managing editor “brohan” Class of 2012

nick uebele senior editor “uebes” Class of 2012

jonathan ng copy editor

“hey, buddy” Class of 2014

naeem muscatwalla design editor “muscatballa” Class of 2012

greg kinman arts editor

“GREGGERS” Class of 2012

nic lazzara graphics editor

“the hipster” Class of 2013

luke williams submissions manager “hank” Class of 2014

zuyva sevilla graphics staff

“the zuyves” Class of 2015

rajat mittal design staff

mitch lee design staff

brody ladd design staff

adam merchant design editor

matthew co design staff

stuart montgomery design staff

“kumar” class of 2013

“brodester” class of 2015

“moco” class of 2015

spencer williams general staff “spenca” class of 2012

“mitchito” class of 2013

“lil weezy” Class of 2015

“stoodles” class of 2015

will chang design staff

“chilly” class of 2013

SAM LIBBY general staff

Max Naseck general staff

Jeffrey wu general staff

nick buckenham general staff

“slib thuggg” class of 2013

“the slugger” class of 2013

“axo” class of 2013

“ham” class of 2015

CURTAINCALL • 103

o the reade

Here we are. It’s been a whirlwind of energy drinks, late nights, InDesign documents, YouTube How-To videos, and frantic texts, and here we are. It’s been an amazing journey; a journey that is far from over. My journey with The Marque has defined me; it has given my St. Mark’s career a purpose. To me, The Marque is more than a magazine, it’s more than an extra-curricular activity, it’s more than a résumé boost. It’s a home. A safe haven. An escape.

My shoes, though worn, bear marks of a remarkable journey – my map creased, suitcase delightedly heavy, and umbrella weathered, yet with frame resilient still. It all began rather simply, I remember, with fluttering midsummer ideas and aspirations to create a work of art. It was a time that now seems so distant, yet is also so close and intimately known. To finally behold the finished product, I am astonished at the touching display of human spirit seeped between these pages: the incomparable dedication of my staff and the moving aesthetic visions and literary voices of the artists who submitted to The Marque.

This journey, however, wouldn’t have been possible without the everlasting supply of help and support I have received along the way, and to everyone that has helped me find my way when I felt lost, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Ms. Weber, thank you for being an advisor, a teacher, and a friend. Patrick, it’s been an honor. Phillip, this year’s magazine wouldn’t have been possible without you. Sloan, four years ago, you introduced me to The Marque magazine, and for that, I am forever indebted to you. Rohan, thanks for the rides home and for always being a friend. Robbey, thank you for using the pen tool when I could not. Spencer H., thanks for doing the job of an editor, for answering the call when I needed you to; you’re a lifesaver.

A full half-century ago, ambitious Marksmen gathered, perhaps in some empty Davis Hall classroom, dreaming of a literary magazine that would showcase their common love for the written word and for explorations of the mind. A full half-century ago, a legacy and tradition began. These pages may seem a far cry from the first edition of The Marque. The designs perhaps bolder, richer, infused with more color, the shell more evolved. Yet, what lies beneath the surface has remained the same. The ideas. The brotherhood. The shared, unwavering, at times fierce, desire to create something stunning and timeless. And so this year’s theme – our human journey as represented by a map, suitcase, umbrella, and shoes – seeks to both commemorate the past and celebrate the future. For this year’s Marque is just one destination in the eternal odyssey of this magazine, what we have learned and undergone forming the luggage and influencing the dreams of fellow Marksmen to come.

Finally, to you, reader. Without you, this magazine has no purpose. Without you, there is no one to read the stories Marksmen have to tell. Without you, there is no one to witness the marvelous photographs, pottery, woodwork, and paintings that St. Mark’s students have painstakingly put together. You have been an amazing audience. Thank you, so very much.

Marquemen, I am indescribably proud of how far all of you have come and what we have accomplished as a group. We began with high ambitions and met them with resolve and courage and gleaming creativity. Thank you for pouring your hearts into this magazine when it could have been so easy to let things slide. I hope that all of you are pleased with our work. I for one am proud to say that, “This is our Marque.”

Wow. Even last year, when I wrote a letter similar to this one, this day seemed like a distant reality—one that I didn’t really need to worry about because it would never come. To be honest, I have been both waiting for and dreading this day. Waiting for, because I am ready for whatever comes next—ready for the next chapter in my life. Dreading, because I don’t want to leave my home away from home.

Over four unforgettable years, this magazine has changed me. What transformed me the most, however, were not the late nights and the free periods of work, but what I discovered in the work. Look closely at these pages from the stirring short stories to the evocative photographs to the accompanying page designs, for you will uncover a brilliant tapestry of what makes our lives glow with wonder.

But my journey with The Marque is far from over.

I hope that this year’s Marque will remind you of the unparalleled thrill of beginning a journey – the mind-numbing tingle of sundry possibilities – of the unforgettable, yet defining, obstacles that we all must traverse – the pits of loss and embarrassment of defeat – and of the ecstatic, shimmering surge that comes with triumph – the buoyant, prevailing soul. We all tramp a similar journey. The experience, after all, is what ties us together, both now and forever.

My journey is just beginning.

104 • THEMARQUE

Rishi Bandopadhay

Class of 2012 Editor-in-Chief

patrick ng

Class of 2012 Editor-in-Chief

THECLOSING • 105

CO LO P H O N C O N T A C T

MAR QUE 106 • THEMARQUE

This year’s The Marque was printed by Creative Type on Heidelberg Plates and bound using perfect binding. The cover was printed on Carolina Coated paper with 4/4 color processing. The staff used Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop CS5 to produce the magazine. Typefaces included ArcherPro Bold for headings, ArcherPro Semibold for bylines, ArcherPro Book for body text, ArcherPro Extra Light and Book for page numbers, and Verlag Black and Book for photo credits. The press run for this year’s The Marque was 450 copies.

10600 Preston Road Dallas, Texas 75230 Care of: Lynne Weber Facebook: The Marque twitter: @themarquemag E-Mail: marquemen@gmail.com Website: www.smtexas.org

PHILOSOPHY S P E C I A L T H A N K S The Marque is meant to serve as a collection of the literary and artistic works produced by Upper School (Grades 9-12) students and faculty members at the St. Mark’s School of Texas during the 2011-2012 school year. The Middle and Lower School students (Grades 1-8) have a literary and arts publication of their own, titled the Mirage. Works of all types and forms are welcomed and considered equally for publication. The Marque is printed and distributed at the end of the school year as a culminating production meant to summarize the year’s literary creations.

Ms. Lynne Weber Mr. Ray Westbrook Ms. Jenny Dial Mr. Victor Garcia Nick Mahowald ‘12 Duncan Smart ‘12

THECOLOPHON• 107

THE MAR JOURNEY QUE WE ALL TRAMP A

W A L T W H I T M A N , L EAVES O F GRASS 108 • THEMARQUE

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t h i s i s o u r m a rq u e