The Andrean 2024

The

Andrean 2024

Cover Emma Hunter ’25 5 Will Toomey ’25 6 Anastasia Wrightson ’25 11 Rylie Reid ’24 15 Grey Dugdale ’25 22 Ingrid Tuveson ’24 23 Emma Hunter ’25 24 Catherine Foster ’25 27 Caroline Adle ’24 28 Gibson Hurtt ’24 31 Aleah Thomas ’24 32 Caroline Adle ’24 36 Ian McDonnell ’26 42 Penelope Reed ’25

Will Toomey ’25

Caroline Adle ’24

Olivia Perry ’24

Ember Theeke ’25

Will Toomey ’25 57 Emma Hunter ’25 59 Luke Ketzner ’25 61 Gibson Hurtt ’24

62 Stella Roffers ’24 64 Olivia Ike ’27 69 Emmy Parlin ’24 70 Leah Horgan ’25

72 Olivia Perry ’24

74 Satchel Barnes ’24

76 Will Toomey ’25

Back Caroline Meers ’24

Contributors

Caroline Adle is a senior at St. Andrew’s who hails from Bel Air, Maryland. She can usually be found researching her most recent obsession in the library or sitting on the T-Dock.

Bahar Bekirefendi is a sophomore at SAS. Originally from Cliffside Park, New Jersey, she enjoys singing, playing softball, and talking about her Turkish culture.

Catherine Foster is a V former at SAS. She lives in the East Bay in California, and loves painting, crew, and volleyball.

Hannah Gilheany is a senior from Middletown, Delaware. When she’s not writing or reading, she loves crew, cross-country, and exploring or cooking with her friends.

Sades Green is a sophomore at SAS, and is originally from Long Island, New York. She plays varsity tennis at school and loves listening to good music with friends.

Leah Horgan is a V form student from Wilmington, Delaware. She runs crosscountry and plays soccer, and loves English and history class.

Emma Hunter is from Easton, Maryland, and is a junior at SAS. She was writing before she could read, and loves watercolors and playing tennis.

Gibson Hurtt is a senior from Middletown, Delaware. He enjoys spending time outdoors as well as music and sports.

Cy Karlik is from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In his free time he enjoys writing poetry and reading.

Yeabi Kehm is in the V form and is originally from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He likes making art and is grateful to have his work selected.

Luke Ketzner is a V form student at SAS. He hails from Middletown, Delaware, plays football, wrestles, and rows crew at SAS.

Lila Lunsford is a fourth form student who enjoys writing, hiking, and films. Originally from Charlottesville, Virginia, she looks forward to writing more poetry or short stories soon!

Channing Malkin is originally from Fairfield, Connecticut, and is currently a senior. She loves the outdoors, as well as English and history, and has a brother at St. Andrew’s who is currently a freshman.

Ian McDonnell is from Chevy Chase Village, Maryland, and is the youngest of three siblings. At St. Andrew’s he does cross-country, squash, and the play; during his downtime he does photography and enjoys spending time with his friends.

Sophie Mo lives in the Bay Area in California. Along with writing, she enjoys creating screen prints, experimenting with cyanotypes, and developing film photos.

Finn O’Connell is a senior, faculty kid, and creative writing student. He enjoys walks in the woods, making music, and trying new foods.

Christopher Onsomu is a junior. He loves to run, spend time with friends, and read poetry.

Angela Osaigbovo is a senior from New Jersey. She loves puzzles of all kinds and watching bad movies!

Markley Peters is a senior from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She is a member of the field hockey, squash, and lacrosse teams, and loves spending time with friends.

Claire Louise Poston is a senior from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who enjoys writing poetry and fiction. She plays field hockey in the fall and currently manages lacrosse and babysits in the afternoons.

Rylie Reid is a senior at SAS from Alexandria, Virginia. She enjoys reading and bingeing TV shows.

Kadence Sun is a III form student at SAS, and she is from Fuzhou, China. She loves traveling, sorbet, and her cat Natalie.

Aleah Thomas is a senior at SAS. She is from Bronx, New York, and loves to listen to music, workout, and hang with friends.

Will Toomey lives in Colorado, wrestles, and enjoys biking in the woods.

Mary Troy is a senior at SAS from Charlotte, North Carolina. She enjoys going to the studio to draw, doing anything outside, and running.

Ingrid Tuveson is from a small town in southeastern Indiana. She is a senior this year and is a part of the SAS art major program. Ingrid will also be attending Savannah College of Art and Design next year to expand her talents in the arts.

Avery Vaughan is a senior at St. Andrew’s who enjoys writing in her free time. She is from Houston, Texas, and loves to paint and play guitar as well.

Originally from Munich, Germany, Vincent Von Der Forst is spending his junior year of high school here at SAS. He enjoys music, theatre, and crew, and his favorite place on campus is the T-Dock.

Daisy Wang is a junior at SAS from Beijing, China. She enjoys poetry and classical music.

Being Dizzy After Dark

YEABI KEHM ’25

I’m dizzy and the night sky is the ground

Trees twirl above painting black lightning across the three moons

Shot by a marksman, I fall dead

Blood rushes to my head urging me

Stay down, don’t think

And I don’t

And I fall in love with the smell of the earth

With the warm wind that flees the sky

With the grass which never moved so gracefully

My inner ear settles and leaves me alone with the shattering still

And apparently,

Up is up

Down is Down

Now I’m thinking, clearly

The Squirrels Here Have No Boundaries

MARKLEY PETERS ’24

The squirrels are very, very scary here. Their tiny beady eyes will haunt your mind And little claws are anything but kind The squirrels are very, very scary here.

These evil monsters make me shake with fear. They’ll slowly track you down and soon attack! I’m warning: listen close and watch your back! These evil monsters make me shake with fear.

“But dad, I want a squirrel,” said Veruca Salt In Willy Wonka’s sugar-selling mall. But even spoiled Veruca will quickly halt She knows these creatures have the heart to maul.

So stay alert and listen close to me. The squirrels here have no boundaries, see?

Joey and the Bullfight

CLAIRE LOUISE POSTON ’24

Ella had met Joey Fernandez in the backyard of a friend’s house, during a night which, like most that summer, was colored by a warm, sleepless haze that softened and blurred their words together. When Joey said he came from a family of artists, Ella hadn’t cared to ask what kind. She would remember mostly the dead patch of grass that had captured his steady gaze, and the carelessness with which he killed mosquitoes with his bare hands, hands which were both rough and gentle as he wiped the squashed insect onto the underbelly of the picnic table. Ella knew she should have been unnerved by the bug juice on his hands, but she was mostly charmed by Joey’s casual gutsiness. She could feel that Joey was warm, but he also had an unflinching kind of sturdiness that was irresistible.

Joey’s dad was a bullfighter, and a good one. Ella learned this from Joey’s roommate after a whole month of seeing him.

“There is absolutely no way.” She shook her head.

“I swear, the guy is a huge deal in Spain, like everybody knows him. Probably what made Joey wanna get the hell out of there. Poor guy wouldn’t hurt a fly, and his own dad is out there murdering these bulls, I mean, it’s gotta be awful.”

Ella winced at the image. When she asked Joey that evening why he’d lied about his dad being an artist, he’d said he hadn’t, and life went on. Despite what Ella had learned, Joey was still calm and unshakable, in a way that Ella hadn’t known a person could be. She begged to go home with him for Thanksgiving, and he obliged.

Joey’s father was different than he was. While Joey left his hair shaggy, Rafael Fernandez wore it slick and short. He too was calm, but he had a kind of sharp seriousness that scared Ella. Still, after dinner, he brought her hand to his lips, then held it tight in two of his. His strength was familiar.

The fight was on Sunday. Joey rubbed Ella’s arm as his father entered the arena and looked at the sky. Rafael kicked the dirt and stared ahead. The bull sauntered in. The animal’s whole body swung as it walked, and its massiveness could be felt from the stands. Ella bit her lip.

Rafael looked around at the people, as if looking for agreement. Joey nodded his head expectantly, and nervously gripped the bench. Rafael raised his pink cape, and the bull began to run, shaking the ground. In one swift motion, Joey’s father spun, and hid the cape. The bull brushed right past him. Rafael stood straight. Joey nodded again.

The bull flung its head recklessly, and the people, wide-eyed, leaned forward. Rafael turned to face the bull once again, and this time he raised his eyebrows,

taunting it. He flashed the cape, and the bull charged forward. Ella pictured it driving its horns straight into his chest, and thought about how his almost-death was part of what lingered in the air, part of why the crowd became one. The bull missed again, this time by even less. Rafael stumbled backwards, nearly losing his balance. The bull kicked up its hind legs, and the crowd roared. This time, Rafael mocked it further. He stepped forward, carefully eyeing the bull’s neck. Ella was lonely. She looked to Joey, who was still as ever, mouth agape like a little boy as his dad killed the bull in one quick lurch.

Entropy

HANNAH GILHEANY ’24

All possible has limits, my teacher says. Fold my paper up seventeen times, still Sick with it. The universe is stretched hands, Mother with child curled up, remaining As we run race after race, bodies collapsing In and out. When I told you I wanted to die, Should have said that disorder flows minute By minute, twisting black rivers over us, and Yet you sit four chair legs on the floor.

Bound my unbounded, hold me tight, We dance together across the irreversible now.

RYLIE REID ’24

I,

Flora

CAROLINE ADLE ’24

I remember darkness. I do not remember how I came to be, but I remember the beginning. The struggle out of the darkness, the cold, the dampness, a coarseness fighting against me as I reached and stretched for a world I somehow knew was upwards.

I did not know it then, but the darkness was the best part.

Emerging from the darkness was an initial victory. Feeling the sun rays on my face and the cool breeze licking the back of my neck was the reward. I grew quicker: rising above and seeing more of the bright world I knew had awaited me from the moment I decided to live.

I saw a cottage when I grew to be tall enough to see over the confines of my bed that had protected me when I was small. The cottage looked warm, and I could feel the heat reflected off of my face when a human woman placed a pan of bread at the window. An inkling deep inside of me, taken with me from the darkness of the beginning, told me to treasure looking at the woman.

There was nothing special about her, other than the fact that her protruding belly made her walk funnily down the path towards me. She would sit down at the bench and rip up some of the older stale bread sometimes to throw out to the sparrows. She’d coo at the birds and once the food was all gone, and with it, the sparrows, she’d look at me.

Her brown eyes seemed to look into me in a way that felt like she was seeing deeper into me than I had known existed. I bent in the breeze to make sure that I kept her eyes on me so I could feel the warmth that I now know did not come from the pan of bread, but from her attention.

The first time she truly watched me, I was nowhere near perfect. I was clunky with the unfamiliarity of the length of my stem. My petals were bursting to bloom and all my strength went towards creating my petals to be the most beautiful shade of cherry. I felt the darkness pushing away with every bit of growing I did. It was always there, in the back of my mind, knowing that if I couldn’t make it to my full potential, the darkness would overtake me.

No matter how stunted my movements were to me, the woman’s eyes would always rest gently on my face and I felt her warmth again and again. Only when I grew into my body did I feel like I deserved her attention. No longer were the aching growing pains that consistently wanted to pull me back into the cold. The sun shone and so did I.

I shimmered and shook. My strong body, blowing from side to side firm enough now to fully support the weight of my head. The woman came out often. With a wide

brimmed hat to cast a slight shadow over her eyes, she gazed at me as I moved for her.

I think, deep down, I knew she was the reason I was alive. Her attention made me more vibrant. Whatever she was creating in her ever-growing stomach, was akin to me. I had no way of knowing if she was the one who placed me into the darkness for I have no memory of the Before.

When the woman was gone, I practiced to make sure I was perfect enough for her to stay on the bench and to never stop looking at me. I tilted my face up to the sun, trying to catch every ray to make my face shine in the summer light. I relished and absorbed every drop of water that a shower had blessedly bestowed upon me.

She was gone for a while. No more was the bread resting in the window, and a cold feeling of loneliness swept over me. It was like the darkness of the Before. But I had nowhere to stretch to. I had nothing to do but perfect my beauty for the woman.

After many days of waiting for the woman to come back to me, my limbs were stiff and my movements were, thus, just as jarring. I could no longer dance, flutter and sway. I stayed still. I was at the mercy of the brisk wind. When it rained, now, the droplets no longer sparkled on my face, they froze on it.

I was close to releasing myself back into the darkness that I knew, deep down, would await me if I decided to close my eyes in this deep cold. Everything was the same, the dark, damp, cold place where I had come from would now claim me again.

I was ready and prepared and willing until suddenly the gate creaked open. A tiny child, with eyes just like the womans, came wriggling through the fence. Those big brown eyes looked directly at me and with a coo he came up and looked at me, looked directly at me. It was closer than the woman had ever come to me before, and there was a glint in his eyes that the woman never had.

It took only a moment for him to reach down into my bed and clench his tiny fist around my body and pull.

I felt the warmth of his hand melt the frost that had coated me ever since the woman had left. He held me in his clammy, soft hand and did the same little wriggle back to the cottage. I never knew how warm a being could exist until the moment I reached the cottage and felt the gaze of the woman upon me once again.

She smiled at the boy, pinched his cheeks and gently took me from his hand. She placed me somewhere wet and I sighed, suddenly missing the security of my bed out past the cottage.

The days in the cottage were filled with sound. Not the sparrows chirping or the slight swish of wind that I had become familiar with, but loud screeches of anguish and doors slamming. At my spot in the house, I could watch the woman and her

son, Sweetheart, eat. Sweetheart would take his food and fling it around the room, screaming all the while.

I opened up my face for the woman. I no longer danced upon the wind for her, or shone as brightly in the sun. I tried to feel the breeze of breath throughout the house, but the woman never looked at me anymore. Her eyes were grounded with dark marks underneath her eyes that never allowed her to look up and admire me.

Sweetheart saved me from the darkness. At the time, I was grateful. The darkness I had come from scared me and I felt untethered until my roots had taken hold and I fought to get to the light.

But Sweetheart put me into a new darkness. A darkness that would only subside with the hope that the woman would glance at me and admire me. The only breeze I could dance on was the yelling of Sweetheart, and it didn’t matter because if he started screaming, the woman went straight to him and my dance went unseen.

I hated Sweetheart and the glint in his eyes that I thought was innocence and youth was cruelty. I missed my bed, my roots, the stars at night when I would be able to rest because I knew no one would see me.

I hated the slow decline that awaited me every day in the cottage. My water felt disgusting and my stem no longer felt freshened by it. The water was deteriorating my stem, and there was nothing I could do but wait and hope for the darkness.

The last time the woman laid eyes on me, I had never felt so ashamed.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t breathe.

It was as if the woman had changed right in front of me. She looked at me and was disgusted by my appearance.

“It’s time for you to go.” That’s what she said when she looked at me.

And I did go. She picked me up and threw me out back into the garden. I flew on the wind for the last time, felt the wind on my face and basked in the sun on my face.

As I fell to the ground, I sighed because I knew the end was close. No longer was Sweetheart screaming and stealing my time with the woman. No longer was the grungy water that did more harm than good. I would go back into the ground where no one would see me. I would be in darkness once again and wouldn’t have to dance for anyone.

Only myself, if I so chose. I could choose to come back, to live on. To leave a little piece of myself to start the cycle all over again.

I don’t know what I’ll choose yet. The darkness is too inviting to not go into its embrace happily. I missed the darkness. But, I will miss the woman too.

GREY DUGDALE ’25

The Night’s Last Light

CHRIS ONSOMU ’25

Along wheat lines lies kind moonlight Yet ice colors the core.

Spring shouts across the cool limelight Yet winter brews like before.

Crows crow before dusk’s censure, What then is left tonight?

One sole sap, amongst trunked trees claims to uphold a light.

To trust or not, the light aglow I can’t ever foresee.

But by the sole sap’s loving glance I’ll try for you, not me.

[Indiana, Summer]

CY KARLIK ’24

Indiana, I am thinking of you and your black strip. Of the prairie grasses. The nettles and the ditches and the car crash. The irradiated hospital window and the smoke. At the petrol station where the second drags on. You only realize after, of course, that it meant the world. That it was wind. After, of course, that it reverses the blades in Maryland, then, to a halt. Time will move slowly, now. The tunnels are engaged with an air that can never fill them. It was explained to me, this difference of pressure: the red light and then the black.

Written In Stone

FINN O’CONNELL ’24

There it was, rising out of the choppy sea and draped in a shawl of steely gray cloud, a massive pillar of bone-white marble that towered over the small island town. There wasn’t a single defect on its pale and polished surface, and it seemed to the people below that it hummed with some gravity, that seeped through the air like ink through water, washing over the shops and homes, the thatched roofs that whispered against the sea breeze, the people telling stories and shouting and living their lives, the sheep and cattle that grazed wanly and thought only of their next mouthful of sweet clover. All day and all night the people were under it while it sat there looming like the moon and sticking out of the sea like a broken rib, as though something perfect and smooth had gone belly-up. That silent music that rippled out from the tower was felt most fully in the quiet of the sea and the hillocks, on the edges of the cliffs speckled with patches of fog; it was very hard indeed to hear it over the sounds of the townsfolk and their business. It was drowned out by the buying and selling, working and slacking off, cheering and jeering and complaining to each other.

Come winter, when the fishing boats and ferries could no longer go out and folks had to head out over the ice on foot and poke little holes in the shadow of that spotless marble, that was when the dark and dry season was underway. And although it may have helped their fishing some to gouge out little circlets in the grand shadow, for the fish preferred the dark of the pillar’s shadow to the dim filtered light of the sun; it was no comfort to the fisherfolk. It was colder in that shadow—the jaws of the winter chill would only nibble in the swathes of light but they were fierce and biting in the shadow of the broken rib; and even through the buffer of their wooly mittens some folks would come back from the ice with their fingers numb and blue and prickling against the warmth of home.

To Martin, home was a responsibility. His guitar had been a little less talkative than usual, because, for the past week, he had taken over many of his mother’s duties around the house. Initially, she had refused his help—Martin’s mother was not accustomed to needing anything from anyone, and was almost as bad at receiving Martin’s help as she was at taking the advice of doctors. She had remained on her feet and hard at work for longer than anyone expected, and for much longer than her doctor had instructed. It had set her on edge whenever a student of hers would ask her if she was supposed to be working, and it took a very long time to wear down her pride. She had been a very proud woman for all of her long life. But eventually she relegated herself to her bed, claiming it was so that Martin could learn how to cook. From that time forward Martin was tethered to his mother’s bedside, reading to her and bringing her tea and bread and keeping time of her medicine—one was only to be taken once every twelve hours, another once every five. But there was time during her long rests—from which she would always wake with a start and protest Martin’s

insistence that she take her medicine, saying “really, I don’t need it, I feel perfectly fine,” all between coughs—during those rests, that was when Martin could go out and play music.

He had started playing music in his room years ago, learning simple little songs out of a book he had borrowed from school—and then later on out in the garden, where he started making his own songs. He loved the music he heard over the radio, songs about love and heartbreak and loneliness. Only the lastmost of these Martin had ever felt, an only child with no school friends he had kept in very good touch with. But he was lifted when he heard these songs, and thought about the people who wrote them. That lift took him above the docks, above the houses and shops, above the bluffs and stony hills, and even above the peak of the pillar, no longer in its shadow but soaring above it, free from sickness, free from cold, all of it and on to faraway places. And so he often went out into the garden to play, finding himself enthralled by music and put off by the shifting sounds of the town.

When he was in town, Martin sometimes picked up shifts at the post office— most of the work he did there was sorting letters and packages by name. It did not stimulate him physically or mentally or in any way at all, really, and the only things that kept him from falling asleep were the little melodies he would come up with while humming to himself. He brought a little tape recorder with him so that, if he hummed something he liked, he could remember it for later and try to get his guitar to repeat it back to him. It was the only thing that kept the job from feeling like a complete waste of time—aside from, of course, the half-decent pay—which, on good days, Martin used to buy books and magazines for his mother, who was tearing her hair out in a sickbed all day. And on bad days, when his dad didn’t catch much, he spent the money on food and household things. Martin found that he liked having an inexpensive interest—playing guitar hardly cost him anything, except when he broke a string. And sometimes he thought about what it would be like to live off of his guitar, like the musicians on the radio. He wondered if he could.

He found the sounds of the town increasingly distracting, the sounds of work and things needing tending to, and so he found himself retreating farther and farther from town and onto the mossy cliffs that overlooked the sea, where it was quiet enough for him to think and play and hold onto everything. He did his best playing out on the cliff, and it made his music feel even lonelier. He wasn’t sure if that cliff sound that he had found would sound good on the radio, but it was the best he’d ever managed. His fingers sparked against the strings and he made time stand still.

As Martin marched back home, his boots sinking into the mossy ground every step he took, he paused at a pockmarked stub of stone, surface as smooth as the tower that blocked out the sun. It was a headstone. Words had been written there once, a name, relations, prayers for peace—and they had all been worn away by years of relentless rain. Martin’s eyes scraped along the length of the stone, trying in vain to make out a word, even a letter. Someone’s life had been written down and it could no longer be read. The rock was barely even shaped like a headstone anymore, it just

jutted out of the ground like a molar. And after giving up on reading the headstone and walking home, Martin had come to know something. He imagined his own name being washed away someday on his own grave, imagined it wearing away under the rain and the wind until it was gone completely. That was when Martin knew that he would not be remembered for ferrying or fishing. As he trudged home he thought to himself, sure of this fact; that he would be remembered for his music, or he would be forgotten.

It had started to get very, very cold. Just as the sun was sinking down, Martin’s father came inside from work. He sat himself down and made a fire—a day on the ice had left the tips of his fingers kissed blue, and his nose as well. “It was worth it for the catch,” he said—he’d fished well and brought home good money. Martin’s father was a soft spoken man—Martin had overheard many conversations between his parents, in which his mother had to drag words out of his father one by one. “Were you at the post today, Martin?” His father asked in the way he always did, carrying a gracious warmth and punctuated by a clearing of his throat; while he warmed himself up and got comfortable.

“Not today, Dad, no. I was taking care of Mom some.”

His father nodded, with a knowing smile. “What else did you do?”

“Played my music some. Made some food for Mom and me.”

His father coughed. “Do you think you should be putting music before work?”

“I—maybe not. No, I don’t really think I should.”

Then his father stroked his salt and pepper beard, and looked at his son. “I don’t want to stifle you, Marty.”

“I know, Dad, I know.”

“I’m glad you’ve got a hobby. But I want you here, not off in your own head.”

“I know, Dad, you’re right. I’ll see about a shift at work tomorrow.”

His father nodded again, and cleared his throat. “Good man.” He then stood with a labored grunt and went to check up on his wife. Martin sat and felt the fire from across the room, and he sat and thought to himself, that his father’s beard was more salt and less pepper than it had ever been before. This thought sent a small kaleidoscope of feeling through him, and he sank down deeper into the cushioned chair and began humming to himself, lost in thought, while his parents spoke to each other in what had been made the sick room.

Later on Martin set out for his musical repose again. He found he hated living underneath the giant pillar, a constant reminder of all the inevitabilities of the world—of all the things that loomed over him, cold and distant and unavoidable. As

he arrived at his place of thinking and sat there, musing, it seemed cruel to him that on the tower there should not even be the slightest, smallest nook or cranny for a bird to perch in. There was then no refuge from the wind and no place to make a nest and thus the tower seemed to spit in the face of loveliness even in the smallest and pettiest ways. And noticing this Martin had that feeling again, a feeling he had very often, of wanting to be so far away that he could blot the tower out with his thumb. In every grain of himself he thought about what a mercy that would be.

And yet, there he sat, bathed in icy silence before it. And there his guitar continued to sing, and he reached for something, a sound that would hang in the air and in people’s chests after he had stopped. A sound like the rib, just as tall and pure and thrumming with energy. He reached for that sound and his fingers plucked at those strings until it seemed like they would blister. He plucked for his name on the radio, or etched into the tower, or written on the sky. He plucked for a foothold.

By the time he got home he had been gone a long while, and it had been time for his mother’s medicine more than an hour ago, and Martin’s hands shook as he fumbled the pills open and brought water to her lips, and he hated himself. The scraps of melody were gone from his head, all that he could think was I’m sorry. And when she woke, and she was perfectly okay, she was confused why Martin was crying. She said that she felt fine. Honestly, she felt perfectly fine. And she said that Martin didn’t have to go so far to play music, he didn’t have to run off like he had been doing. And so he brought a chair to his mother’s bedside and played for her. He played while she was awake and he played after she had dozed off. He played songs from the radio that he knew she liked, and when he ran out of those he started to make them up. He made up soft and pleasant songs that filled the room and not the world, that did not tower over the town or even so much as scrape the ceiling. He played for his mother. And when his fingers eventually began to protest, he set his guitar down and looked at his mother, now fast asleep, whose chest rose and fell slowly with contentment and who now wore a little slanted smile. He took a deep breath and stepped outside into the garden and up onto the hill.

He cast his gaze once again on that tower, and thought again to himself: that he would be remembered for a song, or he would be forgotten. He turned that thought over, playing with it like a smooth stone in his hand, before he turned down the hill and walked back towards home.

INGRID TUVESON ’24

CATHERINE FOSTER ’25

Ragged

DAISY WANG ’25

I’d wake up to the smell of steamed pork buns. Half sleepwalking I’d find the kitchen’s sliding door Cracked open and see my grandfather’s hunched-over Back as he hovers and busys himself over the kitchen Counter. Under the warm orange kitchen light, steam Takes shape and I’d distinguish his worn-out white vest, Same old pair of navy blue knee-length shorts, heavily Bruised calves and black socks stitched-up at the heels. My grandfather has walked and starved on the Ragged road of history, the bruises on his legs are His marks of martyr. He used to show me how when He presses down these greenish gray spots, they’d Sink into his skin and, like a broken trampoline, the Springs slowly but never fully recover its elasticity.

When he comes out with the buns, I’d be scrutinizing The city map pressed under the plastic cover on the Dining table. I’d then look up and see his smile. Deep Lines of wrinkles layer around his gray eyes and his Pale white hair seems soft and light. No one else in my Family has his misty gray eyes. Sometimes I think they Might have aged with him too, like his hair. I feel like I have never seen my grandfather in rage. Because whenever he is mad, he just seems sad. The Corners of his mouth, without the strings of muscle that Hold them up, drop. He would just seem disappointed And exhausted and lonely, and I hate to see him like that. It always conjures up the same image in my head: a Distinguishable tiny black dot slowly marching along

A curvy, ragged road.

Slip Stitch 16, Double Crochet 4

SOPHIE MO ’24

There’s balls of yarn all over my bedroom floor, the dresser scattered with string, drawers unlocked—sagging under the soft weights. I knot each thought into a stitch, for everything I’ve been carrying: this ill, from coast to coast.

Everywhere you are not, I fill in to console the emptiness. The unmade bed each day is testament enough.

Your restless hand, so casually draped, its impression upon my skin still warm. I find all over me, You.

CAROLINE ADLE ’24

Looking for Lorna Street

MARY TROY ’24

3rd down on Lorna Street, a quaint little house With chipped bricks and creaky wood floors

The basement I was always afraid to go down to, The Washing Machine that sounded like the monster under my bed. A tiny one-bathroom, a shower with a Sliding Glass Door. I remember pestering my mother one midnight: Demanding to know “is Santa real?”

As she sat on the toilet. Ready to go back to bed.

There should be nothing here I don’t remember…

The October when my grandmother’s sewing room became mine. Where we took out the sewing machines to replace it with a bed laid with one of her quilts.

And moved her rocking chair into the corner. And placed a 20 inch TV on top of an old dresser. Where we came because no one ever taught my dad how to make cookies or love a woman.

There should be nothing here I don’t remember…

In 2014, my mother should still be 46. Her hair long and dirty blonde. I should still be 9—learning multiplication and how to swing. The little house should still be there. The periwinkle walls, my grandmother’s favorite. The day bed should still be there, hit by the sun just so turning the duvet so white it would glow, like heaven,

like God’s servant was here to save us.

But it does not glow. The house is not there. Nor the day bed. Nor the duvet.

There should be nothing here I don’t remember…

The bricks should still fit together like lovers, Standing strong, surviving the end of the Second World War and Segregation and the death of a father who loved his bottle more than his Wife and Son and Daughter, who would love the same type of man he was. Years of life, ripped out in a few months. Now there is nothing but a big crater.

Dug out, bleeding brown dirt and gray concrete Here, 3rd down on Lorna Street, They will build a big house With towering windows and a tiny backyard, One my family could never afford.

And for a moment, I will pretend the crape myrtle in the front still blooms watermelon-colored flowers and I will pretend nothing has been lost.

GIBSON HURTT ’24

1011 South Orange Ave

ANGELA OSAIGBOVO ’24

If every city had a heartbeat, this one would be cardiac arrhythmia. The constant hiss of cars and buses is punctuated every few seconds by the unsteady beat of the people that make this city: revving, honking, laughing, screaming. A jackhammer directly across the street is drilling into my skull, adds a bounce in my step.

Two cartons of eggs, detergent, tomatoes, and edge control—from a store where all this used to cost less than fifteen dollars. there is a dollar stuck in a car handle and I know better than to touch it. it burns. the asphalt is hot to the touch and I should forget this walk and go home but it’s a nice day and the bills are melting in my palms and I haven’t left the second floor in 4 days. It’s sticky; sticky on the side of the road by the apartment. a garbage can was too lazy to stand at attention: half broken beer bottles, crushed cigarette butts, empty chips bags—is the American diet really that bad? and look. is that a rat or a feral cat? it doesn’t matter no one cares this is everyday. you do this almost every day. glide. why does no one care for our streets? step to the beat of the tom tom drum. why do they drive with the passenger window open? no one cares about anything, no one. And it’s still hot and sticky

Smile, you’re on camera! Sure, I’d steal your knocked over trash and rickety mailbox. Really he’s more worried about a shooting like last year’s. I hate that this is how I live. Why are they looking at me? I should walk faster. you don’t know the men on the railing. i’m not doing this again; don’t make eye contact. one is calling for his lover across the street. why is tequila his cologne? walk steady the corner is just ahead. why did we move here why is this all we could afford. can we not make something of this city ourselves? big. so many of us can pile onto that bus. damn it stinks so bad—could they shower in tequila instead—we are now at the corner of Stuyvesant and South Orange

the revs and reggaeton become sirens. when did that graffiti get there? The secondhand smoke has infiltrated our nostrils, dances in my lungs. Hold your breath as we pass. the bus stop that has been outfitted with new benches since the last time you passed. bars oddly placed between seats where women and men had once called home. Home. the liquor store looks just like a work of art. Home is the front porch of a deserted building. no, of a redeveloped townhouse in the sea of soon to be Whole Foods and 5 over 1s. But until then I guess this is still my home. we are a living exhibit of urban decay.

ALEAH THOMAS ’24

CAROLINE ADLE ’24

Conversation

CY KARLIK ’24

These trees are draped with gray driblets but leaving is entirely different every time, the angles and the arc the sun purely evaporative can embrace these spheres. He says, Every time you go, I come.

In his pond distended fingertips ripple with the goldfish as through a sheet there is the illusion of touch.

Even there are shadows along the edges, the dimples trace a miracle in motion.

Every minute, the sun is setting deeper than before when it was rising there were abandonings. The light is somehow different.

In Between the Claps

EMMA HUNTER ’25

i think it's pretty cheesy when people claim silence is deafening, but i can’t unhear it. i had chemistry after the incident. when cobalt chlorite is exposed to heated NaHCO 3 the presence of H2O makes it turn pink

tell me, what happens when it’s the right place, right time, right person, and wrong thoughts?

the room was silent, waiting with anticipation. i offer a weak apology, did it cut the tension?

The expectation?

had Na been a product it would have reacted with the H2O in the air and exploded

truly, there were no words, they didn’t sit in my mouth, idle i would have gleefully pushed them out. but it was all empty. and the people asked: “what happened?” it was so embarrassing: knowing what to say, having it to say then the thoughts zeroed out, they bailed. “nothing, that was the problem.”

therefore Na could not have been present unbonded

tell me, do you know what a blank mind feels like i mean truly blank listen: it feels like solely listening are you listening— listening like you won’t forget you’re not listening— listening with no response or retort it was so quiet the tension might have split me in conclusion, for stability, Na

then I found my words, and the quiet subsided to confusion and laughter i was frazzled but alive. it’s just another day with the claps “saved myself” but wanted to hide and cry relief is like a flood. its waves sweep you up and beat you down.

IAN MCDONNELL ’26

Anthony

AMANDA MENG ’25

My eyebrow is twitching again. The obstinate muscle on my forehead refuses to cooperate despite my multiple attempts to keep it in my reins. She jumps up and down like a mischievous child, laughing at her roguish antics. With a thumping heart, my burning cheeks begin to flush a crimson red under thick khaki pants and a cotton button-down shirt. I clasp my hands together and allow my fingers to trace up and down my palms in their usual nervous fashion. The screech of ambulance sirens resembles nails on a chalkboard, sends shivers down my spine. All while a compilation of the most embarrassing moments inundates me from the back corner of my mind. It is my first day volunteering at the hospital. I am going to do everything I can to not mess this up.

I always hated the hospital as a kid. It was a place where fun goes to die, figuratively and literally. Hospitals were filled with childhood memories of kids afraid of needles and blood—tearful and desperate. Adults pacing back and forth in front of the operating room, waiting, manifesting, and praying for miracles. Families arguing over big, fancy Latin-rooted words that I didn’t understand. The worst, by far, was the ticking of the patient monitors. Each beep of the automated device retold the tale of Orpheus trying to save Eurydice. It was a constant reminder of how temporary and impermanent life was.

“Breathe, Amanda. Breathe,” I told myself.

As the humid summer air circulated through my fidgety body, the world returned to silence. I could feel the summer breeze caressing my cheek through the air. The unrelenting sun having finally stepped aside, the stillness of time enveloped me in its kindness. I opened my eyes to a daunting 12-story complex, with a revolving door that read “Christiana Care: Newark Hospital” in blocky green and white lettering that screams at me. I was going to spend every Friday of my summer volunteering here. Little did I know that I would learn every corner of this building like the back of my hand. I straightened my back, lifted my chin in a futile attempt to gain some stature.

“One foot in front of the other. Here we go, Amanda.”

Trotting through the monstrous revolving door, I found myself at the intersection of a four-way corridor—a deer in the headlights. My eyes flickered up and down, and right to left, desperately trying to find a place for me to fit in. I wove through the network of people: dodging wheelchairs, grandparents on canes, patients on crutches, only to realize I have gone in a giant circle. Time check, 7:55. I had 5 minutes to figure out where the volunteer office was. As the seconds ticked by on my wrist, I was approached by an old man. He looked like he was in his 70s or 80s, with a crown of sleek white hair. The wrinkles around his eyes were carved deep by time.

His eyes a deep ember, full of story, glistening under the dissonant ceiling light. His back was pencil straight, unaffected by the burden of life. The white gridded collar of his shirt was wrinkled, with the end of his black trousers slightly frayed. Clipped to the pocket of his shirt was a name tag, written in big, bold, black lettering: ANTHONY. With a gentle smile so familiar to me as if it came from my grandfather, I was greeted.

I promptly asked where the volunteer office was. Anthony, upon seeing me in distress over such a small issue, chuckled. His eyebrows lifted amusedly, a mix of excitement and revelation. One which I failed to understand at the time.

Anthony’s swiftness was not one I would expect from his solid white hair. With his head tall, eyes straight, he spearheaded the great journey across the hospital speeding through turns, doorways, and stairwells of which all I fail to track. How am I supposed to remember where to go next time? How am I even supposed to make it back to that weird revolving door? However, there was no time for thought. I scampered to catch up with him. By this time, my blistering red face had calmed down quite a bit. With Anthony, every corner was executed without hesitation, and every step was taken with confidence. Between the head nods from nurses and smiles from doctors across each corridor, everyone also seemed to recognize him. I was curious. Who is this guy? How come he knows this gigantic building like he knew his own home?

Anthony delved into his vast wikipedia of knowledge, explaining every corner of the hospital, how to get there, and what it was for. There was the ICU and NICU upstairs, endoscopy was at B110, heart and vascular was in the E building, etc. Occasionally, the robots roamed around the halls of the hospital, with their blinking LED eyes above white plastic made bodies.

“Now that’s Moxie, or as I would like to call it, my girlfriend,” he said, pointing to the robots with a straight face.

After a second of deathly silence, we both burst into laughter.

Upon my return from the volunteer office, I was greeted with the same warm smile from Anthony, as if he was saying, “That was quite a trip, wasn’t it?” As I was lifting my head to thank him, his name tag caught my attention again. Below the big blocky lettering was “volunteer” outlined in a thin font. Knowing that I would spend the next weeks working with this humorous old man, I smiled.

By this time my initial nervousness had subsided. I felt like a cat trotting up and down the hospital running errands. Always curious about the weird machine in that room, and the cool medicine dispenser in the other. What’s this room, Anthony? How to I get there, Anthony? Is there a shortcut, Anthony? Anthony somehow always knew the answer. During one of our trips up to the patient rooms to deliver flowers, Anthony, with that same amused smile, asked, “ I see that you are a curious girl. What’s your favorite book? That’s if you guys still read paper books today, with the internet having access to most things.”

“11/22/63,” I blurted out without hesitation.

“Ah, does this book regard JFK? That’s a ‘back in my day’ one,” said Anthony.

I proceeded to explain the magnificence of Stephen King and the main character’s time travel. I painted the mysterious case of Lee Oswald, Texas, the magical time portal, etc. The novel twists around the relationship and acceptance with morality, temporariness, love, and loss, with the tragic adventure of Jake Epping. Epping travels back in time in an attempt to stop the assassination of JFK; however, during his time back he deals with the problem of time, love, and grief.

“Then what happened?” asked Anthony.

“Well then, you’ll have to read it yourself,” I responded.

“But just tell me!”

I decided it was better to leave the question suspended. Any retelling of the story I was able to do would not do the novel any justice. From then on, every time I was greeted by Anthony, I would be interrogated on how the novel ends.

In the following months Anthony was a consistent presence in my life. Through every Friday afternoon in the summer, we worked together at the guests services desk. He taught me the ropes: Documenting flowers, pushing elderly patients in wheelchairs, knowing and quizzing me on the blueprint of the hospital. I grew everfamiliar with that slightly amused smile of his. The familiar rhythmic thud of his footsteps bounced across the domed ceiling of the lobby. It is never hard to know where Anthony is, because if there was laughter, there was Anthony. His voice, distinct, resonant, yet a little hoarse, trailing from his post-Vietnam enlistment to later years working for a book company in New York. With each syllable enunciated, his eyes sparkled and his back straightened, as if new life was breathed into him. It is as if the markings of time were wiped away with every tale—catching glimpses of his once youthful, adventurous soul. We debated American history, constitutional rights, religion, oppression and democratic rights, all in light-hearted fashion filled by his keen sense of humor.

Once, I commented on the oppression of dissent in the Chinese mainland, with the “disappearing” of political activists who all seem to be later forgotten by the government.

Anthony responds, “who?”

That was one of the best lines I’ve heard in a long time.

During my second or third shift at the hospital, an intricate vase decorated with white babies’ breath and carnations, gentle and elegant, had to be delivered to the ICU. Having absolutely no idea how to get there and still terrified of the cries from the patient monitors, I looked to Anthony for help.

With a bold and ostentatious wink, he said, “The ICU? Seems like you haven’t been there before, it’s a place full of stories. Come, I’ll show you.”

Taking the elevator to the second floor, the silence in the hallway was suffocating. As we marched towards the main entrance, I could hear the distinct thud of my running shoes with the cold, hard tiled floor. As each green-curtained room labeled with the patient numbers came into view, there began a slight hum of the monitors, making the hairs on my arms stand upright.

“I always hate the beeping. They are always just so annoying. I mean, they make my heart skip a beat at times. The monitors were just constantly ticking and ticking, putting life on a timer, and serving as a constant reminder that we are in a war with the reaper. If the beat, so seemingly stable, monotonous, yet constant just returned to silence, that means that person is dead! That’s completely terrifying.”

“This was my place in this hospital,” he responded. “You ever question what I am doing here? I’m an eighty-year-old man having nothing better to do other than walking around in a hospital all day? Well, my wife, after fighting for years against a rare type of cancer, passed away here around two years ago. Even though she was sick in the hospital, the community around lit up our lives like a lighthouse in the darkest of nights. The monitors remind me of the beauty of being alive. Sure, living and being alive is very much a temporary event, but you have to enjoy and celebrate every second. Some people are only here for a set time. This time is not forever, you have to be okay with that, and savor each moment. The monitor exhibits the powerfulness of the mortal being. It is a reminder that we are still alive and still fighting, it is to be worth celebrating, not sinned or afraid.”

During my time at the hospital, I met people, patients, family members from all stages of their lives. Many in grief, success, failure, and recovery. It was Anthony’s smile, kind, and understanding that lit up people’s faces and unfurrowed their eyebrows. His joy and optimism was contagious. His terrible baby boomer jokes only filled the lobby with more laughter. His seemingly unending patience and understanding sewed up many broken hearts. He was the ray of golden sunset peering through my blinds, bleeding onto my face. I had come to love this place. I am no longer the girl fidgeting in front of the door, petrified by the tall hospital building. Moved by Anthony, I made it my goal to spread love and joy during my time here. Rather than nervously leading patients around in silence, I took my time conversing with them. I asked about their life stories, adventures, and personal adages. The hospital was no longer languid, divided, and alone. Through here, I found human love, connection, tenacity, and faith, an unshakeable lamppost in the storm of society today. Its old cream-colored plastered walls with occasional accents of red fire alarms no longer sent a suffocating knot down my stomach. It no longer felt like the bottom of the cold, dark Pacific Ocean that I found myself trapped under. Even the scariest of them all, the patient monitor failed to spread their deathly calls at me.

As the volunteer hours on the sign in screen slowly grew every time I punched in with my 4-digit code, I knew the end of my time here was near. I knew well that the

distinctive revolving door, clicking of wheelchairs, and the rhythmic thud of Anthony’s walk would be memories I refuse to let slip. Even as I close my eyes now, I am still able to trace the edge of my memory with the scared girl stepping in front of the beautiful building. Every now and then, I am dragged back to this little corner of my mind, scared that time’s invisible hands shall smooth out the carvings in my memories. In a slightly discordant voice, Anthony once said, “Grief is a funny thing, it seems as if it shall never end. But with time… time washes away things, it shall bestow old age and death. However, it heals and soothes our deepest wounds.”

The moon will not eclipse forever, and a party will always end. The patient monitor has to stop beating someday. Perhaps what defines us is not the temporary matter of life, but our attitude towards the next step. We cannot always cure suffering, disease, and impermanence. We can only determine how we stand in the face of hardship. While we are still here, in this moment, and this fleeting world, we can only let go of our fears and smile. Smile for the love of being alive. Smile like the sun finding its way on our faces on a rainy day. Smile like the morning dawn. Celebrate living in this hectic world.

Upon my departure, I left Anthony a present. Wrapped beneath a red bow with rainbow confetti, a red cover read: “11/22/63.”

PENELOPE REED ’25

Behind the Honey Windows

BAHAR BEKIREFENDI ’26

Behind the honey windows, glowing through the darkness of the night, there will be mothers and fathers and children, Gathered together

Behind the honey windows, We will escape the stillness of the night, To talk back to the moon’s chatty crescent

As if we are one beam of light

Behind the honey windows

Our stomachs will fill instantly

After saying goodbye to the sun

Revealing how yearned desire

Can be quickly extinguished by brief gratitude Behind the honey windows

We will roll out of bed, rub our eyes and savor every bite

Again and again and again

Until will meet the moon behind the same honey windows

After 720 hours, thirty days, one month

Behind the honey windows

The food we ate before didn’t taste as good as now

The moon we saw before didn’t shine as bright as now

The gratitude within us has never rolled out of our mouths as much as now Behind the honey windows ramadan’s teachings forever makes our hearts sweet

Friar

YEABI KEHM ’25

Quiet reds and yellows dance on the ends of candle wicks

Engaged in a slow waltz, a shift left, a lean right

With each movement their glow emanates, enchanting the walls with strokes of gold

The void eyes of a dead Christ watch through spruce framed apertures

A man hunches in the pews, his bearded chin touching his chest in rhythm as he mouths his prayers,

His beard whispers along with him, scratching at the neck of his shirt in sync with his words

A harmony that never made it over his shoulder, lost to the white-noise machine living in your head

A disquieted Amen broke the silence and a slew of creaks slunk out of the wood. What followed was about a dozen paces down the linoleum until the front doors sealed with a commanding thud

He was wearing flip flops.

As the air settles in the place he had been, you feel a chill slide up your nose, around your ears and out your mouth, knotting itself in a chilling cold around you

Your eyes start to close themselves as you follow the patterns of pure black in the distance

Slowly the dancing candle flames get smaller and darker

Until the face of your father is smiling at you

His eyes as warm as any flame, asking you to

Think of him.

CAROLINE ADLE ’24

Soccer Ball

LILA LUNSFORD ’26

Playing soccer on the front lawn equally tied

Mr. Everhart and his daughter with smiles across their face

Campbell laughed as the ball dodged from side to side

The sly smile across Mr. Everhart’s face knowing he’d put her in her place

I’m reminded of my dad

My dad who warmed up with me for the game

Long before my coach and teammates had

He was always there, even through sheets of rain

Cold November mornings kicking the ball on the dewy grass

Corner kicks fed from the side

Feeding pass after pass

Standing in goal, blocking balls I soared at him with pride

Congratulating himself as he made a move past me

The former varsity athlete beating his 10-year-old

The breathless giggles of frustration and glee

The high fives granted after a goal

Something so sweet about the childhood memories as I reminisce

My blonde head bobbed around feeling anew

the cold November mornings I miss

Cleats soaked with dew

I miss the child in me

I see her in Campbell

I hope she will remember this

OLIVIA PERRY ’24

The Captain

CY KARLIK ’24

After work, Robert takes a taxi home. Noticeably disturbed, and at the request of his wife, he relays his patient’s dream.

Here I go, he says.

A steam ship is in the middle of the Antarctic Ocean. It’s a scientist’s ship and they are researching a kind of micro-flora that can only grow in extreme temperatures. The scientists are beginning to notice something strange. In the water, his wife asks. No, not in the water—it’s not in the water at all. She doesn’t know what that means. It means it’s all around. Alright. So the best scientist, a man with a very large beard, approaches the captain of the ship. He starts by talking about nothing. Not about the weather, there isn’t really weather in Antarctica, or anyways it’s always cold—but about nothing important. The captain tells him that he has two kids and a wife. They live in Kansas. The youngest kid is on the baseball team and the captain is missing his games. The scientist thinks this is sad. I don’t have kids, I’m completely childless, the scientist offers. The scientist tells him about a drive he took, twenty years ago, through the state of Kansas. Oh, yeah, he says. For a conference, he says. But all I can remember is the sound of the wind. The captain is quiet. They light two cigarettes. Now, the scientist and the captain are friends of sorts. They keep talking. The next day, the captain of the ship approaches the scientist. He sits, writing quietly in a journal. This time he asks, what’s wrong. What’s wrong, the scientist screams. The captain manages to calm the scientist down. Have a cigarette, he says. The captain puts on a pot of coffee. The scientist looks sick. He says, have some coffee. He has some coffee, then he throws up. The captain gets the medic for an examination. The medic is just a kid. Nothing is wrong with him, he says. They wrap him in a blanket and then they sit, drinking coffee. I miss my wife, the scientist says. I thought you didn’t have a wife, the captain replies. No, I just don’t have children. Then the scientist throws up another time. I want to tell you about my dream, the scientist says. His wife asks him when he will get to the scary bit. Ok, here it is, he says. The scientist wakes up and tells the captain about his dream. It’s just a penguin, he says, then it wakes up, and slides.

For the rest of the day, Robert takes it easy. He has a drink and walks through the park. It’s fall, and the leaves have turned wonderfully red. He buys a newspaper, and for a while, sits reading on a bench. Then, realizing he hasn’t finished even one story, gives up. He walks home and calls the patient. He’s confused and asks who it is. It’s your psychologist, how are you. I’m well, he replies. I’ve been thinking, he says, I forgot to ask you to do this, but it’s very important, I want you to write down your dreams. Right when you wake up. Ok, he says, then Robert ends the call.

That night, Robert picks up where his patient left it. The scientist is still sick, throwing up about once or twice every hour. Is it sea-sickness, the captain wonders. No, probably not, he thinks. The scientist is getting angrier and angrier. Then, he breaks down in tears. The penguin comes back to him. I get it, the captain says, touching the scientist on the shoulder. I get it. That night, the captain sees the penguin as well. It wakes up and slides. He feels a bit like falling. Now he gets it. But I won’t tell him, he thinks, figuring it would only upset him more. Every day, the scientist asks the captain if he sees it. The captain says, no, but I get it.

While this is happening, operations on the ship have stopped. The scientists need to know what to do, but the captain has instructed them to give space to the scientist. The captain puts the scientist in his cabin, thinking it will bring him comfort. All day, the scientist smokes. Another scientist brings him food. One day, he asks him, have you seen a penguin, and the other scientist responds, of course. The scientist begins to cry. Then he laughs, like it’s a funny joke. Of course I’ve seen a penguin, he says, this is Antarctica. Then Robert wakes up from his dream.

*

In the morning, their apartment is filled with a dull glow. Outside, it is snowing. The radio tells him that there is a snowstorm, that he should not go outside. Over the phone, he tells his secretary to cancel his appointments. Robert’s wife brings him eggs on toast. She says, you didn’t sleep last night, I could feel you rolling around. Yes, he says, lighting a cigarette for her.

That morning, the two of them sit reading side by side. The whole city is stopped. From the window, the only sounds are of the snowplows in the street. They become a dull hum. Then, Robert decides that he needs to go out. You’ll freeze, she says. Robert puts on his greatcoat, and gloves, and hat, and boots. When he steps outside, the wind cuts at his face.

*

This time, the patient's dream is different. The scientist is asleep, in the captain’s room, and he is on the ship, walking through a dim hallway. Under some of the doors there are lights, but, mostly, the hall is black—mixing in with a dull red. When he gets to the end, he turns. He has turned left four times, right five. The patient reads from his notepad. Someone was crying, he could hear it through the steel door. Robert writes this down. Tell me more, he says. At the end of the last hallway there was a porthole. What could you see, he says. I couldn’t see, it was night.

*

Robert wonders about his patient. He has seen him twice since the first time he heard about his dream. The patient, a man not older than fifty, is a painter. Why don’t you paint what you see, Robert says. I have, says the painter. The next time Robert sees him, he offers to take him to his studio. They take a cab together uptown.

I wanted to be a painter, Robert says. The walls of the studio are covered in dark canvases, so dark that the impressions of shapes are only visible up close. *

The next dream Robert has, he is standing on the deck of the ship, completely naked to the cold, and his skin is turning a deep blue. The wind cuts at his face. *

For Robert, mornings have become a kind of meditation. As he wakes up, coffee and cigarettes, the edges of a dream, the memory of cold, comes back to him. He tries to read. *

The patient reads to him: The next day the captain goes into his room and the scientist isn’t there. He looks everywhere, but they can’t find him. He’s hysterical, screaming for the scientist. The cook, one of scientists, finds him crying. They assemble the whole crew and go looking for him. They check inside the bathrooms, the steam room, the kitchen, all of the bunks. He isn’t in his old bunk. They consider looking in the air ducts. The captain is convinced that he is deep within the ship, like a rat, deeper than geometric possibility. He is talking about planes. Then they think, maybe he’s outside. The captain cries. A group of the crew suit up and go outside. In a mound of snow, the scientist is lying naked, a deep blue set into his skin. Immediately, they know it isn’t good. The medic tries his best but the scientist loses some of his toes and fingers, an ear, and his nose. I can’t help him, the medic says, there’s only so much I can do. Immediately, the captain reroutes to mainland. He’s convinced there is a doctor that will help him. Over the next few days, the scientist is silent, hooked up to a device that regulates his breathing. When they arrive at port, an ambulance takes the scientist away. Then, the crew goes out on the town. The lights of the ambulance are on, but no sound comes out. The captain stands on the deck, confused, thinking there will be a sound. At some point, he discovers the statue of a man, a politician, saluting to no one. He walks into a bookstore and begins to cry. The man at the counter comes over to ask if he is ok. The captain doesn’t speak Spanish, which he tells the man. The clerk looks at him with an expression of pity, then leaves. Then, the captain leaves. It is almost night, he feels like he is being crushed.

In the morning, Robert decides to visit the painter. He takes a cab to his studio, rings the buzzer, and walks up. He’s happy to see him. Robert, he says, and grins. They light cigarettes, and then he shows Robert around, motioning to a new series of canvases, blacker and grimier than before. I don’t know, Robert says, shaking his head. The painter is quiet. I like this one, he says. The painting is a vast expanse of sea. Robert nods, then says, I’ve been dreaming. Then he says, I’ve taken a real

interest in your dreams. Then, what more, please, can you tell me. The painter pauses, as if thinking of someplace far away, perhaps somewhere from childhood, then says, ok then, there’s more to it.

He tells him. One day the captain is walking through the street and he sees the scientist. He runs after him, screaming his name. The scientist stops and turns to him. He is with a woman. When the captain reaches them, he knows that something is wrong. Who are you, the woman says. Like an angel, she is dressed in white. I’m the captain, he says. The scientist looks at him, then the woman. Let’s go, she says. They disappear into the street.

*

In Robert’s final dream, the captain takes a train through the country. On the tops of the mountains there is snow. A woman in a blue uniform serves him coffee. I hear there is a war in this country, he says to her. There was, but not anymore, she says. Then the captain goes to sleep. When he wakes up, the train is stopped and everyone is getting off. The town is small, at the foot of the mountain. The name, which the captain translates from the Spanish, has something to do with a pig. The captain eats lunch at a small cafe. Then he leaves to walk around. The children here look weak, the captain thinks. None of them are wearing shoes. When he reaches the end of the town, opposite the station, he sees a barn. There is corn planted in front. Somehow, he knows what’s inside. The captain takes the door and pushes. The pigs are white like the snow on the mountains.

*

When Robert wakes up, there is no light, just the open window, the sound of wind. He gets out of bed and goes to the kitchen. He gets a drink and sits at the table. He writes this down in a notebook:

I’m going to try and explain it, the sound of this wind.

This wind is blacker than any other noise. This wind is the thinnest sound I have ever heard. It moves in a circle. It’s one thing, it’s everywhere. I’m going to go crazy trying to explain it, because it’s the most important sound that I have ever heard, and I know that no-one will believe me. I hate it more than anything.

It’s the sound of something breaking. It’s a train coming through the mountains. It’s rage. It’s ignorance. It’s ice melting. It’s hatred. It’s the sound of violence. It’s a window closing. It’s a hallway. It’s the sound of revolution. It’s going to sleep.

Hunger Game

DAISY WANG ’25

—In nature’s hunger game, only the fittest survive.

I squint my eye to the lit-up stretches of Grassland below my feet. My stomach lets out A wail for hunger: it’s been five days.

I let my light caramel fur be buried in the tall Grass that carries shivers of sunlight, as they sway With the gentle Saharah breeze to nudge my face.

I gently push my way through the grass, one step, Another, the cushions on my feet are my natural Advantages, but I am yet a patient hunter—

Too soon, too soon, I let out a sigh. Anything, Give me anything. I reluctantly climb out of the Grass: I guess it’s another day to diet on water.

Slowly, I retreat back to the bushes. I am too tired To move. But before my mind loses its last strand Of consciousness, I should find a spot to lie down.

Things were so much easier back in the pride. But I knew one day I would be kicked out to form my own. I saw them do that to my brother. So I knew.

I turn to lie on my back. Sky reflects its serene Blueness in my eyes. Vast. Remote. And luxurious. Maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow will be a good day.

Blonde Curls

CHANNING MALKIN ’24

I always hated that small school, where my graduating class was seven people

Where we were forced to sit on that disheveled coffee-stained maroon rug

Where when we sang songs you could only hear me and you singing together

They were always scared of us getting older

Something always brought me back home when I saw those tight curls

How easy it was for you to talk and play with all of the big kids

The afro and the smile could cure anyone’s illness

I always hated that intersection near your house

Where the crossing guards made me wait for ages before I could run to see you

You were always there

Each morning for that thirty-minute-long drive to school

I was there when you turned nine, yelling ahoy in your backyard

Or when you were fourteen, holding your hand as we said grace at the dinner table

I always hated putting down mulch in our backyard

Shoveling that disgraceful rancid substance into a wheelbarrow

Knowing that the day would be over soon enough, looking forward to that New Haven pizza

That sometimes did always taste of dirt and woodchips

Yet he always came to help

Going on and on about the Morgan Wallen concert he saw or about his love for the Gamecocks

Always needing to leave us early, off to another event

I will always have some hatred toward August

The month in which I was born and which he left

Someone so stable and constant, like a limb being torn from one’s body

Sometimes I dream of the flashing traffic lights or the trees standing in my way

No longer looking down the street to spot those blonde curls

Sticking out from a mile away

Just me and his ghost, in a place I no longer call home.

On the Other Side of the Moon

KADENCE SUN ’27

You were upside down, scrutinizing the crevices between the planks of the hardwood floor that were too small to ever physically trap you. You clung onto your bed as you stared at the ancient gray curtain of your room, the million tiny punctures in it letting in the air and countless glowing dots of sunlight. But you always convinced yourself that each of the blazing dots is a flaring star, lighting up the universe, and the dark surrounding area holds the planets and moons and grains of sand that float around in the void of uncertainty, seeking a reason to exist. You stared at the flecks of space dust until they became fuzzy circles of light.

As smoke leaked from the fickle firelight, you almost envisioned the tendrils of smog morphing into the mythical Moon Rabbit of China. Every Mid-Autumn Festival you would insist that you could hear music flowing through the silver palace on the far, shadowy side of the moon—an ethereal singing rendered by the weaving and clashing of something delicate. The passersby tell you the absurdity of your fantasy, saying “Stop climbing this ladder that leads to a place imperceptible to the eyes.” But you pursed your lips to let them know how pointless it is to attempt to wage war against your volition to dream. You managed to climb above the reach of their disheartening voices, the mysterious mist ahead beckoning you to follow, clutching your box of imagination and childish wonder tight.

Just like that, you fell through the gorges between the planks of the floorboards that were tiny no more in your mind, tumbling into that moon crater you always wanted to visit. You transformed into a single speck of dust that, like any other grains of sand in the story you created, traverses the changingly speckled landscape of the gray curtain’s shadows. And your eyes reflect all the glory of the crescent, but you can’t help wondering what the moon had hid on her other side that she would one day reveal to you.

Mom always complains, “It’s way too old and it was leaking wind and sunshine.” You observe silently as she tears the last bit of the crumbling curtain apart and welcomes the fresh presence of a new one. Help me, save me, the curtain seems to moan, I don’t want to end like this. You hesitate. You have forgotten the beauty that little light passing through the holes could create. “Just let it go, honey.” Mom tugs the last corner of the curtain loose from your hands. The flawless waves of curtain folds start churning with the wind, dancing to the rhythm of novelty. The stars, the earth, the moon are no longer reachable.

Unlike the new version of the curtain, the elder version of you, who knows more than you want to, feels like a tired climber of the ladder. Notice how the haze was ever more diaphanous, the horizon was ever darker, and the imaginings ever dimmer, as if all that youthful fascination flickers with the wind. It’s too late when you realize that everything has become too clear for magical speculations. The shadowed side of the moon lit up, the silky and unfamiliar glow caressing your face, washing away the enigma. They were right. You would think. It was your delusion, your fantasy that mystified your eyes. It blinded me from reality, you say. But did it? Or did it instead bestow you with visions that only you could see?

Now, you are downside up, trapped by an amorphous net covering up the inconspicuous crevice—your innocent ignorance that you had once been able to fall through and approach the other side. So you take a deep breath, drawing in the remaining horizon into your box. You tuck in the ancient dreams, relics of a bygone era of indescribable wonder, knowing that when the moon unveils her facade, she’ll leave you with things you can no longer hold on to.

LUKE KETZNER ’25

Drumming to 10,000 Reasons

AVERY VAUGHAN ’24

The man had lived as a beacon it seemed. But something was dimming it. So he turned his light out entirely. But it had seemed so bright that none of us had known. Watch out for cliches, Because they come true. And they can kill Or they can save a life.

We sat wearing jeans, boots, and black.

That’s what he would have wanted—a true Texan soul. And it was so bright outside. It was ... a beautiful day. The man was there. We knew.

… Even though he wasn’t. Bright, bright, bright. Blindingly.

I couldn’t even see the ceremony without shielding my eyes. Kind of bittersweet, no?

And then I saw your face. The pastor told about the love that the man had given up along with his own life. And I saw your face. In the drummer boy. Hitting the beat to the final verse of 10,000 Reasons. So prominently there! You looked at me dead in the eye almost as a warning. But then you turned away and it was only the drummer.

Past tense descriptions choked everyone right in the heart and squeezed tears out of our eyes.

And I kept looking at you— or at least the drummer boy, Wondering what cruel God had turned his back when all a man did was pour out love for him. Can anything ever be enough? If God wasn’t . . .

I guess there’s no one answer, Because I am not going to let it happen to you. Play God as long as I have to. And I’ve already bled. Then we prayed as a congregation one last time. “. . . Amen.”

I looked at the drummer one last time to check. Still looked just like you. damn drummer boy.

Keep beating. Please.

STELLA ROFFERS ’24

Ode to the Men

SADES GREEN ’26

We who look up steal glances to the men. Oh! The Great Men! How they reign from the snow white buildings. Caged up, protected from us mere mortals. They sit up in the clouds, as their reign falls down upon those who have escaped their fates before.

Lightning strikes each bird who dares to fly up to their pity castle in the sky. So small! Squeaking from their tombs of silence, As they hang from their nooses of anguish

A tomb of glass—we see, but don’t hear

Gagging on the backs of the broken

Laughing at the people of the weak and weary

What shall you do?!

Begging through the mist of illusion and disguise— Will you speak? Will you tell us?

Lord almighty, Gods up above?

We have come so far, so wide

Escaped the nooses that stood before us, Why have the men put us in a tomb?

Why do you put me in a tomb?

It is fate that they have met,

To those with fate in our hands.

We hear the cries of the wild women, the cries of the mild men, Thrashing up to the sky.

Yet, you chose this fate, t’was you.

I am answered with silence

Silence I answer with—

I swing in my tomb of death.

Damn you, men.

OLIVIA IKE '27

Decoupling

MARY TROY ’24

The first time I flew on an airplane, I was in the 9th grade. Ever since that first flight, I’ve always loved the airport—even the long lines. Every moment from stop to start is perfect. The airport has always been my time. I have always loved the feeling of being somewhere but being unseen.

At the airport, it was my routine to go to the closest NBC shop to buy a pack of Brookshire dark chocolate-covered blueberries and La Colombe coffee before I settled at my gate. It is a bitter, but sweet combination, just sweet enough to fall in love with.

It became my routine to listen intently to the flight attendant as she tells us to put our tray tables up and put our oxygen masks on ourselves before we put it on anyone else, just as it became my routine to buckle my seatbelt before sending a brief sweet text along the lines of “I’ll let you know when I land, I miss you” before I would lull off to sleep. I loved the airport for its routine.

Now, I try to lift my bag onto the scale. When I feel the heaviness strain my body, I wish I’d listened to my mom as she told me I didn’t need the extra clothes I’d shoved into the terracotta-colored suitcase. I wish it just as I wish I’d listened to the times my friends told me I shouldn’t shove myself into the back pocket of someone else’s life. These things always seemed to weigh me down.

As soon as I am through security, my suitcase trails behind me toward the intersection of the A, B, and C terminals. A few months ago, I grew tired of the NBC stores and Brookshire and Le Colombe. I made a pact with myself to try something new. So today, at this little market on this corner, I grab a brand of protein bar I haven’t had before and beet juice (because it sounds healthy and I’m trying to take care of myself).

As I check out, a boy near my age walks past me. He chuckles with his friend next to him. He grins a slightly-crooked smile. The boy’s front tooth doesn’t mimic the chip his had. And the boy’s front teeth aren’t as crowded as his once were. But the dimples that form from his ringing laughter remind me of the beginning—before his braces or the Accutane. I loved all these messy imperfections.

I recall the first time I did not text him before I took off, the time the routine was broken. I remember the bizarre and confused daze as I sat staring at my phone. It was my routine to love him. And what would I be without that?

My thoughts linger a second too long and I am back in February, the last time we would speak for months.

You could feel the chill between us in the college counseling offices that evening. This corridor had always felt so grand, so full of opportunity and hope for what would come next. College and the future were exciting, and he only ever made it more so. The thought of being with him for real in the real world was all I wanted—more than any acceptance letter. The tall ceiling littered with banners from glittery institutions seemed to loom over us. I desperately wanted him to stay—to keep him here, just like this. Silence clung to his lips as we walked down the linoleum tile.

“Why did you want to talk?” The syllables fall from my throat. I can’t contain the butterflies fluttering in my chest despite the tension written on his brow. I always was a hopeless romantic, huh? I always did see the best in him, didn’t I?

But he tells me all the things no one wants to hear. “I wanted to talk because I felt like I really didn’t get to say what I wanted to say last time we spoke.”

He tells me all the things no one ever hears.

“I wanted to let you know when we fought in October, you made me feel broken. You held my mistakes over my head.”

He shines a flashlight in my eyes as he points to all of my imperfections. The overwhelming brightness of self-awareness burns. It’s horrible. We never want to admit when we aren’t right. What is even worse is realizing that we were not only not right, we were wrong.

My eyes adjust.

But how can we kindly tell those we love they are wrong? In misplaced love, it’s hard to say.

We open the door from the hall out to the patio. Standing under the clear dark sky, I grip him closely, as if holding a ghost. The harshness of his words maim me but I can bear that pain. He says to me: “We’re nothing more than a high school relationship.” My hands drop from where they were previously stationed. My body and heart always were loyal subjects to him. I crumple in a singular instant of time as over a year of my life falls onto my shoulders at once.

What does it mean to be wrong?

You can be wrong in many ways, that is the mess of it. Was I wrong for the faith I put in him? Was I wrong for what I did? “Maybe I was wrong about everything” is what I come to believe because it is only human nature to think in black and white. So, at the wake of our relationship, I will hold a candle and apologetic words I’ve prepared on a notecard. I will dress in black and mourn my all failings and I will hold that weight on my own back. But no one told me it was my fault. So why have I strung together this story that paints me as the villain? Maybe there were chances to stop, like when he told me our friends shouldn’t know. Or maybe as we sat on the couch and I warned him how afraid I was, how sad I’d been that winter, how helpless I felt.

And he looked at me with vacant eyes, trying to find the words to ask me to leave. It was sort of a relief to have him there, with his never-ending chaos to punish me for my self-perceived evils.

Sitting at my gate and trying to escape the memories of last February, I have decided you can’t ever be bored in an airport. I always get there about 2 hours early, but I’ve learned how to fill the time. Some ideas (if you’re ever ‘bored’ in an airport): write, read a new book, go window-shopping, call an old friend, or listen to a podcast.

But now, sometimes I am afraid to write. I am afraid that for years, I will have to write the names of new boyfriends on the back of my hand because that’s the only way I can remember they aren’t him. I am afraid I’ll write his name in the margin of new books I read because every time I will experience something new, I won’t escape the imprint he left on my mind.

Despite the fear, I follow the first idea on my list and jot down the phrase: “Decoupling.” That’s what my therapist calls it. She tells me that’s what I’ve been doing these past months. Through dying my hair, changing my shampoo, getting a stickand-poke, joining the wrestling team, and deciding to wake up at 5:38 a.m. for a morning lift, I’m “finding independence.”

But I don’t feel independent as I try to close my eyes in a bed I still feel him in. I remember the scar on his right eyebrow and the mole on his jawline. I remember the shape of his hands. I remember the freckles on his back and the way the sun trickles through his bedroom window at sunset. I remember the sadness in his eyes the first time he cried in front of me. I remember so clearly sitting with him, trying to memorize these things as I feared a day when I wouldn’t be able to see them. I remember the warmth, the comfort, the safety of him. I remember my arms draped around his neck, as I would ask him: “Isn’t it so crazy the last time we will see each other will be in the spring next year?”

I remember searching in his eyes for the answer I wanted.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I won’t ever see you at reunions.”

“Of course, you will. We’ll be there together. We’re going to be married.”

I remember how a part of my mind would relax at his words as I felt again that it never was a question of if we would be together. We told each other we were ridiculous when our devoted insecure hearts crafted narratives of us ending in a big bang of cheating or something else we coined impossible because we were “different” from other teenage love affairs. To de-couple wasn’t an option. It was an exhausting task to deflect the other’s constant overthinking, but if I’ve learned anything from flying, it’s that you can’t share an oxygen mask.

It was almost a religion, a fundamentalist one at that. We would tell each other our sins only to reunite once more. We continuously fixed the leaks with duct tape. But of course, the tape wasn’t airtight and something was always leaking. I’ve tried to just forget it all, how our hands linked together, so perfect, like we always knew if we reached down, someone would be there, someone to hold on to. But certain moments seem to always bubble at the surface as I walk around this airport, around campus, around my house. Like living in a graveyard, I’m conscious of the life underneath me, one that has passed but that doesn’t make it any less real.

I’d try to rob that grave again and again, always answering when he would ask:

“Do you wanna find somewhere to go?”

“Let’s go to the dock.”

Our bodies would start down that familiar route, like dancers our feet knew where to step and how close we should stand together.

The pond would ripple. My body would shake. The surface tension would break. “What’s wrong?” He would say.

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I know.”

“I just feel like—” months of trying to understand him would hang on my lips. “I’ll love you forever and you can only love me when it’s convenient.” As I would say it, I would realize sometimes it is so much better to lie to ourselves—to live in the gray enduring pain of ignorance is so much easier than swallowing the reality that our fantasy never will be.

“That’s not true.”

The pond would ripple on, forever, its natural state, rhythmic, soft, cyclical, like the waves, like white noise, like how I feel for him. “It just is.”

The exhaustion has dissipated and the volume has been turned down now. In this small laminated seat I rest in, all I feel is excitement. Flight by flight, this place becomes my own again.

Before we begin to board, I rush off to the restroom. I love the big mirrors in airport bathrooms. They’re always dirty and scratched but honest. Another thing to do if you’re bored in an airport is to find one and look at yourself. Truly take in what you look like. It’s easier to forget than I realized.

Have you ever walked past a mirror and seen someone you don’t recognize? Or have you ever seen a photo of yourself that made you do a double-take? Or listened to a friend tell a story about you that you cannot recall a single bit of? Do you ever forget what you look like? Do you ever forget who you are?

As I look into the mirror, I do not see the same flaws I saw months ago. With my short wavy hair and bright eyes, I see an image of me as a little girl who smiled at strangers and saw the best in everyone.

Now I stand taller. My arms and back look strong and sturdy. I cannot be blown down. Isn’t it amazing how I have gotten here? Through all the early mornings where I cried until I ran out of tears, I did not know I was creating the pool my soul would be baptized in. I am new again.

How do you peel the shadow of another human off of you? How do you end something you thought never would?

Maybe because ending it is the only way something better can ever begin. Like Confucius once said, “We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.”

EMMY PARLIN ’24

Jerusalem HANNAH GILHEANY ’24

What they don’t tell you about Jerusalem is dancing through the dead dusty walls, to a kind of song you never heard but grows deep in your bones, the hum Women on street corners will open their hands to you, your eyes too young to avoid her own, deep brown under shrouds and you will wonder why they are flooded. Later, under arching ceilings of churches, you light your own candle, a singular dream in the orange city blaze Centuries of wildfires at the tips of little girl fingers, hued watercolors of faces waiting to be known, to be made beautiful in your mind. This, the unfurling, the open new world where the old seeps through dry sunbeams Every sharp corner kissed away by footsteps, now yours too.

LEAH HORGAN ’25

The T-Dock

VINCENT VON DER FORST ’25

This is the place where I call my family—like some kind of radio antenna the place where my eyes watch the tides fly by, fall to winter to spring to end where I look up to the white stars and the bright sun looks down on me

This is the place where I fall asleep over an English reading assignment the place where I jump into the freezing teal, only three more times to go where I have the deepest and most fun talks

This is the place where tears are shed, for good and for bad and soon for both the place where my thoughts are free where all my secrets are known

This is the place where I truly arrived This is the place where I will return

I fear here was my home.

You Said You Had a Bone to Pick

CLAIRE LOUISE POSTON ’24

This April and you weren’t kidding, The day I got so tired I forgot what was mine

Four teeth left to hang dry, But still chattering the same song.

You called to say me gone is like arm right from the socket, Call it ghost limb, and I send my thoughts and prayers

To the God of the in-between

Like tongue through not-there baby tooth,

Hallelujah, you are so real.

My mouth is full of veins like strings untied.

OLIVIA PERRY ’24

Stillness

GIBSON HURTT ’24

As our boat slid across the water on a foggy February afternoon, the sensation that grabbed my attention was stillness. The boat surged forward with every stroke, its momentum swinging handles into chests and bodies into the bow. Fog hung thick and cold above the water’s surface and our bow pierced through it. As my oar’s blade slipped under the water’s surface I felt the weight of the pond pressing against it and on each push we projected our shell into the mist.

I never remember the first lap of the pond. While my body remembers how to move in the boat, my mind remains on shore. As I try to find the boat’s rhythm my life on the other side of the dock proves to be an obstacle. By the end of the warmup, however, I reach a point where my attention is limited to almost exclusively the task at hand. My thoughts are no longer verbalized; I experience the world differently.

I whisked through the fog and the whole world was right there. It takes limitations to truly experience a moment. I was fogged in and just tired enough and the rest of my life dissolved until there was only the boat, the water, the clammy mist rushing around me, and the next stroke. I found the stillness there. I felt it and saw it and heard it and it wouldn’t have been perceptible without all those senses. Before I began to lean forward for the next stroke I could feel the undisturbed charge of the boat, right at the moment of its greatest acceleration and balance. The only sound in that instant was the muted sizzle of water against the hull of the boat, as though it were boiling.

Annie Dillard describes verbalizing an experience by comparing it to a blind man needing a radio at a baseball game. To notice the world around them one must tell themself what they are experiencing in order to process it like the announcer describes the ballgame. A purer form of understanding stimuli, however, is available when that verbalization never happens. I never named what I felt in between each stroke that afternoon as our boat cut through the fog. I was too occupied with the act of rowing to bother.

There was no way I could ever stop the seven rowers behind me whenever I noticed something beautiful. The way tiny droplets of fog sat on the surface of the water fascinated me nonetheless. These observations flowed into my consciousness and then back out as quickly as they came with each stroke.

Calling

SOPHIE MO ’24

The party-goers already found home in the crowd. There’s a moment of fleeting panic as the music plays too loud, before your ears become attuned to the bass, and the need for words and reading lips diminishes into the rhythm of swaying hips.

Too much skin and too much sweat amass on too many bodies. Their faces painted with lights momentarily, then back into the darkness again.

I don’t think they’re searching for something, at least not anymore. They’ve already found, in the tiniest of spaces, the most freedom.

Watching something too fast from the balcony makes the people dance in slow motion. How elegantly those arms can stretch, not too far until one's fingers will find someone else.

I watch their hands spread open as if to say Won’t you join me? then close again to say Now hold on.

I’ve rewatched it many times but I think I’ll stay here.

In the middle of darkness, The lights will find me.

SATCHEL

The Andrean 2024

EDITORS

Fiction: Caroline Adle ’24, Cy Karlik ’24

Poetry: Hannah Gilheany ’24, Claire Louise Poston ’24

Nonfiction: Angela Osaigbovo ’24, Mary Troy ’24

Art: Katia Papadopoulos ’24

FACULTY ADVISOR

Alec Hill ’12

DESIGN DIRECTORS

Caroline Adle ’24

Amy Kendig

The Andrean is supported by the Amanda Leyon ’95 Memorial Fund for Creative Writing.

Amanda Leyon was born in 1977 and entered St. Andrew’s as a III former in 1991. At SAS, Amanda was a member of the girls’ soccer and lacrosse teams, participated in Model UN, volunteered at Silver Lake Elementary School, and wrote for the Andrean. In the summer of 1994, Amanda and her friend lost their lives in a car accident on Route 301 near Millington, Maryland. That year, Amanda’s parents, grandparents, and friends established the Amanda Leyon Memorial Fund. Part of the memorial fund was used to create a garden reflection spot on the bank of Alumni Point (behind the Trapnell House). This was named Amanda’s Lookout in her honor, and Amanda’s poem “Snow Geese” is preserved there.

At graduation each year, the Amanda C. Leyon ’95 Prize for Creative Writing is awarded to a senior with the following description: “The Amanda C. Leyon Prize for Creative Writing, given by her classmates in memory of Amanda C. Leyon ’95, to the student who has excelled in creative writing.”

St. Andrew’s School

350 Noxontown Road

Middletown, Delaware 19709