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the lab review volume 2, issue 2 Faculty Advisor Eric May
Chief Editor
Melaina de la Cruz
Associate Editors
John Stadelman, Alexandria Baisden, John Setzco, Dahazee Flores
Layout
Cover Design
Melaina de la Cruz Adam Mayer
Department of Creative Writing Faculty
Randy Albers, Jenny Boully, CM Burroughs, Garnett Kilberg-Cohen, Don De Grazia, Lisa Fishman, Re’Lynn Hansen, Ann Hemenway, Gary Johnson, Aviya Kushner, David Lazar, T. Clutch Fleischmann, Aleksander Hemon, Eric May, Patricia Ann McNair, Joe Meno, Nami Mun, Audrey Niffenegger, Samual Park, Alexis Pride, Matthew Shenoda, Shawn Shiflett, Tony Trigilio, David Trinidad, Sam Weller. The Lab Review, a journal of student writing, is published online by the Publishing Lab through the Creative Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago, on a semi-annual basis. Fiction, creative nonfiction, stories in graphic form, poetry, visual art, and photography, were submitted by students for consideration. Visit us online at thelabreview.com for past issues, and to link to our sister sites for market research, book reviews, as well as industry interviews and videos. For information on studying creative writing: http://www.colum.edu/Academics/CreativeWriting/ Copyright © 2016 Creative Writing Department
Editor’s Note:
Spring has become synonymous with change and the bloom of things that died out in the cold. Thus, it’s fitting that we introduce our first issue of this semester with a collection of fresh writing from a wide range of student authors, both graduate and undergraduate. In here you will find work which explores music and noise, death and decay, angry sex and calico cat cults. This particular issue will take you on a strange journey through the absurd and the harshly realistic, then back again. The Publishing Lab is proud to produce such a surreal caricature of the innerworkings of the Department of Creative Writing. We aim to create change, but we’d also like to hold onto to some of what keeps us odd.
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-Melaina Krsitine de la Cruz
contents poetry boys|Emily Bieniek new| Claire Doty
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romeo and juliet could have handled their situation better| Taylor Pitts . . . . . . 12 handscapes| Taylor Pitts
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the sound| Laurel Hauge
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the guitar fellow |Tyrell Collins
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earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust| DeLaynna Corley . . . . . .
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creative nonfiction
fiction just wait and see| Emma LaSaine
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the red wall | Will Grant
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dreamhouse (7)| Adam Mayer
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photography
dreamhouse (16)| Adam Mayer
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boys| Emily Bieniek To the girl I once was, and still am None of the chiseled bodies who ever touched mine deserve to be called men. Boys With pathetic attempts at facial hair and rough hands that know a game controller better than a woman’s body. Suck his dick while his moans, sounding more like a dying walrus than any sort of human in ecstasy, fill the tiny apartment. But he stopped eating women out in 2008. He’ll thrust mercilessly from any angle on any surface in any place so long as he reaches his pinnacle. All of this to never hit that alleged spot within you (scientists continue to argue its existence) None of the chiseled bodies who ever touched mine deserve to be called men, but everyone woman I’ve caressed deserves a woman, not a girl like me.
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Dreamhouse|Adam Mayer
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new| Claire Doty
I remember her approaching me hair a cascade of brambles, gilded she’s an amazon in Toyland she breathes smooth, like medium roast coffee ground just right appraises me, a familiar dog molten eyes puffed out heart she bounces against me in a way that I want to she speaks, and my joy listens friends are found in loud space and the ones truly listened to stick.
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earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dawn to dusk| DeLaynna Corley
The first time I saw a dead person, I laughed. I was seven or eight years old and I was at my great-grandmother’s funeral. The service was all day and took place on the island of Nevis, where my mom’s ancestors come from and where half of them still reside. The island is just a spec barely seen on a map. A jagged circle that takes about forty-five minutes to drive all the way around the entire landmass. It’s mostly sand and bright green trees, with restaurants spewing the smell of roasted sugar cane and seasoned jerk chicken, and houses ranging from big mansions to tiny shacks with colorful roofs. High above the people are volcanos I am sure will erupt every time I visit, but my family always tell me they haven’t in more than a hundred years. I never believe them. On top of a hill sat the church that held the funeral. I focused my eyes, through the stained glass window, on the tip of one of the volcanos. I waited for it to burst until it was time to look at my great-grandmother lay in a coffin before she would be barred in the sand and soil. Her skin was glossy and the color of almonds. She had on a short wig that was blacker than grey and I can’t remember the pattern of the dress draped on her lifeless body, besides that it matched the flowers in the buckets placed around her. I never met her, but I was told pictures of my older sister and I were sent to her, so she knew who we both were, but only in captured stills. It was hard to believe that the dead looked like that. The only understanding I had about death at this time was that when you’re dead, well, you’re not alive. To me, that meant that recess, cartoons, and the pain of your mom hot combing your hair bone straight before coming to this funeral would be no more. The only thing left in the dead was nothing, and that nothing was something I didn’t grasp. I tried to see if my great-grandmother’s chest would move up and down gently with every breath, but it didn’t. She
laid there away from all of us. When I sat back down beside my sister who refused to look, the giggle burst from my gut up to my mouth and not even my tiny fingers could contain it. I knew it wasn’t right, but I couldn’t help myself. Not even when I tried to focus on all my relatives wiping their tears and praying their pain away. I tried to shake away the image of this empty person. I didn’t want death to defeat me in the ways it did for others around me at that moment. So I laughed at it, trying to display my bravery in armor camouflaged in chuckles. My sister told me to stop. “You can’t laugh at dead people,” she said with a slight smile. She gave me a piece of gum that she took from my mom’s purse, to control myself. It worked. The sun blazed down as I walked behind the pallbearers. One hand holding my mom’s and the other my sister’s. There are no special machines to crank down the deceased like in America. Only family members who volunteered gently put the coffin in and then piled the dirt on top. While the pastor was saying a prayer, heads bowed, and hands fanned themselves to bear the heat. I looked down the hill at the ocean. Nothing was in sight, not even a boat. I remember it looked like we were the only piece of land left on earth, surrounded by the sea. There was no more laughter in me. I convinced myself that my great-grandmother was the sea and every time it smacked the shore it would be her heartbeat. With each beat, I concentrated on my own. I never cried. I just told myself that maybe “nothing ever really dies.” ... South Bend, Indiana, is where my dad, my sister, and I were born. I don’t remember much about it, besides that it’s the place where my dad grew up, made his best friends and met my mom. It’s not a rich place, but only a region filled with the spirits of modest lifestyles who spend their time devoted to the Notre Dame Football team as if it were a religion. From the moment my family packed up and left for my dad’s new job on my fifth birthday, nothing about that place has changed. The same mall stands strong and the doctor who delivered my dad, sister, and I still works at the hospital down the road from it. There, my favorite restaurant hangs pictures of the late Latina singer, Selena, on grease-stained walls and sells the best gyros in town. And there, the ones I have loved the most have died. My Grandpa Cleo’s funeral was held on Halloween day in South Bend, Indiana. There weren’t that many people coming to say their goodbyes and most of them I have never met until that day. The sky was grey and not a cloud moved. We waited for the service to begin while short hellos and condolences for my 8|
families loss circulated the small room. I watched my dad’s stoic eyes rest easy as thoughts that I could never guess rummaged through his mind. Behind me, my grandma told others how my Grandpa Cleo died. A sheriff found him on the couch a week after his heart had finally stopped beating. Nothing but his old television set, which he never let my dad replace because of his pride, watching him before he was found. His favorite show, something in black and white, played on a dusty screen with a picture of my sister and I as babies in his arms, resting on top of the antenna. Crinkled and frameless, just like I remember. There was no casket to set my eyes on because Grandpa Cleo was cremated. There was no person left behind in order to ease us of the pain that there could be something to hang on to, so my eyes settled on fake pots of plants and the obituary resting on my lap. The front page held a picture of my Grandpa Cleo smiling brightly, a happy gleam in his dark brown eyes, and soft grey sprinkled like snow on his head. I had grown out of laughing at dead people and I didn’t even need gum to help me. After the preacher spoke his last words, my mom stood outside and made small talk with as many people as she could before she checked on my sister. It was two days before her 21st birthday. My sister feels emotions deeply. She held herself in the cold car, taking in the pain, letting it wrap around her. Inside, I grabbed my dad’s hand, never letting go, and stood next to him as he greeted every family member and friend. I said, “Hi,” whenever my dad cued me to do so and we squeezed each other’s hands every now and then like we were speaking in Morse code. Squeeze—I love you, you’re not alone. Hard squeeze—your *insert family member* got *insert adjective in regards to their appearance*. Three short squeezes—God, I cannot wait to leave this place and get a gyro. On the day I found out my grandpa died, the rain that poured felt like slices of ice. I was a freshman in college and I had to read about his passing from my sister on a text message in class because I missed her calls. When I got back to my dorm, I faced the brick wall on my bed. I inhaled the dusty rocks over and over again until I couldn’t vision the words anymore. I closed my eyes and listened to the rain crash against my window in the dark. The street lamps left a soft glow of yellow stripes entering through my blinds above my head. I drifted to sleep and ignored the tears tickling the bridge of my nose. When my sister and mom came to get me, later that night, we greeted each other with long hugs under the frigid rain then drove to South Bend to meet my dad at my Uncle Larry’s house. Two days before the funeral, my sister, my grandma, and |9
I sat on the couch trying to come up with words that described seven decades of his life in a couple of paragraphs for the obituary. My sister looked through old photographs beside me that would complement the words that I wrote. As we passed down each photo in an assembly line, my grandma had a story that went with every picture. A piece of notebook paper sat on my lap with a pen dangling from my fingers. I couldn’t find the right words to put down. My grandpa Cleo and I used to write letters every few weeks to one another. In colorful gel pens and Hello Kitty stationary, I explained moments of my days as a kid so he wouldn’t miss a thing. A week later, I would sit beside my father while he read what my grandpa wrote back to me because I couldn’t read cursive yet. He barely wrote about himself, talking about his comfortable days spent alone. My Grandpa Cleo asked questions about my day with each letter and on the last line, he wrote he missed me and loved me in each one. I hoped the things that I wrote to him were enough. I hoped that he knew that when the letters stopped and when phone calls became shorter because boys and reality shows became more important than writing letters, that I still loved him. I didn’t want to remember subtle moments of his life. I didn’t need his ashes sprinkled somewhere and his spirit lifting away in the wind like in the movies. I only wanted to hold our wrinkled letters of nothings we wrote to one another, because I realized that people die, but there will always be something left behind that won’t. ... The most beautiful funeral that I have ever been to was for my Uncle Jonathan. He was my dad’s best friend, me and my sister’s godfather, and he died from a heart attack when I was 15 years old. When I found out, all I could think about was the Rottweiler he owned and how I was terrified of it. It is the clearest memory I have of him. When I was a toddler I was left on a scratchy ottoman in Uncle Jonathon’s living room with a Popsicle in my hand. Uncle Jonathan was always a smooth character and when he saw my fear, he waved away my worry as if it was a bothering gnat and told me to not be afraid of the dog. “Fear was a waste of time,” he said playfully tapping my bony knees. He smiled at me, exposing his deep dimples. He then went in the garage with my dad for some beers. When the frozen treat dripped down my fingers, the dog came charging at me. I stood still and let the dog come. Facing. Waiting. Ready. I felt the warm lick of his tongue around my hand. I petted him and remembered feeling alive, both of our bodies breathing in the hot 10 |
house. My dad and his other best friends came together in South Bend with their families for Uncle Jonathan’s service. I watched my parents catch up with them under sad circumstances. The men ragged on each other’s hairlines, growing stomachs, and brought up the wild times they once had together. My mom and the other wives shook their heads, wondering if it would take another funeral to bring those hardheaded men together again. My sister and I questioned why it was such a nice day. Fall always bursts its last beauty until nature has nothing left. It almost seemed unfair that the bare branches and chilled wind were still beautiful to us on that day. On the way to bury Uncle Jonathan’s body, the streets stopped and honked their horns in remembrance. My uncle’s motorcycle posse formed a long procession, leading the rest of the cars to the cemetery around the roads as gently as the wind swirled the leaves in the air. The atmosphere blushed and the Sun got lower to the ground to meet Uncle Jonathan. Men in their navy blue uniforms stood around the coffin and saluted his service as a marine. I remember the sky was a sweet pale blue and I haven’t seen it like that ever since. I wasn’t afraid. I felt my body on the ottoman again. When the last flower was tossed to Uncle Jonathon on the ground, we called out our goodbyes that were caught by heaven. I knew that when people die, spring will always show and the sun will rise.
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romeo and juliet could have handled their situation better| Taylor Pitts Our love will never die, Izaiha because I am a writer who is in love and I have seen too many characters die in a novel, cried over the deaths of people who were beaten by the “Big C” to ever let whatever this is die. Whatever this is because it’s been 4 years but I’m only 19 and have no idea what I’m doing. I’ll pre-tend. I’ll fill my blog with sappy quotes people holding hands couples kissing I’ll agree that JLo is the best looking famous “Jennifer” after agreeing that Jennifer Garner is the least I’ll be the little spoon while you lay on my hair pretending it doesn’t hurt. Does love mean letting you touch my butt whenever you want? Does love mean spending Saturday nights watching Breaking Bad on Netflix? You take up more than just half of the bed and sometimes I don’t mind and when you ask where your jeans are talking in your sleep I don’t mind either. I am a hopeless romantic in love and no, it is not just a good blog title. My 4page love letter will reach you in time with details of our semi-erotic plan before you can spoil it by dying.
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handscapes| Taylor Pitts
handscapes i watched as the pencil between your red fingertips marked the page with your sketches like ancient aztec stone carvings hands moving lazily across the page like a bag drifting across the pavement on a empty street marble-smooth skin on the back of your hand stretched over your knuckles when you were done two hands, black & white like mine & yours you were my anchor in a sea of clouds to pull me back i was your blinding world of light in your life of silhouettes you were reaching for me but you stopped short like
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just wait and see | Emma LaSaine
There was no more joy in Marie Stain’s face. The weary years had snatched away every bright speck like trinkets, leaving only cloudy eyes and sagging flesh that composed her sorrow. And now Marie stood morosely under an oak tree, heavy with snow, and watched the edge of her daughter’s property disappear into the wild Michigan woods that only seemed to belong to someone. “Ma, will you stop?” Tracy, her daughter, had demanded only an hour before at the dinner table, the husband—a hulk of hops and flesh—watching blearily with a lush’s red-tinted eyes. “Will you just for once let us get through a meal in peace?” Wind rattled in the chimney of the brick fireplace at the far end of the dining room, and the flames hissed. The row of brothers-in-law masticated dumbly on. But the baby, a fat, red thing that Marie regarded with suspicion whenever they left her alone with him, scowled at his grandmother, as if disavowing their blood bond. And yet the old woman couldn’t seem to care anymore— her daughter had ceased years ago to make anything but a token effort toward Marie, perhaps because the old woman’s unhappiness frightened Tracy (who was, by all accounts, young and content herself, but who had a nagging inkling that disquiet might brood within her still-lactating chest, should she take the time to look for it). Marie’s transgression, this time at least, had been to suggest that they oughtn’t invite her along when they didn’t want her at their table. Tracy, who had taken particular offense, keenly felt the watching eyes of her husband John’s family—the three sisters all of whom had not, in fact, retained the sort of baby weight that clung to Tracy’s hips and thighs. Something in those six green eyes suggested that perhaps Tracy had not done right by her mother—a suggestion that Tracy resented since god knows she had tried, even when Marie was in a mood. Though Tracy felt the effort fulfilled her end of the bargain, Marie begrudged any notion that it was a bargain at all—that she was obligated to cheer up and feel the holiday spirit and eat the turkey without silently pondering how quickly she would meet her fate if one of John’s hunting rifles were pointed clumsily at her head. 14 |
“Peace!” Marie snorted. “The idea. There’s no peace on this earth.” “Ma, please—” Tracy started as the sisters-in-laws’ green eyes expanded like swelling grapes. “Only one at this table who’s got a little peace is him,” Marie jabbed a gnarled index finger at the half-devoured turkey carcass. Involuntarily Tracy remembered what her mother had said when, in the seventh grade, she’d made the mistake of reading a report on Of Mice and Men aloud in the living room, pacing back and forth on pink sock-clad feet and fancying herself an English major at some faraway college gleaming with prestige. Back then she remembered how to dream. Beaming over clever turns of phrase and thoughtful analysis printed in her girlish handwriting, the first throws of a story washed over her. Tracy had all but lost herself when Marie found her. Tracy tried to snatch up the book, strewn on the coffee table, its spine peaking up at the ceiling, but her mother got to it first. Marie opened the book, scanned the page. Tracy held her breath. “Well,” Marie held the book up, as if the page actually held the picture of Lenny and George, gun between them, that both she and Tracy could all but see, “you’d better put me out of my misery like that someday or I’ll take matters into my own hands. You just wait and see, Tracy Grace.” “Ma, please,” Tracy said in a voice tiny as the mice that scampered through the pages of the book. “Your father wasn’t strong enough to do it,” Marie told her daughter, still holding up Of Mice and Men like courtroom evidence. “You know, the damn coward went and got himself shot in Atlantic City. Didn’t even ask me if I wanted to come along.” “Please don’t,” Tracy whispered. “I’ll tell him off for it someday,” Marie declared. “Just you wait and see.” Seeing the resolve in her mother’s eyes, Tracy set her English paper down very quietly and began a sheet of algebra homework, thinking that, perhaps, cold numbers would not rile her mother into a suicidal frenzy. Marie just squeezed the book until the cover tore a little then threw it down on the red Oriental rug and stormed out of the room. In college Tracy settled on accounting, settled on John a few years later, married him and procreated in an act of quiet desperation, all the while telling herself that she was practical, happy, and hardly her mother. Even though all the development experts sang books’ praises, Tracy never read anything aloud to her son, except when she knew for a fact that the whole house | 15
was empty. She didn’t feel safe if anyone knew. In fact, as soon as the baby uttered his first word, Tracy had decided, she would stop reading to him entirely, so that not even he couldn’t take what she said the wrong way. ... Now Marie’s thin slippers were soaked as she stared into the blood-orange sunset slipping beneath its comforter on the horizon. Her scraggly gray hair flapped in the wind and her flabby arms peeked out from the short-sleeved nightgown she wore. It was cold, but the house with its roaring fire and fleece-lined blankets was a child’s toy in the background and Marie’s arms were already numb. She couldn’t feel her feet either, couldn’t feel her legs or her frosty cheeks. She wondered if she’d be blue when they found her. “I bet they won’t even cry,” Marie told the looming night. “I bet they’ll shove my ashes in a shoebox and burry it beneath jars of beets and pickled eggs and forget me entirely. I bet that baby won’t even remember the sound of my voice.” ... Tracy listened to the drunken laughter emanating from the basement, where her husband and his sisters and their husbands and rosy-cheeked children were all sprawled in front of the TV. It rang out like the discordant bells on the little chapel where she’d married John back when she could still fit into a size four little white dress, very mod, and her platinum-bleached hair fell in foamcurler waves down her back. It had felt easier to laugh back then, easier to drink and dance and pretend she didn’t have doubts about the man who wore her wedding ring. Sometimes she still looked at pictures of that day and wondered if she hadn’t been in too much of a rush to prove to the world, to herself, to her mother that she, Tracy Grace Hagen, was happy. Her baby lay before her, his fat chins puckering like frills on a Victorian petticoat. Tracy didn’t know if her son was beautiful like she believed, but she hoped he would at least be docile like John, a lump of flesh, smiles, and heartbeat that Tracy could love gently until she slipped away in her sleep at ninety-nine. “Once upon a time,” she whispered, not even sure what she was doing as she said the words, “there was a boy named Dean who lived in an enchanted tea cup the size of the Taj Mahal....” The baby regarded her with what seemed like a glimmer of curiosity in his murky brown eyes. Tracy took another breath, leaned closer and cleared her throat. “And he had wings,” she continued. 16 |
... Marie couldn’t feel her torso now, or hear the steady thump-thump-thump-thump from within. She leaned heavily against the tree and her stiff skin caught on the rough bark. She took another breath, gasping it in as she slipped down to sitting in the snow. It wouldn’t be long now. Would wolves or stray dogs find her first? Would it be gruesome? She could picture Tracy’s careful placidity interrupted with shock and horror as she regarded the mangled body of her elderly mother strewn in pieces through the snow—here a limb, there an ear, a few fingers sticking up from the red-brown pools of blood. Yes, it wouldn’t be long now.... ... “And the princess and Dean flew through the sky, which was the color of strawberries all day long, past the herds of unicorns, and through the gumdrop city until they landed once more in front of the palace where crowds of people had gathered to congratulate them on their successful quest,” Tracy could almost see excitement in her son’s pudgy face now. She wasn’t even subduing her voice, wasn’t even keeping her hands from sweeping dramatic gestures through the air above his crib. “And the princess said—” “Trace, what are you doing?” She turned to see John standing in the doorway, yet another beer in his hand. Tracy went red, mortified, and shrugged, but John just kept watching her with his small, piggish eyes narrowed into slits. She could see cranberry sauce dribbled down the front of his shirt. She’d have to wash it before the stain set in. “I’m sorry,” Tracy mumbled, even though she wasn’t exactly sure what she was apologizing for. “Where’s your mother?” John asked, looking around like he’d find Marie tucked into some corner of the room. “I haven’t seen her in a while.” “She went for a walk,” Tracy said wearily. She could already feel the shame and regret bubbling inside herself, just wait until everyone heard how she’d been making up ridiculous stories about princesses and flying boys. Her mother would give her a look, Tracy was sure, that said, What a remarkable waste, you and me both. Tracy couldn’t bear that thought. “You sure?” John asked, “It’s getting cold out there. Supposed to snow again tonight.” “Yeah,” Tracy said, smoothing her baggy mom-jeans, “She’ll be back soon enough. Let’s serve the pie.”
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the sound| Laurel Hauge
No one designed the sound of a plastic bag, the parameters were that it holds what you can’t and that it’s cheap. But nobody said noisy.
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the guitar fellow | Tyrell Collins Vitality of the room took hold. A dance attack illuminated. The vibrant, upscale swinging club. Dwellers even gave it a whirl. Turning the corner, I ambled along on 1st and Love Street. Underground stood The House of Blues, With an aroma of dusk, Perfumed in tobacco, Where the pit of lost souls cling. I whispered in ear, A request to the dread headed man playing the six string. Madness burt out of the chords. Key notes harmonized. The rhythm— A natural reoccurrence, Like listening to Billie Holiday’s “I’m a Fool to Want You” Everyone’s heart’s bleeding, Like a leaky faucet. Scarlet, Splattered, Stacked. The night was branded “Broken.” His wrist arched, His fingers— Vertically in motion, Maintained the groove. When the crescendo ended, He didn’t stop. Progression still in tact. It was honest. When the spotlight faded, It didn’t matter—he just kept playing.
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the red wall | Will Grant
I stood at the bottom, staring up at the towering red wall. The wooden ladder pressed tight against it. It appeared to be old and worn down, small caverns in the sides where the wood had separated. To my left and right stood more ladders with men at the bottom preparing themselves for the long climb. The gentleman to my left looked down at his hands as he rubbed the palm of one over the top of the other. They were cracked like the ladder, dry skin pulling at the wispy hairs sticking out of his long shirt sleeve. The man on my other side was kneeling to pray. He had crouched to his knees and was resting his tightly gripped hands against the third rung of the ladder. I could see his lips sliding together and apart quickly, a whispered prayer being sent up to the heavens that resided even higher than the wall before us. There was suddenly a sound from above, an alarm screaming out, and with it we all stepped forward and began to climb. It started out easy. We all moved quickly up the rungs one by one, a line of bodies ascending up the wall. The clunk of boots against wood filled the air as we climbed higher. Wind swirled around my head, whipping past my neck and rustling my hair. I fell into a steady rhythm with my fellow climbers. We continued to climb for twenty minutes. The wear and tear of the ladder lessened the higher we got. Each rung became smoother and easier to grip. The man to my right picked up his pace the higher we climbed until he was several feet ahead of me. The man to my left, who had slipped his shirt sleeves over his hands at the beginning of the climb, now wrapped his bare hands around each rung. After another few minutes the clouds parted and I saw the top of the wall. It was topped off at a sharp edge that cut into the sky. As I approached the end of the ladder, I reached my hand up and pulled myself over it. I rested face down on the ledge for a moment, breathing deeply, my heart pounding in my chest. I was finally at the top. Stretching my arms out at my sides, I felt empty air fill both of my sweaty palms.
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Finally, I stood up and looked over the opposite side of the ledge and outward. It wasn’t a wall. I and my fellow gentlemen stood around the edge of an enormous red bucket. We stood at intervals of ten feet around the edge, decorating the wide rim. Each man stood panting, many bent over their knees trying to catch his breath. The man at my right whispered another prayer, mostly likely one of thanks. My left hand man was circling his wrists back and forth as he stared into the bottom of our bucket. I peered over the edge of the rim, down into the depths below us. At the base of the bucket, over fifty calico cats pawed back and forth. Some lounged in the curves, highlighted by a warm, red glow. They peered around at each other curiously. There were several pairings that stood across from each other hissing. Many were playing the loner, bathing themselves with soft, slow licks. None of them seemed to notice the group of men above their heads. I looked around at the gentlemen around me to see what they thought of the little clowder. They appeared unfazed, indifferent to this revelation. They collected themselves and shared brief greetings with their climbing partners. I watched the cats slip around the bottom of the bucket until another alarm sounded. It was louder than the first one, closer, but I still couldn’t see its source. The men around me straightened themselves as we stepped up to the edge. A man on the opposite side of the bucket made a gesture that I couldn’t quite make out. The man next to him did the same. Then the next man. The gesture slowly made its way through the long line of men. Ten men in, I could see that they were doing something to the front of their pants. Twenty men in, it focused on the crotch. Thirty men in, and I could finally see the full gesture. Each man was pulling out his johnson, a stream of urine flowing from the end. They were peeing into the bucket. I looked down to see what the cats were making of this event. All the cats were on their feet now. The clowder divided itself into groups around the spots were the warm yellow fluid was pooling. The cats at the center of each group bent their heads, licking up the liquid sunlight. The cats behind them were trying to push their way through the herd, receiving an occasional hiss from the front row. Every now and then one of the men lost their aim and the thin waterfall landed on the head of an unsuspecting cat, earning a frightened shiver.
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The row of men continued to undo their pants and pull out their members. There was an obvious sigh as the fluid was expelled from their bodies. When the movement reached my left-hand man, he followed along and brought out his wrinkled pink soldier. Nothing came out right away. The man stood there for a moment, eyes closed, waiting for inspiration. His cracked hands shook their small occupant, most likely scratching it in the process. Finally a soft dripping began, dropping into the bucket at a rhythm similar to Beethoven’s Fifth. Tap, tap, tap, it went; coming out at shorter intervals. Eventually he reached a full, steady stream and a satisfied grin spread across his face. Then it was my turn. I undid the button on my jeans and pulled down the zipper. Out came my hose. Almost instantly I pissed a long stream of lemon water. As with the others, I too felt the satisfaction of emptying the bladder. Following the river downhill, I watched as it fell right between two groups of cats. The members on the outside of both groups quickly turned around and licked away at my gift to them. I looked away from my own fluids to notice the man to my right. Without hesitation, he yanked out his pale, thin dong. He immediately started shooting a thick, heavy stream out the end. His face lit up. Fountains of urine continued to sprout up around the circle, each man playing his part. Finally, all the cats were happily licking away at their own puddle. The streams flowed openly until finally the cats stopped drinking. One by one they walked away in search of a spot to lounge that was dry and away from the crowd of piss-lickers. The only free spot was at the center of the bucket. The cats migrated into a large mass, crowding around one another. Spreading themselves out, they created a pile similar in shape to the sun above our heads. Our flows dribbled out into nothing. Once they finally ceased, we gave our sticks a gentle shake and slid them back into their cases. A zip and a snap later and we were back to regular form. Everyone smiled at one another in a sign of good work. A few hands were shook and shoulders pat. One of the men made a smiling comment to another and gently tapped the front of his pants. The man on my left shook his hands back and forth as if he were trying to get the blood circulation back into them. My friend to the right smiled wide, appearing more relaxed than at the beginning of our time together. He glanced up at the sky and winked. His prayers apparently answered. As one, we turned around and proceeded down our ladders. Chatter filled the air as we descended.
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Dreamhouse|Adam Mayer
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contributor biographies Emily Bieniek is a student at Columbia College Chicago. Tyrell Collins is a Master’s of Fine Arts Candidate in the Department of Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago. He graduated Cum Laude from Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana with a B.A. in English and minor in Psychology. He has publications in the International Library of Poetry: Editor’s Series and in the Stars of Our Hearts: Findings poetry collection from the World Poetry Movement. He has served as an editor for his undergraduate literary journal The Dillard Review, a Journal of Arts & Letters and currently serves as an assistant managing editor for Columbia College Chicago’s Punctuate: A NonFiction Magazine. DeLaynna Corley is from Ypsilanti, Michigan, and currently a senior at Columbia College Chicago, from which she will be graduating in the spring of 2016. She is majoring in Creative Writing: Nonfiction with a minor in Television Writing. When she is not in Chicago for school, she lives with her family (who are mostly the subjects of her writing and luckily, have not disowned her yet because of it). Recently her lyrical piece “For Alan” was featured in The Lab Review 2.1 Issue and one of her short stories, “Motel 6,” was featured in the New Mexico Review Spring Issue 2015. When she isn’t writing, she is watching everything and anything on TV, getting lost in a YouTube vortex, or finding something to eat. DeLaynna writes whenever the sun goes down while watching HSN or Family Guy on mute. Claire Doty is a student studying creative writing (fiction and poetry) and theatre design (set design and lighting design). Claire was first published in 5th grade in an anthology and has published poetry through high school publications and now in collegiate publications. Will Grant is one semester away from graduating from Columbia College Chicago where he’s studying Creative Writing and Photography. He enjoys writing about people, places, and things. When not writing or photographing, he enjoys eating broccoli and finding ways to meet Anna Kendrick. 24 |
Laurel Hauge 1. Likes to make art about things people don’t think about. 2. Loves the racks that go inside of dishwashers. 3. Is an undergraduate senior in the photography program with a concentration in fine art. 4. Is a sad girl. Emma LaSaine is a BA Fiction Writing student at Columbia College Chicago. She an award-winning nonfiction writer, Fiction Editor for Habitat Magazine, and recipient of the 20132014 Honors Research Award. Emma enjoys teaching in the Story Workshop Method and will gladly debate any topic with you, even usage of the Oxford Comma. Her writing appears in BORGEN Magazine, The Borgen Project Blog and Slacktivism (forthcoming). Adam Mayer transferred to Columbia this past year, and studies his passion of photography with a concentration in fashion. Using bold colors and dramatic lighting, he strives to create evocative and alluring images. Though a hobby since high school, in just this first year of pursuing photography as a career, Adam has already worked with modeling agencies, jewelry and bag designers, professional creative teams, and has had his photographs published in magazines both in New York and internationally. Taylor Pitts is a native of Michigan, who moved to Chicago to attend Columbia College. She enjoys thrift shopping and hanging out with friends. This is her first publication.
note on the photography All photography featured in this issue, both on the covers and within them, was provided by Columbia College Chicago student, Adam Mayer.
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