Pillars of Salt Winter 2014

Pillars of Salt

Pillars of Salt Literary Magazine The Archer School for Girls Winter 2014

Editors: Grace Piccard Carly Winant Staff: Julia Chen Maria Gelabert Katie Hershey-Van Horn Mataya Josephson Sage Malecki Talia Natoli Emily Piccard Tracey Thompson Emily Ward Advisor: Brian Wogensen

Pillars of Salt 5

Talia Natoli ’17

Table of Contents

Cover, Shishi Shomloo........................................................................................................................................cover Untitled, Talia Natoli.........................................................................................................................................facing Ode to Brando, Athena Schlereth...............................................................................................................................4 Just 25 Minutes, Tracey Thompson.............................................................................................................................5 Photo, Katie Hershey-Van Horn..............................................................................................................................10 Vulnerability, Courtney Urbancsik............................................................................................................................11 Merso iv, Leah Doornink.........................................................................................................................................12 Untitled, India Halstead..........................................................................................................................................13 The Dream of Past, Present, and Future, Shishi Shomloo.........................................................................................14 Untitled, Athena Schlereth......................................................................................................................................15 Pearls, Grace Piccard................................................................................................................................................16 Deformities, Mataya Josephson................................................................................................................................17 Ode to Los Angeles, Emma Lapin...........................................................................................................................20 Untitled, Rachel Schneider......................................................................................................................................22 Satan in Stilettos, Carly Winant..............................................................................................................................23 The Corner of Westwood and LeConte, Emily Ward...............................................................................................26 Frozen Memories, Sage Malecki................................................................................................................................28 Untitled, Shishi Shomloo........................................................................................................................................29 The Immutability of Shame, Emily Piccard..............................................................................................................30 Untitled, Rachel Schneider......................................................................................................................................32 They’re Gone, Auveen Dezgaran...............................................................................................................................33 Webs, Emily Ward...................................................................................................................................................34 Untitled, Tara DiMaio.............................................................................................................................................36 Wolf Winter, Grace Piccard......................................................................................................................................37 Untitled, Athena Schlereth......................................................................................................................................40 Forging, Maria Gelbert............................................................................................................................................41 Untitled, Nelli Bryzgalova.......................................................................................................................................45 Images, Talia Natoli.................................................................................................................................................46 Untitled, Marcella Stanley........................................................................................................................................54 The Eastern Star, The Pillars of Salt Staff..................................................................................................................55 Untitled, Talia Natoli...............................................................................................................................................56

Ode to Brando Oh Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. You, Apollo of my heart, Inspire within me eternal flames.

It surely was your finest acting part.

You split the heavens searching for your Stella Your sultry shouts had spoken to my soul I wish that you would have called out “Athena!”

Your whiskey-tinged voice could burn a hole.

Because you had become obese and old, I cringed to see you in Apocalypse But age cannot restrict your smile of gold And time cannot betray your handsomeness I’ll always have your films to watch, adore Where you, young Marlon, live forevermore.

Athena Schlereth ’14

4 Pillars of Salt

Just 25 Minutes It all started in this run-down club in the heart of Queens that my godfather owns. It was filled to the brim with post punk-alyptic Ramones wannabes. The kind that wear skinny jeans that are closer to leggings and sport a healthy dosage of guy liner. It’s the type of crowd where I look around and can’t help but think, “ah yes, these are my people.” Not that I’m punk rock so to speak. I’m more of the uptight girl from Midtown, double majoring in raging maniac and control freak. But the heart longs to be what it longs to be.

I was sitting in the back of the club nursing a heavily non-alcoholic ginger ale. I was in charge of getting Henry home tonight. He was on the dance floor, no-doubt flirting with some shmoe of a band member. Hopefully he picked a guy with a car this time.

I flipped open my phone to check the time: 2:30. I was in no mood to sit in the back of a club drinking diet sodas for the next few hours. I decided it was about time that I left. I mean Henry always does this. He convinces me to go to some club with shit bands, and then ditches me for the closest warm body he can grope. A word of advice: be careful whom you choose as childhood friends; you tend to be stuck with them.

The band that was playing just finished. Their performance sported the usual angry fast beat of the same four chord progressions. Their name was something along the lines of Le Tigre’s More Attractive Older Cousin Le Panther.

They had a lead singer who not so much ended the performance with a fizzle but a bang, literally. The hands of the crowd were up and pumping to the beat of the song. The singer was hopping around the stage in a pair of leather pants that were definitely tight enough to lower his chances of ever being able to have children, and he belted out the last line of the chorus, “ARE YOU READY FOR ME?” He jumped out towards those pumping hands. It was like watching the red sea part for Moses. Needless to say, he was nursing his injuries with an ice pack while the next act played.

Pillars of Salt 5

I paid for my ginger ale, and got up to find Henry when I felt someone tap my shoulder. I turned around to see the drummer of the band that was just playing standing behind me. I’d been watching him while he played. He lacked the natural sense of rhythm and time to be a drummer but made up for it with intensity.

He was cute in a little puppy type of way, troublesome and desperately needing to be housebroken. His hair was stuck to his face from sweat, framing his rosy cheeks. He couldn’t have been more than a year or so older than me, probably around eighteen.

“Hi, I’m Tom,” he outstretched his hand to shake mine, a real gentleman. “And you need a drink.” The mass of people around the bar threw him against me. He leaned over me balancing himself on the bar counter.

I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could some girl pulled him back. She stood at the height of five-foot nothing and was made of pure anger.

She shrieked into his ear, “WHERE IS VLAD?” her fingers impatiently tapping her hips.

Tom shrugged, “I don’t know. Last time I saw him he was backstage packing up the speakers in the van.”

Van? I think I just found my ride.

The girl just rolled her eyes and fiddled with her eyebrow piercing, deciding whether or not to interrogate him more, and then stomped off.

“Great friend you got there. I mean she seems a little short tempered but…caring,” I said after a beat or two of silence.

“Oh Jen, she’s not so much short tempered as just short,” he responded.

I laughed, trying to be flirty; I sounded more like a dying jackal. I’ve practically come to prostitution to get a damn ride home. The things I do for Henry.

I stopped laughing because I saw Henry on the other side of the club.

He was talking to a man sporting what I have to say was the most voluptuous 6 Pillars of Salt

duo of a Hasidic man’s payis and a Mohawk I’d ever seen. Two drag queens flanked the man, and were playing with his payis, hanging on to every word Henry was saying. I turned back to Tom. “So where were we. Ah right, I was buying you a drink and you were falling madly in love with me,” he raised his hand to signal over the bartender.

“Was I now? Those horrible pick-up lines do make a girl thirsty,” I retorted.

He was about to respond when Henry came and plopped down next to me. The glitter on his face sparkled under the club’s dim lighting.

Henry looked at me, panic in his eyes and said, “Hello dearie. I’m in desperate need of a quick getaway, some duct tape, and clear nail polish if you have some. No time to explain; let’s just say I may have angered some drag queens and a Hasidic jew. You know, with the joke about when a Chinese man who walks into a-” I put my finger on his lips silencing him. “I know the one you’re talking about. That means we have about ten minutes before they find us, and you get put in a political correctness seminar.”

I turned to face Tom. “I guess those drinks are going to have to wait,” I pulled out my clear nail polish and handed it to Henry.

Tom was flirting with the bartender when I turned back around and interrupted, “Hey Michelle, do you by any chance have a spare roll of duct tape I could borrow?”

“Sure thing sweetie,” she said.

Henry gave me a look. “What? I made a friend,” I said.

“We’re so going to talk about how all you did tonight was drink soda at the bar, again. But more urgently, where are we going to get a ride,” he replied.

Tom interjected saying, “You need a ride? I think I can supply.”

Henry turned his head to inspect Tom. “Perhaps we won’t have to talk about the diet sodas. Good taste, dearie. He’s absolutely delectable.” Henry said.

Pillars of Salt 7

Tom grinned like he just found gold. “Why, thank you. Henry, is it?”

I scowled. “We’ll have time for a big ole flirt later. Where’s the goddamn car?”

I asked.

“What about the duct tape?” Henry asked.

“No time,” I said, following Tom to his car.

Tom led us through the crowd of people to the door leading to the back lot behind the club. Outside it was humid, the usual for August. There were some places that aren’t suitable for living and one of those places was New York during August. It’s the sort of weather where walking around is more or less easier than walking through a brick wall Tom stopped in front of, what charitably speaking, qualified as a van.

It looked like someone had decided to play Frankenstein with the car. It was two tons of machine that reinvented the term “screaming metal death trap.”

Tom started talking to his buddy who was loading band equipment in the van. I guess this guy was Vlad. Henry and I were standing there, waiting for Tom to give us the okay to get into the van, when I turned around to face the club’s back door. The door slammed open, and the Hasidic man who Henry was talking to earlier stepped outside, practically shooting steam out from his ears.

“HENRY. I THINK ONE OF THE GUYS FOUND US,” I screamed. Henry turned around to face the guy.

When the man saw Henry he bellowed, “I may be a Zionist but I’m no pacifist, bitch.”

“Look I didn’t mean any harm by what I was saying,” Henry said backing up slowly towards the van. Vlad hopped into the car trying to start the engine without much luck. Tom walked between the man and Henry.

“Listen. My friend here didn’t mean any harm by what he said. Why don’t we just keep things civil?” Tom said, trying to cool down the situation.

While he was talking, two leggy men teetered on their stilettoes out of the club towards us, anger in their eye-shadowed eyes.

Mischief flashed over Tom’s face. “Sorry,” he said to the man right 8 Pillars of Salt

before he sucker-punched the Hasidic man in the nose. He fell to the ground trying to stop the blood with one of his hands.

“GO GO GO GO GO,” Tom screamed as we all piled into the back of the van and Vlad drove off.

By the time we drove a couple blocks I figured we were safe. I laid my head against the wall of the van, closing my eyes and sighing.

“Where to, my little pretties?” Vlad called from the front seat. Henry had already crawled to the passenger seat, no doubt flirting with Vlad.

“West 29th and 9th street,” I replied before Henry could. Tom scooted next to me, trapping me between him and the wall.

“I don’t think I ever caught your name?” Tom said.

“Hard to catch something I’ve haven’t thrown,” I retorted, scooting closer to the wall in order to get away from him.

Tom smirked. “No harm in pitching a ball or two. Every one loves a good game.”

There was a foot between us.

I scoffed, “Shut up.”

There was six inches between us.

“Make me,” he responded.

There was three inch between us.

“Margo. My name’s Margo,” I said with two inches between us.

I yelled to Vlad with one inch between us, “Henry can choose where we go!”

Tracey Thompson ’16

Pillars of Salt 9

10 Pillars of Salt

Katie Hershey-Van Horn ’14

Vulnerability Under the beaming stage lights, Steeped in radiating energy, Synchronizing the breaths and united By harnessing a sole, collective qi.

Waiting before the silent crowd with their Blank faces staring straight with piercing eyes That strike victims with pointed spear Without defense, they stand exposed as prey.

A slip, a halt, or even extra breath Is not unseen by unremitting darts.

The frozen statues lifeless as in death.

The rush of silence intense with racing hearts.

Suddenly a subtle symphony stirs, The theater’s paralysis left a blur.

Courtney Urbancsik ’14

Pillars of Salt 11

Merso iv She swoons and sways beneath the blue-gray sea, Such darkness masks the ugly truth of night.

The siren’s maddening song steals her from me, Her lickéd skin that burns with diamond’s light.

So now, the summer’s sun, sweet paradise; Her shimmering shield subdues her war of mind.

The waves of sorrow, somber sleep suffice, So cruel the night leaves her, so cold and blind.

I often sit on shore to feel her breathe, My sanity leaves me with every swell.

The water nymph beckons me out to sea; She is the temptress that I know so well.

Like shattering glass before my maker’s eye, My sheening pieces float with siren’s cry.

Leah Doornink ’14

12 Pillars of Salt

Untitled The blue sea is ahead, Seagulls flying around my head.

I hear a plane from above.

I watch to see if my friends are in love.

The striped umbrellas and hard crashes, The chirps and wind, As well as the masses.

I look up from my book, And watch the fisherman pull A fish from his hook.

The pond behind is surrounded by houses, The farms are now ashes.

Yet I still sit and stare, To see if the sea salt will spray the tips of my hair.

To continue my dreams, And live them over in the land of cream.

India Halsted ’17

Pillars of Salt 13

The Dream Of Past, Present, and Future

I dreamt that I was sitting in my kitchen with the big windows and the gingham tablecloth that I’ll own that you’ll make fun of and I am drinking in the color of your skin with two sugar cubes the color of your teeth. And then you walk in and oh my god what do you mean your concealer doesn’t match the skin on your neck we’re going to your parents’ house tonight they can’t see that. You blushed the way you will and we’ll laugh as we go and get you a scarf because thankfully it will be cold so you can wear a scarf and you can borrow my scarf. And we’ll walk down to that river with the leaves falling on us like a preview to the snow that will eventually come because our house will be secluded an– wait no no not that river any river but that river and suddenly I am the river and I am looking up at you and I see you walking right on the edge (“you’re gonna fall into the water”) and I see the rocks give away as if they were bowing to a queen and you are falling – no, you are floating – in the air and then I am surrounding you the way I did and I am coursing through your veins and in your heart (thumpthump. thumpthump.) I see you in the negative space of my fingers, flitting by like a distant memory (do you remember how we met?) and then you are gone, (gone, gone) the way you were gone, the way you are gone, the way you will be gone. You are past, present, and future and you are sleeping on the riverbed, the bruises that the river left you – that I – left you, covering you like miserable kisses in my coffee cup.

Shishi Shomloo ’15

14 Pillars of Salt

Athena Schlereth ’14

Pillars of Salt 15

Pearls My mother wears a string of pearls around her neck. She takes them off and puts them in a green glass bowl in her bathroom. They are shiny like little moons, and I want to touch them, but I’m not allowed to. I want to touch something infinite but I can’t, so I look out the window and try to find the real thing behind the eucalyptus trees across the street.

At school we grow butterflies in a big net in the corner of the classroom, and one spring morning we release them onto the playground. The boys yell and chase them. Monica cries because she doesn’t want them to leave. I watch them fly like loose paper caught in a fan. They look too small against the bright blue sky, too weak to fly, wings like snowflakes and birthday-party confetti.

Ellen Jacobs and I sit in the shelter of the playground slide, and she asks me who I like. I tell her that I like lots of people. She says no, who do you like like, and I know instinctively that Harry Potter and James Kirk are not good answers because they’re not real, and she’s talking about flesh-and-blood boys who wear football jerseys to school and make spitballs out of paper towels in the bathroom during recess. Nobody, I say. Ellen Jacobs looks at me weirdly and says are you a lesbian, but I’m not sure what that means so I just say that I like being alone right now. But then she gets up and walks away, and I realize that I don’t really mean what I said.

Grace Piccard ’14

16 Pillars of Salt

Deformities

I never told anyone besides her that I love her. No one ever tells you that loving someone can make you hate yourself. She’d hurt me and then ask me why I love her. I used to say “I love you because you hate yourself enough for the both of us, darling.” She’d call my words beautiful, but they never felt beautiful enough to describe her. She called herself a spoon. Straight and then a dip. Perfect until it can no longer be. Spoon. It’s odd to compare the woman you love to silverware.

I can’t remember the first thing I said to her. How can I not remember something that changed my life? I remember her, though. More vividly than I wish to. Every time I close my eyes I see her face coming towards mine with a smile that never seemed completely genuine. I can see her chipped nail polish running through my hair until it was as messy as her life. Her black hair flowed down her back in waves she almost never had the energy to tame.

I feel her ring on the left hand middle finger, double banded and silver with patterned ridges.

She left scars. At 4 AM she woke me up with her dark blue blanket wrapped around her, wearing my sneakers. She dragged me to the roof and covered us up. It was the coldest night of the year. I asked her to come back to our bed and she ripped the blanket off us with no explanation. She danced around barely clothed in 16 degree weather. I tried to pull her in for warmth and she put her hand on my bare chest keeping me arms length.

“You don’t need me, love. Dance on your own.”

She was a pattern with no pattern. You knew she’d do something unpredictable, but never knew what it was.

I laid down. She demanded I danced, and I demanded she lie. I told her she moved too much. I told her one day she would just have to sit down.

She kept dancing. I grabbed her legs and pulled her down into my arms. She laughed.

Her laugh….

She settled down next to me.

Pillars of Salt 17

“It’s freezing” I said. You could hear the cold in my voice.

I didn’t hear anything but the white noise of the street. I turned on my side to look at her. I could feel the ice stick to my skin. I don’t remember the pain, though I know it was excruciating. I saw her white face turning blue like her eyes. She found the stars. You could never get her back once she locked eyes with the night sky.

I placed my arm around her because it doesn’t like to be anywhere else. I expected her to tell me she could keep herself warm as her breath came out as smoke. Instead she turned toward me.

“You love me.”

“You figured it out.”

She traced the outline of my face with her finger. We laid in silence for a while. I stopped noticing the cold.

Our bodies next to each other, looking at nothing but the freckle on her nose.

She put her arm under her face to shield from the ice, but I allowed mine to stay. For my face to become one with the ice. Clinging to it, wanting to freeze there, quite literally.

For a matter of minutes, she was mine and that was all you could ask of her.

Looking back she must of only been mine for a total of ten minutes of her life.

She looked away.

The cold rushed back to my body.

She grabbed my shoulders and sat me up, tearing my face from the ice. There was more blood than pain.

She reached for the blanket to stop the bleeding. We said nothing.

She kissed the open wound.

She smiled through her bloody purple lips.

“It’ll scar,” she said. She kissed my chest, leaving an imprint of her perfect lips in blood as red as their usual color. “Something to remember me by.”

18 Pillars of Salt

I looked down at the blood, it was hard to tell where the already freezing remnants began, and the blood seeping from my eyebrow began.

She kissed that scar everyday for the few we had left. She memorized its jagged pattern.

I don’t like to look in the mirror.

She’s my favorite scar.

She’s my best mistake.

I wonder where she is now.

Probably reading a novel in another man’s socks as he tries to fathom her existence.

Mataya Josephson ’16

Pillars of Salt 19

Ode to Los Angeles Which Freeway? 101? 405?

I know that I will not survive.

In gridlock Any route I take Will make things worse. …I’m running late!

Trapped in a sea of cars Considering moving to Mars Or an isolated Alaskan bay, Very, very far away, Which could mean snow, Rain, or a blizzard…dare I say?

Cold weather, What a concept We are slaves to the sun.

And when we get wrinkles Endless work must be done.

If these are the struggles Of an LA purest I shudder to think about The life of a tourist.

Take a Starline tour and see The fancy house of a celebrity Who probably moved out last year Or never even lived here.

20 Pillars of Salt

And don’t forget to visit then, The Hollywood Walk of Fame You can see a bright star That only carries a name.

And since you’re in the neighborhood You have to take a peek At the Hollywood sign That is supposedly very chic.

But I hate to shatter A preconceived notion This sign is very small And hidden in an ocean Made of pollution and smog.

And if you think That you will see An incognito celebrity I’m sorry, you’re wrong It’s probably me.

Emma Lapin ’14

Pillars of Salt 21

22 Pillars of Salt

Rachel Schneider ’14

Satan in Stilettos

She looks fat in natural light. Everyone says she’s so beautiful and perfect. But if you pay close attention, Marilyn resembles a pudgy bulldog with red lipstick. Not many of the guys can see it, but I sure can. And so can a lot of other people, but they don’t say it out loud. Just cause she’s the leading girl people are kissing her ass constantly, Oh Miss Monroe you’re so gorgeous and so talented and so magnificent. Makes me sick.

I am just as pretty. When I walk down the street, people’s jaws drop to the damn concrete and their eyes lose their ability to blink. If I had a leading role, men would be throwing themselves at me too. I mean, I’m just an extra and we’re all so busy on set that no one has time to flirt. I guarantee you they want to though. I see the passing glances I get. Everyone just feels the need to act so professional so they can be remembered as one of the “good ones.” And if you’re a “good one,” you get asked back to do more movies, and maybe (if God’s on your side) a one-liner. So that dazzling possibility remains a priority over any romantic entanglement. But hey, who’s to say I’d ever take any offers, eh? I think I deserve someone a little more pristine than an actor or a showbiz man.

See, the reason Marilyn sleeps with tons of actors is cause deep down she really feels awful about herself and wants to get her self-esteem up. She is an insecure tight-ass. You didn’t hear it from me, but the latest rumor is that she and Tony Curtis slept together. Waited for her in the lobby and tried to discreetly take her back to his room. But who knows. Just some gossip I heard from another extra.

Yes all the extras are very close with each other, especially us girls. We always like to hit the parlor of The Hotel Del, have some tea, and discuss our shared hatred for Blondie McPerfect. I’ve become an expert at telling Marilyn jokes. What’s the difference between Marilyn and a Mosquito? One’s a blood sucking, irritating pest, and the other is an insect. We all roar with laughter and practically shake the entire room. But right as we’re all in the middle of having a good time, my best girl Minnie would always turn to me and say, “Holly, isn’t it in bad taste that we talk about Ms. Marilyn like this?” I always say no and go on to explain that to her that “Ms. Marilyn” is worth hating.

The two of us have only met once. At least we sort of did. The whole Pillars of Salt 23

cast and crew had just checked into the hotel. We were all so excited, especially me since this was my first time being part of a real feature film. A bunch of us were relaxing in the lounge one night and I was feeling pretty tired, so I told everyone I was gonna hit the hay. I started walking to my room but stopped in the lobby to admire how beautiful it was. This was the most luxurious place I ever stayed at and I wanted take it all in. The ceilings were so high and the floors were painted with marvelous designs. Every table had fresh flowers and every chair was made of rich velvet. Just two years ago I was living in a boarding house, and now look where I’m staying. For most of the actors it didn’t seem like much, but for me it was like Camelot. As I ran my fingertip over the golden accents of a banister, for the first time, I felt like I was living the life of an actor.

Suddenly, the atmosphere of this splendid room became cluttered with an overly pungent scent. I thought a dead, pregnant cat was rotting under the stairs, but turns out it was just that perfume Marilyn always wears. She started coming towards me so I smiled, “Good evening, Ms. Monroe.” She didn’t say anything back. Anything. Didn’t even make eye contact with me. She simply walked past me and even had the nerve to even push me out of the way a little bit. The sharp clomping of her stiletto heels stung my eardrums as she ran over to some guy with dark glasses who picked her up off the ground and carried her to his room.

I stared intensely and angrily at the two of them, thinking somehow my mind could telepathically make him drop her. A few of the male extras saw this and started laughing at me. And I heard Marilyn laughing as she was whisked away to the elevator. Whore.

Anyways, today we’re shooting out by the ocean. All the girls are in their swimsuits playing with this big beach ball and laughing with Jack Lemmon.

Sounds fun, right? No. Lord, you should see the suits we have to wear, absolutely horrendous; navy and white nightmares complete with incredibly tight swim caps. We could barely breathe while wearing them. We’re in our early thirties for Christ’s sake, we aren’t all size twos anymore. I swear, whoever our costume designer is hates women and wants them to die of suffocation and humiliation. Marilyn, on the other hand, gets to wear this stunning, sexy white robe. Probably cause the bitch complained about her costume, just like she 24 Pillars of Salt

complains about everything else. Either her scenes weren’t long enough or her costume wasn’t pretty enough or she just wasn’t getting her way. Something was always bothering that pessimistic harlot.

You know, I heard from Minnie that Tony and Jack went to Billy Wilder yesterday. They offered to work for free if he fired Marilyn. I love those boys, God bless them. Unfortunately, Billy said no. So Blondie McPerfect remains the center of attention.

The thing is, her role is so easy. It’s every stereotypical blonde bimbo ever put into a screenplay. I could play Sugar Kane Kowalczyk just as good, maybe even better. You know, I’ve always wanted to be a star. I would lay in my bed at night and dream of holding a thin, black pen in my hand and swiftly scribbling my name across some kid’s notepad. Or feeling squishy cement mold around my fingertips and palms as I imprint then in front of The Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Or even having a scandalous affair with a mainstream heartthrob and protest that we didn’t have sex, even though we most certainly did.

I’ve never acted in anything before, but I am very talented. People have always told me so. Being adored by millions is my life’s calling. I know it. I have to pursue it no matter what the cost. You think getting my hair bleached platinum blonde was cheap? It sure as hell wasn’t. And do you think I enjoy taking those miracle diet pills they advertise on I Love Lucy to seem thin? I don’t. So why do I put myself through all this? Because I am an actress and it’s simply what I have to do. It’s what we all have to do. Whether it’s destroying your hair, starving yourself, or sleeping with every man who blinks at you like McPerfect does, you do what you gotta do to make it in this vain, life-sucking business. And one day, someone will appreciate all your hard work and see that you belong on the silver screen. I will be a star. You’ll see. Marilyn will see.

Everyone will see. Just wait.

Carly Winant ’14

Pillars of Salt 25

The Corner of Westwood and LeConte Here, not thirty feet away from the bus stop, there is a raised garden. By ‘raised garden,’ I mean a brick box that ends about four feet off the ground.

It holds a few saplings and some miscellaneous plants. The walls of this raised garden provide an ideal seat for anyone who’s looking for a rest, a thinking spot, or perhaps a place to chill out and strum a guitar.

This particular morning, there was a homeless man sitting on one of the walls and plucking out a melancholy tune on his six-string. He was calm, introverted, not bothering anyone. He seemed content to sit there and let his instrument do the talking. A moment later, I watched a mentally addled but well-wishing homeless woman wander across LeConte. Her hair was Trelawney-esque and she was carrying, of all things, a small pot that contained a single red flower.

Pause. Listen. Let me explain.

When I get metaphorical, I think of humans as glasses. Not the kind that help you see, but the kind you drink lemonade, water, or alcohol out of.

I believe that when we are born, we are a shining, unblemished glass, born of melting sand. But as we grow older, as we get hurt (either by ourselves or by others), as we change, grow, metabolize, we get chips around our edges, some of them larger than others. So we become chipped, fragmented, compromised.

But we are lucky to crumble in this slight way, because there are others, other glasses, who crack deep inside their core. Sure, they have the little nicks around the rim, but their problems go much deeper, deeper than where any psychologist can reach. These people are goblets with gashes, with rivulets of pain and fear that run from the edges of the glass to the middle, to the heart, maybe even all the way through.

These damaged glasses are most often the people we see sitting homeless on street corners, sleeping in doorways, or the people in the asylums that pop culture has taught us to fear. Something in these people’s minds has pushed them to a literal

26 Pillars of Salt

breaking point, shoving these permanent fissures deep into their essence.

Did you know that if you sing or play a note at the right frequency, it can shatter glass?

Resume. Watch. I will explain.

Having crossed LeConte, the homeless woman began asking in a loud voice, “Will you sing me a song? I’ll give you a flower!” and again, “Will you sing me a song?”

I ignored it at first, dismissing it as deranged rambling, then I realized that she was talking to the wall-sitter fiddling with his guitar. She approached him, potted flower in hand, with her voice lowered, and I watched their exchange from a distance, wondering if he would actually sing her a song and end up with that pretty red flower.

He shook his head, saying something I couldn’t hear, causing the woman to beg once again for that song. But then he refused a second time, and she got the message. She wandered away, talking to herself, beginning to sing a song that I didn’t recognize; perhaps it was the one she had asked him to sing. She caressed the flower as she waited for the light to change, and a moment later she was gone.

I didn’t think much of this at the time, but then I thought about the (lemonade, water, alcohol) glasses, and how, at some point, the inevitable shatter will come. Maybe, I thought, the song the woman was asking for was at her frequency, the note that would cause her to cease, to fall apart. And that was when I realized that for some people, it’s easier to break than to live with the cracks.

Emily Ward ’15

Pillars of Salt 27

Frozen Memories

Everyone rushes to the edge of the frozen lake as the first screams ring through the air. The father stays by the hole, not feeling the frost sting his knees with the cold. His heart wrenching shouts of “Eliza” leave him gasping for breath. When she still does not come up and yet another bubble reaches the surface, he takes off his gloves and reaches into the icy depths. The father’s best friend since childhood, the surrogate uncle, places heavy hands on his shoulders, and uses brute force to stop the father from jumping in himself: “It’s too late, she’s been under for too long now. We lost her.”

A mother, worried for her own little boy’s safety and lost in a haze of memories of a time long ago, sees the activity in the middle of the lake. She hurries to take off their skates before rushing back to the car to get home, to get to safety. She deflects her son’s questions, not knowing how to explain that a child just drowned in the lake they were just ice skating on. Instead of pedestrians, billboards, and streetlights, she sees the doctor telling her the baby didn’t survive, that it was stillborn. If her daughter had lived, she would have been nine years old, ten in February. She faintly registers her son’s shouts of “Mommy, watch out,” but it’s enough, and she is able to see what’s real, what’s happening right in front of her eyes again and slams on the brakes just in time.

The elderly man, startled with the screech of the brakes, clutches at his chest, barely able to make it to the other side of the street. He remembers that sense of helplessness, of not being able to predict what would happen next, he knows it well. He remembers being held prisoner during the war, the beatings when they decided to have some fun, the pain and the relief of blacking out to escape their jeering faces and taunting words. He remembers the trembling fear and vulnerability that encapsulated him every time the sirens sounded overhead or the guards blew out the candles for the night. He sits down at the bus stop, unable to go further, and wraps his coat around himself to fight off the sudden chill. He doesn’t want to remember, but he has learned that sometimes he needs to let down his inner walls in order to get better.

The teenaged girl watches the old man sit down, and thinks of her grandpa at the retirement home down the street. She had just gone to visit him, and all he did was stare blankly at the wall. She tried snapping him out of it by waving her hands in front of his face and talking to him, but it was no use. He had been in there for two years now, and he always would talk to her, but something changed today. She remembers him taking her ice-skating in the winter and fishing in the summer, believing that the outdoors were more important than anything done inside the house. One time he even helped her spot a fish under the ice of her backyard pond. She realizes that’s never going to happen again, though. Now, they’re only memories.

Sage Malecki ’14 28 Pillars of Salt

Samantha Rosenwald

Shishi Shomloo ’15

Pillars of Salt 29

The Immutability of Shame “Let me take your picture, abuelita.” Her grandson, whose name is Alfonso, lifts the camera. A black boxy setup, like something from a magazine. Alfonso, with his straight teeth and white smile, cranks a dial.

There is a ticking sound.

“No, Alfonso.” A hand goes up. There is no sun today but the air is wooly around her shoulders, too cloying, too warm. “No picture.”

“Just one, por favor.” Please.

“No, Alfonso.”

“Please?”

“No, Alfonso.” She is ashamed. Her shoes are cheap and thin-soled and her hands are wrought with age and dark veins, and her hair is frizzy like that of a surly schoolgirl’s, and she is ashamed. “Put it away.”

“Fine,” he says. “Grandma.”

He knows that she hates that: Grandma, hard vowels drawn out long and ugly. Too American. No fluid, the word catches in your throat like trying to swallow down stale bread. The plastic looped around her left arm is a noose; bag heavy with tortillas, canned tomatoes. Herbs in a bottle, all mixed together. Putrid. She wants vegetables that taste like sun and earth.

“Do you want me to carry that?” Alfonso, who lets the camera dangle from a polyester neck strap, asks. An old courtesy. Habit that will die hard, but by the time he is twenty he will watch old women cross parking lots burdened with big pendulous bags and he will be too occupied with his friends and dance clubs full of neon persuasion and the girl in tight jeans pushing a cart through the sliding glass doors of the supermarket.

“No.”

He lifts the camera again. “Not even one picture? For my school assignment?”

“No, Alfonso.” Her shoulders ache under the jacket. She does not want a photograph of herself wearing this; good quilted fabric, deliciously warm, wide collar. It would keep the cold out, if it got cold this far south. She

30 Pillars of Salt

imagines that it might have hung in a rich woman’s closet, beside, maybe, dark musty furs and technocolor silk. The woman would wear it with strings of pearls, drive a Mercedes. The rich woman, whose closet the jacket had hung in. Forty dollars; for Evelyn, free.

“Not even one, for your favorite grandson?”

Out the door, walking fast, three years ago in the Culver City sunlight. The shriek of an alarm, distant, no match for quick Evelyn in white sneakers and dyed hair. As she walked she had asked herself why, why, she could have paid in full at the counter. Could have used her husband’s credit card, the satisfaction of celluloid affluence between her fingers. Staring down the cashier: yes, I can afford this. So absurd, theft. But so delicious the escape, the thrill of alarms fading, of no one coming for her. Possibly no one suspecting—sturdy white shoes and a plastic bag, going past the dollar store full of Old World stoicism, innocence. The jacket was not especially fetching—ridiculous, unflattering shoulder pads, like the ones she’d worn as a teenager, or those boys with their Zoot Suits and cruel fast cars. No highfashion garment, but she’d walked quickly, made it back to the apartment and leaned against the door and stared at the bag in her hand. Asked herself why, again and again until her eyes burned. She is full of vast and expandable and immutable shame, and she lifts the extra bag and lets it drift over her head, and the lie is deliciously warm, the familiarity of dishonor, the wind hisses against the plastic and with every breath it clings to her nose.

“You are my only grandson.”

He breathes something like a curse, or maybe deliberate exasperation.

Looks away from her. Taking this shiny plastic world for granted.

Evelyn inhales against the bag, feels it press up against her nose, realizes that she could die like this, realizes how ridiculous that is, this is, and she lets the shame sweep her up, carry her away.

Emily Piccard ’14

Pillars of Salt 31

32 Pillars of Salt

Rachel Schneider ’14

They’re Gone It seems like yesterday the cookies were baked, Little shoes were on the doormat beside the rake.

Children swinging and climbing in a tree, Then one by one they tried to flee.

Where have all the children gone?

A man pulled up towards the white fence, The cold air blew, oh so dense.

His eyes hidden below his hood, His bag made him hunch as he stood.

Where have all the children gone?

His burgundy van at the side of the road, Black birds swooped away as they crowed.

Whispers traveled down the street, The gate opened by the force of his feet.

Where have all the children gone?

He slowly turned the door’s handle, A rush of hate blew out the candle.

There was a scream at the door, And then all of a sudden a “bang!” times four.

Now here we sit, silence among us all.

Why have all the children gone? *Dedicated to children who have been affected by gun violence.

Auveen Dezgaran ’15

Pillars of Salt 33

Webs It’s not yet ten in the evening when I step over the edge of the courtyard, and into the circle of paved stones, closed flowers, and shadows.

The umbrella, which is never closed, branches out across the rickety wooden table, uneven metal chairs, and the tilted rose bushes.

The houses around me are silent, quiet, sitting in the glowing darkness of a city that always teems with life and light.

I don’t notice it at first, the brush of the thin strand across my face, soft and sticky at the same time.

I continue towards my door, only stopping when I feel it again.

It’s like a stutter this time, the thread skittering across my forehead and nose before it breaks and rests on my cheek.

My fingers find the cobweb, the liquid lace of an arachnid, and brush it away.

It’s that time of year when all the spiders are out hunting, 34 Pillars of Salt

squatting between the trees, patrolling their webs with the finesse and dedication of White House security guards.

Dozens of webs stretch out across the courtyard, spinning and shining with brevity in the glint of a reflected lamp on the main road.

There are layers, webs that stretch from window to door handle, trellis to front step, chair to flower pot, and leaf to petal.

There is a psychopath’s mess of intertwining strings hanging above our courtyard.

Some of the threads are small, short, spindly things that break on contact; others are thick, layered, that snap after a step or two of stretching.

I brush them away as I advance, my house only a few moments away.

I pull out my key and fumble for the lock, my fingers skittish and hurried, because I found the webs, but where are the spiders?

Emily Ward ’15

Pillars of Salt 35

36 Pillars of Salt

Tara DiMaio ’14

Wolf Winter

Pickup truck on the icy road, tires skidding on the new frost, headlights bumping through the shrouded forest. Me riding shotgun, my father’s Winchester .45 across my lap. The radio tuned to the country station, low and staticky, the distant twang of banjos. The truck slows, grinds off the highway, tires crunching on snowy gravel. The trees flash by, trunks high and thin like the toothpicks my older brother sticks between his teeth after dinner at Joe’s Roadhouse, imitating my father.

The headlights swing right, towards the dark hulk of the cabin, windows glowing like lanterns against the snow. I think I see snarling shapes fly past in the shadow-choked woods. My father pulls up next to the garage, kills the engine. Teddy whines in the backseat, claws at the window. Dad swats him on the furry rump, sends him skittering out into the icy night air.

I cry Dad, no! and grab for Teddy’s collar, but I miss and my fingers end up brushing his warm coat as he rockets off into the trees.

There are animals out there! I don’t say wolves because Dad will tell me that I’m being stupid. Everyone knows that there aren’t any wolves left around here.

Will comes out of the house then, flannel and Carhartt, smelling like pine and the cheap cigarettes he smokes behind the house when he thinks my father can’t see him. Mags, our shaggy brown bitch, tags at his heels, tail wagging low and servile. Will runs an absent hand across the crown of her head, asks Dad, what took so long?

Some jackass ran his car off the road, me and Clay were pullin’ it back.

A blue minivan beached like a whale on the high white snowbank, kids in parkas huddling at its flank. Snow flurries in the yellow beam of the truck headlights. Clay LaRoux, a bear of a man with hands the size of snowplows, dragging a pair of chains that leave deep canyons through the snow. Dad talking to the driver in the slow, easy way that men do, clapping his shoulder. The roar of the truck’s engine, snow spinning up

Pillars of Salt 37

in a yellow-lit plume behind the tires. The oldest boy, eyes almost hidden by his furry hood, looks at me and I look at him, a wall of silent falling snow between us.

Idiots, Will says, shoving his hands in his pockets. Mags rubs her head against his legs. I whistle to her but she ignores me. She’s always been Will’s dog. The stock of Dad’s rifle is smooth and cold even through my gloves and I push it into his hands. He leans it against the porch rail, telling Will about how someone jacked one of Clay’s snowmobiles, Will says that it was probably one of those little shits from town, the high school kids. Like he’s not just barely an adult himself, like he’s not clinging to the precipice of nineteen like it’ll save him. I picture my classmates, girls with soft, empty eyes like the dead deer that Dad brings home, boys who are loud and crass and curse in the hallway between classes. I can see them stealing snowmobiles, the boys on the football team and the kids who smoke in the bathrooms during algebra. On Friday nights they go hang out in the parking lot of the QuikMart in town, and the girls wear short skirts even though it’s cold and the boys drink Bud Lights stolen from their father’s ice-fishing coolers. I’d much rather be here, with Dad and Will and the dogs, the high wall of trees around the house. Sometimes it’s the only place I feel safe.

Sophie, come inside. It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here, Will says, jostling my shoulder. He and Dad move into the house, stomping snow off their boots, shedding jackets and hats, Carhartt and John Deer. I walk to the end of the gravel driveway, where our land bleeds into the forest. When I turn around, our house is like a distant ship on a wide, frozen sea. Something growls and whimpers in the woods, and then Teddy is shooting out of the trees like a rocket broken up in orbit, spinning and limping, leaving a trail of scarlet blood on the new snow. There’s this awful animal noise around me, like it’s not even coming from Teddy but from the forest, like the entire world is screaming with me. I run for Dad’s gun, and it’s like my boots don’t ever even touch the ground, and then I’m firing off shots into the pitch-dark trees,

38 Pillars of Salt

each blast a tiny supernova in the boreal blackness.

Will comes flying off the porch, boots lapping open, trailing laces.

Jesus Christ, what the hell are you doing? Do you see something?

What is it?

I drop the gun and crouch at Teddy’s side, whimpering, Teddy’s hurt, Will, he’s hurt real bad, but Will is already there, bare fingers probing the bloody fur. I stroke his fuzzy ear with shaking hands, tears already burning my eyes, but Will snorts and cuffs gently at my shoulder.

He’s fine, Sophie, he’s fine. Just a porcupine, that’s all. Most of it’s not even his blood.

Will pulls the quills out, grasping the long needles between thumb and forefinger and yanking. Teddy screams, nails scrabbling against my arm, scratching through my sweater but I don’t care, I just hold him tighter. I don’t want Will to see how my hands are shaking.

There, Will says, he’s fine, Sophie. See? He’s fine.

He reaches over, pries the gun from my hand, using the same soft touch he uses on hurt animals. I run my trembling fingers through Teddy’s long, blood-matted fur over and over again as he starts licking the red from his paws. Will goes back inside, lifting Dad’s gun over his shoulder, calling out,

It’s fine, Dad, the dog got in a fight is all.

The screen door bangs shut, I hear the radio on high volume, a weather report. Snow tomorrow, they say, but the sky right now is clear and starry. I stay there, crouched at Teddy’s side, the predator and the prey and the all-seeing god, and my hand on him is the only thing grounding me. I lift my eyes and stare into the night, and the forest closes around us.

Grace Piccard ’14

Pillars of Salt 39

40 Pillars of Salt

Athena Schlereth ’14

Forging i need you to understand, i need you to understand listen to me listen, listen, i cannot be alone here please please don’t leave me here alone. look at the ocean. look at the constant ebb. look at the foam dry on the sand. look at the waves cling to the shore tighter and tighter even as they are dragged back to the sea, returning only to leave once more. you’re at the beach. smile, wave, sit down for a while. relax, you look tired. just look at the light on the water, look at it sway back and forth, and look at you, lying on crushed rocks, crushed mountains, the once-proud cliff faces made small. there is a beating like a heart, a steady tattoo drilling the same ba-DUM-dumba-DUM-dum into the earth and it seeps into your skin. you look to your left and you see your friend no not your friend, your brother, he who shares your blood. or maybe you are friends, you’re not sure, but he’s there and for some reason that means now you have permission to breathe. he grabs your hand and drags you to the shore to the edge of the water where the sand scrunches between your toes and he falls into the water and pulls you down with him. he’s laughing, you’re laughing, it’s still funny but now your feet can’t reach the floor and he’s still falling and he’s still dragging you down with him and this isn’t peaceful isn’t calm and your lungs are filling with salt and— believe me, believe me but you already do, don’t you? you don’t think that i am lying, you never do, never, never. why is that, why do you always believe me? when do i start to lose your trust finally, finally, when can i lose sight of this open wound? this trust, this vulnerability that you are showing me, i don’t want it, i don’t want it but you keep forcing me to look, shoving your faith into my hands, forcing my fingers tight around it when i don’t want to hold on, why do you keep giving me this, why do you keep forcing me to hold on? don’t you understand that i cannot? the wind is roaring and when you look down, the sea is churning and groanPillars of Salt 41

ing and breaking on the rocks below. you’re on a cliff by the sea, different sea, and you can’t hear anything beyond the roar of your blood pumping through your veins. the clouds are congregating, preparing for war and the sea is calling for blood and never mind the hammers in the background, please, pay no attention to the flying sparks they’re only fireworks after all. didn’t i tell you, it’s the fourth of july. this heat is from the explosions in the sky, nothing else, no, nothing else. ignore the flames and the grease and smoke, and just watch the lights in the sky. there is a pressure constricting your body and you can feel your bones shaking feel them trying to get out get out of this skin which holds you too tightly too closely and the breath is leaving your lungs, no not leaving escaping, fleeing, it’s getting the hell out of dodge and if only you could follow. your mother grabs you by the arm and whirls you around, whirls you away and your feet aren’t finding the ground. she’s making noises, making words, apologies for something and you tell her it’s fine it’s fine and she’s beaming she’s trying to outshine the fireworks still wrestling in the sky but her eyes are too tired and there are too many lines on her face for that. her hands are shaking and you have forgotten why. she puts her hand on your cheek and it stays there hot on your flesh, locking you into your skin. her hand rests on your cheek and you’re trapped. try not to put yourself here. this is not your life. you’re on the other side of the glass, don’t forget that, that’s important. you step back. your mother smiles again, tightly this time, her features locked down and she steps back too, turns, and you’re left with the fireworks blooming under the war-clouds, whirling in and out of sight as the storm looms closer and a vacancy between your ribs that makes you feel like you will

42 Pillars of Salt

snap and you will you will and the pressure is still there still throttling you and your throat is closing again and oh can’t you just go back to your mother smiling with the forgiveness you granted her can’t you go back to then? another firework blossoms in the sky, briefly illuminating the sea below before being consumed by the storm. boom. when do you stop believing me? i’m your guide aren’t i, i’m showing you this world but what you don’t understand, what you never understand is that you are chained to me. you cannot leave and take this story to the distant hills for even if you do take this world from me it is still mine in every stone, every blade of grass, every cell i will breathe here because when you followed me here you saw only what i let you see. you know nothing else of this world, you don’t even know if i’ve been telling the truth but does that matter, does the veracity of this world matter if you do not know it is a lie? it doesn’t. not until you discover it isn’t truth because then the frailty of this world is revealed, the frailty of truth, of belief, and god you’re so easy to fool, so easy to lie to, when will you stop believing me? but until you know i’m lying, it doesn’t matter. the lie is your truth until i give you reason to doubt and where does that reason come from? why do you keep believing me? what does it take to get you to stop? there are threads here, silken threads, fraying ropes, cords tying this together, i promise you there is a reason for this, but what if there wasn’t? what if there was no truth hiding underneath, what if you pulled back the curtain and saw nothing but a dusty chair and cobwebs and spiders, and spiders spinning silken lies, spinning silk for a curtain that hides the great truth that there is nothing hiding behind the curtain, there is no silly man in a top hat, there is no magic trick. there is nothing behind the curtain. the curtain exists only to create the idea that there is something behind it.

Pillars of Salt 43

but what happens after you look? here is the moon. look at it shining, look at your face reflected in the glass. hello there. the moon isn’t here. i was lying. there is no moon. but what do you do now? it’s already night time in your head but here i am, telling you again that there is no moon outside, it’s noontide, it’s summer, it’s one hundred degrees and people are jostling you in the street and why are you standing there looking at the glass? does your reflection have something to say? i’m growing weary. i cannot will not do not wish to continue creating—i am standing here, in the forge of your mind but who is standing in mine? can’t you see that i am kind, showing my face, revealing the truths of this world, your world, the world i have made for you, but where is my creator where are the others why am i the only one alone? let me see your face please please don’t leave me here alone.

Maria Gelbert ’15

44 Pillars of Salt

Nelli Bryzgolva ’14

Pillars of Salt 45

Images

An image of what I once was lies in empty picture frames, the ones that lined the plywood walls of my uncle’s house. The old building is ghostly now, the negative of a colorful photo, long since stained brown. It was bright once, a sea of lights and music all mixed in together. But things stay lost when there’s no one to find them, and memories become jumbled in the mind.

I was there all the time. Watching my uncle sing along to songs banged out on an old, un-tuned piano. It was that music that filled the void forming around me, but now I find these memories just make the emptiness worse.

I sat by my uncle a few hours before he had to leave. He whispered quietly in my ear, so none of my other relatives could hear, saying he would see me again. I knew he was lying. Later I remember the man in the expensive suit reading my uncle’s letter quietly. There was a note just for me. Tucked away safely in a paper shield. I fiddled with the paper, the grains making my fingertips numb.

---- I’m broken now. Standing alone on this dirt path lulled to destruction by time. Demolished by something that hasn’t been seen for thousands of years. There’s nothing now, save the small bit of dying brown grass still left and the unmoving air that stalls around me like an unsaid word on a hot summer day.

I look up from my map, a colorful array of illegible lines. There’s supposed to be a metal pole here, a small sign of civilization in this expanse of desert. Then I see it, far away, distorted and almost hidden by the breath of heat.

And I’m running now, my bag bouncing hard on my back, the key chains chiming with every step. And I know I’m moving toward it–but it still seems so far away.

There’s a small bench here. Nothing to cover me from the sun, but it’s something. I sit and wait in this endless hole, this endless silence that is cruel 46 Pillars of Salt

enough to leave me with my thoughts.

It’s grabbing me. These memories. Pulling me down into nothing.

Threatening to consume me whole. But I shove them away. I tell myself, I’m not crazy… I’m not crazy.

When the bus stops in front of me, sighing in the searing sun, I realize my hands are on my head. I pull them down quickly in embarrassment and swing my backpack over my shoulder.

The double doors of the bus creak open slowly, looking too weak to be of much use, but I climb up the stairs placing my feet carefully on each step. I blindly hand the ticket I bought in Las Vegas to the driver, and wait patiently while he checks it. He nods and I move on through the bus where strangers sit in mutual silence, waiting for their stops.

I wonder where they’re going. What stories they have to tell. How different it would be in someone else’s mind.

Most of the seats are taken, so I travel toward the back as I search for one, and sit down next to an old woman, the white strings of her hair tied up above her prune-dried face. She smiles quietly at me then turns to look out the window as the bus starts forward. I follow her gaze, but fail to see the beauty in the constant brown-red of the sand that stretches all the way up to the sky.

I sit with my bag huddled to my chest, and reach to pull the zipper open, but stop. My hand frozen on the pull-tab, “Not yet,” I mutter to myself.

The woman turns, “You all right, dear?”

“Uh, yeah…” I answer turning my growing pink face away.

“You goin’ to visit your family,” she asks again.

I shake my head, “My parents are dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry dear,” she says laying her hand on mine for one moment then turning back to the window.

The bus trembles on through the thick dirt for a few hours. The woman doesn’t bother me after that, just smiles whenever she sees me watching the

Pillars of Salt 47

handbag on her lap. Her small wrinkled fingers interlace with the straw till you couldn’t tell what was flesh and what was bag.

Suddenly, we’re surrounded by buildings, a strange difference to the desert.

We stop. The doors open. I stand up slinging my bag over my shoulder once more, and step off the bus behind some others. Again I wonder where they’re going? Who they’re meeting?

The bus pulls away. And in the window I see the ghost of the old woman, still staring out at all the invisible wonders of the world.

I pull out my map again. Flip a few pages to the right till I find the imaginary “YOU ARE HERE” sign. I trace my finger along miniature streets then look up, orienting myself.

The town is quiet. Not like the cruel silence of the desert that follows your every thought and bursts them out of balance. Even so I walk along the broken and fading road alone, placing my feet carefully around the cracks, and scolding myself when I tread on one.

The buildings around here are too plain for my liking, with big white walls stained yellow, and thin metal doors painted bright shades of blue, green, or red.

I look down at my map again and my heart sinks into my stomach.

“I must have taken a wrong turn,” I mutter practically, then look around frantically to make sure no one sees how lost I truly am.

“Just ask someone,” I reply to my silently frightened thoughts, “Take a chance.”

There’s a man leaning against a wall a few yards away. The smoke from the cigarette in his mouth makes his hair look like it’s steaming. Every time he brings his lips to the bud the other end erupts into a fiery forge. I cautiously walk over, my hands on the straps hanging from my bag.

“Um... excuse me?” I say and he looks up in silent greeting. “My uncle left me a note before he left…” I rattle off, then curse myself: he obviously doesn’t care. “Uh… anyway do you know where the Boulder Motel is?”

He nods and points at a small building a block away.

48 Pillars of Salt

“Thanks,” I answer in relief, and start moving toward it.

When I stand outside the splintered hotel with the defective neon sign, I let out a sigh of defeat. It makes no sense why he would send me here: a dirty hotel.

I push my way through the office door, a jail cell from the outside world.

There’s a silver bell positioned on the desk, my distorted features frowning back at me. I tap the antimony-like dome tentatively, my arms clutched across my chest.

A few moments later a woman walks out. Age betrayed by her wrinkled skin.

“Can I help you?” She asks in a strained voice that says on its own I’d rather be anywhere else.

“Um… I mean yes,” I correct quickly. She didn’t seem like the person to tolerate stuttering, “I’m looking for a…” I searched my mind for the name, “… Victoria?”

“That’s me, honey,” she sadly informed me. Yawning into her hand.

“Oh… well that’s great…” I try to find my words again.

“I don’t have all day,” Victoria interrupts, agitated, “Could you get on with it, or even better just leave?”

“Oh sorry!” I say quickly groping around my shoulder for the backpack zipper. Victoria rolled her eyes, “My uncle left me this,” I say finally pulling out the envelope, “And I was told to come to this motel and–“ “Sorry kid, but I don’t care about your little vendetta.” she interrupted.

“My what? No this isn’t–” “You should just go home,” she says slowly as if speaking to a child, “Leave.”

“Um..,” I answered my courage draining like a sink. If someone said to make a wish I would wish for just that: to go home. But even my mixed up mind knew that wasn’t possible.

“Fine. Just give me the note if it’ll make you leave.”

I look down at the envelope in my hand and rip the paper away. I feel inside, pulling out a folded piece of paper. Victoria snatches the item away.

“Hey!” I yell in protest but Victoria holds up a finger to silence me as she Pillars of Salt 49

reads the note.

Her face began to sag as her eyes skimmed the paper, and when she looked back up at me, a new alertness confined in her blue eyes.

“So why did my uncle send me here?” I ask starting to lose my patience with this woman.

Victoria answered as she slid around the desk to look at me better, “He sent you here for me.”

“No kidding,” I muttered, “My question is why?”

She bit her lip, “Your uncle was my brother,” she said slowly, age setting deeper into the lines that covered her face.

I looked at her for a moment, “Sorry that’s not possible,” I almost laugh in spite of myself. “His only sibling was my mother, and she’s dead–” A rock suddenly dropped in my stomach making my lungs forget to breathe as my eyes, ears, and brain tried to make sense of something I had known all along.

Victoria smiled in a sort of sad way. It’s as if the world is in slow motion, but it’s all happening at once, and suddenly I’m aware of everything: every buzz of the fly by the window, the feel of my feet in my shoes, all my thoughts flashing through my mind in a single moment.

When are the cameras going to appear? When I am going to wake up from this cruel and horrid nightmare?

“No.” I whisper shaking my head, my feet shuffling backwards, “No. That’s not possible.”

“Just hear me out.” She says placing her hand gently on mine. I forced it away, my vision tunneling.

And in this moment I realize how real life is. How short time is and how fast it goes by. I see how small I am and how big and wild the world is.

“Your uncle sent you here for a reason.” She continued anyway, and I stop, the gadgets in my mind swirling at the thought of my uncle orchestrating it all.

“So I would be happy with my mother?” I spit out at her, but my heart stings

50 Pillars of Salt

with a fresh wound.

Victoria winced like the words had stabbed her too, “I thought you were happy without me.”

“I would have been glad to know my mother was alive,” I say, the anger and pounding in my ears disappearing.

She nods knowingly, and I’m startled by the silence that follows. It’s a strange silence, one I’m not used to. This stillness is not the harsh pain that reminds me of the void threatening to devour me; it’s the soft hush of Victoria and me sitting in each other’s company. Somehow unconsciously making up for years of solitude.

“Here,” she breaks the silence at last, pulling an envelope from behind the desk and handing it to me, “It’s the last letter he sent me. Your uncle I mean.”

I take it. “Thank you,” I mutter. And because I don’t want her watching me I pull open the door and step outside.

“You have a home here, you know,” Victoria says quickly before the door clangs shut.

The sky outside has turned a deep, fiery orange, and the clouds are only wisps of dye: a canvas of watercolors. The once boring buildings are shadows outlined by the fading sun. It’s funny how beautiful something looks when you see it in a new light. When you see it differently.

You have a home here, I replay to myself quietly. And it’s strange, those words echoing in my mind, because I’ve never heard them before. This time last year I was bumped around from one foster home to another until I turned eighteen. I’ve never belonged anywhere, not really. But things change…

I look down at the paper package still in my hand. I open it. And inside is a photo, frayed and brown, but I can still make out the silhouettes of a man and a little girl, their lips parted to show their teeth. I flip over the picture and in small, fine print it says these words: Dear Victoria, Your Abby is fine, though I still don’t see why you had to leave after John died. I Pillars of Salt 51

suppose I’ll just get to the point: I visited the doctor the other day. They told me I was sick. Leukemia. They’ve given me a few months to live. On the bright side you’ll have to take care of Abby now. It’s funny when you’re dying all the new things you notice, the hours moving by slowly and the days slipping away. In my last weeks I’ve searched everywhere for the words that describe life correctly, and I can’t find them. There is so much bad in the world. So much pain and suffering.

But there’s good too. You don’t always see it in the little moments, but it’s there.

Now how can you put that in one word? One sentence? And I now find how limited language is. How we have lived and died and loved and conquered for so many centuries but still don’t know the meaning of life. Yet is there one? Is there a purpose in these shiny folds of fabric that bend and shift around us? I don’t know.

So how can we continue? What point is there to continue if we have none? And again: I don’t know.

The only thing that has gotten me through years of this torture is to try and defy these gods that put us here. If we are at hand only for them to see us suffer, then I will hold my head high. If we are in this place only for them to see how many times we can be hurt, then I will hide my tears. I will not let them win. I have battled and loved things that they could never understand, so why should they decide my fate? Maybe I can’t describe life in one word but I know what it is because I see it everyday, in the laugh of your child, the ticks of the clocks, in the beating of my heart, and the thoughts in my head that I can’t hope to ever decipher. But, maybe life is not knowing. Not knowing what will happen next, not knowing when you will die, or how you will do in this game. Secretly, I’ve collected these thoughts, small proof of my existence in this world, but now I know that life is what you make of it. Life and living is how you look at the world that’s collapsing down around you. I know it’s always said, and it always seems so far away, but life is short. It’s a tunnel and each second brings us closer into the darkness that is death. But without it we wouldn’t know what it means to be human, we wouldn’t know love, hate, pain, or joy. And if my life has consisted of these things, then I think I consider it as one that was worth living.

52 Pillars of Salt

With that last line a feel something break inside of me. No, something mends. And I sink down on the cracked pavement and cry for the first time in over ten years. I cry for adventure and brilliance, memories and images, love and loss.

For all the invisible wonders of the world.

Talia Natoli ’17

Pillars of Salt 53

54 Pillars of Salt

Marcella Stanley ’15

The Eastern Star Afternoon light slants through the windows, and there’s a certain safeness in the smell of bleach and copy paper and pencil shavings.

It’s built like a classroom, but it feels like a home.

Various entrances and hallways intersect the grid, leading to journeys of both mind and soul.

I sit next to a door that leads to a musty unknown; I’ve never been down to the cellar, and quite frankly, I never want to.

They say these walls are haunted, grown like ribcages around our secret heart.

The walls are lined with structured wood engravings: rectangles and squares and corner-pieces, all imposing symmetry and uniformity upon the chaos (that is to say, students) that normally fills these halls.

Across the iron railing lies a wooden one attached to the wall, worn smooth from small, sweaty palms clinging to it, girls worried their oversized backpacks will send them tumbling down the stairs.

The fountain’s song breaks the silence already marred by the constant thrum of cars rushing to make the light, honking impatiently.

Tufts of imperfections grow deep into grassy roots.

At night with the lights turned off it becomes the backdrop of some noir film.

Here it’s dark unless you’re in the spotlight.

The Pillars of Salt Staff Pillars of Salt 55

See your work featured here. Submit to Lit! Deadline is March 21st so get writing! litmag@archer.org 56 Pillars of Salt

Talia Natoli ’17