Daemon 2019 by The Ethel Walker School

Daemon, The Ethel Walker School literary magazine, is a collection of writing and

works of art from this year. We would like to thank all of you who submitted essays, proses, poems, paintings, and photographs. It has been an exciting process to design and edit this magazine. Enjoy reading it.

Editors Ruoyi Jin, Editor-in-Chief Cara Cui Amelia Holl Jenessa Lu Ella Samson Karen Zhou

Advisor

Catherine Reed, Head of English

Cover Art Photograph by Jenessa Lu Designed by Ruoyi Jin

Flyleaf Art Gloria Lin

ArtWork Katherine Dunn ‘19 Tianyi Huang ‘21 Ruoyi Jin ‘19 Ruoyi Jin ‘19 Ruoyi Jin ‘19 Ruoyi Jin ‘19 Gloria Lin ‘19 Jenessa Lu ‘21 Jenessa Lu ‘21 Jenessa Lu ‘21 Jenessa Lu ‘21 Elizabeth Mao ‘21 Emily Ross ‘19 Daisy Zhang ‘21 Karen Zhou ‘20

Writing Printmaking Hutong Winter series Doodle Whimsy Ink Sketch Tide Boundary XinJiang Mountains Digital Life Dimension of Realization A Tribute to Mac Miller 曲线 (curve) Silent Night

Ava Astrohmeyer ‘21 Lilly Cullen ‘20 Amelia Holl ‘21 Amelia Holl ‘21 Ruoyi Jin ‘19 Ruoyi Jin ‘19 Ruoyi Jin ‘19 Jillian Jones ‘19 Joyce Kouami ‘22 Jane Li ‘20 Jenessa Lu ‘21 Lucia-Hope Markoe ‘21 BeJay Mugo ‘22 Grace Mugo ‘21 Emma Paterson ‘19 Ally Pelayo ‘20 Lydia Rifkind ‘19 Isabel Rush ‘19 Ella Samson ‘20 Riley Sheldon ‘20 Caroline Smith ‘19 Maisie Smith ‘19 Maisie Smith ‘19 Kristen St. Louis ‘21 Elizabeth Strapp ‘21 Emily Vitali ‘20 Alaina Vermilya ‘20 Hazel Wang ‘19 Karen Zhou ‘20 English 10 H

How to Bake a Key Lime Pie The Girl in the Mirror Stop Being Stupid “Appetite” Death of a Best-Selling Writer Haiku Blue Bubble Gum Morning Call A Home for a BRokEn Toy The Victory of Most Formidable Enemy Where I Come From This Woven Ocean It Went Up In Smoke The Big Lie Masterpiece (After Emily Dickinson) Stranger at Home Happiness in a Miami Jail Cacophony of Silence History Repeats Anxiety *Code Red Where I Grew Up The Cockle Cove Demon *She Names Me Paradise? An Ode to Congenital Hypothyroidism We Are All Creators Ultimate Darkness Dream HOW TO, or What we Know How to Do

* Winner of the Daemon Poetry contest

Haiku Ruoyi Jin Rising sun Anchor in the water Weary things のぼはくしずいかり

昇り白沈んだ錨みおつくし

History Repeats Ella Samson You never think your home could be a crime scene, never allow yourself to see the blood that stains your white walls rusty-red. So your eyes stay cool and milky never able to see the blood. Like the son of Cain your eyes are cool and milky, loving your father by going blind. Like the sons of Cain, we wander past Eden loving Our Father by going blind. How can we expect to continue wandering past Eden dragging our noses through bone-brittle land. How can we be expected to continue, never thinking it is a crime.

Masterpiece (After Emily Dickinson) Emma Paterson You’ll know it when you see it— She’s got diamonds for eyes And a cherry blossom for a nose— On a bed of nails she lies. She has silk for hair, Ironed and smooth— And a tapestry for skin, Adorned in a plain white robe. She has a skeleton of steel, Wrapped in muscles of lace. No one looks at her for long, But all passersby slow their pace. You can’t miss it— She sits forever on a pedestal— Afraid to get down— And gawked at by all.

Ruoyi Jin ‘19

Morning Call Jillian Jones I’m not sure what it was that woke me. Perhaps it was the laughs of early morning surfers on their way to the beach, or a breeze of salt water air that had swept into the warm attic bedroom that I was sharing with my sister and cousin. It was more likely the bark of the dog that was staying next door or the sound of the toilet flushing. I’d prefer to think of it as a beckoning from the ocean itself. I lay there on the twin bed, sheets kicked off towards the footboard and stuffed animals scattered around my head. I thought about what I could do with this time of day that, as a twelve year old, I rarely experienced. I contemplated going downstairs and making myself some breakfast, but I simply wasn’t hungry. I thought about walking over to my grandmother’s cottage nextdoor since she seemed to always be up before everyone else, but I looked outside and remembered it was still dark. Even Grandma wouldn’t be awake. What I could do with this free time? I found myself glancing again and again, over at the window, hoping to see sunlight each time. Finally, I looked again and noticed that the sky, which had been an inky black just moments earlier, was beginning to melt into a deep navy blue. My brilliant idea dawned. I moved swiftly, grabbing the first shorts and t-shirt combo in my dresser, careful not to close the drawer loudly for fear of waking my cousin and sister. I crept quietly through the hallways and down the stairs, careful to step around all of the squeaky loose boards. Pulling down on the brass handle ever so slowly, I opened the back door, stepped out onto the driveway, and started my walk to the ocean. I had done this walk a hundred times, but never alone. As I made my way down the empty dirt road, I wondered if I should turn back, creep back up the stairs of the old beach cottage, and pretend this plan had never hatched. My heart felt as if it were lurching out of my chest. Paranoia had me looking back over my shoulder every other minute. I kept going. The only audible sounds were the crunch of my dark purple Crocs against the gravel, and a few birds making light conversation. Eventually, I 7

relaxed and my fears of being alone dissipated. I felt glad for the solitude. It was a nice break from the constant chaos that comes with being on a fourteen-person family vacation. I made it to the end of the dirt road and began the sandy path that would lead me onward. I took off my shoes and wound my way through the shrub-covered trail, paying close attention to every turn I made, careful to look up, not to make a wrong move, but also cautious of where I was stepping to avoid sharp shells and rocks. As I made my way, the sting of salty air in my nose became stronger, the sand under my feet became softer. Finally, the trail opened up and I saw what I had come for. Neon strokes of red, yellow, and flamingo pink danced with the clouds above the water. I looked down the beach and there was nobody in sight. It was just me, the ocean, and the east coast sunrise.

Stop Being Stupid Amelia Holl We should probably stop trying to kill things when they’re already dead. Beating a dead anything is ridiculous, stupid. When they’re already dead, whatever you’re trying to say can’t be heard. Don’t be ridiculous, stupid, sounds don’t move through ground. Whatever you want to say won’t be heard! They’re in a mansion now or something. Your sounds can only travel over ground, and you’re one too many seas away. Listen, they’re in a mansion now, in the sky or California or wherever heaven is to you. You’re seas of asphalt away… It’s not like screaming over a swimming pool. Listen, please. You need to stop trying to kill things when they’re already dead. You just shouldn’t beat a dead anything.

This Woven Ocean Lucia-Hope Markoe “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore! Dream! Discover!” —Mark Twain This woven ocean on my wrist is the threads that flow as an angel’s hair does Threads who have been neatly coerced to make braided string That I—myself—wove into a Turk’s Head knot This Woven Ocean on my wrist journeys from the tiniest spark to the expanse of the Caribbean Each ridge in the pattern, each wave in the ocean This Woven Ocean is each line I coiled Each piece of rigging that pulled against my palms Each plate, a hallowed memory of vibrant sunsets and sunburns Of being peacefully woken by invasive rain to a new, salty day Of blood and sweat and tears and jubilation and fortitude Of late nights on the bow, blooming intrigue in hammocks under the stars This Woven Ocean on my wrist is first breaths underwater and somersaults in that coral and golden cavern It is the pressing feeling in my lungs as I deny my body of breath so I can witness the pellucid turquoise reflections and echoes of an underwater cave This Woven Ocean on my wrist is a reminder that I conquered fears who had lived in me since childhood That I jumped off of rocks into the salty burn 10

of water below me That I learned That I made new family This Woven Ocean on my wrist is a seashell I took from Slat Island instead of photographs A close-knit evening that ends in jumping off of the transom into the tenderly inviting waters of safety

Jenessa Lu ‘21

Where I Come From Jenessa Lu In English, my name means “fair and soft;” in Chinese, my name means “extending the goodness or brightness of the family”-- one depicts my personality, the other describes the high expectations of my parents. One indicates the sweet radiance of a typically feminine image, while the other refers to a spiritual expectation. However, in my mind, those words are painted in a muddy color. Because of their elusive meanings, I never really liked them. As a child, I would dream of baptizing my name in a more girly way--to sound like those of others; I don’t want to be different. However, I never fully understood my name-- until now. As a foreign student living in the States, my name recalls where I come from-- China. In America, my Chinese name is “cool, foreign, exotic.” My American classmates are usually amazed by the sophisticated Chinese characters that are totally familiar to me. To them, “Yingyan Lu” represents raw, exotic beauty, an echo from Asia. I enjoy this. For the first time, I’ve realized that my name represents something more profound than just me. The rhyme of the three characters echoes from the Huangpu River across from my grandparents’ house, the sunset rays streaming through the lit windows of the skyscrapers, and the taste of homemade dumplings melting away the coldness from the lane. All of these remind me of the richness embedded in the Chinese culture, and, more, the beauty of my hometown. Shanghai-- a sharp, but open-minded metropolis--features both eastern and western architecture and a people from everywhere, from far western China to India. Here, I can capture the Jingan Temple’s incense curling up with my camera and wander around the neoclassical architecture beside the Bund. The inclusiveness of Shanghai, my hometown, mirrors my own experience of bearing two cultural identities. I grow up with both the Chinese way of eating with bowls and chopsticks, and the Western way with knives and forks, the value of efficiency and speed while performing a task and maintaining personal relationships, and “saving face” when necessary. On Changli Street, my family lives under a not very big roof. The bookshelf and art paintings somehow find a way to fit into the grey wallpaper, and the cup of breakfast hot tea never disappears from the table. However, my experience in America has taught me something different-- to drink cold water on sub-zero winter days, to dance wildly and freely in a room full of strangers. From the Thanksgiving roasted turkey to the black-Friday chaos, to “bless you” 12

and “oh my gosh,” American enthusiasm has chased away my old over-cautiousness in public and my constant self-doubt. The thrashing, pulsating and contrasting vitality of both cultures that I feel each day somehow becomes a part of who I am; the American outgoingness gives me the confidence to be an “aggressive contrarian,” rejecting the established norms and speaking out for the minorities; my Chinese conservatism calms my young adolescent heart down to be humble enough to learn and explore the universe more each day. I don’t see an absolute black or white line lying between the two cultures. I see the power and a sense of empathy when a neutral zone is reached in both. At first unforeseen and vastly underappreciated, but gradually working its way into my heart, loosening the tight grip of embarrassment and self-doubt, is the realization of my identity, my country and my hometown. I rediscover my home along with the greater gift of appreciating myself, my name.

Paradise? Elizabeth Strapp Transparent and calm. Gentle waves roll up to the sand and unfurl, licking the surface of the most perfectly white sand on Planet Earth. I swear, the sun shines more fiercely in Turks and Caicos than it does anywhere else. I grab the edge of my kayak and drag it through the sand into the water. Droplets of sweat drip down the bridge of my nose and off the back of my neck; even five minutes outside is enough to coat my body in a layer of sweat. I can see through the clear water in every direction I turn and to my surprise, it is empty. There are no living creatures lurking under piles of seaweed, or crabs hiding in the sand disguised as rocks, as there are in the cold oceans of New England. This water is just cooler than the scorching air, so I let myself relax into the unreal scenery around me. My dad climbs into the back of our kayak and I climb into the front. In front of us, my sister and mother dispatch in their kayak across the open water. As we start to paddle out against the gentle current, my dad traces the coast line with his finger and comments on the distinctive similarities between this coast and the coast of Point O’ Woods back home in Connecticut. The sound of waves against sand becomes steadily more quiet as we move farther out to sea. The quiet world and overwhelming hot sun lure me into what I don’t realize is a false sense of security and I let my eyes close as we drift across the surface of the water. When I open them, I realize that we have drifted far enough from the shore that I have to squint towards the land to remember where exactly we set off from. I look into the now deep water around me to discover that although the water is still somewhat transparent, I cannot see the bottom of the ocean. I am too relaxed to give this thought much attention. Only a few seconds later, I see something that sends shock through every nerve in my body. Very suddenly, I sit straight upright sending the kayak dangerously rocking. My dad follows the direction of my gaze and shaking index finger pointing straight towards my mother and sister’s kayak, or at least, it appears to be pointed at the kayak. For a moment, my dad sits there, merrily looking confused and then his eyes, too, widen to twice their normal size as he finally understands. The pleasant smile vanishes from his face as he leans over the kayak to get a better look. Two feet in front of my sister and mother’s kayak, a shadow, at least six feet long, is gliding ominously. Before either of us can yell a warning, a sharp, grey fin punctures the crystal surface of water. Together with all the volume we can muster, my dad and I yell “SHARK!” The four of us plunge our paddles into the water and tear towards the shore, desperate, together. 14

Gloria Lin ‘19

A Home for a BRokEn Toy Joyce Kouami i feel like a previously dAmaGEd toy pre-programmed to MalfUNctiOn in the hands of its next owner. Once i MalfUNctiOn i grow more dAmaGEd. i move onto a new owner and the same follows. At a point i begin to wonder whether all my past owners were of one being, whether i was being tEstED in a factory, played around with in order to bring someone else joy, or used as a temporary pastime to fill in a void. i was pre-packaged and branded,“very fragile and hysterical” and “very uncivilized and prehistoric.” Every puppeteer says there's a home for every toy, but if the doll’s porcelain has been cHIpPed so many times? Slowly she began believing that she, personally, was the source of her own MisTReAtmeNtー Meanwhile another stranger walks past without a glance. She wonders why no one has acknowledge her CRiEs of helpー Meanwhile another stranger walks past without any notice. She pushes through but at every stop she bEAtS herself down even harder. Its wind up key is brOkEN-doWn. No longer human but an impeding commodity. It, no longer she. It, no longer me.

Elizabeth Mao ‘21

The Victory of Our Most Formidable Enemy Jane Li And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death. — Revelation 6:8 “When I was a kid, unbearable hunger and thirst hollowed out my body. I worked in the blazing sun, suffering from extreme heat and constant sunburn. I do not remember how much it hurt because it did not even hurt—it felt natural,” my 80-year-old grandpa recalled. “However, drenched by fear, my heart did not throb any longer when my doctor held my biopsy results in his shaking hands, looking at me as if a tough battle was coming soon.” On the morning of a summer day in 2008, my seventy-year-old grandpa woke up with pain along his jaw in a small apartment in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. He ignored it, until a week later, he found himself having difficulty swallowing as a hard lump started to grow at a terrifying rate under his left ear. “It was not severe pain, but a sort of numbness. I could not open my mouth widely, so I knew something was wrong.” Grandpa recalled, “My daughter saw this lump and sent me to the hospital immediately.” After diagnosis, the lump turned out to be parotid gland tumor. Parotid glands, located in front of the ears, are the largest salivary glands. Approximately twenty-five percent of parotid tumors are malignant, which means that the tumors are cancerous and can invade other tissues. Luckily, hope defeated fear when the doctor said it was a parotid gland tumor, which meant that the tumor cells growing under grandpa's left ear did not turn cancerous. Thus, the doctor informed that surgery could be done to remove the tumor. “I cried of happy tears,” said Grandpa. A week later, Grandpa was sent to Shanghai for treatment. On a freezing winter day in 2009, I saw Aunty and Grandpa downstairs through the window of my room. I opened the window when a sudden gust of wind brought in a lump of dark, ominous clouds, accompanied by roaring thunder and lightning flashing across the sky. Rain pelted down, cluttering up their heavy steps. I looked forward to the reunion, Grandpa’s affectionate smile, so charming and peculiar. I was expecting and imagining all these convivial scenes. Of course, no one told me about Grandpa’s tumor — I was only seven years old, considered immature. Grandpa only stayed with us for a few days, and then he was gone. 18

No one mentioned his name when he was gone, and despite my curiosity, I did not ask. Four months later, another gloomy day. Rain pounded on my window. It rained so frequently during those few months that reminded me what Chinese writer Eileen Zhang said: “I would rather it rained every day, thinking you are not here because of the rain.” Rain can sometimes bring me calm, but that day, everything was bleak, gray, dreary. I was dozing over a novel in my room when I suddenly heard some noises in the living room. A thought flashed in my mind—Grandpa was back. I ran out earnestly to greet him; it was him, but he looked different—wan, bleak, and debilitated. My parents told me that he needed rest. I looked at him worriedly when he forced a painful smile. Three weeks later was my birthday and I was eight years old. My parents told me everything. I was curious, yet nervous, and speechless. The words shocked me: tumors, cancer, grandpa, death. Two years of recovery and Grandpa returned to a normal life. We sent him back to Nanchang, reunited with Grandma. Six months later, Grandma complained of nagging chest pain. At a local hospital, the doctor got her biopsy results: " Lung cancer, stage three B. " Everything was fading into an abyss. I had a portentous feeling when I heard this. It was like everyone in the family had the disease. I felt like I was stuck in an endless loop of nightmares. The adults were right; it would be better if I knew nothing. But at ten, I was mature enough to accept the truth and to help take on some responsibility. I tried to convince myself that Grandpa survived it, so would Grandma. Cell division allows us as organisms to grow and recover from injury – to live. And this mechanism, once distorted and unleashed, allows cancer cells to thrive – at the expense of our own lives. They are the more adaptable versions of ourselves. Cancer metastasizes; it invades tissue, sets up colonies in hostile landscapes, seeks sanctuary in one organ and then immigrates to another. It lives desperately, inventively, fiercely, cannily, and defensively — at times, as if teaching us how to survive. Grandma suffered: chemotherapy took away her beautiful, long hair; radiation therapy made her fatigued and short of breath. She slept fitfully for twelve or fourteen hours a day, then woke up feeling so tired that she needed to haul herself back to the bed again. She was only skin and bone, as pale as a ghost. Her hands were worn and coarse, and her body gaunt and enervated. She had no power to fight this evil power in her body. I spent time with her in the hospital. She had a positive mood for the first few months—fearless and hopeful 19

John Laszlo, a researcher who joined the American Cancer Society, stated that “It was usually a matter of watching the tumor get bigger, and the patient, progressively smaller.” When Grandma’s condition deteriorated, and all kinds of treatment destroyed her body, she finally gave up, and the last line of defense, hope, gradually faded away. On a sunny day, when she attempted to go out for a walk after therapy, she realized that she was too weak to stand up. She was carried back to bed like a baby, which made her ashamed. She cried helplessly. Cancer was an all-consuming presence in her life. It invaded her imagination; it occupied her memory; it infiltrated every conversation, every thought. She became self-enclosed, irascible. She wrapped herself in a sheet and imposed isolation. In the beginning, everyone related cancer to death; and the fear of death forced us to put hope into therapy. However, after months of high-dose chemotherapy, fear and anxiety, and finally, hopelessness was what I saw the last time I saw her. “I’m tired, and I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to live in pain.” She complained of lethargy and feebleness and told us that she did not want treatment anymore. We respected her decision and sent her back to Nanchang. At that point, death was a relief. T Watching Grandma’s body and mentality slowly being engulfed by illness, I felt useless—I could not do anything to relieve her pain, nor could I invent a magical solution that would pull her back from the brink of death. Cancer is incurable, so far. So many people are dying of cancer, and grandma’s suffering gave my inner voice a chance to speak up. I was thirteen years old, and a life goal has been determined deep in my heart. For the last few weeks, everyone was as defeated by cancer as grandma was. We all knew that day would eventually arrive. It was in the middle of the night on a winter day in 2015—the night brooded over the motionless hills and forests, and on the silent flowing stream of the river, throwing over all its moonlight spell. Grandma closed her eyes forever. She died in a small apartment in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. No one noticed her death in that peaceful night because she did not say a word, nor did she show any pain. The next morning, when a faint beam of sunlight reflected on her cold, expressionless face, the lack of sentimentality blended in with the stifling air in that lifeless apartment.

Ruoyi Jin ‘19

Dream Karen Zhou [In memory of Mochi (2017-2018).] Dusty’s urn has never been buried. He is placed carefully on the top shelf of the kitchen cabinet, wrapped in his Christmas vest that he only wore once. As I reach up to pull out the drawer, a voice passes my mind like a meteor crosses the sky. The voice echoing in me sounds peculiar and obscure. It’s my voice, “If you could turn back time, do you believe you can straighten out the errors and mistakes, and save him?” “Supernatural phenomena only exist in sci-fi movies.” “Nonsense.” I carefully take out Dusty’s urn with two hands, unwrap the vest and lie flat on the dull polished surface of the kitchen island. The urn is placed on top of the red, fleece vest. I glance at the urn without much sentiment, while the clock on the wall serenely displays the time and date in white neon lights. It has been one year. Apr. 26. 2019 “I’m home.” “I guess you can’t hear me. Right. How is that even possible.” “Sorry, I let you squeeze in the narrow cabinet for so long.” “You haven’t said a word to me for a year.” “If you feel like coming out here and see the world again, please do so.” “I’m always here, for your return.” “Ah, Dad has put away all your belongings and hidden all of your traces.” “Sorry about that, it’s just, it’s hard you know.” “Please, don’t be mad at us.” 22

Apr. 26. 2018 “Dad, can I see him?” The birthday gift became an ablation; the day after the birthday became the day of death. The one-meter-long toy snake lies next to him, untouched. The bright red, fluffy surface faded; the clear, yellow eyes dimmed. All of a sudden, the world has lost its vivid colors, as if it had always been a black and white movie. I walked down into the white room with my head down, breathing in the sterile air, feeling like I was standing on the North Pole all alone. Voices, like beeping sound of the medical instruments, steps of people passing by, and other chaos were from a far distance. I’m isolated in a seamless glass room with Dusty by my feet, sinking in the boundless ocean of sapphires and pulling me down the abyss. I can hear the air bubbles bursting by my ears; I reach out my hands for the radiance of light, and the spark kept getting farther and farther away from me. I regretted seeing him at first. I would rather have his chubby, furry little face seared into my heart. The elders have told me: “when facing the deceased loved ones, all the memorable moments you had with them will be played like a videotape in front of your watery eyes. Every scene will have a different color; every laugh will tickle your nerves once more; every tear will feel like a fresh cut on your heart, what we call ‘the lantern of life’ is like the world has pressed the replay button.” I stand there quietly waiting for the waves of reminiscence to hit me like a fragile reef on the beach. The lantern does not appear. There is only a cold skeleton covered in black and white fur in my sight. This is not my boy. Instead of lying down on a gray blanket with his eyes shut, Dusty should be peeing on the wool carpet at home because I ate a whole apple without sharing. This must be a mistake. I move to the other side of his body in tiny steps like a wobbly toddler. But then I can see the unique black block on the back of his right neck. I am not crying, but my cheeks are soaked in tears. The drops break free in an stream, splashing lilies on the ceramic tiles. 23

This is impossible. Apr. 24. 2018 “Dad, can I go see Dusty with you? Tomorrow is his first Birthday.” Dusty is a merle-colored border collie. He came to our household as my birthday gift. Unfortunately, he is in the hospital now because of fever. Dusty got sick because we put him in a newly opened kennel next to our home when we had to travel abroad. We thought he might feel better because he was familiar with the surroundings. It turned out that he was not being treated in the way I expected. I can hear him groaning in the narrow, metal cage. He has lost too much weight, so that his face looks sharp -- like a rat’s. His limbs are too weak to support the torso; the fluffy tail slowly wiggles back and forth. As my hand gets closer to his nose, Dusty starts to lick me with his soft tongue. But it feels dry and spiky today. I placed his birthday gift, a red and yellow patterned toy snake next to him and squished the body to make a creaking sound. Dusty moved his head to where my hand was and looked at me with his crystal clear eyes as if he wanted to say “I like this, thank you.” Mar. 26. 2018 “Dad, shall we take him to the kennel in the suburbs?. By the way, I also heard that someone else’s dog got canine distemper there. Dusty is napping next to my feet; his ears turn as I talk to my father. He turns his head and looks at me with disappointment. He stands up, fluffs his fur once, and stretches his body with two front paws pushing forward on the ground. In human yoga, this is the movement called “down dog.” He walks to his gray blanket and cuddles up into a ball under the bright sunshine at three o’clock in the afternoon with his butt facing me. When I was still busy thinking if Dusty does that on purpose, he gives away a long sigh and continues his nap with light snores. Apr.26.2020 “I’m home.” 24

“Oh, baby little Dusty. How has your day been?” “Are you behaving like a good boy at home?” “Were you and Daddy in peace?” “Calm down! Don’t rip my pants!” “Get your head out of my bag!” "I bought you an apple, do you want it?"

Tian Huang ‘21

Stranger at Home Ally Pelayo For a place so crowded in daylight, the beach is eerily empty at night. I had been walking back from a friend’s house and the air felt thick with moisture. The road curved and the sliver of the moon dancing on the water’s edge had called me like a siren’s song. I toed off my flip flops and allowed the chorus of cicadas and the quiet collapse of waves to draw me to the music’s source. I tightrope-walked the line between sea and earth. The squid fishing boats in the distance were brighter than the smog hidden stars. If I waded out far enough, I would have been a lone astronaut drifting through the stars. But the silence unnerved me and stirred the emotions in my gut. Occasionally, a stray cat’s eyes would catch in the moonlight. I would turn to see its shape disappear into a sea-worn tree or under an old fishing boat. I reveled in it. The feeling of total isolation was hard to come by in this city. I turned and walked until the coarse sand no longer shifted and instead scraped in between the bottom of my soles and the concrete. As was my usual fashion, I made the bad decision to keep the plastic straps of my shoes dangling from my fingertips and prayed that the asphalt and God knows what was on top of it wouldn’t pierce skin. But the ground was still sun-warmed and familiar as I traveled the midnight streets. I slowed to a stop as I approached the bus stop. Despite the odd hour, I had full confidence that if I stood there for a while, the entire island would be at my fingertips. Shuttles hurtling themselves through the night- trapped in endless loops and hurry. I grasp the paint-chipped pole and think. Before I had lived so close to the water, I had lived in the sky. I had seen the world as the kites did. Their wings still despite their bodies rising and falling with the currents. Once one had alighted on the balcony; it started back as if it were paying me for the days I’d traced their effortless circling instead of focusing on the task I had on hand. Like Rapunzel with an unlocked door, I was free to explore, but always returned to the comforts of my tower. My steed, the dutiful bus. My destination: the spot in which I was now standing. The cycle of faces and storefronts renewed my home many times over, but this spot had remained unchanged. Walk the beach filled with the smell of barbeque and sunscreen, cross the street, travel by the gated house with the noisy guard dogs, past the concrete park no one uses, and there the bus station 27

stood. A simple concrete bench built into a wall shaded by bamboo. Behind the bamboo curtain, a hidden playground and swing set. I walked to the bench and peered at the bamboo. Through the cracks, I could see the days when my brother and I would reach the bus stop panting before eagerly checking the time in hopes of salvaging a few minutes of flight on the swings. If there was only one available, we would argue about who got to go on it until the shuttle finally came. I hadn’t entered the small park for years now. So for melancholy’s sake, I entered and sat on one of the abandoned swings. To my silent amusement I found myself slipping off of the skinny rubber pad. My legs could no longer fully extend. The times when I could catapult myself through the air to join the kites had ended. With that thought, I moved on. When I came to cross the empty street, by habit rather than circumstance, I pressed the crossing button. The insistent ticking filled the dead air with noise. I crossed, checking the surrounding apartments’ windows for new light. Rounding the corner and heading down the ramp, I spotted it. Still open. Still bright. The 7-11’s neon sign welcomed all weary travelers inside. Hearing its promises, I entered. The sometimes functioning Slurpee machine rumbled in the back. I returned the dead-eyed stare of the employee with one of my own, and clutched the jagged edges of the two dollar coins stowed in a back pocket of my pair of jean shorts. The snacks lining the shelves, unfamiliar and known, were not what I sought. After a seven dollar, mostly silent transaction, I had obtained two slightly steaming buns. Their wrappers were light and spongy. Their insides, savory, and filled with the taste of barbequed pork. My personal Chiron’s incurious eyes followed me as I exited his realm having paid my fare and retrieved my treasure. I did not glance back even once on my retreat down the cobblestone alley. After all, I intended to say goodbye only once and it wouldn’t be wasted on only a part of the whole. The alleyway, in the day time, was always crowded to the point of near immobility, but at night it was a ghost town. But the still-light neon signs and moonlight turned the tin store stutters with bright graffiti into a gallery. I walked past storefronts that I recognized. One was once a souvenir shop, then a suitcase store, then a handbag place, now an electronics place. The changeability of the market had always given it its charm and fueled a passerby’s sense of adventure. There, with a spray-painted dragon on its shutters, was the store where my brother and I had rushed to buy Pokémon cards. There, the table that I bought bracelet beads from. There, the table that sold belt buckles with words that made young mothers place firm hands over their curious children's eyes. I had grown up in these winding streets and I was 28

sure I knew every back alley. But I had always been here. I was able to keep up with the change. With every cycle I remained and I felt a little pride in that I had been a historian to the swiftly changing story unfolding around me. I had been there through a perhaps hell, but most certainly high water. When the lashing rain made the windows leak, when the building swayed under the pressure of enormous gusts, all the times we nearly lost the barbeque cover to the temper of the typhoon season... There I was, laughing at inside-out umbrellas and minefields of puddles that threatened all dry socks. I had been there through festivals, heard the beat of the dragon boat, danced with the lion, watched the moon by lantern and glow-stick light on a packed beach. I have seen the brides in rental dresses, the street side games, the crooning performers whose voices drifted on the plaza. Turning right, I found myself home. Its too small spaces reminded me it wouldn’t be home for much longer. The isolation almost made sense. The vibrant world around me had become silent. Like it wanted to give me time to think. Time to say my final goodbyes. Stepping out of the elevator, in two steps, I was home. I climbed the stairs that led to the roof and sat staring out into the harbor. The empty night sky danced with the lights floating on top on water. It kissed them a final goodbye as the sun began to rise.

Ruoyi Jin ‘19

HOW TO, or What We Know How to Do By all of English 10H How to bake from a box. How to “be sick.” How to avoid anyone. How to overthink everything. How to be Latina. How to speak without a voice. How to be a tri-thirds athlete. How to be a bigot. How to fall down the stairs. How to bribe. How to be somebody. How to lie. How to be a bad friend . How to get lost at sea. How to love someone you don’t. How to fail Honors Chemistry. How to fight with your brother. How to choreograph a dance. How to disappoint your parents. How to get by with no sleep. How to suck up to adults. How to get into a fight. How to never speak up about a problem. How to/how not to speak Albanian. How to be extraordinarily beautiful. How to be put together at all times. How to be angry about everything. How to be in a relationship only you know about. How to be pantsed in public. How to unsuccessfully comfort a sobbing friend. How to attend Hogwarts as a muggle. How to work out, take a shower, and then work out again. How to juggle sports, school, family and faith all at once. How to be a night owl and an earlier riser. How to bake cookies, and start over because you forgot something. How to fail at eating a burger with an underbite. How to fail at coaching kindergarteners. How to play the mixed girl’s card. 31

How to cure yourself of crying. How to choose the right scissors to cut someone off. How to scare your sister’s boyfriends away. How to live pretending death doesn’t exist. How to hate someone respectfully. How to be afraid of men. How to give relationship advice when you’ve never been in a relationship. How to Convince Yourself You’re an Intellectual. How to Hide in Your House Without Your Family Knowing You’re There. How to Embarrass Yourself in Every Situation. How to fail ATUSH. How to ace a test on the Odyssey without reading the Odyssey. How to be selectively antisocial. How to play the bagpipes. How to be McKenzie. How to tell the barber you want to get your head shaved. How to curse in Mandarin. How to communicate with eye contact. How to believe in a fake thing after you know it is not true. How to be an oreo. How to get ready in under ten minutes. How to binge ten seasons. How to procrastinate. How to switch schools. How to pop-chip your way around a jr. hunter course. How to be a bad roommate. How to see the positives in the negatives. How to find yourself.

Silence Isabel Rush A shadow flits over grass. Lush carpet to the pads of pounding feet. Her eyes track butterflies. White net flowing in her wake. A flag proclaimed; a ghost following close behind. The wings, a tiny wash of color, wink lazily. They edge close, towards the unseen barrier which separates her domain from the cluster of trees beyond. They stand a few feet from her toes. Far enough to lure her, yet close enough to anger her. Hemmed in by the white picket fence, she is at once defended and suffocated by the posts stretching into the air above. Alice twirls oblivious to the trees standing outside her grasp; they muffle the crunch of leaves under faded sneakers. The rhythm of breath heavy in her lungs, the swish of auburn hair along shoulders thrown back. A pair of work boots trail at a distance, their weight kept deftly on toes, dodging leaves crumpling to dust. The swift movements of the boots shroud the looming darkness from the worming in of the sunlight, hanging above the canopy of trees. The crack of a branch wrenched from its mother, bounces through the forest, carried to where Alice frolics in the grass. The army of trees stand guard at her back. She glances up and inches closer to the edge of her white ring of territory. Ears almost twitching from strain. Eyes squinting through the glare towards the origin of the interruption. A stray leaf bows under her weight and splinters into the air. The eerie silence which follows is tangible with the sour taste of fear. It is an instinct so deep, it may as well have been buried in the pulsing red confines of her heart. Alice dodges into the waiting shelter of a solitary oak, and is hidden behind the gnarled bark. It digs stubbornly into the skin, running up her spine. The branch cuts through the air in a vicious swipe, but the pale arm which swings out in opposition is swifter. He deftly snatches it mid-arc in callused hands before pulling it into the waiting green brush. The trees stand as witness to the lumbering work boots that turn to the sneakers. Auburn hair fights with sharpened canines and nails against a steely arm grip. In a motion resembling that which would precede the cradling of a face, fingers are instead coiled around a long neck and simultaneously jerked away from each other. The resounding crack of bone grinding on bone reverberates through the army of trees in a guard of silence. Behind the barrier of protective oak, Alice’s eyelids are clenched shut. She sees only blackness speckled with explosions of dying light. But her young ears are tuned-in and sharp. And though she is afforded the mercy of no sight, 33

she suffers the curse of her ability to hear. The knowing is immediate. A reflex reaction to the final click of grating bone. The thump of a limp body kissing the forest floor. Auburn hair pooling in its wake. A Raggedy Ann doll without her playmate. The scurrying paws of a frantic squirrel step on a prostrate twig, resting only a few feet from where she hides. The boots pause in their preordained path and turn. Heels rotate and toes point towards the oak tree, scouring. Her skin, color rich as the earth raising her up, she crushes her body and is molded to the wall of oak. Her only movement is the slight lift and cave as oxygen flows freely to the lungs, silent to all but the tree enveloping her in its trunk. Seconds of peering closely at the tree pass. At last, the work boots recede into the blanket of trees. The promise of return stamped into disturbed earth. Silence pervades the space, trapped, dancing between stoic statues, rising skyward. The soothing sweep of air through lean calves. Only emptiness now, wilting in the cloying heat, sticking to the rivers and valleys of her hands. Alice twists, nose to tree, and runs her forehead along the bark. Stops at the end of the tree’s width, still hidden, eyes staring holes into the unwavering brown stripes running up. She peeks her eyes out to the left of the tree, blinking at the scene lying fifty feet away. The forest, contaminated by the raised mound of flesh. Bent limbs sprawled in chaotic fleeing. Neck contorted at a sharpened angle. Bile ascends in a sour cloud of vengeance to Alice’s lips. A voice rattles inside Alice’s head. A moment of recognition washes up on the shore of her thoughts, and she awakens to her current situation behind the tree. At some point in time, he will return, and she will have to stand on this soil until another opportunity for escape reveals itself. Despite this threat, she is tied to the ground supporting her feet. The knowledge of the body alone with the work boots, and no one to record its fate, keeps her still. Any minute now, leaves scattered on the forest floor will disintegrate beneath rolling footsteps. With this terrifying thought held close to her chest and a silent prayer for forgiveness, Alice darts across the backyard in a few slaps of feet against grass. With the fear of discovery pumping through her veins, she grasps the screen door and creates a space large enough to squeeze through. “Have you returned with a new friend, love? Catch any unlucky straggling butterflies?” “No.” “Sorry honey, I’m afraid that’s the way it is. Butterflies want to be free to soar on the wind, not cooped up in a box in your bedroom.” 34

“Yes.” Here, wait a second, I’m just finishing cutting these carrots for dinner. Okay, I’m all yours, what’s wrong, love?” The arms beckon. Alice runs the distance and plops down less delicately with a responding groan from the floorboard. She collapses into patient arms, perfectly smooth, and dipped in the sun’s effervescent warmth. A hand strokes her luscious dark curls, alive, sprung free in protest of air thick as peanut butter in her mouth. Neck curled over a shoulder. Eyes caught by the accusatory pupils of a cat, which pierce through the depths of bone veiled in skin to her wispy soul. Strangled air heaves from her chest. Arms firmly entwine around the plateau of her back. Droplets of saltwater erupt from crinkled corners. Gliding down cheeks blotchy in sorrow, rolling off the quivering chin onto threads of fabric. The only evidence, raindrops, sprinkled in a path down a loosely hanging shirt. Eventually, the waves ebb against the constant shore and breaths whistle through her nose and out of her mouth in time to the drumming of her heart. With a squeeze of her thin arms that speaks more than sounds clicked on a tongue, she lifts herself into the air and breaks away. The ascent of the stairs is gradual with legs forged in stone. She steps through her doorway and through the open window, a peculiar sound rides the wind and ensnares her fine-tuned ears. Eyes wide, she stumbles toward the four glass panels in white wood to listen. What she could have stopped, what she could still stop. If she were smarter, or braver, or better. But she is not. She can never let anyone know how badly she has failed. The shame is almost unbearable, nestled in the grooves of her windpipe. Fourteen years later, a pair of feet pad leisurely through trees relishing in the blankets of moss creeping over roots arcing over the earth, out of place in the cluster of trees, which stand still and quiet in their pensiveness. Now the forest is awake and the strangeness of it is enough to suggest something is not right. Farther ahead, Alice sees the neon yellow strung between the trees and the accompanying people stomping about. No respect for the space they inhabit. By the time she comes striding up to a man in a navy-blue uniform she is angry and does not notice precisely where she stands. Her voice cuts through 35

the air, “Excuse me, sir, may I ask what you are doing?” The man turns fully towards Alice, standing outside the yellow tape. He scowls at her and his answer is coated in suspicion, “We got a tip saying there was a body buried here. Who wants to know?” She slams into the wall of memory headfirst.

Karen Zhou ‘20

Blue Bubble Gum Ruoyi Jin 1 “Maybe I need to get some air.” “No.” “Can I go out for thirty seconds?” “No.” “Two seconds?” “No.” “Mom! Please. ” “No. She could be here at any second.” “But——” 2 I thought it was Evon’s creepy story about the child-eater living in the tap that made me so anxious. For a long time, I needed someone’s accompany to go to the washroom, but that did not make me sleepless. I was in third grade and I still needed my mom to sleep next to me every night. Many years later, we were talking about this insomnia thing. Mom said: “I brought you to a clinic because I knew you were totally fine. It was normal for kids at your age to have sleeping problems, you know, separation anxiety. We just needed to hear it from a real therapist.” 3 I had my Hello Kitty sneakers on that day. My pale-blue one-piece dress was dotted with gleaming flowers. I looked like a picture from those kids’ fashion magazines only pregnant moms read. I was ready to flee, but Mom and the stranger s andwiched me. The stranger was wearing all white, the color of marshmallow and hospital. I noticed that the stranger had very short hair. 38

“Who are you? What have you done to your hair?” I protested quietly. And she stood up from the chair. The short haired woman left. Finally. “Is that Mrs. Chen?” “Yes, that is Mrs. Chen. You two are going to have fun together.” “Are we playing games?” “Oh yes. Sandplay. Lots of fun.” “You stay here.” “Please. Twenty minutes and we are done. I will be waiting over there. See that sofa?” “Don’t go——” 4 It was unexpected, but still, somehow, made sense. Something more than separation anxiety. Hand in hand, we headed out of the clinic. Mom told me I was perfectly normal, and I believed her, despite the swirling heat. It didn't matter because we were to home. We walked to the car together. The sky was idly cloudless. “Can I have a bubble gum?” she said. “Remember the time you accidentally stepped on a beetle with bare feet so we had to drive to the hospital in midnight to get your poor swollen toe some antibiotics?” “Yes, I remember that. You and the nurse laughed at me when I was crying out in pain. ” I took out a UHA bubble gum from my pocket. I ripped the tinfoil away before put it in Mom’s mouth. “Blueberry. Yum.” Green Light. “Mom, what did Mrs. Chen say to you? Am I ill?” “No, you are a two-hundred-percent healthy girl. Mrs. Chen and I were talking about how lovely you are.” 39

“Mom, you sound fake.” “You truly are.” I put another piece of gum in my mouth. 5 As a matter of fact, the bubble gum stayed in my throat for quite a while. It stuck in the middle of my throat like the burning, scoring sun. Any attempt to swallow, at all, was unavailing and painful. “I do speak.” I whispered in a mosquito voice to the boy sitting next to me. The class activity was to share cookies with your neighbour. “But you are mute!” He yelled. “He’s right. You are mute!” said the one sitting next to him. Every eye in the classroom was focusing on me. If I were a match, I was lit. Four-year-old. Same Hello Kitty sneakers. Withering and speechless. 6 “This time, do it, all right?” Mom tapped, slightly, on my shoulder. “Say hello to the teacher when you enter.” How easy it seemed just to say, “Hello.” I sprinted through the gate. 7 The bubble gum had secretly taken over my speech. It deceived almost everyone who walked into my early childhood into thinking: this child does not speak. As I grew older, without a clue as to how or why, the bubble gum that stuck in my throat was gone. Selective mutism, as the therapists might referred to it, was a stubborn piece of bubble gum in a four-year-old’s system of perception. Looking back at those days of absolute silence and inward agitation, I do wish I could be more honest with people I loved. But past has set in the dust. It smelled like sandalwood and gleamed in the dark. 40

Ruoyi Jin ‘19

Ode to Congenital Hypothyroidism Emily Vitali A Blue Morpho butterfly swathed around the windpipe beneath the Adam’s Apple. Indiscernible to those it perched upon, its iridescent pigment remained totally unblemished. One girl’s throat, however, fused dimensions of space and time yet lacked the orbiting brilliance of a blue sapphire insect around her windpipe. To her, a Blue Morpho’s abidance scoped beyond geography. Others had cosmic mechanisms the girl could not fathom without her small, blue pills, elixirs brewing an aspiring butterfly functioning on a windpipe. When she swallowed her daily dosage, each pill swamped itself into what seemed like an abyssal lagoon in her throat. She learned, that those with the Blue Morpho beautifully bloomed into metamorphosis while she remained a caterpillar.

Death of a Best-Selling Writer ( One-Act Play) Ruoyi Jin Characters THE MAN (or The Women/The Writer, depends on the player’s gender), a best-selling fiction writer who is at stage IV Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Appears in a camouflage uniform. THE CORPSE, a doctor in a blood-stained lab coat and wears a helmet. There is nothing but heavy smoke, sound of rifles, cannons, grenades, and screams. After a while, the smoke dissipates and everything calms down. It becomes completely dark. A man in a neat camouflage uniform slowly sneaks out from nowhere as the entire stage becomes more and more visible. He glances nervously at the distant woods and listens to the wind. He waits. After a few moments of absolute silence, he finally collapses onto the ground. THE MAN: VICTORY—— (He hears something going through the bushes. The sound grows louder. He backs up.) THE MAN: If that is an enemy, I am already dead. I ditched all my weapons. I never trust those metals, because they reflect the sun that betrays all kinds of secrets. Even Caesar is lured into death by those who promise to protect him. I don't trust anyone. I don't trust anyone, if that is not an enemy. I will be convicted of treason before those savages shoot me in the head and pee on my grave. Either way, I am already dead. The sound grows even louder and a man in a lab coat covered in blood stumbles onto the stage. The two of them stare at each other in silence. Suddenly, the injured man face-plants on the ground with his left arm reaching out and the palm side up as if he were begging; he turns to the audience and speaks with his eyes widening. The man carefully steps closer. THE CORPSE: You… THE MAN: There is no way you could survive after losing so much blood. THE CORPSE: You… 43

THE MAN: You are a corpse and corpses are supposed to be dead——at least the living cannot hear your gibberish. The ominous sound I just heard——something belongs neither to the underworld nor to this life——was poison to my ear. You have betrayed Mother Nature and you will be punished for your disloyalty. THE CORPSE: Yes, you over-there. I have something to tell you. THE MAN: Go ahead. THE CORPSE: Be prepared to fight the biggest enemy in your life, so far. THE MAN: What? I just survived a war and now you are getting me into another one? THE CORPSE: Making a deadline does not equal fighting a war. Please be respectful to those who are ACTUALLY fighting for this country. Also, I believe deserters are not really in a position to comment, let alone call martyrs savages. It is simply saying it with your brain. By the way, I am not the living dead. You just made everything up. THE MAN: It doesn't matter. Life is war. I fight against many things. I fight against my job, holidays before deadline, aggressive Chihuahuas, burnt pancakes, Saturday morning woodpeckers, Mr. Editor and others. But Death is my ultimate enemy. To die, therefore, is treachery, an act of betraying my body—— THE CORPSE: Very narcissistic. It seems that you are the one being betrayed. THE CORPSE (coughs): The biopsy does not turn out as we would like it to be. (pause) You have Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which is a type of lymphoma where cancer originates from lymphocytes, a specific type of white blood cells. Keep in mind that lymphoma is highly treatable. THE MAN: The corpse does not shut up as nature would like it. 44

THE CORPSE: I want you to understand that this is serious. The biopsy shows that you are entering stage IV, which means at this point chemotherapy is VERY necessary. You should sign the documents so you can be hospitalized right away. THE MAN: I am not going to receive therapy. THE CORPSE: WHAT? THE MAN: I am not going to receive therapy. How much time do I have left? THE CORPSE: Three months. THE MAN: Thank you. (he turns away and leaves) （The corpse gets up from the ground and grabs the man by the arm; it takes him some moments before speaks up） THE CORPSE (sincere): I…I read your books. I just want you to know I love everything you wrote. I love your debut novel Live like a Dog, Poisonous Tongue, Self-Portrait of a Peeled Banana, a nd the three poem collections—Can’t Afford My Grave, Half-Dead, Irreversible Death—perfectly sarcastic and incredibly touching. Really…I am sorry that you have to go through this. THE MAN: I feel sorry, too. Everything you just mentioned, especially the poems, is shit. Mr. Editor sees the potential in people like you, who are willing to pay for shit as long as the cover says “Twenty-first Century Masterpiece” or “Top Ten Books You Cannot Miss,” and yes, even when you are reading shit you are not going to acknowledge it because you never pay for your stupidity. (Phone rings, he takes his phone out) Yes it’s me. GO NOW. (The corpse leaves) THE MAN (irritated): No, I was talking to a corpse——I was joking—-Okay, the new chapter——(inhales) I emailed it to you TWENTY-FIVE SECONDS before midnight so I am technically NOT LATE——Mr. Editor, YOU DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO——I never proofread my own works 45

because they are not worth reading——No, you like them because you like money——Mr. Editor, I NEED TO GO. (He drops the phone) (The man looks around and puts on the helmet the corpse had left him with, he sits on the ground.) THE MAN: I can’t win this war against you (looks at the sky) and you. (looks at his armpit) You know how sewer rats die? They die not of disease or anything in the damp tunnels but they climb up drain pipes, and as soon as they breathe in the sweet fragrance of civilization, they are caught in mousetraps and DEAD. Isn't this a good ending? (no responses, so he continues) THE MAN: I love everything you wrote. (awkward laughs) The most fortunate and unfortunate thing in the twenty-eight-year life of a best-selling writer: Being loved by this world. On the polished granite, the epitaph says: Here lies the twenty-first century best-selling writer. Spring flowers bloom all over the place. Being loved by this world—seems to be a fantastic thing. As a matter of fact, ninety percent of this world is the hoarders next door, the rich people fighting over buffet seafood, high school teenagers secretly sticking boogers under the alternative history teacher’s desk, and the other hypocrites—Fathom the truth. Angry and vain people rule this world. You, are fed with fake smiles, fake love, false appreciation, to the point where you smile at park benches, dedicate your life to everyone who breathes, and develops a taste for, well, for shit. The truth is: to live is to master hypocrisy. Too many live in this world and dream of another. Aren’t we all sewer rats. What else can I say? (he dies)

Jenessa Lu ‘21

Happiness in a Miami Jail Lydia Rifkind I anxiously await our weekly visits separated by a cloudy glass I can’t help but smile fifty minutes, I cherish You are turning red, days your laugh brings a light cherry and others, I recognize like my own reflection that warning shade of auburn, the one I learned far too early to seek shelter from the tornado - your veins bulge, struggling to contain a lifetime of hurt, and another of regret; this is a shade of red our father has taught us but I am happy I wait for you in a room crowded by joyous children, too young to understand the heartbreak that floods my body after every goodbye I am happy because our mother is her voice will shake, her eyes will swell, but for now we are able to enjoy each other’s silence we have waited all week, every week for these precious fifty minutes. I can hear the ring of the last payphone in Miami that carries your voice through three inches of glass you press your hand to hoping, wishing to feel the warmth of our love on the other side. I am happy because I can hear your voice your laugh - the only thing that remains 49

of the boy you used to be - the boy who would go to college, the boy who would make us proud, but for now, I know you are safe from those on our side, from your free-self. I am happy but there is something missing something that has chosen me to occupy, burying tunnels throughout my chest, tediously consuming my soul, a parasite you carry the very same I see has colonized our mother We wait for the day where we can know, once again, the feeling of you in our arms a warmth that forces out those parasites, melting, revealing a wholeness we have forgotten Today I write this, a letter never sent, to let you know I am happy I am my own self - a symptom of our separation I once feared but now embrace, the same way I am waiting for you once more.

Ultimate Darkness Hazel Wang She was falling into the darkness. The light above grew faint. She stared aimlessly ahead and waited for the bottom. Let me die, she murmured, succumbing to the immense agony. A dreamy and silvery melody came from above. Her ears ached from the sudden exposure to sounds. She had this peculiar prejudice against the piano sound. What could one achieve besides the mechanical precision and Baroque calmness, or the stupidest kind of fury if you bang on the keyboard— a whining infant. She was about to reprimand the piano a bit longer when a piercing synthetic noise, totally different from the previous one, striking from above, creating a maelstrom and threw her ashore. She exasperatedly reached to turn off the alarm. Why does C major even exist? It is so basic and plain with no flats or sharps. Theoretically, she would acknowledge its presence, yet using it to compose? The noise stuck in her mind, repeating ceaselessly. A monster lurking in her brain, stretched its numerous limbs to various parts of her brain and strenuously clutched her veins. Her head was about to explode, with the monster combating to take control. She could still hear it. In a vain attempt, she covered her ears and indulged in C minor. The minor always tugs her heartstrings with a melancholic feeling. Who craves the majors? The so-called happiness it renders is too bright, and the idea of obtaining pleasure is absurd: joy comes and fades quickly, never holds a place in memory. Just the image of herself giggling makes her nauseous, for God knows how it hinders her inspiration. And that alarm noise would just never stop playing in her head! She opened the window for new sounds. The rhythm and the silvery sound of raindrops gradually soothed the monster in her head. She had this peculiar tendency to associate her delicate hearing with visual artistry. Every raindrop had a unique pitch when it came to contact with the pool. In unison, they produced a symphony that, she calculated, was in F minor. Nature was never in those pretentious majors: whenever she tried to connect to the landscape, her heart was triggered by the mournful vibrations of nature. She developed her own theory of attaching to nature: Instead of perceiving with eyes, use the ears to create imaginary scenes derived from the sound. In her mind, she discerned needles falling from a giant pine tree, lightly waltzing on the pools before yielding to the storm. A figure dressed in a black cloak leaned beside the tree, soaked wet, staring. The eyes were vacant and 51

pitch-black; like black holes; she could neither see the bottom nor perceive any emotions floating in this gloom. Was that a stranger? Or was that herself? A creak of the door abruptly dragged her back to the present. Her mother somehow was here already to shut the window. Her sorrow and longing to reach that figure instantly vanished when the sound source disappeared. How could a person not feel what she sensed from the raindrops, and shut this natural symphony down with such cruelty? She was always made different. Her mother frowned when the car horn blew, while she was watching an imaginary movie in her head. As the car beside her blew its horn, forming a perfect fourth interval, she saw a plump middle-aged man with an odd mustache humming at the sky. Another car blew its horn, forming a different chord, which instantly projected an image of a New York police officer on horseback imperiously glancing at the sidewalk. By listening to the car horns’ chords, she detected each car’s characteristics and moods. Seeing these funny images never made her feel splendid; she felt even more solitary. She was a weirdo, when she unconsciously flinched during each class period. The broken fan above was screaming a faint high note between E and E flat. “Happy Birthday!” Her mother pulled her back again and started singing the birthday song to her. She swallowed hard and forced herself not to frown. Her mother had the most beautiful voice in the world, yet this song, again, was in C major. The singing was ruined, lost. When I approach the point that commands my visiting Hades, I will make my own funeral playlist, she thought. She was weeping from the indescribable agony in front of a black coffin, then the traditional Chinese elegy was performed, and her pains went instantly gone. She felt annoyed, for she could not just walk away with disgust, murmuring how stupid to have the ancient Chinese horn play a duet with Chinese flute at that specific section of the song. I would have “Swan of Tuonela” by Sibelius. She beamed with pure joy, presuming how much authentic pain that piece would bring to everyone. She wept hard every time she heard it. How wonderful it would be to fill the room with a real heartbreaking music. She would be resting there, and people would actually feel their souls lifting from their bodies, connected with others’ souls, reminiscing about the various traumas they had all experienced. And she would likely still sense the vibrations of the pais from the music in the coffin. Silence filled the room, and she realized her mother was done celebrating. What if she died before her parents' deaths? Her mother would be traumatized, for she loved her daughter beyond everything; at least that was what her mother claimed. 52

“You don’t have to act as if you love me. Don’t feel pressured to care for me just because you are supposed to do that,” she told her mother. The woman, holding a bowl of cereal and her daughter's favorite brand of milk in her hand stopped and stared with disbelief. “I knew you would never like a child like me if you were not my mother. You would never care about a child like me.” She tried to let her see the reasoning underlying the desire to comfort. Her mother fell silent and left the room. She sighed; now her mother had realized it. A moment later, tears dropped to the bowl of cereal which went untouched. She went to hug her mother. When their skins made contact, an immense pain shot to her heart and her eyes were filled with tears again. She yearned to feel something from this hug that she’d waited for so long — her birthday would be the only time for her mother to accept her hugs without demonstrating her impatience. She anticipated warmth, comfort or “maternal love,” a love that she lacked and longed for, which she resolved by clutching her stuffed donkey to her heart every night, secretly calling it her mother. Yet nothing came to her except for the distant aroma of her mother’s hair. It was a good hug by the common standard, yet she felt apathy creeping between the two bodies. She knew she had to stay in that posture for another two seconds before releasing her arms so that the hug would be normal. Yet the longer she stayed in that position, the more distress she endured. My mother does not love me, she told herself, she never loved me. She flinched, but forced a smile on her face when a masculine figure entered, who extended his arms gesturing for a hug. Pressing her disgust and nausea down, she went to him. As soon as their skin made contact, a wave of revulsion washed over her. She felt absorbed in a vortex, swerving to mysterious places that she feared; although their chests touched lightly, and his arms held loosely around her body, every cell was screaming with fear and dignity. He is your father, she told herself, he loves you in a father’s way. Yet she could not help feeling defiled. It was as though his fingers lingered upon every inch of her body. A picture flashed in her mind; she went horror-struck and stood speechless as everyone started jeering; a male’s genitals. She saw it clearly despite the fact that it lasted for solely a second. After that incident, she passed the boys without glancing at them and appeared frightened whenever her father spoke. When he endeavored to talk “some sense” into her by stating firmly that he “loves her and always will,” she fled to the bathroom and vomited. 53

The door creaked again and there she was, standing alone in the room again. She quickly went to the window and opened it wide open, and found the figure still waiting for her with the empty looking eyes. She extended her fingers and saw the figure did the same. Their fingertips touched and she felt herself sinking to the sea bottom again.

Emily Ross ‘19

The Big Lie Grace Mugo When she was young she would look at magazine photos of the queen riding horses. My grandmother, Jediah, daughter of a farmer, a subject of the Queen. And when he was young, my grandfather, Robert, would gaze up at WWII fighter jets and imagine the foreign and beautiful land they came from. The land that seemed to have it all: money, power, dominance! And they seemed to have so much of it that they could afford small luxuries that the rest of the world had never heard of. Like wearing the “right kind” of kicks on Sunday and having the “right” colored walls on your compound. It’s not like the rest of the world was wrong in not having these luxuries. There was a time when doing the “wrong thing” was considered mainstream and even admirable. Maybe if God had favored the black man, or even the brown man, we wouldn’t have “right ways” or “wrong ways” we would just have ways. This, however, is not the alternate universe that Robert or Jedidah had ever imagined for themselves. 1991, a thirty-year-old, independent Kenya struggles with deep rooted corruption and government failings. The dream of a country of equality and fairness fades further away. Once again, the people turn their gaze to the West; hoping to find inspiration for their own governments and maybe even their own culture as well. The fresh eyes of the new generation looks intently to the West. They call them “Gen X” or “Dreamers,” the first generation to be born in a liberated Kenya. My parents were among these Dreamers and were perhaps the most wide eyed of them all. They admired their professors, who studied abroad in Oxford and Germany. And watched in awe, as they pronounced their vowels with foreign accents and told stories of their times in Europe. I do not tell you this story to romanticize African views on Western culture; They were, of course, aware of the West’s shortcomings. But the state of African countries after independence was so full of corruption that they simply had no-one else to look to. So, they continued to do what years of colonists and conquerors had taught them. Look to the North for the “right way” and everywhere else for the “wrong way.” January 2017, a dismantled America comes to terms with a new leader. Millions are aware of his message of hate and ignorance. Across the world refugees attempt to escape a living nightmare; they cross the Mediterranean, littering the sea with bright-eyed dreamers like my parents, hoping for a better life. As Europe and now even America begins to lock their doors on the fantasy that they created, people grow more desperate to leave. It’s funny how whenever us “third-worlders” talk of immigration we always refer to leaving for 56

a Western country. Where the streets are as gold as the maua ya njanos on Mount Kenya and everyone's bellies are as thick as the trunk of a moringa tree. But before they are given a chance to prove themselves in this new land, they are trapped like a jambazi in honey. Forced to belong in made up categories created by Western overlords. You asked me to write about a lie, and here is what it is. The lie is the light in the eyes of each immigrant. The lie is risking your stability and even your own life for a country that never wanted you. The lie is me and my life as an American. I am surrounded by people who perpetrate this lie of Western dominance. This lie of national superiority. I am reminded of this lie when I see an advertisement for Unicef at my grocery store. A faded picture of dark skinned children in mud huts, hangs bold above the check out line. And when I look at this picture, I ask myself, what do these people from New England know about my continent? A nd I also wonder what ads like this teach Americans about the rest of the world. In my family, we have a running joke about the questions people have asked us about Africa. They often want to know if we really “dance around a bonfire” and “eat mud whenever we are hungry.” We laugh at these ridiculous inquiries, the same way the Great West laughs at us. As more people like me, fall victim to this lie, this illusion.

We Are All Creators Alaina Vermilya She calls on us to sing. The drizzling of nervous breathing fills the room, nervous breathing and the light tapping of afternoon rain on the ceiling, pleading to come in. She calls on us to sing. The buzzing of nervous breathing fills the room, nervous breathing and the whistling of warm wind whipping the windows, demanding to come in. She calls on us to sing. The thundering of nervous breathing fills the room as the storm gains momentum, shaking the building’s rickety foundation, and, still, we do not sing. “Why is it always the women?” she asks, collapsing on a chair in defeat, head tilting curiously to the right. “The men are fearless,” she reminds us, “unafraid to let the world taste a slice of their being. Why can’t we?” Some nod slowly in disappointment. Some smirk out of amusement, doubtful that they could be living in such a reality. Some guilty heads fall until their chins are touching their chests, allowing her profound words to hit them. My face is expressionless, but my heart and mind crave the commitment to courageousness that she, herself, lives by. Standing abruptly and tossing a drooping end of her scarf over her shoulder, she plops down on the piano bench one more time and places her fingertips delicately over the keys. In time with the raging wind and rain outside, she presses down suddenly, creating a cacophony of chords with her unbridled passion. “Free yourself of your inhibitions!” she shouts over the furious storm outside. “Don’t think! Just create.” The music floating from the piano begins to move the group. Some begin swaying in their seats. Others begin humming. I am silent. I am unmoving. “Let go of being right. Let go of being wrong!” she begs. The piano gets louder. Sound echoes throughout the room and notes bounce off the walls. 58

“Being a performer is not about what music can give you,” she yells with her head thrown back, “it is what you can give to the audience!” One girl rises. Then another. Then another, and another, and another, until twenty-seven young women are on their feet. Their shoes stomp the dented, crooked wooden panels lining the floor. Their hands meet over their heads in rejoice, in triumph. Without thinking, without apologies for off-pitch notes or off-beat snaps, twenty-seven young women create a space where they can sing, dance, clap, snap, exist boldly. I sit, engulfed by my thoughts. Free yourself of your inhibitions, my mind repeats. Let go of being right or wrong. Brilliant yellow light begins to enter the chaos of the room, slicing through the thoughts clouding my mind. Still glued to my chair, I marvel at the warmth that is touching the backs of their necks, the warmth that is gradually replacing the storm. Without thinking, I allow the light to become my brain, instructing my limbs how to move and my feet how to find the ground. Standing now, I allow the sun to close my eyes tight, so tight, until my eyelids crinkle and my eyelashes kiss. I allow it to create sound that erupts from deep inside my belly, my core, my foundation, sound that unravels the coiled knots in my stomach like hopeful flower buds in the spring. It pulses through my heart once or twice before leaving my mouth and entering the world. How beautiful it is to create something, my head tells my heart. How emboldening it is to give birth to sound and noise. How liberating it is to bring into this messy, chaotic, tumultuous world an escape, an atmosphere capable of healing, that did not exist before. A light smile paints itself on my face, a silent celebration of this victory.

Jenessa Lu ‘21

The Girl in the Mirror Lily Cullen The person staring back at me looks different today. She stands tall, shoulders back and chest pointed forward. The smile on her face has the power to infect millions. Not a single soul could dampen the eternal joy that resonates on her face. Her skin is free of all imperfections, and not a hair on her head is out of place. The clothes that she wears reflect her carefree personality. She holds her head high. She does not let her inner demons drag her down. She begins to move toward me. With every step she takes, I am drawn in to the mystical aura she gives off. I feel my myself watching her every move. Suddenly, she stops and so does my head. It’s as if she doesn’t stop for the world; the world stops for her. She looks up into the mirror. Her gaze settles into my eyes. Her piercing, blue eyes peer deep into my soul, breaking down the walls that I have worked so hard to put up. She discovers something, but hastily covers up the effects that my soul has on her conscience. She opens her mouth to say something but decides against it. The look on her face is similar to one that someone has just before delivering unsettling news. She mutters something, then walks away until I can no longer see her in the shadow of the mirror. I look down and see how my blue and white gown drapes over my body. My fragile body is void of all the muscle I worked countless hours to obtain. Is it sad that I cannot remember the last time I smiled? The last time I felt joy? Scars from all of my operations litter my skin. My veins are a canvas for an artist who decided to go to medical school instead of working in a studio. Various tubes, medications, and needles poke through my translucent skin into my delicate veins. They are the chains that prohibit me from experiencing the world like she does, but without them, I would cease to be alive. I wonder what it is like to be free. Free of all responsibility, free of the pain, and free of the imprisonment 61

That I will live for the rest of my life if I choose to stay. I look up once more in the mirror. She looks at me and says, “I was once like you, but someone told me there was a better life waiting for me behind another door. Come join me, and you too can be free.” Her hand reaches through the glass into the space in front of me. What else could I lose? My whole life is dictated by operations, medications, and appointments. I haven’t felt the heat of the sun on my skin in years. I grab her hand, and she pulls me into a world better than anything I could have imagined. The only thing she asks me to do before beginning my new life is to look in the mirror. She presses a small pocket mirror into my hand and covers it with my fingertips. Before I could say another word, she disappears, and I never see her again. What could be so special about this mirror? I shakingly open my palm and veer my eyes from the distance into the circular glass. I am the girl in the mirror, and I am finally free. I am the girl in the mirror, and I am finally free.

“Appetite” Amelia Holl There was a giant drawing of an eye on the back wall of the cafeteria. They didn’t like it. It made them uncomfortable. I mean, an eye? Staring at them while they were eating? It was gross. They looked at it while they walked to a table, and then tried not to look at it when they sat down, placing their bag on the chair opposite to them. The chairs were dark blue, and shaped like giant, bent-in-half tongue depressors on stilts. The tables were just as abstract. The cafeteria was filling up now, but had been empty when they’d first gotten there. They always got there early because they liked to eat early, and because they had nothing better to do than sit around and wait for dinner to open. The weekends were particularly slow for them nowadays, so the kitchen was the only thing that provided any type of schedule. However, that didn’t mean the food was any good. Tonight it was pizza, but they didn’t want to eat it because the cafeteria pizza was never good. They were also lactose intolerant and sharing a bathroom with three other people, so that’s probably something they considered, too. So, it was pizza. For a camp full of starving artists, that group could really eat. The students filled their plates and sat down together in groups against the wall where the eye was hanging, their bags plopped on the ground by their chairs. It got a little louder in the cafeteria after everyone started to sit down. Sitting by themself, they didn’t really notice, though. They were focused on their own food. Rather than the pizza, they had chosen only a cookie for dinner, replacing something they couldn’t have with something that they probably shouldn’t. People say that sugar is worse than crack now… Right? Isn’t that a thing? It’s practically deadly, apparently. Regardless, the cookie was a poor decision. They couldn’t have done much worse. They looked at it, a little brown circle on a white plate. They knew they shouldn't eat desserts. It was dangerous. Too many things could go wrong. They thought about that, but these thoughts had no real impact, because they decided to keep the cookie on the plate. They could’ve just thrown it away. That would’ve been it. But they really wanted that cookie. They kept it on the plate, like a complete idiot. Like they didn’t know what a cookie could do. 63

There was no doubt that they could tell something was wrong with what they were doing. They knew they shouldn’t, they just didn’t care. They kept the cookie on the plate. It sat there like a cursed object, emitting negative energy with a vengeance. But they weren't averted, no… They were drawn in. First they lifted their hand, elbow to wrist, onto the table. They shifted the plate a little bit first, straightened it out. Someone across the cafeteria dropped a cup of soda onto the ground and they paused in reaction to the sound, then eased onward. Holding the cookie in a precarious grip, they began to lift it. It soared above its position on the plate towards its final destination without caution, rushed. The cookie wavered in the air like a plane about to crash, like an eagle about to fall from the treetops, like train about to careen off of a bridge into cold, dark water. And then… they did what no right-minded human being should do. They took a bite. And chewed and swallowed, smiling appreciatively. It was pretty good, they thought. They were a little worried that it’d be bad because of the cafeteria’s track record, but it was alright. Sure, they’d had better, but who rates cookies anyway? With the other types of things they serve here, they thought, this was pretty high up. Granted, it was just a cookie. Cookies aren’t that difficult to make, and people usually eat them even when they’re bad. I mean, it’s a cookie. Anyone could eat it, anyone could make it. It definitely could have been worse. Immediately, chaos erupted. The remnants of the cookie that they had carelessly placed back on their plate exploded into a mass easily one thousand times the dessert’s initial size. Beginning with a small blob, it warped into a monstrosity of brown goo that speedily towered over them and the other students, spreading itself between the tables to accommodate its massive weight. It was ginormous, the top of its head brushing against the cafeteria’s ceiling and its sides pushing outwards towards the walls, all of it completely made from the same substance as the initial doomed dessert. It rocked back and forth on its base, and with a shudder and a shake of the hole that had seemed to become its mouth, the creature let out a resonating, metallic screech. The walls shook, the ground rumbled. It turned to face them directly. “Shit,” They said. 64

They’d done it again. The other students continued their conversations. A custodian had finished cleaning up the spilled soda, and was lumbering out through the front exit. They thought about using said exit to escape, but they didn’t know if they could make it. What should they do? Another student walked by, side-eyeing them from underneath a mop of hair that was pink, like cotton candy. This student seemed to notice the monster, but continued to walk by without mentioning it. It would’ve been a little weird to bring it up. Besides, it wasn’t that student’s fault that this idiot had decided to eat a cookie. The monster was theirs to deal with, and theirs alone. Having been left to its thoughts for just a moment too long, the beast screeched and crawled forwards, closer towards them. They were frozen in place. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and it was their fault. They decided that perishing in action against a beast made of cookie was better than passively dying at the hands (mouth?) of one. Thus, in a decision of unprecedented risk, they made a mad dash for the closest exit, the door through which the custodian had exited. The depraved dessert saw clearly through their plan. With speed no being of its size should have, it darted after them, weaving through the tables with expertise and careening to a stop, its mass blocking their only escape. They halted, bewildered. With one fell swoop, the monster produced an impromptu limb and sent the arm flying towards them. Unable to run, they were scooped up by the massive arm and lifted above the head of the beast. Legs dangling above the tables, arms compressed to their sides by the otherworldly strength of this beast of their own creation, they prepared for the inevitable. The eater was to become the eaten. They were pulled in closer, close enough that they could see into the endless abyss that was the beast’s mouth, close enough that their feet had begun their descent into oblivion. It was over. They were doomed to a death of suffocation… or worse. 65

Shame was the last emotion they would feel, they thought. Shame and fear. They had indulged on something they shouldn’t have, committed a sin so drastic that it had been able to immediately materialize into a physical form. And they hadn’t even had to do it. They could have just thrown it all away. They could’ve eaten soup instead. They had kept the cookie on the plate, and for that they would die. They closed their eyes tight in preparation for the end. There was a ceramic clink and a plop. They opened their eyes to the blank white of the table. Their bag sat across from them, the other students sat across the cafeteria. They straightened in their chair and peered towards the space where a life-threatening form had stood just moments ago. Nothing. They turned back to the table to see the plate, the small white plate, upon which the cookie sat. One of its edges was indented where they had bitten into it. The cafeteria was the same. The conversations continued, and the custodian had wandered back in at some point. Every sign of the monster had disappeared. The eye on the back wall stared straight on without fail, disappointed, yet not surprised. They picked up the cookie. Took another bite.

Katherine Dunn ‘19

It Went Up In Smoke BeJay Mugo I don’t want to pretend that I don’t understand how many gears I need to love you; Gears, sticking out like overgrown weeds. Your rusty wheels grinding against my shiny facade. I don’t want to pretend that I don’t cry an ocean when you row over the seas I’ve cried to you. Singing your drunken sea shanties; breaking your cheap beer bottles over the crest of my back. I don’t want to pretend that I don’t feel your fingers Tapping up the steps of my spine as I sleep. Men marching to war in a rhythmic goodbye. I don’t want to pretend that I never wanted to kiss you, stick my hands into your fire and feel the slow burn of your love. I don’t want to pretend that your gaze, doesn’t bite my wrist like a winter wind. My cracked gray skin barely covered by cotton. Throwing icicles at my eyes, shoveling snow down my lungs, stuffing your goddamn cumulus cloud in my ear. I don’t want to pretend that you, you rusted gear, you yellow hatted drunken sailor, 68

you open mouth, you frozen fire. Pretend that you are here. You non-existent cloud of smoke.

Anxiety Riley Sheldon “Worry tastes so dirty when it’s spread out like a banquet.” - As a Consequence of My Brother Stealing All the Lightbulbs by Natalie Diaz Worry pours down on me like a winter storm until I’m buried under her snow and my clothes are heavy, soaked by her snowflakes that melt after barely grazing my burning body. You know, people never tell you this but snowflakes are sharp. They look delicate with their intricate, lacy edges but they are sharp and cut deep like knives. After being suffocated by them for so many years, you learn things like that. You also learn that being buried underneath so much snow keeps the world from hearing you cry. I tried once to get someone to hear those muffled cries. Sitting in a Stranger’s office, I pushed against the dense snow. It pushed back. I kicked and I punched and I scratched and I screamed. It kicked and punched and scratched and screamed right back at me. I guess that’s another thing they don’t tell you. Snow seems gentle, light. But it’s mean and heavy and knows how to fight. Somehow I managed to get through all that snow. Don’t ask me how. I wouldn’t know what to tell you. I pushed hard enough to puncture one minuscule hole in my towering frozen mountain. Fluorescent light rushed in, blinding my wet, red eyes and illuminating my tear-stained cheeks. I’m not even sure when I started crying. Then, I saw her face, the Stranger’s face. We stared at each other for a few moments. And then I screamed. I screamed through my hole in the snow until my face turned a deep shade of purple. She looked at me blankly. Turned to my mom. Said one word. 70

“Anxiety.” I thought it was a disease. I was sick and I would take some medicine and then I would be cured. It would take a couple of weeks but then I would be back to normal. Normal. My heart snapped when she told me there was no true cure. Actually, my heart didn’t snap. It shattered. It shattered into a million pieces like a blue ceramic bowl. It exploded like fireworks into a burst of color and noise and insanity. My brain was broken. A house that had been wired wrong, sparking and smoking, waiting to combust into bright red flames. There was something wrong with me, and I couldn’t ever be fixed. I wasn’t normal. Most people, the normal ones, have just one shadow. Ever since that first meeting with the stranger, I’ve had two. Anxiety follows me around, lurking behind me with a heavy, haunting presence. Her cold breath trails down my neck like smoke. She terrifies me. I kept going back to the stranger. We played games. It was hard to reach through the snow to move the pieces, but somehow I managed. She tried to get me to talk as we played, but I knew there was no point in talking. I knew I was broken. Unlike the Legos we would play with, building worlds, breaking them down, and piecing new ones together, I knew that humans couldn’t be taken apart. Humans couldn’t be rebuilt. That’s another thing I’ve learned. Humans don’t come with instructions like Lego treehouses do. I asked my mom if I could stop visiting the stranger. I told her how the stranger just wanted to play games. I told her that the stranger was pretty good at rebuilding treehouses when they get knocked down, but she would never be able to rebuild me. 71

So that week I didn’t go back. And the week after that. And the one after that. It’s been over 280 weeks. 1,960 days. 47,040 hours. 2,822,400 minutes. 169,344,000 seconds. Time flies when you’re on the verge of collapse. The relentless ticking of the clock makes my head spin. It spins so fast the world gets blurry, so angrily I see stars. Stars that look like snowflakes. And after all these orbits the hands of the clock have completed... I’m still broken. I’m still a house, smoking and sparking, ready to burn down at any moment. I’m still accompanied by my pile of snow, and from time to time the storm comes back. But now the storm is shorter and the pile is smaller. I’ve noticed that it melts a little bit more every day. Today, it pools around my ankles, turning them a deep shade of blue. The melting began a long time ago. I’m not sure the exact date. I just remember one morning I felt an unfamiliar warmth graze over the top of my head. I was relieved, thinking that maybe this would be the end. A few days after the melting snow had just barely exposed my shoulders, I felt something strange in my stomach. That strange feeling was anxiety dropping off a seed. Epipremnum aureum. Devil’s Ivy. Don’t let its heart-shaped leaves fool you.

A seedling in the pit of my stomach, a part of my anatomy. I had known that the melting snow was too good to be true. The small seedling grew, becoming the vine that now stretches through my pulsing veins, grows dense leaves in my throat so I can’t breathe, and swirls around my heart, making it pound faster and faster, making my whole body thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. The sound of anxiety coming and going from her garden in my stomach with a grin like ice. At least with the snow pile, people can see her. Sure, they can’t hear my cries, but they can see what she does to me. The way her snow surrounds me and freezes me and turns my skin blue. No one can see the ivy. No one else can see her vine that pokes green holes in my body. That clasps around my trachea and fills my lungs and grips my muscles and fills my veins and makes me crawl in my own skin. No one else can see her grin. A grin like ice.

Jenessa Lu ‘21

How to Bake a Key Lime Pie Ava Strohmeyer Ingredients - One and a half cups of graham cracker crumbs (eleven-twelve full sheets of graham crackers) - One third cup of granulated sugar - A willingness to conform - Five tablespoons of unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled - One cup key lime juice - An urge to please - Two fourteen-ounce cans of sweetened condensed milk - Zero self-confidence - Five large egg yolks - Two tablespoons of sugar - A desperate yearning for the approval of others - One teaspoon of vanilla - One cup of heavy whipping cream Baking key lime pie is a science--- methodical, straightforward, easy. There are no surprises, just a recipe acting as a guide for your boundless imagination. Your pie is your masterpiece, allowing your personality to shine brightly, radiating through your marvelous dessert. You make the decisions, decorate it till your heart’s content, carve a beautiful latticework and mince fruits so fine that it turns to jam. Make that sweet, creamy filling thick, voluptuous. Please yourself. Fill your mouth with something that makes your taste buds tingle and your hair bristle on the back of your neck. Flood your nostrils with the warm and inviting smell that has your mouth watering and your stomach rumbling in search of the delicacy you know all too well. Make this pie your own. Find solace in your baking---you are in complete control, and for once, the world can stop spinning. Unless of course, you are baking for someone else. In that case, you have no choice but to follow the goddamn recipe: Step one: prepare yourself - Let go of any and all desire to stray from the plan No, you cannot change the recipe. Don’t even think about it. This whole process has been pre-planned out just for you! You’ve even been handed all of the tools and ingredients you need! Don't be an ungrateful and disrespectful baker; those more experienced than you have shown you exactly what you need to do. Remember you are not baking for yourself, you are baking for someone else. You probably don’t even like this type of pie, so make 75

decisions that are in their best interests. You wouldn’t want to be selfish now, would you? Step two: Prepare the oven Preheat your oven to three hundred fifty degrees, not a degree hotter. Step three: Prepare the crust Homemade crust is the only way to go. Of course, you have nothing better to do than put all of your time and energy into this dessert as you desperately hope to please the person you are baking for. What better way to bring joy to a loved one than with a graham cracker crust! Combine the graham cracker crumbs and sugar in a medium mixing bowl, and stir until well combined. Proceeded by adding the melted butter, and mix until fully integrated and moistened. You may feel like you need to add salt, but don’t. It's not in the recipe. No one likes food when it's too salty. Once completed, scoop and tightly pack the crust around the bottom and sides of a nine by nine point five-inch pan, making sure every single crumb stays within its boundaries. Sure it would be a shame to waste any of your mix! Step four: Bake Once preheated, place the crust in the oven and bake for ten minutes. Then set aside to cool. Step five: Make the filling Now you must make the filling---the most important part of the pie. Combine the key lime juice, the sweetened condensed milk, and egg yolks in a large mixing bowl, and whisk until thick and creamy. The filling must be rich enough to compensate for the dry texture of the graham cracker crust and balance all of the flavors within the pie. It must top all other pie fillings, and taste exactly as your loved one remembers it. What good is a homemade dessert if its flavors and textures aren't nostalgic and satisfactory? Then pour an ample amount of filling into the cooled graham cracker crust and spread it evenly throughout, making sure to fill every hole and air pocket. This must be done, as you wouldn't want any cracks in your perfect pie. There is no room for error when you are baking for someone else. Step six: Second bake Bake for eighteen to twenty minutes, until the top of the pie is set yet wobbly. Diligently checking on the baking progress every five minutes, no matter how anal it seems, is strongly recommended. You should make the extra efforts, if you don’t want to disappoint. 76

Step seven: Topping The topping, although it may not be the most important part of the pie, plays a crucial role in its presentation. It sets the tone for the desert and can be nothing less than perfection. Combine your sugar (granulated, not powdered), heavy whipping cream and vanilla in a medium mixing bowl, and beat continuously on high speed until every imperfect lump is gone and stiff peaks appear. Then pour into a nozzled canister and chill. This will allow you to create the perfect little rosette design that is expected on the pie. Once the pie has cooled, using the canister, you should place roses, one inch apart, along the perimeter of your pie. Don’t forget to measure the distance between them as nothing should ever be out of place or stray from the exact description you have been so luckily provided. Remember, presentation is everything! If your loved one finds the pie visually below par, they might not even bother trying it. Step eight: Realization Now it is time to step back and look at your masterpiece. Does it look as you expected it to be? Does its sweet and sugary smell waft through the dark and sullen halls of your house? Is the texture smooth and seamless? Has the decorative design been copied with uncanny precision? If you followed the recipe exactly, and never once strayed from the instruction, then your answer to all of these questions will be yes. Odds are, you have forgotten they key lime juice, again, measured your ingredients with the wrong tool, or baked the pie for a minute too long. Never mind the effort you put it, the dessert is ruined. Realize this, that before you even give your loved one this pie, they will be disappointed. Understand that no matter how hard you tried to please, or how much time you gave up to create this perfection, they will still be underwhelmed. You messed up. You are an incapable and inadequate baker who will never sufficiently meet expectations. Apologize. It’s your fault. You must not have been paying attention, or maybe you didn't even care. How selfish you were to let your own thoughts cloud your vision and distract you from baking this pie! You were given everything you needed. All you had to do was follow simple instructions and perform one task. That's all!! I guess you’d better start baking again. Maybe this time you will get it right. How hard is it to follow this recipe?

Ruoyi Jin ‘19

She Names Me ─ Winner of the Daemon Poetry Contest Kristen St. Louis She names me Thalia Tha-ee-ah muñeca yous a girl of growth uk at eh, she a beauty, eh? a flourishing girl mixed with sofrito n curry

She said tha-lee-ah in my name sandwich, holding my first name like a hand last name like a spoon my middle name: the knife up to the world’s neck My first day in the white-lady’s school, I brought my bowl of mysteries that is my name and stirred it up with some lightskin spice some minimal spanish some lack of Trini dialect some jamón y queso some Gyal yuh kno yuh can do any ting, any ting in de world They tried to say tha-lee-ah but all I heard was an ugly new dish that shoved a sock down down the throat of my ancestors.

Where I Grew Up Maisie Smith I was taught to dig my toes deep into the mossy soil, Ear pressed to the thrumming of the earth, the moment I could wobble to the door. Here I learned To listen to her. When I could reach the abacus, I grasped for Bright round colors, spinning them around I Counted, one-two-three, claiming— Them as my own. When I could pick up the alphabet blocks I traced the Familiar figures with sticky jam-kissed fingers. Singing Their familiar tune, the same as everything in my Small round world. When I was strong, I cast my head back and listened to the Moon, swirling, in the velvet sea of glistening stars. Through my round eyes I grasped The laws of the universe. Now, when I turn my eyes to the wavering sky The tears of ash slide across my cheek. While The stars forget to twinkle, covered with Fluorescent blinking lights. My beloved trees fall like matchsticks, Two by two. Our homes fighting the murky water, who’s next? Harvey, Irma, Maria, or Michael. No. You are looking at who’s next. They say it is a fiery cycle of destruction. It's natural. While We trade Halloween candy and costumes for swim caps and bikinis. 80

The hillside covered in the dragon’s fiery tongue Due to the “gross mismanagement of the forests.” They say: what you can’ see can’t hurt you. But my eyes are bleeding, steaming, being blinded By the sight of burning bears, holding limp Teddy bears, stuffing bare. They say: well maybe it’s getting just a little warm in here With their pot bellies boiling, nursing their Limp white collars. But no. It is never our fault. I press my cheek to the burning ground, Hear the steady rumbling from all around. I look up to See brilliantly colored sunsets, trailing from towers. This Will never, ever be enough. So, please, please, please Can we go back? Can we return to where I grew up?

Code Red ─ Winner of the Daemon Poetry Contest Caroline Smith (After “Orange Alert” by Natalie Diaz) There are certain words You can’t say in schools- Words that mean gun, gunshot, Shotgun, shooter, and shootouts. And words like code red- Comprehensively defined in How To’s that are read And then drilled into students With live-action scenarios, To teach the basics of survival When a proper education turns red. Security cameras scan and scrutinize, Ceaselessly looking for scarlet sanguine stains, Missing the point That stains only come after…. Superman buys his son a flashy new cape Equipped with the latest bulletproof style, Too bad the extra weight, Stops him from flying, Too bad Superman Has been hooked up as an X-Ray machine To monitor the mad kindergarteners Suspected of carrying Ticonderoga daggers. Pamphlets flutter from the sky Informing how to tell If someone is a shooter and The news sends updates daily On the newest schools To send your thoughts and prayers. Prayers are read And read again. But no amount of red Will change thoughts to actions, As children raise white flags, And red flags are hidden Deep inside a maze of red tape. The red scare has left a trail Of poppies on the tombs of dead men, 82

Dug by the hands of Uncle Sam Who then followed the compass rose to each Crook of America to sow a garden Of Begonias. The flowers erupt in angry flame Across the nation's cities, Who are tired of red lines That mark out who gets what, And defines the proper color of roses. Roses have been aflame before, They are actually quite used to it. They burned when the towers fell, And seasoned the feast of raw goat That followed. Poppies crown the soldiers’ noble tombs And mark them as martyrs, While red roses adorn the lovers’ white beds To mark their love eternal. But, what flower is left to remember the children Who have known nothing yet But the magic of a dandelion?

Daisy Zhang ‘21

Jenessa Lu ‘21