Daemon 2020

Daemon,​ The Ethel Walker School literary magazine, is a collection of writing and works of art from this

strange and challenging year. Thank you so much for sending us your essays, stories, poems, paintings, and photographs. It is heartening, in these tough times, to know that art and writing will continue to inspire and empower us in so many new ways.

Editors

Ella Samson, ​Editor-in-Chief Karen Zhou Amelia Holl Jenessa Lu Fiona Mucaj Margaret Green

Advisor

Catherine Reed, Head of English

Cover Art

Photograph by Jenessa Lu Designed by Ella Samson

Artwork Nicole Macari ‘20 Elinor Tandberg ‘21 Jenessa Lu ‘21 Amelia Holl ‘21 Alice Gu ‘22 Ella Samson ‘20 Abigail Welch ‘20 Lena Van Der Klis ‘21 Mackenzie Zeytoonjian ‘21 Joyce Kouami ‘22 Daisy Zhang ‘21 Elizabeth Mao ‘21 Georgia Maynard ‘22 Patricia Sackor-Blamah ‘22

Writing Elinor Tandberg ‘21

Kristen St. Louis ‘21*

Ella Samson ‘20 Nafarrah Ramsay ‘21

Victoria Llanos ‘21

Joyce Qiu ‘20

Sisi Feng ‘20

Emmy Vitali ‘20

Amelia Holl ‘21

Riley Sheldon ‘20

Fiona Mucaj ‘21 Vanessa Lois ‘21 Jane Li ‘20

Liyanni Vasquez ‘20

* Winner of the Daemon Poetry contest

Liyanni Vasquez luck ​n. 1​ a.​ ​A force that brings good fortune or adversity; ​b.​ bingo, scratch offs, and the powerball; c.​ a 50/50 shot a penny’s worth more than a cent on the sidewalk; ​d. ​as in, the reason I hated raffles until winning my vanilla scented Care Bear; ​e.​ my father’s excuse whenever I’d beat him in a card game; ​f. ​in my mother’s words: ​God loves you more​. ​2a.​ a favoring chance; ​b.​ an advantage unsought, a circumstance undeserved; ​c. ​the right place at the right time; ​d.​ a professional first name and an unassuming last​ ​e. ​the picket fence your parents worked so hard to get ​f. ​as in, ​Why’d they pull Daddy over​?; ​g. ​as in, the weight of your bootstraps; ​h.​ a melanated, gendered, societal jinx; ​i. ​Johnson’s starting line; ​j.​ the thoughtlessness of walking down the street alone; ​k.​ the impostor syndrome that sits within your milky bones and underneath your caramelized skin; ​l. ​as in, being worth more than your prosecutor ​m. ​as in, mental illness or 50 years; ​n. ​as in, ​no such luck​ ​o. ​as in, the misconception that God has no favorites ​p. ​something I never believed in.

The Crash Elinor Tandberg (1) The colors of New England never seemed to reflect her sentiments. It was always a panorama of sombre browns, grays, and the often forgotten greens that popped out in summer, and barely lasted through September. Nature’s long and frivolous attempt at rebirth never crushed her spirit; she knew its intentions well. Always on her side – though cunning and punishing at times – it was, to her, more of a sister than a mother. A sisterhood that kept her company when she felt lonely. It would never fail to look her in the eye, or to treat her with respect, because unlike them, it had stood witness to how they were no natives of this land, either. She might have been a guest, but during her stay, she never met a single person there who was more than a tenant on that land. Naturally, they thought of themselves as landlords, even though lord-dom was a notion they associated with the old world – ​her​ world. It was at these times that nature kept her grounded, and comforted, with the mere force of its heavy, dense gravity. Each time she admired the swaying, moving scene, it nourished her growing perplexity over the contrast between the dull landscape and the sheer happiness that permeated her – a happiness found simply in the act of living.

(2) Her day started just when the sun embellished her room in gold, and when the only sound that found its way through the trapped morning air was the ruffling of sheets as her roommate took on the day by spurning its start. The morning routine that followed was almost spartan. After brushing, splashing, and combing, she would open the door to the world and let nature’s helping hand wake her up with a cold slap in the face. Still, that same hand never failed to hold her and walk with her, pat her on the back, and then hand her over to the cradle where she’d grow.

(3) Inside the classroom, she would marvel at the river running across the board – its itchy, scratchy sound sculpting and nourishing civilizations within the minds of her classmates, her own mind. Here, castles of the future were built. Some approached theirs little by little in every step they took, while others still tried to figure out how to climb the first set of steep

stairs. Even though all were at different stages of drawing out their futures, no one was painting by numbers, because unlike students at many other schools like this one, these girls were imperfect riots walking down the hallways. They bent, warped, and twisted the expectations set upon them, just like they would bend, warp, and twist French verbs on Tuesday afternoons. Every single day, girls here committed a crime: doing what made them happy. That meant that in between the bending, warping, and twisting of French verbs on Tuesday afternoons, she and her classmates would always afford themselves a minute to lose their breath from laughter, do wrong-- and start over. It was thanks to these imperfect moments that she didn’t just live; she was ​living.​

(4) Around midday, she would walk up three flights of stairs, turn left, and enter her void. The room she entered was not the void itself; it was merely its waiting room, but opening its doors was like stepping into her brain – a curated storm of the byproducts of creativity, and heaven help the fools who would get lost in there. She would surrender herself by lifting a brush or a pen, pushing through a canvas, and then experience the fall that would make her heart stop for a moment as she dipped into an unknown dimension. The best description of that place would be a rural, abandoned landscape, with a beauty so subtle that it never quite filled her with awe. Instead, it just about completed her. In order to find anything in this, she had to undress her mind and let it rely solely on senses. The landscape was still, and the century-old silence rendered the sound of the wind both slumbering and agonizing. Nothing could be heard above it but her own breathing with its regular rhythm of rise and fall emulating the soft, mountainous background, captivating and soothing her mind into abandoning notions of objects and people. All became shape, color and negative space. In the arms of this sensory deprivation and simultaneous overload, she would be born and die every single day, in a rhythm as natural as the rise and fall of the mountain range.

(5) There is something unique about the way that light hits the inside of a moving vehicle.

Colors of the rainbow competed to steal split seconds on the walls of the cars moving fast along the highway. It seemed like all of humanity could fit into the projections on the walls

of that bus that would take her and her team home from practice. The light’s rhythm became the sound of softly plucked guitar strings, harmonized with the hum of the highway and the mundane chatter; the soft push of a friend's cheek on her shoulder, a kick in the back of the seat. Although the bus was always moving fast to try to catch the remainder of the day back at school, no one worried about crashing. Trust sat behind the wheel, and every now and then, he would look back to see who was asleep, who was staring out the window and who was making trouble in the back – all while the light kept playing the ever-changing, abstract projections on the walls of the bus. It was in this light that clarity took shape. They started to grasp the weight and magnitude of the glass futures that rested on their palms, and feared dropping and breaking them as the bus moved faster and faster. Still, they would take this moment to admire the movement outside the window, and in the seats of teammates. Within this blend of motion, she found life. Every single day.

(6) The idea of ​finding life​ seemed perverse when the realization came that it was temporary. It came when the date on the milk carton in the fridge she’d thought was expired turned out to be the same as the date on her flight ticket back. Now, this life seemed not like a landscape, but rather a still-life – something that both changed and ​expired. ​A lifetime could have fit into those eight months, because life was lived every day. In the end, she paid a steep price for all that time – a price that would be paid back in mourning, longing, reminiscence. Before she discovered life, she didn’t live; she’d merely existed. She kept asking herself whether this was fair. After all, life only happened to be given to her, and after that, going back to mere existence​ would mean a sort of death. That is the debt we take for granted since none of us asks for life. It is only once we have it that we hang on so dearly.

(7) Those New England roads were badly maintained. That does not mean, however, that they were neglected. The concrete was blotched with black streaks that ran like serpents in all directions of travel. They were the result of crevices and cracks in the pavement that had been overfilled and not flattened, and subsequently left the road more bumpy than it would

have been had it been left completely neglected. Perhaps it would have been better just to do so – neglect it, that is. Of course, if that had been the case, the road would have never acquired context – no one would have seen that here, something had been in the process of being brought to completeness. Still, on her way to the airport, it was nature who gave the graver insult. The swaying of trees lasted throughout her stay; it was never-ending, and in some instances, she could swear they moved with her. As the taxi drove fast on the highway, it seemed as if the trees were close enough to catch her, but they never did. How come nature could hold her hand and walk her to school, but not catch her when she needed it the most? Shed chosen not to wear contact lenses during her bumpy ride, so that her nearsightedness reduced the trees, and everything around them, to a mere blur. That way, the betrayal didn’t feel so sharp.

(8) As her plane lifted, and not even nature’s gravity could bring her down to earth. She realized that nothing could catch her and hold her there – not even a friend’s tick or a familiar smell.

In losing her footing on the ground, she became a nomad among the clouds – an idea with which she was, oddly, at peace. Now, she was neither the queen nor the peasant of ​any​ land, but instead a flying spirit who would probably not touch her own ground for a long time-- if ever again. When the dive began, she closed her eyes and let herself be surrounded by the white smoke of eyes fiery with dreams, and memories scorched under their eyelids. She understood that this was where she parted.

Nicole MarcariÂ

Memory’s Hubris Kristen St. Louis In Vermont, silence rang in my gut like intuition– loud, still.

Scenes of sword fights and melodramas played endlessly like a private screening in my head with only the occasional breeze interrupting– sorry, to interrupt– but memory fails in efforts to remember the waft of freshly mown lawn and awakened crickets and the star adorned skies and disco balls and red Solo cups.

Memory fails still.

These days, rain drops beat on old air, pushing their way through hot breath and thick smoke from brick buildings– Mother Nature mixes a concoction blended with menacing bird chirps and bickering neighbors who settle things by midnight

with a cocktail of love and ​boleros.​ Chaotic sounds blur to stillness.

These days, when I close my eyes, fatigue claws at my eyelids and begs me to keep them shut, the weight of the ​maybes and bitter unknowns pushing down to trap this new wave of memory.

Memory failed for the great and persists for the dreadful.

Mother Nature knows these scenes won’t be erased.

She dips her bowl into my ear and waits–

Amelia Holl

fruit Ella Samson strawberry meat smashed against teeth, leaves a strawberry stain hidden under the sheets.

The Scar Victoria Llanos I awoke with a congenital noose — what was meant to sustain, to feed, assaulted Me so that even my earliest earthly moment fell to torture — a harbinger from nature of the impending frigid life

or as if to warn the others.

Feeling its chord so severed, limp The Hand above petrified my fate when it smeared me sharp with a deep black mark upon my feeble heart —

a heinous blemish on my soul: my insidious, parasitic Mole —

and when I grew to love this flesh, branded and tattooed, Fate once again would mar its grace to torment and delude —

then upon me swift incised the seraphs a perturbed and jagged Scar.

Most wounds at least bear tale of woe or epics of perils bizarre —

but The Hand above had itself a laugh and inscribed mine just for sport.

So came stigmata, epidermal art, infection of ​vulgaris w ​ art.

Yet it festers, grows like fresh brimstone and slowly shackles the heart Within this divinely maimed, deadened breast… too disfigured to be shown —

Nicole MarcariÂ

Sickness as a Deep Love Inside Joyce Qiu As a healthy child who seldom got sick, I was jealous of my classmates who were sent home because of a fever or a cold. My dream was finally realized in fifth grade, when a huge infectious disease burst out into the whole school, starting with my dorm room: me and one of my roommates.

It was a normal night, peaceful as usual.

No wind.

No whispers.

No footsteps. Only the clock ticking in darkness. I lay in my small bed, holding my best friend--a teddy bear wearing a hand-made red dress. The teddy bear was a gift from my mom when I started elementary school because the dorm parents had said that I cried too much at night. My grandma then sewed a red dress from the old table cloth for my teddy bear. I tried to fall asleep but the peace was suddenly broken by a painful groan coming from the bottom bunk. I stuck out my neck and saw Annie, the girl who slept under me, vomiting onto the floor.

“Mrs. Gong!” I knocked at the dorm parent’s door and the noise woke the whole dorm.

Mrs. Gong took Annie to the nurse's office while the other roommates and I cleaned up the vomit on the floor. Soon enough, Annie and Mrs. Gong came back with a note-of-leave request. Annie started to pack up her belongings, and we told jokes and stories to cheer her up before her mom arrived and took her home. When everything settled down and the lights finally turned off, I was exhausted and fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow.

I woke up to a tsunami inside my stomach. Wave after wave smashed into each other in my

stomach. I tried to force down the bile at my throat and struggled to the trash can just in time -- the vomit overshot accurately into the plastic bag. Like Annie, I was sent to the nurse’s office and was asked to call my grandpa, who came and picked me up twenty minutes later. I stepped off of the quiet campus, which was usually full of students, parents, and teachers on Friday afternoons. The road outside the campus was spacious - not the line of cars extending a mile away. Although I felt

sick, riding the same way home that I had taken every Friday for five years was…. exceptionally delightful.

Gigantic Gingkos and London plane trees stretched upwards on the two sides of the road and reached out their hands across the firmament, forming the crown into an oil-paper parasol.

Since I did not have any other symptoms besides vomiting and a low-grade fever, my grandpa took me directly back to his home, a small apartment on the ground floor with a balcony extending to the backyard, on which there were planted azaleas, Chinese roses, irises, and bushes with little wild fruits. The moment I entered the house, the aroma of chicken soup penetrated my nasal passages, stimulated my senses, and almost drew away my nausea.

“I just made wonton with chicken soup, your favorite dish,” Grandma said, as she put the bowl on the dining table. “Come sit down and eat while it is still hot.” Wonton with chicken soup was the dish that my grandma made every time I was sick and refusing to eat anything else when I was little.

After lunch, I coiled myself in the fuzzy lounge chair, which reminded me of the tip of the fluffy tail of Nai Tang, my neighbor’s snowy cat with ginger stripes. I turned on the television and switched to my favorite animation channel. Soon enough, my eyelids started a fight, and finally, I entered dreamland.

When I opened my eyes again, the first thing that entered my sight was the dust dancing in the rays of afternoon sunshine, which kissed my skin like a butterfly landing on asters. Grandpa was following the trends of the stock market on his laptop at the dining table while Grandma was knitting a sweater by the window. The golden brown of the knitting wool in my Grandma’s hands reminded me of hot cocoa blended with caramel that shaped into a heart. I should invite my teddy bear to have afternoon tea with me here, I thought.

After I started elementary school, I’d rarely spent my afternoons like this with my grandparents who were then in their seventies. Even now, after seven years have passed, the smell of that bowl of chicken soup, the soft touch of the lounge chair, and tranquility in that small living room weaves into some of my sweetest memories about childhood and home.

For the first time in years, I finally had a chance to take a sick leave and, to be perfectly honest, I was so satisfied with this unusual experience that I refused to go back to school the next afternoon. Pulled and dragged, I was made to go back..

To my surprise, when I arrived at the gate, kids from all the grades were leaving with their parents.

“What’s happened?” I asked my classmate, Daniel, who was walking out of the main building.

“The flu broke out in the ​whole school-​- and everyone is dismissed.”

Maybe my will to stay at home was so strong that God had finally decided to gratify me for once. I spent the whole rest of that week at my grandparents’ house and enjoyed my unexpected break in the lounge chair and my grandma’s menu on which were all my favorites—from rice noodles to coconut red bean pudding.

Cheerful moments flew and in no time at all arrived the nightmare of Sunday evening. Lying back on the tiny bed with my teddy bear and staring at the touchable ceiling, I missed everything at Grandma’s house.

“I have an idea.” Leila said when I told her I missed home. “The nurses can’t tell if you’re really feeling ill. I have a plan. I can go to the nurse’s office during PE class and say that I don’t feel well. Then after lunch, you can go there and say that you throw up everything you eat.”

We made our grand plan in the tiny partition in the bathroom and decided to carry out the plan secretly with the responsibility of being entrusted with the highest confidential matter of the country. In the middle of the PE class, Leila winked at me and pointed her head in the direction of

the main building. After slightly nodding to each other, she asked to go to the nurse's office and never came back. Knowing that Leila had succeeded, I went to the nurse’s office after lunch and claimed to feel nauseous. As expected, I went home with my grandpa, and of course, forgot to bring my backpack.

Everything was under my control.

Except that I looked a little too excited.

“I am still feeling sick.” I told my parents the next morning when they were talking about who to drive me back to school.

“But you look fine. You do not have a fever or a cold. Plus, you are jumping up and down like a monkey,” said Mom.

“I said I do not feel well!” I cried and insisted, gazing straight into my mom’s eyes and hoped that she would see the crystal tears spinning in mine.

“No disagreement. We are sending you back to school today. You are in fifth grade, not five years old. Hurry up, you are already late.” said my dad. I watched him stand up and walk straight towards the door to put on his shoes. I turned around to look at my mom, who avoided eye contact.

“Fine. You just don’t want to see me at home!” I smashed my bowl of cereal on the table and strode out of the door.

I could not argue with my parents because I ​did​ lie to get out of school, and I certainly knew that my parents loved me, and they sent me to a boarding school only because they were busy. My grandparents had been telling me all the time that they were working so hard to make money to raise me up and to provide me a better education. The twenty-minute ride felt like twenty centuries. I

tried so hard to suppress the monster in my mind that was trying to grab the wheel and turn the car around.

No, I did not lie. An idea suddenly appeared in my mind as I watched the trees moving backwards from the car like people on the train platform waving farewell.

I ​was​ sick.

I was ​homesick,​ an illness like a line of ants crawling through my heart and plucking at my nerves, faintly discernible yet unstoppably sickening every inch of my skin and hair. The adults would never listen, of course. They would only say- “ridiculous” - and turn their heads away. Even my classmates and dorm parents would mock me, as they had in the first grade when I lay on the floor and cried for my mom at night. Since when, I wondered, had feeling homesick become ​shame?​ Immaturity and my bad temper. It was merely a representation of how warm and loved I felt at home.

The car slowed down to a stop in front of the gate of the school.

“Bye, dad.” I jumped down from the seat and quickly added before I closed the door, “I love you.”

Elinor Tandberg

Plant Encyclopedia Sisi Feng “Apple” I had stood in front of the fish tank for ten minutes, expecting a miracle. The two turtles I owned had stayed in their moldy shell for the past three days. No matter how many foods I threw at them, (I even piled apple chips right in front of the hole where their head should show up occasionally,) there was no sign of surrender. I decided to things further and reached into the tank slowly.

Their shells not only looked moldy, but also were utterly slippery. Before I got a chance to take a closer look, they slid out from my fingers and dropped into the tank. “Kuangdang!” the sound was as loud as a planet made when it exploded, followed by yelling from the kitchen.

“Peipei! (my nickname) Is everything good?”

“Yes, Nainai! I just dropped a book!”

I looked back at the tank. The moldy stones were alive again: popped out their short limbs, tiny tails, and their heads with the signature red spots on their cheeks. I threw a small chunk of apple into the tank and watched them rush towards it.

“Cherimoya” I could not help myself but look at the cherimoya sitting in front of the Chinese Fortunate God. The green, coned shaped fruit was incompatible with the orange silk robe on the God and the swaying candlelight. I reached to feel the rough and cracking surface but I heard footsteps coming towards me. Like a scared bunny, my hand sprang back. Before the figure appeared in my sight, the familiar voice flooded into my ear.

“Peipei, it is not ripe yet. Your grandpa just picked it yesterday.”

“Okay, Nainai.”

I turned and she was standing there in her red and black flannel jacket, black cotton pants and the brown cloth shoes. I believe this is the only pair of shoes she owned, but they were always so clean and neat. Mine were splashed with mud.

I looked up; her curly hair was sitting soundly, like a bird’s nest, on her head. I stared at how each hair was growing, colliding, and swirling. A thought sprang from my head and shot out of my mouth.

“If the cherimoya has the swirling pattern like your hair, Nainai, it would really look like a Buddha Head.”

“Christmas Red” “What is this?” I turned my head towards Nainai who was bending over and organizing the garden tools.

“They are called Christmas Red.” She answered without looking at me.

“Oh.” I looked at the red plant, which stood solemnly in the pot. The combination of the bright red and the shape of a leaf confused me. I had never seen a leaf-like petal before, nor had I ever seen a red leaf growing so lively on a plant. They were usually in the mud, waiting for time to return them to where they were from. Because of the red, the leaf vein began to fill not with juice, but with blood.

“Will Christmas Red bleed if I hurt it?”

Nainai trembled and turned towards me. “Never hold thoughts of hurting someone. You might not be able to see it, but everything and everyone bleeds when they are hurt.”

“Daisy” We always had a way to find a seat on the crowded subway or bus, and it was always a window seat. Three different panels of windows would reflect me yawning before we reached our destination. As the bus traveled on the mountain road, raindrops came down from the sky and formed a grainy mist. It blocked my view from the rolling mountains, the wisp of smoke on the top of the mountain, and the lack of feeling in my body.

This mist is washed away by some salted sorrow rushing from my eyes when I saw the marble slate with her name, picture and birthday on it. I pulled out a bunch of yellow daisies and slid it into the little ceramic bottle hanging next to the slate.

“Nainai (Grandma), long time no see. I miss you.”

Amelia Holl

The Epidemic of Loneliness Riley Sheldon They sit in heavy silence, filled only by the metallic clinking of forks on pale yellow teeth and the horrific scraping of knives on green, ceramic plates, the serrated grooves sharp and deep like the worry that pulses through the quiet daughter's aching veins, like the midnight black sky, dotted with those insignificant specks of light, which last night she stared at with wet, glossy eyes, noticing how the dark horizon seemed to stretch on endlessly, cruelly, and the bare branches of oak trees seemed so frail, so mortal, and the constellations, once warm, familiar, safe, had become something foreign, shifting into daggers and bullets and the judgemental eyes of her father, who sits across from her at the table with his usual glowing aura of anger: an anger not aimed towards her, but aimed at the world, which is filled with so many things he will never control, and aimed at his own mind, which he believes will never let him experience happiness, overtaken with an infectious fear that spreads like tangled, green ivy and with a sadness that he finds hidden in his eyes. Because when he looks in the mirror each morning, the bathroom filled with hazy air and a thick feeling of emptiness, he always sees something dark in them, and it scares him. Not the darkness.

The feeling of not recognizing yourself. And his wife, who sits next to him at the table with her soft hand resting on his shaking knee, with her intoxicating lavender perfume that dances through the air of the dining room, with her voice that sounds like honey, sweet and suffocating, doesn’t recognize him either, doesn’t recognize this anger, this fear, this darkness that follows him like a cloud, a puff of cigarette smoke,

a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol, the train of her beaded wedding dress which she keeps on the top shelf of her closet and, once a year, lays down on the bed, locking the door, thinking about the love she has lost, and knowing that each one of them, filled with such stifling misery, will be consumed by an unknown terror.

Alice Gu

Seventeen Ella Samson Emerging from the subway, I have the funny feeling of a baby deer walking for the first time, the feeling that my steps are breaking on the sidewalk. I cross the street, merging with a mass of pedestrians. I look around at what men have made; rows of grey squares, columns supporting the rows, big squares composed of little squares, big cubes composed of little brown bricks. I notice my breath. The polluted air tastes sweet. I get a flash of pleasure from just being here; how I have missed this city and this transitory period between spring and summer. It is the summer solstice and, coincidentally, my seventeenth birthday.

The stair is too steep and I am so small, but I stretch my little legs (reaching, reaching) until the cool, solid hug of the floor has me. The moon has his back turned, so there is only a little light. The door is big like a castle’s. I am carrying my plan in my stomach. My stomach tightens around the plan and my breathing speeds up. I have to be slow with the doorknob, I have to use both hands. I pull the door open and the stale black of the house meets the liquid black of the night.

I come upon her apartment building. It is imposing, beige, and somewhere where security might feel I am loitering and ask me to leave (I think back to the mall last week). I text her and then call her but she doesn’t pick up. Her window is nine stories up and directly above me, had it not been for the glare of the morning sun I might have looked in. I imagine her, the heroine of a Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painting, sprawled out on her bed in a deep sleep. From the corner of my eye I see the black shape of the guard stirring so I continue my walk. A glowering little man in a clown suit cuts me off.

​It smells secret and tastes sweet. Each step towards the water hurts my bare feet as if the sand has claws and teeth. There are no warm hands for me now, I am wet and cold. I sit down, clothes and all, in the water where Kate says the sand is softest, and look. The little bit of moonlight has painted the mild sea aggressive, giving each wave highlights like razors and some sparkle of danger.

The sun kisses my shoulders and licks the brow of the sweaty man behind the stinking hot dog cart. Ascending the MET steps I am surprised to realize my own lack of disappointment, and general neutrality for the situation, when a flash of something that I cannot put a name to comes over me; I turn into something flat. When I blur my eyes, all the people and the steps mix to a grey mass. I lift myself up to the top of the stairs and let the cavernous museum swallow me. I go through the medieval hallway and into the drafty European one. Strangely, in my current state, I am feeling dissatisfied with the towering marble statues and masterly oil paintings in their hyper-stylized poses. They are not real. They are flat like me. I stop trying to maintain my self and slip into a current of visitors hoping we, like flotsam, will end up somewhere.

I look around me. The ocean is incomprehensible, an ancient black mass, and thinking about it I begin to have the strangest little feeling that I am dissolving into the water; that all the particles of me are floating in opposite directions never to meet again; that I am no longer me I am among the salt of the sea. I stand up suddenly aware of the rising sun. I need to go home.

I find myself outside again, sitting on the steps, and still a part of the grey mass. I am trying to find another place to go. I am trying harder just to think and be a human being. I am straining myself trying to get a thought to come. I am hungry (no, something unique). I am searching for something that discriminates me, scared to dissipate. Something trips in me and I cannot keep the tears from coating my face. I see myself vividly, a grotesque face shining with its wetness.

Ella Samson

Nightlight Emmy Vitali Cape Arundel, Kennebunkport is the dream destination for travelers in search of the perfect balance of tranquility and stimulation. In the summer, a local can expect to witness flooding tourist traffic. These tourists spend minutes surveying their surroundings only to wade directly into the road, carry an abundance of illustrated maps, and elongate their binoculars’ focal length to invade the privacy of two former presidents.

In the fall, a local can expect total solitude. No frequent detours nor avoiding the area altogether, just latitude to cruise alongside the Atlantic Ocean whenever desired. When I come home for vacation, my dad and I always enjoy a long walk on Cape Arundel to appreciate this rare peace.

We always start at 3:45 in the afternoon, and galavant by meticulously-maintained homes with bluestone patios, three-bay garages, and spacious gazebos. I begin to notice that every house has nearly identical features: nylon American flag hoisting outwards and draping above each porch, terracotta bricks stacking every chimney, and steel security gates standing before each grand estate with lamp posts on each side. We even pass an occasional tennis court, and sometimes a golden retriever with its paws on the edge of a windowsill. As we see properties for sale with ubiquitous “Kennebunk Realty” signs, my dad muses, teasing that he may even trade our own little pond-front home for one overlooking the massive ocean.

By 3:55, the sun is already descending over the ocean’s horizon and the salty air fills our lungs. On our left, we pass an army of slender reed stalks and hear their meditative push against one another. The velvet sky is shaded by hundreds of various hues: metallic gold, blazing scarlet, and peeled orange. Dad likes to call the branches that silhouette the sky, “sticks in the air.”

Several vehicles with Massachusetts license plates slide on the puddle of water beside the sidewalk, causing thousands of droplets to ricochet off the moisture-laden road. Each car slides over surfaces the decoupaged street of remaining fall foliage, countless pine needles, and comminuted

acorns. I notice some drivers who hunch over the steering wheel determined to return home for a Thanksgiving feast, while others savor the view and drive their cars even slower.

By 4:05, we have already passed the Bush family Compound. The peninsula is empty of secret service Chevy Suburbans but still guarded by one wooden security booth and a plethora of American flags. We have also passed the Cape Arundel Inn, where seven flannelled employees outline each window with Christmas wreaths and ornamentals. The scent of burning wood inside the building perfectly complements the vermillion seascape; the sky kindles the remaining light in faraway towns and the blazing sun flickers as it falls. We pick up the pace to see the end.

Even further down the sidewalk, we look towards the ocean to see tangerine clouds billowing above distant beach houses. Nearby, water climbs on the shore, gurgling a consistent metronome and composing a kindled symphony. I slow down again to watch the ocean’s bubbles ooze between pebbles and see an abandoned beach ball wedged between two rocks just meters away. Behind the next house, a raft of sea ducks ventures through the ocean’s rare ease. Today’s walk is during high tide.

It is 4:15, and we have finally reached the best part: St. Ann’s Episcopal Church. I can only gaze in awe at its structural wonder overlooking the ocean; stained glass windows, stonework architecture, and, the holy place, the outdoor altar.

At the church’s entrance, we sit on a wooden bench overlooking the ocean. There are two jetties sitting parallel in front of us, three buoys floating beneath us, six seagulls flying above us. At this point, the fiery, golden beams have almost descended fully like an inferno above Kennebunkport. I become lost in the rhythmic percussion of the small waves beneath me.

After moments of reveling in the still view, we remove our mittens and take out our phones.

Dad receives a notification.

“Oh shit,” he laughs, “guess who just emailed me?”

Beaming with excitement, he lifts the iPhone to my face. It says:

Dear Friends,

Happy Thanksgiving!

Amid the tumultuous events this past year, there are so many reasons to be grateful. One of them is YOU. The grounds and buildings of St. Ann’s are beautiful and distinctive but the church is ultimately about people building relationships and coming together to worship and celebrate God’s love.

I hope that you and yours have a blessed Thanksgiving.

Love, The Rev. Peter G. Cheney Chaplain of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church

Miles away, a familiar light drums off the water in increments of ten seconds, signaling dangerous reefs, rocks, and straits for ships to safely come to shore. There we sit, anchored on the St. Ann’s bench like lobster buoys, witnessing the concaving light and tide. The perfect balance of tranquility and stimulation, but time for these two travelers to return home, too.

Abigail Welch

A Pair of Lost Wings Kristen St. Louis Mother tells us to hold up our wings like pinkies at a classy doll tea party let them sparkle like the crowns of kings

tells us to remember what the heart brings that the earth was birthed from the legs of matriarchy Mother tells us to hold up our wings

as the weight from her own wing stings and sizzles with the fire from being his property.

Let them sparkle like the crowns of kings

oh please, don’t dull the glitter she sings don’t slice her pond of love with your foolhardy Mother tells us to hold up our wings

even in the face of promises and rings and bruises and burns until the world seems starry let them sparkle like the crowns of kings

but if the shine from her wings no longer clings please remember to stay hale and hearty Mother begs us to hold up our wings,

let them sparkle like the crowns of kings

Lena Van der Klis

Big Brother, Little Brother Amelia Holl I The farm swept over tall blue hills into the sunrise, dusty piles of grey, grey grass peppered with fences, a sea of moving limbs. Big brother’s hat was indigo in the morning sunlight, hanging over his wrinkled jaw and producing a blue-black shadow that concealed the beady centers of his eyes. He grunted and brushed some dirt from his forehead. In the distance, an animal brayed.

The air was fluid, like a thin, invisible soup, flowing around his wiry frame accordingly as he dragged himself into the distance, toward the pens.

Big brother’s bad leg thumped with a tune that seemed to match the beat of the land below, a low, sinister thump. He refused to use a walking stick, instead swinging his body back and forth like a slumped pendulum, his center of gravity sporadically altering its position with each new step. The path was overgrown, the grass stretching its indigo limbs to scratch at the exposed strip of skin between his boots and his jeans. The sun climbed higher into the sky.

He began to reach the top of the hill, cresting over the top. The fences arranged themselves into cohesive patterns, rectangular pastures, circular pens. They sunk into the expanse of unfortunate grey-brown that the field became under the rising sun. Big brother grunted, his lungs raw from the walk, and began down the hill.

He could see the bastard before he even reached the house.

Hulking, black, sinister, a massive creature, stationed over a trough like a fortress, waiting for him, stood meters away.

As the rickety building came further into focus, and the fences began to converge on its

entrance, he slowed his pace. Unlike the air beyond the hill, the atmosphere here stank of manure and sweat, of excrement and exertion. The stench clambered into the back of his throat and took residence below his nose, clogging his airway and producing a characteristic pad of dry in his throat. He coughed and spat, expelling a clump of phlegm to the right side of the path.

He finally reached it, and turned stiffly.

It looked up to meet his eyes. The sun, finally at its full height in the sky, flared with a sudden heat, casting a red glare over the fields. The grass undulated below sweeps of abruptly hot wind that rushed through the sky, shining with a piercing clearness.

The bull huffed, black eyes shining with a sentient intelligence that should not be afforded to a creature of such presence. Its body swelled from a central point hidden somewhere below layers of hard-packed muscle and an illuminated coat of black hairs. Its horns curled around its wide forehead in an unforgettable formation, marking an empty space into which one day would fall, no doubt, countless men.

Big brother took another deep breath, coughed, and spat another bolus of saliva onto the dirt by the bull’s hooves. It watched him with an anthropomorphic glare and huffed, pawing its hoof over the stained spot.

Big brother grimaced and walked on, dragging his leg through the dust.

II Little brother grinned in the way that only little brother could grin, exposing a ring of uneven, jumbled teeth that were especially yellowed behind his browned skin. He jumped back and forth in the pen like an overzealous grasshopper, his lithe legs darting between posts as though he was the animal, rather than the massive bull staring him down. Hung loosely around his bony shoulders was a feminine white blouse, the lace cuffs of which, as he danced, floated up

and down around his wrists. The bull matched his motions, stamping incessantly in circles.

Big brother watched anxiously from outside of the pen, his skinny arms resting on the third post of the fence. His booted right foot tapped continuously on the ground, almost in tandem with the hooves of the bull. His left foot remained dull and still, unable to move to the beat of his discomfort. Big brother took a deeper drag of the cigarette hanging in the leather skin of his lower jaw, and exhaled smoke over his shoulder.

Little brother hopped, catapulting himself to the right of the bull’s horns and barely landing on the fourth post of the fence behind him. He wobbled precariously on the beam’s edge and fell in an uneven heap on the ground. Big brother’s cigarette fell from his lips and hissed up a stream of smoke as he prepared to jump into the pen, but before he could move, little brother was back on his feet. He grinned again, returning to prancing.

Big brother fell uneasily back into his position, stamping out the cigarette. He strung his hands into an unstable, folded mass and draped them over the fence. ​How long would it take me to reach him? ​He thought. ​Would I get there in time? ​His left leg thrummed with a deadly pain.

Little brother jumped and yipped, his blouse floating like a rose petal, the soft kind of thing that didn’t grow around there. Big brother found himself smiling. His joints panged. The smile disappeared.

In the distance, the distinct scream of a sheep rang clearly through the valley’s silence.

It must be the ewe, then, ​He thought. She’d been pregnant for so long that it had begun to seem like a permanent condition, she with her swollen, wobbly gait. With the birth of her lamb would come the first new addition in years, a burst of youth on an aged canvas. He looked over his shoulder, towards the hill.

She screamed again, a chorus joined by the solitary groan of a cow from over the hill. It was time for the new arrival.

Big brother turned towards the pen excitedly, untangling his fingers.

“Ay!” He called.

Little brother turned and, in the small, minute inch of a second that he spent smiling in recognition, he lost his balance. The small of his back slammed into the third beam of the fence and his body arched, suddenly concave, providing the opportunistic beast beside him with an entrance point for two cruelly twisted horns, which tore through the floating white of his blouse.

He was thrown to the ground, motionless.

The bull retreated, and advanced, and the clang of a massive hoof on the metal fence shook big brother from his stupor. He screamed. The bull did not stop, its head bowed in a mockery of submission, its flanks shaking with anticipation and power, superiority. Big brother screamed again and rushed, hopelessly, over the fence and into the pen, where he fell over his brother’s body. His leg screamed with protest, but he could not stop for pain.

His back exposed to the unstoppable beast, he cradled the red, leaking boy in his arms and bowed his head. His fingers slipped rapidly below the soaked collar of the blouse and pressed themselves without hesitation to the boy’s neck, but found nothing. Instead, they rooted themselves in the limp ends of his brown hair, scrambled around the slumped remnants of his brown face. They slipped over the sharp juts of his shoulder blades, tried to force open his eyes.

Big brother wailed a sound that started in his gut and reverberated through his chest, through his lips.

The beast snorted from behind him. He could hear its hoof beating the ground, a warning.

He wavered. He could stay here. It would advance.

His brother’s head fell, completely limp in his grip. Between the open, unfeeling eyes was a jagged red gash that ran from his forehead to his chin, interrupted only by the gaping hole that had been torn in his jaw. He was destroyed.

Big brother held his brother’s body close to his chest and dragged himself out of the ring.

Around their bodies formed small puffs of dust, eddies of sentiment in the stagnant air. The bull stopped its beating of the ground, instead beginning to pace in circles around the edge of the fence.

Laid out flat on the dusty walkway, big brother looked to his left at his brother, marred and bloody. The cuffs of his blouse ruffled when the wind happened to pass by, and the metallic sting of blood in the air coated that of the manure, or the grass, or the sky.

From the ground the bull looked unfathomably large, a giant, black stain on the sky. Its snorting was louder, down here. Far away over the hill, the ewe screamed.

Big brother looked up into the sky, and he wept.

III The ceiling was dotted with spots of rust from the summer, when the rain came in and stuck to all of the walls.

There were two cots, each lined with a thin wool blanket. One was empty. The other, occupied, was closest to the front window, illuminated by the accusatory light of the full moon.

The grave had been over the hill, past the cow, past the ewe, somewhere where he

couldn’t hear anything. Big brother sometimes questioned that decision, wondered if, maybe, little brother would have preferred to stay at home, but he’d wanted to put him somewhere peaceful. He’d built the coffin simple and rough, the best he could do with his hands shaking, with the money from the meat of the ewe killed in childbirth. The lamb had been a sac of jelly, non-breathing and as unimportant as those from the past, but when he’d held it in his hands he’d wept.

Because it couldn’t breathe. Because it had never gotten the chance.

That incessant beast still occupied the ring outside.

He couldn’t let it go, or he would sink, too.

There was a promise in the bull, a promise of profit in two year’s time, if only someone would buy it. He told himself that that would be the day, when he sat and watched someone spear the demon again, and again, and again with their sword until it fell to the ground. He told himself that that would be the day that he could finally let go of little brother.

But this promise made it no easier to look the beast in the eye, to give it food and shelter.

He found solace only in encouraging its rage, in waving a bloodied scrap of white blouse in front of its eyes from behind the fence, coughing out a humorless laugh when it rammed forward repeatedly. He wondered if it still hated little brother, or if it was so consumed that anything and everything was a target. Sometimes, he would muse, he felt that way, too.

There were some nights when he would sink into this feeling, break bottles against the back of the house and cry. The animals would scream, startled, and he would scream back, ripping holes in his chest with fiery howls, crumbling into dust when he could no longer make any noise. These nights were characterized by how silent the grass was, by the salty sting of tears on the torn, bleeding corners of his mouth.

There were other nights, though, when he wanted to silently sink into his bed as though it were the ocean. These nights were always marred with disappointment, for the bull could not tolerate peace. It would ram itself repeatedly into the side of its pen closest to the house, its horns clashing a neverending rhythm on the beams. Flanks heaving, back arching, it performed every night, without fail.

Sometimes he would sit and listen without moving. He couldn’t sleep, but maybe he didn’t deserve to.

But some nights, like this fateful one, he wanted nothing more than to enter a place where he experienced nothing. However, the drum of the bull continued. He turned, he covered his ears, he mumbled to himself, but he could not escape the clashing of the beast outside his door. Big brother shook with exasperation. He could take no more.

The bull slammed itself again and huffed. Big brother could feel little brother’s blood between his fingers and on his chin. He could take no more.

He sat up slowly, letting the blanket fall from his figure. In the window’s moonlight it looked iridescent and white, floating like a jellyfish in the blue-black night. The bull slammed itself again, the chain on the fence rattling in meek protest. Big brother felt like his brain was floating in a puddle of oil, his tendrils of thought coated by a slick, black coating. He stood up from the bed.

He moved mechanically, as though he was beyond his own control, to the dresser in the corner of the room, a weak structure barely supported by its four scrawny legs. Big brother found that his arms were suddenly pulling open the second drawer and lifting a lace covering. His fingers ran over smooth metal, disconnected from his brain. The shotgun felt heavy in his arms when he held it. It was cold and dense.

Big brother dragged himself outside by the bottoms of his feet, knees barely bending. The ache in his left leg thumped especially hard, sending rivulets of hot pain down the limb. He couldn’t find the energy to grimace.

The night air was refreshingly crisp, so unlike the humid days that had been plaguing him recently. He found, though, that the cold stopped before his nose, blocked by some invisible barrier. Inside, he was still simmering with a deep, boiling feeling.

Upon the slamming of the house’s front door, the bull turned abruptly, facing him.

Without the sun above, it looked like a swollen demon, a festering, black cyst. Its eyes shone like silver dollars in the moonlight, but everything else about it consumed all traces of any light.

Wherever it stepped seemed to swell a sudden burst of black dust.

The night warped its face. It grew human eyes, a human mouth. It grinned, it sneered. He could almost hear it laugh. The bull was pestilence, come to kill the healthy, come to steal the weak before they could grow.

It slowly approached the fence and, with a mocking passivity, gently pressed its massive forehead against the fourth beam. He could almost see the gleam of its teeth in the light. Its human eyes seemed to roll back into its head, flying back and forth behind its horns. Saliva dripped from its cavernous jaw, falling into a hissing puddle on the ground of its pen. Big brother leveled the shotgun.

He wished that it would run away from him. He wished that it would be afraid, but it stared him down unflinchingly, the same sentience in its eyes. The gun shook.

The bull snorted. It pawed the ground, almost impatient.

Big brother stabilized the shotgun. His fingers found the trigger, darting back and forth

between positions. He took a deep breath, but, again, found that the air couldn’t reach his lungs.

Inside of him, there was a cavern, slowly filling with water. He could feel it, feel the drip of the cold, feel the rush of the liquid as it rose higher and higher, until it swamped his ears and his mind. There was no dam anymore, no levy. The water was coming.

In the cold air, his fingers, chilled by his sweat, rattled on the trigger. All he had to do was pull. All he had to do was pull.

The bull huffed, stamped a hoof, and met his eyes again. Pestilence, death itself looked into his eyes. The water pooled in the back of his throat. He tasted blood. The bull snorted louder, the sound piercing the empty night. It kicked its back leg, shook its massive horns so that they clanged against the fence. Big brother choked, and coughed. The head of the gun wavered, swinging in uneven loops. Snorting, the bull backed up and, again, pressed its forehead against a beam. He stepped forward cautiously, and pressed the muzzle to the bull’s forehead. It didn’t move. The water spilled over, fell out of his eyes.

Big brother pulled the trigger.

It collapsed so suddenly that he almost didn’t see it happen. The legs lost their weight and crumbled, the rest of the animal falling with them.

The area between the horns was marred with a gaping hole from which leaked viscous blood. In the moonlight it looked black, with a red gleam.

In the distance the shot still echoed, ricocheting between the ghosts standing in the valley.

His fingers twitched, and the gun fell to the ground with a thump that was overpowered by the rush of blood coursing past his ears.

Big brother vomited to his right, and the acidic sting of his stomach acid joined the metallic tang of the animal’s blood in the air. His left leg shook with a sudden spasm and he doubled over, falling to the ground. His face now level with that of the bull, he looked into his destruction. Dirty, defeated, covered in dust, he watched the blood leak slowly from the cavernous gap in the animal’s face.

The water drained from his eyes, and his mouth. The bull leaked. The sun rose.

In the morning, the light consumed the bull, turning its black coat into an illuminated orange. It burned away into dust that coated his lips and his eyes.

Now the air could enter. Now the cold rushed all at once, in a freezing onslaught, into his lungs. Big brother curled himself around his own body. The dust crowded like grains of salt into the back of his mouth.

Big brother dragged himself through the dirt into the house, where he fell onto his brother’s bed and looked back up at the ceiling, at the rusty red stars peppering the tin roof. In the absence of the bull’s rampage, the room froze still, becoming a barren wasteland.

In the distance, the lone cow groaned. Over the hill, a raised plot of grass swayed in the wind. Big brother held the wool blanket to his face, and wept into the white cloth.

Abigail Welch

Dream Fetish Fiona Mucaj In an office, some man plays God and knits.

(Replace office with stage, dance studio, childhood bedroom and the story is the same, it’s just someone else’s.)

It doesn’t matter which man–CEOs, vice presidents, representatives have all tried their hand at making something awful.

Where one gives up (a few deposits, a few drinks, a few women later and the company budget’s already shot), another takes over until it’s long and crooked and ugly and someone has to say ​what the hell is that thing the way they say ​what the hell are these numbers and tug until the whole thing’s unraveled, bills slipping shamefully out of pockets to turn themselves in.

The man throws his needle like a dart through the heart of a hummingbird.

The blood splatters on a boy’s face.

They call in a specialist to read the splatter, find the dream in all of this, but all she knows is physiognomy.

Your face, it’s like a...like a peach blossom! Do you know how lucky you are? There’s this celebrity with a face like that, I’m sure you know her…

A month later, the celebrity is found dead in her apartment. A suicide, naturally.

He tries to eat a peach that night, but he can only crush it in his hand.

In a dream, he drowns in the juice, winking his way into death.

A star from birth. Keep still, just like that. Good.

He sleeps with one eye open from then on.

What a useless dream this one is,​ the boy thinks.

The man knits again, huffs, rips out the stitches, knits again.

What a meaningless dream this one is,​ the man thinks.

They seem to make eye contact through the open window, but faces get too warped in dreams to ever really know.

Daisy ZhangÂ

Regret Code Kristen St. Louis If this couch sinks inward cups every curve of my thighs every dripping valley of flesh

YIELD a scorching cup of espresso and top it all off with a salty, piercing hug

If these eyes flutter and narrow so my view is blurred movie reel of this moment fades to skies If this couch sinks inward

YIELD an eye mask glittered with daggers on the inside always forced to see through the manmade pores

If a voice slithers into your ear, like butter once churned like honey in a sour disguise onto this dripping valley of flesh

YIELD goosebumps, crawl and crawl until you reach my inner thigh then don’t stop

If this voice reaches beyond your ear, brings that night forward inches the index and middle fingers across the fibers of your brain to uncover the men in ties if this couch sinks inward

YIELD a twitch, but only in the left eye

so they think you’re even more crazy

If that voice drags that confidential moving picture out from the morgue like Pandora not expecting the secrets to up and fly onto this dripping valley of flesh

YIELD precaution wrap the caution tape around your eye faucets

If you can no longer move, movie reel floored Caution tape not strong enough out the river of shame glides If this couch sinks inward and inward and inward

YIELD regret

Joyce Kouami

Seven Riley Sheldon The fluorescent green numbers on the digital clock next to my bed read 2:37 while I lie silently in bed, tossing from side to side, desperately trying to shut my brain off. The plastic blinds are pulled to cover the top half of my window, so I look through the exposed glass beneath and, with the transparent panes having been painted over by an ice blue condensation, I am just barely able to see the black sky above the treeline. I trace the dark outlines of pine branches with the tips of my shaking fingers. I count the stars until I lose track. Then I count them again. I watch planes fly across the unlit sky, their red and blue lights fading in and out, pulsing like my anxious heart.

The lights seem to dance in front of me, small bulbs colored yellow and orange flash like sparks around an unlit match, like the flames of candles wavering in a midnight gust of wind.

The flickering of their iridescent colors burns my eyes, but I cannot tear myself away. I am surrounded by a golden sky yet the air feels heavy, thick clouds looming far off across the glowing horizon, fine particles of dust settling at the bottom of my lungs and sheathing my trachea with a dense chaos. People swarm around me. Pounding footsteps, swirling voices, devastating faces spin around me like a tornado, pulling me to a place from which I will never escape. My mother calls my name. Her voice is soft, drowned out by the buzzing, the ringing, the humming which fills the space around us. It is soft. It is kind. It is fleeting. I can hear it echoing faintly in the deepest caverns of my mind, rattling like a wild animal in a cage. Still, I remain glued to the ground, dizzy and shaking and alone.

I twirl the long, loose thread of the gray comforter around my index finger. It is long enough to wrap around seven times. When I try an eighth, the thread snaps off, severed completely from the rest of the fabric. I sit up and untangle my throbbing finger slowly from the disconnected thread, looking with squinted eyes to see the deep red grooves left behind. I hold my hand up to the warm beams of moonlight which cascade down from the midnight sky and just barely graze my windowsill. I can see them now. They look dark and bright

and painful. They are perfect.

I fiddle with the ends of my sweatshirt, running my thumb across the frayed seam, pinching the hems between the tips of my fingers, rubbing my knuckles against the ribbed, blue fabric. I keep my head down, staring tearfully at my dirty sneakers and my mother’s brand new flip flops. I want to look at the lights. I cannot look at the lights. I do not look at the lights. The voices in my head are screaming incomprehensible thoughts, their cruel words piling up into mountains and avalanching into a raging explosion of fear and anger and all those things I try to ignore. In this moment, the space around me is loud. The molecules of air burst with a frightening electricity. The faint buzzing of energy grips my limbs.

A subtle vibration stretches across the carpeted floor, paints itself on the yellow walls of my bedroom, rises up through my mattress and fills my veins with unrest. In the back of my mind is the faint hum of a machine, engine whirring and sputtering. I try to drown out the hum, to ignore this unsettling vibration, which makes my head spin and body shake furiously, counting little, white sheep in my head. With my eyes closed, I can see them vividly. They stand, clumped together like a cloud, a gentle puff of smoke, in a grassy meadow filled with short patches of dandelions, towering milkweed stalks, and bright green blades of grass, and one by one, they jump over the wooden fence enclosing their space. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. But the humming returns. It is louder. More intense. Devastating. I open my mouth to scream but no words emerge. Only hot, silent air.

My mother’s hand rests on the small of my back. Her touch is warm, radiating the feelings of safety and comfort I need to pull me out of my collapsing state, but I know it is hopeless. I am not safe. I am not comfortable. I have never felt more afraid. She speaks to me patiently, but I can’t hear her over the sound of the rattling, the screeching glare of the lights, the pounding footsteps of strangers with ruthless faces that shatter the ground beneath us. Her hand is rubbing circles now, the tips of her fingernails tracing intricate patterns that send a shiver up the nape of my neck, covered in little bumps like the pink basketball that sits on our shelf in the

garage, dusty and isolated.

I try to count the sheep again, closing my eyes, forcing my brain to conjure up the familiar image of the meadow and the dandelions and the milkweed and the grass and the fluffy sheep and the wooden fence. But the humming of that strange machine finds its way back into my head and that image of my sheep dissolves into the background. Fists clenched, I dig my nails into the palms of my hands and slam my head down into my pillow. I hold it there until I can’t breathe. The humming fills my ears and my lungs and my heart and my brain until it becomes all I can remember. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

Ella Samson

Under the Starry Sky Jane Li -2005- Mom slowly let go of my hands, and I stopped, looked at her, and started toddling towards ​Waipo,​ who hugged me tightly.

-2010- “You should consider giving birth to another child, and I wish for a boy,” ​Waipo​ murmured to Mom while I was asleep.

Since then, I barely visited Waipo.

-2015- During the summer, Mom arranged a family trip to ​Yunnan,​ a beautiful province in southwestern China.

I

did

not

talk

to

Waipo

at

all

during

the

trip.

One day Mom was sick; I put on her apron and walked towards ​Waipo ​with heavy steps.

We

did

not

communicate.

I picked up a tomato and squeezed and cut it. Tomato juice splashed everywhere—it formed a random pattern on my plain, white shirt.

“Don’t worry! We can get tomato juice off your shirt easily.”

“I don’t need your help!” I pushed ​Waipo​ aside, and she struggled to balance her body—I felt sorry, but I said nothing.

Waipo's​ smile disappeared, but she demonstrated the right way to cut a tomato patiently. She wrapped her coarse short fingers around the tomato gently, and I saw a tiny crack on the surface of the tomato as the knifepoint gradually embedded deeper.

“You need to be gentle with tomatoes because they are juicy.” ​Waipo​ put down the knife and turned to me, “try it again.”

“It’s too hard! I quit!” I turned around.

I turned my head around when I heard the shrouded sound of the range hood—a confident woman, shoulders hunched, holding a pan, all her motions coherent and unhurried.

The stir-fried potato strips turned into golden yellow, and the pungent spicy-sour smell aroused my appetite. I felt the smell slowly fill my nostrils; hot steam made my face burn. ​Waipo’s​ face was looming—I entered a trance.

Her teeth were white and tidy; her eyes were brown and big, with her eyelashes formed a perfect arc under her eyelids. On top, the long eyelashes, thick like feathers, gently quivered when she blinked; her dimples showed when she smiled; her curly, long hair hung over her shoulders. She grew bigger; she hugged me tightly.

Waipo b ​ lew away the steam; I looked at her. Only her eyes were still intensely alive, in a face slashed with wrinkles, each one lined with a deep black furrow.

I felt drums beating in my head; I ran outside. The sky was like a curtain of silk with some random brushes of red, pink, and yellow embellishing the flat white and blue. Our hotel was on a hill and the boundless ocean, getter darker and more mysterious, was beneath. The sea song of the waves

soothed me, and the fresh air filled up my mouth with breeze; the soft slapping of the sea was muted into a deep murmur; the waves were merely snoozing and slumbering under the starry sky.

“What happened, my dear?” ​Waipo ​followed me out with a worried frown on her face. “Oh, look at the stars. How beautiful they are!”

Overlooking the endless ocean, my eyes tracing to the point where it connected to the sky—I was encouraged by the power and beauty of nature. “​Waipo,​ why did you want a grandson? Why are boys always valued more than girls?”

“Honey, ancient Chinese did value boys, but that was not my thought. I only hoped there could be a boy in this family who could protect my little princess.”

Ten years have passed, and I finally dared to ask the questions that had haunted me for years. ​Waipo opened her arms; she hugged me tightly.

Jenessa Lu

Us Vanessa Lois the glimmering pole catches the steam from the vents as naked, sweaty, hungry bodies hold sour milk below their tongues holding on to themselves, tied by a leash to shallow graves left to the mercy of the silver drafty prison- -subway car drafts of hot air exhale from one mouth into another they breathe the same air smelling the rotten eggs stink of that dreadful green cotton and linen blend dirt left to remove from under our nails left by the algodon past

stench of removal- sitting on the cracked sidewalks watching the empty lot

sucking the caña dew out of mami’s heart wondering what was the point of mami abuela titi coming to the nation of abandoned subway cars

i meant- the community of invisibility

invincibility clothed in the fine silk of dreams the endless trip caressing their watches, coffee cups, luxury while we wait here in all black moving from car to car

home to home between oceans countries, diasporas into this little subway car corner catching dust.

Inspired by Joy Harjo’s “Everybody Has a Heartache: A Blues.” This is our heartache.

Patricia Sackor-Blamah

The Stories Bedrooms Tell Nafarrah Ramsay It’s funny how thoughts and memories cling onto images, much like how the ink graces this page.

How it bleeds into, and stains the pores of a once living being.

Or much like when a pencil chassés across paper, and leaves its dark footprints planted in a field of whiteness.

The graphite tells its own story.

It drew a rigid portrait of a girl.

The shading took the life away.

She looked stuck.

Her body, stiff.

It was just a little too much, So many shadows, but not in the right places. too much depth, not enough detail.

Not enough light.

The room let in so much light, so much it’d dance off the curtains, it’d shine on the knobs of the dresser drawers.

The room was draped in sunlight.

Its touch would grace everything.

She tried to make it dance on her fingertips,

and just as it started to do its little jig, the drawing left the room.

Before she knew it, The light was gone.

She saw a body stiffer than the drawing.

It was cold. as it lay there lifeless in its bed of flowers Then we never saw it again.

Mackenzie Zeytoonjian

When One Sees a Movie Amelia Holl

“But I also think she meant that even in that awful doomed second one could think, for she certainly did.” - Louise Erdrich, “The Leap”

The feeling was always the worst on Friday evenings. Friday evenings were the evenings when the world was moving, when the sky darkened quickly so that everyone could enjoy the night.

LED lights and happy, drumming music filled Friday evenings, so did full streets and blue-lit bars.

That was why the feeling was always the worst on Friday evenings.

When One lies stuck between the four, green walls of a rickety room with a squeaky heater, Friday evenings are the worst evenings. When the yellow glare of the microwave’s stomach and the red glare of its timer gaze condescendingly from their perch on a dirtied, moldy kitchen counter to where One lies on the floor, on the little cold, grey tiles, Friday evenings are the worst evenings.

When the fridge door doesn’t close completely, allowing it to watch with only its small sliver of green light and its vague stench of pickle juice that leaks from its gap no matter its contents, Friday evenings are the worst evenings. Friday nights are the worst nights.

But sometimes, One becomes tired of feeling the worst on the worst nights. The scratch of the couch, yellow, on their back begins to graze their skin, raising aggravated hives. The loose threads on the cushion become spider legs, twitching in the humid breeze from the broken window pane above the fold-out dining table. The groan of the bleached wooden floors, and the squeak of rusty mattress springs invade the ears with rigid cuts of sound, and One finds themselves inundated with a deep, blue kind of anger, the type that builds up over time. The type of anger, One finds, that is not caused by external sources, but merely awoken by them. The type of anger that festers for years, fed by its own growth, throwing itself between organs through small spores of resentment and isolation until it blossoms into a sickly, repugnant, stinking stain of black across the inside of One’s

abdomen, up through their chest, crawling along their spinal cord until it can grip the back of One’s brain, dig its fingernails into the back of their eyes.

This anger is all-consuming, an emotion that, like guttural grief or ignorant elation, expands to straddle the entirety of One’s mind, to be expressed and amplified by each movement that One makes or doesn’t make. Blue anger cannot be quenched in a little dark apartment, not when One is observed by their appliances and terrorized by the insectile qualities of their commodities. Blue anger is only reflected on the outside. That Friday evening kind of outside, the bustling, writhing feeling of others near you, the white sting of a streetlamp over your head, or the dense smell of the backseat of a taxi cab with velvet seats. Blue anger is only quenched with the feeling of moving, the hot touch of a doorknob, the void black of a new sky.

One leaves their apartment full of blue anger and slams themselves down their stairs to streetlevel, where the smell of Friday evening invades their nostrils. The mass of black figures writhes together, squirms to shove and crawl over itself. One moves diligently between the others, head lowered, until they find that taxi, into which they stumble with unease. The taxi driver wears a little plaid cap, grey with red lines, which he tips upon One’s entrance and exit. He speaks rarely, and quite shortly when he does, but maintains a steady, sluggish pace. As the black figures pass by the road they do not gaze into the cab but instead remain looking forward. Gleaming like congealed oil, they are slimy creatures that drag themselves under the blue grins of neon lights and the exposed gaze of those white, white streetlights. One only sees their faces for those short seconds when the taxi takes a sharp corner, and someone’s face comes so close to the cab’s window that they could count their eyelashes, the blackheads on their noses, the cracks on their lips, when the car’s lights gave just enough red light for them to become more than amorphous beings tumbling over each other along the street.

When One reaches their destination, they pay and step out slowly. The smell returns, of course, but under the giant, beaming crest of the theater’s entrance lights it is barely noticeable.

The lobby is a cold, stone box spotted at each of its corners by a different person perched against the wall. One of them smokes a cigarette. One of them holds a phone to their ear and whispers carefully into it, looking, under the exit sign that hovers over them, like they are participating in quite a grave conversation. Another is asleep, or unconscious, or dead. The fourth follows One with their eyes, platters made black in the lack of general light, and aggressively chews something other than gum. One moves without looking between the four corners and, through a small transaction with a cashier wearing a striped hat over a sad smile, walks past the desks, past the trash cans, past the bathrooms, to the theater - the one.

The fortified stacks of red chairs, folding and squeaky, stare down from their increasingly elevated surface. Like bloody teeth they remain arranged and straight despite the accusatory glare of that giant, silver screen. The blue lights along the floor direct One upwards, slithering towards the one chair, the one in the middle. One finds that when they lower themselves into their designated seat they are unable to move, their arms and legs shackled to their new companion as though they have been tied down. One finds that they don’t wish to move either way.

The movie is only half of the reason that One ever comes to the theater. Equally important is the environment, the hushed whispers of the other audience members, the crinkling of smuggled candy bags, the stench of popcorn soggy with liquid butter, the familiar, sinking feeling of the lights going low, and the screen lighting up, and the room going silent. Movies start so quietly. Even when they start loudly, they start quietly. The first person on screen, warped and stretched to obnoxious heights, the first appearance of the score, the setting up, the plan, the conflict, the evil creature - they all start so quietly. A family needs money - they know how to get it. A girl wants a life - she knows what to do. The police want the killer - they know where to find him. They start so quiet, because there are no questions. Only when the problems appear does the inquiry begin. One likes microcosms when they feel the way that One feels.

But when that question is answered, when that life-long inquiry is finally resolved - that is when the chaos begins. When the lovers are discovered, their frail limbs found entangled, when

another is murdered, when the girl is lost, the narrative falls apart. One becomes so entangled in this microcosm that, when the lover’s lips part, loosely thrown their separate ways while the violins call, they do not notice the spark behind the screen, the stench of heat-curdled plastic, the scream of a previously silent moviegoer. The screen is so red, the score so loud, that the flames on its frame are merely the background, the heat a personal reaction, the beating drums of others’ footsteps as they throw themselves at the doors mere music, enhancing the scene. The door bursting open rings like the scream of an actress over her co-star’s seemingly dead body, the roar of smoke pummeling One’s lungs feels like tears -- are there real tears? -- , and the blue anger leaks slowly at first, but then rushes freely, open to the world again, no longer a poison held in One’s brain.

When it rushes, so, too, rushes everything else. The appliances, and commodities, and staircases, and taxis and taxi drivers, and the street masses, and the streetlights are memories so sharp that they are almost tangible. Is this life? Is this the noise? Is this the answer? Is this the resolution? How can One only think so clearly when things crumble? There are so many things that One does not know. So many things that One cannot know, One realizes.

The screen melts, dripping in loops, and the sobs of the acting woman warp with the dissolution of her audio, first dropping until they are monstrous, then rising until they are child-like, then going silent as though in death. Her face, though, remains projected on the screen until her agape, silently screaming mouth flashes like that of a ghost on undulating waves of black smoke. The last thing that One sees is her eyes enveloped in grey billows, then a shot of her curved over a grave in the rain, a man in a black coat holding a black umbrella over her head. His face, dark, gaunt, and long, flashes once, and the scene disappears. The audio gives one final, sudden belch of screaming, distorted weeping, and then truly dies. One’s head drops slowly; They cannot keep it up. One sees the sight of their own legs disappear, and they are in the empty black, in an empty theater, on a Friday evening.

---

One awakens to the feeling of a cold, greeting breeze on the back of their neck, their throat rubbed raw as though they have swallowed gravel, their skin singed and pulled tight. One, again, sees their legs, and then, again, sees the theater. Rather, One sees what remains of the theater, the dust and molten plastic of the room that used to be a room. They can hear nothing but the sirens, smell nothing but ash and the sulphuric tinge left by the theater’s garbage cans upon their consumption by the flames. Those chains with which One had been locked to their chair, the only chair left in perfect condition, suddenly release, and One falls into the rubble of what used to be a row of those bloodied teeth, those impenetrable stacks of red rectangles. Oh where, One wonders, did everyone go?

One can do nothing but walk back to the road, where they see it, the yellow taxi with the purple, velvet seats, the taxi driver with the grey-red plaid hat and the few words. One falls into the violet backseat, and the dense smell of the car startles their singed lungs so that they cannot speak their destination. The taxi driver, with his few words, though, understands, He only gives a tight smile, then begins the car at the slow pace of last night. The Saturday morning light is so unlike that of the Friday evenings, so exposing and so bright. One feels that, with their skin rubbed raw by the flames of the theater, the white light hurts. The taxi driver coughs quietly, and he says:

“How was your night?”

One looks up for the first time, it feels. The sting of salty tears on the overexposed, regretful, guilty, burnt terrain of their cheeks stings. One coughs, and One says:

“I was in a movie.”

Joyce Kouami

Etiquette Victoria Llanos You see, Dear, we simply did not watch such mindless programs. When I was young, those confounded things emitted X-rays. Not to mention how they strain the eyes. Come now. I won’t have a dolt for a niece. Do you speak? When I was a girl, I always engaged in intellectual discourse at the table, yet you are mute. I do wonder if there is a single thought in that little head of yours. One thing is for sure: you certainly eat your fair share ​—​ ​but can’t prepare a meal to save your life. Only consume. I would ask if you understood when to use your salad fork, but there is clearly no need, now is there? If you keep that diet, Darling, however will you fit into that dress I bought you? Do you read? I can’t imagine the loathsome trifle you read. ​Well, I really like this one​ ​—​ Who is to judge literature? Have you read the classics? I simply will not hear the opinion of a nine-year-old philistine.

But why must I read the classics?​ ​What makes the greats, well... great?​ Hush now. It is beyond your comprehension. You ask too many questions. Let us go to the museum. Surely you are not leaving the house looking so disheveled, sweetheart. Comb your hair. ​Maybe I don’t want to​ ​—​ Well, I had no idea that my sister had raised such a brat. Now brush it out of your face. That handsome Charlie won’t pay any mind to a girl whose hair is in her face​. I don’t like Charlie... or anyone really—​ Of course you do. All right then, follow along. ​Hola Lupe, ¿te gustaría venir a la exposición con nosotras?​ ​—​ ​Never fraternize with the help or their street urchin offspring. Do you really think Lupe could appreciate Manet? And don’t speak that heathen language. ​My father spea​ ​—​ Never mind him. Your mother would have been better off marrying the Foster boy like we all urged. Such a lovely young man. But she was always stubborn, and look at what she has to show for it: an indolent Latino husband and an unruly half-breed daughter. And James really was so lovely. The Fosters grew up in Sudbury, you know. They attended Andover. James was a Harvard man, mind you. ​You do know my father received his MBA from—​ racial quotas work wonders, I’m sure. ​My father is a white man​ ​—​ ​So they often claim.

You are fortunate to have your mother’s complexion. (Although her looks didn’t quite translate, you poor thing.) Your mother may be incompetent, but she has always been lithe and fairly attractive.

That’s all it takes, I suppose. She certainly isn’t your Aunt Maggie, though. Maggie was a model child... Then of course the accident took her from us. Anyhow, let’s proceed. You must refrain from touching anything in the exhibit, honey. I will not stand to be humiliated, you hear. Have you read

the description? I should think not. It is in your best interest, though. You seem out of your depth, Darling. ​I know about the Impressioni​ ​—​ ​You mustn’t put on airs. If you are unfamiliar with something, say so. Stand straight, Dear. I won’t have any Richard III’s in this family. Not on my watch. You see, that was a reference to Shakespeare. ​Yes, I know— ​ ​ Never talk back to your elders. How on earth does your mother tolerate such disrespect? Children should be seen and not heard. To think, I would have made a truly wonderful mother. If only you were my daughter ​—​ ​But Auntie, you can’t conceive.

Elizabeth Mao

Things I Learned From Art History Fiona Mucaj

A parked car is the quietest place of all, even when it rains. Everything is so, so heavy. Water is heavy. Blood is heavier. Air is heaviest. I find myself in a cold sweat every day. I like the way it sticks to me, glues my upper arm to my side so I don’t even try to grab anything. The humidity knows better than I do at this point. It knows that whatever I grab will just slip away. I’d still try if I could.

In one attempt at a fresh start, I tell the story of a man who stands over mist and watches.

When I give up on lies, he jumps into the cloud. When I give up on lies, I tell a million more. In all my memories of this time, it’s raining. I try to catalogue it for myself, but it’s all descended into the gutter. It’s runoff.

I know Tennyson is dead, but I’d like to kill him myself, just to see if it’d fix something. My mother stiffens when I mention art history. I almost don’t remember what happened that year. All I remember is some sort of accident–one misstep and my head’s slipping off its axis into a romantic universe (that’s ​romanticism​, not romance, so it’s pure delusion before anything else.) Maybe it’s that car. Maybe everything’s going so fast it stops. When I walk on coals, my feet are so hot it feels cold.

Tennyson throws said coals at my window. The problem is, I’m not in that room. I never am. So, of course the coals never hit me and knock my head back into position. I blame him for everything. Why do I blame him? He’s doing his best. It’s hard to keep flowers alive over two centuries. Flowerpots turn to watery graves with all this rain.

Waterhouse paints ​The Lady of Shalott​ in front of me. I look down into a puddle for a second, watch my own dirty face become someone else’s dirty face. When I look back up, the paint’s all muddled. The Lady of Shalott descends into the gutter and it feels a little sickening. I wasn’t supposed to witness this part. This isn’t Camelot. I scoop up the brown water and watch it settle in

the lines of my hands like old blood. Like a mirror. The rain stops. Tennyson and Waterhouse and my mother are nowhere to be seen.

Everything is much clearer now. I know exactly what happened that year.

Georgia Maynard

Socially Distant Ella Samson 1.

My days have not been so long now that the people are always home. I don’t sleep the time away anymore. I can sit with them and play with them. I can bark, bark, bark! They are there to hear it.

2.

The most annoying part of quarantine is crossing from portal a. to portal b. It doesn't matter what way I go, they always seem to catch me.

My bed, base a, can take me to any place. In my sleep, nestled between its pillows, I am transported to alternate worlds. It is a relief from this one.

My desk, base b, takes me to my favorite place, the world of Celestia. At that desk, I sit over the skeleton of my wig, gluing hairs into it. When I’m done I will have her hair The part in between is exactly the same as any of those games where you have to fight the monsters that appear in your path to safety (only my sister and my parents aren’t monsters, they just act like it, sometimes). When I was little, I wasn’t allowed to play with those games because they used to make me that frustrated. When it’s real life, I feel that times a hundred.

Now, as I step outside my room into the empty space of the hallway, I see my mom coming, and I know that I’ve lost this time. The anger begins to furl up inside me. She corners me to question me about some stupid thing. Before I can think, I yell at her to move. My fist clenches. Behind her, I can see the rectangle of peace that is my doorway.

3.

This bed is slippery; one day I am sitting in it, the next day I am sinking in it. I am in a downward spiral, a slow slide, and it came as a surprise.

4. a. Wash the windows The smell of Windex is invigorating as I start my day. The blue liquid absolutely devastates the population of smudge marks that had been accumulating here. It’s good to clean in these times, it keeps your mind off things. b. Mow the lawn

I catch a glimpse of the park and see the people in masks amongst the flowers. What a beautiful day. c. Dust the bookshelves I choke on a cloud and cough. It is obviously the dus,t but I cannot stop myself from briefly wondering if it might be the virus. d. Fold the laundry Wil’s fresh scrubs fold cleanly in my hands, and I wonder, as always, if they are somehow still crawling with sickness. e. Clean the doorknobs I can feel the germs on my skin so I stop thinking, and focus on the knobs. Focus only on the job f. Vacuum g. Organize the sheets h. Polish the shoes i. Re-wash the windows (someone’s been touching them again) j. Bathe the dog k. Do the dishes l. Sweep the sidewalk m. Take a walk n. Sweep o. Alphabetize the bookshelves It is time for me to sleep.

5.

No, the pandemic hasn’t really affected me. I still get to go home to my family, you know. We talk. Lately, Ella and I have been having some pretty good discussions, actually. We watch movies sometimes, too. Last night, we tried to watch this sci-fi show, but I don’t think it was a hit. In general, I think we’re all taking it pretty well, uhm, emotionally.

The only major difference is with work. I used to see my patients, and then do managerial work around the different sites. Now, I only see covid patients.

The typical day is not too bad. I get to the hospital, put on PPE, and start seeing people. They actually have a different look, the ones that are going to have it worse, like some kind of shadow fell

over them. It’s a long day recently, to be honest, but what can you do? The worst deaths are the younger ones.

Jenessa Lu