Lost and Found | Fall 2019 by Grinnell Underground Magazine [GUM]

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copyright Grinnell Underground Magazine © 2019 gumag.org all publications funded by SPARC are copyright of SPARC and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without specific written consent from SPARC. printed by Colorfx Waverly, IA

theologian / we found you what we find in virginity’s loss bananas balloonstrings & lost things goodbye definitive ranking of lost things in order of how happy I am that they’re lost i’m lost, but maybe i’m right where i need to be notebook doodles lost in space gum’s lost & found pens bleed the silence of a lost victorian hair seeing, leaving around campus river salva al niño del abismo arcs (after ‘queer phenomonlogy) face collection spotlight earrings eards pins woods and snow thoughts while flying compass rose doherty so, where is waldo, really lost in thought ibex’s solar system/original six light ode to lost online friends

theologian / we found summer bordon what we find in4/5 virgin will donaldson 6/7 bananas owen daley 6/7 lost balloonstrings & bailey vandenkamp 8 goodbye brenna hanlon ranking 9 definitive of l mj old 10/11 in order of how happ they’re lost i’m lost, but maybe i’ shiraz johnson 12be where i need to notebook doodles shiraz 12 lost injohnson space jiun jeoung 13 gum’s lost & found 14/15 pens bleed emma walsh the silence of a16lost v ally cottrell 17 hair seeing, leaving anna alvin campus 18 around anna alvin 19 river acadia broussard 20/21 salva al niño del abis isidro(after mendizabal‘queer 21 arcs river morel 22/23 phenomonlogy) face sonia benitez torres 22 collection spotlight 25/26/27 earrings tess kerkhof eards jax seiler pins jefferson woods suh and snow tommy lee thoughts while 28/29 flying marnie monogue 30 compass rose doher mckenna dohertyis waldo, 31 so, where r maggie coleman 32 lost in thought ethan ratnofsky 33 ibex’s solar system/o terran mott 34/35 light andrew thompson 36/37 frie ode to lost online phinn lloyd 38

emma walsh ally cottrell

12 13 14/15 16 17 anna alvin anna alvin acadia broussard isidro mendizabal river morel

18 19 20/21 21 22/23 sonia benitez torres

22 25/26/27

12 ’m right

shiraz johnson

lost things py I am that

4/5 6/7 6/7 8 9 10/11 things

summer bordon will donaldson owen daley bailey vandenkamp brenna hanlon mj old d you nity’s loss

smo

28/29 30 31 32 33 34/35 36/37 38 g rty really

original six

ends

tess kerkhof jax seiler jefferson suh tommy lee marnie monogue mckenna doherty maggie coleman ethan ratnofsky terran mott andrew thompson phinn lloyd

THEOLOGIAN by summer bordon

theologian/ put the lotion on my shoulder/ call that tender cream permafrost/ suppose I wander with the doors unlocked/ I walk with the sun, a red salad bowl/ theologian, place the orange slices in a tupperware/ brush away that strand of hair/ suppose I am lost but will get there anyway/ theologian, I will meet you anyway

art by emily anderson

WE FOUND YOU

we found you in the corn field, saliva dripping from your mouth like orange juice, like clipped nails. we found you & quickly wished we had not. came with arms stuffed full of gifts: string from the old mop, single silicon earring, minnow sleeping in a bowl half full of water. my lover pressed his thumbs to your eyes & asked for a prophecy, for those good, sweet words, wanted to drink them like warm beer, like sap before it is syrup. I wanted to live in the sugarbush. I wanted my mouth to dry like hazelnut pods. I wanted to wake up without arms. you wanted this too, said it with your mouth.

we found you & quickly wished we had not found you in the corn field.

WHAT WE FIND IN VIRGINITY’S LOSS

by will donaldson

When I think of loss, dear friend, I think of pain. Because what’s more painful than the loss of life, love, a body part, a treasured object, or homework? Nothing. When we think of virginity, we also think of loss. I admit, sometimes it can be painful too. Perhaps most times. But that’s the only part of losing your virginity that should be associated with the negative label of loss. What we must focus on from the fabled “first time” is what we find. For some, it’s the ability to walk through daily life free of a cumbersome, socially-created label. For others, it’s the under-the-sheets experience they need to take on sex and (maybe) romance with renewed confidence and vigor. Still others find a certain, shall we say, thirst for more

of what they experienced the night before. And a select few souls find that sex is an activity in which they never want to partake again. I am not here to extol the virtues of intercourse, nor am I here to decry its limitations. What I am seeking to explore is our understanding of virginity, and how it should change. Firstly, definitions of virginity vary based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Which is part of the problem. Why worry about whether its anal, oral, vaginal, or anything in between? Why not abolish it altogether? Allow me to present a counter example. You’ve col-

lapsed on your pillow, fresh off of your first sexual experience, and you tell your partner: “My good gracious, this was my first time.” Instead of repeating

the classic line (“By golly, you lost your virginity!”), they merely shrug and grunt: “Cool.” I think that we can all agree that, in one sense only, this is anticlimactic.

My suggested definition, r.e. Virginity: • A penetrative encounter, whether it be sexual or emotional, achieved through intercourse or by a formative life experience • Used in a sentence: “I lost my virginity to ‘Titanic’ last week.” We shouldn’t be thinking of our first sexual experience as a singularity in our lives. We experience new things on a daily basis. Based on the definition above, we may

“

“lose our virginity” a number of times each week. In a sexual context, it’s something special. I contend that it is equally special in regard to wonderful movies or engaging conversations.

art by owen daly

I hope that now we can all agree that the abolition of virginity in a society where it already means so much results in true loss. That’s why I believe we’ll find much more satisfaction and liberty in its redefinition.

So, dear friend, when you lie in bed after the climax of your night, either very drunk or stone-cold sober, next to a person you may love or you may have just met, think not about how you just lost your virginity. Think about what you’ve just found.

my good gracious, this was my first time! 77

balloon strings & lost things by bailey vandekamp

I lost you. Lost like the purple balloon from the first birthday party I was ever invited to I was eight and probably too old to be upset about balloons, but I still cried the whole car ride home while I watched it float to the horizon line. I don’t even remember letting go of the string. Maybe I’m just missing you. Misplaced you in a way that is temporary but feels colossal while you’re gone. And I’m searching through all the cabinets and

ransacking the junk-drawer trying to find your sweet laughter that was the soundtrack of my summer and coming up frazzled, frantic, and empty-handed. Are you really considered missing if you’re never coming back? I’m watching out the car window as you meet the horizon line and I know I’m only twenty, but I’ll still sob the whole way home unsure if I’ve lost you forever or if the universe is just saying it’s time to let go of your string.

art by brenna hanlon

definitive ranking of lost things in order of how happy I am that they’re lost by mj old 5. Amelia Earhart Firstly, if I was a famous pilot, I would have changed my name from ear-hart to AIR-hart. But I don’t judge her too much. She and Fred Noonan had such good wlw/mlm solidarity going. I have mixed feelings about Amelia Earhart’s disappearance. Of course, it’s sad she didn’t succeed in going around the world. But would she be famous if she had? And what is worth more: the woman herself, or her legacy? I fall on the side of the woman herself. It’s not fair that Charles Lindbergh, a known fascist, lived to 72 and Earheart disappeared before 40. 4. The City of Atlantis My favorite rendition of the city of Atlantis is the one in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea where Captain Nemo takes Professor Aronnax to see an underwater volcano destroying Atlantis. Captain Nemo doesn’t explain where they’re going beforehand, but writes ATLANTIS on a rock once they get there, presumably just for the drama of it all. My second favorite rendition is the one from Phineas and Ferb. I’m glad Atlantis is lost because it means I don’t have to address the inevitable misogyny of an ancient Mediterranean civilization and can think only of algae painting marble brown and green, schools of colorful fish flitting in and out of ancient doorways, and mermaids hanging out with dolphins. However, since Atlantis is my dream home, I can never live my ideal life until it’s found. Overall? I’m ambivalent.

3. The pencil I lost last week I can see it now, lying under a desk somewhere, happy to be rid of my sweaty fingers. The eraser was garbage anyway. I’m happier now, too. Six grams lighter. Does leaving a pencil on the ground count as littering? Probably not. I hope someone who happened to need a pencil picked it up, anyway. 2. D.B. Cooper While many make a compelling case for Tommy Wiseau, my favorite possible real identity of the hijacker is a trans pilot named Barbara Dayton. She seemed oddly unconcerned about money after the hijacking, and even confessed to her friends before realizing that the statutes of limitation hadn’t yet expired. Whether or not Barbara was the real D.B. Cooper, I’m glad no one was ever indicted for the hijacking. I need there to be cracks in law and order wide enough for $200,000 and a hijacker to slip through. 1. My virginity Good riddance. Sex is pretty lit.

iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m lost, but maybe iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m right where i need to be

art and writing by shiraz johnson

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lost and found lost in space space bar space out out to lunch out of time time warp time of your life life force life is short short bread short stop stop watch stop sign sign of the times sign here here we go here and now now and then now and later later gator later on on top of it on the air air out air line line dance line up up to no good up to something something blue something lost lost to time lost and found

art by jiun jeong

13 13

s & t

L os U o & f t

The GUM StaďŹ&#x20AC; visited scavenged their Lost a found A LOT of water see?) and hoodies. We tho), a tomagotchi (!!!R bracelet.

If you lost any of the o you, email us at [gum] (but probably not).

Un U d o n d f

The GUM Staff visited some academic buildings d some buildings around campus and around campus and scavenged their Lost and Found bins for cool stuff. We and Found bins for cool stuff. The GUM Staff visited some buildings around campus and r bottles, glasses (how do any of you scavenged their Lost and Found bins forpin cool stuff. We found ONE (GUM)ala Harris (rip We found A LOT of water bottles, glasses and found A LOT of water bottles, glasses (how do any of you RIP!!!) and a forgotten friendship hoodies. We found ONE (GUM)ala Harris Harris pin pin (rip see?) and hoodies. We found ONE (GUM)ala (rip), a tomagatchi (RIP!) and a forgotten tho), a tomagotchi (!!!RIP!!!) and a forgotten friendship friendship bracelet. objects we photographed belong to bracelet. ] and maybe we’ll help you find them If you lost any of the objects we photoIfgraphed, you lost any of the we photographed belong to email us objects at [gum] and maybe we’ll you, email at [gum] help you us find them. and maybe we’ll help you find them (but probably not).

by emma walsh

16 16

the silence of a lost victorian hair by ally cottrell

Shut up. Shut down. I don’t care, either. I wouldn’t you would n’ t? I built a rope of hair like a Victorian era frame but the end keeps getting dragged off by the wind. I suppose I could just center it. A frame at least has a middle a center a focal. Something for someone to look at and admire with their feet turned sideways and their weight shifted off to their mind’s eyeball, reaching hand.

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SEEING LEAVING

writing and photos by anna alvin

I’ve looked into the stone-pit eyes of my loved ones while they dissolved like lumps of sugar. Here, then there, then gone.

And the And the And the But the dertow.

We didn’t expect my uncle to die. But he did, and we ate fish and chips by the side of the road while we thought quietly about his passing in a way that can’t be shared. Blue irises turned to blue lakes, and dirt turned to mud.

So I talk to my mom and tell her that I love her. I talk to my dad and make sure he sees that I see him. I slip back and forth over the line between here and there, emotion and illusion, dream and reality and belief and fear and I feel like I am dancing.

It is all too sweet to swallow, so we let the thoughts fall apart at the edges until they are small enough to hold. A gifted CD. A conversation about shoes. A death in a chair. I think of my grandma whose eyes are packed lid to lid with things she cannot convey, and I see how she looks at me like she knows me even without words for who I am. Our memories pull away and take the names.

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days. faces. hands. feelings swell in the un-

In each breath I find shades of all those I’ve loved. I meet their eyes. Hazel. Blue. Brown. Green. I hold them like hands. I swallow them like stones. I carry them with me.

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RIVER

Last week I told a lie I’ve known I would tell for a while now. I didn’t know when I would tell it, or who I would tell it to. It existed in the back of my mind as this awful, terrible thing to do, but something I felt I would soon do nonetheless. I told the lie to one of my favorite professors, ironically someone I would feel totally comfortable sharing the truth with. I don’t know why the lie finally came out at this moment. We were sitting in Prairie Canary for lunch, discussing a research project I was working on and the possibility of presenting it at a conference. We had gotten off topic and were talking about our families. I had talked about my parents, my younger brother, and my younger sister. “So, are you the oldest?” She asked. “Yeah.” I lied. I instantly regretted it. The single word caused me deep, physical pain. Immediately I wanted to take it back- but how do you take something like that back? “Actually, I lied. That was a lie. I have another brother, and his name is River. He’s three years older than me. He was my first friend in this world and I miss him every day. No, he isn’t dead. Among other things, he has severe schizophrenia. No treatment has been successful and his doctors told us that eventually he would retreat so far into the delusions he wouldn’t be responsive anymore. I don’t recognize him and he can’t hold a conversation without bringing up demons or blood. He thinks my mom is his wife and my dad is Satan. He is the nicest, sweetest, person I’ve ever met. He loves superheroes. We used to play outside every day. We would pretend to be Crash and Coco Bandicoot. He was Crash and I was Coco. I miss him so much. I am sorry I lied. I am not ashamed. I am just very sad.” It’s just not the thing you bring up at Prairie Canary. Every time I talk about my family I have a knot in my stomach. How do I avoid this topic? How do I not bare my soul to this person I’m just meeting, or this person I only have a causal relationship with? I try to avoid the conversation steering towards questions that would force me to reveal

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by acadia broussard more information than the conversation bargains for, but they always come up. How many siblings do you have? Are you the oldest? People always want to know about the older brother instead of my younger siblings, because they assume I’ll have more to talk about. Where did he go to college? He didn’t. What does he do? He lives in a home. He leaves me and my family members tortured voicemails. He transcribes the awful things he hears in his head and gives it to us as “presents.” He comes home for dinner and we take him to the movies. He’s constantly terrified and confused. For a long time, I’ve struggled with coming up with a way to shut down this conversation before it happened. I used to tell people that he was disabled and lived at home. Even wanting to avoid bringing him up felt terrible- like I was one of those people à la Jane Eyre who lock away their mentally ill family members in the attic for fear of family shame. I am not ashamed. I am simply so sad at the perpetual and extreme pain of someone I love so much, and it’s hard to grapple with that at unexpected times in casual conversation. That’s why the idea of the lie came to me. What if I just avoided the topic altogether, saving the person I’m talking to from the discomfort of a sad story they didn’t realize they were signing up for and saving me from unearthing my pain? I never thought of a good answer to the questions I faced so frequently, questions as simple as “What does he do?” My old method of saying “he’s disabled and lives at home” seemed disrespectful, like I was minimizing his existence by his inability to work, but it was the honest answer to the thing that most people ask about. Now it’s not even true anymore, and I don’t want to open my family up to the stigma of putting a young family member in a home. I don’t want to talk about him to strangers who wouldn’t understand my family, or my brother. I don’t want to air his business out to the world or minimize him to his illness, even though at this point it has completely consumed him and I don’t have much else to share. I don’t want to talk about it, but I don’t want to not talk about it. I hate the idea of erasing him altogether. Yet I did. I lied. I lied to one of my favorite profes-

I erased a part of my family and I feel horrible. It’s a weird thing, because my brother is still alive even if he will never be the same. My feelings of loss have been a growing ache that is always with me, a dormant sadness that leaves me with horrible guilt. The brother I grew up with isn’t really here anymore, and unless some incredible medical breakthrough surfaces I may never get to talk to him, the real him, again. I don’t want to erase who he really is, who I love and who I grew up with, and so I cling to the memory of the brother I lost. He was born in 1993. As a baby, he had a huge head and huge glasses. It was adorable. He loved Thomas the Tank Engine and had a bunch of the toy trains. I came along and he was so sweet and gentle with me. I was a mean baby and I knocked

him over and threw the trains at him. He still always hugged me and cuddled me. Every teacher he ever had said he was the nicest kid they ever had in his class. Kids would be mean to him, because kids can be assholes, and he wouldn’t even know. In his eyes, the entire world was kind and he trusted anyone he met. He messed up common phrases in hilarious ways, like saying “I know this store like the back of my head.” He made up silly songs or catch phrases like chicken and cheese! Chicken and cheese! Chicken and cheese withasodaontheside! They didn’t mean anything but he’d say them all the time. He gave us silly nicknames, dubbing my sister “Melie Tator Osckalator.” He liked slapstick humor and Looney Tunes cartoons and would belly laugh at just about anything. He was warm and happy and good to his core, and he made everyone feel good just to be around him. It is overwhelmingly insufficient to say that I miss him, and I don’t know if I’ll ever know how to describe what it’s like to miss someone who is standing right in front of you.

art by isidro mendizabal

sors. One of the most kind, genuine, compassionate people I’ve ever met. Someone who has been integral in making me feel supported, welcome, and loved at Grinnell. Someone who would have understood.

2121

ARCS by river morel

art by sonia benitez torres

Where are we going to turn? I can taste you on my tongue. In delight: flesh ripples and sears. The joys of this disorder! How contingent we are, upon the threading spate. From afar: the migrant man Looks left, looks right Dwells in the fratricidal now. Lines: endless, emerging. Where are we going to turn? Moving fast through you I become me.

The familial sounds find me eating, here, The nearest of my kin. The distal tendons deviate And I devour them all the same. The hands of my forefathers washed me deep in this soot. I was born of soot and instantly knew my name. Shook like snickers the velvet richness from my skin Pulled my limbs through, extended lifelines bathed in sin I danced with Orgasm and let it rest When it felt hunger.

In my lumen glides the infinite aquifer Where gravity pulsates, and of course When we are there, Where are we going to turn? Shuttling down to earth. Feeling fear, feeling desire. Inhabiting myself, The stars spear the fold. We turn to the beginning. We turn to ghost on cloth. We turn to battered cuboid dreams Burbling with name. We turn to newfold floaters fresh as guns on syrup’ed hands. I saw you loving me and I remembered all I had touched. Serenity. Bird leering large. Analytic scythe. Tongue of thorns. Neurons in the stream. Pebbled memory. Torpor. Pouches bellowing. Rhubarb cigarettes. I had felt all this and more. Forgotten? All mapped like standing knives But too, I swam. Worlds in view. Alive.

Woven. Direction. Calling lines to parse apart the gluey bodies Calling lines to string a crowning thought between. Imagine that. I feel the Martian’s night’s begun. I feel it breathing on my ear. Digression from code and form; Computational spirit gumming up the cracks. Where? Simple action playing loosely with our chant -I lie within. Like a lens I spin circumferences Pleasing every aisle. A new-boon world. A looping thought, fat disc of motion A spine that births itself-Entry to the unknown. Sometimes we do return. Sometimes we ruminate, ten-pointed stars, flustering out onto the universe. Bursting through doorways, Collum slung with keen fruit. Pressed meed of body May be prose in thicket corridors.

Where are we going to turn? This side and that, I never knew one Without the other. I am leaving home Going to find it.

“

where are we going to turn? 23

COLLECTION SPOTLIGHT We decided to interview some fellow Grinnellians about the stuff they collect. Collections represent the deep emotional tie between humans and our material possessions. In this spread youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll find three interviews about three unique collections that were shared with us. Each of these interviews gave us some insight about what drives the urge to collect.

TESS ‘21

How did you start collecting?

This is kind of embarrassing: I went to a rural school with no art classes. Being at a place where I felt more comfortable to be creative, I started collecting and making earrings when I started college.

Why? I realized how non-unique clothes are - you could have some Urban Outfitters shirt but no one will have these grape earrings I made. They also help to take the pressure off an outfit like, the focus is: “I like your earrings”

How do you add to your collection?

How many do you have? I don’t know *starts counting* 50-60 pairs, not all on the wall.

Second Mile, handmaking them, usually with a budget under $10. When I bought the grapes, they were like “now young lady what are you going to do with those.” Some of them I make don’t match, but I love the trend of asymmetry, like this one made of a tiny watch and this eraser one.

EARRINGS

25 25

JAX ‘22 How did you start collecting?

About a year ago, a friend introduced me to Magic: The Gathering as a game and gave me a couple cards. I made my first bad version of a deck and then just sort of got hooked from there. The first deck that I ever built was a commander deck. Mine was Cranko Mob Boss: the entire point of this deck is to make just an ass ton of goblins.

Why? Mostly just because it’s a good time. Just the insane amount of creativity, just the ridiculousness you can pour into the game. There’s a tendency for people to call Magic cards “cardboard crack”, which is really true. It’s really addicting.

How do you add to your collection? There’s a game shop in town, “Multiverse Comics”, that sells starter decks.

26 26

CARDS

How many do you have?

I know I’ve got at least five decks, but the majority of my cards are in this binder. Around a thousand.

JEFFERSON ‘23 How did you start collecting?

My collection started with the Lake Thunderbird State Park pin while I was just outside of Oklahoma City during a cross-country road trip.

How many do you have?

26 and a few more.

Why? I guess it was just a travel thing. Souvenir stores for tourists have shot glasses, magnets, and other smaller items and gadgets, but lapel pins have been the most eye-catching, creative, simple, and light for travel.

How do you add to your collection? I travel lots, and whenever I’m someplace new and I feel like the place is memorable enough for me to spend a few, I do. The few that I haven’t got from travel are gifts or pins that were awarded for various achievements from different places.

PINS

27 27

WOODS AND SNOW by tommy lee

28 28

woods and snow

woods and snow d you summer bordon woods and snow will donaldson nity’s loss woods and snow owen daley woods and snow woods and snow vandenkamp things woods and snow bailey brenna hanlon woods and snow lost things woods and snow mj old woods and snow py I am that

woods and snow woods and snow and shiraz snow ’m right woods woods and snow woods and snow woods and snow shiraz

johnson

johnson jiun jeoung

victorian

emma walsh ally cottrell

12 13 14/15 16 17

anna alvin anna alvin acadia broussard isidro mendizabal river morel

18 19 20/21 21 22/23

sonia benitez torres

22 25/26/27

smo

4/5 6/7 6/7 8 9 10/11

g rty really

original six

ends

tess kerkhof jax seiler jefferson suh tommy lee 28/29 marnie monogue 30 mckenna doherty 31 maggie coleman 32 ethan ratnofsky 33 terran mott 34/35 woods and snow andrew thompson 36/37 woods and snow woods and38 snow phinn lloyd

woods and and snow snow woods woods and snow woods and snow woods and snow woods and snow woods and snow woods and snow woods and snow woods and snow woods and snow

thoughts while flying thoughts while flying thoughts while flying by marnie monogue

One afternoon I was flying from Chicago to Albany and as I watched the curvature of the North Shore disappear below me I spotted a speck I recognized as the Bahai’i Temple in Wilmette. It was so, so small. I went there three times in high school on a field trip and the white concrete dome swallowed us up every time. But now I had to search for it as if it were printed in a search-and-find book from kindergarten. So insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But the view from above the south of England is like the patchwork baby blanket I used to wrap around myself in my twin bed. I want to sink into the earth and feel the soft flannel again, turning dirt and grass into comfort objects. It’s foreign land but I see everything familiar in it: fields, highways, villages. Everything is just part of a model train set in your great-uncle’s basement. It’s easy to convince yourself you’re looking at a stream of matchbox cars barreling down a inches-wide road heading nowhere. But then the plane dips closer to the earth. You realize that any of those toy cars could be your mother’s minivan carrying everyone you love back to your house. Somebody flying over your hometown sees nothing but matchbox cars and a patchwork blanket. Maybe that’s what the gods see. I don’t like looking out the window too long because soon I remember there are billions of people down there who hate and love each other and it doesn’t really matter at all. But at the same time it’s the most important thing in the world. And within the span of an hour you plummet faster and faster towards insignificance and you’re part of it now. You’re not home and the landscape is you.

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art by mckenna doherty 313 1

so, where is waldo really? by maggie coleman

Waldo has been been hiding in bright loud colorful crowds of bizarre people for almost 30 years. He’s not as young as he used to be, and he’s all but lost his will to deliver idle amusement to young children and adults alike. He just can’t do it anymore. A couple of years back, he decided to buy a timeshare somewhere tropical as a present to himself for all his hard work. Because yes, traipsing across the world and/or universe, concealing oneself in large groups of locals is extremely taxing work, and surprisingly, very lucrative. Not only is Waldo exhausted by years of travel, he’s also been growing more and more resentful of the lack of appreciation for his exceptional ability to deceive the human eye. He feels exploited due to the fact that he has never once been thanked for all the frustrating fun he has

provided. Waldo is now at a point in his life where he feels he must stop living for others, and yearns to start living for himself, since life is too short to care about the opinions of others. So Waldo is soaking up the sun on a golden beach on an island so obscure, even he’s not sure where he is. He’s with his friends, sipping fresh coconut milk from a swirly straw as the seagulls chatter overhead, lulled to a mildly conscious state of pure bliss by the rhythmic lapping of the waves on the shore, finally having tired of our sorry selves always looking for him. A ways off in the distance a bright, striped, curiously head shaped object floats farther and farther from shore, carried by the tide, until finally, finally, it disappears beyond the horizon.

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art by ethan ratnofsky 33 33

art by terran mott

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LIGHT by andrew thompson Shouts and bells woke me from my first sleep in days. I dragged myself out of my hammock as the captain called above the commotion, “All hands on deck!” I thrust myself into the daylight. For the first time in what felt like years, the sea was calm. How? We’d been hopelessly lost in a storm as long as I’d cared to remember. My mind flashed to my first day on the voyage, swelled with pride as the crowd cheered on the docks. It felt like another life, separated from the present by walls of clouds, lightning, and water. I reached the deck as the rest of the crew gathered dumbfounded at the bow. What was happening? Then I saw what had them speechless: a wall of rocks in the distance. Boulders stretching as far as the eye could see in either direction. The stones were many times the height of the mast, as big as palaces, and seemed not to be surrounding some land mass, but to be concave, surrounding the ocean stones round a fire. We all stood in the sudden silence. The sea was flat, almost mirroring our calm disbelief. What were we to think? As the shock numbed, we began to go back to our duties as the Captain set a course straight ahead. His face was solemn; he, like us, needed answers. Had we mistakenly come farther than any other vessel? Neither in gossip nor in story had we ever heard of this circumference. The other cabin boys and I spoke in hushed tones. Was this the path taken by Odysseus on his voyage to Purgatory? Was this a land of gods and giants? Was this the shore of a new country not yet seen by man? We tried to raise the sails, but without luck; the stormy winds that had done their best to sink us were almost missed as we began rowing towards this present mystery. As we approached, the boatswain kept us informed about the nearing wall: the rocks were indeed far larger than they seemed originally and it looked like there were many more behind the ring we had seen, though they were large enough that sailing between shouldn’t be an issue. He added that there were oddly no tide marks on the rocks, making the glistening giants seem truly immortal, even for stone.

We rowed in silence for what felt like hours, each of us put in a state of confusion by the sudden state of affairs. Not even hours before, as I was released for rest, the ship was being rocked and blown by the very waves and wind that had set it off course to begin with. For the first time in weeks, we felt more excited than hopeless. That spark of adventure we’d had in the beginning and had been drowned long since, was beginning to relight. All of a sudden, the captain called for us to pull in the oars and join him on the deck. As we climbed the steps, we felt an immense shadow fall over the ship, and we realized, looking around, that we were entering the ring of boulders. We spoke in hushed tones as we wove through this maze, using pikes to push our way along. The rocks seemed to grow like a forest, blocking the sky. In the watery grey-hued silence, the captain looked grim, and we kept moving through the timeless stone. Suddenly, the water lead us into a crag formed in a truly colossal rock, one larger than a castle and sterner than a king. But the captain wordlessly steered us in, drawn, as we all were, to… something, somewhere, though it didn’t feel like a place. As the dark grew more sinister, we lit torches and pressed on. After some time, the water became louder and louder. We couldn’t tell why, the current was no different. With the noise, a faint glow began to fill the tunnel. It was unlike that of the sun or stars or any fires of man, and we began to realize that it was the glow, or at least its source, that was calling us like a siren. Finally, we rounded a bend, leaving the cave, and there it was, the Light, suspended in nothing and projecting everything. It was beautiful, mind-numbingly so, and we all froze, transfixed and laboring to comprehend this Light that seemed to reveal and sustain all. Its presence felt glorious, like a return to home. We stood in sheer ecstasy, not realizing that our boat was still moving, that - between us and the light - our reality stopped and its truer reality began, and that the subtle sound of water that we’d noticed

was in fact the sea falling off the edge of our plane and into the nothing beneath. As our ship lurched out over this edge, I came to and, panicked, called out to the captain who was still at the wheel. He couldn’t have been more deaf to me if he was dead. I tried to shake my crewmates, but not one looked away from the light, not one even blinked. Frantic, I raced to the stern, clinging, almost literally, to my reality. But after a pause, I couldn’t help but remember the Light, it’s all-consuming joy. Why did I fight for my partial reality when all I wanted was this Truth, which was now about to be stolen from me as well. As the weight of the boat began to shift over the abyss, I sprinted with all my strength to the bow. As I ran, I thought of my cruel mistress, Fate, who was never content with her stolen worlds. First, she stole my homeland with a storm, leaving us to wander the sea. Then she took my comrades, who forgot our lives in a lust for joy. Then she took the very fabric of my existence, cutting short that which was once infinite. Now, she would take my last solace, Truth, with the weight of nothingness.

No. With a scream, I leapt off the bow, launching myself towards the light as the boat and my comrades fell to nothing. I flew through space, past time, grasping. But the weight of nothingness wasn’t gone. I began to slip and fall like the tears on my own face. My mind aching, my heart breaking, I watched the light grow dimmer as Fate had her final victory. Truth itself growing dimmer, dimmer, dimmer, and gone.

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