The Kudzu Review: Issue No. 72

THE KUDZU REVIEW

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TRIGGER WARNINGS

Some of the content in this issue may be upsetting to some readers. Trigger warnings include: brief mentioning of sexual assault reference to some disordered eating habits

bug death

suicidal ideation

drinking violence

Reader discretion is advised

FROM OUR EDITOR

Dear Reader,

The Kudzu Review is proud to present Issue 72, now in print for the third spring in a row. We invite you to dive in and explore a mosaic of pieces, created by students whose work has been vulnerable, daring, and inventive. At a time when censorship runs rampant, their pieces are a battle cry, a hill to stand on, a way of being heard.

In our most challenging and innovative semester yet, the publication of this issue would not have been possible without each member giving their all. A special thank you to my cohorts, Olivia Sokolowski and Pearl Ray, for their incredible support and tireless work behind-the-scenes to keep things up and running. Thank you to our masthead, whose passion and openness to trying new things was a constant source of inspiration. Thank you to our editorial assistants, who expanded Kudzu’s borders, designed the magazine beautifully, and shouldered the responsibility of critiquing every piece with professionalism and respect. Know that you make the world a better place with the work that you do. It has been my honor to produce this issue together.

Our hope is that when you flip through these pages, the art, poetry, and prose do not just entertain, but inspire you to think differently about the world. Kudzu will always be a safe space for stories, so long as there are people willing to listen. Thank you reader, and I hope you enjoy Issue 72.

Sincerely,

Havilah Sciabbarrasi

Editor-in-Chief

Hymn of Tony the Tiger

My great white chest seems to me fresh fallen snow, a flaky mountain. Flesh beneath fur is man’s war chant, his cold chains, his rough hands, those that looped tightly around my soft throat in cubhood, now tied into a neat, red scarf, his palatable collar, strangling me until my nose turns blue. Red scarf, white chest, blue nose—Britain, sir, hold me. I am your song. Whistle me through spoonfuls of sweet exploitation. America, sir, my great white savior, bring your boats and play the poor victim. Use me. Place me upon your boxes, in them. Brand me like cattle. Lead me like the dog that I am not. I had nine lives, each one exhausted by the strain of great burdens thrust through me, your golden Spear of Longinus. I am not your pawn, sir, your greatest glories made wide as worlds, with white-hot anger, gray-green cannons, your fortress of ice unforgiving and plain— remember that your misguided might is no more full than the verdant forests of India, my lost home. Dear India, I remember you—do you remember me, your missing son? I once played across your rich, brown hills. I leapt, tumbled, laughed, left, cried. I sang lullabies to my Mother, sweet Mother, who called my voice heavenly— I really sounded like a dying dove— can you hear me through the heavy clouds, dear Mother? Please, avert your eyes. I’ve been made into a clown, a pet, no more than crumbs.

Fly guy

By Aly Drapcho

Trying to get better

NonFiction

By Skylar Guarini

When I was like six, and I want to say this was at my mom’s ex-boyfriend’s apartment—his name was Enrique, a name I only hear Grandma and Aunty speak with hushed hatred, because he did something heinous to my mom, like hit or rape her, but no one will say and I won’t ask—not in his closet, where I remember sitting in the dark and writing a song about the seasons after I’d just learned the word autumn also meant fall, probably at his dinette, but maybe at our own lookalike table, and I think of him for reasons I can’t explain. I bit into a turkey sandwich, probably with all my baby teeth still intact, and it had this long strand of hair bookmarked within it, and when I swallowed, it wound its way around the fat of my tongue, other half snaked down my throat, and there came this awful, stringy, vinyl-like sensation that made it so that for a while after I didn’t want to eat turkey sandwiches again.

I read on the internet that puppies swallow their baby teeth when they fall out. I never swallowed any of mine though, because I’ve always been afraid of swallowing things whole. Except once, I remember being at Aunty’s parents’ house, in that dining room where vineyards crawled up the top foot of the wall, green paper and tack, where they always had out those thick, scalloped Vanity napkins, and daring myself to swallow a Cheerio whole. I don’t know when this switched from challenge to phobia, but surely sometime before I was nine, and I was supposed to take two Tylenol, royal blue gel capsules, but they looked so big in my hand, a gymnast’s metabolism, and Aunty’s body pinned me to the water fountain by the gym door, over by where I’d once picked a louse out of my hair, and I cried staring at

the ceiling while she forced my head up until I choked it down. At Grandma’s house, she’d use the beveled edge of a saucepan, rocking back and forth over a ziplock, movement like knuckles over the black piano keys in the song she taught me, crushing Benadryl to pink dust before mixing it into the chunky cinnamon applesauce she served from that big, communal jar she kept chilled in the fridge. Maybe the worst argument I ever had with my parents in high school came from two powder-packed pills—the kind that get stuck the harder you struggle, that burn and eat away at the inside of your mouth if you take too long, and don’t become a relenting moss-texture like the gel capsules—two of those on the kitchen table beside a tall pint glass, me at the top of the stairs, my parents six steps below. Hours of yelling and crying, because my mom was winedrunk and I was too old for this shit, and it was an act of defiance that I wouldn’t just take them, damnit. I could have chewed them up, sting first and then nothing, but I wouldn’t, for reasons I still don’t understand. Puppy stubbornness like they claimed, maybe, or otherwise helpless inevitability: like I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, because if I tried I’d just choke, because there would be thick hands holding my jaw firm in place, because hair would clog my throat up like a drain.

I don’t want to keep finding clumps of hair in my hands after I’ve wrung out the water from the shower, so I take hugeass magnesium pills—just throw my head back and stare at the ceiling and take it, because once the scale flashed a number higher than my mom’s, gymnast’s metabolism long-gone, there came this awful, feverish, rubber-like sensation that made it so that for a while after I didn’t want to eat again. I read on the internet that electrolytes can supplement you for a day and suddenly I was able to overcome my phobia, even though I’ve always been afraid of

swallowing things whole, or at least since I was a kid brave enough to swallow a dry Cheerio. I used to go straight to the cabinet after school and pour myself a huge bowl of ce real before practice, and we never had Cheerios, only the crunchy, sugary clusters that now remind me of happy ignorance, and as an adult I buy myself Cheerios and pour them only into a measuring cup.

I guess I really am too old for that shit now. But on my period I won’t take pills to help with the pain, knowing all along that it’ll be sting first and then nothing, and that the ibuprofen will dissolve in my stomach and pull apart the proteins of fiery writhing, and still I hold them in my mouth, after I’ve swallowed and my throat has constricted, and they’ll remain, residue stuck to a frying pan, there on the fat of my tongue.

That’s how it feels trying to get better.

The Path

by Adalyn Pickett

Red knees wear dips in cursed temple floors

Blue lips murmur the Lord’s Prayer in dying chambers

Jericho did not break at the first cry of a forsaken Daughter.

Bruises lined the chassis long before it fell.

Carnage pained the stone long before it broke.

Blood weighed the city long before it died.

Blessed are the poor

Old Jericho begs

Blessed are the mournful

Old Jericho cries

Blessed are the pure Old Jericho falls

leaves of the water

By Samantha Haas

item under House Favorites, never reported any details as to which fish we were serving). Subsequently, three or four would follow (still in purple), and I would take them to their table when most of their ensemble had arrived, which was usually anywhere between fifteen to twenty women. When the stragglers staggered in like ducks to a hen, they would smile and ask me to direct them to “The Purple Ladies.” It was always “The Purple Ladies,” never anything else, even when on Halloween the ladies arrived in various shades of orange and black (some still with purple witch’s hats or scarves or striped stockings).

The Purple Ladies liked to dine slowly; they would often remain seated for two to three hours, depending on the level of activity within the restaurant. I would often walk upstairs to where they were inevitably sitting, just to see them clustered together like a bushel of wisteria, laughing, discussing, lecturing. It seemed odd to me at the time that such a fond camaraderie could be found with a large group of elderly women. That they could schedule a time every month to meet (sometimes even twice!), to coordinate, to order the fish no matt er what it was (except the snapper, I found).

Through rain or shine came the purples, by way of car or train, or even bike or Uber. Open the door, sit at the bench, saunter to the table, talk, water, talk, fish, si lence, talk, leave.

They must know each other quite intimately, I used to think. On one special occasion, the Purple Ladies arrived with a wagon. There were eleven of them when last month there were twelve, and they were wearing yellow earrings with their uniforms. The plum-colored fabric wagon sported some nondescript text—how futile of me to even attempt to recall such a non-memorable emblem—but was filled to the steel-lined brim with plants. Pothos, a few ferns, a couple adolescent monsteras and quite a few snake plants; the contents of the wagon were indeed spilling over.

“Such lovely plants,” I started, “do you mind if I ask what they’re for?”

The woman with passion twists and a purple satin scarf answered me first: “My dear, they’re for Tracy! She had the greenest thumb you’d ever seen.” She gave me a tinsel-toothed smile, which I wasn’t quite expecting from a woman of her maturity, and turned to follow the bundle.

The next month they came unexpectedly, having just ten instead, so they did not require a reservation. I had to seat them outside. From my vantage point I got a good view of their table, where they passed around a small plush goat like a hot potato.

“What a cute goat,” I offered. “Why do you have it?”

A woman with Einstein hair and a purple beret answered me first. “Oh honey, Susan used to have a goat just like this one!”

Two months after that, again The Purples. Nine of them. They took up residence at the table right behind my stand, and there was never a moment where they were not laughing, except for a very short interim—almost lost to me by time—where one woman brought up Cindy’s coupon collecting, and the whole lot went quiet for a moment.

By eight women I had figured it out, and by seven I had thought to say something, but by six Purple Ladies I decided it was never my place, and by five I knew it would be insensitive of me to point it out, as four women came, three women ate the fish, and two women sat directly facing one another in a small booth in the corner… until only one Purple Lady remained, and she had to take a seat at the bar. You see, there was a con cert nearby, and she didn’t have a reservation, so at that time we didn’t have any open tables.

I SPEAK TO THE ANGEL OF DEATH OUTSIDE A BAR ON THE CORNER OF THIRD STREET

Poem by Emma Wasserman

He asks me what I’m doing with my life

And I tell him I spent last night

Curled up in bed thinking

About him and our flirtationship

Wondering if it is possible to go

To sleep and drift into a state of mourning

A state of daydreaming up designs

For my own casket

Funeral planning is difficult

I tell him in the crisp night air

Crisp like paper-thin excuses

And reasons to move forward

I tell him I cannot make

My parents do it alone

He does not say anything as we watch

Another group pour out of the bar

Tipsy on life and cheap drinks

Full of so much to live for

He asks if I have anything to live for

I tell him I don’t know

And he asks me why I am here

And I don’t know if he means on this earth

Or outside this bar in the flickering lamplight

It is three in the morning and I should be at home

I tell him I don’t know

And he frowns in the way he always does

Always has since the beginning

Of our on-again off-again relationship

In this way that I still cannot read

Even after years

And as he leaves

He says figure it out

DEPERSONALIZATION DEREALion

By Toria

Chip on your Shoulder

by Cyan Moor

Obsolescent

Nonfiction by Sarah Pine

I sit in treatment area six (T2-6). I am happy to be in my own room, but it brings my loneliness forward in a way I cannot handle. I have no desire to scan the room—I have been here before. White speckled floors, red biohazard bins, glove boxes lining the wall, dark wood cabinets, beige roller carts, a rather stiff grey chair whose legs I still can’t figure out how to extend into a recliner. The only noteworthy thing is the gauze. Today, the bee gauze rests on the beige roller cart. The bee gauze is neutral to me. The bees have weirdly realistic bodies, but comical smiley faces at the heads. I don’t like its golden yellow color, but it is better than the pink gauze with the purple hearts. Of course, I’d prefer the green dinosaur gauze, but I can barely ask for a bottle of water, let alone request a different roll of gauze. I wait for the door to open for my PA visit, which I oddly look forward to. Toni always manages to look cheery despite spending her days with sick cancer patients. When the door finally opens, my face is downturned, luckily unnoticeable behind my surgical mask. It’s not that I don’t like Dr. Saeed, it’s just that she is a busy woman and doesn’t have time for my questions and concerns. She tells me that my labs came back normal, and that they would proceed with treatment. I know this—I monitor my lab results as they come in online. I ask about my thyroid, which has been fairly

unstable since starting the chemo, but she brushes me off. The numbers are off, but hormone replacement therapy can wait because, according to her, I am not experiencing any symptoms. I sit baffled. She never asked me if I was having symptoms. ***

I sat in one of the clinic rooms. Mom and Dad sat in the guest chairs, and I sat on one of those medical exam chairs. I hated them, with their backs pushed back, forcing me to sit up with a strength I didn’t possess. My back slouched and ached, I could feel my scar pulsing underneath my skin. At this point it wasn’t quite fresh, but it wasn’t yet a part of me. It was still this foreign being, crooked and red, spanning my upper abdomen. It had finally healed enough to not repulse me, but I still hid it under baggy T-shirts. Dr. Saeed, who I had only met briefly the month before, came in with her PA. She shook each of our hands, starting with Dad and ending with me. She then began business. She explained my two options. I could start chemo, specifically a three-fold immuno-chemotherapy treatment that would involve a port, frequent appointments, and the shedding of my hair. I wasn’t aware that this was one of the options. It seemed extreme, considering that I likely no longer had cancer. The other option was nothing. Scans every three months to make sure that there were no new growths, and a constant, eminent fear that cancer cells could be multiplying within me. I tried not to cry at the presentation of these options, but it felt like either option would lead to years of fear and dread. I asked if there was a milder course of chemo I could go on. This was what I thought I would start.

I had been speaking to a team of doctors who volunteered for a foundation specifically for patients with FLC. There weren’t many “specialists” when it came to cancer occurring in just one in five million people, but I had seemingly found

the few and far between. Dr. Kent, the foundation’s medical director, had treated over one hundred cases of the cancer, a rarity in the world of uncommon cancers. He recommended a mild chemo course consisting of a pill, injection, and infusion. As I explained this to Dr. Saeed, she ruffled through her papers, and explained. Yes, that is the preferred option that Dr. Kent suggested. Then why was she telling me about this extreme third option that wasn’t even recommended to me? A testament to her stakes in my medical treatment. She was just an overseer.

My parents droned over me. They asked questions that I already had the answers to. They made my cancer about them. Dr. Saeed left the room so that I could discuss my decision with my parents. At nineteen, I didn’t owe them consideration, but they forced their way to the forefront of my decision. I mean, if you didn’t pursue this treatment, we would be worried about the cancer coming back. We wouldn’t be able to live with ourselves if it came back and we hadn’t tried everything in our power to prevent it. Dad’s words rang through my ears. The “we” irked me to an extreme. I was the one who got cancer. I was the one who would undergo the chemo. But Dad was the one who I should be concerned about. Dad wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.

When Dr. Saeed came in, I wasn’t much closer to a decision. The faces of me and my parents could be read as a book: I was on the verge of tears, Dad was stern and unforgiving, and Mom was anxious and confused. Sensing this, Dr. Saeed suggested that my parents leave so that we could talk about my decision privately. As soon as Dad closed the door behind him, tears erupted and flowed

out of me volcanically. An immediate sense of embarrassment flushed through me. I was crying in front of strangers. Every low that came with my cancer journey became my life’s downfall. I cried in front of more medical professionals that I can count.

I yelled at more family members than I’d like to admit. I didn’t know how to live anymore.

Dr. Saeed highlighted the difficulty of this decision. She knew that it was hard. She reinforced her opinion that monitoring would be sufficient, but that she’d support my decision no matter what. She reiterated her concerns with me starting chemo. The treatment plan was not FDA approved, there weren’t even clinical trials. I knew this, but I also knew that there would never be an FDA-approved treatment for a cancer so rare. Dr. Saeed acknowledged this, but nothing reassured me. Dad’s voice loomed over me. My mother’s fear, his ability to sleep at night. The guilt I’d have for the rest of my life if the cancer came back and it was my fault. Guilt for others, not for myself. Cancer isn’t about self. It is about the lives that you are burdening. I decided to do the treatment. I signed the consent papers, and began a journey I wish I could end. ***

I sat in the student health center. For the first time, Mom sat next to me. I felt my face warming behind my mask, and the stuffy air nearly suffocated me. I waited for Dr. Byers to come in. When she called earlier urging me to come in to discus my ultrasound results, I brushed her off. I can hear the news over the phone. I have to move my stuff into a storage unit, I’m pretty busy. Dr. Byers told me to talk to my mom, but I told her that we would both be fine hearing the news over the phone. Despite this, Dr. Byers called my mom and told her to bring me in. She said that it was serious.

Dr. Byers walked in. She had a sort of softness that most doctors didn’t possess. I couldn’t believe that she was an ER doctor for twenty-five years before retiring to the health center. She spoke in a calm, long-winded tone. She went on about how proactive of a patient I had been, how attentive I was to my condition.

At this point the air was suffocating. I wanted to rip off my mask and drink the rushing cold air. There is a mass in your liver. It could be benign, or it could be cancer. In that moment, I didn’t feel my world collapse around me. I didn’t feel fear or dread. I felt numb. Dr. Byers went on, explaining that she had treated two patients with testicular cancer, and that they were both doing great. I just sat there, inhaling her words behind choked breaths. She explained the next steps, an MRI and biopsy, and urged me to update her when I received a diagnosis. This was just for her curiosity. I would never see her as my doctor again. Mom and I left the health center with little words. I told her that I would go back to my dorm to pack, she could meet me there later. I got on the shuttle and felt the presence of every person around me. I no longer felt secure in my own body, and I grasped at every person sitting in the rows around me. I needed them to know the news I just heard. I needed to speak it into existence so that I wouldn’t lose it. But I sat silent. I suddenly felt my abdomen pulse, as if the tumor was screaming at me. I felt my body intimately. I would feel it this intimately forever. Mom and I would drive the twelve hours home from Pittsburgh. I sat in the back seat, drowning out her fear with music and podcasts.

HOLD ON

by Aly Drapcho

Mexicana

Nonfiction

By Sophia Orozco

Blood runs thicker than water, don’t trust people too much. They’re not your family. Family is more important, it’s rooted in your culture. But what is your “culture?” You look white, act like it. You don’t look like what I thought you’d look like. Well, what did you think I’d look like? What are we supposed to look like? You’re just not what I expected. Why don’t you know Spanish? You should practice. Practice, practice, practice. In a town that only speaks English, you should know Spanish. So what are you? Cuban, Puerto Rican, Venezuelan? You all look the same to me. Mexican? That’s hard to believe. I mean, how Mexican can you really be if you don’t know Spanish? Your skin is so fair, spend some time in the sun. Spray tan for all I care, just fix it. You look too white, too pale. Your eyes are blue, why are they blue? No Mexican I’ve ever seen has had eyes that blue and skin so light. Where did you come from? Did you grow up here? Go back to where you came from. You shouldn’t be here in the first place.

Pareces una gringa. Dónde está tu acento? Have you heard yourself lately? You sound like a Valley girl. Where have you been? You never visit us or call. We barely even get a text. Your technique is lacking. Practica, practica, practica. There’s no excuse to not know Spanish. Your dictation is wrong. That’s not how you pronounce it. You can’t go through life neglecting who you are. Here, drink this. What do you mean you don’t like tequila? Ay Dios, what has that country done to you? Look at what you’ve become. What happened? You should come stay for a summer, learn what

it really means to be Mexican since you obviously don’t know. You want to go home? Prima, you are home. You are your father’s daughter, you know. Why don’t you act like it? Aren’t you ashamed? You are no Mexicana of ours.

Looking Up

By Riley Galpin

How to Sing the Blues

Poem

By Sean Faletti

Lace your boots and gamble feelings ‘til they’re spent like Grandpa’s money— Cash is king in Folsom Prison, Grandpa’s locked up in the dirt, so know Gramps was as much a poet as he was ‘Nam’s smiling soldier— tie those shoes and listen to your heart, if you’ve still got one in you. Tie those boots, goddammit, or you’ll trip on your way to the Crossroads— Robert Johnson’s waiting there in underwear blue as a tear, so laugh until you cry, but know that you’re the Devil’s wartime wailer— tie those shoes and listen to your heart, though you’ve got half left in you. Stake your half-a-heart on Johnson— that man owns your shiny birthright, and his price is tattered boots, the ones you’ve laced, looped, tightened, tied, so trade those shoes with Robert, then he’ll hand you Grandpa’s gold revolver— march barefoot through muddy waters, shoot the train. It’s whistling at you. Let the Lord’s train take you down to that old prison on the hill. He’ll take your gun, he’ll take your name, he’ll scrub your feet with blood and lye, so now that you’re locked up with Cash you’ll see that there’s no money left— no heart, no shoes, no name, no gun, but all the time to write a song.

THE WORLD IN A BOTTLE

Fiction by Alaina Gorley

It was a city shrouded in the remnants of fire.

Smog lay thick over the town’s gleaming bones, furrowing its way between skyscrapers, pawing at windows, gnashing its teeth at foundations, and groaning through the streets, thick and black as tar. Buildings rose from the gloom like jagged spinal vertebrae—like the spine of a great beast that had once perhaps attempted to stretch and rise from its shackles, only to tumble back to its original base to lay, sullen and moaning, on its tarnished silver belly.

As buildings peaked above the smog, so did the city’s inhabitants travel beneath it. Generally speaking, there were two types of these inhabitants. Like fat black flies on a carcass, some were content with the metropolitan gloom, gorging themselves on industrialism, their cigars belching black smoke destined to congeal with the rest of the dismal cloud that hovered over the city. Others scampered from this place to that like rodents, feeding on the remnants left behind.

One such rodent skittered across the pavement wearing a dull gray tweed suit and carrying a briefcase. His shoes had been carefully shined. It seemed as if everything about him had been carefully shined, from the sheen of sweat on his bald scalp to the glint of his oval-rimmed glasses under the luminescent glow of the streetlights. He was a skinny, gangly sort of man—one who looked as if he’d spent his whole life scrounging. To his credit, he didn’t look as if he was the sort of man who enjoyed it. His eyes were limpid, thoughtful. His brows were skewed in such a way that he looked to always be pondering something. Some people don’t have any thoughts behind their eyes. This man had perhaps too many to be able to hone in on any one of them, as if his consciousness were a dragonfly flitting busily about its pond. Just what he thought about was unknowable to the naked eye; perhaps it was stocks, or the inevitable heat-death of the universe.

One couldn’t really be too sure with such a well-kept, cookie-cutter, yet seemingly infinitely thoughtful man such as this one.

The man’s steps were quick, but his gaze wandered somewhat idly, somewhat curiously, from towering skyscraper to jagged skyline to tainted, smoggy sky. It was the look of someone who didn’t have anywhere to be, or at least didn’t have anywhere to be quickly. It looked as if he was on his way home from work, perhaps, or was maybe en route to a business venture that he wasn’t particularly excited to attend.

As luck might have it, however, he wasn’t alone. Another crept through the streets beside him, sticking to the shadows like they were a glue trap. Unlike the first man, he wasn’t think ing about much—no, he wasn’t thinking about much at all, save the nip to the November air that ate at him through the holes in his gloves. His ragged cap, his tattered trench coat, his old boots with the soles worn in—all sifted and shifted within the margins of the sidewalk as he kept close to the brick and wrought metal of the buildings that lined the street, rubbing his hands together in an attempt to keep them warm. His eyes were dull; his consciousness perhaps strayed here and there to what he’d eat for dinner that night, or how the weather had only been getting colder every autumn, or how he needed to buy a new damn pair of gloves. When he eyed the other individual on their otherwise lonely street however, his eyes were rat’s eyes: cold, small, and glittering like, black diamonds.

A grin twisted its way across the second man’s mouth. He stepped out from the shadows quietly, his boots whispering against the pavement. The first man initially only noticed that the shadow of the skyline on the dim black tar of the pavement had been interrupted, made more jagged than usual. It took him a moment to recognize this interruption as a man’s form, but when he did, he turned to the figure with a hint of surprise. It wasn’t often that he was approached by strangers, lost in thought as he always seemed to be. What could this one want?

As the man in the suit noticed him, the man in the shad ows almost trembled with glee. His smile was too wide—not with menace, but with the hunger of a panhandler thirsting after coin, or a dog after his master’s table scraps. Tapping the pads of his fingers together excitedly, he edged forwards into the phospho rescent light. His mind, having been blank before, finally began to creak and rattle into motion, though his thoughts were small and minnow-like, his train of thought wandering over how he could make himself a quick buck.

“Hello there, stranger,” wheedled the man in the trench coat. “Say, you look like a man of quality. You are a man of quality, aren’t you?” Eagerly, he wet his lips with a rasp of his tongue.

“Ah, no thank you, sorry. I haven’t any money,” remarked the man in tweed. He assumed, not entirely incorrectly, that he’d encountered a beggar scrounging for spare change. Tweed wasn’t in the habit of giving away his pocket change, being somewhat frugal—do that and they’d be after you forever—though he hadn’t the coldness to keep himself from slipping a dollar or two into one’s upturned hat every now and then. With that, Tweed began to walk rather briskly away from Trench Coat, those gangly legs of his gaining more purchase than one thought they would.

At his departure, a rush of despair coursed its way through Trench Coat. However, he wasn’t a man easily discouraged. He scurried doggedly after Tweed, the shadow of his silhouette dancing along the pavement and refracting in dirty windows.

“Now, now—don’t be so hasty,” said Trench Coat quickly, jetting across Tweed’s path. The shorter of the pair, his form was overshadowed by Tweed’s, but the smaller man was not to be dissuaded. “I look to be a reasonable man, don’t I? A reasonable man with reasonable wares?”

Tweed looked down at him blankly.

Okay, so this tactic of his didn’t seem to be working. That was alright. Trench Coat had been doing this for a long time. He knew how to switch it up. He peered up into Tweed’s eyes, specks of blue amidst a sky that was anything but.

“Look,” he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He stifled a smog-riddled cough with the crook of his elbow. “I have stuff to sell, and it’s stuff that the likes of you ain’t probably never seen before. Don’t you at least want to take a look?”

Hook, line, sinker. Trench Coat saw a glimmer of interest sputter to life in Tweed, albeit a hesitant one. It was lucky for him that he’d stumbled across someone so naturally curious. Or maybe he knew that such a tactic would work on the man in the suit: a lot of his job, after all, was being able to sell the unsellable, market the unmarketable. You spend that much time peddling on the streets, you start to read people like a book.

Trench Coat glanced around himself and Tweed, making sure no one else was present in his line of vision. It was nearly impossible to tell what time of day it was, what with the pollution that thickened the air and choked out the sunlight. But it was very late or very early, depending on how you’d like to look at it. No one else was around, save for the tall, rail-thin streetlamps that stood as sentinels, watching gravely over Tweed as he followed Trench Coat into a side alley. Tweed’s bald head caught in their light for a moment before both men disappeared from view, the city’s bones groaning behind them.

It was only once the men were shrouded on both sides by tarnished metal and dull brick, sandwiched by two buildings with a dumpster blocking the way behind them, that Trench Coat finally seemed to let his shoulders relax and let the worry lines that etched their way across his face smooth over. Tweed had a rising suspicion that his companion was selling something illicit. He was proven right; Trench Coat undid the buttons on his coat and, almost cartoonishly, opened it up to reveal both a ragged, hole-riddled outfit and homemade interior coat pockets out of which peeked the tops of multiple vials, bottles, and jars. He withdrew the first jar with stained but surprisingly gentle fingers, holding it up to the waning street light and display ing it to his customer in all its glory. It was a jar of sand.

“Key West’s finest,” wheezed Trench Coat, his breath puffing into the November air in clouds.

His rasping voice was laced with honey, confident and baritone and salesperson-like, but underneath it all sat something that was almost akin to awe—a tone surprising for such a wheedling peddler to have. It earned a cocked brow from Tweed himself, who had expected the man to be more… flippant with his wares.

“White sand from the area’s best beaches. Before it… well, you know.” Trench Coat didn’t need to say more. When sea levels had risen some fifty or so years ago, Key West had been one of the first places to be swallowed and eaten up by the salty, hungering tide.

Trench Coat waggled the jar at his customer, the precious sands within rattling against the glass. “This one doesn’t interest you, eh? No worries—I’ve got plenty more where that came from.” The jar returned to his pocket, and Trench Coat began to riffle through the other pockets of his coat, tongue poking through the gap left behind by a missing tooth.

So, Tweed had been right: Trench Coat’s merchandise was illegal. Technically speaking, anyway—it was a law that no one really paid much mind to. Sort of like jaywalking. That meant it was almost laughable that he’d taken such precautions in ushering them towards an alleyway, throwing glances over his shoulder now and then as if he were a man wanted for murder.

It wasn’t as if Trench Coat was peddling drugs or smug gling blood money. Still, being involved in the sale of something illicit—even if it was just the sale of samples from a long-forgot ten era— thrilled Tweed. It didn’t hurt that his grandfather, whom he’d been very close to in his youth, used to tell him tales of his own childhood surrounded by clean air and mountain peaks and pine trees, back before trees had been sawed down in the name of industrial progress, before the clean air had been tainted and the mountain peaks were hidden away be hind a cover of smog.

That was, perhaps, why lawmakers had made the sale of such materials—bits and baubles from the world before pollution had taken its toll—illegal. It was made so under the guise of “wanting to keep trade authentic.”

But since when did policy makers care about that? They had been the ones who failed to regulate industry in order to keep it from conquering and obliterating the world around it. It was a nasty mistake that had angered those who, like Tweed’s grandfather, were from another time. For Tweed, it just left him with a sense of yearning. That was why he stuck around to see the second jar that Trench Coat pulled out of his pocket: one containing a small hunk of reddish-brown bark, rough and strong be hind the glass.

“Redwood bark. From California.”

This one wasn’t super rare; California redwoods had a museum all to themselves out west. Tweed had never been himself, but he could, if he wanted to. For him, this seemed to take all the mystery out of the jar, all of the flair. Not worth spending his money on.

“How much are you asking for all this stuff, anyway?” asked Tweed. At the shake of his own head, Trench Coat tucked the redwood bark away and patted down the sides of his jacket, obviously looking for something specific. He didn’t mind the distraction that Trench Coat provided too awful much, but he did have places to be—eventually, anyway. He couldn’t stand out here all night-slash-morning, especially not for some thing exorbitantly priced. At his question, however, the salesman only clucked his tongue and waggled his finger before continuing to pat down his coat pockets. He only gave his prices out to those who were truly invested, lest the number of digits attached scare them away.

Trench Coat took off his cap and ran his gloved fingers through his ragged, smog-streaked hair. He could tell that Tweed was losing interest. Unfortunately, vials of sand and river pebbles and chunks of bark were about all he had, and none of it seemed particularly piquing to his customer. Then he remembered something he’d gotten from the mid-east, out in the boonies. The man he’d bought it from, old and scratchy and with a beard just about longer than any beard Trench Coat had ever seen, had been very reluctant to part with it.

It had taken the swindling salesman a rock from the bank of the ole Mississippi River and one of his more treasured items—a fossil from the mud of Wyoming—to convince the man into a change of heart. It’d been a shit deal, too.

What had Trench Coat been thinking?

Trench Coat felt for the small vial close to his chest where, next to his beating heart, he kept it safe for reasons unbeknownst to him. It wasn’t as if it would be a thief’s first choice, after all. Still, he fingered the vial for a moment, feeling its coolness through his glove, before drawing it from his pocket and holding it out for Tweed to see.

It was empty. An empty vial. For the umpteenth time, Tweed raised his eyebrows.

Trench Coat cut him off before he could even ask. “Ah-ah,” he said, shaking his finger. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s not empty. Only looks like it.”

Tweed blinked down at the vial.

“This here, my friend, is genuine mountain air, straight from Mount Elbert. Highest peak of the Rocky Mountains, you know. Had to trade an arm and a leg for this one. ‘Course, there’s no way to verify that what’s in here is actual Elbert air and not just regular air, but you can trust me, eh, can’tcha?” Trench Coat shot Tweed a seedy smile, complete with cracked and yellowed teeth.

“Ah. I think I’ll…” Tweed had been about to say pass, of course, when something stopped him. His grandfather had grown up out in Colorado, amidst fresh mountain air and peaks capped white with snow. He’d talked often and at length about those mountains, which his own father had taken him to climb as a boy. It was one of the only things he’d remem bered when he’d grown frail and feeble and bedridden, and when he’d forgotten to remember his family’s names.

The steel in Tweed’s blue eyes softened. Maybe he should consider making an offer. But then again, he couldn’t imagine spending money on something that just sat there breathable for free, could he? Even if it was, from the looks of it, air that was admittedly cleaner than the ash-tinged atmospherethat tended to hover around the city…

He thought of his grandfather again, Aw, hell. He made a decent salary. Might as well spend it on a frivolity now and then, even if that frivolity was air in a bottle.

“…take it. I’ll take it.”

Trench Coat had winced at his anticipation of Tweed’s rejection, but it never came. Who’d buy a vial of air, after all? Some loon? Maybe Tweed was loonier than he’d thought. Trench Coat looked sideways at him.

“Well, then.” Trench Coat coughed, clearing his throat. “The price for this is gonna be quite steep. Quite steep, my friend, indeed, for such a valuable ware.” Trench Coat knew his deal with the old man out east had been a stale one, and he had to make back what he’d traded for this damn bottle somehow—even if he was likely pushing it with Tweed here in the process.

That “quite steep” bit hadn’t been a lie, Tweed found; the cost was one that made his brows raise even further towards his bare scalp. Still, he was committed now. He nodded at Trench Coat, the two men shook hands, and they went their separate ways into the night—one with heavier pockets, and one with literal air in his.

Trench Coat melded into the shadows, whistling through the gaps in his teeth until he was out of earshot. He almost missed the lightweight presence of the vial where it had sat for so many months, close to his breast. Admittedly, he liked the heft of the cash in his pocket more. Still, something was missing; his heart could feel it, even if he himself refused to. The smog seemed thicker than it had been as he vanished into it, coattails wavering behind him. Tweed knew he wouldn’t see him again. As for himself, if his pace had been slow before as he’d meandered down the street, it was even slower now. He cleaned a bit of smoggy residue off his glasses with the end of his sleeve and tucked his hands into his pant pockets, well-kept fingernails clacking gently against the vial that sat in one of them.

His pace, already slow, lulled to a stop as he felt the vial.

He pulled it from his pocket and turned it this way and that under the phosphorescent street light, admiring the pristine quality of the glass, the sheen which glimmered across it under the glow.

He hesitated for a moment, thinking in that wandering, inquisitive manner of his. Then, he grabbed the cork of the bottle with his thumb and forefinger and pulled it from its place, holding the vial’s opening to his nose.

It was impulsive of Tweed not to savor his purchase, or even to open it at all. Such trinkets were meant to be held and kept to be enjoyed, weren’t they? Wouldn’t all of Tweed’s expenditures on the vial go to waste if he were to open it up and just let its contents drift away?

But just for a moment—just for a moment, he wanted to smell the air that his grandfather grew up smelling. The pine, the freshness. The authenticity. He wanted to catch a glimpse of a world with sparkling waters and warm sunshine and singing birds and trees—oh, so many trees. Most of the trees Tweed had seen throughout his lifetime were in pages of books that his grandfather had brushed over with his steady fingers, or old movies the two had watched together, Tweed then young and balancing on the old man’s knee. It filled Tweed, in his suit and his pristineness and wandering mind, with a sort of bitterness that such things had been taken from him before he’d been able to see them, to feel them, to touch them. He wanted to touch them now, if for nothing else than to hold the one he’d lost close one last time.

And for a moment, he did. As he inhaled deeply, hastily from the bottle—didn’t want to let the scent escape him, now—he could smell for the first time the peak of a mountain. Newly fallen snow, spring water, the gentle sighing of the wind. Then, just as quickly as it had come, it was gone.

CONSCIOUS

by Ana Guardado

AS PETIPA SAYS

Poem by Edlyn Wernicoff

Be bird-chested

Feel each round rib

Limbs as a willow’s wrist

Not one bite

Just distract yourself

Be smaller than the vile Odile

Collarbones like pine bark

Hips of banyan prop roots

Don’t you want to be beautiful?

My Flora

Oh, my Dulcinea

Sweet as marzipan

Elegant like the maiden you are You must be svelte

Be a doll

To wear the fine lace

To woo the silver knight

To enter out of the wings

SHE IS NOT DEADLY

By Nicolina Morra

COLD TILE

Nonfiction

by Madeline McCabe

The Insects Part I

No creature alive wanted to be under the Arizona sun. The neighborhood had no grass or trees, only bushes dotting front lawns. Maroon and rust-colored rocks lined the sidewalk in my family’s roundabout. The temperatures consistently roasted the air, the haze blending the mountains and the sky into multitudes of summer tones. No clouds blossomed in the sky, and when I was standing in the middle of the street at noon, I couldn’t see my shadow due to the sun’s beams directly over Phoenix. I never heard birdsongs, as there were no trees for them to nest in. However, I could always hear the drone of the animals, begging for a child to drop their ice cream cone or water bottle so they could steal a moment of refreshment. When my mother looked away, I would slip one or two Cheerios off my playmat into the cracks of the sidewalk and watch the ants carry them away.

Where the yellow roof of our condo ended and the sky began was difficult to perceive during the summer. The heat waves rocked over the Spanish tile awnings, jumping over the oak fence to the neighbor’s windowsill. The door was too small for the frame; cold air bled out onto the street through the openings. Every afternoon after kindergarten I would walk up the smooth stone pathway, carefully grasping the doorknob in the section cooled by the shade. The inside of the house was deliberately white and gray, plucked of any color which might further increase the temperature.

To go inside, I was required to leave my sand-filled socks and shoes in the garage. The barrier my mother created to prevent the desert from entering our home was strict. I slowly emptied

my pockets, gravel, tire chips, and crumbs littered the floor of the laundry room.

“The outside needs to stay outside,” my mother announced, scooping me into her arms.

Water was scarce, and each drop needed to be prescribed a direct and essential purpose. Measurements of water for baths were concise; bathtub drains were stuffed with dish towels to prevent loss down the drain. My mother’s fingertips grazed the top of the water, searching for relief from the midday humidity. Noticing her distracted, I managed to wriggle from her arms, my bare feet hitting the cold tile. I stumbled, tripping over the wicker bath mat onto the edge of the tub. As I slid into the water, my mother turned to the mirror, attempting to apply chapstick through the condensation. I lined my plastic sea animals onto the tub’s edge, petting each one with a washcloth before bringing them into the water.

My mother’s breath hitched, and her arms jolted forward to grab me from the water before her expression had the opportunity to change. The darkness of her shoulder enveloped my eyes, her hand holding my head into her cotton T-shirt. I managed to pull my head from her body, eyes adjusting to the overhead fluorescent light. A dark shape materialized next to the mat, growing slimmer as I focused on it.

A centipede. It had crawled from under the cracks of our sink and nestled itself into the tufts of our rugs. I had been bit and stung by insects before; my mother visibly recoiled at the thought of another night of pained cries wrought from curious touches. She called for my father and he loudly huffed as he stood up from armchair. She had stepped outside the bathroom, searching in the adjacent closet for a towel she could wrap me in.

“Can you take care of it?” She asked, eyes peering into the bathroom.

He sighed again and turned around to go to the kitchen. I heard him rummaging through the various Tupperware

and metal bowls for something he could use to cover the creature. At this point, the various advice I had heard from Montessori school and early morning PBS children’s programming came flooding back to me. I knew what my father did to snakes and spiders when he found them.

“Don’t kill it! It’s nature!” I cried, stretching out of my mother’s arms, and reaching for the tile floor. My father’s New Balance sneakers squeaked as he stood upon the bowl. It jolted slightly as the centipede attempted to squeeze under the sides. My mother shushed me and petted my hair, assuring me that my father was taking the creature outside and would set it among the rocks in our backyard. I watched him carrying the bowl outside, hand firmly pressing the piece of newspaper he had slid under the bowl. As the screen door shut, I breathed in the hot Arizona hair, soaking in the moments before sunset.

Part II

Walking anywhere in Florida feels like wading through a lazy river. People walk slowly, taking longer to breathe in the humid air. My parents had never been to Florida State, sending me off to my first semester with a plane ticket and advice on how to pick the best bed in a dorm. In my third year, they decided to come visit since my brother would be on school vacation. My roommate and I made preparations, taking three days to clean and buy new flowers from Trader Joe’s.

We arrived at the restaurant after dark, streetlights reflected off the puddles of water standing in the parking lot. I saw my parent’s car pull into a spot next to ours. I remembered to pull my hair in front of my new piercing and we went up to greet my family. As we entered the restaurant, we were seated almost immediately. The heat from the flames of the hibachi wafted to our booth. My brother sat the menu on the edge of the table, lowering his head to hide behind it.

A few moments of silence passed, and I scanned my mind for conversation topics

I knew would not lead to an argument. My roommate arrived at a topic before I did, asking my parents about how life was in Texas. The city they lived in had gone most ly unexplored; the only time they left the house was to drop my brother off at his downtown high school and go to the Walmart three blocks away.

“Have you been back to the zoo? I miss working there,” I interrupted. I felt guilty making my roommate carry on a conversa tion with three strangers.

“No,” my father replied, reaching for the soy sauce. “We have not had much time to leave the house.

My mother smiled. “We will have to take you back over the Summer. You would send us so many pictures of the animals, even the bugs and the snakes.”

My father’s eyes illuminated. He had been waiting for his chance to speak. He took his time looking over everyone at the table and as soon as my mother finished, he coughed loudly.

“Has anyone told you the story of the centipede when our family lived in Arizona?”

My roommate shook her head. I looked back down on the menu, rereading each entrée and appetizer. I was grateful for a moment to collect myself and think of a transition to another type of conversation. My father began telling the story, describing the searing heat on the pavement of our driveway, the cost of running the air conditioner that month, and the collection of bath toys I had strewn about the bathroom when my mother had left to search for a towel. My mother joined in to act out her shriek of fear, laughing as she recalled how I attempted to wriggle out of her arms. Their laughter created a pit in my stomach for a reason I could not describe. There was a glee in their telling that was not present in their previous speeches. My father had reached the end of his narrative.

“After taking the centipede outside, I dumped it on the ground. I raised that bowl above my head, and cleaved the centipede in two!”

I choked on my water, grabbing my napkin to cover my mouth.

“You told me you released it.” My eyes were blinking fast, pushing back tears and smoke particles from the kitchen. My parents continued to laugh, and my roommate nudged my leg with her foot, seeing if I would make eye contact. I didn’t finish my dinner.

Part III

I was back in Texas for the summer. My shirt was stiff with chlorine and salt from watching my campers at the waterpark. I managed to wrestle it off, opening the door to the patio and laying it across the lawn chairs. The thermometer read 115 degrees. I walked over to the pool, sliding off my sandals as I dipped my feet into the water. Brown and yellow leaves coated the gray steps into the pool, releasing dirt as I swept them aside with my hand. Cicada shells floated to the top, and I managed to pick them out of the water and throw them to the grass. The songs of the cicadas in the trees moved through the hair with the sunbeams, giving sound to the heat. The water was warm and offered no release as I splashed water on my arms and face. The oak trees had provided no shade to the yard. I leaned on my back, stretching to retrieve my shoes to avoid burning my feet. My parents had taken my brother to Salt Lake City for a volleyball tournament, and I was left to guard the house for the week that they were gone. I checked the lock three times as I returned inside, placing the keys on top of our beach towel basket.

My tuxedo cat weaved between my legs, licking the water droplets that I had abandoned on the floor. Her black fur was imbibed with heat, and I carried her to our shadier kitchen for her dinner. The house was kept at sixty degrees; I shivered as my wet feet met the tile of the kitchen. I peered upwards, the air from the vent drying off my glasses. As I opened our fridge, I realized that I had left all of the cat food in the garage. I walked down the hallway, flipping off the lights in each room as I went. The large windows bathed the house in the blue light of early evening. I picked up four cans from the garage. I fished for my phone in my pocket, eventually reaching it and turning on the flashlight

to illuminate the hallway. In the corner of my eye, I spotted a speck fall from the ceiling onto the tile.

On the floor was a cockroach. Its wings attempted to flutter, vibrating beneath a bent exoskeleton. Its brown body writhed in circles as it struggled to escape the frigid floor after roasting in our insulation. I struggled to breathe. There was no one I knew in Texas besides my cat, who was occupied with her dinner. I shuddered, letting a shiver ripple through my body and out onto the tile. I pattered quickly around our kitchen island, my eyes attached to the small figure on the floor. Cabinets flung open as I scoured through each one, begging them to provide me aid. Several bowls scattered across the kitchen as I flung open cabinets. I picked a bowl I would not mind sacrificing to my backyard as I grabbed several pieces of printer paper to cover the bottom of the bowl.

Crouching behind my coffee table, I carefully prepared to capture the cockroach. It spun in circles, unable to launch itself into the air. I looked around my home once more, praying my family would return early from their trip and capture the creature themselves. I put my phone back into my pocket and flicked on the overhead light. As light flooded the room, I threw the bowl over the couch. It clattered to the ground, shaking and spinning against the floor. I hid behind the couch, waiting for silence to once again envelope the house. I stood up slowly, inching towards the bowl. The cockroach was inside, moving the bowl across the hallway as it attempted to escape. I couldn’t help but smile; I was excited to release him.

I reached down to pick up the bowl. I swallowed hard as my hand reached down to stop the movement. I had chosen a flimsy piece of paper, and it would require two hands to hold in place. Rushing forward all at once, I grasped the bowl and paper in my hands. The bowl bent. The cockroach panicked, pushing downwards against my hands. Each leg brushed my fingertips, antennae meeting my fingerprints. I shuffled towards my patio door, feet feeling for my keyring I had dropped on the floor. Over the next ten minutes, I pushed the keys towards the wall, guiding them up with my foot until I could toss them onto the table. They clattered onto the table and I balanced them on my

index finger. I managed to unlock the door with shaking hands, keys struggling to enter the metal lock. The cold air of the night rushed in, and the light of my home agitated the moths resting on the windowsill. I turned away, facing the hallway where I first found the insect, and in one motion I screamed and tossed the bowl into the tomato plants. I slammed the door behind me, and I beamed with pride as I imagined the cockroach returning to its place in the yard.

I awoke the next morning twenty minutes late for work. I threw on my blue camp T-shirt and searched the shelves for my visor. I put on my glasses as I walked down the stairs and spotted the bowl through the windows of my dining room. Sunrise warmed the house, preventing the dread of Tuesday morning from reaching me for just a moment.

I opened the door. A shiny brown shell sat on the patio, and six legs were hiding in the tufts of the doormat. The body of the cockroach lay destroyed, dead in the doorframe.

FORGETFUL OMNIPOTENCE

By David Levinson

Spring 2024 staff

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