The Marble Collection: Massachusetts High School Magazine of the Arts (Spring 2012)

SPRING 2012

THE

MARBLE COLLECTION Massachusetts High School Magazine of the Arts

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The Marble Collection

Spring 2012

tmc

Massachusetts High School Magazine of the Arts inspiration • creativity • community

TMC: ABOUT US W H AT I S T H E M A R B L E C O L L E C T I O N ?

In 2008 The Marble Collection, Inc. [TMC], a 501 (C)(3) nonprofit organization, was founded on the commitment to enrich the Massachusetts high school community at large through innovative, educational literary and creative arts programming. The Marble Collection: Massachusetts High School Magazine of the Arts, a biannual print and digital magazine featuring secondary students’ art, literature, music, and video works, weaves the arts back into the fabric of our community. Moreover, the Student-Mentoring Workshop [SMW] provides students with one-to-one tutoring services that focus on art and literature creation and the professional publishing process.

M I S S I O N S TAT E M E N T TMC’s mission is to develop the artistic and academic aptitude of Massachusetts secondar y students.

V I S I O N S TAT E M E N T TMC envisions a community that cultivates and celebrates the literar y and creative arts, in which we are the leading publisher and educator for developing teen media.

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TMC: SPONSORS Ed Dann S a m’s C l u b Fa l l R i v e r Wa l m a r t S t o r e s

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The Marble Collection, Inc. is also supported in part by grants from the below local cultural councils, local agencies which are supported by the M a s s a c h u s e t t s C u l t u r a l C o u n c i l , a s t a t e a g e n c y.

Acton-Boxborough, Agawam, Ashburnham, Attleboro, Ayer, Bridgewater, Burlington, Carver, Chatham, Dartmouth, Deerfield, Dighton, Eastham, Easton, Fall River, Gloucester, Harwich, Lawrence, Leicester, Marlborough, Marblehead, Mattapoisett, Medway, Montague, Natick, Norwood, Pittsfield, Plymouth, Reading, Sturbridge, Sudbury, Sutton, Taunton, Wareham, West Newbury, West Springfield, Westford, Winchester

*** SPONSOR-A-SCHOOL The Marble Collection, Inc. depends on Massachusetts businesses to support our mission to develop the artistic and academic aptitude of Massachusetts secondary students. We invite you to join us in our commitment to community enrichment by sponsoring your local high school(s). Your generosity will not only help the Massachusetts high school community at large, but may also increase interest in your business through widespread exposure in the magazine.

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TMC: PATRONS MaryBeth D’Errico Patsy Rose *** D O N AT E The Marble Collection, Inc. needs the supp or t of the Massachusetts high school community at large. Our shared mission to develop the ar tistic and academic aptitude of Massachusetts secondar y students will be fulfilled through your generosity.

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TMC: CONTENTS 8

Fine Lines of Life (Fiction) Amanda Doherty / Abington High School

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A Primary Grasp of Color (Art) Hayley Barry / Oakmont Regional High School

10 Intruder (Art) Sarah Conklin / Brimmer and May School

11 Waterfall (Art) Michael Hagerty / Xaverian Brothers High School

12 The Free Ice Water Room (Fiction) Leah Mozzer / Groton School

17 Teenage Nightmare (Art) Alyssa Sansossio / Oakmont Regional High School

18 Radiance (Art) Sarah Morse / Oakmont Regional High School

18 Daddy’s Girl (Art) Jennifer Burke / Oakmont Regional High School

19 Rewind (Art) Joey Spadoni / Xaverian Brothers High School

19 What Do You See (Art) Joey Spadoni / Xaverian Brothers High School

20 Neighbor (Poetry) Osaremen Okolo / Milton Academy

21 Warehouse 83 (Art) Scott McDavid / Old Rochester Regional High School

22 Yellow (Nonfiction) Mina Li / Lexington High School

23 Native (Art) Brendan MacAllister / Oakmont Regional High School

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24 Wonderment (Art) Taylor Penning / Oakmont Regional High School

25 My Bedroom Interior (Art) Regina Kuo / Chelmsford High School

26 Flea (12) (Poetry) Colin Smith / Oakmont Regional High School

27 The Window on the Wall (Art) Halle Edwards-McQuilton / Brimmer and May School

27 Monster (Art) Sarah Conklin / Brimmer and May School

28 Unbraiding (Poetry) Cary Williams / Milton Academy

29 Curtains and Hand (Art) Rosa Melchiorre / Amherst Regional High School

29 Sunset Sailboat (Art) Joey Spadoni / Xaverian Brothers High School

30 Miakoda (Art) Toula Papadopoulos / Burlington High School

31 Effects of animal cruelty (Art) Kaylee Angelini / Oakmont Regional High School

32 The Game of Secrets (Fiction) Natalie Moss / Amherst Regional High School

34 My Looking Glass (Poetry) Elizabeth Garibaldi / Dracut High School

34 North Carolina (Art) Kirby Roberts / Bishop Stang High School

35 Fractured Face (Art) Minju Kim / Xaverian Brothers High School

TMC: SPRING 2012 36 A Dreamy Twilight (Fiction) Rosa Melchiorre / Amherst Regional High School

37 #161 Reno Face (Art) Nisa Mann / Oakmont Regional High School

38 Touching Ground (Art) Roxxanna Kurtz / Fitchburg High School

38 Aloof (Art) Katie Holden / Old Rochester Regional High School

50 Success (Poetry) Delaney Blatchly / Brooks School

50 Self-Portrait (Art) Yongkang Yu / Somerville High School

51 Beauty (Art) Adam Pinheiro / Taunton High School

51 Knot (Art) Julia Finlayson / Reading Memorial High School

39 Sameer Gadhia, of Young The Giant (Art) Christopher Coe / Burlington High School

40 Violin (Poetry) Natalie Moss / Amherst Regional High School

41 Exaggerated Color Self Portrait (Art) Ari Nickerson / Oakmont Regional High School

42 The Clown of Chaos (Art) Minju Kim / Xaverian Brothers High School

43 To Trust a Spiderweb (Fiction)

52 Matt Johnson (Art) Christopher Coe / Burlington High School

53 The Shadow of What is to Come (Art) Julia Finlayson / Reading Memorial High School

54 As Dark Descends (Fiction) Holly Gallant / Harwich High School

58 Baseball (Art) Michael Hagerty / Xaverian Brothers High School

Cary Williams / Milton Academy

44 Exaggerated Color Self Portrait (Art)

58 Wherever You Go (Art) Adam Pinheiro / Taunton High School

Troy Richardson / Oakmont Regional High School

44 Exaggerated Color Self Portrait (Art) Luke Neff / Oakmont Regional High School

45 Are You Lookin’ At Me (Art) Jacquelyn Landsman / Bishop Stang High School

46 Sensory Deprivation (Fiction) Anne Smith / Old Rochester Regional High School

49 2 Birds on Afghani Wires (Art) Jessica Maeder / Oakmont Regional High School

59 Wait (Art) Roxxanna Kurtz / Fitchburg High School

60 Teenage Ocean (Poetry) Michal Goderez / Amherst Regional High School

61 My Immortal (Art) Alyssa Sansossio / Oakmont Regional High School

62 A Friend (Nonfiction) Kyra Wolf / Amherst Regional High School

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F I C T I O N Abington High School / Grade 9

A m a n d a

D o h e r t y

Fine Lines of Life

I held power wrapped in the color of school bus yellow with the slightest touch of princess dress pink. I could neither harness nor control it, that coal black tip made of words and pictures. My inexperienced hand wobbled with uncertainty, like a speaker does just before he presents to a crowd. The utensil was eager to dance upon the paper; I began.

One long stroke left a trail of empty black interpretations. I wanted to go no further, fearing the consequences of my actions, but I continued. For what seemed a century, the only thing to be heard was the scratch, scratch, scratch of the changing parchment. A life was forming.

I halted with the thought that I was finished. A face had erupted from the confines of the void canvas. It was a false trail of hopes that the sketch was completed.

Frightfully, the longer I looked I realized that it was not. The image I had created was never going to be finished.

It was a mere interpretation.

A sketch.

The sketch was nothing more than thousands of lines encaged by four barriers of a shade of white. Souls rested upon that heart shaped face colored in with a stormy gray around those pupils. Waves rolled down the expanse of paper in ribbons that seemed to stretch until it met desk top. A swan like neck I continued until I came to the conclusion, I knew nothing. Those lines were more in likeness to my life than I believed. A sketch is an ever changing picture that is able to be modified and hidden, such as the life of every human upon our world.

Erase a line; lose a relative.

Add a face, an animal, a thing; gain a friend, a pet, a smile.

Hide the picture; hide your emotions, your broken heart.

Color it in; find the resolution to your problem.

The sketch was my work. My inexperience spilled upon a page representing a life. My life! It was changing, as I was, and that paper stayed with me. For years to come I kept it with me somewhere I knew I’d always able to find it. Like a child’s treasured toy I played with it constantly until finally I got it to the best possible point.

I had reached the happiest moment in my life. I considered myself an artist, for I could see the fine lines of life.

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A R T Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 11

H a y l e y

B a r r y

A Primary Grasp of Color

p a i n t i n g

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a c r y l i c

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A R T Brimmer and May School / Grade 12

S a r a h

C o n k l i n

Intruder

p h o t o g r a p h y

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A R T Xaverian Brothers High School / Grade 12

M i c h a e l

H a g e r t y

Wa t e r f a l l

photography / Canon Rebel T2i DSLR

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F I C T I O N Groton School / Grade 10

L e a h

M o z z e r

T h e Fr e e I c e Wa t e r R o o m

Flares of wind slapped hot hands against the sides of the mint green 1964 Buick Skylark convertible, but despite all the movement around her Stella sat still in the passenger seat. Her long sleeved gray fleece fell neatly around her throat and poured downwards to her wrists. The few tendrils of hair that did escape her half bun were thrown about precariously, her hands doing the best they could to quiet them.

That young face already showed signs of advanced maturity in the brow, even her brown eyes that glinted with appetite were overcast with worry.

Beside her, Stella’s mother, with one hand on the steering wheel and her other arm casually slumped across the door, sat with her face in the wind. Her cherryred lips framed a set of coffee-stained teeth. Fingertips bulging with red, blue, and yellow nail polish danced across the crack of window—still exposed to the dust and sand. Frayed threads of black shoulder length hair leaped and fell around her face. A canary-yellow tank top hung askew from her shoulders. Around her lean figure it fell like a drape which the air took hold of, possessing it so it sprang to life.

Stella was very agreeable in both means and manner. She always did what her mother said and was often two steps ahead without a single fumble. Dancing around a problem was her specialty. With any difficulty that involved her mother she found it best to put on a contented face and move her feet in calculated steps about the point of friction. This time, however, simply avoiding the problem would not make the situation any less unhappy for her.

When her mother told her that they were moving across the country she had no qualms. They had moved many times, often just picking up, leaving, and settling only to repeat the process a couple months later. For her mother’s sake, Stella never complained and tried her best to make the travels worth her while. However, with so many responsibilities over her mother, Stella felt it difficult and often tedious to actually enjoy anything. Instead of flying, Stella’s aunt suggested that her sister and niece take a road trip in her car. Stella was never very fond of that particular aunt. As if the suggestion to take a road trip were not enough, her aunt also recommended they visit a place called Wall Drug: “Where all your new world items come at old world costs!”

In Stella’s mother’s version of the world that proclamation came as exciting news that seized the imagination. To Stella it sounded like a strange place for strange people who had never heard of Wal-Mart.

There was no way of telling they had crossed into the next state, due to the vast expanse of nothing, except for the sun battered sign that read, “Welcome to Wall Drug Country!”

“Look there Stella! Wall Drug! We must be very near. Look out for any more signs,” Stella’s mother said anxiously.

“Yes mother, but calm down please, we won’t miss it.”

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F I C T I O N

For the next five miles they chatted about the same things they always did.

They went over what they would do when they reached their destination, and every so often Mother would ask if they had passed any signs. For some reason—it may have been the heat or the dried sweat that pooled in the form of itchy raised bumps on her neck—she felt a little irritated at her mother’s sign queries. Stella shifted her weight to the far edge of the passenger seat and pressed her arm against the side of the door. She thought perhaps if she gained as much distance between them as she could in the limited space, her mother would cease to badger her and the rest of the ride could be enjoyed in uncomfortable silence. She put in her earphones and felt the click of the power button beneath her finger. A couple notes into “Kids Got the Beat,” the familiar drop off into silence funneled through her headphones. Seeing that the CD had stopped spinning and that vigorously tapping the ‘on’ button would do nothing, she opened the battery cover and rolled her palm over the little black and green cylinders before trying the ‘on’ button again. It still didn’t work. She removed the batteries and flipped them over, then replaced them in different slots. When that last attempt proved unsuccessful, Stella gave up and sat still again. At last she decided to search the glove compartment for any distractions. Her hands excavated piles of napkins from various fast food restaurants, plastic straws in paper wrappers, orange bottles of red and white capsules, and yellowed receipts. Finding nothing of importance, she again resigned to sitting stagnant in her seat.

She tried searching for anything that wasn’t some form of rock or dust. The only thing that seemed to break up the expanse of dust and sand and tumbleweeds was the black interstate that ran like the Nile. The landscape looked like an enormous movie screen replaying one scene over and over. This movie seemed to lack a plot or a final destination. Stella’s mother hummed to herself, and Stella did her best to ignore it. Miles off she found her target, a sign that looked like a stamp elevated above the dirt and rocks. She debated bringing it to her mother’s attention, but decided to wait a couple miles. The postage stamp grew with every passing tumbleweed, and her annoyance at her mother was replaced with pride on finding a sign.

“Mother! On the right, I think I see something.”

“Oh great! Can you read it?”

“It says, ‘WALL DRUG. 96 MILES.”

At first Stella thought she had read the sign wrong; it couldn’t possibly have advertised Wall Drug nearly one hundred miles in advance. However, one part of her was intrigued; perhaps this place wasn’t just for weirdos, perhaps her mother’s excitement was justified.

The next ninety-six miles was just more of the same sand and dust with a couple billboards every few miles: “WALL DRUG Home of the Free Ice Water,” “Coffee 5¢,” and “Have You Dug Wall Drug?” Stella’s favorite was one of a grinning raptor with the message, “Do Lunch or Be Lunch: Wall Drug.” Finally they reached a sign that actually directed them to an off ramp that would lead them to Wall Drug.

The road took them down a hill onto a quiet, deserted main street of sorts. Sad, quiet, tired people drudged in and out of the hair salons, cafes and motels. They turned down an alley which opened up into a parking lot; each telephone pole wore a yellow TMC Spring 2012

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F I C T I O N placard that read, “Welcome to Wall Drug!”

“My goodness! That was quick! We made it,” Stella’s mother exhaled.

“Yeah, I guess we did,” Stella breathed, “and in one piece.”

“Well, what are we waiting for, come on then!”

Stella’s mother’s shoes made a sharp clicking sound on the grainy asphalt.

They crossed the sea of black and found themselves on a covered walkway with rows of plastic bins, most of which were empty or littered with gum wrappers and cigarette butts. The few that were full sported a fan of visitor brochures. Stella turned and squinted into the sunlight while her mother picked a brochure and excitedly unfolded it into a map. According to the 14 x 14 piece of paper, Wall Drug was an expanse of shops, restaurants, and riveting sights to see, with numerous opportunities to strike it rich in gold panning and mining. There were also shops that catered to Western antiques, antiques from the far, Far East, and a superstore made for the avid rock collector. There was even a small theatre that one could safely assume only exhibited Westerns. With Mother not knowing what adventure to tackle first, Stella decided it would be best for the both of them to start with “free ice water.”

Locating the Ice Water Room on the map, Stella lead the way and found herself standing at the opening of a rather worn wooden frame. It looked well used and must have seen the entrance of hundreds of people, but now it sat like a ruin amongst a city left to decay. Stella didn’t have high hopes for this supposed wonderland, but this place certainly didn’t fulfill even her lowest expectations. She allowed herself to imagine a room filled with a couple families and children running around, seeking refuge from the sun, but instead she was standing in the middle of a large saloon style room. Everything was blanketed in dust, and animal heads lined the walls with expressions of numb content on their faces and brilliant sparkles in their glass eyes. In the far corner there stood a large jackalope whose feet were poised to run but would never go anywhere. The only other person in the room was a man. He wasn’t very tall; he wasn’t very much of anything. He was just old. He could have had a handsome face, but like the room, his prime had long since passed. His mottled face, with its pock marks, had little dead end streets rising from the corners of his eyes and fanning out to his ears. Stella looked at him with fascination, and then realized how rude she must be for staring. She looked away quickly; her eyes shifted around the room and fell on a sign that read, “Antiquities.” Her mother struck up conversation with the old man; they talked about the ride in and other such things, but Stella couldn’t hold her attention to the conversation.

“Mother, what time is it?”

“Sorry hun, I left my watch in the car. Perhaps this lovely gentleman could tell you.”

“I’m sorry ma’am,” he said quietly, “but I don’t have the time, I only wear this watch for its nice looks. It’s been broken for a long time.”

“It’s alright, thanks.”

Mother and the old timer continued to speak; Stella scuffed her feet along the dusty wood surface. She noticed large cracks and nails sticking out of the floor.

The nails seemed to be quietly lamenting; they slouched against the discolored wood 14

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F I C T I O N panels. She listened to the conversation, and was horrified to hear that her mother had agreed to stay in the small motel they had passed on the way in.

“Mother, are you sure—”

The man eyed her and for the first time she saw a glint behind one of his eyes that didn’t seem quite right. She stood trying to figure it out.

“Mother! I have to use the restroom!”

“Darling, can’t this wait?”

“Mother, right now. Please.”

“Alright, excuse us.” She flashed her teeth to him brilliantly.

As soon as they passed through the frame and were fairly out of ear shot Stella started to explain herself.

“You can’t be seriously staying in the motel.”

“Of course we are! He’s such a charming young man.”

Stella’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “He’s not young—never mind! It doesn’t matter! We can’t stay here. Have you looked around?”

“Of course I have! But this is where I belong! Everything is so lively here.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. No, we’re leaving now.”

“Oh Stella! You are such an energy suck! I swear, you never know how to have fun!”

“Fun!? You call this fun? Honestly, have you opened your eyes since we arrived!?”

As if on cue a dead breeze expelled from some far off set of weak lungs and the fallen leaves clawed their way around the parking lot.

“We’re going. Back to the car, now.”

“Can’t I at least say goodbye to our friend?”

“Fine, you can say goodbye to your friend.”

They walked back in silence. Stella fell behind a little, paused, and let out an exasperated breath. Leaning just a little to left of the frame, she could hear her mother and the man speaking loudly.

“Sorry we took so long!”

“I didn’t notice.”

At that, music started playing and Stella allowed herself a quick glimpse at them. They were dancing. The man still had his solemn look but Mother was tickled pink.

“This is ridiculous,” Stella muttered to herself. The music was too loud; she tried to shout to them, but they couldn’t hear her.

She tried again, “Mother! It’s time to go!”

She looked around the room searching for the source of the music and found a small radio. She ran to it, running shaky hands along the sides.

“Unbelievable.”

There weren’t any dials, knobs, or plugs. No batteries. She stepped back.

What was this place? The happy pair continued to dance. Stella stood up straight, squared her shoulders and walked poised to her mother. Raising her arm and placing a hand on the yellow tank top, she tugged. Like a small child she tugged at the TMC Spring 2012

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F I C T I O N shirt. She stood patiently as the couple swayed. When no notice of her presence was acknowledged she was baffled. Stella was not struck by panic, just confusion and annoyance. She continued to do what she could to get her mother’s attention, but it was as if a wall was placed between them. Normally, Stella would try to seem calm and collected when around other people, but knowing perfectly well no one was paying her any attention she threw her arms up in exasperation.

“I’ll be in the car! Come and get me when you’re ready to act like an adult!”

She made her way out of the room. She was sick of this behavior and planned not to look back—her way of exacting a little justice however small it was. However, by chance she did. Just in time she caught the man’s look. At first Stella took it as an offering of surrender, then saw it was a summons. The pair turned to the girl in the doorway with their hands up in a gesture of invitation. Her eyes widened in horror, her mouth curled into a grimace of disgust and confusion.

“Come Stella! Dance with us!” Her mother smiled vacantly.

For years, practically her entire lifetime, she had danced when her mother told her to. She always left her friends and any academic achievement behind when they moved. Whatever identity she had forged for herself was left at every rest stop across the nation.

So Stella tore through the door frame and cut through the heavy air that surrounded the building. Her feet begged her to slow her pace, but her mind knew she had a destination that had to be sought as soon as possible. Her legs carried her past a faded Chevy she hadn’t noticed before. The mint green paint job beckoned her closer while her feet greedily lapped up the distance between her and the car. She whispered her gratitude to the spirits that had left the keys in the driver’s seat. Her fingers tangled clumsily with the keys, but she managed to find the ignition. Even through eyelashes webbed with tears she did not look back as the Nile folded West.

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A R T Oakmont Regional High School

A l y s s a

/ Grade 12

S a n s o s s i o

Teenage Nightmare

d r a w i n g

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A R T Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 11

Radiance

S a r a h

M o r s e

d r a w i n g

Daddy’s Girl Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 12

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J e n n i f e r

B u r k e

A R T Xaverian Brothers High School / Grade 12

Rewind

Jo ey

S p a d o n i

Jo ey

S p a d o n i

p h o t o g r a p h y

What Do You See

Xaverian Brothers High School / Grade 12

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P O E T R Y Milton Academy / Grade 11

Neighbor

Osaremen Okolo

My father’s market will never wash the blood off its old brick walls. Church ladies don’t like their deli meat messing with their homicides. Man comes to fix our power line, but leaves at sundown ‘cause he don’t play in the dark. Ambulance driver slows down once she hears our avenue name: “Can’t save all the crack heads.” Franklin Park Zoo uses big black gates to keep us animals away from their exotic specimen. Mr. Policeman stands on the wrong block, hands bored in pockets, a 9:15 to 4:45 on the other side of town.

Big, black SUV races on past here, low on gas but never gonna stop at a station called the Wave. Fingers point through tinted windows at the “crazed” man in the blue velour track suit. Mr. Walker ambles not high, not wasted. Just pink backpack dangling from one hand, cries of “Daddy!” from the other.

Wife gone as of last week.

My mother’s cherry blossom tree helps our dilapidated apartment complex smile. Mr. Mayor came by to cut ribbon on the new glass greenhouse. Last time we saw him, confetti rained all over and his hair was still black.

Right around November he’ll wrap up a renovated YMCA. Government gifts ‘cause we’re taxpayers too.

A nosy investigator once asked if we’re “significantly hindered by all the surrounding darkness of the area.”

We say before there was hood, we were just your neighbors.

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A R T Old Rochester Regional High School / Grade 12

S c o t t

M c D a v i d

Wa r e h o u s e 8 3

p h o t o g r a p h y

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N O N F I C T I O N Lexington High School / Grade 12

Yellow

M i n a

L i

She crosses the road, trying to figure out how to navigate the town she has called home for some twelve years. There is never much to do here, the most exciting thing that happens usually being an ambulance wailing down the streets, but there are always trees around, and it is relatively peaceful.

Dressed purposely to confuse her friends on the first day of school, she wears clothes she would normally never wear. With her new haircut, she looks like a completely different person. Her hair is freshly dyed, almost brown from its original black. She is not wholly unattractive, though she almost has a unibrow and has a rather large nose. Still, her eyes are pleasantly brown and her lips make way to reveal an amiable smile with a set of shiny braces.

The light changes as she crosses, and—all too soon—the cars are rushing by her. One whips by before her. Another passes behind. She can see the light reflecting from the car in the window across the street. But one car comes directly for her.

She tries to dodge, but it is too fast. The metal is smooth under her fingertips as she tries to roll off the front. Then she is flying.

The sky is almost unbearably blue, completely free of clouds. There is a moment of tranquility, as if time has stopped. Sound ceases to exist. Then she is on the ground, the pain slowly seeping in as the adrenaline fades away and sound returns.

She is hurt, she manages to process, but not badly. Her body will be sore all over the next day, as she will discover. Scrapes mark her arms and although she doesn’t know it yet, her spine will never be quite the same.

“Why did you run into the car?” a woman’s voice laments. It is the driver, and a man tries to comfort her as he calls 911. Only one woman bothers to ask the girl if she can help, call her parents, or if there is anything she can do. As her long, black hair sways in front of her, the girl stares, trying to remember where she has seen the amiable, but overall uninteresting countenance. Then it comes to her.

The woman is her neighbor. She hasn’t recognized the girl, dressed to look like someone she isn’t.

She is lifted onto the ambulance on the stretcher. Then she is in the hospital, lying on a gurney. The next thing she can remember is closing her eyes to listen to the conversation around her, purposefully eavesdropping to pass the time before her parents come.

“I don’t know if he’s going to make it,” a nurse whispers. The girl’s heart clenches. That could have been her.

When her parents come, she is grateful that they aren’t angry. They do become angry later, though not at her.

The three of them are summoned to the police office a few days later, where the officer smiles and asks for a statement of what has happened from the girl’s point of view. She would like to think well of him, but it seems as if he purposely wants to make her angry.

“Did you see the light for the crosswalk? Do you remember what it was?”

She shakes her head. She can’t remember what the light was, only that the person in front of her was walking.

“You know I could press charges against you for jaywalking,” he threatens.

“I have a signed statement from a witness and the driver. Both of them say that you 22

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A R T ran into the car.”

Her parents nearly shout at him, demanding video evidence. He claims there is none, yet there were cameras—she is sure of that. But he continues to uphold his claim.

She feels sick. The woman hit her with a car. Her body still aches. To augment her nausea, her family’s insurance company has been trying to negotiate with the driver’s, and it is clear that the woman doesn’t want to pay a single cent. She is completely convinced that the girl is at fault. Yet she is the victim, not the driver who claims that the girl came running out of nowhere. She isn’t suicidal.

And then the second realization dawns on the girl.

The only person who bothered to help her is another Asian. Bitterness fills her mouth. Even in a place like this, where people are supposed to be treated equally, she can still find this kind of behavior. Even the policeman is against her. Tears fill her eyes, but she holds them back, trying to steady her hand to write the statement.

She wants to take the pen and throw it at the policeman’s head, wants to crumple the paper and scream that he is lying. But she doesn’t. She finishes signing the statement. Olivia Chang.

It is only after she leaves that she allows herself to cry.

m u l t i m e d i a

Native

B r e n d a n

c o l l a g e

M a c A l l i s t e r

Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 12

TMC Spring 2012

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A R T Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 11

T a y l o r

P e n n i n g

Wo n d e r m e n t

p a i n t i n g

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A R T Chelmsford High School / Grade 12

R e g i n a

K u o

My Bedroom Interior

d r a w i n g TMC Spring 2012

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P O E T R Y Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 12

C o l i n

S m i t h

Flea (12)

The realizations come all at once and entirely too late to be useful — the realizations that you are nothing, that you are a nothing, a flea waiting to be squashed. They come as thunder rages in the distance and rain falls like a patchwork curtain made of steel wool, drumming a heavy and indecipherable beat on the tin roof of your misery, of your imagination. Maybe you are sleepy, yes, and maybe you have seen too much. But for once you must consider that it’s raining on others as well, that they think and feel and hate as you do. That sadness is not your own invention.

1. The nuclear family has been nuked. There is nothing you can do about that, partly because you are a flea, but mostly because you are just one flea—waiting to be squashed.

2. And even her eyes in photographs stare straight past you.

3. You are common. You are nothing. You are a flea.

4. She is words. She is all words. She is everything.

5. To you she is the breath in between sentences, and you are so much less to her.

6. All these words have been spoken long before you were born, in

better form and in truer intention. Stale poetry is merely the last bastion against an angry sea.

7. This sea is made entirely of tears, and you’re weak for saying so; and if you want to be dry, why don’t you just stop complaining and grab an umbrella?

8. Scratchy throat Mondays and unrequited love are twofold and threefold and infinite and timeless.

9. The plain and simple thought that you are a flea in a sea of fleas.

10. And you have no right to be sad about it because just to be born into this big bowl of fleas is a privilege, an obligatory honor.

11. There are many fleas. They may die for any number of reasons at any time. There will always be another flea to take its place. Nobody ever remembers a flea.

12. That you are cold and it doesn’t matter a bit.

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A R T Brimmer and May School / Grade 12

Halle Edwards-McQuilton

The Window on the Wa l l

p h o t o g r a p h y

Monster

Sa r a h

C o n k l i n

Brimmer and May School / Grade 12

TMC Spring 2012

27

P O E T R Y Milton Academy / Grade 12

Unbraiding

C a r y

For my father I’m giggling right at you.

The tangly mess of curls bounces in humid island air.

Goodnight Moon is in my hand.

Its back cover frays on the corner and the edges are worn, the story alive on your face, the words we know by heart.

You kept that book on my night table.

I looked at the pictures when you worked late, feeling the knots in your voice.

In third grade, you lowered into the ground under lilies and mahogany edges, burying the dusky sounds that rocked me to sleep.

I ran across the meadow, zigzagged over anthills and through the lilacs.

We played hide-and-seek until the stars doodled over the navy velvet and you carried me home.

The paint cracked designs like spiderwebs over the splintering clapboards of the house.

You said we would throw on a new coat before we went home for the season.

The night of the Fourth of July we forgot to close the screen door after the fireworks.

The rain sounded like your bongos from college, peeling the paint away in loose coils, leaving ridges of primer and plaster.

A job, you said, for a professional repairman.

After seventeen summers of bonfires and flashlights, I hold our picture in my hands and stare into cross eyed admiration: a rosy burst against the grey cottage built before weathering was in style— the cottage we tore down last spring.

Studying myself, I run my fingers through silky hair that I made you let me straighten, wondering if it remembers how to twist upon itself as a maze.

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W i l l i a m s

A R T Amherst Regional High School

Curtains and Hand

/ Grade 11

Rosa Melchior re

p h o t o g r a p h y

Sunset Sailboat

Joey Spadoni Xaverian Brothers High School / Grade 12

TMC Spring 2012

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A R T Burlington High School / Grade 12

T o u l a

P a p a d o p o u l o s

M i a ko d a

drawing / colored pencils on sketchbook paper

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A R T Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 12

K a y l e e

A n g e l i n i

Effects of animal cruelty

p a i n t i n g

/

a c r y l i c

o n

c a n v a s

TMC Spring 2012

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F I C T I O N Amherst Regional High School / Grade 11

N a t a l i e

M o s s

The Game of Secrets

Her heart skipped a beat. Meriel took another measured step forwards, from black square to white, hand on her uncle’s arm, but she could not tear her eyes from the figure on the far corner square. His suit was black silk, his mask a soft glittering in the shadows, edged by raven feathers as dark as his hair. Halen. This wasn’t his board.

What was he doing here?

Meriel’s own mask was bordered with gold, pluming white feathers across her forehead. She lifted her white-gloved hand from her uncle’s arm and crossed the board, square by square. Halen turned when she was near. She stopped a square away.

“Meriel.” He smiled, and she remembered why she had fallen in love with him.

Her hands knotted in her white silk gown. “Halen. I thought my uncle had you banned from the highest boards. You were on Semley, last I heard.”

He took a delicate sip of champagne. “We aren’t pieces in the most complex Game ever to exist for nothing, Meriel. I won a Key off one of the Dark Lady’s servants recently. With it, I can look like anyone I please—a pawn, a soldier, even you if I felt like it. That’s how I got here.”

She glanced around, then joined him on his square. He moved his hand towards hers, but she pulled back. “I hate this.”

“Checkers and chess, love—anything less than our Game, and we’d all die of boredom.”

“That’s not what I mean! I mean—” She waved her hand at the board, full of pieces like themselves, speaking of nothing. Arien was a high board, so all the pieces there were dressed richly, black or white as their sides dictated, masks with gems and silks and metallic embroideries. Meriel wrapped her arms around herself. “I hate these secrets.”

“There’s a reason it’s called the Game of Secrets, Meriel.”

“I know! I just—I hate it. Keys, Gambits, Matches—and the masks! For once, I’d like to see someone’s face. My uncle’s. Yours. Mine.” She shivered.

Halen touched her alabaster hair lightly with one gloved hand. “Meriel. This is the way the world is.”

She turned to him suddenly. “Do you love me, Halen?”

His mask was impossible to read, as always. “Of course.”

She pressed close to him. “Then come with me.”

“Come—”

“Come off-board.”

“Meriel.” He drew a shaking breath. “It can’t be done.”

“I can’t live like this. I used to be able to because I couldn’t see any reason why not—but then I met you. And now the Game of Secrets wants to keep us apart.

The daughter of the former Light Lord and a Dark Sorcerer’s apprentice? You and me together isn’t part of the Strategy. It’s against the Rules—and I’m sick of it. I want out.”

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F I C T I O N

“We can’t just leave, Meriel.”

“Why not?”

He put his glass down and ran a hand through his hair, the most agitation he ever showed. “How? Where? What else is there?”

“Something,” she whispered. “Something.”

He turned his head, but did not look at her. “I wish we could, Meriel, I truly do. But I don’t see how it’s possible. Boards lead to other boards, levels connect with staircases—the end of one is the beginning of the next—it’s the world. It’s selfcontained. There’s no exit, Meriel.”

“There must be!” she cried, frustrated. Several other pieces looked at them.

One or two began to drift closer, slanting from square to square. She knew their time was running out. Meriel squeezed her eyes shut, and felt Halen touch her cheek. She couldn’t go back to playing without him. Not again. She caught his hand and pressed it tight against her face, her mask. “Didn’t your master tell you anything that might help?”

He hesitated.

Meriel opened her eyes. “He did. What did he say, Halen? Please, what did he say?”

“You were on the right track earlier,” he told her softly, reluctantly. “My master said once—he thought he’d cracked it, figured out the secret…”

“What is it?” she insisted, watching the ever-nearing other pieces. “Please, Halen!”

He looked down. “He said—he believed what keeps us here is our masks.”

Her breath hitched. “But—our masks!” she hissed, panicked. “If we take them off, we cease to exist!”

He nodded. “That’s what we’ve always been told. That’s what they want us to believe. But it’s a lie. Or at least, that’s what my master said, before he was executed for Rule-Breaking.”

She rested her forehead on his shoulder, breathing hard. “No. It can’t be.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “Decide quickly.” His voice was tense. “I don’t have much longer here.”

She closed her eyes, feeling tears run underneath her mask. If he was wrong and they tried, they would both die. But if he was right and they didn’t… she knew the Rules for the use of Keys. He had broken at least four to see her. He would die anyways. And then she might as well be dead herself. Better to die together. Meriel swallowed. “Do it.” She stepped back, shoulders tight.

He put his hands to her mask, and she put hers to his. They looked at each other through the eye-holes, steadying themselves.

“Hey!” another piece shouted, and she heard the clomp of soldiers’ boots.

Their time was up.

“You ready?” he whispered. She nodded. Neither moved, both still too terrified. “If—if this works—” His fingers tightened around the edges of her mask. “We’ll see each other’s faces. And our own. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Meriel kissed him, and he kissed her back, fiercely, sweetly. Then she pulled away and smiled. “Yes, Halen.” She started to pull on his mask, and he began to lift hers. Her vision went dark, and into the blackness that could be death or could be freedom or could just be the inside of her mask, she whispered, “Yes, I would like that a lot.”

TMC Spring 2012

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P O E T R Y Dracut High School / Grade 12

E l i z a b e t h

G a r i b a l d i

My Looking Glass

Who I have become is someone I do not recognize And although my reflection is faithless and uncompromising I wish for nothing more than to wear this facade For it is far less demanding to pretend Than to face what I am and embrace it.

p a i n t i n g

/

North Carolina Bishop Stang High School / Grade 12

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a c r y l i c

K i r b y

o n

c a n v a s

R o b e r t s

A R T Xaverian Brothers High School / Grade 12

M i n j u

K i m

Fr a c t u r e d Fa c e

d r a w i n g

TMC Spring 2012

35

F I C T I O N Amherst Regional High School

/ Grade 11

R o s a

M e l c h i o r r e

A Dr eam y Twilight

The sparkle of the eye, as if reflected from the sea. A pounding deep in the chest, deeper than ever before. I am upon my steed, galloping gallantly through the grassy, green fields. No one in the world can stop me from feeling the emotions outburst from a bottomless soul. The adrenaline begins to overpower in my veins as the wicked wind wildly whips through my hair; every strand must be screaming. Its long waves flow like a bubbling, boundless river. I look down for a moment, finding the familiar shaggy, sublime mane streaming as my own. Her ears are perking portentously forward—there might be an alarming interest in the distance. I follow her unknowing gaze to find a curious cobblestone wall, seemingly appearing out of thin air. This has a new value of mystery; there is grotesqueness about it; this is no ordinary wall. This has a specific enigma to it, and it uncontrollably draws me towards it. She can feel it too; her breath quickens as she pounds and paws the terrified soil. Indeed, this wall has potency. Soon I can’t stop myself, and neither can she; the urge to fly the wall is unbearable—the force to encounter like a magnet begging intently for the connection with its other.

The excitement is near—a lurch, a jolt, a bolt, quickness with agility more than ever before. The powerful, beating sounds, “ba bum, ba bum, ba bum,” gouge through the soil as we go. Soon enough, one last stride left. There is pulsing building in this moment. I fortuitously look up at the sky, noticing it appears lacquered; the magenta, pink, yellow, sky pigments fill the cloud’s absence. The view above is unmitigated and still so radiantly ravishing to my sparkling eyes. Now I sense the momentum increasing as her chest lifts upwards toward the swirling majestic sky. My dexterous hands are softly skimming up her muscular neck. The breath of my own is synchronized with hers; everything has slowed. The erratic wind has been drastically transformed into a sweet zephyr while we are ascending up to heaven. Just as I thought we would remain perfect forever, an impact occurs. Immediately as we cross the barrier I notice something changed, an awful change; the world has blackened, the zephyr has gone and soon we can feel our close bond slowly slipping away. My heart beat is fluttering as quickly as a hummingbird’s wings. Everything is gone; my unmistaken eyes have opened.

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A R T Oakmont Regional High School

N i s a

#161 Reno Face

p a i n t i n g

/

a c r y l i c

o n

/

Grade 12

M a n n

c a n v a s

TMC Spring 2012

37

A R T Fitchburg High School / Grade 12

Touching Ground

Roxxanna Kurtz

p h o t o g r a p h y

Aloof Old Rochester Regional High School / Grade 12

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K a t i e

H o l d e n

A R T Ch r istopher

Coe

Burlington High School

/ Grade 11

Sameer Gadhia, of Young The Giant

photog raphy / Nikon D7000, 50mm f/1.4 lens

TMC Spring 2012

39

P O E T R Y Amherst Regional High School

Violin

/ Grade 11

N a t a l i e

M o s s

I watch the fragile blue Of the sky It looks Like I could shatter it with a breath, With a whisper, With the lightest bruising touch And it would all come tumbling down, Ashes, ashes, We all fall in the end.

And the trees are like Black thorns In the Breakable blue sky, naked as the worms in the dark, crumbling earth below; They are holding the sky up, Or else trying to tear it down and I’m Afraid Because they might succeed And because they might Fail.

I wait with my hands in the pockets of The coat you gave me, Although really you Didn’t mean it to last, just: you look cold, Here— And somehow, I never managed to give it back.

It’s the kind of smoke-filled day in the city, Rushing cars, When everyone is going everywhere And no one can stop for Even a second To hear the boy play his Violin on the corner for money.

But here there is a silence like the sky That I Don’t want to break.

I wonder how long it can take For a car in that jam-grasped city Traffic To find its way to me.

It hurts when the silence Cracks, abruptly, Ringtone shivering through the dry, dead leaves.

The phone is shaking in my pocket; 40

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A R T It’s you calling.

You’re sorry you couldn’t make it, sorry I had to come all that way, sorry About everything, but please forgive you because— I turn the phone off.

And now I can’t feel the cold On my cheeks Because you let them take you away from me again.

I want to call the police and say, yes, they Stole you, but then they’d come with sirens And the bright lights might hurt the sky And despite everything, I’d rather be here alone Than there With You.

p a i n t i n g

Exaggerated Color Self Portrait

A r i N i cke r s o n

Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 10

TMC Spring 2012

41

A R T Xaverian Brothers High School

/ Grade 12

M i n j u

K i m

The Clown of Chaos

d r a w i n g

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F I C T I O N Milton Academy / Grade 12

C a r y

W i l l i a m s

To Tr u s t a S p i d e r w e b

The thing I liked least about living in an old house was the way the spiderwebs looked in the evening. I sat by the fire in the living room and read a book that might make me look smarter in front of my mother’s new husband, James. My eyes were always drawn from the text to the corner of the room, where the spiderwebs caught the light of embers. They were gauzy and grey by day, but glowed a light orange around six o’clock, the threads so thin they looked like the pressure of the light itself could shatter them.

James’ shadow entered the room before he did. The scent of tobacco poured from his mouth as he exhaled. It felt as if he didn’t want me near him, but I didn’t want to move. When he sat down across from me, I turned my head so he couldn’t see my face. I didn’t want him to look into my eyes and try to figure me out as if I were one of his patients. He was a successful psychiatrist, and his training made him an observant stepfather.

I leaned closer to the fire to get out of his line of sight.

He craned his neck from behind his open newspaper. “Careful, you don’t want any embers to fly into your face.” He coughed toward the flames.

“I’m quite comfortable,” I said, turning toward the brass screen.

“Be careful. We wouldn’t want any accidents,” he said, in his patronizing tone. I felt as if I were five years old, and he caught me drawing on the walls with my bright red crayon.

I wanted to say something clever, but I knew he would tell my mother. He always made me feel as though my mother would choose his side over mine. Not having a father was enough—I didn’t want to lose my mom.

We sat in silence for about an hour, until my mother called us for dinner.

When I looked up from my book, I found James crouched in the corner, his fingers scratching a spiderweb away from the walls. I watched him claw away at the intricate web as I held my breath. I didn’t want him to know I was watching him. It felt like something he would do only without anyone watching.

My mother walked lightly into the living room, almost skittish. I saw a couple of scratches under her left eye, and I pointed to them.

“It’s nothing. I must have caught a jagged edge of one of my nails.” She looked at James, “I made your favorite dessert.”

I looked back at him, and he smoothed his hair into a neat part to the side.

An ember singed the carpet below the suspended spiderweb. It had been woven perfectly. How porous, how delicate it was and how easily things can break. He cleared his throat, and my mother took the smallest step in retreat.

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A R T Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 10

T r o y

R i c h a r d s o n

Exaggerated Color Self Portrait

p a i n t i n g

Exaggerated Color Self Portrait Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 10

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L u k e

N e f f

A R T Bishop Stang High School

Ja c q u e l y n

/ Grade 12

L a n d s m a n

Ar e You Lookin’ At Me

drawing

/

charcoal

and

pencils

TMC Spring 2012

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F I C T I O N Old Rochester Regional High School / Grade 12

A n n e

S m i t h

Sensor y Deprivation

O’Brien looked at Smith without an ounce of sympathy. His face was etched stone; his lips were hardened in a frown. “There’s only one thing left for you now,” he said with the air of a schoolteacher having to discipline his most promising pupil.

“You’re still holding on to that delusion of yours, that you can learn truth from the things you experience—that you can discover the world through your senses. Logically, the only salvation for you now is Room 101.”

Smith felt ice cascade down her esophagus. It settled in her stomach; it chilled her core. She had known that it would come to this—it always came to this— but somewhere, deep within her, she was still skeptical of how she had gotten here.

What action had been her thoughtcrime. How it had been a thoughtcrime.

She had worked in the Ministry of Truth, in the Fiction Department, where she had always done her job as required: working the machines, propagandizing the content for the sake of the Party, occasionally working with other women on pornography. Although one day, she had deplorably felt the urge to write a sentence in her novel: write! Compose visual notes rather than press the button to manufacture the copy as it had been dictated. Her fingers jumped over the keyboard, lively and jerky—as if they had been connected to an open wire coursing with volts. The next morning the Thought Police had taken her.

Smith didn’t know how long she had been a prisoner in the Ministry of Love.

Sometimes she would guess days, sometimes months. When she was suffering from the guards’ depraved abuse, she would guess years. She never had food, she never saw people—except for when she first arrived—and she never knew the hour. The air was stagnant without the passage of time.

It was a struggle to suppress her relief at the pronouncement: “Room 101.”

Room 101 was the end for her, she was sure of it. Her thoughtcrime would be eradicated. She wouldn’t die—not yet, anyway. Smith craved for her conscience to be wiped clean because she had never meant anything by that incongruous line of blasphemous text. She hadn’t even written it; her coworkers had! Didn’t O’Brien believe her? He had to, it was a truth she was dispensing to her interrogator. She accused a different person each day—and each day, she was equally sure that they were the guilty party. It was never her.

The Ministry of Love terrified Smith more than it relieved her. When the guards came to encircle her upper arms, she twisted away from them, as far and as fast as she could in her weak state. She kicked without mercy in their robotic grip. She screamed, thrashed, tried to bite; it was to no avail. O’Brien stood to the side of her cell, hands clasped behind his back, watching the proceedings with clinical interest.

The door to Room 101 was thick and dim—no window in it. The hallway outside was dark as well, the darkest any part of the Ministry of Love had been. The strobe lights flickered and buzzed, and Smith felt her stomach flip over. Her head pounded.

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F I C T I O N

She looked about Room 101 once they were inside. O’Brien opened his arms wide, proud as a father, and patted a closed cylinder in the very center of the room. Apart from the contraption, the room was empty. It was darker than the hallway—a nightlight was plugged into one outlet in the far corner of the room.

The guards stood on either side of Smith and kept a tight hold on her shoulders and wrists, bruising her flesh, her bones. With bile rising to the back of her throat, Smith realized that they expected her to fight again—and she knew instinctively that the cylinder was bad. Evil. It would destroy her.

The part of her that yearned for relief clasped her hands, as the penitent do to be absolved—that cylinder would be her salvation. It would eradicate her thoughtcrime and maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t be killed, but instead would be released—

She would be killed anyway. It didn’t matter when or how.

“Do you know what this is?” O’Brien asked, speaking as if this were a lecture.

“No,” Smith replied.

O’Brien frowned. “Are you quite certain of that?” he asked again, his tone clipped.

Smith looked at the cylinder again, this time studying it. It was sunken into the floor. Three feet were visible in the room, but Smith couldn’t tell how far it went down. It was made of metal and plastic, and running around its top there seemed to be a seam. That was the key for Smith, whose eyes snapped up to O’Brien’s. Yes, she knew what that cylinder was.

“I want to hear you say it,” he said gently.

“An isolation tank,” Smith replied, surprised that she had the words. They came unbidden.

“And what does it do?” O’Brien coaxed.

“It—” Smith swallowed, her throat constricting. Her eyes burned, and suddenly her cheeks felt damp. She didn’t have to bring her hand to them to know there was a tear. “It destroys sensation. It kills the five senses.”

O’Brien looked at the isolation tank again, rubbing his hand over its lid, caressing it, and Smith felt as if she’d been raped. How did he know—?

“Don’t be so surprised,” he answered. “We’ve let you exist for a while now.

We’ve let you commit your thoughtcrime. But don’t pretend—don’t believe for a second—don’t delude yourself—that we haven’t ever heard your thoughts. Your deepest fear. The Thought Police know you, Smith, even better than you know yourself. Big Brother is watching you—that’s what we say. What the Party lets remain unsaid is that he hears you.”

Smith looked again at the isolation tank, and found that her eyes couldn’t turn away.

“Your faith is in the world, Smith. It’s not in the Party or Big Brother. You find your salvation in being able to touch the world, and see it, and smell it, and hear it, and learn. You assimilate. If the Party allowed members to study philosophy, you would call yourself an empiricist. And the worst thing that could ever happen to you—the thing that would drive you to the edge, and quite possibly over—is being cut off from that sense data.

TMC Spring 2012

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F I C T I O N

“The isolation tank is an old device, dating back to the days of the Revolution. It is light-tight, and the water’s salt concentration is so high that it will support your body completely. The water is skin-temperature. You will float with your nose and mouth above the surface, but your ears will be submerged—and you will be deaf, blind, and have no sense of touch. There is nothing in the isolation tank to taste.

“When it was first designed, the isolation was intended for medicinal purposes. It helped people to relax, and it allowed many to achieve a state of meditation.

A normal treatment in the tank lasts for just an hour. But were you aware that for an extended period of time, it could function as a torture device? Being devoid of sense data—can you imagine what that does to a person?” O’Brien paused. “I gather you do. And now imagine yourself in that isolation tank—you’re an empiricist. What truths would you discover in there?”

O’Brien seemed like he had finished, and the isolation tank opened with a hiss. Smith struggled as the guards pulled her forward, but it was like the strength had already gone out of her, and she was lowered into the jaws of the tank before her brain could keep pace. The lid hissed closed above her head, sealing her from the nightlight’s faint illumination. Suspended vertically after mere seconds, she was unable to shout what she’d thought a thousand times: “I’ll do what you want! Just tell me what you want me to say!”

Instantly, Smith was lost. She gasped her first breaths, but didn’t feel her chest move, and didn’t hear the air rushing in and out of her lungs. She tried to move her arms, but nothing happened—and nor did anything happen when she tried to clutch her fingers. She was paralyzed. It was strange; she knew her limbs were moving—they must be—but she had no evidence. Were they moving at all, then, if she felt no resistance?

The worst of it was the immense blackness. It was a vacuum of all color. It was darker than anything she had ever experienced—darker than black itself. Suddenly Smith panicked because she didn’t know if her eyes were open.

Smith screamed—or thought she screamed—there was no sound. No words sounded in her head. She couldn’t remember what a word was. She tried to picture something in her head. A memory, a warm day she had spent hiking with the other women her age. She tried to remember the look of the scraggly trees outside the city, and the dead leaves on the ground, and the birds flying through the perfectly blue sky, but she couldn’t remember what anything looked like. What was blue, but something that she imagined and used to describe other objects that people referred to as blue? What was a tree? Did a bird have wings? How did it stay aloft in the sky?

Was the sky above the ground?

There was nothing to which she could reach as a lifeline. Smith was lost.

A thought came to her—swiftly, as a lightning bolt strikes the earth. Smith could start to remember the sound of words, and how the letters looked, and what they felt like printed on a page. There was one lifeline, Smith thought. There was one being that was the universal truth, one being that would save her.

She could picture his face: enormous, black-mustachio’d, smiling and watching. Big Brother was the truth that served as the font for all other truths. She had been wrong, sense data was nothing more than a distraction.

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A R T Oakmont Regional High School / Grade 12

J e s s i c a

M a e d e r

2 Birds on Afghani W ires

d r a w i n g

/

g r i d

m e t h o d

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P O E T R Y Brooks School / Grade 10

Success

Del a n ey

B l a tch l y

I’m imprisoned, inundated by calmly rolling waves and taunted by visions of light above, as if God himself pressed me down.

With fight ebbing from my body, final silver bubbles slipping through my lips like a whisper, my heart beats a final call to arms.

Reinvigorated, my muscles twitch and heat shoots through my veins so there is nothing I want more than to break free and breathe.

drawing / digitally colored

Self-Portrait Somerville High School / Grade 12

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Y o n g k a n g

Y u

A R T Taunton High School

Beauty

A d a m

/ Grade 11

Pi n h ei r o

p h o t o g r a p h y

Knot

J u l i a

F i n l a y s o n

Reading Memorial High School / Grade 12

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A R T Burlington High School / Grade 11

C h r i s t o p h e r

C o e

M a t t Jo h n s o n

photog raphy / Nikon D7000, 24-120mm f/4 lens

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A R T Reading Memorial High School / Grade 12

J u l i a

F i n l a y s o n

The Shadow of What is to Come

p h o t o g r a p h y

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F I C T I O N

Harwich High School /

Grade 11

H o l l y

G a l l a n t

As Dark Descends

Flames—pulsing hot. Burning red, orange, and yellow deep into the fissures of his mind. Heat buried deep in his bones. Terror ran rampant through his veins.

Fire: death, destruction, distress.

Life had been normal for Nathaniel. He was seventeen; he hated his dad; his girlfriend dumped him, but he was fine, just fine. He had his best friend who kept him focused, grounded, sane. Paul kept him from worrying too much, panicking.

Nothing else mattered but that connection, so his life went on.

Friday afternoon, school was finally out for Christmas break, and the engine in his piece of junk car wouldn’t turn over. He spent an hour out in the parking lot trying to coax it to start, but to no avail. He gave up. He swung the frozen straps of his beaten backpack over his shoulders, flipped his hood up, and began the walk home. It was times like this when he wished he hadn’t snapped his cell phone in half.

It was times like this that he wished he cared.

He trampled along in the half frozen snow. His dirty Converse were quickly soaking through; his feet froze. He shivered in his sweatshirt and again he wished, wished he had actually dressed for New England weather. He kicked at snow banks in his bitter rage and stubbed his toes—encouraging his anger. He walked the six miles home on winding roads and through woods not yet trodden. He hiked up snow covered hills and across yards, sometimes raising protests to which he turned a deaf ear.

Eyes turned downward, he stepped into his yard, secluded from all civilization.

Heat sunk into his skin and he looked up. Horror struck; he beheld his house engulfed in flames. He moved closer, for reasons he didn’t know. White hot panic set into the very marrow of his bones. He sank to his knees; the situation was hopeless. His parents must have been inside; the car was still sitting in the driveway.

He could run for help, but he knew it would prove futile. The closest house was twenty minutes away on foot; his house was already so far gone.

So he watched. He sat on the wet ground and watched everything he ever had burn to the ground. He stayed there until it grew dark and the flames grew tired, only emitting a soft glow and light crackling. The stench of the smoke had permeated his nose until he couldn’t discern it from other smells. He sat there on the ground, legs numb, shivering violently, and waited until the moon was the only illumination left.

Then he put his hand to his parents’ car, remembering again its existence; it was warm, but not hot. Maybe it had been far enough away and would still work.

The keys were in the ignition. They always were. He turned the key and the engine started. It hurt; he knew that if his own car had started, maybe he would have made it home in time to save his life, his family, his everything.

He turned the headlights on and he cried. The beams cast a harsh light over 54

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F I C T I O N the remains of his house. The reality of the situation finally became clear. Up until that point he felt like he was looking in on someone else’s life; he had been a guest, but now realized he was actually the host. The scene was bleak to him—painful.

His body trembled and his heart hurt. His head felt heavy as he backed out of the driveway. As he drove, his fingers would fail him and the car would stray. Pulling into Paul’s driveway, he stumbled out of the car. Somehow he managed to push the doorbell before his knees buckled.

“Nate!” He heard the exclamation as if through water; it was a woman’s voice. The light that poured through the doorway hurt his head. His eyes closed slowly, lazily.

Paul came up behind the woman, his mother, and looked down at Nate’s crumpled form with a distinct dismay. He watched as his mother used frantic fingers to take Nate’s pulse. She mumbled, “It’s so soft,” then exclaimed, “he’s freezing! Call 9-1-1 Paul, hurry!” Paul paused for just a moment, in shock, and then ran for the kitchen.

“Police, medical, or fire?” The recording asked.

“Medical, medical!” he answered, his lips tumbling through the words.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” A new voice, a human voice asked him.

The words blurred in his mind, the same question had to be repeated. “My friend,” he muttered, “my friend, he needs help! He’s so cold…I need…an ambulance! I need an ambulance!”

“Calm down please sir, what address are you calling from?”

He raced through the address and hurried back to his mother. He helped her lift Nate and put him on the couch. They covered him with blankets and turned up the heat, but all to no avail. Paul’s mother hovered over Nate while Paul stood in the driveway anxiously waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

Nate’s eyes opened blearily. He could see flashing lights, blue and red. He could hear voices, but little else.

“Where am I?” He tried to ask, but the words moved awkwardly off his tongue, mostly unintelligible.

A voice spoke near him. “It’s me Nate! It’s Paul. I don’t know what…” The voice cut off—my best friend. Why was he?—

Fire, heat, flames and then the piercing cold. The images flew through him and he twisted. Pain. It was so cold, so very cold. He had to get away. Then there were lights, blazing from above. Wheels rolling and voices shouting. He discerned that he was on a stretcher, moving through a hospital, he hoped.

Paul and his mother sat in the waiting room. They sat and wondered. Waited.

“Ma’am?” A nurse asked, gaining his mother’s attention. “The number you gave for the boy’s parents? It’s disconnected. And the cell phones go straight to voicemail.”

“That—that’s impossible! I spoke with Delanie just this morning!” His mother said. There was no time for any further discussion as the doctor emerged from the blocked hallway.

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F I C T I O N

Paul rose to his feet, words dropping from his mouth. “Is he–?” The doctor held up a hand to stop him.

“The patient was first stage hyperthermia. He’ll be okay, weak, but he’ll live.

You’re lucky that he came to you when he did. He could have died if he had gone much longer without treatment,” he said.

Relief washed through Paul and he smiled at his mother. “Can we see him?” he asked. The doctor nodded and led them through to a pristine hospital bed. Nate lay under starched hospital sheets, surrounded by white walls. The scent of antiseptic accosted Paul’s nose, but he hurried to Nate’s bedside.

He felt weak, soft. His arms and legs felt intangible and disconnected. It was like he was floating in dreamland. Soon the harsh realities began to flood back into his consciousness: the fire, his parents, and stumbling onto Paul’s doorstep. His head spun with the hard truths.

He didn’t want to open his eyes. He wanted to sink back into the dreamland from which he awoke. He wanted to be at peace. He knew this was no longer possible, but he tried. He had to try, he needed to try. It could have been minutes or hours that he laid there, eyes closed, mind artificially blank, but it had proved a pointless cause. He finally succumbed to his body’s wishes, and opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was the white ceiling and the white walls. He slowly looked about, his eyes honed in on Paul who was sprawled on a hospital chair, watching him. Paul smiled.

“Hi,” Paul mumbled.

“Hey.”

“Are you okay?”

He nodded.

“…What happened?”

He looked down, and sighed. When he met Paul’s probing gaze again, his eyes were full of tears. “It’s gone Paul, it’s all gone.”

“What’s gone?”

“My house, my parents, everything. There…there was a fire,” he met Paul’s eyes again, “I didn’t know what to do but come to you.”

Tears started to escape once again. Paul wasn’t prepared for this show of emotion, it wasn’t how they were, but he took it in stride and came to sit on the bed next to him. Hesitant, lanky arms wrapped around him and held him tight.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’ll be okay, we can fix this. We can fix this,” Paul murmured to him.

They couldn’t fix it.

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DANCE IN THE CITY

SUMMER PRE-COLLEGE PROGRAM AT BARNARD COLLEGE Come to NYC to dance, to learn, to explore Learn about dance from acclaimed Barnard faculty.

Fine-tune your technique with The Ailey Extension at The Joan Weill Center for Dance, home of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Embrace the art of dance at professional performances throughout the City.

Dance Barnard.

July 8 – July 15, 2012 Open to young male and female students, rising high school juniors or seniors. www.barnard.edu/precollege or contact: pcp@barnard.edu or 212.854.8866

A R T Xaverian Brothers High School / Grade 12

Baseball

Mi ch a el

H a g er ty

p h o t o g r a p h y

Wherever You Go Taunton High School

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/ Grade 11

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Adam Pinheiro

A R T Fitchburg High School

Wa i t

Roxx a n n a

/ Grade 11

Ku r tz

photography / Kodak Easy Share C180,6mm length

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P O E T R Y Amherst Regional High School / Grade 12

Teenage Ocean

M i c h a l

G o d e r e z

They set us afloat with calming words and a few tips on how to walk The ocean seemed peaceful, the sun dancing in the foam They cut the lines and waved to us From the opposite horizon Inching over the landscape and gazing at the cavernous depths We laughed, delighted by the spray of the sea And tasted the first acrid taste Of a storm gathering above us Gray clouds became shadows of a game we knew well And the world turned over, and gave itself to shadow puppets and rain And we danced on the boat barefoot Watching for thunder The first thin cries were drowned out by the color of lightning Illuminated hands holding tight to the side, to each other Then letting go as the water covered our skin Forming a layer between us The first splash was lost in the sound of the storm and our heartbeats And we only thought to count heads later, and saw we were minus one So we huddled at the center together Listening for rain Some hung over the sides with their hands in the water Laughing, their eyes full of salt and foam We ran in circles to push them out Joyful at a new game When the sun broke over the horizon between us Those who remained were hardened by hunger, and grim Clutching tight to old mementos We turned away from where we came Land becomes clear and gray on the edge of the mists We lift the salt-soaked ropes in our hands, see the cut ends Wonder how we will use them again And wonder if we will crash The boat runs aground seamless as silk And we tumble out in a wild dance, forgetting the ropes Forgetting the clouds and the sea Forgetting everything 60

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A R T We lie in the warm sand for a while and smile Then see the world stretched out in front of us, endless and gold And look to each other instead of looking back At the boat and the ocean and the sun But we do turn back one by one Drawn by the old fear and the storm, we see only a puddle The ones we left behind lying face up On the pavement where we left them But the sky has turned blue and rainbow above us And we make sand angels, bending our strength to the shore And for a while we forget the smell of salt And the sound of waves

d r a w i n g

My Immor tal

A l y s s a

S a n s o s s i o

Oakmont Regional High School

/ Grade 12

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N O N F I C T I O N Amherst Regional High School

/ Grade 11

K y r a

W o l f

A Friend

We sit, wrapped in the night’s emptiness, a single lamp throwing out tentative tendrils of light to hold the shadows at bay. The windows reveal nothing outside, only reflect; it’s as if we exist contained within a bubble. The world consists only of this room: the great blank television screen; the plump, elderly couches; the clutter of the piano and CDs in one corner; the smooth wooden stairs leading away behind; and us, the two of us, sitting side by side right in the middle, knees tucked underneath, voices kept low.

“Talking, is good…”

“Yes, talking is good.”

“Better than dancing.”

“Sometimes. Dancing is good too.”

“Well yeah, but, I like this. Just talking. Like on Wednesday, just sitting in Amherst Coffee, and talking. It’s different with you. With Sam… sometimes we get caught up in us, you know?”

“It is different. I mean, we’ve known each other longer. There’s more…history, I guess.” I can’t quite explain it. The feeling of catching up after not spending much time together, but almost not needing because we know each other so well. I am only myself and nothing more, here, with her.

Four years, I think. Four years of friendship. I remember it, exactly, when it began.

It was just at the start of middle school. In those first few weeks, I was alone.

I drifted amidst the sea of peers, that alien world full of awkward adolescents in various stages of puberty. Some looked like teenagers already, developed and welldressed, grouped in clusters of rapidly befriended individuals—those quick to adapt.

Some, like me, still wore the marks of childhood: ill-fitting garments chosen for comfort, well-worn and suited for outdoor play; wide eyes and knobby knees; backpacks with our names embroidered; and watches with favored cartoons printed behind the hands. Cheap jewelry, glasses and braces glinted through the crowd. Nervous, erratic chatter bounced throughout the narrow hallways. Harried teachers excused students as they stumbled in, lost and late, confused by the unfamiliar maze which would soon seem all too small.

I had been one of the odd ones. For most of my childhood I scorned such ‘girly’ things as thinking about appearances, and rejoiced in make-believe in any form, on the schoolyard and in the woods, Harry Potter and Pokémon and any such thing. By the fifth grade my closest friends had outgrown me and my tear-prone ways. I did not quite fit anywhere in the class of twenty children, the same twenty children I stayed with from kindergarten through sixth grade. When I finally escaped to middle school, I had no fear. I only celebrated leaving them all in my past, severing every tie. So there I was, adrift among my classmates, just discovering the world of femininity and fashion, social status and social networking.

Only a day or two after the start of school, we started a science project. It was simple mechanics, designing paper airplanes, but everybody needed a partner. I sat at a little table near the back, my assigned seat with two unfamiliar boys. Shy and 62

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N O N F I C T I O N unsure, the thought of pairing with a boy made me nervous.

“Uh…Talia, can you go join that table, so there’ll be an even number? And, um, Jessica, will you go to the back there?” The teacher began to give out instructions, and a girl from the table in the middle gathered up her things and came to sit across from me. She wore a bright red hoodie, had dark brown, frizzy straight hair to her shoulders, pale skin with a host of freckles, and a pair of thick wire-rimmed glasses that gave her face an odd, disproportionate impression.

Made bold by the possibility of having to partner with one of those quiet, stony-faced males, I leaned forward and whispered to her, “Wanna be my partner?”

She shrugged and nodded, clearly less desperate than I. “My name’s Kat,” I added.

“I’m Tammy.”

And so we were partners. We spent the next couple of weeks working on that project together, talking and laughing, but only in class. I remember seeing her one day during lunch, sitting and chattering with all of her elementary school friends at one huge crowded table. I wished I could sit with her, with them, or had my own group, my own claim to some kind of ‘popularity.’ That kind of thing mattered so much, or seemed to, back then.

One night, about a month into school, my mother harried me about making new friends. “Get out there, meet some people. You can invite them over, have a playdate.” I rolled my eyes, or thought about it; I’d never actually act so rudely, docile as I was. But then the next day, after a particularly fun science class, we were stuffing our things in our bags and clanking the chairs up on the desks and the words just blurted right out of my mouth.

“Hey, do you want to come over on Sunday?” She looked at me, surprised.

We were not friends. It did not fit within the bounds of “normal social conduct,” even I knew that. But too nice to just refuse and having no real excuse, she had to agree. She wrote down her number for me (her home number, we did not have cell phones back then) so we could plan.

Looking back, the incident used to give me that awful embarrassed feeling, that gnawing in my middle coupled with the desire to shut the image out of my mind. Yet that one awkward moment began a friendship. We struggled together through that strange twilight of middle school, shifting from childhood to adolescence, unsure of ourselves and uncomfortable in our world. And in high school, we’ve shared in the process of self-discovery. Other friends have come and gone.

We’ve been jealous, we’ve done harm and given comfort, we’ve sacrificed and grown, taught and learned, always the two of us, constant.

Change creates strain on a relationship, when the person you knew is no longer quite the same, but to last through many shifts and share self-discovery creates something much stronger. It is a rare friend with whom you can talk about your own lives, impart everything without boundaries, and also be able to discuss music, philosophy and school, getting excited over interests and successes. With whom it is a rare treat to listen to the other complain and reassure her. Who knows your house as well as you do, and whose family is almost yours.

Today, we’re not at all the same people as we were those first few weeks of seventh grade. We have our own lives, our own worlds, and we’re well on our way to adulthood. But we still care and value the times when we do get to just, simply, talk.

The phrase “best friend” sounds cliché, sounds silly and childish, but when do you honestly get to say that something is still as simple as when you were a child?

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Developing the leaders of tomorrow.

One community at a time.

Helping teachers buy supplies for their classrooms.

Providing high school dropouts another chance to earn a diploma.

Supporting first generation student success on campus.

Our Foundation is working in local communities to create opportunities so people can live better.

To learn more visit walmartfoundation.org

ARTS MAJORS

Dance Theatre Arts & Entertainment Management Communication Arts

WHY DEAN

• Study with regionally acclaimed and nationally known faculty • Immediate performance and practical experience • Intense focus on all areas of the Arts

www.dean.edu

TMC.indd 1

1/5/12 5:11:53 PM

AMERICA’S ENVIRONMENTAL COLLEGE CENTER for ENVIRONMENTAL ARTS AND HUMANITIES B.A. ART AND ENVIRONMENT Create. Discover. Exhibit.

FOR MORE INFORMATION www.unity.edu 800.624.1024 admissions@unity.edu

Recognized as one of America’s Greenest Colleges in 2011 by The Princeton Review & U.S. Green Building Council

B.A. ENVIRONMENTAL WRITING AND MEDIA STUDIES Communicate. Experiment. Inspire.

LIVE YOUR PASSION

KATHRYN MILES Associate Professor, Environmental Writing You can’t write about the environment sitting in a classroom, so my students and I take our art out into the forest, onto the sea, and atop mountains. That’s where inspiration lives. Unity students have a variety of interests and will write about science, children’s literature, and even food. I want to show them there is not one way but many different ways of telling people about our world and why it matters.

No. 7

THE DANCER

MINJU KIM

painting

Xaverian Brothers High School / Grade 12

ISSN 2156-7298

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