The Mill Literary Magazine: Spring 2013

DW Flitcraft Untitled

These last years have been glow-bugs In dusk‘s sky And heavy, rough blankets wrapped ‗round shoulders And you

Editorial Board Chief Editor– Lindsay Vreeland Art Editors:

Fiction Editors:

Poetry Editors:

Media Specialists:

Mary Persichilli

Alysha Hill

David Hartwig

Alysha Hill

Lindsay Vreeland

Terry Kindig

Mary Persichilli

Mary Persichilli

Sara Strasser

Felicia Preece

Felicia Preece

Lindsay Vreeland

Lindsay Vreeland Ryan Wolfslayer

Layout Design & Editing by David Hartwig, Sara Strasser, & Lindsay Vreeland

Above: Daniel Hoffman ―Two Toledos‖ Cover Art Contest Winner: Zach Fishel ―Fragile‖ Prose Contest Winner-Fiction: Matt Kiel ―I Stay Away‖ Poetry Contest Winner: Blair Donahue ―Apparition‖ 32

Hi Readers, This is the fifth edition of The Mill and the fourth that I‘ve had the pleasure of working on. As I pass my position on to Sara Strasser and David Hartwig, I know that The Mill will only continue to get better under their shared leadership. I came to Toledo unaware of the great writers and poets that live here, and I will leave the University still in awe of their greatness. So, please, continue to read, submit, and support The Mill because amazing things can happen when enough dedicated people get together.

Thanks to my dedicated staff, the UT faculty, English Department, and the student body for continually supporting our efforts to publish talented writers. You‘re unforgettable.

And, as always, love live The Mill.

Best Wishes, Lindsay Vreeland Chief Editor—The Mill Magazine Mission Statement The Mill is a literary magazine that publishes poetry, prose (short fiction and short creative non-fiction), and art by the University of Toledo students in attempt to strengthen ties and voices in the literary community at the University. It is edited and produced once per academic semester.

We consider all submissions for the writing contest and publication. Two pieces are awarded top honors in this publication—one poetry and one prose. All submissions were evaluated on established criteria. The Mill editorial staff made the final decision on the contest winners.

For more information on the editorial staff, submission guidelines, past issues, or general inquiries find us at our website, Themill-

An Origin Story of Mythological Proportions: The Creation of The Mill On a fall evening in 1982, DW Flitcraft, of origins unknown, decides he‘s not going to work in insurance anymore. He‘s not going to see the same people he saw today tomorrow. He‘s not going to sleep in the same bed. He departs.

Not much is known about his travels. In 1987, he surfaces in San Francisco, where he publishes a poem cycle – ‗Grease Fire‘ – in the Chronicle. In 1992, he appears in an Albuquerque hospital where he is treated for trench-foot.

Traveling by foot just outside of Toledo, OH during a winter rainstorm in 2001, Flitcraft comes across The Mill. No electricity comes to this place and no candle burns in its window. So he enters.

Inside are the vestiges of a small granary operation, a moonshine distillery and a printing press. He passes the winter here. In the spring of 2002, he files for squatters rights. County records show no history of ownership for The Mill before Flitcraft.

In the years that follow, DW makes small repairs where he can.

He later claims that the printing press‘ operation is his greatest objective at this point, but by all accounts, his primary focus gets no further than moonshine.

In 2010, he‘s sick. It‘s bad. Desperate to make something of his printing press, Flitcraft enlists the help of Peter Faziani, a man he describes as ‗having shown me a kindness once.‘ Peter pools writers from the undergraduate body of the University of Toledo, where he serves as a TA, and in spring 2011, he publishes the first issue of The Mill.

DW Flitcraft departs before this date. Reams of manuscripts suggest Flitcraft‘s intent to publish his own poetry. Each spring, The Mill publishes one of these poems.

After initial publication via print and online, all Copyright reverts back to the author/artist.

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Morrison Wilson

Table of Contents

Self-Centered Hovel Life I am nervous, shaky, lazy, and mean.

I go from work to class to food to distracting myself with music and images until I have a headache to sleep to crawling out of bed later than planned and then it repeats. On Saturdays and Sundays I might cook which is good. I think that‘s okay though, because there‘s always moments of luck and goodwill from other people, and I can usually laugh at the things that made me panic two hours earlier. Watching less Bravo and walking around more would probably help.

But, I have been trying to pay attention during class presentations.

There is this one kid with a barbell piercing on his upper ear, and the whole time he was talking I was picturing a little guy doing chin-ups on the bar (he was really struggling), but the kid never realizes he‘s there which makes class funnier for me. There is another girl whose hair thing matches her Northface jacket. She is basically a nice girl and her eyes are pretty but her tone was kind of harsh during her speech. She knows what she wants to do for the next forty years (is that how long you work?). I admire her but I also wish her pain because I am a Bitter Betty.

I made a list in my journal of ―things that have gone wrong‖: sweaty palms, shooting pains behind my ears and eyes, something like dandruff but not quite, still can‘t say the ―th‖ in ―sixth‖ or ―thesis‖, blushing, general rage, bloody snot, weak joints, gingivitis. Besides that I don‘t write in my journal much, it‘s mostly a lot of nostalgia and to do lists I never started and just wrote ―HA HA‖ over in big letters. The ones from 2-3 years ago are really great though.

If I believe that out of all the friends and roommates I‘ve had in college, I‘ll only stay in touch with five (which I do), why do I worry about first impressions I made on strangers months ago?

I think a lot of this goes back to my uncle telling me ―there‘s never a reason to do anything half-assed‖ during a game of pool, which really sunk in, but probably not in the way he intended.

Elizabeth Anderson Birdsong Sandra Andrews When Your Boss Is A Retail Monster Paris Black Love and Comfort Weslie Detwiler For All the Boys Blair Donahue Apparition* Premature Lanette Dukett Pumpkin Season Lord of the Gourds Shahrazad Hamdah Nightlight Daniel Hoffman How I learned to Love the Bomb Jill Jablonski Nothing Starts Out Gnarled Rebirth Matt Keil I Stay Away* Emilee McGaffey Chapstick Catalog Lion Road Trippin‘ Shadow Jenny Pan The Scent Lindsey Ranker On Writing The Time My Brother Accidentally…

Rosemary Sorg So Much Nitya Tripuraneni One-Half Morrison Wilson Self-Centered Hovel Life The Mill‘s Origin Story DW Flitcraft Untitled

* Indicates Contest Winner 30

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4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 17 18 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 30 31 32

Elizabeth Anderson

Nitya Tripuraneni

Birdsong Today I am a sparrow, hopping through your yard on toothpick legs.

I eat the crumbs of your stale bread and think them better than seeds.

I look like male like female and nest in neon letters.

Today I am a cardinal, self-assured in my call: purtypurtypurtypurtypurty A flash of poinsettia-red in the trees, Christmas in July.

I crack cicadas with my beak and chase after females who wear drab more confidently than you wear your own naked skin.

I am both Indian and USian An ABCD (American Born Confused Desi) I was spawned from two countries not entirely belonging to one or the other I am half and half waiting to become one.

Today I am a hummingbird, ruby-throated and shining, beating my wings fifty-three times a second.

I live on nectar and flit to Mexico each winter the way I flit from carpel to carpel: Penniless and without luggage, the way you would never do.

Today I am a raven, black like your funeral dress.

I croak my condolences for the fear of your tangled life, more complex than a spider‘s web and the fly-eyes caught within it.

Today I am an eagle, with dark wings stretching from tip to tip longer than the length of your hollow body.

I feast on trout and conies, alone because I am strong and unafraid and in all other ways unlike you.

I soar high over the plains, screeching my song for all to hear.

It's a lovely day to be a bird.

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Nitya Tripuraneni

Sandra Andrews When Your Boss Is a Retail Monster

One-Half I am a divided woman a wide-eyed brown girl from a farmland state someone who calls two countries her home I call myself Indian-American D.C. born, Maryland and Mississippi raised a city girl living in small town Ohio (―lost in middle america‖ indeed) the daughter of immigrants who left their homeland in search of a better life Although I‘m bilingual (trilingual if you count Spanish) my mother tongue is alien to me the words are clumsy and raucous on my lips rather than calm and almost poetic when my parents speak like harps that lull me to sleep I find myself stuck in-between two worlds: both places where a part of me is accepted and the other half rejected tradition and devotion versus dreams and independence it‘s an eternal war raging within me

When your boss is a retail monster...

Do not let her know you think so.

Set your smile like cement, No matter the insults she spews like fire, and Agree to everything she says.

Do not sit in her special maroon office chair.

Emphatically feign loving her generically named Pomeranian dog, Ginger.

Call her boss when she won‘t let you call off For a four hour shift at night, In the middle of a weather-alerted blizzard, When you live an hour away--in good weather-And drive an Aveo, which your friends have described as a ―yellow roller skate.‖ Stack the toothpaste at precisely 90 degree angles at the end of the day, but Ignore the candle holders because she ―doesn‘t go down that aisle!‖ Develop a silent code with your coworkers that She will misconstrue as you manically trying to blink away an eyelash.

Think about putting tacks on her chair-But don‘t, because it‘s wrong... and because she‘d find out.

Learn the secret--but more important--rules.

Trust, hope, and imagine she will get better and nicer, and wait it out Just..One...More...Day! or Week...

Or month.

And when she finally pushes you that One Last Time...

QUIT! Slam down your keys with all the fury in your soul, and exit triumphantly, as Ruler of your own life again at last!

Now she will have to straighten the toothpaste.

My favorite things come from India – jasmine, spices, festivals of lights and colors my thoughts and clothes are made in the grand ol‘ USA.

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5

Paris Black

Rosemary Sorg

Love and Comfort

So Much

I lay naked and cold arms frozen to my sides palms hiding underneath my butt cheeks shivering with deadweight on top of me.

Popsicle legs extended over mine nothing but his dreams lay across my now flat c-cups.

Mouth slightly open creating a thick slow waterfall between my breast.

3 inches I move to the left his freezing hands grip my waist touching my soul.

Calming yet uncomfortable, do I dare move?

My toes numb and my bottom lip shuddering I kiss his forehead.

His bright hazelnut eyes open looking into mine, ―I love you‖ smacks my nose with hot garbage.

Sigh of relief fills my stomach as he rolls over into the fetal position I smile, cuffing his side with force ―I love you too now grab the covers you ass!‖

So much depends upon Words said at night Slithers through the grass To Bite

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Weslie Detwiler

Lindsey Raker The Time My Brother Accidentally Overdosed on Cocaine

For All the Boys

Emergency room number three is not as exciting as the Discovery Channel led me to expect.

The are no labcoats running around yelling ―STAT!‖ or ―CLEAR!‖, Or patients with voodoo stomach pains.

I feel cheated, like when the hospital vending machine gave me pretzels, when I pushed the button for a Snickers.

you are the single, timid scar trailing slowly across the full length of a soft-skinned chest a swift and thoughtless shot to the back of the head in a subconscious prayer for resurrection each relentless insecurity and quilted scrap of trust was sculpted by the lust tugging restlessly at your eyes the tired callousness in your voice all the things you didn‘t do or couldn‘t quite figure out I wonder if you‘ll ever learn to love a woman like a man.

Rather, my dad is pacing the white tiled floor, and my mom is sniffling into a tissue, and they stop only to glare at each other, as though passing the blame is going to make my brother any more responsive or responsible.

Each beep and sigh from the machine pumping air into my brother‘s tired lungs forms a rhythm, a rosary that my grandmother recites here, in emergency room number three.

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7

Lindsey Raker

Blair Donahue Apparition

On Writing

I saw you— On the tower.

It was the bell tower.

The tower of babbling, gruesome Things. I saw You there, stillTower. Opal-eyed with gaping Mouth. Unhinged.

Sucking in Night.

The river, all lights Streaming below.

Stopping only at the Red Gates.

And the clock struck.

A professor told me once to give up. He said ―the best advice I can give you is to get a degree in accounting. or medicine, or absolutely anything else.

You‘ll make sacrifices and develop alcoholism and drive yourself mad and it‘s all for nothing.‖ Business majors don‘t wonder if they‘re frauds because they haven‘t bought any worthwhile stock shares in god knows how long and their grammar is starting to get rusty and their rent is due again.

Biologists don‘t worry about enjambments and disappointing their parents.

Postal workers don‘t concern themselves with the overarching theme in their mail route.

Writing breaks you down into small pieces and makes you examine them all under a microscope. It gets inside of your head and knocks shit about until next thing you know you‘re laying facedown on the living room floor having an existential crisis triggered by the flu shot you received earlier that day.

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25

Jenny Pan

Blair Donahue

The Scent

Premature

All of a sudden In the midst of the night Light grows from the window Renewing all the life Slumbering trees awake To the morning sun Stretching its gnarly limbs Knots and bundled leaves coming undone The plants and tall grass All breathe a sigh of relief When they all feel the warmth All they did was believe

A planted bulb in winter, Tender onion sprout, Brushed in brown ash, Smells of earth— Earth.

Pushing at the womb, withheld, Curled fingers, stretched Roots, fragile spider-veins With no rain running through.

But shadows begin to appear Behind houses and cars Twisted patterns behind leaves Wherever you go, here they are Nevertheless, creatures start to stir Crunching the dried up leaves on the ground Scurrying back and forth Leaving a rustle, a scent In nature, nothing is bound The free, moving wind Can do anything in the world Tug at your coats Steal your hat And make a girl‘s hair float It all fills up the lungs Paints a clear picture in the mind Loosens up the body It is the scent of life

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9

Lanette Dukett

Emilee McGaffey

Pumpkin Season

Shadow

Watching the exhales of my breathe without warning The smell of tangy apple cider mornings Sip hot cocoa each night Birch branches barren and white Squirrels gather acorns with no time to rest Blackbird under wing inside a twig nest Freshly fallen leaf piles divine Orange heads hang about twisting vines Even more reason To love pumpkin season.

As the Sun creeps over the rim, she waits on edge for the slightest dim of her existence.

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The reflection of being, the shaded reminder, the two-dimensional silhouette revives behind her, casting a clone as she stands alone along side of the swelling sun.

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Lanette Dukett

Emilee McGaffey Road Trippin’

Lord of the Gourds

A bit of rebellion sparks up American Girl dreams.

A youthful desire to escape routine and to embark on the serenity of nature.

So I go– jump on in the old Ford bandwagon door and it seems as though I‘ll take off from the window seat and gaze out beneath frosted tips on thin limbs of hovering oak trees.

We wisp through brisk climates with high hopes.

So I cruise– ‗long side mountains that echo the coos of laughing Baffoons who are lost, deep in the smog of neighboring log cabins.

We cross borders and state signs over baking-soda white lines, trails, and potholes.

So I roll– above legal speeds on the freeway from tolls, as we race to chow down at ‗Dat Cajun Place in town.

The southern glow sheds upon bluegrass plateaus and hilltop antiques, which reek the taste of cow manure fenced in fungi fields.

Sometimes pumpkins suckle Upon twisted tentacle vines Plump in nursery beds Sometimes sit in rows Round relatives rest Laze about in leathery skin Sometimes sowed in bumpy dirt rows Await October‘s adoption Sometimes shiny shells Filled with slimy string guts Dangle slippery seeds Hang in hollowness Sometimes smashed smooth Into creamy sweet paste Served on Thanksgiving Baked in flakey pie crust Sometimes jack o‘ lanterns Flash their candle lit smiles Eyes two luminous triangles Abate yellow flickers Sometimes as orange celebrities Appear on Halloween night Pumpkins remain Lord of the gourds

So I coast– under the influence of needle palm trees.

With ease, we inhale and abuse the perfumes of the seaside air before we rekindle the flare, before we nosedive in Atlantic booze.

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Shahrazad Hamdah

Emilee McGaffey

Nightlight

Lion

So of course I don't actually want to admit this to you Telling you this face to face would probably be torture And I would sit there horrified that I communicated such sappiness BUT a poem fixes all that with a few lines and a string of previously disconnected thoughts You're like spring mornings after I spent all of January, February, andMarch complaining If comfort sang, it'd be you performing in front of millions There are some days Those didn't-have-coffee days, sad days, menace-to-society days And the If-I-didn't-have-you-I-don't-know-what-I-would-do days.

You're like...

Friday-before-winter-break cool Cobblestones-of-Jerusalem cool You're Broadway when the world is singing the blues And I wish I were just like you Don't tell anyone...

But when you're not around I'm afraid of the dark This is how it's gonna be someday, you not always here You see, this is the part of the poem where I run out of things to say...

But I hope this proves to you that Since you're here now Everything's okay And my hands are open Let my words fly out, settle on your shoulders Because I wrote this just for you

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Nobody knows but I. Why? Well, because he told me so.

Or so I would say– I said he lays low a while, while he waves wands about a Cuban Colossal, or a man without a mane on the prowl for ancient fossils.

Yes, that was it! I told them some heroic, majestic, off center statistic.

He‘s nothing too realistic, but for those of you who missed him, he‘s neither here nor there, he‘s everywhere you won‘t see.

A caged animal among the agency, where he waits with the wild until his next flee.

At least, that‘s what they told me, but I‘m telling you that‘s false!

He bid farewell for work, that‘s all.

Mister Founder of Finance has a busy schedule.

A ―staple of society‖, I guarantee you that might be a myth, more or less, but now really I can confess that he took a hike up Makalu Mountain that is, that‘s right!

He‘s an astronomer by night, reaching the highest peaks for a better sight but he‘s racing the speed of light to return, to recite what he has learned and share what he has earned.

Our King of the Jungle is a Lion son of a bitch and if I knew my Father, I would know all of this.

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Emilee McGaffey

Daniel Hoffman

Chapstick Catalog

How I Learned to Love the Bomb

Chap, chafed, crack stick.

The cool and calm, balm in your palm, ―cream of the chops‖ stick.

The shape of a cherry push popsicle every child loathes to lick.

I asked a flower, ―How do you stay beautiful In such a dark and harsh world?‖ She responded, ―My beauty is simple, straightforward.

The beauty of a bomb is not.

Once you learn to love the bomb You will see my petals Everywhere.‖

The Christmas Classic, tucked in red stockings which grow as teens twist the gloss-glue mixture that mature into ―swappin‘ spit‖ sticks.

Cap the ―first kiss‖ stick, Lads to Ladies who won‘t forget but still seal the lip– Stick.

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13

Matt Keil

Prose Contest Winner– Fiction

Jill Jablonski Nothing Starts Out Gnarled As I sit here in my rocking chair, my limbs crippled and gnarled and knotted with arthritis, it sometimes seems that I was born this way.

Though a faded piece of crimson Japanese paper—a talisman that I always keep with me, serves as my constant reminder that I was not always as weak as I am now.

For as long as I can remember, I had always wanted to visit Japan.

Then, when I was only in my twenties, I finally got the opportunity to meet the people of Tokyo and travel to their far off land of Japan and experience the culture that I had so often dreamt about. But, I never expected to feel so out of place in the city that I had longed to visit for the better part of my life. Yet, from the moment that I stepped off the train and took in my surroundings, I felt immediately out of place. It was as if this was not the Tokyo I has expected. Rather, it seemed that I was in an unfamiliar world draped in red. Then to make matters worse, the dusty gray trench coat that that I had on made me feel overly noticeable in their world of red charms, of which dangled from all the shop windows that surrounded the train station. Ah, yes, I remember these charms so well, they were all colored red, and some of these talismans had such a deep hue to them that they looked as if they were made from the blood of demons—the very demons that they were made to repel.

Just looking at these deep scarlet charms took me back to a time when I was small and afraid of demons myself; but then I shook my head and started running from the shop before the memories could overtake me.

Though, was I really running from the shops? Or was I really running away from the memories of the deep red charms brought forth within my memories? I stopped abruptly as soon as I was out of sight from the shops, and found myself gazing up at the most beautiful sight that I had ever beheld. Standing right in front of me was an ancient Japanese cherry tree in full bloom. I stood there studying the tree for quite some time, taking in the beauty of wizened texture. The structure of the tree also fascinated me; the gnarled branches of this Goliath twisted and turned like it had been there for ages, watching us as we watched it. The wispy blossoms, which were a light pink color, reminded me of butterflies, it was as if they were saying, ―it‘s okay, there‘s nothing to fear.‖ I sighed, grateful for the peace that this tree provided me. ―Did you hear what I said?‖ ―Huh?‖ I said as I reluctantly pulled my eyes away from the tree and turned to face a Japanese man standing behind me. The man behind me, 14

into clumps held together by dirt, each one of his legs coated in dried mud, relentlessly bore deeper into the earth, his claws running against the dark, damp soil. I shouted out, ―Hey!‖, he stopped his work and brought his head up quickly, staring back with eyes that looked like a lifeless pair of black marbles, wild eyes filled with apathy. He slowly backed away from the hole, trotting off casually down an alleyway close by. Not out of fear, but more of a courtesy on his part to humor me.

The next few weeks I‘d come home and find the same spot dug up, deeper every time, eventually enough for the stray dog to crawl under the fence. The white Labrador would have bite marks around its neck trickled with blood and spots of dirt smeared across its smooth white coat. The hole was always filled back in, just to be dug up the next day, the Lab left with more wounds.

Eventually I stopped filling the hole in. The vagrant dog comes into the yard now almost every day, eating from the dishes and sometimes sleeping inside of the red doghouse I‘d built, making it his own. I will not go near him. They stay laid out, heads low, eyes rolling in their sockets following me when I leave in the morning and come back at night.

The two of them don‘t fight anymore and the wild dog seems to have made the place his home. The Labrador that used to belong to me now sees him as the master. There isn‘t much grass left in the yard now either.

They both dug most of it out to roll around in the dirt underneath, the Lab‘s coat is barely recognizable. The other dog is a derelict, an anathema, having lived too long on the streets he is the kind of animal that will never live inside someone‘s home, will never be attached to a leash, will never be a thing anyone would call a ―pet‖.

I‘m not sure I can even tell the difference between the two of them anymore.

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Matt Keil

Jill Jablonski

Prose Contest Winner– Fiction

I Stay Away In the small allowance of my cramped and suburban backyard I‘ve had this pure white Labrador for a year. There‘s a steel cage fence, about chest high on all four sides and three adjacent neighbors surrounding a 20x20 patch of the greenest, most luscious Ohio Bluegrass you‘ve ever seen.

Michelle, the real estate agent who showed me the place, confessed that I had stumbled upon a real treasure with this one. Having your own backyard this deep into the city was luxury. A yard of Bluegrass that might as well have been thirty acres. The Labrador‘s pristine white coat would flash across that small patch of verdant green lawn as he darted around chasing butterflies and squirrels. His doghouse sat in the far right corner, hand-painted, bright red with black shingles like miniature barn, and beside it two separate dishes for food and water.

The space wasn‘t an expansive, open valley, a capacious ranch with a variety of animals to interact with, but it was everything that dog required, and it was all his. I‘d leave him food and water every day before I left for the office, he‘d show his gratitude by the wag of his tail, waiting to eat until after he had seen my car pull out of the driveway and leave for work.

Then right when I got home he‘d be there, eyes wide in excitement on his hind legs, leaning up against the fence, head darting around and tongue flashing in and out of a open mouth . We were both content. Helped each other be that way, even.

I came home from work one day, made my way to the backyard and immediately noticed a spot near the fence. The grass was clawed away and the dirt spilled out from a ditch. Everything else immaculate, just as it should‘ve been, except for that one hole and the small pile of freshly removed dirt around its outer rim. The spot was on the outside of the yard, deep enough to leave a gap between the bottom of the fence and the exposed earth below but too shallow for the dog to have been able to get out. I doubt he was interested in the ditch, let alone at the prospect of escaping from what he‘d come to know as his home. So I filled in the gap with some moist potting soil I kept in the garage and tried my best to arrange the detached chunks of grass in a way that seemed natural. I couldn‘t, and the wound in the earth remained hacked and open.

A few days later, while working on my car, I heard the sound of loose dirt being strewn across the grass, the small clumps of dirt thumping against the ground as they rained down. I looked over to the same area and saw a scroungy brown mutt clawing away under the fence as the white Lab sat there and watched. The mutt, his shaggy hair matted down 18

he was so much like the tree, he had a kind of wizened expression to his face, which was gnarled with age, much like the face of the ancient tree before me.

The man looked at me with a sober face and repeated the words that he must have said to me earlier. ―Are you a tourist?‖ ―Um, yes.‖ I stuttered, now aware that I was the only one in the park that was not wearing any sort of Japanese clothing. I also felt intimidated by the way the old ancient man had said the world ―tourist‖, for he spoke the word as if it had left a sour taste in his mouth. ―You should have come earlier.‖ The man said, and, as it was a warm evening, he retrieved from his pocket a fine white linen hanky and dabbed at the small droplets that had gathered on his forehead. ―Why? Why should I have come earlier?‖ I asked. ―Because,‖ The man replied as if he were talking to a small child, ―the blossoms won‘t last much longer; they‘ll be gone in a day or two.‖ He paused for a moment and then added—not unkindly. ―That is what the tourist comes for—to merely see the blossoms.‖ He said that word again, ―tourist‖ as if I was not a person that has spent all my life dreaming of his great land, but a mindless thing instead. ―Thank you,‖ I said stiffly, ―I‘ll keep that in mind.‖ ―Well then.‖ he said looking up at the sky. ―I should be going now.‖ With that, he turned, making a slight bow as he left.

As he walked away, I found myself looking at his back, pondering on how could someone from this land speak to me like that? I wondered how, in a country like Japan, where the people are supposed to have impeccable, established from centuries of tradition and superstition, talk to me in such a way Though my thoughts were promptly interrupted when I felt someone tugging on my sleeve. It was a small girl; she was no more than eight years old, with coal black Asian eyes, wearing traditional Japanese garbs and pink cherry blossoms in her short black hair. ―Hi,‖ she said in clear English, ―you want to buy a charm—only ten yen?‖ I started to say no when she raised her basket, and I saw the same shade of red that was in the windows of the shops. Though as I gazed down at the girl‘s smiling face, acting like there was no place she would rather be, and no one else she‘d rather talk to I hesitated on my words. ―They‘ll protect you from bad spirits, and bring you good luck!‖ The girl said, still smiling at me. I couldn‘t help but smile back at her. ―Yes,‖ I said after a moment, ―I think I will buy a charm.‖ I handed 15

Jill Jablonski

Jill Jablonski

the girl ten yen and carefully picked up a charm.

After I paid her, she handed me the little red paler talisman from her basket and ran back to meet her parents. They too were dressed in yukatas, a type of traditional robe word fir informal occasions. Though this reunion of the girl and parents seemed uncannily out of place. For the parents were wearing Nikes under their robes, rather than traditional sandals, but it was when the child spoke to her father that I felt a jolt of something unpleasant in my heart. ―Can we go to McDonalds and get burgers now?‖ She asked.

This simple phrase that the girl spoke saddened, but at the time, I didn‘t know why; maybe it was because for a brief minute I had felt that I had made this journey, to this far off land, and saw nothing that I would not find in my homeland. For I could easily find a rude old man, or a child asking for a hamburger most anywhere in the world.

Disheartened, I looked down at the talisman the little girl had sold me; it was a simple paper charm with Japanese symbols on the front written in golden ink. On the other side of the charm, the symbols were translated into English: nothing starts out gnarled always remember this.

And do this day; some seventy years later, I always have remembered those deceivingly simple words

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Rebirth A shivering child Cold enveloping darkness Wrapped in Deaths‘ embrace

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