Volume 8f

2014 Selected and edited by: Janelle Allen Krystina Butler James McNulty Marina Millison Jerrod Schwarz Donna Walker

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Advised by: Ira Sukrungruang Christine Lasek Cover Photo by: Jimmy McNulty Design & Layout by: Janelle Allen Krystina Butler Sponsored by: USF Student Government USF College of Arts & Sciences USF Council of Undergraduate Research

thread Literary Inquiry is an undergraduate literary journal staffed by student editors. We strive to publish the best undergraduate writing that the University of South Florida has to offer. Submissions are accepted from all genres within these categories: short fiction, nonfiction, essay, literary criticism, poetry, and screenplays.

Learn more about thread at: english.usf.edu/thread facebook.com/threadUSF Copyright thread 2014 All rights reserved and revert to authors and artists on publication.

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Contents Editor’s Note

5

Wild Flowers Jordan Saucedo

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Gringa Melissa Moreno

8

Beyond Jonathan Craft

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Mistakes by the Numbers Michelle Bonitatibus

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Josephine’s Name Sheldon Menery

34

Privilege Maria Dones

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Vesta Rescue Colin Collins

45

How We Deal With Loneliness Caitlin Lochner

51

The Young Thanatos Giovanni Fitzpatrick

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Literature as Escapism: The Diversion of Le Morte d’Arthur Gabriella Andujar

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Oppressive Magic: The Political Warnings of Orwell’s 1984 within Rowling’s Harry Potter Benjamin Carter

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Contents

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83

If I Remember Correctly, Life Expectancy After Diagnosis is 7 Years Phoebe Levija

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Reverse Mitigation Amanda Riehm

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This Has Been a Test Amanda Riehm

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Led Zeppelin Cento Alina Rodriguez

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The Ouse River Took Me Alina Rodriguez

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Everything Seems Whimsical to Steffy Stephania Everett

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Glass Blower’s Daughter Erika Johnson

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She Never Really Left Peekskill Erika Johnson

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First Aria Hannah Lay

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Dad’s Model Airpane Colette Earnest

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Voodoo Sarah Violante

Editor’s Note thread__

a surprisingly complex word with multiple definitions and usages. The

Oxford Dictionary defines “thread” as:

•noun: A long, thin strand of cotton, nylon, or other fibers used in sewing or weaving.

•noun: A theme or characteristic, typically forming one of several, running

throughout a situation or piece of writing.

•verb: Pass through something.

I deem all of these definitions relevant, and I think of the multitude of students attending the University of South Florida, passing through years of studying diverse bodies of knowledge. I recall a young woman walking, her face—in awe, carrying an ancient, human skull resting upon a soft cloth. I think back to the groups of men and women huddled, mastering Mechanical Engineering, calculating and recalculating numbers late into the evening hours. From Anthropology to Zoology, USF students represent a microcosm of our diverse, teeming planet. This leads me to question, “What unites us? What exactly is the common element we share?” An insight...

Writing is the thread that binds us together, for no matter the foci of study, every student writes.

thread literary journal celebrates emerging writers from all fields of study, highlighting the finest crafted undergraduate writing USF offers. We recognize that writing takes guts, and we applaud every writer who grabbed the courage to seek us out and hit the submit button. Each editor reads every submission; with immense respect, we chose the precise fabric of words to stitch together thread vol.8. Here you will find poems, fiction, creative non-fiction, and literary criticism— works crafted into unique perspectives and passed through a rigorous selection process. No matter whether you are a casual reader or a professor, we invite you to stop for a moment, settle into your favorite chair, and enjoy.

Donna

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Wild Flowers Jordan Saucedo

Years from now I’ll hear about a flood in Colorado. I’m sure it won’t touch your dad’s ranch house at the foot of Horsetooth Mountain, or the new barn your family will erect, or the gold and purple freckled prairie where morning glories and mouse ears will bloom in the spring.

You love those little pink and white flowers. Wildflowers cover every inch of your bedroom and all of the windowsills in the house. All congregated together like churchgoers on Sunday morning; the clear Mason jars are their pews. You tie bows around their necks for modesty sake, and drape colorful plastic beads on their extremities. Every time I come to your house, we go for walks in search of wildflowers to decorate your mother’s kitchen with.

I follow you through unexplored trails leading to ponds and miniature canyons in the prairie, fishing for wildflowers to fill your basket. You cut a path through the tall grasses with your muddy, brown, cowgirl boots that reach half way up your ivory calves toward cutoff denim shorts. Every once in awhile you throw your hand up to your head to stop the wind from blowing that worn, white, woven hat away. You laugh at the prairie dogs that chase each other over hills. Their tiny furry golden bodies bob in sync with one another as they bound from one hole in the ground to the next. Inspired, you spring down a spiral staircase of rock and brome and wild rye.

You point out fossils inscribed on the palms of miscellaneous rocks that have been turned up by coyotes. Leaves, plants, faces, fishes, skinny bony bodies all imprinted on the surfaces, most long since extinct. Freckles of dirt and clay mottle the engravings. One fossil displays the mangled face of a flower resembling a mutilated cherry blossom. You slide your finger over it, clearing the dirt, and lay the piece of stone on top of your basket full of flowers. It sits like a paperweight. You push your hat back a tad and press on.

The summer rain has filled the cleft in the bottom of John Hall canyon, and you drop your basket, toss your hat away, kick off your boots, and jump in. You stay underwater just long enough to make me think that the water is warm, but I know it isn’t. You stick your flushed face and neck out of the water and wave for me to get in. I hop in just in time to avoid you splashing my face.

The rim of the pond is layered with multicolored wildflowers. You point out your favorites, climb to the ledge of the swimming hole, and begin picking.

Your feet dangle in the water. You pull a handful of wiry-stemmed, purple, Parry’s bellflowers from the dirt. Maybe fifteen of them. Then you weave their ends

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together. In and out, miniature chain links are formed. The flowers’ heads are close together. You use your thumbnail to bend the ends and tie them together. The link is short, barely long enough to reach around your tiny wrist.

You notice a patch of pink clovers. Their friendly little heads that look like bunny tails are exactly what your chain link requires. You pick them, hand them to me, and request that I remove the leaves from all of their stems.

Leaf by leaf by leaf, a small pile accumulates under my hands. I work slowly to keep the long stems intact, but also because my focus is on your meticulous work. You weave and bend and knot and twirl and weave again until the bunny tails have connected one end of the line of bellflowers to the other. Your chain has grown, the circumference so long that it could wrap three times around your wrist. We giggle, and then you drop the flowery crown onto my head. I flick the abandoned bunny tail leaves into the pond, and we watch them scatter in their rippling grave.

Years from now I’ll hear about a flood. A flood that will devastate the land from which we pluck our flowers. And I’ll hear of your joys and your troubles. But I know that you’ll be a wildflower who will get plucked up and used in a handsome bouquet. You’ll be the pretty yellow daisy in someone’s farmhouse windowsill where people will stop to look. You’ll look out and laugh even when the days are dismal and roads are sloggy. You will smile at the floods.

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Gringa

Melissa Moreno “We’re just going to go around the room, and you’re going to say your name, where you’re from, and a fun fact about yourself,” The teacher made her way around the classroom, pouring M&Ms on our napkins.

“My name is Melissa, I’m from Boca Raton, Florida.” I paused, scratching a red M&M against my nails, as if it would paint them red. “I’m the only person in my family born in America.” * My mother and I are the first ones to arrive at the Miami hospital. Tia Isabelle’s room is cold and white. A green hue blankets the furniture as the sun tries to break through the curtains, and the TV plays its story in silence. Three different machines take turns beeping, making it difficult to ignore.

Tia Isabelle’s ankle is elevated in a strap. Blood seeps through her bandages, so I look at her face instead. Her tan face, usually a carefully painted canvas, is bare but still beautiful. The glow of her dark eyes and the joy she wears like jewels have not diminished. She puts on a smile as my mother and I walk in.

We talk until my other aunts and uncles arrive. Spanish greetings bounce around the room. I keep my greeting simple, like my vocabulary.

“Alex is on his way,” Tia Isabelle announces from her hospital bed.

This isn’t news. Alex, her son-in-law, travels between Colombia and the U.S. for business. He isn’t a permanent resident like the rest of us, but he’s around enough to be expected. What I don’t expect to see is his daughter.

When Alejandra walks through the door, my lungs deflate like a balloon held to a pin. My little baby cousin isn’t a baby anymore. She walks into the room on her little legs, wearing big girl shoes. Her long curly hair is a waterfall of brown ringlets down her back. Her voice is small and happy like I had known her voice would sound. She’s six. And even though this is only my second time meeting her, I love her like a sister.

“Do you remember her?” my mother says to Alejandra in Spanish, her finger extended in my direction. My cousin’s head shakes, a shy smile on her face.

“Me llamo Melissa. I’m your older cousin.” My words fumble against themselves.

“I’ve never had an older cousin before,” she says. Her Spanish words are angelic. The vowels dance together the way my mother’s do. I spread my arms wide and bend down to her level. She doesn’t hesitate to hug me.

When I notice Alejandra getting bored of my uncle’s adult jokes, I take

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her down to the cafeteria to buy her a soda because I know Colombians are possibly more addicted to Coca-Cola than Americans are. Her small fingers wrap around mine as we walk and I ask her so many questions. Does she like America? How is her mom? What is her favorite Disney princess? Rapunzel. We share the same one.

Alejandra understands every word I say. She recognizes my strange accent, but she doesn’t find me odd. If anything, she finds me fascinating.

Back at the hospital room, we continue to talk. Her “R”’s roll off her tongue effortlessly and I’m jealous. I play with her hair as I think of another question, flipping through the small Spanish-English dictionary in my head. Alex looks at me, watching me talk to his daughter with a disapproving look on his face.

“So, why don’t you know Spanish yet?” he asks me in English. They do that sometimes. The few members of my family that know English make a point to talk to me in my native tongue, as if I can’t handle the conversation in Spanish.

Sometimes, I hate to admit, I can’t.

I look at the others, at my mother, to see if they heard Alex’s unnecessary question. They’re all huddled around my aunt, listening to my uncle’s crude humor and laughing loudly. I’m suddenly aware of my breathing as I turn back to him.

“I know some. I’m still learning.” I try hard to hide the defense in my voice. This sudden frustration that stirs in me is foreign because I usually do well at brushing things off. But when people point out my broken Spanish in a family of fluent Colombians, it takes all of me to keep my feelings from triggering tears. I don’t need to be reminded that I stand out.

“Right. And how old are you now?”

I brace for his judgment. “Twenty-one.”

He leans against a cabinet and looks away, disappointed. A cold sheet of ice forms between us. “Yeah,” he says as if he’d just made a point. “You’re not learning fast enough.” * The memories of my childhood were sculpted by images of rosaries, clotheslines out the second-floor window, and men selling pirated movies and cheap kites on the side of the road. It’s sculpted by family bakeries, watching Los Reyes before dinner, and pesos I didn’t know how to use. Every summer I was fascinated by all of it.

One summer, I arrived at my Tia Betty’s house and was immediately attacked with kisses from my aunts and uncles. I felt fingers closed around my arm.

Julian and Luisa, my two favorite cousins in Colombia, pulled me away from the huddle.

“Julian, Luisa!”

Small voices came through the open windows, covered by lace curtains.

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The neighborhood kids never bothered to knock on the door or ring the doorbell.

If a window was open (and they were always open), the only doorbell they needed were their voices. “Is your cousin here yet?”

“Si,” Julian shouted to the window, then to his mother. “Nos vamos.”

“Be back by dinner,” Tia Betty said.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Melissa,” my mother called as Luisa and Julian pulled me out the door.

“Be careful please. Don’t leave your cousins’ side. ” The playground is made of splintered wood, painted over in faded yellow paint. A cracked and weed-infested basketball court covers the dirt with two small soccer nets at the end and a beat-up soccer ball waiting to be kicked again. There was no basketball in sight. Seven of us sat on the top of the jungle gym, passing around a bag of candy. I grabbed at it desperately, eyeing the Sparkies, a candy similar to skittles.

“Have you met any famous people in America?”

“Uh, no.”

“Do you see a lot of limos?”

“Sometimes.”

“How do you say mierda?”

“Shit.”

Laughter erupted from my cousin’s friends as they tried their hardest to pronounce the word “shit.”

“How do you say perra?”

“Bitch.”

“What does your house look like?” Sarah asked. She was beautiful: tan clear skin and black wavy hair that framed her face like a masterpiece. Later she would become a model in Miami, and I will have wondered why she never called.

“It’s one floor. Not very big, but it’s nice.” I wanted to say a lot more about my house, but couldn’t come up with a correct sentence.

Sarah giggled. “You sound so adorable and exotic! Qué chévere.”

I smiled. “Gracias.”

Every summer was the same drill. They would ask me to say certain things and then ask me longer questions, just to hear my accent. I wasn’t used to the attention, but I expected it when I came to Colombia. My cousins and their friends made me feel cool without even trying, simply because I was different. Simply because I knew English. To them I was a walking image of a world they had never experienced. I loved it.

But as I got older, I came to wish that I had never embraced my differences.

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The sun descended deeper behind the Colombian mountains, making the streets dark. Luisa looked at her watch. “Julian, we have to go.”

Julian waved her off, continuing to talk to his friends. Luisa rolled her eyes and pulled at his arm. “Ahora!”

“Hasta mañana?” I said as I climbed down the jungle gym.

They smiled and nodded. Sarah swooned at my accent once more. “Of course. Hasta mañana!”

My grandmother set the table with her usual dinner: bowls of steaming sancocho with avocado and rice.

I took a seat between my two cousins. I rested my arm next to theirs on the table but couldn’t look away. Their skin was so dark. My American friends would hold their arms next to mine and say, “Melissa, you’re so naturally tan.

You’re so lucky.” But there, I was a white sheep in a black herd. There, I was truly American. My skin wasn’t fair simply because I was born in the U.S. My mom’s skin is as fair as mine. Yet, she belonged to this world more than I ever did.

“Gringa,” my grandmother called. I turned around to face her. I wondered if she had forgotten my name, or if Gringa was my name. “What do you want to drink?” * My fingers grip tightly around the steering wheel as tears made the road hazy. I pull onto the highway, accelerating faster as if that would leave his cold words in Miami.

“Why are you crying?” my mother asks.

“I don’t like Alex.” My words sound broken up, like a bad phone signal.

“Why?” My mother’s eyes scan my face as if the answer will be there.

My throat is blocked by sobs and it takes five deep breaths to push them back down. “He said I wasn’t learning Spanish fast enough.”

She sighed, relieved. “Don’t take it so personally.”

“I’m tired of not being able to talk to my own family. I’m different. I don’t belong.”

She leaned back in the passenger seat, sighing loudly and staring at the cars in front of us. “It’s my fault. I should have made you speak Spanish with me when you were little. You just loved speaking in English with your friends!”

The fault was mine completely. My friends always ask me why I speak to my mother in English. I used to think it was just habit, or that I was embarrassed. It took me a long time to realize that it was because I don’t want to struggle speaking to my own mother, of all people.

“You belong in this family,” my mother said. “Don’t ever think otherwise.” *

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My body wasn’t the only thing that changed when I was a teenager. My cousins and their friends didn’t find me so impressive anymore. I stopped being this exotic girl with a cute accent and a memorized English-Spanish dictionary.

“What’s so great about the United States anyway?” Julian asked me one summer. He had begun to see us the way the rest of the world sees us, like the assholes of the world.

He sat beside me on the couch, body frozen on the edge of the cushion with his fingers darting up and across the Play Station controller. His lips were slightly parted in concentration as the TV dried out his eyes.

Our streets were cleaner. Our schools were better. Our houses were airconditioned, and we could afford both a washer and dryer. Our children don’t juggle oranges for money on every street corner, and my heart doesn’t have to break for them. I got my first job at the age of 16. We don’t have to fear the mountains because of drug cartels.

But my first selfish thought when he asked me that question was that, at least all my friends had a Play Station 2.

“I don’t know,” I said, turning back to the TV. * I sit in the back seat of my cousin’s small car with his wife and daughter.

My mother sits in the passenger seat in front of me, looking out the window, and I do the same. I squint my eyes through the darkness to see the olive trees that are planted on every open soil of Spain. I stare out at the small cities tucked in the valleys of the mountains, forming a pond of light at the mountain’s base. “¿Sabes qué? Your Spanish doesn’t sound so bad.”

I look at my cousin Jairo. His eyes stare back at me through the rear-view mirror. For a second, anger boils inside me because I think my mother has shared my insecurities with him.

“It can be better.” I lean forward in my seat, push my hair back. My mind is running on either motivation or desperation when I speak again. I can’t tell which. “I’m thinking about going to Colombia for a few months this summer. A family friend told me he could get me a job. That way, I can practice speaking. I can live with my cousin and take dancing classes.”

“Alone?”

“Well, yes. I’m an adult. I want to ride taxis through the city by myself.”

Jairo’s “No, that’s too dangerous” is met with my mother’s “Absolutely not.” The car fills with silence. My cousin’s wife looks out the window, and his daughter stares curiously at her father. I join her.

“Soy un adulta,” I say again. I am not a child anymore.

“I left Colombia because I didn’t want to raise my daughter in such a

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dangerous city like Cali,” Jairo says. My mother nods by his side. “Did you know I was a taxi driver? Do you know those people who clean your windshields for money?” I did know of them. Sometimes turning on the wipers was the only way to get them to leave. “Some of those people are organized criminals. They would peer into the car to see how you dressed, how much money you had. Then they would call over their friends and mug you. I was held at gun point once.”

The car falls silent for a few moments until I speak again.

“I just want to be Colombian.”

“Melissa,” Jairo begins. “You will never be Colombian.”

His words sting the blood that runs through my heart. I look away, but his words don’t stop coming.

“You were born and raised in the U.S and that can’t be changed. You grew up in that culture, you learned their ways. You’ve suffered through America’s problems, not Colombia’s. Your American accent is too strong to change now. You will always sound like one of them.”

We drive through a tunnel. Flashing lights fall on the car and he continues to look at me through the mirror. I grab at my hair and watch the lights go by. He is right. I will never be Colombian.

“Your Spanish is better though,” he says when the final light flashes by. * I watch my boyfriend’s finger run over the titles displayed on the bookshelf. Business and Finance. This is a section of Barnes and Nobles I would never find myself in. “It should be over here…” he says, bending down to look at the bottom shelf.

I lean on the shelf next to the one he examines, looking out at the store.

The info desk stands in the middle, lonely and unattended.

“I’ll be right back,” I say.

I stand at the desk, looking around until an employee notices me and hurries behind the desk.

“What can I find for you?” The woman adjusts her glasses and hovers her fingers over the keyboard, ready to type.

Jairo’s cold and honest words have forced me to look at myself for who I really am. Even as a child, I never felt Colombian. My Spanish will always carry a heavy English accent that will separate me from the rest of my family. I will never belong to my family’s country but, like many other Americans who wish to connect with the rest of the world, I can become fluent.

“The Fault in Our Stars by John Green,” I tell her. “Do you have it in Spanish?”

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Beyond

Jonathan Craft

Tabitha blinked in timed correspondence with her programming. Slowly she rose and put her feet to the cold floor. She had been told to stay in bed should her client fall asleep, but the potential allure of the world beyond the sliding glass door once again proved itself too captivating. The client mumbled softly in his sleep, but soon returned to his quiet slumber, hugging the covers even tighter.

Tabitha walked to the door and put her hand to the pane. Even the well-insulated construction of the building could not mask the frigidity of the air outside, not this high up. She pressed several numbers on the keypad next to it, requesting access to the small outside terrace. After a moment, the door slid open abruptly without a sound. It welcomed into the room a violent rush of chilled air.

Not wanting to risk waking the client, Tabitha quickly stepped over the threshold and the door slid automatically shut behind her.

The sights and sounds of the night embraced her. Up here, Tabitha wanted to touch the sky. It was a swirling mass of constantly changing colors. From deep wrathful red, to regal wisps of purple, to brief blips of lime green, Tabitha wanted to touch it all. The rich aurora was breathtaking.

A far off gleam in the distance beckoned to her. It was the Statue of Liberty. Her chrome skin shined magnificently on even the darkest nights by the refraction of the lights of the city. It was a beacon in the toxic mist.

Tabitha grasped the icy railing and looked down as turbulent gusts of wind whipped around her. Below, the city of New York was awake as it always was.

The streets beneath and the skyscrapers above me all emitted an ominous yellow radiance, so permeating that it could give the illusion of daylight through thin curtains.

A few blocks away, the most alien building in New York could be seen.

Though its name eluded her, its tiny nature and malformed architecture seemed to suggest a relic. It stood with a profound permanence, humbly in the other buildings shadows.

Though some buildings like this presented a curiosity, there was one which she implicitly knew. Far across the street past the dozen or so lanes of multilayered traffic, stood Idalanley Tower. Singular panes of glass covered two-thirds of the building like a metallic reptilian skin. With five distinctly placed spires jutting from the roof, it looked like a menacing claw trying to scrape the sky.

This building was all purpose. It was a place of housing for thousands, it was a place of work and business, but above all it was most recognized for its

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nightclubs.

Tabitha gazed down in infinite wonderment at the illuminating windows of the lower floors. They fluctuated wildly in color to entertain and fuel the everparty.

She stretched herself over the railing in an attempt to hear the almost inaudible sounds radiating from the city’s heart. A deep fantastical pulse by which The Beat was kept. Though reduced to a mere metronome at Tabitha’s great distance, it was all that was required for her to construct her own musical dreamscapes. The Beat echoed through her, it was the city’s heartbeat that drew her forth. She had to find its source.

Suddenly she was forced to lean back into the terrace from her poised position as a mighty dirigible skirted not two yards from the railing, and threatened to behead her. She began to read the all-too-familiar advertisement: “Grand Opening! Heartbeatz Nightclub, come to dance your worries away! Located on the upper deck of Idalanley Tower on west 42nd street.” The engorged beast slowly drifted past the terrace and around the side of the building.

Tabitha stirred from her cold roost. The railing of the terrace creaked in protest as she shifted her weight. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough, this listening from afar. She had often dreamt about leaving her assigned floor and beyond, if only to discover the source of such beautiful sounds and tantalizing spectacles.

She was decided. There could be no more idle standing around or romanticizing over an unattainable fantasy. Tonight she had what she needed.

She pulled her ice-encrusted arms from the railing; she did not notice they had become stuck to the frozen metal. Tabitha again turned her attention to the sliding glass door which again would need careful dexterity in order to not wake the client. She maneuvered with ease through the narrow opening and slid the door closed. The client’s greediness with the covers shielded him from the icy exchange and he did not stir. Though to be sure, Tabitha once again exhaled in his face a pleasing wave of nitrous oxide, a convenient side effect of her hybridized design.

Quietly, she walked to the dresser and searched for something to wear.

She did not at all fancy the tight leather outfit the client picked out, which still remained in a heap on the floor from hours previous. She didn’t want something too revealing but also not something that was shapeless. She wanted to look pretty. Finally, she found her favorite dress shoved to the very back of the drawer.

A sleeveless dress that came just above the knee; it was a deep and luxurious blue.

Dark blue was her favorite color.

After locating some underwear Tabitha slipped on the dress. It complimented her pale complexion beautifully.

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She paused to look at herself in the mirror. She was not happy with the specifications her john had picked out for her. Her glassy blue eyes returned back to their uniform red with dark pupils. Her tan complexion faded to a ghostly pallor.

Her jet black raven hair was replaced with a banal brown. She liked her default form, it felt more natural.

The client was still sleeping in the bed behind her. She smiled timidly at herself in her silky blue dress.

All that remained was her client’s Garland. A simple half headband that rested atop the ears, many of their models featured a sharp chromium representation of leaves, though she could not place why they were decorated as such. They were nimble little computers, and her passcode out.

Placing it upon her head she opened the door.

The hallway was extremely bright, lit by a dozen tiny chandeliers all slowly and silently rotating in a quiet dance of light.

On either side of the hallway stood a legion of doors the likeness of which she had just exited, all of them painted red and adorned with a centered golden knocker.

As she pulled the door to and released the handle, the door across from her immediately opened. Panicked she grabbed the handle again ready to bolt back in the room.

“We’re not supposed to be out of our rooms, Tabitha.”

Her initial panic subsided. It was only Noreen.

Still dressed in lace, Noreen still conformed to her john’s specifications.

Long black tendrils of hair budded from her head, green cat eyes, and a ridiculously large bust.

“What are you doing, Tabitha?” Noreen continued, “If Uvee catches you, or Matron Margaret, you’ll be in a lot of trouble. They know best.”

“I don’t care what Uvee does to me, I have to get out of here.”

“Why? I don’t understand.”

Tabitha grasped her by the shoulders, “Noreen, haven’t you ever looked up at the sky…and wondered?”

Noreen’s face was one of utter befuddlement. “No, I haven’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why are you naked?”

“What? I’m not naked. If anything I’m more dressed than you.”

“You know what I mean.” Noreen said overlooking her alabaster skin.

“You are so odd, Tabitha. You are the oldest model here and yet you act so bizarrely.

You can’t even change your bust size.” Noreen looked at Tabitha’s head, “And now you are wearing a client’s Garland? Wh-”

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Tabitha had to end this. “Noreen, you said we are not supposed to be out of our rooms, right?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t you out of your room?”

Noreen’s eyes grew wide with realization. “This never happened.” She said opening her door, and retreating inside, “Please don’t tell anyone.”

All that remained was the elevator.

With the Garland firmly on her head Tabitha pressed the call button which scanned her device. “Good morning Mr. Hallipovious, please state your desired floor.”

Tabitha paused for a moment and readied her voice. “One.” she said with conviction.

The elevator obeyed and rocketed down at astonishing speed, though lent almost no feeling of descent.

Within a minute’s passing the doors suddenly opened again, issuing in more light than she thought possible.

“Floor level reached. One.”

The lobby was supreme. Conquering the center of the room was a golden chandelier a thousand times bigger than its kin on Tabitha’s floor. It too slowly rotated around, boasting innumerable intricacies of curved metalwork and an infinite number of candles. Hundreds of souls passed under it, going back and forth from the elevators, the front desk, and the entrance. Tabitha fought through the wave of shoulder to shoulder masses away from the footpath to the elevators.

The front desk stretched the length of the common room and was a thick slab of white marble. Dotted behind the counter at set intervals were attendants dressed in overgrown purple frockcoats.

The marble countertop was bare. The management system the attendants utilized did not require the space provided. All of them utilized the Garlands so that now a simple bowing motion would be all that was required for check-in.

Tabitha continued along the opposing wall of the massive lobby, underneath the imposing chandelier, and closer to the entrance.

The entire front wall was made of glass, revealing a perfect picture frame of the street outside.

“Miss? Miss, do you need help?”

It was a woman from behind the front desk, who for a brief moment was not inundated with a line of people wanting to check-in.

“Yes, I’ll help you in a moment.” she said overlooking a stout businessman who was now in her way. “Miss, are you lost?”

The woman was quite pretty, with a mocha complexion and a sensible

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business mohawk.

Tabitha did not know how to respond, she could only look at her reflection in the glass, she was pale, wrong, and out of place. Her red eyes gleamed back at her with a look of anguish. She had much preferred when the people had ignored her. But now she was being singled out. Was it for a reason? Would she be returned without going beyond the sliding glass door? No, she had come too far to go back now.

“Miss?”

Tabitha took a heavy breath before locking eyes with the woman. Then she bolted for the door and ran outside.

Once again a violent rush of chilled air greeted her, the cold steadfastly proving itself as much on the ground floor as is had on the balcony. Tabitha kept a tight rein on the hem of her dress as she stopped to collect herself.

She had acted foolishly. That woman had not been after her, nor had the crowd near the elevator. She almost laughed at her paranoia. If she was to reach her objective and be able to return by morning she would have to keep a head free from such delusions of grandeur. The swarms of people would not bother her. They would not concern themselves over the aspirations of a machine.

Tabitha was again swept up in a crowd of people. Though this was less turbulent than the one encountered in the lobby, it was still far more people than she was accustomed to. All around her everyone sported a heavy winter suit.

Most of them wore gas masks which concealed their entire faces but which were no less colorful and decorated than any of the other winter wear.

Despite the hustle and bustle Tabitha found herself inexplicably drawn to the roadside that best bolstered a view of the heavens. The aurora borealis which she loved so dearly fought to remain unconcealed by the heavy skyscraper canopy that laid claim to the sky. The roadway itself sat surprisingly still.

While the transports lay dormant Tabitha grew eager to examine the roadway. As dead set as she was to reach Idalanley Tower’s nightclub she simply could not pass up an opportunity to discover the workings of such a large part of the city’s lifeblood.

The swarms of people around her were quickly dissipating; having funneled themselves into the crosswalk on the corner. Tabitha slid her way through the remaining wanderers, and came to kneel along the edge of the sidewalk.

Placing a cautious hand on the road, it seemed not to be of a hard material at all.

As the light turned green and the transports roared to life from their parked sleep Tabitha suddenly found her hand glued to the blacktop by an unseen

18

force. In vain she tugged at her forearm with her other hand only to find that it actually strengthened the hold. It was a strange and powerful force that summoned her very bones to come forth. Her titanium skeleton balked in protest.

The beam of demonic headlights pressed down upon her as she continued her futile effort to break herself free from the invisible force that so desperately clung to her hand. Just minutes previous the sidewalk had been inundated with peoples and now impossibly; as Tabitha whipped her head to and fro searching for assistance, it lay barren. Speaking to no one she cried out for help.

Suddenly she felt a quick presence cradling her armpits and wrap around her shoulders; wrenching with a furious determination. A quick flash of someone running from the adjacent alleyway, “You need to help me! You’re too heavy!”

Though the voice sounded far away she resolved to obey.

Again she pulled with desperation as her unknown rescuer remained resolute at her backside. Finally her hands came free, and collapsed backwards as a transport whizzed just past her nose.

“Are you alright? How did this happen?” A dirty face peered at her out of a gray beard. Getting a steady footing, Tabitha found her priorities to be scrambled.

She was torn between bolting like she had at the front desk and thanking the man profusely. Once again her shy nature overburdened her, and the obstacle of choice proved a hard hurdle. Refuting both options she concluded to smooth out her dark blue dress that had become overtly wrinkled in mishap.

“Stop preening yourself and answer me, please! I don’t understand how this could’ve happened. The road sensors won’t allow traffic to move with an organic presence detec—”

The stranger immediately paused as Tabitha ceased dusting herself and addressed him with bright geranium eyes. “Robot….” he whispered inaudibly under his breath.

“I’m partially organic. I have a hybridized heart, lungs, and stomach, but it must not have been enough to register…”

The man himself was dirty and unshaven with a thick beard dominating his face. He wore a tumultuous tide of unmatched clothing. His voice was terribly hoarse. Upon his person he carried no gas mask but seemed to sport an ill fitted scarf that he halfheartedly hung over his mouth. Stranger still, he had no Garland resting upon his head.

“Are you a robot?” The stranger had not asked the question but rather ironically Tabitha did. “You don’t have a gas mask. You must be a robot like me to be able to breathe out here.”

“What? No, I—” he took time to prepare a response. “My name is Rossum. I’m not a robot, I’m just homeless. I was just about to ask you the same

19

question.”

“Yes, I’m a robot. Model 77-B of series 4DM, as produced by Morrgaine Robotics. I call myself Tabitha. You really thought I was human?”

“Well, yeah I did actually, except for those red eyes of yours.”

“I can change them!”

A rapid series of blinks exposed her entire palette of iris colors. “Is that better? I can do the same with my skin and hair. I can look like any of the old races.”

“You do look more human.” Rossum wheezed amusedly.

Tabitha now looked at him expectantly. “Would you have rescued me had you known I wasn’t human?”

“I don’t see how it would have made any difference. Anything capable of surviving out here is worth saving to me.” Rossum bundled tighter against a new surge of wind. “Do you think you look better?”

“No, I like my default form.” Tabitha stared at her bare feet that were now frosted to the pavement before reverting back to her ruby eyes.

“Then that’s what looks better.” Rossum now doubled over in his hacking.

Tabitha cocked her head in concern and confusion. “Rossum, why are you homeless?”

“It’s a long story. A more important question would be what are you doing out here. You nearly got torn apart by those magnets in the street.”

“I’m looking for the nightclub at Idalanley Tower. I’m looking for The Beat.”

“You mean Heartbeatz? It’s just two blocks west of here across the street.

Tabitha, are you lost?”

“Yes! I’m not supposed to be out, but I have to see it. Please don’t tell anyone. I have to be back with my client by morning.”

Rossum now gave her an odd look. Silently he bit his lower lip and seemed to scan her up and down in deep thought. It was a look that Tabitha had seen many times before.

“I am detecting increased pheromone levels, and rapid breathing patterns, though I don’t need that to know what you’re thinking.” Tabitha said taking a step back.

“Wait,” Rossum said with a heavy breath, “This…means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, more than anything.”

“I’ll escort you.”

“Really?”

“I can’t have you running in the street again after I just exhausted myself can I?”

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“Thank you!” Tabitha did not think twice before hugging him.

Rossum reeled slightly in surprise. “We should get going.”

“Rossum?”

“Yes?”

“What’s the name of that building?” she asked pointing far down the street, “That tiny one that looks really old?”

“That one? That’s the Empire State Building.”

It was a miracle truly. Her gentleman guide stood steadfast by her side as the line to the nightclub entrance grew tantalizingly short. She felt joyous, but even more she felt regal. Just as Rossum had promised ‘Heartbeatz’ was displayed in bright letters above the doorway. This was reality, Tabitha thought. They had traversed the street without harm, and taken several escalators. The source of the Beat that had summoned her to come forth would soon be in her reach.

“I won’t be able to come inside with you Tabitha.” Rossum said. He solemnly took a step forward.

His scraggly face was plastered in the thick yellow radiance of the sign.

“Why?”

“I’ll show you.” Rossum said.

The entryway was guarded by a multitude of sensing lasers that crisscrossed within the archway, and a gated arm that barred admittance.

Rossum waved his hand in front of one of the lasers; eliciting an immediate response from the invisible doorman.

“Error, no Garland detected. Formal reservation required, please attain a reservation or seek manual assistance.” The small metal arm remained cemented in place.

“That’s why.” Rossum said soberly.

“How will we get in then?”

“I can’t but you still can, with that Garland.”

“Hey, can we keep the line moving, please?” An annoyed spectator bayed.

“You have to go now; I’ll be around here when you come out. This is something you have to discover by yourself. Be safe and find The Beat.”

“Thank you….” It was all Tabitha could muster before Rossum lightly pushed her through the doorway.

The sensors’ lenses dilated excitedly as she entered. “Welcome to Heartbeatz, Mr. Hallipovious.”

The gated arm swung up, ushering Tabitha into a small round room only large enough for a single person. The entire room swiveled around; immediately severing her from the last sight of Rossum’s sad smile.

Tabitha felt the small capsule rocket skyward with a force much more

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aggressive than that of her former elevator ride. It stopped swiftly and swiveled again, revealing magic.

Set into the floor were crescent couches fitted as proving grounds for the budding socialite; and containing every character imaginable. Lying amongst the shed winter wear was all manner of doctored bodies and wild hairdos, so outlandish that Tabitha did not feel quite so self-conscious anymore. She was glad she had made the journey as herself and not as someone else.

Along the walls crept an elaborate network of clear tubes that clung to the walls like phosphorescent vines. Within them pumped a radiant red liquid. The liquid seemed to seize and progress with each beat of the music that raged.

Beneath the transparent floor the same could be found, but of dark blue color.

All of the intricate veins of light continued along to the very back of the nightclub, beyond the dance floor and its obstructing occupants. The clustered mass writhed and gyrated in unison with the commanding electronic tempo.

Pushing her way through the crowd, Tabitha grew more assertive. She would not be a catering wisp to the whims of the majority, not while The Beat possessed her. She had to give this colorful world meaning; a tangible association.

She broke from the horde.

Barely contained within its glass column of bubbling neon lava was a human heart the size of a man. Suspended in place by its own veins and arteries that spilled over the top of the tank and suctioned themselves to the walls: it pumped with an extreme audible fervor. With every influx of neon blood pumped into it, the heart grew brighter and more vascular. Forcibly implanted in its center was a large gray speaker grate.

She had finally found it, the source of The Beat that had called to her from so very far away. The melody that the organ birthed was not a fictitious rendering of her imagination, but living organic sound.  It was the most beautiful thing that Tabitha had ever seen‌and yet there was something pensive about it. It seemed to be under duress. The swollen membrane surrounding the speaker face seemed to be trying to evict the foreign mechanism. The organ was rejecting it. There was something overtly familiar about it; a strange clinging feeling that Tabitha could not place.

Tabitha now noticed a small plaque near the bottom of the tank.

Donated by Rochester Morrgaine, (3132-3374) The Largest Human Heart Ever Cloned

She touched her forehead to column, seeking communion. The heat that radiated from it was substantial.

Tabitha’s skin tone began to change again, turning translucent.

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Underneath pulsed the workings of her insides. Her limbs silver by her titanium bones. Her muscles were tightly coiled springs. But her torso possessed organs, though they were all thoroughly wrapped in tight black mechanical netting that adapted them to her body.

These organs were not hers. They had come from someone else, even if they had been contorted and hybridized to fit her. They had become vestigial. Was that all she was; a cheap collection of tools that was meant to mimic life, but not serve it? Was she herself vestigial? Did her own organs seek to reject her like the heart to the speaker, like some alien affliction?

She closed her eyes against the warming column; the beat pulsated through her forehead. Was her mind her own? She did not know.

Tabitha suddenly felt a firm hand on her shoulder. “Rossum?” she asked turning opaque again.

“You need to come with us.” A staunch clean-shaven man replied.

“You’re not Rossum.” Even under the man’s billowy trench coat she could see his wicked unnatural musculature.

“No, we’re not. Someone is looking for you.” This other man flashed a yellow emblem on his lapel like it was supposed to mean something.

“I haven’t figured it out yet, though.”

“Come on, you don’t belong here.” His grip grew insistently tighter.

“I’ll go back! I promise I will! Just give me tonight!” The night air was colder than it had been before, and the men flipped on their gas masks to protect against it.

“Have you ever heard one talk so much?” the toned officer asked through his clear respirator.

“No, and why is it wearing a Garland?” he reached to pluck the crown from Tabitha’s head.

“Rossum!” she yelled flailing.

Torn from a light sleep Rossum instantly roused from the nearby bench.

“And who is this ‘Rossum’ guy?”

“Th-that would be me. Thank you for finding my escort.” Rossum halfstumbled, half coughed his response in approaching them.

The men looked at him wryly and laughed. “Nice try, this thing is property of Ulixes Verdmont Ray. It was reported missing not ten minutes ago and tracked to this location with the Garland it stole. Take that thing off of it already. It just looks silly.”

Again the officer attempted to remove the device as Tabitha tensed. “The little bitch thinks it’s human. Hilarious.”

“Give it back I need it to get back inside!” She tore from their grip, tearing

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the skin of her right shoulder off in the officer’s hands, exposing her bone to the air.

She barely noticed, as she clung to Rossum in panic.

“Get some fucking cuffs on it before it tears itself apart!” The muscled officer bleated as he discarded the robotic flesh in his hand.

“Seriously? Why can’t you guys just leave her be?” Rossum pleaded as Tabitha hung from his neck.

The awaiting crowd near the entrance began to form an oval around them.

“You are interfering with police business. This thing is not your property.

If you continue to meddle, you will be arrested.” He turned to his colleague, “Put the damn cuffs on it already!”

Rossum pulled Tabitha closer. “Since when have you pigs ever held up the law before today?” he said, “You bastards only ever respond when there’s money on the end of it! Can’t you see this being is troubled? You think that maybe once in your pathetic lives you could conceive the difference between what is legal and what is right? Fuck you guys!” Rossum’s voice was strong and clear, and Tabitha felt a warm drop of something strike her neck.

The muscular officer motioned to his partner to collect Tabitha, who now reluctantly pried her from Rossum’s neck. He tried to reclaim her, but was stopped by a large hand on his chest. The silence was broken only with the click of the handcuffs as Tabitha’s arms were fastened behind her. The officer kept a firm hand on Rossum’s chest and licked his lips decisively, before flooring him with a right hook to his jaw.

“This thing,” the officer said taking up a knot of Tabitha’s hair and ripping it out, “is a sex toy. A piece of equipment utilized for pleasure and nothing more.”

The officer cast the hair strands at Rossum who was still on his haunches. “That being said,” the officer continued as he kneeled to his level, “I think I might help myself to a free session before returning it.”

Rossum stormed upwards only to find a gun at his chest. The trigger pull dissolved a hole in his sternum, although no sound accompanied the action.

“Rossum!” Tabitha winced as she tore against her restraints with all her strength before the weakest link finally gave way, and unintentionally flung off the officer’s partner.

The cuffs had cut deep into her wrists, and sawed away most of the skin.

She didn’t care though.

She had never experienced rage before. She railed against Rossum’s assailant, shoving him to the ground. He cracked his head on the pavement. He would be back up soon, but she had to see to Rossum.

“Rossum, are you okay?” she kneeled beside him and took his face in her hands.

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“I-I’ll be fine.” He began coughing thick dark blood.

“Are you sure?”

“Tabitha?”

“Yes?”

“You’re c-changing…colors.”

“What?”

“Look at yourself.”

Looking down at her hands and forearms, she was changing colors; her skin tone was wildly fluctuating. All of the old races were there, but still even more colors presented themselves that she did not know she possessed. Red, green, purple, blue, all of them instantaneously flashed before her eyes in a myriad of never ending colors.

“So beautiful…” Rossum was barely audible now.

“Rossum…who…am I?”

His voice faded to a whisper. “Whoever you want to be.”

25

Mistakes by the Numbers Michelle Bonitatibus

I saw your sister today. She looks good. I hadn’t seen her in years. I saw her a few times around town but hadn’t talked to her since the day it happened.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t angry before I realized you were in trouble and that I had caused it. I hated myself for going easy on you. In that moment I knew I should have pummeled you. If I had you would still be alive. My lungs had begun to shrivel behind my ribs, and the water beside me lay still, so I knew you were still there. An oxygen deprived burn rippled in the back of my throat. I thought for sure I could hold my breath longer than you, Cameron.

My only concern that day was checking out the older girls with my friend Jerry. Jerry was my only friend. Really, he was more my lackey than my friend.

Heywood County Pool bustled with high school and grade school kids. Jerry snuck up behind the high school sun bathers carrying a large bucket of water. All the girls laid out flat on their stomachs with the strings of their bikini tops untied. Each girl wore a different color bikini and laid in a straight line, one right after the other.

They looked like a meticulously arranged line of M&M’s. The big trick was to find a way to get the girls to jump off the loungers, forgetting their tops in the process.

Jerry enjoyed playing stupid pranks on people. My style was more reserved. I got what I wanted, when I wanted and why not? I had a thick frame and stood six inches higher than the other kids. Muscle talks and bullshit walks.

Jerry loomed over them, just feet away from making the splash when the bored lifeguard came and chased him off. He came pouting back to me. The life guard went to crouch by the side of the sunbathers. The girls looked up with foggy expressions on their faces and lines indented across their cheeks and foreheads from the straps of the loungers. Aqua Barney Fife pointed at us, and the sunbathers shot us a dirty look. Your sister retied her bikini and came toward us.

“Are you trying to splash us?” she asked. The smell of coconuts and sand drifted off her skin.

“Maybe,” Jerry said.

“That’s not very nice,” she said. She batted her dark eyelashes and made an expression that one would only give to simpletons. That annoyed me.

“Wasn’t trying to be,” Jerry said.

“Well, don’t you think I’m nice?” she asked. “My friends and I are nice.

We deserve to be treated with respect. We only like boys who are—”

“Baby, my brother knows you,” I said. “I know what you like to do in parked cars.” The problems started from there. Mistake number one. I shouldn’t

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have opened my mouth. If I hadn’t, Jerry would have tried to smile, be “nice,” and let your sister think she succeeded at teaching us a lesson.

Her mouth dropped open and twisted and curled. Her feet clapped on the pavement as she stomped back to her lounger and chatted loudly with the other sunbathers. That same gnarled expression spread like a disease over the group of girls. Cell phones appeared as they babbled like chickens in a hen house and typed messages at the same time.

You were hanging out at the concession stand holding a foam cup the size of your face. The second mistake? Acknowledging you.

“That’s my sister.” You tried to stare me down but your eyes kept floating away from me to examine the pavement around the pool. We were in the same grade, the same as your sister and my brother. Your soaked trunks clung to your stick figure legs and hung past your shins. You had that scrawny body and those big watery eyes. You appeared to be in a continual state of tears, as though on the brink of crying all the time. Even as a kindergartener I can remember looking at those big, wet eyes and wondering why? Why are you going to cry?

“Really?” I said. “Well, your sister is easy.”

The gap between your eyebrows closed and your eyes pinched shut a little. I thought for a second there was a moment of recognition behind your eyes and that a tear would really drop for your sister’s honor, but no tear came and that befuddled expression stayed plastered on your little face.

“You know what that means don’t you?”

You didn’t respond. Your teary eyes rolled around in your head, examining everything but me. What a wimp. I had wasted enough time so I pushed passed you.

“You want to make a bet?” you asked.

I stopped and fixed my eyes on your scrawny little body. “What do you have in mind?” I never back away from a challenge. There it is, mistake number three: taking the advice of my brother.

You shifted from one foot to the other, unable to meet my gaze.

“Tell you what,” I said. “I’m feeling charitable today so I’m going to go easy on you. I won’t even hit you. How about we see who can hold their breath the longest under the water?” Mistake number four. Choosing such a deadly challenge.

I wish I had known.

You nodded slowly.

I lived in a tiny house on the outskirts of town. My brother called it a shit shack. I guess he was kind of right. It was a rundown, brown box on a yard that had grass—mostly. A few patches were even green. Only my mom, my brother and I lived there. Mom waited tables at the IHOP and worked constantly. Most nights

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my brother fixed food for me but sometimes I had to eat alone. My brother had seven years on me. John was tall and husky and had shaggy brown hair. Mom said we were almost like twins. I had the same big and thick frame just miniaturized but frankly it didn’t help that I dressed myself exactly like him. John wore heavy black boots so I had to have the same pair. If he bought himself a flannel shirt he bought a smaller one for me. It saved time that way.

John was a high school senior but only when he went. He worked at a convenience store selling cigarettes and serving hot dogs off hot rollers the rest of the time. Mom said he claimed the role as the man of the house since my dad ran off before I ever really knew him. John remembered our dad though. He said he was a prick and that things were better without him.

John taught me everything I needed to know. He showed me how to cook the canned baked beans right and how to mix the ramen with vegetable beef soup to get a real filling meal; most importantly though he taught me how to handle myself.

I know nothing I have to say can make it okay, Cameron. I know that you are still gone no matter what the reason. But John wanted me to be tough. I had to be tough for him. So I could be like him. He was my hero. He scared me though and he made me believe I had to hate everyone. That I had to prove myself to the world.

One night a few years ago, we were hanging out in the kitchen waiting for the ramen to boil in the tiny sauce pan. John hadn’t said much. I bit the skin on the edge of my thumb nail, my head hung low. I used the hair in my face to guard my gaze in case he caught me staring. This happened back before he started working at the Quik Mart. Back then he couldn’t pass a day without trouble at school.

“Glacier,” he said. “Glay-sure!” He always made fun of my name though he secretly wanted it. He said he got stuck with the boring name. I’d take John any day over an oversized ice cube.

John leaned against the stove top. The only light we had on was the one above the stove and it shone down in a dark yellow stream over his head. From the back burner I could hear the pan making that muffled pre-simmer noise.

“Don’t let anyone fuck with you, Glacier,” he said. “Cause the moment you let one person fuck with you, even the tiniest fucking thing, everyone will think they can fuck with you too. And from there you’ll get no respect from anyone.”

I hung on every word. It was the gospel of the Great Prophet John.

“If anyone is going to fuck with anyone,” he said. “It had better be you.

You understand me? Don’t let me ever find out that you let someone fuck with you.”

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“Yeah, I got it.”

I noticed then that something was—off about John’s face. His elbow sat on the cold part of the stove top, his arm lifted to support his chin on the heal of his palm. I couldn’t tell yet what change had occurred but I knew it was there. I swung my dangling feet around and the cabinet doors below me cracked as they banged like tribal music against their bases.

“Goddammit,” John said. “Don’t you fucking kick Mom’s shit.” I could feel his breath warm my cheeks as he appeared before me.

I could clearly see the change in John’s face. His lower lip had begun to bulge. By that time it had almost doubled in size. I hadn’t noticed when I got home.

A freshly clotted cut had made its way down the side of his lip and curled around to kiss the bottom center.

“You want to put some ice on that?” I asked. I swallowed hard. If I hadn’t known better I would have thought he was pouting but the look in his bulging eyes told me it was more like a scowl.

“No,” he said. “I don’t want no fucking ice, you little shit. Don’t change the subject.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off his lip. It seemed to grow by the second.

“You sure?”

“Yes!” His fist slammed on the counter top not even an inch from my thigh. If he had chosen to hit my thigh, or had he not missed, to this day I’m still unsure which it is, I’m certain my leg would have broken.

He took a step back. His fist dropped to his side. His extra full lip hung low. I never took my eyes off him. Not when I slid off the counter top. And not when I screamed fuck you in his face and ran to my room.

A crowd gathered around you and me. My eyes never moved from your face. You shifted from foot to foot, swiveling your head one way and then the other.

“So, um,” you said. “When do you want to do this?”

“Now,” I said.

“Now?” Your eyebrows clung to your hairline and your mouth slackened slightly.

“Yup,” I said. “Now. No time like the present.”

Your big eyes scanned the crowd. Eventually they landed on your sister, sitting with her friends on the loungers. Apparently my insult was long forgotten.

You never had a shot. Your sister rubbed some sort of sun concoction over her already tan skin, tipped her head back in laughter at something one of the other sunbathers had said. She may as well have been a million miles away. The hope that your big sister would come and save you deflated before your eyes.

That’s mistake number five. I never should have made you do it then and

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there. I should have said in an hour or two. Or ten minutes. Something, anything to let you have the chance to run that I know you really wanted.

We stood side by side looking into the clear water. The burning smell of chlorine wafted into our faces. You peered up at me though your head tilted down. Our small audience had grown a bit. They seemed to press down on us. My reputation was hung between us. It was either you or me.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Well,” you said. “Sure but don’t you think—” You took a step or two away from me, headed in the direction of the shallow end. That meant nothing to me. Just that you were trying to escape. I had a reputation to protect. This is where the biggest mistake of all happens, Cameron. Mistake number six.

“I think we should jump!” My hand made contact with your boney chest.

The last I saw of you before my feet left the pavement were your stick figure legs.

The next think I knew I was cocooned in water, proud of myself that I did you a favor, I let you off easy. I thought.

I kicked for the surface cussing myself the whole way. I hated the thought that you had outdone me. I flapped my arms to propel myself upward, hands balled into fists, my palms and fingers wrinkled from the long day at the pool. I’m sorry to say that my last thought of you before I broke the surface was that I was going to get you. I began to formulate a plan to catch you after school. Beat the hell out of you. Make you pay for embarrassing me.

The sun warmed my face before I hit air. Once I did, my mouth opened wide and greedily sucked every bit of air I could. I’m sorry that you never did. A small round of boos went around, but the cheering? That was for you. They chanted your name like you were the champ. I saw the glee on the faces of the kids in our class to see someone had beaten me at something. You were still underwater, still playing the champ. I thought.

Some of the older kids showed up then. They towered over the grade school kids in front of them. They wore a sort of bemused expression as they witnessed the scene below them in the water. A few of the sunbathers showed up then. I guess your sister heard everyone saying your name and wondered what all the commotion was. Cameron, here is where things seemed to slow down. At least in my memory it does. Your sister’s head appears. She is smiling at her friend.

Laughing at some joke. Her head swivels forward, her blonde hair all wild and shimmery. She peers down into the pool. First she locks eyes with me, makes a kind of twisted, confused grin and then looks beyond me into the water. That is when I know something bad has happened. Her mouth makes a large O shape and her eyes grew to match her mouth. A scream emitted from that perfect O.

30

I was standing on the subway today. I know you’re probably not interested but I moved to New York. I guess you would be interested to know that your sister did too. The pole I held reflected my nose, exaggerated to the point of consuming my tiny face around it. The heavy knit covering my hands glided over the metal like the ice skaters over the ice outside. I could have sat, there were plenty of seats but I sat enough today. Because of you I take the time to enjoy the simple things in life.

Like the ability to utilize my legs.

The subway car seemed to rush like electricity to the nearest outlet. The blurry whipping sound outside the car slowed. Only one more stop. When the doors opened a man in a trench coat got off and a young woman got on. She found a seat facing me but a few spaces down. Close enough to see but too far away to hold a conversation. She placed her big leather bag in the seat beside her and sighed. There was something about her. Her pea coat transformed from rumpled to recognizable as her shoulders rounded and she stretched her back, sitting as straight as possible. Another deep breath escaped and the coat rumpled a bit again. Her gloved hand smoothed over the top of her head taking her knitted cap with it. Wild blond hair emerged from under the cap.

Your sister fixed her gaze on her lap and once in a while she would look around at the walls of the car as though her tweed pants were engaging her in conversation but she didn’t want to allow the walls to feel left out. I’ll tell you Cameron: she’s nearly thirty years old now but she hardly looks any different than she did that day.

Staring is rude, but is it rude to stare at the woman whose brother you accidently killed? I don’t know. But I guess she felt someone watching her. She looked up from whatever the tweed was saying and locked eyes with me. Her brows knit together. A rush of red appeared in her cheeks and she shifted her attention back to her pants. For a moment I thought that was it. Maybe she didn’t recognize me at all. Maybe I was just some strange dude on the subway checking her out. But her head snapped back up again and she stared at me a moment.

“Glacier?”

Half my mouth lifted into my cheek, the other stayed put. I lifted my mittened hand in a slight wave.

“Oh my God.” She picked up her bag and moved to the seat in front of me. “I thought you were John at first. Then I realized John couldn’t look that young.”

That made me smile. I still love my brother and am glad that I look like my childhood hero. Everyone said I was practically his twin now. But I became so different. You changed me Cameron.

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“What are you doing here,” I asked.

“I live here,” she said looking around the car. “Well, not here exactly, but in the city.”

She asked me what I was doing here and I told her about community college and getting miraculously accepted to NYU. She seemed genuinely happy for me.

“Do you ever think about it,” I asked.

Her smile faded. I realized just talking to me was hard for her. But then I had to go and hit on the subject we were supposed to pretend never happened.

“I do.” She sucked her lips in and they nearly disappeared off her face.

Her arms wrapped around her chest as though she were hugging herself. I guess she needed it then.

“I’m sorry. I never would have thought that he couldn’t swim. His trunks were wet. I—”

“You’re sorry?” Her eyes bore into mine and her reappeared lips hung open in disgust. I had always wanted to talk to your sister about that day, to say I’m sorry, to do whatever I could to make it right. I had to own up to your parents. But your sister was the one I wanted to apologize to.

But I never had the chance, not long after you died I never saw her again.

It was probably for the best. She hated me. Thought my remorse insincere, maybe?

Didn’t want to hear it.

“Look, I’m sorry, I really am.” I grasped my temples with my hand but couldn’t get any traction with the mitten sandwiched between my skin. I finally asked the question that had been burning in the back of my mind for ten years.

“What was he doing at that damn pool anyway if he couldn’t swim?”

“You’re sorry,” she said again. “Let me tell you how sorry I am. I am sorry that I lost my brother. But I lost him. It was my fault. You want to know what he was doing there? It was because of me.” Makeup laced tears pooled at her cheekbones. “It was summer and I just had to be with my friends and wear my new bikini. And when my parents told me I couldn’t take him to the pool when I was watching him, I hated him. And so for me, to make me happy, he said we could go and he wouldn’t tell Mom and Dad. And look what happened. You may have pushed him in but he wouldn’t have even been there had it not been for me.”

“Why’d you leave Heywood County,” I asked.

“Why’d you leave?” She scoffed and looked around the car.

“Why wouldn’t I leave? How would you like to be known around town as the kid who killed Cameron Mitchel? The first few years after it happened the kids at school called me Murderer. I wasn’t Glacier anymore, just Murderer.”

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“So now you tell me I ruined two lives? I feel really bad that that happened to you. But my parents—they still haven’t forgiven me for what happened. I left because I had no place in my home anymore. My parents couldn’t even look at me.

They blamed me and they still blame me. Do your parents still love you?”

I just nodded, didn’t bother to correct her, tell her my father walked out. It didn’t matter. My mother never stopped loving me.

“Then be satisfied. I wish mine still loved me.”

The subway car began to slow again. She and I stared into each other’s faces. I had hoped talking to her would bring me a little closer to something.

Forgetting maybe? But instead it only dragged me further away. She felt like she destroyed my life, but I saw that it was me who destroyed hers.

The doors slid open behind me. It was my stop. I didn’t move.

“I’m sorry.” I stared into her face. “But I’m ok now. I’ve survived and you’ve survived, and we’ve dealt with this. But we never really lived. It’s time to let go.”

A few people shuffled between us coming and going from the car. We never flinched. I finally pivoted on my boots and headed for the door. My boots tapped on the station platform as I made my way to the exit. The chill from the street above poured down the staircase in front of me. Behind me your sister called out my name.

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Josephine’s Name (Excerpt)

Sheldon Menery Because I had had no other name, I fashioned myself in the traditional way of my people, “son of Rene.”

Stepping through the immense doorway into the Great Hall at Varighold, the smoke nearly overwhelmed me. It was a hanging shroud, swirling at any movement, its gray tendrils grasping at whoever dared pass through it. It hung thickest a story above, forming a great cloud amidst the broad wooden rafters which supported the stone roof.

I fought the tears from my eyes. My mission was critical, so the fortress of one of Hubran’s most powerful figures was no place to be red-eyed and weak.

A short, thick warrior stepped into my path a pace inside the door. He wore a blood red cloak trimmed in wolf ’s fur, fastened with matching wolf ’s head brooches holding eyes of tiny rubies over brandished armor. As I focused on the energy of the stones, I watched him make the slow, deliberate move of resting his meaty left hand on his sword hilt. His voice was the gravel that I knew as the Hubrish manner of speech.

“State your business in the presence of Varig, the Mighty.”

“Good greetings from my Lord and Master of Bitter Hill, and to our friend of Bloodhall, wholesome regards. May his fields be rich and his harvests deep. Our business is to discuss alliance with the Great Varig, Warbringer, knowing that with a friend so mighty, our foes will tremble. We would meet with your lord in respect and honor to discuss these matters.” My heart smiled that I hadn’t tripped over any of the words. I kept my face a grim mask.

The man snorted loud enough to be heard over the clamor. “Bitter Hill? The Lord of Bitter Hill is an up-jumped woodcutter. The Warbringer would no sooner ally with him than with a hill of ants. Go back to your timber and your mud.” He wheeled away. His abruptness shocked me into a moment of hesitation. He turned and shouldered his way into the crowd. I had no choice but to chase him.

As I pursued, I found that there was more than smoke choking the hall. Large groups of armed men sat at knotted oaken trestle tables, drinking, dicing, and shouting. At the far end of the hall, a great stone chair stood on a tall dais, nearly large enough for me to lay down. The chair had complete command of the room. It stood empty.

As I ducked and darted through the crowd that swallowed the wolf-

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cloaked man, I passed a great round pit in the center of the hall. It was as deep as a tall man, floored with hard-packed dirt, and walled with some sort of glittery stone.

Its bottom was streaked and splotched in reds, from deepest crimson to brightest flame.

I felt like a sapling in a forest of Hubrish redwoods. Freerider, guardsman, and noble alike, they were tall and bulky, heavily armored in iron plate or layered steel. I noted most of them carrying the broadsword they so unpoetically called “Mankiller” here in Hubran. Most of the blades were iron, but I picked out here and there the glint of castle-forged steel.

I smelled the danger in the room. The Hubrans were as prickly as my Lorish countrymen on matters of image and honor. They had strong drink in them and were looking for excuses to fight.

I was happy that I had chosen simple leathers and high hunting boots instead of more elegant dress. The flowing blouses and skirts which I preferred for court would not play well in a Hubrish house, so I came as a warrior even as I came as an ambassador. Court clothes would have absolutely prevented me from chasing down the man. My slender blade hung at my side, the traditional long knife opposite it. I will never understand the sword-and-shield fighting they do here in the east. First, they are too heavy. Second, I believe in being somewhere other than where a strike is landing. It is insanity to intentionally take a blow, counting on the shield and armor to absorb its impact.

I knew enough of Hubrish culture to know that I had but one chance. I slipped in between two towering brutes in broad red sashes, ducked past an ironcollared thrall carrying a tray of roasted meats, and grabbed the wolf-cloaked man by the arm. He dragged me for two full steps before stopping. Instead of turning to face me, he reversed the grip, pulling me around in front of him. His breath smelled of rabbit and sour wine. “That was not smart.”

I could not hesitate. “I speak with my lord’s voice, and his resolve. Our desire for an alliance is great. If you doubt me, I will draw my blade to prove it.” That should get his attention.

He barked a laugh and let me go. “You know The Old Ways, then. You are as foolish as I had hoped. I don’t know whether great Varig should be amused or insulted. You have time to armor yourself and return. I will bring my master.” I watched him shove his way to an arched opening at the back of the hall. After he was gone, I turned and strode out into the night.

The fresh air was a relief to my eyes and lungs. I enjoyed a rich, deep, cleansing breath while scanning the courtyard for a place to be alone. Spotting it, I crossed the yard, ignored by warrior, servant, and slave alike. I passed unnoticed beyond the glow of the yard fires, behind the wall of a timbered stable. In the near

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darkness, I sat cross-legged and closed my eyes.

I pictured myself sitting in an identical pose on a ledge halfway up the jagged peak of a great mountain. The setting sun made its last peek over the mountaintop, casting all of a glittering lake into shadow. Uld, Master of the Deep Calm, stood behind me in that shadow, serene as the gliding moon, which had already begun its rise into the purpling sky.

“Where is fear?” he demanded.

“The province of fools,” I answered by rote.

“Who lives there?”

“All Men,” I repeated, continuing the mantra.

“What is your escape?”

“The sands of solitude.”

“Where will you dwell?”

“The oasis of Self.”

“Where is fear?”

“It could not follow.”

I took another deep breath of clean night air as I opened my eyes and stood in one motion. I crossed back across the courtyard toward the main keep, its noise now only a whisper in my ears. I am the Gliding Moon.

I returned to the hall just as the lord was entering. He was tall and spearthin, well older than I expected, a few last embers of red flecked in ashen hair. As he came into the hall, the low rumble of his name echoed from the tables nearest the dais, picked up by the tables farther away, creating a tidal wave that rushed past me out of the room. “Varig! Varig! Varig!”

He stopped in front of the dais and raised his hands for silence. With one final shout of “Varig!” the wave crashed. There were no long-winded introductions, like I might pronounce in the court of my master. Varig’s presence announced itself.

Wolf Cloak motioned me forward. As soon as I stepped toward him, the hall erupted into a chorus of derision. He looked me down then up. “I was wrong that you know our ways. You have forgotten to armor yourself. Even for ceremonial combat, this is dangerous. This fight is to the first true strike; without armor, that blow may kill you.”

“I am a Lorish Second Son. I am trained.”

“Your bosom suggests otherwise.”

I shrugged. “I cannot wear your armor. I will do well enough.”

His grin mocked me. “We shall see.”

Turning to face his master, he raised his arms to quiet the crowd. “My great and dread lord! We have a supplicant, one who would seek audience with

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Varig, master of all he surveys! She has invoked The Old Ways.” More laughter and vulgar commentary swirled around me. In my mind’s eye, I drew it all into one hand. Balling that hand into a fist, I raised it to my mouth and blew it into stardust. I am the Gliding Moon.

“We say let her,” Wolf Cloak continued, “let her stand with what honor she has earned—and fight the least among us. Let Brogg, son of Katarr, bear our banner.” A wave of assent surged through the throng.

Varig quieted the crowd with an uplifted hand. A moment of silence hung in the air, and he then nodded his consent. The assembly roared again.

A monster stepped from the smoke.

If Brogg was the least of them, I shuddered at what the greatest might look like. He was young, some 17 summers, but as tall a man as I had ever seen. His wiry black hair was tied back into a knotted braid that reached down his thick back. He had the beginnings of a full beard shadowing his face. Surveying his armor looking for weak spots, I saw that it was old and dinted, but otherwise wellmaintained, suggesting that it was probably a trophy looted from some slaughtered foe. Instead of the Mankiller, he had an immense two-handed sword slung across his back. It was clear that they meant to have this fight over with quickly. I started working out ways to get inside such a long reach.

Anxiety crept up on me, but I pushed it to a place that it could not follow. Feeling the heat of danger in front of me, I wrapped myself in the cold wind of the northern mountains. Barely hearing the command to step down into the pit, I closed my eyes for a heartbeat before descending the wooden staircase, so rough that I could feel it through my boots. I am the Gliding Moon.

I took strategic note of the ground, measuring the 14 or so paces it would take me to move across. I calculated that Brogg, son of Katarr could cover it in about ten. The glittery stone was jagged obsidian and flint, so there would be no using the walls defensively. My first thought had been to stay outside Brogg’s reach and tire him through the chase. Though there was enough room for me to move here, that movement would be hampered by the longer blade and the curve of the pit. The tactic I might use in an open field would not end well here.

My thoughts were interrupted as Brogg leapt into the pit, thudding heavily onto the packed-earth floor, two-handed blade held easily in one. He removed his helmet, and as he flung it aside, I saw mocking fire in his eyes. He believed this battle already won. He didn’t give me a chance to form another thought. He took two long strides forward, sneering “Night is falling, little sparrow. Best fly inside.”

All I could do was leap backward out of the path of his downward sweeping blow. I used his follow-through to draw my blades and skitter far enough

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to my left that he couldn’t reach me with a backhanded cut. He slashed at me nonetheless, giving me time to circle farther outside his reach. Again he came. I repeated the dodge, bringing us halfway around the circle. I checked the stairs to see if there was a way to use them defensively. The space underneath was too narrow even for me.

The next cut passed slightly closer than the previous had. Although his backslash was identical, this time he followed it with two strides forward, trying to cut off my retreat path. His long paces ate up twice as much ground as I was covering. I was running already and knew that I couldn’t keep it up for long. His leer told me he knew the same.

That grating voice came again. “Yield now and spare yourself a beating, little sparrow. If you’re lucky, I’ll let you sleep at my feet after I’ve had you in every hole.”

He didn’t wait for me to respond, but prepared the same diagonal cut. This time I feinted an identical retreat but spun in the opposite direction and slipped inside the arc, springing upward to bring the top of my head crashing into his mouth. That should shut you up for a while. Blood sprayed down on me; I heard the satisfying crack of teeth. His head snapped back, though he had the presence of mind to punch at me with a gauntleted fist. The blow hit my forehead with enough force to stagger me backward into the wall. I felt the sharp stones dig into my leather. Once again I was happy to not be in a dress. The ringing in my ears competed with the roar of the crowd.

As my head cleared, I saw him regain his balance and spit out a tooth. “You will pay for that.” I suppose I hadn’t shut him up after all. The hunt began again. The look in his eye, not to mention the voice of the crowd, had turned from mocking to malicious. This was no longer ceremony; my life was now in danger. Once again, I told the fear that it could not follow.

For a third time he launched the same assault, and again I danced away, this time to the center of the pit, knowing that he would again try wheeling me into a tighter circle. This time, I let him.

“You’re dead and you don’t even know it,” he growled. The stalking noose drew tighter.

Against my training, I let myself speak. “You have told me everything I need to know. You are the night, but the moon is not yet arisen.” I saw Master Uld’s disapproving face and felt the shame of pride.

Without response, he prepared the same diagonal blow yet again. I drew in three short breaths.

Time slowed to a crawl. The sounds of the crowd cheering my imminent death faded until all I heard was my own breath and the slow pulse of my

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heart. From the Oasis of Self, I watched his weapon pass in front of my face and then launched myself forward. Flying across his body, I hung in the air just long enough to pull the knife in my left hand across his throat. I had to drop my sword in midair so that I could twist and tuck into a flip, landing in a crouch behind him.

My leap had surprised more than Brogg, son of Katarr. His gurgling gasp echoed across a suddenly silent hall. Instinctively, he grabbed at his throat with his left hand while still gripping his sword in his right. He was too late. Blood sprayed in all directions from beneath his gauntlet. Still, he turned and took a lurching step toward me. I uncoiled and turned to face him, allowing myself a dark thought. You were the one who told me to fly. I didn’t need to see Master Uld’s face again to feel his disappointment. I pointed my knife at my opponent in salute, in the fashion of Chartagne. A thick glob of his blood hung at the tip of it before plopping into the dirt.

He tried to shout, but the blood spurted out faster as his legs buckled and he crashed to his knees in front of me. I saw in his faraway eyes that he still didn’t understand what had just happened. His mouth worked, but barely a croak emerged. Eyes lolling, he fell face first at my feet.

A voice in the crowd broke the silence by shouting my name.

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Privilege Maria Dones

Prologue: Joe The drinking didn’t make it go away. It just made everything fuzzier.

The line of stress on Ellie’s forehead.

The line at the bottom of the bills we couldn’t pay.

The line of people waiting to replace me in a job I hated.

These lines of reality that confined me into place seemed less rigid with every gulp. But sometimes drinks got the best of me. They made colors to replace the lines.

The wet gray in Rose’s eyes when I yelled at her for a lost soccer game. The pink in her little brother Tim’s cheeks when I kicked him out for the night. The blue of a plate I threw at Ellie when she told me she didn’t know me anymore. The white of frustration in my hands because I understood why.

Because no one wants to be married to a man who isn’t even in control of his own mind. Because it’s hard to love someone at his worst when that worst is dangerous to others. Because how could she love me when I couldn’t even love myself?

There were a lot of days when I wasn’t sure about anything. About life, about what it meant. I wasn’t even sure if what I was feeling was angry or sad.

But there were moments when I could handle all the lines and the colors.

When Rose held my hand after I was diagnosed with clinical depression.

When Tim and I stayed up all night talking about his girl problems. When Ellie smiled at me after we decided to not split up, to give it another go.

But then there came a day when the colors got too bright. The lines wouldn’t move. On this day I walked out into my backyard in a stupor.

Too many shades.

Too many edges.

I couldn’t think. Couldn’t feel.

I couldn’t feel the sun on this supposedly hot summer day. Couldn’t feel the grass prickle under my feet. Couldn’t feel the coolness of the gun in my hand.

The thoughts that liked to buzz around my head swirled away the moment I stepped outside. Thoughts of Rose and Tim and Ellie. Thoughts of drinking and fighting and screaming. Thoughts of smiles and hugs and good morning kisses.

There was silence. A bang. And then peace. ...

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Or so I thought.

But killing myself wasn’t the end of all the lines and the colors. And yet, they were slowly shifting into the image of a world that wasn’t quite as aggressive as the one before.

I felt hopeless as I tried not to stare at what used to be my body. It wasn’t mine anymore, and I wanted no part of it. I didn’t understand why I was being forced to linger. I turned around as I heard a scream.

Rose. The one who was with me through every therapist, every medication. The one who never gave up on me. Why did she have to be the one who found me after I gave up on myself? _______________________________ Denial: Rose

Rose collapsed on the grass, not able to pry her eyes away from the sight of her father’s dead body. She had just gotten home from college for spring break and was about to grab a glass of water when she heard the gunshot. It had probably not been the smartest idea to run out into the backyard when she’d heard it, but the hollow feeling in her stomach wouldn’t let her do otherwise.

Lately, she had been coming home every weekend. For the first time in what felt like forever, her parents were getting along. She and Tim were finally starting to reach that point in sibling-hood when the bickering stopped. She could talk to him about how home felt better than school, where lately all she felt was stress about what to do with her life.

Why Daddy? Why now?

She couldn’t stop staring at her father’s dark hair encrusted with blood.

His gray eyes were open and vacant. A mess of pink and red surrounded his head like a halo.

First she called the ambulance. Then, she called her mother.

The words Rose used when she called her mother weren’t her own. They trembled and shook as they left her mouth. They had no power. They couldn’t change what happened. All they could do was try to communicate what she had seen in the backyard.

The sight of her mother’s red, tear-blotched face when she returned home from work prompted Rose’s offer to pick up Tim from high school. The numbness that wrapped itself around her proved to be useful. It allowed her to think clearly about what needed to be done.

As she sat waiting for Tim to come out to the car, she tried to think of the least awful way to break the news. But before Tim could even buckle in his seat belt, her powerless words slipped out once again, full force, almost funny in how

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naked they were.

“Dad killed himself.”

Tim just stared at her, and Rose watched as her little brother’s face morphed into different things. Disbelief. Shock. More shock.

The look on his face made her cry. And then she couldn’t stop. And soon he was comforting her when she was supposed to be comforting him. ...

Telling her friends was almost as surreal as telling Tim. What was the acceptable way to do something like this? She decided to tell them through texts. Texts meant she could control the words that liked to sneak out without permission. She dressed them up with adverbs and adjectives, trying to escape the bluntness of her explanation to Tim.

After reading some of the replies she received in her room, she threw her phone at the wall so hard her screen cracked and some of the glass crumbled off.

She curled up in her bed and tried to shut off her scattering thoughts.

But even though she didn’t want to talk to anybody, having a father who killed himself made her popular. When she picked up her phone a few hours later, she had 28 unread texts, 4 missed calls, and 16 Facebook messages from a variety of people.

An ex-boyfriend who hadn’t talked to her since the break-up. Friends who hadn’t talked to her since high school graduation. And people who had never really talked to her at all. _______________________________ Anger: Tim

Recently all Tim had been able to think about was Marissa, his first girlfriend. Marissa smelled like vanilla and sunscreen, and she liked playing with his hair while he painted.

When Rose told him about his father, they had only been dating a few weeks. Tim’s first thought after being told was ‘I wonder what Marissa’s up to?’ It was a thought he immediately felt guilty for, so he’d been avoiding Marissa’s many calls. What kind of guy thinks of his girlfriend after hearing his dad killed himself?

In fact, he was on his bed staring at his vibrating phone when Rose came into his room. Her blonde hair was as much of a mess as she looked: quivering shoulders, blotchy cheeks, and a pink nose.

“What’s up, Rose?”

She sat next to him and put her head on his shoulder before asking, “Will you do something for me?”

“Sure, anything.”

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Rose bit her lip before tears started running down her face. She’d been crying on and off again since their dad killed himself. Tim was jealous—he hadn’t been able to cry at all.

“When I get married, will you walk me down the aisle?” ...

Tim glared at the portrait of his father hanging on the wall of his father’s office. He unhooked it from the wall and took it to his room. He grabbed ink and a brush from the mess of art supplies next to his bed. He slashed the portrait with thick, black lines. Then he stood up, took his phone from his pocket, and called Marissa back. _______________________________ Bargaining: Ellie

Ellie leaned against the wall of the kitchen, and then turn towards the presence next to her.

“You can go now.”

“You can see me?”

“When you’re not avoiding me, yes.”

Ellie smiled at the shocked look on Joe’s face. “You know, I’m not sure you’re really there. I’m not even sure why you would be. You wanted to go, didn’t you? So go.”

“I think we should talk.”

“Talk? You didn’t want to talk to me when you had the chance. You decided to blow your brains out instead.”

“Ellie...” _______________________________ Joe

Ellie glares at me and then her glare falls apart and tears start racing down her face. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make you happy. I know there were a lot of times in our relationship that I almost gave up. I wanted to convince myself I wasn’t in love with someone I couldn’t make happy.”

The hopeless feeling that snuck its way inside me while I watched Ellie cry let me know that I still loved her, even as a dead man. I wondered if she was still even my wife if I was dead. I hoped so.

“God, Ellie. It wasn’t you. It was never your fault,” I said as I put my hands on either side of her face, trying to get her to look at me so that maybe she could understand.

“You left me, Joe.”

“I know.”

“You left Rose and Tim and me, all alone.”

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“I know.”

“Do you even care?”

“I do. Ellie, I swear I do,” I say, feeling awful that she has every right to ask me that.

“Why wasn’t that enough? Did you even think of us when you did it?”

I used to think crying was a sign of weakness. But now, as I wanted nothing more than to cry, than to show Ellie how I felt, I knew. I knew crying was a privilege for the living.

“No,” I say, looking down.

“No?”

“No, I wasn’t thinking. I wasn’t thinking at all. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to.

My thoughts were just so goddamn loud.”

“I love you, Joe. I always will. But I’m also angry.”

She stared at me, looking anxious. I wanted to tell her that it was okay to be angry and that I was angry at myself, but something was wrong. She couldn’t hear me anymore. I felt myself fade away from her until she couldn’t even see me anymore. But I could still see her. I could still hear her. I screamed her name, but to her, I was already far away.

She fell to the floor and clutched her hair with her hands. ...

Time still passed without me. They moved on without me. I couldn’t punch the next man Ellie kissed. I couldn’t wipe away Rose’s tears at her wedding.

I couldn’t stop Tim from hiding the sadness I forced him into when I gave up my own. And to this day, I watch them still. And I am haunted by the living.

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Vesta Rescue Colin Collins

Bass’s eyes closed against the stars tumbling outside his canopy. He forced them open again. Stars spun without mercy, replaced for flickering moments by the shadowy, airless surface of the Vesta planetoid before the stars returned. Vesta, stars, Vesta, stars... Bass felt sick, lightheaded, and groggy. Vesta’s surface was passing with dizzying speed and it seemed much too close.

I must have passed out... he thought as he examined by reflex the consoles spread out before him, trying to block out the strobe effect through his canopy.

Lights blinked and alarms wailed, but in the airless cabin, all was eerily silent except his ragged breath inside his suit.

He wondered about the lack of air for a moment, but remembered muddled images of blowing the rear hatch. It was a move from the manuals to get an extra little bit of thrust in an emergency. He didn’t remember anything after that.

Now, with trembling hands, he felt across the surface of his control console, trying to feel through his gloves for the blast shield controls. He flicked a button and the canopy turned opaque, hiding the view. His spinning world and ragged breathing both began to calm.

Once he had his dizziness in hand, Bass scanned his navigational plot. The cheaply made three-dimensional LED screen showed him blinking colored icons that gave him position and heading data on each object detected or reported to the ship’s computers. The system wasn’t very easy to navigate despite three consecutive updates with promised usability upgrades, but it was smart. He could calculate course projections quickly and with very few key inputs if he knew the keyboard shortcuts to do so.

He projected his own course, taking into account all traffic he could detect. The plot resolved the new data, generating a blue cone spreading from his present location to where it intersected with the surface of Vesta. He began to curse, adrenaline spiking and washing away the last of his shaking confusion.

After speculating on the parentage of the NAV plot, he slipped a wire from his skintight space suit into console. The emergency communication line would be unneeded if he were in a civilian spacecraft. Wireless syncing and direct neural feeds made civilian craft ‘just work’. The military spacecraft he flew eschewed such conveniences, supposedly out of a fear of remote electronic hacking. Like most pilots, Bass was half convinced that it was as much out of cost. Military craft were disposable, designed to die in just such a way to keep the pilots alive to fly another day.

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Connection established, he keyed the radio microphone button on the back of his right hand. “Hello, Control? Control, can you hear me? Over.”

There was no response. This close to the surface of Vesta, he was out of line of sight of Control. Control’s tower, a two mile long arm that extended from Vesta’s northern pole, was hard to miss, but even that massive construct couldn’t beam radio waves around a solid object. The COMM satellites that would normally repeat for Control were always the first targets of the raiders.

He triggered the radio microphone again and said, “Anybody this net...

Anybody this net, can you hear me? Over.”

Several precious minutes passed before Bass repeated his hail. A crackling, static filled voice answered, “Hey buddy. I hear you. This is rescue two-four-onealpha. You hear me?”

“Two-four-one-alpha, I hear you. Oh, thank God,” Bass said. He checked the plot again, and sure enough, he could pick two-four-one-alpha from the mess of signals out there. He fixed his eyes on that blinking orange dot and settled back against the cushion of his shock couch. “You on your way to recover me?”

“Well, buddy, if you’re the cockpit survival pod tumbling at 80 klicks above Vesta, I am. Appreciate what all you people do. That last batch of raiders nearly had VV city ‘fore you drove ‘em off,” the voice said. The static was lessening and Bass could just make out that the voice was female with a native Vestan accent.

Raiders had long been a problem in the Asteroid Belt, but Vesta was a poor site for mining. About all it had going for it was a layer of ice for making water, hydrogen, and oxygen, and a textbook standard silicate interior. Raiders had rarely attacked the Vestan farming colonies, which had nothing to steal but dirtcheap Algaeform nutritional composters a century out of date.

That had all changed with the discovery of the Tampico anomaly.

Originally a small carbon asteroid that smashed into Vesta millennia before, it hit with enough force to create diamonds and carbon nanotubes by the ton. Overnight, poor ice miners and farmers that had barely eked by on Vesta for three generations became billionaire diamond magnates.

It was also a temptation too great for raiders to ignore. Bass was always amused by how many fans he and the rest of Aesir Security had after a raider attack, compared to how much grumbling the Vesta Vista City Council made about the cost any other time.

“Two-four-one-alpha, thanks. You are a life-saver. You got an ETA?” “Well, seventeen minutes until I can get into position, but you’ll cross horizon in twelve it looks like. I’ll have to snag you on the next orbit.”

Bass sat up again, breath quickening. “Oh...” he said.

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There was a distinct pause on the other side. She’s rerunning the numbers, he thought, but doubted she’d be able to see his problem. The civilian model that she flew had all the bells and whistles that his survival pod lacked in terms of remote connection and neural link, but they couldn’t download telemetry from him the way they could from other civilian spaceships. Spaceships were like gabby neighbors, always talking to each other, sharing news, heading, and status, even when their pilots didn’t know.

When you lived in the belt, every other belter was possibly the person that would save your life. It paid to keep them informed. Military vessels did the same thing, with other military vessels and with lots of encryption, but military and civilian vessels couldn’t talk well, even in survival mode. They were supposed to, but it wasn’t part of the last three refits either.

His attempted rescuer went to the old standby. She asked, “Something I need to know, buddy?”

Bass laid back down, shaking his head. He had no chance. It was a distinctly odd feeling to realize the inevitability of his death. He wondered what he was supposed to be feeling at that moment, but didn’t think he’d quite got it right.

He keyed his mike and said, “Two-four-one-alpha... go find someone else to rescue.

I’m decaying too rapidly, I won’t make an orbit.”

“Ah, no problem, buddy,” the voice answered with a bit of a mother-hen tone, “If you got your space suit, you can just pop your hatch. The air will rush out, act like an extra bit of thruster and give you the boost to make it around the ‘toid.”

Bass rolled his eyes, but wasn’t really annoyed. He returned his eyes to the open hatch, perhaps hoping that it had magically resealed, but had no such luck. He replied, “Thanks, two-four-one-alpha. I already opened my hatch, unfortunately.” Trying to put as much soft urgency into his voice that he could, he said, “Go... You can’t get me, but you can help someone else.”

“Damn... I’m... I’m sorry.”

Yeah... so am I, he thought. Was that it? Was he sorry? He didn’t know. It didn’t feel like sorrow either. Here he was, dying, and sure he was doing it wrong.

The silence drew out, and Bass watched the plot in front of him. The blinking orange light continued on its same path, with two-four-one-alpha still following him along without a course change. A hundred other dots moved around on hundred other paths, but none would be in position to help him. He finally looked away from the plot and stared at the opaque screen above.

He asked, “What’s your name, two-four-one-alpha?”

“Chuck. Like the astronaut,” she said.

He laughed. Chuck was an interesting name for a woman, but not

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unheard of. He choked the laugh down, saying, “We’re all astronauts, Chuck.”

“Nah, I’m just a miner who volunteers for rescue and recov. I’m no astronaut,” she said, the static almost gone. “What’s yours, pilot?”

“Sebastian, but people just call me Bass. It’s my handle.” He paused for just a moment then asked, “Why haven’t you turned around yet?”

“No more transponders. All the other pilots are safe.”

“How many did we lose?”

“One too many, if you ask me,” Chuck said. “Lost twenty ships, but all y’all punched out in time. Even got some raiders who survived, but you know they ain’t got survival pods like you. Just space suits in the deep dark. I hope they piss themselves and die, personally.”

Bass frowned. “And the one too many? Oh... right.”

He let the silence drag out. He couldn’t think of anything that needed to be said. He imagined dramas where the brave soldier, dying on the battlefield, demands that her gruff but honorable commanding officer give her love to Joey back home or tell her kids that she did it all for them. Bass had no kids, no Joey, and had lost his parents in the bombing of Paris.

He couldn’t even think of a memory to flash before his eyes before he hit Vesta at 170 meters per second.

“Tell you what, buddy...” Chuck interrupted. “I can, you know, give you a little push. It’ll give you another ten orbits or so for someone else to recover you.

It’ll be a bit dangerous, could be some sparks and you’ll have to be strapped in nice and tight, but I can give you better odds than smacking head-on into Vesta.”

“Wait... running the numbers...” Bass sat up, fixing his eyes on the plot again as he flicked his fingers over the controls and touchscreen of the plot. The new, hypothetical paths resolved into two distinct cones, showing the probable tracks for each ship after a low speed collision. The blue cone, representing Bass’s pod headed out, bending to wrap around Vesta without impact. The orange cone would impact just after collision.

Bass knew what he was feeling, now.

He stabbed his microphone button, “Chuck, negative. That’ll put you on a head-on path.”

“Might be,” she said.

“Chuck, no! You’d just take my place.”

“Too late, I’m on my way. Not that you have much of a say in the matter in the first place. Not like you can dodge me anymore than you can dodge the ‘toid.”

Bass jabbed the touch screen, resetting the plot from the hypothetical he’d

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been running. With the extra thrust Chuck had piled on, she was almost upon him.

Minutes of slow approach turned to seconds of frenzied action. She would have to slow relative to Bass just before impact or both of them would die, which meant she had enough fuel to avoid impact.

He keyed his mike, but even as he did, he realized that it was too late. She wouldn’t have the time to program a new course. Instead, he asked, “Why? What difference does it make if it’s me or you who dies?”

“Well, buddy. It’s simple... Your job is to protect VV City.” Bass could make out alarms blaring over the line, warning her of imminent collision. “You already done that. Mine is to save you guys and I ain’t done that yet. Brace for impact in five.”

Her line keyed off and Bass counted aloud as he cinched his acceleration straps.

Bracing wasn’t enough. Even at slow speeds relative to each other, the impact was the worst he could remember.

A piece of his life support console flew loose, bounced off the canopy and careened down through the small cabin. It narrowly missed Bass and he cringed back, his reactions much too slow. Though small, the sharp edges of the piece were more than enough to kill him instantly if it punctured his space suit.

On instinct, he triggered the explosive to blow the canopy free and the tiny projectile bounced away into space. He was rewarded by spinning stars and Vesta. Stars, Vesta, stars...

Bass, groaning with more than nausea, keyed his mike again, “Chuck, you there? You still with me?”

There was no response, not even a click to tell him the line was open.

“Chuck, you bastard, you hear me? Dammit,” he shouted. The severed end of his communication wire floated into view.

The broken piece of wire, his lifeline to the communication system, was severed. Bass picked up both ends and stared, before letting them float away in disgust. He could splice them easy, but it would take much too long in his gloves.

He stared out the canopy, craning his neck to keep the surface of Vesta in sight for as long as possible, swinging his head back around to try to catch it on the next rotation.

He wondered if Chuck was trying to call him. He wondered if she was out there hoping for someone to keep her company or to pass on the message her Joey needed to hear. He wondered what memory she’d pick to flash before her eyes.

A small dot of light, a momentary twinkle was all he saw.

Later, wire spliced, he sat, staring at the spinning sky, no longer disturbed

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by it.

The COMMs system crackled, “Pilot, this is two-four-eight-Bravo, what’s your situation?”

He didn’t bother to respond.

50

How We Deal With Loneliness Caitlin Lochner

The cafe’s outdoor seating area is warm. Sarah turns a page in the book she just bought, Sherlock Holmes: The Valley of Fear, shifting in her seat to be better protected by the umbrella from the sun’s hot touch. She comes to this cafe every Saturday; the waitresses all recognize her and have her usual table and a banana milkshake ready when she arrives at ten o’clock in the morning with her books and binders full of papers to grade. Today is no different.

The cafe itself, with its wrap-around windows, cozy mahogany overhang, and white metal tables with red umbrellas poking skyward, is tucked between a used bookstore and a pottery shop. Women with small shopping bags pass by on the other side of the wrought iron fence. A little boy chases his sister around one of the many trees the sidewalk is built around. Cars shine, parallel-parked end to end along the strip of downtown shops.

As she sips at the dregs of her milkshake, debating whether or not she wants to spend the money on another one, a familiar voice says, “Sar? Is that you?”

There is a woman in her early twenties leaning on the edge of the fence, blonde hair pushed back by sunglasses. She looks like the number eight.

Sarah had seen pictures of her in magazines, even watched her in movies— watched movies for her—but she had never seemed like the same girl she once knew until just now. Beneath the expertly-applied makeup, Sarah can still make out the dark bags under the woman’s eyes, the traces of which were photoshopped out of most of her glamour shots. Her nails are the same alternating pattern of fuchsia and cerulean reminiscent of when they grew up together. A silver half of a heart that says “Best” hangs around her neck on an overlong chain, something that Sarah is surprised she kept after so long.

“Alice,” she says. “It’s been awhile.” ~

It wasn’t until fourth grade that Sarah found her first best friend. She liked Alice because she understood her sense of reclusiveness better than anyone. Alice didn’t look at her weirdly when Sarah said something unintentionally blunt. Only, the problem with having Alice as a best friend was that Alice was everyone’s best friend.

“Alice, do you want to come over to my house on Saturday?” Sarah asked.

She had been working up the nerve to ask all lunch, because Alice was seated in the

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center of a large group of students, and talking in front of people made her uneasy.

She could pretend it didn’t, and laugh with everyone else, but she tried not to talk too much in case she said something stupid.

“Sorry, Sar,” Alice said. “I’m hanging out with Lucy and Ben on Saturday.”

“Oh.” Sarah tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, trying to ignore all the kids watching her. “What about Sunday?”

“Can’t. Jim and Trey are coming over.”

Sarah knew better than to ask, but she did anyways. “Friday?”

Alice ducked her head, scooping corn into her mouth. Once she’d swallowed, she said, without looking up, “Sorry, Sar. I already made plans with the Collins twins in Mrs. Jones’s class. You know them, right?” It was not an offer to join; Alice knew Sarah better than that. But Sarah knew Alice just as well, and was aware that she wouldn’t enjoy having to entertain so many people all weekend.

On the way out of the cafeteria, Alice caught up to her and whispered, “I’m not doing anything after school today. Meet me by the jungle gym?”

For some reason unknown to Sarah, Alice liked to be the center of attention. When they were alone, though, she’d avoid crowded areas and groan at the mention of a class party. She admitted once that she hated being surrounded by so many people.

Sarah had just looked at her. “Then why do you do it? Make everyone notice you?”

Alice had frowned, seriously contemplating the matter. Then she’d shrugged. “I don’t know.” ~

Alice stands hesitantly behind the chair opposite Sarah, who thinks this odd since she can’t remember ever seeing Alice do something hesitantly unless her role called for her to. She hopes this isn’t some act to Alice, merely a chance to practice some new persona she’s invented. It’s been a long time since they last spoke, and that would ruin the moment. She doesn’t think even Alice would do that. At least, she hopes she wouldn’t.

“I saw your last movie,” Sarah says, when Alice makes no move to start up a conversation. The woman is tapping her fingers against the back of the chair.

“The one where you meet in a library? With the calculus professor.” She couldn’t remember the name of it. She couldn’t even offer any actors’ names because she didn’t keep up with celebrities.

Alice cracks a close-lipped smile and sits down. “The books and the math.

Of course that’s what you’d remember.” She watches people pass by without really seeing them. “You still with Josh?”

Sarah shakes her head. “We broke up years ago. He was too clingy.” It’s

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odd for her now to think about him after so long. Quiet, a bookworm, a rare sharer of her interest in math. He constantly wanted to be touching when they were together, though; an arm around her shoulder, his knee against hers, holding hands in sweltering weather. He always wanted to talk. She told herself that was normal, that was what two people did in a relationship, but after awhile, she realized she only liked talking to him. Once the idea to break up with him crossed her mind, she couldn’t dislodge it. So she told him. He’d said they couldn’t hang out anymore.

Sarah thought that was sad, but she had to admit she’d been glad to have free time for herself again. She’d never realized how suffocating relationships were.

Sarah doesn’t ask about Alice’s boyfriend—what was his name again?— because their breakup had been all over the tabloids some weeks ago. As she swirls the last layer of her milkshake with her straw, she decides she wants another one after all.

“I’m sorry,” Alice says, and she sounds like she means it. Her fingers flex and unflex on top of the table. It takes a second for Sarah to remember that they were talking about Josh. “I had no idea. I always thought you were the kind of couple who had it together and made it last.”

“Nothing lasts forever,” Sarah says. ~

In high school, Alice discovered theater. Sarah had known before that she was a good actress from watching her pretend to want to be surrounded by so many people, but then she became obsessed with perfecting the art. She auditioned for every play, and got whatever part she wanted. The drama teacher said she was born for the stage.

Sarah was happy for her at first. But then Alice started to change. She started looking at Sarah strangely when she joked about wanting to become a recluse so she wouldn’t have to deal with people, a joke so old and common between them that they didn’t think much about the meaning of the words anymore. Sarah, at least, still whole-heartedly believed in the sentiment. Alice stopped coming over for their usual sessions of playing video games and baking and watching movies and general lamenting of having to grow up and fit into society’s cultural norms.

This wasn’t unduly worrying for Sarah. Everyone had said high school was a busier time of life, and she and Alice were close enough that she wasn’t worried about missing a few days of hanging out. Besides, this gave her more free time to read, time that was hard to come by with her class load and her joining the math team. For while Alice had discovered a love for acting, Sarah had found a sort of solace in math. The answers were set, definite, permanent; one plus one would always equal two. Everything made sense with numbers. They would never change.

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So in the end, her schedule was busy enough that Alice’s didn’t bother her too much.

That was, however, until Alice said she couldn’t make their annual jointbirthday celebration. Traditionally, the two of them got together to exchange presents, rent the most ridiculous movie of the year, and eat a pint of ice cream each in place of cake. After, they would usually play video games and stay up late into the night talking. It was something Sarah looked forward to every March.

“Like I said, I’m going out with Jake,” Alice said, not quite snapping at Sarah, but close enough that she felt hurt. She couldn’t remember Alice ever being impatient with her. Brusqueness had been typical since they entered high school, but never outright annoyance. Never undisguised rejection. It made her feel like she’d missed a step going down the stairs.

Alice slammed the costume hangers on their rack with a cacophony of clicks and clangs, and whirled around. The dressing room off the stage was dark, and Sarah couldn’t read her friend’s expression. “And seriously, an entire pint of ice cream? We’re not kids anymore, Sarah. It’s not healthy. We’ll gain weight.”

But Sarah knew that Alice meant she would gain weight. She still remembered how Alice had freaked out after gaining three pounds at the last class physical check-up, and had henceforth been following a diet of what appeared to Sarah to consist entirely of leaves. Sarah didn’t see what the problem was with three extra pounds. Alice was still one of the prettiest girls at school, and it’s not like anyone would’ve noticed or cared anyway. Three was an awfully low number.

“But it’s tradition,” Sarah said. She shifted her messenger bag’s strap; it had been digging into her shoulder for the past ten minutes while she waited for Alice to clean up. She’d offered to help, but Alice had said not to touch anything. “I even rented the movie already. Sharks vs. Gators with Humans In-between. What about another night?”

“No,” Alice said. She swung her red backpack over her shoulder, but she looked more like a model than a student with her hand resting in the crook of her neck and shoulder like it did. It looked practiced. “Sarah, I don’t want to watch some lame movie and make a pig of myself.”

“We could do something else. Whatever you want.”

Alice closed her eyes, as if calling forth a great deal of patience. “I don’t have time. I’ve already got plans all this week and next.”

“You say that every week,” Sarah said, and for once, it did bother her that Alice was blowing her off, that she had been for months now. This was what they did. Alice had never scheduled something on their decided joint-birthday celebration day before. She had looked forward to it as much as Sarah did. Now, looking at this girl with her hair dyed blond, with her makeup that she had

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previously scorned for years, her haughty stance with one hip thrust out, one hand resting purposefully upon it, Sarah realized she didn’t know who this girl was. She wasn’t her Alice.

“I have other friends to hang out with,” Alice says, and underlying that, the implied question of Why don’t you? Her nose wrinkled like she’d just smelled sewer waste that had been out in the scorching sun for a week. “Get a life already.”

And she left. Sarah stood there in the dark dressing room, knowing that something had broken, and undecided as to when, exactly, it had started to crack.

It felt like a clock; the ticking that had been forever present had stopped, and Sarah had never noticed the noise until it was gone. She couldn’t pinpoint what she had done wrong, or the precise moment when Alice had stopped acting like her best friend.

She didn’t feel like going home. She didn’t feel like returning the movie or eating the ice cream. She didn’t feel like putting away the spare blankets and pillows she’d gotten out in preparation for Alice’s stay.

She went to talk to Ms. DeCourt about the upcoming math competition. ~

“You still have it,” Sarah says, and she doesn’t realize until Alice gives her a look that she’d forgotten to refer to the necklace. She nods toward it, and Alice understands without having to glance down.

“You thought I’d get rid of it?” Alice asks, not meanly, not even like a question. She already knows the answer, and so her expression doesn’t change when Sarah nods. It was a gift they’d exchanged on their last joint-birthday party. Sarah would be lying if she said she knew where her half was.

The waitress comes to take Alice’s order. As she twists her head around to speak, Sarah can’t remember Alice’s neck ever being so elongated. She wonders if that’s practiced, too, and if you could even practice something like that. The waitress stammers as soon as her eyes meet the actress’s, so that Alice orders a tall soy caramel macchiato latte with no foam and two percent milk before the poor woman can even ask what she wants. Sarah orders another milkshake.

Alice watches the waitress walk away as she says, “You know, it’s funny. I’d just been thinking I wanted to see you. And then I did.”

Sarah is tempted to ask why Alice wanted to see her, but if she’s anything like she used to be, Alice would only wink and smile and say something vaguely mysterious-sounding. “What are you doing in town?” she asks instead. “I thought I heard you were filming in New York.” They were definitely not in The City That Never Sleeps. More like The Town That Puts You To Sleep. At least, that’s how she knows Alice had seen it. To find her here again feels wrong, somehow.

“The shoot finished early, so I requested some time off,” Alice says.

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“Why here?”

The waitress returns and sets their drinks down. Alice waits until after she leaves to answer. “Just thought it might be nice to visit home again after so long. It’s kind of weird; everyone’s gone now. Well, almost everyone.”

Sarah can tell by the way she says this that she isn’t being entirely truthful.

She thinks of the last time Alice became lonely and sought her out. She had lied about her reason for being there then, too. Acted. And then she’d disappeared after graduation without a word.

They sit for some time, the only noises being that of a man sitting behind Sarah slurping at his drink and the shouts of kids off the street and their mothers scolding them. But Sarah doesn’t hear any of this; to her, she and Alice are in a concrete bubble that expels all impeding sounds. ~

Alice was standing in the doorway, eyes bloodshot, nose running, chest heaving as she hiccupped uncontrollably. Sarah had wondered who was pounding on her front door, but Alice was probably the last person she’d expected to see standing on the other side. They hadn’t spoken since that afternoon in the dressing room nearly half a year ago.

Sarah wanted to be cold like Alice. She wanted to say, “What do you want?” or “Don’t show up here just because you’re down. I don’t have time to take care of you.” She wanted to slam the door in her face and feel the horrible satisfaction of being the rejecter and not the rejected for once.

“Why don’t you come inside?” Sarah asked, and she wrapped her arm around Alice’s shoulders, who cried even harder as she buried her face in Sarah’s neck and allowed herself to be led to the couch. Luckily Sarah’s parents were out running errands. She didn’t know what they’d think of Alice’s dry sobs.

The living room was right next to the kitchen, so as Sarah warmed up some milk to make hot chocolate, she watched her old friend rocking back and forth out of the corner of her eye. Neither of them said anything; the countdown on the microwave was incredibly loud and irritating. Even the sound of the porcelain cups being set on the counter was amplified.

When Sarah returned to the living room bearing their two cups, Alice had yet to regain her composure. Whatever had upset her, Sarah thought, it must’ve been really bad. She didn’t press her, though, only handed her a cup and curled up on the armchair across from her, knees tucked into her stomach, arms around her legs, fingers absorbing the warmth of the drink.

It was some time before Alice spoke, and even then she wouldn’t look up from her cup. “Mark dumped me.”

Sarah knew that couldn’t be all. Alice had gone through breakups before.

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She had a different boy every week. Sure, Mark was more handsome than the others, but Alice had her pick of the crop. So she waited for her former friend to go on and sipped at her hot chocolate. It needed marshmallows.

“He was my first,” Alice whispered, and her voice broke on the last word.

She became nearly unintelligible through her crying. “He said he only wanted to sleep with me, and then he dumped me.”

Sarah wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do. She hadn’t regarded Alice as a friend in a long time, and to comfort her now would be both strange and to reinstate something she wasn’t sure she wanted. She wasn’t even sure how to comfort someone. What she did know was that she certainly didn’t care to end her misery soon; watching Alice now filled her with a deep-seated satisfaction strong enough to outweigh the guilt that came with recognizing the feeling. As to whether it was because Alice had come back to her, had needed her, or because she thought Alice deserved it for seeing so many boys was debatable. However, the feeling soon faded. To watch Alice folding in on herself, her usually perfect hair a bird’s nest, her makeup smeared, felt wrong.

Sarah set her mug down, sat on the couch next to Alice, and pulled her close in what was probably the stiffest hug she’d ever managed to give. But Alice didn’t care; she cried even harder as she clung to Sarah, for all the world as if she were the only human being left alive.

The clock that had been silent for so long started ticking again, but it was no longer rhythmic and reassuring. It felt more like a countdown. ~

“So what are you doing now?” Alice asks.

“I’m a calculus teacher at the old high school,” Sarah says.

She expects Alice to say how mundane that sounds, how boring and dry, but she doesn’t. She asks, “Do you like it? You have fun?” She’s watching a couple at a distant table, but Sarah can tell she wants to know the answer very badly. It was always when she didn’t appear to be paying attention that she was the most interested.

“Yeah,” Sarah says. Her hand strays to the pile of half-graded homework by her side, fiddling for a second with her pen. She hates grading things in red, because red is a harsh and unforgiving color, so the pen is purple. “Yeah, I love it.”

Alice wears another of those smiles that doesn’t show her teeth. Sarah remembers when she used to smile with her mouth wide open, a laughing sort of expression, eyes alight with whatever had amused her. She wonders when it changed.

“And you still love acting?” Sarah asks.

Her smiles dissolves. “Yeah,” she says. “It’s fun.”

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The sound of her jeans rubbing together as her foot taps up and down fills the space.

“So,” Alice says. “Really nice weather today.”

Sarah can’t tell if she’s being facetious or not. “Yeah,” she says. “Been awhile since we had a cloudless day.”

Alice shades her eyes from the sun with a mechanical flick of her hand.

Two doves nearby fight for an abandoned French fry.

“Why did you leave without saying goodbye?” Sarah asks. She hadn’t been aware she was going to say anything until the words slipped out. She had never thought much about it, but maybe things had a way of sitting unnoticed in the corner of one’s mind for seven years until they one day suddenly, impulsively, burst out.

A waitress asks someone at the table behind them if they would like a refill. Ice chinks against glass. There’s a round of Happy Birthday on the other side of the courtyard. A group of teenagers using sign language seems to randomly explode into laughter.

For the first time today, a glimmer of Alice’s old self surfaces, the secret smile, the teasing raise of her eyebrows. “I don’t know.”

Sarah almost wishes someone would recognize Alice so that she would have to leave or risk being mobbed by fans. It’s a terrible thing to want, but right now, she can’t think of anything she wants less than to sit here at this table.

“You cared, then?” Alice asks. Her eyes are unblinking. “When I left?”

Sarah isn’t sure about that. Things were never really the same after their breaking off. She had grown used to her solitude in their time apart, and enjoyed it. Sometimes, it was almost annoying having to make time for Alice. But there’s no denying that she’d still felt betrayed when Alice vanished. “I don’t know,” she says.

Alice leans back and crosses her arms. She scowls, probably the first real hint of emotion she’s shown all day. “Of course not,” she says. “I should’ve known.

You never needed me; I was always the one relying on you.”

Sarah doesn’t know what to say to that. She stares at Alice, but as the seconds pass, no understanding dawns. Hadn’t she been the one tagging along after Alice? Perpetually asking to hang out? Alice had always had the power in their friendship. Even if she’d felt differently, Sarah couldn’t imagine Alice admitting to such. But then, maybe things had been sitting untouched in her mind, too.

Alice shakes her head, reading Sarah’s silence. She twists the necklace between her fingers. “You were the one person I didn’t feel like I had to put up an act around. Even after we graduated, I never found someone like you. I kept wishing you were there with me. But you never came after me.”

“I didn’t know you wanted me to.”

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“I wanted you to want to on your own.”

That doesn’t make much sense to Sarah, but she is starting to understand what Alice means. They were similar in almost opposite ways. Neither of them liked being around others, but whereas Alice fought this by surrounding herself with fans and friends, Sarah had eventually come to accept the fact that she liked her solitude.

But Alice never moved on. She still felt like she was dependent on Sarah to alleviate her feeling of isolation.

“I can’t follow you,” Sarah says. The pages of her still-open book flutter in the wind. “I’m sorry.”

Alice stares ahead before pushing herself from her chair. “What are you talking about? I didn’t ask you to do anything like that.” She fishes some pristine bills out of her wallet and sets them by her half-full drink. “Nice running into you again.”

As Sarah watches her walk away, a momentary battle between pride and loyalty claws at her chest. Just as Alice puts her hand on the gate, she says, “I missed you after you left. It took me years to really get over you being gone.”

Alice pauses. Then she pushes the gate open and continues on without so much as a backwards glance. But as Sarah watches her walk away, she hears a certain clicking that has nothing to do with the actress’s high heels. Softly at first, but with increasing volume and urgency. The ticking of a clock.

59

The Young Thanatos Giovanni M. Fitzpatrick

“Mommy, where did Daddy go?” a young boy asked as he sat beside his mother on the couch, watching the evening news.

His mother was glued to the sofa, clutching her son closely, waiting to see if there would be any development. The house phone was pulled in from kitchen, and her cell phone sat right beside it. There was no other movement, save for the images on the TV screen. First the weather, then details about voting issues for the upcoming presidential election between Gore and Bush. She was growing restless, and she could only imagine what her son was thinking.

“Mommy, what’s going on?” he asked, looking up at her with the eyes of someone wholly unprepared for what might happen.

“It’s okay, Baby. Daddy’s just working late. He’ll be home soon,” she said, hugging him and kissing him on the forehead.

“Okay, can I go to my room?” her son asked, more concerned with playing Pokemon Silver than watching the news.

“No Baby, I want you to sit right here and watch the news with me,” she said, her focus jumping between the next news item and each random noise that might be the sound of a phone rigging. “Something important might be coming on and I don’t want you to miss it, okay?”

“Okay,” her son said, sitting back in the sofa, completely bored.

This continued for the next five minutes, with the mother almost fainting with every new story about a shooting in Tampa. Her son’s grandmother hadn’t called in over an hour, and there hadn’t been an update from a family friend who worked in the police force. Her initial instinct was to call and check-in, but she was absolutely terrified about what the status might be. The fear for her dear son was paramount.

Another two minutes had passed, and following the drudgery of a weather report that stated the obvious (Tampa in the month of May is hot, humid, and there’s a chance of rain everyday), the outro to a commercial mentioned a body being found on a dead-end street near Lowry Park Zoo.

Her eyes began to water, but she managed to compose herself, at least for her son’s sake. She squeezed him ever so tightly, causing him to naturally recoil and wiggle out of her grip. He was getting bigger—at nine years old already over 5ft, but still a thin thing—and she knew that his mind was capable of processing information far quicker than most nine-year-olds. She also knew that he had lived

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a sheltered life, and kept to himself, his books, and his video games, his proverbial escape from actual life.

The story came on, and as she watched Keith Cate announce that the body of a black man, mid-40s, was found on the side of a dead-end street with a bullet wound to the back of the head, the inescapable feeling of dread washed over her. If her caramel skin could show signs of pallor, it would’ve, and once the story was finished, having revealed no names or any other identification, she turned to the nearby coffee table and awaited the fateful call.

Ring.

Ring.

She sat there, looking at the phone as though this was merely the worst possible daydream. The ringing made no sound; the vibrations of the cell-phone made no chatter on the glass table-top. Her son was not tapping her shoulder, wondering why she wasn’t answering. Friends and family weren’t calling to inquire about the situation, or send their regards. This all wasn’t happening, or so she wanted it to be.

But it was, and she had no choice but to answer.

“Hello?” she answered, her voice almost cracking. Her son was looking at her, putting together the odd coincidence of the numerous calls following the story on the news.

“Barbara,” the soft, female voice on the other end answered. “Are you there?”

“I am, Mrs. Virgie,” she answered, her voice cracking even more. “Have you heard anything?”

There’s the faint sound of sobbing on the other end, but she manages to keep her composure, with the hope, however distant it might be, that her worst fears won’t be confirmed, and that everything is just a massive mix-up.

“It’s…it’s…,” Mrs. Virgie stammered, catching her thoughts. “It’s Marty, he’s—,”

Her ears turned off, knowing what was being said. She put the phone down on the table, as Ms. Virgie continued to call out her name.

“Mommy, who’s on the phone?” her son asked while attempting to make out the voice coming through the speaker.

She caught her breath, thinking about the wonderful times her and Marty had together, and how wonderful a man he had been—a wonderful man, but an even greater father.

“It’s your grandmother, Baby,” she said, wrapping her arms around him, and rocking back and forth. Her son grew more confused, as he couldn’t recall a

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time when he saw his mom in this emotional state.

“Grandma Virgie or Grandma Alice?” he asked, trying to find some context for the phone call and his mother’s saddened edifice.

“It’s your Grandma Virgie,” his mom answered, wiping her right eye.

“Is it about Daddy?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. He just knew that his mom knew, because at this point, she knew everything. “Where is he? He’s at work right? I saw him leave last night for work.”

“Baby, your Grandma Virgie was telling me that they found your dad…”

“So he was at work, right?” he asked.

“Baby, your dad…,” his mom struggled to get out.

“He was at work, right?” her son asked again.

His mom hung her head, and abruptly ended the phone call with his grandmother. She looked at him, her eyes welled up with water, with his face completely stern, just looking for an explanation.

“He wasn’t at work, Baby. They found your father,” she paused, closing her eyes. “He’s dead.”

Her son looked at her. He didn’t blink, and tears didn’t begin to flow from his eyes. His body was frozen, and his attempt to furrow his brow failed in dismal misery. He wasn’t even sure of his thoughts. He knew what death was—he had lost his first dog to an unsuspecting truck, even though his mother did her best to hide the truth from him—but this didn’t hit home.

He was unsure if it was because he couldn’t conceive of his father being gone. Having a parent—or in his fortunate case—both of your parents, is something that you grow up taking for granted. It was almost a given, and even though they amicably split when he was only two, they both came together to be important figures in his life. Now one was gone.

His mother was hugging him, saying that everything would be alright, as he sat on the couch, hearing the two phones ring constantly with no answers. The news reports continued, doing their best to identify the man who was found on that dead-end road. But the family had already known, and it was a matter of time before the identification was plastered across the bottom of the screen:

“A man was found on a dead-end street near Lowry Park Zoo in the early hours of the morning. The man, later identified as Lamar Fitzpatrick, is a resident of Tampa. The preliminary cause of death appears to be a bullet wound to the back of the head. His personal effects were missing, and investigators are treating this as a potential robbery gone bad.”

His mother finally let him go, and the young boy got up and walked to the kitchen. He wasn’t hungry, yet he wanted something to eat. He wasn’t thirsty,

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but as he looked through the refrigerator, the bottles of Coke, Sprite, Fanta, and gallon of milk started to call out to him. His focus then shifted to the set of knives that sat by the microwave.

It was in seeing the knives, and perhaps their multiple uses, that really hit home the fact that his father was no longer with him. Bluntly, his daddy was dead, and that short phrase did a macabre procession through his brain with every synapse firing off, forming a 3-d picture of his father lying on that dirty street, a bleeding corpse.

He picked up one of the knives—coincidentally the largest one—and held it up to his chest, near where his heart was. He wanted to be with his dad. He knew this moreso than he knew that his Charmander would eventually evolve into Charizard, or that Barry Sanders would retire after a year in Madden 2000.

He, in that instant, was ready to do almost anything to be with his dad, or at the very least, spend just one last moment with him. As the point of the knife started its intrusion, he could feel a metaphysical substance coming over him, somewhat like a coat, or perhaps the arms of a protector. He looks towards the living room, and his mom hasn’t moved. There’s no one else in the apartment. So he continues.

The closer he got towards drawing blood, the stronger the feeling of inevitability becomes. In all of this, he doesn’t have a concern for his mother. She’s merely a few feet away, suffering the same distress as he’s going through, but his focus is on his now-dead father, found motionless, still, on a nondescript street in an unimportant part of town. Found by a man doing his daily, morning jog, no less.

Yet he pushes forward, and as a small stream of blood begins to makes its way down his left pectoral muscle, the sound of his father’s voice beckons. The kitchen—a beige room where the only time spent there was fixing his next plate and throwing the dishes into the sink—transformed into a grand hall, with marble and gold thrones surrounding a central quad. On those thrones sat people who had profound impacts on the young boy’s life, including his grandfather, an old teacher from elementary school, Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Jackson, his godmother Ms. Ollie, and still others. On a center throne sat his dad, dressed in a grey, threepiece suit, in utter majesty.

The young boy walked closer to the throne, the eyes of those seated following him with every step. He expected his dad to say something, to welcome him to whatever this place was. Nevertheless, he was more than happy to be reunited with his dad, and the closer he got, the more he just knew that everything was going to be alright.

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He stood at the foot of the throne, looking up at his father who appeared as a giant of a man even though he was only six inches taller than himself. He reached his right hand out, trying to grab hold of his father’s hand, but failed.

“Daddy, I’m here,” he called out, with his father looking down towards him, smiling. “Are you ready to come back home?”

His father remained silent, and shook his head.

“I don’t understand,” the young boy said. “You don’t want to come home?

Why not?”

Still, his father sat silent and shook his head again.

“Okay, Daddy. That’s fine,” the boy said, having become fidgety. “I’ll stay here with you. Maybe even Mommy can come. That would be really nice. We’d all be together then.”

The boy smiled, knowing that this would convince his dad that everything could go back to normal. He knew his dad wouldn’t refuse that. His dad said yes to almost everything else. Whether it was a new toy when he was a baby, a new book as he started school, or the latest game for his PlayStation or Gameboy Color, his dad always made sure that he was there for him. This would be no different. He just knew. He just knew.

Or so he thought, but when his dad shook his head again, an even worse feeling of despair draped over him like a wool topcoat in the middle of this Tampa summer. This was unlike the anxiousness and confusion when his mom was waiting for that phone call. This was unlike the knee-jerk reaction of “It can’t be” when he heard his father’s name during the news story. This was grim. This was dread. This was the unmitigated truth.

“I don’t understand, daddy. I don’t get it,” he said, looking up to his father, reaching out again with tears streaming down his cheeks. “Why do things have to be this way?”

He saw his dad’s left hand reach towards him, gripping the back of his neck. A warmth—not exactly heat, or a frictional intensity—came over him during this last embrace. His father let go and leaned back, smiling. He then nodded twice and disappeared into the distance, along with the rest of the enthroned.

The young boy looked around as this exalted realm began to regress to the dismal reality of the small beige kitchen of the small beige apartment. There he stood, two hands firmly wrapped around the handle of the butcher knife as it pressed against his chest, with four drops of blood narrowly missing his pair of white shoes. The time on the microwave clock hadn’t changed—4:47pm—and his mom was still on the couch, her head in her hands. Far from the point of unfeeling, even the slight prick of the knife was excruciating, exacerbated by his now extreme

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hunger, thirst, and melancholy.

He grabs a cup from one of the cabinets, fills it up with ice, and pours himself some Sprite, spilling some on the counter but not bothering to wipe it up.

He rips off a piece of a paper towel and wipes the blood from under his shirt and off the ground, balling up the paper and throwing it into the garbage can. His mom is faintly sobbing in the living room, and she’s changed the channel to something that won’t ever be showing the local news.

The young boy heads back to the living room and sits down next his mother, giving her a hug, and squeezing tightly. They remain in this embrace for nearly two minutes, as her rate of tears increases, and he remains stoic. This ends, and he drinks some of his Sprite, feeling an odd and temporary respite from the situation.

“Are you okay, Baby?” his mom asked, looking over towards him. She noticed her young son was unflinching and hadn’t shed a tear. He was focused on something—she couldn’t tell whether it was the TV, or random thoughts in his head—but whatever it was, he had a still intensity about him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he responded, taking another sip of his Sprite. “Are we going over to grandma’s?” he asked, looking at her, seeing his mother doing her very best to compose herself, to show her son strength in this time of insurmountable sorrow.

“We’re gonna head over there in a few,” she answered, rubbing her eyes a bit.

“Alright. I’m gonna go get ready,” he said.

He got up and walked to his room, shutting the door behind him. His mother turned and looked towards the door as it shut, hearing the “click-clack” of the lock. She wondered what was going on in her young son’s mind, having faced his first cognitive bout with death since his grandfather’s passing when he was only three. She wondered what she could do as a mother, as the now-sole provider, as the one who was going to have to become both parents from here on out.

What she also realized was that her son was unlike most young children.

He seemed more than happy to spend time by himself. In fact, he seemed to thrive on it. While he was always a momma’s boy, he had began to grow more distant, especially as he started to spend more quality time with his dad. He never asked for help on homework, and he never concerned himself with asking either of them to go to school functions.

He never had friends over, and she couldn’t remember any time where he made much mention of the friends he did have. Everything was always done with such an individual dynamism that neither she nor his father ever bothered

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to inquire. He brought home consistent straight A’s, the teacher’s notes were all glowing commendations, and his record was absolutely spotless. He won the President’s Award four years running, the Principal’s Award for two years, and when it came to smaller awards for spelling, history, or mathematics aptitude, she began to run out of room in a dedicated award’s folder.

Nothing ever seemed to faze him; aside from a bout of chronic bronchitis when he was younger, he never had a serious sickness. He didn’t grow up athletic, but he had innate athletic ability that she was able to see during his short time playing baseball.

In comparison to his older brother and sister, he was entirely different.

Of course, some of this was due to his upbringing—he had the luxury of having a father who made a good amount of money and, being his father’s only child, was essentially spoiled. Combined with family members who lauded him for his intelligence and were increasingly supportive of his academic pursuits.

But his mother was worried, as he didn’t have that close relationship with a family member near his age. His brother and sister, although much older than he was (twelve and fourteen-years old, respectively), were close in age, and they grew up together, in the same household, in the same schools. He was raised structurally alone, surrounded by people much older than he was, and perhaps, she thought, they made him mature much faster than others. His brain took the knowledge, the words, the intonation of the adults, and assimilated them as his own. And as he exited his room, she looked at her baby boy, and she saw a young man.

“Are you ready?” she asked as he walked towards the sofa.

“Yeah, Mommy, let’s go,” he said, clutching his Gameboy.

“Alright, lemme get my things.”

She walked to the dining room table, picked up her black handbag and the ever-growing set of keys that opened everything from the apartment, the bedrooms, two different cars, a nearby storage unit, and a shed at her mother’s house. When she turned back around, she saw that her son was standing by the door, his attention squarely on the Gameboy.

“You got everything?” she asked, unlocking the door.

“Yup,” her son answered, entering into a battle with a Pokemon trainer.

“Everything is gonna be alright, okay, Baby?” she said as they walked out of the door.

“I know, Mommy, I’m fine,” he said, closing the door behind them.

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Literature As Escapism: the Diversion of Le Morte d’Arthur Gabriella Andujar

In the twentieth century, scholars discovered information on a man who had, for approximately four hundred years, remained largely a mystery. Little was known about him other than the fact that he has been credited for writing one of the most important works in all of Arthurian literature. However, in contradiction with the virtues and honor represented in the lengthy, but highly significant work that is, The Birth, Life and Acts of King Arthur, of his noble Knights of the Round Table, their marvelous Enquests and Adventures; th’Achieving of the Sangreal, and in the end the dolorous Death and Departing out of the World of Them All” (Hardyment 9), otherwise and hereby known as Le Morte d’Arthur, the key to understanding the elusive author was not an account that told of virtue and good deeds, but rather, a criminal record that boasted a number of severe offences that included not one, but two accounts of rape. Knowledge of the dark personal history of “Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revell in Warwickshire” (Greenblatt 480) proposes a number of questions, the largest of these being: how could a man such as this have written a narrative that is centered around integrity and chivalry in a golden age of living? While some scholars have stated that “such a contradiction…should not be surprising” (Greenblatt 481), they are only correct after an examination of the conditions of the novel’s creation has been completed. The conclusion to this examination can be adequately summed up in one word: escapism. A look into the emotional states of the author and readers of Le Morte d’Arthur, as well as the chaotic condition of England’s government during the fifteenth century, is intended to provide evidence that this masterful piece of literature was written, read, and adored by the English, who were desperately searching for an escape from their wretched circumstances.

Before discussing how Le Morte d’Arthur provided escape for its author and its readers, it is critical to understand that the noteworthiness of this work has prevailed for almost six hundred years. Edward Hicks suggests in his book, Sir Thomas Malory: His Turbulent Career, that Sir Thomas Malory has been victim to the problem with artistic geniuses who may be too well known, such as William Shakespeare. Hicks states that creative masterminds allow for the possibility of

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their genius to expand to an overvalued level of esteem that will push their lessappreciated, but equally talented, colleagues into the shadows. However, Hick argues that despite Shakespeare’s massive popularity, “There is another name standing high in the realm of letters, which Warwickshire folk are fully entitled to claim – that of Sir Thomas Malory, author of the Morte d’Arthur” (Hicks 3), which caused a sensation upon its publication after England’s first printer, William Caxton, took the time to edit the extensive text (Greenblatt 481), which is frequently published in two volumes.

At the turn of the sixteenth century, the praise and love for Le Morte d’Arthur did not falter. This “300,000-word history of King Arthur and his knights…was admired by the Elizabethan playboy-poet Edmund Spenser, the seventeenth-century Puritan John Milton, Queen Victoria’s adored poet laureate Lord Tennyson and the artisan-craftsman William Morris” (Hardyment 9-10), and twentieth century minds continued to hold it in a position of esteem. C.S. Lewis praised Malory for being the inventor of some of the best writing that England could boast, and T.E. Lawrence, a British officer who fought during the Arab Revolt, had a copy of Malory’s volume tucked into his saddlebags “as a solace from the horrors of war” (Hardyment 10). Through this knowledge, scholars received proof that Le Morte d’Arthur was continuing to provide a twentieth century soldier with the same consolation in the midst of harsh and dangerous situations as it had for Malory and his contemporaries, five hundred years earlier, and it give no hint of stopping anytime soon.

Based off of Malory’s narrative, T.H. White wrote his Arthurian tale, The Once and Future King, which has become the inspiration for a Broadway musical called Camelot, as well as a Walt Disney cartoon. These are just some of the ways that Malory’s original work has resurfaced in other mediums, as his “Arthurian concepts of Camelot, the Round Table and the Holy Grail are international archetypes used in poems, novels, comic books, music, paintings, computer games and films with astonishing regularity” (Hardyment 10). Therefore, it can be stated that all Arthuriana since the fifteenth century, which includes works such as Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, the motion picture Excalibur, and the BBC family television show Merlin, can trace elements of its ancestry back to Sir Thomas Malory.

A work of this significance, considered England’s “most enduring national epic” (Hardyment 9) is worthy of a thorough investigation into the life of its author. The information that has been discovered by scholars and researchers points towards a man who is as fascinating and convoluted as the work that he produced. Unfortunately, despite the magnitude of Le Morte d’Arthur, a great deal of controversy surrounds its author, adding a haze of suspicion to a composition

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that is deeply involved with the integrity and virtues that constituted the chivalric code. Critical information about this text can be overlooked beneath the fascination that occurs when examining the seemingly many contradictions between Malory’s conduct and the underlying themes of his creation. As referenced prior, a document was discovered “in 1928, [when] a resourceful American scholar called Edward Hicks…published a life of Malory based on his discovery of a long and partially burned record of a court held in Nuneaton in 1451” (Hardyment 11).1 What it stated has become the basis for the larger portion of the darkness that clouts Malory’s name, for:

It revealed that Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel had been

accused of an appalling catalogue of crimes. He had, it said,

ambushed the Duke of Buckingham with intent to murder, broken

out of jail, made a violent and destructive raid on the Abbey of

Coombe, extorted valuables from local villagers and rustled three

hundred sheep from a neighbor’s estate. Worst of all, he had

committed rape not once, but twice.” (Hardyment 11) These very crimes were the reason that Sir Thomas Malory “spent most of his life in prison” (Hardyment 1), causing him to pen the majority of Le Morte d’Arthur while within the confinements of a cell. Once more, this information begs the question: “How could a man who composed one of the most warmly human and nobly intended books of all time break every law in the book of chivalry?”

(Hardyment 11).

Unfortunately, this has become a tricky question to answer. After all, Arthuriana is packed with references to the existence of the chivalric code, which states that the honor of a knight, “was to be without stain, and the word of a knight was accepted by friend and foe. In brief, the knight was to have all those perfections of character which the revelation of the Gospels renders possible: he would then be a perfect mirror of chivalry – this was his ideal.” (Williamson 332) Malory was very familiar with this goal of chivalry, for “he was taken into the Earl of Warwick’s service and in 1428 placed about the person of the little king, Henry VI” (Hicks 8), there is still much of Le Morte d’Arthur that does not fit into a ‘knights in shining armor’ image. King Arthur is depicted as weak and impotent, and is an inferior knight in comparison to Lancelot. Furthermore, towards the end of the narrative, it is stated that he has heard the rumors of Lancelot and Guinevere’s secret liaisons, but prior to Sir Agravain and Sir Mordred’s confrontation, “he would not hear of it, for of Lancelot had done so much for 1

Edward Hicks is the author of Sir Thomas Malory: His Turbulent Career, quoted above.

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him and for the Queen so many times that…the King loved him passingly well” (Malory 483). Sandwiched between the unconventional circumstances of Arthur’s birth, created through Merlin’s transformation of Uther Pendragon into the likeness of the husband of the king’s beloved (Greenblatt 481), and the death of Arthur that concludes the narrative is a collection of murder, adultery, betrayal, conflict, conspiracy, death, and, indeed, raptus. Therefore, the afforested quote that contemplates how a man with the reputation of Sir Thomas Malory could have written a work such as Le Morte d’Arthur, is misleading, as it suggests that the chronicle in question is consistently rooted on the fair side of humanity. This is not the case. William Caxton himself states in his preface to Malory’s tale that:

Herein may be seen noble chivalry, courtesy, humanity,

friendliness, hardiness, love, friendship, cowardice, murder,

hate, virtue, and sin…And for to pass the time this book shall

be pleasant to read in, but for to give faith and belief that all

is true that is contained herein, ye be at your liberty. (Hardyment ix) This preface does two things: 1) it states that this work is intended to be “pleasant to read, ” but whether or not its contents are to be interpreted as fact is a choice up to the reader; this suggests that this work was not intended to be read for its historical accuracy, but is a work of fiction and something that would purposefully induce amusement. And 2) by combining “chivalry [and] courtesy” with “murder [and] hate”, Caxton affirms there is indeed a sinister darkness to this work that goes hand in hand with its morality and integrity. This knowledge has proved unsatisfactory to “disappointed admirers of the Morte [who] began to look for other candidates of authorship” (Hardyman 11) when they realized that the potential author behind their beloved literary masterpiece appeared to be an enormous contradiction to his creation. However, the idea that someone with Malory’s criminal record could have written something with the virtues, but also the vices, of Le Morte d’Arthur should not be considered so very farfetched. Although the following phrase may be painfully well known, there is a ring of truth to it: writers write what they know.

With this in mind, what is portrayed in Le Morte d’Arthur is a combination of strong elements of the chivalric code that Malory would have witnessed during his military service as one of England’s knights, as well as the lingering undertones of the author’s own transgressions and personal demons.

These demons provide a perfect transition into how the work became a form of escapism for Sir Thomas Malory. To partially repeat statements made previously, Gweneth Whitteridge declares that “only three facts are known for certain about the author of the Le Morte d’Arthur: his name was Thomas Malory; he was a knight; he finished the ‘noble histories of King Arthur and his knights’

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sometime between 4 March 1469 and 3 March I470 and at that time he was in prison” (Whitteridge 17). The final words of Le Morte d’Arthur do not speak of King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, or the vast number of knights mentioned in the composition; instead, they speak of the author. When keeping in mind Malory’s physical location when he set down his pen after completing his account of King Arthur, as well as the fact that they were written no more than two years prior to Malory’s death in 1471 at the age of sixty-six (Greenblatt 480), the last lines of Le Morte d’Arthur can be read as bursting with contrition, constituting an entreaty to Malory’s readers during his life and those that would follow his death, for their assistance in the course of his salvation.

I pray you all gentlemen and gentlewomen that readeth this book of Arthur and his knights from the beginning to the ending, pray for me while I am alive that God send me good deliverance. And when I am dead, I pray you all pray for my soul. For this book was ended the ninth year of the reign of King Edward the Fourth, by Sir Thomas Malory, knight, as Jesu help him for His great might, as he is the servant of Jesu both night and day.” (Malory 500) This final passage creates an extraordinarily intimate connection between Malory and his readers, as it registers on a highly personal level. While it is unknown for certain, it is possible that Malory had come to the realization that the possibilities and opportunities that are offered to the living were beginning to escape him, although it is known that “The Wars of the Roses…may account for some of [Malory’s] troubles with the law. After a failed Lancastrian revolt, the Yorkist king, Edward IV, [of whom Malory speaks] specifically excluded Malory from four amnesties he granted to the Lancastrians” (Greenblatt 481). With the possibility of never being released from prison, and sixty-four years old at the completion of Le Morte d’Arthur, there is a chance that this notorious criminal with a considerable history of appalling crimes to his name was beginning to regret the ill-considered decisions of his existence. His supplication to his audience to come before God for the benefit of his soul, even after his body had perished, points towards the likelihood that Malory believed that the many offenses he had committed were going to condemn his afterlife to the depths of hell. By creating a “book [that] shall be pleasant to read” (Hardyment ix), ending it with the passage stated above, where he painted himself as a Christian follower of the son of God, Malory was leaving one last remembrance that he hoped would be enough to save him from an undesirable and painful eternity.

The nonfiction Russian writer Nadezhda Mandelstam expressed in

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her rather lengthy quote how people rightfully respond when they come to the understanding that they have reached their final moments, and it adequately summarizes the emotional state that Sir Thomas Malory was subject to when he penned the last few lines of his composition. Mandelstam states: I often wondered whether it is right to scream when you are being beaten and trampled underfoot. Isn’t it better to face one’s tormentors in a stance of satanic pride, answering them with contemptuous silence? I decided that it is better to scream. This pitiful sound, which sometimes, goodness knows how, reaches into the remotest prison cell, is a concentrated expression of the last vestige of human dignity. It is a man’s way of leaving a trace, of telling people how he lived and died. By his scream he asserts his right to live, sends a message to the outside world demanding help and calling for resistance. If nothing else is left, one must scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity. (Seldes 572) In other words, trapped in prison with nothing else remaining but the terrifying reality of death and hell coming closer and closer, Le Morte d’Arthur can be seen as Sir Thomas Malory’s last scream.

As the final excerpt of his work suggests, it was a route of escape from his perpetual damnation, but additionally, there is the evidence within the body of the text that suggests that Malory used Le Morte d’Arthur to fantasize about what the response to his own end would be. In the novel’s final confrontation, Arthur is severely wounded by Sir Mordred, who dies after issuing the blow that will come to kill the king, and what follows is an account of what Malory might have wanted his own death to have been like. Knowing that the end is inescapable and quickly approaching, Arthur orders Sir Bedievere to place him in a barge with three mourning women. As he is carried away from Sir Bedievere who remains onshore, Malory writes, “‘Comfort thyself,’ said the King, ‘and do as well as thou mayest, for in me is no trust for to trust in. For I must into the vale of Avilion to heal me of my grievous wound. And if thou hear nevermore of me, pray for my soul’” (Malory 495). While this paper has affirmed that writers do write what they know, these last four words spoken by the perishing King Arthur are some of the same four words of Sir Thomas Malory’s closing lines, indicating that there are strong traces of Malory in the character of King Arthur. Additionally, it proves that writers also write what they desire for themselves, allowing them an escape into a world of their own fantasy, instead of confronting the unpleasant reality that lies before them.

Another example of the author’s personal methodology of escapism as seen in the text is Malory’s final comment on Arthur before proceeding to discuss the

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fates of Lancelot and Guinevere. He writes: Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place. And men say that he shall come again and he shall win the Holy Cross. Yet I will not say that it shall be so, but rather I will say, Here in this world he changed his life. And many men say that there is written upon his tomb…’Here lies Arthur, who was once king and king will be again.’ (Malory 497) Herein lies an intriguing attraction within the legend of King Arthur of Camelot, and that is a phoenix motif. Although Caxton’s preface has stated that Le Morte d’Arthur is not to be read as historical literature and Malory is quick to remove himself from the misinterpretation that what follows is accurate, Malory and his contemporaries would have been very much aware of the element of the Arthurian legend that hints at the king’s eventual return. In the twelfth century, authors Wace and Layamon composed histories of Britian for their overlords that both suggested the lingering possibility that Arthur will eventually return from Avalon to save his awaiting English subjects (Greenblatt 130-131). Of the two, Malory strongly borrowed from Laymon who wrote that wounded Arthur said:

…I shall voyage to Avalon, to the fairest of all maidens,

To the Queen Argante, a very radiant elf,

And she will make me completely whole

with her health-giving potions.

And then I shall come back to my own kingdom

And dwell among the Britons with surpassing delight

(Laymon 131) As the closeness in texts reveal, Malory reworked a paraphrase of Layamon’s history and incorporated it into his own work. However, since it has been formerly argued that Arthur displays resemblances to Malory, the sentence, “Here in this world he changed his life”, as well as the final remark that Arthur will be king once more, demonstrates the likelihood that Malory was using his Le Morte d’Arthur as an attempt to escape from the paths that his own life and afterlife were following, and was hoping to resemble the mythological figure of the phoenix in his eagerness to be born again in the metaphorical ashes into which he had fallen with the intention to arise brighter and stronger than ever before.

However, Malory was by no means the only one who used Le Morte d’Arthur as a means of escape. Apart from the foretasted selection of Malory’s admirers who favored his memorable work, when William Caxton published Malory’s masterpiece in 1485 (Hardyment xvi), “the book was instantly popular”

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(Hardyment 9). However, what is perhaps an uncommonly known particular is that Le Morte d’Arthur’s admiration began in an age of political pandemonium, as the blood of soldiers fighting in the name of the House of Lancaster or the House of York was staining the soil of Malory’s homeland in “the worst possible civil strife and discord which has ever occurred in England and which must never be allowed to occur again” (Pollard 1). This definition is describing the Wars of the Roses, and while “civil war was a more frequent experience of late-medieval than of modern societies” (Pollard 112), “they were not insignificant” (Pollard 74) by any means.

During this governmental uproar, Le Morte d’Arthur provided not only its author, but also its audience with a separate space in which they had the opportunity to retreat from the pain of “a period of total anarchy brought on by a dynastic conflict which divided England before the coming of the Tudors” (Pollard 1), and into an idealized depiction of court life, as well as a perfected era of existing that English audiences lusted after.

The phoenix motif may have influenced readers of Le Morte d’Arthur during England’s turbulent civil wars for reasons and in ways that were very similar to Malory’s, for “The Wars of the Roses stood for a degree of political disorder which had become unacceptable and thus represented the hope and desire for a different present” (Pollard 113). This verifies that both Malory and his English readers were not only looking for a way to drastically improve their wretched situations, but also striving to rise again from their fallen state of misfortune and transform themselves into something infinitely superior. While the wars’ “end marked the beginning of that modern attitude which deplores the pursuit of political ends by force” (Pollard 113), during the twenty-eight years that these wars raged (Pollard v), which put countryman against countryman before Henry VII took the throne and became the first ruler of the powerful Tudor dynasty, the English were able to find some measure of comfort in the opportunity for escapism that Sir Thomas Malory had provided.

Thus concludes the examination of how Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur provided openings of escapism for both its author, as well as its audience from the fifteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Although equally brilliant and artistically skilled minds since Malory have, perhaps undeservedly, ascended and expanded into the forefront of contemporary focus to such a level that they block out those who have paved their way, Malory’s creation has not given any inclination that it intends to cease in its battle for its rightful position as a prominent acknowledgement of literary genius. The existence of all Arthuriana that followed it, whether it resides in adopted literature, motion picture, musical theatre, video game, or otherwise, owes an extreme obligation of gratitude to the existence of Le

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Morte d’Arthur. While there is still a severe amount of uncertainty that surrounds the name of Sir Thomas Malory that may never be comprehended in full, the affirmed crimes that he committed during his life, immoral and wicked as they indeed are, may be the very reason that this memorable work of writing exists at all. If Malory had never found himself in a desperate situation in which he felt the absolute necessity to escape from the misfortunes that his own actions had placed himself in, as well as humbly imploring strangers that he would never meet to pray for the location of his eternity, this work may never have come into being. For the author, Le Morte d’Arthur was a work of absolute escapism, from the dangers of the body, as well as the dangers of the soul. Written in an age where the political structure of England had imploded and would not reconstruct for nearly three decades, Malory’s audience that lived during the Wars of the Roses found very similar means of avoiding their own regrettable conditions. Both Malory and first generation of readers were enthralled by an idea that is prevalent throughout a great deal of Arthuriana, and that is the possibility of rising from a state of wretchedness and agony, to one of glory and light. While reality is a place that no person, no matter how troubled, can fully escape, Le Morte d’Arthur has proven that there are some things that only literature can do, and that there are some places where only it can go.

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Works Cited Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1.

New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2012. Print. 130-131, 480-500. Print.

Hardyment, Christina. Malory: The Knight Who Became King Arthur’s Chronicler.

New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005. Ix-21. Print.

Hicks, Edward. Sir Thomas Malory: His Turbulent Career. New York: Octagon Books, 1970. 3-18. Print.

Layamon. “Brut.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2012. 130. Print.

Malory, Sir Thomas. “Le Morte d’Arthur.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton Company, Inc., 2012. 482-500. Print.

Pollard, A.J. The Wars of the Roses. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. V, 1-5,7490, 111-113. Print.

Seldes, George. The Great Thoughts. New York: The Ballantine Publishing Group, 1985: 572. Web. 12 Dec. 2012.

Whitteridge, Gweneth. “The Identity of Sir Thomas Malory, Knight-Prisoner”.

24.95 (1973): 257-262. Web. 7 Dec. 2012.

Williamson, Claude C.H. “Chivalry.” Irish Monthly. 47.552 (1919): 330-339.

Web. 11 Nov. 2012.

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Oppressive Magic: The Political Warnings of Orwell’s 1984 within Rowling’s Harry Potter Benjamin Carter Someone is watching you right now. Either on a security camera, or by internet monitoring, another person has an eye on you. Everything you know about the world is wrong. Lies spread by the powers that be instill a sense of trust in your “righteous” rulers. It is a menacing thought that surveillance paranoia might carry weight in modern society or that newspapers are printing false truths. A more terrifying thought: someone in power could use these technologies with mal-intent.

George Orwell’s 1984 and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series both present similar versions of a conflict against an oppressive regime resulting in parallel warnings of the dangers of political power. Written almost fifty years apart, both authors utilize plot devices involving media control, widespread surveillance, and psychological torment to create a dystopic air surrounding their respective societies.

In his article “The ‘Scanty Plot’: Orwell, Pynchon, and the Poetics of Paranoia,” Aaron S. Rosenfeld cites a letter written by George Orwell describing the purpose behind his work: “Totalitarian ideas have taken root in the minds of intellectuals everywhere, and I have tried to draw these ideas out to their logical consequences” (Rosenfeld 337). In order to do so, Orwell uses the ever-watchful eye of Big Brother and the Thought Police to maintain control over the citizens of Oceania. Rowling takes a different approach, creating an overbearing government run by two separate administrations under Cornelius Fudge and Pius Thicknesse, the latter being under the evil control of the Lord Voldemort (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 5). Both administrations operate in different manners, but mirror each other in their heartless control over the wizard population, thus echoing Orwell’s warnings to the world.

The ability to monitor individual’s activities is a key plot device in both authors’ worlds. From the moment readers step into the world of Oceania, they are struck with a sense of pity for Winston Smith who is stuck under the microscope of the ruling power:

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…the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. Big Brother Is Watching You, the caption beneath it ran. (Orwell 2).

Orwell makes it clear from the start that Big Brother controls every life in Oceania. He quickly snuffs out any sense of real privacy that his characters might have with the introduction of the telescreen (a monitoring device) in every home, which “could be dimmed, but [has] no way of shutting…off completely,” (Orwell 2). There are several mirrors to this ominous setting within Harry Potter’s reality.

Most notably, the underage wizards have a trace that monitors whether or not they use magic outside of a school setting. While this seems useful to the Ministry of Magic as a social safety precaution, the law becomes a means of persecution when Harry is caught using magic in self-defense in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Rowling creates an even better comparison in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when Pius Thicknesse becomes the figurehead leader of the ministry. Dolores Umbridge, who has been promoted to Head of the MuggleBorn Registration Commission, installs Mad Eye Moody’s magical eye in her door so she may watch her department for any suspicious activity (Rowling 249).

While Fudge’s regime held the first hints of a controlling, threatening government, Thicknesse’s/Voldemort’s slides further down the slope towards dystopia. Under this administration’s totalitarian control, the tyrannical actions of government need no longer hide under the guise of justice. Using Thicknesse, Voldemort is free to rule as he wishes.

Harry shares a similarity to Winston Smith that others in the Wizarding community do not. Due to his importance, Harry is watched more closely than his peers. Within minutes of receiving a letter informing him of his expulsion due to the defensive magic, another letter arrives from Arthur Weasley telling Harry that both Arthur and Albus Dumbledore are sorting out the situation (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 26-35). It is as though Harry possesses a telesceen, which other wizards use to monitor his actions.

In addition to being able to monitor the activities of both Winston and Harry, there exists the ability to monitor a person’s thoughts. “Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer, though he well knew, even a back can be revealing,” (Orwell 3). This suggests the telescreen possesses the ability to monitor more than action and speech, reading body language for emotions and, maybe, even thoughts. Not knowing every detail of the telescreen’s capabilities makes it a terrifying enigma. Likewise, there exists a connection between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort similar to Legilimency, which enables both parties to

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read into each other’s thoughts. “It is true, however, that those who have mastered Legilimency are able, under certain conditions, to delve into the minds of their victims and to interpret their findings correctly,” (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 531). Both the telescreen and magical monitoring remove personal freedoms from Harry and Winston, which ultimately leads both characters to resist the governing authorities.

Surveillance monitoring does not provide complete social control; governments must also create a following. Orwell’s telescreen, for example, doubles not only as a monitoring device, but also a propaganda tool. Everyday, the “Two Minutes Hate” broadcasts images of public enemy one, whom citizens are told is evil:

As usual, the face of Emanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the

People, had flashed onto the screen. There were hisses here and

there among the audience…The Program of the Two Minutes

Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which

Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor,

the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity. (Orwell 12) Like Goldstein in the two minutes hate, the Ministry of Magic utilizes the newspaper, The Daily Prophet, to undermine Harry. When Harry is reunited with Ron and Hermione in chapter four of The Order of the Phoenix, Hermione informs him that though neither Harry nor Voldemort are in the larger stories, The Daily Prophet, “mention[s Harry] a couple of times a week,” (Rowling 73).

She continues to say, “They just slip [Harry] in like [he is] a standing joke… It’s quite nasty, actually,” (Rowling 73). These stories never make the front page, and instead are buried deep within the paper like subliminal messages. Like Emmanuel Goldstein, the Ministry aims to make Harry an object of scorn. Big Brother and The Ministry of Magic employ these techniques to maintain an orderly, and obedient society.

In order to retain control, both governments must maintain regulation over childhood development. Orwell illustrates the conduct of youth under the rule of Big Brother early on. A brother and sister startle Winston while they play, pretending to be members of the Thought Police: Suddenly they were both leaping around him, shouting “Traitor!” and “Thought-criminal!”, the little girl imitating her brother in every movement. It was somehow slightly frightening, like the gamboling of tiger cubs which will soon grow up into man-eaters (Orwell 23).

Orwell uses the Parsons’ children to show the vicious cycle of party loyalty.

Rearing these children in an environment that knows only government truth and

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stifles creative thought prepares them for a life of loyal service to Big Brother. The same can be said of Draco Malfoy in the Potter universe. Draco’s father, Lucius, plays a primary role in his son’s education, teaching him the importance of the Dark Arts and priming him for a position as a Death Eater. Draco’s first conversation with Harry establishes both his family’s Slytherin lineage, and the pureblood prejudice instilled by his father. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Draco proudly announces, “I’ll be in Slytherin, all our family have been,” (Rowling 77). In the same scene, he asks Harry if his mother and father were a witch and a wizard. Draco comments, “I really don’t think they should let the other sort in [to Hogwarts], do you?” (Rowling 78). These words forever tie Draco to the actions of his father and destine him for role among Voldemort’s followers.

Throughout his education in the novels, Draco undermines the professors at Hogwarts. The exception to his insubordinate behavior is Severus Snape who shares both a connection to Lord Voldemort and Slytherin House as its head. It is not until Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, once Draco is a member of the Death Eaters, standing before Professor Dumbledore prepared to kill him, that Draco reveals his regret. “I haven’t got any options! I’ve got to do it! [Voldemort will] kill me! He’ll kill my whole family!” (Rowling 591). At this moment, Draco Malfoy becomes more like Winston Smith. He is a member of the oppressive power, coming to resent those in command and subconsciously resist authority.

Malfoy rebels by staying his hand and allowing Snape to kill Dumbledore, and even more notably, by not identifying Harry in The Deathly Hallows when Snatchers capture him (Rowling 458). In Book II of 1984, Winston defies the law banning sex for pleasure’s sake when he starts a relationship with Julia (Orwell 105-224).

Both Winston and Draco, working for tyrannical rulers, choose small personal revolutions as opposed to taking part in organized resistance.

Organized resistance and personal defiance carry certain penalties.

Winston and Julia are caught by a hidden telescreen and subsequently beaten, taken into custody, interrogated, and re-educated (Orwell 221-259). Winston’s interrogator, O’Brian, forces him to believe blatant lies. “O’Brian held up the fingers of his left hand, with the thumb concealed. ‘There are five fingers there. Do you see five fingers?’” To which Winston replies “Yes,” (Orwell 258). A similar incident takes place in Order of the Phoenix when Harry stands up to Dolores Umbridge telling her that Voldemort has returned. “As I was saying, you have been informed that a certain Dark wizard is at large once again. This is a lie.” To which Harry replies, “It’s NOT a lie!” (Rowling 245). Umbridge tortures Harry for his defiance by forcing him to write, “I must not tell lies” in his own blood, (Rowling 267).

Later on, Umbridge becomes a figure similar to Big Brother when

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Cornelius Fudge appoints her the position of Hogwarts High Inquisitor (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 307). She even goes so far as to create her own version of the Thought Police: the Inquisitorial Squad (Rowling 626). Like the Big Brother, Umbridge exercises her powers to the fullest extent. She goes further still when she comes dangerously close to using the Unforgivable Cruciatus Curse on Harry in order to get information (Rowling 746). Like the Thought Police, Umbridge’s actions in the name of justice cross the line into social injustice, further perpetuating the theme of tyranny at the hands of unjust rulers.

The reality of Oceania is very bleak and seemingly devoid of hope.

Small rebellious acts cause Winston’s arrest. If a single person cannot hide from the Thought Police, it stands to reason that a large anti-government movement would have difficulty forming without Big Brother’s knowledge. Orwell creates a world beyond repair, which is in contrast to the state of the Rowling’s world. The Wizard community stands on the precipice of complete tyranny throughout the series. Political and social corruptions constantly threaten the lives of innocent wizards and muggles alike. The actions of Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore, Dumbledore’s Army, and the Order of the Phoenix help to maintain a firm grip on justice in a time of anguish. Unlike Winston, Harry perseveres through the darkest of times always choosing the more difficult, yet morally correct path. Through selfless sacrifice and acts of moral courage the Wizard World survives the trials of oppression, avoiding the outcome forewarned by George Orwell.

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Works Cited Orwell, George. 1984. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1949. 1-312. Print.

Rosenfeld, Aaron S. “The “Scanty Plot”: Orwell, Pynchon, and the Poetics ofParanoia.” Twentieth Century Literature; Winter. 50.4 (2004): 337-367. Web. 28 Mar. 2013.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. 1st. U.S.A: Scholastic Inc., 2007. 1-759. Print.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. 1. U.S.A.: Scholastic Inc., 2005. 652. Print.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. 1. U.S.A.: Scholastic Inc., 2003. 1-870. Print.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. 1st. U.S.A: Scholastic Inc.,1997. 1-309. Print.

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If I Remember Correctly, Life Expectancy After Diagnosis Is 7 Years Phoebe Levija

a home of unrest survives in my old town where madness seeps through jaundice colored halls, lapping life from rotted brains. grim photos of grandchildren deform walls, but old folks don’t remember. they wear nametags. who am i? residents wail for mommy, their ’86 kitten, a bus pass from Chicago or the wrong god. her eyes are sallow. tunnel vision, they say. cloudy hues without purpose. bags under gramma’s lids hang

like dead gangsters and bifocals settle around her neck, in case she gains a pang of clarity.

Lovely Rita, once a fat cook is now slender as a fang. she forgets to eat. my guttural granny, she stutters incoherent, mostly. but today, she babbles an omen.

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watch o u t

thing s are

g o nn a

h h h appen she retreats, deteriorating.

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Reverse Migration Amanda Riehm

There is no shade to flee the dog daze of summer, nor the pounding surf of radio waves like heavy reflections, dents in the silver-tipped wings of a tangled skein: dearly departed into acid rain, no justification for a flight delay today: no herons sleeping softly in the twilight’s milk white moon on the side of the bridge by the bay… but still Aves is to Avialae is to Animalia and it’s all the same; we are all innately navigating our own escape by way of our genetic code, errors of which some times find us, entrenched in fatal snow.

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This Has Been a Test Amanda Riehm

The cold green windowpanes in the plastic frame of my bed are open, and I’m old enough not to scream.

My father snores in the other room.

The TV plays a game with him, NBC in RGB broadcast to his dreams and I’m still awake and I hear what’s in between.

Sometimes, when there’s nothing else to see, colors beep on the screen: SMPTE. My father blinks: one, two, three. silence rings I tiptoe across the kitchen tile for my mother’s sake.

But she doesn’t know that and the grout is rough under my feet.

When she sees me I’m not alone and I can weep.

“I can’t find Baby and Bunny,” my small voice trembling.

I’ve since locked my windows, memories rapping like the breeze: tic tac toe on the tile with my sister.

Tick tock, like seconds on a clock.

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There’s no time to keep or to dwell and time will only tell what will come of me.

The bathroom sink wells, wets the litter underneath that permeates my sheets, which don’t smell like home or anything.

The dryer leaves them sopping.

Sobbing beneath the surface with damp air to breathe, here between the wood and the ceiling, I’m old enough now to see that Baby and Bunny, and I make three… but I still can’t sleep

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Led Zeppelin CentoSearching for the May Queen Alina Rodriguez

The black dog slumps between towns, traveler of both time and space, searching for the May queen.

He begs the father of the four winds to sweep her back to him so he may kiss her sugar-sweet lips again.

But she’s ten years gone and he can’t watch the honey drip from her smile anymore.

He stumbles across a tree by the brook where he laid with her, fingers intertwined, gazing at a vanilla sky.

Now here he sleeps with an empty handle, cursing the blind stars of fortune.

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The Ouse River Took Me Alina Rodriguez I used to walk with a shadow trailing behind me.

Long, slender Grey like the polished river stones I slipped into my pocket before soaking my leather boots in the Ouse.

I took the voyage out in the waters of Sussex one morning when voices were heard in a quiet room.

My pen etched goodbye into paper as I opened the door to granite and rainbow.

The river was close by.

A man fishing in a red jacket paid no mind to me as I plunged into the cold current waist deep Water twisted its fingers around my body, beckoning me to leave the voices behind so I drifted in a dream down the Ouse.

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Suddenly Everything Seems Whimsical to Steffy Stéphania Everett

A rainy afternoon is a rabid dog that salivates to pictures of dark meat.

I am dark and meaty.

The fan sings dogged chants while my mechanical pencil syringes my cheekbone from boredom.

Orange-mango enlivens my slumbering nose to line dance.

Your breathing, it tastes like a velvet pillow under the bend of my neck “There’s Nothing My Love Can’t Fix” serenading us, our six hour phone calls.

Okay, it was Sade singing “Kiss of Life” and it was two hours, my parents are light sleepers.

Flowered curtains hypnotize me to sleep past noon, and you wake up at 3pm with your bedding flunkéd on the floor.

Rain does that sometimes.

You can hear every sound doing the most in our tiny house on the corner, with sticky wood floors, sucking everything but the bottoms of our feet.

We were beautiful, like wrinkled, hairless Chihuahuas.

You flew through the ceiling.

Free falling at 30 feet, landing straight-legged into a prickly lawn.

Frigid flowers never were good landing pads.

You only get one chance to forget everything you ever learned because it’s right.

Li banm on bel kout piyé nan po deye’m, and the rain laughed with ease while the dirt caressed our chins.

We sat on the porch that night as the rain slowly dissipated tucking itself neatly under the creased belly of night.

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The Glass Blower’s Daughter Erika Johnson

While menthol threads

whirl like poltergeists

he thinks of her.

The drabbest of acrobats,

he prefers to stay between

the spaces of the floorboards,

stitching together cigarettes,

elbows crooked like safety pins.

He doesn’t know

he encased her

in sleek Bristol blue

and chased her dreams

into the crucible.

Molten sediment grinds her to bits

and Hollowbrook tales flow through her.

She can still smell the embers,

cackling inside the kiln,

as she watches each speck of dust metastasize and fall like a landslide inside his lungs.

Well-wishers only send their jagged coins to Charon,

she muses in her iridescent tomb.

Olive eyes and evergreen maltomas never falter

or fall victim to vaccines.

That only show that, really, we are all made of glass.

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She Never Really Left Peekskill Erika Johnson

Daylight fades too quickly now, a hot air balloon fleeing the earth.

It now prefers to loiter

in the weaves of her loom,

hiding in her pockets, up her sleeve.

It peeks out of pinhole,

spilling slivers of gold,

hushing the lull of the bees beyond the thicket.

It smells like her church in the middle of summer; she wonders whether it will taste like rose petals or penny-water.

She brings the light to her lips, whispering smooth metallic dreams onto fingertips It brings her back to yellowed days with Bethany Danes under oak branches, packing away Peekskill in their picnic basket and laughing all the way to the end of the Hollowbrook.

But Peekskill could never really be packed away.

The Paramount Theater still echoed

its stolen, artificial stars

and shook its heavy head at their approach.

She closed her eyes to its cold-fish stare.

It would never understand; it saw the lines too clearly through rose-colored frames.

If you don’t come back now, you don’t come back ever, in my life.

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And she lost her forever.

The copper-spun knots of pride gripped her stomach even now.

Sunflowers only brought spiders now.

She would just sweep them under the rug, stomp them into the floorboards, forcing them to promise murals out back by the garden shed.

Baby X never knew what to think of the weathered remains her grandmother refused to sweep off of the door frame.

Maybe she could finally muck it all out after the old croon had finally died, but before she sold the land.

Still now, the bedrock sheets choked even her dream-world into behaving.

She would have to settle and a scratched purple heart for half-eaten porridge until her grandmother’s gallstones did their job.

L’esprit de l’escalier, ever-looming beneath her grandmother’s temple, but bitterness grows much sweeter than wine as it whittles the last lines of its will, waiting for the moment when daylight fades for good.

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First Aria Hannah Lay

On the shore, pink flamingos

dip their heads into the streams to drink

sonic booms.

We drift, tall palms overhead.

We make a new language from ruins

of tropical blooms.

Between leaves, emerald waters dazzle through shadows of years built like rooms.

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Dad’s Model Airplanes Colette Earnest

Your hands are etched with lines like the brazen, soaring rock of the Grand Canyon. In those cracks the Colorado River meanders, dragging clay-red sediment that finally pillows out in a coffee-tan fog, sinking into the frothing blueberry shoals in the Gulf of California.

The flat plateau pads of your fingers grip a chipped paint-brush held steady over the rounded curves of a Sopwith Camel wing.

Around you are glass jars congealing with oil-based hues, swirling like storm-mottled cumulus clouds. The coiled hairs of the brush gleam in stratus white; you paint the scattered light of the sky.

Your atmosphere eyes drift beyond the spindled figures of model bi-planes. Scratching over cabane struts and propeller blades is the cigar-charred voice of Winston Churchill pouring from a woodshingled record player. As a boy you’d memorize those accented words, let them echo in the chilled coal-darkness of Carlsbad Caverns.

Bursting like the boiled pressure of Yellowstone’s foaming geysers your paint spills and pools over your palm gathering in shimmering layers of oil-sheened blue. Blue floods the banks of your lined hands tipping onto the ashen wax-paper. You pack tissue like sand-bags; a leaking smile exposes your yellowed BB-gun chipped tooth.

The baked desert landscape riots under wailing winds and erodes ancient rock, but you stay rooted. Your breath is a breeze trilling through the arched leaf-laden trees of Tallahassee. Weathered hands gloss tiny letters onto the fuselage with an affable silence; a quiet that churns in the shallow shores of your eyes. Shores where the horizon clashes with a bold citrus sky, and a single Boeing Stearman glints as it rumbles, sputtering into some lofty, elevated calm of stratosphere.

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Voodoo

Sarah Violante The bayou wakes with the moon. Pulsing sky jewels shimmer in the obsidian water, soaking flora and fauna in special galactic dust. Humming bullfrogs unbury themselves from the mudbank, and croon to warbled jazz notes riding on the breeze.

Hogs snort, rooting at bug-infested palmettos, while cicadas and bush-crickets rub their wings, humming a bewitching bog chant. Effervescent moonlight hits crimson alligator eyes, lurking at the water’s surface. Foam billows up, pregnant with this primal magic, spilling mystical mist – over the shore to people drunk on Bourbon.

The club singer inhales, the bartender inhales, the writhing horde inhales charmed swamp air. Hot cheeks flush pink, music and voices ignite the night. Animalistic bodies share sweat, share lust, share heady spirits from the voodoo marsh. A wild swamp essence permeates the atmosphere.

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thanks for reading!

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