Table of Contents
2 ~ Ivi’s last leditor Ivi Fung
3 ~ Demi’s first leditor
4 ~ On Swan Swallowing; Elanor Kinderman
5 ~ Letter To the Girl I Met at Age 9 and Can No Longer Recognize Anushka Gupta
6 ~ Chocolate Finnegan Thompson
7 ~ Learning (is an expression of love) Katharine (Kay) Glimcher
8 ~ with confidence whispered from memories of dirt under my fingernails
10 ~ A Letter to Life at 20 Years Old in a New City
Cortez 12 ~ Beheld in Glass
14 ~ NostalgiaProblem
16 ~ Golden Shovel for Norwegian Honey
18 ~ Wanting Her Was the Kindness
Ngo
20 ~ Hot Commodity
22 ~ The Unwelcome Guest
24 ~ Plum in Waiting
~ Unbaptized
28 ~ this fence is temporarily
29 ~ The Songs Beneath
Editor-in-Chief
Editor
Creative
Staff
Arts
Ione
Voices
Temptation
Should
Ivi’s last leditor
I believe the world is a more beautiful and peaceful place when we listen to each other and allow different perspectives to be in the room. Writing is one of the most peaceful ways of addressing systemic inequality.
-Rümeysa Öztürk
Language is, quite possibly, the most important thing that we as humans do. It is a vessel for centuries worth of culture and tradition. It is a conduit through which we share the latest advances in science, technology, and medicine. And it is a channel for our most profound outpourings of creative expression. Human society as we know it would not exist if not for our remarkable ability to understand, appreciate, and build upon the words of others.
Writing is an extraordinary extension of our capacity for language. The words we write are a physical manifestation of our psyche. Often, we are compelled to write when an idea emerges in our mind, too vivid to ignore— a fragment of a poem, or the first lines of a fiery op-ed. By creating a tangible record of our words, we breathe newfound longevity into our ideas and allow them to be communicated to readers around the world. How wonderful it is to live in an age where we can be enlightened by a paper written by a scientist an ocean away or comforted by the prose of an artist who welcomes the sunrise as we lie fast asleep.
Creatives, scholars, journalists, and activists all wield the power of the written word to usher new futures into existence. The stories we tell and the data we share reveal precious truths about the human condition and are potent catalysts for social change. Behind every piece of art are the communities, cultures, and memories that the artist holds dear. Behind every research
paper are not just meticulously compiled facts and figures, but the individual human beings whose troubles we strive to remedy and whose lives we work to save. Behind every investigative article and call to action are the fervent hopes of those whose voices would otherwise be left unheard.
Dear writer (as I imagine many of you are),
I am not ashamed to admit that I am terrified by recent events—from the sweeping cuts imposed on the National Institute of Health to the detainment of a cherished member of our Tufts community. And in the face of censorship and suppression, it is tempting to surrender to fear and allow our words to wither away. But in these uncertain times, it is more important than ever to defend the dignity of art, the dignity of science, and most importantly of all, the dignity of every human being to speak their truth, freely and without fear.
In the face of adversity, I hope that you cling tight to the passion that compels you to write. And whether published or unpublished, I hope you are able to find a space where your writing is treasured, discussed, and deeply understood. Writing, yours included, is a massive labor of love—and why shouldn’t it be, when it is a means to preserve and honor what we hold dearest to our heart?
So here’s to the late nights of bleary-eyed editing. Here’s to the countless hours spent debating the minutiae of diction. Here’s to the hundreds of scrapped titles and the thousands of cut sentences, all in the pursuit of the perfect final draft.
Here’s to writing. Here’s to us.
Demi’s first leditor
Dear reader,
In my childhood home, there was a small white fridge in the upstairs living room, covered in battered word magnets and tucked away in what my parents hoped was an unassuming corner. Unfortunately for them, it was in my direct line of sight when I opened my bedroom door, and at the ripe age of 9, I was (or believed myself to be) what I like to call a growing girl.
On one particular day, my victim was an unopened tube of original flavoured Pringles my parents had explicitly told me not to touch. I walked past the fridge once, twice, thrice, desperately pretending like I wasn’t interested. ‘I’m just watching the TV’ turned into ‘I’m rearranging the fridge magnets’ to ‘I just want some cold water.’ My thoughts warred in my head, my Sunday school teacher’s face looming in my mind, “Thou shall not steal” and “obey your father and mother” echoing in my ears. I agonised, this one decision tearing up my tiny conscience.
I caved, obviously. Desperate, I clasped my little hands together and sent up a quick prayer, begging God to forgive me for my egregious sin as I stuffed what tasted like the best chip of my life into my mouth, swearing it would never happen again. I may or may not have eaten another 5 minutes later.
Now, obviously, I look back at the memory with amusement, laughing at what I thought at the time was the end of the world. I guess that was my earliest memory of
temptation—of wanting with my whole heart something I was forbidden to have. If you hadn’t guessed already, I’ve remained pretty bad at picking the “sensible” thing—a self-proclaimed “lover girl,” I like to say my heart wants what it wants. The jury’s out on how well this has served me thus far.
Reading through all of the amazing works in this issue, with topics admittedly a little more serious than my Pringle dilemma, I see my small self looking back at me, and empathise with what it feels like to have your heart and mind tearing you in two. As I have unfortunately learned, there are some things that we really can’t have—masks we must wear, pieces of ourselves that we must keep folded within, embers that light the flames that fuel us. And it breaks my little heart.
What I love so much about writing, and perhaps what drew me to becoming a section editor, is that at the very least, our burdens can be shared. Reading all of these little slices of life, I am reminded that for every seemingly forbidden desire, or isolating moment, or dead end, it is very likely that there is someone out there experiencing it too. As you make your way through this issue, it is my hope that at least a few of you find a kindred spirit, and realise that there is always hope somewhere.
And, most importantly, that you remember that the heart is as much of an organ as the brain is. She needs to be nurtured too.
All my love and a little bit more, Demi
On
Swan Swallowing;
By Elanor Kinderman
That spring, I learned the art of swallowing swans. I choked them down whole—terrible angels of the lung, thrashing in the trap of my trachea. And yes, they were hard to swallow, but in the end they helped me sleep; though I woke up each morning with more feathers on my pillow.
On another note, you’ve started to show up in my dreams. You’ve started to show up in my dreams and the dreams have started to taste like flight and fever.
I can’t escape it: in the night I burn and in the day I drift. Watching hands tracing hands tracing textbooks and coffee cups. I search for you in the silhouettes of strangers.
I only find you in the invasion of my time. The disappointment when you don’t appear around corners, the way every conversation crawls back to you: to soft smiles and brief waves and punctuation marks, to the imagined weight of your palm over my cheek.
The flock inside me cackles; They say I must learn to love the waiting, that waiting is the food of love, that I must learn the language of yearn and ache. But I’m no good at waiting,
Because in the dreams, at least, your hand bridges the gap. You cradle me with hands as soft as down and at last, you are touching me.
Since then, I’ve wondered how you got your belt to match your shoes every day. How we linked top pinky knuckles, locked eyes, humming nervous prayers, unreleasing Pandora’s breath, did you feel it?
Skipping rocks across melted space, looking at each other and feeling only quiet. How we’d peer down the edge of a great escarpment, backs to the wind, a mess of cactus to catch us below, and we’d stay, chins held level. How we’d hold something stifled and jaw deep.
The pain, vastness, the tsunami winds curled up inside my chest. How you took it all in and then shut your eyes.
Letter To the Girl I Met at Age 9 and Can No Longer
By Anushka Gupta
I would like to bathe in your fountain. You cannot know me, but I know your scent, Not like an animal, just like a devotee. No amount of you could make one content.
I’m a tearful Echo, unrequited. Incognizant by nature, you fill me up, Not like a salad, just like a warm drink. You melt in my mouth, my pick-me-up.
I yearn to unwrap your inner soul. Please cover me with sweet compliments, Not like pretzels, just like strawberries. Folly! My bluntness betrays my content.
Pretzels or strawberries? Transfer
Those complements from your mouth to mine, Not like kisses, just like decadent words. To the world, your taste is so divine.
withconfdence whisperedfro m mseirome fo ridt rednu
ByBlytheElderd
I jump stumble the fall farther than expected
my brother in tow his footsteps preserved in mud matching my own
caught in a spiderweb
my ears smell like swamp warm wet earth tillandsia threads around the crown of my head tickling my shoulders
my knees split opening old wounds from running through spring swamps feet squelching
I grab its creator strands of her tapestry trailing behind me as I pull the collar of his shirt
place her in a new cave
my brother pushes me and I slip tangled in cypress knees I land in stagnant water
my knees turn pink then red drip down my shins marbling the water around me
I seek revenge grab at his ankles until he joins me screaming splashing
this time when I fell my pinky snapped rolled to a dark corner
You can keep it it’s missing pieces sanded away 40 grit, 80, 120
my chipped nail polish calluses smudged silvery with graphite the freckle I always thought looked like dirt
my body was made of flesh feet calloused by rocks stained with swamp water ankles bitten oozing
blood and memories of home and the knowledge I hold in my fingertips
I did not want your midas touch
A Letter to Life at 20 Years Old in a New City
By Kayla Cortez
e midnight blue sky contrasts the warm amber Gleam of the streetlights—each one leading toward e quiet, glowing station. Above the ticket counter, A clock ticks forward as a gure paces toward a Station bench to await the next train. e gure bumps Her head to the melodies in her ear, tapping her foot Against the concrete, when she is interrupted by the distant Whistle and vibrating hum of the incoming train.
As she approaches the metal giant, gazing at the busy Strangers who stride so fearlessly, she notices one Judging her strut from the platform across. Her breath Falters—but just before the doubt can settle into her Olive skin, the quiet bloom of becoming begins to Swell beneath her ribs and with its unfurling petals, pull Her onto the train. As she continues to stride unwaveringly, She too begins to sense the marvel in the spaces between Her small feet. ough it seems to be a facade, some scene In Act 20 of her life, faith prevails. Step by step, She prances across the train, then steps into the velvet night And pirouettes through the city’s streets bathed in the So hum of neon. e cement trembles beneath her feet And that stranger awaits her failure at every tumble, but A whisper, as if from the city herself, steadies the Faltering thoughts: keep going. Believe in yourself as I do, for you’ll never sway.
KATIE OGDEN, ART
ALLEN WANG
Beheld in Glass
By Jason Lee
Content Warning: Discussion of Self-Harm and Body Dysmorphia
My surface is cold and indiferent— a frozen pane, silent and sterile. Hers is raised and restless, a landscape pillaged by previous civil wars, where fngers carved trenches and tears fell like rain.
I show all—she only sees what she craves. What began as a quest for beauty has corroded into a sport for discipline. Her eyes widen, scanning like vultures, hunting for defects in the warm bathroom light. Fingertips like blades, she pushes and prods, but no extraction will appease her. She worships pain; salvation never answers.
She does not stop at blood. Only when she gazes into me and her eyes meet themselves does she stop. Te hunt ends, but the carnage remains.
Regret seeps out of her pores. Regret for— Te ravaged skin, Te relapse, Te promises she always breaks.
But I am unbending and unmoving. Sorrow cannot conceal the afermath. She must wear her habit in welts and wounds. We will meet tomorrow and I will refect her image once more. She will see what she is willing to face.
Nostalgia Problem
By Devon Chang
A daughter cries for her mother at night
A mother ofers her warm embrace— I miss you, even though you are right here, the daughter wails.
Young girl clings to the scent of her mother’s T-shirt. Mother says she is right here.
I cry for my mother at night She is gone, twelve hours ahead in her origin land.
An ocean sits between us.
She is older now, everyone is older. Stifed breaths through the phone, I say everything but I miss you
Regardless, she says she is right here.
~
My digital diary turns fve today. A once unassuming document now reads 213 pages in length. It’s here, in the comfort of my written words, where I’ve chronicled every passing feeling that has been surrendered to time since I’ve become aware of such loss. Slowly, I’ve gotten into the habit of recording for the sake of remembering.
My childhood best friend once told me I have something called a “nostalgia problem.” It seems that everything remains important to me, even afer it has passed.
I wonder what that makes of us, of me, knowing that these days our love is only strung by the number of years we once spent together. It felt weird to realize we don’t share the same attachment to time.
Perhaps it is because I am a child of divorce, among other common experiences, I’ve seen beautiful things tarnish into memory sooner than I am ready to let go.
I am cheated by time, yet again. My split ends are brown, from when I last dyed my hair two years ago. I need a haircut, but there’s something so sentimental about still having kept a piece of me from the age of eighteen. Since then, for the frst time in a while, I’ve tried to grow out my natural hair.
Since then, I’ve grown into my mother’s old clothes, her temper, and her skin.
We are both women now—feeling pain as women and reserving it from one another.
In college, I try to call her once a week. Te distance has been harder to comprehend since she moved back to Taiwan. I remember the late nights spent as a child, crying into the nape of her neck.
跟媽媽講你真的怎麼樣. Tell Mommy how you really are. Over the phone, she still sounds the same.
I cry rivers when we speak, I can’t help it. A deep sense of reassurance always came with my vulnerability. It made us both feel complete; our responsibilities as mother and daughter, as givers and recipients of love, so naturally met. Tears always meant more than sadness, it was an intimacy—as close as babies to bellies and bellies to breath.
But things are diferent now, I have her heart to consider.
I bite my tongue.
In the meantime, I bend over my laptop keys as tears drip onto the plastic from thinking about the past. I wonder when I grew too old to be merely a daughter, a recipient of love. It’s become easier to explain things to myself than to someone else. I fnd too much peace in my solitude.
I’ve gotten good at predicting the pain of my future. I perpetually anticipate change, knowing that every day, something slowly begins to grow and grow toward an end. It’s become some form of self-defense.
I parted ways with my childhood home this year.
At least my grandparents’ house still smells the same. Remembering starts with one loss and ends with another. Familiarity always seems to be a passing feeling.
Nostalgia is where I feel most lonely, but the yearning that follows feels strangely so peaceful, so safe, like the nape of a mother’s neck. It has become a habitual place of solace I return to, yet know I shouldn’t indulge in: doom-scrolling on TikTok late at night as my algorithm senses my sadness, feeding me endless slideshows of quotes about change. Writing recklessly in my diary about someone I shouldn’t anymore. I’m mouthing the sentences in my mind, imagining you are listening on the other side. Suddenly, I am 12 songs deep into my moody playlist, and soon afer, asleep. I just dreamt of a person I can no longer remember when I am awake.
Is it possible to love something I no longer know?
Perhaps I am foolish to believe that nothing is ever over until it is.
My childhood best friend and I have grown apart, and it’s taken me forever to admit it. I am too fearful of confict to let anything else but time draw space between us. Secretly, I still fnd more
comfort in friendship than romance. While I yearn for irrevocable closeness, it’s less embarrassing to go running back. Defy the rules of time with less shame—something like a blood tie, like maternal love. Something close, but not quite.
It seems the motions of loss and yearning simply become the cyclicality of life: growing close and moving apart, growing close again, and back apart…
Progress measured strictly by time, Heartbreak measured in songs, Change measured in January’s past,
my clock ticks as I write of: the loss of childhood, childhood homes fading into memory, the loss of color in my parents’ hair, color photos fading into monochromes.
I look for those I know will linger.
All things considered, I’m older now, and I always will be. I don’t call it nostalgia anymore, I call it grief.
It’s where all lost love goes to rest.
Golden Shovel for Norwegian
Honey
after Lovefool
We drive up the coast in May, and love the world out the window: rockface, forest, fjord. Me,
wearing your t-shirt like a dress, peeling an orange, because you love how citruses taste like spring, and how me-
ssy I am eating them, juice dripping down my chin. You say I’m cute and then swipe a slice from my hand, grinning in that way that makes me want to kiss you
under the halo of your honey hair; you love to kiss my hand, triumphant, when I fume because you’re winning at gulbil. I’m a fool for how your lips linger over my knuckles, over me.
We pull off on a country road. You’re a fool because it’s beautiful here, yet you’re only smiling at me,
leading me, hand in hand, towards the water’s edge, a golden pool under the midnight sun. We lay on the sun-baked earth, shoulders brushing, and
can’t take the heat. You kiss my cheek and I blush: I fool you into believing I didn’t notice, so you turn towards me,
cupping my chin with your dove hands, and I love how you feel like hot sugar melting over me, as you whisper you love me.
*The Golden Shovel portion of the title refers to the poetic form by Terrance Hayes: when put together, the last word of each line forms a line of its own, borrowed from another work. In this case, the last word of each line sums to the chorus of Lovefool by the Cardigans.
Wanting Her Was the Kindness
By Anh Ngo
Call it a kindness: to press your longing between your molars until it tastes like silence. To name her not by name but by how the light bent to meet her shoulder.
e bed split like a seam— you, on one side of the wound, she, a pulse wrapped in cotton. What do you call a wanting with nowhere to go? An ache that never arrives?
Somewhere, a mother folds a shirt, blind to the shape of the girl held inside it. Somewhere, you learn how to vanish in plain sight— a good daughter, uent in the grammar of hunger withheld.
But tell me— if your hands were not taught shame, would they not bloom toward the thing they reach for? Would they not call it love and be right?
KATIE OGDEN, ART
Hot Commodity
By Chaliya Holder
I can’t help but notice: when i’m with you i fnally feel like myself again and it’s nice— for a moment
You may do no wrong if you do nothing at all, so i just default— and that’s not hard when all that you are is conjured up in my mind. It’s you that brings all that i am into being but then it comes back to me— why i was so desperate to escape this feeling
i can do anything you set my mind to. just an accessory: no agency of my own. not meant to be heard just seen not to be understood or—God forbid— to be known.
I would like something to be for me, mine, my own.
Not just a thing for you to enjoy, destroy grab, yank, tear package, sign, and seal import, export deliberately battered to make you look better
yearn for to the point of obsession then discard afer the frst use: balled up in your fst
This artwork is inspired by the short story “Lust, Caution” by Eileen Chang.
I told my mother with a soft grin, “I met someone,”—and tucked it in. The truth, I mean. I said his name, But not the part to stir her shame.
Not that his skin is dusk, Not that his gods greet a different dawn, Not that her dreams would come undone— If I said he’s the one I love.
She smiled tight, “Is he like us?” As if love bends to blood or dust. I nodded soft, I played along— The silence loud, the answer wrong.
So I hold him in my other life, Away from kitchen talk and strife. Where love is loud, and hearts are known— But not a place I dare call home.
And still, we smiled—the practiced kind, The one that hides what sits behind.
In our home, love has a gate, Its hinges rusted shut by fate.
A list of names you don’t bring in, A map drawn close to narrow skin.
If I breached that line
The smiles would crack like porcelain fine. The air would tense, the words turn thin, A war disguised as welcoming.
Guest
The
By Eylul Karakaya
By Bella Juhaeri
Plum plucked in her prime, why wait— now is when she is ripe and sweet. She would live to decay in the porcelain fruit bowl— waiting for his canines to pierce her skin, waiting for his throat to drain her sap, waiting for his divine hunger to consume her. Sticky and supple—the film that climbs down the thumb and hugs the wrist. You can wash your hands of the indulgence and shame. It’s all temporary anyway. So please, take me while I am still good and ripe and sweet. Why wait.
DESIGN BY SOPHIA CHEN, ART BY UNMANI TEWARI
Unbaptized
By Emma Desserault
“I don’t usually look at people when I’m leading the rosary, just so that I don’t lose track of my place,” Father John said. “But I did look at you,” he remarked, pointing to my aunt Candy, “so everyone do an extra bead just to be safe.”
A restrained laugh echoed throughout the church. My family and I said another prayer over a rosary bead of our choosing; I did one more than everyone else. I didn’t want to be the reason why Aunt Emily wouldn’t make it to Heaven, and to be honest, I defnitely lost track of my beads.
I’m not a particularly religious person. Both my parents grew up Catholic, but they didn’t pass it on to me. I’m not even
baptized—much to my grandmother’s chagrin. One time, when I was 11, she tried to have me baptized behind my parents’ backs. We were at my cousin’s baptism, and she turned to me and prodded, “Might as well baptize you too while we’re at it!”
I’d always felt a bit lef out, though, not being baptized. I dreaded the moment when Father John would invite us up for the Eucharist. Each of my family members would go up and receive their wine and bread, and I would stand there, arms across my chest like I was some sort of prehistoric mummy.
My grandmother’s brother, Great-Uncle John, was the priest, which meant we
had our own personal family priest available for all baptisms, weddings, and, of course, funerals. So that was me: an unbaptized grandniece of a Jesuit priest, sitting in a cramped pew, hoping I hadn’t damned my aunt to Hell because I forgot to count the correct number of rosary beads.
“Matthew, would you like to begin your eulogy?” Father John invited.
“With pleasure,” my great-uncle Matthew replied, shufing his way past my dad and up the stairs.
My mom had gotten stuck at work, so it was just me and Dad. Mom was a nurse, and ever since my dad got laid of last November, she had had to pick up extra shifs.
I thought she was secretly happy she didn’t have to attend the funeral. She didn’t like religious ceremonies, especially funerals; they brought up too much ‘unresolved trauma’—or, at least, that’s what her therapist said. I thought it was sort of beautiful, though: all of those people gathered in one place to celebrate your life, even though you couldn’t be there.
With a timid clearing of his throat, Matthew began his eulogy.
“Whenever I used to say, ‘I lost my wife,’ it was usually in a shopping mall.”
We all let out a single laugh, even Father John.
“I frst met Emily when I began working at Freddie’s. I was too afraid to talk to her, but I would pass her in the hallway on the way to the staf kitchen nearly every day for two years..” Matthew smiled and adjusted his tie.
“It wasn’t until my mother gave me a stern talking-to about ‘getting a move on’ that I even considered asking her out, but one day, I did.” He paused and looked upward, as if the memory was unfolding above him.
“And we went bowling. Emily loved bowling. I think she loved it so much because it was the one place where she was allowed to throw things at other things without any consequences. Tere were certainly a few times throughout our marriage when I’m sure she imagined my head as a bowling pin.”
I smiled at my dad, knowing Mom defnitely felt that way about him sometimes.
“But in all seriousness,” Matthew continued, “Emily was, and continues to be, the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Emily loved bowling, shopping malls— especially ones that had a JCPenney— golden retrievers, Dijon mustard, and the Golden Girls. But most of all, she loved her family. Emily and I were not fortunate enough to have children, but we never felt like we were lacking in any way because we had all of you. You are the legacy she leaves behind.”
We sat in silence for a moment, letting Matthew’s fnal words sink into us. Father John rose from his seat, the air shifing back from nostalgic to sober.
“ Tank you for sharing your story of Emily with us, Matthew,” Father John remarked. Matthew gave him a look of quiet appreciation, his eyes sof, and returned to his seat.
I was beginning to tear up now. Maybe one day I’ll fnd someone who talks about me that way, who remembers the little intricacies of my being.
“Alright, everyone,” Father John addressed, “Now it is time to bring Emily to her fnal resting place.”
We stood up from our seats and watched as Matthew picked up Emily’s urn and marched toward the doors of the church. We followed him and Father John outside to a large stone wall bearing the names of hundreds of the deceased. Was that the right way to describe them? I wasn’t sure what the Catholics would say. Souls now with God? I’ll Google it later. Matthew placed Emily’s urn atop a rickety table as Father John blessed the burial site. Was it really a burial site if she was cremated? I wasn’t sure. I was surprised she was cremated at all. I did some research before the funeral, and apparently, being cremated is rather taboo in the Catholic church.
Father John concluded his blessing, ending with an extra drop of Holy Water, just for good measure. We made our way back inside the church for lunch: an array of cold sandwiches, store-bought cupcakes, and Country Time lemonade. Te lunchroom was painted a faded shade of brown and had about a dozen round tables scattered around the room. I drifed over to the bufet table, eyeing one of the turkey sandwiches.
“Soooooooo? How was your frst Catholic Funeral?” my aunt Candy inquired, sliding up next to me and the sandwiches.
Te way she said it made it sound like I’d just been on my frst date and she was trying to get the ‘juicy gossip,’ only the boy in this scenario was God, I supposed.
“It was… not what I expected,” I said.
“Oh, of course not! Tey never are.”
What’s that supposed to mean? I got my plate of food and joined the rest of my family at one of the round tables in the corner of the room. It was covered in a cheap, plastic tablecloth that had tiny
blue fowers emblazoned on its textured surface. As I began to eat my lunch, I noticed that Matthew and Father John had disappeared.
“Where are Matthew and Father John?” I asked Aunt Candy.
“Oh, they just had a little… hiccup they had to attend to,” she replied.
“Oh, ok.” What kind of a hiccup could they have had? God, I hope I counted the right number of beads.
Afer about 15 minutes, they fnally reappeared, both looking rather sheepish. Without a word to anyone, they headed straight for the bufet table. Naturally, so did I.
“So Uncle John—sorry!—Father John, where did you and Uncle Matthew go?” I asked.
“Well… we just… needed to take care of—”
“John blessed the wrong headstone,” Matthew cut in with a tone of exasperation.
“Ah. Well, did you go back and bless the right one?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, don’t you worry, Emily is all taken care of,” Father John assured me, looking rather pleased with himself.
“Well, um, that’s great!” I said.
“So—tell me—have you thought any more about getting baptized?” Father John asked brusquely.
“Oh, well I, uh—”
“She doesn’t want to be baptized by you! You’d probably mix up the Holy Water with Seven Up!” Matthew snapped.
“I would not! I take my job very seriously!” Father John retorted.
“Yeah? Tell that to my wife, who was almost buried under the name Ken Cranston!” Matthew yelled back.
“Does anyone want a cupcake?” interjected a cute, elderly member of the church staf.
Tank goodness for her. I did not want to dissolve this argument.
“I’d love one, thanks!” I said, then quickly grabbed a cupcake of the cake stand, barrelled my way to the table, and took a seat beside Aunt Candy. I let out a sigh of relief.
“So! I hear you’re considering fnally getting baptized! Tat’s great, honey!” Aunt Candy said.
I was about to open my mouth to argue, but I didn’t want to repeat history, so I simply replied, “Yes, Aunt Candy, I’m really starting to think about it.”
I fnished my cardboard-favored sandwich in silence and listened to her rattle of her three favorite parts about being Catholic. One: fnding a purpose under the Lord’s guidance and love. Original. Two: dressing up to attend church every Sunday so she could one-up the other moms. Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. Tree: she couldn’t wait to be born again so that she could, of course, be saved and meet our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but also so she could marry her high school sweetheart, Jerry Hartford, instead of my uncle Fred. Hmm. Maybe she has a point. I wouldn’t mind being born again. Ten I could retake the algebra test I failed last week.
I thought Catholicism had all of these rules and that it wasn’t, well, cool. Aunt Candy made a few good points, though, and if I did get baptized, then Uncle John would have to stop talking to me about it. I could be baptized in a lake or a river; I thought I saw that in a TV show once. Do you have to be dunked in a specifc river, or do you get to choose?
I was shaken from my daydream by my dad putting both his hands on my shoulders, squeezing them tightly. I hated it when he did that.
“Kiddo! Are you all fnished?” he asked.
“Yup!” I replied, raising my shoulders so he would let go.
I’m sure most people think their dad is the average dad, but my dad was really the average dad. He was balding on the top of his head, he loved football—but hardly ever watched it—and his favorite beer was Bud Light, the same beer he’d drunk since college.
“We’re going to head out,” my dad said.
I wasn’t sure if he was addressing me, the room, or no one at all.
I picked up my paper plate, complete with a half-eaten sandwich and an empty
grapevine, and dumped it into the trash. I said goodbye to Matthew, Father John, Aunt Candy, and the rest of my family and promised them I would call. My dad and I strode into the barren parking lot—the only cars belonging to my family members. Ours was a forest-green 2007 Subaru Outback. Dad said that once I turned 16—which wasn’t too far of—it would be mine.
We drove home in silence. Unlike Mom, Dad and I weren’t the kind of people who needed to fll every space with the sound of our voices.
When we got home, I went straight to my room. I was tired of people and their questions and the questions their questions created in my mind. I grabbed the most recent issue of TigerBeat magazine of of my bedside table and plopped down on my bed. Te shiny, plasticky faces of some cookie-cutter boyband stared back at me. I wonder if they’ve been baptized?
As I began ficking through the magazine, I noticed a small, yellow light refecting of the pages. I fipped the pages back and forth, but it wouldn’t disappear. I brushed it of: it’s probably just the sun.
But then it grew. It swallowed up my entire room, casting it in a bright, fuorescent light. It danced along the wall, spiraling across my famingo-pink wallpaper. I rose from my bed and then froze—a deer in headlights.
My eyes widened as the light, warm and incandescent, fnally engulfed my face. Fighting the urge to look away, I allowed myself to be blinded. My ears prickled at the thrum of a low hum, washing away all other sounds. Afer what felt like an eternity—though it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds—the light slipped away. I shut my eyes. Te river fooding my senses trickled out of my body, drying me up. I lowered myself onto the ground and backed myself up against my bed. I stared blankly at the wall.
“God?” I squeaked out, my voice cracking.
No one answered. So I tried again, louder this time.
“God!”
Without warning, my mom opened the bedroom door, shaking me from my paralysis.
“I’ve been called a lot of things in my time, but God is a frst,” she teased. Mom’s home? How long had I been… stuck?
When I didn’t respond, she knitted her brows, looking at me as if I were a feral cat lef on the side of the road.
“Honey, are you alright?” She asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Fine. I’m fne,” I said, still dazed.
“Are you sure? You look pale.”
“Mom, what does God look like?” I blurted.
“Ha! God?” She chuckled.
I wasn’t sure why she was laughing.
“Well, I doubt he’s a bearded, white man who lives in the sky,” she said. “He’s probably like an energy of some kind, like, a ball of light or something.”
I stared at her, my mouth falling open.
“Honey, what’s going on?”
“Mom, I think I just saw God,” I breathed out. “He came in through the window. Like a light, like you said!” I halfscreamed at her.
“Just now?” she asked with an amused smile.
“Yes, just now!” I yelled back, slamming my fsts into the carpet.
“Oh honey, you know your window faces the driveway, and I just got home, so…”
“So what?” I snapped.
“So, my headlights shine directly into your room when I pull into the garage.”
“Oh.”
I felt myself release the air I had been holding in my lungs. My hands met the foor—searching for something physical, something real.
“I’m going to start making dinner. Why don’t you… go for a walk or something? You look like you need to clear your head,” she said.
“Yes, I—I’ll go for a walk,” I muttered. I couldn’t look up at her.
“Good,” she advised. “Oh, and honey, don’t wait around for God to visit you. You’ll be waiting for a very long time.”
i have never once been in love but some days you are beautiful enough to blot out the sun
curled against me as if heat-starved these stolen mornings when hope is lonely & the height of the summer burns on
the daybreak melting across your skin, half-lit in the hazy light, your gaze is like a fistful of sky your touch, the searing memory of a dream—
closer, you say wrap your dawn-stained hands around me hold me between the sun-faded corners of forever & maybe
the border between your ribcage and mine is only ever half-here
this fence is temporarily
By Ivi Fung
ART
