ISSUE 4 VOL CXLVI
letters and language
TUFTS OBSERVER
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
16 LOST CONNECTION
4 HOW DO YOU KNOW SOMETHING?
18 ENCAPSULATION
BY ISABELLE CHARLES
BY AKBOTA SAUDABAYEVA
5 BLOOD MOON BY IVI
6 TYPEWRITER
BY ISABELLE CHARLES
7 RECLAMO EN LA OFICINA GUBERMENTAL
BY MARIANA JANER-AGRELOT
8 SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL IN THESE WORDS BY JAY GUO
9 INTRUSION
BY RABIYA ISMAIL
10 FOREST AFLAME BY ANICA ZULCH
12 周音
BY MAXINE BELL
13 CREATIVE INSET
BY EVELYN ABRAMOWITZ
BY MICHELLE SETIAWAN
BY EMARA SAEZ
19 “NE”
BY SILVIA WANG
20 LOVE IN RED
BY WILLIAM ZHUANG
21 BLUE EYES
BY MILLIE TODD
22 RED CORVETTE BY ED HANS
23 UNNAMED
BY NEYA KRISHNAN
24 THE ALREADY-MADES BY ELINA GARONE
26 KEEPING WARM BY KATE BOWERS
28 THE EDIBLE COMPLEX BY TARA STECKLER
STAFF EDITOR IN CHIEF: Josie Wagner
LEAD ARTIST: Madeleine Oh
MANAGING EDITOR: Amanda Westlake
LEAD COPY EDITOR: Grace Abe
EDITOR EMERITUS: Akbota Saudabayeva
MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR: Unnathy Nellutla
CREATIVE DIRECTORS: Brenna Trollinger Sofia Pretell
PODCAST DIRECTORS: Caitlin Duffy Suhasini Mehra
FEATURE EDITORS: Aroha Mackay Juanita Asapokhai
PUBLICITY DIRECTOR: Janie Ingrassia
NEWS EDITORS: Chloe Malley Sabah Lokhandwala ARTS & CULTURE EDITORS: Melanie Litwin Sabrina Cabarcos OPINION EDITORS: Claudia Aibel Edith Philip CAMPUS EDITORS: Rabiya Ismail Mira Dwyer POETRY & PROSE EDITOR: Isabelle Charles VOICES EDITORS: Rachel Dong Ryan Kim CREATIVE INSET EDITOR: Evelyn Abramowitz ART DIRECTORS: Kate Bowers Kelly Tan
STAFF WRITERS: Lee Romaker Eleanor Fucetola Gracie Theobald-Williams Silvia Wang Anica Zulch Emara Saez Audrey Ledbetter PUBLICITY TEAM: Paola Ruiz Millie Todd Sophie Fishman
STAFF ARTISTS: Brigid Cawley Aidan Chang Anna Cornish Christina Ma D Gateño Emmeline Meyers Misha Mehta DESIGNERS: Carina Lo Julia Steiner Kate Bowers Tara Steckler Emma Davis Bao Lu Joanna Kleszczewski COPY EDITORS: Marco Pretell Hannah Schulman Shira Ben-Ami Eden Weissman William Zhuang Meghan Smith
MULTIMEDIA TEAM: Linda Kebichi Jasmine Chang PODCAST TEAM: Hanna Bregman Jaden Shemesh Jillian Yum Alexis Enderle Silvia Wang Grace Masiello Browyn Legg Noah DeYoung Gayatri Kalra Julio Dominguez CONTRIBUTORS: Michelle Setiawan Elina Garone Neya Krishnan Jay Guo Maxine Bell Mariana Janer-Agrelot Cheyanne Atole Ivi Ed Hans
LETTERS & LANGUAGE The curve of a cross, the bend of a vertical, ink to paper makes sense of it all. Shape-shifting and everchanging, we are the creators of our own memoirs.
twisting, turning, up and down. good days, bad days, sunrise, sunset. new leaves, new seasons, another week, another email. tomorrow we’ll wake up and do it all again
DESIGN AND PHOTOS BY SOFIA PRETELL, FRONT AND BACK COVER BY BRENNA TROLLINGER
SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 TUFTS OBSERVER 3
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
2 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
DEAR READER, “You have a lot of futterneid,” my mom said to me one day. A German word which literally translates to “food jealousy.” It’s true, I’ll admit it. The word that I once flaunted from my high school German class was now being used lavishly (and rightly so) to describe my inherent love for food by my mother. It is that moment when the dish comes out and it is more appealing to pick at the bits on the periphery of someone else’s plate before tasting your own. I learned language as being boundless and describing the common sentiments and universal feelings that humans all feel at once. Language seeps into every ventricle of our communications and interactions with one another. Peaches and cream might seem like a simple dessert to some, but for me, it was the moniker that my parents used for me as a baby. Language can function the same way that the scent of a well-loved sweater or the hem of a baby blanket makes us feel. It fills in those slots of our lives in ways that sight, touch, and taste may not be able to. It fills a kind of void. We are a social species (relatively speaking). Language is one of the many mediums that we use for communication as we build from babbles as babies, to the standard speech patterns of first grade, to our papers that try to mimic intellectual prose. It is about a first introduction to a long-time friend. A long-awaited call to your family about how much you miss them and love them and long for the Sundays of oxtail and plantain. It is the silence in between the construction of words. They express our deep regrets in our mother tongues and languish in the absence of reciprocation. A two-way street. Language can be whatever you want it to be. Bones can snap, break, and fracture. Words meld, shift, and swim. It is silky and rich yet tangibly solid, constantly molding, never fixed. The Tufts Observer, Tufts’ oldest publication, is a compendium of stories, an archive, and a journal. I am grateful to Josie, Amanda, and the Observer staff for their talent, creativity, and commitment. Throughout this issue, there are colorful art pieces, a love letter to Indonesia, Spanish poetry, and the sweet sounds of Mandarin. These are our stories. At the very root of these visual and literary narratives lie a bed of letters and words as a vessel to usher us through. I am thankful for this publication, the language, the learning, and all the letters involved. All of my very best, Isabelle Charles
DESIGN AND PHOTOS BY SOFIA PRETELL
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 3
HOW DO YOU KNOW SOMETHING? By Akbota Saudabayeva
I recall learning English in the dark. Ms. Backenstoe had turned off all the lights, and she was pointing a flashlight at the block letters on the blackboard. It was our alphabet bonfire, that’s what she called it. William, my classmate whose name I remember but whose face I forgot, was sounding out a word. His fat, kid lips stumbled over his teeth as he spat out the syllables—and the teacher shined the flashlight on him like holy illumination. That was the learning process Ms. Backenstoe wanted him to use, and I know that because she told us. Back around the Middle Ages, people did not read the written word without saying it aloud. That’s what my professor said, but I don’t remember which one. It wasn’t until I was reading a book years later that I realized my eyes knew how to swim down the stream of words. I had memorized their structures, their components, the whole fish skeleton. I had turned the letters of the alphabet in my hand, looked at all the different facets of their diamond interiors. I had swallowed the hard rock of this language. Listen, my religion teacher asked us once: how do you know something? Откуда ты что-то знаешь? How far can you travel until you can’t crawl back home? Sometimes I say Russian words aloud and wince at how my teeth handle their edges. I forgot how to say all the things that I haven’t even said yet. The red button of the answering machine always glares at me, holding a message from my grandfather in its mouth. He could never read my poetry, and I still can’t talk about it. I’ll tell you this—atashka used to take my little hand and recite all his musical manuscripts to me. This I remember. Please understand, language is not always what you think, or what you say. My entire life has been a conversation with the past, so that I may grasp how to greet the present. How many ways can I say something so that I do not forget? I imagine my sentences arrive like flowers on gravestones, watered with grief and shining soft with the sun—sorry for all the sounds unspoken and the learning undone.
4 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
DESIGN AND ART BY CARINA LO
blood moon blood moon blood moon By Ivi blood moon, i. who slept among the stars until he got sick of playing coy and came crashing down to earth. in effect, a genesis in reverse—the world caving in around the craters of his dimples and us dancing amidst the carnage, saying one word, always meaning three. today he says farewell (feelings are fatal), a smile rusting off the tip of his blade, bloodlust bellowing from the ache of his lungs. yet he returns, back and back again. he orbits me. i orbit him. and gravity is a wretched, lonely thing.
ii. half-lit in the half-light, we winnow our scales and smile with jagged teeth, talons outstretched for the jugular. all is fair in love and war and intergalactic sleight-of-hand. you borrow time and swindle starlight and vanish without a trace. (come back) i just want to be held. i just want to be held hostage. sometimes, i fear the little god of my heart is, in truth, a monster who lies, half-crazed, in your embrace.
DESIGN BY CARINA LO, ART BY EMMELINE MEYERS
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 5
We sat snug by the table with the hovering leg, Placed a hand to milky carbon copies, Grasping each other’s breath with curved, inky incisions, We glided. Across the blank terrain, in the flat fibers, We constructed our palatial story. A story of kings and queens adorned in robes, Gold awnings and crystal chandeliers, Marble for tables and king crabs for snack.
By
T y p E w R i t e r
Charles e l l be sI a
I sat with you in our palace until i lifted my hands. The stucco was smeared, The table wobbly, Electricity off, And beans cold. I loved our embrace. We bled. We loved. And we sat.
6 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
DESIGN BY CARINA LO, PHOTO BY ISABELLE CHARLES
RECLAMO EN LA OFICINA GUBERNAMENTAL By Mariana Janer-Agrelot
Hunde, hunde, balsa te llamo reclamo, escucho, balsa en vano mi hermano está hundido en la calle, sus tripas en el faro, y mi abuela no puede respirar, tiene la cruz de antemano. Colonia, eres tu. La espera se sigue alargando uno, dos, tres, nos fuimos en la balsa, arranca por el horizonte y escucha al vecino que tanto ha llorado. El día vuelve del mismo color, el día vuelve del mismo color, tiempo de lluvia avisando, me tapo los oídos, la nariz, pero sigue el rugido. Colonia, me cortaste la cabeza la vendiste y te la comiste. Me voy.
DESIGN AND PHOTO BY JULIA STEINER
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 7
By Jay Guo
something beautiful in these words I used to sit with you on the carpet floor, cross-legged, with mugs of tea so large they tasted like water. I would teach you my language, your face round and soft and glowing in the kitchen light. I thought it might’ve been something like love, or making love, watching your tongue curl around my name— a thin sound from the lips, something deeper from the throat. I taught you that these words have faces, hai: harmful, ocean, return, startle, child. That we mean more than the sounds we make, xiao: small, dawn, laugh, remove, filial piety. I taught you that our words mean a million little meaningless things: red for happiness, green for adultery; four for death, eight for fortune; chopsticks for Sons arriving, pears for love departing. I would lie on the floor when you fell asleep, arms brushing, breathing deeply in the dark with a sharp emptiness in my stomach. I would think about how rain in my language was not a sound in yours, how rain in any language was slippery and indescribable, like tea with you in the cold, like my mother’s voice mixed with yours— like loving you and the taste of pears in springtime, and wondering whether it was the Chinese in me that turned your face gently to the moon.
8 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
intrusion By Rabiya Ismail
my psychiatrist says I can only focus on one thing at a time spinach, check. bananas, check. but the thought of you has never left my mind; so I haven’t done anything right since that night i loiter in aisle 13 in hopes that you might m a t e r i a l i z e my cart boils over while my friends question my immobility your name threatens to leave my lips i resist they can focus on two things, even four sometimes while my mind can only focus on your body on mine
DESIGN BY JULIA STEINER, ART BY CHEYANNE ATOLE
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 9
a forest aflame By Anica Zulch
10 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
As I walk, my footprints trail behind me, each imprint radiating a soft glow. The embers hang low, suspended in the air, leaving a serpentine haze to accompany me. As I wander, so does my mind. I was fine before you. Before those cerulean eyes pierced me. I was fine before I knew. Before I trusted. Just fine. I didn’t know the sky shouldn’t be an abyss of turbulence. I didn’t know the stoic trees shouldn’t shrink away with fear, wilting and graying. I didn’t know it could—would—be like this. How brightly the sun’s shimmer would reflect off the leaves. That you would run the path by my side, the solitude of the forest fading away. I was fine. I wasn’t fine. I didn’t have you. But now I know you. I know those eyes, that smile. I know you. I know and now, now I trust. I trust the reason. I trust the path. I trust the truth. I trust you. I used to walk the path through the trees and see the landscape encircling me. I saw it but I didn’t see it. I didn’t know it. I walk now and there’s no longer the landscape I used to know. I walk now and my world glows. It glows from my heart, leaving a trail of luminescence in my wake. I cast my gaze up. The light sifts through the trees, scattering an illuminated labyrinth of light and shadows on the floor below. The rays chase each other through the branches, racing and interweaving through each limb, never discriminating, never differentiating. Their amber shines onto each leaf, dancing over the dampened moss and caressing each segment of peeling bark. My eyes flutter shut. I feel the presence of the forest over me, looming, protecting. The warm glow of the sun persists through my eyelids, illuminating my mind and igniting my soul. I bare my soul to you in the light of day. No longer hiding in the safe comfort of the darkness, every shadow and every chasm is exposed. You don’t shy away, you don’t fear me. You see me. I see you. You are the spark, igniting the embers and stoking the flame. Every stroke, every touch, every glance. I feel the forest around me, each sprig and branch vibrating with life. The air sharpens as the leaves around me combust, each one engulfing in flame. I feel the heat encompassing me as the glow through my eyelids intensifies. You are the spark. I open my eyes. As I walk away, my footprints singe the path. The surrounding fire fuels me and I begin to run. I chase the path of glowing footprints, looking for the heart that is indistinguishable from mine. The heart that glows. I run, faster and faster, until I collide into your arms. Our hearts meld. We hold on tight as we become engulfed in flames.
DESIGN AND ART BY JOANNA KLESZCZEWSKI
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 11
my cute mom that I respect gifted me with this name in between infinite nets draping the circumference that connects and disconnects where uprooting is just as grounding as my dad planting a sakura tree global sound is a lot to live up to must I know my cute mom that I respect’s tongue perapera pouring from my face that doesn’t always look the part? I would have a lot of studying to do sound is hard like silence is binding but I must have global sound or why else have I been given this name? I used to find it fitting when I played the violin my golden dog would howl to my strings filling the air with sounds permeating through drywall I felt like we could fly across these waters and skies touching everyone alive and wherever the rest may be I don’t play the violin anymore, sorry my cute mom that I respect, please forgive me I make sound in braver ways—with my voice, my pen, my brush I promise it’s just as powerful, if not more, because it has to be ne
周音
By Maxine Bell
global sound sounds scary am I scary? people have told me I’m scary for my eyes are too narrow to be kind but my cute mom that I respect gifted me with these too and how could a cute mom give me scary eyes? global sound is tricky because what if I want to gatekeep lock my doors and have passwords that only I know and sometimes forget what if I’m mad that I gave you 周音 and all of its meaning I gave you these translations because is that my duty as amane? or should I go back and erase the romanji? maybe you shouldn’t know but isn’t it pretty cool? What if I want to use these tongues like trading cards striking an opponent I choose which one bam! bam! bam! bet you didn’t see that coming or ジロジロ my scary eyes are locked
周 - shū - circumference 音 - oto - sound 周音 - amane - global sound ママちゃま - mamachama - my cute mom that I respect
12 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
how does it feel when Ms. Global Sound doesn’t tell you everything she’s saying? not so global anymore strip her of her damn title.
DESIGN BY JOANNA KLESZCZEWSKI, ART BY MAXINE BELL
R
I FEATURE
X
DESIGN BY EVELYN ABRAMOWITZ LIVIA BEDNARZ, DRAWING DESIGN BY JOHNCHARCOAL DOE, ART BY JANE DOE
SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 TUFTS OBSERVER 15
w
FEATURE
Lan·guage noun [ lang-gwij ] 1
: the system of words or signs that people use to express thoughts and feelings to each other
2
: any one of the systems of human language that are used and understood by a particular group of people
1. TERRY COLE, DIGITAL MEDIA DESIGN BY EVELYN ABRAMOWITZ
16 TUFTS OBSERVER SEPTEMBER 28, 2020
2. CHRISTINA MA, PASTEL DRAWING
a
FEATURE
r
DESIGN BY JOHN DOE, ART BY JANE DOE
SEPTEMBER 28, 2020 TUFTS OBSERVER 17
LO ST
C O N N E CT I O N by Michelle Seti awan
1. I wish I never met you. The kids on TV have a different life in America—more independent, so unlike the life I am used to. Children walk to and from school, they decide on a whim to meet up with friends on weekdays, and they talk to their neighbors. The tall brick walls that divide the houses along my street mean that I don’t know the people I have lived beside for ten years. For my safety, the streets where I can walk alone are limited. So is my freedom. I wish I were like them. I wish I never met you, Indonesia. I want to erase you from my mouth, my skin, my eyes. Your roads are too crowded, your air is too murky, your sidewalks too crooked and cracked. I am scared when I walk your streets alone. Your words are too rough, your humor too brazen. I am ashamed of you. Let me forget you. My accent does not sound American enough because of your words, forever engraved in my tongue. You have mutilated me. I can’t wash you out of my hands. No matter how much I scrub, you cling to me like dirt under my fingernails. I don’t belong anywhere. Your people hate me for learning the language of foreigners while living on your land. I have wanted to leave you behind for so long, and the process has finally started. I don’t go to a school where Bahasa Indonesia is widely used anymore. Now, my friends are foreign too. My English is better—I think of “butterflies” rather than “kupu-kupu.” 16 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
2. There is a revolution happening. I read the words of others who have the same dissonance within their identity as I do. They question why ‘American’ should be the default. Progress is flowing but I feel stuck. I have branded my tongue with English, I have peeled my culture off of my body, scrubbed it clean of any trace of my heritage. When I was younger, English was the alien language in my household. Now, Indonesian is. My mother winces when I speak it—my accent is nearly gone. I am on a remote island between two lands. I am a drifter, a voyager, between two traditions. Which will I venture towards? 3. Come back, I need you. With your loss, there is a void within my identity. Each word of yours that fades from my memory severs me from my heritage, my sense of belonging. It is impossible to reject you without rejecting myself. I’m sorry for hating your crowded night markets, the rolled r’s of your speech, your colourful, brown sugar- and coconut-cream-filled desserts. I am tied to you. I know your history, and you know mine. I know the colours of your beaches as the sky bursts into flames. I love the kindness of your people, the warmth that is steeped into your ancestral roots. I adore your distinct art, your precise lines organized into patterned flora. My whole life, we have been two friends loving, hating, and accepting. Please forgive me. Are you still there? I need you. Do you still recognize me? I’m glad I met you.
DESIGN AND ART BY BAO LU
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 17
words slip into our subconscious, never to be conjured up again. palabras que nos cambian para siempre. english, spanish, everything in between. our inner dialogue, unexplainable actions, opinionated beliefs, shaped by the words we internalize. charming and harsh, unforgettable and cutting. like the ripples of a disturbed pond, never-ending but constantly ebbing.
ENCAPSULATION by Emara Saez
a kiss on the forehead, a smile on her lips, sweet whispers after being tucked in, the sound of her voice trailing away as the door creaks shut, que duermas bien, mi muñeca. knit sweaters paired with aged, wrinkled hands, soft-spoken speech swirled in the air, half-baked memories and meaningful advice, baby, I wish the best for you. loud laughter over lunch, inside jokes, nicknames, and chortles, interlocked elbows to face the world, amistad verdadera, eso es lo que tenemos. basking in the sunlight on the beach, holding hands, running into the ocean, splashing and sailing into the horizon, smitten with ourselves and this instance, sweetheart, may this moment never end. watching her grow up, sprouting like a sunflower, now tall and regal, estas bella, mi corazón.
呢
looking back, the self-describing words are no longer my own, but of others. stuck with what has been said; entre la espada y la pared. a stream of consciousness not my own, a conglomeration of everything heard, read, and seen.
18 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
呢
s.
“NE”
Silvia Wang
My favorite sound in Mandarin. Not a word, often lost in translation, Impossible to explain, yet essential Nuanced in use, it comes naturally A telltale sign of native fluency Or learned proficiency
Disrupts the dissonance of charged conversation A peace offering, an upwards inflection Marking sweet exchanges at the dinner table The trailing tail of a sentence, Used for emphasis, persistence, Or to soften your words
DESIGN AND ART BY BAO LU
In a language that is vibrant with distinct, sharp tones Clashing syllables on a bustling street Vendors selling fresh produce on a city block A sound that mediates, Cools the jarring collisions of argument Can add a warmth, a missing tenderness Or readily invites a response, In an endearing question to a loved one “Ni ne?”
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 19
love in red By William Zhuang Is it love To take a bullet for someone To stand in front of metal And let it sink into flesh Life into death As effortless as leaping dolphins Indifferent as love Eternally shifting, only to wilt
When you fall back Do you hear the cries They have come to find you Trembling through like water When you lose all else Stories, images, songs Are the voices What you hold onto? Are they what You bring along? And blood You were once bathed in it The moment your eyes Opened and touched All of this world That red in you Flowing, running cold When it comes back Through flesh and vessels To reach the paleness Of skin in burgundy blurs Is it lovely Is it love?
20 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
DESIGN BY TARA STECKLER, ART BY CHEYANNE ATOLE
BLUE EYES
By Millie Todd
He had blue eyes. Blue eyes and a nose slightly too big for his face. His lips were full, and they opened slightly when he was daydreaming. It made me want to kiss him. I felt it in my bones when he looked at me, all the way down to my toes. When he saw me, it felt as though he were seeing the whole universe within me. He wore a locket with nothing inside; he just liked the locket. His favorite shoes were an off-white pair of Common Projects, but he bought a new pair every few months because he didn’t like them too dirty. He had sweatshirts from colleges he didn’t go to, some he had never even planned on going to. I bought him a sweatshirt once, from the concert where he told me he loved me. He never wore it. We weren’t together long. Six months. But despite that, our love was seemingly inevitable. We hadn’t talked in years, and after one reunion lunch in Midtown, it was undeniable. For months, we communicated our love the best way we knew how. I did it through words, not all of them to him. I have dozens of journal entries full of the words I couldn’t bring myself to say out loud. He communicated through touch. An arm around my shoulder at brunch with his parents, a hand on my knee while he drove, a piercing look from those blue eyes that pinned me in place. I think I understood him better than he understood me. There was so much I wanted to say and didn’t know how. I think it caught up to me. The words never came out exactly how I intended. When we argued, it was impossible to articulate how I felt. I found myself crying in frustration. The only way I knew how to express myself was failing me, so instead, I wrote it down. It helped me, but it didn’t help us. Eventually, we got lost. The words I wrote down grew scribbled and frequent, while the words passing between us lessened. One night he put me in an Uber, and when he looked at me, I didn’t feel it in my toes.
DESIGN BY KATE BOWERS, ART BY AVRIL LYNCH
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 21
by Ed Hans
I spit until that stew stuck, hammed, lodged in mine is gone 10/28/21 S14256 07:06:20 Yet, and even, and beyond having had to undergo, now namely like ‘undergone,’ such long tomes, rote records of writ, wit spoken to be transcribed, written, rotely monk’d over for a decade, she still could never interpret the frets on the board. She couldn’t, wouldn’t read that butter bit. Never. The easy chodes, nodes of knowing flowed by ink to the thinking pink fink. That anti-spoke spoke, having been loudly read aloud already, t’was then, again, anti-requisite to the penned feather-type osmosis she was attempting at present. “Thusly,” spoke she, “Having never been said, having never appeared to the air, this(ly) beespeeches the intent of my goal. For I consume not that which has been digested before, at present, at now. Look I not not, at least partly, the part of the fowl? Must I repeat? Must I repeat? That which has graced that which stands between you and I, the empty, the in between, must never, hereafter, grace those ears, mind, or soul you call mine. It is decreed.” Aye, she was the swine. That one of refusal to see, to read, take creed of the bleeded inkling who had been spoken ever, she, she would never.
22 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
DESIGN BY JOANNA KLESZCZEWSKI, ART BY ED HANS
unnamed By Neya Krishnan
The autumn sky is a deep black bruise and I drown in its ache. What a strange feeling— for someone who loves words, I can’t name this… this is what I know; it hurts to breathe, I tremble upon anyone’s touch, under anyone’s gaze, so I left for someplace lonely— now I walk towards an unnamed destination fingers frigid, socks soaked, back buried by a bloated backpack; I can go anywhere I want; and yet I can’t, not really. I close the umbrella and the salt on my face is gently washed off. I find a tree and press my unsalted cheeks to the drenched bark; I don’t stop even as passing couples stare. I don’t stop until the prickling sensation turns to pain. It seems I can’t tremble on my own,
DESIGN BY EMMA DAVIS, ART BY ISABELLE CHARLES
so I walk and walk with no thoughts (shouldn’t there be thoughts?) I walk and walk until a middle-aged man in a silver car eyes me through his greasy window and slows down his vehicle, pulling over to park, eyes still locked on my frame // I pace quickly and run and run until I reach the end of a street three blocks away. I’m not sure how to get back home and while that would usually terrify me, I seem to be much more terrified of the unnamed feeling // the feeling that brought me here to drown in autumn’s bruised night. What is it? what is it? what’s wrong? I don’t know.
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 23
THE ALREADY-MADES By Elina Garone
24 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
When I was a child, my grandmother told me where words go at night. All the letters gather together, she said. They crawl off of notebooks, supermarket receipts, advertisements for pesticides, and undelivered love notes. Together, they creep into the dusk and through the desert dunes, leaving behind a trail of imprints on the sand. They reach the ocean before daybreak and, one by one, dive in for a swim, folding over rocks like foamless waves and blackening the shore with wet ink. “Always treat your words with care,” she liked to say. “They have a secret life of their own.” When I went to school, I was referred to after-school speech correction classes to fix my stuttering: they called it “childhood-onset fluency disorder.” They taught me how to answer my teachers without hesitation, to speak with proper grammar at a proper volume, and to keep a file of acceptable responses in the shallow, easily reachable part of my chest. I found a part-time job at a word-convenience store, where we sell pre-written words, or “Already-Mades,” to salarymen who must speak in inoffensive but hollow templates. Every morning a new batch arrives, wrapped in cellophane and packed neatly in plastic boxes. I wait for the packages to defrost, then stack them carefully onto separate shelves, each labelled “Saying Thank You” or “Apologizing to Your Boss” or “Appeasing Your Mother-inLaw.” At 7:00 a.m. the men begin to file in. They enter in a single straight line, dressed in pristinely starched suits and knowing precisely what they will buy. I process the men at the register, scanning the barcodes and watching as they tear the wrappings off. They consume the Already-Mades in large gulps, archiving the words for later use. Fumi arrives late, running as usual, and I join her as she stacks the shelves. “It’s almost Valentine’s Day,” I say. “Oisa.” She smiles, slightly out of breath, and I notice the small gap between her teeth. “I’ll be working on Valentine’s Day too—Oi-neppe!” Fumi speaks a thick Chiba dialect, often adding “dappe” or “pe” to the end of her sentences. She jokes that she’s always mocked for it at school, but I want to tell her that when she speaks, it sounds like a stone skipping over still water. An earnest, direct expression tapped out on the tongue at a steady tempo. When I listen to her speak, it makes my own Tokyo-born, “standard” speech seem all too formal—polite but frigid.
DESIGN BY EMMA DAVIS, ART BY KELLY TAN
“What do you think about the Valentine’s Day Already-Mades?” I ask her, reaching towards the top shelf. Fumi always pauses for a second before she speaks. I sometimes imagine that she is lowering a bucket into a well within herself, somewhere deep past her esophagus in between her bowels and her guts, slowly pulling up the words that live there. “That freeze-dried, factory-pressed, prepackaged stuff?” Fumi says loudly, and the salarymen near her turn pink. “The ones with glittery red stickers that say ‘Tried and tested by your favorite actors and actresses?’ If someone gave that to me… Uccha-cchau-ppe.” I laugh, and as I crouch for the low shelf, I notice that Fumi’s shoelaces are untied. Before I can tell her, Fumi takes a step toward the rack. I watch as she loses her balance, pushing hard into the shelf. The rack slowly tips off of the floor, and, with a horrible metallic clang, crashes into the adjoining shelf. The two shelves smash down like massive dominoes, and the Already-Made packages spill out in a wave of plastic. Fumi and I look at each other. The salarymen wait by the register, anxious about catching the next train. A pause. Then, the cellophane on the packages begins to rustle. A few at first, then all at once, the wrapping rips from within. Out of the ruptures, little black letters emerge like spiders crawling out of newly hatched eggs. They flood into the convenience store and stretch their limbs, free from the other letters they had been pressed with. Soon, the walls and windows are plastered with inky scribbles. The suited men have been swallowed whole, submitting without resistance to the tidal wave of indecipherable letters. When they have consumed everything in the shop but Fumi and me, the letters file out of the store and start to march through the city in a giant parade. I look at Fumi as she marvels over the festival of words, eyes shimmering with delight. “I like you,” I want to say, but the words don’t come.
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 25
26 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
keeping warm By Kate Bowers
While the bears and the squirrels and hopefully the poets of the world retreat into our dens for the winter, the voles tunnel winding paths under the snow. You can see them when it all melts in the spring; a city of squiggles left by warm noses pushing through the frozen grass. There are two kinds of voles that the endocrinologists study. Both palm-sized and coffee-colored, identical except that only the prairie voles mate for life. To tell them apart, the scientists with gloved hands place them in opposite corners. The meadow voles don’t mind. The prairie voles crash together like magnets or mythic lovers, and do not separate. My good friend tells me that a boy in your bed is like a radiator. That even in the winter she can’t use an extra quilt when her boyfriend sleeps over. I see them in the mornings, pouring coffee. Her head on his shoulder and their little hearts beating.
DESIGN AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY KATE BOWERS, ART BY CHEYANNE ATOLE
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 27
THE EDIBLE COMPLEX As a cruciverbalist, I have an obsession with solving and constructing crossword puzzles. My daily puzzle is a sacred ritual for me. Solving them alone serves as a meditative and personal mental challenge. Collaborating with my housemates, puzzles unite our minds with a common goal as our brains spin and scavenge through our collective memories to crack a theme and finish a puzzle.
28 TUFTS OBSERVER NOVEMBER 22, 2021
Constructing puzzles is a different beast. It starts with coming up with a theme that will comprise the longest answers in the puzzle. Creativity is confined to the rules of grid construction: the grid usually has rotational symmetry, the ratio of white to black squares must be right, and the fill—the words on the grid—should avoid “crosswordese” (rare words that are used more in crossword puzzles than in real life). Trying to
By Tara Steckler fill a grid with an interesting theme while following all these rules can bring me an unimaginable level of frustration; I go through the five stages of grief during every puzzle construction process. But when something finally clicks, and the grid is full and the fill is valid and the theme is clever and all the hard work has paid off… the satisfaction is immeasurable. With that, I present to you: “The Edible Complex.”
DESIGN BY TARA STECKLER, ART BY AVRIL LYNCH
NOVEMBER 22, 2021 TUFTS OBSERVER 29
(taylor’s version)
