Backyard Superhero

Backyard Superhero Brant Fechter

A beautiful sunset passed by, As I fumbled through my clothes drawers For the red superhero cape Made especially for me!

It used to be as bright as my smile, And with it I had the confidence A super hero needs to fight The evils that engulf the world

I raced to my backyard swing set -The ornament of my childhood.

I kept lifting myself higher and higher With each thrust forward.

I couldn't resist the thrill of flight, Nevermind the drop between me and the ground. But, it was something that a superhero Just had to do!

I kept hearing my mom call As loud as she possibly could "Brant, time for dinner!" "BBRRAANNNTTTT, tttiiimmee ffoorr ddiinnnnnneeeerrrrrr!"

But, a superhero is sly in his ways Of stealing the cookies his mom hides, So with a destroyed appetite I paid her no mind As I called back, "Coming!"

I wondered if it was possible To fly around the cemented set. My dad said that even a superhero couldn't swing around But I have always believed otherwise.

Michigan MarkSniade

Michigan held the rapier's point to his opponent's throat; held it there for twenty minutes. Michigan's opponent--the famililial wraith--grinned the whole time. It had to; a familial wraith is only a skull and some ethereal shrouding in the shape of a body, tattered gray webbing capped by generations of the same family living within their walls. All the strife, all the bad emotion, all the most secret pains and irrational conflicts that arise within a family, the kinds of turmoil that could never be expressed to or understood by an outsider: these are what create a familial wraith, and it exists until the house falls. Or till it is slain. Michigan was waiting for the wraith to speak. As the moonlight slithered across the wall his sword arm began to tremble. Still the wraith stood silent against the wall, grinning, wafting in some unfelt abysmal draft. The house grew more ominous around Michigan, the moon became obscured by clouds. He could barely see to the end of his blade, but the skull glowed faintly, so faint that the longer Michigan looked at it the harder it became to see, and only by averting his eyes and using his peripheral vision could he even verify that it was still there. Always a waiting game with familial wraiths, Michigan thought. They never give up their secrets easily. "Come on, out with it, Johnson," he whispered, "I grow impatient. I haven't got all night." That was a lie. There was no reply. Another minute passed. The room lightened as the clouds moved past the moon. The skull seemed somehow closer, but neither of them had moved. Then, at last, it spoke. A high-pitched voice of indeterminate sex filled the room, emanating from the walls, the floor, the furniture. It echoed down the staircase, called up from the basement, came muffled from inside closets. The words were spoken in a kind of buzzing language that sounded almost capable of being made by a human tongue, but was occasionally punctuated by a word that sounded more like the snap of an electrical discharge than any dialect of the living world. "We aren't happy at being made to give up our secrets... We think you should mind your own business--" here Michigan pushed the sword tip a fraction of an inch closer, and the voice lurched slightly before going on, "--but we want more for you to let us live on as we can...You want to know of our riches, do you not?" "Yes," Michigan growled. His voice was low, deep and rumbling from his

throat. "You had almost found our riches when you dug us up... let us go back, and we will show you our..." The voice, which had been one entity until now, suddenly broke up into many shouting voices, some of children, some of adults, some like cackling old men and women.

"Jewels!" "Gold!" "Riches!" "Coins!" "Rings!" "Blood!"

"BLOOD!" "Enough!" cried Michigan, and the tip of the rapier entered the ethereal shroud below the skull's jaw. "We will take you to our riches, we promise, we promise..." The voice was begging, sad, and frightened, but beneath the fear Michigan heard an acrid note of hate. This house would kill him yet, if he was not careful. Slowly he lowered the sword. The wraith began to drift toward the basement door, the (continued on page 24)

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yellowish skull floating silently as the ghostly limbs made the motions of walking. When it reached the door its arm passed right through the wood, and what might have been comical from a safer distance was a chilling scene for Michigan: the wraith continued to walk forward, its legs passing through easily, but then there was a loud knock as the skull struck the wood chin first and was spun sideways. The skull wobbled a bit on its misty body, and the empty black sockets stared at Michigan as the wraith took a step backwards. "We need you to open the door." The sword came up again. Michigan Sant was a big man, an experienced killer in his own right, and this was not the first spirit he had been close to. But something about that skull...he decided what made him so terrified of that skull was that it was a real thing, a solid object with depth and texture. Ghosts were like tricks of the light, illusions, dream images. The wraith's body was like that. But that skull was real. From the moment he uncovered it, and it rose into the air on its own, the body bleeding into the air below it like spun glass and cobwebs...it terrified him. His only comfort was the rapier - a blade forged and finished within the last two days, just as the legends stated. The age of the blade was all that mattered. The tome he read had been very specific. A two-day blade to slay the shade. Still, he shuddered when it asked him to open the door. He came forward slowly, each step unwilling, until there was scarcely a foot between his ear and the smiling jaws of the familial wraith. He turned the handle and flung open the door, jumping back as it swung

wide.

"Get down there, now." He gestured with the sword. It began to float down the staircase. "Wait," Michigan said suddenly. "Stay still." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a candle and box of kitchen matches. Lighting the candle, he glanced around the room, searching for a candle holder. Then he remembered seeing one in the basement the first time he went down.

"Alright, go on." Michigan and the wraith descended, Michigan holding the candle out so the hot wax would not burn him. At the bottom of the staircase was a small table with a candlestick lying dusty and tarnished underneath it. He put the candle in, and motioned for the wraith to lead on. They walked a path already familiar to Michigan, and he could see his own footsteps in the dust on the floor leading to and from the farthest room of the basement. The wraith continued to glide forward, and occasionally a tiny laugh would emit from inside the wall or the ceiling above Michigan's head. This was not a mansion, but there was enough house above to account for these cedarpaneled catacombs below. The hallway was low and tight, a claustrophobe's nightmare, a twisting thing with doorways on either side, black and opaque. It quickly became apparent they were heading back to the same room he dug the skull up in, the room with the dirt floor and the gray stone walls. The door was black and somehow hungry-looking ahead of them. The wraith spun its skull around as if to make sure Michigan was still following, and he gave it a meaningful jab in the back with the tip of the rapier. The skull slowly rotated around--and not the direction it had come from, but completing its revolution. A chuckle came from the wall on his right. Michigan thumped it with his fist, and it let out a loud HA! before going silent. The last doorway at the end of the hallway loomed. And they went inside. The candle's light was much less comforting than Michigan's flashlight had been, the flashlight he dropped in his mad chase after the wraith through the many rooms of the house. The house had laughed then, too, hysterically. Now all was silent, save for his breath, and all was dark, save for the ten-foot circle of candlelight. It threw the skull's shadow onto the

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wall. The body made no such shadow. "Where is it Johnson." The breath of the command made the flame dance. The words of the command were swallowed up by the dirt. The command went unanswered. "Dammit, Johnson. Where is it!" Michigan held the sword ready to strike. If he went home empty-handed, so be it, but the underworld would not claim him this night... this early, early morning... The skull was at an odd angle, not facing him, but looking to the back of the room, near the ceiling. Michigan made himself look, and noticed something he hadn't before. A thin rectangle of grayness. Of light. Dawn's earliest light, filling the window well, the color of 5 A.M. fog. Dawn. Dawn of the third day. The house spoke. "Your blade is old... so very ol111111111111111111111d..." Then the voices were silent, and the wraith itself giggled. Michigan's eyelids peeled themselves back, unable to look away from the skull. It spun around horribly fast, and he realized the giggling was coming from it, loud and piercingly clear, mad giggling jumping octave after octave with each passing moment, and then the jaw dropped open, wide as it would go, and the skull rushed to meet his face, and the candle fell, and all was dark.

Ed Marc Sniadecki

The shaved lunch meat blended with an old hand, the convolutions of smoked turkey nearly matching its wrinkled flesh. Only the liver spots made it distinguishable. "Eh... now, did you say a half a pound?" The customer looked at Ed Kantz blankly, then remembered he was in a deli and nodded. He quickly went back to worrying about stock prices. Ed packaged the meat, his hands having a little trouble with the Ziplock bag and the label, which got stuck on the scale and ripped. "Sorry about that," he said, and his words were like the tortoise, slow and steady. "Let me just punch in the code again..." The customer wasn't even looking. Another half-minute later Ed finished the transaction. He checked his watch and began hunting for Mr. Derringer, the deli manager. He found him in the freezer. "Mr. Derringer I need to go a little early today," Ed said, shivering. White mist rolled around the half-open door. "I got to keep an appointment." Mr. Derringer was one-third Ed's age, and dressed for power. His starched shirt created an aura of professionalism around him. Currently his back was turned to Ed and he was taking inventory of the chicken nuggets. "Sure, Ed, not a problem!" Mr. Derringer always talked like there was a gun pointed at him and he was happy to see it. "We can hold down the fort. Man with your seniority needn't ask twice!" "Thank--" "Don't mention it! Please shut the door behind you." Ed, having not actually ventured inside the freezer, closed the door in front of him, happy to shut in the cold. Walking with the leisurely gait of the elderly he went to the employee breakroom and unlocked his locker, and withdrew a large black duffel bag. With considerable effort he slung it over one shoulder and headed towards the men's room, stopping to grab a bearclaw from a box of donuts on the breakroom table. By the time he reached the men's room Ed was licking his fingers. He commandeered a stall from a janitor who was hiding there reading Sports Illustrated. Then Ed unzipped the duffel bag, and with the slowness of a snake shedding its skin he removed his work clothes and put on the suit coat and pants contained therein. In the bathroom mirror Ed adjusted a sharp burgundy bowtie and grinned.

One hour later Ed was standing alone on a small stone bridge near the edge of Brown County State Park. The duffel bag sat on the edge of the bridge next to him, and if it had had eyes both sentinels would have been staring expectantly down the road, watching the leaves fall. The brook muttered lazily beneath him, but the air was still as a January salamander. Still, and stifling--but just right for an old man with an old furnace. He couldn't stop grinning, and his hand kept patting the duffel bag as if to make sure it still contained the thing he had put in it that morning. Suddenly, just as the sun managed to elbow a window between the dense clouds, a car came around the bend. As it cleared the trees, Ed recognized the black BMW with the "FRTUNE HNTR" vanity plate. The vehicle stopped fifteen feet from the bridge; a black-clad man exited the driver's door swiftly and went around to open the back door. A crow cawed in the trees. Gerald Holt rose into view.

* Barely half a decade younger than Ed, Gerald looked considerably stronger. And yet the grooves under his eyes made him look more well-worn. He wore an old-fashioned suit much like Ed's, but with a dark blue necktie and a neatly pressed handkerchief in the breast pocket. He walked like the hare, bold and striding. "Mr. Kantz!" If anyone could bellow and still sound friendly, it was Gerald Holt. "How the hell are you, old boy? Have you been waiting long?"

Ed saved his voice until they were within the range for normal speech. "Gerald... well, yes, a long wait but the day is beautiful."

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"Uh-huh. So have you brought it?" "Yes, Gerald, it's right in here..." He patted the duffel bag again and Gerald began to eye it hungrily. For the rest of the conversation his eyes would hardly leave it. "But first, let's go over our contract one more time." Ed pulled a small scroll from his suit coat, then began patting his pockets. "If I can just find my... eh, my...oh, yes." He leaned over and reached a hand into the duffel bag, rifling what sounded like wadded-up newspapers with all the hurriedness of a three-toed sloth. If Ed had been watching Gerald's face he would have seen the man's manic gaze as he tried to catch a glimpse of the bag's contents. Ed's hand returned, clutching his reading glasses. "Ah yes, that's better. Now--" he broke the seal on the contract--"Amiable Agreement Between Mister Edward James Kantz and Mister Gerald Lucius Holt, Witnessed by Misses Claire Denton, September the Nineteenth, Nineteen Hundred and Forty--" "It's a sound agreement, Ed," Gerald interrupted. "No need in drudging up all those legal trappings again. You and I have known exactly what this deal is about since Istanbul. Now tell me truthfully: do you really have it in there?" Ed's grin was a chiseled monument. "You never did have much faith in me, Gerry." He reached into the duffel bag and unloaded his burden. It was. a piano leg. Black lacquer finish, with grooves running its length and a bulbous foot on one end. At the top the lacquer had been sheered away in places by mis-strokes with the handsaw. A strange mustiness infused the air around it, that indistinct aura of things that are very, very old. "I'm saving the story of how I found it for Christmas," Ed said as he delivered the strange relic into his associate's trembling hands. "You and Claire will be there?" "Of course, of course...yes, of course..." "I can tell you that the map is safe and sound inside. The leg is like a Chinese puzzle box. Here--" Ed handed Gerald a small envelope--"this is the solution. Took me nearly as long to figure that out as it did to find the piano. I thought you would like to know the reward of working the puzzle for yourself." "Yes, of course, working..." The way Gerald gripped the envelope suggested he was not looking for a brainteaser." "You're welcome, Gerald?" That brought him back around. Straightening and taking a deep, wheezing breath, Gerald put the envelope in his coat pocket and shook Ed's hand. No words of thanks issued from his lips, but he was all smiles. Ed stood on the bridge, watching Gerald stride back to the car triumphant, patiently wondering if he would remember to return with a suitcase full of money. Sweat beaded on Ed's brow; his fingers toyed with the scroll. Gerald got into the back of his car. Ed's heart did dangerous backflips. Gerald emerged from the car, carrying a black briefcase. Death backed slowly away and re-mounted his horse as Ed's pulse slowed. "A good contract, Ed. And we did a fair job of accounting for inflation, though you'll find I've padded your fee even further. These have been good years for me." "Good for you," Ed grinned. "See you at Christmas?" "See you at Christmas, Gerald."

The BMW's engine purred into life. Ed raised one hand. The driver honked once, apparently at Gerald's command. As the car made its U-turn Ed slung the duffel bag lightly over his shoulder, and hefted the briefcase off the ground. He watched as the car went up the road, till it turned the bend and was lost. Six seconds later there was a horrendous "boom" and a column of black smoke licked by fire rose up over the trees. Ed was still grinning, and his mouth only relaxed gradually, over the course of the five-minute walk to his car.

On a tropical beach a pig had been cooked and buried, and as Ed tore off a piece his wrinkled hands stood out against the charred flesh like the garland of pink blossoms wreathing his neck. His liver spots, however, blended in perfectly.

Armani Blake Carrington

San Toki, Toki-ya Tasha Aardappel

My Mother always knew how to read the deepest parts of my heart like she knew how to make the best Korean Kim-Chee in the world. It had been a Friday, my junior year in college, when my boyfriend broke up with me for some French girl. I was holding a cup of hot peppermint tea in my hands. Ben had put too much sugar in it as ususal but I was drinking it anyway. We were sitting side by side on his bed, which was a single mattress laying crookedly in the middle of the floor. He was wearing a thick black sweater that I had bought him. He had sipped his tea comfortably as he spoke. He told me that she liked practicing her English. He liked being needed. He said that he finally felt like he was doing something good for someone else. The break-up took twenty-three minutes minus the two times that Gabby, the French girl, called. Both times, Ben answered the phone with "Bonjour." He even rolled his tongue for the girl. I thought I was going to puke. When I left, he thanked me for being so understanding of him. He said he didn't know what he'd do without me, that I was special to him, and then he put his arms out to ask for a hug. He was smiling. I half returned his smile, imagined the tea all over his face and neck and then put the cup on the floor instead and left. The coldness of my car offered me its unwelcome. I pulled the rearview mirror down to look at my face. I wondered what Gabby looked like. So many times Ben had used to brush his pinky finger over the tops of my eyes and say, "you're my beautiful almond eyed girl." He always said that was his favorite thing about me. My eyes seemed as if they were becoming more and more slanted as I looked at myself. And my hair, it was too black. I had to take my gloves off to wipe my running nose and tears dripping out from under my glasses. The electronic speedometer in my car had broken down at the beginning of the semester, and it never showed my speed until the car had sufficiently warmed up. That day, there was a cop behind me. I was nervous, crying and shivering. When I reached my apartment parking lot I thanked God for letting me not get pulled over and then I yelled up at him for everything else. The speedometer turned on after that. My mom had told me numerous times that Ben was not for me. She would call me to say hello and the conversation always turned to Ben. "Sophie-ah, how Ben doing? He treat you alright?" "Yeah, Mom, gee." "Sophie-ah, you sure he taking good care of you?" "It's not like we're married, Mom." "Then why you bother all you time with him?" "Mom." "Okay, okay. I just think he's too much little boy. He not for you, Sophie-ah." "Mom." "Someday, you see. I just keep praying and you see someday." The rest of the conversation was always the same, me getting upset and us fighting until I told her I had to go. She would tell me how much I reminded her of herself when she was young; so unable to see the "face of my heart." Then she would ramble on and on about how God could help me, how Jesus could see me better than Ben. My Mom lived forty-five minutes away. We had moved from Korea to the States when I was six. My Dad's whole family lived in Wisconsin, and when we had moved there, he started to change. The smell of Kim-Chee in the fridge started to bother him, and he would complain about my mom having to cook rice every night. My mom would always say that rice goes with everything. The fighting only increased. It became my alarm clock in the mornings and my lullaby at night. Four

years later, when I was ten, my Dad left us both for another woman. I saw him with her at the mall once after he had lfet. She had blonde hair, cut neatly at the shoulders. But what I remember most was the way that she laughed and walked beside him so confidently. I had hid myself behind one of the decoration plants in the middle of the mall and watched them together. I knew that this woman wouldn't need help reading the price tags, and she probably liked to sit up straight and eat delicately with a fork and knife. She was the kind of woman who would buy Uncle Ben's rice when she attempted to be a bit exotic and make an Asian-style dinner. My Mom always said that my Dad never really knew her. And I'd always argue, "What do you mean? He's your husband?" It wasn't until I saw him laughing with that other woman that I finally believed my Mom. Most of my Mom's family in Korea had died in the war when she was young, and her brother was no longer speaking to her because she didn't send him the money we didn't have. Jesus and I were all she claimed to live for. And she called me evey other day just to remind me of it. When I got into the apartment, it was cold and bare. My neighbor's music was shaking the left wall of the kitchen. My face was dry and stinging from the tears. My roommate Eileen was gone for the weekend. There was a note left on the refrigerator door wishing me a good weekend. I looked into the fridge and saw nothing appetizing. I called home. "Hello." My Mom's voice was loudly comforting. I felt a small knot begin to well up in my throat.

"Mom?" "Sophie-ah, what's a matter?" "Nothing. What are you doing?" "Oh. Just watching T.V. movie. You need help with you homework? You run out of money again?" My Mom still thinks I have homework like I did in elementary school. "No Mom, I just thought maybe I'd come home tonight. I kinda wanted to get out of here for the weekend." "Eileen not there? You fight with Ben?" "No. I just wanted to get away. I don't have to be with Ben every weekend, do

I?"

"I didn't say that. You come home if you want. I make some mandu for you or you want duk-guk instead?" "Oh, I don't care. I'll leave here in a few minutes, okay?" "Okay." "Bye, Mom." "Okay." My mom would never say good-bye on the phone, only "Okay" or "See

you."

I got some clothes together, a book for class, my purse and then I left. When I got home, the house was filled with warmth. I could hear the television going. I could smell the den-jang soup cooking in the kitchen. The strength of it seemed to find me immediately and paste itself to my black coat and slide into my long black hair. I brushed my hair with my fingers in the entryway mirror, and leaned in close to make sure my eyes weren't too puffy. "What take you so long!" My Mother came stomping around the corner in her favorite nightie that was spotted with faded orange kim-chee stains that rested among the little blue flowers. The nightie hung loosely over her body, and she held a wooden spoon in her hand. "What do you mean? It always takes me forty-five minutes to get home, doesn't

it?"

"Hmph. Come on, eat." Her size five and a half Keds, her Nikes and her black boots were lined up right inside the door. She had already put a pair of slippers out for me. I took my coat off and wiggled my feet out of my tennis shoes to slip the green slippers (continued on page 32)

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over my toes and onto my feet. The screen door in the kitchen was cracked open even though it was the middle of winter and the heat was on. This was so that the smoke detector wouldn't go off while my mom burned seaweed pieces over the stove burners. There was all kinds of food waiting for me on the counter. There was a long rectangular Tupperware container full of perfectly round kim-pop rolls of spinach, egg and carrots, my favorite. The mandu sat beside the rolls, brown, crisp and steaming ready to eat. "You hungry?" She stirred the den-jang soup on the stove. "Looks like you're ready to feed the five thousand." "Oh - Sophie-ah, you reading the Bible I give you?" Her eyes widened as she sipped some of the soup up with her wooden spoon. "Just a joke mom." "Put you -stuff down, sit down and relax." She went over to the rice cooker and dished the sticky rice out onto my plate and set it in front of me on the counter. "Look terrible, Sophie-ah." "Thanks Mom." I sighed. She placed a bowl of salsa beside me to dip the mandu in; something my Dad had loved to eat. I popped a kim-pop roll into my mouth. They were perfectly salty and fresh. She stood on the other side of the counter while I ate, picking off of my plate, sipping her den-jang soup out of the pot and staring at me. The rice was warm and welcoming. There were three jars full of kim-chee on the counter. They were stuffed full of the spicy cabbage and radish and they stood like soldiers ready for battle. My Mom had always told me that when I got married she would teach me how to make kim-chee, her kim-chee. She said it would then become my secret and I could make it for my own family someday. "This kim-chee the best you know," she'd always say. After we ate, we curled up on her heated floor mat that lay in the middle of the living room where a coffee table should have been. We let our bodies become numb and heavy from the heat. We watched television for a while; engrossing ourselves in a few different movie endings we would never remember. When the last one finished, she got up and said she was going to go and take a bath. "Sophie-ah, you want to take one too?" "Uh - no Mom, that's okay." I rolled my eyes at her and turned the T.V back on. I hadn't taken a bath with my Mom since I was six years old, when we lived in Korea. It was when I still spoke Korean with her. All three of us would take baths together, and we would take turns scrubbing each other's backs. In Korean, my Mom and I would sing my favorite song about a little rabbit. My Dad would laugh at us, as we'd make hand motions of a bunny hopping through the water. The song sings to the little rabbit, asking her where is she going, where is she going? The little rabbit replies by only jumping, jumping away. Over the mountains she goes, hopping, and hopping. At the end of the song, the little rabbit finally comes back to her home because it is too cold for her to be alone in the mountains. I was always so happy to motion the rabbit when she came back home. When we moved here, I told my friends in elementary school about how I took baths with my parents. She told me that was "diss-guss-ting" and then told other kids. They made fun of me for months. In Korea, it was not strange, it was simply family. Here if you were this close to your family there was suspicion of something not being right. My Mom could never understand things like this. I listened to the way my Mom's slippers sounded as she shuffled up the stairs. I heard the bathwater begin to run and then become quiet as the door shut behind her. I flipped through the T.V. channels over and over. I thought of calling Ben. I thought about all of the nights when we had stayed up talking. He had been such a good listener. I had loved how he watched me when I talked but I had always wondered what he was looking at or why I always left his place thinking something else needed to have been said but never able to think of what it

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was. I thought about how my Mom always said he didn't really see me. I defended his lack of sight by how good of a listener he was. She said that seeing and listening were two different things. My mom was singing upstairs. I flipped the television off and listened to

her.

bit. "San toki, toki ya, oh diru kanun ya..." It was the song about the little rab-

I walked upstairs slowly. I knocked on the bathroom door and the singing stopped. "Come in." I opened the door, and sat on the floor of the bathroom and watched my mom in the tub. Her tan skin was loose at her tummy, and her body was round and chubby. The familiar jagged white line from her belly button down stood out and I remembered how many times she had pointed to this scar and said "Sometimes best things come from scars, from this one God gave me you." There was steam rising around her from the water. "You want to come in? Water still warm." Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail on top of her head so that it stuck out from her head like an onion sprout. Her face was beet red from the heat. "Ah. Nah, I'll just sit here." "Okay. Have it you way." She started to sing again. I thought about when I was a little girl; how my Mom would brush my hair after our baths. She'd brush and brush with such an intensity that I'd cry my eyes out every time and then get a smack on the head with the brush for crying. I never had tangles. Then she'd pull all of my jet-black hair up into two thick pigtails. She had even confessed that she had prayed that I would get her eyes, not my dad's. I got his hazel eyes; she gave them the slant. My Mom looked back over at me from the tub. "Sophie-ah, come on, you need bath. Good for you." I rolled my eyes. "I just took a shower this afternoon." "You quick shower not like my bath. Come on." I sat there for a moment staring at her like she was crazy. Then slowly, I undressed and stepped into the water. "Ayy!" The water felt like hot needles pricking at my legs and ankles. "You still baby, the water still too hot for you?" She started laughing at

me.

"Gosh, Mom. It's practically burning my skin off." I sighed. "Why do you have to be so annoying?" She stopped laughing. "Why you so grumpy Sophie-ah? Been grumpy since I see you." "What are you talking about? You don't know what you're talking about." I looked down at my toes in the water. We soaked our bodies in the hot water, not speaking. The only sound was my mom's hands swirling the water back and forth on both sides of her. "Sophie-ah, don't fit like we used to. You legs so long and I get too fat." "You're not fat, Mom." "You mom may not speak English too good but I know when my own daughter is lying to me." "I'm not lying." I tried scooting myself lower into the water. "You really aren't fat. You should be happy you look so young for your age." "Not talking about being fat, Sophie-ah." I rolled my eyes. "Turn around." She motioned for me to turn around. I turned around and pulled my legs to my body and my mother started to scrub my back. The roughness of her long washcloth felt good on my back, and I could feel my back turning pink. While she was scrubbing, she started to sing (continued on page 35)

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again in Korean. As she sang, I began to cry. The quiet tears dripped from my chin into the water. I watched each of them drip. When she was done, she cupped water into her hands and let it gently run down my neck and back to wash the soap off. I splashed water over my face to hide the tears and then turned to do her back. We said nothing to each other. She continued singing until we were ready to get out. She dried off and put her nightie back on. The long cotton tee shirt hung to her knees and stuck to part of her body that was still wet. She looked up at me as I dressed into my yellow tee shirt and gray sweatpants. The tip of my ponytail was wet from dipping into the water and looked like the tip of a black paintbrush. I could feel the heat in my face and the dizziness in my head.

"Sophie-ah, Ben not really see you. You stay strong; keep going. God is always with you, he see you Sophie-ah." She looked at me for only a second longer and then walked out of the bathroom and down the hall to her room. I stood there in the bathroom for a long time. I looked into the mirror and listened to the bathwater draining. We didn't talk about Ben for the rest of the weekend. When I got back to my apartment on Sunday, it was as cold and as bare as I had left it. My mom called at one in the morning to make sure I was home. "Sophie-ah, oh. You there?" "Yeah Mom, I'm here." "What you doing? Eileen there? You talk to Ben?" "Yeah, Eileen's here. She's trying to sleep Mom. I haven't talked to

Ben."

"Remember what I say right?" "I know." "When you coing home again?" "I don't know Mom. I'll call you soon." "Okay, see you." I hung up the phone, knowing she would call within the next two days. I only saw Ben a few times the rest of that year. My Mom didn't act surprised when I stopped bringing his name up altogether. She called every other day, probing with whatever she could. I still rolled my eyes at her comments. But something in me had forever changed. A piece of her was rubbed into me the night we took the bath. It was as if, pieces of her pain, everything mysterious in her life that I could not know but felt, was rubbed into me. And it was that year that I started to take baths in the evenings when I was the loneliest. Every time I take a bath now I sing about the little rabbit. And sometimes, whan I am done, I brush my hair out fiercely and then look straight into my slanted eyes in the mirror and smile for all that I'm made of.

"You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. ... You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born." (Psalm 139:13-15)

(i pay you 10 dollars...) Carrie Vrabel

i pay you 10 dollars a week to tell me not to give up

and i'd pay you 20 if you'd take it

if you'd take 20 dollars of waitress money straight out of my black and fading waitress book straight out of the pockets of those i've served

i'd do it

i'd hear canine familiar whistles and i'd keep a happy face on through business card leaving demands i'd keep trying to not see my father in every man's face

if those dollar bills that i fold into my pocket channel you through george washington like a real clairvoyant

i'd stand in front of you in dead president form and watch you mouth the words whisper the words

"don't give up"

once a dollar

twenty times a week

Rupture Jason Shimotake

The full moon hangs over the house tonight. The tiles are glowing from stars sifted onto linoleum in 2 AM silence. The streams of light grope through the cracked window.

He comes home in the middle of my meditation, and stumbles into my silence.