Antiquity

WARNINGS

ANTIQUITY WARNINGS 1

Editors Madelyn Fagan mefagan@loyola.edu

WARNINGS Loyola’s Literary and Art Journal Vol. 9 Issue 1 January 2014

Rebecca Heemann rjheemann@loyola.edu Editorial and Design Staff Carolanne Chanik Shannon Conley Antonia Gasparis Amanda Ghysel Peter Hadjokas Petra Nanney Diana Parks Wesley Peters Megan Ryan Summer Vaughan Warnings is published periodically.

All rights reserved. All content, unless otherwise noted is the property of the author(s). We are not liable in any way for the product of our writer’s imaginations.

Warnings welcomes and considers electronic submissions of all genres. Check us out on warningslitmag.tumblr.com, or our Facebook page. For more information, email warnings@loyola.edu.

If works denoted as fiction or poetry bear any resemblance to actual events, locations or persons, living or dead, it is entirely coincidental. Store in a cool, dry place not to exceed 72°F. Thanks to those who helped make this magazine possible: Education For Life, Doug Evans, Crystal Staley, Katherine Marshall, Ned Balbo, Dan Schlapbach, The Writing, Fine Arts, English, and Communication Departments, SGA, The Greyhound Collective Poetry Revival, Loyola University Maryland, and all those who support the arts and creative thought.

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Dear Readers, Welcome back to another year of your college experience, and to another year of reading and writing with Warnings. This issue finds remnants of the near and distant past and presents them in ways you couldn’t possibly have thought of before.

Starting up a new semester with a batch of “old” pieces seemed like the most appropriate way to bounce back.

This issue will revive the spirits of Marie Antoinette and Virgina Woolf through new eyes, and make you question the happily ever after fairy tale. Our writers will take you across the world to the acropolis of ancient Greece, to modern day China and Japan, to the stars above us.

Enter and see how Antiquity is still very much alive.

Enjoy.

Your loving editors, Madelyn Fagan and Rebecca Heemann

front cover image by Peter Hadjokas staff photo by Katherine Marshall back cover image by Jose Plasencia

Remnants

I read that Virginia Woolf went out to the river, with rocks in her pockets  and let herself sink to the bottom. What became of her then?

She must have struggled, yes?

It is too much, to understand the desire to sink.

My grandmother cremated, her ashes covering every place she’d been, spread like soil, buried like the roots beneath it. How could she decide?

An eternal resting place, the desire to remain— When I die take my ashes and mix them with oil.

Let me float and never sink or maybe whiskey or a dry red wine— Let me be always remembered this way. Wait until the tide is high and then release my soul— Let it float from where it began— a wind tunnel, a changing current, a new horizon, and I will soar, gliding endlessly among the others who’ve chosen a similar fate.

by Diana Parks

WARNINGS 3

The following is an excerpt from my new novel, The O.K. Pines.

Yonder Lies Old Noll

He pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket (June was too hot for jeans, but he had run out of shorts to wear during his last few days in D.C.) and held it close to his body to keep it dry. It was nearly midnight, and his uncle hadn’t called him. Jake hoped the old man didn’t get home before he did—Ian Maguire would give him crap for forgetting his raincoat. He would say, “You earned the cold you’re gonna have tomorrow, kid,” or something like that. Jake knew the old man too well.

He looked up and saw the arch fast approaching. Now he could see the carved words, an old saying that the townspeople claimed George Washington said during his retreat through New Jersey. Jake thought that was stupid—just another way for the townspeople to feel special about this place. He imagined a horsed Washington crying “Yonder lies Old Noll!” as lines of British cavalry pursued the continental army and had to stifle laughter.

There weren’t many lights ahead as Jake passed under the arch. Old Noll was up ahead about a half a mile on the road, and out here there were only a few properties. Beneath the arch the moonlight faded and a stale smell reached up to Jake’s nose. He breathed in for a second, and thought The sand was coarse between his toes.

His mother looked back at him and flashed him a small smile—her hair was dark and curly in the fading summer light. He loved when they went to the beach—her hair always got so curly.

“Did you have fun, Jakey?” she asked in a sing-song voice. “Did you like the beach?”

Jake shook his head as he walked out from beneath the arch. Still, the stale smell followed his nose and he

heard Uncle Ian say:

“Look, sis—the arch.”

Uncle Ian was driving because he knew

WARNINGS 4

the best way home from the beach. He had even bought Jake some pizza down on the boardwalk, and it had been good though it was dry pizza. Sandy days make for dry bread! His mother told him as he chomped down the stale pizza

Nostalgia, Jake thought in the rain. His head was swimming now, and the stale smell was rising.

He closed his eyes and began to walk down the road.

His mother wasn’t feeling good—she said it was a tummy ache—so Uncle Ian was driving.

Jake liked it when Uncle Ian drove, because that meant his mom could turn and look at him. She had the brightest green eyes and Jake always felt like laughing when she looked back at him in the car.

She was wearing a pretty red dress and she had the biggest smile on her freckled pale face, like always.

Pines began to appear on his right, sitting still in the darkness. Soon the entire right side of the road was a black forest of thick evergreens. Jake walked below the branches, feeling pine cones slip awkwardly at his feet in the wet dewy grass. He had forgotten about the pines here. Most kids at school knew North Jersey by the oil derricks, not by the pines. Old Noll, Jake knew, was different from North Jersey. It was a different world when

you passed under the arch and onto the road. Jake felt the shadow of the arch slide over the car and suddenly his stomach dropped a little. His mother lurched forward in the car seat and turned to Jake’s uncle.

“God I need to get back,” she muttered. “Did you see the way that pizza vendor looked at me today? We can’t go to that beach anymore.”

Uncle Ian kept his eyes on the road. Jake could only see the back of his head where his bald spot was, but he could picture Uncle Ian’s solid green eyes fixated on the road. To the right the pines appeared, and Jake looked out the window. He felt queasy again, but looking at the pines always made him feel better. He wondered if his friends were playing in there today. There were only a few weeks of summer left until the sixth grade, and Jake could feel school creeping up on him.

“What’s wrong with that beach?” Uncle Ian said. “There’s nothing wrong with that beach.

I didn’t see that guy look at you either. It’s in your head.”

Jake’s mother crossed her arms but didn’t say anything. Jake didn’t like when she got cross like that. She had started doing it more and more this summer, and when she did it he felt like he didn’t know her.

“He just wanted my money,” she said. “He’s a jew scumbag. He’s a scumbag.”

This time Uncle Ian didn’t say anything. He just kept driving as the pines slid by. He always got quiet when she talked like that. Jake saw his mother’s hand was creeping toward the cup-holder, where Uncle Ian’s key was. He wanted to say something, but his mother put a small finger to her soft lips. Shhh Jakey, he could imagine her saying.

Don’t tell Uncle Ian. Jake didn’t say anything, and his mother took the key from the cup holder and lifted it in the air. Ian never saw a thing, though he would ask later where his key was—the key to his special room in the house, where he kept his police things. He had another, he told his sister, but where was the original? “You must have lost it,” his mother told him that afternoon, “in the sand. At the beach”

She flung the key out the window, and it sailed in the wind into the dark green world of the pines.

Jake opened his eyes, and the smell was gone. He stopped for a moment, and turned toward the pines. The great grey darkness beckoned for him, offering to swallow him up. He tucked his hands in his wet jean pockets while he stared.

He could almost feel the car drive by him, and the past slide into the rainy recesses of the night. Then he looked down at the forest floor, and saw a small key reflect against the moonlight. The past beckoned for him now, and he trampled beneath the pines, bending low to pick up what had been lost.

by Wes Peters WARNINGS 5

Object: Research

Antiques are an instant conversation starter. They are so beautifully crafted that they most always grab the eye of a visitor. Bazzie’s breakfront is filled with figures that can entertain guests for hours. Bazzie hears the constant chatter, “Oh, where is that one from? Oh, why did you buy that one?” Many people are interested in the history, the story behind a strong piece of furniture. They want to know why you bought it or if it’s an inheritance; what’s the sentimental value. As a curious little girl prancing around the childhood house of my mother this is just how I felt. My grandfather, Big Fran, had two cylinder holders filled with walking sticks, also known as canes. One with a horse as the hand holder, one that was wooden, one that was all silver, one that was intricately decorated.The list goes on. It has been years since my eyes have been exposed to the canes, but they are fresh in my mind. Collecting canes as well as many other antiques was a passion of my grandfather’s. Antiques will always remind me of Big Fran. An old jockey scale sits now in Bazzie’s apartment. As a young girl I used to sit on the chair part of the scale because I only knew the object as a chair. As the years went on I was taught that it had been used to weigh jockeys before races. The jockey scale has made it into Christmas cards. It has been used for an extra seat in the room and left to be examined by anyone who enters the home. Today any new visitor that sets foot into Bazzie’s apartment asks, “What is that? Can I sit on it?” It instantly catches your eye because it is something that is out of the norm and not seen anymore among racing horses. Bazzie’s apartment is a vestibule for antiques. Chairs, paintings, tables, figures, china, and many more— it’s lovely. When I walk in the door it is as if no time has passed—I had braces, I had no front teeth, and I had a babysitter. This is all due to the unchanging quality of the apartment. I am able to look at each vase, chair, and wood table and recall certain very specific times. The furniture and decorative pieces conjure a lost world.

by Sara Archibald

by Shannon Conley WARNINGS 6

Stargazer You are a child. The sun has long been set, dinner is done, TV time finished. Now for your bedtime routine. You eagerly change into an oversized t-shirt and comfy sweatpants. In the bathroom, you brush your teeth, a tedious but necessary chore. Kiss Mom and Dad goodnight with a ‘love you too.’ Nonchalantly stroll down the hall to your bedroom, hiding your inner quiver. Close the door and switch off the light.

Moonlight illuminates the room. The only sounds are your thoughts. You make your way to the window instead of the bed. This is the secret part of your routine. While everyone else thinks you are asleep, you can privately consult the stars.

You kneel at the white window, as if in prayer. Your arms greet the sill with friendly elbows. Your cheek takes its seat on the warm skin of your crossed forearms. Beyond the glass, the night is dark and calm, quiet and cool. The blue-grey winter snow reflects the light above, like her sister the river, quietly sparkling. The moon and stars peek through the silhouette of bare tree branches. They say hello. Tilt your head up and let your eyes launch into space. Suddenly you are no longer contained by anything— not this house, not this room, not even your own body. Your soul is free.

The universe fills your vision. Your eyes are not big enough to capture all its vastness. You focus on individual stars so you can appreciate their unique beauty. People tell you how stars twinkle, but you hunt for a more worthy depiction. This star radiates. Extending, retracting. Like an infinite pinwheel of light.

These perpetual beams of light whisper words of comfort to you. You turn your gaze to the three aligned stars. Orion’s Belt, they call it. They say these stars point to the North Star, a beacon that would lead you home if you ever wandered too far. The three guiders are like old friends to you. You don’t have to talk to each other, you just enjoy being in each other’s company.

You can’t help but notice the moon. He illuminates a disproportionally large mass of sky. You see him as bigger than the distant stars, although in reality a single star’s size could probably eat up all moons and planets in the universe and still have room for more. But still, the moon is earth’s closest brother. Tonight he appears as a crescent. The sliver of light is deceiving. The moon has not been bitten like some cosmic apple; he retains his entire spherical shape. Part of him is simply hidden, like he has pulled a blanket over part of his shine. You look closer and see how perfectly circular the shadow of the earth falls upon the moon. The darkness only blends with the empty spaces of the universe when you blur your vision, like when you cross your eyes and everything loses its sharp border. When looking with clear, focused eyes, you notice the moon’s mysterious craters in the light and shadow alike. He reveals his secrets only to those who take the time to get to know him.

Who else is looking at this moon as you do now? People you have yet to meet, friends you are missing, long lost relatives, foreign strangers. The moon will introduce us to each other. It seems that the longer you stare at the moon, the further you travel from your lonely bedroom. You step from star to star, like rocks in a river. Then you jump into space, sinking closer to earth. As you drift, you catch glimpses of an Indian marketplace, closed for the night, and a little boy hanging his head out a window. A rush of gravity pushes you over an African village at night as stars guide a father home after work. Whoosh, and now you see a Mexican mother singing her child to sleep. You reach the bottom of this galactic pool and find yourself back in your own room. Although the journey is over for now, you feel connected to these faraway strangers by a shared celestial admiration.

WARNINGS 7

During the day, the sun looked even bigger than the moon does now. You wonder at how the sun is also a star, like these tiny specks you see now. Could some extraterrestrial being out there be gazing at your sun like you stare at these stars? The universe is vast beyond your understanding. You are smaller than the ants you investigated earlier in the afternoon, smaller even than the brinks of their anthill. How could this earth, in all its smallness, exist all alone? Somewhere, somehow, the possibility of other life forms is quite likely. Not green skinned Martians or short ET-like aliens, but living creatures. Maybe the things you need to live, like water and oxygen, would be toxic for someone on, say, Saturn. Just because you would die from Saturn’s gaseousness doesn’t mean another creature would. Do they ride around the rings of Saturn like a carousel, breathing stardust instead of oxygen? Do they even have lungs or eyes or bodies? On the other hand, maybe they are just like you.

Could there be an identical world somewhere out there? Is there another being that looks like you, with your exact hair, hands, and fingernails? Who knows! But whoever they are, wherever they are, whatever they are, they are your fellow universal citizens. You are not alone. All you need for proof is a clear night of stargazing.

This ‘universe’ — it literally encompasses all things. When people use the word ‘universal,’ they mean all inclusive. You ponder this word and how people use it for non-celestial ideas. Universal truths—shared realities between all humanity. University—a place to learn all things. Universal Studios— producers sure chose that name to appeal to a wide audience. Even the Catholic Church’s name comes from the Greek word ‘katholikos’ meaning ‘universal,’ and therefore declares itself as the religion for all people. Perhaps all people do in fact have one shared spirituality, although perhaps not a singular religion; maybe God is too big, like the universe, to be simplified into any single interpretation. Could each religion be like a puzzle piece in the mystery of God? You experience His presence in these nights when you admire His creation. You feel a tingle like the chill of a winter breeze, only the wind is in your soul. Your spirit stretches and yawns as it is awakening from sleep, and then it seems to stretch so far it might break free of the skin that entraps it. That is what peace feels like; that is why you stargaze—because every time your soul stretches you get closer to your God, closer to the universe, closer to unity. It connects you to everyone and everything. It gives you meaning beyond yourself.

You hear a door close down the hall. Mom has gone to bed. You begin the journey back to earth. You slowly become more aware of your room, your body’s tiredness, and the time on the clock. But now you also feel the wideness of your spirit. You remember you are an individual person but appreciate your role as part of the universe. You know you are connected to people you don’t know, people you don’t like, people who have died, people who are not born yet. You are not going to doze into lonely hibernation like a grizzly bear. Your body sleeps as your soul awakens. You say goodnight to your old friend Orion. Goodnight room, goodnight moon, goodnight cow jumping over the moon. Now your bedtime ritual is complete. You drift into dreams, clinging onto that tingle of peace like a teddy bear.

by Rachel Christian

WARNINGS 8

Demons and Dragons Wingspan striking, fire breather eyeless spirits, born of ether the scaly hided sophists teach what vulgar spirits never reach.

The gleaming scales of dragons cloak Mankind from the clouds of demon smoke.

The ethereal creatures cannot grasp the physical prey their enemies clasp and so they ply their tricks by whispered thought and battle the lessons dragons taught.

The cortexes of Man resound with the cacophony of a battle ground as ancient beasts war for control of the mind and the body and the soul.

With dragon’s roar and demon’s wail the question floats “who would prevail?”

Does mankind rise on dragon wings or languor with demon glee in basest things?

Each man has dragon, valiant and wise at war with their demon, sly and despised.

Each battle is balanced for wyvern and ghost the victor is who man adheres to the most.

by Ryan Mattox

WARNINGS 9

The First Draft of Marie Antoinette’s Last Letter to her Sister-in-Law Elisabeth, Written on the Morning of her Execution My dear Elisabeth, I think my teeth are becoming crooked again.

They never felt quite right, made straight as iron bars. Sometimes smiling makes my jaw ache. I was told straight teeth would save France, and myself, that sacrifice is what we do for each other.

I wish dearly that no one had ever asked anything of me.

Did I ever tell you that before I married your brother, I was married to my own? I thought how sweet Ferdinand was in his wedding clothes, standing in Louis’ stead, so awkward and serious.

If I should do it again, I think I should have married him instead, kept my separate household in the country, and lived quietly. I would not have had any children, but it wouldn’t be anything at all: I am the mother of four dead already. Louis Joseph and little Sophie went before I could corrupt them with my wicked, decadent ways. My sweet Thérèse is with you now, and though I know you care for her admirably, the girl I birthed is dead.

They tried to unmake my daughter, my life, rewrite time and dissolve me as well.

I am not winning.

Louis Charles has betrayed me, if you’ve not heard, but he must be gone himself, because my son would not accuse me of such blackness, of such unspeakable acts committed in the night.

Ferdinand named his fourth daughter after me; she died at only two.

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Elisabeth, if I could erase myself, maybe I would. Cross out my face, Queen, Dauphine, even Antonia,

by Rebecca Heemann

deface my soul and pull out my insides, cover me with a sheet so not even God knows who I am. This is not what I am supposed to say right now, I know.

I know that I should tell you that I love my children, my church, my dead husband, but just for now, I have no one whom I want to impress. Tell me what you want to hear and just for this once, I will tell you just the opposite.

Bury me an inch deep and I will flake away like pollen at dawn, falling toward the sky.

by Leya Burns WARNINGS 11

Acropolis

I’m twenty years young and twenty-five percent Greek (I know, it’s not that much): my father’s father, Emanuel, experienced the fable of Ellis Island firsthand, fresh off the boat from Athens at my age; unfortunately, I never met my great Greek grandfather—he succumbed to cancer just days before my birth—but I’m proud of the unique Greek heritage he ferried with him to this nation of “gold-paved” thoroughfares: the work ethic, the cultural cuisine (from Saganaki [fried graviera cheese] to Spanakopita [pocket pastries packed with feta and spinach] to Pastitsio [an oven-baked layer dish of noodles and feta and tomato sauce and ground meat] to Baklava [phyllo wedges filled with nuts and drenched in honey]), the faith; I mean, the faith that one can start anew in a newfangled land…Greece is ancient, after all— archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a six-thousand-five-hundred-year-old farming settlement in the central region; regardless, in the summer of 2008 (a full eighty-two years after Emanuel, my grandfather, stepped off a ship onto the promising shoreline of the United States), I myself was in Athens, one of the oldest cities in the world, the veritable hub of democracy, philosophy, and the arts…I was bereft of speech when I first beheld the glorious Acropolis, illuminated by dirty orange spotlights and buoyant stars; the Acropolis seemed to me the embodiment of that twenty-five percent of Greece coursing through my veins—it was a manifestation of my (somewhat misplaced) cultural pride and prestige…there is a framed photograph of my father’s mother, Doris (not Greek but Lithuanian), and my father’s father posing by an antiquated female sculpture directly adjacent to the Parthenon: the picture was taken in 1963, the first time my grandfather had returned to the motherland (he was wearing horn-rimmed glasses, she was wearing a headscarf); for years, I looked forward to seeing that very place, and then it happened: my family and I were ushered up toward the distinctive structure, the highest point in all of Athens, like cattle on one of those tours where everybody sweats and gets a headset and listens dumbly to the guide; but I wasn’t listening—I was tuning out, dumbstruck by the wonder, moving beyond the memory of my grandfather, moving beyond the bubble of time entirely… we were being steered upward like the tourist livestock we were, and the guide was mumbling, “Here is this, and here is that, and there is something else entirely,” for the sixth time that day; the temperature was in the low hundreds; the swarm of Japanese sightseers was multiplying as bus after bus after bus nestled in at the base of the symbol of Athens; and I, lost in my mind and striving toward those idiosyncratic Parthenon pillars, was jostled about; well, I reached the top and, looking out across the smoggy urban sprawl, tried to channel that twenty-five percent of Greece streaming through my being…the Parthenon itself was scarred by the pollution of the city (brown-black smears of grime adorned the two-thousandfour-hundred-and-forty-year-old edifice); looking about, I pinpointed the spot where Doris and Emanuel, my grandparents, had a brief moment captured in black and white, but the antiquated female statues had been removed due to the severity of the contamination of the modern metropolitan area…the work ethic, the food, the faith in making a brand-new beginning were/are real—my grandfather lived it; but in 2008, as I stood upon the citadel of Athens, Greece, and tried and tried to connect with it all, with Emanuel, the grandfather I never had the opportunity to meet, I reached the conclusion that I’m just another out-of-towner…the twenty-five percent of Greece slipped through my skin (I know, it’s not that much anyway).

by Peter Hadjokas

WARNINGS 12

GOODBYE

by Erin Rizal

WARNINGS 13

Stuffed Dog Last night I touched myself.

This morning I cleaned my room, tried to sort through all that had accumulated in my life.

Tucked into an inside corner of my dwelling space, I encountered a token of my childhood;

Gently, I picked up the small stuffed dog.

I had forgotten,

But my muscles remembered how it felt to hold it, to play with it, to believe in it.

Fond emotional associations flooded my psyche, and I felt its weight in my hands.

After years of time passing, tucked away in its hidden corner,

the dog’s fur was spotted yellow and brown from age and filth and mouse piss;

The dirt clung to its coat like my best friend’s cigarette smoke had clung to mine the night he hugged me for the last time;

Holes littered the toy’s brown sides like the scrapes the sidewalk left on my friend’s arms after the cop decided his brown skin wasn’t trustworthy enough to keep walking down the street;

Mouse piss stained parts of the animal, like the beer, vomit, and grass that stained my neighbor’s clothes when she woke up on the lawn after a night of too-heavy drinking, again, which her friends and family pretend isn’t a problem; I saw the neglect and filth accumulated on its skin like

the chill of the first time a man tried to push his hand up my dress, and

the echo of every verbal abuse ringing still in the air between us, and

the huddled form of every dog cowering in the corner of a cage in fear, and

the huddled form of a broken child doing the same.

Suddenly, I wished I could clean the stuffed dog.

All the dust and the dirt that muddied its light brown fur seemed to seep down to its soft white insides, darkening any light that once inhabited its shell.

I wished to wash away the dirt gained with time that maybe I might recover something lost.

I wished to save it, to cherish it, to protect it better this time around.

I dropped the toy.

I couldn’t save it; I couldn’t save myself.

For 10 minutes, I washed my hands of the invisible dirt, but

I could not scrub off the feeling of having dirt stuck to my insides; I couldn’t wash it away.

Last night I touched myself.

by Megan Ryan

WARNINGS 14

Prince Phillip’s Quest Everyone thinks I’m so brave, but they were all sleeping, including my Sleeping Beauty.

No one heard my high pitched squeals when; I was jumped by some ugly boars, locked in a stone cold dungeon, chased by demons, nearly swallowed by few cliffs, and puked on by a dragon’s fire.

Getting to my dear princess almost cost me my dear life.

If those funny little winged ladies weren’t pinging left and right, I surely would not have survived.

At least Aurora almost died too.

At least she can understand my plight.

The whole kingdom is partying; clinking red cups, toasting me, chowing down on fried goose leg, line dancing like we’re already married.

Excuse me for having a hard time holding this forced smile as I shake the hands of all these nobles.

How do they expect me to go back to my daily routine after all I have been through?

Riding my horse won’t feel safe anymore, lest I get another surprise attack on my way to pick up my lady from her cottage.

I had been riding that high of first love’s first sight as I entered the cottage, expecting to see my lady, but instead of embracing a beautiful woman, greasy gargoyles sprung at me and lassoed me with black bindings.

Even when I got away, they followed me, chased me to crumbling cliffs

to thorny webs to blasts of green fire!

I was really just fighting for my life as much as I was fighting for hers.

And now here I am, dancing with her in my arms, and she looks at me as her knight in shining armor, a brave and noble hero.

Oh love, if you heard my screams, read these thoughts that litter my head, what would you think of me then?

Ah yes, the song has ended.

We pull apart, at last, but then I can’t stand being around all these happy smiling people.

I want to hold her again.

I don’t want to be alone.

Does she knoweth my woe?

Oh I dearly hope not, but how comforting if she doth.

Another toast to me and I down a glass of wine.

I can’t wait until the wedding is over and my beauty and I have the excuse to disappear for a while.

Let some other guy get the next dragon.

I think it is my turn now to sleep for a while.

by Rachel Christian

WARNINGS 15

“Speak every time you stand, so you do not forget yourself...Do not settle for letting these waves settle and for the dust to collect in your veins.� ~ ANIS MOJGANI

WARNINGS 16