Illumination Spring 2023

Mission Statement

The mission of Illumination Journal is to provide the undergraduate student body of the University of WisconsinMadison a chance to publish works in the fields of the humanities and to display the talent of emerging creators on our campus. As an approachable portal for creative writing, art, and essays, the diverse content in the journal intends to be a publication for academic, artistic, and community interests alike.

Zombie Hands Series by Leon Barrett

*Cover Art:

cat picnic

Ardian Yudawan

Letter from the editor

Welcome to the Spring 2023 edition of Illumination Journal!

Whether you’re a first-time reader of our journal or a long-time supporter, we are happy to have you! Illumination Journal is the University of Wisconsin - Madison’s home for undergraduate arts and creative writing. It is Illumination’s distinct privilege and honor to showcase the captivating artwork that the students on our campus create. We are so glad to have you, our readers, experience these works with us.

Throughout the past year, the Illumination staff has been hard at work to further build the legacy of this journal. With this comes our second edition in Illumination history to highlight twelve student artists who were chosen by our judging panels as honorarium recipients. This new tradition is one that we value greatly and hope to continue as the years progress. We are immensely grateful to the students who submit their work and graciously allow us to be a part of their artistic journeys.

With that, I would like to extend a whole-hearted thank you to all of the artists who submitted their work for consideration in our journal. We received one of the highest numbers of submissions in recent Illumination history this semester. As you can imagine, this made selecting the pieces to fit into the physical journal all the more difficult. I know it is not easy to put your work out into the world for others’ eyes to see. That it was us who you chose to view your work will always be an honor. Thank you for your vulnerability. Thank you for your trust. Thank you for your passion and talent. And most of all, thank you for your art.

This issue would not be possible without our artists. It would also not be possible without the amazing team here at Illumination. They have been working hard over the course of this semester to put together a beautiful body of work in this journal, creating a place where you can find an abundant variety of artwork all in one place. I hope you enjoy reading and viewing this edition as much as we do! We are happily looking on with you at all of the beautiful work that we had the honor of putting together.

Happy reading!

Autumn Payette

she/her/hers Editor-in-Chief

Staff

Editor in Chief

Art Editors

Poetry Editors

Autumn Payette

Laila Smith

Kali Froncek

Morgan Dalton

Emily Laskowski

Jane McCauley

Fiction Editors

Keara Wood

Avianna Hite

Staff Writer

Layout Editor

Marketing

Zach Orlowsky

Marley Mendez

Lily Slater

American Tragic by Hailey Johnson

Life’s Exciting Enough, You Know?

by Ria Dhingra

For today, I pressed stop on the microwave with only but a second to spare. Diffusing bombs like James Bond, like my mother—who always pressed “stop” just moments before the digital timer turned to zero. She never let the microwave beep, make a sound. Instead, we would make mug brownies at midnight, whispering softly as to not wake the others as we indulged under the cover of darkness— where nobody could remind us of the diets we promised ourselves we would start yesterday. We’re both spies hidden behind countertops—my mother and I. Treating the kitchen like a minefield and living life like everywhere is the kitchen, because for women like us—it is. And maybe, a housewife stays at home not because she is not capable of living in the world, but because the world has done a real number on her. Because, maybe, one minefield is enough to deal with; and, at least, in this one, you’re allowed to choose the color of the tile backsplash. Then, there’s the microwave. Where you can stop time just a second before it all slips away— that’s power. Because there’s nothing more exciting than getting to play god. And god? Well, he’s out there—maybe. But in here, there’s banana bread, floured surfaces— powdered outlines, dusty surfaces, remnants that prove—we exist, exist, we exist. Even god can’t top that.

An Ode To..

by Lance Li

Looking beyond the dark silhouettes of the towering pine forests was the firing red on the horizon fading out into the blue, cold morning sky.

I see in the flowing dunes of muted blue and silver gray under the landed clouds, a sun as dim as death, recall a time when you mistook its plasma for hell’s fire and melting lead.

Memories are like your own fading shadows as you walk past under the streetlights, encircling you, riddling you, imprisoning you, haunting you.. hunting.. you..

Witnessing from behind the windows are the scattered lights in endless darkness, some trapped and others just flashing by. How can you tell if they are not light years away?

Every single day seemed the same, as if you were born just yesterday, as if a spiral of nightmares in which you can’t be sure if the reality you woke up to is merely another dream.

Reflected back in the windows were the tears and laughter of living ghosts, sitting among travelers whose direction can’t be told, all looking down into a black vertigo.

But that girl who once served you empanadas and espresso at the closing hour.. It’s what she’s smiling at that still lingers, troubling you: so Strange is that smile; so Abstruse, like no other.

Pity you wrote..

I smiled,

Because you pretended to smile so joyfully, So realistically, So.. wholeheartedly, As if you threw the whole world away, For what I have already shared with you just a second ago. I gestured, And you pretended to nod for recognition, For acceptance, For a seemingly good idea that will forever imprison its very fruition.

I smiled, But from your gaze I escaped, Unrelentingly startled,

Never before realizing the sheer amount of violence a simple bending of those muscles carries… Such a marvel, Such a catastrophe.

Pity that you looked back at the watery reds and greens on the shiny asphalt, diffused by the rain yet clearer than the darkness forward, for that the faces you see will soon never be again remembered;

Pity that you found yourself trapped inside your own mirror, the image of which reminds you of an illness for which there is no cure except hatred and horror.

Pity, not that in a life you never consented to, youth and ambition silently died, but that you’ll never know if it was you who choked them while they were asleep, or the void that smothered them when floating in sea.

Keep on dreaming, keep on losing.

Ascending above you is a cloud full of cancerous smoke freed by the very law of physics that marooned you down on this island. So light, so hopelessly light.

Navigating down the skin of her face, oiled by the minutes of aimless haste, wrinkled by all those days of fruitless pain, stifled by all these years of fretful daze, those teardrops shined most daringly. Without shame yet full of pain. Without sound but full of glory. How you Longed to feel their temperature. And how Utterly impossible it would be.

All the guilt in that ‘goodbye’, All the coldness of her face, as the warm liquid escaping down her face: ‘I love you, I love you, I…’

Far and away, a star just died, and all it seemed to us was a sparkle in the sky.

Should you think freedom is a lie, Listen to the Song of the Seagull:

“Smell of iron, Blood or Shackles? Sight of an island, Cargo or Lifeboat? Color of orange, Fire or Afterglow? Taste of milk, Love or Evil? Blindfold me With a blood red cloth around my eyes. Keep me Violently high for almost a lifetime. Bury me Together with blinding sunlight. Save me From my life”

If you don’t mind…

Now you realize the ingenuity of the astrologer you spurned, for intertwining stars light years apart, for fabricating webs out of the mad poet’s lies, for making sense out of the nonsense that is our lives.

Striking the retina of your eyes, colors of the garden mishmash into impression, as the sun shines high and the clouds seem light. Somehow, lost is the grip of their shapes, and somehow, all reality starts fading away.

What a beautiful day, To be lived, To be wasted..

Evening in Rome by Alisa Augdahl

Both are true

by Allyson Mills

PFAs permeate the foam piling on the lake’s edge before me and the Broken chair is still stuck in the shallows from last year and Metal tabs of next door’s Natty Lights tempt gulls and Plastic bags, pennies, and bottle caps the fish and Bic pens and hairties and styrofoam bits and Hot dog foil and a white plastic fork and Underwear and rusted tin shards and Cracked solo cups and lids and Other unidentifiable and Squalid abuses.

Yet when I drink my coffee, Looking out at this same water, Rolling stained glass curtains veil

Weathered rocks bathing silent in this Chilled early December haze, lapping slow, Steady rhythms as if to say I’m here regardless.

Two ducks float behind the branches of the willow, Sleeping naked as icicles cling to join her and the water While another paddling of mallards glide along the horizon While the mist cradles the forest edge

While a humble reflection wavers on the still, slate water While the squirrels rustle, the songbird sings, And the waste management truck beeps.

Walking up frat row littered with Seltzer cans and shattered Corona bottles

A kaleidoscope of white butterflies frolic among The hopeless detritus of puke and pizza crusts. This is the grace of the world, wild things

Turning our obscenity into beauty. Both can be true of the world. Both are true.

Appendage by Isabella Covert

I Belong to Me by

Meghan Price

His fingers grazed me like I belonged to him and my brain says it’s time to sink or swim And if a tree falls in a forest, does it even make a sound? If I moved his hand away once more, would it change our solid ground?

And I’m not sure how I ended up here letting a boy take hold of what is mine again I told him no & he said “I understand”

But the signal from his brain must not have travelled to his hand because once again it’s burrowing for warmth and I must push it north but he said, “Don’t worry, I understand”

We talked about how I wasn’t ready to give that part away he said, “I’m the gas & you’re the brakes, babe” So now when I’m pushing his hand away for the third time - or is it maybe ten? I’m pretending this might not be something grave but the hum in the back of his throat said, “Don’t worry, I understand”

Right before his rogue hand reaches a place that’s only mine I acquiesce and give up for the 1,500th time “He’s the gas & you’re the brakes, babe,” I try to rationalize So why does it feel like I pulled the brake back on mile five?

And it’s quiet, not violent; not like you thought it’d be it makes it easier to pretend it didn’t happen to me You make jokes, brag, tell your friends it was okay but not for months, weeks, days, did you realize what happened that day

Not until the next boy where you realize, “Oh okay.” “This one cares, he understands! He doesn’t work that way.” And then the “Oh shit, it happened to me, too” starts to settle in, that demented sense of love seems to wear thin

And now there’s no illusions and I’m reminded of a childhood saying where boys come to the conclusion that fire trucks don’t stop for red lights and pretend like they’re just playing

I told a boy no today & he said “I understand” and tears well in my eyes because I’m surprised that he offers me his hand

And it curls around mine peacefully - without v or questions just reassurances of love, devoid of all suggestions And I know now that it’s okay - I’m okay, they’re not all the same Because I’m the gas and the brakes this time around, babe

Portobelo by Alisa Augdahl

A God Amongst Frogs by

Elisa Miller

George was climbing a spiral staircase that never ended. He had long stopped keeping track of time. The sun never moved, so it was too difficult to figure out. It was quiet besides the metronomic slaps of his dress shoes against the wood. Sometimes he would stomp, trying to match the beats in his head. Other times he gently crept, so silent he had to remind himself he could hear by snapping his fingers.

It was a long time before George met another living creature. Bugs occasionally whistled by, but they never seemed to notice him. He caught a fly out of the air once, accidentally squishing it. He laid it to rest in the breast pocket of his plaid button down. The first non-bug he discovered was a frog hopping up the stairs ahead of him. He called out to it, “Hey, what are you doing?” The frog turned around to inspect George before shaking its head and continuing its ascent.

“The same as you,” it croaked. “Hey wait! Are we the only ones?”

The frog was moving more quickly than George, forcing him to yell up the staircase. He jogged to catch up.

“As far as I know.” Its webbed feet sprung with incredible agility.

“Well, I’m George.” He managed to get ahead of the frog and block its path. Sticking out his hand, he said “It’s nice to meet you.”

The frog frowned and stared up at the middle aged man. George’s brown hair was dotted with gray and wrinkles lined his light eyes. It let out a low ribbit, rolling its eyes. “Bibbit’s the name.” Bibbit reached out his front leg, but the webbed fingers couldn’t grasp George’s damp palm. They settled on a high-five. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to keep moving,” and he hopped past George.

“Wait up!” George called as he rose from the crouched position required to reach Bibbit’s hand. After some trial and error, they found a rhythm side by side. George kept sneaking glances at his new companion who kept his wide-set eyes focused ahead. “So, uh, do you know how long you’ve been climbing?” Bibbit shook his head. “Yeah, yeah me neither…” he trailed off. They climbed in silence for a while. “Must be nice to have all those legs. Probably don’t get too tired, huh?”

Bibbit chuckled, “Yes, I am surprised a human has been able to make it this long. Those rigid sticks of yours don’t look particularly, uh, springy.”

George smiled, happy to have finally broken through. “Yeah, they don’t exactly have a lot of give to them. I don’t know, I just don’t think about it, I guess. Just gotta keep going.”

Bibbit croaked in agreement.

George smiled at the frog, “This

is nice. I don’t know the last time I’ve spoken out loud.”

“I rather enjoy the quiet, myself,” Bibbit glanced at George whose face had fallen. He quickly backtracked, “But, I digress. I suppose it is nice to have company every once in a while.”

George beamed. “What do you like to think about? You know, while you hop.”

The frog paused and looked at George blankly. “The next step, of course.”

“What?” George exclaimed incredulously. “That’s it?” He laughed at Bibbit’s confused expression.

“I don’t see what else one could possibly ponder,” Bibbit frowned. “Why, what do you think about, then?”

“Music,” George looked out over the railing. “I sing little songs in my head. Come up with melodies. Sometimes I even climb along to them.” A dreamy smile appeared on his face. “I can’t imagine just thinking about these stairs all the time. I mean, all we do is climb. Don’t you want something different?”

The frog shook his head. “I don’t see the point in letting the mind wander. You’re correct: all we do is climb. Therefore, I focus on that.” He started hopping up the stairs again. George shook his head in wonder and followed behind Bibbit.

“You gotta loosen up, Bibbit! You’re telling me you don’t even think about what would happen if you just stopped? No more climbing, ever?”

“Well, nothing would happen. You’d either stop forever or just start climbing again.”

“But what if something did happen? Maybe the sun would finally set or-or the stairs would collapse.”

“The sun doesn’t care if we climb,” Bibbit scoffed. “It’s never moved an inch. It’s probably just there to ensure we can see where we’re stepping.”

George leered at the sun. It always stayed in the same spot. He often imagined it falling out of the sky and leaving a brilliant trail of light in its wake. There were no clouds, just a clear blue that extended in every direction. When he looked up or down over the railing, all George could see was the staircase. The steps were a spotless mahogany, no chinks or cracks to be found. They matched the railing perfectly, which was connected to each stair with a thin column. George could fit his arms between the beams, but his shoulders were too wide.

After a while of silence, Bibbit said, “We started climbing for a reason, didn’t we? I admit I cannot remember a time when I wasn't on these stairs, but I’ve got to be going somewhere.” He sounded unsure. “I am going somewhere,” it was more to himself than George.

“I don’t really remember the before either.” Bibbit raised his frog eyebrows, and George clarified, “That’s what I call the time before the stairs. Well, until now, I guess I’ve technically just thought

it.” George sighed. “I’ve wanted to try stopping. Test out some of my theories. But whenever I stop for too long, it just feels wrong. So I always end up climbing again.”

The frog croaked sullenly.

“Do you really think there’s something at-” George was cut off by a shriek in the distance. Bibbit’s dark green skin seemed to lighten a few shades. “What the hell was that?”

Bibbit sped up and muttered, “There’s another. My apologies, George, I was not entirely truthful.” George’s eyes widened.

“Just hurry up,” Bibbit said without looking at George. There was another shriek, a bit louder and closer than the first.

“Who is it?” George asked between gasps. He was jogging up the stairs, and beginning to fall behind the frog.

“A seagull called Amadeus.” Bibbit’s legs were barely touching the stairs before launching up again, “I met him long ago. He’s not like us.”

George was now sprinting, his adrenaline pumping.

“Those damned wings grant him much more freedom. He can go up and down as he pleases.”

George yelped as he felt a whoosh of feathers soar over his shoulders. Amadeus landed on the railing a few steps in front of Bibbit and shrieked again. Bibbit froze and ribbited under his breath. George slowly stepped up to stand in front of the frog. The seagull rustled its feathers and cocked its head as its piercing yellow eyes inspected George. Without moving his eyes off Amadeus, George muttered, “Is he dangerous?”

“Well-” Bibbit stopped as Amadeus suddenly hopped off the railing and landed two steps ahead of them and let out a calmer squawk. “No, I wouldn’t call him dangerous, exactly. Perhaps dangerously dim.”

George rubbed his eyes and looked at the bird. “Hi, Amadeus,” he said, taking a step towards the bird. It hopped back and forth on its spindly legs. “What can I do for you?” Amadeus snapped his long beak at George, making him hesitate.

Bibbit peeked out from behind George’s leg and stiffly addressed the seagull, “Amadeus. It has been a while, has it not?” The yellow eyes shifted from George’s shirt to the small frog. It squawked and furiously nodded its head up and down. “Is there something we can assist you with?”

Amadeus’ eyes lit up as he nodded like a bobblehead on a dashboard. He squawked and looked back at George’s torso.

“I don’t understand. What does he want from me?” George asked as he glanced down at George.

Bibbit frowned and shrugged his frog shoulders. “I’m not sure.” Amadeus cawed and dramatically swiveled his head to point his beak at George’s breast pocket. “Have you got something in your pocket, George?”

George reached in and felt the withered fly carcass. “Yeah, a dead fly.” He gingerly pulled it out and placed it in his palm. Amadeus squawked happily and hopped in a small circle.

Bibbit recoiled, “Well why on Earth do you have that?”

“I thought frogs ate flies.” George pinched the corpse be-

tween his fingers and waved it in front of Bibbit’s face.

The frog hopped backwards and pretended to gag. “Perhaps in the ‘before’, but certainly not here. I cannot say I’ve ever had an appetite.”

George cocked his head as he brought the fly back up to eye level. “I guess that’s a good point. I haven’t been hungry either.” Amadeus was growing impatient as he squawked and hopped down a step closer to George and the frog.

“Hey, hey, hey. I’ll give it to you, just let me say bye to my little friend.”

The fly had been in George’s pocket for as long as he could remember. Although he knew it was gross to let it rot, he felt guilty for ending its life. It only seemed fair that the fly got to rest in a warm bed of fabric and lint. As he held out his hand to the hungry seagull, he thought of what the fly’s life had been like. Where had it been flying? Was it, too, stuck in the spiral? Did it ever think about the Moon?

Amadeus snapped up the fly and let out a satisfied shriek. George swore his pocket felt lighter.

“Well, Amadeus,” Bibbit tried to sound casual, “I do believe George and I shall continue on. Nice to see you again.” He let out a low ribbit and nodded goodbye before continuing up the steps. Amadeus squawked and followed Bibbit, mimicking his delicate hop. “I said good day,” Bibbit frowned. George smiled and shrugged. The frog croaked and began again, but Amadeus continued to follow him.

“I think he wants to come with us,” George winked at the frog

as he began climbing. “Come on, Bibbit. He’s harmless.”

“Fine,” Bibbit sighed. He turned to Amadeus, “Just quit it with the shrieking, alright?” The bird nodded. Although it was a bit tight, the three managed to fit on the same step as they climbed together.

“You got me thinking earlier, Bibbit. About if we’re going somewhere. What do you think, Amadeus? Are we climbing towards something?”

The seagull looked around and was silent for a moment. He turned back to George and gave a single nod.

“You do? Interesting. See, I kinda think we’re just climbing. We’ve been doing it for so long, how can there possibly be an end?”

“Then why did we start?” Bibbit croaked. “We acknowledge there was a, uh, ‘before’ so why did we leave?”

George shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe we weren’t happy. Maybe we just needed something to do.”

Amadeus squawked and nodded.

“Hey, see, Amadeus is coming around to my side.”

“That’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t say I’m particularly enjoying myself here.” Bibbit thought for a moment. “Well, I suppose that’s not completely true. It’s surely a great place to clear your head.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I don’t really think it matters if we’re going somewhere. It’s the journey, not the destination.”

Bibbit croaked and rolled his eyes. Amadeus cawed and rustled his feathers in agreement. “This is some journey then.” Bibbit paused to flick his tongue. “Sometimes, I wonder if it’s some kind of punish-

ment.”

“But nothing bad is happening to us.”

“No, but nothing good happens either. In fact, nothing happens at all. I think I forgot my emotions in the before alongside my memories.”

Amadeus squawked as he scratched his head with his wing.

Bibbit thought for a moment and sighed. “I suppose I never considered how crucial actions and events are to emotions.”

“I mean I felt happy when I saw you, Bibbit. And I was scared of you at first, Amadeus.” George smiled and began humming.

“Yes, but that’s when things were happening. I’m discussing all the time you just climbed alone.”

“I guess.” George shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel like sometimes I climbed happy and sometimes I climbed sad. Not for any particular reason. Are you really alive if you’re not feeling anything?”

“Sure you are. I have not felt a true emotion since ‘before’, and I’m still breathing. I still climb. Emotions don’t make my blood flow.” Bibbit pointed to his legs as he sprung, “that’s my brain’s job.”

Amadeus cawed in agreement and pointedly looked at George.

“Can’t make up your mind can you, Amadeus? You’re just jumping back and forth.” George laughed. “What would it take to get you to feel something, Bibbit?”

Bibbit thought for a moment. “Hm, at this point I believe I’d have to see the sun move. Yes, I think that would bring on every emotion in the book.”

Amadeus screeched, making George and Bibbit jump. He pointed his beak at the sun and

gestured at himself with his wing.

“What? You also consider the possibility of a sunset?” Bibbit asked with furled frog eyebrows.

Amadeus shook his head and repeated the same motion. George and Bibbit looked at each other and shrugged. The seagull cawed in frustration and dramatically thumped his wing against his chest. He mimicked flying, pointed his beak at the sun, and held his wing out sideways, slowly lowering it.

Bibbit gasped. “Why, surely you’re not saying you’re going to move the sun?”

George grinned, “Hey, you may as well try. I mean you’re the only one of us who has a shot.” Amadeus nodded and fluttered up to the railing. He looked back at George and Bibbit before taking off towards the sun. “He’s actually doing it.”

Bibbit shook his head, “Ridiculous.” They watched the seagull slowly turn into a speck before disappearing all together.

“I think he’s doing it for you, Bibbit. He wants you to like him.”

Bibbit frowned and looked up at George. “I never said I disliked Amadeus.”

“No, but it sure seems that way.”

Bibbit looked bewildered. “He is a frustrating creature. I don’t have time for stupidity. But, he means well.” He twiddled his webbed fingers. “The first time I met him, he flew by and tried to swallow me, but I managed to talk him out of it. I shooed him off when he tried to come with.”

George drummed his fingers against the smooth railing. “See, he doesn’t want to be alone, either. I know you like the company, Bibbit.

Admit it.”

He looked at George and smiled. “I suppose I wasn’t as susceptible to a companion back then.”

“Hey, look at that! You’re my buddy, man.” George patted Bibbit’s head. Suddenly, a small black dot appeared on the sun. “Whoa, look, I think he made it,” George pointed. The dot flitted down to the bottom of the star and began to pull. “No way.” The sun was slowly beginning to move. George and Bibbit’s heads followed as they watched it descend.

The blue that George and Bibbit had grown so accustomed to was following the sun out of sight. Colors they had never seen were slowly appearing throughout the sky. “I never could have imagined.” Tears were forming in Bibbit’s eyes. “It’s incredible.”

The sky was predominantly a brilliant orange — one that was slightly darker than the sun had been. Ribbons of pink and purple swirled throughout, cutting through the deep orange. As Amadeus pulled the sun deeper, the colors brightened and flowed in and out of one another.

George laughed and placed his hand on the frog’s head. “Wanna see what it looks like while we climb?” Bibbit nodded and hopped off the railing. They climbed slowly, only taking a step every few seconds. As they followed the spiral, they realized the sky looked different from every angle. In some places, there was hardly any orange to be found as the lighter colors took control.

When they peered over the railing, the sun was nowhere to be found. They clapped and

cheered when Amadeus’ black dot reappeared. George and Bibbit continued their slow ascent as the seagull’s shape eventually formed. When he finally reached the staircase, his feathers had burnt to a crisp. Smoke wisped off his charred body, but he couldn’t wipe the smile from his beak. As the man, the frog, and the bird climbed, they wondered if the Moon was close by.

Fish of Lake Michigan by Allyson Mills

Green Bird in Cherry Blossom by Shufan Sun

Persimmon Poem/A poem for my mom

by Marion McKinney

If you let them sit

In the box atop the fridge You might just forget

And in a few days

They’ve waxed and waned, skin blushed Their hard shells now soft

And on your way home, You might think: “My persimmons!” With delight then fear

As you realize You’ve let your mom’s favorite Fruit begin to rot.

You carefully reach And peer inside, finding two Precious fruit. Too ripe.

You call your mom, heart Sunken, “I waited too long” For her childhood joy.

She laughs, “Mei guanxi!” “Don’t worry!” And tells you to put them in The freezer, saying

They’re perfect. That when She was a kid, she placed them Out in the winter

And in the morning

Cool, overripe persimmon Is the most juicy!

Nude Scene

by Ria Dhingra

The air today felt like Navy Pier. Not being there, but like the very Pier itself: unpredictable winds at underwhelming speeds, scented like churros, cigarettes, and sellable sin, misty fog mimicking the after-shadow of fireworks over the Lake. The hum of the atmosphere ringing in my ears, reverberating Disturbia by Rihanna and early 2000’s Fall Out Boy.

I like Navy Pier. Adore it, even— despite it being a tourist trap. For I’m twenty and at the age where I am now done liking what I believe I am supposed to like, what others tell me to like.

So, I decided, last night, I do not like that one movie the critics lauded for its raw portrayal of the teenage experience. The one about the girl from San Francisco, with the actress so far removed from her teens, her story could never really be raw. Never like standing outside at the funeral of your own youth and feeling like you are seven again, at Navy Pier, eyes widening at fireworks and the limitless potential laid out in front of you. Today, I want to write a movie about a girl from the suburbs of Milwaukee, because Hollywood should care more about kids from the Midwest. Kids divorced from reality, kids longing to get “out,”

not those complaining about being “in.” It’s about my best friend. And she’s lovely and intelligent and possesses all the qualities that make her just as deserving to be the lead of the sort of movies they make about a girl from San Francisco. She’s also a woman of color with pink hair. Not that it should matter. But it does matter. Doesn’t it? It matters enough—that, if made, our movie will be an excellent candidate for awards season, beating out all the girls from San Francisco and Boston and Napa Valley.

I have decided I like representation not because of politics, artistic diversity, or even because it's 2022, but because—last night—I witnessed a woman who looks like me, like my best friend, strip down to show nothing but herself on TV. It was not done in a way that was taking back the power or even empowering. It was not tasteless or humiliating. It was real. The woman on TV felt shame and guilt and pride and love and all the things Brown women who look like us feel when it comes to our nakedness: when it comes to our own bodies.

Because, for us, that sort of vulnerability is beyond dangerous. That nakedness.

It’s undoing careful stitches put in place by our mothers and grandmothers. It’s allowing blood to spill out. It’s saying: Here, look at me, I’m wounded. It’s demanding: Love me anyways. That’s true nakedness. It’s drunk texts without a censor, pictures without a filter, speaking mother tongues to our parents while on the phone in public elevators, it’s my best friend from Milwaukee calling me at 3am and saying: I’m sorry I’m not as happy as I should be. That’s real life.

I’m twenty and never have I been fully naked. The closest I came was when I was alone, lost, at Navy Pier. At age seven, I was shrieking both with unadulterated joy and fear as the fireworks first went off. Back then, I was still brave enough to like what nakedness had to offer, even when the sensations were uncomfortable up close.

My movie, our movie, will end with nakedness, but not nudity. With the girl from Milwaukee standing in Navy Pier—in broad daylight, witnessing the afterimage of the night before, the tourist trap of a city, herself, myself, ourselves, finally undressed.

Untitled by Paul McAllester

Hound by Leon Barrett

I Love You, Goodnight

by Ria Dhingra

We’re sitting on the floor in our matching pajamas pants when she breaks the stillness by beginning to weave my damp waves into a braid. She says it’ll make my hair curly by the morning. I already have her curly hair. At least, I once used to. She knows that too, but it’s been weeks since we last spoke, months since we last understood one another. She comments on how my hair has lost its volume with time. I say nothing. She continues to braid in silence after that.

Wisps of hair escape her fingers, the runaways cling to the nape of my neck. Her grip tightens, it seems angry. Then soft. I recognize her hesitation to be a product of some form of concentration; still, I’m not too sure. Her fingers move quickly, tightly pulling and twisting, lifting my skin by the hairline. She still knows how to make me seem beautiful.

My hair is done, and our cups of tea are almost empty. Neither one of us is ready to say goodnight. Instead, she gets up and returns with a pomegranate and a bowl in hand. I recall now that it’s her least favorite fruit. The effort of cutting it would almost be as frustrating as me always asking for it.

Should I mention, at this point, that my mother is an immigrant?

Tonight, she holds her flimsy purple fruit knife and scores a star atop the skin of the pomegranate. She peels back four quarters, and begins to pick at the seeds. I watch her delicate hands slowly stain red as the fruit falls into the bowl below them. Hands that later offer me a helping of the little jewels.

I savor them slowly. Not having the heart to say I wasn’t hungry and that I now choose to wear my hair straight.

what would you mix with paint?

by Sarah Kirsch

i recently saw a tiktok where they mixed acrylic paint and baking soda. it had a texture i wouldn't mind eating and a design i could never paint like one of those canvas paintings with flowers sticking off the canvas when i was in grade school, i painted my best friends glitter paintings with thick acrylics and annoying glitter, they were worth the struggling of picking off glitter from your socks and your clothes and the ground since the tiktok from this morning, i have recently compiled a list called shit i would mix with acrylic paint if i had the supplies and could paint like salt and acrylic peach paint reminds me of little changes by clairo and my bloody noses dripping on canvases remind me of my cuticles that tear every winter to accompany my cracked dry knuckles i carry or how i would blend up my gross multi vitamins to mix with a green because i won't eat shitty vitamins but i would look at pretty flowers i got my hair cut at 12:30 in the way i have always wanted; my mother looked at me as if her youngest girl was now a stranger with boy hair and i stared at the inches of my hair on the floor and asked myself what paint color they would mix best with if i were to make an acrylic paint my mother has learned to be silent when she disagrees with my choices like when i dyed my hair blonde then pink then blonde then brown then let it fade to my natural boring color as i withheld the urge to shave it all she used to try to tell me i would regret my actions, like cutting it shorter or breaking up with my boyfriend in high school or deciding to get bangs she said you're going to be a heartbreaker and then told me not to break his heart or chase after the ones i am actually attracted to, i actually like my mother would never understand cutting off the weight of your hair that has dragged you down and made you stuck in your high school mind that gets knotted in your backpack arms and never lays perfectly straight she thinks that my hair is my best feature and that i should never change it there is a lot she does not understand, but there's a lot i don't understand too like how those tiktokers got their baking soda paint to look so edible and to paint the most beautiful painting without even trying to meticulously plan out every line, every stroke, every shade of color in said painting the dead spiders in my lights would made an interesting painting, right? they would add a dash of realism if i ever got the nerve to touch them i think my fear of spiders is childish but i will never get over the way they terrify me, haunt me, find me like a farmer chasing after their bull (said bull would always break into my childhood home's garden and stare at me) when i cut my hair today, i texted my two friends i look like a 12 year old boy. but in a good way. i think i like it. and sent them two photos of my new hair

and to everyone else, nothing. because i don't think they would understand that my hair haunts my identity and unravels me like my fear of spiders does like my neighbor texted me noooooo i like your hair long and then tells me my hair looks "good" but not beautiful, not charming, not lovely just "good" because i now look like a 12 year old boy and when he looks at me, he probably only sees my 12 year old boy hair, nothing else but "good" i want to mix "good" with my dumb yellow acrylic paint and stain my carpet with her, step on her and rub her in until she becomes a blob of paint that has faded into nothing on my carpet, how "good" but not lovely of her now that i truly embody a 12 year old boy, my roommate will stop judging me for making friends on tumblr and dming strangers on the internet and sleeping on my wet hair because i hate maintaining my hair 12 year old boy which fits perfectly into my outfits from the target men's section that i call my "12 year old boy outfits" because who else wears sweats and oversized shirts that hide that they have waists and breasts and a stomach and shoulders my "12 year old boy outfits" are two sizes too big and they could be dresses and when i wear them no one expects anything of 12 year old boy me but i wouldn’t expect anything from me either; what kind of boy would be terrified of dead spiders or want to reread call me by your name on bad days it is day two of being home from my last final and i have already spiraled into attempting to learn to crochet, cutting my hair, rereading call me by your name, imaging what i would mix with paint if i painted and could touch the dead spiders.

Ladder Girl by Isabel Zeman

Creeping Charlie by Elee Sharp

Garbage Day

by Emma Hamilton

I didn’t know it was Thursday until a pair of round black crumbs fixed underneath my front porch illuminated by the moon’s flash sent the air beneath my feet and a booming hiss out of my mouth For nothing could be more abominable than the powdered-face creature at my feet with its front paws cradling a hollow seltzer can Truly detestable how a salt and pepper furred marsupial–who I cannot name-encroached their piggish nose on our property whispering a “welcome home” between their whiskers while gently nodding to how I had forgotten to lug the waste collection bins out to the street that morning.

It’s a possum. It’s a possum. It’s a possum. My friend’s voice drowns my ears

How could I be 22 years old and have never seen a possum?

It’s a possum. It’s a possum. It’s a possum. I lay face-frozen on the sidewalk on my pouched stomach fingers and toes stretched out eyes closed, mouth still slight The possum glows beneath the darkness of my doorstep and tastes the sweet bubbling waters of hard lemonade How are we going to play?

Bubble Man by Jessica Sharp

Ticker Tape

by Surya Vir

We’re too sure of ourselves, I’m sure… We talk like we know everything until it falls down it crashes, it burns. So take a ticket, get in line, just sit and wait your turn…

Black Tuesday, we’re down 12%, or at least that’s the latest word. Chickens run in circles with their heads cut off, or so I’ve heard.

WHERE WILL YOU BE WHEN IT ALL COMES CRASHING DOWN?

WILL YOU LEAVE FEAR BEHIND AND SIT AMONGST THE TREES?

And watch the flames engulf all that you can see?

There’s an intrepid essence in the air that we breathe. It runs, but never hides, and it tends to move in threes.

Everything ends up the way it was meant to be. When everyone is ashes, for an urn, there’s no need. Because when all is said and done, we’re just dirt and debris.

Poor Creatures by

Lane Burke

I went for a walk to feel the sun and to battle my insanity. I saw a dead grasshopper. his body a sour green, keenly juxtaposed to his sticky yellow guts congealed to the pavement. A lemon lime twist. certainly sour, I assume.

I only managed to count four legs his head cruelly remaining and unable to search for the missing part of his body. poor creature. the bottom third of his body is probably dizzying itself in the grooves of a mountain bike that was utilized for a sidewalk or maybe jailed in somebody’s shoe sole (it could even be my own shoe sole) propelling (me) forward in a way our poor grasshopper can no longer

And what if I (he) propelled myself (me) into traffic? I become someone’s bug on their walk they see my intestines crawling out and breathing going for a walk to feel the sun pinks and reds and maybe there is a little yellow in there, in my guts. What if my legs found themselves not scattered a few (hundred?) feet away, not retrievable, but wind-strapped to the grill of the suburban that splintered me and never stopped. And I died with my eyes wide open, trying to find the part of me that is missing.

Davey by Jessica Sharp

Ghost Ship Zombie Invasion by Leon Barrett

Recitations in Chorus

by Stella D’Acquisto

Let your body straighten and awaken with the voices

See grandfather screaming with his chariot of vices

More more more more

Awaken with the voices

Too many mores, three was supposed to be a set Break more break more

Let your body straighten and awaken with the voices

Taste of just a little always makes you want to take more Shake more take more smother it smother it smother it smother it smother mother -

Let your body suffer and become eternal

So everyplace is filled with

Noises or something different, as the chorus calls out

What do we call it when the chicken breaks the egg

What do we call it when the captain jumps the ship (A counterpoint was still revealed to her beneath the music)

What do we call it when the egg breaks the chicken

What do we call it when we look into the mirror and understand the truth in our pupils?

What do we call it, children?

VOICES! VOICES! VOICES!

Do you understand your choices?

Four Walls, a Roof, and Doors

Objectively the best building on campus

by Ryan Cheng

I hope to God that what I saw that night was merely a phantasm of my addled mind, a hallucinatory figment of my insomnolent imagination, although I am abjectly certain that it was not. For no human intellect could conjure up such images as I have seen, and I still cannot make sense of all the horrors that I have witnessed in the endless depths of that accursed place. I write this account before my death so that future generations may know to keep to the preordained paths set by the wise before them, to not rejoice in the alluring mystery of that place but remain vigilant and fearful, lest they be swallowed whole.

In those days I was a promising student of biomedical engineering, a straight-A student with plans to change the world. In other words, a fool. But a fool I would give all the earthly riches I have accumulated since then to become again, for is it not better to live in gay and simple ignorance than tormented, sleepless knowledge? In those days, too, I was sleepless, and that accursed night I had remained in an empty classroom for twenty-four hours, studying for my midterm examinations. I had consumed fourteen Monster Energy drinks by the time I left the classroom stumbling like a

drunken reveler on an empty street, but I was content, having finished my preparations. I had seen or heard not a soul since entering the classroom the night before, for I had strayed far off the safe paths to halls I imagined deep and secret, classrooms that had forgotten the smell of the whiteboard marker and the voice of the lecturer in eons past. For this was Humanities, that harsh building of grey stone, that keeper of the hushed whispers of a thousand thousand long-lost souls, that horrid empty-eyed behemoth that never dies. But although I fancied myself an expert, I did not yet know anything of that building. We so often forget that ancient knowledge that we know nothing, and each generation must learn it anew.

As I exited the classroom into the narrow hallway, with its colorless walls and stale fluorescent lights, I heard a creaking sound to my right. I stood frozen for a moment, for I knew not what could have caused such a thing. Surely not another student, for what student would be here in this place, at this hour? None but I. Who then, the caretaker?

“Look not deep, young one,” he had said to me one night, his hooded, weathered face staring

somewhere past me, or before me. “Look not far, and ye may yet leave unseeing. For if ye linger, it will make itself known to you.” Then he trudged on, his hunched form lugging his cart forward like a plague wagon, rattling ever onward.

There were no other sounds, and the hallway was silent once more as I held my breath. After a few seconds I turned my head to find the hallway empty, bland white like the rest of these middle floors. But one door was open. I crept down the hall and peered in to see a set of stairs going downward, lit by the same pale lights that lit the rest of the building. Though I had walked these halls innumerable times, I had never seen this door unlocked, and I had never seen a set of stairs behind a classroom door. I was drawn forward by some unnameable feeling to stare down that flight of stairs. I needed to get down to the ground floor to exit the building. Perhaps I would find a new passageway on the way, or discover some ancient and forgotten wonder, like the Aztec murals in the dim crevices of the stairwells, or the sealed helipad on the highest floor. The words of the caretaker echoed through my head, warning me, but I was young. Oh, I was young!

I know not how long I traveled down those stairs, perhaps two minutes or two hours, and remember little but the feeling of entranced calm that veiled me, a warm, soft feeling as I passed the darkened windows in silence. Now I have begun to see Humanities’ taint on all my time in the building, and question if this, too, was its fell influence on my mind, like all my time here was boggy water dripping through the cracks, a breeding ground for festering spores and rotten things that grow in the dark.

Then I was in another hallway and I walked down it, passing door after door after door, all closed, all locked. I walked around the next hallway, and the next. Surely I must have walked a hundred hallways and never reached the edge of the building. Yet I never once thought it unnatural, for I was mute and sedate, drained of all energy, with a mind saturated with the chemical exhaust from the last twenty-four hours and the energy drinks I had consumed.

At the end of my wanderings was a vending machine, fitted into a nook where a doorway should have been, glowing in a neon rainbow and filling the silence with a calm whir. I sat down and leaned against it, wishing to fall asleep. But I had to get home. Some antediluvian instinct in me simmered with disquiet, urging me to keep moving, to leave this place as fast as I could. So I got back onto my feet and bought a Monster Energy from the vending machine, inhaling the sweet fumes, the caffeine oozing down my throat like nectar.

There was no guarantee I would find a way out if I continued going the way I was going, but it was no worse than retracing my steps when I knew that the only stairway I’d found was innumerable hallways away. I shook off the assault of sleep, that cruel tempter slinking away against the bulwark of Monster Energy. I now thank God for that Monster Energy—I do not think I would have survived without it. For soon after I passed into the next hallway and the hum of the vending machine faded, I heard footsteps behind me.

At first just a few, sparse enough for me to convince myself I was imagining them. But still I walked quicker through the hallways, glancing back occasionally to see a hallway as blank and bleak as the one before me. I passed through new hallways and rooms: a lecture hall laden with dust and alive with moths, a hallway lined with stuffed Bucky Badger costumes like the ruined statues of the old, wicked kings of Babylon, a theatre with a stage in front of a blank wall. I might have wondered at these had the footsteps behind me not become impossible to ignore.

They were quiet, padded footsteps, but they echoed in the hallway, like they had some hideous weight past the limits of audible perception. Innumerable images whirled through my head as I imagined what manner of being was stalking me. Perhaps some mutated abomination adapted to living in these endless constricted hallways, some eyeless, pale freak drooling after the flesh of the wretched fools lost here.

Perhaps a madman, searching for fragments of his sanity long lost on floors far deeper than this. Perhaps no one, perhaps Humanities itself, the soundless noise of pipe organs played in utter darkness, echoing through the hollow plaster walls, groaning through the dun concrete at a timbre too deep and too old for any mortal to hear, until finally reaching these distant floors, perhaps not a sound but the fetid shadow of a sound.

I no longer looked back. I ran, the footsteps like the feverish buzzing of swollen flies. The mild plaster walls and linoleum floor seemed to mock me with their innocence even as that horrible sound drew nearer. I no longer paid attention to the rooms I entered, only searching for the next exit or a flight of stairs.

At last I saw an elevator and an entrance to the stairs at the end of the hallway, and I scrabbled towards it. I could hear the footsteps now, not as far-off phantasms but around a hallway’s length behind me. When I reached it, I smashed the down button, the only button, and waited. The footsteps grew louder, and I waited. I trembled, and swore I would never return, and covered my ears, but still I could hear the footsteps, and still the elevator would not come. The sound of them grew louder and louder, still that soft padding on the floor, yet magnified a hundredfold, as if whatever it was crept towards me from the inside of my skull. I stared at the faintly glowing elevator button and pushed it more, pushed it many times. Still the footsteps thundered in my ear, and their

source did not appear. Finally, the elevator dinged. But instead of the deliverance it promised, the door shuddered open to reveal a looming figure inside.

It was Bucky Badger! It was not the broad frame, the massive, gloved fingers, or that grinning mouth that frightened me. It was the eyes, the eyes, the eyes, those black pits, those twin tombs, in which I saw the space between the stars and the amorphous sun-swallowers lurking there, the necrophagous half-men that squat piping their blasphemous melodies under the dead moon, but more horrible than that I saw endless, endless halls, orderly and senseless, stretching on and on and on and on and on beyond the point of reasonable madness, and Oh God, Oh Great and Mighty God, if what you have made is good, how could you have made something such as this? How could you have fashioned something like Humanities?

Somehow, within the depths of myself, that primordial instinct of fear took over my body, and I fled into the stairwell, gibbering, scrambling down the stairs like an animal. I heard the footsteps of Bucky Badger behind me, clanging like discordant gongs against the stairs, still slow, still patient. I left the stairwell at the bottom floor and found myself in a concrete hallway, unlit but for a red glow oozing from the bottoms of closed doors, behind which vile instruments sputtered and shrieked and wailed. Yet as I fled down it, the sound of Bucky Badger’s footsteps surfaced again and again over every other noise.

I stopped. I was at the end of the hall now. Behind me, those horrible footsteps. Beyond me, a single open doorway. What choice did I have?

I found myself entering a field with bright fluorescent spotlights on shiny turf, surrounded by looming, shadowed stands and a domed roof. As I walked out into the space, I realized that I recognized it—it was an exact replica of Camp Randall. Another set of lights flared on, illuminating the stands, and I fell to my knees in abject despair. I knew there was no escape now, for the stands were full of Bucky Badger. They filed out of the bleachers and onto the field, and I realized with the clarity of the damned that perhaps it was not this place, but Camp Randall, that was the replica. Bucky Badger surrounded me, a single being in a tide of bodies. They lifted me up onto a metal board, stained completely red so as to appear painted if one did not feel its surface. Then they waited. I knelt on the board as it looked at me with many sets of eyes. After a few seconds silent and still, I realized what they wanted me to do, and—this too must have been Humanities’ influence on me—I obeyed. I got onto all fours, hands and the tips of my feet at the corners of the board, and did a push-up. Bucky Badger watched me. I did another. Then another. Then another. I hesitated before the seventh pushup and looked up into the crowd of Bucky Badger waiting for me. Did I truly desire this? Undoubtedly it would lead to something unspeakably horrible, something abominable and unholy,

something that would burn itself in my memory and linger there until my death. But secretly—and it pains me to admit this, but for the sake of future generations I must—I was curious. And here is my greatest folly. What could happen next, after all of this? Surely there was nothing more horrible than what I had seen already. I did the push-up.

And from deep below, I heard the organ, its ghastly music infecting the air, shaking the floor, reverberating through my body. It was the wailing of sirens, the feverish dancing of long-lost generations of the damned, and beneath it all the ceaseless churning of ancient gears. At once I was filled with a rush of uncontrollable, unnatural euphoria, and I was overcome by a fervent desire to move, to leap, to dance.

Then I was standing atop the board, cradling the head of a Bucky Badger costume in my arms. All around me Bucky Badger jumped around, a vast and beautiful sea. And I knew that I was going to put the mask on, and I would be opened to a whole new world. But as I gazed at the head—my head, soon—I caught a gleam of light in its eye, and at once the sound of the organ was wind shrieking through pipes of bone, and the track around the field the tenth ring of Hell, and I fell to my knees. Now I am filled with certainty that in eons past, cavemen huddled in their caves, turning away their faces and covering their ears so as not to hear this accursed music, and that Humanities has festered in the shadows long before any

human architect—any human— laid feeble foot on the earth. I ran then, through the masses of the jumping Bucky Badger still caught in their reverie, out of the room and into the hall, which now lay silent and dark like the inside of a coffin, up the stairwell and into the upper halls.

There I stood as the door clicked shut behind me, alone. I was free. Yet as I looked to the hallways before me and to each side, I realized that I had no idea where to go. I stood in silence.

Then I began to walk. Did it matter if I knew where I was going? If I escaped, very well. If I did not, I was powerless to stop it.

So I walked. I walked without expectation of finding an exit. Indeed, if I had come across a stairwell, I may not have been brave enough to enter it. But I did not. I did not know if I went in circles, or went from left to right or right to left, or went anywhere at all. The walls now appeared to me the white of bleached bone, the linoleum floor a glistening membranous thing. It was all one to me. After am immeasurable amount of time I stopped. I was tired, and I had no more Monster Energy to sustain me further. I curled up on the floor in the middle of the hall and slept.

I dreamt of nothing. I sat there in my mind, in the darkness, waiting. There was nothing else to do. Perhaps this was preferable to walking on and on through those white halls. I know not. But eventually, in that void I heard a sound. Something was rattling. Perhaps some new horror Humanities had conjured up to

torment me. Perhaps Death, come to free me at last. But it was only the caretaker.

We did not speak, as I sat on the back of his cart and he dragged it forward. I watched the familiar landmarks come into view and fade away. Now, the old posters on the walls were alien scribbles; the tall windows led nowhere but the stains on their surfaces. When we reached the exit, I hardly recognized it until the caretaker’s cart ground to a halt.

The caretaker said nothing as I descended from the cart, only stretched out a gnarled hand to the door. Perhaps if my gaze lingered a moment longer on his gaunt face, his glassy eyes, I might have found my own reflection, although I do not know whether such a thing would have wrought in me comfort or horror. But I did not linger. I only pushed open the doors and let them fall shut behind me as I staggered back outside. And I drifted through a haze of pre-dawn blue, the buildings formless giants in the fog, with their ghoulish yellow-windowed smiles, the students flitting like wraiths in and out of them, and I averted my eyes to stare at the ground in front of me. And even now, when I am alone at night in my office, I can hear the music of that place through the thunking of rain on the tall glass walls, the monotonous buzz of the air conditioner, the creaking of my great oaken desk. I hear it in the rustling of my body in the leather seat, the tap of my foot against the floor, the scratching of my pen against this very page. When I run I hear it in my steps. When I am

still I hear it in my breath. When I plug my ears I hear my heart knocking at a door, and I know what I will see when it creaks open.

by Maddy Hu

The first time language othered me was in my kindergarten class. For a class project, all the students told our teacher our favorite meal, and she would write it down, creating this communal recipe book. Most kids chose mac & cheese, peanut butter & jelly, or pizza, but I picked — a dish my mother would make special for me. I told my teacher this, explaining how my mother would make it for me. She was confused. Instead of writing the Chinese characters or the pīnyīn, she wrote mein mein. My recipe stood out from the rest, and I realized that my favorite meal was not typical. Unable to hold the right words or language, my teacher did not see me. She did not know how to, and I did not understand why. Growing up, I internalized this otherness and strayed from learning Mandarin. While the other Chinese kids on the block went to Chinese school, my parents forced me to play hockey and soccer. When I became older, I asked my parents why they never sent me, while other parents had. They said that I did not want to, and they did not want to push me. They forced everything else onto me, so why not this? I thought that maybe my parents did not wish for the same life as they had, one where they continually struggled to know and understand. Maybe they did not want to make me more of an outsider than I already was. Maybe they knew more than I did when I was five.

Now 20, I am filled with regret. Not knowing my mother tongue has become my biggest tormentor. Unable to converse with my parents in their native language, watching my mother struggle to speak to me in English reminds me that I am making her the other, just as I had felt in my kindergarten class. I cannot even speak to my extended family at all. My grandmother was dying, and my father said: “Hi Maddy, I would like you to call grandma tonight, she is dying and maybe only have a couple of day left.” I froze. How could I? How could I talk to my blood, not using the language infused in us? How could I speak to a woman who has loved me with her entire heart yet barely knows who I am? What would I even say? I could not utter a word, for I refused to make her the other. I did not want her to struggle to understand me in her last few days. I did not wish to remind her that her only granddaughter was a bad Chinese girl. There were no words—only silence. I felt nothing but shame and embarrassment. It consumed me. I did not call. I could not even make such attempts to reach out. She died the next day.

Algivore by Allyson Mills

in

Autumn

Leaves by Shufan Sun

Sirena

by Zachary Orlowsky

Alone for the first time in hours, the prince allowed himself a moment of unfiltered disgust. He despised the shoreline that was strewn before him, the messy curl of its advancements against the kind, sustaining land. Through the gilded lens of the prince, delicate sea-foam dripped and oozed, a sick mucus, poisonous and dank. The waves were dark and cruel, battering proud cliffs in a shrieking war-cry of crashing surf. With the harsh moonlight-reflection, every splash was alarming, the jerking of sinister bodies hovering in the depths. He was reminded, upon each visit, of something unknowable, a plane of existence not bound by the same laws of nature that were within his own.

To him, the ocean was something alien. It was a maw that consumed ships, sailors, and reason alike, returning the favor with its own hellish spawn. The prince prayed for the day he’d never have to visit this place of terrible boundaries, this convergence of sea and earth and sky.

His derision, disgust, apprehension- they were all shrouded in a layer of duplicity and shame. For his kingdom, his seaside territory, the ocean was a gift, a lifeline. It was his peoples’ greatest source of subsistence, their fastest mode of travel.

The sea was a cornerstone of their lives, both constant and

forever churning in its odd, contrasting nature. Highlights of life were held in its revered presence: weddings, funerals, birthdays, festivals, parades.

No subject was exempt from the chains of tradition- not even the most royal. And so the Prince squared his shoulders and steeled himself for his coronation. To him, it was a gaudy affair, scheduled for the upcoming sunrise. There would be a passing of the flame- or rather, a dousing. The transfer of the crown would not be considered legitimate unless performed in the ocean itself.

The prince closed his eyes for a moment, indulging an image that rose unbidden. He saw himself by the old, crumbling temple, designed to be half-sunken. He could hear the din of his people, their preening and shrieking a solid force.

In this sudden, guilty fantasy, the prince saw himself being crowned, waist-deep in the brine. In this imaginary, theoretical space, he was able to stride confidently through the waves, the crown placed upon his head with gusto. The cheering was laced with pride and hope, and beside him- beside him! - beamed the future queen, her wood-smoke skin sprinkled with salt, glistening like diamonds.

But then he opened his eyes,

and the tar-black water made him shudder.

…

It took a long time for the prince to turn his back on the darkness. He was lulled by the constant nagging of diplomacy, the pull of his betrothed awaiting his return. In his haste to leave, he found himself almost scurrying, his feet carrying him away from the edge as he crossed the broad verandah.

As the prince returned to the thriving, throbbing party, muscles he didn’t realize were clenched and stiff began to unravel within him. The archway ahead beckoned, a portal leading to a new plane of existence, one filled with the warm, smothering comforts of aristocracy.

The prince reentered the palace on one of the many tiered balconies, garish platforms that clung like primped barnacles.

The building oozed a sense of the theatrical. Composed of a single, squat tower, the use of such frivolity was needed, a gaudy disguise to prevent such harsh architecture from rearing its head. Strong, siege-proof walls were twisted and weakened, delicately shaped into whorls of seashell patterning. The airy, humbling interior was softened and made small, layered with cocktail rooms and lounges.

This was not the seat of the royal family. The pretty stub of stone had been an ancient fortress, an outpost against the sea, a plucky sentinel against its vicious, horrid threats. But its proximity to the coronation site was too tempting: as the world became more timid, more peaceful, the place was rebuilt, providing a seaside escape and a place to gather before transitions of the crown.

Shaking off the last vestiges of unease, the prince strode past eager servers and chittering nobles, picked his way through the crowd until he could grip the gilded railing, look down at the levels below. Although he clutched the banister with the cold, desperate grip of the dead, the prince beamed at anyone who looked his way. He leaned out into empty space to project, to the very limits of the palace, a look of joy, of giddy mirth.

His very birthright was a beacon. Heads turned, ripples in the party reacting to the future king’s appearance. To the prince’s followers, his advisors and political enemies alike, he looked at ease, confident, poised.

The more observant would notice his tousled clothes, his saltdamp hair, and titter to themselves. They fancied the thought of their almost-king, still a boy at heart, sneaking off to reminisce amidst the pleasant waves of his youth.

Surrounded by courtesans, the future queen stared up at her fiancé. She alone could see the tight, crinkled skin between his eyes, the way he clung to the balcony. She alone knew he was trying to stop his hands from shaking.

Underneath the layers of sophistication, the polite clashes and political jousts, the Coronation Eve had always been a sordid affair. As the future queen gathered her skirts and set off towards her lover, the party swirled and parted.

She passed gray, sagging diplomats, bold with drink. They drawled on about their positions for the kingdom, their own special insights. As their female counterparts looked on in disapproval, these men gave in to their elderly, sputtering arousal. They would shuffle and grin, clumsily paw at the daughters of their political rivals. Each delicate glass they drained was whisked away by the scuttling waiters and waitresses, their hard shoes clacking against the marble floor in their haste to replenish both food and drink.

From an upper balcony came the strains of music, bland and appealing. The melody was a quick, peppy thing, and the dancers responded in kind. Across the halls, various dances were taken up with gusto: the Two-Twist, the Spraydance, the dull, shuffling Bluetown Step.

From experience, the future queen knew that the band would get bolder as the night wore on. They would begin to play rougher, more pungent sounds- traditional strains of music, heavy with the history of the seafaring commoners. For a single night, the aristocracy would shed taboo, throwing themselves into steps considered pagan and dirty. There was a time where the sight of the Summer-

spin, or the Calling of the Waves would leave a noble accused of blasphemy, disgraced without exception. But it was the late Queen that had changed things, just a little; a sparking, messy blast of a fisherwoman who had swept all their feet out from under them, and stolen their hearts as they fell.

It had taken her longer than expected to reach the prince. She’d been caught in eddies of well-wishers, had to force her way out with gentle smiles and beaming nods. Words of joy and awed excitement for her new life, waiting just ahead. She was just as strong an actor as the prince- possibly even betterand so she buried her concern under layers of frilly pomp.

These feelings would not rise to the surface, even as they met to clasp hands and embrace amidst their cheering, drunken subjects. They alone could feel the discomfort, like rancid electricity that sparked and hissed in the space between them. But still, they would not show it.

It was a blessing, then, that the prince and his queen were expected to turn in early before the coronation. After endless conversation and sips of tart champagne, the pair left with grace, whisked away by coach to the royal quarters.

They were not the only ones who held their spurting relief. Without the pressure, the presence of the royals, the revelers could let loose. The dignity and poise of the ambassadors and generals, the ministers and priests- they crumbled, regressing into the rucking,

boisterous commoners they held themselves above.

The prince sat crumpled at the foot of their bed, his queen standing, leaning against the wardrobe. Their estate stood huddled, tucked within a swell of rolling sand dunes. It was set further inland, separate from Meresch, the clustered harbor city. Both the palace and their estate were an escape from the crooked, narrow spaces of the city. The air hung thick there, drenched in fish and oils. The ships stood tall, looming over the sea-stained buildings.

They heard nothing of the party, the metropolitan bustle. The rippling landscape acted as a natural buffer, the sand siphoning away everything but the silence.

Caught in the stillness, their bedroom was drab, heavy place. An array of curtains dominated their quarters, hanging from the windows, the bed-frame, filling the corners of the room. With muted browns and a whole spectrum of black, the silk managed to darken the space, suffusing it with a dim moonlight that should have been bright and sharp.

The queen-to-be regarded the prince warily. She’d been through this before- the sadistic ritual he played on himself. In some convoluted effort to banish the stress that mounted each time they visited the shore, the prince would draw closer and closer to the water each day. His body, his mind- they would psychologically batter him, leaving the prince wracked in sweat, shaking, afraid. He’d return each time, failing to dip even a single toe in the surf, his emotions even more erratic than before.

She watched as he lifted his head to meet her gaze.

“I’m sorry.”

She glanced away, then back. “For what?” She was tired, eager to sleep. But instead she flashed him a smile, trying to put him at ease.

But instead of answering her, he rambled, thoughts running crooked. “I tried again, tonight. I really did. I can see myself there, when I close my eyes. At the coronation. But when I open them- when I look at the ocean-“ He halted, embarrassed even in front of her.

“We can do the coronation on land.” She said softly. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

The prince barked out a single, piercing laugh. “And break tradition? Show the people of this kingdom, the hard seafarers, the rangy fishermen and women, that what- their king is afraid of their home, their purpose… their God?” His outburst trailed off, dwindling down to sighs, to scraps of utterance. He reached for her hand, plaintive. “The ocean,” he murmured. “And everything within.”

She grimaced, struggling to align her synapses to his own. To see things from this panicked perspective, dripping with fear. And yet, she was likely his best chance for any sort of understanding.

Her name was Linnia, and she was a foreigner, a stranger to the coastline. Her home was warm, and dry, and flat. They had met by chance, years go, when they were both on the cusp of adulthood. They had still been gangly, shaking off the last throes of pubescence. She was the daughter of a wealthy man, the owner of a sprawling agricultural enterprise. It was the

wealth that had elevated the family, allowed them passage into the world of nobility.

They would continue to meet over the years, sharing moments together at peace conferences, dignitary events, royal weddings. The prince had been enthralled with scores of men and women over the years, but she had something that transcended his lust, stronger than passion.

Linnia wasn’t brash like his mother. Nor was sweet and insubstantial, like the woman he shared the royal court with. Like her warm-toned skin, she was as grounded as the earth itself; calm and unwavering, a soul that hardly stirred in the breeze of the aether. He found himself in love with her, dependent on her stability. The prince was kind, and thoughtful, but his mind was wracked with worry. It was prone to spiral off the tracks of rationality, to wallow in the scars of his psyche. So she, in turn, thrived off his passion, and served as a bulwark on which he could lean.

But for all her comfort, the ocean proved to be a constant psychic thorn, untampable. She mused upon this as she crooned to the prince. Linnia moved closer, to stroke and caress and calm him. The problem was, she proposed, was that she too, found the coastline strange and uneasy. She could never put a finger down on the effervesce that the roiling horizon had. The prince’s people viewed it in a lens of holiness, with sacred awe. She found that vaguely frightening.

But the hardest adjustment was when Linnia had to acknowledge

the physicality of the ocean. It was soon upon her permanent residence in the kingdom that her worldview was battered, forced to expand.

She would come to learn that there were creatures, unbound by land, that rivaled the constructs of the strangest dreams. Massive krakens, their thick lashing arms puckered and weird. The schools of fish that glinted just below the surface. Crews of fishers would return home, telling stories of how these hive-mind groupings would shape themselves into eerie, unsettling glyphs. There were thin, vicious creatures that skated atop the waves like molten ice. Huge bulbous bulks of flesh that would travel thousands of leagues in a single day.

But none could hold a candle to the unknowable Sirena. They were the stuff of rumors and story. Of seaside Scripture and hellish nightmares. Bound to the water, they were little more than a myth in Linnia’s homeland. Here, so close to their territory, they became tangible and real, but no less mystic. These stories spoke about sudden, brutal violence against stranded ships, of groups of Sirena moving, and swaying in some strange, inexplicable dance. Their thoughts, their motives- all unknowable.

It was her own suspicions that led Linnia to believe that the prince was traumatized in some way, that he had a fateful run-in with some ocean creature and had never been the same.

With the passing of his parents, she was the only one who knew about the prince and his phobia. With the coronation looming,

a monolith ready to topple and crush him, she steadied herself. She would try, as she had done before, to weed the diseased garden of his mind, to pry the truth from him and uproot their, sick, gnarled origins.

Linnia and the prince were draped across each other, limbs folded together in a fleshy nest.

She had let them lapse into silence. Their touches were soft and deliberate, meant to settle fraying nerves. She waited patiently for the prince to relax, plucking careful words, gathering them all the while. Eventually, Linnia reached up to his face, tiling it towards her.

“We’ll be sharing everything soon,” she murmured. “An entire kingdom.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He smiled. “You’re going to be a brilliant queen.”

“Well, now. How could I ever go wrong with that kind of support?” They grinned at each other, enjoying a moment together as only lovers could. But then she reeled it in, her eyes going hard.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” It was an awkward, blunt question.

His face clouded over, some of the tension returning. “I’ll figure it out. Close my eyes and suck it up for an hour or so. How hard could it be-“

“Isaac!” She said his name sharply, a cutting twist of words. Usually, Linnia would be gentle, her attempts at unfolding him goading and soft.

But time was short, and she was worried, truly worried that the prince would have a meltdown tomorrow in front of his entire kingdom.

His eyes widened as she berated him, a panicked torret, a last resort. “You won’t be able to do it. Do you understand, Isaac? There is something wrong here. A reason why even the thought of the ocean makes you sick. You need to tell me why, Isaac. After all these years…”

She knew she was being rude, insensitive. But her bland support had barely put a dent in his condition, and as they grew closer together, she had began to resent this one last secret he refused to share. Now, before one of most important moment of their lives, she chosen something more drastic.

The prince didn’t need to clarify- he knew what she was asking from him. Maybe it was her sudden fierceness, reminiscent of her mother. Or perhaps his desire to succeed tomorrow had overpowered the mental blocks, levees holding back the trauma. Isaac wasn’t sure, but he could feel the walls crumbling- and there was a strange relief there, a release that had been a long time coming. He gripped Linnia tightly, for strength, and began to peel back the layers of the past.

“My mother loved the sea. You know that, of course. Everyone does. She was born on a fishing boat, lived out most of her childhood in one.

But then, she told me, the royal family had visited Meresh. It was the Summer Festival, and they were making their way down the coastline with speeches and parades.” Isaac paused, dredging up

more of his mother’s story. His words were halting, unsure of the path ahead, but they evened out as the memories returned.

“It was the first time she’d ever seen the prince, my future father. I remember her telling me how she felt, gazing up at him. She said she couldn’t stand the boys in townthat they were loud, and boastful, and challenging. But my father had looked like a statue to her- so quiet, so peaceful. She was enthralled by his royal manner, his delicate features.” He laughed softly. “She was fascinated by my father, almost jealous of his slim, aristocratic figure. He hadn’t worked a day of labor in his life. So she wanted to meet him, to speak to him.”

At this point, Linnia nodded her head. The rulers’ fateful meeting had reached folktale status at this point, but she didn’t interrupt, trusting that he was leading her somewhere in this roundabout way.

“The royal family came into town to watch the festivities, the performance of the Summer Festival. At the time, the pagan traditions were suppressed, and the shows were only vague supplications to the seasons, careful not to specify any deity.” He paused for a moment. “You remember the Festival last season, right? The masks of the Ocean God, the reenactments of the folktales- my mother was the one to lighten things- they would have been considered heretical at the time. So what did my mother do?” Here, his voice drifted into an easy cadence. These were not his personal memories anymore. They were lines old and worn with use. They were part of history now, told in

taverns and at bedtime all across the kingdom.

“What did she do?” He repeated himself, theatrical. “Between the juggling and fire-breathing acts, she ran onto the stage. Her hair was threaded with wildflowers that grow in the ocean dunes, her dress the same pearly color. And the queen, once a bullish woman of the sea, was transformed as she performed the Dance of the Sirena for the prince. It was taboo, unthinkable. The crowd gasped as she performed, a ritual passed down through the families tied closest to the sea.” Isaac dropped to a whisper as he described the dance, a degree of hoarseness crawling up his throat. “She moved her arms like she was swimming through the air. She curved and dipped her legs like they were thick and fused, an emulation of the Sirena themselves. She became a creature of the sea, for a moment. And instead of being punished, the prince fell in love.” This was where the story traditionally ended, but Isaac continued to speak. Liana hardly breathed, fixed on him. She was worried the slightest thing would break the spell, this miraculous confession.

“That’s why we visited Maresh every year, when I was a child. They were sentimental about the place, her hometown. One year, when we visited, my mother decided it was time I learn to fish. My father was nervous, but he trusted her- she was always the stronger physical presence- taller, broader. He knew I was safe with her, in her element.

We took a schooner out, just me and her. It had started raining, I

remember, about halfway out. It was a light shower, but the waves were choppy, and we were soaking wet in minutes. I can remember laughing as the salt got in my eyes, there with my mother…” For a heartbreaking moment, it seemed like he would stop. But then the words came again, the tide rolling in. “We spent hours out there, and she taught me to cast the line, to reel it in with systematic cuts- to make it seem like the bait was still alive. That was when the Sirena appeared.”

Linnia gasped softly. She couldn’t help herself. Very few sailors had seen them in person, and those that did were rattled by the experience. The priests saw them as sacred- the scholars as primitive. But there was an unanimous decision by all to stay clear. They were unpredictable, and that made them dangerous.

“We saw her face first, I remember. My mother thought it was a girl who had been swept out to see, but I knew otherwise, from the beginning. Her skin was the pale-green of a cave-dweller, fleshy and slick. We looked at each other for a moment, and by then my mother knew what is was. She had told me not to move, I think. But I didn’t listen. She- I always think of her as one, a girl- got closer, and I remember the thick, dark hair. Her eyes, wide and strange, unblinking. They don’t have noses, did you know that? Just a wide, fleshy mouth. I saw it all as I leaned over the edge of the boat to look down at her, my mother shouting at me. I always found it strange, looking back. The stories always had them naked,

but I remember the girl wearing something… like a dress of sorts. It sort of puffed out around her- I remember her lifting the edge of it, like she wanted to show it off to me. I had the first fish I had ever caught dangling from my fingers. It was probably what attracted her in the first place- the fishing line, the struggling creature.” Isaac took a quick, shuddering breath. “I thought it would be a good thinga nice thing, If I gave her that fish. As if I was feeding a duck at the pond. I lowered it down to her, never afraid. My mother still stood behind me, I think, shell-shocked. I was a child, you know? I didn’t know any better. But when she saw me leaning over, I-I-think she thought I’d been pulled down, that the Sirena was taking me with her. In reality, the Sirena had simply chosen to accept the offered fish, clutching it. And then my mother appeared beside me, hollering. She had a harpoon gun in her hands, and I think I lost it a little at the sight. The weapon scared me- I thought I’d done something wrong, that she was trying to frighten me. It never occurred to me that it was the Sirena she had focused her wrath upon. If I hadn’t started screaming, I wonder, maybe nothing would have happened. But my reaction had scared the Sirena, and it started wailing too, right alongside me. I think it was too much then for my mother, the sight of those sharp-needle teeth, that high, screeching song. She pulled the trigger.

I remember it, replay it over and over. The bolt slicing through skin, the way her eyes had widened in surprise, almost like a human.

I had to look away, at my mother. But she, too, was painful to look at. My mother loomed over me, her hair a wild, wet snarl. Her teeth were bared in a vicious, happy grin. I think, in my child’s mind, that I really believed that the ocean had taken my mother in that moment, and replaced her with a killing, grinning monster. Neither of us saw what happened to the Sirena. It had gone.

I refused to go back to the sea after that, convinced that the demon in my mother would emerge again, howling and violent. Eventually, with the sensibility of age, I know she had just been trying to protect me, that I had succumbed to the nightmares all children have. But the thing was, Linnia; it wasn’t just my mother I’d been afraid of back then. I swear I kept seeing that same Sirena over the years, her dark head bobbing in the waves. Every summer visit had me terrified, every random glimpse of a splash tail in the horizon- I was convinced she was out there, looking for revenge.”

And there Isaac stopped, his story finally told, his fear laid bare. Linnia didn’t need his confirmation- she knew he’d lived out that moment thousands of times since then: in daydreams, analytical reflections, in horrid nightmares. It had grown, tumorous in his mind, until the ocean itself was drenched in the fear, a wild place that he cowered from.

She pulled him close, pulling a blanket over both their bodies. “Listen to me, Isaac.” She said softly. “I am Linnia of the Shardenlands. The ocean is not my home. I don’t worship it, or love it,

or fear it like you. It’s just another feature of this world.

Tomorrow, I will walk alongside you, and we will step into that water, together. We will become rulers.

And I will be there to show you that there are no demons, no vengeful fish-people ready to strike. You’re my rock, Isaac. But tomorrow, I’ll be your mountain.”

The dawning light was crowded. Townspeople jostled for space on the beach, a teeming crowd that stamped upon the sand. Many brought chairs and blankets, lounging and playing cards. Eager children sat on the shoulders of their parents, craning to see over the others for a glimpse of the royals upon their arrival. Merchants shouted at the fringes, their carts laden with food: sweet fruits and freshly baked bread. They weaved between the crowds when they could.

The coronation was a tradition, centuries-old. It was the ocean that had once bestowed divine right to the kings and queens, where people would celebrate under the hot sun as they embraced each new link in the dynasty’s chain.

Hereditary-memory, a sense of honor and duty. These things kept the royals coming back each time, to be legitimized, accepted. There was still a sense of importance here, after all these eras. Despite the festivities, there would be no rubbish left behind- the sand would be carefully evacuated, kept pristine.

A hush fell over the crowd as the prince and his lover arrived. They emerged from a severe-looking chariot. The wheels, spokes

and chassis were all painted to match the pearly, bulbous temple that languished in the sea beyond. Even the stamping horses had blindingly white coats.

Dressed in light, airy silks, the couple glided down the pathway set before them, a russet-blue carpet that was thrown across the sand. Although their people were quit, silence was impossible. Shrieking gulls dipped and swooped as their approached the water; the unending applause of the surf a numbing backdrop.

The sand that lined their path grew damp and dark. Issac eyed the layers of dry scum and stranded seaweed as they approached. His hand was wrapped tightly around Linnia’s, and she squeezed once, lightly, as they both used their free limb to wave at the crowds.

And then they were there. Issac looked down, ahead. He stopped, petrified, the frothing surf only inches from his bare feet. Linnia turned and waved, smiled as if their interruption was purposeful, a moment of suspense.

And it was, in a way. She leaned into the prince, tugged him forward.

“Let it go, Isaac.” She whispered. “Let’s make you a king.”

His heart was a furious engine, pounding and scraping within him. And yet Linnia was next to him. She had listened, had come here with him.

With a single, stuttering breath. He allowed her to tow him forward, and he stepped into the ocean for the first time in a decade.

Isaac shivered violently as the seawater washed across his feet. The water was freezing- he’d

forgotten about the sensation. In a funny twist, however, the temperature-shock overrode the panic for a few moments, enough time for Linnia to bring them further in, up to their ankles.

As he acclimated, Isaac felt the panic return twofold, raw stabs of anxiety that stole his breath, left him gasping. It was only the touch of Linnia that kept him going.

Damn the crowds, she thought, and brought her hand up, fully caressing his back. They shuffled together, made their way through capricious, jostling waves towards the temple. Isaac was hyperaware of each step. The sand was gritty, flowing between his toes, across his skin in little eddies. He could feel the incessant tug of the current, a summons for the deeper blue.

He realized something, as their slow journey became dull and mundane. He was upset, yes, and emotional, but was fine. Some subliminal part of him had expected the worst- that a riptide would pull them in somehow, a low-lying sand shark would strike. These fears had been disconnected from logic, reality. Isaac realized, as the temple grew closer, that there could be a time where he learned to love the water again. The thought was buoyant: it cheered him.

Linnia could feel the subtle shifts in Isaac’s body as his confidence grew, her support less dependent-on with each step. Still, it was up to her to guide them. The prince was absorbed with himself, battling against the phobia. Compensating, Linnia steered them both towards the temple. Priests had placed their crowns on alters the night before, in careful antic-

ipation. They would stand before the kingdom as they retrieved the relics and adorned them.

Suddenly, she blinked, confused. She could see the crowns at they glinted in the sun, halfway up the palace steps. But just below, where the water lapped at the structure, lounged a figure. There were only a dozen yards away, and Linnia blanched, unsure. They hadn’t been there, just moments ago. She was sure of it.

She raised a hand to call out to the priest, or townsperson, or whoever it was. But then it turned, and her voice caught, retreating back down her throat.

Her face was strangely beautiful. Despite the absence of a nose, her features were sharp and strong, almost patrician. Dark, lank hair curled and tumbled, salt in the follicles catching the light.

It was an alien face, with valleys and planes that left Linnia reeling.

Isaac had noticed, now, squinting. “Who’s that woman?” He asked, tentative.

Linnia gaped at him, shocked at his question. But then, with a jarring shock, she understood his confusion. She could see now, clearly splayed across the steps, a pair of human legs that protruded from the Sirena’s rattly, soaking dress.

Murmurs rose and curled from behind them: the onlookers had spotted the figure.

“Who is that?” Issac asked again, but now he was shaking. Now he saw her face.

She smiled at him from across the water, a sad, grotesque movement. It was obvious that her fleshy mouth wasn’t designed for the human gesture, and her nee-

dle-teeth clacked against each other.

“It’s her,” He breathed. “It’s you.”

The sight of those teeth, the entire damn Sirena so close to shore was unreal. There was a beat of silence, of universal breath held as Isaac, and Linnia, and the crowds all gazed at the jerking, twitching creature. Slowly, as if in supplication she held out her arms, grasping for the man who had once given her a gift. A low, keening moan could be heard, a jumble of almost-words that failed to make sense on a tongue not meant to speak them.

The screaming began, a sudden black of concussive sound that sent seagulls diving for cover. In a mad, lethal stampede, the townspeople ran, trampling the royal guards who tried to flight the flow, rushing toward their king.

“Stay away!” Isaac wailed, sinking to his knees in the water. His cries mixed with the Sirena in a pathetic harmony as Linnia looked on in horror.

The sound was agitating it, she could see. The Sirena began whipping its, head back and forth as it began to crawl away.

“My God,” she breathed, as a sickening, retching realization washed over her. “Look..” She gasped and shook, falling beside her lover. “Oh God, oh hell, look…”

There was no witchcraft afoot. No magic, no miracle that had turned that creature human. It was a terrible pantomime of the real thing as the Sirena dragged itself on. Bouncing along each step were the bloated, decaying legs it had

attached to itself. The remounts of some sad, drowned corpse, They were wet and useless, chunks of dead flesh the Sirena had joined with itself. Mercifully, they were too far away to smell the foul, noxious odor that was released in a frenzy of decomposition.

Isaac and Linnia clutched at each other, gazing at the pitiful, repulsive struggle. The Sirena was torn. One moment it would shimmy away from the chaos, flesh slapping. But then it would stop, and turn to look upon Isaac with these large, unsettling eyes.

Linnia noticed, dully, that the dress she wore was little more than a ragged bolt of canvas, torn from a sail. Underneath, she could see a harness, thick ropes of seaweed, that secured the human remains in place.

Suddenly, she came to a decision. Pushing off with her arms, the Sirena launched itself into the shallow water towards the pair. They watched, paralyzed in rigor, as she flopped and shimmied her way towards them, legs flapping akimbo.

Linnia suddenly jerked to life, and she backpedaled in her haste to get away. Isaac did not follow. He sat there, staring at the sight ahead. With his legs folded beneath him, he looked to be in prayer, bowing down to some great entity before him.

She stayed for as long as she could, until the stench of the dead reached her, and she retched, eyes watering. Even then, she tried to pull Isaac along with her, but he was motionless. He could feel a strange sort of solace wash over him. Like a criminal, tired of

running, beaten low, he welcomed the inevitable, the chance to let go, give in to those intrusive thoughts.

The wailing of the Sirena sharpened, became clearer as she drew closer.

“For you…” She crooned, the vowels high-pitched and drawn out. Isaac looked into those eyes, and saw nothing but the innocence of a child, eager to please. Eager for love. “For you,” she called out.

“For you.”

Digging Up from the Roots by Margo Butler

Stuck in this Box

by Lane Burke

“Let’s say you were stuck in this box, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And you can’t get out of it, no matter what you do. And it starts filling up with water. What do you do?”

“Is the box comfortable?”

“What? Why does that matter?”

“Well if I’m going to die, I’d hope I was comfortable. How big is the box?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t really think of that. I mean I didn’t really imagine it being very comfortable. Kind of like a wooden crate.”

“Do I get to stretch my legs out, or am I all balled up?”

“You’re fucking ridiculous. I don’t really think that makes much of a difference.”

“It does to me. You need better flushed-out hypotheticals.”

“Fine. I guess when I imagine it it’s kind of like a square. Or a cube, really.”

“Since it’s three-dimensional.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay so I’m all balled up. Do I know that I can’t get out?”

“Um, I mean, in a realistic sense, why would you know that it was literally impossible to get out?”

“Well, in a realistic sense, why would I be stuck in a wooden crate filling up with water?”

“I don’t know, maybe you get yourself in some kind of sticky situation down the line. Honestly, I’m really helping you out here,

giving you the opportunity to plan for this.”

“Well if I can’t get out, what is there to plan?”

“Well I don’t know yet, since you can’t get past the fucking dimensions of the box.”

“These are important details!”

“Only to you. How much of a difference would it make for you to know?”

“Well if I knew it was literally impossible to get out? I wouldn’t try to get out.”

“You wouldn’t try to break out of the box?”

“No. I have yet to do anything impossible in my life; I don’t think this box is going to be the exception.”

“What if I was outside the box?”

“Do I know you’re there?”

“Yes.”

“I guess I would say my goodbyes then.”

“What if I was asking you to break out of the box?”

“I’d probably ask you to shut up. If it’s impossible to get out I’d rather not waste the rest of my life hearing you tell me to do something I can’t do.”

“What the fuck?”

“I’d rather have a good moment saying goodbye to the last person on earth who gets to hear me than have someone say something like that while I’m about to die and I know it. I feel like that’s kind of logical.”

“Whatever. All I’m gonna say is that if the situation was switched around and you were asking me to get out of the box, I’d be fighting that fucking crate until there was more blood than water in it.”

“So you’d kill yourself by drowning in your own blood of desperate stupidity? That’s the more satisfying option for you?”

“Oh, my God.”

“What, you want me to lie? I’d rather accept my fate and try to die in peace.”

“You don’t get it.”

“Clearly. You asked me a question about a box and now you’re mad at me. Because of a truthful answer to your question.”

“I would kill myself trying to get out of the box if you asked me to. But you wouldn’t do the same for me.”

“Well if I knew it was impossible–”

“That doesn’t fucking matter. It’s the principle. I. Would. Die. Sooner. For you. But you would just wait to die.”

“Is this some sort of way to get me to tell you I love you or something?”

“Shut the fuck up. Don’t say that. You don’t get to say that.”

“You’re getting way too angry about this. It’s a stupid hypothetical that has no bearing on real life.”

“Sure.”

“Where are you going?”

“Gonna go jump in a fucking crate.”

cat picnic by Ardian Yudawan

Awardee Bios

Isabella Covert

Isabella is currently a senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison graduating in May with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and a certificate in Art History. She will be continuing her studies at the Savannah College of Art & Design in the fall in the Masters in Fine Arts program in painting. Her works focus on issues involving women’s rights and the sensation of physical touch and the internal sensibility of feeling inside oneself. Her works have been included in group exhibitions in Madison, WI, Chicago, IL, Laguna Beach, CA, and New York.

Leon Barrett

I have been drawing for most of my life and painting for a large chunk of my adult life. Like most artists, I started young, maybe around 5 years old when I began to really draw. I was self taught for the most part through elementary, middle, and high school with no real formal training. I really began getting serious with my drawing skills in my adult life when I began taking classes at the community college where I lived. This is where I was introduced to painting as well, and once I tasted painting, I was hooked. Now I paint as often as I can with acrylic and oil paints while I drive to get my degree in Fine Art in hopes of becoming an illustrator. Most of my work can be viewed on my portfolio at www.leonbarrettillustration.com.

Sarah Kirsch

Sarah Kirsch is a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison majoring in Journalism with certificates in Digital Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies. Their works recently revolve around the exploration and acceptance of identity. Sarah currently focuses on writing poetry and hopes to branch into fiction and personal narratives in the future. Their portfolio can be found at sarahkirschportfolio.wordpress.com.

Maddy Hu

Maddy is an angry little Asian girl. They currently study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, pursuing a B.A. in English and History with a certificate in GWS. They enjoy writing creative nonfiction and personal narratives inspired and informed by their identity, family, and body—with hints of weirdness and absurdity.

Lane Burke

Lane Burke is a junior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pursuing a BA in psychology with certificates in criminal justice and LGBTQ+ studies. They write pieces that investigate and play with the nuances in the way people interact with one another and enjoy working with the sonic elements of words to create images. When they’re not writing, they love to make music and sing with their band, East of Vilas, and are the vice president of the Wisconsin Competitive Cheerleading Club.

Originally from Mesa, Arizona, Hailey Johnson is currently a freshman Art and Music Performance major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Hailey’s work specializes in psychedelic imagery through acrylic paintings that feature vibrant characters and abstract cityscapes. Their work focuses mainly on themes of apathy and indifference to the world around them through their use of representational characters living in distorted painted environments. Currently, Hailey is interested in the concept of how both artistic appropriation and unique artistic expression can be interrelated in creating new works that connect to their individual experience.

Ria Dhingra

Ria Dhingra is a junior at the University of Wisconsin Madison studying English and Philosophy with the hopes of being a teacher. She writes often and her work usually ends up being about the Midwest. Her writing has been recognized by the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum and published in anthologies by both Isele Magazine and Great Weather for Media Publications. In her spare time, Ria likes to read, bake, bike, and go on walks to people watch.

Jessica Sharp

Jessica Sharp is a current art major who is still wandering through many themes and styles of art-making. Typically, her work leans towards realism, but in her short time as an undergraduate student, she has been experimenting with other styles such as surrealism and abstraction. While she has currently been focusing on the mediums of drawing and painting, one of her favorite materials to work with is ceramics. Functional art holds a special place in her heart because it allows her to connect with others. The themes of her work range from nature to family, and she is excited to work on further developing her art with topics that are closest to her.

Elisa Miller moved around a lot as a child and therefore spends quite a bit of time considering where to say she’s from. But she spent most of her adolescence in Chicago, and it sounds cool, so she usually just goes with that. Although she will likely feign indecisiveness when strangers ask, she is an English and Communications major. Per the former, some of her favorite authors are Sally Rooney, Toni Morrison, and John Steinbeck (yes, really). As for the latter, some of her favorite movies are La La Land, Lady Bird, and The Godfather (no, not really). She noticed that her peers’ work across all her workshops was overwhelmingly a bummer, so she decided to write things to make people laugh. Or at least smirk. Or just exhale through their nose in amusement. She likes to use a lot of commas in her writing, if you couldn’t already tell.

Hailey Johnson

Elisa Miller

Awardee Bios continued

Meghan Price

I am a junior studying Communication Arts (Radio-TV-Film), Political Science, and Public Policy. In my poetry, I often explore themes of finding autonomy and self-acceptance through misfortune or various forms of love - whether it be friendship, familial, or romantic. I find inspiration from my wonderful friends (whom I adore and owe everything) to experiences that appear morose on the surface but become lessons in my own resiliency and capacity for love. Through writing, I’ve learned there is so much in the world to be grateful for if you stand still long enough to notice.

Zachary Orlowsky

Zach is currently studying at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, pursuing a B.A. in Communication Arts and a Certificate in business. While they love creative writing, their passion also lies within the realm of screenplays and film production.

Allyson Mills

Allyson is a senior at UW-Madison studying English and Voice Performance with certificates in Environmental Studies and Leadership. She will be continuing on to graduate school here for Environment and Resources. Allyson loves writing creative nonfiction, poetry, and making illustrations about biodiversity and the complexity of nature with a tad of surrealist fun. In her free time, Allyson enjoys hiking, scuba diving, Irish dancing, making ceramics, and checking out new Madison events and hangout spots with friends. She thanks her Ecopoetry class for sparking her interest in environmental writing.

Etsy store: AGMillustration

Instagram: agm.illustration

Special Thanks

Our guest judge, Gabrielle Javier-Cerulli

The PubCom Director, Shashwot Tripathy

The PubCom Advisor, Robin Schmoldt