The Talon Spring 2019 by Woodberry Forest School

The Talon

woodberry forest school

the talon woodberry forest school Spring 2019

volume 70, no. 2

Cruising Through the Milky Way | Walker Simmons | colored pencil and acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

Letter from the editor Dear Readers, In 2016 on my sixteenth birthday, I went in for an English consultation with Mr. Reimers, my fourth form English teacher, hoping to get some advice on an upcoming short story assignment. Recently, when looking through my old notes from our conference, I came across this quote: “There are thousands of stories in everything. You just have to find one and write it.” For seventy years, The Talon editors have carefully curated art, writing, and photography to tell stories. But what is a story? The Talon includes snippets, glimmers, and insights into our lives. When we review submissions, we find not only beauty but also new perspectives. Our contributors explore growth and decay, bad times and glad times, hope and dismay. In “Box of Chocolates,” we follow Xiangnong Yu around the world through brief snapshots. Parker Watt takes us back in time in “Drachen,” coupling the cheerful delusions of a young child with the wickedness of the adult world. Hale Roberts’ “Desert Prayer” reveals the life that clings on in the desolation of desert. Artists Walker Antonio and Jimmy Kweon explore the functions of the very things that make our lives what they are: our minds. There are two more stories to note, ones of joy and of sadness. Mr. Lonergan, our art teacher, and Mr. Reimers, one of our English teachers, are retiring this year. Without their instruction and care in the last decades, the stories in our magazine would not have been so beautifully crafted, so delicately borne. In their interviews, we capture brief glimpses of legendary sagas. In this edition, we use images of Mr. Lonergan’s iconic character, Good Tune, and continue our use of his faculty meeting sketches that reflect and interpret the history of Woodberry Forest School. Read our stories and then create your own. Don’t forget to live. Onwards and upwards, Ashby Shores

Good Tune/Know Thyself series | Kelly Lonergan | acrylic and marker

Metrical 73 | Bo Morrison Billy Huger 86 | Steps Milo Jacobs 89 | Awoken Ashby Shores

Good Tune/Know Thyself series | Kelly Lonergan | acrylic and marker

Good Tune/Know Thyself series | Kelly Lonergan | acrylic and marker; linocut print

Good Tune/Know Thyself series | Kelly Lonergan | acrylic and marker

prayer on a morning run

free verse by Riley Fletcher I find myself in an ice-draped pasture circled by cattle guards and battered fences. I cast worries like breaths to the sky in hopeful reverence for the coming day. Wisps of spirit float to heaven as my lungs contract in the bitter dawn. A whistle from the hills pierces the cold and warms my heart with the familiar sound. The morning star beckons from beyond the edge of the earth, its evening resting place, and emanates a sweet salutation for the patient ones. Heavenly artwork expands above me, but my eyes fall to the earth. Revelations of nature surround me, but I look solely to my own toils. Help me see more than myself in this world; open my eyes to external beauty. I pray that the sun will still shine brightly and set tonight with glowing redemption.

Ruins of the Old South | Carson Becker Spring Island, South Carolina | digital photography >

My Brotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Keeper | Walker Antonio | acrylic on canvas | 10 x 8 in. 10

Honey-CHILE fiction by Rhew Deigl

valley breeze carried the kicked-up dust plume from the road behind the car, staining their rear window with the same muted-orange tint that blanketed the exterior of every vehicle in the small town. The long and tired fields of Shenandoah County, Jordan thought, should have been punctuated with magnificent, snowy peaks like the Sierras he was so familiar with, but instead the Virginia grazing land lapped at stocky foothills painted with ferns and meager oaks. He watched out the window for something—anything—interesting to look at and sighed a lonesome sigh. With every acre of grass and rusted barbed wire and beat pine pickets, Jordan’s eyes got heavier. At least the slow march down Hunt Road put him at much more ease than the ever-barricaded I-5. The lull of the tires on gravel grew louder and louder into a roar that drowned out the fuzzy voice of the man on Bluegrass Friday Radio Hour. Turning his head, Jordan found the source of the crescendo to be a double-wide Ram truck booking at seventy miles an hour behind them. Like a shot-

gun, the truck launched debris from the road; it kept up speed as it drew within forty yards of Jordan and his mother, who squealed and almost threw the car into the ditch trying to make space. The truck steamed by, showering the Subaru in a cacophony of plunks and clinks. Jordan’s mother mumbled something about locals as they watched the truck hurdle out of sight. Jordan looked ahead to the fork in the road. His mother kept right, sticking to Hunt Road as it developed from gravel to severely crippled asphalt. It was only another few seconds until she turned between two short, stone pillars. An iron plaque read Hunt House. “We’re home,” said his mother. Home, as his mother defined it, sat to the right, an elegant white house with a front porch and a balcony. It was bigger than the dingy two-bedroom in Sacramento. The light, reflecting off a

shallow creek, danced across the painted brick. Neat boxwoods shaded the driveway, which disappeared behind a small barn. Jordan took in the scenery with wide eyes: the meadow across the creek; the grey footbridge; the second, slightly smaller white house forty yards behind the main one. The car stopped in the back lot behind the second house. The curtains of a window parted, and soon the back porch door swung open. Three unfamiliar women emerged. Jordan’s mother ran towards them with a squeal, and the four began to hug and exclaim how glad they were to see each other. Jordan watched from the lot until his mother beckoned for him. These were his great aunts. “I haven’t seen you since you were this high.” One aunt, called Beth, gestured to Jordan’s protruding knees. “Everyone’s waiting in the other house.” They began to walk. His aunts cackled 11

Khali’s Monarch | Aiush Basnet | acrylic on cardboard | 18 x 24 in. like crows welcoming a new bird to the roost. “See there, Catherine, your Aunt Rebecca’s been working all over the yard! But dear, you haven’t seen the kitchen yet, have you?” “Mom sent me the pictures, but not in person.” “When was the last time y’all came?” “Eight years for me and ten for Jordan, I think. Yeah, he had just turned three,” said his mother. “I imagine you don’t remember much,” said one of them, smiling at Jordan. He racked his brain for flashbacks or 12

images or anything but came up empty handed. “No, ma’am.” “Oh, Catherine, you raised this boy right. Well, honey, there’s only one person you have to ma’am around here, and it sure isn’t me.” “Who is it?” “Nana. Your great-grandmother. She’s probably over there.” The party reached a screen door that led into a green and white kitchen. “Oh, it’s fabulous. I love the countertops,” his mother gushed. Jordan’s hands dug deeper into his pockets as he spied the eight people seated around the kitchen table.

A woman stood up. “Oh, Catherine, honey! So glad you made it. How was the drive?” “Long.” The table erupted in laughter. A man in the corner spoke up. “I made that drive some years ago. Hell, it was practically on horseback!” More laughter. “Took me a week and a half.” “Everybody, you’ve met Jordan before,” his mother said. “Way back when. He was hardly this high off the ground.” “How old are you now, son? Twenty-five? Thirty?” “Thirteen.” Jordan focused on the fringes dangling from the tablecloth. “Well, Jordan, I should introduce you to everyone. This is your Aunt Carol, cousin Erin; that’s cousin Mary, her husband Todd, and… is Owen here?” “He’s playing in the other room. He can’t wait to meet you, Jordan.” “This is your Aunt Rebecca, Uncle John, Kirsten, and Kate.” “Hi,” said Jordan. Aunt Rebecca walked over to them and gestured to a slim hallway. “Catty, you wanna go out back? There’s about a million people looking to say hello.” Jordan hung on his mother’s hip as they worked their way through the house

to a large screen porch where they found twelve more people and went through a similar process as before, his mother calling out names and the name returning a hey baby. His mother began to regale the crowd with the story of their voyage, so Jordan took the opportunity to peel back into the house. It was elaborately decorated with high, sloping ceilings, chandeliers, and dark chairs. Beyond the dining room was a cozy sitting room where a toddler played with a little toy farm on the ochre carpet. Jordan rounded the corner into a short hallway with a staircase on one side and an open door on the other. Jordan peered inside the massive room, which was full of neatly arranged couches and armchairs, before stepping inside and taking a seat. His shoulders relaxed. There was no sound but the reverberating chatter coming from the other side of the house and a low whirr that he couldn’t place. And then, a muffled snore. Jordan jumped in his seat and looked to the corner of the room. There was a sleeping woman—very old, white haired—with a tube running along her face. A vacuum-cleaner-looking device, connected to the tube, was the source of the drone. Jordan began to back out of the room quietly, but his heel cracked into the corner of the glass-paned door. The woman’s eyes shot open. Jordan froze. “Who are you?” Her voice ground like a soda can under a hacksaw. Jordan stammered, “Jordan Laughlin.” “Laughlin?”

“Pardon me?” “Whose are you, boy?” “Oh. I’m Catherine’s son.” “Catherine’s here?” “Yes, ma’am. We just got here.” “Well, git along to her. I’m sleeping.” “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.” He turned, red-faced, and bolted out of the room and back into the sitting room where the toddler was. Now there was a girl, too, who looked a little older than Jordan. “Who are you?” “Uh…Jordan Laughlin.” He remembered the old woman’s bother at this response. His mother must be his main identifier. “Catherine’s son.” “Oh, right. You’re the kid on the Christmas card. My name’s Angie. I’m Erin’s daughter.” “Nice to meet you, Angie.” “And this is Owen.” The toddler broke himself away from a plastic horse to look Jordan in the face. “Are you a big kid?” Owen asked. “I guess so,” Jordan replied. “So what’s your deal?” Angie asked him. Maybe an off-putting question, but it got them talking. First their family lines, then their homes, then where Jordan was living, and somewhere between the stories about their middle schools and the choked tale of the surprise departure of Jordan’s father, Owen left. They talked about everyone Jordan had met in the kitchen and on the porch, every branch of the Hunt and Ray families, and finally

Jordan began to back out of the room quietly, but his heel cracked into the corner of the glass-paned door. The woman’s eyes shot open. Jordan figured to ask about the lady in the other room. “With the white hair?” Jordan nodded. “That’s Nana. Her real name is Dotty. She’s our great-grandmother.” “Woah.” “She’s on an oxygen tank now.” She was on oxygen, he learned, because she had smoked cigarettes before people knew they were bad for you and because she didn’t stop once people knew they were. The only things more cutting than her sandpaper voice were the things she said; the 91-year-old matriarch didn’t have time to be nice. That evening, Jordan’s mother warned him that he wasn’t to bother Nana unless one of his great-aunts or his grandmother told him to. “Does Nana like you?” he asked her. “That’s a good question,” his mother said. “I hope so. She loves us all. She’s just… she’s from a different age.” That was as much as anyone could say about Nana, and that was all Jordan needed. He stayed away from her. When he and his mother returned to their house across the yard, he was dismayed to learn that Nana lived in the twin bedroom downstairs. Fortunately, she went to bed at eight o’clock and would not get 13

corners of his mouth. Everyone who didn’t live at Hunt House was gone by the next afternoon. Jordan wasn’t awake to see Angie off, but he high-fived Owen through the back seat window of Mary’s and Todd’s car as it rolled down the long drive. Finally, it was quiet in the houses, but with silence came boredom, so Jordan’s mother suggested he go have an adventure. “There’s lots to do here,” she told him. “You just have to walk around. Go to the Back Forty; see what you can find. You’ve got to learn to get outside, hon.” A flair of southern bellehood returned to her voice as she spoke. Jordan sighed. “Fine.” He put on the only pair of tennis shoes he had brought with him and hopped off the back porch steps. The Back Forty began as a grassy trail that ran along the creek. It carried him through seven-foot-high summer reeds and under pine trees. It wasn’t long before he spotted something to explore: a noticeably trodden-down section of the long grass that led into the forest. So like a hound, he picked up the trail, marching past ticks and garden snakes straight into the trees. The forest floor was littered with a thick mat of pine needles marked with equidistant gouges, presumably made by whatever he was following. The upturned litter led him straight through the woods, and after five minutes he could see a clearing. He broke past the treeline and into the beautiful open.

So like a hound, he picked up the trail, marching past ticks and garden snakes straight into the trees. up until noon the next morning. The next day, Jordan’s mother dragged him out of bed early for breakfast with the whole family. Thirty-one people scattered throughout the house, face-planting into warm plates of local eggs and sausages. Jordan and Angie talked and ate and watched Owen smear his eggs into the cracks of the hardwood floor. Some people watched birds, some people helped whip up a vat of Bloody Marys. Jordan wandered the house, mostly keeping his head down but politely speaking with any of the nameless relatives who stopped him. The rest of the day was spent this way except for the moments when he exchanged updates while he worked diligently in the kitchen helping Aunt Rebecca and another woman—either Kirsten or Kate—prepare the massive send-off chicken dinner, which they ate that night with potato salad and green beans, all gathered together around the pool. Nana stayed alone inside the bar, watching through the screen door, and shrieked at anyone who dropped food on her patio. She got on Jordan for leaving his plate unattended where the dogs could reach it, but even that moment of brutality couldn’t spoil the night. He returned to the house that night grinning a grin that smeared the mayonnaise at the 14

“Boy! What on earth are you doing out here?” The call, like a raven’s, bounced through the woods. Jordan swung his head around. There, sitting on a wooden palate raised six feet above the ground, was Nana, wearing her morning gown. “Git over here,” she called. Jordan prepared himself for what was coming and crossed the clearing. “You gotta lotta damn gall comin’ out here.” “I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t know.” “You shoulda. Git up here.” She gestured to the ladder. Jordan sat down cross-legged next to her. “Why are you out here, Nana?” “Me? Why, I’m out here every sunny afternoon. I’ve not too many days left, and when I die I want do it out here. Why are you here, Jordan?” “I was just wandering in the woods, and—” “No. Why have you moved into my house?” She looked him dead in the eyes. Jordan felt his throat begin to tighten. “We lost our house in Sacramento.” “Why?” “Dad left.” “Where’d he go?” “He…I don’t know,” Jordan said. His eyes were getting hot. “He didn’t tell us anything. He just disappeared.” His voice barely escaped. “And whose fault is that?” “I…” “Your mother’s? For marrying a drunk?” “No! No…” “Yours? Were you a bad son?” Jordan looked at her through puffy

eyes. “No.” Nana lifted one thin arm, beckoning him closer. She wrapped him in a warm embrace, stroking his hair and whispering, “It’s okay, baby.” They sat there in the clearing for a while until Jordan’s crying was quiet enough that they could listen to the birds singing. Nana rose and picked up the pink foam mat she had been sitting on. She passed it to Jordan. “Roll this up for me, would ya?” Jordan smiled and stood up. He inspected the ground below him and jumped off, landing with his ears between his knees. Nana worked her way down the ladder and got Jordan to help her with the oxygen tank. She turned to him. “Let’s go home, honey-chile.” Before long, they were back on the trail in the tall grass. The creek babbled on their right. Looking towards the treetops, Jordan spotted the roof of his house not far off. He could see the barn at the end of the path, his mother’s Subaru parked in the lot, the boxwoods by the

garden, the bird feeders. They reached the back porch, and his mother greeted them in the kitchen. Nana glared at her. “Catty. Pour me some apple brandy.” “Nana,” Jordan’s mother said, “you aren’t allowed to drink.” “Burn in hell. Jordan, pour me some apple brandy.” Jordan and his mother glanced at each other for a moment, and Jordan broke out in a deep laugh. His mother smiled and eventually she laughed, too. She grabbed the brandy off the top of the refrigerator and poured a shallow drink. Nana grabbed it and threw it back. “Wake me up at dinnertime. Tell Becca to set me a place.” She stalked off to the twin bedroom, dragging her oxygen behind her. Jordan’ mother looked at him with wide eyes. “What on earth just happened?” “I don’t know. I found her in the woods.” “Oh, she must have been out at the yoga platform. You know the last time

Adam Chaskes

Tapiwa Chikwanda Butterflies | acrylic on cardboard | 18 x 24 in.

she came to family dinner when I’ve been here?” Jordan shook his head. “I was nineteen. That was the last time I saw her before she got cancer.” “Woah.” Jordan walked out of the kitchen. The adjacent living room was full of family portraits and wedding pictures. He spotted his own baptism, the family reunion eleven years ago, his cousin’s marriage. He picked out the newly familiar faces in the seats of the chapel: Aunt Rebecca and Uncle John sat next to a grimacing Nana. His mother and father each held one of Jordan’ s hands as Erin and her soon-to-be husband walked down the aisle. Jordan spotted a piece of paper that looked extremely old, stained with orange time. Picking it up, he read the faded inscription: “Dotty comes home.” He flipped it over. It was a sepia photograph of two short, stone pillars; an elegant white house with a front porch and a balcony; a babbling creek; and a teenage girl who sat on a horse, smoking a cigarette. 2

Carter Nicoletti 15

box of chocolates nonfiction by Xiangnong Yu

Dusseldorf My friend and I waited for the metro. It took us a while to realize ours was about to leave. A group of teenage girls followed us, shouting and pushing us as we ran. My friend and I barely made it on, but the girls vanished. My friend looked at me and immediately checked her bag.

Tokyo

It was unzipped.

One fine evening, between high-rises and neon billboards, I wandered around the most popular area in Tokyo. Pedestrians marched on the streets, minding their own business. I stopped at a traffic light and saw a man wearing a baggy, hole-ridden coat. He was surrounded by about fifty pigeons. He held a tiny loaf of breadâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; probably his dinner. Not far away from him, a Shinkansen train sped by, startling all the pigeons. His figure faded in the mass of flapping birds. It would have been the best photo ever. But the light turned green.

^ Train Delay | Taft Gantt | Hamburg, Germany | digital photography 16

Busy Night | Willis He | Shanghai, China | digital photography

hunan My friends and I went on a road trip through rural China, climbing mountains and wading in springs along the way. Even the smallest towns had some intriguing sites. In one town, we heard barking in an alley as we drove past a market, but the cages and the dogs were so dusty and dirty. The dogs were not pets.

Paris

I stood and waited for my friend on the curb of Avenue des Champs-Ă&#x2030;lysĂŠes. A woman, dressed in a black trench coat, jeans, and a grey scarf, sat on the curb with five suitcases of different sizes. She had been crying for a long time. Next to her lay a ring on the ground.

Shrewsbury I napped on the lawn by the River Severn, enjoying the cozy Sunday afternoon sun. But not for long. I woke up to shouts and the echo of feet on pavement; the rain had already soaked me. I found a bistro, tracked down a waiter, and asked for some papers. He stared at me. “I beg your pardon?” he asked. “Pa-pers.” I pronounced each syllable as clearly as possible. He shrugged and walked away. A few days later I heard my British friend ask for the same thing. Napkins.

MILAN

On the Piazza del Duomo, I fought against the crowd, navigating a path. A young man appeared, carrying with him a string of trinkets. “Care for a handmade necklace?” He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “They are all made by me, brother. Get one. It is only five euros!” Unable to resist his enthusiasm, I handed him a twenty euro bill. He took the money and melted back into the chaos.

UA 808, BEIJING TO DULLES I sat next to a college student. She had The Odyssey in her hands. As the flight attendants served dinner, she asked me what countries I had been to. I gave her my passport and showed her all the pages: England, Germany, Italy, France, Japan. “How about you?” I asked with a little pride. “Armenia, Cambodia, Libya, Honduras, and Yemen.” A doctor without borders.

Bigger | Walker Simmons | collage | 9.5 x 8 in. 19

Shadows | Spencer Doerr | Santa Fe, New Mexico | digital photography

Desert Prayer free verse by Hale Roberts

In a vast cactus overworld, sly Satans sneak and peek, trying to taste sarsaparilla and sand. Triggers nestled in southwestern silos pray to be pushed. Psychedelic sunshine pours on petite pueblos, and the Pueblo people are at peace. Intricate ideologies reside in every nook of nature: The armadillo argues against the manifesto of the mesa, and every xerocole competes.

Against the Heartache fiction by Ashby Shores

nto the entrance ramp rolled George McShears and his old SUV, battered by the scourges of family road trips and fender benders and moderate neglect but not quite broken. His car growled to match the speed of the highway. The nearly full moon cast a warm glow over the cool spring night though that warmth was lost in the flickering of the muddled streetlights over the deserted turnpike. George glanced into his rearview mirror as he merged into the nothingness. For a split second, he saw himself—not the man whose face was scarred by the permanent entrenchments of scowls and sorrows and stresses, not the man whose hair was thin, short, and held a healthy amount of silver, not the man dressed in a dark suit with a drab tie loosened slightly to give him room to breathe. He saw the boy, long chestnut hair tucked under an old snapback ballcap, skinny-faced with uneven, bristly hairs encircling his toothy grin—and then the vision was gone, and George saw himself, his present self. 22

Miles and minutes passed. He noticed the highway’s subtle mutations. Six lanes flanked by sleeping office buildings turned into four lanes surrounded by nondescript suburban neighborhoods where the doormats all said welcome, even though nobody really was. Soon enough, he was out of the city entirely, out of that great Gomorrah to which, as a callow boy, he’d sworn he’d never move. He knew he was somewhat of a stock character—the man who moves to New York for a fun job out of college, starts climbing the Penrose stairs of corporate hierarchy, gets married, has kids, and much later remembers his plan to escape but is now too firmly entrenched to ever leave. But most people play stock characters, he thought, and most of life is putting up with tired tropes. Past him flew green highway signs, foul mockeries of the forests butchered

to build the road. Food. Lodging. Gas. Gas—the red gauge now neared empty. George flicked the right turn signal on although he’d been driving for an hour and still had seen nobody save a few long-haul tractor trailers. He then swerved right, gliding up the ramp and onto a two-lane country highway. Trees surrounded him, held him and the old SUV hostage for a moment. A few short weeks ago, the trees were but skeletons, but now, in the early nights of spring, they’d begun to cover their nakedness, donning buds and small leaves. A mile’s ride through the shroud of darkness brought him into a small town at 2:14 A.M. On the edge of town gleamed the red and white neon lights of an old LUKOIL, which had for an O a large red drop of petroleum that looked suspiciously like a drop of blood. He left the gas pumping and headed in for a Coke. It would be useless trying to sleep tonight, he knew. It would be one of those long nights trapped in thought— twisting, tossing, turning, wrestling with himself, time, God, and whatever else his mind stumbled across. Blurred reveries of days past would haunt him,

Loneliness | Willis He | Shanghai, China | digital photography >

would sear into his eyes as the outline of the sun momentarily scarred his vision. As he swung open the door, the chimes began to jingle, a faint ringing sound, a familiar tune. Then he was sixteen again, standing at the register of the Esso on Eighth and Main, asking questions about the battlefields of France to distract Mr. Fields who kept the register. He felt his chest pounding as he ordered his knees to cease their nervous shaking, praying the old codger wouldn’t notice his friend Lee Daniels who was stuffing packs of cigarettes— they kept them in front of the counter then— into his boot. They walked out the front door, sure that they had gotten away with a heist nearly worthy of D. B. Cooper, not yet knowing that Fields kept a detailed tally of the cigarettes they stole and let them get away with it only because he, too, had been a petty thief (it’d been a judge who’d sent him to France with the army), and one day he planned to bill the boys for each and every pack of cigarettes they ever stole, a master plan only fooled by a sudden heart attack. The boys felt sorry when they heard the news, not for the man but for themselves, for their lost game of cat and mouse. “’Scuse me, sir?” The lady at the register looked up from her magazine at

the door chimes’ jingle to see George standing motionless, almost lifeless, in the doorway. “Yeah, sorry…just a little tired,” George replied, slipping back into the real world, his real skin, the body that was his now and only for that fleeting instant called now. The drunk man and the tired man share certain characteristics. Both feel a lightheadedness, both drive poorly, both want nothing more and nothing less than sleep, and both fixate on inconsequentialities. The silvery bubbles in his just-opened Coke danced upwards. The cashier’s golden name tag that said “Mary” reflected the LED lights. Behind her motherly figure, a camel stood, seductively trapped behind a glimmering wrap of cellophane. “A pack of Camel Blues, please,” George said, motioning towards the cigarettes. “Sure,” the lady replied in a tone that means don’t you know smoking kills and think of the children and almost everything besides sure. And George knew all those things. Everybody did. How could he forget the stale stench of cigarette smoke that usually came with drinking or the even staler stench that permeated his throat and skin the morning after? How could he

How could he forget the stale stench of cigarette smoke that usually came with drinking or the even staler stench that permeated his throat and skin the morning after?

forget the constant coughing, the slurry on the back of his throat after a long night out? It’d been eighteen years since his metamorphosis had been completed—eighteen years since he’d slain his youthful good ole boy persona to put on the staid, possibly even stoic mask of a father. Quitting smoking after the birth of his oldest son Jack had been but the final step in his transfiguration. The faint jingle of the doorbell returned as he left, cigarettes and courtesy matches in hand. Across the parking lot a skull-shaped rock grimly glowed in the streetlight. A few dozen paces brought him to the somewhat uncomfortable perch, his legs dangling off the rock like his youngest daughter Mary’s at the dinner table. He wondered what his kids hid from him, especially Jack. All the dumb shit, all the drinking and driving, the drugs—he hoped his kids weren’t wrapped up in the same stuff he’d been. He wondered if his parents knew what he’d done. Probably not, he decided, but maybe. Then gently, as if handling some holy relic, he peeled off the cellophane, stuffed it in his pocket, flipped a Camel, and brought a cigarette to his mouth, where it dangled until he struck one of the flimsy matches. Hack. Cough. Pant. “You gotta get right back on that horse that bucks you off,” Lee had once told George, and for that adolescent wisdom, George brought it back to his lips and pulled. And puffed. And pulled until it felt as if it were not just some chemical-soaked tobacco he was inhal-

Jean Lake | Austin de la Torre | Wind River Wilderness, Wyoming | digital photography ing but a spirit—some ancient enlightenment pouring through his mouth into the very fibers of his soul. Wisps of smoke fluttered through the dark air, gently falling upwards towards the heavens. The stars seemed a little brighter here—a little more familiar than the faint shells of stars visible from his “cozy” Manhattan apartment. Head spinning, he looked up and saw the same smoke-encircled stars he’d known long ago. It was a cold Saturday night in the winter, one of many. George, with his

chestnut-hair and boyish swagger, crept down to the basement with Lee, both softly treading on the sides of the steps to avoid creaking. They slipped on boots caked with streaks of red clay and poked their arms through tattered field coats. Then, with the care that only one who is committing some transgression can have, George gently twisted the knob and crept out into the cold and starry oblivion, holding the door for Lee. They turned and slunk down the hill, leaving a darkened trail behind them as they dragged their boot heels over the frost-

bitten grass until they reached the small pond in the park at the bottom of the hill where, as boys, they had learned to fish. Then, after laying jackets out on the grass, they reclined, half sitting, half lying down. Lee, with a sardonically regal swoop, presented a half-crumpled pack of Camel Blues and a lighter and proceeded to light two cigarettes. If it is indeed possible to be social smokers, this is what they would be. Resting, eyes turned towards the stars (and away from earthly carks), the boys allowed a soft whisper to arise, a quiet, 25

humble murmur, protecting them both from being heard by those in the houses up the hill and from the savage strain of mockery that plagues the conversations of teenage boys. What was the whisper this time?

George, sitting on the skull-shaped rock three hundred miles and three thousand days away, strained to hear. Was it his faded teenage love? Lee’s dad’s cancer? It was some alien language, some outmoded form of communication he

no longer fathomed though he knew it well. He wanted to hear it. He tried to hear it, but he couldn’t. And when the boys were finished, they slipped their coats back on, tossed their butts in the pond, and followed the same path back

Magnificence | Taylor Tucker | Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania | digital photography

up, carefully scraping the grass off their boots and hanging their coats before creaking their way back up the stairs and lying down in George’s room, falling back into the realm of boyish banter. And George, sitting on the rock outside the LUKOIL in some New Jersey town, stood up, tossed his butt aside, and got back in the car as long-forborne tears began to parade down his weathered cheeks. He put the pack in his center console and drove. At 3 A.M., he got a worried call from his wife. He didn’t know what to say, though he tried. How can you explain an unannounced midnight odyssey? At 6 A.M., he passed through Baltimore, over whose tired ports and smokestacks the sun was just barely beginning to peak. Two more hours in the car brought him home. He arrived at St. David’s Episcopal Church as the sun shone in its morning glory. Gone were the orange hues of dawn, but the steady beams of light radiated around the old brick church and the weary tombstone markers. He parked out front and walked into the chapel, empty on this Tuesday. In the back-right pew, he sat down. The pulpit stood nobly enshrined by the rays of light streaming through the stained-glass windows. From that same stiff, wooden pew, George had listened to Father Daniels (Lee’s own father) preach from that very pulpit. George heard his booming voice: “The Kingdom of Heaven is not just some ethereal abstraction filled with trumpets and

It was some alien language, some outmoded form of communication he no longer fathomed though he knew it well. He wanted to hear it. He tried to hear it, but he couldn’t.

angels. No. The Kingdom of Heaven resides on earth too. Heaven is within each of us, down in your very soul. It is when the rains leave, and a soft dew takes over the land, when the light shines through the woods on a warm summer evening. It is the earthly kinship we share with friends and family. Happy memories. The Kingdom of Heaven resides not just in the sky but in the heart.” George walked out into the magnolia-strewn graveyard past the dilapidated headstones of the founders of his town, the men who had tamed a wild land. He strolled through the tombstones of the Confederate veterans, the World War I veterans, World War II, Vietnam. Rob, Ben, Billy—each of them rotting in the ground he walked on because he’d won the draft lottery (by losing). He thought of the summer after his first year at Charlottesville, coming home to see Lee, who was back after his first deployment. He’d asked Lee how it was over there, and Lee’d said things were good with his goofy laugh, his fake laugh. They’d gone out for beers that night, and George saw the special cigarettes, the opium-soaked ones Lee’d brought home as a souvenir. George saw the light, the fleeting warmth in Lee’s eyes when Lee smoked them. George was spooked; he didn’t see much of Lee after that.

George heard things through the grapevine: Lee’s DUI, his stint in jail, his brief sobriety, his first marriage, his first divorce, his stint in rehab, his second marriage, the birth of his son, his second divorce, the gradual spiral downward. Most of Lee’s life had been filtered to George through the phone by others, onlookers and speculators with no investment in Lee. George never called, though. Jack’s soccer matches and Boy Scouts, a PTA meeting, a big pitch; an excuse always surfaced. Then he came to another tomb, Lee Daniels. George had been in Paris on the first day of a week-long conference when he got the funeral notice. He couldn’t leave, so he had done what he always did—he wrote an apology/excuse letter, had a drink, and tried to sit down and work. Now he stood, hunched over a mound that hadn’t existed two weeks ago. The red clay where the hole had been dug was still fresh though grass was already beginning to creep around its fringes. The flowers courting the tombstone had not yet rotted, but they had begun to pale. Misty-eyed, George gently plucked a single petal, put it to his heart, and turned back towards his car. 2

Brilliance | Ben Monroe | Denver, Colorado | digital photography

Unworldly

free verse by Luke McNabb Her snaking red hair coils like Hermes’ staff. She is unworldly, but not in the shallow sense— not like the poets who only preach of a maiden’s beauty and chastity. She is not Aphrodite but a weathered woman. In the diner, she sets, serves, and clears, slaving away as men come and go. Regulars compliment; newcomers grope. All of them believe that they are heroes. But when she dodges them, they attack her aged looks. Antiquated hag. To them, her braids are no longer beautiful but snakes coiled atop Medusa’s head. Inspired by Andrew Wyeth’s painting Braids

SUMMER STORM fiction by Riley Fletcher

lack smoke rises from the hood of the Equinox lying in ruin at the foot of the hill. The washed-out evening sky reveals stars like shells appearing in the sand after a tidal wave. Soft crackling makes up the only sound in the night. I stand by and feel the warmth as my boots fill with mud from the runoff. Kayla sobs gently. What cruel irony makes the world more beautiful after a storm? Nature can take everything and smile down at you afterwards. Thousands of years of giving and taking. I look up at the stars and see myself in the reflection of the night. Kayla looks up, too. What does she see? There is so much I want to tell her, so many memories I want to share, but the look in her eyes, drained of all vitality, tells me that I have to keep those thoughts within. We should never have ended up here.

efore the storm, we stood on a porch overlooking the darkening forest as music blasted from inside the house; the chaos had become too much for the moment. 30

“I think we should go,” she said. Her hair had come loose from her bun, and her eyes smoldered. She gripped my keys tightly with one hand and the other lay buried deeply within her pocket. The party was far from over, and until Kayla came to find me, I was expecting to return. Black clouds overwhelmed the sunset. “The forecast says ‘severe storms.’ We have to go.” “What, do you think I’ve never driven through a storm before?” I laughed. Kayla handed me my keys and turned to walk back through the house. Soon I was out the front door behind her. As the orange of the sunset faded to navy, we sped through the woods. Kayla slumped back into the seat and put her feet on the dashboard, humming softly to herself and staring at the rush of trees beside the car. The wind whipped through the rolled-down windows as she let her hand fall softly against the

side of the car, flowing with the wind. The wave of black from the sky approached us, and Kayla rolled her window up as the first few drops of rain hit the windshield. Repetitive taps on the dirty windows broke the silence. “You should really slow down now, Jacob,” Kayla urged. She pushed one hand against the dashboard to brace herself. In third grade, I found you sitting on the swing set by yourself, drawing. I approached you from the field, and you smiled at me for a moment, and suddenly the sounds of the other children left. All I could hear was the back-and-forth of the swing and the scuttling crawl of the ballpoint pen on your little notebook.“What are you doing?” I asked. “Drawing,” you said, and your eyes returned to the notebook. You were working so intently that your hand seemed to shake.

Golden Eagle | Pierce Richardson | acrylic | 18 x 24 in. You let me sit next to you but wouldn’t let me see what you were working on—it took two years before you did. I sighed heavily and placed my hand on Kayla’s. She pushed it away immediately. The rain began to fall harder. “How was the party?” I asked. Her head lay comfortably against the window. “It was fine.” She shuffled in

her seat and averted her eyes. The wipers flew across the windshield and cleared the water for a split second and then went back again, never slowing down. The conversation couldn’t keep up with their rhythmic pulsing. Do you remember that one conversation at lunch in seventh grade? About being “the new kid?” I’d always thought

that when you’re new to a school, it’s hard because everybody already has friends and you have to make space for yourself to fit in. You said that when you’re new, everybody wants to be your friend. People don’t know anything bad about you, so it’s easy. Is that how friends are made? People come together because they only see the good in someone, and the bad comes later? 31

I knew that this was the furthest we could go. The soft tug of the silence could not bring her back this time. I turned the volume up on the car radio to outplay the dreary patter of rain and wipers. Kayla stretched out her arms over the dashboard. For the first time since the party, she smiled and bobbed her head to Luke Bryan emanating from the speakers. I pulled my eyes off the windshield, and we both began to laugh. Her smile could spread to anyone who was lucky enough to witness it. A hillside came into view. The sound of banjos dulled out the rest of the night. A light from outside the car got brighter. I jerked my hands to the right, and the light in front of us faded. The next few moments were a blur of falling. The world spun. I sat alone in the darkness. There was no music and no light and no Kayla and no sound except the whisper of steam rising from the engine in front of me. I turned and put my hand out. Kayla was trembling like a dog left out in the cold. She stared at the deflating airbag and shattered windshield. I remember sitting by myself in the corner of the gym at our freshman year homecoming dance. You were not there, but I could see you on your bed quietly reading Hemingway, the rest of the world beyond the closed blinds of your window. I sat

alone because I wanted to dance with you, only you. You didn’t need me, the lonely boy looking for friends on the playground before he found the girl with her notebook sitting on the swings. By some miracle of God, neither one of us was hurt. The storm vanished from the night, and all that was left was the cold humidity that follows evening rainfall. Kayla got out of the car first and sat on a rock beside the creek. I knew that this was the furthest we could go. The soft tug of the silence could not bring her back this time.

ayla turns to me for the first time and stares at my waterlogged feet. “My mom says she’ll be here soon.” A lost apology, hopeless of ever being uttered, sinks back within me, and I watch Kayla drift away. The clouds and their chaos have cleared from the sky. An array of stars now fills their space. Blue and red lights suddenly bathe the night and sirens screech from the heart of the forest. I lose myself in the lights. A police officer gets out of his car at the top of the hill and hurries down into the valley. “At least you’re both all right,” he will say. We know better. 2

< Fence | Walker Simmons | Wilmington, North Carolina | digital photography 33

Specter

free verse by Parker Watt The Christmas lights no longer dance; they flick odd and misshapen shadows around the room. Me Too, she says. I’m sorry, I say. A sylph descends on the room, protecting her as she retreats to the corner. Please don’t look at me differently, she pleads. Whoever he is, I see him lurking as her lower eyelashes clump together. I’m a man just as he is. She trusted us both, and he betrayed her. But I won’t. These hands will not silence another. I will not haunt as he does. I am the other ghost in her memory— the one she told it all to.

Energy | Walker Simmons | Charlotte, North Carolina | digital photography >

Rock

nonfiction by Rob Jolly

I don’t know much about rocks. I can name a few minerals and draw the rock cycle, but that’s about it. Honestly, I don’t think I’d want this knowledge in the first place. My interest lies in the mystery of each rock. Has a dinosaur had a meal on my rock? Perhaps a Native American stepped on it, bow in hand, fresh on the trail of a deer. I see him halt at the creek, waiting for the deer to die. Or maybe it’s 1966. A man wearing a tie-dye t-shirt, his hair hanging well past his shoulders, wanders through the forest. He soon picks up what he is looking for. There is no telling what it represents to him. To anyone else, it is just another smooth stone by the riverbank. I sit, inspecting the rock. For millions of years, it has been changing, eroding, and restoring, each time with different parts. I don’t know how these particles came together, but I can tell you it’s a miracle for this rock to be in my hand. I smash the rock. Geometric pieces fall to the river bank. This rock, formed through thousands of happenings over millions of years, is destroyed in an instant. Creation is a much finer and more precise act than destruction. Despite my remorse, I learn to live with myself. The particles of this rock are now free to go on their next, unpredictable journey. They could travel across oceans and traverse mountains. Or they could end up just another smooth stone on a riverbank. Either way, their journey is far from over.

^Figurative Vessel | Turtle | James Lee | clay | 6 x 15 x 18 in.

Figurative Vessel | Squirrel | Archives | clay | 10 x 5 x 6 in.

Miserable By SIXTEEN free verse by Rhew Deigl Bounce between rest-stop overhangs; that’s The Gospel of the Late-Night Walks and Walkers, the ones, at least, who will tell you about it. They’re transcendentalists. They’re Thoreaus, Emersons, frauds who squeeze rain from the clouds like champagne. Like celebration. They wile and whine, and by the time they’ve got attention, they’re stumbling down the freeway with fake limps. I’ll do it! No from the ostrich; think from the pig; I love you: that’s from the fish. The chimings of a thoughtful menagerie and another page in the gospel is penned.

Henrys and Ralphs pick up free breakfast at the Super 8. Well, that’s great, and everyone is sorry, glad you’re feeling better, all that. But the Late-Night Swimmers keep swimming until they inevitably drown because they weren’t worried enough about breathing oxygen. Walden and Waldo are here, home, found. The Late-Night Drowners are not. They drowned. But grim, they wouldn’t call it, nor lonely, nor sad. Just tired.

And now with yoga, sadness stands. The western bastard Henry hands off his baton to liars, to predators, and prays that no one minds. The real Late-Night Walkers notice, but there’s nothing they can do. They keep walking until the rain silently swallows them up and they’re swimming if they know how. Then they aren’t Late-Night Walkers anymore.

Insecurity | Jimmy Kweon | charcoal | 17 x 11 in. > 38

22989 | Jimmy Kweon | charcoal | 8.5 x 11 in

Cold Steel Cross fiction by Elias Jarvinen

t was a sabbath frozen still. The snow spilled down from the mountains all the way to the shore, but it stopped hesitantly where the lake softly lapped and rippled in response.

Paavo felt as though the tall mountains were looking down at him, and he looked back through their reflection in the bright sheen of the water. The sky appeared clear in the lake, clearer than the real thing itself, but behind him, clouds rolled slowly over the mountain range. They were a sickly grey, almost colored a rotten-brown tinge, as if decaying. Paavo’s bike had broken, so he made the long to walk to mass, the pebbles on the beach crunching and clicking as his boots fell. A soft but ominous snow came gently down, the rottenness of the clouds remaining in each snowflake. He dared not stick his tongue out to catch one as he had heard the children did before the war, before the sky had turned rotten. He left the beach and headed up a rocky hill. The town appeared. The snow seemed to fall more harshly on the little houses

that dotted the road. Even in the town’s center, no building stood taller than two stories other than the Jääkatedraali, whose steeple bells sounded out an hour before mass. The sullen townspeople, wrapped in tattered furs, slowly made their way to the service. The passersby all averted their eyes in the presence of the stage, but the boy stared at it with a wolfish glare. A particularly sharp cold hung in the air as he stood there. The rest of the town entered the cathedral silently. The interior was visible only in the light of the gas lanterns. Paavo feared the snow outside would ignite. Inside, no one dared look at the pew where the three of them had always sat. Paavo took his own place in the right transept, running his thumb over the silver plate that read his name. It was cold like ice.

After his opening prayer, Father Halla read a decree from the pope. The church was looking for more volunteers to serve in the Iuris. Most parents had made their sons enlist when they came of age at sixteen. Paavo was almost glad in that moment that his parents were dead, for they surely would have made him enlist, too. Without them, Paavo had the excuse to stay home and take care of his grandfather. But he knew better than to express those views. Rome, one of the only European cities that was relatively unharmed by the fallout, had everyone in its grip after the war. After mass had finished, Paavo stopped at the Alleyway Pub. The door’s wood was a deep, grainy brown, and fixed in the center was a tiny stainedglass window. The pope had declared a ban on alcohol, but there was no keeping it away from this town. It wasn’t like 41

Caton Hall | Aiden Burke | Albemarle, Virginia | digital photography

the church followed that rule either; the church didn’t follow most of its rules anyway. At the bar, a man wearing a massive bearskin coat almost as large as he was smiled at Paavo and gestured for him to follow into the back room. In a semicircle around the fireplace, sat a group of elders. The man in the middle was dressed in a strange manner in a linen shirt with a grandpa collar and pants to match. He opened his mouth to awaken a gravely rumble. “I hear that you are one of the smartest boys in our town.” Paavo stared at him but said nothing. “I also hear that you keep to yourself, that you have no friends. Why is that?” “Ever since they burned down the library, I have spent my time alone in the woods.” The man nodded. “I, too, was like you.” The elders in the room looked back and forth between the two. The man in the bearskin jacket smiled. The elder continued, “Your grandfather and I were friends at your age, but we went our separate ways when the papal government assumed power.” Paavo nodded solemnly. “And I know he must have shared with you his love for history and the philosophies. Join us. Ensure our group’s future.” The rest of the meeting was mostly small talk. Paavo left after sunset, and the snow was falling in globs. He pulled his coat over him so as not to become sick. It took him three hours to get

The congregation gasped as if death were a new concept to them. Some stayed to ask questions and gossip among themselves while others headed back home. home, and he collapsed into his bed. The next morning Paavo was rudely awakened. The Iuris officers showed up at his door announcing that all townspeople were to congregate in the cathedral by noon. They had cleared the snow from the road, thankfully. Paavo was able to get a ride on the back of his neighbor’s rusty truck. Its engine sputtered along. The vehicle would die any day now. It was no longer snowing, but the ominous clouds hung low in the sky as if trying to smother out the town. At the front of the cathedral, a short stub of a man stood at the lectern. “Father Halla has been poisoned. No one is to leave the town.” The congregation gasped as if death were a new concept to them. Some stayed to ask questions and gossip among themselves while others headed back home. It was only just after lunchtime, but the sky was an inky grey as if buried under seven layers of clouds. Paavo ducked into the alley and headed into the pub. In the back room, a stack of tomes was piled on the desk, all that was left in the town of any lit-

erature that even remotely defied the church. After Paavo had read for several hours, a strong wind slammed opened the window and extinguished the candles. He decided he had had enough for that night. As he left the pub, the bartender woke up in his chair. He was always on guard to make sure no one discovered the group’s work. Paavo trekked home through the cold; the long walks were becoming routine. Although it was late at night, the lights in the living room were on. There were two men on the couch, and his grandfather was carrying in a tray. He set down two cups of coffee and some biscuits. Both men inspected Paavo. His grandfather was the first to break the silence. “These two men are speaking to the townspeople in light of Halla’s murder. They want to ask you a few—” “Are you an atheist?” the man on the left interrupted. He had piercing blue eyes, almost sky blue. Paavo stared blankly. The man on the right spoke this time. “A childhood friend of yours told us, but don’t worry, you’re not the only one.” He was even more distinct with one brown eye and the other green. “Do you know of any others?” Paavo thought long and hard before answering. If he revealed his new acquaintances, they would be in danger, but if he didn’t, these men would likely be suspicious of him. “A couple of my friends were, but they were sent off to the academy,” he finally replied. The two men looked at each other, 43

The crowd cheered at this proclamation, and Paavo’s grandfather turned away. The darkness grew more intense, alive almost. and the blue-eyed one nodded. They thanked Paavo’s grandfather for the coffee and left. Paavo watched them from the window as they walked to the house next door. It seemed that the Iuris officers had no boundaries. The weeks began to drift by as the snow piled up. Paavo continued going to mass weekly and then reading in the pub. They eventually replaced Father Halla with a man from the south who had been educated in Rome and had a heavy accent, probably Swedish. Although at that point in the year the back-room window was blanketed by snow, Paavo always felt that he was being watched. One night as he sat reading alone, he grew angry and threw the book on the floor. It was a pointless endeavor keeping the group alive, trying to make people see their own blindness. Paavo left a final letter to the elders on the desk. It was late, and so he didn’t realize that there was no longer snow blanketing the windowpane. He went to mass the next morning but spent the rest of the week at home. Each morning he woke up early to go to the woods and returned home to sleep before dusk. The next week at mass the new priest,

Father Hämäryys, had an announcement. “We have reason to believe we have found Father Halla’s murderer,” he said in a grave tone. And at that moment, the cathedral doors opened. The Iuris officers who had met with Paavo marched down the center aisle, their boots clacking rhythmically. No one moved, and the two turned sharply toward the right transept. They each grabbed an elbow and pulled Paavo out of his pew, and he offered little protest. He assumed that wherever he was going, he would be able to defend himself, to prove that he hadn’t done anything wrong. They dragged him backwards down the aisle, and as he emerged into the dark light of the town square, Paavo saw him, a man wearing a black hood standing at the stage. The cathedral emptied in a flood of people. The officers quickly bound his hands and feet and made him stand on a stool. One of the officers held up a piece of paper, Paavo’s letter, as the hooded man tied a rope to the wooden frame that arched over the gallows. The crowd’s

murmuring crescendoed. Paavo saw the elders standing in the back. And his grandfather. A gentle snow began to fall, the first white snow that had fallen in months. The blue-eyed officer asked Paavo if he had any last words. “I didn’t touch Halla. It was the radiation poisoning. It killed my parents, too. The only thing I ever did was—.” And before he could finish the hooded man pulled the noose tightly around Paavo’s neck. “We all know that through our faith, God will not let the sickness of the war harm us,” said the Iuris officer with the multicolored eyes. “There is no such thing as this poison, only heresy, an excuse for the violent actions of this sick boy.” The crowd cheered at this proclamation, and Paavo’s grandfather turned away. The darkness grew more intense, alive almost. Atop the silhouette of the cathedral, a dark figure stood between him and the clouds. The icy shadow of a cold, steel cross. Without warning, Paavo fell. Maybe he was going to heaven after all, not because he was going to any place in particular, but because he knew that he had already been to hell. 2

Atop the silhouette of the cathedral, a dark figure stood between him and the clouds. The icy shadow of a cold, steel cross.

A Witch Trial | Walker Antonio | colored pencil and sharpie | 24 x 18 in.

The Outlaw of the Skyline District | Liam King | acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

Cig Monkey | Pierce Richardson | acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

POEM TO MY FUTURE GOTH GIRLFRIEND free verse by Stephen Brice

It doesn’t matter how we start; my heart’s never been torn apart, but I fear that’s what my future may entail. Demons and terrors consume your mind, and I was hoping you could make room for me, too. Anxiety can’t be so bad when shared by two, so with indifferent ears, please hear my plea, from me to you: Sure, existence is pointless, so why not make the most of it? The brain has given us this emotional game our souls could spend the rest of our lives playing— but you’d rather sleep. Hopefully depression is contagious, so we can feel alone together.

< Mind Map | Jimmy Kweon | pencil | 24 x 18 in. 49

A giant for the talon interview of Kelly Lonergan by Rhew Deigl & Luke Stone

he path that led Kelly Lonergan to Woodberry in 1995 was, as he said, “one of the best things that ever happened to ME.” Before Lonergan’s departure at the end of the school year, Rhew Deigl and Luke Stone, editors of The Talon, had the opportunity to sit down with him for an interview. Rhew Deigl: Why did you start working at Woodberry? Kelly Lonergan: I had to get back to the basic economics of it. I was not somebody of profound ambition, motivation, or initiative. I wanted to make art, but I was more or less on the fringes, working odd jobs. I didn’t have great prospects. So when this opportunity came, and we had Ava, my daughter, and just had Peter, my son, the cash flow, the income, and the support for the family were huge issues at that point in time.

RD: How would you describe the art situation at Woodberry when you came here in 1995? KL: I initially had quite a bit of trouble with students not taking my intro classes seriously enough. They didn’t seem to be open or perceptive. There were just a handful of students with a serious interest in art and art history, and so the advanced classes were very small—maybe three, four, or five guys. I felt like there was a lot more emphasis on sports and the so-called core courses in the curriculum back then.

^ Faculty Meeting Sketches | Kelly Lonergan | ballpoint pen on legal pad | 24 x 18 in. ^

If I could do it again, would I necessarily choose to work with teenage boys? Probably not. They’re the most irrational creatures on the planet. But on the other hand, it’s been extremely enlightening and rewarding. One of the major things that happened to change that, however, was the 1999 renovation and expansion of this [the Walker Fine Arts] building, which added three studios and two gallery spaces. So that opened things up tremendously. It was a vote of confidence from the school and the Board of Trustees that caused an increase in the curriculum and involvement of students in the arts, and with that, attitudes toward the fine arts began to change favorably. RD: Since that renovation, are there any students in particular that you have taught a lot to or that have taught you a lot? KL: Yeah, well I’ve learned a lot from all of my students, especially the better ones with whom I worked quite a bit. Oftentimes, the nature of that relationship becomes more collaborative. There have been a number of really, really good students going way back. I’m going to start naming names, but I don’t want to leave out any of these guys. In the early days, Brian Booth was a standout student as was Yun Kim. They were almost groundbreaking in a way because they went from Woodberry to art school, which was very rare back then. Obviously, I’m still in touch with those guys and others because my relationships with them have been hugely meaningful. They were just teenage guys who didn’t know what they wanted to do, so maybe running into me when they did had an influence on them, but I learned a lot from them as well.

RD: In the last issue of the magazine [and in this issue], we featured a handful of sketches from your many sketchbooks. Can you talk about the inspiration for some of those pieces? KL: I’ve been doing sketches during faculty meetings since 2003, and now they number up in the hundreds. Looking at them as a whole, you can see how they’re grouped into certain categories. A few themes are coming to mind. The meeting today, the first one after the marking period ends, is devoted to discussing students who are struggling or in academic difficulty. In other words, they’re on the D/NC list. From that, I sort of created the idea of the D and NC AllStars. I guess it’s a bit ironic to honor or celebrate these guys, but for the most part, they are guys who have overcome obstacles, so I’ve done a whole series of profiles of the D and NC All-Stars. A lot of good ones have come from Mrs. Firman’s presentations on first aid because she would tell us about these very strange, arcane maladies and syndromes—some wild stuff I’d never heard of. Another thing that enters into these sketches is the ever-changing jargon of education. No sooner are we embracing one trend like

^ Faculty Meeting Sketches | Kelly Lonergan | ballpoint pen on legal pad | 24 x 18 in. >

We’ve got to engineer success for this kid than the next trick trend blows in and says Kids really benefit from being allowed to fail. Then it was like, “Oh my God, now we’ve got to engineer some failure for this kid; we can’t engineer success!” So I enjoy any time I can attack the jargon of edu-speak. I really enjoy that. RD: What has kept you at Woodberry all these years? KL: I was asked that question earlier this year, and I think the right answer would be something like, “I felt a calling to help young people and share my passion with them,” but

that never really entered my mind. I never felt a calling. If I could do it again, would I necessarily choose to work with teenage boys? Probably not. They’re the most irrational creatures on the planet. But on the other hand, it’s been extremely enlightening and rewarding. My whole time here has been a deep and profound learning experience. So, before you know it, the years have really flown by. At first, you don’t have that perspective on how you’re impacting people. But after I was here for six or seven years, I got a postcard out of the blue from a student I had had four or five years before in an intro class. He was just a total knucklehead who drove me crazy. It seemed like he had no interest whatsoever in what we were trying to do. Anyway, he was over in Europe and went to a museum, was moved to send me a postcard, and said something like, “I was thinking about my art class with you, and I just want you to know that I saw this piece, and it was so exciting.” And I went, “Damn, this guy in my intro class was a total knucklehead, and look!” So once you’re in for this certain number of years, you start getting this positive feedback loop, and you start to think, “Some of these guys really do listen, and maybe I am making a favorable impression on them.” It seems like day to day, when you’re trying to teach, you get so caught up with the frustrations and feel like you’re coming up short, like you’re not connecting with the guys, and that it’s not going as well as you want it to. And you want to teach better, and you have these days where it’s just, “I can’t do this!” Yet you get these [postcards] and things and go, “God, something’s really happening.” Maybe you’re positively influencing people. You don’t know it at the time, but for me, having been here for so long, I’ve gained that perspective. 2

Growing into a Leadership Role | Kelly Lonergan | ballpoint pen on legal pad | 24 x 18 in.

Engineering Success | Kelly Lonergan | ballpoint pen on legal pad | 8.5x11 in. 53

the talon

woodberry forest school

The Talon, Fall 2016 Woodberry Forest School Woodberry Forest, VA 22989 www.woodberry.org/talon

Fall 2017

Vol. 69, No. 1

Spring 2015

Vol. 66, No. 2

The Talon

Fall 2014

Vol. 66, No. 1

the talon

The Talon

onwards and upwards interview of John Reimers by Rhew Deigl Rhew Deigl: Mr. Reimers, I’m rolling the tape. John Reimers: [redacted] Unfortunately for you, dear readers, Mr. Reimers declined my request to record our conversation, so I was the only one to experience this interview in its full, obscure glory. For your sakes, though, I’ll try to relate to you what I can. John C. Reimers started working at Woodberry in 1972, and in the 47 years since, he has secured himself in the minds of students, alumni, and teachers as an outstanding educator. His eccentric style of teaching includes line-by-line revisions, uniquely intense dissections of notable short stories, and witty banter. Reimers does not run, most would agree, a typical English class. Topics shift seemingly at random from grammar studies to poetry writing to pop quizzes regarding numerous random, useful facts that he writes on any of his four blackboards throughout the year. One question I was eager to have answered was one regarding Reimers’ view on his own methods. “How would you describe your teaching style?” I asked. The goal, Reimers says, is to have his students writing “clearly, cogently, and stylishly.” To clarify, I explained to him that many feel his methods of achieving this goal are unusual, a point with which he disagreed. “I want it to work for as many boys as it can,” he elaborated. I asked if it seems to work for most. 56

“I certainly hope so.” “Do you write?” I inquired. “Of course.” “Have you ever taught a piece of your own writing?” He humbly explained that there were others who could get his message across more effectively, so, no, his work never entered his course. Along this line of conversation, Reimers revealed that he has numerous books and binders full of writing in his house, none of which has ever seen the light of day in the publication sense. To my dismay, he politely declined to let me read any of it. Even worse, he told me that he recently sifted through his entire archive and disposed of a good portion of it. “Don’t worry,” he assured me. “I didn’t burn it.” Anyone who has sat down with Mr. Reimers long enough for him to open his mouth can tell that he is extremely wellread. In only forty minutes with me, he referenced or quoted William Empson, Mark Twain, Sir Richard Burton (not the Elizabeth Taylor Richard Burton, he clarified), and Marcel Proust, among others. Reimers spoke at great length about the importance of reading. Anything you can get your hands on. Anything you like. “There’s a place for pulp fiction as long as you read it,” he said, gesturing to the bookcase stacked with Carl Hiaasen and

Forbidden Juul | Cuatro Welder | mixed media | 12 x 8.5 in.

On the subject of audiobooks, he sighed. “If you’re in the car, yes, I suppose it’s fine. But you lose the physical interaction. Read until you’re blind. Then use audiobooks.” Stephen King and others. On the subject of audiobooks, he sighed. “If you’re in the car, yes, I suppose it’s fine. But you lose the physical interaction. Read until you’re blind. Then use audiobooks.” Reading, he says, should be reintroduced to high school students in the form of a mandatory reading hour. “Doesn’t matter where you are. Doesn’t matter what you read. Read a history of World War II. Read a…just read.” A good suggestion for sure, but one that many students sometimes ignore. One of the reasons Reimers gave for why he has stayed in the teaching business for so many years is talking about books. Discussing what you read with others is critical in digesting the material and in keeping the mind sharp. “It’s good to be around people who are constantly thinking, who are engaged,” he explained. He’s certain that the intellectual discussions have kept him out of assisted living. “The people in homes,” he says, “they will themselves to death. They’ve done everything they wanted to do, or everything they can do, so they fade away.” A potentially crass question popped into my head, but with his impending retirement, it seemed like the perfect moment, and I had to ask. “Have you done everything you’ve wanted to do?” Here, Reimers paused. “No…I haven’t read or taught all the books I need to read and discuss. Nor looked at all the art.” “Should I include that?” He grinned. “Please.” 2

8:00 A.M. | Jackson Warmack | acrylic on cardboard | 65 x 20 in. 58

Maestro free verse by Rowan Goss

He sits with legs crossed, spine at an angle, right hand at his mouth to cover his scowl. He conducts the invisible ten thousand violins with the flick of his hand and the bounce of his shin. He sits.

As Good as Dead Walker Antonio | acrylic on canvas | 24 x 18 in. 59

A Slight Drink | Jameson Rice | Djuma, South Africa | digital photography

Passion | Spencer Doerr | Indian Wells, California | digital photography

OUR GAME free verse by Jassiem Konrad

The familiar echo of the ball on the gym floor radiates through me. The swish of the net chills the room. You glide from basket to basket, graceful for your size; you play your old man’s game. My heart follows yours, and your successes are mine. I see my passion mirrored in you. My eyes lock onto your torso because as I always tell you, nobody can move without it. You sink lower in your stance, so I lean forward, pushing into my own legs, teeth gritted. Your arms are a canopy, but mine cannot reach those heights.

Your hands can engulf mine and snatch the ball from the air, but our calves are the same; they bulge as we rock onto our toes, our eyes intent on the ball handler. He takes a quick step. I catch my breath. You cut him off perfectly, but the shrill blast of a whistle pierces my ears. I explode out of my seat, stamping the metal. That’s the difference between us: You line up along the free-throw line— cool tenacity, vicious indifference— while I burn for the both of us.

Why So Young? | Walker Antonio | mixed media | 24 x 18 in.

AMtrak fiction by Hale Roberts

hich of the two items on the fourth row of this vending machine deserved my $1.25?

Was it something with a Bold flavor, or something with a Sweet and Sour one? Both looked terrible, and I wanted neither. The decision seemed so vital. I pondered if picking one or the other said something profound about my character. I finally chose the sweet and sour option mostly because I appreciated the relative specificity. The shortage of choices was frustrating, but my tolerance was pretty high considering I had just missed my train fifteen minutes earlier, and the next train leaving in five hours only took me to the general area of my destination. I wouldn’t get back to Raleigh until 1:00 A.M. The words of my English teacher rang in my ears: “Lack of punctuality will inevitably lead to unfavorable circumstances.” I returned to my small mountain of luggage that I had been watching out of the corner of my eye while I had an existential crisis at the vending machine. 64

Only four other people were in the train station at that moment: a very old woman who was either watching TV or staring into space, a middle-aged woman with an obviously fake designer purse who smoked cigarettes inside the building, a young guy who was trying to look professional, and another man with a cheek-to-cheek smile who scrolled through his phone with his pointer finger. The last man looked Indian. I envied his indifference. I didn’t think that any of them would steal my luggage, but I guess it was an instinct to check. Actually, I decided, I would probably trust the old woman and the cheerful Indian guy around my bags any day. Then I sort of patted myself on the back for not being paranoid and threw away the package of the vile snack that I should not have bought from the vending machine. I had five hours. A few days ago, five hours of unassigned time would have been a shining

The Journey Lies Ahead | Dylan Yen New York City, New York | digital photography >

light in the darkness of a week of classes. Now that the weekend was upon me, these five hours only lengthened the distance between me and my ultimate destination. I didn’t really want to go to yet another high school dance, but I also didn’t want to disappoint someone else. I took my phone out of my pocket, which my body had trained itself to do when it was bored. I contemplated the internet’s vast potential for entertainment. Someone once told me that three-hundred hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. This should have felt exciting, but instead it seemed overwhelming. I put my phone back in my pocket. I could have talked to the others but decided against it. After all, I probably appeared pretty vulnerable as a target for kidnapping or murder or sodomy or whatever it is that strangers do to other strangers nowadays. Thinking about this made me feel as if I were the main character in a tragic story. I romanticized my own situation to the point where I began listening to Tift Merritt’s “Traveling Alone” and looking out the window dramatically. There is little else to do at a train station. This one was particularly tiny— one room. I had been stuck in airports before, but at least there were opportunities for more people watching.

Tucked back in the corner of this small compartment of a building, there was a closed counter that (as I remembered from more successful trips to this train station) sold the basic modern human necessities: magazines, Mentos, and Marlboros. The counter’s sides were adorned with advertisements for Amtrak reward miles. I sympathized with anyone who spent enough time on trains to actually be rewarded for it. Nothing seemed remotely human. The air conditioning whirred louder than anything else, and I felt the craving to interact with a person. I wanted to go up to the counter and ask for a lighter and have the woman ask me how old I was, and I would say, “Damn it, I forgot my ID” before she said, “I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to sell this to you.” I returned to my phone to text friends back at school for reassurance about my dire circumstances. Friends, I decided, were a good second option to cigarettes. After a healthy dose of Dude LMAO that sucks I proceeded to scroll through Instagram for half an hour and ponder whether or not to buy a pair of ridiculously expensive (but incredibly cool) sneakers. I lay down on my wooden bench home and tried to rest without falling asleep. That proved impossible, so I sat up and looked out the window. In the

He seemed so enlightened just looking up at the sky as if it made no difference whether each train came or went.

dark, the lights scattered infrequently along the platform. A huge man sat in a roofless golf cart with his feet on the dashboard. He was the second Amtrak employee I had seen that day. He seemed so enlightened just looking up at the sky as if it made no difference whether each train came or went. His eyes were closed, but I could tell that he wasn’t asleep because he had this huge grin on his face. I stood up impulsively and walked through the automatic doors across the small patio where people waited for their trains in the daytime. I approached him nervously. I wanted for him to tell me that he had missed plenty of trains in his day, that it’s a metaphor for something. “Man, what are you doing, dude?” He sprung up from the driver’s seat as I got within about half a yard of the cart. Evidently, he had been sleeping. I just looked at him, bewildered. “There’s no train right now, man. Get back in there.” He crossed his arms and sat up as I stared at him like a dumbass. “Ye-ye-ye-yeah, I’m sorry. I just wanted to see if m-m-my train was here yet,” I stuttered, a habit that hadn’t shown itself since fifth grade. I turned around and walked back through the automatic doors. When I sat down, I realized that my hands were in my sleeves, and I wasn’t really breathing consistently. I looked at the clock on the wall above the Indian man’s head. He was the only other person there now, and his smile had turned into an emotionless stare. I had two more hours. 2

Thrill | Ben Antonio | marker | 22 x 14 in.

Caesarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Demise | Walker Antonio | acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

The Seasons of the Soul nonfiction by Ashby Shores I remember summer’s reign. I sat on a blufftop throne of rocks. Four power lines cleaved through the woods above my perch and then down the hill and overtop the lazy Rapidan before fading into the opposite woods. The trees around me sagged, their leaves heavy and ripe. Peace—that’s what I sought beneath the sweating trees as I listened to the Rapidan’s labored moan and the battle cries of prowling mosquitos. For a moment, I did find peace. Perhaps it was the humid air that wrapped around me tightly the same way my mom used to wrap me in my blankets. Or perhaps the sweat dribbling down through the furrows of my face lulled me to a complete hush. For a second, the inner conflict ceased. The soldiers of my soul lay down their arms and sat. Just like my reclined body, my mind sat. The richly green leaves danced in the wind as late summer gusts roared. The sun’s unyielding rays turned my rock throne into a frying pan. Little critters marched around in their little lives. The murky river, just barely visible through the fluttering leaves, rippled calmly. It might have been God. Peace blinds the eyes, though. In my soul’s brief rapture, I couldn’t see the slight tinges of yellow already speckling the petioles and leaves. The crisp breezes were still a friend and not yet a cursed enemy. The longer, darker, harsher nights would pass by unnoticed. The seasons snuck by, until one day I found myself in autumn. Today, I look out across the dead fields. The grasses are withered from the frosts, and a white blanket of snow now reigns above them. Gray husks, skeletons perhaps, depose the once merry woods. The sticky sweat of summer yields to the fiendish frosts of January. That summer day feels so recent, just barely out of reach. Now, I sit and pray and wait for those long days, those warm and starry nights, that elusive peace to prevail once more. Half a year has flowed downriver, unnoticed, unused.

DOODLES free verse by Blythe Brewster

Spirals cover arms of girls in the backs of classroomsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; uniformed girls in uniform chairs, untidy hair clashing with the orderly rows. Green, blue inks crawl across her skin, veins climbing their way to the edge of her skirt, too short, the curtain across the stage, her body the play, but no one wants to see that anyway. Under a hateful gaze she traces her shape, winding around the extra weight, doodles almost hiding her size, painting over the immortalized Venus, womanly beauty personified.

Zeus and Danae | Jimmy Muse | acrylic on canvas | 8 x 10 in.

Egrets | Carson Becker | Charleston, South Carolina | digital photography

BO MORRISON ballad by Billy Huger At age eighteen Bo went to sea among the waves that roared. A brief return to Charleston’s soil then back to sea for war. Bo bought a house close to the shore, off Church Street’s bumpy bricks. A green grass yard lay to its left with nothing left to fix. Again Bo went to sail the seas, his children now his crew. But as time passed, and Bo grew weak, a chair replaced the blue. At ninety years, his health grew worse, and Bo had little time. His family shed so many tears, some of which were mine. I held his hand and spoke to him; he answered with a groan. That morning was our last goodbye. I’m proud he was my own. Some hours later I heard the news: Bo rested in his shroud. A final sail, on one last sea, this time a sea of clouds.

A Trot at High Noon | Liam King | acrylic on canvas | 14 x 18 in.

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick | Liam King | linocut print | 8 x 8 in.

CATCH free verse by Chase Commander The grey ghost, whose scintillating silver scales shimmer faintly as he slices through the sea, is nearly invisible. I try to focus on the torpedo that tantalizes me with brief glimpses, but no matter how hard I try, that silver sea spirit slips from my sight. Guttural frustration flies from my throat into the air.

This time, I allow the rod, line, and hook to use my body, and I let my eyes wander. I feel the flitting fugitive. The soft splash of its fins is now seemingly stentorian in the silence. I candidly and calmly cast to a spot— that bastard ghost bites the bait. Caught!

My father told me I was trying too hard, that I was forcing something that will never yield. He said to stop trying; don’t stare at the fish. Pursue it with your periphery, predict where it’ll go and flick your fly where you feel the fish.

Mountain Range | Asa McManamy | Juneau, Alaska | digital photography

WITH THE TIDE free verse by Walker Simmons A violent roar echoed through the salty air as the world lit up for a moment before returning to darkness. He stood his ground at the helm and gripped the wheel, bracing for the next nautical beast. The hullâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rusted metal slammed against the choppy waters, filling the air with mist. For a second, he was one with the clouds, suspended over the waves. In the next instant, the sea captured him, submerged him and his proud vessel. The squall raged throughout the night while the surface muffled his last breaths of hope. He became the silence, no different than the calm blue beneath. The chaos above the surface waited for the next boat.

DRACHEN fiction by Parker Watt

elix dashed out into the unfamiliar street, leaving the splintered door aching on its hinges.

The vibrant flower beds that once lined the street were now covered by piles of marble, brick, and iron perfect for climbing. The street lamps that had bathed Friedrichstraße street with light only hours before now lay in the shadows of the hollow buildings above. Nothing was as Felix remembered—it was a whole new world. Felix’s bright blue eyes surveyed the desolation. Warm blood beat through his cheeks, giving his usually fair skin color. Hot air rising from the ground swirled around Felix’s calves, but a breeze swept through Friedrichstrße street, dancing through his bright blond hair and giving life back to the stale air. All along the street, familiar faces emerged from Berlin’s skeleton. The city began to whisper. But Felix was the first adventurer into the unknown. He teetered out on a fallen lamp, then jumped over to a displaced brick wall. The clay and mortar shifted beneath his feet, revealing a mysterious hole in the rubble. Felix let out a laugh—it was a prime place for exploration. 78

All of a sudden his mother’s touch warmed his arm. She pulled him back. “This is no place to play, Felix.” Against Felix’s pleas, Fräulein Müller dragged her five-year-old son back into their house. The ground floor was the only part that had made it through the attack, yet it had still experienced some damage. There were cracks in the walls, window panes were missing, and the façade was now torn away. Fräulein Müller pulled Felix back through the parlor into the kitchen. She instructed him to sit in his usual chair and not to move. Felix’s stomach grumbled, but he didn’t notice. He marveled at how different even his own kitchen looked from his seat at the table. They had survived the drachen! He couldn’t take his eyes off how its claw marks ripped into the wall. He could remember it slamming its tail and rumbling the whole building. All night it blew its flame, over and over, prowling the street with its ruby red eyes, eating any man that dared get in its way. Only a knight like his father could survive a fight against the drachen!

Felix still remembered the day his father left. He wore a gray suit with a bright red band around his arm, just like the other knights Felix had seen. He said he would be in armor soon, fighting off the drachen in the sky. Felix hadn’t seen his father since, but he too felt like a knight for surviving the attack all alone. One day he would have his own armor and would fight against the evil beast that came from the sky, just like his father. Felix played with his toy soldiers in the front room, staging the Battle of the Drachen. The monster, a brick, relentlessly attacked the soldiers. Every man was burnt alive except for one. The beast turned to finish off its last enemy, but the knight stabbed the drachen right through the heart. He was the savior of the city! Felix sprung up in celebration and saw a real-life knight talking to his mother through a hollow space in the wall. This must have been the knight that fought off the drachen. He was wearing the armor Felix’s father had talked about, and Felix could see where the hero had fought off the beast. His face was dirtied and one eyebrow was split—obviously he got away from the piercing claws by inches!

A Well-Worn Horse Trailer | Spencer Doerr | Carrizo Springs, Texas | digital photography The knight said, “Es tut mir leid, Fräulein Müller,” and retreated down the road. Only when the man had slipped into an alley did Felix divert his attention. He was about to get back to the battle when his eyes stopped—there on top of one of the big trash piles to the right of his house was a shiny silver rod sticking out of the destruction. It would be his saber. Felix charged through the front door up to the pile of rubble. He slipped and scraped his knee on a broken brick, but he got back up and continued his conquest of the hill. Like his father, he charged into battle. At the top, the sword

revealed itself—a strewn sign bearing the name “Friedrichstraße.” The sword was determined to stay where it was lodged. Felix thrust it back and forth, nicking his finger, but it did not give up. One last push and the sword submitted to him. It was heavy, but Felix managed to half lift, half drag it down the other side of the hill to a crater where the ground was charred. A strong knight must have fought off the drachen’s flames at that very spot. It could have even been his father! His mother caught up to him by the time he lugged the sign down to the bottom of the crater. She pulled him to

her chest. The boy could not see her red eyes and puffy cheeks, nor did he notice her sporadic breaths. In his mind, he was three centuries behind. The brave knights were all that he could think of. His world wasn’t saturated with gunfire or gas. Wars were nobly fought with shields, swords, and crossbows. He was ready to join the ranks of the powerful army; he would lead them at the front. But even the knight Felix knew the best could fall. That body lay, pierced through the head, in a trench a thousand kilometers away. 2

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Christmas Lights | Ajani Wilson | Woodberry Forest, Virginia | digital photography

FROSTBITE free verse by Blythe Brewster The body of the old oak held you softly—bough breaking, cradle falling into sleep. It was once a great oak that pushed out of the mountainside and stood among its companions for years— hundreds of them, twined together by creeping ivy. Once, it saw nothing but golden-green. Now the veins of your face are drained and the ivy is dying, and the oak stumps hold a simple sort of death. You are a ghastly pallor—a cold color. Along the barbed wire fence where the old oak grew huddle bushes, their branches reaching from one man’s land to the other. Ivy droops and branches sprout tightly curled leaves, their edges eaten by the night—taken by the same death I tasted when I kissed you goodbye.

82 Lion and the Lamb | Gabe Brown | pastel on illustration board | 24 x 18 in.

Alone | Taylor Tucker | Serengeti National Park, Tanzania | digital photography

TailLights fiction by Wils Vosteen

verything is loud. The drip of water from a faucet in the middle of the night, the pitter-patter of tiny mouse feet running through your walls. Even the street is never silent. When you look out of your window, what do you see? The auburn cascade of street lamps. You think you see a shadow slink away into darkness. A scream, footsteps running, and gleeful laughter. I listen to every creak in my apartment. What am I supposed to do? My keys rattle in my hands like rain on a tin roof, speeding up as my heart races faster. Stop the overthinking. You really think you’re too worried? I mean, it isn’t like it didn’t happen. But no one can find out, I mean, how could they? I didn’t leave anything. Didn’t you see your neighbor look at you? She gave you a funny look—I swear she did. You may not have noticed, but I did. Nobody knows anything. Nobody saw anything. It didn’t happen! You saw it happen, and you aren’t nobody. Or maybe you are? 84

Whatever, shut up. I look down at my Honda, the headlight still broken. Not a good look. What, did you expect it to fix itself? You gotta do that on your own, and it seems like there’s a pretty big stain on that hood. That’s nasty; someone’s gonna see that. What am I supposed to do? I can’t go down there. Someone’s going to see me! Well, either someone sees you cleaning your car, or someone sees a nice red finish in the morning. Your choice. What do I need? I need some cleaning stuff. Some paper towels; maybe a cloth, too. I could use some headlight buffer. Nevermind, I don’t have any. I head down the stairs; the neighbor closes her door just before I pass by. 123. She’s an easy one to remember, not just because of the number but because she has really nice legs. I’ve thought about asking her out before. Some cigarettes

would be nice right now. You don’t smoke, dumbass. So? Isn’t that what most people do after something like this? You’re ridiculous, man. I make my way down the final staircase, everything doused in fluorescence, which makes my skin look as green as I feel. The street is abandoned, but it doesn’t feel empty. I look both ways. Slowly, I get to work. Pretty gross stuff, but who’s to complain? I got myself into this mess. Even the slightest noise could be someone. The sun’s coming up. I need to work faster. Must’ve been a brunette; he had pretty long hair, too. I’m scrubbing as fast as I can. Footsteps just behind me. My veins ice up, and I turn around. She’s wearing a blaze yellow tank top and jogging pants. She has nice legs, too. “Good morning!” I can’t answer. My words are caught in my throat. I’m only able to muster the most inhuman gargling “hmmm.” She’s looking at you. She sees what you’re doing.

I have to do it. She sees everything. I can’t have her scream. I only have the cloth in my hand. What else can I use? She is really strong; her knees kind of hurt. The look in her eyes is angrier than I expect. But that fades. It takes longer than I think it will. Now you’ve done it. You told me to do it! I drag her into an alley and throw her

into the dumpster. My muscles spasm, and my legs burn. Sirens in the distance. Maybe they saw you. What do I do? The world is flying past me as I run down streets and alleyways. The sirens grow faint. I notice the sun rising. Finally. Day. Why’re you excited? Nothing can hide what you’ve done.

Phantom | Jimmy Kweon | pencil | 8.5 x 12 in.

I can’t stop running. I need somewhere that no one can find me. I’m almost into downtown, and the bridge is in sight. Your insides shake and your ribs crack. Your vision fades to black. Red brake lights flash, and the taillights disappear as the engine roars out of sight. I guess you didn’t look both ways. 2

Steps ballad by Milo Jacobs

They climb the stairs two at a time and walk fast as they can. Each step propels them forward, straight, their path a perfect plan.

He takes a cupcake in his hand and puts it on a plate. He pays, he leaves, he reaches work, but thirty seconds late.

They check their ties and tuck their shirts, all looking at the clock. The meeting’s booked for half past eight— it’s just around the block.

As suited workers watch the door, he clumsily flops in. His cupcake falls onto the floor; the crumbs stuck to his chin.

Around them glows the city dawn, the beauty of the day: doves coo, kids play, cars sound their horns. Not one can make them sway.

He takes his seat among the rest, while dreading their critique. His heart beats louder in his chest; he waits for them to speak.

And then one stops, as he smells bread; a bakery he finds nearby. An odor sweet, the line of treats he cannot help but try.

Yet no one says a word to him; he’s not accused of crime. And when they finish, on a whim, they step one at a time.

Teahouse, 5 A.M. | Dylan Yen | Chep Lap Kok, Hong Kong | digital photography

MXV Minotaur | Walker Antonio | acrylic | 24 x 18 in.

awoken metrical verse by Ashby Shores

A simple, boyhood night was passing then when woke I from my midnight rest again. At once my mind began to wonder; it could not be the distant thunder. My small, frail heart then clove asunder— I heard a rasping voice down in my den.

Between the cracks, there shined a flickering red, and through the door, a dark voice boomed and said, Come hither, son, my fickle being— and ’twas not sleep, I wasn’t dreaming— and so, though quite content with fleeing, I gently turned the golden knob instead.

I clasped my left unto my right to pray. In holy adoration, long I lay, but suddenly a revelation arose out from this aberration— ’twas some demonic incantation now being chanted but a door away.

Nor Beelzebub there lurked, nor Baphomet; No demon nor strange spirit had I met. But then my eyes began to weary. The sights up in my head turned eerie. The night turned e’en more dark and dreary, for inside me some unseen ghost I’d let.

I stumbled to the hall and took a right, and at the den’s pale door, my cheeks turned white. The inside of my throat felt furry as thoughts bounced ’round in instant flurry. What could it be—some fate or fury? For through the door there peeked an eerie light.

On that bleak night, I was but six or five when in my head, my conscience came alive. I cannot help but still remember that night that robbed my childhood’s ember— it still controls my mind and member— and fear I now the boy shall not revive.

Editor-in-Chief Ashby Shores

Managing Editor Blythe Brewster

Text Editor Rhew Deigl

Art and Design Spence Whitman

Prose Luke Stone

Photography Walker Simmons

Faculty Advisors Karen & Rich Broaddus

prose

poetry

Rob Jolly William McAdams Agus Tornabene William Xie Stephen Brice Ryan Kauffman Robert Triplett Freddie Woltz Milo Jacobs Sam Long Peter Moore

Riley Fletcher Billy Huger Gus Perdue Agus Tornabene Taylor Tucker Stephen Brice Ryan Kauffman Luke McNabb Robert Triplett Freddie Woltz Luke Christy Chase Commander

photography Walker Antonio Carson Becker Jameson Rice Avery Warmack Jaemin Woo Mark Wu Spencer Doerr Tripp Hood Jack Malone Willis He Hale Roberts Asa McManamy

art Walker Antonio Carson Becker Mack Izard Pierce Richardson Jackson Warmack Xiangnong Yu Cuatro Welder Ben Antonio Jimmy Kweon Hale Roberts

92 Yellow Lanterns | Mark Wu | Tokyo, Japan | digital photography

Colophon The word which you see on the cover is the product of the creative genius of the staff, and, with the exception of identical spelling and pronunciation, has no connection with any word in the English or any other language. In plain Woodberrian it has one meaning onlyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the literary magazine of your school.

This is the second edition of the 70th volume of The Talon, the semiannual literary arts publication of Woodberry Forest School. First published in 1949, the magazine was originally issued quarterly and cost 35 cents a copy. Publication of The Talon is now funded by Woodberry Forest School. The Talon editors encourage submissions from all members of the Woodberry Forest community. All opinions expressed within this magazine are the intellectual property of the authors and artists and do not represent the views of Woodberry Forest School. Works are se-

Frank Davenport, Jr. 1949 Editor-in-chief

lected through blind review by student boards with expertise in the fields of art, prose, poetry, and photography. New editors are selected from the review boards and the student body by the current editors and the faculty advisors. Authors and artists can apply for review board membership at the end of each academic year. The editors of The Talon create the magazine in the course Design and Editing for Literary Arts Publications and during their free time. Blythe Brewster and Spence Whitman designed the magazine in collaboration with the other editors. The editors would like to thank

Kelly Lonergan for his help with art review. This issue of The Talon was produced on iMacs using Adobe Creative Cloud. Titles are set in Bebas Neue, bylines are set in Rokkitt, and body text and credits are set in Adobe Garamond Pro. McClung Companies in Waynesboro, Virginia prints 1,000 perfect-bound copies. The magazines are distributed to the community by the editorial staff in December and May of each academic year. The Talon is a member of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and the National Scholastic Press Association.

The Talon

Spring 2019

THE TALON SPRING 2019 WOODBERRY FOREST SCHOOL WOODBERRY FOREST, VA 22989 WWW.WOODBERRY.ORG/TALON

Vol. 70, No. 2