The Talon Spring 2015

The Talon Spring 2015

The Talon, Spring 2015 Woodberry Forest School Woodberry Forest, VA 22989 www.woodberry.org/talon

Vol. 66, No. 2

The Talon Spring 2015 Woodberry Forest School Volume 66, Number 2

Art Photography Poetry Prose Editorial Assistant Faculty Advisor

Chris Oldham Rob Prater Alec Campbell & Andrew Harris Brad Harris & David Willis Max Johns Karen Broaddus

Technical Advisor

Rich Broaddus

Faculty Reader

Reid Hamilton

Poetry Review

Photography Review

Art Review

Cover Art & Design Title Page Art

Petey DuBose, C.J. Dunne, Reid James, Jack Sari, Caleb Rogers, Win Sompayrac, Brian Cho, Roy Toston, Richmond McDaniel, Jackson Monroe, Bennett Parks Christian Zaytoun, Will Harris, Caleb Rogers, Evan Backer, John Pittman, Rob Willis, Jared Thalwitz, Ben Lytle, Rocco Zaytoun, Josh Kearns Christian Zaytoun, Daniel Japhet, David Gussler, Jimmy King, Ben Hoskins, Jordan Silberman, Richard Cirillo, Roy Toston, Ben Lytle, Michael Deng Petey Dubose, Nolan Day, Bennett Setzer, Ryan Kim, Will Harris, Wyatt Alexander, Spencer Andrews, Andrew Holmes, David Gussler, Jimmy King, Jordan Silberman, Tiger Wu, Lee Caffey, K.J. Pankratz rattlesnake | Chris Oldham 23 x 11 x 10 inches | mixed media blue dog | Coleman Bergsma 7 x 12 inches | acrylic

Staff

Prose Review

bonfire| varsity art winter 14-15| 30 x 40 inches|acrylic

Rob Prater & Adrian Cheung

Editors

Design

Word

9 Bahamian Sky Petey Dubose | fiction

50 Bigger Andrew Jacobs | fiction

10 Boys of the Jungle Cole Martini | nonfiction

54 It’s Abigail’s Fault Andrew Harris | poetry

13 The Gates of Yellowstone Evan Backer | poetry

55 Never the Same Max Johns | poetry

14 Walking on the Bricks to Dinner Cordelia Hogan | poetry

57 Christmas Card Specialist Cameron Finley | nonfiction

18 Child’s Play Warren Matthews | poetry

60 Have a Drink Tiger Ripley | fiction

21 A Day at the Beach Brady Logan | fiction

64 The Haze Jackson Sompayrac | poetry

24 As We Float Above a Once Known World Jack Creasy | fiction

66 Night Sailor Keeling Wood | fiction

31 Recycled Promises Win Sompayrac | poetry 32 Gravity Scott Pittman | poetry 35 White Squall Joseph Baggett | poetry 38 The Passage Joseph Baggett | nonfiction 41 Origin Will Peak | Fiction 45 More Than Just a Mitt Christian Zaytoun | nonfiction 46 Aporia Junpyo Suh | fiction 49 Finding Reason Caleb Simmons | poetry

68 How to Lose Ma & Pa: A Chronicle Rob Willis | fiction 70 The Despicable Me Jackie Lee | poetry 72 A Runner’s Nightmare Cameron Finley | poetry 74 Winter’s Wake Andrew Harris | poetry 75 Toeprints in the Fog Andrew Harris | poetry 77 Fragile News Cameron Finley | poetry 80 Last Words: Redacted Rob Willis | fiction 82 Malvina’s Daughter David Willis | nonfiction tile toucan | intro to visual art A period winter 14–15 | 24 x 30.5 inches | oil pastel

47 Business Blur Tiger Wu | art 48 Canoe Patrick Burke | photo 53 Frank Murphy David Smith | photo 54 Sia Andrew Garnett | photo 56 An American Nativity Rob Prater | photo 59 1 vs. 1 Spencer Goodwin | art 60 Untitled David Smith | photo 63 Lion Lee Caffey | art 65 The Grey David Gussler 66 The Staring Halo Woodberry Forest Film and Photography Club | photo 69 Don’t Look Back Kyle Kauffman | photo 70 California Noon Michael Deng | photo 73 Deep Thoughts Cameron Finley | photo 75 Crystal Freeze K.J. Pankratz | photo 76 Golden Autumn Michael Deng | photo 78 Blue Fury Andrew Holmes | photo 83 Bee Moving Jordan Silberman | photo 84 Penciled Pachyderm Tiger Wu | art

Image

primavera | intro to visual art D period winter 14–15 | 24 x 30.5 inches | oil pastel

8 Now You See Me Jimmy King | art 11 Canopy Michael Deng | photo 12 Tribal Roar Jimmy King | art 15 The Dark Times Stephen Guo | photo 16 Breaking Glacier Bo Pettegrew | photo 17 Ice River Jordan Silberman | photo 19 Twisted Sunset Wyatt Alexander | art 20 Caliban is Knocking Rob Prater | photo 22 Skyward David Gussler | photo 23 Rocket Jordan Silberman | photo 29 World K.J. Pankratz | photo 30 Cowboy Chris Oldham | art 33 Johnny Cash Jack Whitworth | art 34 Flippers Trip Hurley | photo 36 Self-portrait Tiger Wu | art 37 Self-portrait Chris Oldham | art 39 Marlin Petey DuBose | art 40 Small Dinner Spencer Goodwin | art 44 Daphne’s Hill Rob Prater | photo

Bahamian Sky Petey DuBose

A

t about 2:00 AM the two boys snuck out the side door of their room. The warm island air clung to their skin.

Quickly, they each drew a cigarette from the pack. The lighter flicked, and a subtle stream of smoke rose through the rustling palm fronds. Above, there was the most beautiful bouquet of stars. The pitch black allowed them to see far into the night sky. Few words were spoken. The only sounds were the distant lapping of waves, the wind slithering through the palms, and the slight chuckle of the younger brother since he couldn’t hold in a drag.

Their hearts dropped when they heard a quiet knocking.

The side door creaked open.

David, the younger, ran around the house, and the older stood and trembled. His father came through the door and reached out his hand. Noah handed the cigs over.

“Don’t tell your mother,” said Pops as the lighter flicked once more. The smoke appeared again, leaking through his lips.

now you see me | jimmy king | 16 x 22 inches | acrylic

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9

Boys of the Jungle Cole Martini

G

reer is the farthest to the right, the second youngest in the photograph, yet the tallest one at five-yearsold. He bangs his fists against his chest showing off his inner King Kong with his best imitation of a wild primate. The Tarzan loincloth is already small for his size. His legs show a scary amount of muscular definition compared to the older boys. In the back row is Justin, a great neighborhood friend who is six-years-old. He’s the smartest of the five since he is the only one fully clothed.

Justin holds up a toy gun with a devilish grin stretching across his face. In front of Justin is Matthew, the second oldest of all the boys, close to being seven-years-old. His wild blond hair contrasts with the black and brown hair of the other boys. In true bestial fashion, he perches on a fire hydrant with his face contorted like a hostile jackal.

On the far left is Eric, Matthew’s brother, the oldest of the group at eight. He wears a shawl as a loincloth and raises his arms in a true bodybuilder pose except that he seems to be only bones. Finally, I stand naked, dual wielding a plastic samurai sword and a green stake that holds up tomato plants. A very defiant four-year-old, I stand my ground in the center.

Further up the slope behind us, a thin, grayish-white tree balances the picture out as if the boys in the front could cause the world to be top heavy. The tree may have been young at the time, but it was able to support the

weight of all us. It is late summer, and the sun has started to sink behind the trees, casting broken light. Earlier that day, we had watched Disney Channel’s first animated version of Tarzan in the basement of my house. Before my parents or my neighbor’s parents could stop us, we had all reverted back to our jungle selves. Matthew was the first to strip down since he was the most like a beast.

He had a reputation for breaking things when excited.

He quickly fashioned an undergarment from a bright orange, car-cleaning rag in our basement. I’m glad he kept the rag. Eric shyly went back to his house to change.

He looked completely out of his element. Justin stayed clothed. Greer was fast enough to snatch the only real loincloth in our house while I was left naked. To be honest, I was completely fine with it.

At that point in my life, I spent more time naked than clothed. I was at the age when nothing materialistic mattered.

Going outside and getting dirty with my friends was what excited me. I was one of those indestructible children; I could fall out of a tree and immediately pop back up. From the middle of the afternoon until the sun began to set, we spent that summer day of 2001 climbing the young tree in my front yard and creating a jungle in the dark grass.

Every child experiences the endless joy of simple things. I know the idea is a cliché, but the truth lies in the photo. We didn’t have a basketball hoop, electronic Nerf

guns, or iPads. All we had was a world to explore and our imaginations. Since that photo was taken, our worlds have become smaller and more narrowly defined. The tree we used to climb has grown dramatically since that day. Its limbs have become stronger and the bark tougher, and as the years have passed, branches have been cut off to make sure the tree stays nice and orderly. The tree once stretched out its arms in every direction, and now it only grows one way. Up. The first ones to go through this hedge clipping process were Eric and Matthew. Only months after the photograph, their parents went through a divorce, and before I knew it, they were swept west to Greenville, North Carolina with their father. I never saw them again, and the sad part is I don’t even remember their last name. My dad was never able to get his payback for all the damage Matthew had caused to our house.

A couple of years later when I had joined the clothed people of society, Justin’s mother fought a tough battle with cancer. She slowly faded away right in front of his eyes. I can probably never comprehend the pain he went through, but I saw its side effects. His grin has never been as wide as it was in that picture. I remember the days he came over to our house and my mom made him lunch.

He watched my mom working in the kitchen with such a pained look; he would never have that part of his life back.

I almost felt guilty having him over.

Greer fulfilled his role. He was destined to be a leader the day he was born. There is no animosity from me; I couldn’t be happier about all that he has accomplished.

He faced the challenges in life the same way he stood in that picture: tall, strong, and banging his chest as a true alpha male. Sometimes I do see his shoulders sag under an invisible burden. When I ask him what’s wrong, he ignores my questions and acts as if everything is great. At some point, Greer had his world narrowed. I believe that it was the pressure of being put on a pedestal. He just wanted to be a competitor.

It took my mother thirty minutes to catch that photo with her Polaroid camera. We all just wanted to act like boys of the jungle. Matthew snarled at her from his fire hydrant perch, and Eric covered his face so he wouldn’t be seen. Greer didn’t come down from the tree until my mother bribed him with ice cream to eat after dinner. They all wanted to be wild. I waited patiently for the picture to be taken. I go with the flow—from being naked with my friends to being the obedient son. I’m glad I made the choice to start wearing clothes.

canopy | michael deng | digital photography

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11

The Gates of Yellowstone Evan Backer

The regal sun reigns heavily upon the pine trees as birds harmonize with the wind whistling through the leaves.

Deer tiptoe across dry earth while wolves lurk in the brush nearby.

Streams flow in a continuous rhythm as thousands of fish scurry beneath the delicate surface.

Mother Nature sings her tune sweetly, and all seems well.

The creatures know not what lies beneath them, another world of rock and heat cooking at a scalding temperature; burning air chokes the life out of the ground below.

Lava and magma stabbing, thrashing, lusting for their grand escape.

Satan remains stirring in his lair, praying for his Armageddon.

tribal roar | jimmy king | 10 x 10 inches | mixed media

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13

Walking on the Bricks to Dinner Cordelia Hogan Nighttime nature.

Two fires stand before me.

The first, a much older fire.

Its red hot limbs reach high into the blackness.

But the fire starts to die, slowly withering away as the cold spit of winter creeps in through the boughs.

The second, far younger, a mere sapling of a flame.

It too reaches up towards darkness, soaking up artificial sunlight, trying desperately to grow.

the dark times | stephen guo | digital photography

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breaking glacier | bo pettegrew | digital photography

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ice river | jordan silberman | digital photography

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Child’s Play Warren Matthews

The jingle jangle of broken bottles rings out in the afternoon.

Alcohol burns his eyes as he drives through deserted streets.

The heat of the sun glares into the car; shadows hide in the background of the Harlem sunset.

Crash! Silence sits still.

Like a coiled spring, the fire hydrant gushes with cool water. Children crowd the streets to view the waterworks. Some work up the courage to jump in.

Water sprays out like a present from God. Snap! The driver’s head jerks up.

Barely alive, he cranks the engine and drives into the distance.

Splash! The car sinks and settles.

Death comforts him like an old friend.

The children celebrate the best night of their lives. **Police Report** Man found dead after automobile derails off Madison Avenue Bridge. The body of the crash victim, who was suspected of the fire hydrant collision on 125th Street, was dredged from the river near Harlem.

Inspired by an untitled photograph of Harlem by Gordon Parks twisted sunset | wyatt alexander | 15 x 22 inches | pastel and marker

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19

A Day at the Beach Brady Logan

M

y friend and I are playing Frisbee on the beach. I love the salty wind blowing through my golden locks. The bright sun against my skin.

He spots a pretty girl. “Alright, buddy. Like usual, you go in first.”

Danny throws a Frisbee in her direction, and I run right for it, catching it with ease in front of the girl.

“Hey, buddy. That was impressive.” She brushes my head, and I already know we’re in.

My friend runs up behind me. “Sorry about that. My buddy here likes to go pretty hard. My name’s Danny.

And you are?”

I know she’s mine as she keeps running her hands through my hair on the way home. We get out of the car, and Danny holds his hand up as they walk towards the door.

“Why don’t you play outside?”

I hate being alone, but I can only watch as they disappear. If only I could open doors with these paws.

caliban is knocking | rob prater | digital photography

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skyward | david gussler | digital photography

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rocket | jordan silberman | digital photogrpahy

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Jack Creasy

T

he doctor’s face isn’t comforting when he sees the purple and yellow splotch on Haylie’s stomach. He probably wasn’t even an ER doctor before the flood.

How did we not get an ER doctor from before the flood?

“Alright, let’s go.” He and his team are off. I try to get a last glimpse of Haylie with her eyes open.

The hospital is seven flights up, and the elevator takes too long, so Tyler almost runs past me in exhaustion because she is looking for Haylie, not me. That’s what I love about her; she actually cares. Not like some of the snobs on the RAFT. Her hands pull through the tangles in her hair. “Hey! What happened? Where is she?”

“She just started screaming, and... I don’t know. It just looks...bad.” I slump back into my seat. Tyler holds me as we watch the sun rise over the blue horizon miles away.

About thirteen years ago, when I was five, the first shower of a two-year long downpour began. The rain spread and did not stop. Most believe it was from a chemical made by some toy company in China that accidentally spilled into the Pacific off a cargo ship and reacted in the ocean, which sped up the water cycle. By

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the time I was seven, the ocean had finally gotten to St. Louis, and we were already on the RAFT just outside of Bozeman.

RAFT stands for Regulated Atmosphere Flotation Terrain. It is made out of a durable tarpaulin material that when inflated can hold tons at a time. The RAFT is basically a giant floatable city with towers, a park, a school, everything, except it’s all inside. The water has risen a couple hundred feet over Mount Everest, so we are in a low-oxygen level. The RAFT generates and holds in oxygen and maintains the atmospheric pressure we would feel in Montana.

It took a lot to get on the RAFT. My father was good friends with Frank Stantz’s partner, the man who thought of the RAFT even before the rainstorm. He also used the fact that my mother was in Africa working with her organization to build a school in Uganda. She had left almost immediately after she had finished nursing Haylie, right before the rain started, and she couldn’t make it back home because of the weather conditions over the Atlantic. He said that she’d be on the African RAFT

trying to guilt trip some humanity out of Mr. Stantz.

We still don’t know if Mom got on the African RAFT. We lost contact with them almost immediately after we began floating; but if she did, she’s still alive. Some RAFTs haven’t made it this far. Europe’s RAFT had a revolt in which the rebels killed their admiral and the function captains for food, medical, and educational services. They believed the best way to survive was to murder those who knew how to survive best. I’d like to meet the guy who came up with that brilliant idea. But that’s not possible.

The last European was reported dead two years ago. The Asia-Australia RAFT floated over a pack of starved sharks that attacked the main floater. It only took about twenty minutes for the entire center of the RAFT to explode from so much released pressure. We don’t know if any of them are left. I doubt they could tread for that long.

“C’mon, let’s get some breakfast. You can’t sit here without something to eat.” Tyler grabs my hand and drags me away from my little sister.

We go down two flights to the cafeteria to eat the precut eggs and pre-cut bacon. All of our chemically-made food is solar generated and pre-cut because the biggest rule of all RAFTs is no sharp objects at any point. I mush the food with my spoon.

“Eat.” Tyler’s cool eyes dart toward mine.

She was my first friend on the RAFT. She can’t stand this place either. Ever since we met, we’ve made fun of the “hope” the admiral and function captains try to instill in the minds of gullible passengers. Last year, Tyler and I finally decided to take things to a new level. It was after she had been getting into painkillers because she was depressed, and I had found her unconscious beside a park bench. No one even tried to help her; I got her to a doctor.

That night on the roof at the top of the Crow’s Nest Tower, the tallest of the RAFT, she slid her hand across my palm and entangled her vine-like fingers within mine.

“I honestly don’t how I would get through these years

without you.” She put her head on my thumping chest.

“You’re more of a raft than this piece of shit.”

Then she kissed me, hard. It is funny, though, because if it weren’t for her, I would’ve suffocated myself with a pillow. We still act more like friends than lovers. It’s weird and confusing.

“Look, if you smash the eggs enough, the white paste comes out of it.” I laugh. It’s disgustingly funny.

Once you have lived on something that is said to be the “New Eden!” for so long, you see what kind of a place it really can be. Chemically based food, no fresh air, poor education, and I’m sure the surgeries are botched as hell.

I begin shaking my leg. I didn’t even think about that.

Haylie could need surgery.

I continue laughing as I smash the eggs. I don’t even know why.

Tyler stares at me with chipmunk cheeks full of food.

“Look at you,” she manages to get out.

“What?”

She swallows and shoves her hand on my leg. It stops shaking. “You’re just...it’s like you’re not even worried about Haylie.” She now uses both of her arms as a big I’m-emphasizing-what-I’m-about-to-say sign. “Your sister is in the fucking hospital for something no one knows what...and you’re here making jokes about some damn eggs? Banks, I mean, come on—” “Where is this coming from?” Something is up with her. “I am worried about my sister. Do you see my father around anywhere? Huh? No, because he’s somewhere with that skimpy twenty-year-old. I am the only one Haylie has. Don’t tell me what I am doing wrong.” I worry for a second Tyler’s back on drugs, but painkillers don’t make you act like that. Something else, then?

She stands and looks down on me as if my words had slapped her. “Are you actually being serious right now, Banks? Did you really just say you were her only family?”

She holds out a fist and sticks out her thumb, counting.

“Who gets her from school when you’re too busy with

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communications training? Who makes her dinner every night? Who the hell was the one to take care of her for two weeks when you went off on that inane revenge binge wanting to kill your dad? Even though she already has her grandmother to take care of? Me. Me, Banks. I have always been there.”

I stare at her for a second. “Are you on something, again?” It slips out.

Now I get slapped. It doesn’t sound as bad as it feels.

It’s a long burn lingering on my cheek. I don’t even see her walk away, just the other girls in the cafeteria cheering for Tyler.

After a couple hours, I am allowed to see Haylie.

She lies in a typical hospital bed hooked to an IV with burnt skin around it. That’s how they open skin now. By burning it. Did we just leave all the intelligent people behind to drown when everyone got on the RAFTs? I am about to go tear into her doctor when she speaks up. “Banks.”

I rush to her side. “Hey, midget. How ya feelin’?” I rub the backside of her hand with my thumb.

She smiles for a second. “I’m okay. It still hurts a little.”

I wipe the brewing tears out of my eyes before the drops cascade. Crying in front of her would make a mess out of all this. She will never see me cry.

“Oh, yeah. When I get out of here, can we go to the zoo? The nurse said there’s a blue whale near us now.”

The zoo is just an observation deck below the surface.

I smile down at her. “Of course! I heard it’s bigger than all of Green Park!”

“There’s no way! Really?”

I nod. Actually, there hasn’t been a marine life sighting in over a year. Lifeboat Magazine just posted about the whale to get some sales. But Haylie doesn’t need to know that. She doesn’t deserve life on the RAFT. The doctor knocks on the door and asks me to step outside. “Mr. Allen, I’m Doctor Black. I have been monitoring Haylie’s vitals and examined the discoloring

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of her abdomen—” “What’s going on with her?” I cross my arms.

He frowns and clears his throat. No better way to say she’s fucked than that. “It appears that Haylie has had some sort of stomach hemorrhaging, but the way it presents externally is quite different from a normal hemorrhage, and so we must—” “What does that mean?” I don’t want to hear more.

He purses his lips and looks down, avoiding my glare.

“Well, son, if we weren’t on this floating coffin, I’d tell you she needs surgery.”

Anger. I step back. I run my fingers through my hair.

Plaster snowflakes fly when I slam my fist into the wall.

“If I were you, I’d take this up to the Admiral’s Board.”

That last sentence makes me want to strangle the man and hug him at the same time. I never thought of an Admiral’s Board meeting. It might work. It’s worth a shot.

I’m surprised to get an appointment so soon. The next morning, I leave Haylie’s room in my best clothes to impress a group of highbrows who believe they know how to save humanity. In the boardroom, the seven sit high above where I stand. There are three function captains on either side of Admiral Mathis, the thin, gray-haired man who has led North America through safe waters. So far.

A little too loudly, a stout, bald man says “Admiral’s Board Meeting 040711. State your name, profession, and matter to the board, please.”

I step forward, making sure to keep strong eye contact with all seven board members. “My name is Banks Allen. I am a communications trainee, and my sister is in trouble.”

A woman to Mathis’s right leans forward, frowning. “You see, I found Haylie, my sister, two days ago screaming on the floor of her room.” I go on to tell them about the past few days and her need for surgery. I can see in their faces the weakness of my position. “Please, I am against all odds right now, I know. But with the utmost respect, please, put yourself in my shoes. My father…” I hesitate, and something inside me tells me to stop, but the words

keep coming. “My father left us about two years ago after he lost hope of ever seeing our mother, who may be on the African RAFT. There was a woman—younger woman—he figured would bring him more happiness.

He left on my sixteenth birthday.” I am now picking at my knuckles because I have never recounted the full story of my father’s leaving. I have only seen him once since he left us. That’s what sent me to anger rehabilitation for two weeks. I still get the fits of rage, but they’re not as severe now.

I look up at the seven pairs of eyes, all dry. It doesn’t anger me. Instead, it defeats me. The woman who frowned earlier is now covering her mouth. I look up one last time at these pompous jurors. “You know, as I watch my sister dying, I wish that we had never gotten on this thing. I wish we had drowned.” With that, I walk out of the boardroom to await their decision.

They call me back an hour and a half later. It must have been a heated debate. This time, Admiral Mathis stands.

His voice is deep and sharp, and his eyes look down on me as if I were gum stuck to his shoe. “Mr. Allen, we admire your love for your family and the strength you possess. However…”

My heart drops and I lose breath at the sound of the word.

“We have decided to deny your request for a surgery.”

He doesn’t seem affected by my shock; he expected it.

“Never in our RAFT’s history have we held a proper surgery. Mr. Allen, people die everyday; it is part of life.

If we were to hold on to those we love for as long as we could, we would not know suffering, and suffering is necessary in our lives. It makes us stronger.”

I step forward and look the pencil-necked reaper straight in the face. “So you’re telling me that you would sacrifice an innocent child, someone who adores the RAFT and everything in it, just because you are worried about the sharp tools used to save a life.”

Mathis stands. He doesn’t look pleased at all. “Mr.

Allen, we have reached our decision, and it is final. Have a nice day.”

Suddenly, the woman who seems to have been on my side the entire time gets up and turns to Mathis. “You’re the devil, George!”

Mathis, surprised at the outburst, turns back to me.

“Mr. Allen, allowing for the manufacture of sharp utensils would open a Pandora’s box of risks that could destroy all life as we know it—” “What life?” I am at my wit’s end.

Mathis flicks his fingers, and I am escorted out. The failure settles inside me like a cancer, eating away as the hours pass. When I get to Haylie’s room, Tyler sits at her bedside, asleep. I didn’t realize it was already late evening.

I gently nudge her shoulder.

She wakes up with a jump. “Shit, Banks. Don’t do that to me right now.”

We walk outside of the room, and Tyler leans up against the wall. All I want to do is find a private room.

I lean in to kiss her. She puts her hand in front of my mouth and quickly slides away from my body.

I stand back. “I’m sorry for all of that in the cafeteria.”

I put my back to the wall next to her and slide to the ground.

Tyler crouches down beside me. “All you can do now is pray and hope that she can pull through like I know she can.”

I begin to sob. I don’t care who sees or hears, I just do.

Doctor Black is standing by the doorway to an adjacent room when my tears all dry up. “Mr. Allen, may I have a word in here?” He beckons. “Ms. Cooper, I’m going to need to ask you to remain out here.”

“She’s fine to listen in.”

“No, I’m sorry, Mr. Allen. This is confidential, family only.”

“She’s as much of family as I am.”

The three of us enter the room. Doctor Black sits us down and begins to tell us the story of his son, Robby.

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When the flood occurred, Robby was a fourteen-yearold with cerebral palsy. Doctor Black had reserved an apartment for himself and his family two years back when he heard about the rain. It cost him almost everything he had made as a pediatrician. He had gotten on the RAFT early to train as a multifield physician with thirteen other doctors and two surgeons. After three doctors and both surgeons blew their brains out, Doctor Black was the head medical examiner. He had to stay on the RAFT full time until the float began. When the time came for passengers to arrive, Doctor Black waited for three days. Finally, he went down to the boarding bay and asked the attendance marker if his family had made it yet. The attendance marker had turned them away because Robby’s wheel chair would put the structure of the RAFT at risk. Doctor Black tried to leave the RAFT but was forced to stay. He was put on suicide watch when he started drinking. He called his wife and child to say goodbye as the floodwaters rose, but it was too late. The Eastern Seaboard was already submerged.

Tyler has her face in her hands by the end of the story.

I can’t even look Doctor Black in the eye without tearing up again. He stands, shakily. “So now, I am going to help you. By any means necessary. For Robby.”

Tyler and I look at each, both intrigued, “What do you mean?” I ask.

“I mean, I am going to create utensils to the best of my ability, and we will find a good time and a discreet place to save Haylie. I already know what I’ll need to perform this operation.”

I just about kiss the man. It’s like I’m finally reaching the surface of the ocean to breathe.

“It’ll take some time for everything to be ready without attracting any suspicion. I just need for you to make sure Haylie stays healthy.” Dr. Black pats me on the back.

I can’t help but smile, something I haven’t done in years. While waiting for Haylie to wake up, Tyler and I discuss a plan.

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“I really don’t know if I can help.” Tyler breaks eye contact.

The words hit me right in the gut. “Wait, what?”

“Banks, who knows if this guy is even serious? I mean, he says he still drinks.” She tries to reason with some good news. “And, I forgot to tell you. I finally got the job.”

No matter what her good news is, it can’t overshadow Haylie. Yet I still hug her. “But how does that keep you from helping out Haylie?” I laugh a little in disbelief. She might just be messing with me.

“Because, Banks, the Lifeboat isn’t letting me write what I want to write. And you know how writing helped get me clean. They’ve decided to put me on these investigative scandal stories just to rake up something.”

“I can’t believe you’d put this job over Haylie since you’re her… family.” I use air quotes.

“Are we really going to go at this again?”

“No.” I open the door. “You’re going to get the fuck out.”

It’s been four weeks since Doctor Black gave me some much needed buoyant hope. I saw Tyler only once in the first two weeks. She was interviewing some old lady at the park, but when she saw me, she shut off the cameras and scurried away with her crew. But for the past two weeks, Tyler keeps popping up out of nowhere. And she is always with her crew.

I was walking in the mall yesterday looking for a new teddy bear for Haylie—all I could afford with the hospital fees. When I passed the food court, Haylie was sitting at a table scribbling something on her pad and whispering to one of her cameramen. I decided to keep on walking. Focus on Haylie; she’s the priority. I looked over my shoulder for one last glance, and there she was, still eyeing me. I have been trying to figure out what that meant all night.

The fact that I need to meet Doctor Black in an hour keeps me awake. I gave Haylie strong painkillers an hour

ago, knocking her out cold. Can’t risk screaming during the surgery. It would only make things complicated.

After checking the halls, I carry her out of the room and down the hospital staircase to an apartment on the lower level of the RAFT by Green Park. The night is silent on my way down—a quiet, lonely friend walking with me. I enjoy this silent companion. He keeps me sane— helps me ready myself for the door ahead.

They must have put Doctor Black on ground level because of the suicide watch. I knock twice, pause, then three times. The door opens, and in the blinding light, I see her face.

Tyler. She stands with the camera crew and a microphone with the words “Lifeboat” written in bold, white print. “Mr. Allen, Mr. Allen, is it true that you are risking the lives of everyone on this RAFT to save your little sister?”

My mind races. Run! I decide to lower my shoulder and bust into the apartment. Once in, I slam the door shut and block it. I lay Haylie down and turn into the light. One swing and the camera breaks in half. The footage is cut short.

“Tyler, what the fuck are you doing?” I don’t shout. It’s more of an assertive whisper.

“Yo, man. You’re payin’ for that!” The cameraman tries to get in my face but only gets two feet before I knock him out.

Tyler immediately tends to her unconscious coworker. “Banks, this is it. This is what I have to do. I told you.”

I look around for Doctor Black, but I can’t find him anywhere. “Where is he, Tyler? What did you do with him?”

“Who?” “Doctor Black.” I gesture at my sedated sister, who is probably having sweet dreams right now. “Ty, please. At least do it for Haylie. I messed up; she didn’t.”

After an agonizing fifteen seconds, Tyler drops the cameraman’s head on the ground. The thud makes my stomach jump.

“Doctor Black saw us coming to his front door with the camera. He bolted with some of his things. He’s gone.

I didn’t think he’d even...” She’s out of words when she sees my reaction.

All the air in my lungs rushes out once she says the word. Gone. Not coming back. Hope—gone. Haylie— gone. I want to take Tyler and slam her into the wall over and over, but that won’t help, especially not Haylie.

Tyler gets up, struggling to lift the cameraman over her shoulder. I have nothing left to say to her. She, however, doesn’t feel the same way. “Banks,” She looks back after she opens the door, “Lifeboat contacted the Board of Justice. They know about this.”

I look at Haylie’s calm face. Time hovers over me, tapping his watch and snickering in my ear. I take one long breath and find the tools in the compartment underneath the couch where Doctor Black told me they would be in case something happened to him. They feel cold, lifeless. With a sting, a red bead grows on my finger. It’s amazing, a jab wound. I catch Tyler staring at it, too. When I pull the tools out, nostalgia overpowers me. Knives remind me of my mother cutting fruit in the morning at breakfast. One is a wiry little utensil that resembles the tool my dentist used on my teeth when we weren’t floating. Brought out of the cobwebs, these objects seem extraterrestrial.

Tyler must realize she needs to get out of here before the Board arrives. “Banks, you know, you may be the last one who knows the real meaning of family.”

Once Tyler shuts the door, the sound of Haylie’s slow, soft breathing amplifies. I look at my sister’s pale forehead and give it a soft kiss. The hemorrhage is black when I open her shirt. I note where to make the incision and take one last breath. world | kj pankratz | digital photograph

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Recycled Promises Win Sompayrac

What were you in your past lives, Brown Paper Bag? Were you part of a larger and more mysterious being sheltering winged beasts, screeching monkeys, and crawling insects?

Did you camouflage hidden predators and provide a dense, luscious, and mystical scene?

Perhaps you were part of an arts and crafts project where a little boy put on a puppet show for his mother, and you were painted, happy, and full of life.

Were you once a grocery bag providing asylum for fine Italian wine or the glow of red, yellow, and green apples?

Could you have been the sacred division between a starving man and his gluttony?

Now you sit on my desk, holding nothing but candy wrappers and empty promises.

You were once full of so much potential.

Now you’re crumpled, useless, and full of trash.

cowboy | chris oldham | 36 x 20.5 x 4 inches | foam core collage/cardboard

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Gravity Four seconds left, the ball in my hands; in the stands, my disapproving father.

He doesn’t believe in me; I can tell.

I fly down the court with two seconds, and then everything slows as I pull up quickly from deep.

The horn sounds as soon as I let go.

The ball soars through air.

Scott Pittman

Bam! Dad hurls a basketball at me.

“Make a shot, damnit!”

I fight back tears and shoot once more.

Air ball.

After a whole week of perfect shooting one miss can set him off like a firework.

A washed up NBA player doesn’t accept failure from his son.

Dad slams the ball.

The ball floats as if it will never drop, but then suddenly, it does, looping around the rim and out.

The other team storms the court as champions.

Not us.

My father marches down the bleachers and rears back to hit me.

I flinch.

A soft hand grazes my back. johnny cash | jack whitworth | 18.25 x 24 inches | charcoal/chalk pastel

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White Squall Joseph Baggett The ocean screamed with every wave; the hull could not keep straight.

The men held sails without a sound; the squall possessed their fate.

The raging sea swept through her stern with every crashing wave.

The sailors quickly bailed for life to save her from the grave.

They thought of their wives back at home; the captain screamed and howled.

He spun around and pushed a boy, “Forget the gin!” he growled.

They rolled the cannons off the side.

The ship filled with the sea.

Some fell off with the gusts of wind.

“We lost another three!”

The captain blocked them from their work.

The water would not stop.

Men rushed towards rafts, went one by one; each raft went down the drop.

He searched for any sailor left.

The deck was clear of men.

The captain manned the helm with grit.

The sea took more than him. flippers | trip hurley | digital photography

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self-portrait | tiger wu | 19.75 x 16 inches | acrylic

self-portrait | chris oldham | 19.75 x 16 inches | acrylic

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The Passage Joseph Baggett

A vehicle. A boat. A 17.5 DLX Carolina Skiff flat bottom with a single 60 hp Suzuki outboard. An algaebarnacle mix latches to the paint on the bottom. The used rubber gunwale barely holds on to the boat. A sign of overuse. The boater’s eye might notice the rusted power steering and salt-stained railings, but I see the boat as it arrived in my driveway: perfectly mine. My parents were unusual, trusting a twelve-year-old with a possession many acquire with retirement, but they felt the same as every American parent. Their kid was special. He could handle it.

I started to learn the channels and the specific winds of the marsh trails. I tested the limits of low tide and where I could go without getting stuck. Oyster beds beat up my already beaten-up prop, so I figured out which side I had to stay on to avoid them. My friends and I spent countless hours trying to find shortcuts to hot spots in Wrightsville Beach. Fierce races were held to test whose trail was better than the others. These long days of tearing through tanks of gas were compensated by the completion of chores. I had no cell phone to call my dad when I got stuck, so I would slip on my Crocs and suffer the consequences of pushing low tide too far. A lot of my exploration consisted of trial and error. I learned the basic parts of the engine, how to move it, and how to check the oil.

Summer came fast, and my original disbelief of captaining my own boat turned into reality. The transition was the beginning of a downward spiral—a hurricane sweeping through—uprooting my earned trust

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and destroying my credibility.

Jack and I were bored on a clear Wednesday in July, so without thought we headed towards the dock. The tide was too low for marsh trails, and the idea of getting wet was not appealing because of the cool dusk breeze.

Recently, I had discovered one of the many wonders of a flat bottom boat--sliding. I could make an extremely sharp turn, and before the motor could catch the water to straighten the boat, it would slide across the water. The sliding was a fast, exhilarating feeling that could not be replicated. I decided to show Jack my skill.

We slowly drove through the “No Wake Zone” and headed towards Banks Channel, the main waterway of Wrightsville Beach. I figured that would give us enough space for our gimmicks. I took the first few slides slowly to acclimate Jack to the jerk at the end.

He egged me on. “Speed up! We’re barely sliding!”

I took that as a challenge. The engine growled as we accelerated in a circle. The boat speed picked up, and I braced myself for the slide. I gripped the wheel and turned rapidly. The boat slid faster than ever before, and quicker than I expected came the jerk. My body was thrown like a rag doll behind the boat. The sound of the growling motor faded away, interrupted by a splash. I felt the cool water rush through my clothes as I gasped for air. In the distance, Jack stood petrified trying to start the boat back.

To the right, blue lights flashed.

The Coast Guard was heading our way as fast as a steel inflatable could move. My stomach felt worse than it did when I hit the water. Humiliated, I was a child being

rescued. My freedom vanished as the Coast Guard pulled me out of the water and dialed the digits of my father’s phone. My summer plans flashed past my eyes.

As we got closer to the dock, I could see my father pacing. I was more fearful of his reaction than any consequences the Coast Guard could have given me. His steps were quick and short. I could already hear his voice in my head.

My father calmly talked to the Coast Guard as he sent me back to the house and Jack home. I hid in my

room until my door was thrown open, and the yelling started. My mom used the good cop bad cop routine, guilt tripping me with how disappointed she was in my actions. I could have been seriously injured.

Freedom. I rode my bike again just as I had before the Carolina Skiff arrived in my driveway. My parents had let me fail. They didn’t ask where I was going or what I had been doing on the boat. I had their attention back, but I was under scrutiny.

marlin | petey dubose | 24.25 x 31.5 inches | oil on canvas

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Origin Will Peak

A

small dinner | spencer goodwin | 10.75 x 13.75 inches | mixed media

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s the small, white Volvo exited the gates of St. Petersburg College, Petty’s mom passed back an unopened pack of cigarettes, a bottle of Jack Daniels, and a case of eighteen Black Label beers to her son and his friends Jonty and Reece.

“I went by the grocery before picking you up. I hope this will be enough for you before I take you to the clubs.”

Mrs. Petty opened her own pack of cigarettes.

The boys slouched in the backseat, untying their red and white striped school ties and undoing their collars.

Reece sat in the middle seat between the two older boys who were still sweating from their postgame showers. For the first time in nine years, St. Petersburg had defeated Churchill in a rugby match that left one side in tears and the other in an endless search for more beers. Reece was the young stud who had played a spectacular game.

“Thanks, Mum. It’s going to be quite the jol tonight, and it will be Reece’s first time at Origin,” said Petty, giving Reece a punch on the shoulder.

Reece made eye contact with Mrs. Petty through the rearview mirror as she grinned and lit her cigarette.

“Reece has been bragging at school that his fake ID will work anywhere, so we’re gonna test it tonight, aren’t we?” said Petty.

Reece gave a nod with his eyes closed as if he were already out on the dance floor bobbing his head to the music. His phone vibrated in his lap as his friend Bebe, who everyone called Beebz, sent him a text: Didn’t realize you had become too cool to hang out with your old friends. One big win for the team and you completely forget about our plans for the weekend?

Bullshit.

Before Jonty or Petty could see the content, Reece stuffed his phone back into his pocket.

Mrs. Petty exhaled the smoke from her first drag.

“Boy, Reece, you certainly are in for a night, I must say.

I remember when I used to jol with your father, Petty, at Origin. I certainly hope you have a good ID. Those bouncers are bigger than life. I wouldn’t shave either; you look a bit older with a touch a scruff. Maybe then they’ll think you’re at least fifteen.”

Reece’s face turned red, and he rubbed one hand on what little facial hair he had on his sixteen-year old chin.

Petty’s house was twenty miles outside of Durban, a city home to the best clubs in all of South Africa. At St. Petersburg College, Origin was known among the boys

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as the club that had the best music, the best liquor, and most importantly, the best women. Reece had been on the website almost every school night that week watching videos of bumping and grooving to large amounts of bass. The women danced in tight denim shorts and loose, skimpy shirts while the men simply bobbed their heads to the beat. One thing they all had in common: a green wristband wrapped around the right wrist signifying the holder’s age as eighteen or older. If Reece could find the maker of those bands and buy them in bulk, he knew he could make millions at St. Petersburg with all the students dying to claim they’ve been jolling at Origin.

At Petty’s house, they made a few Jack and Cokes to get the night rolling. Petty and Jonty were putting them back easily. Reece was struggling, and the other boys made sure he knew it.

“Hey, boet, ya better catch up. Pettz and I are gonna finish the handle without ya,” said Jonty.

Reece took a large gulp of his mixed drink and grimaced. “But I’ll be sharing all the shots with the women tonight, hey.” Reece had watched the way the boys spoke to each other on the rugby field or between classes. There were always missiles being fired one way or another.

After cuffing the sleeves to their shirts to show more of their biceps, gelling their hair to slick it back perfectly, and applying an unhealthy amount of cologne, the boys were ready for a night out. They pocketed a few Black Labels to keep them company on their taxi drive into Durban.

Reece sat in the backseat twiddling his ID, making sure he had his address and card issue number memorized.

“Getting nervous eh, boet?” Petty loved to establish himself as the alpha male in the group despite his inability to talk to women without making a fool of himself.

“Nawh, I’m just messin’. I’ll have a drink waiting on you for when you get your band.”

Downtown Durban stays packed almost every Saturday night, and tonight was no different. The three

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boys began the walk down Florida Road to Origin. On the third floor patio bar, some men had already situated themselves with cigarettes for the night. In the windows of the second floor, lights were flashing shades of blue, green, pink, and purple in a flurry that replicated the sound of the music.

Reece took a gulp as he headed across the street towards the line into the club. It was around eleven o’clock, and after about an hour, the boys were nearing the front. Reece was finally able to get a good look at the bouncers. One had a bald head with a stern face and enough muscle to rip his shirt if he flexed. The other had a ponytail, which drastically changed Reece’s previous opinion that only women could wear ponytails. His interlaced facial hair made it seem as though all of his hair was connected. Reece reckoned they each weighed around 230 pounds and could squash him like a bug.

They stood side by side in front of the entrance, dressed in all black and wearing earpieces to communicate with the security inside. Within seconds, the boys were face to face with the men.

“Watch and learn,” whispered Petty to Reece before stepping forward.

“ID?” said the bald security guard.

“Right here.” Petty handed him the ID confidently.

The security guard looked at the card, back at Petty, then back at the card. “You’re good to go.”

Petty took his ID and walked into Origin.

“ID?” said the bald security guard.

“Right here,” said Jonty.

The security guard looked at the card, back at Jonty, then back at the card. “You’re good to go.”

“ID?” said the bald security guard.

“Right here,” said Reece, shakily handing him the ID. There was a pause—a pause that wasn’t there for Petty or Jonty. Reece looked over and saw them putting their bands on their right wrists, wondering why Reece hadn’t joined them yet. The bald security guard handed the ID

to the man with the ponytail. They looked first at the ID, then at Reece, then back at the ID. They were whispering about something before they began to laugh.

“You’re sixteen. I can’t let you in,” said the bald man.

Reece looked at the man in shock. Was the man with a ponytail some kind of fortuneteller? “Wha…, how did you know?”

“Well, ya see son, it says it right here.” The security guard handed back over the ID with a sarcastic grin.

From the street outside of Origin, Reece listened to the sounds of girls singing along to popular songs and

guys chanting about rugby.

Reece had forgotten to switch out his ID. “I think you better head home, kid. Florida Road can be dangerous this time of night,” said the security guard.

Florida Road was transforming itself. Once filled with faces excited about the night ahead, the street was beginning to grow darker.

Beebz. Reece whipped out his phone praying he would pick up.

“What do you want?”

It was a good question.

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More Than Just a Mitt Christian Zaytoun

“Bat ball, Momma. Go play bat ball!” My brother begged to play ball each afternoon. The Golden Glove went everywhere with Haynes. All across the farm the glove would catch bugs, mud, pinecones, butterflies, and sometimes baseballs. One of the greatest pictures of Haynes hangs on our fridge to this day. He stands barefoot on the old wooden dock. A wide smile stretches across his face, which is partly covered in dirty blond hair. Shirtless, he holds a fishing rod in his right hand that arcs over his head. In his left hand, an 8-inch bass is cradled in the Golden Glove.

Visitors to our house would have about ten minutes before Haynes had to pitch them his “heater,” and he wouldn’t stop until you yelled, “Strike three, he’s outta there!” Haynes eventually grew out of the glove, and unfortunately, out of his passion for baseball. He still loves the game, but baseball didn’t love him back. With his best interests in mind, my dad woke Haynes every Saturday and Sunday morning at 6:45 AM to go hit and throw. Enticed by the idea of being a college player, but broken down by the morning and evening practices, Haynes soon viewed the sport as work rather than a game. Even as early as middle school, the smile of simply being on the field began to fade as the Golden Glove was passed along.

My brother gave the Golden Glove to me when I was four because Santa brought him a new glove. The black finish had worn to a light brown. The Golden Glove was now mine. I had been swinging a bat since I could stand,

and I used to make my mom pitch me whiffle balls as she pushed my toddler brother on a swing. The year was finally here: my first glove, my first team, my first baseball game. This was a dream come true. I would bring my glove to bed like a stuffed animal, tuck it in the sheets next to me, and we would fall asleep.

Eventually I grew out of the Golden Glove and passed it to my little brother, Rocco. The black finish with gold stenciling was gone, leaving only the character of wellworn leather. It was looser than a glove should be, but it never lost its integrity. Still five and three quarters of an inch across, just enough to fit a baseball. Tens of thousands of baseballs had been caught in that glove, and it hurt knowing the number was approaching its limit. Rocco used the glove for years, holding onto all of our dreams. We all dreaded the day when the glove played its last game, and poor Rocco was stuck with the job of deciding when to turn it in. Oddly, Rocco never picked up the game like Haynes or I did. As a boy of action, the slow-paced, thinking sport never fully dunked Rocco in its sacred waters. He tailored the game to fit his personality. Always the one to try to make the diving catch or to slide headfirst, Rocco was the dirtiest player to walk off the field after practice. We almost forced Rocco to continue playing baseball even though boxing suited him better.

Even now I don’t have the guts to tell our family the baseball train has passed. It’s time for the Golden Glove to assume its position in the trophy case.

daphne’s hill | rob prater | digital photography

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Aporia Junepyo Suh

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philosophy duel. With no classes or urgent homework to do, a Sunday morning offers me the time to lie on my bed, two thoughtful hands folded under my head, and think of my past or imagine small hopes coming true. A story develops in my head, sometimes as a montage, other times a lively conversation. As expected, my imagination conquers my brain this Sunday.

“What is your opinion on that?” Auberon inquired, peeling off his Quarter Pounder wrappers and then squeezing ketchup on his fries.

“Well, I think enjoying our time should be our ultimate goal in life—appreciating the conditions provided for us,” Frank mumbled, his mouth filled with chicken tenders.

“We only live once, and we have to make the best of it.

Don’t be too sophisticated.”

“That can be true, but I think differently. Since we only live once, we should do something that will affect the whole of society—the whole world. Don’t you think so?”

Frank shifted his body and sipped his Pepsi. His neck, although masked by his double chin, protruded and retracted as he drank. He rested his full weight on the poor, creaking chair. “You know the saying, the drop of water that makes the vase overflow. If your goal is affecting other people, congratulations: you’re already successful.

You’ve affected your neighbors, friends, family, or even just a lost traveler who asked you about the location of Holiday Inn.”

“No, not just affecting other people but benefitting the entire society, the entire world! If we are born as men, we must accomplish something huge—something really meaningful that will decorate the history book of the next generation. Tigers leave their skins when they die, but men leave their names.” Auberon’s brow furrowed as he spoke. Inside his thin body was a strong, determined spirit.

Frank swallowed his last bite. “I wouldn’t worry about the uncertain future.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin.

“The present is our most valuable gift. That is why it is called the present. Don’t just throw it away.”

“I don’t know. I totally agree with having fun and enjoying our lives, but I don’t want my ambition to wither away as I face reality and conform. I don’t want to be just like everyone else. There may be some small, daily happiness even in the life of a salaried man, but…I just think it is not as meaningful as doing something to help society take a step forward.” Auberon sighed.

“You think too much, man,” Frank answered. “Forget everything. Let’s just chill for now.”

“You’re right. Let’s get out of here.” Auberon stood up, and Frank followed him out of McDonald’s.

The bell signals twelve-thirty. The images of Frank and Auberon overlap and transform into my own image. I have no choice but to wrap up my imagined dialogue and go to brunch. Like a usual Sunday morning, the controversy within me remains unsolved. Another aporia. business blur | tiger wu | 24 x 18 inches | charcoal

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Finding Reason Caleb Simmons

Cold water and wind shock me as thousands of icy needles prick my skin.

I ask myself, “Why all this for a trout?�

I grip my pole and thumb my line, hoping to encounter the tug of a Brown.

My brother and his friends wade, and steam rolls as we all exhale warmth only for it to be captured by battering February wind.

I cast my line, tumbling downstream, recasting again.

Bumps here and there tempt trout with the flash of my lure.

The absence of warmth haunts me; I yearn to make my way back to the road, but what if that next cast produces a monster?

Then suddenly from the depths of the Maury, the sheer brutality of a hooked-nose Brown strikes.

It fights for life, digging at drag in my reel.

Then, like a strike of lightning, the line snaps.

The thunder of my worry cracks.

Yes, it is off, and now, with heart pounding, my question is answered.

canoe | patrick burke | digital photogrpahy

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Bigger Andrew Jacobs

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crowd began to form around a boat down at the dock. The old man looked on with nostalgic eyes.

He leaned up against a small wooden shed, smiling to himself.

A passerby spoke out to him. “Quite a fish, isn’t it?” he said with a broad smile on his face.

The old man snickered to himself, glancing at his worn boots. “I suppose so,” he said in a gruff, southern drawl.

The passerby, who was wearing ragged cargo shorts and an old t-shirt from a fishing tournament, gave him a questioning look. “You suppose so? It just weighed in at 814 pounds. That’s the North Carolina state record for a bluefin tuna, my friend.”

The old man nodded in agreement. “814 ain’t bad, I guess.”

The man in cargo shorts shook his head and turned away, joining the growing group around the boat.

But he’d seen bigger. 814 pounds was gigantic, really.

The old man knew that. No one believed him, but he’d seen bigger.

It was so long ago he’d forgotten the year. Maybe it was the early 80’s because oil prices were low. He couldn’t remember. The old man couldn’t name the day of the week or the month either, but he remembered that night vividly. It wasn’t the date that mattered; it was the story— the experience.

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The sun was dipping low in the sky, casting a pink sheen atop the ocean. It was late in the afternoon on a humid, summer day. The boat rocked back and forth gently, and a slight breeze rustled the fisherman’s hair. He was young then with a full head of hair. With Wayfarers shielding his eyes, he stood on the bow of his fishing vessel, scanning the water for signs of life. The warm hum of the motor filled his ears.

His first mate Jessie sat idly in the fighting chair waiting for a fish to bite on one of the several trolling rods. Bored with his job, Jessie made his way into the cabin to search for a deck of cards.

“Hey, Clint!” he called from inside. “Game o’ rummy?”

The old man maintained his gaze across the ocean.

“Not now, Jessie.”

Jessie sighed. “All right. Guess it’s just me and myself.”

Clint continued to scan the water. He occupied himself by thinking of the bills he was barely paying and the car he owned that belonged in a junkyard more than his driveway. He lived in a dump of a house that had more plumbing and electrical problems than he could count, and he worked ludicrous hours, often from 3:00 AM to 8:00 PM. He worked on the water though, and the water was where he tried to forget all of the problems that plagued him on land.

Weeks removed from high school, Clint had put together as much money as he could and had bought a

fishing boat. It was all he had; he worked on it, ate on it, slept on it. With the fish he caught, Clint eventually made enough to buy himself an old cottage on the beach a five-minute drive from the dock. For a nineteen-year old, he’d done pretty well for himself. He thought he was on his way to big things.

Twenty years later, he found himself in the same, if not worse, situation. He still lived in the old cottage, and he still made his money catching fish on the same boat that he had once called his home. He hadn’t gone anywhere; the only advancement he’d made was adding a first mate, Jessie, to his payroll.

In the midst of his thoughts, something caught Clint’s attention. He heard a high-pitched, squealing sound. He turned towards the source of the noise, one of the trolling rods.

“Fish on!” he yelled. “Jessie, fish on!” Clint covered the length of the boat in four long strides, ending his sprint with a short leap onto the rear deck. Jessie was still fumbling around in the cabin. Clint grabbed the rod and hastily sat in the fighting chair. “Strap me in!”

“One second!” Jessie called. He was trying to put the cards back into their drawer, but they had scattered all over the cabin. “Just one second, I’m coming!”

Clint turned. “To hell with the cards, Jessie! Strap me in!”

Jessie dropped the cards he had gathered and whirled around. His foot caught the leg of the small table in the cabin, sending him to the floor in a violent tumble.

Clint heard the noise and called “You good, Jessie?” over his shoulder.

Jessie didn’t respond.

“Jessie?” he called once more. Turning around, Clint saw Jessie lying on the floor, his head turned to the side. He set the rod in the holder in the chair as the line continued to squeal. Clint rose from the chair and kneeled next to Jessie.

Jessie was still breathing but unresponsive. Clint

shifted Jessie’s body into a more natural position against the bench. His eyes flickered, and then he mumbled.

“Are you okay?”

Jessie’s eyes opened a bit more, and he nodded.

“Stay here. I’ll deal with the fish.” Clint returned to the seat, preparing himself to fight the fish that had been busy swimming away with the bait. Getting strapped in was a brief struggle. Clint had to use one hand to secure the rod and the other to maneuver the straps.

The fight was difficult at first. Clint waited for the rod to stop squealing before he attempted to start reeling it in. After almost ten minutes, the intense squealing slowed to a soft whistle. The fighting process began. Clint leaned backwards, pulling on the rod, then leaned forward, reeling out the line. Clint had reeled in thousands of fish, but as he slaved on, he began to think that this fish was like no other.

Periodically, he called back to Jessie to check his status.

He had yet to get a response. Eventually he started to worry, but he kept his focus on the battle.

Well after the sun had set beyond the gentle crests of the waves, the battle continued. The moon’s pale glow illuminated the vast ocean. Clint entered the first stages of exhaustion. His hands and arms were numb, drained from the repeated tug of the rod. The fish neared the boat.

Occasional splashes of its tail grew louder and louder.

The fight had dragged on for three hours, and the effort, which had already numbed his arms and shoulders, was continuing to sap his strength. Clint could barely hold the rod, and the muscles in his back cramped terribly.

Jessie leaned over; there would be no help.

Right as Clint debated tossing in the whole fight, he heard the fish bump up against the back of the boat. He set the rod in the holder and struggled to unstrap himself.

Every muscle in his body ached. He fumbled around the back deck and eventually found the gaff to spear and hoist the fish into the boat.

Clint peered into the black water. The fish was still,

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silently suffering the same symptoms of fatigue that Clint was. With one last surge of energy, Clint stuck the gaff into the fish with a grunt. Leaning back with all of his weight, he tried to raise the fish out of the water, resting the gaff on the edge of the boat to gain leverage. Straining to bear the weight of the monstrous fish, even the gaff started to bend.

He got one good look at the creature. Much larger than any fish he’d ever seen, the tuna must’ve been close to 900 pounds. Clint gave one final pull on the gaff, expending the last of his strength. The gaff finally succumbed to the fish’s weight and bent at a ninety-degree angle, allowing the fish to escape and reenter the water. Clint staggered backwards, grabbing the edge of the fighting chair to keep his balance. He started to chuckle, and the chuckle

soon grew to a full, throaty wail of a laugh. He had just fought and beaten the largest fish of his life.

Clint turned his head and saw Jessie stirring. He had a drowsy, confused look in his eyes. “What happened?”

Clint smiled. “You’ll never believe me.”

Clint realized he’d been staring out into the harbor, a smile at the corners of his mouth. He saw someone move towards him. It was Jessie. Clint stopped leaning against the wooden shed and shifted his weight to his feet. They shook hands—Jessie’s grip firmer than Clint’s.

“What’re you smiling about, old man?”

Clint chuckled. “Nothing, Jessie,” he responded.

“Nothing at all.”

frank murphy | david smith | digital photography

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Never the Same

It’s Abigail’s Fault

Max Johns

Andrew Harris I stared down the hall that adjoined my class to my mother’s and watched her whisper something into Abigail’s ear.

Abigail smiled and whipped her long red hair around as she walked past the underwater mural on the wall.

She whispered, “Your mom told me to give you this,” and kissed me right on the cheek, a head-spinning, first grade kiss that left me reeling.

Perhaps it’s not fair to blame Abigail, but the only memory I have of my mother’s funeral is seeing Abigail after the service.

Before passing her in the hallway, I tried to wipe away the tears with the sleeve of my ill-fitting suit.

The first day of school when I walked in the classroom, their eyes burned my skin like the bright lights at the dentist.

Even the teacher stopped to look at the black boy who walked in.

I was a different species the way they stared at me; examined and studied.

I didn’t belong like a black bean in a bowl of white rice.

As the days went on and they got used to me, they touched my hair and felt my skin.

They asked, “Why are your lips so large?”

“How do you wash your hair?”

“Where are your people from?”

I said, “Virginia,” but they just laughed.

They said my people must be from Africa because I was so black.

I was different.

I walked to school.

My clothes weren’t nice.

I was taller and stronger and smarter and blacker, and they laughed.

Parent-teacher conferences came, and I went by myself.

I was the best in my grade.

In the hallway as I walked home, I overheard a parent say to a child, “You let that nigger do better than you?”

That day I learned I was better than them, but I was different.

I was black like the plague and black like eerie shadows that stalk you in the night, and I would never be the same.

They talked slowly to me as if I didn’t understand.

They thought I was cheating because I wasn’t supposed to be good in school. sia | andrew garnett | digital photography

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Christmas Card Specialist Cameron Finley

H

an american nativity | rob prater | digital photography

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ow many sixteen-year-olds do you know who still make Christmas cards for their moms? I was hoping you’d say plenty. As I sat on my bed this past Christmas Eve, dreading the moment where I’d have to rummage through the office to find the colored pencils and paper, I wondered why I still do this. Christmas Eve is usually a day for last minute shopping. For me, it consists of last minute drawing while attempting to think of clever messages I can write. I’ve been doing this for ten years.

My Christmas card for my mom gets better each year.

With age, I’ve seemed to develop some skill that has taken my drawings beyond a mediocre level. Although the quality improves, my excitement does not. The first card I ever made had “Merry Christmas, Mom!” chickenscratched onto the front in green and red pencil. Open the card, and you’d find a gigantic, lopsided Christmas tree with gifts of all different shapes underneath. I colored the negative space of the card in red and wrote underneath the tree “To Mommy.” May I remind you this was ten years ago. I spent close to an hour on the card, trying to make each ornament I drew on the tree perfect. I wanted for this to be her best present. When I finished, I hid the card at the bottom of my sock drawer so she wouldn’t find it. It had to be a surprise.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve 2014, and still you’d

find me huffing and puffing as I dug through the office closet looking for colored pencils. I still couldn’t find any by midnight, so I settled for a normal #2 pencil and a green Sharpie. Spending a whopping fifteen minutes on the card, I wrote my signature “Merry Christmas, Mom!” on the cover. I don’t remember if I couldn’t think of anything to draw or just didn’t want to, but I ended up writing a paragraph about how grateful I was for her. It was lacking something, so I sketched, in my opinion, a decent Santa Claus head. I didn’t even color it in. My six-year-old self would be disappointed. That night, I left the card on my dresser, out in the open for even my mom to see.

I didn’t have much money this past Christmas because of college application fees, so my best option was to make a card. This Christmas was especially important because it was my seven-month-old brother Cody’s first one.

Thrilled, my mom let Cody pick out the Christmas tree.

I don’t think a seven-month-old can distinguish between which tree looks better than the other, but it actually turned out nicely. I wasn’t home to decorate the tree, but I saw my mom’s excitement in the festive pictures she sent me showing Cody in his Christmas hat. I arrived home for break and saw the countless toys underneath the tree.

If that wasn’t enough, my mom gave my older brother

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Mark and me money to get Cody a gift ourselves. She told us about how when we were younger, she bought us an endless number of toys for Christmas, but we only played with one. I thought she’d have learned her lesson by now. On Christmas morning, we sat around the living room and watched Cody trying to open his gifts. Ripping and tugging at the paper, he couldn’t get one open. I took the present myself and opened it since I didn’t want to be there all day. Slowly but surely, we opened every one. The floor was flooded with toys, but he decided to play with a miniature Big Bird from Sesame Street.

I slogged upstairs to get the card for my mom. Her eyes lit up and her teeth showed. She opened the card and read the paragraph while almost simultaneously grabbing me for a hug. I can always tell when my mom loves something because she’ll take a picture of it and post it on Facebook. A lot of moms tend to do that. Cody may have gotten too many gifts, and I may have made another card that I didn’t love making, but everyone was happy by the end of the day. My mom’s reaction always makes up for the misery.

Soon, I’ll be heading off to college. I don’t see myself being eighteen and still making these cards, but I know I’ll miss the joy it brings to my mom. She often mentions how fast Mark and I have grown up. He’s already graduated from high school, and I will soon. I hadn’t thought about why she loves the cards so much, but I realize now that it helps her with the process of her boys changing. I’ve been making the cards for so long, and maybe she feels as if I’ve grown up in every other way except for this. Christmas cards connect me to my childhood. I understand that it’s difficult for her to see her two older children leave, but she has been blessed with the opportunity to raise another. I’m eager to teach Cody how to make Christmas cards and even how to add his own personal touch. I want him to experience the pride that comes with seeing our mom overjoyed because of something he’s made for her. As brothers, maybe we can start a Christmas card tradition that we pass down to our children and grandchildren. Hopefully, they will all enjoy it more than I do.

1 vs. 1 | spencer goodwin | 14.75 x 20 inches | acrylic and rope on black paper

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Have a Drink Tiger Ripley

untitled | david smith | digital photography

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he word fired out of his mouth like a bullet. “Shit.”

It was purely reflex but still fitting. Brett had just stepped in a nice deposit from someone’s dog. To a pedestrian walking by, it could have easily seemed like Brett was simply labeling the pile for what it was. He laughed and checked his watch. 9:35 PM. He started walking past rows of trees. He was headed back home, but it never felt that way anymore. It was a nice house, sure, but the idea of a home implied he enjoyed being there.

9:40 PM. How the hell had five minutes passed just walking down St. Margaret’s? He was starting to get a little anxious now. To calm down, he looked back into the dense forest on either side of the twisting road to his parents’ house. His mind was idle, just observing each tree. Some had more vines, some were old and gnarled, and one had lost branches in the previous night’s storm.

Brett’s legs were still moving quickly. Each foot battled to stay in front of its counterpart.

Brett glanced back at his watch. 9:43 PM. He was starting to get sick to his stomach. He couldn’t run, not with a gallon of milk from the supermarket for his mother. She always made those delicious chocolate chip cookies right after Christmas. She never baked anything

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for Christmas, only after. That’s when everyone needed cookies the most to keep spirits up. Somehow that thought was all he needed to get his mind focused on the trip home again. It relieved his stress but only momentarily.

9:50 PM. Brett broke a sweat; he was speed walking now. He had to get home before…no, he couldn’t think about it, so he looked down at his old, worn-through tennis shoes—the same exact pair his dad bought for him on his birthday three years ago. His dad was an interesting character, a big man with wide shoulders and the slightest hint of a belly that suggested he spent just enough time exercising to seem reasonably in shape. He had hard lines that seemed like they had been carved in stone rather than drawn on his face the way most men his age looked. His attitude was tough—always hard on his boys to make sure they were doing everything they could to be better than he was. But that would never happen.

It was impossible. He couldn’t build things like his father or fight the way he saw his father fight one time when a man insulted their family or make people smile the way his father could with just the wink of an eye. He wasn’t good at anything like his father.

Brett began to get a little thirsty. His mouth was dry, and each breath of cold air caught in his throat. They

wouldn’t mind if he just took a sip of milk on the way home. As long as his mom still had enough for her cookies, and he didn’t spill any on the shoes his dad bought him (or else they would smell of spoiled milk).

Rather than unscrewing the top of the jug, he just pulled the top off and took a swig. It tasted just as good as it did when he was younger. It brought back memories of the way his father used to smell. Those were the best days of his life. His parents worked in the yard while he and his next-door neighbor Kevin played football or rode bikes up and down his driveway. Sometimes they would even ride through the whole neighborhood if they promised to be back before dinner started. He remembered trying to tell the time by the sun and always failing miserably.

When did the hot bread and the green beans and the steak hit the table? Brett was always home late. His father would punish him accordingly.

Eventually there wasn’t a dinner for Brett to miss.

His parents stopped serving the steak, green beans, and buttered bread. Most nights Brett would come home late or sometimes not at all when he was with Chad and their friends, of course. They would have been out drinking.

Brett never remembered anything from those nights except the taste of whisky. His parents never seemed to care that he smelled like his father used to. They probably never knew since they were sitting in the office “working.”

Brett took another drink from the milk jug. It tasted a little stronger than it had before, maybe from the sweat or maybe because his breath smelled bad. It was more of a smell than a taste. 10:25 PM. He still had so far to go before home. He had ridden his bike all the way into the city for milk, but then within the first couple of minutes of his journey home, Brett had realized he had a flat. In anger, he had thrown the bike into a tree near the side of the road. The frame was bent so that the front tire was far higher than the back tire. The bike wouldn’t be rideable even if he fixed the flat.

So Brett kept walking, remembering that it was his

brother who bought him that bike when he went away to boarding school. Chad was five years older—the responsible one with excellent grades. Now at 23, he was looking for a job. Brett remembered watching his brother talking to his parents at dinner one night about the possibility of going to law school. They said they loved him more than anything, yet they didn’t even give him a reason for why they said no. It seemed so unfair. Even when you’re an adult, your parents still try to run your life.

10:32 PM. Brett decided if he were going to make it back on time, he would need to start jogging. He set a nice pace as he watched the stars in front of him.

Somehow they didn’t move an inch. The road seemed like one long treadmill. Every once in a while a car would pass by. He could see its headlights coming around a bend in the road, and he would stand far off to the side. The driver might be drunk. Shortly after he began running, his arms got tired. The jug was heavy and awkward to run with, not to mention that the entire trip would be a failure if he dropped it. So he took another long drink from the jug and then coughed harshly as he tried to swallow. His throat burned, but it warmed his stomach and kept him going. He followed up with a few sips every time he moved off the road for a car.

The night cold was getting to him now. It must have been below 30 degrees, and the wind chill made it feel like 10. The wind blowing into his face reminded Brett of everything that was going against him, pushing him back from getting home. He thought back to the long nights wondering when he would see Chad again, when he would be home from high school or college or work. He wondered when his parents would laugh together again and when he would see his high school crush Annabel.

Not that she wanted to see him, but it was nice to admire her in the halls and see the way other guys hit on her while she shut them down. Nobody could touch her. She was always laughing or smiling with her equally attractive

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friends. She had blonde hair and was short, maybe 5’3”, but those gorgeous blue eyes looking up at you made that the perfect height.

Brett snapped back from his daydream just in time to see a deer jump out from the night onto the edge of the road. Its white tail reflected the light of the moon. It took another step, but then it was gone. At least what was alive. The oncoming driver had swerved sharply to stay on the road and maintain control of his car. The deer’s ribs were smashed. Its eyes, left paralyzed and wide with fear, stared blankly. Its legs looked frozen as if the muscles were still trying to run. Brett poured a little of the milk on the deer’s outstretched tongue, wondering if it could still taste. He began jogging again, stumbling slightly at first. His watch had become increasingly difficult to read as the night went on, but his vision finally focused. 11:15 PM. In a complete panic, Brett began running as fast as his body could manage down the road back home. He knew he was getting close when he passed Ole Mill Bottom Road. The jug was over half empty and much easier to carry. In the final sprint up the hill before his neighborhood, he began to feel sick. He had drank too much. Brett pushed on—sprinted, fought, tripped, battled—his way up the hill.

He had lost the jug somewhere along the way. Brett stopped between his friend’s house (where music was blaring and drunk teenagers were probably flirting or fighting inside) and his own house (where his parents were probably in bed figuring that their son wouldn’t be back tonight). He settled his breathing. Brett forgot about the jug, the cookies, the worn-through shoes, the broken bike, and the dead deer in the road. He took a deep breath, walked up the front steps, and opened the door. lion | lee caffey | 24 x 17.75 inches | pastel and marker studio | rob prater | digital photography

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The Haze Jackson Sompayrac When does the dream end?

Like clouded vision, our lives are fogged by a nebulous haze.

Sometimes we see this reality in a life or death situation.

The black of the storm.

A hot day, the storm imminent, the decision was quickly made to pack up and head home.

A snap of the fingers, a flick of a switch, that easily, a massive tree fell into the road, and we were headed straight for it.

Like trying to stop a train, its wheels screeching, the haze of reality was lifted.

Life seemed to stop in that moment.

I have not seen through the haze since, but I now know it is there.

the grey | david gussler | digital photography

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Night Sailor Keeling Wood

T

he boat rocked slowly as the waves gently lifted it up and brought it down. The flickering light cast from the lantern barely reached the bowsprit. Fluttering against the bound sails, salt-licked breezes occasionally rustled over the deck. In scared silence, crewmembers stalked among the rigging, cowering from the darkness.

Something about it was different—it wasn’t just empty blackness—tonight it was heavy and foreboding, like something waited out there.

“Nightmares live here,” an old seaman said, his voice cutting through the silence. “We best sail with caution.”

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“Quiet, you old fool,” Johnson shot back. A younger and greener man, given the post of first mate for his sheer skill at the ship’s prow, Johnson spoke with cool command. “That patrol ship is likely to still be near. You, man,” he pointed to a man near the bow, “shut that light.”

The man hesitated, briefly looking towards his friend at his right as if he needed some reassurance to carry out the order. The men all feared losing the light, as it and it alone staved off the darkness. Compelled by the threat of discipline, the man inhaled heavily, as if taking in the final light through his lungs, and then shut the lantern.

Below the ship’s deck rested an entire hold’s worth of contraband; being caught with it would earn all hands on deck a swift summons to a court martial. An hour before the blackout, a patrol frigate was spotted turning towards them. Fearing discovery, the Captain ordered full sail away and promptly closed all lamps, leaving only one to allow the men to carry out their normal duties. Now even that was gone; total blackness enveloped them. Each man felt the tension of silence and the fear of the dark.

Johnson, now at the stern, heard what seemed to be whispers. Carefully navigating across the ship, he attempted to find the source. Between the bow and the stern, the voices were loudest. They seemed to beckon him with their call, wailing from underneath the waves. Against all orders he opened the shutter to a lantern that was tied to a heavy rope. The rope was used to pull the light up to higher parts of the main mast, but it now lay in coils on the deck. Johnson wanted a better look, but the light lent him no help. The voices, which called louder as Johnson approached the railing, drew him closer and closer to the edge. Stepping into the coil of ropes, Johnson tripped and fell forward into the water. The lantern, tangled around his ankle by the rope, fell with him.

Had he been on the surface, Johnson would have heard the cries of “man overboard” and the Captain’s hesitant order to restore all lights. Instead, Johnson was carried downwards, descending slowly through the black water with the heavy lamp attached to his left foot. In a desperate attempt to swim upwards, he flailed his arms in a sweeping breaststroke, but the lamp continued to pull him down. Bubbles cascaded upwards—his lungs burned for air. Then he saw something. The drowning man sank toward the light of the lantern glowing far below.

In front of him, dimly lit, floated a leviathan. A monster, a true nightmarish entity—something beyond the ability of human thought to create—filled his entire field of view. As much as the sailor wanted to look away, something about it, something ancient and powerful,

kept his gaze.

An entanglement of sinewy tendrils probed the depths like spears of lightning. As the tendrils spiraled out from the center, they formed together into massive tentacles, arms so vast they seemed to cover the entire ocean floor.

Johnson saw its center—the real horror of its body.

By an unknown mechanism the creature floated forward towards the man, and as it did, revealed an eye.

A singular eye.

A human eye.

The eye itself was so massive that Johnson felt small, tiny, insignificant. He was but a speck. Then the eye gazed through him, by pure chance, and as it did so, Johnson felt a crushing pressure, as if an entire world had looked into him. He almost screamed but found himself incapable. He wanted to drown, to be free of this living nightmare. Then for the briefest moment, he stared back. The eye consumed him. He was lost, sinking through the vast depths. In that moment, he was so small that he had never existed—none of his actions, thoughts, or dreams.

The eye faded into the depths from which it had come. The drowning man had thought the light would be his shield, but only the darkness separated him from the monster that hid below. The fire in his lungs returned and then began to fade. The night sailor carried his terrible knowledge to a grave below the still waters and the stiller silence.

the staring halo | woodberry forest film and photography club | digital photography

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How to Lose Ma & Pa: A Chronicle Rob Willis

R

emorse has to be weeded out for any hope of the plan to work. Actually, the plan should be called a scheme. There’s no need to sugarcoat it. It is a scheme after all. Or, rather, a conspiracy. If we, you and I, are lucky—or even smart—it will only be a rumor. Our parents, wandering through a fog of carefully laid, intangible evidence, will be left dealing with insubstantial wisps. That is the first step.

Carefully, not too fast and not too slow, restrain yourself. Those witty remarks and self-righteous comebacks must come to an end. Sarcasm can bite man’s ass much harder than you would expect. A simple misspoken word or something said with the wrong tone can set off a chain of events that will undeniably shatter the resolution of your plan. There are too many moving parts, too much can go wrong. That cannot happen.

The home scene must be tranquil enough as to allow for total peace but not too tranquil as to arouse suspicion.

Building the “trophy” child reputation slowly is key. Too fast and they’ll suspect something, anything. They want to mistrust you; it’s their nature. Too slow and nothing will be achieved in the prompt fashion necessary. My recommendation is to volunteer for chores. At the same time, however, complain about it. This will allow you to earn an allowance of good-natured credit as well as being self-centered enough to remain below the radar.

When cashing in the benefits of all the dishes you washed and the lip you did not give, be careful to request favors from both parents. The instinctive discord between the two will provide a safety net in the odd circumstance your plan does not fall through. One will say yes and the other will say no, but either way you’ll be free to go.

It would be best to call them once you are out. The Mothers and Fathers of this world are not only mistrusting but needful. They resent your freedom, thus, the best way to ensure their complacency is to convince them that they still have a hold of you. But, be sure to supply conviction.

A simple telephone call, not a text (it must be more personal than that), should suffice in convincing them that you are still within range of their control.

You look back at your handiwork. No urgent texts from Mother. No missed calls from Father. You exhale your first true sigh of relief as your chest finally unclenches and the sweat dries on your relaxing brow. No one is breathing down your back now. You are alone.

The cool night air feels good against your face. Nothing that is out there can stop you. The scent has been lost, the hunters gone. Your parents cannot touch you now. You are invincible. Inhale.

So let your head back, man, and exhale. That is the last step.

Inspired by Richard Selzer’s “The Knife”

don’t look back | kyle kauffman | digital photography

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The Despicable Me Jackie Lee I will never forget the death of my friend who hung himself in the gym; his body danced in the light.

The sight of the lifeless figure swinging from side to side.

In motion. Dead weight.

Oh, I will never forget.

His life was a play, a tragedy, and he was the puppet.

The curtain craved red, but in the end it was black.

I will never forget the last words he spoke to me as he walked towards the gym. “Ice cream.�

I screamed.

The despicable me.

Inspired by Cronos by Stanley William Hayter

california noon | michael deng | digital photography

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A Runner’s Nightmare Cameron Finley

My teeth clench, and I know I can’t be crowned.

I swing my arms while each guy passes by.

My spikes tear through the grass without a sound.

The crowd cries out as each one comes around, and then loss hits me like a gunshot wound: My teeth clench, and I know I can’t be crowned.

My heart thumps fast as I slowly gain ground.

While every noise hits my ears like a bat’s, my spikes tear through the grass without a sound.

The disappointment makes my sore legs pound.

What is the point of all this needless work?

My teeth clench, and I know I can’t be crowned.

I guess my parents couldn’t stick around.

Through all the roar I don’t hear my name once.

My spikes tear through the grass without a sound.

The line approaches quickly and I’ve found that no one will be there to say “great run!”

My teeth clench, and I know I can’t be crowned.

My spikes tear through the grass without a sound.

deep thoughts | cameron finley | digital photography

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Winter’s Wake

Toeprints in the Fog

Andrew Harris

Andrew Harris

So many fruits have false spring days destroyed With pleasant airs of hope for just awhile, And sprouts, once green, cannot be then enjoyed, For Winter shortly frosts the plant’s first trial.

The jonquil sticks his head out for a peek, Cajoled out of his bulb by sun’s warm rays, Until a cold front comes and leaves him weak, Then yellow turns to white with Winter’s glaze.

Right after lovers’ quarrels turn to sighs, There lies a testy time, when none dare breathe, For quickly can the weather turn awry, And then hard Winter can sink in its teeth.

So learn from that poor jonquil’s grave mistake And keep your head down during Winter’s wake.

When she, lying on the narrow seat, rolls over on her side, five clear circles appear on the foggy window where her foot was, perfect dime-sized impressions of her toes.

She scribbles your initials in the window by your heads, and smiles before putting her head back on your shoulder.

Later, you try to pull out of the parking lot, but the opaque windshield won’t let you, so you grab your t-shirt and wipe it down the best you can.

When the fog clears, whether it be next week or years down the road, you’ll realize that you were only romanticizing condensation.

crystal freeze | k.j. pankratz | digital photograph

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Fragile News Cameron Finley Late that night as I sat on the delicate bed sheet, the news gently drizzled out of her mouth. My blood boiled.

Her belly encompassed the one thing that would slow everything down.

That’s the lie I told myself.

Phone calls from home contained talk of school and cross country.

The word baby became my cue to end the conversation.

Six months passed and her stomach was round as if Earth lodged itself inside of her. I couldn’t escape it.

Her previous pregnancy was sixteen years ago, and that should’ve been the last.

Month nine. On a sunlit day in June he arrived, crying and squirming, fragile as a stack of playing cards constructed into a building.

He rested in my arms as they ached. His eyes shot open and slowly shut while mine stayed fixed on him. My brother.

The leaves are dwindling from branches of trees now, and I call home every day. The phone is put to his ear, and he speaks as if I understand. The fluctuating tones mean nothing and everything at the same time. I talk back, patiently awaiting the day he’ll realize how he has changed everything.

golden autumn | michael deng | digital photography

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blue fury | andrew holmes | digital photography

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79

Last Words: Redacted

The Smartest Kid That Never Was

Rob Willis

I

t wasn’t until the fall of 2001, after attending nineteen funerals in two months and buying two extra black suits, that I really started to focus on last words. It doesn’t matter how long last words are. They are measured by their ability to suck air out of a room and leave you breathless and small. I was two months into medical leave-three tiny purple Celexa for depression, a Bontril for my weight, a six milligram Risperdal to treat the schizophrenia, and a Zyrtec for the dust in me-and The New Yorker seemed to be handling the editorials just fine without me. The idea for Last Words: Unabridged and ultimately Last Words: Second to Last was a hasty revelation following an altercation at a bar.

The Pakistani bleeding out on the bar floor had been a cab man, bombing down the streets in decrepit, chipping, checkered yellow and robbing us of thirty cents for every one-fifth of a mile. He was one sick Sunni, that’s for sure— leaking curry out of his pores, stinking up my city, staining my bar, drinking my American-made Kentucky bourbon. A broken Coors was buried deep in his chest. A Bensonhurst Italian has put it there. He had been confused by the taxi driver’s shirt—a big American flag superimposed over Lady Liberty with “I love NY” written across the front—like a bull seeing two red capes.

As I drunkenly mopped up blood, I realized one crucial aspect about last words (not including my undying fascination for them). Last words are not always last words in the conventional sense. They do not have to be the final mutterings before death—although they most often are— as they were in the case of the dying Pakistani.

You sober up fast when you’re bleeding like this. I will miss America, but America will not miss me. Do you think the 72 virgins visit Christians from the Bronx?

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Last words can simply denote a transition, the ultimate finale to a stage in one’s life like the angry Italian before he went off to serve a life sentence in the Albany Correctional Facility.

What’re you looking at me like that for? Stop looking at me!

I’m a soldier. I’m like a soldier! Alright? I kill Arabs. Send me to Iraq! Someone had to do something! I’ll go to their homeland with some bombs strapped to my chest. Don’t call the cops. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry!

I had been drinking with both of them only fifteen minutes before they uttered their last words. We had been watching the news when coverage of the workers shuttling debris—scalps, arms, a piece of a leg, half a telephone dial pad—out of Ground Zero came on. There was an obscenity, and then someone said something about weapons of mass destruction. My drink was still on the counter when one left the bar inside a coroner’s bag and the other walked out in handcuffs.

I scrawled their respective last words on a napkin, and for the next year I embarked on a quest to collect my favorite last words. As you know, most of them have been published already in Last Words: Unabridged and the popular sequel Last Words: Second to Last. So it is with pride that I introduce a new, condensed version, Last Words: Redacted, The Pocket Edition. Small enough to fit in your pockets but powerfully poignant enough to make you cry. I’ve chosen three of the best last words I’ve ever heard, excluding the ones above.

These were all among the first last words I ever heard.

Enjoy, Zeke Tellers-Stein

I met this man on a street corner. He was homeless, obviously, but carried himself as I imagine Jesus did— shaggy, wise—a lover of sandals. He sat in a circle with other vagrants surrounding a tub of cream cheese as if it were a campfire. They all took turns dipping their bagels into the mix. I think they were praying; small chips of rubble were arranged like runes. They may have been trying to resurrect those whom we lost that day. When I was invited into their breakfast circle, I asked him how in the world he ended up here.

He told me of his life at Stanford and how he had left the day after he was announced to be class valedictorian.

The following last words come from the phone call he had had with his mother after he had dropped out and donated all his belongings to an orphanage in Santa Clara. He had hitchhiked to New York.

I don’t want to be from somewhere anymore. I’d like to be nowhere, floating under the system and squeezing through the seamy cracks. I want to share soup with a stray dog under a bridge while it’s raining. I want to sleep under a highway thoroughfare and doze off to the sound of semi-trucks rumbling above me. I want to wander and grow skinny off the fat of the world. I’m done with being someone from somewhere. For the first time in my life, I’m nobody.

A Cannibal of the Weirdest Kind It was the day after and most of the buildings were still coated in thick dust. This woman caught my eye because I saw her swab some of the dust off a once-black-nowconcrete-grey lamppost and collect it in her palm. She brought her hand to her face and licked it. I remember asking her what she was doing.

You can taste them in the dust. You think they’d taste salty like sweat or something, but it’s actually very chalky and almost saccharine like powdered sugar. I hate the taste, but I can’t stop, ya know? Leaving pictures on coffee shop windows just isn’t enough anymore. Ever since he died, tiny parts of me have been too depressed for medication or too paranoid for sympathy. But most of me is just too godfearingly disaffected to go on with my regular fucking day like nothing ever happened. I’m sorry, that was the sad, angry woman inside me.

With that, I watched her step into the street and get hit by a bus. Maybe it was on purpose, maybe her concentration was affected by all the dust she ate—a cannibalistic disease like kuru or something. I don’t really know. I do know that it was horrible. Just horrible. By then, though, I guess we had all seen worse.

The Taller Little Boy I was doing some walking, and I was drunk. It was in some borough that I saw this small boy passing out American flags. He gave them to everybody. He even crossed the street to give one to two women in hijabs. He wore a Yankees cap much too large for him and carried his basket of Betsy-Rosses like a flower girl at a wedding.

Both his parents worked on the 44th floor. When it was my turn to accept a flag, he told me this.

It used to be I’d walk outside and I’d feel so small compared to these [he pauses] buildings. Now I feel bigger. I guess I’m taller now. I can look between them now and see the sun.

He smiled at me with crooked teeth—the gap in our skyline looked just like his missing tooth.

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Malvina’s Daughter David Willis

There are far more glamorous flowers than a daisy.

Even from a purely objective standpoint, one must still concede the far greater allure of an orchid than a daisy, yet it is the daisy that is so commonly paired with death.

Death is never expressed with roses rising from coffins, and there is no euphemism in pansies blossoming near graves or wisterias hanging from tombstones. But daisies seem to be the tragic flower of choice, and after passed away, pushing up daisies is by far the most popular euphemism for death. Living in popular culture, the idiom has spawned a television show, books, movies, and music, but the one thing it rarely inspires is interest in the origin of the phrase itself. Moreover, why do flowers even serve such a prominent place in death, and of those, why the unremarkable daisy?

Ironically, to be the common idiom of something so dark, the daisy is a sunflower. Even the daisy’s etymological origin, the Old English daeges, meaning dawn’s eye seems resoundingly hopeful and light. So why was the daisy chosen? Known by gardeners only for its simple beauty, the daisy is hardly ever deemed worthy enough to adorn the graves of loved ones. And unlike most flowers seen at funerals, it’s not even fragrant. Originally, flowers were brought to funerals to mask the odor of decomposition.

Tragic enough as they are, funerals do not need the stench of decay to make them any worse, and so bringing flowers became commonplace for attending funerals where bodies had not been embalmed. The lily, with its elegance and pleasing scent, is usually the flower of choice.

Around the world and across all cultures, still the daisy does not come up in traditional funeral rites. The Cativeno in Asia put their dead in a tree trunk, while the Tibetans choose mountaintop scrub and stones. On the island of Bali, the dead are laid with bamboo. Farther down south, on a bigger island, native Australian Aborigines cover their departed with leaves. But nowhere do daisies appear, despite their widespread growth as a species. So the question still remains: If they are so absent from world culture, why does the idea of pushing up daisies remain so firmly ingrained in our idea of death?

Most argue that it was Keats who first attributed daisies

to death as he is said to have written, “O! I can feel the cold earth upon me—the daisies growing over me.” While the saying does have poetic origins, its true beginning is far older and far more morbid. In ancient western Europe, there was a common legend that the spirit of dead children were connected with daisies for their simple, almost frail charm. The Celtic poet Ossian described a grieving woman named Malvina being comforted by the Maidens of King Morven who told her that her dead child had been transformed into a “flower with a golden disk and silvery petals.” The daisy.

From then on it was only a matter of time before that link between death and daisies became commonplace, finding roots in 19th century literature and popularizing itself from there into the idiom we know today.

It gives a dark charm to the phrase, more meaning and more drama. It rolls around the mouth a little more sourly and certainly loses some of its power as a euphemism once its true meaning is revealed Bellis perennis.

Daisies for the dead. At least it’s nice alliteration.

bee moving | jordan silberman | digital photography

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Colophon The Talon is the semiannual literary arts publication of Woodberry Forest School. First published in 1949, this is the 66th volume.

Continuing the theme of contrasts within our world, this edition of The Talon focuses on the natural and the artificial. Looking out towards the Rapidan River, we see a new building on the Woodberry Forest skyline in front of the treetops. The editors chose the mixed media art work “Rattlesnake” to feature on the cover as a symbol of nature’s malleability in the hands of man. Our final piece “Malvina’s Daughter” tracks the adoption of the daisy into man’s culture and language.

The Talon editors encourage submissions from any member of the Woodberry community. Works are selected through blind review by student boards.

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.

The design and editing of The Talon take place outside of the academic day. New editors are selected from review boards by current editors and faculty advisors. Authors and artists can apply for review board membership. The editors thank Kelly Lonergan for his help with art review.

This issue of The Talon was created on an Intel-based iMac using Adobe CS5. Titles and text on opening pages and art credits are set in Century Gothic; body text is set in Adobe Garamond Pro. McClung Companies in Waynesboro, Virginia prints 800 perfect-bound copies that the editorial staff distributes to the community 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 898 Woodberry Forest Road Woodberry Forest, VA 22989 www.woodberry.org/talon penciled pachyderm | tiger wu |22.5 x 21.75 inches | ink and acrylic/newspaper

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