Ephemera
Creative Arts Journal
Sp
r
20 g n i
13
Robert D. Clark Honors College
phemera
Creative Arts Journal
Spring 2013
Staff List Editor in Chief Assistant Editor in Chief
Alex Fus Molly Hover
Senior Layout Editor
Marilyn Pikovsky
Senior Poetry Editor
Anna Tomlinson
Poetry Editors
Senior Prose Editor Prose Editors
Senior Art Editor
Art Staff
Faculty Adviser
Alexander Bean Natalie Edson Ana Lind Erin Parsons Mark Plumlee Tate James Celia Easton Koehler Elizabeth Kirkpatrick Whitney Peterson Eva Bertoglio Hannah Fuller Jordan Pratt Ellen Rojc Maggie Witt Corinne Yank Professor Helen Southworth
A Letter from the Editors Dear Reader, Art that is considered ephemeral is seen as fleeting, a product of its particular period. As students, our time in the Clark Honors College is all too brief, but no less lasting. In these pages, we’ve sought to capture that elusive sense of passing permanence, to fix—for a time—the distinctive ideas, unique emotions, and irreplicable experiences that mark the pages you now hold in your hands. You may notice from our fingerprints that we’ve held this journal rather closely before passing it on to you. In collecting these records of the Clark Honors College’s creative expression, we’ve been struck by the way each story, poem, and picture touches us, leaving an impression that will last much longer than the time it takes to thumb through these pages. We hope our journal will touch you with the same sort of indelible ink, for it contains in it the moments that we made our marks. Thank you for taking the time to read them,
Table of Contents One Origins
Sophia Borgias
1 2 3 5 6 9 10 11 12 13 14 19 24 28
Carly Uebel
31
Alyssa Bjorkquist
32 33 34
Roxanne Olsson
Heart Aquatic
Carly Uebel
Willamete
Linnea Havener
Exceptional Tree
Spice Walker
Bread Crumbs
Ethan Arlt
Leaving Colorado
Thomas Varga
Goats
Sarah Hashiguchi
Costume Clothes
Andrew Lubash
Self Portrait
Ana Lind
Greek Tragedy
Mackenzie Magee
Lazy Boat, Santorini
Marion Rosas
Known Descent
Nok Alena Jones
Cemetery in February
Linnea Havener
Midnight Sunset in Patagonia
Two Settling Catan in Cowboy Pajamas Teenager in Mexico Ink Shoe An Atonal Requiem for your
Erica Leishman Thomas Varga
Flattered Ring-Finger Cindy’s Ribbon To Cindy
Lucas Currie Sadie Trush
Taste the Rainbow
Ana Lind
Maison Des Fluers
Madison Cuneo
Tea is for Taoists
Ella Anderson
35 36 37 40 41
Two Street Lamp, Barcelona
Kaya Aragon
Lazy Tuesday Morning
Molly Turner
Moving into the Present
Cassandra O’Hearn
King of the Galapagos
Sophia Borgias
Rotten Hand
Arianna Freitag
Symbiosis
Arianna Freitag
Forest Floor
Arianna Freitag
The Last Shot
Megan Gleason
Neighbors After Dark
Ana Lind
Time
Linnea Havener
Surprised on Stilts
Madison Cuneo
42 43 45 46 47 48 48 49 50 51 54
Three La Busqueda
Hannah Mueller
Potential
Ella Anderson
Parque San Francisco
Aimee Fritsch
Oviedo
Aimee Fritsch
Campo de San Francisco, Oviedo
Kaya Aragon
Bridge Over the Sella,
Kaya Aragon
Cangas de Onis He Didn’t Feel a Thing Falling At the Fair Expectations He Used to Sit on My Chair 300 Leaves
Ian Murphy Liz Zarro Lily Bussel Bethany Kaylor Sadie Trush Liz Zarro
57 59 60 61 61 62 63 66 67 68 72 74
One
Origins
1
Roxanne Olsson
Heart Aquatic Carly Uebel She is shore-struck, lone survivor in the air waving salty fingertips in the direction of your raisin-toes
raisin-toes grip her gag her, Oh she is so enraged
bathtub-smiles compass coyly ‘round her air-pipe, underwater heartbreak wet hair coils and cuffs frantic words, spat and spaced on
c l a m m y
l i p s
(the spaces she hides between) Here I go here I go faucet-love drips between her breasts
pickling promises made half-asleep
kisses that crawl to FIVE FEET DEEP
and butterfly her knees
asphyxiated ankles held below buoys on her brow breaths beneath the earth Oh Sea Queen Sea Queen Oh she is so enraged Oh she is so enraged
2
3
Willamette
Linnea Havener
4
Exceptional Tree
5
Spice Walker
Breadcrumbs Ethan Arlt The sun rose over the hills and greeted Leonard Johnson as he woke from his usual slumber. Leonard’s alarm clock played “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles for the third time that week. He had grown to loath that song. Leonard slipped on his New York Jets slippers. The New York Jets were headed for an eight-and-eight season. He had three Jets players on his fantasy team. His team was alright, but not great. Leonard scuttled over to his closet and reluctantly got dressed. His black jacket, dress pants, and white, collared shirt were required by his job, but his tie wasn’t. Leonard had an abundance of ties. He sifted carefully through the options, analyzing the color schemes and patterns until he found it: the perfect tie for the day. Leonard’s hand trembled as he reached to grasp it. It was silky smooth in his hand. Endless mint green triangles jumped off the black background. The tie was perfect for how he felt today. Leonard got stuck in traffic on his way to work. A motorcycle roared past him as he searched for the cause of the gridlock. The gust of wind that struck him felt cold against his face. He watched as the motorcyclist ripped through the throngs of cars with such freedom and speed, like scissors through a single sheet of paper. Then, he remembered his father’s bungee-jumping accident. Such a silly risk. One jump down and he was gone. One jump was all it took. Leonard gaped for a moment at the spectacle, but he concluded that driving a motorcycle was too dangerous. Sooner or later, he thought, that reckless motorcyclist was going to die. When Leonard finally pushed through the traffic and got to work, almost all of the parking spots were taken. He wondered if he hadn’t come to work today how quickly he’d be replaced. When he found a spot, Leonard pulled his car in nice and straight. He walked into a large reflective building with his head pointed towards the shadowed sidewalk.
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“Hey, Lenny!” The squeaky voice came from behind Leonard. “Hi, Tim,” Leonard said. He avoided eye contact and headed straight to his desk. “Did you see the final score of our game?” Tim always talked a little louder than he needed to. Spit formed at the sides of his mouth. “Nah.” Leonard stared blankly at his black computer screen. He could see Tim’s reflection in it. He didn’t turn around. “I destroyed you, man!” Leonard could tell that Tim had been waiting all morning to say that. He cringed when his friend spoke. “Yeah, well, maybe fantasy football just isn’t my thing.” “What is your thing then?” Tim’s voice rose above his normal volume. His face tightened and his eyebrows furrowed. Leonard looked out the window for an answer, but could only focus on the pigeons that littered the ground. They were clumped up and all looked the same to him from twenty-two stories up. He tried to think something about the pigeons, but all he could think of was their destiny: to eat breadcrumbs and shit on people’s new cars until the day they die. Every day, a few more breadcrumbs. “I don’t know,” Leonard finally said. Tim wasn’t listening. He was busy trying to think of what he was going to say next. “Okay, man, I gotta get to work. These reports won’t process themselves.” Tim laughed at his joke and gave Leonard a forceful punch on the shoulder. Before he turned, something caught Tim’s eye. “Hey! Nice tie.” Leonard turned to see that his fears were true. The mint green triangles that hung over Tim’s shirt mocked him from across his shared cubicle. Without a word, Leonard turned back around. He thought about the
7
thousands of other people that wore his tie. As he thought, he stared at his screen, but his vision blurred and his focus drained. The invisible weight he carried felt heavier than ever; it was a burden too heavy for him to carry much longer. When Leonard turned on his computer, the daily din of the office was in full effect. The copier beeped and the cooler gurgled. Suddenly, a loud crack exploded from Leonard’s cubicle. Leonard jolted in his chair and twisted himself to face the source of the noise. He turned to find a pigeon had crashed against the window and died. Leonard felt the rest of the office closing in on his cubicle, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the bird. Tim broke the silence first. “Our window cleaners deserve a raise for this one.” A few chuckles rippled through the crowd, but the spectacle was over, and everyone returned back to work, except Leonard. Leonard studied the bird, and as he did, his face contorted in disgust. The bird’s organs had exited its feathery exterior, and now decorated the window. As he continued to stare at the horrific scene, a smile began to grow on his face. Leonard turned back to his computer and hummed “Here Comes the Sun.” Tim turned to offer Leonard a fantasy football trade, but his attention was diverted to the Amazon page that Leonard had opened on his screen. “I didn’t know you were into motorcycles,” Tim said. Leonard’s smile grew. “Yeah, I guess they’re my thing.”
8
Leaving Colorado
Thomas Varga
and I can’t help feeling all turned around without being able to just see those mountains standing there, and know where’s west.
9
Goats
Sarah Hashiguchi
10
Costume Clothes Andrew Lubash A manly six-foot-one he stands With piercing Emerald eyes. I sense his stare and cannot help But choke on my Disguise. With Costume clothes — I play Pretend Convincing all but him. Yet, I cannot see the truth in me My life — My Phantom limb. I’m breathless as he closes in, Like predator on prey — For how could he have figured out A Truth I couldn’t say? I breathe his scent — his face so close, He softly whispers, “Why...? I’d rather die admitting Truth Then live my life a lie.”
11
Self Portrait
Ana Lind
12
Greek Tragedy
Mackenzie Magee
My senior year of high school I was projected to win state, or, at the very least, make it to the top three. I had been running sixteen-minute 5Ks consistently since sophomore year, but in my first race senior year I broke sixteen. The next race I did it again. The next race I PR’d by fifteen seconds, and had my first interview. I was on the cover of the sports section of The Beaverton Valley Times. And people complain that nobody cares about cross-country. My success in cross-country coincided with the first time I read Frederich Nietzsche. I had heard about Nietzsche from my angst-ridden, twentysomething English teacher junior year, who wore long trench coats and smoked in the teacher’s parking lot between classes. We were reading Metamorphosis and discussing the differences between a bug’s existence and a man’s when Beaverton’s local youth group leader raised his hand and claimed that man is fundamentally different because man was created in God’s image. My teacher, Mr. Mclaughlin, took a long look at the kid with his dark, sunken eyes and wrote on the board: “God is dead, we have killed him”—Frederich Nietzsche. The youth group leader was appalled, and declared that he would inform his parents of Mr. Mclaughlin’s behavior and they would tell the school board. Mr. Mclaughlin went on to explain that the quote was a comment on modernity and not to be taken literally. Though Mr. Mclaughlin remained for the rest of that year, I noticed that he wasn’t in the parking lots anymore my senior year. I hoped he had gotten out of Beaverton, and was in some posh café in France, drinking black coffee and writing his manifesto. At the time, I was fundamentally opposed to Mr. Mclaughlin. He was a liberal, no doubt, and I was a red-blooded, military-raised conservative. I came from a long line of Navy men: father was educated at West Point, and my grandfather attended the Naval Academy. Family reunions reminded me that we were meant to be military leaders, men of high rate (for rank was incorrect terminology in the Navy), chiefs and officers, the masterminds behind attack strategies, not the petty recruits who sailed off to their deaths. That was the failure I imagined for myself when I didn’t feel like running: me, with no cap or rate mark on my sleeve, being pushed into the sea on a flimsy wooden plank amidst gunshots and explosions. Though I was well aware that wasn’t the real fate of lowly recruits and seamen, that image pushed me through many exhausting, painful
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races into first place. I was expected to attend the Naval Academy like my grandfather, and I reveled in my familial and patriotic duties. I wrote letters to statesmen, earned sponsors, got straight A’s, ran state, and wore cologne and my father’s old Navy pin to my school interview. By the time I had completed my junior year, I had already received my acceptance letter, with a full athletic scholarship as long as I continued running well. My mother was proud, and my father acted as if he knew it would happen all along, but
Lazy Boat, Santorini
Marion Rosas 14
I could tell that he was happy by the slight twitch in his upper lip as he congratulated me. He shook my hand and offered me a beer, saying I had earned it because today, I had become a man. I refused, not wanting to ruin the next day’s ten-mile run. In spite of my disciplined lifestyle and firm beliefs, I found myself intrigued by Mr. Mclaughlin’s artistic persona. He spoke of Dostoevsky and Kafka, Camus and Bataille, names that held the same dark mystery that Mr. Mclaughlin possessed. I heard Mr. Mclaughlin’s deep, smoky voice and saw his wasted frame amble to the chalkboard, where his long, skeletal fingers would scratch some confusing, poetic quote. I also saw how the girls in my class rested their chins on their hands and gazed at him with heavy eyelids, and I envied him. In shame and in secret, I picked up The Birth of Tragedy the summer before my senior year in order to understand the mystery that was Mr. Mclaughlin. I was struck by the dexterity and precision in which Nietzsche described the condition of man. His idea of the Apollonian and Dionysian, inspired by the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus, in particular struck me. Apollo, the sun god, represented masculinity, athleticism, discipline, and morality, while Dionysus, the god of wine, represented femininity, creativity, art, intuition, and hedonism. Nietzsche argued that the fusion of these two elements was ideal, for it created the high art of tragedy. I disagreed. Though I understood Dionysus and his place among the gods, I only had eyes for Apollo. Apollo was, I discovered, the god I had worshipped for most of my life. It was Apollo who woke me up every morning that summer at 7:00 am and forced me out the door for an eight-mile run. Apollo pushed me to eat nothing but wheat bread, vegetables, power bars, protein shakes. Apollo motivated me to do speed workouts in the afternoon, and Apollo helped me kick in my last intervals when my legs were heavy with lactic acid. Dionysus was a voice I had to learn to stifle, a voice that tempted me to eat the Girl Scout cookies my parents left lying around, or stay up late watching Youtube videos, or take a nap in the middle of the day. Dionysus rejected future achievements for immediate pleasures; thus, I rejected Dionysus, keeping my eyes always on future success: state championship, scholarships, and the Naval Academy.
15
The night before my district race, the qualifying race for state, my father came into my room and sat at the edge of my bed. It was 9:30 a.m., and I had planned on reading some passages from The Birth of Tragedy for inspiration before falling asleep. I had the book out, and was reading about the Dionysian process of becoming one with art when he knocked on my door. I threw the book under my bed and told him to come in. His presence startled me, disrupted my routine. Father sat at the edge of my bed, far away from me, hunched over and looking abnormally uncomfortable. Usually my father handled himself with poise and authority. Even his clothes were unnatural: He wore a striped polo shirt, and jeans instead of khakis or slacks. His blonde hair, the same as mine, looked shaggier than normal. “Kyle,” he said. “I don’t want you to be nervous about tomorrow.” Though I didn’t want to disrespect him, I couldn’t help myself. I laughed loudly, confidently. “I’m not nervous, dad. You don’t need to worry.” Father shifted awkwardly to face me, and I noticed some gray hairs in his moustache I hadn’t seen before. “Its just, you know, a lot is riding on this race,” he said. “But I already got in. And you know how I thrive under pressure. I always run best at districts.” “That’s true. I just don’t want you thinking about the future too much tonight. Don’t worry about scholarships, or the Naval Academy. Just focus on the task at hand.” My body stiffened a bit. “Thanks for your concern, father, but Coach said we shouldn’t even talk about the race the night before. It’s bad on the nerves.” Father stood up. He was a tall man at six-foot-four, and he seemed particularly hulking as he looked down at me, small and vulnerable in my pajamas. “You’ve got a great coach, best to listen to him.” He exited my room and closed the door. Father played basketball for the Naval Academy. He made First Team All America in high school, and went on to be the starting small forward at the Naval Academy. Though Father was an excellent player, Mother and
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Grandfather used to tell me that his greatest weakness was free-throw shooting. His free-throw average was about 50%, pretty low for a starting player. Mother would describe the anxious, sweaty expression on his face as he stood at the line, rotating the ball in his hands and dribbling excessively to try and calm his nerves. Mother said she always knew if the ball would go in by the look on his face: Whenever he made it, his jaw would always slacken at the time of release. His eyes would be glossy, focused, and his nostrils would flare. No one ever spoke of Father’s nervousness during the Vietnam War: He was senior chief officer, and led attacks in the South China Sea. Something about the free-throw line intimidated my father more than Vietnamese torpedo boats. Father’s appearance in my bedroom, I rationalized, must have had something to do with his own nervous tendencies in athletics. I grabbed The Birth of Tragedy again and tried to forget about it. The passages about Apollo tended to calm my nerves; I skipped over the ones that argued the fusion of Apollonian and Dionysian behavior. I visualized myself running the race as Apollo: strong, bronze, bulging with masculine form, golden sunlight emitting from my pores and blazing a fiery trail behind me. I could strike down any opponent who tried to pass me with an otherworldly surge as mystical and intimidating as the god himself. I closed my eyes with this image in my head, and allowed myself to cross the finish line with a glorious, bursting kick before going to sleep. --The day of the race, I noticed several fans standing in the grass, waiting to cheer me on. There was my mother and father, of course, and my younger sister Kate, but there were also several girls, girls I had caught smiling at me in the hallways at school. There was Christine, a pretty Korean girl who was class president; there was Janet, a childhood friend who had apparently become a slut. There was also another girl, a cute brunette from my English class. I hadn’t spoken to her much, and I wondered why she was there. At the starting line, I cleared my head of all the girls and the audience and tried to think of nothing. I always raced best when I allowed myself to be immersed in the sensual moment: the smell of wet grass, the moist Oregon air, the blood pumping through my strong, young body. I wouldn’t
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realize until later that this was a Dionysian experience. When the gun went off, I liked to revel in the surreal experience of clashing elbows and hundreds of strong, fit legs jockeying for position, permitting my body to be carried by the feeling of weightlessness. When the gun went off that time, however, I was weighed down by my mortality. I felt heavy, sluggish, and detached. I felt my wheezing, shallow breath, and my heart pumping abnormally hard in my chest. After the first kilometer, I was already winded. Despite this feeling, I managed to remain just behind the lead runner, a guy named Aaron Riley. I trailed so close behind him my spikes almost snagged against his heels. It began to rain, and I tried to make this lift my spirits. I felt the droplets roll down my nose and drip down my sweaty arms. I focused on this feeling, and tried to ignore the pain in my chest. We turned around a corner and up a grassy hill. This was the 3K marker, and we were about to enter the forest section of the course. In previous years I made my closing moves here—I had taken the lead with one mighty surge and held it for the remaining 2Ks. Aaron and I had already shaken off a few guys who were clustered around us for the first few Ks, and now it was just him and me, engaged in a battle of wills in the woods. I planned my moves carefully. I knew that soon, the path would narrow to a barkdust trail, and I would have to expend more energy trying to pass him. Better to gain a lead before the narrow barkdust trail and hold on for the rest of the race. I imagined Apollo and his divine, sun-blazed stride, and I surged. Aaron matched me. Before I knew it he had surged passed me, first a hair’s breadth away but then he was ahead of me in the woods on the narrow trail and I couldn’t breathe. I felt the weakness of my body, the lactic acid like tiny, exploding stars in my legs. I felt the temptation of Dionysus pulling me down. I recognized the sweetness of relief from pain, the ease in which I could end it, right then in the woods, and no one would know. Without thinking, as if an invisible thread were guiding me, I layed down in the middle of the path. I felt the stampede soon enough. Boys with sharp spikes came charging
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toward me, jumping over me in confusion; I crawled off the path under a bush to avoid them. I waited for the panic to come over me: the certainty of failure, the future plans and success vanished, evaporated in the moist air. I waited for a flood of disappointed faces, negative news articles, and shamed parents. But none of it came. Instead, I felt light, weightless, actually—the dirt was cool and refreshing on my sweaty, overheated body. The feeling of moving bodies beyond the bush was relaxing, rhythmic—I closed my eyes and listened to it, forgetting about my future and the repercussions to come. It was in that moment, though I hadn’t realized it yet, that I transitioned from an Apollonian to a Dionysian state of being. I did not rage and fight against it, but instead accepted it willingly, and it embraced me as a
Known Descent 19
Nok Alena Jones
friend. When I finally got up and made my way back to the starting line, I was met with confused faces, questions such as “What happened?” and “Are you okay?” I calmly ignored these and made my way to the snack table. There I indulged in a chocolate muffin and a juice box. My parents tried to apprehend me—“What’s wrong with you?” My father asked—but I brushed these remarks aside and took a walk. In the back of my mind, I thought of the Naval Academy, and how they may revoke my scholarship; I thought of my father and grandfather, shaking their heads and discussing how they knew I couldn’t do it all along; and I thought of myself, stranded in the middle of the ocean and hanging desperately onto a flimsy plank of wood as guns went off around me, reflecting their orange and grey powder in the water. But the image that reigned above all of these, strangely enough, was another image of myself, wearing dark glasses and smoking a cigarette at a jazz club, clutching The Birth of Tragedy to my chest. I hung onto this image as I left, and tried to push the others out of my mind. I noticed Christine and Janet had left the course—the only fan who remained was the girl from my English class. --I didn’t want to go to the Naval Academy anymore. I realized this one night while reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and the feeling consumed me wholly, utterly—so much, in fact, I was compelled to go downstairs and snag a few Oreos. I crawled under my bed sheets and devoured them, immersing myself in the pleasure of chocolate and cream, and thought, again: I do not want to go to the Naval Academy. I had made friends with a girl, the girl from English class. Her name was Melanie. We struck up a conversation one day outside by the bleachers. Both of us were skipping English. The new teacher, Mrs. Berry, was too old and traditional. She spoke in a quivering voice, and was enthralled with Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. We were reading Pride and Prejudice that day, and I asked Melanie what she thought of it. “Victorian repression of feminine independence,” she said. She was smoking and wearing a dark green tank top and a black leather jacket. She flicked the ash off the cigarette with her pinky. “You?” “Political commentary on a time period that doesn’t interest me.” I shrugged. She smiled, and I figured she liked my response.
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“Cigarette?” she asked, pulling out a pack of American Spirits. I took one. “Aren’t you a runner?” she asked after I took a drag. It was my first cigarette, and I wasn’t sure I was doing it right. I held it in between my fingers like I had seen it done in movies, and held the smoke in my lungs for a moment before exhaling. “I didn’t know anyone paid attention to runners,” I said. She exhaled smoke, and I noticed her small, red lips. “I always wondered what you guys were running away from,” she said. I tried flicking the ash but failed. “Bears,” I said. I found that she had read many of the texts Mr. Mclaughlin spoke of, and had a strong comprehension of philosophy and literature. I began reading books she suggested to me: The Brothers Karamazov, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Nausea. After I finished them, she would discuss them with me, and help me see the text from a different perspective. One day, while we were discussing the terrifying implications of eternal return, Melanie helped me understand my new, negative feelings toward the Naval Academy. “If we are doomed to repeat every action, however minor it may be, well… Doesn’t that put an incredible amount of pressure on everything?” she said. “No, not necessarily. If you repeat the same action enough times, it loses significance,” I said. “Yes, but then what is the difference? If something is so important that it has no significance at all, then how important can anything be?” And the answer, I realized, is not important at all. There was no reason to pursue morality, or discipline, because these concepts, in fact didn’t exist, or at least didn’t produce any real, fleshy gratification. Their meaning was as pointless as language—which is, obviously, completely useless. Thus, I determined that my pursuit of the Naval Academy was not important,
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and did not gratify me in the sensual, immediate way I desired. But I couldn’t tell this to anyone, except Melanie, who guessed it right away. I especially couldn’t tell my parents. They were disappointed enough about my race, I figured they wouldn’t be able to bear my desire to desert the family legacy. Besides, what was I to do anyway? Was I supposed to sneak away quietly in the middle of the night, catch a train, and hope for the best? I wished I could do that, but the Naval Academy had my information and could track me down, and besides, I had nowhere to go. I dreamed of flying to France, visiting the Louvre and attending the Sorbonne, but I didn’t have the money or the guts to tell my parents. They wouldn’t support me. So I decided to suck it up and go to the Naval Academy anyway at the end of the summer. I would have plenty of time to indulge my Dionysian side during the school year, and then I could discard it and continue on fulfilling my family’s Apollonian fantasy. “You’re ridiculous,” Melanie would say. “How could you live with yourself, doing something you don’t believe in?” I told her she didn’t understand the obligations I had, and besides, I didn’t claim to have any firm beliefs anymore. I thought I could, with enough will power, just as easily survive in France as I could in Annapolis at the Naval Academy. It may not be what I wanted, but what was desire anyway but the idea of attributing meaning to something that is, inevitably, devoid of it? Suddenly aware of the meaninglessness of life, I embraced my Dionysian side with newfound vigor. I went to parties on the weekends. I drank beer, smoked weed, and often forgot to do my schoolwork. My parents had no idea about this—they thought I was ashamed of my cross-country race, and spent most of my time training harder than ever. At nights, when I didn’t come home, they believed I was at Tyler’s house, or Chris’s two of my teammates. In reality, I had kept running, though I had begun to do the bare minimum—a four to five mile run most days, with no stretching. My muscles started to feel tight, but I didn’t care. One day, when I was reading The Nausea in my room, my father came in unannounced. His eyebrows were knit tighter than usual, and he looked upset. I was worried that he had found out about my drinking, but I
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didn’t let on. Instead, I calmly sat my book down and asked him what was wrong. “I got a call from the Naval Academy just now,” he said, standing erect in front of my desk. “They are minimizing your athletic scholarship because of your performance at districts.” I shrugged. “I figured they would,” I said. Father looked at me for a long time. His body was tense and heaving, and for a moment I wondered if he would hit me. “What happened?” He finally said. My father had never been the sensitive, or even curious, type. He tended to avoid personal conversations at all costs in favor of discussing politics, football scores, or my running times. As he stood before me, questioning me, I was taken aback. “I don’t know,” I answered. I was sitting at my desk, and my father sat at the edge of my bed. His face looked softer now, his eyes were downcast and contemplative. He clenched his hands together. “I used to get nervous during basketball games too. So nervous that I sometimes threw up. Usually I couldn’t sleep before I game. I would lay awake all night imagining the pressure, wishing that I could be anywhere tomorrow but on the basketball court,” he said. I didn’t know how to respond. My father, it seemed, was confiding in me. He looked sheepish, sitting on my bed, and a bit old. I noticed wrinkles near his eyes that I hadn’t noted before. He was the picture of mortality, a man who had lived a long, noble life, and would die soon, with or without dignity. And now he was here, prostrating himself before his son, trying to make a connection before it is too late. I recognized this, and I wanted to grasp the moment, linger on it, and feel it between my fingers. I wanted to confide in my father, tell him everything, tell him about the parties, Nietzsche, the nauseous feeling I had every time I thought about the Naval Academy. I felt at that moment that he would understand me,
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Cemetery in February
Linnea Havener
that he would help me get out the mess I was in and allow me the life I wanted to live. Father got up from my bed and stood uncomfortably. “I guess what I’m saying is, I understand that you feel pressure in a race sometimes. But you need to perform better next time.” His face was drained of its sensitivity and was hardened and masculine again, as if he had never departed from his stiff, militant composure. “I will,” I said, turning away from him and back to my book. He stood in my room for a moment longer, and left. --I began to use the time that I used to spend running, to write. Melanie was always happy to read my drafts—I wrote poetry about the ubermensch, mock dialogues with Zarathustra, and I started a novel about Atlas, and how it felt to carry the world to infinity. Though I often read these aloud to Melanie, I also posted them on Facebook so more people could have access to them.
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My new philosophical, melancholy nature began to attract attention. People in my English class took to calling me Hamlet, and I embraced the name by announcing it in a class discussion “Nothing is wrong or right, but thinking makes it so.” People posted comments on Facebook about my poems, some mocking, but mostly praise. Girls smiled at me even more in the halls. And I had started to notice them: their supple breasts, the outline of their nipples through sheer t-shirts. I wanted to suck their nipples badly, and tear through their shirts with my teeth. One night, the carnal feeling became so unbearable that I texted Janet. She agreed to meet me on a park bench midway between our houses in half an hour. I was so delirious with desire I didn’t bother bringing a blanket—I laid her down on the bench and unzipped my pants, then pulled hers down along with her panties. Janet didn’t protest—she was the type of girl who didn’t require kissing to get wet, she just enjoyed the sexual act itself. I entered her, and within the first minute, I gasped—I couldn’t control myself, and I laid my head on her chest, spent. Janet laughed, but not unkindly. Once my carnal appetite was stirred, I started noticing the many signals girls give off to indicate their desire. Girls would twirl their hair, suck on the end of pens, put their hand on my shoulder, or laugh in reaction to something I said. I took note of these signals and looked for them in Melanie. I admired her strong intellect, her witty sense of humor, and her interest in literature and philosophy. I also found her physically appealing: She had a tight, firm ass, a long, elegant neck and shiny hair. I wanted to fuck her brains out. Melanie wasn’t sending me the proper signals, however. She never twirled her hair, and kept a fair distance from me during our philosophical conversations. She only hugged me once, at the end of an argument about the qualities of the ubermensch that she had won. In victory she embraced me, and I felt her hard, erect nipples against my chest. She must have felt it too, for she quickly pulled away from me, embarrassed. I wanted to tell her there was no shame in the body, and there was no reason why we shouldn’t have sex. --The day after graduation, I texted Melanie and asked if she wanted to take a walk through the woods—the same woods I laid down in during the
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district race. I thought she would appreciate this symbolism, commemorating the day of my philosophical transformation. I was to leave soon for the Naval Academy, and I wanted to bid her a proper farewell. I also wanted to consummate our philosophical kinship before I was forced to abandon Dionysius, perhaps forever. Hoping to insinuate this, I asked her to bring a blanket. She obliged. Melanie’s face was downcast, more melancholy than usual. I thought she knew something was up. We walked side by side down the narrow barkchip trail, and her hand lightly brushed against mine. “I asked you to come here for a reason, Melanie,” I said. “I know,” she said. Her voice was sad, not defiant and charged like it was when we discussed literature. “What do you know?” I asked coyly. I wasn’t sure how much experience Melanie had with men, but I assumed, from her smoking and her general, rebellious style, that she wasn’t a virgin. “That you’re breaking up with me,” she said. I stopped. I had no idea she thought we were dating. We had never kissed, or held hands, or done any of that relationship stuff. I had never even asked her on a date—we had met up at cafes and hung out at each other’s houses discussing literature, as friends. As I looked into her eyes, heavy with eyeliner and at the verge of watering, I understood that maybe she had perceived our relationship as something else. I wanted to hold her then, to tell her that she was wonderful and that if I could date her, I would, but my libido was stronger than my sensitivity. I pulled her to me, right next to the bush I had laid under, and slipped my tongue in her mouth. She kissed me back once and then pulled away violently. “What are you doing?” she asked. Her shoulders were hunched and she looked frightened, wounded. She stood a distance away from me. “I’m attracted to you, Melanie, and if you are attracted to me, then why not?”
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She squinted her eyes and frowned. “I’m not going to get invested in you, Kyle. You’re leaving, and for a ridiculous reason.” She kicked a pinecone and crossed her arms against her chest. “Don’t be that way,” I said. “You know why I’m leaving. My family expects me to.” “To hell with family,” she said. She sat down in the dirt and leaned her back against a tree. “If you loved me you wouldn’t go.” Melanie buried her face in her hands and sobbed. Her body heaved violently against the tree trunk, and I was afraid her hair would get sticky with sap. I didn’t know what to say to her about love. I hadn’t thought about it before. I kneeled down beside her and rubbed her knee. She jerked her body away from me and raised her head. Her hair was messy, and her face was wet and sticky with snot and mascara. “I know you slept with Janet,” she said. “And now you’re trying to sleep with me? For what? You bastard!” She flung her head down and sobbed again. “I don’t understand you,” I said. My erection was gone, and I was starting to feel angry. I wanted to leave the woods and crawl under my sheets at home, away from Melanie’s condemnation and loud wails. I drove her home that night. She wouldn’t look at me or say a word the entire drive. She sat, wrapped up in the blanket that was meant for our sexual escapades, and stared straight ahead at the road. When I stopped at her house, I squeezed her hand and said, “Goodbye, friend.” She ripped her hand away from me and slammed the door behind her. --I’m in Annapolis now, starting my summer training for the Naval Academy. My mother cried at the airport, and my father stood stoically beside her. He shook my hand and dropped his Navy pin in my palm. I am wearing it now on my lapel. I left all of my books behind, save a Tom Clancy novel to read on the plane. I wanted to give Melanie my copy of The Birth of Tragedy as an apology and as a token of our friendship, but she wouldn’t answer my
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calls. I left it on her doorstep instead. The first few days haven’t been so bad. My body is sore from the training, and my roommate is a bit of a war-hawk, but all in all I find myself able to tolerate this place and carry on the family tradition. I haven’t smoked a cigarette or drunk a drop of liquor in three weeks. At night sometimes, I reach under my bed out of habit to grab The Birth of Tragedy, and feel a stab of emptiness when I realize its not there. But my new philosophy is the Navy’s code of conduct and honor. I never stray from this except at night, when I hear my roommate’s heavy breathing and know that he is asleep. I pull out a notebook I keep hidden in my desk and sneak out to the bathrooms, where I sit in a stall and pull my knees up to my chest so no one knows I’m there, and write my manifesto.
Midnight Sunset in Patagonia Sophia Borgias 28
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Two
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Settling Catan in Cowboy Pajamas Carly Uebel Brother (15) There is salt on the tips of our fingers from all the corn chips and MTV we share in the room with a christmas tree. Your oily chin and not-really-girlfriends are all of my adolescence in front of me when I ask about the driving test and find myself increasingly glad you still think I’m a virgin.
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Teenager in Mexico Alyssa Bjorkquist
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Ink Shoe
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Erica Leishman
An Atonal Requiem for Your Flattered Ring-Finger Thomas Varga Once is quite enough, you sentimental doting leech. You hang on every word of this lovesick troubadour’s ode that he plucks out to you on his battered and broken lute. One string left and hopelessly tone deaf. You stare, transfixed at him: your glowing tungsten in a tiny glass world. Can’t you see? His heat is not so hot to melt your blank pearl eyeball — but maybe just. If I could, I would smash this featureless bulb, catapult your spherical bauble down a chute into a prison noire. Scattered flesh wounds bloom red tears from between your toes. He lures you back from this sightless basement with the ring of some off-pitch note. You leave footsteps of sanguinary hyacinth petals as bread crumbs for your Hansel and his saccharine fantasy. You croon: “I feel like, if we made it this far, life is good.”
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Cindy’s Ribbon
Lucas Currie
“Come on, Jer” Monica rubbed her husband’s shoulder and tried to peel him away from the window. “Come back in and join the party; it’s good for us. Marty was asking about you.” “Of course, hon,” he sighed. He brought his wine glass back to his lips, eyes still fixed on the kids playing in the yard who wouldn’t go near the pond. He turned to his wife and smiled with his lips but couldn’t urge his eyes to match. They were distant, and he was fixated on the ribbon in his pocket. “Cheer up,” she insisted, nudging her husband in the ribs to see if she could provoke a tooth-bearing smile. He did, but only to be polite. She took him by the arm and led him out of the kitchen and back into the living room, where Monica’s friends laughed, danced, and clinked champagne glasses. “I can’t believe we’re here.” “Oh Jer, try to have a good time?” “Of course,” Jerry said, and they both woke their expressions as they entered the living room. “There he is!” Marty called from across the room. Jerry gave him an exhausted smile and the two met hands firmly. Jerry hated superficial friendships like this. He and Marty only saw each other once a month at these dinner parties. Monica’s friends rotated hosts the first Saturday of every month, but this was the first time they were back at the Carvers’— Jerry figured they’d deemed a year long enough for everyone to forget. Jerry’s conversations with Marty were always polite, but fake and competitive. They both talked business and boasted about their recent accomplishments. Marty showed off his new suits and always mentioned the price tag. They usually competed for time and tried to one-up the other, but this time Jerry let Marty’s ego get its fill. “You would not believe the portfolio this guy had,” Marty’s voice faded off and drowned amidst the party’s banter. Jerry fixed his eyes on the win-
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To Cindy Sadie Trush
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dow behind Marty and worked his hand into his pocket. He answered Marty with a series of curt nods and impressed grunts. His fingers squirmed inside his pocket, as they had done so many times in the last year, until they found the familiar silk strip of ribbon. He rubbed it between his fingers and made the fabric grit softly. He smiled as he remembered how cute it looked in her hair. “Isn’t that wild?” Marty nudged him and he brought him back to the party. He jerked his fingers off the ribbon and brought them all the way to his chin. “Wild,” he replied, raising his eyebrows and rubbing the stubble on his chin. “Oh, look at that,” Jerry said before Marty could continue. He held
Taste the Rainbow 37
Ana Lind
up his wine glass and swirled the final drops to show Marty it was almost empty. “Better get some more.” Jerry went back to the kitchen and back to the window. He pressed his forehead to the glass and looked out at the kids. The glass was cold and the party’s warmth shrouded it in fog. He wiped a strip of steam from the window, hoping she might appear behind it, and stuck his hand back in his pocket. He pulled out the ribbon. It wasn’t as bright and red as it used to be, but he was careful with it—he made sure a year of his fingers and pockets didn’t rub it down too much. He remembered it the way it was—bright and perky, tied perfectly on top of Cindy’s head. “Daddy, will you hold it while I play? I don’t want it to get dirty. Keep it clean for me until I come back,” she had said. “Of course, sweetheart,” he had kissed her on top of the head and let her run outside to play with the rest of the kids as he put the ribbon in his pocket. Jerry remembered why he had come to the kitchen. He didn’t read the label on the wine before filling his glass near the brim. He knew Monica would come looking for him soon, so he went back to the living room. He paused in the doorway, and looked down at the floor. He remembered how their wet feet had patted in rudely, and how they had stopped in this very place and how the water had pooled right here where he was standing. How he had watched them file in, until each child was there. Except his Cindy. The way the Carvers’ initial disgust had suddenly flipped to the realization that something was wrong. He remembered how one of the boys had gaspedsomething about the pond. He had pushed passed the kids and out the door, flown down the stairs, across the driveway, and towards the pond. It was still rippling, agitated by the other kids’ attempts to drag Cindy out. He froze when he saw her—her cold face playing a sick game of peek-a-
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boo from beneath the pond’s surface. He remembered everything that came next—Monica’s scream from the top of the driveway, his begging Cindy’s little heart to acknowledge his desperate pleas, and Monica’s friends, who had had too much wine to console him. “I love you Daddy,” she had said before she’d gone to play. Jerry reached for the ribbon and looked for Monica from the doorway. He found her talking with Randy. “Monica,” he touched her on the arm and didn’t bother with Randy. She kept her eyes on the man and nodded with a smile, acknowledging whatever he said. She held up one finger and held it towards her husband, letting him know now was not the time. Jerry turned around and walked back to the kitchen. He passed the window and walked out the door. He took his time on each step, fixing the toe of each polished shoe on the coarse stone rocks until he reached the gravel-paved driveway. The crunches of cold gravel echoed in the lonely air until he arrived at the pond. He pulled out the ribbon. It looked sad and faded, and hung limp between his fingers. It wasn’t clean like he’d said it would be. Jerry looked back up the driveway at the house, windows lit and foggy, and then back at the pond in front of him. The memory flooded Jerry’s senses. It was all too familiar. His polished shoes scuffed the rocks in the same place; the cold, quiet air nipped his ears in the same way, and the untouched pond swamped his nose, just like last time. He skirted around the pond until he found the rock he knew she had fallen from. He stepped up on it, the same way she had done. He imagined her little toes, slipping innocently from the edge. He squeezed the ribbon. He held it out and dangled it over the water. The lifeless ribbon slid be-
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tween his fingers, one last time, and Jerry watched it fall into the pond. It rippled and was still. Water covered the ribbon, and it sank just beneath the surface. Out of sight, obscured by the murk. The pond was calm. Jerry’s eyes lingered on the space where the ribbon had been, his lips curled towards a smile, and his eyes followed suit. Cindy had her ribbon back wherever she was playing. He started down the long driveway without looking back at the house. He let the façade of fine wine, red lipstick, and Marty’s suits fade into the night behind him, and strolled out the gate with light pockets.
Maison des Fleurs Madison Cuneo
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Tea is for Taoists Ella Anderson The thought you promised yourself You wouldn’t entertain Invites itself in And before you can stop them, Your hands reach for the kettle And you are boiling water Like offering tea Is innocent.
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Street Lamp, Barcelona Kaya Aragon
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Lazy Tuesday Morning
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Molly Turner
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Moving into the Present Cassandra O’Hearn Former, that which used to be That which no longer is That which is still, but is not as it once was For it is not still, it is fluid It is energy, it is change, it is growth And that which is growth must move and struggle and strive For that is how it stays alive Not through the repitions of traditions Traditions, even traditions hold energy and change and growth Former, transformer, that which refuses to remain stagnant That which sees the gifts of the past as a promise of the future That which brings us here, to now
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King of the Galapagos
Sophia Borgias
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Rotten Hand
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Symbiosis
Arianna Freitag
Forest Floor
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The Last Shot
Megan Gleason
BANG!—the starting pistol fired, signaling us to get into position. In the moments before it fired one last time, I let myself give in to the adrenaline. This was the biggest race of my career: The state championship 1500 meter. Fifteen years of training, four laps, one shot at fame. And I wasn’t going to blow it. I’ve been running my entire life. My mom says I started running before I learned to walk. Sometimes I think that must be true, because I don’t just run, I win. Every race I’ve ever competed in, I’ve at least placed. But I wasn’t settling for anything less than first today. I eyed my competition, the seven other guys lined up beside me. The closest opponent to my right brushed his long brown hair out of his face. His muscles tensed as his dark green eyes glanced towards me in anticipation of the second shot. As intense as this moment was, his piercing eyes distracted me. He looked like Connor. I needed to beat him. I needed to win. We were best friends in preschool, but something changed when we got to third grade. One day during recess we were choosing teams for soccer. He came up to me, his scraggly brown hair partially obscuring the dangerous look in his emerald eyes. “Get out of here, you little faggot.” I didn’t know what it meant, but inside, I felt dirty. I left and started running around the fields to help me forget. But I couldn’t. His insult only made me run faster. With each step I tried to stamp out his words, release my anger. My rage helped me regain focus—I let it push me faster as I bolted from my starting place. Within the first eighty meters I passed half the guys, planning to pick off the other ones one by one in the next three laps. All I could see were the broad shoulders of the three boys who remained in front of me. But I blocked out these images, silently cursing myself for losing focus. I needed to beat them. As I made a move to pass one of them on the final curve of the lap, I bumped into his shoulder.
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At a middle school dance I sat awkwardly on the outskirts of the dance floor until a girl came up to me. She didn’t even hesitate, just dragged me to the middle of the floor. I panicked. Where do I put my hands? Folded into hers, on her hips? It didn’t feel right, so I put them around her shoulders. “I think we have this backwards,” she laughed. “Yeah, this doesn’t feel quite right” I said. She nodded, a twinkle in her eye. “We can be friends then,” she said, stepping back and extending her hand. “I’m Rachel. Who are you?” Relief flooded through me, not just from recovering from this failed dance, but that
she understood. More than I did. I smiled. I lengthened my stride, trying to put as much distance between me and the five others behind me as possible. My mom’s voice, somewhere in the crowd, urged me to go faster. My pulse quickened as I increased my speed in response. “What ever happened with you and Amanda, Jake? Or that nice girl — Karen?” “We broke up, Mom. A while ago. And Karen moved. It just didn’t work out.” “Well, that’s a shame. Why don’t you and Rachel ever hang out anymore, then? You should take her to a movie sometime.” “She already has a boyfriend, Mom. Some jock named Connor.” “That boy from pre-school? Well at least she found a good guy. You should
Neighbors After Dark
Ana Lind
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see if he has a sister.” “If you say so,” I mumbled in response, silently swearing to stay as far away from his family as possible. “That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?” she said, smiling at me sweetly. The guilt that was gnawing at my stomach drove me forward. My eyes on second place, I refused to look back. Digging my heels hard into the ground, I pulled ahead of my opponent just as we reached the final lap. I was rewarded with a cheer from Rachel, encouraging me to close the gap between myself and the final runner. The Connor lookalike was my last obstacle to victory. “Hey Jake, I’m sorry you’ve been having a tough time, with your Mom and everything. We should all hang out.” And I thought she was trying to make me feel better. “Not with Connor.” I can’t.” “Please? You’d really like him. It’d mean so much to me if you two just
Time 51
Linnea Havener
talked. Look, I know he picked on you when he was younger but he’s totally different now. A real sweetheart.” I doubted it, but I was sick of making her sad. “Jesus, Rach, quit the guilt trip. I guess I’ll try to make it.” For her sake, I sprinted the distance between us, running neck and neck with my final foe. I couldn’t stand looking at him, I had to pull ahead. I had to beat him. I had to. Things were going so wrong. We went to the park in the open air to help ease the tension, but before I knew it I was yelling at him, I couldn’t stop— “You gave me a lot of shit back then, Connor. You haven’t changed. You can pretend, but you haven’t.” “You don’t know me, Jake—” “I don’t want to know you, Connor! I’m surprised Rachel does. She deserves better than you—” I felt him right on my heels. Me and this nightmare of Connor were fighting for first place. And I hated him, hated him and everything he stood for. I pulled forward, my revulsion propelling me towards the finish line, only fifty meters ahead. “STOP IT!” he yells, pushing me onto the concrete. Blinded by fury, his fist makes contact with my jaw before I even know what’s happening. I try to get up, violently kicking in desperation. All of a sudden, I was no longer in control. He was chasing me, and I couldn’t hide, I tried to run faster, but I couldn’t breathe— He’s too fast, he pins me down, his hands choking me as they lock around my neck. He stares, his face inches from mine, as I gasp for air that won’t come— I wasn’t running towards the finish line. I was running away, away from him, away from nightmarish memories I couldn’t escape from. Away
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from what I knew came next— Our lips meet in a moment of agonizing ecstasy. Over and over again. This time mine meet his. This is so wrong, so wrong, but I like it, why do I like it? The shock of this memory knocks me over. Or maybe I just trip. I look up from the ground to see my opponents’ feet jumping over me. The reality of this hits me almost as hard as the pavement. I start crying, I can’t help myself. Because I knew I hadn’t just lost the race—I had almost lost myself. My tears are sad, sorry, angry, even scared that I hid from myself for so long. I was ashamed, confused, after that moment. I can’t remember those next few weeks, except that I tried to talk to Rachel, but I couldn’t, couldn’t bring myself to admit to her what I did. They broke up a couple weeks later. I finally managed to say the only words I could think of, words that were long overdue. “I’m sorry, Rach.” “I know, Jake,” she said, swallowing hard. “It’s okay, I forgive you.” I stand up, disoriented, still blinded by my tears. But instead of guilt, pain, or sadness, I feel something else: relief. Unbidden stress flows off my shoulders. The sensation almost brings me to tears, but I hold them back, determined to find the finish line that I know must be mere feet away. When my vision clears, I find Connor’s face in the crowd, standing with my Mom and Rachel, in the front row just behind the finish line, guiding me where to go. I can’t help but smile as I sprint towards them. I cross the finish line in fifth place and walk into the consoling arms of my friends. “I’m okay,” I assure them, over and over again. “Really, I promise, I’m fine.” I shake the hand of my opponent, congratulating him on his victory and for the first time actually meaning it. My mom gives me a warm hug. “I’m so proud of you, Jake. You’ve come so far.” She’s right. She doesn’t know why yet. But she will soon, I promise myself. She will soon.
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Surprised on Stilts Madison Cuneo
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Three
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5
La Busqueda
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7
Â
12 10
Hannah Mueller
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Potential Ella Anderson I. There are the glittering cathedrals, hallowed With their stained glass and flickering light Of candles and camera flashes— Let them exalt themselves. Then there is the windowless church On Christmas Eve White plaster and blank, hollow Like a bomb shelter Meant to protect us From our own explosive existentialism. We don’t take pictures here. We pray That our tenuous sense of purpose Does not explode today. II. A sense of purpose? I keep mine in my lips. It rides every word I say, Falling out with every sentence, Reeling back in, Filling the prayers I mumble at night, (Muttered prayers keep the darkness at bay While I sleep, land-locked, Never daring to sleepwalk) Remembering that every sentence Should be a kiss— So I keep my sense of purpose In my lips. 59
Parque San Francisco Aimee Fritsch
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Oviedo Aimee Fritsch We have more time than money And we don’t have much of that either So we stand on street corners Talk ‘till the middle of the night Because we’d rather be together than go home
Campo de San Francisco, Oviedo Kaya Aragon
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Bridge Over the Sella, Cangas de OnĂs Kaya Aragon
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He Didn’t Feel a Thing
Ian Murphy
Brian almost missed Stevens as he passed. The Lance Corporal sat propped against the tire of an armored car. His knees were pulled up to his chest, hands resting on top of them. Brian wouldn’t have noticed him if not for the cigarette hanging crooked and forgotten in the Marine’s mouth, its tip fizzling in the dark. He hadn’t washed; the dust and grime from patrol still clung to his face. Brian could almost mistake him for some bomb-blasted body, fished out of a ruined home. Brian paused. He almost reached for his camera, the professional in him eager to capture the moment. But he resisted the urge. This wasn’t a dead body, but a living man. Stevens lifted his head suddenly, the cigarette threatened to fall out his half-open mouth. His eyes were vacant; he didn’t seem to register Brian standing just a few feet away. “Stevens?” Brian said. The man blinked, as though coming out of a deep sleep, and focused his gaze on Brian. “Hey,” he said. “Hey,” Brian replied. He sat down next to Stevens, resting his head against the back door of the vehicle. “What’re you doing out here? It’s freezing” Stevens paused, head cocked, considering the question. “Ever wonder if what you’re doing actually matters?” he asked slowly. “Of course. Who doesn’t?” Stevens nodded, some life returning as he did. “Yeah, I suppose so. I mean no offense, but considering I never 63
heard of you until a month ago…” Brian smiled wryly. “Some offense taken. You’d be surprised how few serious war photographers there are. Not everyone is comfortable with death as an occupational hazard. I could make a name for myself yet.” Stevens chuckled. They fell back into silence, this one more comfortable than the last. It was the marine who broke it this time. “I only ask, because I’ve been thinking about it myself.” Brian turned to look at him more closely. “Why would you think that what you’re doing here doesn’t matter? You save lives for a living.” Stevens met his eyes this time, and Brian realized that it wasn’t just apathy he’d spotted in his gaze. The man was in pain. “No I don’t,” Stevens said, surprisingly calm, even as his eyes screamed silently. “It’s an insane connection that you make with that person... see somebody in your sights, and to pull that trigger...” Brian couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Stevens continued, untroubled by the lack of response. “I guess what I’m really wondering is… Even if I do make it back home, will I be the same?” “I think…” Brian said, searching for the words, “that depends on how much you let what you do change you.” It was a poor answer, and they both knew it. 64
Stevens nodded jerkily and then stood abruptly. His back cracked audibly in protest. “I’m heading inside. Need the rest. Thanks for the talk. I’ll see you in morning, yeah?” “Yeah, good night,” Brian said automatically. He watched the Marine walk away, and he remained there in the dark for several minutes, trying, and failing, to think of anything else he could have said as the frigid Afghan night gave way to a sweltering Afghan day. Two days later, Brian joined a patrol venturing out. Stevens was among them. Brian saw him laughing and joking with another Marine. The man who rested against the car and forgot the lit cigarette in his mouth was nowhere in sight. Hopefully he’d evaporated in the daylight. The sun beat down on them as they picked their way through a field of corn. The group stayed close together, no one wanting to lag. Even so, Brian could only see the back of the man in front of him. The rest of the squad was present only in the rustle of leaves and the occasional whispered word. The first shot rang out, loud and abrupt somewhere ahead. They all tensed, senses broadening and sharpening with adrenaline. The Marine in front raised his rifle and pointed it toward the direction of the shot. Brian mimicked the pose with his camera. A second shot made them tense. They moved quickly through the corn, rifle and camera shifting and searching for targets. Brian kept close, shadowing the man in front of him. They found Stevens and several others standing over a body. A rifle was clutched to its chest, and the ground around the head grew red. 65
Stevens held his own rifle loosely, and he looked up as they approached. “All good here. I got him so fast, he probably didn’t feel a thing,” he said. Brian watched Stevens, and knew the same could not be said for him.
Falling
Liz Zarro 66
At the Fair Lily Bussel
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Expectations Bethany Kaylor My brother rolled the joint on our kitchen table. “It’s an art,” he said, pinching the end. “Takes practice, like anything else.” He held it up, pointed at the tip. I observed his work from a leather stool, taking mental notes that would never be used. “The filter makes sure your lips don’t burn.” He hadn’t wanted to return to Cincinnati that summer, but my parents thought otherwise, as was often the case in our household. When he was not alone in his room, he made sure to tell anyone in earshot (namely me, sometimes our old coonhound Midnight) how boring life was away from college. I checked my phone, pretended to text someone. “What if Mom and Dad come home?” I could hear the chatter of the television in the living room. I had turned it on earlier, hoping he might want to watch something. There was even a History Channel special running, but he had refused. Our parents were gone, we had woods in the backyard, I had never smoked, what else would we do? (His reasoning, not mine.) “They won’t.” My brother had always possessed that sort of easy confidence, that lazy belief that everything would be okay. I, on the other hand, quaked in my boots with every misstep. There was a magazine on the table. The cover featured Disneyland, or some happy place like it. It was addressed to the house across the street, the one with the flamingo lawn décor and the Doberman. I pointed to the cover. “Looks fun, huh?” He checked his watch; he must not have heard. I replaced the magazine, disappointed. It felt like years since I had made him laugh. It used to be so easy—a well-timed fart could bring on a giggling spell that lasted for
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hours. But not that summer. I cleared my throat. “Do you smoke it like a cigarette?” I hoped he didn’t smoke cigarettes. No one I knew smoked. I hated smokers. I hated weed too. It was the summer before my junior year in high school and still I had yet to shake off the Donnie-Darko like nightmares from D.A.R.E., my elementary school drug prevention program. But it was a chance for quality time with my brother, a rare occurrence that summer. He shrugged. “Kinda. You take a hit.” He sucked in air through pursed lips. “Hold it in there. After you keep it in your chest, you release. The THC has to get into your bloodstream.” He exhaled loudly. “Easy, yeah?” With hesitation, I held out my hand; my brother placed the joint in my palm. I brought it to my nose—it smelled like a carnival, sweet and foul. I thrust it back at him, the scent lingering in my nostrils. I could never tell my friends about this. Never. “You ready?” he asked. I nodded. Even though things were different now in ways I couldn’t explain, he still had that sort of presence over me—sometimes all I could do was nod and follow. After checking to make sure no neighbors were around, my brother headed to the woods of our backyard, joint and lighter in his pockets. I followed him, my arms crossed over my chest even though it was early September and warm. Walnut hulls littered the ground. “Watch your step,” he instructed, never looking back. I shuffled my feet, kicking dead leaves and nuts. Nobody ever came back here anymore, not since we were young. He stopped under the large oak tree where we had once tried and failed to make a tree house. The wooden planks were still nailed to the tree, moss-ridden and rotting among the wilted vines of fox grape.
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“Hold this,” he said. He placed the joint in my hand and reached into his pocket. I poked the joint, waiting. He found his lighter. “Ready?” I nodded, scratched my knee. My brother was wearing faded khaki shorts and his maroon Powell’s Books t-shirt, the one I had bought him years before. I hoped he didn’t notice that I was wearing his purple striped t-shirt. He always hated when I wore his clothes, but maybe that too had changed. He held the joint between his index finger and thumb, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He tested the lighter; sparks flickered. “Fuck,” he said. He flicked it again. “Fuck.” And again—finally, a flame. With his right hand steady, he brought the lighter to the joint, inhaled. The tip kindled red like embers. He motioned, beckoned me closer, his mouth pressed shut. I took the joint from him carefully, pinching it between my fingers. He exhaled, whirls of smoke swirling from his mouth. He smiled or smirked; I could no longer differentiate between the two, his expressions a coded language to me. I felt nauseous but kept quiet. Now was not the time for pit stops and bathroom breaks. My legs shook imperceptibly, but he noticed. “You got it,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It’s easy. You got it.” I nodded. I raised the joint halfway to my mouth, stopped. It burned between my fingers. “You smoke it like this?” With my free hand, I mimicked what his motions, as I had done all my life. The air hissed as I sucked it through my teeth. “No, like this.” “Oh, like that?” I mimicked him again. “Yeah.” The joint was still hot between my fingers. I toed a walnut near him. “Remember when we used to throw these at each other?” He didn’t re-
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spond. I tried again. “Didn’t I hit you in the face once?” I had—that stint landed me a week with no dessert and him a black eye. He had to have remembered. He sighed impatiently and checked his phone. “Probably.” I kicked another walnut. “Sorry.” I hoped a breeze would come along, something strong enough to snuff out the joint. “So…I just inhale and hold it? And then exhale?” “Jesus, Beth, just do it.” I took a breath, my mouth too dry to swallow. I brought the joint to my lips, barely letting it touch. My hand trembled. “Inhale,” he said. I inhaled. Smoke hit my throat instantly. “Hold it, hold it,” he said, fiddling with his lighter. After what seemed like an eternity, he uttered the word, “Okay.” I exhaled, coughing loudly. Leaves crunched beneath my sneakers as I shifted my weight and bent over, hands on my knees, body shaking. A string of saliva hung from my wwwwbottom lip. There went all the sprint workouts of my life, all the love lavished on my lungs. And there he was, my older brother, standing above me, thinner than I had ever remembered him, his amused grin not quite reaching his eyes. Still wheezing, I shoved the joint at him. My tongue smacked the roof of my mouth, desperate for water. My heartbeat was audible in my ears. He took a hit with his eyes closed, his head tilted back, like all the scenes from every movie we had ever watched. After a moment, he opened his eyes and brought the joint close to his face. He turned away from me, scratched his beard and exhaled slowly. My body still quivered, his was still. We said nothing for a long while. My head was hazy, my eyelids heavy. I turned to my brother. I couldn’t remember when he had started to grow facial hair that summer, but it didn’t suit him. It was as if he was in a costume, playing a role he couldn’t quite escape. He was still smoking the joint, looking uncomfortable in a way I couldn’t place. I wanted to interrupt him mid-drag, tell him that he didn’t have to
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He Used to Sit on My Chair
Sadie Trush
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do this, that we should do something else together, that I would do something else for him. But the timing was not right—it was a late summer afternoon, I was high, he had a beard now. We were just two shells of the kids we used to be. But still we were of the same blood. But still he wore my shirt, and I his. I lifted my head, parted my lips to speak— His phone rang. He answered it immediately, as if he had been awaiting it the whole time. He probably had. “I’ll head over now” was all he said. He handed me the joint, his gift to me. “Feel free to finish it,” he said. He walked back to the house, hoisting up his khakis with one hand, never looking back. He still never wore a belt. I watched him go, my fingers curled around the burning joint. Without tearing my eyes from him, I brought the joint to my mouth, ready to inhale. But I didn’t—I was the only one watching. I dropped the joint to the ground, pressed it into the ground with the sole of my sneaker. Fragments of an eggshell crunched beneath my feet. I stooped down to pick up the pieces among the ashes of marijuana, remembering how there was a moment years ago when my brother had climbed a tree to touch a robin’s nest. From below I had watched him climb, expected him to fall, almost wished for it in the way only a vindictive baby sister can. It was late summer then too, and I had stood with my arms crossed over my chest, alone on the ground, waiting for something that would not happen.
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300 Leaves Liz Zarro
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Meet the Editors! Alexander Bean
Alex is a sophomore Music Composition and Organ Performance major. In his free time (whenever such a thing occurs), he enjoys reading avant-garde aesthetic theory and drinking tea.
Eva Bertoglio, Senior Art Editor
Eva is a multimedia artist and sophomore majoring in Humanities and minoring in Creative Writing. Her interests include art, poetry, cinema, social sciences, and cooking. She loves to voraciously consume print and digital media (especially anything to do with Joss Whedon) and she’s excited to see Ephemera grow and change now and in the future.
Natalie Edson Natalie is a junior who loves post-rock, mathematics, Star Trek, good beer, and flowers. She joined the Ephemera staff because she also loves poetry, and thinks that everybody should write. She hopes one day to be a published poet and to have an exciting day job.
Hannah Fuller
Hannah is a sophomore Environmental Studies major with a minor in Geology. She enjoys playing music, doing community service, reading fiction, and photographing nature. She hopes to pursue a career in saving the world.
Alex Fus, Editor in Chief
Alex is a senior English major and aspiring literary editor. When not working on any of her four campus publications, Alex enjoys waxing nerdy about critical theory, swing dancing, sunflowers, and squeezing into photo booths with friends.
Molly Hover, Assist. Editor in Chief
Molly is a freshman Journalism major with a love for all things written and creative. She aspires to advertise for magazines and, of course, always continue reading. Her two terms at Ephemera have opened her eyes to editing and leadership.
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Tate James
Tate is a freshman majoring in Comparative Literature, considering a double major in Japanese, and minoring in Creative Writing. She really likes Studio Ghibli and Mumford & Sons.
Elizabeth Kirkpatrick
Elizabeth is a freshman Political Science and Spanish major. Her goal in life is to make one thousand paper cranes to string together. When not studying, Elizabeth can be found reading novels, playing cards, or hitting the gym.
Ana Lind
Ana is a freshman majoring in Digital Arts who has a passion for classic literature and video games. One day she will combine her two passions and create a videogame in which famous authors battle. What character will she play? Without a doubt, John Green. DFTBA!
Celia Easton Koehler “You do not have to be good...” — Mary Oliver
Erin Parsons Erin is an English major who admires William Burroughs and Anis Mojgani. She is currently working on an unfinished novel, and enjoys running, hookah, and baking.
Whitney Peterson Whitney is a first year Cinema Studies and Psychology double major, working on a Creative Writing minor. She is not sure what she wants to do when she graduates: anything from film editing to story writing for video games, but no matter what, she will be a novelist.
Marilyn Pikovsky, Senior Layout Editor
Marilyn is a freshman majoring in Political Science and speaks Russian fluently. Next year, she looks forward to returning as Ephemera’s all-around layout babe and embracing her entreprenuial spirit before preparing for law school and traveling the world.
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Mark Plumlee, Senior Prose Editor Mark is a sophomore English major interested in fiction writing and sports journalism. Mark enjoys using his down time to adventure through Westeros, watch Mark Wahlberg movies, and practice his left-handed layups.
Jordan Pratt Jordan is a sophomore Archaeology student. When not digging up awesome artifacts, she enjoys reading, going backpacking, knitting, volunteering, and being sassy.
Ellen Rojc
Ellen is studying Sociology and Dance and hopes to help the CHC flourish as an exciting community for students to pursue their academic and artistic dreams. Ellen loves creating, performing, editing, and enjoying the creative arts. Through artistic endeavors, Ellen hopes to promote diversity and equality for people universe-wide!
Anna Tomlinson, Senior Poetry Editor
Anna is a senior English major who has finally admitted her love of poetry. She’s also fond of being outdoors, running, and finding new lactose-free ice cream-like substances to enjoy in the sun.
Corinne Yank
Corinne is a junior International Studies major focusing on law and human rights. She loves classical ballet, darkroom photography, and travel. She will be living and working in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia this summer!
Maggie Witt
Maggie is a junior studying English and Art History. She enjoys cooking elaborate meals, reading about obscure artists, and talking in the third person.
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Thanks for reading!
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Ephemera
pl.n. printed records of passing interest that later become memorabilia