Estuaries 2015 - 2016 by College of The Albemarle

Estuaries

A Visual Arts & Literary Review 2015 - 2016

Estuaries

A Visual Arts & Literary Review

Editorial Board Project Planning and Development Gale Flax

Poetry

Prose

Visual Art

Design and Layout

COA Writing Club Andrew Walser

Linda Knight Julie Long Dean Roughton

James Bursenos Gale Flax Kathryn Osgood

Liz Rondone

This magazine is the second annual edition of Estuaries. It features creative contributions from students, faculty, staff and community members in the seven-county region the college serves. It was produced and printed at College of The Albemarle, Elizabeth City, North Carolina, in 2016.

Contents Visual Art 2

Jordan Stamenkovski Butterfly Effect Robin Woodard Untitled Shelby Bartley Untitled 4 Maria Shishova Thinking 5 Hannah Sahr Untitled 6 Sabrina Wartenbee Untitled 7 Isabel Beteta Caribbean Oceans 8 Anna Doll Splash 9 10 Kitty Dough The Odessy of Danaus Olga Blyum Thoughts 11 Jordan Stamenkovski The Sphinx 12 Xueyan Gao New Life 15 Carson Davis Untitled 16 Tara Britton Wilkins Endless 17 Sabrina Wartenbee Untitled 19 Debra Ventura Moon Phases 20 Naomi Michelle Clean 21 Brittany Rippons Untitled 22 Ljupka Vuchevska La Belezza di Amore 23 Xueyan Gao Where Did You Want To Go Debra Ventura Ladybug on Wheat Donovan Mullen Untitled 24 Kenneth Crowson Untitled 25 Ethan Pistella Untitled Lisa LeMair Caldera Necklace Garnet 27 Ljupka Vuchevska Regina Chelsea Hutto Unbound Ljupka Vuchevska Hearths of Glory 28 Lindsay Doughty Untitled 31 Sabrina Wartenbee Jelly Beans 2 Tara Britton Wilkins Turning the Tide

Literary

Misty Williams The Day She Became Free 2 Cindy Hayes The Cane Rocker 4 Lydia Gwyn Beach House 5 Chelsea Reed Whale Song 6 Abigail Crouse Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be afraid of the dark 8 Cody R. Marks The Set of the Mind 11 Andrew Walser The Helicopter 12 Misty Williams Lost in Time 18 Chelsea Reed Spontaneous 21 Derrick Lay Spilled Milk 22 Cindy Hayes The Rancherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hope 26 Sudeepa Pathak Resonating Lives 29 32 1

Biographies

Jordan Stamenkovski Butterfly Effect

The Day She Became Free Life would never be the same as she once knew it. All those childish dreams were rubbish and silly. Unicorns. Fairies. Trolls. Sprites. Witches. None of them existed. Life was tough as a child who tried to strive, to imagine, and wish to be rescued from her childhood horrors. No one tried to save her and that is when she realized neither magic or miracles existed. If they had she would have been set free from her torments years ago. Her glowing childish features shrunk away as she got older. Each passing day seemed like a horror story, a bad movie, and a nightmare. Every day, she thought it was her last and she almost wished it were true. Each day chipped away the girl she had been. The young girl had finally become a woman of eighteen years of age. Her spirit had almost been consumed by her hard years living

Misty Williams

in a place she would never call home, but at last she was to be free. To be in to the world and out of the hell hole she had resided since she was seven. She was finally getting out and nothing would stop her. Of course, there were the horrors of the outside world, but she knew they would stop her in her tracks. If she could survive an orphanage. She could survive the world beyond the wall. The day she was released it was like a caterpillar breaking out of its cocoon to become a beautiful butterfly. She was free at last from the bonds that once held her. Freedom tasted wonderful on her tongue and brought strength to her bones. The world seemed to be more colorful and brilliant to her. She knew she would finally have a chance. The world outside better be ready for her because it was the day she became free at last to become a legend.

Robin Woodard Untitled Ink on Paper

Shelby Bartley Untitled Balsa Wood Construction

The Cane Rocker

Cindy Hayes

In the den, cozy and small By the fire’s dancing light A cane rocker sat tan and Brown with a stuffed bear Black propped against the Back or a blonde pajamaed Child in her grandfather’s

Forehead soft – she giggled The chair rocked and he sang Oh, Be Careful Little Eyes What You See Sweet smoke rose in curls Like the ends of her Hair – the ashes glowed red and lit

Arms strong as a python Head rested against his pickle Barrel chest she snuggled the bear Now and then the grandfather’s Overgrown beard crumbs Brushed against her

Up his face as he chewed and Puffed on a big cigar Rocked and sang in the cane Chair and held her close in the Middle of the night.

Beach House Lydia Gwyn

The man would sell the husband and wife boiled peanuts if they stopped the car and got out. Instead, they sat at the red light and watched the line of tourists. Every time the husband parked the car to walk the dog, he had the fleeting thought that his wife would walk into the woods and vanish or hop into one of the cars parked at a rest area and drive away. The dog kept them stopping much of the day. They had finally reached the island road, and they drove past the indigo farm, through trees with curved branches that stretched across the highway. They drove past the marshes, the salt cedars, the sea oxeyes. They drove over the long, bowed bridge that connected the island to the mainland, and he noticed that much of what was underneath them was swamp. The island’s only grocery store had undergone a makeover and a name change since the last time they visited. It looked clean and sleek and like it housed completely different food options, something better than the dusty cans of Campbell’s soup they usually found there.

In the beach house that belonged to another family, Dottie slept under the table breathing on his toes. As soon as they’d finished unpacking, his wife had walked to the beach. She’d told him she wanted to see what had washed up. It was still daylight when she left. She’d taken a flashlight and a sweater. How long was she planning on staying, he thought. A few hours? All night? He leaned closer to the screen around the porch, peering through the yard, the end of the street. He’d watched her walk through the neighborhood of rental houses with names like “Conched Out” and “Drift Away.” He’d watched until she was a speck and then nothing, until the roads turned to sand, and the street lights came on.

In the house, the husband helped the wife arrange their belongings. They un-bagged the food she had packed from home, put new cases on the pillows, set out salt and pepper. He took the dog out to inspect the yard. After a while he said to her, “I’ve missed you.” He had been sleeping in his uncle’s living room the past few months, starting the washer before heading to work, and then drying everything before bed. His uncle worked at the slaughterhouse and kept the freezer at home stocked. The two of them lived quietly together, changing channels on the weekends, keeping the lawn mowed, taking the recyclables to the curb every Monday. His wife had wanted her own apartment, just some place to go in the middle of the day with her instruments to practice her music away from him. She wanted the dog to stay with her, and he agreed to that, but he couldn’t imagine her walking Dottie and bathing her, picking up her shit out of the yard, remembering the flea medicine. Those had always been his jobs. He hated the nights at his uncle’s, sleeping on his side on the couch and thinking about his wife setting up in another town, meeting someone new, having a life which he knew nothing about.

Maria Shishova Thinking Watercolor and Ink on Paper

Whale Song Chelsea Reed

I’m not breathing, but I know I’m alive. Countless shades of blue flood my vision when I open my eyes. Azure, cobalt, sapphire, navy – every hue of the color you could possibly think of. I am suspended here, surrounded by nothing but a sea of blue. That is because I am, in fact, actually in a sea of water. I am submerged in the open Atlantic Ocean.

Then – there it is again! The sound is closer, and there’s more than one now. A beautiful sequence of moans, wails, grunts and clicks. It sounds like…a song? Yes, that’s exactly what it is! A whale song, if I recall right. My biology teacher had talked about it in my last high school session. It’s a series of sounds whales make to communicate, and the sound pattern is just like a human’s song.

How I got here, I don’t know. I’m holding my breath this whole time, but somehow my lungs aren’t starved for air. So I observe my surroundings. Water. Sunlight. Bubbles. Silence. I never knew that the open ocean could be such a quiet place. It’s peaceful, but it seems so lonely.

Sure enough, the source of the song swims into view, and excitement wells up in my chest. It’s not just one, not even two, but three whales, two adults and a baby! They swim around me in graceful twirls, gliding through the great waters. The baby playfully swirls around, too. They all look like they’re celebrating something. But what’s the occasion? Somehow, I know the answer already – they are celebrating life, just because. And I’m celebrating with them.

Suddenly, I hear something in the distance – a distinct wailing sound, but it’s not one of mourning. Silence again. I look to my right and left, top and bottom, all around me and in between, but I see nothing. I wait.

The whales swirl, twirl, and swim around me to include me in their graceful ballet. I twirl right along with my new finned friends. I don’t Hannah Sahr Untitled Aluminum Screen

know how it’s possible, but I can keep up with them in spite of my size. We sing and dance together through the open ocean like there’s no tomorrow. I haven’t taken a single breath yet, but I feel so alive. It’s like I’ve belonged here my whole life. Like I’m somehow connected as one with these magnificent creatures. That’s when everything was about to change. BOOM! An explosive sound erupts out of nowhere. The impact sends me flying through the waters out of control. I see the whales thrash about and they swim away haphazardly, anywhere to get away from that awful noise. Everything falls into utter chaos. BOOM! These sounds can’t possibly be natural. What are they doing? They’re hurting them! Now the whales are shrieking. BOOM! They struggle to move as they swim off in a panic. The baby cries out in agony. Clouds of red are left behind in their wake. Stop! You can’t do this! No more! STOP! – Sabrina Wartenbee Untitled Ink on Paper

“Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children…” I wake up with a start to a face-full of wood, paper and ink. I guess I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of biology class. My cheeks are burning with embarrassment. Surely no one saw that, right? I promptly sit up in my desk chair with a fleeting hope that the teacher hasn’t noticed my lack of attention. And apparently, she didn’t – she’s preoccupied with going through post-lecture questions with the rest of the class. “Ok everyone, we have time for one last question,” she announces. “Why do you think whales should be protected? What can we do to protect them?” My hand springs up into the air like a shotgun. For the first time in my life, the murky waters of my destiny become crystal clear to me now. I know exactly what to do.

Isabel Beteta Caribbean Oceans Digital Photograph

Don’t be afraid of the dark Abigail Crouse

Why are you so afraid of the darkness? Could it be the monsters under your bed? Could it be the dark things that lurk in the corners? I see you now; eyes wide open, darting around as if daring something to move. But you will never see me for I am far too clever. You will never catch me until it is too late. Fear overtakes you as you scan the room, void of all that terrifies you except the unknown. What was that sound? Oh it was only your own heart beating against the overwhelming silence. You feel as if it may beat right out of your chest. Thoughts of creatures too

fear grips you, you become more and more anxious. Every little movement… every little noise… and the fear grows stronger and stronger; as do I. I have a hold of your mind now and I am never letting go. You begin to see things that aren’t really there. You begin to hear things that make no sound. I am opening the door to your mind ever so slowly. What is out there? What can you do? Your non-existent demons surround you as you continue your impossible fight to see them. It is almost time. The stage is set… the performance is about to begin, and a good one it will be too.

ghastly to describe flit across your mind and you jump as a strong breeze directs a tree branch against the house. Perfect… I have instilled a steady fear inside of you. Fear of what? Well that is yet to be determined for you don’t know me yet… but you will. As the

Questions creep into your mind. You wonder if there is anything there at all. You wonder if it is all in your head… and then… you realize… it is. And you understand, but it is too late. You are mine. For I am the monster inside of your head, and you now belong to me.

Anna Doll Splash Copper Patina

Kitty Dough The Odessy of Danaus Pin and Pendant, Copper, Silver, Brass

Olga Blyum Thoughts Ink on Paper

The Set of the Mind Cody R. Marks Day Night Day Pray fear pray Breathe still breathe Life death life The breath we carry Carries us in depth A promise of life so sensual May sensualize our souls The heart brings life Life keeps the heart beating Death stops the heart The heart stops death Dance fall and again dance Tap tap and tap again Your feet moving or pencil writing Dare dream and dream to dare

Jordan Stamenkovski The Sphinx Graphite on Paper

The Helicopter Andrew Walser

I do not remember myself as a cell. The whole idea seems silly – as if one could wax nostalgic about the slimy doings within one’s walls and that life-transforming urge to split. But where will I begin this narrative? Certain fervent Christians suggest the instant of conception, when their deity zaps mere matter into animation – but this happens invisibly, within the mother’s body, and even someone with x-ray eyes would have a hard time discerning just where the divine sneaks in. I could skip conception, of course, and go back to the act that instigated it – but that prospect appeals to me even less than the first, despite what the psychologists say. My father was not a handsome man, nor my mother the sort to inspire Oedipal feelings. To couple these two creatures, and set them in motion on a four-poster bed or some moist patch of shag carpeting, would give me a myth of origin that would make anyone, on consideration, prefer not to originate. That is why, traditionally, we start our stories at birth. Until you enter the ocular, you might as well be a platelet or parasite. And the plot will end, naturally, with a return to invisibility: the coffin’s

lid shuts, the furnace flares up, the waves move apathetically from crest to trough . . . Once Maria and I visited a churchyard in Zell, Missouri, a town that lies just outside the floodplain of the Mississippi and that comprises a couple dozen houses and small farms, a main road as narrow as any alley, and – in the town center – St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, established 1847, with its primary-colored plastic playground for the children and a cemetery full of German names. Maria sat on a swing and sulked. I walked among crosses that looked like intersecting swords, rusted orange and brown. The sun beat down on us. I remember piglets scampering after their fat parents in someone’s backyard. And I remember that the Reverend Heinrich Ziegler had a big white Christ presiding over his plot: GEBOREN 1823 GESTORBEN 1912 O DU LAMM GOTTES, WELCHES DU HINWEGNIMMST DIE SÜNDEN DER WELT, SCHENK IHM DEN FRIEDEN. Xueyan Gao New Life Digital Photograph

I knelt in the grass and brushed some pebbles off a row of small plaques. I ran my fingers over dates more and more worn . . . Iraq, Vietnam, Korea . . . until I came to a plain gray rectangle, overgrown with moss, smooth except for a faint K, a ghostly Z, a possibly illusory 16. Almost invisible. Yet KZ 16 – my mother’s father’s unfortunate father – had left behind a son in Zell, and a wife who bore twins the winter he died, and a house and some livestock, and a small volume of Shelley’s poems that I keep on my desk. Cut now to a small cabin – red planks, stacked bricks, concrete – lost in the darkness of the north woods. Grandfather Z had intended it as a summertime retreat, but the cabin has become a home of sorts for my parents and sister, who stay deep into the winter and sometimes return as early as March. During the hiatus, they bounce from house to house, relative to relative, using the holidays as an excuse for their visits – then, when the season’s sentiments fail them, move into a cheap motel, where they live out of suitcases and subsist on breakfast cereal and canned tuna. This was back in the early Sixties. One November morning – I am told – a light snow began to fall. By noon, powder covered the ground beneath the trees that surround the cabin. Out the window, you could see flakes falling into the waves past the cliff’s edge. My mother had a fire burning; my sister was sitting near the runners of the rocking chair, her fingers dangerously close to getting pinched. Any of a number of childish pursuits might have occupied my sister that day. She might have colored with crayons . . . girls with lashes all around their wide eyes, gazes doubling the yellow-spoked sun . . . or she might have played with the elaborate, old-fashioned dolls my father bought

through his connections in the toy business, effigies based on literary characters (Jo in Little Women, Alice in Wonderland) or the heroines of fairy tales (Cinderella, Rapunzel) or historical monarchs (Cleopatra, Isabella, Catherine the Great). My father ran his shop in the spare room of an ice cream parlor. If a customer walked around the case full of cardboard tubs and through a pair of swinging doors, he would find my father’s stock: • shoeboxes full of baseball and football cards; • battalions of toy soldiers;

• stamps and coins, separated by • • • •

country of origin and (whenever applicable) regime; a collection of snow globes, domes of glass over scenes of Dickensian London; picture postcards of the Panama Canal; 78 rpm records; a few books about disasters at sea.

One long shelf held a line of miniature models – mostly propeller planes and railroad cars, but centered (for as long as anyone can remember) on a minuscule replica of the Lincoln-Douglas debate. The figure of Abraham Lincoln was mere caricature, all stovepipe hat and gloppy beard, and the likeness of Stephen Douglas was not much better, but the little spectators were so detailed . . . so personalized . . . that visitors tended to consider them the real focus of the model and its ostensible occasion a ruse. Dusting the base of an antique bank, my father noticed that the snow outside had changed. A thick layer was accumulating on the ground, and the boughs of the trees were beginning to sag. It was midafternoon. No customers had stopped in

that day, but my father did not like to leave the shop before six, since sometimes a single purchase could pay for a month’s groceries, and who could say whether a vacationer, licking an ice cream cone and looking to splurge on some trinket, would return the next day if he found the room behind the swinging doors darkened? Back in the cabin, my mother had begun to feel the same unpatterned tightening and relaxation that had distracted her for the past two weeks. She no longer called the sensation contractions, because she no longer expected it to lead to labor. She stood by the stove, stirring spaghetti in one silver pot and tending the sauce she had simmering in another. Outside, the snow had drifted up against the cabin. If a Peeping Tom wanted to peer in the window, she thought, he would have to submerge his leg to mid-shin. The cabin, I should note, was far too remote for voyeurs. From the nearest town (yearround population 57) a visitor would have to drive for miles, after which blacktop would give way to gravel and cottages would stop appearing among the pines. There were no streetlights and few signs . . . Some distance from the cabin, the road looped back on itself, leaving only an overgrown path, just wide enough for one vehicle, to continue deeper into the woods. A large clearing marked where this more primitive surface diverged. The Peeping Tom would have to drive slowly to keep from colliding with a tree. He would pass the entrances to two other driveways . . . one that led to an old couple’s summer house, the other to a campground run by a fundamentalist church from Zion, Illinois . . . before he came to the turn-off for our cabin. There would be a kind of sign at the top of the drive, an archery target with my mother’s maiden name on it.

When my father left at six, he found that a couple inches of snow had piled up. His tires had a hard time keeping traction on the road. The trip from the ice cream parlor, which normally took fifteen minutes, lasted over an hour; the windshield became opaque between sweeps of the wipers. On the radio, the newscasters read reports from Washington and overseas, but said nothing – in their flat Chicago accents – about snow. My father punched buttons and twisted knobs. Nothing. The stations across the bay . . . in Escanaba and Menominee . . . were all static, as if the storm had already buried the Upper Peninsula under drifts as tall as antennae. Time became indistinct. At the bottom of our driveway, my father pumped and pumped the brakes, but the car still went skidding into the cabin’s side and chipped off a bit of red paint. No one recalls how my family spent that evening. Darkness fell, of course. The fire died down in the fireplace, although my father continued to poke logs and throw on newspapers occasionally. In her bunk my sister slipped under a stack of blankets and watched the breath fog above her head. If my mother sensed some shift inside her, she said nothing to my father. Silently she washed dishes in the sink, while he – silent too – smoked a cigarette and tried to solve an anagram on the funnies page. Deep in the night – perhaps three o’clock – my mother’s water broke, while she sat on the toilet after waking up from a horrific dream. She washed, dressed, and packed a suitcase, then roused my father gently, by shaking his shoulder. My sister insisted on drinking a glass of orange juice before the three of them left.

(The dream? She had been wandering through the filthy backstage passages of an ancient theater, trying to find the screening room. Finally, she came to a cavernous hall: a beam of light from the projector cut across utter darkness. She stumbled up the aisle, past rows and rows of empty seats. The theater was bigger than the biggest coliseum, and when she looked over her shoulder the screen was just a tiny bright rectangle behind her. She thought she could see my sister, several rows up, sitting all alone. But when she reached the seat, my sister was just a husk – someone had split her down the middle and hollowed her out, then filled the shell with gems and polished stones. And my mother had to root around in the amethysts and rubies, the tiger’s eyes and carnelians, because a pale usher was there with his flashlight and asking for the ticket she had lost . . .) Outside, on his way to warm up the car, my father could feel the snow seep into his galoshes. He opened the door and decapitated a tall drift. The nearest hospital was halfway down the peninsula, in Sturgeon Bay – a sort of portal between the world of cities and suburbs and geometric greens . . . of illumination . . . and the crowblack woodworld up north. In the summer, in the fall, the distance had seemed trivial. My mother’s first labor had stretched over three days, after all, and the nurses had joked that my sister would emerge curly-topped and toilet-trained, fluent like them in both medical English and Tagalog. Now, however, as the flakes fell across his headlights, my father must have done some quick calculations. Then he ran back into the cabin and, as calmly as he could, locked himself in the closet with the telephone. He dialed a wrong number the first time and woke the man who repaired

the water heater. The second time he reached the hospital and – in a whisper even my sister could hear – detailed their situation: his wife’s water had broken, they lived near the top of the bluff, the roads were all but impassable . . . The receptionist must have consulted her superior, and the superior his superior, and several minutes later instructions came back: proceed to the southeast corner of lot 12578, near the clearing, and await the arrival of helicopter and paramedics. Climbing the driveway, the car would ascend a few feet, then begin to slip backwards, even if my father gunned the engine or pumped the brake. My mother sat in the front seat and watched the tires kick up snow. Again and again the motor raced, the car struggled upward: again and again, the inevitable descent. A series of plateaus helped make the driveway manageable, but in the snow you could hardly see, much less reach, these resting places. Once the car started to spin as it slid downhill . . . swept out a white arc that the white flakes erased . . . and slammed in slow motion into a tree, denting the fender and cracking a taillight. My mother could only clutch the hump beneath her sweater and breathe. Near the entrance to the Christians’ camp, the car smashed into another tree, which knocked out a headlight and made noxious black smoke billow from under the hood. (A different narrator might tinker with these details and craft a tale of adventure: Lost in the Storm, perhaps, or Journey to Nowhere.) The snow had not slowed: the one beam lit nothing but flakes. In the back seat, my sister had started to babble, the usual chatter of a child trying to dispel her own boredom. Had she been a seeress, she might have seen across the peninsula

Carson Davis Untitled Balsa Wood Construction and sung of the paramedics’ troubles, but as it was she fashioned a pastiche out of her favorite books (One Morning in Maine, Goodnight Moon, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins) and taught the alphabet to the squirrels on her pajamas. The car crept along. When it struck a third trunk, the woods went black, and the front door crumpled toward my father’s hip. There was no sign of the clearing, or the helicopter, or a deus ex machina to save the day. (Up in the air, the pilot steered with his entire body stiff, terrified of crashing. Twice he had to set the helicopter down and climb atop to scrape ice off the blades. Once he detected a dim glow below, but somehow mistook this cluster of cabins near my father’s shop for the village of Ephraim and turned the wrong direction – away from the bay, away from my mother, toward a few thousand acres of unchopped trees.)

squirrels stranded on the letter S. Like most men of his generation, my father knew next to nothing about childbirth. He understood that the procedure required hot towels and a knife – and, perhaps, some sort of bucket. In order to do something, however, he decided to check the trunk. Trudging through the snow, cursing in German, he thought . . . with a touch of nausea . . . that during the last seven months he might have read a dozen – two dozen! – textbooks about obstetrics. (At times he resembled Sartre’s famous Autodidact.) He dropped the keys in a drift; he had to grope about until his fingers throbbed. Eventually he got the trunk open and, digging in the dark, fished out a flashlight, an old oily rag, a copy of Sports Illustrated, a map of Alberta, and the jack for changing tires. The Sports Illustrated had a fencer named Louise Dyer on the cover. The flashlight had no batteries. Infuriated, my father hurled the items, one by one, into the woods.

Before dawn – but not much before – the car skidded into the clearing. My father had hoped to see bundled-up doctors, spinning blades, a sweeping searchlight, but found only snow and the blackness behind it. As if to emphasize the magnitude of his miscalculation, my mother began to scream at the peak of each contraction, and, in compensation, my sister fell silent, leaving the

Back in the car, he found the front seat covered with blood and muck – and my mother gone, the passenger door agape. In the back seat, my sister had fallen asleep, and the bulb on the ceiling cast her face into weird shadows. Somehow the windshield had cracked: shards of glass lay on the dashboard. For a moment, my

Sabrina Wartenbee Untitled Acrylic on Canvas father construed all of this as a good sign, as if the paramedics had arrived and whisked away his wife on an invisible stretcher. Then he came to his senses and panicked. He scrambled across the front seat, smearing goop on his coat and pants and gashing his palm with a piece of glass. He fell face first into the snow that crested against the open door; he had to thrash and jerk and heave to right himself, and when he stood up his glasses were snapped in half, hanging on either side of his head like a Hasid’s locks. He could barely see my mother: she knelt in the dim light from the car and tamped down the snow in a circle around her, like an animal preparing to sleep. For a crucial span – the fifteen minutes before my birth – even the hearsay becomes confused and contradictory. The mixedup accounts of the main players, the dramatizations of gossips like my aunt, a column and a half from the Ellison Bay Gazette (a mimeographed sheet that the owner of the town’s grocery store cranked out on a machine she kept behind the dairy case) – none

17Tara Britton Wilkins Endless

of these sources quite gibes with the others. Certain details remain unclear. Why did my mother construct her little nest? Did she really (as the Gazette suggested) claw four stripes on my father’s face? What had she shouted . . . it sounded like “onyx onyx onyx” . . . when a curve of skull, damp and purple, appeared between her thighs? I only know that at some point the helicopter (deus ex machina) arrived in the sky above the scene. You could see it traverse the mile of trees before the clearing, and you could hear it hovering above, looking for a spot to land, making fresh flakes . . . a second blizzard . . . swirl up on the field’s far edge. Like a gigantic ghostly straw, or a mosquito’s proboscis dipping toward a vein, its searchlight cut a path to where my parents – both frostbitten, both near fainting – waited. But the beam missed my sister. She had collapsed onto the cushions in the back seat: she was dreaming (I can only speculate) about the White Rabbit, or the 501st hat, or the day the sun tumbled to earth and rolled past her window on its yellow spokes.

Lost in Time Grudges held from years ago . . . Fresh tears caused by old wounds. I want to forget. But I can’t. Some things stay with you . . . Minor cuts & bruises go away . . . Some, not all, cut too deep . . . Never fading & Never going away. They say time heals all wounds . . . What if wounds never left in the first place?

I don’t know where I am in time. . . In the past Where all the pain started or In the present . . . Where everything seems like yesterdays and haunts me. I’m lost in time like the Doctor in the TARDIS . . . Trying to flee, To hide, and To get away from my past. It always seems to catch up to me . . . Even if I don’t want it to. The past . . . It’s a funny thing It’s who you were and will always be a part of you. I am in stasis . . . A constant remembrance . . . Of the past and present. Never able to get too far Before it catches up on me. I shall always be Lost in Time. To be or not to be . . . I remember that line fondly from Shakespeare and Robert Frost and his beautiful poem about deciding between the two paths. 18

Misty Williams

Oh, how I love the writers of old. Do you ever feel lost in time as I do? The beauty of the old and the long dead . . . I don’t know what I’m so intrigued by. Sometimes I wish I could have met those brave souls . . . It doesn’t matter their gender, their disorders, or their history. Their works speak for them. Vincent van Gogh. Leonardo da Vinci. William Shakespeare. Edgar Allan Poe. Robert Frost. . It’s a beautiful thing to be lost in time. Sometimes I don’t know whether to believe that I am gifted or I am cursed. Being lost in time can be a little of both. The works of the heroes I mentioned above – They have a lasting effect. They have their uniqueness. They have their beauty. They have their stories filled with happiness, sorrow, anger, pain . . . I feel like I can never forget the pain that I myself have suffered. It sticks with me like gum on a shoe. But my memories are not all painful . . . There are a few that bring a smile to my face. And the painful ones have helped me grow, To become anew. I’ve gotten back from the ashes like a phoenix each and every time . . . Stronger, Ready for the new challenges before me, And hoping that I am able to get back up again if need be. Lost in time is a girl and that girl is me.

Debra Ventura Moon Phases Digital Photograph 19

Brittany Rippons Untitled Aluminum Screen

Spontaneous Chelsea Reed

Spontaneous. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an odd sounding word. A curious sort of word. It springs off the tip of your tongue like an Olympic swimmer flying off the dive board at missile speed. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a force that makes things happen. Wondrous things. Marvelous things. And it ignites them all at once like the fires of dawn radiating across the world at daybreak.

21Naomi Michelle Clean Acrylic on Canvas

Spilled Milk Derrick Lay

“There is no sense in crying over spilled milk,” my mother would recite to me whenever she noticed me in distress; “What is done is already done.” For the majority of my life that idiom calmed my anxiety about mostly everything. Whether I was stressed about a mediocre effort put forth on my part or aggravated that I had forgotten to do something important, this phrase helped to ease my anguish. Looking back on all the struggles in life I have overcome by remembering this quote, I get upset realizing that it has not helped me overcome the heartache I have experienced since having lost my mother to cancer. Throughout my childhood and into my twenties, every task I had completed in life was followed by brief feelings of worry and anxiety. “Have I given my best effort?” is a question I have asked myself

many times. My worries always seemed to be short lived once I remembered what my mother had told me about accepting things that I cannot change. “What is done is already done,” then I would just accept each outcome with ease. My mother had successfully taught me how to deal with my anxieties and I was beyond grateful. Little did I know, this stress relieving phrase would lose its ability to alleviate the heartache and stress I would encounter after my mother passed away in August of 2013. In early summer of 2011 my mother was diagnosed with Squamous Cell Carcinoma, a common type of skin cancer. For two long years my mother fought with all her strength to try to conquer what was happening to her. She endured chemotherapy and radiation treatments which seemed as if they did her more harm than any good. I remember the first time I cried face-toface with my mother as she laid in her bed worn out from the chemotherapy she went through earlier that day. As she noticed me crying, she grabbed my hand, squeezed, and then said, “Remember Derrick, There is no sense in crying over spilled milk,” followed by a reassuring smile. A few weeks later on August 25th, 2013, my mother stopped fighting. She had passed away early in the morning when everyone was still asleep. My family and I were devastated. Following my mother’s funeral, it did not seem to take my father and brother very long to jump fearlessly back into their everyday lives; they made it look so easy. I guess they have always been better than me at coping with grief or stress. I, on the other hand, continue to struggle to this very day over the loss of my mother. My “milk has been spilled,” and I cannot stop crying over it. “There is no sense in crying over spilled milk,” my mother would remind me every time she noticed me in distress; “What is done is already done.” For years this very statement seemed to work well at alleviating any stress that I came in contact with. Whatever the task or struggle, this phrase of acceptance helped me to calm my nerves in a way that no other strategy has seemed to compare. Its strength however, diminished when applied to the heartache and discouragement I continue to face after the passing of my mother. My “milk has been spilled,” and I don’t know how to stop crying over it.

Ljupka Vuchevska La Belezza di Amore

Xueyan Gao Where Did You Want To Go Digital Photograph

Debra Ventura Ladybug on Wheat DigitalPhotograph

Donovan Mullen Untitled Graphite on Paper

Kenneth Crowson Untitled Colored Pencil on Paper

Ethan Pistella Untitled Digital Art 25

The Rancher’s Hope Cindy Hayes

In the blistering Texas sun, Hungry buzzards circle over carrion on the ground The rancher hopes it’s not one of his herd He holds my hand – we walk through the pasture Crimson soil dry and cracked like his heels He takes a handful and tests it for moisture – It sifts through his hands like sand through an Hourglass. Climbing on the gate, I do flips and watch While he works. The windmill and the tumbleweeds – Frozen still – Just waiting for a breeze. His grass Crop scotched and brown like last night’s overcooked fried potatoes. He sighs. The cattle are thin. With his pear burner, He burns the Prickly Pear needles glowing red-orange They sizzle, pop and disintegrate – Drooling Hereford cows Move in close for bites of juicy cactus. A white Brahma bull rushes up and Rears – the cows scatter. Full from their mother’s milk the calves cavort Nearby oblivious to their plight. I try to pet them and they almost knock me down. Be careful, Honey, he calls. A tan one curiously nibbles on some grass I picked. Watching us, the rancher smiles momentarily. Blocking the sun with his hand, He looks at the sky – no clouds – a forever-blue sea. Under his armpits, huge sweat circles form. Back at the corral, We empty several bags of feed into the long troughs – Lay out several bales of hay. He calls loudly, OuuuWeee! Come on babies! Through the gate, the cows run in Single file. As the blazing sun begins to set – the Temperature cools, a little. The scrawny coyotes’ yip And howl far in the distance – the nervous cattle bunch. Whoa! The rancher says as he puts his arm around me and pats his favorite cow. Don’t worry, babies! It’s gonna be all right.

Chelsea Hutto Unbound Acrylic on Canvas

Lisa LeMair Caldera Necklace Garnet Garnet Sterling Silver

Ljupka Vuchevska Regina

Ljupka Vuchevska Hearths of Glory

Lindsay Doughty Untitled Graphite on Paper

Resonating Lives Sudeepa Pathak

She sat in the Starbucks café, sipping her coffee and staring out of the window. The blood stained knife lay next to her handbag, covered with her blue silk scarf. She was hardly present in her own being as if stripped of her soul, a lifeless body mass on a chair. God she loved coffee; it was coffee that brought the morning smile on her face, coffee that took away her headache, her occasional body pains, her boredom, her sorrows; coffee resonated with her . . . just like him . . . Sumit . . .

but surprisingly this glance also made me a bit conscious of his existence and mine in his proximity.

Sumi . . . my mother screamed, “Is coffee the only thing you will have in the morning? Who will eat the cinnamon muffins I made for your breakfast?” Her tirade continued oscillating between one instruction to another, “Please don’t forget to wear your black bracelet; it will ward the evil eye. You know how people stare at beautiful girls.” I did what she told me in a purely mechanical way for many reasons including the most important – that I just loved my mother. Her whole world consisted of me, me and me, and secondly, I don’t think that the thought of disobeying my mother ever existed, call it culture or just an unspoken life rule I blindly followed. Though who will cast an evil spell on a brown Indian girl, on American soil, was a thought which did creep up often at the back of my mind.

No, no, no, I don’t like this. Constantly wringing my blue scarf with my left hand I dialed her number. She picked up at the first ring. “Kavi, listen I am not going to ‘Tao’ again after that wait of two hours last Saturday in spite of reservations. Have you forgotten the torture?” “No listen to me again, I know their food is the best.” “But Kavi, stop speaking for a minute, you know the wait makes the dinner lifeless.” I knew I would have to listen to reasons and explanations from the other end and this continued for five minutes until I hung up the phone. No point talking to Kavita is the conclusion.

I flung the front door open and ran down a string of steps pushing myself out of the apartment on to a busy street of New York. My hand started the automatic waving in an effort to catch the attention of a cab. I was really late for work. The cab, which stopped moments later, felt as if it reached me by magic. Surprisingly I hadn’t seen anything so near me. The driver in a glance looked like another immigrant. It beats me why every immigrant fresh off the boat has to drive cabs in New York; each to his own I thought. “Park Square, 5th Avenue,” I ordered without even looking at the driver. The husky, “Yes, madam,” was so impressively unique that I did give him a glance right away. He looked real Asian, he looked really fair for a man, and he had gentle black curly hair . . . wow! How many things can a girl notice in one glance,

I quickly regained myself and started my most usual morning ritual of checking the past night’s emails on my smart phone WhatsApp messages . . . there were 600, but I did manage to reach my best friend Kavita’s message, “Thank God it’s Friday – let’s meet for Dinner at ‘Tao,’ our favorite exotic Chinese restaurant.”

“Madam, the downtown branch of ‘Tao’ has lesser wait time,” his voice again startled me. “Excuse me,” I replied, hearing the driver speak. He continued, “Yes, me and my friends ate there last night and didn’t have to wait at all.” Really? I thought in disbelief, a cab driver spends his evenings in ‘Tao’ or plain shows off to a female passenger. I hesitated for a minute and somehow a string of questions sprayed on him: “What is your name? Where are you from originally?” He took a deep breath and said, “I am an Indian, my name is Sumit . . . .” What a strange coincidence: Sumit and Sumi . . . so familiar, so similar, so spooky, I thought. He continued,” Just came from India six months back. I am a software engineer, but probably some bad curse stops me from getting a good job, hence cab driving. What about you?” I really tried stopping myself but the coincidences were getting intense. I blurted out, “I am Sumi . . . software graphic designer. I work for Info Designing firm, but really I’m thinking of quitting and moving to a better company.” He looked

a little more confortable in conversing with me now and said, “I have established some decent contacts recently. Please give me your phone number of email and I will inform you if I see something attractive in the Graphics area.” That’s a smart move, I thought, my mother’s voice ringing in the back of my mind about beautiful girls and protection from the evil. I had my brain converse with me for a moment but the heart was overtaken by the husky voice, the looks, the sincere charm, and before I knew it, I had already pulled out my notepad and scribbled my name and cell number. The destination of 5th Avenue was almost there. I pulled out the cab fare and moved out with a shy glance at Sumit. My morning was busy but somewhere in the middle of the design presentation, my fingers tried running through my blue scarf and realized its absence. Holy Crap, this is unreal. Did I actually leave it behind . . . in Sumit’s cab? How did that happen – I always have my scarfs tightly wound around my left thumb. Yes, my left thumb because I carefully conceal the presence of my double thumb, a sore ugly deformity of my otherwise beautiful existence. This double thumb did have an ardent fan, though, of my mother who thought everything good in my life was because of the presence of that extra ligament. “It’s auspicious,” she always said. I have to contact Sumit was my thought on my way out of the conference room as I heard my phone ring. It was him. He said that he would get the scarf wherever it was convenient for me. He remembered my ‘Tao’ dining plans and said he would meet me outside the place. I murmured before he kept the phone down, “Since you are coming to ‘Tao’ have dinner with me and my friend tonight.” I hesitated but said yes. I did have my heart explain that that was the minimum I could do for a guy coming so far for giving back a scarf to a forgetful passenger.

see a will to still struggle and somehow a will to clear his way to a better future, his honesty, his humbleness somehow was attractive. I paid the bill at the end and he decided to drop me home. I urged myself to sit in the front seat next to him now that the equations felt suddenly so equal after the dinner. I was addressing him as Sumit and he was calling me Sumi with such an ease as if I had known him for ages. Probably the resonance in our names was so binding, as if the whole universe had contrived to put us together. The drive next to the lake made him look at me and say, “Do you want to walk?” The voice was sincere and I said yes. The walk on the lake front was so mesmerizing or probably I had never seen the lake at night. Sumit opened up again, telling me about the deep frustration he was going through driving a cab after software technology school. His wound looked so hurting that I had to hold his hand to show that I understood. He didn’t let go of my hand for the rest of the walk until we reached the bench at the end of the lake and sat down.

Sumit arrived at ‘Tao’ sharply at 8 pm. While Kavita and I were moving in, the hostess did seat us right away. I got to see Sumit at closer quarters this time, his charm more intensified, his eye twinkle somehow looked tired and sorrowful. The small stubble and half leather mittens were giving him a cab driver look though. He saw me staring, and I looked away immediately.

“You know, Sumi, it’s strange but sometimes I think that I know the root cause of all my bad luck,” he said in a shivering voice. I was all ears and said, “If you know the cause, Sumit, then you should get rid of it, in fact can I help you in any way?” He looked so mysterious and said softly, “Really, Sumi. Will you help me?” “Yes, I will,” was my strong reply – somehow I felt so bound to him. I saw him in a flash slip his black mitten off and shining in the moonlight was his left hand with two thumbs dwindling down. Spooky, destiny, coincidence, soul mates was what this was, such similarities were unreal. “This, this, this is hurting me,” he kept repeating. “I know all will be well if I cut this off Sumi.” He was, at this point, almost hysterical. “Sumi, help me cut this off. I need someone to hold me when I do this, really Sumi. This will cure me . . . .” He had already pulled his sharp pocket knife out. I know probably it was the strength with which I held his hand or the blue scarf with which I tied his bleeding thumb together, but somehow my brain stopped registering the events that night. I don’t remember when his pain subsided, or when he promised me to get first aid, or when he dropped me home, but I did dream weird things all night long.

Kavita left early, and I got to hear more from Sumit, his orphaned life, his hard labor in education and general livelihood with the help of an uncle, his move to America and the not so lucky life until now. I did

“Sumi! I got the job” . . . was the screaming voice which came from the other end of the phone next morning. “I have to see you, right away. I know there is a Starbucks coffee place below your office . . . .”

Sabrina Wartenbee Jelly Beans 2 Acrylic on Canvas

Tara Britton Wilkins Turning the Tide

Biographies Shelby Bartley – Shelby is a student in the Fine Arts Program at the College of The Albemarle. She lives in Columbia, NC, and attends classes on the Roanoke Island Campus. She enjoys working with her hands and letting them have a mind of their own. Isabel Beteta – Isabel Beteta is a sophomore at COA, and is currently pursuing her Associate in Fine Arts in Art. Isabel is originally from Long Beach, Mississippi; she has been living in Elizabeth City for the past five years. Olga Blyum – Olga came to the US nearly two years ago from the middle of Siberia to get a better education. Next spring she will graduate from COA with an Associate in Arts degree and transfer to a four-year university to study math and engineering. She writes, “My heart belongs to art. When I have a free time from my duties, I like to find interactions of math and art.” Lydia Copeland – Lydia’s stories have appeared in Nano Fiction, Glimmer Train, The Florida Review, and others. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her chapbook won second place in the Jeanne Leiby Chapbook contest. She teaches online English courses for COA and lives in East Tennessee with her husband, son, and daughter. Abigail Crouse – Abigail is a junior at Mid-Atlantic Christian University. She loves to write but suffers from chronic nightmares. She decided to use her abilities to help her through them and began writing short stories based off of these dreams. She writes, “Writing has, and always will be, a passion of mine.”

Special thanks to the COA Writing Club and to the COA Foundation for their generous support in making the printing of this publication possible. Thank you also to the many contributors without whom there would be no magazine.

Kenneth Crowson – Kenneth was born and raised in Northern Florida and joined the Air Force when he was 18 years old. He lived in Japan, Guam, Korea, and the Middle East during his tours of duty. He has been attending COA in pursuit of his AFA in Art degree since the fall of 2014. Carson Davis – Carson is a student at College of The Albemarle. He created his sculpture in the 3D Design class at COA’s Professional Arts Building at the Dare County Campus, Fall semester 2015. Anna Doll – Anna is a student at College of The Albemarle and a resident of the Outer Banks. The Splash cuff is inspired by her coastal environment. “It’s the place I always return to. The gentle rolling water, the calm before the storm, the angry crashing waves that send a salty mist over the dunes -- it’s home.” Kitty Dough – Kitty attended the Art Institute of Atlanta and earned a certificate in Botanical Art and Illustration from the North Carolina Botanical Gardens. She belongs to the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators and the Colored Pencil Society of America. Kitty is an artist for the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. Lindsay Doughty – Lindsay is a visual arts student at College of The Albemarle. She is pursuing an Associate in Fine Arts degree with a concentration in Art. Ms. Doughty loves exploring new media and techniques to expand her knowledge and love for art. Xueyan Gao – Xueyan is an international student born in Tianjin, China. She came to the U.S. about two and half years ago. She

is currently studying fine art at College of The Albemarle, and planning to transfer to VCU for a photography major. She plans on pursuing photography in the future. Cindy Hayes – Cindy is an instructor for PACE, which is part of College of The Albemarle’s Basic and Transitional Studies Program. She is also an interpreter for the Deaf. She enjoys long nature walks, painting, photography, and poetry. She loves teaching students to not just read but to feel the written word. Chelsea Hutto – Chelsea is a resident of Elizabeth City, and an Associate in Fine Arts in Art student. Her painting Unbound was made in the Painting 1 class at College of The Albemarle’s Elizabeth City campus, Fall semester, 2015. Derrick Lay – Derrick is thirty years old and currently lives in Moyock, NC. He is a student of The College of The Albemarle studying to become a practical nurse. He loves meeting new people and enjoys every outdoor activity one could imagine. He also enjoys helping people in their time of need, which is why he wants to become a nurse. Lisa M. LeMair – Lisa is a wearable art and jewelry artist in Southern Shores, NC. Her work is inspired by a love of texture and the tension found at the edge. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University, and is pursuing a certificate in jewelry from the College of The Albemarle. Cody Marks – Cody is a student at MidAtlantic Christian University, studying teacher education. He hopes to someday become an author and publish a book of poetry.

Naomi Michelle – Naomi was born in Westerly, RI in 1974. She is currently working towards an AFA in Art. She discovered photography while on cross-country trips with her family. She started painting in 2010. A quote she lives by is by Pablo Picasso: “Inspiration exists, but it finds you working.” Donovan Mullen – Donovan is a freshman at College of The Albemarle. He is pursuing his Associate in Fine Arts in Art. When he achieves this goal, he plans to transfer to East Carolina University to major in Three-Dimensional Design. His concentration at the moment is in drawing. Sudeepa Pathak – Though Mathematics is Sudeepa’s natural passion, she has worn many hats through the years from electrical engineering to math teaching. She has always pursued writing poetry through the years. This is the first time she has written a short thriller. She hopes this will mark the start of an interesting writing future. Ethan Pistella – Ethan is a student at College of The Albemarle. He created the image featured in this magazine using a computer photo-editing program. He has been making visual art for the past three years. Chelsea Reed – Chelsea is a freelance writer who is passionate about storytelling. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with two Associates degrees at COA, where her passion for writing began. Chelsea creates fresh and engaging content for clients with a marketing firm and loves to help build businesses one project at a time. Brittany Rippons – Brittany created her sculpture in the 3D Design class at College of The Albemarle’s Professional Arts Building at the Dare County Campus, Fall semester 2015.

Hannah Sahr – Hannah is a junior at JP Knapp Early College High School in Currituck County. She has been attending COA as an AFA in Art student for almost a year. She plans to graduate in spring of 2017 with both her AFA and her High School diploma. Afterwards, she hopes to transfer to a four-year university to study Sculpture and Art Management. Maria Shishova – Maria is an international student from Russia. She has been studying art all her life. She earned a certificate in art from the Art School in Klimovo, and studied Interior design at Orel State University in Russia. She received numerous awards for art exhibitions and Industrial training. She is pursuing an AFA in Art at COA. She writes, “I feel so blessed having such an amazing opportunity to study abroad and to travel here in the USA.” Jordan Stamenkovski – Jordan is enrolled in the Professional Crafts: Jewelry Program at COA. Spring 2016 is her last semester at COA, but she is planning to continue her education at UNC Greenville, where she plans to pursue a bachelor degree. Creating jewelry is her passion since 2012. She writes, “I’ve learned all techniques and skills here at the COA.” Debra Ventura – Debra Ventura is a freshman at COA. She is a freelance photographer and loves painting. Ljupka Vuchevska – Ljupka was born in Macedonia, Europe. She is a metalsmith jewelry artist enrolled in the COA Professional Crafts: Jewelry program in Manteo. There, she absorbed the acute attention to form and design of different types of metal pieces and refined her own visual and artistic vocabulary. Her current focus is the intersection between Gothic

Antiquities, Gypsy Festive Lifestyle, Classic Victorian and Vintage Egyptian. She melds these to create one-of-a-kind handcrafted wearable art. Andrew Walser – Andrew Walser is an Assistant Professor at College of The Albemarle. Sabrina Wartenbee – Sabrina Wartenbee is currently 17 years old and a duel enrollment student at both JP Knapp Early College High School and College of The Albemarle. She is pursuing an Associate in Fine Arts with a concentration in Art, and writes that she is “enjoying every minute of it.” Tara Britton Wilkins – Tara is studying metalsmithing in the Professional Arts Jewelry Program at the Roanoke Island campus of College of The Albemarle. She has won several awards with her jewelry including Best in Show at Dare County Arts Council Women’s Show and an Excellence Award at the 2013 Mollie Fearing Show. She also dances professionally including three seasons with The Lost Colony. Misty Clotho Williams – Misty was born and raised in North Carolina. She is a student at College of The Albemarle pursuing an Associate in Arts degree. Her dream is to become a successful writer. Robin Woodard – Robin Woodard will graduate with an Associate in Fine Arts from COA, spring 2016. She plans on transferring to Appalachian State University to work on a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design.

FINE ARTS Making Waves

Anna Doll Earrings

COAST Players Oliver

College of The Albemarle offers two Associate in Fine

The Professional Crafts Jewelry program provides

Arts degrees, Visual Arts and Drama, and a program in

students with the knowledge and skills needed to make

Professional Crafts Jewelry.

a living as a jeweler. The program combines technical knowledge and design skills with marketing and business

The Associate in Fine Arts degree (AFA) is an

essentials preparing students to pursue careers as

appropriate option for students who plan to pursue

jewelers or build a business from their artistic talent.

a career in the arts or who plan to transfer into a bachelorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree program in any area of visual or

COA Fine Arts instructors are professionals in their

performing art at a university within the University of

fields, who actively exhibit their work or perform in the

North Carolina System (studio art, graphic design, art

theater. They encourage students to get involved in

education, art history, theater or musical theater).

student art shows and theatrical productions.

FOR MORE INFORMATION AFA in Art or Drama www.albemarle.edu/afa

Professional Crafts Jewelry Program www.albemarle.edu/jewelry

Transform Your Tomorrow www.albemarle.edu