Living Waters Review: 2016 by pba9

by the Students and Alumni of Palm Beach Atlantic University

If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

John 7:37b-38

THANK YOU

School of Arts and Sciences • English Department • Art Department • Development Office

SPECIAL THANKS PresidentWilliam M. B. Fleming, Jr. • Dr. Gene Fant • Dr. Susan Jones • Dr. Jenifer Elmore • Becky Peeling • Autumn Raab • John Sizemore • Louis Park

FOUNDER AND FACULTY ADVISOR Professor David Athey GRAPHIC DESIGN ADVISOR Professor Tim Eichner MANAGING EDITOR Thomas Lubben SENIOR EDITORS Rebekah Best Rebecca Ethridge Hannah Menendez Renata Zarro COPY EDITOR Skye Nosbisch GRAPHIC ARTS EDITOR Naomi Wallen COVER ART Hannah Deadman

Help support Living Waters. Contact Professor David Athey in the English Department. 561-803-2259

Living Waters Review

Table of Contents

Lines For The Sea

Africa U.S.A.

R. Robertson & Co.

Rebecca Ethridge

Naomi Wallen

Anisa Stechert

Guatemala

Romina Barrientos

North Florida Sunrise

Half Of Whole

Mixed Blessings

The Created: Part One

Ryan Arnst

Gracelyn Kuzman

Adam Cross

Daniela Pereira

The Created: Part Two

Sliding Falls

Gore Canyon

Lucky Man

More Than Embers Ashley Taylor

Chicago

20 21

The Naivety Of Nativity

Catching The Tube At Hammersmith Station

Vagabond

A Welcome Distraction

Hannah

An-Nur

Atlas

Emilio Gomez

Ryan Arnst

Samuel Rogers

Hannah Menendez

Tonya Mateuszczyk

Star Storm Gracelyn Kuzman

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Contents

Daniela Pereira

Ryan Arnst

Bekah Grim

Alexandra Gomez

Ryan Arnst

Rebecca Ethridge

Hannah Nelson

Contents 4

Monet’s Songs

Abella

Rippling

A Basket Full Of Mangoes

Official Remembrance Tour

Ibis

Through A Glass, Darkly

Frozen Blizzard Band

Springtide

Confessions Of A Fraudulent Bigfoot

We Stood In The Storm

The Botanist

Looming In The Blue, Galápagos

An Anonymous Scholar

The Girl With Golden Eyes

St. Mary Magdalene, Broad Street, Oxford

The Ineffable Petruchio

Strings

Bilingual Blood

Abraham’s Sacrifice Of Isaac

Abuela’s House

Victoria Randall

Lauren Tagliola

Samuel Rogers

Olivia Anderson

Jenn Elrod

Alia Michaud

Hannah Deadman

Alexandra Gomez

Jane Humphrey

Hannah Menendez

Nicole Jimenez

Madison Brockman

Renata Zarro

Ashley Taylor

Hannah Nelson

Thomas Lubben

Hannah Menendez

Naomi Wallen

Hannah Menendez

Gracelyn Kuzman

Kayla Webbe

Daniela Pereira

Living Waters Review

Endures

After Dismissal

Feb. 2. 2016.

A Pretty Thing

La Spirale

Kerameikos

Ruby Singinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d Never Let My Dog Gamble

Jordyn Marlin

Rebekah Best

Kurt Burghardt

Alexandra Gomez

Shana Terra Lubben

Naomi Wallen

Stephanie Jamison

Cameron Schott

77 D

igging

Savvy Myles

Song Of Psalms

Memory

Jane Humphrey

Rachel Green

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The Hurricane Vigil

The First Church Of Chemo

Rainstorm In A Piano

Sign Here

Sacred Remembrance

Humility

Naomi Wallen

Cameron Schott

Sarah Osterhouse

Alia Michaud

Jordyn Marlin

Adam Cross

Contents 5

Lines For The Sea Rebecca Ethridge

Poetry

Into the ocean she cast herself

“Anchor yourself in this sea

with only a line

of sentences, and stop looking

and a desire to dive

for instances of inspiration

through the waves of words.

in the retreating waves!

She used to keep herself at bay

Swim… swim… swim until

behind a blank, white wall,

you can’t see where the sand ends

afraid of phrases

and where the ocean

that would sink in the sand.

begins.”

But a boat drifted by with a wide, full sail filled with lines and rhymes, and the captain called out:

Living Waters Review

Africa U.S.A. Naomi Wallen

n a town called “The Mouth of the Rat,” clustered under the branches of blooming Royal Poinciana trees, are low Florida homes and neo-Boca villas with manicured lawns near Mizner Park’s stuccoed plazas. In the 1950s, the lawns ran wild with zebras and wildebeests, ostriches and gazelles, even the odd giraffe loping across this surrogate Serengeti. When my grandfather came to Florida in the mid-50s, he met a local Boca babe named Rae Hillegass, who was “sporty, sassy, and cute.” One sweltering afternoon, as they lounged in the shade of the backyard, drinking sweet tea, he withdrew a folded brochure from his pocket. “They’ve got all kinds of animals,” he declared, intent on making a date of it. “It sounds like a lot of fun. Would you please consider going—for me?” The Boca babe reportedly narrowed her mossy green eyes at him, pinching her lips together like she’d eaten a lime from the nearby tree. Shrugging her freckled shoulders, she tilted a curly-haired head and shrugged noncommittally. But Jerry Wallen was not about to have his excitement trounced by a pucker and a shrug. He jabbed his finger at a fantastically colored picture of the Watusi Geyser that was spraying cheerfully up into a cloudless blue sky. He tried to persuade her with wide eyes of the same color. “They have this water spout that shoots up at certain times. Says here it’s called a guy-zurr.” Rae snorted and rolled her eyes, responding to his quizzical look with, “You’re such a fool, Jerry.” He frowned at her, combing his fingers nervously through sandy-blonde hair. “Why’d ya say that? I mean, if they say they have it, they’ve gotta have it.”

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“It’s fake, Jer.” “What do you mean, it’s fake?” “I mean it’s not a real geyser. It’s a fountain hidden under the water on a timer so it goes off when the trains go by.” “Come on, Rae—you’re pulling my leg.” The Boca babe tipped up her pert chin, raising one tweezed eyebrow imperiously, and answered, “I swear—I’m not. I can show you where the pump house is.” He grinned. “Fine. Then it’s a date.” For the admission price of $1.25 each, they boarded the open cab of the trolley. Jerry squeezed my grandma’s hand and said, “If the stripes are painted on the zebras, do me a favor and don’t ruin the surprise.” *** Twenty years before this budding romance, a visionary named John Pedersen arrived in Florida with his family. He scooped up property in Wilton Manors and Fort Lauderdale, building houses until World War II halted construction due to the rationing of materials. However, one day as John and his wife Lillian were driving through a desolate stretch of Boca Raton, their eyes lit upon a stretch of grassland reminiscent of the African savannah. It stirred up their long-postponed dream of opening a wildlife park, which had begun when they lived inside a boxcar in the Imperial Valley of southern California. Upon glimpsing this providential piece of land, John said to his wife, “This is the deadest town I’ve ever seen. I’m going to wake up this town.” Pedersen later purchased those 300 acres from the City of Boca Raton and the Palm Beach County Commission.

Creative Essay 7

Creative Essay 8

His men set to work digging canals and placing pipes for the waterworks (including the counterfeit geyser), planting over 55,000 additional flora to sufficiently “jungle up” the landscape. A few months later, the African Planet steamship departed Mombasa for Port Everglades with the largest cargo of animals ever to leave Africa aboard a single ship. Several of the animals (such as camels, elephants, and giraffes) were purchased from other Florida zoos. The giraffes proved to be problematic. Pedersen had purchased one in Kenya, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture denied him the right to import it because his Boca property was a “private” zoo. Due to this strict regulation, the government refused to release the animal to Africa U.S.A. But Jack would not be put off. He and his attorney flew to D.C., where they argued to the Court of Appeals while the giraffe was quarantined in New Jersey for eighteen months. The court battle ended up costing them over $17,000—so they named the giraffe Moneybags. The park trams ran a six-mile, one-hour tour of Tanganyika (the name of the country Pedersen invented). While “Florida’s Only Geyser” captivated my granddad, a pair of cheetahs the Pedersens kept as their personal family house cats enchanted my grandma. These tame Hollywood felines arrived in Boca riding in the back of John’s convertible. They had starred in movies such as MGM’s Quo Vadis where they appeared as the pets of Nero’s wife. But the “royalty” of Africa U.S.A. was found in Princess Margaret—a chimp that the Perdersen family had raised from infancy as if she were a human child. She wore frilly dresses and rode her bicycle around the park. Margaret even had her own little house at the front entrance where incoming visitors could watch her play. As the 1950s drew to a close, the park was amassing 300,000 visitors a year. John had more than succeeded in “waking up” Boca Raton from the dead savannah. Zoning battles arose when the new residents of nearby Boca Isles began complaining about the traffic and noise; the placement of a new road, called Camino Real, caused yet another issue as the city authorities attempted to condemn the property. Embittered by the court struggle for Moneybags, the USDA reemerged and claimed that African red ticks had been found on some of the park animals. They insisted on spraying the animals, and some of them dropped dead.

Realizing that his Africa U.S.A. was no longer welcome, John Pedersen eventually closed the park on September 4, 1961—a year after it had made the cover of LIFE magazine, surpassing the little-known attraction called Disneyland that was emerging in faraway California. *** Driving through that subdued jungle neighborhood today, the cement base of the dormant Watusi Geyser sits on an island in the center of that same lake. It used to shoot almost a thousand pounds of water 160 feet in the air. “Which was pretty cool—even if your grandmother did show me where the pump house was.” My grandfather loves to tell the story. “But the stripes on the zebras were real…so everything was all right in the end. I think she enjoyed it. Didn’t ya, Rae?” My grandmother, the Boca babe, shrugs and puckers her lips. No longer very sporty, but still very sassy, she looks away from the lake as we coast the back roads of her childhood. We cross smoothly paved intersections where the mud used to mire, through suburbs that cap the former sand-burred landscape. Palmetto Park Road bears its tropical flavor in name only, and Glades Road bustles past a gargantuan college that found its humble beginnings as an air base in World War II. My own childhood is peppered with stories of a town I can only envision through black-andwhite photographs. As the city bustles around me, and an Escalade squeezes by in the parking lot with barely an inch to spare, I’m glad I know there was once a fake geyser in Camino Gardens that my grandfather wishes was real.

Living Waters Review

R. Robertson & Co. Anisa Stechert

obert Robertson toddled from his white VW to the mailbox wrought with tenant compartments. Beads of sweat began to form along Robert’s receding hairline and stubbled upper lip while he struggled to get the key in proper position to slide into the keyhole. He swiped a fat, pale hand over his face in both frustration and an attempt to impede the droplets of sweat making surprisingly fast progress down his long forehead. Robert finally opened the mailbox and reached inside, removing the thick stack of papers and securing them between a flabby bicep and wet torso. He closed the mailbox door methodically and pressed the lock button twice before before heading toward the dank stairwell that led to his one-bedroom apartment. Robert braced himself before the steep clamber up and securely grasped the yellow-white handrail that ran up the dirty walls. He took the stairs, one at a time and slowly, only to fight with the keyhole on the door, as he had the mailbox. Once inside, he threw the mail onto a circular glass table and was struck by the presence of what appeared to be a personal letter. He pushed the bills and flyers aside to look at the envelope more clearly, wedged his fingernails between the envelope and glass table, and lifted the letter to his eyes. He moved into the kitchen area, or what should have been a kitchen area, and flipped the switch to make the lighting move from dark to less dark. Robert brought the letter up again. Tears immediately welled and he flipped the envelope over to run his fingers over the sealed flap. He closed his eyes. Eleanor Fable had been his wife for twelve years before calling it quits a year ago. She had still been signing her

Spring 2016

name “Eleanor Robertson” from what he had seen, and seeing this, this “Eleanor Fable” before him so brazenly, was as painful as it was foreign. He had forgotten Eleanor Fable had once existed over a decade ago and only knew his Eleanor Robertson. He mustered the courage to open the letter, careful to make sure that he only tore what was necessary to extract the note from its paper casing. With another summoning of courage, he began to read: Dear Robert, I didn’t know how else to reach you; I didn’t want to call you— I don’t know your schedule anymore, and knowing me I would end up phoning you at the worst possible time. I’m sorry that it’s taken this long for me to get in touch with you. I would like to meet up to discuss some things in person. I also have some small items to give to you. If you feel unable to meet, please just let me know. I was hoping for this upcoming Sunday, the 5th, at Lucky’s Coffee Shop. I know we both love that place. I’ll be there regardless at 10 a.m. sharp. Hope to see you, Eleanor Robert read the letter through a couple more times before gingerly placing it within the envelope again. He caught himself smiling at the last couple of words: “10 a.m. sharp.” Eleanor was always late. If anything, she would get there around 10:15 with wild eyes and even wilder hair, verbally scrambling to explain how traffic was horrible or the cat wouldn’t stop throwing up before she left. He had a mere forty-eight hours to mull over the pros and cons of meeting with Miss Eleanor Fable. ***

Short Story 9

Short Story 10

Robert heaved himself into his car at 9:30 a.m. Sunday morning, knowing it would only take him fifteen minutes, with traffic, to get to Lucky’s. He hadn’t seen Eleanor since the divorce had been finalized. He felt sick. The red neon sign with “Lucky’s” in cursive and “Coffee Shop” in a lazy, scrawling font came up far quicker than he was prepared for. He found a parking spot and turned the car off. Frantically grasping at solace, he took heavy drags of air through anxiously parted lips. While playing catch-up with his breath, his eyes fell on an already-seated Eleanor within the diner. She looked exactly the same. Robert opened the car door, threw his legs out, and grabbed the center post directly to his left to lurch himself out of the small vehicle. He attempted straightening his shirt, pressing clammy hands against his soft belly and pulling them down firmly to maybe iron out the wrinkles, maybe add more inadvertently. Walking to the diner, he paused at the entrance, then lifted his head to peer inside and meet Eleanor’s fixed gaze. Robert swung the door open widely, both to show an outward confidence he did not feel and to accommodate his bulging body. Eleanor waved him over, and he wedged himself between the table and the back of the booth. “Robert.” She said it so softly he wouldn’t have heard if he hadn’t been two feet away. “Ellie,” he whispered into his pre-set cup of coffee that was already pushing steam from its full, black body. He kept his head tilted downward but lifted his eyes to take her in. She had always been beautiful, his own Galatea that the gods graciously brought to soft life from hard ivory. Her blue eyes danced around his face and he grew selfconscious. She smiled and that deep dimple on the right side of her cheek presented itself. No one had believed him when he said that Eleanor Fable had asked him out on a date junior year at University of Delaware. And no one believed it when he proposed only a year later. “How have you been?” she asked after taking a sip of her heavily creamed coffee. “I’ve been better,” he replied. “I understand.” “How have you been?” Robert fumbled with the paper napkins in the center of the table. “I’ve been better,” she replied. “Oh, well, what did you want to discuss in person? You said you had things to give me?” Robert paused. “I never even asked for anything in the divorce settlement. You

know I wouldn’t want anything now.” Robert searched her face. “I know you never wanted anything.” “I never wanted anything other than to work through the problems.” “The death of a child is hardly what I would label a ‘problem.’” Eleanor’s knuckles, taut and white around the handle of the mug, were now the most prominent part of the scene. Her eyes were closed, and her chest visibly rose and fell. “Ellie, we’ve had this talk so many times. There was nothing either of us could do. Leukemia is hard on a body—he couldn’t fight anymore; that’s it.” She waved her hand back and forth, signaling that she didn’t want to hear any more. Without speaking, she bent down and reemerged with a small, brown corrugated box. She moved the napkins and his coffee to slide the box across the table toward him. “I didn’t think it was fair that I kept all of the sonograms and pictures. I made copies of everything so that you could have your own set.” Robert carefully removed the first picture like it was a microscope slide and stared at the faces printed up at him. There was little Deene, maybe a month old, Ellie, hair long, blonde, and loose around her pale shoulders. Robert, a hand on Deene’s fuzzy head and an arm around Ellie’s shoulder, looked like a different person. It was hard to believe he had ever been that happy. He opened up a napkin and spread it on the table to have a clean place to put the pictures. The next several items were sonograms that only differed in the most minuscule of ways: a hand was more raised than the picture before or the head looked more lax, like he was leaning back in relaxation. Only a parent would be able to spot the variances from picture to picture. A thick teardrop hit the side of the box and rolled down, leaving a dark brown stripe on the cardboard. Deene’s very first pair of booties were wedged into the corner and Robert stuck an index finger in one and a middle finger in the other to slowly draw them out. Eleanor smiled as they dangled above the box. Robert collected everything he had taken out and with painstaking care placed everything back in the way Eleanor had initially arranged it. “Thank you,” Robert whispered. He grabbed the unfolded napkin that had protected the items from a sticky, stained countertop to press under his brimming eyes.

Living Waters Review

“I should have done it sooner,” Eleanor said while spinning the ring on her index finger. “You’re busy.” “We’re both busy.” Robert began to turn the box absentmindedly and stopped short. Written on the side in Eleanor’s looped writing was Luke 18:15-17: “People brought babies to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. When the disciples saw it, they shooed them off. Jesus called them back. ‘Let these children alone. Don’t get between them and me. These children are the kingdom’s pride and joy. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.’” Robert snapped his head up to look at Eleanor. She was staring at him. He brought the box to eye level to reread the verse countless more times as if trying to press the coiling words into his prefrontal lobe. He put the box down and the words “Don’t get between them and me” scrolled through his mind like a customized 90s Windows screensaver. “Listen,” Eleanor sighed. “I told my mom that I would help her with painting some bench she found at a yard sale the other weekend; you know how she is. She says ‘hi’ by the way. Anyway, maybe we could do this same thing next Sunday: 10 a.m. sharp.” She stood and pushed up the sleeves of her cardigan before placing a hand on Robert’s shoulder. “Next Sunday.” Robert nodded. “Next Sunday, 10 a.m. sharp.”

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Short Story 11

Guatemala Romina Barrientos

You realize you love her two thousand miles away from the green fence that embraces her curves and white mists that distill her pale face you try to forget the smell of spring that crimson tulips emit from her neck. It gets colder as you pace away from the equator you concentrate on your dense boots lifting dust but your thoughts betray you bringing the petals of bougainvillea on her back

Poetry 12

while she seizes the full moon with bare hands. After the first thousand miles you realize that no one smiles, not like her, that people worship crowns and crystals more than silent lands and solitary waterfalls. You ignore the sweat blinding your eyes like she does as she sows her forefathersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; soil. One day you wake up and realize her worth. Her legs are interlaced with the rainforest and the valley while your numb feet keep wandering north, a trail of auburn bricks distracts you as well as the piles of clay you left untouched, vanishing specks like the promises you made. One night you forget her immortal anthem while gray clouds fall on flat horizons, eroding thousands of footprints and daydreams, yet echoes of her laughter irrigate the desert like a shallow rain arousing ethereal reminiscence.

Living Waters Review

A Welcome Distraction Emilio Gomez

The rain was a welcome distraction from texts and social media, from signs that vacations aren’t as easy as purchasing plane tickets. Serenity exists in the soul, in the silence outside of technology, in the empty mind of the thinking man unhindered by modern life. The rain has a scent—

Poetry

she smells like ancestors

dancing to percussions, created beings bathing in creation. She is a reminder that life existed before us and will continue beyond us, sustained by the rain outside my window. The repose of my home was disturbed until I heard her clamor. Like risen sand on a windy day, the rain filled my nostrils like ocean water. “The battle isn’t yours,” I heard her say. The rain was a welcome distraction.

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Hannah Ryan Arnst

Photography 14

Living Waters Review

An-Nur Samuel Rogers

dreaded the coming of the day, but I waited in expectation in the predawn light for the sun to raise its head above the sand. My arms were crossed over my chest and gentle puffs of the chill air bit through my blue and white wool sweater, raising goosebumps on my skin. I rubbed my hands together, making a sound like a blade against a whetstone, and continued to shiver. It was the kind of dawn that sets fire to the desert. The sun’s first rays tentatively glanced off the sand and into my eyes. The way the light fled the sun’s rising was beautiful, skittering across the yellow earth in the distance like burnished bronze. Then, abruptly, the feverish orb was unveiled fully from behind the curtain of the earth and its rays were suddenly dazzling. Forced to look away, I knew my moment of intimacy with the light was over. The sun would continue to climb, looking down on me from its varying heights for the rest of that day. Scratching idly in the mottled sand at my feet, I thought of the journey ahead of us. The black straps of my sandals had rubbed the tops of my feet raw, but I was grateful that my soles were not also bloodied. Many that I had seen along the road were. My 16-year-old sister Asiyah still slept a few feet from me, wrapped in a night-blue blanket. I silently prayed for protection and mercy. We had already walked seventy-five miles over the past week, and the skyline of our hometown of Ar-Raqqah had long disappeared into the distance. I missed the way its lights glimmered on the Euphrates and how the call of the muezzin used to mingle with the clanging of the Christians’ church bells in the early morning. There were moments

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when these good memories would seize me like a vice and asphyxiate me with emotion. Still, I knew what we had to do. Asiyah stirred and drowsily sat up. The long black tresses of her hair fell, for a moment, in front of her face before she brushed them deftly away from her eyes. She smiled wanly and said as she stretched, “Where’s my breakfast, Noor? I expected tea and toast with date jam this morning.” I reached into my burlap backpack and took out a bruised green apple. “I’ll get you crepes in Paris and hot, foamy espresso. For now, you’ve got this.” I lobbed the apple in her direction and she caught it. One of the hardest things about leaving home had been the breaking of our daily routine. Eating breakfast together on the shaded veranda, saying hello to our doorman Abdullah, unrolling our tasseled mats and saying our prayers, buying sweet, frothy cantaloupe juice from the umbrella-shaded stand on Faysal Street, and strolling along the slow-moving Euphrates in the evening, engrossed by the scent of pomegranate blossoms and hibiscus wafting across the water. These were the things that had guided our steps from sunrise to sunset before the calamities that had arisen with the New Year. However, among all these things, it was no tea and toast in the morning that had helped us realize we had become what we had most dreaded becoming: refugees. We had picked our resting spot for the night because of the low sand bank separating us from the main road. We kept crouched below it as we rolled up our thin blankets

Short Story 15

Short Story 16

and stuffed them into our bags. Finished, I looked at Asiyah and she returned my gaze. “You ready to start out?” I asked quietly, as if speaking too loudly would bring misfortune to us on the road. “Yes. Next stop, Aleppo,” she said, tightening the drawstrings on the top of her knapsack. Together, we struggled to our feet and began walking back toward the road. I prayed that we would reach Aleppo today. The soreness in my legs felt as though crushed glass had been thrown carelessly in among my veins, and I saw in the way Asiyah moved that she felt the same. We had been offered rides several times since we set out from Ar-Raqqah, but I always refused them. Not only did we not know the people in the vehicles, but we needed our money more than we needed time and comfort. Our father had left a small sum in a French bank, and I had a tiny wad of Syrian pounds hidden in my clothes, but I knew we would need every bit of it for bribes and food along the way. The once-familiar sun now advanced relentlessly, heating the air about us, making it heavy and confining. Each step we took threw up the desert’s fine dust into our eyes and into our throats and lungs. I reached out to Asiyah, a band of cloth patterned with green laurel hanging in my hand. She took it and wrapped it delicately about her hair and over her mouth. I turned away from her and looked out at the midnight-black road, stretched like a frayed runner carpet in the restive landscape. We had no way of knowing how many miles remained before we spotted the city. Picking my steps carefully among the scattered stones on the uneven surface of the road, I thought of all the people we knew who had fled before us. With every step, knife-edged apprehension and deep-set, sluggish foreboding infiltrated my thoughts, becoming my constant and unyielding companions. Before long my mind was wandering. Memories jumped into focus, like lightning, setting my mind ablaze. A few months ago, the night after ISIS militants captured the army base on the outskirts of our town, our neighbors from the flat next door had hurriedly come to us. Daniel and his wife Sarai were Armenian Catholics, and they had entered breathlessly, their eyes burning with dismay. Behind them trailed Asa, my best friend. His jetblack hair was disheveled, and his eyes were markedly red. He refused to meet my gaze.

“Did you hear the news?” Daniel had asked earnestly. My father was always placid and composed, even in times like these. “Yes. We have heard.” “Mohammad, the soldiers in the base… Beheaded with eight-inch knives.” Sarai had shuddered and brought Asa to her chest. “This fire draws very close now. My family and I are leaving—going through Jordan and then on to Egypt. Come with us, Mohammad. For the sake of your children, come with us.” My father had brought his eyes up to meet Daniel’s. “I cannot leave. We must have faith in our countrymen. We must have faith that this will all be set to rights. Syria will endure as it always has.” “Mohammad, the time for these thoughts are past. Surely, this is the punishment upon our people—a holocaust from above.” Without warning, Daniel had begun speaking faster and louder, “Did you hear of the fate of the Yazidi? Men forced to watch their wives, sisters, and daughters raped. Crucified corpses in the streets, burning homes, and exploded churches. I’m begging you…” But we had let them go on without us. I played this moment over and over in my mind as Asiyah and I stood holding one another in front of the smoking wreckage of what had been our home. Earlier that day, we had gone out to buy eggs and cheese for the evening meal when the airstrike was called in. A low rumble had preceded the explosions, and the inferno lit up the hanging signs above the aisles in the grocery store. We had run faster than we had ever run before. As we drew closer Asiyah began sobbing, choking as we ran. She collapsed as we turned onto our street. “Noor, we are in hell,” she had said as the sun set that night. With our home in ruins and our parents dead, we slept only a few nights in an abandoned construction site before setting out with the hope of reaching Greece. I had agreed to follow Asa and his family’s trek through Jordan and Egypt. The last I heard from him, in a brief and broken email, was that he was in Libya awaiting a transport ship that would take him and his family to Italy. However, it was Asiyah who had made the final decision to embark on what the Western media was now calling the “Black Route.” Though the schools in Raqqah were closed, she had spoken to an old classmate over coffee the week before

Living Waters Review

who told her that Jordan was tightening border security measures. We would be forced to exit the country from Aleppo in the north, travel overland through Turkey, and then cross the Aegean to Greece by boat. Every night that we stayed among the dusty rubble and rusting metal bars of the construction site, I watched clusters of men wander our familiar streets. Once, I would have read nothing into a group of laughing friends walking a darkened street, but now the way I viewed everything was tinged by the sinister reality that we were alone. What little sleep I did get those nights was broken by the occasional gunshot, muffled explosion, or desperate scream that cried out forlornly from the city. The airstrikes had continued, and between the deafening blasts, there were times when we could hear people being dragged into the street and beheaded on the spot in front of sobbing, pleading relatives. Our quiet lives had been set ablaze by the fires of a hate we did not understand. There was now nothing to do but flee the place we had once called home. “Talk to me, Noor. It distracts me from how hungry I am,” Asiyah said, clutching her stomach as she walked. “Should I talk about the fried kibbeh with peppermint that Mom makes?” I asked. “No, anything but that,” she said, laughing wearily. “Talk about Paris. Talk about la Tour Eiffel and the Seine. Talk about the pretty French girls and the city lights. Talk about how quiet the city is at midnight, when the moon is highest. Talk just like you used to.” “If we could end up anywhere that we choose, where would you want to be, Asiyah?” I asked, kicking a small pebble along the road. She stopped walking for a moment and looked me in the eyes. “Anywhere… Anywhere where the sun rises on a quiet city and where we can jog along a river. Somewhere that has stone fountains, like the ones Dad liked. Somewhere that has a grocery store with food on its shelves…” *** I trail my hand in the cerulean water, my fingers making water splash up to catch the sunlight. The clouds are wispy overhead, like the thin smoke of a quenched fire. Asiyah is by my side and we can see the Greek shoreline in the distance. Her copper eyes are awash with hope. We have traveled over a thousand miles, and the miseries of the journey have been etched on our hands, on our feet, and in our souls. The memories of lights glimmering on the

Spring 2016

Euphrates and the life that is no longer possible have made every mile resist us. Yet here with this view of an emerald shore with white sand upon which this water throws itself, we feel the fresh breeze of promise. We have fled the ashes of our former lives. We have arrived in paradise. The boat pulls up slowly to an old wooden pier. I look up and shield my eyes from the warm sun with my hand. I see a flag flourish in the wind above my head. Twelve golden stars dance on a night-blue background. I grab Asiyah’s hand and together we step off the boat and onto the pier.

Short Story 17

Atlas Hannah Menendez

When I was a little girl, I was taught the whole world is in his hands: Atlas’ grip, iron fingers curled round its edges. Land and sea would plunge into abyssal obsidian if Atlas let go.

Poetry 18

Little girls know the world doesn’t spin on an invisible axis round yellow-burning gas in emptiness. God holds the world: fog His breath, rain His tears, thunder His voice, lightning the radiance of His face that Moses reflected, then veiled because little girls grow up and forget Atlas’ plight— forget the world is flat and fragile as man’s reason.

Living Waters Review

More Than Embers Ashley Taylor

Photography 19

Spring 2016

The Naivety Of Nativity Tonya Mateuszczyk

The battered Nativity adorns the back corner of our synthetic bookshelf, while a furred fir graces the corner overlooking a pair of blizzard-frosted French doors. Laughter and cheers of the family

Poetry 20

echo peace, until a toy is lost in the inferno of wrappings, or a candy is snitched from stockings, leaving throats screaming of heresy. Our eyes lose remembrance, in the haze of the festivities, of the dust-christened stable. Yet it remains a beacon in the glare of an over-lit tree so eyes in exasperation can see smiles of painted humility.

Living Waters Review

Star Storm Gracelyn Kuzman

We sit on a sliver of the earth and let our legs swing over rocks and waves. If we fall, we are surely goners but we aren’t gonna fall. Someone said the stars will drop tonight. We hear the cool kids playing inside, with their juices and reggae trying to mask the bite of thunder but we want to trace the lightning with our toes. It never hits and I hide my disappointment in the wind. “The rain’s not that bad,” we say, ringing ocean puddles from our hair. We are young, forging decisions out of question marks, hoping we somehow inhale our way into answers. We deem adventure our obligatory task to enlightenment. Nothing suffocates stars in the wild so we watch them die and stock up on wishes. I fold my legs, slipping one into the other, and lean way, way back. This ledge is quiet. I whistle a tune.

Spring 2016

Poetry 21

North Florida Sunrise Ryan Arnst

Photography 22

Living Waters Review

Half Of Whole Gracelyn Kuzman

Something about that bloody sunflower sitting above the oven, on a stale Sunday afternoon, overwatered, underloved, shifting in the quiet breath of television light, flickering between daydreams and mellow sunbeams, reminds me of all the ways we could have grown but didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;tâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; fabricating the seamless illusion that good intentions could have kept us content in the luxury of laundry and apathy. Wholeness is expensive. So we settle for the halves of halves, the little bits of close enough, and maybe another day. We steal oxygen and spit carbon dioxide down the stems of crimson-stained blossoms so nothing will quite die but nothing will quite bloom into anything more than a sort of.

Spring 2016

Poetry 23

Mixed Blessings Adam Cross

Creative Essay 24

buried my cat on Sunday morning. He was only one year old, and he died of a blood disease. Six feet under, laid to rest, my cat Jack Skellington the Pumpkin King (Jack for short) rests quietly. When I was eleven or twelve, my parents wanted to get my brother and me a hamster. Easy to take care of, a good introduction to responsibility. We got him a really cool home, the kind with all the differently colored tubes to climb around in, make a nest in the top level and exercise with the hamster wheel. He died in the box on the way home. How does something like that happen? Discouraged and sad, our parents surprised us the next day with a new hamster. His name was Lazarus. *** So I’m wandering around on a beautifully hot day in South Florida in a graveyard searching for inspiration to write about. Living in a haunted house is a wild experience on a day-to-day basis, so walking in a graveyard isn’t as intimidating. I’m mostly just sweating and wishing I had brought a water bottle. Or that I was in comfortable sweatpants in the pleasantly air-conditioned haunted house that I rent. *** After Lazarus passed away, God bless, my parents switched gears and went the amphibian route. We got a turtle, and I forget his name, because the only memorable thing about him was the cancerous tumor he had on his neck that prevented him from retreating into his shell. His arms and legs could pack up shop, but his head would remain out of the shell. Eventually he died from the tumor. *** And so I’m listening to Primus as I walk through this graveyard and it feels like I should be in a music video for “My Name is Mud.” The biggest takeaway for me here is the entrance to this elongated graveyard. The looming

arches are engraved with the words, “That which is so universal as death must be a blessing.” *** The next set of pets my parents got for our family was two kittens. My dad wanted to name them Merry and Pippin, but eventually my mom had the last say: Barnum and Bailey. Bailey was the more social kitty; she loved to come and sit in your lap while you were on the couch. Barnum was my favorite—she was reserved and would come and sit on my amp whenever I played guitar. They just recently passed away, and it was not a blessing. *** It’s hard to write about death in a graveyard when you’re listening to Primus. It mostly just makes you feel like more of a freak for enjoying Primus to begin with, but couple that with walking in a graveyard in the middle of the day, drenched in your own sweat, getting really hungry for a Reuben, and you’ve got to take a step back and really question if there’s something seriously wrong with you as a person. Okay. Back to my dead cats. *** If that which is so universal as death must be a blessing, then what is life? Why do some poets, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and authors have such a weird obsession with death? Is it because it’s foreign to us? Are death and dark things appealing just because they are the opposite of life and light things? Why is that? Freud probably had a lot of nothing to say about that. I’m a victim of it, too. Writing “edgier” things comes more naturally to me, but I really think of myself more as a pretty normal, functioning human being who just so happens to have a lot of bad luck when it comes to pets.

Living Waters Review

The Created: Part One Daniela Pereira

What is Earth? Many people hold their tongue Here on this planet Their hands fidget and their knees shake at the sound of my faith. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m only ten And their eyes are so dead, all these dots of light connecting over me No one wants to tell me what they are But every time I look up, strange hope rises And it feels like the only reason my feet are on this ground is to tell a story Truly, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m tiny But so are those dots in the sky

Spring 2016

Poetry 25

The Created: Part Two Daniela Pereira

Her eyes walk the universe, and land on The Created. A themed park Multitudes line up for a fake mission and illusive travel into worlds. Coasting on ephemeral rings,

Poetry

the screams silence their souls

as they touch the firmament and for a second, hear their hearts whimper for eternity. The wired lights assure this is home. The caged animals manufacture hope. They walk on streets of starving gold. And dance in collapsing castles. But He so loved.

Living Waters Review

Sliding Falls Ryan Arnst

Photography 27

Spring 2016

Gore Canyon Bekah Grim

Creative Essay 28

t was fool’s luck that we ran into the group of guides at the edge of the river; we’d been planning on running Gore Canyon alone. A single raft against the clatter and bang of Class VI whitewater is a shifty prospect. There’s no backup if the raft flips, no one to snatch you from the river’s grip. Two rafts would be better than one. My first observation about the guides was their immaculate gear: long-sleeved wetsuits with reinforced elbows, helmets with chin straps, wraparound sunglasses. The guides were from River Runners, an upscale whitewater rafting company that required employees to don matching visors bearing their burning paddle logo. Some of the guides were wearing them now. My friends and I worked as raft guides across town at Acquired Tastes, a ragtag budget company owned by an endearing hermit who collected expired school buses. I was wearing an Al Jarreau 1986 tour tank top and a dented, standard-issue customer helmet. The guides worked silently, in separate groups, under the burning August heat, tying down rafts with first aid kits, extra paddles, jugs of water. Fear grunted and turned in my stomach. We would be rafting Gore Canyon, one of the fastest, most dangerous whitewater sections in America, known for its unforgiving swims and thundering waterfalls. These would be the biggest rapids I’d seen in my three years of rafting, but if I had to take a swim, I was ready to swim. I’d done my fair share of panicked front crawl out of Brown’s Canyon where I guided, finding myself in a raft turnover due to my own shaky navigational hand and dubious foresight. But I was starting to get a handle on things. Yes, I’d dumped a raft of Girl Scouts into Sidell’s Suckhole. Yes, I’d left one of my customers stranded on the beach as our raft pulled away after lunch. Yes, a senior citizen had called me a lunatic after we spun sideways down Zoom Flume rapid. But overall, I’d been causing fewer catastrophes, and hence, my tips had been improving, and the other guides

made fun of me less. This mattered because we were constantly together, a tribe of employed hobos working from dawn to dusk on the river, eating free taco dinners at a local church, showering in laundromats, living out of trucks, cars and tents. We hoisted the blue rubber raft to our shoulders and hobbled down a gravel path to the riverbank. Our guide would be Pablo, the head boatman at Acquired Tastes and twenty-year rafting veteran who’d rafted the Grand Canyon six times. “That river will change your life,” he always said. I sat in the raft behind my friend Adam, who gave off aromatic whispers of Marlboro Reds and beef jerky. Bobby occupied the other front seat, his arms tan and built from working on his family’s crawfish farm in Louisiana. His principle complaint with raft guiding was missing the annual “frogging season,” when he stalked the bayou with his brothers for meaty amphibian thighs. Beside me, my friend Curt whistled the theme from Chariots of Fire, which is what nerves will do to you. The River Runners raft steamed three hundred yards ahead, politely ignoring our existence. We hovered our paddles an inch above the river, ready to strike. “When was the last time you guided Gore?” I asked Pablo. “Ten years ago. In a canoe. Alone,” he said, steering the raft past a boulder. He’d delivered a long speech before casting off from shore, the main thesis being that paddling was urgent and keeping our strokes in sync was the only thing standing between us and an ER visit. I looked at his face, the lit-up blue eyes and creases born of laughter and worry, the anticipation clouding over him. I considered the canoe. Fitting a narrow, nimble object through Gore’s rocky slots, with only yourself to worry about, seemed to be an entirely different ball game than maneuvering a six-foot-wide inflatable raft weighed down by five passengers. The first four miles of Gore Canyon are smooth, flat water, providing ample time to consider the various ways

Living Waters Review

one could die on the river. Impaled on a glinting boulder. Sucked into an underwater cavern. Drowned in the dark undertow. I’d heard the stories of Samuel Adams exploring the region in the 1800s and deeming the section “unnavigable,” his men carrying their boats overhead along the bank. I’d heard the stories of kayakers losing control, getting swept beneath boulders, their bodies found days later, miles downstream. What is the sound of a scream underwater? It was my turn to approach this roaring force of Earth, the river’s boiling white bubbles and ceaseless current. But why go through with it? I think to make contact with the source. As a raft descends between towering canyon walls, as water sprays against your face, as you look behind at the shore and know that you cannot turn back, you are attentive to the journey at last. Most of life is spent with the mind wandering in daydreams, aimless texting, half-asleep pilots of our own tiny universe. I know this well. I spent the other eight months of the year at a desk as an advertising copywriter, parked in apathy, debating with clients about the rhetorical significance of using “simple” versus “easy” in banner ads. To encounter the river is to open back up to the natural world, to resurrect an appreciation for life by grazing death, to sit in the front row of the show put on since the beginning of time, to feel it and taste it. As the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote, “I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder.” The rippled granite walls of the canyon stood a thousand feet high, guarding both sides of the river like stone shields. Its ledges cast shadows on our raft as we slipped past mossy boulders and gurgling pools. Ponderosa pines grew out of the slanted cliffs. The river’s water was deep green, as if it had absorbed all the colors from the sky, trees and rocks, distilling into one primordial juice. Curt stopped whistling and craned his head back, staring up at the passing canyon walls, his cheeks approaching pink from sunburn. Pablo yelled at him, “Put the paddle in the river!” A few yards downstream, our first rapid, Applesauce, rumbled. The rapid gets the name Applesauce because it’s supposedly easy, child’s play, compared to the other rapids in Gore. We pulled our rafts to the riverbank to scout, which is what guides do in big water, deciphering a line of passage before running a rapid. The Colorado River was flushed with high water, flowing at 1,300 cubic feet per second. This meant that as I stood from my vantage point on a boulder beside the river, every second 1,300

Spring 2016

basketball-sized units of water surged past. I looked down at Applesauce. The river canal narrowed, blasting all of its force into a boulder as wide as a car, which we’d need to paddle around and then stay right, because on the left side was a patch of ominous rocks spiking out of the river, begging to crack skulls, and then there was a ten-foot waterfall. I was no longer ready to swim. I followed Pablo back to our raft, watching him put on his sparkling Grateful Heads helmet and zip up his duct-taped dry top. His eyes were fixed to the river as if he could stare it into submission. I did not see him blink. This was a situation that demanded radical trust, in ourselves to lean into the danger and continue paddling, and in Pablo’s power, steering on the country’s most brutal whitewater. The River Runners guides high-fived us before heading to their own raft. Social dynamics between the groups had grown convivial now that we were united by a visible, life-threatening obstacle. As Pablo pushed the raft from the rocky bank, Curt sang loudly, “Do Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me!” We dug our paddles into the current, the sound of six people breathing hard, cold wind on our faces as the raft accelerated. Trees and cliffs blurred past. There were birds above and fish below. Waves pummeled on all sides, drenching our laps. Pablo shouted, his voice cracking, forward, forward. Veering right, the raft brushed past the giant boulder. We pushed on, mind and body aligned to paddling and only paddling. The horizon dropped off where the waterfall began, a few feet ahead. I wedged my feet deeper under Adam’s seat. The nose of the raft dipped down; a wave knocked me to the floor. The raft went completely underwater from the force of the drop and I clung to the cooler frame in the moment of suspended silence. We were inside of the sauce. An instant later, the raft tore through the river’s surface, water dripping from our hair, eyes remembering light. “Man down! Curt’s out!” Bobby yelled. In the river, Curt kicked and stroked for his life. He was screaming and laughing. His nose was bleeding, and a mixture of water and blood and dirt streaked his face. We paddled toward him, but he was moving faster than us. He washed toward the River Runners boat, and the guides reached into the water, pulling him up by his orange life jacket lapels, gathering him into the raft as if he were one of their own.

Creative Essay 29

Lucky Man Alexandra Gomez

i’ve seen cobblestone hold the weight of prayers of muttered curses— forsaken coffee cup loose tumble down change in cool rain-wash cracks—scorching Lucky person’s finger pads when pressed to dropped directions—receipts—reuse—recycle

Poetry 30

calloused cardboard and running dye of mix-matched alphabet soup colors bleeding down and through— that penny picked up by pads unmarred; i never saw the like. to stop reach down and touch a mangy thing and pocket it— yet some Lucky man he might have been to stop in a sea of stride— of purpose and for once be not so purposed as ones who wield lives in pockets so they can get to work on time.

Living Waters Review

Chicago Ryan Arnst

Photography 31

Spring 2016

Catching The Tube At Hammersmith Station Rebecca Ethridge

She asks directions from crowded roundabouts— can’t get out. Catching closing Moments—mimics scheduled seconds. But

Poetry 32

this is only a barrier illusion. So her weathered soles take the Underground for a penny and a pound. There’s a better fare— Somewhere. Her lifeline is the opening of carriage-car doors and she minds the gap of that last train passing the past of Memory’s platform. Her mapped hands are on a globe and she knows she can go. The movement of her soul is forward.

Living Waters Review

Vagabond Hannah Nelson

If I could tell you how it feels, the rush of the escape the uncluttered avenue of the get-up-and-go. Strings of the stunt play their song of adventure, an open-ended question between sixty-six and ninety-five. Mountains ripple over waves of asphalt and dust dense green earth climbs over and under, flakes of soot and sand as palm trees turn into pine trees and a breeze sings out the songs of the never-ending wagon band. Oh, if I could taste the salt of the sea while breathing amongst the snow-capped mountains, what would livinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; be like with trees in white sleeves and sand made of glass? The sweep of crossfire when adventure meets disaster a battle cry long since buried under parchment paper skies. They say that in the summertime the livinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is easy. But to chase open-ended questions is anything but simple.

Spring 2016

Poetry 33

Monetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Songs Victoria Randall

Some troubles are soothed with Monet: hymns of water lilies as ethereal as dreams with no sunless lines to push reality into frame, trailing willows and lily pads, green symphonies in cerulean whisperings

Poetry 34

of old melodies sighed in waves ballads on the kind of sky only water reveals.

Living Waters Review

Rippling Lauren Tagliola

Watercolor 35

Spring 2016

Official Remembrance Tour Samuel Rogers

Short Story 36

t had been twenty years. Lauren’s black car rattled to a stop in front of the octagonal gatehouse. A bored guard peered out of the window and began speaking in a routine, rehearsed tone, “Welcome to Argent Island Memorial Park. The entrance fee is $25 per vehicle. Cash and credit are accepted. Entry to homes not on the Official Remembrance Tour is prohibited. Do not stray from the designated paths, out of respect for the fallen. Do not remove anything from the island, as all…” Lauren wasn’t listening. Before her stretched the once familiar gray, mottled pavement. It looked like it had been unrolled like a runner carpet into the brown water of the Chesapeake Bay. Above her a new cloud hid the gilt rays of the sun and an intentional osprey wheeled over the causeway that joined her childhood home to the mainland. Lauren’s eyes strayed to the wooded island beyond and the scene began to blur as emotion struck her firmly like an unexpected projectile. Before her was a vast expanse of charred hills and broken forest interrupted occasionally by the aggrieved remains of a solitary house. Here and there a desperate growth of green peeked tentatively out from the black. Memories of her childhood flooded her like a swift, cold tide swallowing a stationary stone. She was sledding down the first hill, smelling the mellow smell of fresh snow and squinting from the brilliance of the white in the afternoon sun. Above her the bare trees whispered in the crisp wind, silhouetted against a silver sun. The frozen ground sent the light dancing across her vision, like thousands of diamonds skittering in constant motion. She could hear the innocent laughter of her friends pushing each other and rolling down the hill in the cold, wet snow. “Do I need to drive?” Ezra said scornfully, interrupting her memorial. The guard looked at her unblinkingly. How? I… I saw the news. I saw the rockets and I saw the fires, but I never imagined it like this, Lauren thought, gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles turned alabaster. Ezra reached across her and handed his card through the small window. “What did you expect, Lauren?” he said, sitting back and looking at her, blue eyes cutting like ice.

She almost smiled in spite of it all. He still could tell what she was thinking from just a sideways look. Instead, she grabbed his card from the guard, watched the gate go up slowly, and then pressed on the accelerator. The car lurched forward reluctantly. “Revolution is a terrible thing,” he started in a biting tone, “when it burns your neighborhood to the ground and takes your childhood with it. ‘Social terrorists,’ they called them—” “I watched the news, Ezra—” “Yeah, but you weren’t here to see it. You weren’t here to see them pouring across the causeway with torches. You weren’t here to see Mom and Dad watch their home get hit straight on by a rocket. You didn’t even fly home when our evac boat capsized in the bay.” Lauren reached out to Ezra and put her hand on his. She opened her mouth slowly to speak and did so haltingly, “I’m sorry… that’s all I can say.” “You know, when you called me I almost didn’t answer.” “You had every right not to.” Ezra sighed and stared straight ahead. Then he started speaking slowly and deliberately. “You know what’s worse than losing Mom and Dad? You know what’s worse than seeing your easy life turned upside down? The way things turned out afterwards. The ‘Triumph of Freedom and Justice’ they called the end of the revolution. They built parks out of our neighborhoods, hoisted a flag permanently at half mast, and swept the real issues back under the rug. They called the revolutionaries ‘radicals’ and ‘extremists’ and didn’t address the issues that brought us this.” He pointed to the blackened hill in front of them and continued. “I want to say I hate them, and I do. I want to say I hate you for leaving.” “Ezra, please stop. I ran and you stayed. I… I let pride get in the way of everything. I’ve thought a lot about what I was going to say to you, and nothing seems right. All I know is that you have more courage than I ever had or could’ve dreamed of. I couldn’t… just couldn’t see Mom and Dad like that. All bundled and bagged up because of what? Social terrorism? But you weren’t afraid of staying and facing these things head on. You did it alone, because I’m a coward.”

Living Waters Review

Ezra’s hands were shaking now, and the ice in his eyes softened slightly. Lauren noticed the thick, tortuous vein that wandered across his hand and up his arm, and it reminded her of the creek that had run in the woods behind their house. It had broken up around the old rotting oak stump and shot out across the flat, leaf-covered ground in twisting rivulets, negotiating the green ferns and the rust-colored rocks. Lauren remembered building bridges made of sticks and driftwood and spending hours in the forest’s twilight catching frogs. She wondered if the creek was still there and if the air carried even a hint of the scent of dogwood blossoms and forsythia, the scents she remembered in her dreams. “What do you say to going off the designated paths?” Lauren said cautiously, her mouth twisting up in a wan expression. Ezra muttered something Lauren knew meant yes. She pulled the car into the lot, in front of what used to be the neighborhood’s country club. Opening the door, Lauren stepped onto the pavement. Suddenly, she was arm-in-arm with her grandmother, walking across the lot to Thanksgiving dinner. The cool fall air caressed her curls, and her shoes clacked loudly on the pavement. Ezra laughed behind her and spoke in a shrill young voice about the buffet waiting for them inside. Her dad joked about how many pieces of ham he was going to have and about the noxious smell of sauerkraut. Her grandmother squeezed her arm and told her how pretty she looked tonight, and Lauren smiled. She almost slipped. The pavement was smoother than she’d remembered. Ezra gave her a knowing look, and they set off across the parking lot to the blackened woods. The asphalt was jet black with pretty yellow lines demarcating the parking spaces. Everything was so ordered. Ezra and Lauren both knew where they were going and they picked through the charred branches slowly and delicately like they were precious relics of an unsalvageable time. Several times, Lauren looked over to see Ezra stooping on the ground, handling something small and shiny, murmuring softly. It took them almost an hour to reach the hill where their childhood home had stood. Lauren’s grandmother called it Azalea Hill and had said that it was the prettiest place in the whole world. Spring had been her least favorite season, but now Lauren remembered it vividly. She looked at the black earth and

Spring 2016

saw purple crocuses pushing through the rich brown leaves. Multi-colored azaleas blazed at her from their hiding places, and bold daffodils glistened among the emerald undergrowth. The colossal tulip magnolia erupted in pink and white blooms, carpeting the ground thickly with fallen flowers. “Should we climb up?” Ezra asked softly. “Yes,” Lauren said, shivering in the sour air. They began climbing slowly. The ground was soft from fresh rain and Lauren slipped several times. She saw a broken, pink sandstone block half buried in the ash. She remembered the graceful curving wall that had served as a terrace for her dad’s gardens on the hill. “Your grandfather spent a whole summer building that wall,” Lauren could hear her mom saying. “He had the pink blocks brought to the bottom of the hill and lugged them all into place. He had a vision for those kinds of things. He didn’t even use mortar because he knew where each block was supposed to fit.” Lauren wondered if he’d used mortar, if any of the wall would still be standing. They were there standing over the crater. What had been a home was a pile of rotting timber showered in ash. Across the pit, she saw scattered red bricks from their fireplace. “I picked through it a bit,” Ezra said shrugging. “Find anything?” Lauren asked, looking at him intently. “I found a bit of that terrible curtain that Mom put up in the bathroom.” His mouth twisted up in a sly smile. “The one with the creepy purple birds on it, remember?” “Yes,” she said. “Did you find any of the bright orange rug that was in there? The upstairs bathroom looked like some kind of terrible Cirque du Soleil set.” “That didn’t make it, unfortunately.” Ezra and Lauren’s eyes met, and she could see acceptance flicker across his face for a moment. Ezra looked away and said, “So why is this your first time back, Lauren? Honestly. At this point, you could’ve put all of this behind you.” She moved toward him and took his hand in hers, gently. “No, I could not have. I could’ve pretended, but I’d never be beyond this. I’m sorry for everything.” She paused and exhaled, slowly looking across the ruins of her childhood. “Some of us take a while to grow up, Ezra.”

Short Story 37

Through A Glass, Darkly Olivia Anderson

see, v. /si:/ 1. To perceive (light, color, external objects and their movements) / as when we peeped through the cobwebs beneath that teal-striped couch / while two pairs of feet / one slippered, one bare / rhythmed the living room rug to a Billie Holiday record / rippling it into soft waves / while their voices hummed and laughed and held us / (and each other) / tight, like life vests / or a goodbye hug. / 2. To behold in imagination, or in a dream or vision / the sunset inflaming a puddle with memory / of

Poetry 38

the bloodred sea whose edges we used to fray / and mend / with our sandy toes and fingers / while we waited to swim in the sky’s dark mirror / and speak of God, the future and silver-backed minnows, / reaching for shore and drowning in the air each dusk / unless we cast them back / into the deep. / 3. (fig.) a. To apprehend by thought (a truth, the answer to our questions / like when you turned four and we three moved / inland / and you asked if the birds were flying fish / or what made dad / sit and stare out the bedroom window for two years / or when mom’s holiday would ever end / or if God minded that you slept with the nightlight on / until you were sixteen?) / b. To envisage as possible / stars that don’t wander / or fall / like that copper penny / a once-tarnished gift from mom / now dazzling from years at home / in your left pocket, / reading its worth in your fingerprints: / a prodigal loved, scoured, pressed, polished / that it might more clearly perceive your cradling hand.

Living Waters Review

Springtide Jenn Elrod

Photography 39

Spring 2016

We Stood In The Storm Alia Michaud

Short Story 40

he shop is miserable and cold under lights so white they burn blue behind her closed eyes. The second hand on the clock tips forward, a red line slicing through black digits in a white sea. Some species of geek decked out in musty cargo jackets and dark fedoras drifts around the used-games bin, ruminating over a scantily dressed warrior. Everything is starched whites, smooth grays, and sleek blacks. And all the world smells of metal when the rain starts. Earlier in the week, Brooke heard news that the hurricane would slide over Key West; there had also been assumptions that it would be a nasty one. All reasonable people should evacuate the island and seek shelter on the mainland. All reasonable people should also fortify windows and doors with shutters. Stock up on water, canned foods, battery-powered radios (and, subsequently, batteries), flashlights, etc. Prepare for the worst. Preparation for “the worst” prompted a quick text from Abbie, a call to cover her at work while she hosted a hurricane party—a celebration with beer rather than water, and brownies instead of canned goods. So Brooke finds herself in her Gamebyte uniform, a black polo with a white plastic badge that advertises her name in stocky print. Her platinum hair is pulled up under a lime green bandana and fish-tailed down her back, tied off neatly with a green slice of ribbon. Her earrings press at her neck when she shifts her head from side to side and she groans under the strain of stiff muscles. She leans her elbows on the gray countertop of the clerk’s station, and

her gentle blue eyes follow the twists of silver rings around her tawny fingers. Her nail polish is chipped. The store manager, a round man named Chaz with a dark buzz cut and muddy eyes, waddles by and tells her flatly, “Eyes on the prize, Brooklyn.” He would usually follow with a quip like “That attitude may land you the manager position in a few years” and a specific order, but he seems particularly uninterested in her today. She picks her head up. While she profiles the lanky boy with the patchy facial hair (the non-threatening, “nice guy” type), thunder groans overhead. The rumble slides under skin and pumps her full with a longing to be chasing the storm or rolling lazily down the highway. Being on guard is an empty task that nips at the minutes of her life, and she’s miserable doing it. But money is the lifeblood of the world, and it’s exactly what she doesn’t have; there’s nothing to do but earn her right to exist. The minutes drip into an hour, then two, as the rain presses sloppy kisses to the storefront. Customers ebb in and away from Brooke’s shore. Crumpled green slips, so old they’re tainted with ash and lint, slide from their hands to her fingers to the black slots of the register. Artificial pings punctuate the grumbling of the hurricane. Chaz pads in—and Brooke only knows this because she can hear him breathing from across the shop—and reminds her, in case she forgot, to keep her “eyes on the prize, Brooklyn.” It doesn’t have the desired effect this time because the more she hears it, the more she thinks about what exactly

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the “prize” is. Her mind progressively slinks out the door and into the wide expanse of green leaves, gray clouds, and blue skies—and gold suns—and creamy sands—and orange cats—and yellow dogs—and… A blaring car alarm cuts through the air. It throbs and pulses like a melody crashing into the thunder’s swaying backbeat, cymbals pounded on by the hand of a child accompanying a master musician. She thinks nothing of it until a second and then third alarm join in. Brooke’s eyes cut to the front windows, startled and curious, and she finds that the cacophony wasn’t caused by villainous intent or a simple accident. When Brooke looks up into the maw of the storm that had been raging outside, she finds that the block has begun to flood. Water, blackened by the filth of the street and breaking around metallic obstacles, has risen up over the running boards of some low-lying cars. And the tides don’t seem ready to relent. The water keeps coming. “Brooklyn,” Chaz hums after he pokes his head outside his office door. He indicates the screaming cars slowly. “Something’s going on out there. Handle it for me, will ya?” She moves to stand on the other side of her desk, plants one hand on her hip and the other on the countertop, and gazes pointedly outside. “Not much I can do, Mr. J.” He follows her eyes in that slow way of his, still breathing through his mouth and loudly, until he sees what she does. He rolls into the middle of the store, faster than she can blink, and his jaw falls like a switch that blows his eyes open wide. “My car! Son-of-a—watch the shop, Brooklyn!” Brooke’s lips twitch with the urge to smile and just as he’s throwing open the shop door, she calls without thinking, “Eyes on the prize, Chaz!” He goes completely still, turns red in the face, and shouts over his shoulder, “You’re fired, Knowles.” Then he dashes outside, down the few steps leading into the shop, and straight into the murky waters that suck at his legs and nearly knock him down. She ought to be distressed, she knows that. She needs the money, and therefore needs the job, or she’ll lose her apartment. This is definitely a bad thing. But terribly enough, all she feels is relief. While the remaining few customers press their faces to the window to watch him scramble around his car, yank the door open, and invite

Spring 2016

the water into the passenger seat, they miss her determined movements. Brooke gathers her keys, bag, and phone, strides across the shop, and pulls the front door open wide. The tide climbs over the outer steps and slides in the door. It brushes the welcome mat and spills onto the scuffed tile floor. It invades the shop. With more peace than she’s held in years, Brooke lifts her chin high and steps out on the water. It slides up her ankles, her calves, her knees, and her thighs, saturating her pants with the riotous brine. With a grin blooming, Brooke lifts her hand to shield her eyes from the rain and glances up and down the street, and sees a boy pulling his gray t-shirt over his head and dropping it on the hood of a black truck. From the bed of the pickup he retrieves a paddleboard, long and painted with the shimmer of sunbeams off rippling waters. Its orange-yellow-greenblue skin is set on the water in the middle of the street and he climbs aboard. Brooke wades out to the street to watch him, fascinated and exhilarated by this boy in his bright-green swim trunks. While cars confront the rise of the water and people scramble to escape the fury of the rain, he fights the current and works his way up the street. He is composed of light curly hair, soft green eyes, and a smile that settles lovingly across his pink mouth; he is made of the earth and he is alive. Brooke wants that. She wants it more than anything. So when he gets nearer, glancing over his shoulder and into the water, the muscles of his chest and arms rippling under each stroke of the paddle, she calls out, “Got room for another?” His head whips around in surprise, he meets her eyes, and his smile breaks open to show his teeth. He crouches and reaches for her hand. “Why not?” She lets him pull her up and stands just behind him, hopeful and giddy. He dips the oar into the sea. And when she looks out into their wake, she finds a procession of nautical knights trailing along, fish of all colors, shapes, and sizes pulled from the ocean and set at her feet. She closes her eyes and breathes in deep.

Short Story 41

Looming In The Blue, Galรกpagos Hannah Deadman

Photography 42

Living Waters Review

The Girl With Golden Eyes Alexandra Gomez

Has a thousand names scribbled down her arms; blue ink double-dipped in thick linesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;double the lies Troubled eyes for the girl with checkered laces woven into bus-ridden shoesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; sneak past without deception but invisibly through long, crowded halls; familiar living room walls silence falls when there is nothing else The girl has a thousand dreams that hang above her bed and follow her trodden steps and keep her eyes golden.

Spring 2016

Poetry 43

The Ineffable Petruchio Jane Humphrey

Short Story 44

nce upon a time, there was a broke college student named Esther (that’s me), who in an unlikely twist of fate happened to be offered the summer job of a lifetime: an old, rich lady was going to her fancy house in the Hamptons and needed someone to house-sit her ivy-smothered Spanish-tiled cottage hidden behind giant hedges, which sat next to other ivy-smothered Spanish-tiled hedge-obscured cottages on a quiet, Lamborghini-populated street near Miami Beach. Now, when most families go on vacation, all they do is notify the post office to hold their mail and then be sure to lock the door behind them. But the affable, elderly Mrs. Eldridge prefers to pay college students of upright, moral character ungodly amounts of money to live in her house for three months and look after her cat. I actually got the job because of Petruchio. I was in Miami on a weekend trip with a few friends, and saw Mrs. Eldridge walking her dignified gray tabby cat down the street where I was innocently sipping espresso outside a Cuban café. Petruchio actually had a leash, and he didn’t even seem that annoyed. He had a sort of patient, forbearing countenance that bespoke of innumerable injustices inflicted upon him by his flower-print-dress-wearing owner, which he, from the goodness of his feline heart, had learned to tolerate. But upon passing the café where I was consuming substantial amounts of caffeine, Petruchio was overcome with a strong desire to rid himself of his heat-trapping fur against my newly tanned legs. His owner apologized, but I have a vague, sort of patronizing affection towards cats, so I reached down to pet him, told the lady not to worry about it, and then asked, “What’s his name?” “Petruchio.” “Like from The Taming of the Shrew?” I asked her. “Yes, indeed!” she said, impressed that I knew Shakespeare.

She began telling me of her days as a stage actress, during which she specialized in performing Shakespeare plays, her most famous role being Kate, whom Petruchio “tames.” Her accounts were probably embellished, but she was an interesting conversationalist—she waved her hands in the air when she spoke, making her dozens of bangles jingle, and had perfected the art of the dramatic pause. Entertained, I invited her to partake of Cuban coffee and pasteles with me while Petruchio curled up on my feet and purred contently. “Yes, yes, ‘Sit by my side, and let the word slip: we shall ne’er be younger’,” she agreed enthusiastically, and sat across from me. That’s how I ended up sitting on a brown leather couch inside a house as big as the first floor of my entire apartment building. A huge Persian rug decorated the marble floor and there were vases and artwork that individually cost more than it will cost me to pay off my student loans. At first I wondered how Petruchio dared to put his furry paws anywhere in this house, but a few moments spent in his presence revealed his estimable courage and self-assurance. It was quite clear from the beginning that Petruchio is the true owner of this “cottage” (I’m not sure how anyone can use the term cottage to refer to a place that Jay Gatsby might own). Petruchio watched me from the moment I arrived to make sure I behaved myself. I often saw his tail slinking around corners in hallways I just walked down or his white paws sticking out from underneath coffee tables or ottomans while I sat in one of the living rooms watching Netflix. My patronizing attitude dissipated; in its place a strange sort of paranoia arose. It’s not that Petruchio was hostile or malicious toward me. His sharp green eyes didn’t follow me with dislike or even suspicion. It was more like he was waiting for me to

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do something he didn’t approve of. He reminded me of those security guards that follow people around art museums, except Petruchio was slyer, cleverer. Once, I was on the phone with my friend talking about the possibility of her staying with me next weekend, and he just sat in the corner like the statues of Egyptian cat-gods with his tail flipping back and forth, and then I just couldn’t go through with the plan and told Sara she shouldn’t come. When I hung up, I swear he looked smug, and then he stalked out of the room with his tail waving in the air. After being in Mrs. Eldridge’s cottage for two weeks, I started trying to avoid Petruchio. Oh, I fed him his fancy, high-end kitty dinners and brushed his fur every other day and cleaned his litter box, but when possible, I kept out of the rooms he preferred. Yet he still seemed to be everywhere in the house. No matter where I went, there were his white paws or his flickering tail, and though I couldn’t see his eyes, I knew they were boring into me with the kind of condemnation only cats can adequately express. Two days after that phone call, I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I went outside into the lush, sub-tropical South Florida garden, the one place on the property Petruchio wasn’t allowed because of his plant-destroying tendencies, and called Sara. “Hey, you know what? You should come tomorrow and stay the weekend.” “I thought you said the old lady wouldn’t like it,” Sara objected. “I talked to her, and she doesn’t care,” I sort of lied. Mrs. Eldridge had said from the beginning I could have friends over provided I had no more than two at a time and I cleaned up after them. I had been too embarrassed to admit to my growing fear of a domesticated tabby cat, so Mrs. Eldridge had served as my original excuse for not having my best friend over sooner. Sara came late the next afternoon. The whole morning before she came I was jittery, and Petruchio followed me even more closely than usual, his ears pricked up like he knew I was up to something. “Mrs. Eldridge said it’s fine if I have a friend over!” I said to him, annoyed. He only looked at me, his green eyes narrowing. When Sara came, she spent the first hour wandering around the house in awe. Then we popped popcorn in

Spring 2016

Mrs. Eldridge’s state-of-the-art popcorn maker, munched on junk food instead of eating a healthy dinner, and tried to decide what movie to watch from among the DVDs Sara brought with her. “Where’s the cat you told me about?” she asked innocently, after we finally decided on a gory action movie. “He’s around here somewhere,” I said, biting off a piece of a Twizzler as a means of justifying saying nothing further about Petruchio. He was actually under the leather recliner just a few feet away; I could see the tip of his tail poking out under the flap. But I was determined to ignore him while Sara was here. “You’re so lucky,” Sara gushed. “This place is amazing, and you’re getting paid a ton to basically feed one cat and watch Netflix all day. Meanwhile I’m slaving away making burritos for nine bucks an hour. You know, I always smell like cilantro now.” I leaned over and pretended to sniff her hair. “Yeah, there is a distinct cilantro aroma wafting from you.” “Shut up,” she said, smacking my arm. The movie was starting, though, and we were devoted movie commentators— which is why we could pretty much only watch movies with just each other. Most people get annoyed at us when we talk through movies. We fell asleep on the floor in front of the TV, which was a regrettable circumstance when the doorbell rang early the next morning. I forced myself up from the soft rug, my whole body stiff from sleeping curled up on the floor all night. Bleary-eyed, I answered the front door. A short, olive-skinned woman with thick black hair tied into a knot in the back of her head stood on the threshold, her hand on her hip. From her all-white outfit and accompanying assortment of cleaning supplies crammed into the large bucket next to her, I surmised that she was Marisol, the woman who cleaned Mrs. Eldridge’s cottage every other week. “Who are you?” she asked me, squinting her dark eyes suspiciously. “Um, I’m Esther, I’m house-sitting for Mrs.—NOOOO!” A flash of gray blurred between both our legs into the front yard. I shoved past Marisol, nearly knocking her over as I ran after the rapidly disappearing feline. “PETRUCHIO, GET BACK HERE!” I shouted, though I knew it was useless. I had earned his condemnation, and this was his vengeance.

Short Story 45

Short Story 46

*** Sara, Marisol, and I walked up and down the street calling his name for several hours, to the point that a couple of the neighbors came out and scolded us for yelling so much. It was no use though—it never was any use. I had crossed a line, and now Petruchio meant to punish me. We went back inside the cottage a little before noon; it was getting far too hot and humid to be walking around outside in the sun. I got some water bottles from the fridge and gave one each to Sara and Marisol. “He come back,” Marisol assured us in her crisp Cuban accent. “He get hungry, then he come back. That gatito spoiled. He eat no trash, he want the fancy food!” I was unconvinced, but Sara nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. Don’t worry, Esther, he’ll probably be back in a few hours. ‘The poorest service is repaid with thanks’.” “He’s already missed breakfast,” I said morosely. “He’s never done that before.” Petruchio was always punctual for his meal times—more to make sure I prepared his food properly than because he was hungry, I suspected. “I stay and help you find the gatito,” Marisol promised. I tried to persuade her that wasn’t necessary, but she put her hands on her hips and gave me a stern look. “Oye, I let the gatito out, yes? Señora Eldridge, she loves her gatito. I lose her gatito, I lose my job. Mira? I have three children, I need money—no cat, no job, no money! I stay and help look, okay?” I couldn’t think of a good reason to continue arguing with her, so the three of us sat around the table, drinking water and trying to think of a plan to find that stupid, vengeful cat. I felt during the entire conversation that neither of the others truly understood what sort of creature we were dealing with. Since Marisol worked for several of the neighbors as well as Mrs. Eldridge, she agreed to knock on doors and ask if anyone had seen Petruchio. Sara stayed in the house to wait for him to return, and to design a flyer in case he didn’t. I took a bottle of water and a pair of sunglasses with me and prepared for a long, hot day of walking. Thankfully there was somewhat of a breeze to make the heat bearable while I scoured the neighborhood. Unlike before, I didn’t call his name as I walked. I crept around corners much like Petruchio himself had over the past few weeks, determined to catch him unawares. I climbed through and over hedges into people’s yards and sneaked

behind garages, trespassing far more than was advisable in a neighborhood this extravagant. And then I spotted him—just a bit of gray fur disappearing between two ten-foot-high hedges. Quietly I followed him, only then realizing I had no plan for actually catching him. I doubted he would actually come to me. But I sneaked over to the hedges anyway. I probably looked ridiculous—half-crouched, my arms curled up like a tyrannosaurus rex’s, while I craned my neck around the hedge for another glimpse. Yet there was that gray tail again. The hedges were barely a foot apart, so my shirt kept catching on the branches, and I winced at the constant rustling of the leaves as I shimmied through the narrow gap between the hedges dividing two properties. There he was, in the backyard of a house that resembled a Tuscan manor, lying in an empty stone birdbath shaded by a banyan tree. His green eyes gleamed with triumph, and then he closed them and rested his head on his paws. The only indication that he wasn’t taking a catnap was his still-twitching tail. I didn’t dare approach him then, not when he was perfectly aware of my presence. Instead, I called Sara. “You found him?” she asked breathlessly. “Yeah, he’s in someone’s backyard. I’m not sure I’ll be able to catch him, though.” “What street are you on? I’ll come over, maybe we can corner him somehow.” “Caribbean. It’s a yellow Italian-looking house. Big black wrought-iron gate.” “Okay, give me a couple minutes.” Despite my impatience, I forced myself to remain calm and watch the fiend from hell from a distance. After what felt like hours, I heard rustling in the hedges behind me. Sara was accompanied by Marisol, whom I suppose my friend ran into on her way over. I put my finger to my lips, and they both nodded silently. Then, I leaned over and whispered, “We’ll spread out and close in on him.” They gave their tacit agreement. “‘I have thrust myself into this maze,’” I added darkly. The three of us fanned out and began to approach the birdbath warily. We walked in syncopated steps, prepared for a desperate escape attempt the moment he realized we were there. Almost there… four more steps, three, two— Petruchio raised his head, his expression one of perfect

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satisfaction. “Stay where you are!” a booming voice yelled behind us. We all started, Sara half-leaping into the air and yelping. I was only partly aware of Petruchio leaping from the birdbath and slinking away into the hedge as I turned around. A police officer stood on the back patio of the Tuscan mansion, his hands on his hips. “I got a complaint of a trespasser,” he drawled. “Now I got three to deal with. ‘There’s small choice in rotten apples,’ I s’ppose.” A woman came out of the back door of the house dressed in a pink satin robe, her hair rolled in curlers. She carried a sleeping teacup Yorkshire terrier in her arms. Marisol muttered to herself in Spanish; the only word I understood was the repetition of “Dios.” “Marisol?” the woman said, squinting at our companion. “Buenas tardes, Señora Collins,” Marisol sighed. The officer looked back and forth between the two women in confusion. “You know each other?” “That’s Marisol; she cleans my house,” the lady said, pointing her bony finger at Marisol. “But she’s not the one I saw in my yard.” Her accusative member drifted to me. “That’s the one I saw. I don’t know why Marisol is here.” “Were you trespassing?” the officer asked me sternly. “Uh, y—yes, but I can explain,” I said. “I was looking for a cat.” “I didn’t see any cat,” Mrs. Collins said doubtfully. “He was in your birdbath just a minute ago,” Sara offered. “Was this your cat?” the officer asked. “Uh, no, um, I’m just looking after him for his owner, um, Amelia Eldridge, she lives on Isle Place?” The officer didn’t look impressed, but Mrs. Collins nodded. “Ooooohhhh,” she breathed. “You’re one of those students she pays to watch Petruchio?” “Yes!” I exclaimed a little over-enthusiastically. “Yes; he ran away this morning, we’ve been looking for him for hours, and we finally found him in your yard. I’m really sorry, we, um, didn’t mean to trespass on your property.” “Oh, it’s all right, dear,” old Mrs. Collins said, waving her hand. “I understand.” “No charges?” the officer asked her. “No, no, no, no, that isn’t necessary. Amelia and I have been friends for years. Forgive me, sir, for troubling you over nothing. ‘I see a woman may be made a fool,’ as the line goes.” She looked right at me, and somehow I knew

Spring 2016

she understood what kind of cat Petruchio was. Not that there was an exchange of sympathy between us—her lips turned up with amusement. “It’s alright, ma’am,” the officer said, but he looked a little sheepish when he turned to us. “I’ve already called this in, though, so I’m still gonna have to get your information.” It took almost half an hour for the officer to get our names and contact information and then let us go. We walked back to Isle Place dejected. We’d lost our chance to corner Petruchio, we were starving, we were soaked with sweat, and we’d almost gotten arrested. “I’ll finish those flyers,” Sara said, trying to be positive. “At least we know he’s close, someone in the neighborhood will probably find him soon.” Marisol finally left us, as her kids would be arriving home from school soon. I thanked her for helping us search, and she gave me a worn business card from her shirt pocket. “Call me if you find him, okay? I come help you tomorrow if he gone still,” she said sweetly. Spontaneously I gave her a hug and thanked her again. She patted my arm in a very maternal gesture of comfort. “I will pray. He come back.” With those words she got into her old sedan and then drove away. Since there wasn’t much besides junk food to eat in the house, Sara and I went to a nearby café to eat. I was miserably silent as I munched on arroz con pollo while Sara tried to cheer me up by telling me about the time a customer asked her to put vegan steak in his burrito. I smiled falsely to give her the illusion that her attempt was working. The sun was beginning to set as we drove back to Isle Place. When we got inside the house, something felt different than before. On a hunch, I went into the pantry to find Petruchio sitting next to his cans of cat food, licking his white paw with an air of decided unconcern. Sara erupted into hysterics while I stared at him, unsettled. How did he get into the house? His green eyes met mine. I felt the warning. If he could get in whenever he wanted, he could get out whenever he wanted. He didn’t have to wait for Marisol or anyone else to open the door for him. If I didn’t behave, he would put me through another day like today. I’m not so simple as to offer war when I should kneel for peace, I thought as Sara continued her celebratory babbling, completely unaware of what was passing between Petruchio and me. ***

Short Story 47

Short Story 48

The next morning Sara packed up and then left me alone with Petruchio. I was no longer wary of him—only defeated. I prepared his food, cleaned his litter box, and groomed his gray coat with all the solemnity and resignation of a criminal accepting her sentence. Gradually Petruchio stopped following me around the house, and his green eyes no longer watched me from under ottomans or around corners. I rarely saw him at all, actually, except at meal times. Then one evening, as I lay on the leather sofa eating mint chocolate chip ice cream straight from the tub while watching an Elizabeth Taylor movie, I felt something soft and furry tickle my legs. I started, almost leaping from the sofa, until I realized what it was. Petruchio was curled into a tight little ball against the back of my knees. His whole body vibrated against me. He was purring. He lifted his head, his luminous eyes blinking, his ears flicking forward. Hesitantly, I reached out my hand to scratch behind his ears. “You just wanted me all to yourself, didn’t you?” I said softly, and he rubbed his head against my fingers and purred louder. Part of me was repulsed by what I was doing—fraternizing with the enemy, and all that. I shouldn’t be enjoying the silkiness of his fur after everything he’d put me through. Yet I couldn’t help but pet him until the movie finished, and then I stayed on the sofa with him tucked up against my legs until Petruchio and I both fell asleep.

Living Waters Review

Bilingual Blood Hannah Menendez

In these veins is bilingual blood: half speaks with a hot temper in time to salsa music half speaks with hard logic sung to hymns You’ll never understand my soul ‘til you’ve eaten black beans with rice and a tall glass of sweet tea You’d never guess my mama’s got hair like wheat and the last remnants of a Kentucky accent; when I’m mad I call her “madre.”

Poetry 49

My blood speaks of freedom dreams and fried plantains, small white-steepled churches and pastors preaching hellfire— their wives breathing hospitality. Fingers flying over guitar frets dancing to hypnotic Latin rhythm; solemn organ tones in slow dirges. I don’t speak Spanish, but when I hear tango-music it speaks to me. I’m an anglophile and a lover of flan, I’ve eaten Cuban roast pork with a side of green bean casserole— I chased it down with derby pie. I’m first generation and fifteenth generation, daughter of a Mayflower passenger and mint-new immigrant: Old and new in the same blood

Spring 2016

Abuela’s House Nicole Jimenez

We gather in a room 10 by 12 boiling with booming voices Immigrants by nature, we each battled stagnant waters to get to this haven we now call abuela’s house where you never leave smelling like yourself, but of whatever she decided to fry that day.

Poetry

fish.

steak. a whole pig. when we’re not there she calls. once twice, “Have you eaten yet?” and we roll our eyes. “It’s her again.” now she is gone. and we wait, for the phone to ring with her sweet voice, and we are hungry.

Living Waters Review

Abella Madison Brockman

Her mind’s swirling hundreds of miles above the clouds —and I know she likes it there— where so little air electrifies brain cells and her noggin goes dizzy and she gets giddy and who cares about actuality? as long as she can’t feel the blood drain from the veins and the tears dry up the eyes, terrestrial memories, flimsy tissue paper trees in the breeze. She doesn’t know the whiteout of snowflakes —reflections of fear cocooned in crystal mobiles— but icicle shards slash her cheeks her shoulders her spine: gravity whips centrifugal force, apathetic towards her; even up in the galaxy, the frostbite always writhing. She doesn’t know the raindrops bruising jet-black against flushed flesh, never slack but she doesn’t know the promise, either —rose and coral and amber and teal and periwinkle— a sweet silhouette of sympathy. She doesn’t know hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis whisking away her beloved “Bad Wolf ” bumper stickers and James Taylor records but siphoned bubbles of oxygen cave brick-by-brick lungs and she exhales that last wisp of carbon dioxide; a treasure chest crumbling in. I know she loves the faintness and numbness and lusterless dreaminess of nothingness, but, please! breathe.

Spring 2016

Poetry 51

A Basket Full Of Mangoes Renata Zarro

Short Story 52

odie went outside today, and it was beautiful. Actually, it was humid and the sunlight made her eyes water, but it was outside, and it was beautiful. She stood on the doorstep with a garbage bag in each hand and took in the yard she’d only watched from windows these past two weeks. As she headed to the trash cans at the side of her house, Jodie noticed a rustling in her mango tree. Seconds later, two ripe pieces of fruit fell into a straw basket placed strategically under the tree. “Hey!” Jodie called out, “Who’s up there?” Silence replied. Then, after more rustling, a skinny tanned boy dropped out of the tree. With Tarzan-like agility, he landed on his feet, just before falling backwards. The boy looked at Jodie from the ground with a sheepish grin. “What were you doing in my tree?” Jodie asked. “Getting mangoes,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Who are you?” “I live here,” Jodie replied. “This is my tree.” The boy approached Jodie fearlessly and extended a hand. “Nice to meet you, I’m Thomas; I live next door.” She shifted her trash bags and allowed Thomas to take her hand. “Jodie,” she replied. They looked at each other awkwardly until she finally released his hand. “So, why were you stealing my mangoes?” Thomas looked shocked and lifted his palms in defense. “I didn’t think anybody lived here, honest, and all the mangoes were just going to waste.” She glanced at the rotting fruit that littered her yard. Most were covered in teeth marks that blamed their premature deaths on the gluttonous squirrel who had strewn her yard with their corpses. Jodie could remember the loud

thwacks throughout the week as each yellow fruit had fallen against her roof and rolled into the yard. After reminding herself that this was America, and she was not under attack, Jodie would silently pledge that tomorrow she’d muster the strength to collect them. Tomorrow rarely came. “I don’t leave my house much,” Jodie explained. “Don’t you go to work?” Jodie did not meet Thomas’ gaze. “I teach online.” “Oh,” Thomas nodded slowly. “I’m sorry if I woke you up or something.” She looked down at her cotton pajama pants and faded “Proud Marine Mom” t-shirt. “No,” she said, “I—I just didn’t feel like getting dressed today.” She felt uncomfortable, but Thomas didn’t notice. “I wish I could wear pajamas to school,” he said. “You’re really lucky.” Jodie didn’t reply. The desert-like heat was beginning to make her sweat, and she suddenly felt dizzy. “I need to throw these away.” Before she could walk toward the garbage can to put down her load, Thomas took the bags from her instead. Her eyes followed him to the large plastic bins, and she watched him hoist two weeks of trash into the containers. “I always take out the trash at my house,” Thomas said proudly. “It’s man’s work.” Thomas puffed out his tiny chest at the word man and Jodie laughed. “My son used to say the same thing. Trash was his chore, too.” She stopped laughing, but again, Thomas failed to notice. “If you want, you can come over to my house. My mom’s gonna make her famous mango salsa and tilapia.”

Living Waters Review

He closed his eyes and made an mmmm sound. Then, he picked up the basket of mangoes and looked at Jodie expectantly. “I mean, if I can have these.” Jodie leaned against the house and nodded. Thomas beamed in reply and began to run off. He stopped at the edge of her yard and called back. “Are you coming over?” She wanted nothing more than to follow the boy holding the basket of golden fruits. “No,” she said, “I need to get back inside.” Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. Jodie felt the need to explain herself, to justify her reply, but even more imminent was the need to return to her air-conditioned haven. Thomas shrugged and walked away, promising to bring her some food. When he was out of sight, Jodie went back inside. She allowed the cool air to wash over her body before it was swept out the open door. Her eyes scanned the cluttered kitchen. Today, she decided and then got to work washing last night’s dishes and sweeping the floor. By the time she finished, the counters had been cleared and wiped; the only clutter that remained was a vase of wilted chamomile flowers and a folded American flag. The sweat she’d acquired outside had now crystallized into a clingy, salty glaze. “I guess I should shower,” Jodie announced in the general direction of some family photos. She did not wait for a reply. After her shower, Jodie put on a clean pair of jeans and the same shirt she’d worn that morning. She sat at the kitchen table and stared out the dirt-streaked windows. Before she could think, I’ll clean those tomorrow, she saw Thomas coming up the driveway with a covered bowl in his two tanned arms. She waited to hear a knock, but instead the door swung open slowly. Thomas took three steps inside and stopped when he saw her. “The door was cracked open,” he explained, “so I just came in.”

Spring 2016

Short Story 53

Ibis Ashley Taylor

Photography 54

Living Waters Review

Frozen Blizzard Band Hannah Nelson

The wiggling, wobbling flightless fowl was dressed to the ninesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; jacket of finest silk, white shirt, buttons carved from pebbles, top hat twisted on pinecone head, his suit and tie fell in line with the razzmatazz of the smooth jazz. A ragtime band played bebop ringing out against alabaster backdrops. A sharp-tusked walrus and cantankerous sea snail swizzled their frost-flushed fingers to the tunes of Sweet Georgia Brown and Fly Me to the Moon. Onward they marched, overdressed, their webbed feet never falling behind the vivacious beat. Scah! Tap! Boom! Pat! Pat! The Arctic critters played on the jazz of horns and hot guitars made up their frozen, blizzard band.

Spring 2016

Poetry 55

Confessions Of A Fraudulent Bigfoot Thomas Lubben

Poetry 56

A legend dies with me—

When I began, the dark

and all of Oregon.

would often scare me.

The sleepless nights, the flashlight rites,

That shock of “up”: the wild sky—

the campsites by the stream

I’d stare through prison bars

are moving past my gnarled trees

of curled limbs and peeling bark

to other visions.

and trample home.

Oh, I would stay ahead—

Before I die, I’ll climb

when I was younger.

a tree and pull

Holed deep within September woods

its crisping branches back, and breathe,

my costume wilded,

breathe in that blue-white sky.

I’d patch an arm, the hairy head,

I lived a myth, but never primed

and watch the news.

my very own.

Another day, and see—

I know they do exist,

I’m on the trail:

much more than I.

the trail I mapped so long ago,

To find them takes a journey, though,

the campsites by the stream

and sleepless nights, and flashlight rites,

the dusk-fed loons and gnarled trees;

and campsites by the stream.

the deadstill night.

And all my life. It’s time for me to die and move along.

Living Waters Review

The Botanist Hannah Menendez

y favorite thing to do in the morning is to slip into the greenhouse and watch the botanist work. He doesn’t notice my presence for hours because he is too occupied with his plants, the children he has spent years nurturing first on little glass slides under microscopes, then lovingly studying their DNA sequences on computer screens, then tenderly grafting and repotting and bottle-feeding them nutrients until every plant is the size, shape, and color he wants. Playing God, creating out of nothing, he says when he does speak to me. Not nothing, I say. Out of what is there already, out of what has been discovered. Creating new life ex nihilo isn’t meant for humans. Have you read Frankenstein? If he is in a good mood, he rolls his eyes; if in a bad, he tells me to shut up. He sings to the plants at dawn. Frank Sinatra, usually. His voice is rich, with a staccato vibrato that makes the buds unfold and the plants lift their tiny leaves in applause. His voice blends with the sun’s rays just beginning to turn the greenhouse to a lighthouse, and together, the song and the light wake the little plants from their slumber, and they applaud that morning’s concerto. I think creation must have been just like that. Genesis says God spoke, but I think when God speaks it sounds like music to mortals, and I think the song sounded like Sinatra’s croon, like the botanist serenading his child-plants. When the song finishes, he goes around the room and checks the plants one by one. He prunes away dead leaves—with a frown bemoaning the loss of life, the brown encroaching on the green, the very existence of chaff among the wheat—and gently cradles the healthy leaves

Spring 2016

in his palm. The plants are his paintings, more art than science; though he understands their DNA, the science behind how they grow and why they die, the plants are not objective experiments, but self-expression. *** In the afternoons, the botanist remembers I exist. I follow him around the greenhouse as he tells me about his plants. He tells me their unpronounceable scientific names, how much sunlight and water they need, how large they will grow, the colors of their blooms, to which part of the world they are native, how adaptable they are. He tells me about his plans for them. He tells me that one has purple blooms, but he will grow one that will blossom white. This other one, it will make seedless fruit one day, while this one will bloom all year round, and this one will be hardier, able to survive in harsher climates. While he talks, I interrupt him with questions. Have you noticed that the hyacinth blooms better over in this corner than where you have it now? Have you noticed that the soil of the rhododendron is too dry? Have you ever tried to grow chili peppers before? Sometimes he answers me; most of the time he tells me to shut up and hands me a watering can. “Make yourself useful,” he says. Inevitably, five minutes later: “You’re watering that one too much.” I lift the spout of the watering can. “Kill my plants and you’re gone,” the botanist reminds me. But I won’t kill them; he knows this as well as I do. They call it a “green thumb,” but I would say that description—of either the botanist or me—is grossly inaccurate.

Short Story 57

Short Story 58

Our hands are the revivers of Lazarus: when come the murderers—disease, drought, drowning—to place the plants in a stone tomb, our hands know how to wake them up again. Lazarus didn’t live the instant Christ woke him from death, you realize. Lazarus was still a dead man when he stood up wrapped in grave clothes and stumbled around the dark-as-evil tomb, shouting hoarsely from cold lungs until strong men came to roll the stone away. Christ healed him, but what kind of life is lived in lonely silence inside a tomb? No, he might as well have still been dead until he stepped out of the tomb and the sun warmed his pallid skin and the dirt rubbed into the soles of his feet and the humidity of the air curled his hair and the arms of his sisters embraced his flesh, whispering his name again and again, their voices echoing forever. I can still hear them even now. I think it was raining that day. The water-drops slid down his cheeks, mingling with his tears, the sky’s watering can washing away death’s decay, while Christ smiled at him. Only then—only then—was Lazarus truly alive. *** In the evenings, I argue with the botanist about religion. Usually because I absentmindedly begin singing a hymn. He doesn’t mind it when I hum one of the familiar tunes—sometimes he even whistles along with me. Only when I sing out the words with gusto does he shake his rotund finger. I imagine the air rippling from the force of the accusing member, tiny shock waves bludgeoning dust particles straight into the glass walls of the greenhouse. “Stop singing that nonsense already, won’t you?” “Don’t tell me what to do.” The botanist will, though. He’ll shake his finger again, I imagine because he expects his words to wrap me tight like a boa constrictor, squeezing until an unconsenting confession is yanked from my blue lips: This is all nonsense. I close my eyes and imagine the plants in the room suddenly growing up, up, up, touching the warmed glass ceiling, bending over when they reach the top, flowers bursting open like laughing mouths that can’t be silenced or told what to say. Show me your botany then. Show me the botany of the soul, show me how this tiny seed of faith is sometimes no more than a dry weed in a desert and is sometimes an old oak covered in Spanish moss and is sometimes a great rainforest where the air is so dense it’s impossible to hold your breath because oxygen

pushes itself inside your very lungs. Explain how this seed maintains itself through floods and winds and earthquakes. Explain, because I don’t understand. Darkness became light, and your botany can’t show me any differently because plants don’t understand the spirit—the mustard seed was only a metaphor, after all, and metaphors can only go so far to explain paradoxes. “Have you read Kierkegaard?” I ask the botanist. “Do you ever stop asking pointless questions?” he says wearily. I laugh until he thrusts out his hands, taking the watering can from me, and growls like a bear. “Stop laughing, you cursed saint.” “Now there’s an oxymoron. A cursed saint. Or— Kierkegaard would say it’s a paradox. Have you noticed that God is good at paradoxes?” “God is good at anything that doesn’t make sense— which is exactly why you believe he exists and I don’t,” he grumbles. “The paradox is that he makes perfect sense and no sense at all, depending on how you look at it. So, really, we should both believe he exists. Or neither of us.” “Get out of my greenhouse, you worthless preacher. I don’t want the plants to learn your ways.” Ah, chlorophyll preaching. Now wouldn’t that be something? What would it say? It would talk about light, I suspect. Sunbeams as a metaphor: ultraviolet light somehow, inexplicably, turning itself from the invisible to the visible when it touches the growing plant and rejects all the colors my eyes can’t see to let itself become an ordinary green. Like the incarnation of Christ—spirit to flesh. Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield would have nothing on chlorophyll. The leaves curling up toward the light, the trees bending, reaching nearer the sun so the chlorophyll can have a taste of the rays it craves, so the blinding beams can wrap around stems like a mother cuddling her newborn child—what a beautiful, curious sermon that would be. Already is. “They learned my ways before I did,” I say, though I know the words will accomplish nothing. The botanist scowls, and I tell the plants goodbye until the next morning. *** I don’t know what the botanist does when he returns to his house at night. I imagine that his home is filled with potted plants hanging from hooks in the ceiling, decorating every bookshelf and tabletop, standing in every available

Living Waters Review

corner. I imagine that he eats only meat because he cannot stomach the idea of eating a sibling of his children. Perhaps he sits in a large leather chair with a plate full of scrambled eggs and watches televisionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;he doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t read a book because books are made of paper, and paper comes from trees. What does he watch? Not a sitcom, not a crime drama. A documentary, probably, perhaps something from National Geographic. Yes, he watches documentaries about the migration patterns of whales and the social interactions of lions within their prides. Perhaps he watches something about chickens and feels guilty about the eggs, so he gets up and makes himself a salad instead, resigned to either feeling remorse or starving. When he tires of television, he probably gets on his computer and reads articles about plants written by other botanists. Perhaps he makes more charts and studies the data he collected that day. Perhaps he calls his friends, who must be botanists as well, and shares his new insights with them. He never tires of watching life slowly unfold. How incredibly patient he is, the botanist. I am amazed that as many years as he has practiced botany, he has never grown tired of learning about the roots and stems and leaves, how they work together as seamlessly as the Trinity. No one has ever found a metaphor to satisfactorily explain the Trinity, but I like the imagery of the plant best. The roots are the Father, perhaps, the Sustainer; the stem is Christ, the Cornerstone that holds up the plant; the leaves the Spirit, who feeds and nourishes the rest with the sun captured on the green surface. Interdependent, communal, breathing in and breathing out togetherâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;three in one, one because three. The difference is that the plant requires earth and sun and rain, external forces, to live, while the Trinity thrives on internal forces, generated within. But I still like the plant imagery best. *** I imagine the botanist goes to bed early. Once he is asleep, he dreams of vines tangling with stalks of wheat. How does he interpret those dreams? The vines are full of fruit, and though they weave along the trellises, the vines are pulled toward the ground by heavy fruit born of love. There is no chaff among the wheat in his dreams, so he welcomes the enveloping sleep as long as it lasts.

Spring 2016

Short Story 59

An Anonymous Scholar Naomi Wallen

He smelled like earth and spearmint bearing a tumble of dusty books in the worn crook of his elbow—

the cufflinks tarnished

to bronze near the fleshy wrist.

Creased oxford shoes, laces trailing lazily, scuffed from his rolling cart biting impatiently behind him—

Poetry 60

luggage heavy-laden

by moth-eaten hardbacks.

His parchment cheeks are florid from the humid eighty-eight midafternoon swelter—

red calling out landmarks

on the map-like countenance.

Those strangely shaped glasses, neither square nor round, perch across his glistening nose—

he coughs, expelling epistolary

fragments from library lungs.

The ambling scholar’s muddy print over the speckled beige carpet—

a tracking line, rambling

akin to his adventurous mind.

Living Waters Review

St. Mary Magdalene, Broad Street, Oxford Hannah Menendez

Art is what brings to mind the divine—churches then are highest art: small ones of stone, and old, and gray as English winter skies shedding raindrops so tiny you don’t feel them soak you until your skin is damp. Vaulted ceilings, marble floors organs thundering and whispering, alternatively; the lone vicar sings off-key in an accent sharp and robust as Communion wine. Old art is best because when you sit in silence on hard wooden benches where a thousand sinners have sat, and you sing the same liturgies they did, you know you aren’t the first or the last to let your mind wander while the vicar speaks, to stare instead at Norman arches, Gothic restorations, and Victorian imitations and realize that this drafty, patchwork quilt of six centuries is the loveliest bit of stone and plaster permeated with incense you’ll ever see.

Spring 2016

Poetry 61

Strings Gracelyn Kuzman

Creative Essay 62

n the graveyard, I could see each thread. They twisted themselves intricately, and my eyes followed the lines. The insect was focused. His legs moved quickly and efficiently, and he wasn’t bothered by the light coming through the holes of his creation. The strings, silvery and thin, moved gently in the wind. One end was attached to a stone called Smith and the other was attached to a stone named Donne, and they weren’t quite next to each other, but they were connected by this thread that the spider kept producing. I remember seeing silver strings like these when I was six. They weren’t attached to a spider but rather to 1,000 purple balloons. We each got one. Everyone that came got a balloon, and we let them go into the sky, which was dotted with both white clouds and the floating purple vessels. I wore a purple jumper because it was Emily’s favorite color and that was the point. Everyone was crying and nodding at each other and wiping their eyes on their purple shirts, and my mom said she’d never seen a box that small. Mom said I wouldn’t get to have playdates with Emily anymore and I said okay and didn’t ask any of the questions I felt gathering in my chest. The spider moved quickly, more frantic than before, as he walked across the tightrope he built himself. He spun around the stone near the top of the H on S M I T H and kept dragging the silver string toward the D of D ON N E, and I wondered if the boxes below the stones were large or small. I knew Emily was sick because my mom told me so. When our families got together on Sundays after church,

Emily and I would play while our parents watched us, whispering and hugging and sipping hot coffee. She was a year younger than me, and I was six. We spent most of our time coloring and discussing our favorite princesses. Emily said she’d be a princess in Heaven, and I thought that was a strange thing to say. The breeze could have been chilly had the sun not been warming the stones and the grass and my skin. There was light coming from behind the web; the pattern was mirrored in a shadow on the ground. The spider had slowed itself, perhaps to rest, or perhaps his work was completed. There weren’t many words on the Smith or Donne stones, only dates etched crudely. I imagine they deserved better stories than what dates provided, but maybe not. Their stories could be full and long, like their boxes. I last saw Emily on my brother’s birthday. He was turning ten, but no one was smiling, which was strange because ten is a big year. Mom got a phone call right as Schaeffer was about to tear the paper off his presents. We were rushed into winter jackets and buckled in the car within minutes. Schaeff didn’t seem bothered that he didn’t get to open his presents. I poked him and tried to ask a question, but he shook his head violently and I was mad that everyone knew more than me. Dad tried his best to explain what was going on, but I didn’t quite understand. Tumor. Cancer. I knew they must have been bad words because when he said them, his eyes looked down and his voice sounded strange. We pulled into a parking lot and I sounded out the word h-o-s-p-i-t-a-l, spelled in big letters on the front of a large brick building.

Living Waters Review

Mom walked swiftly ahead, and I watched her embrace Emily’s mom, both beginning to cry. Emily’s brothers and sister were sprawled out all over the waiting room, some sleeping, some reading, and one just staring out the window, eyes wide and unmoving. One by one, our dads called us into a smaller room where we were told to say goodbye, which didn’t make sense because we had just arrived. Emily couldn’t talk or open her eyes, but her dad said, “Go ahead, she can hear you,” and so I said “hello, Em,” and “goodbye, Em,” and “everything will be okay,” because those seemed like nice things to say. A few weeks later, I sat in church but not for church, twirling around my small fingers a silver string attached to a purple balloon, looking at the small box at the front of the room. Mom kept hugging me, probably just because she was happy I wasn’t in the box. I was happy when I could let go of the balloon. It was lovely and lively, the way they all spiraled into the sky. My brother’s got caught in a tree, but it didn’t matter. I stared at mine as it flew away. It wasn’t long before I couldn’t see the string then couldn’t see the purple then couldn’t see anything at all. When I glanced back at the spider, he had returned to work. The sun was lowering beneath trees in the distance, making it more difficult to see the web. The spider appeared to be floating now, holding onto nothing at all, though I knew the threads were there. His legs twisted in the air and he was focused, dedicated to constructing a pattern between those two stones above those two boxes. I wondered if Donne and Smith were aware of the happenings above them. I wondered if the spider knew where he was. I wondered if I could still find where my balloon had landed. I wondered if Emily was indeed a princess.

Spring 2016

Creative Essay 63

Abrahamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sacrifice Of Isaac Kayla Webbe

Charcoal 64

Living Waters Review

Is Daniela Pereira

come in and break

time travel by looking up

here in the dead resurrected garden

the stars once gazed at Abraham you are promised

Shatter in the depths of the letters b and e

Hear that simmering water spring within? in eternity past

your pieces will become particles illuminated by the sun

my mouth spoke heavenly language into your unformed

my hand will color their transparency

heart words I’d let you translate into earthly tongues

scream into the dark thunder

touch and see

with your untamable zeal for Kingdom come

your voice is ocean deep

Look, there’s the sun and the stars all at once

as you leave

it’s neither day nor night

this hidden place designed by words

I am

don’t fear the inkless page

the light

remember, pieces fell here

dance in your white dress dismiss the rising serpents in the dead resurrected garden ignore their coiling ‘round the trees tap your feet and spin slowly

Spring 2016

you danced on pain

Poetry 65

Endures Jordyn Marlin

Photography 66

Living Waters Review

After Dismissal Rebekah Best

The teacher is careful to avoid gnawed-on pencils with vanishing erasers, scattered like jewels in Smaug’s desolate trove. Crayons in glue and glitter swamps leer like brigands behind barricades of crumpled cursive sheets and half-done multiplication, leading the way to Long John Silver’s hoard. All this in a bog of hand sanitizer splashes and fully used tissues, sputtering and sliding like Montag’s gasoline-soaked, burning pages. Project mishaps and discarded flyers mark the scuffled tile like a bedraggled scantron after it’s survived recess three times with rain, past the rows of rebels and under Valjean’s shaky feet. The desks Cheshire-catawampus, the walls a Carrollian wonderland, and the teacher’s hair, mad in the same way, all the while she sighs and says, “What a frabjous day.”

Spring 2016

Poetry 67

Feb. 2. 2016. Kurt Burghardt

Short Story 68

he hallway. Marble. Facing the brilliance of wealth and importance. The light of our grand celestial orb breeches into the empty hallway, scorching the gray and white slabs of stone with a gorgeous reflectivity. A little girl. Age. Five or six. She enters the hallway of majestic light. A pink dress twirling. She dances. The dress exuberant in the light. Spinning and spinning. Dancing and dancing. Degas makes sense now. A cough in the distance. Young man. His skin is paved in faded sapphire. He looks sad. I like that man’s shoes, though. Aqua blue. No, dark turquoise. Reminds me of Gumby. “Young man,” a voice calls me for help among the canvases. Turn. Turn. Turn. To every season. Turn around. “Yes ma’am.” “Which way to the lobby?” The museum is very confusing. Easy to get lost. Lost World. “Go straight until you hit the room with the white walls.” I like that room. I met the artist whose paintings blanket those pearl walls. “Take a right and then you’ll be in the lobby.” “Thank you, young man. This museum is a maze.” “It really is,” I laugh. A maze of art. I remember my first time in the museum. I don’t remember getting lost. Good sense of direction, I guess. I used to be in the Boy Scouts. Who is this guy? He looks like Florida. Someone should tell him that he dresses like a bird. Popped collar. Come on cliché. Of course he would have his polo unbuttoned all the way. You gotta show those burly chest

hair feathers. For the ladies. There’s his wife. I assume. Her lithe frame lifted up to an acceptable height. Those legs. No. Suppress. Suppress. You’re at work. The wife stops at an Émile Bernard, mathematical in his brush strokes. Late Impressionism. The wife takes a picture. Flash! Prohibited. It fades the paint, or so I was told. “Ma’am, there is no flash allowed.” With an accent, España, she says, “I am so sorry.” Her husband rushes over to me. I don’t want to get yelled at, reminds me of home. “I have to show you something,” he says. “Uh, okay.” Baffled and confused, I follow. I shouldn’t leave though; I have to guard the Degas. Whatever. “Look here. Look here.” He points to a conglomeration of words that are pasted on the wall. The words describe the life of a poor prostitute girl from Seattle. “Look, a mistake, I found it. I live for this. I was reading chchgchghcghcgh. Just like that. I found it.” I found it too. Someone wrote “street,” but it should be “street wise,” the name of the exhibition. “Street wise,” I say, hoping for the best. I wonder what it would be like to live in Seattle. I’ve been there once before, when I was a child. It was perfect, or so I remember. The fish market, now that I didn’t like. Always had a disdain for fish. I wonder, why fish? It’s probably one of those irrational things. Just like Rauschenberg, he makes no sense. Dada. Man Ray was Dada. Such a funny term. It reminds me of childhood. No, it reminds me of my first words. Not that I remember my first words, but I probably said something like “Dada.”

Living Waters Review

Parisians are looking at Pissarro. My favorite art piece of the museum. Pointillist, just like Henri Martin and Seurat. Little paint dabs. Dab. Dab. Dab. Paint. Altogether it makes a beautiful portrayal of the French countryside. Gorgeous greenery. Trees enamored in green moss. So alive. If you stare at the painting long enough you can hear the birds, the sounds they make in the morning. Why the morning? How can something be so alive after unconsciousness? Dada. The Parisians seem to be nice and wise in the ways of art. I talk to them about Pissarro. He is my favorite Impressionist. I delve into the incredulous tediousness of undertaking a masterpiece such as this. The Parisians concur. They say I am very astute. I concur. The husband tells me how he and his wife enjoy the painting of the black girl singing. Ruby Green. I know the painting well; it’s everyone’s favorite. The docents tell me it’s the lighting that makes the painting so marvelous. I also like the painting adjacent to Miss Green. The Kuhn. The sad clown holding a euphonium. I think the clown is why Ruby is so wonderful. The contrast between emotions. People prefer happiness. Sometimes in the early morning you can hear Ruby sing. She sings: Oh Lord! How I am blessed. Your love extends to my home. I see you, Lord, and your blessings. Oh Lord, how I am blessed! The great proprietor Norton wrote in his will that Ruby was never to be taken down. Hung up for eternity in song. Beautiful, but mocked by the blue clown. I hear something in French. Incomprehensible. Beautiful. I run up to the Parisians. I want to make sure they see the Rockwell. Nice people. They deserve Rockwell. “Did y’all see the Rockwell?” I love that painting, especially the cat. Cats. Meow. Merowww. Muroww. Cats. Dada. Dada. Dada. Directions they ask for. Always directions. The maps we give out are absolute detritus. I tell the Parisians, “Down the hall with the marble floor. Then take a right. You’ll know it when you see it.” Marble hallway. Degas. Spinning. Pink dress. Dada. I can’t wait to have kids. Dada. I hope I have a girl and a boy. Dada. The boy… Vladimir? Dada. No, that’d scare away

Spring 2016

people. Dada. Jackson? Dada. Yes, that works, like Pollock. Dada. I hope he’s smart. Dada. The girl? Dada. Hyacinth. She’ll be artistic. Dada. I check the time. I love my watch. Thanks Dad. You can see the individual metallic cogs turning and grinding away the hours. Cool stuff to watch if you’re bored. Did I eat lunch? No, but breakfast was solid. Orange juice. Granola. Yogurt. Vitamins. My roommate once told me that he trusted people who ate yogurt. He never explained. Maybe he was hint-dropping. Maybe he’ll trust me if I eat more yogurt. I love it when there is no one in the gallery, especially 6-8-9. My favorite painting is there. Miró… Joan Miró. I embark toward the gallery where they keep the true artists. The ones that no one understood. Ghosts. De Chirico, Miró, Braque, Matisse, and Picasso. Burlap instead of canvas. Miró was a mastermind. He caught the subconscious like a child catching an impossible butterfly. Dada. Birds and women. The stuff that captured the mind of Miró. I get it. Women, the true source of beauty. Curvature. I want to get married in Spain. Lovely stuff. For Whom the Bell Tolls. Personally, I want to see Gaudí’s flamboyant cathedral. He never finished it. Sad. Gaudí never fulfilled his final project. Or did he? Dada, and think about birds. The Holy Spirit appeared as a bird. Daddy. Maybe there’s a subconscious connection between birds and the spiritual realm. Aha! Miró, you sparrow!

Short Story 69

A Pretty Thing Alexandra Gomez

Has anyone ever written you a pretty thing you held onto until vision fogged gray haze world bogged down the words but could not erase them even if they cracked—

Poetry 70

ends split missed cues forgotten phrases crumbled under ledger lines and diminished chords; even if it wasn’t always a pretty thing— if it wasn’t easy to say or to pen or play but gave it anyway?

Living Waters Review

La Spirale Shana Terra Lubben

Photography 71

Spring 2016

Kerameikos Naomi Wallen

Foundations mired in thick mud

from its focus on the mound of clay;

the house rises like a great beige obelisk

the crafter bellowed: “Speak, traveller.”

capped by stolid gray roofs.

Poetry 72

The Persian red door, alarming against

“I bear a question,

a solemn question for the man that

its sepia surroundings, slams a beacon

Melete blessed and Gaia favors.”

into the stifling orange sun

burning a weary traveler’s back,

The old man nodded slowly,

beating his heavy feet through the wiry brush

dipping two broad fingers into the

to greet the sage in the temple by the sea.

clay’s center, widening the silent mouth.

Agon sways before the door,

“I shall answer to the best of my ability.”

“My name is Agon, and I live

bramble-scraped legs dripping into dust;

in the foothills with my father—

lifting a trembling, dirt-smeared hand

we do not agree with each other very often.

the temple opens for his fearful fingertips.

My mother is grief-stricken,

lamenting our disharmony as though

Kerameikos sits intent upon the wheel,

the force spinning infinitely beneath steady

I am shadowed by Hades himself.

forearms forcing the minute globe of earth into

My father banished me and refuses

a mountain beneath his hands;

to call me son. I set out to find you,

raising the cone, pressing it flat, meditative

seeking guidance and counsel.”

up and down as the earth warms to his touch.

The front of his great black robe is

Kerameikos tucked his fingers under

the edge of the silty hollow, smoothly

slashed and splashed with battle scars,

drawing the wall of sediment upward

the crown of his head rimmed in laurels

as his eyebrows slowly arched skyward.

of curling, cloudy white;

the strong dark brows are straight,

and son is an insult to your mother.

as is the charismatic nose,

She carried your formless self, as you were

pointed intently toward his humble work.

sculpted in her womb, and she bore you with her

own strength. It is natural,” he continued,

The constant rolling roar tremors

“This discord between father

through the floor and into Agon’s knees,

pulling the vessel walls higher,

but he ascends the stout staircase and

“for a son to grow tall, and want to be free…”

braves the entryway, questions hefty

on the tip of his parched tongue.

and the walls slanted, the circle elongating.

“O, Great Kerameikos!”

“See? Now the piece is unsteady.”

The corner of his chapped mouth dipped deep,

The fixed face did not waver

Kerameikos leaned a hand heavily to the left,

Living Waters Review

“And if the walls were to cleave from the center?”

He brought a straight hand down across

We return to this tomorrow.”

the wide, silent lips, collapsing them.

Dawn breached the temple,

The wheel spun on obediently, but the clay

creeping warmly across the trodden floor,

lurched oddly, erratically wavering.

rays breaking over Agon’s waking form.

“This is you.”

Black-sandaled feet and the chalky hem

Raising his earth-tone eyes, Kerameikos

of a charcoal robe approached

“Eat with me; sleep in my house.

met Agon’s spacious, bewildered ones.

and waited with authority,

The elder smiled knowingly, clamping his fingers

silently beckoning him to rise.

around the lopsided funnel, wresting it from the wheel

The sage muttered: “This way.”

violently.

Clenching his hair, Agon cried out,

The pair emerged into sunlight,

a clear patch of ground encircled by

“What can I do? I have fallen from favor with my father!

surrounding cliffs, the entrance

My mother is sick with turmoil!”

barred by the placement of the sacred house.

Falling to his knees, he clasped his hands.

“What must I do to heal this rift?”

of a smoldering oven, waves of heat washing over

his tepid skin as beads of trepidation

With a gesture of utmost patience,

Agon faced the flat, open maw

Karameikos scraped the straggling clay

glistened on his high and youthful forehead.

away, presenting a fresh sphere of terra cotta.

“This is the man you want to become.”

The old man retrieved Agon’s jar

from its seat in the warm morning light;

The muddied hands threw the earth

it had dried completely, the moisture stripped

down violently with a short, sharp crack.

away from the sopping mineral sludge.

Nodding resolutely, Agon settled

to the floor, spacious eyes fastened

the sage explained quietly, picking up a nearby shard,

on the unassuming soil.

snapping it carelessly, and letting it fall to the ground.

“Sons are quick to break away from their fathers,

The mountain was crushed

“This is when the piece is most fragile,”

beneath the sage’s wide hands,

thinking their formation complete.

then carefully brought upright,

But the form is nothing without strength.”

with a gentle bell and stout neck.

He ground his foot into the earth, pulverizing the shard

Taking a thin wire, Kerameikos severed

into fine red dust. “They cannot withstand, and soon…

the tall vase from the wheel, and

they are gone.”

Agon glimpsed the whisper of a smile

on the sagaciously lined face.

a dusky orange, parched as his tongue had often been.

Meeting his eyes for a second time,

Accepting it with shaking hands, the youthful eyes

the wise man commanded,

implored the umber visage for solemn direction.

Spring 2016

Kerameikos passed him the jar, now

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Poetry 74

“Place it in the kiln, Agon. Let’s test your

the good graces of others.

strength now.”

a wise man, a sage named Kerameikos, who was said to

The vestibule echoed anxiously

“I came to a town where they spoke highly of

with Agon’s determined knock, the simple wooden door

understand the bond between man and Heaven—and

trembling at his force. “I’ve come home.”

furthermore, the bonds between men. I’ve returned home,

His cracked and calloused feet crossed the threshold,

submissive at your feet, contrite for my pomposity—and

striding into his home with confidence, shoulders taut,

arrive a devoted son, who henceforth shall heed your every

the vessel tucked neatly into his lean elbow.

word.”

Entering the next room,

The father stepped forward wordlessly; his

he met his mother’s eyes; she dropped her shuttle

mother held her breath. Taking the jar in his work-worn

and left the loom, sobbing a mixture of shock and relief.

hands, Agon’s father lifted his son to his feet with a smile.

“You’ve returned!”

“Where is my father?” Agon insisted.

A voice spoke from behind him: “I am here.” The son turned to lock eyes with his father; both stared unwaveringly at the other.

“I saw you walking up the hill,” his father said tersely.

“I was in the field. I thought you promised you would never cross my door again.”

Agon shrugged. “Well, here I am.”

Extending his long arms, he offered the jar. “I suffered, and I traveled far. I journeyed to a temple by the sea—the house of a man named Kerameikos. He demonstrated the error of my ways, revealed my hubris, and reminded me that family and home are one and the same.”

He dropped to his knees.

“I was formed, and I grow tall. But strength is not

a measure of size, nor height, nor age. I lack experience. But more than that, I lack respect.”

Bowing his head, Agon turned to his mother.

“This vessel represents my penance, and also my lesson.

I caused you undue grief with my arrogance and stubbornness. I thought I was grown and prepared for the world. But I met all sorts of obstacles—people exceedingly kind and exceedingly cruel. I became a beggar, living far below

Living Waters Review

Ruby Singin’

Inspired by James Chaplin’s painting at the Norton Museum of Art

Stephanie Jamison

Sing it Ruby,

what you ova’ there thinkin’?

that song that keeps singin’.

If only we could hear your ponder,

Your contralto tone

or share the wonder with your Chaplin lips,

separates you from society’s injustices,

your suga’ chalk skin

You give Harlem that somethin’ to Renaissance

gives the 20s somethin’ to roar about.

about.

So Darlin’

Ruby,

keep believin’ give Ellington somethin’ to jazz about,

your image stands as secure as a Negro Vintage Doll

Hurston a chapter to write about.

with a posture that gives the sunset a secret smilin’ space.

Keep findin’ that somethin’ to sing about.

No one can steal away

‘Cause Girrrrl,

your personal depiction.

your spirit just echoes beyond the outskirts

Honey, what you ova’ there feelin’? If only we could peel the gentle from your clasped hands, the way your arms rest on the front of your burnt-orange, orange-juice dress. You give Hughes that stanza to rhyme about. Ruby,

Spring 2016

of frame.

Poetry 75

I’d Never Let My Dog Gamble Cameron Schott

“Hey, you know what would be funny?” Brown said, holding a cigar. “A bunch of dogs playing poker.” And then the whole room full of old white ad men laughed through clouds of smoke back in 1903 before humor was invented.

Poetry 76

And Bigelow said to Brown, “That’s pure gold. I want sixteen.” And those dogs sold some smokes way back in the day. They don’t sell anything anymore, but they’re still ruining living rooms.

Living Waters Review

Digging Savvy Myles

o you’re looking to become a grave digger. The payment is generally below minimum wage, so keep that in mind if you’re looking for a passion that will pay well. Being a gravedigger doesn’t seem as taxing as it sounds; granted, it is just as morbid as you’d think the profession would be, so a positive outlook on life is key. In the chance of a job opening in your area, it is important to know what the job requires. First of all, and most obviously, the job entails manual labor. And you must be well acquainted with excavation and loading machines. There will be a need to uproot soil and dig up the designated area. Once the space is selected, the dirt will need to be removed far from the cemetery to maintain the illusion of a serene resting place rather than a construction site. A remote location will do. Keep the dirt far away from the stone centerpiece of your cemetery table. It is your job to see that every tombstone, bouquet, and gift is never soiled. How do you dig a grave, exactly? My preference is to dig a grave that is roughly four feet deep, eight feet long, and three feet wide. This is much better than dropping an old wooden box into the world of six feet under. The wellknown six-foot-deep grave is an archaic, unsound approach to burying a body, for once the old coffin collapses underneath the dirt, the body will be nothing more than bones mingled with sod and rotten wood. That is in no way respectful to the dead. Fortunately, we live in an enlightened day and age where coffins are fashioned from more than just flimsy wood. Today, caskets can be built out of strong wood or steel and later placed into a concrete box that seals it shut, preventing any chances of the coffin collapsing and causing a sinkhole in the cemetery—or even worse, grave robbers. If it falls on your shoulders to be on the lookout for the aforementioned villains, you best be ready to defend your jurisdiction until someone’s burying you. But I digress. Digging. It is important that you always keep extra dirt on hand just in case you run out of soil to cover the casket very well. If a wheelbarrow makes this easier for you, then, by all means, keep a wheelbarrow on hand. The ground must

Spring 2016

be completely level when you finish. To accomplish this, I lay down some sheets of plywood on turned soil and drive over it with one of the vehicles on hand—preferably a Caterpillar D8R, your everyday bulldozer, which does a satisfactory job of leveling ground. Usually you’re all set, and subsequently the ground is as smooth as the face of a tombstone. After this process, plant the grass. Tend to it until it looks completely groomed. Now I know what you’re thinking. “Do I need a college degree to be a gravedigger? If so, what would my major be?” Excellent question, my friend. Every college program is different, offering some majors and not others, but for students hearing the cemetery calling their names, majoring in construction (or something like French) would be your safest bet. Take your academics seriously; you will need to tend graves to the best of your ability, and that comes from experience. Yes, some people may be natural-born talents in the art of gravedigging, but don’t let that stop you from achieving your goal. Work hard and you, too, will become a world-class uprooter. I don’t claim to know all the secrets to digging graves, but I am attempting to perfect my craft. It is essential to not compare yourself to other gravediggers; simply learn from them, as everyone can teach us something about the earth. Keep digging, respect whom you bury, and look at the world from the perspective of someone who has one foot in the grave. Life is short; it wouldn’t be life if it weren’t. We gravediggers know this better than anyone—it’s why we spend our days filling holes and making something undying of them. Life is about filling it with the incredible, the unforgettable, the undeniable. At the end of your life, will there be flowers and graces beneath your name? Will people weep over your void like an eclipsed sun? My friend, make your life something worth being etched into the stone that will summarize to strangers who you were and what you did. Make them miss you. Fill the world, whether you choose the life of a gravedigger or not. Fill it.

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Song Of Psalms Jane Humphrey

There is a season for questions that never have answers; questions that drip down deep, slipping inside souls wondering who God really is like toddlers always asking “Why?” Selah We ask for metaphors, then— poetry: for expressions that are absolutely definite in their ambiguity, analogies

Poetry 78

that speak truth when we can’t. Selah When metaphors aren’t enough, then we’ll return to our childish questions, unafraid to inquire what God is really doing up there while the world seems in need of a second flood; even David felt he’d been abandoned but that never stopped him from writing. So after I read his words, I write, too— I write question after question until the words are meaningless, just vague repetitions from years of repressed wondering. But writing them down is brave, I think, because God always seems to do more with the ones constantly wandering in unromantic wildernesses than with the ones who never question the deserts. Selah

Living Waters Review

Memory Rachel Green

Watercolor 79

Spring 2016

The Hurricane Vigil Naomi Wallen

Sitting in the family room, windows boarded with plywood, our family huddles around a Coleman camp lantern. The battery stores are stacked next to the useless electric stove while the blackout lasts to day six. We’ve been eating canned beans cold

Poetry 80

and crackers with peanut butter, escaping outside when the sky is not also black. There are nine of us in the house, spread out on the floor with no bed sheets because the mattress holds heat. It pours for another three days. We start counting the FPL trucks, disappointed for another sticky night. We’re lying on the floor when the ceiling fans start turning. It’s two o’clock in the afternoon when that disregarded whir returns— the steady hum of electric life. My cousin runs around the house and turns on every light switch.

Living Waters Review

The First Church Of Chemo Cameron Schott

She had medicine breath from her Sunday sacrament— the communion she drank for healing— and stained glass hands pale as sugar pills that she used to take off her hair. Even Dad’s hands couldn’t fix it— couldn’t put the pieces back in place or snake out the black or silence the computer choir by her bed. The last time I saw her she was drinking communion through tubes, the walls fallen cold in the sterile white church full of preachers in white coats who never prayed. The choir let out one last long note and then let out their breath.

Spring 2016

Poetry 81

Rainstorm In A Piano Sarah Osterhouse

Silent seconds before fingers stroke ivory, atmosphere leans in to receive the offering. Skin meets cool keys, heart meets strings and soul bursts in deluge,

Poetry 82

whirling notes flung from strings sighing, scattered, shattered, thundering sorrow flashing fear darkness found, then lost in church-bell chiming, reaching hurling notes collide inside the ear, tumbling, drenching the dry heart and drowning desert there.

Living Waters Review

Sign Here Alia Michaud

he September sun fell deep into the swell of clouds that blotted out the dreary light like puddles of ink expelled lazily, and nearly accidentally, upon crisp white parchment. They bloomed across the page until it was entirely consumed, then rained down and splattered their inky dew upon a small diner in the middle of nowhere. Lightning broke across the sky, splintered white strokes of a frayed feather pen. Outside of the diner, a knobby white hand squeezed Adison’s shoulder and then gave the young girl a shove toward the glass door. Adison stumbled beneath the halo of her social worker’s black umbrella while dark stains of rain smeared her gray sweater. Catherine, with a worn manila envelope tucked securely under her arm, wiped the corners of her mouth where any lipstick may have gone astray. “We’re late,” she sighed, and tugged sharply on her suit. “Once again.” Adison couldn’t help but pitch in with forced cheer. “Maybe they left.” Catherine quieted the girl with one frigid glare. She rolled her eyes, rolled her shoulders too, and extracted a handkerchief from the lining of her jacket so as not to make contact with the door when she yanked it open. In an effort to be polite, because nothing was more abhorrent than a lack of manners, she stepped aside and waved Adison in impatiently. The inside of the diner fared no better than the outside, with its silence interrupted only by the muffled clank of dishes in the back, the scratch of metal prongs rolling across ceramic plates, and the crackling of a pitiful jukebox.

Spring 2016

Splotches of dark rain dotted the windows like tittles atop the letter i and neon lights flickered and fell across the linoleum floor in green and pink puddles. A man sat hunched over a steaming cup of watery black coffee, his shoulders pressed up around his ears and his cap pulled low over his brow. The lone waitress in a billowing red skirt lounged on the countertop with her chin on her fist and her fingers dancing through the faint glow of her phone. But none of these patrons held Catherine’s attention for even a second. She narrowed her focus on the couple fidgeting in a booth toward the back of the restaurant, three white mugs with rotating spires of whipped cream pillowed on top and a cut of crisp cherry pie, bright and oozing with sweet juices, settled beside a mound of speckled French vanilla ice cream that had just begun to melt before them. Three silver forks rested upside-down on the rim of the plate. While Adison shook off the chill of the rain and Catherine clutched the envelope, the couple in the booth glanced up. It was, to them, as if time had stopped its spin around the white and black clock. In a minute textured like eternity, the man slid from his seat and stood beside the table, his lips parted and his eyes wide. He gripped his wife’s hand until his knuckles turned white. She, too, had started to scoot out of the booth but made it no further than the edge, one hand poised on the tabletop so she could stand without hesitation. Their eyes were focused on Adison. Catherine shoved the girl forward toward the table and opened the metal clasp on the envelope. “Now, the

Short Story 83

Short Story 84

adoption isn’t legalized just yet,” she announced, producing a thick packet of unsigned papers. “It’s only a matter of filling out a few more forms, and you’ll be on your way.” The man, Adison’s new father, had close-cropped sandy-blonde hair and blue eyes. He broke his gaze from the young girl and reluctantly turned to Catherine. It seemed to take him a moment to register what she had said before he nodded and took the packet. He looked back at Adison and smiled shyly. “Hello.” The other woman, his wife, with dark curly hair and crinkled green eyes, pushed at his side until he moved and stood thoughtfully. Her slender hand reached for Adison’s in warm invitation. She smiled brightly. “It’s so nice to meet you, Adison.” Catherine made an impatient noise in the back of her throat. Adison took the stranger’s hand and wondered at its warmth on such a miserably wet day. The social worker clapped her hands firmly, nodded to each new parent in turn, and then reminded them with barely concealed annoyance, “If you’ll just sign, I’ll be out of your hair and on my way.” “Of course,” the woman—her new mother—chirped and took the packet from her husband’s hands. She slid back into the booth with an innocent flourish of her skirt and flipped quickly and thoughtlessly to the first blank line, which Catherine had efficiently marked with a small yellow tab. The social worker slid her a sleek black pen. Adison’s new father met her eyes and gave a conspiratorial wink. “Ice cream’s melting.” There was nothing else to do but slide into the booth, pick up a fork, and greedily devour a bite of pie soaked in the puddle left behind. Group homes had been full at almost all times with her fellow orphans, and they were a sticky-fingered bunch. It didn’t matter that it was hardly ever the same people, the same numbers in the system all crowded together; greed grew heartily when nothing was ever given. Being on her own would not change Adison’s habits so quickly. While she ate and sipped at her drink with swift determination, she watched the woman uncap the pen and touch it to blank paper. She dragged ink in the open white space with careful, curving lines that didn’t splatter and pool as if spilled from a well but rather swooped and swung along the line of a simple, honest name: Margaret Nolan.

The man followed suit, spinning out purposeful words on official forms with a permanent pen. He signed with a flourish—without much thought—and smiled at her in between. And his smile, she noted, was a bit like a promise with no need for words to be spoken. When it was done, when Adison belonged to them officially and irrevocably, Catherine scooped up the documents and hardly bid them good day before she was out in the storm, swallowed up by the rain and gray clouds, never to be seen again. Adison swallowed her pie. *** They had chattered at her, and she had tried to listen, but by then she still couldn’t believe it, just sat in her silence, begrudgingly shared her pie, and waited for the other proverbial shoe to drop. It wouldn’t be long before she messed up again, said something wrong or did something she should not have. They’d send her back, no postage stamp required. She’d learned that it was rather easy to return a human. It was irrational—they had adopted her—but it was ingrained in her every waking thought. She couldn’t bring herself to stop. Her whole life felt like waiting on the edge of a ravine, her toes hanging over the cusp, until someone came along and gave her the nudge that knocked her down farther into the dark. She’d spent her life tumbling down, catching ledges, only to have her fingers trampled underfoot. She couldn’t imagine this time would be any different. She couldn’t, until she was riding in a cheery yellow Volkswagen with her new dad, David, smiling at her through the rearview mirror and her new mom, Margaret, chattering excitedly about the room awaiting her at home. “Catherine said your favorite color is blue,” Margaret said, and Adison didn’t have the heart to tell her that it wasn’t blue, but a soft and minty green. “We tried not to overdo it, but the walls are blue and your pillows, too. Oh! And your laptop. That’s blue as well.” “You…” Adison started, unable to keep herself quiet, and she slouched further into her seat. “You bought me a laptop?” Margaret glowed with pride, a knowing smile spreading across her mouth, and said matter-of-factly, “Of course. In just a few years, you’ll be in college. You’d need one anyways. No sense in waiting.” And Adison couldn’t fathom it, the not waiting-just-

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in-case. In case they were wrong and didn’t actually want her. In case they were wrong and thought better of wasting those funds on a kid that was only a temporary fit. She was always a temporary fit. It seemed odd that they were doing everything for her, not concerned with the just-in-case. It seemed wrong and naïve and hopeful. They seemed hopeful. When Margaret kept chattering about the suitcase they got her, the one that matched their own set, and David chimed in about plans for a family vacation in the spring, Adison thought that for once it might be allowed. She thought that maybe she had found a place that wouldn’t leave her alone. She thought that maybe, maybe just this once, she could be allowed to hope.

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Spring 2016

Sacred Remembrance Jordyn Marlin

Photography 86

Living Waters Review

Humility Adam Cross

Your bones ache for you to turn the ignition, blood pumps the four-chambered motor of your heart to press the clutch and begin in first gear toward the bridge. And so I saw this man standing in the park, right there on the corner where the ocean meets the barrier where the sidewalk ends and the grass begins, you know what I’m talking about, right in that little park where the sidewalk ends and the grass begins, you know, you’ve seen new mothers taking

Poetry

their new babies there in a stroller to get some fresh air.

And there he was, just standing there, existing with unquestioned authority, while I’m on my drive, on my drive toward the bridge. And he’s just standing there, living and he didn’t see me and I guess that’s the real beauty behind it all, you know, the beauty behind the knowledge that it doesn’t really matter about the morning’s argument or your job promotion, none of that matters when you see that man just standing there; and he doesn’t see you but he keeps on existing anyway. And you keep on driving toward the bridge now with a newfound humility, not like the kind that makes you ashamed or something, just honest humility. The beginning.

Spring 2016

Title Author

Poetry 88

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