The Wasp - Volume III Spring 2017

The American Studies Center Student Journal University of Warsaw Volume III | Spring 2017 ISSN: 2450-5676

Time is a Thing with Feathers

Interstellar Clouds Piece of the Month by

Teresa Bakalarska

wasp /wɒsp/ AmE /wɑsp/ noun [C] 1 a black and yellow flying insect which can sting you: There’s a wasps’ nest in that old tree! 2 when translated into the language of the country where the weather is schizophrenic and where even refugees do not wish to go (see: Poland), it becomes an osa – a place where all meanings collapse: Yesterday, I spent an amazing day at OSA! (here: an abbreviation for Ośrodek Studiów Amerykańskich, English: American Studies Center)

LILLA ORLY Editor-in-chief ALEKSANDRA BARCISZEWSKA NATALIA OGÓREK ALEKSANDRA GRABOWSKA Associate editors KAMILA MARIA WYSZYŃSKA PAWEŁ PAŃCZYK DTP TERESA BAKALARSKA Illustrations: pages 8, 20, 27, 32 PAULINA FRELEK Illustration: pages 7, 15, 18, 33, 34, 36 MAGDALENA KRZEMIŃSKA Front and back cover MARTA RAPACKA Caricatures: pages 38-39 NADIA BŁASZCZYK PR

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Bird of Prey, Bird of Decay Lilla Orly 4 ARTICLES Music is My Time Machine Jakub Zieliński 6 In Search of Lost Life POETRY Aleksandra Grabowska 8 Interstellar Clouds Teresa Bakalarska FICTION 32 Hard to Swallow For a Place Where Seasons Don’t Come Aleksandra Barciszewska Teresa Baklarska 12 33 All My Kitchen Tables The Memories Scare Him Marta Anchim Dominika Kowalska 16 34 Waves Raven in Reverse Dominika Nadolna Lilla Orly 20 35 Taken Flight Lilla Orly 23 An Early Bird Paulina Frelek 28

The next issue’s theme: Amalgamation, Imponderabilia, and Other Difficult Words We’re still recruiting!

If you’re interested in writing for The Wasp, please contact us: thewaspjournal@gmail.com Facebook: facebook.com/thewaspjournal American Studies Center: asc.uw.edu.pl

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Bird of Prey, Bird of Decay Time is the wicked creature that always appears to be escaping us. Whether it be the ten minutes that disperse in seconds between our slapping the snooze button, or the more frightening way years seem to funnel away and trickle into forgottenness. Other instances prove time halts mockingly when we only wish for it to move at the pace of our racing hearts. There's a reason that clocks have two hands whose spiraling existence confounds all that face their obscene gestures. When these wings are positioned one between the numbers 7–10 and the other, simultaneously, mirrored somewhere in the middle of 2–5, the limbs appear to be flapping. Thus, the expression “time flies” is a painfully true one, with its physical evidence repeated daily in the old, grinding gears of an analog instrument.

For a phenomenon that's been claimed as non-existent by countless teen-philosophers and victims of sleepless midnight epiphanies, time is still our greatest ruling deity.

[We recommend the remainder of this editorial be read to the soundtrack of “Time After Time” by the 80s’ girl-power queen, Cyndi Lauper]. It haunts us in the ghostly forms of past, present, and future; it is the inevitable harbinger of bodily deterioration; it moves forward blindly and unforgivably. Yet, still, us mere mortals wish to ensnare time in our twine cages of permanence. Many a professional thinker, namely Proust, has bled out the words of an existential crisis. Musicians have colored and fossilized time with their melodic and percussive time machines. Memories themselves are the elusive pieces of plumage left carelessly behind by this being in flight—we hold them as symbols representing moments, meanings, and meals shared.

“Interstellar Clouds,” this issue's piece of the month by Teresa Bakalarska, tells the story of a man who tried to fool time but was still taken away in its talons. It supposes that our lifelines are predestined in the sprawling plains of the universe. Maybe we can map the emptiness between the stars and draw a cryptic connect-the-dots of our destiny.

But, just as a bird cannot fly without both of its wings, we cannot live without the progression of time. And so, we are, eternally, standing below the circling vulture with jagged stones in hand, aiming, but never releasing our ammunition for fear of maiming, or worse, killing the sole bird. Though the burning ball of gas in the sky and its cratered companion will rise and fall above our horizons, time is our own invention. This issue of The Wasp comes with a time-freeze guarantee.

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Lilla Orly Newly-minted editor-in-chief. BA student at the ASC who finds catharsis in drumming. Dabbles in miscellaneous pastimes when not scribbling nonsense furiously into notebooks, on pavement or walls… any surface where writing is possible.

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ARTICLES

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Music Is My Time Machine Music and human beings are inseparable. Music brings back memories, causes different kinds of feelings, and, most importantly, it keeps us company for our lifetimes.

We know that time flies and we are not able to do anything about it, however, that’s not the case when it comes to music recordings. There is no time limitation for music—which will always stay the same—as it once and for all sticks in our minds. A time machine is an imaginary device, which is desired by, perhaps, every single person in the world. Surprisingly, it is right there at everyone’s fingertips. We just need to press ‘play.’

There are different ways to use music as a time machine. One of them is reserved only for musicians. The rapper, Eminem, once said that his albums are like the time capsules of his life. There is no doubt that the process of recording music including writing lyrics, spending long hours in the studio, and many more activities related to this long journey, can stay in an artist’s mind forever. However, it has an even more powerful impact when considering rap music. It is not a genre of music that is only pleasant to listen to; it is the act of storytelling which in most cases reflects the personal experiences of an artist. Eminem’s life had a lot of ups and downs. He was poor and never finished school, then he succeeded as a rapper, but it was not the end of a turbulent life as he ended up in drug addiction. Although he managed to put things back on an even keel and to come back stronger with some brand new music, he never forgot what he had gone through. Eminem keeps rapping about how his old albums remind him of where he was back then and how he succeeded in changing his life.

Another way of flying back in time by means of music recordings is to bring back memories of places we have been to when we listened to given songs. It can be the first song that made you love music, the song that was played at each of your primary school dance parties, the song that you listened to in order to avoid studying or, most probably, the songs that you associate with each of your summer holidays. There is always that No 1. summertime record that is an inseparable feature of every year’s holidays. We hear it while driving a car, sitting in restaurants, and spending time by the water. In most cases, we will have had enough of it by the end of summer. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to feel nostalgic when you somehow hear those songs on a cold, snowy evening in the middle of winter. Now, we would do anything to hear them once again on a hot and sunny day in the summer.

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Music causes different feelings whether we like it or not. It can be either sad or happy, uplifting or depressing, moving or heartbreaking. In all those cases, it has the power to change our mood. There are records that remind us of our first car drive, the moment when you passed an important exam, or a perfectly spent moment with friends or family. Music makes us feel happy, and it is always pleasant to bring those beautiful memories alive for those several minutes of a song’s duration. On the other hand, there are those depressing songs that you would not like to remember but that keep coming back to you at different points of your life. Music has the ability of making us feel sad but, what is most surprising, we have a tendency to help it with that. Whether we failed in school, sports, or affairs of the heart, we keep listening to the same old songs that make us depressed. What is more, the uplifting songs are also worth being mentioned. They are the only hope for putting ourselves back together.

When it is difficult to think about the future, they remind us of the previous time when we managed to overcome difficulties. By doing this, music doesn’t limit itself to just taking us back in the past, but also to motivate ourselves in dark times.

Music has the power that everyone dreams about; it is able to travel back in time, and it wants us to make that journey together. There are different ways of outliving the past, and each one is unique in its own way. Music can remind us about what we have gone through in our lives up to the present. It can also bring back memories of the places we have been to, and enable us to experience it once again. Moreover, music recordings cause different emotions that we felt in the past. Whether they are positive or not, they have the ability to change our moods. Music is a true and, perhaps, the only available time machine.

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Jakub Zieliński 1st year student of ASC with a deep passion for music. He has never learned to play any instrument, but strongly hopes to change it in the future. Apart from his love to sounds, he’s pretty much into movies, TV series, and English football.

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In Search of Lost Life “God help us—for art is long, and life so short.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: First Part “Art is long,” perfectly illustrates the life-work of Marcel Proust. À la recherche du temps perdu with its 1,267,069 words/3,031 pages/9,609,000 characters is one of the longest novels ever written. Published between 1913 and 1927, the book had a great influence on many works of modern literature. Who hasn’t heard of the smell of a madeleine cake? Yum. Once, I heard in a literature class: “People may be divided into two groups: those who love Mann and hate Proust, and vice versa. Among book-lovers, there is no in-between.” While reading their prose for the first time one may feel like Joachim Ziemssen just getting to Davos—peculiar words, phrases, and ideas like heavy mountain air penetrating the nostrils. No surprise that one can feel dizzy when uncanny sentences are snatching the bed; a fever occurs; vague and unrecognizable shapes began to appear; time is put on hold. When those doors are not closed shut, the whole cosmos opens up. In the midst of darkness, ghouls play. When you survive the crazy voyage through seven books, according to Alain de Botton, you feel honored; you have just found the answers to all the questions. Just be cautious. There is a thin line between ending like Paulo Coelho and Adrian Leverkühn.

Proust’s Way Knowing what type of life Proust led, it would be crazy—to say the least—to try to imitate him. As a victim of an enigmatic illness, Proust decided to live alone. There was a sense of allegiance about that choice. A certain submission and acceptance of the outcast’s fate, as well.

Broken after his mother’s death and excluded from social life and the war (due to his physical disability), Proust hid himself in the apartment at 102 Boulevard Haussmann in Paris and worked, worked, worked.

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The Fugitive Undoubtedly, there is something romantic about a disease. A lack of love and excess passion that could not be expressed. The dysfunction or disturbance of one's psyche emerges causing illness. Mann in The Magic Mountain concludes: “There had always been people who had willingly entered into illness and madness in order to win knowledge for mankind.” And here we have Proust: willing or not, he is perfectly fulfilling the trope of a genius with a capital punishment swinging over his head—just like the joyfully dancing shadows swinging from a carousel in Swann’s Way. Sleepless nights were shaping Proust’s senses. His prose is full of the detection of all that is negligible, intangible, and—at first glance—unnoticeable.

The Handbook Way Can Proust actually provide us with a handbook and answers to the question of how to live the best life possible? Alain de Botton thinks so. In the late 1990s, he published a book titled How Proust Can Change Your Life, and tried to convince his readers that the best lesson we can get from all seven parts of À la recherche du temps perdu is that the essence and value of life is the sum of its everyday parts. What a striking thought! The atmosphere of the foundations of The Alchemist can be felt.

Anyway, enough with all that sarcasm. Proust was rather serious about his prose, and it is crucial to understand his attitude towards the process of reading to get what he meant. We, as readers, should find ourselves in what we read. That is the true value of novels written years or centuries ago: their timeless ability to work as a reflection of those who read them.

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The Prisoner Dr. Philip Zimbardo, a psychology professor from Stanford University, created the idea of ‘time perspective.’ After over ten years of research, he concluded that people’s attitude toward time is just as vital as definitive personality features like optimism or sociability. He believes that time perspective has a great influence on what life choices we make, what actions we take and what we believe in. What is time perspective? It is how we tend to get stuck in the past, live the moment, or plan the future.

According to Zimbardo, based only on the answer to that question can we predict someone’s education, success, and happiness.

In the Shadow of Young Writers in Bloom À la recherche du temps perdu is almost a maze-like novel. In Le Côté de Guermantes one sentence is so long that it would take up the space of five meters if typed out in a standard-size book. Proust’s style was (and still remains) legendary, but, due to the characteristics of this particular style, a reader is pressured to focus on the here and now. There is some kind of a magic trick in those novels when time seems to be elongated and put on hold at the same moment; readers become Proust while reading.

He was tremendously conscious of time—the might of a moment, but also of evanescence and the inevitability of time. Phantom-like, Proust would appear sometimes on the streets of Paris: unshaven, trembling, covered in furs even during summer days. The disease was chasing him and the race was on: he must finish his life-work before Death finds him. Entangled with time, running out of time, and running away from time; obsessed with the thought that all he had written was not good enough. I bet he would agree with Cher about the possible ability to turn back time.

Sodom and Gomorrah As Proust himself might agree, only in suffering do people learn to appreciate what is around and begin to understand the world. Alain de Botton repeats: “Suffering, in fact, leads to knowledge. We should live in the moment and carefully observe our surroundings. The ordinary can be extraordinary and beautiful if we are able to view our world with fresh eyes.” The point is that to suffer means to be fully present, to feel the here and now in an intensified way. It does not matter if we understand an illness as a blessing, a punishment, or just a symptom of hidden passions. Susan Sontag’s thoughts on what is crucial in Proust should be repeated: “Nothing is more punitive than to give a disease a meaning.” He did not give suffering meaning, he just used it as a tool.

Finding Time Again Does a remedy for time exist? Does the awareness of death constitute an authentic existence or, on the contrary, should people live like there’s no tomorrow? It is not a big surprise that the answer probably does not exist and, even if overwhelmingly tempting theories like Zimbardo’s appear, one cannot treat them as a denouement.

Mann once said: “Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.” Time is relevant, art remains, and all the rest is just a thing with feathers. So, grab a book and ask yourself: Have I, for a long time, gone to bed early?1 1 “For a long time I used to go to bed early”—with those words Proust begins À la recherche du temps perdu.

Aleksandra Grabowska If she was not an ASC student, she would be in a morgue. As a child she wanted to be a pathologist and a writer. She loves glitter, Clark Gable, and Virginia Wool’s novels. In life she follows Oscar Wild’s advice: “you can never be overdressed or overeducated.”

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FICTION

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Hard to Swallow When she was in-between being 10 and 10 and a half—just in-between her favorite and her least favorite part of her daily scavenger hunt that she would play by herself—Emily found a wounded swallow in the playground. Not minding the immaculate whiteness of a T-shirt she was wearing that day, she wrapped the bird in its hem and hurried home to hand it to her mom, who was a veterinarian. After several days of an ICU established at her house—followed by intense ‘i-see-you’ visits at its cage twenty seven times a day—the bird was able to move around; after one week it relearned to flap and re-flap its tiny wings; and after four or so weeks—after being let loose for the first time to spread its wings—the wings incited the bird to fly its way out of Emily’s life for good.

Emily mourned for months; she couldn’t comprehend what had happened and why it had happened. Abandonment wasn’t something her parents prepared her for, nor was it something one could naturally accept and move on with their life. She told her mother that it must have happened because she hadn’t fed it enough; that the very last night before the infamous vol-de-cage, she hadn’t sung that particular lullaby the swallow fancied so much. That during its short stay she didn’t tell it how much she grew to love it.

“Sweetie,” her mom would then say, “you saved its life so that it could fly again, remember?”

“Yeah, but…”

“Birds do not like to be encaged. Would you prefer to fly along with your friends or be stuck in a metal prison where you cannot properly spread your wings?”

“But I would let it fly any time it would want! If she had loved me enough, Ezra would have stayed.

I would never leave someone that I love.”

“She will always remember you and how you were the one who saved her.”

“Bullshit.”

Emily was young, but she already knew back then that birds don’t have memories. Lucky bastards—later in her life, she was to discover that memories get stuck longer and more persistently on the fabric of the human mind than the blood that, for the love of God, couldn’t get washed out of her beloved white T-shirt.

The pre-swallow life of Emily was indeed the most basic and predictable life a child could have.

The post-bird one, however, could fill dozens of other lives with plenty of grief and sorrow that this teenager, later an adult, built her fragile self upon. Yet the gentle turmoil was buried deep in the subconscious and never appeared to have had a desire to resurface. Expelled to the farthest margins of the abandoned self, Emily lived her numbness and predestined emotional scarification like only a real woman could.

“Why do you have so many feathers hanging in your room?” friends visiting her dorm room would often ask.

“Because human guts are more difficult to get, and this is my second favorite item,” was Emily’s response often uttered to herself, sometimes out loud to reap uncomfortable laughs.

In the summer of ‘85, Emily met a man that won her over by wearing her down with his constant compliments, persistent presence, laughable love, and sickening salvation he was willing to offer.

Homer was seen by others as a distant, charismatic newcomer that decided to settle down in their beloved town. His voice was hoarse but pleasant to inhale once his hypnotizing aura emerged from within the syllables. Petite grunts that terrified children and more skittish animals were the awaited opening to each day he and Emily welcomed together in each other’s arms. The coarseness that radiated from his body was a heartfelt invitation for Emily—it was an everyday miracle bestowed upon her. The unfinishedness of his personality mixed with the strength that intimidated her made Emily feel alive and safe for the first time in her life. Cherishing each fiber of each moment between each fiber of each other, she failed to notice the weakness of the aforementioned fibers. One day, out of the bluest blue, Homer declared that he no longer had any romantic feelings towards Emily.

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“Mommy?”

“Yes?” “Where do birds die?”

“What?”

“Where do birds die.”

“Oh. Em, what do you mean? They just die.”

“But where? You don’t see their carcasses all over streets. You don’t stumble upon feathers, skeletons, beaks. Where do they die?”

“I don’t know, ask your father.”

“He already told me he didn’t know.”

“I don’t know either. I’m sorry, hon.”

“Do they die at all? Maybe they just never get old and die. Maybe the bird your great-great-greatgrandfather saw in a park years ago is the same bird that I saw yesterday.”

“I don’t think so.”

“How can you be sure? Maybe, you know, all these scientists that study birds, they bring death upon them. Without interactions with people they would live forever?”

“Maybe.”

“Mom?” “Yes, honey?”

“Is that why Ezra left? Because she would have died if I had loved her too much?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Just say it,” Emily was on the verge of bursting into tears, which she’d been awaiting since the look on Homer’s face had expressed that she was about to lose him for good.

“It’s just getting too difficult. I’ve tried to make it work, but I’m just tired, Emily. I thought this is what I wanted, what I needed, but I’m just not happy with you. There, I said it.”

“But everything was perfect, everything was good…I just, don’t know why—I don’t understand…I can’t,” she mumbled to herself.

“Look, it’s been fun, I admit it. You’re an amazing person that I will never forget, and I don’t regret any second spent with you. But I need something more, something else,” Homer was trying to be as cryptic and as humane as possible, but the truth was—the truth he just couldn’t tell Emily—that he’s been seeing a colleague from work. A colleague that happened to be of the same sex as Homer and, thus, his relationship with Emily lacked a certain je-definitely-sais-quoi.

Scattered all over the apartment, his belongings were hard to locate and pack. For the past two hours he’d been trying to gather all his lost breaths, dripped beads of sweat, secretly wept teardrops, overtly abandoned dirty socks, and mercilessly relinquished books he started but never finished.

Two hours later, sitting in the kitchen, Emily was trying to analyze the situation. The situation that caught her off guard. The situation that made her mindlessly stare at her own reflection in the slicer knife that she used only an hour and a half before to pierce into Homer’s body, one time after another till the last grunt left this now corpse. Crowded in-between the glimpses of her sweaty face, she was trying to localize herself—nothing reminded her of anything familiar. The person locked inside the metal gizmo was a non-object that made her feel surprisingly calm—the presence of nothing gives out a strange kind of pleasure that one is prone to lose oneself within. Only by peeking into a void can you realize how big of an illusion reality is. Oh boy—how profoundly Homer’s empty eyes consoled her and soothed the demons competing in their private Olympics to drive Emily back insane, where she always belonged. Oh Homer—what an inspiring journey we’re about to embark upon.

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low; a map of sequences of moves to adopt, inscribed in the fingers of the benevolent captain that Emily had become with only a few slicer’s tender caresses.

Gently, she first removed all of his clothes, mindfully recalling every ounce of pleasure that each inch of this body had grunted her. Folding them cautiously so they wouldn’t wrinkle—as if they were to be worn ever again—she placed his sweat-impregnated, blood-laminated clothes upon the end table that was about to witness a truly glamorous beginning. Sliding her fingers through the ridges and valleys of Homer’s body, she shed a tear or two over all the love with which she filled each valley, over all the cherry-like kisses on top of most ridges. The trace of her lipstick with which her lips painted his skin crimson was still present, even if only her memories could see it.

A lifetime companion of her mother’s, a shiny scalpel—which had served her in the local clinic years ago till it magically got lost during the first fire that the family ignited—found its way to the hands of a 13-year-old who welcomed it without knowing it would ever serve its purpose. Up till that moment, it was simply a trophy of the past. Now, it was to finally live up to its potential.

Her palms knew exactly where the scalpel was hidden—even if, for the peace of her still quite sane mind, she pretended to be searching for it for quite some time. She dismembered all the feather installations that were a mournful and nauseating decoration of her bedroom, and proceeded to her bed. She wanted to be well-rested before going on with the plan. And so, Emily meticulously prepared her apparatus, and fell asleep the second she got to bed.

“You didn’t leave me, after all. I knew you wouldn’t be able to leave everything behind, my love,” she whispered to the corpse when the glee of discovery that he remained in the very same position as she had left him swamped her body the next morning. She remembered well what was about to take place, but first, she needed some coffee in her system, so she made a whole pot of it and went to the living room to watch The Bachelor—her favorite show she would watch each morning, desperately yearning for the rose along with the contestants. The rose she never got, from anyone, ever.

When the show was over, she dried all the tears that streamed densely down her cheeks, and headed back to the bedroom. Next to the bed she slept on that night was Homer. Emily wanted him in the place where he gave her all the love she was about to reciprocate, so she moved his cold, heavy body onto the bed. Having knelt right next to him, Emily started with his arms—arms that were a welcomed prison during the nights of uncertainty and agitated mind she sometimes suffered from.

The blood had coagulated already, thus the half-inch incisions she made remained juicelessly open for her to fill.

She grabbed the feathers she had gathered throughout the years—feathers of all the birds she encountered on her path. Her collection was a kaleidoscopic fan of feathers of peacocks, ravens, swallows, mallards, owls, geese, woodpeckers, quails, turkeys, falcons, and jays—each feather was remembered and cherished. Now, she gracefully placed each feather in each cut she made on Homer’s piel—1 Slowly, she thrust the first feather’s calamus deep inside the bloodless wound she made, having the afterfeather proudly present itself on the canvas surface. It felt so right; she spiked his body with love and devotion, experiencing enormous fulfillment when she cut the skin and further furnished it with avian objets d’art. She grouped and saved the darker and longer plumage for Homer’s arms, brighter for his chest and legs, and the shortest ones for his face. She painted his forearms raven, tinted his arms falcon. The chest radiated goose, owl, and peacock. Focused as she was, she waxed the feathers with her own tears and sweat, mixed with blood coming from accidentally administered incisions on her own skin. At some point, she thought of and understood their two bodies as one and it took her extra time to distinguish over which fabric she should compose. Twelve hours had passed till his skin was entirely dressed with the suit of plumes.

When the metamorphosis was complete, Emily got up and put on her wedding gown—a gown 1 —piel tan delicada que Emily tenía miedo tan grande de que pensaba que no iba a continuar el procedimiento pero la promesa de un mejor futuro, un futuro lleno de amor, le dio a Emily bastante fuerza para proseguir.

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she had bought some weeks before, back when she was so in love she thought it would last forever and Homer would soon ask her to marry him. In a way, she herself—not anyone else—brought the realization of her fantasies upon herself; she finally bought herself that fucking rose. And, forever now, Homer was to share his life with her.

Quietly and softly, in order not to wake the groom up, she slid into the bed right next to her creation. Creation of all the affection and loyalty Emily poured into her artwork. She wrapped his raven and falcon arms around her, inhaled the smell of home and felt safe—for the very last time.

“At last, Ezra.”

Aleksandra Barciszewska Former editor–in–chief. ASC–survivor. Vampiric psychoanalyst by nature. Extracting the sexual from the mundane, rejecting reality for the sake of the very–tale of momentary satiation of the urges for creation.

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All My Kitchen Tables Lately a strange memory was recalled by my brain upon falling asleep. A memory of my primary school friend’s kitchen; not as much how it looked, but how it made me feel. I began to wander around the memories of homes that I have been to throughout my life, especially to their hearts which were always to be found in the kitchen. One might find my story rather dull; the exciting journeys tend to take place in exotic islands, capital cities of Europe, deserts in Africa, or long routes in America. I have been to many such places and I have made enough memories to fill a bible, but this is a story about all my kitchen tables.

The memory keeping me awake that one night was about the kitchen of my primary school friend Camilla. Strangely—despite her rather pitiful family situation—it is the recollection of me being in her kitchen that evokes the warmest feelings. I can’t even honestly say that we were best friends or anything of the sort, I just used to hang out at her house every once in a while, whether accompanied by other kids from school or not. I remember the interior of her house: tastefully, and probably quite expensively, furnished with trinkets from the best home décor shops. The ground floor was open-space with window-walls displaying the garden. On the right side of the entrance, there was an open kitchen with ample space on the kitchen island situated right in the middle of the room. The furnishings were all in a bright, white color, but the floor tiles were made of a dark stone material. Everything was very modern, chic, and expensive, including the kitchen equipment.

Even though such a description usually doesn’t have a lot to do with a warm, homey feeling, this kitchen was the one to come to mind when thinking about comfy, warm-welcome places that I have visited. The way I recall it now, that room had to be enchanted in some good-fairy magic. It seemed ironic how much love was held between this family within that kitchen and, sadly, only there. The younger siblings of Camilla, two twins, were usually fighting all day long about the silliest of things. The mother was always busy running between lunches with friends, manicures, and Zumba classes, and the father was never there—and I mean never; during the three years I visited, I only met him once when the marriage was hanging by a thread. The person taking care of the house and kids was the grandmother, but I must sincerely admit that even she, outside of the kitchen, was not a warm and lovely old lady. With time, I learned that what was a spacious, modern mansion— furnished almost as if the house was the exposition of an exclusive home décor shop—tended to be rather a façade for covering a mournful familial disturbance.

Nevertheless, as surprising as it may sound, I felt as if the process of preparing, eating, and talking about food was their own enchanting ritual—almost to a degree of spiritual purification. Knowing the family, one could hardly believe the perfect harmony and cheerful ambience flooding the room when collective cooking was about to take place.

Throughout my friendship with Camilla, I had eaten quite a lot of delicious dishes at her house, both traditional and modern, prepared by various members of the family. Yet, there was one story which made me realize how much attention they paid to food. Once, during a school week, I spent the night at Camilla’s house. We were supposed to go to school together in the morning, sometime around 7:30 am, so the grandmother instructed we go to bed around 10:00 pm. Being absent the whole evening, Camilla’s mother came home quite late. It was around 9:30 pm, and she arrived with groceries, which included fresh mussels—something she was proud of as she had gotten them for half-price. She didn’t know what to do with the mussels, as they wouldn’t be so fresh in the morning, but since everybody had already eaten dinner she just put them in the fridge. Not long afterwards, we all went to bed.

Later, hearing some murmur in the kitchen, I woke up. A few minutes later, Camilla’s mother came into the room and a delicate aroma of the sea whirled in. She touched our arms gently and

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invited us to eat the mussels with spaghetti she had just made. I thought it was a dream since she didn’t turn the light on, but it turned out that the only dream that night was sitting in a large, steaming pot of hot frutti di mare pasta. I will never forget how the whole family, dressed in comfy, colorful pajamas and fluffy socks with bears, sat together in the middle of the night, laughing and gasping over how delicious the dish was. The grandmother didn’t say anything about waking up early for school, the siblings didn’t fight, and the mother was gleaming with a kind of small-thing enjoyment. This experience made me realize that appreciating little moments is often the missing piece to the jigsaw of happiness, and, since then, I have been sincerely grateful for that lesson.

Another one of my primary school experiences with homey ambience came from a visit to my classmate Claudia’s 92-year-old great-grandmother who, as I specifically remember, had more energy and vivacity in her than I could ever express, nowadays. Not very far from our school was another district, one that could be called a neighborhood for the ‘less affluent,’ although I mean no negativity through such description. It was simply a neighborhood of homes built along one main road, constructed mainly in the late 80s or 90s, where two or three generations were supposed to live under one roof. This was precisely the case of Claudia’s family. Along with her nuclear family, she inhabited the first floor of the building, while her great-grandmother occupied the second floor. The house differed substantially from Camilla’s modern house, as did their familial relations.

Here you could feel the atmosphere of tradition beaming from the creaking mahogany staircase, wooden paneling, and flowery wallpaper. Commonly for similarly dated architecture, the space was quite cramped and dark, but the kitchen, which was located in a separate, small room, was lined with shiny white tiles and had a large window inviting beaming sun rays.

It was early summer when we went there right after school, around 4 or 5 pm when the day was heavy and sleepy. I took my shoes off in a tiny corridor and we entered the kitchen to greet the great-grandmother—a humble lady with literally thousands of wrinkles and just a few gray hairs, but with a smile so gentle and inviting that it emanated love. We talked a little; she asked us how school was, and Claudia told her she had gotten a B on some test. At this point let’s just say that Claudia wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, and this the great-grandma knew. But trust me, I saw pure joy and pride in the eyes of the lady. My parents would have asked me how many children got an A if I had only gotten a B, and I remember being a tiny bit jealous of Claudia’s familial acceptance.

Later, the lady served a traditional cabbage soup—a very grandma-like soup in my eyes—which was absolutely delicious. I said how much I appreciated the dish and for the next hour we eagerly talked about food. Even at that time I was interested in cooking, and so she gave me culinary tips and I went on about how amazing my own grandma was, especially at cottage cheese buns, which still are emblematic to my childhood. Ever since, the lady that I met that day was my only hope for aging with class. She might have been living the traditional life, house-, clothes-, and kitchen-wise, but her energy was so vigorously modern that I decided I want to keep it going in my nineties, just like she did.

The third table was a heavy mahogany piece of wood placed between the kitchen and the living room in the apartment of my high-school best-friend, Sophie and her family. I loved Sophie and her family to bits, they were people of the highest genuineness and fondness, but also of craziness, and a kind of ‘catch the moment’ attitude. I have a theory that their apartment was a perfect reflection of such a lifestyle because it was definitely never about order. I sincerely could never understand what their notion of cleanliness was, as I have never experienced it in their house. Knowing a lot about them even before I first visited, I could link the omnipresent, perpetual mess to a constant lack of time, but also a tiny bit of laziness on the part of the inhabitants. I was aware that her parents

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didn’t work 9 to 5, and that their lives were more adventurous than those of corporate employees.

In the apartment, other than the impossible amounts of useless junk on every piece of furniture, or the dust and pet hair in every corner, there was always—and I mean always—a pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Overall, the style of the house was decent, although there was a melting of a hundred different styles. African souvenirs were placed to the right of a cheap vase with artificial flower standing upon a dark table from IKEA. Even though the space was open, there was diverse flooring in every part of the ground floor. The heavy, wooden frame of a mirror was walnut while the staircase seemed more pinewood. A whole range of colors, shapes, and textures filled the apartment and this, in my opinion, reflected the vivacity and craziness of this family perfectly.

There is an assumption that mothers, if not considered the best cooks in the world by their children, are at least fairly capable of preparing tasty, nutritious meals for the family. Sophie’s mother, however, proves such an assumption wrong. Her culinary experiences—or even mere attempts—at cooking usually end in a total disaster, later miraculously saved by ordering pizza or Chinese takeout. With both Sophie and her sister being no more skilled, their father is literally the only person who feeds the family. Still, it happened once that I came to their apartment to study for a math test with Sophie, and, upon entering, we found her mother in her least natural habitat—the kitchen. At this point, all attempts to cordially refuse the invitation for dinner would have proven vain, and so, an hour later, I found myself by the table with Sophie, her mother, and a mysterious bowl of dark green and red mash. I knew it wasn’t going to be a Michelin-star dish from the start just by the looks of it. As I later found out, the dish was pasta with spinach and sun-dried tomato sauce with green olives. Sophie took the first bite as I nervously awaited her reaction. Her mother was closely observing and asked if it was good. Sophie then swallowed the bite, nodded her head, and immediately started chuckling. Her mother understood right away and let out a loud, “Fuck!” making me and Sophie burst into laughing. After a few failed attempts at consolidation, we agreed to order a pizza and, trust me, it was one of the best pizzas I have ever had. Seeing Sophie’s reaction taught me that a lack of cooking skills was in no way any flaw of her mother’s; she still saw her every day in the same light of a successful, loving person, and I was amazed by their connection. Being neat, skilled, or organized was just not a trait Sophie’s mom possessed, but it was precisely a reason to be loved. Those two women made me see that focusing on bad things will lead you nowhere and that positivity makes both you and your life beautiful.

Throughout my life, I have had hundreds of meals at dozens of tables. Yet, by meal I also mean the company and the ambience that was provided along with the food. Maybe it was a number of those really special ones that made me fall completely in love with cooking. Maybe it was something else. What I do know is that at all those kitchen tables, I did not only learn how to cook and how to appreciate eating, but I also learned much more about life and how I want to live it. Thanks to them, I already hold an idea of my future kitchen table at which I want to serve love and wisdom to all those who are willing to take it.

Marta Anchim Completely mental about cooking, but if she ever leaves the kitchen, she spends time watching movies, reading Agatha Christie novels, and complaining about life. Works in fashion industry and tries not to feel guilty about eating pizza so often.

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Waves

Being with him taught me something about love. Those good moments, those sweet moments, the happily-ever-after we think will wait for us at the end? I knew it comes and goes in waves; that it isn’t always pretty; that there are storms and thunders. But I never imagined that the feeling I thought was set in stone might slip through my fingers. And no matter how hard you try, how many battles you fight, it may never get back.

The first time I saw him was at the wedding. He was wearing a navy blue suit—I remember because it complemented the blueness of his eyes so perfectly. But it wasn’t his eyes sparkling with pride and love while looking at the newlyweds. It wasn’t the fact that he was handsome or that I had a thing for men in suits. It was his smile that won my heart. I was the maid of honor and he was the best man, but as I was always on the move—in a different place with every change of heart, trying to find my place on Earth—we didn’t actually have a chance to meet. And when we finally did, time slowed down. He saved me from falling miserably on the ground when I stepped on my dress. In his steady arms I felt safe for the first time in my life. Seeing concern in his gorgeous eyes, the shadows of sadness and pain, usually hidden deep down, creeping into the surface, and then his smile after I introduced myself. I swear, in that moment, I fell head over heels in love with this beautiful man. I could hold you for a million years to make you feel my love.

We became friends. Not friends with benefits. Just friends. And I was fooling myself that this is what I wanted. That I couldn’t engage in a relationship, not when I’m so desperately trying to find my place, find myself. I guess I learned to put myself first so I wouldn’t get hurt again. There were days I wanted to tell him everything. How I felt about him, about us, that I wanted to give it a chance. I never did. In all my boldness I was still such a coward sometimes. But everything changed one night. I didn’t see it coming. Too busy with the mess in my head, I wasn’t paying attention. Otherwise, I would’ve noticed some signals, a slight difference in his behavior when we were together. The way he was looking at me like I was the love of his life. He kissed me and, when actions spoke louder than words, there was no coming back. Kiss me like you wanna be loved. This feels like falling in love.

It’s a cliché, but he turned my world upside down. I settled down in one place and stopped moving from one city to another. I wasn’t used to that kind of stability. I guess I was too caught up

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wondering where to go next to actually consider settling down. Now, I know I was running away from all those expectations, from responsibilities, and from myself. Was it worth it? Giving up some kind of freedom, not being tied up in one place, not having to adjust my plans to somebody else? You have no idea. It was amazing most of the time. Yet, sometimes, I just felt so alone it made me sick. Don’t get me wrong. I was a strong and independent woman and I didn’t need a man; I was completely fine being single. But there were days I needed that special someone. To hold me, to kiss me, to tell me everything will be alright. And with him by my side, the city that never sleeps started to feel like home and I wasn’t lonely anymore. I go searching for you, wandering through our city to find some solace at your door.

I loved waking up next to him. Every once in a while, when I woke up first, I would tiptoe quietly to the kitchen to make us coffee and then carefully climb up back to bed and kiss him softly, knowing he’s already half-awake. It was one of my favorite hellos. Even with my bare face, messy hair, and his too-big T-shirt, he still looked at me like I was the most beautiful girl in the world.

I remember this one date. He took me to that old-fashioned drive-in cinema. It was late in the evening and the sun had already set. We were outside the city lights, so you could actually see the stars shining. They were playing Breakfast at Tiffany’s and no matter how many times I’d seen it, I still loved it. He prepared a little picnic for us, some snacks and drinks. There wasn’t enough space in his car to cuddle, so I held his hand. I was focused on the movie, but I caught him staring at me a couple of times. He was looking at me like he couldn’t see the world beyond me—the way no one ever did. It was one of those moments where I felt incredibly lucky that I’d found him. How would you feel if I told you I loved you? It's just something that I want to do. I'll be taking my time spending my life falling deeper in love with you. So tell me that you love me too.

Our relationship was far from perfect. I didn’t expect it to be. We had minor fights over stupid things. We had big fights over more important issues. That’s just how it is, isn’t it? But at some point, I began to realize that something changed—something was gone. I knew it hadn’t always been this way and I just ignored it. On the surface, nothing was different. We were talking, laughing, making love, going on dates… On the inside, it felt as if he had put distance between us and I had to figure out how to fix that. You're pulling our connections, expecting me to let you go. But I won't.

I knew he’d been hurt before. I saw the lingering shadows in his eyes when we first met. He told me his story. How he met this perfect girl. How happy they were. They got engaged and everything was going well. But one night they had a terrible fight over her cheating on him. She was driving a car when she had an accident. She died at the scene. He didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. After all, she was a woman he loved, even if she hurt him. Two years has passed and he had moved on, but he still blamed himself for her death. He started having nightmares a few weeks prior to the distancing. One night, he pulled me into a tight embrace to make sure I was okay. He held onto me like I was the only thing that kept him from falling apart. To hold your heart, to hold your hand would be to me, the bravest thing.

I guess he was just like me; he didn’t want to develop feelings so he wouldn’t get hurt again. The distance was supposed to protect him from falling for me. It was too late though, because he was already in love. When the stakes are high, what do you do? Do you back away too scared to lose?

Or do you put up a fight? Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t the kind of girl who runs away when things get tough. I only had to prove he loved me and that I wasn’t going to break his heart. I did give him some space. I simply wanted him to see we’re better together—that when I’m not with him something’s missing and the world feels empty, somehow. I flooded myself with work to stop myself from thinking about him and missing him. For first few days I felt okay. I always appreciated some quality me-time and I was busy, anyway. I might have seemed unaffected, but when a week

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passed, it hit me we may not have a future after all. I cried myself to sleep that night because I couldn’t handle sleeping alone when he wasn’t there to protect me from the monsters. I managed to stay away for 3 weeks. Three. Fucking. Weeks. I’m actually surprised I wasn’t done after the first week. I showed up at his apartment, and when he opened the door, I didn’t say a word. I just kissed him. I poured all my emotions into this kiss. Tears streaming down my cheeks—I felt like an addict.

High on feelings. His touch—the reason for my existence—keeping me sane in the madness of our feelings. I needed him so badly I couldn’t breathe. I cared too much to let him go. Don’t you stop loving me. Don’t quit loving me. Just start loving me.

Giving him some space was just fucking splendid. In the sea of people, my eyes were always searching for him. When I was with other guys, professional or friends, I wished it was him touching me, holding me. I told him that I was never giving up on us, that we were not done yet. But he already knew that. He realized that I’m his perfect girl, the one with whom the world just makes much more sense, and facing reality with me by his side is simply easier. They say distance makes the heart grow fonder. I never thought how true that was, until I had to make things all work out.

In that moment, everything felt as if nothing had changed—like I hadn’t gone through hell to win his stupid heart over. Yet, in the end I know it was worth it. You said I love you girl. I said I love you more. And a breath, a pause, you said, if you say so.

Maybe we can’t control the ups and downs of love, of life. It’s something that comes and goes in waves—it always does. But it’s up to us to hold on to the good feelings, even when we’re caught up in the middle of the swelling storm. No matter how much of a beautiful disaster we are. It comes and goes in waves. And carries us away.

Dominika Nadolna Addicted to rom-coms, Netflix, and coffee. Can't live without cake, cookies, and chocolate–oh, and Nutella. Falls in love way too easily with–*sigh*–fictional characters.

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Taken Flight Flori’s scream pierced the vacuumed air of her car and was swallowed by the velvet insulation.

Her fingers curled, their nails digging into the flesh just beneath their base as her palms slammed repeatedly against the steering wheel in an accented triplet rudiment. The thin, plunging droplets of rain tapping against the window were the steady 16th notes keeping rhythm. The regular bursts of thunder that shook Flori’s vertebrae created the perfect kick drum. The splashing waves against the rocks of the cliff to the right were the crash cymbal punctuating every fourth bar. Flori’s banshee wails were the only melody in coexistence with the larger than life percussion.

Rivers of blue mascara pulsed down her cheeks, some insurging tributaries escaping through the cracks of her lips and sliding into the pool of saliva in her mouth. Now hunched over the steering wheel, shivering in anger, helplessness, and self-pity, Flori caught her breath. Slowly raising her head, peeking reluctantly into the overhead mirror she peered at the broken image of herself in the glass. Stepping out into the downpour, Flori slammed her car door strongly to expel herself of the last traces of animosity. Tilting her head back, allowing the fresh water to brush randomly against her red face, she reached up weakly on occasion to rub away the smeared makeup. Lastly, she cupped her hands and watched as her fleshy chalice filled quickly with rainwater, before sipping it thirstily. She turned to the ocean as she rinsed the bitterness from her mouth. Walking up to the bannister and pressing her small hips against it—leaning so far over a passing car may have assumed the worst—she spit out the contents of her mouth. As it hit the water below, she swore she saw a small whirlpool forming.

Once back in her car, Flori started the engine and wrapped her long arm around the passenger’s seat headrest, looking behind her to back out. She then spotted the cuckoo clock—an impulse buy from a gnarled old man with spectacles that gripped the end of his nose at a distance that seemed impractical.

“H-hand-carved,” the man blurted when he noticed Flori’s bloodshot look of admiration.

“It’s beautiful,” she gasped. The ivory face of the clock was haloed by onyx black, cursive numbers. The hands, at the moment upturned in a knowing smirk, were a pair of turquoise feathers tipped with a burgundy-brown reminiscent of dried blood. Not one for ever having taste in decor—IKEA, artisan, or otherwise—Flori felt a surge of vindictive smugness handing over the crisp bills, thinking this would be exactly the kind of thing Rodrick would lose his shit over.

Now, strapped to the backseat of Flori’s car, she felt as though she was driving home from the hospital with some bastard child she had never intended to keep.

A month later Flori traipsed drunkenly past that very same clock in a slinky black dress, her breast half-exposed and her legs buckling beneath her. She collapsed on her bathroom floor, leaned over her toilet, and shoved her middle finger as far down her throat as the bony digit would go. All of the night’s hors d’oeuvres, french pastries, and champagne erupted from Flori’s mouth; even when the last of her stomach contents exited, she kept gagging herself, feeling the epileptic spasming of her stomach rocking her whole body. When she could no longer stand the pain, Flori stood up and relived the night’s events.

It had been a large black-tie event where all of the international executives were in one place.

The whole evening was devoted to delivering awards for the ‘exceptional’ acts of these executives—the titles of these rewards were really euphemisms: Best Executive, for the self-control it took not to sleep with your secretary; Most Consistent, for successfully arriving on time to work while not inebriated or hung-over. In the past, Flori would take as full advantage of these occa-

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sions as possible—accepting all drink and drug offered, usually ending the night with a strong sense of indestructability. Tonight had been somewhat the same.

Flori had joined the company in her late twenties, no longer a student socialist but a headstrong converted-capitalist, ready for the steady income and benefit program to shower her in stability and a sense of maturity. Without the naiveté with which she had approached her previous jobs, but still motivated by the mediocrity of her life’s accomplishments, Flori worked herself to the bone. After nearly nine years she felt that if someone were to cut her open she would bleed the dark green that adorned all the stationary, merchandise, and banners associated with the company. And as the blood drained from her body, Flori was sure that by some process of cohesion, the cold, dense liquid would clot to spell out R-O-D-R-I-C-K. At the gathering, Flori had been seated amongst a group of foreign employees, all of them seedy, oversexed, and, as far as Flori was concerned, incompetent. She knew she had been seated at this table as a form of retribution. She saw Rodrick as a beacon, standing at the other end of the hall next to his wife, the anchor. His wife knew, of course she knew; the only wives who didn’t know were the ones with lovers of their own, too obsessed with their personal affairs to consider the infidelity of their spouses. Every so often, his wife would glance over at Flori, not unkindly, but with a certain icy glaze over her already cool, blue eyes. Rodrick’s gaze, on the other hand, never once betrayed the individual who he spoke to and his relaxed posture signified one thing to Flori: indifference.

On some occasions, the whole situation seemed so ridiculous to Flori her body would let out a menacing bark of laughter on the 1 train or while walking along the Upper East Side—up and down the block that Rodrick lived on. Flori had been the indifferent one at the start of it all. She had always thought the ‘sex with a colleague’ trope to be the furthest thing from provocative, so much so that when she was already in the thick of it all, it seemed more like a monotonous event rather than an exciting secret. Granted, he hadn’t been her superior but a senior manager on another project, the abjection with which she had been faced by the people she knew was just as bad as if she were to fuck her way up to the top. The worst of it all, however, was that Flori didn’t really love Rodrick; there was some doubtless stirring of infatuation, a sort of obsessive attraction, but nothing resembling love in any of its colors, shapes, or forms. Rodrick was simply the unattainable—a phenomenon Flori had never encountered and would never come to terms with.

“You’re pathetic,” Rodrick snapped at her turning to look at the crowd of well-off-ers to make certain no one saw the falter in his otherwise calm countenance. Hands on his hips, he looked anywhere but at Flori.

“If I’m pathetic you’re despicable. You’ve ruined me, my career...” Flori whispered, the tears in her eyes warping Rodrick’s face so that his already large, pointed nose curved down like the beak of some predatory bird. Flori chuckled in disbelief, “And to think I let you!”

“You can’t—we both…” Rodrick exhaled sharply through his beak, and raised his hand in a halting gesture “Look, you just need to stay the fuck away from me. And if leaving the company is what it takes then I don’t really care. We were both complicit in this. Some of us just know how to handle ourselves better than others.” Rodrick stormed off.

Flori’s breath came out in jagged, exasperated bursts. She pulled out a tiny, silver test-tube shaped object and sniffed extravagantly; a practice she and Rodrick had quickly taken up together, but that he had put down just as suddenly. For the rest of the night, Flori precariously plotted Rodrick’s downfall—she whispered into the ears and tugged on the ties of all the right men.

Completing her plan, Flori followed Rodrick’s wife into the ladies’ room and lifted her house keys straight from her tiny designer purse.

After leaving the ballroom, Flori found herself standing in front of Rodrick’s million-dollar

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townhouse, not remembering the journey uptown, but judging by the absence of her shoes and the brown stains she left on the pavement, she must have walked. Her heart shivered with the simplicity of it all: slipping the key in the lock, sliding on the wife’s plush slippers, releasing the proper tubing from its intricate entanglement, and leaving as though nothing had happened. Well no, it wasn’t such a lackadaisical procedure; Flori let herself brush her cheek against Rodrick’s pillow, its scent so familiar; she wandered into their white-tiled, white marble kitchen, all its gleaming surfaces blinding; she permitted herself to walk out of the house still wearing those disgusting designer house shoes.

And now she stood in her own bathroom, feeling the sting of her stomach acid on her tongue.

From the other room came a sound completely unfamiliar to her: “CUCKoo! CUCKoo!” “Christ!” Flori’s hand flew to her chest. She had never been home long enough to witness the hourly call of her fucking cuckoo clock.

“CUCKoo!” it called. Flori stepped into the dark hall. The headlights of a passing car piercing through the windows of the room adjacent partially illuminated the creature erupting from the clock. The glow that got caught in the feathered wings of the being accentuated its complexity, and their movement in the dark seemed sublimely realistic. Flori stepped closer and, as the second car passed, sending more light through the hall, she saw the bird was real. Flori gasped and extended her hand just as the bird retreated, pulled back by its crisscrossing vaudeville hook.

Her nail scraped the tiny door from which the bird had protruded, but the opening was sealed shut. It was then that Flori noticed the opening in her own skin; her violent self-destruction had caused her to bite into her own flesh creating a gushing valley on the back of her hand, exposing bone—or, rather, what should have been bone. In the shadow of the hallway, Flori slowly inched her hand closer to her face, peering down at the gaping wound, seeing, between the slices of flesh, the middle pointer of a talon.

The following Monday at work, Flori looked for any inkling of symptoms: fatigue, confusion, irritability. Just as she was leaving at the end of the day, slowly tailing the cleaning lady pushing her overflowing cart, Flori caught sight of Rodrick sitting in a conference room getting yelled at by his supervisor. Flori froze staring through the glass wall, not able to read the man’s lips but easily understanding his severe demeanor and Rodrick’s unease. Her ogling must have been felt through the double-glazing as both Rodrick and his boss turned to see her standing with a wild expression on her face. The supervisor walked over to the window and, with a courteous if slightly uncomfortable nod, closed the blinds. Flori was confronted by the faded impression of herself in the glass and saw the same face that the two men had seen moments ago; a wicked excitement betrayed by a twitching eye and quivering smirk. There was no doubting the pallor of Rodrick’s complexion or the second just before the blinds had closed where she noticed him popping a painkiller to ease the throbbing of what he must have believed to be a stress headache. Flori practically skipped down the hall with joy.

The following days passed in agony. Flori had barely seen Rodrick—what she first took as a positive sign—until his sharp profile would get caught in the reflection of some glass window, or his irksome tone of voice travelled down the corridor from some indefinite room. Flori became obsessed with respiration; in meetings people’s speech seemed to be drowned out by their measured inhales and exhales. She studied the process of aerobic respiration and was fascinated by

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each cell’s gas exchange. Her own breath always came out hastily and unevenly, as though the operation had reversed. She thought constantly about drowning, asphyxiation, and strangling. A warmth pulsed through her body when she thought about how she would soon achieve a sort of combination of all three with much less effort. But Flori was impatient.

After nearly a week, Flori began to grow skeptical of her own memory—she had, after all, been under the influence of many substances including an already unstable mind. She resolved to investigate one evening—if only to calm her palpitating heart that she suspected had shrunken, causing her to feel constantly light-headed and on-edge. Rodrick’s schedule showed he would be out of town for the weekend; so, at two in the morning, Flori stood once again before Rodrick’s home. This time, the building did not twist from its foundations, nor did it seem as penetrable as it had the week before. Instead, the house seemed to taunt Flori’s hesitant stance from above. The invisible governance of property bled through Flori’s conscience. Finally, with key in hand and a burst of confidence, Flori stepped forward defiantly entering the home.

Immediately, some primitive sentiment sprung forward in Flori’s consciousness signaling some visibly undetectable danger. Refusing to stop moving in the fear of remaining that way otherwise, Flori threw herself into the boiler room where she had committed her misdemeanor. The tubing was still detached, nothing had yet been discovered. Flori’s mouth spread into a sneer she would have cringed at had she glimpsed herself in a mirror. Soon, however, her blissful expression shrank away as she began to question what had come to pass in the house. Flori walked calmly through the darkness, this time feeling much less like an interloper than upon her first break-in.

As Flori passed one of the large mirrors in the living room she paused, noticing something foreign about her reflection. The moon shone like a spotlight from some point above the frame of the window illuminating Flori’s ghostly pale skin and emphasizing the hollowness of her eyes— one of which had turned a piercing yellow, its large pupil nearly equaling the hideously jaundiced iris. Flori stepped backwards and walked blindly through the rest of the house, stumbling up the staircase. When she reached the landing, all the doors were shut except for the one immediately opposite her, the moonlight streaking the floor in an inviting manner. The primitive sentiment that had been beating through Flori’s consciousness was now pounding against her vision causing the image to throb. Flori pushed open the door and stood in shock in the doorway.

On the immense king-sized bed sat Rodrick’s wife. She was completely stripped of clothing, her beautiful gold hair had also been torn from her head, the two textiles woven together to create a sort of nest that Rodrick’s wife now sat within. Flori wandered over to the bed out of curiosity, admiring the complexity of the knit and the beauty of the woman’s pale, iridescent skin. Flori suddenly noticed a sound similar to nails tapping against a hard surface that seemed to be emanating from beneath Rodrick’s wife. That was when Flori recognized that the woman sat upon dozens of eggs the size of craniums, each of them ticking unharmoniously.

“What the fuck are you doing?” came a venomous hiss from the doorway.

Flori turned to find Rodrick standing with his shoulders bared and hands in the shape of stiff claws staring at her threateningly. Flori giggled at the predicament; she began laughing so hard she couldn’t stop, her cackling turning into intermittent caws. Rodrick lunged forward and grabbed her throat. Her body promptly loosened at the sensation of his touch, she reveled in his strong grip shutting her throat tight. From up close she could see that it had been working. Rodrick’s hooded eyes were ringed by popped blood vessels, his sickly complexion glowed with the sweat seeping from his pores that emitted a sour stench. Flori was filled with ecstasy as she observed these somatic manifestations. She wanted Rodrick to feel exactly as she had; she wanted him to feel impaired; she wanted him to feel out of control; she wanted him to feel rage.

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Rodrick began to growl as he squeezed tighter and tighter. Flori reached behind her and grabbed one of the ticking eggs, raising it limply above her head, and smashing it to the floor. As the shell shattered in a million directions, a cuckoo bird flew out of the remains crying loudly, “CUCK-oo!”

Flori grabbed more eggs, slamming them down one-by-one. Each time a bird swooped from the floor and rose flapping wildly around the room. Soon the space was filled with the cheers of the multiplying number of birds, “CUCK-oo!” The bird’s wings disheveled Rodrick’s and Flori’s hair, their talons making incisions in their shoulders and lacerating their faces.

Rodrick was oblivious to the chaos, his sole focus was on Flori’s neck. As the birds grew in number their scraping claws created ever-growing slashes across Flori’s skin. From beneath the membrane of Flori’s body, feathers began to spring out through ligaments and muscle tissue. Eventually, her husk fell away and in Flori’s old place hovered an immense cuckoo bird. Flori the Bird grabbed Rodrick in her beak and gobbled him clumsily and hungrily down. The smaller cuckoo birds had honored Flori by overthrowing Rodrick’s wife, lifting her from the previously occupied place within the nest. Flori perched upon her new throne and invited her hatchlings to surround her ceremoniously. She then proceeded to feed her offspring, regurgitating her old lover into their awaiting mouths.

Lilla Orly Newly-minted editor-in-chief. BA student at the ASC who finds catharsis in drumming. Dabbles in miscellaneous pastimes when not scribbling nonsense furiously into notebooks, on pavement or walls… any surface where writing is possible.

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An Early Bird Wilhelm was a man in his 50s. He woke up every Saturday exactly at 5 a.m. in a double bed. All alone because he never had any luck with the ladies, so he never got married. Later, he washed his face, his teeth, and dressed up—all that took him exactly 15 minutes, as always. For breakfast, he had oatmeal with strawberries, and drank pink grapefruit juice, just the way he had it every other Saturday morning.

Then he drove to the nearest forest. As it had been raining the night before, the surroundings were gloomy and water was dripping all over the place. But there was something soothing in that weather for Wilhelm. He was driving an almost empty street, accompanied only by his favorite morning radio broadcast, as always. The speaker was just talking about the crisis in the Middle East when he parked his car in front of a huge forest.

What later would happen in that forest was always a mystery to Wilhelm. His usual trips to the forest were the only thrilling and unexpected things in the old man’s life. What kinds of birds he would meet, what excellent photos he would take, or what kind of bird behavior he would observe—everything was always an exhilarating surprise to him. Mainly because ornithology was Wilhelm’s all-time favorite hobby and passion.

That day he witnessed an extraordinarily rare event—a bluebird laying eggs in its nest. He was looking through his binoculars at the bird’s stunning beauty. He was mesmerized by the way in which the mother bird took care of her eggs as she was cleaning her feathers so elegantly and precisely. Yet, suddenly, this beauty treatment was stopped by the unexpected scream of a woman.

Scared by the loud shriek, the bluegill flew away. Wilhelm, trying to locate the source of all that noise, stood still and listened to the shouting that was hidden somewhere in-between the trees.

“Please anyone help me! Please help!”

He started walking toward the woman and carefully made his way through the brush just to find her lying on the ground, partially naked and tied up with a rope. She was a very good looking person, probably around age 30. Her feet were tied up together, her pantyhose ripped, and her muslin skirt was pulled up, revealing her pretty red panties. Her hands were tied too and her breasts fully exposed through her opened blouse. And that look on her face… Shocked, terrified, and vulnerable.

He hadn’t seen a naked woman in years. And the state of this woman, her erotic beauty, all that made him utterly aroused. There was also something else that turned him on—the way she looked at him. As if he was the only one she needed at that precise moment; her savior. While her full lips were speaking to him, his mind was distracted by the images of what he could do with those lips.

His nasty thoughts were pushed away by her exact words, “Please, he will be back soon!”

That made Wilhelm rush to her and start untying the rope knots. Surprisingly, it wasn’t something he struggled with—the knots came undone pretty easily. In the meantime, she calmly started asking him questions.

“What’s your name?”

“Wil…Wilhelm,” he answered nervously.

“That’s a very nice name, Wilhelm. Suits you very well.”

He was just about to get rid of the last knot when she asked, “What are you doing here?”

The rope slid down her hands, and she turned over to her savior and asked with a warm smile, “Are you alone?”

Her facial expression concerned and scared him.

“Y…yes. B…but you said that he will come back soon.”

After that, her expression froze for a second only to change to an evil grin.

“Well… I hope so.”

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These words were crowned by the dull sound of a baseball bat hitting Wilhelm’s head, leaving him unconscious on the ground. While the woman was getting off the ground and wiping the dirt off of her, she smirked to the man, “You are late.”

It was a cloudy and slightly chilly Saturday morning; a perfect day for hunting. Mr. and Mrs. Tisdale proudly headed home with their new trophy.

Paulina Frelek Graphic designer, too lazy for existence.

Addicted to coffee, TV shows, games, and chicken nuggets. A proud mom of two cats.

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POETRY

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Piece of the month Interstellar Clouds why are the stars the only ones allowed to shine? why cannot space also glisten? why do I have to be old, endless, and dark? cold mourner of my youth there was once a man who said that time is just as relative as us and can be fooled by speed and mass but that man was killed by time still, there is just one universe the motions are set and futures calculated day by day I grow more distant bit by bit I grow more useless

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For A Place Where Seasons Don't Come Sure, we all crave for endless summer Sure, If I could freeze-frame happiness, I would Oh, bless the heat, the heart, the sky I guess you don't know suspense If you can guess What comes and goes with every solstice We teach palm-reading and finger-crossing In circles, currents keep going In circles, Like trees we grow thick and thin rings Grow to admire the illusive progress And if you could, secretly, you also would believe The Forecaster who makes us Keep wishing for a decent spring Keep wishing for a decent spring

Teresa Bakalarska A human, a crisp, a professional whiner.

Writes everything from poetry through prose to god–awful rap lyrics. Thinks that Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the greatest achievement of humanity.

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The Memories Scare Him You told me your father is soon having a daughter, and that it scares him. I asked why, and you said that boys are so much easier to raise—the girl you have to keep an eye on. I wondered why you both think that.

You told me that boys will be boys, they run, they shout, they get dirty, they drink, they smoke, they do drugs, and they do girls. They get girls drunk just to make them easier to undress, they get girls pregnant and never see the baby, they leave girls for the younger, less complicated women when it gets too hard. Your father knows what life he wants for his little princess. He remembers what boys do to girls, and now he’s having a daughter.

Dominika Kowalska In her spare time she plans a revolution, fights for women and minority rights, writes stories, and drinks coffee at midnight.

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Raven in Reverse Once upon a midnight dreary, while I fluttered weak and weary, Soaring over towns and people, my wings growing ever more feeble, The harsh winter wind swirling, throwing me about, I searched for a safe haven, overlooking steeples, ‘Til I came ‘cross a dwelling with its shining windows gleeful, I knocked on the door in a manner most regal.

With no immediate answer I waited upon the doorstep, Rustling my feathers in the bleak December air, I thought of my final rest which I had yet to find, When a voice erupted from the door, or rather, the home behind, Frightened, I fled the doorway just as a man emerged seeming not unkind, Yet, I hid among the branches of a tree, feeling resigned.

The man peered into the darkness wondering, perhaps fearing, Dreaming dreams of immortality, never considered before, He searched as though hoping for an unexpected visitor such as I, I saw this lonely soul before me as he whispered a meek cry, Discerning its gravity, I croaked a fearful reply, ‘Lenore!’ I murmured, merely this, no further lie.

The man hadn’t heard me, and turned into his chamber once more, I began to grow impatient, how much longer could I stand?

Fearing the shackles of a slave life to the bitter cold, I leapt, my soul within me crying, its survival a demand, I landed upon a window lattice, my urgent tapping a command, I wished the man would hear me, no more winter could I withstand.

Finally, he flung open the shutter, and, with many a flirt and flutter, I gratefully escaped the night’s frosty grip, Peering into the man’s face, a strange memory stirred my mind, A subtle hint of something long ago, a thought I’d let slip, I perched, fatigued, upon the bust of Pallas with a skip.

Perched and sat and made no other trip.

The corner of the man’s lips then turned up in a strange smile, I puffed my chest, sensing a glance of mockery, Until he spoke, “Art sure no craven,” Finally, someone had taken note of my majesty as the truest raven, Others mistaking me for an abominable crow, with no consideration, The man asked my name to which I replied, “Nevermore,” without hesitation.

The man froze, staring with what I assumed was admiration, I felt his penetrative gaze searching, The fellow scarcely more than muttered, “Other friends have flown beforeOn the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”

As a loyal Raven, an oath to my new companion I swore, Replying in a tone most indignant I assured, “Nevermore.”

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The man grew startled, mumbling to his being, Without warning, he wheeled a cushioned seat before me, I was pleased with the rapt expression upon the man’s face, He was surely glorifying, worshipping my sovereign grace, The man began to weep, confusing me for another time, another place.

Shocked I answered, “Nevermore,” feeling disgraced.

The man’s absence of sanity was soon apparent, As he branded me a ‘thing of evil,’ asking of a balm in Gilead, I questioned the sources of this man’s hysteria, Vainly believing it to be my elegance, to him something vicarious, I then recalled his earlier cry, a name, something I wasn’t wary of, I uttered in compassion, “Nevermore,” pleading an emotional burial.

The man only became more enraged, Pleading his loneliness remain unbroken, Hurt by the raucous dismissal from the man I wanted to love, My pride took hold of me; so I remained above, Digging my talons deep into the bust of Pallas with a strong shove, I refused with, “Nevermore,” giving no permission to be unloved.

This drove the man further into madness, He clutched at fistfuls of hair and shrieked, “Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

This exclamation wounded me stronger than had any word before, I had no intention to riddle this man with pain to his very core, I watched his delirious descent, myself possessing no valor.

And the man’s mind, never quitting, still is spinning, still is spinning, I observe his torment, night and day, day and night, For I had failed to recall that I had known the man before, This was the man for who I searched, on my long journeys of yore, His spirit, I had forgotten, was my ultimate shore, I had known him, when my name had once been, Lenore.

Lilla Orly Newly-minted editor-in-chief. BA student at the ASC who finds catharsis in drumming. Dabbles in miscellaneous pastimes when not scribbling nonsense furiously into notebooks, on pavement or walls… any surface where writing is possible.

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Contributors

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Marta Anchim Completely mental about cooking, but if she ever leaves the kitchen, she spends time watching movies, reading Agatha Christie novels, and complaining about life. Works in fashion industry and tries not to feel guilty about eating pizza so often.

Teresa Bakalarska A human, a crisp, a professional whiner.

Writes everything from poetry through prose to god–awful rap lyrics. Thinks that Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the greatest achievement of humanity.

Paulina Frelek Graphic designer, too lazy for existence.

Addicted to coffee, TV shows, games, and chicken nuggets. A proud mom of two cats.

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Aleksandra Barciszewska Former editor–in–chief. ASC–survivor.

Vampiric psychoanalyst by nature. Extracting the sexual from the mundane, rejecting reality for the sake of the very–tale of momentary satiation of the urges for creation.

Nadia Błaszczyk Her biggest passion is travelling, so she tries to travel as much as possible. She hates to sit in one place for too long so in her spare time she plans new trips and explores new places (even if they are just around the corner). Addicted to drinking tea, even in summer. Her favorite piece of clothing is a smile.

Aleksandra Grabowska If she was not an ASC student, she would be in a morgue. As a child she wanted to be a pathologist and a writer. She loves glitter, Clark Gable, and Virginia Wool’s novels. In life she follows Oscar Wild’s advice: “you can never be overdressed or overeducated.”

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Natalia Ogórek Singing is her biggest passion, but she does not connect her future with it. Lover of TV series and Marvel. 70% funny, 50% weird, 100% organized.

Dominika Kowalska In her spare time she plans a revolution, fights for women and minority rights, writes stories, and drinks coffee at midnight.

Lilla Orly Newly-minted editor-in-chief. BA student at the ASC who finds catharsis in drumming. Dabbles in miscellaneous pastimes when not scribbling nonsense furiously into notebooks, on pavement or walls… any surface where writing is possible.

Dominika Nadolna Addicted to rom-coms, Netflix, and coffee. Can't live without cake, cookies, and chocolate–oh, and Nutella. Falls in love way too easily with–*sigh*–fictional characters.

Marta Rapacka First year BA student. Apart from being utterly in love with TV series, she loves spending her free time discovering mysteries of Adobe Photoshop. Coerced into accepting the new goal of her existence, namely being The Very First Caricaturist of The Wasp – an honorable title she proudly bears and exploits (see: above and below).

Jakub Zieliński 1st year student of ASC with a deep passion for music. He has never learned to play any instrument, but strongly hopes to change it in the future. Apart from his love to sounds, he’s pretty much into movies, TV series, and English football.

Kamila Maria Wyszyńska Studies Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. American Studies is her second faculty. Loves to travel. Wants to live and create across the world.

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