Your skin is dew dropped, a harbor for light. Your eyes are remembered fire, a cinder. Your hair is ink, a liquid formless night. If you wished to burn, I’d act as tinder.
Your form recedes from me upon the tide. Your voice echoes, a memory of sound. We are sundered by a sea a night wide. I know that a wave cannot be rewound.
Never again shall our spectral hands touch. Never again shall breath breathe of one air. There is nothing left to grasp or to clutch. I am one only, not one of a pair.
You are soft seafoam that washes away. Yet I kiss the current and plead it stay.
The Dreamer
Y.Violet | graphite on paper
Blizzard of Ashes
Jenna Watson | acrylic
An Ode to Air
Jasiyah Ayshe | poetry
The air I breathe
Fresh as a rain-swept breeze
The breath I spit out screaming
Alive at last
I was born breathing
She was there
All around
Surrounding me when I was a child
My lungs brimming with air
And the wind brushing the tangles from my hair
the breeze rippling quietly with lullabies
Leaving me sleepy as she stares
And when my soles hit the ground with soft thuds
Air escaping with thundering huffs
It was she
Who breathed life back into me
My ever-present companion, I called her mother.
Mother Mother Mother
My mother’s love came complete
Overgrown
Untamed
Limitless as the sea
Swirling round and round
Like the stars when it came steady
But all that love buried her
With nature’s touch
made her heavy
Condensing,
Into a raging storm
Simmering and swirling
Seeping into her womb
And straight into me.
There, it festered deep
As the air swept beneath my feet
And the wind beat me to my knees
Ripping away my memories
But oh she loved me like a prayer!
Routine and everywhere
Now her footsteps have left me breathless
Blueberry violet without air.
And when I remember the summer days
Before winter came
And even when I feel her nails beneath my skin
She is still beautiful in my dreams
As she drags me smiling
Tethered to the eye of the storm.
My Mother’s Bones
Jasiyah Ayshe | poetry
I rose from you
Your blood etched between my bones
Our limbs lock in the same key
As my broken back bleeds from yours
I sit today kneeling before your feet
Because that’s where heaven lies
Waiting for me
As the twists in my hair in like shape pours
From you, I borrowed my youth
That I must admit
In return
I give you my reflection And encased in your mirror
I copy your steps
But this deal cannot last
As each day dines at my flesh
I must act fast
I must do more
So you don’t bruise my bones
I cut my face to fit your own
I rip my hair
And twist my knees
Bruise my cheeks
I move to match your forgotten feet
And humble hands
As they reach for me
But each mistake mourns the deal we made
My mirror sells me out
You break your bones to climb inside
But I broke mine to hide from you
Because your breath breathes bruises between my lips
And in the bones, I stole from you
Her Portrait of Exasperation
Jenna Watson | watercolor
You Must Try to Love Yourself
Kelsey Phillips | pen and gouache on paper
Blanchette
Jules Stachiw | poetry
As the moon lights the path ahead; The trimmering reflection in the water trickles to the trees mirroring the true beauty nature has gifted to us. It’s beautiful; Just like you said.
The forest seems bigger at night; And while I know I should be afraid for it is dangerous for a young girl to be walking alone carrying nothing but a basket, there is a sense of calmness the quiet provides; Just like you said.
When the lunar blue tints the once luminous golden flowers, I know I stand out with the contrast to the crimson veil upon my head. I wonder what others may think seeing me pass.
“Young, naive, ignorant girl; don’t you know there are sly wolves prowling around?” But I know better than to trust wolves, Grandma.
I know all the signs; They are alluring, almost mesmerizing in a way, persuasive and very charismatic. But I am not afraid because as you listen to me talk with the big ears you have, which you say are better to hear me with, and the striking eyes you have, which you say are better to see me with, and your large hands comfort our embrace; I can feel myself getting drowsy perhaps even delusional, for your teeth look sharper as you grin at me.
Goodnight Grandma
and what if I saw you again
Natasha N. Deonarain | poetry
00:00
after d.
would it come gushing between us like a dried washbasin’s flash flood torrential and swift, a current that carries us downstream with its rocks and sticks, branches and agitated sand that bang our already bruised bodies against sloping banks with plastic bottles strung on fingers of angulated trees, dangling metal cans and rotting debris from those old times, would we be whisked away to the separate corners of this world once again, you under rain-soaked umbrella leaves and me in the aching stillness of pinnate mesquite with shards of light slicing between, the force of a current so strong it’s a warning for all who don’t know the power of this land and would we care enough to set it aside after all this time, care enough to stop making nature’s violence a crime and let the coyote hunt his prey but forgiveness is a lake crawling into itself, the stained rim of white crusted rings a reminder of longing, its desiccated mouth thirsting for what’s already disappeared into this heat-stained, thinning air and what if I saw you again
in this room, in this percolated space, aromas of memory seeping deep into our pores, let our mending silence bring a murmur of moths wings in the molten dark, the tap-tap of slippered spider’s feet across a faux-painted wall, the rustle of a scorpion’s crozier tail as she searches for food on my dark cherry floor and the
gecko outside, slow-waking to chase a chirping cricket or the flutter of a mother’s wings as she takes daybreak’s flight all that I cannot yet see in this muted lamplight beyond a double-paned glass but the contours of your face staring back as mine, our hard lines and sharp edges blurring in the flicker of first morning light
Enid Life Spirit
Adams | oil painting
Juli
North 2620
Cyd Peroni | archival pigment print
North 026
Cyd Peroni | archival pigment print
Twenty-Four Years
Linda Naseem | fiction
00:00
Iremember the accident.
We were on our way to the movies. She was pregnant and we were so excited: a son. We were having a son.
The road was slick; it was the first rain of the season. We were laughing. Red tail lights screamed at me and my head crunched as it shot through the windshield. I saw a million glittering stars of broken glass before my body splattered across the highway.
Then I was here.
Mercifully, she survived with nothing more than a couple bruises.
She stayed here with me for weeks. The nurses set up a cot in my room for her to sleep on. After my son was born she brought him to see me every day. Named him Crocker, like I’d wanted. For crocodile. A fierce fighter. Maybe he’d be a boxer someday. Or a Marine.
She didn’t like the name.
She doesn’t come anymore. Mom told me a while back that she got married. She says Crocker’s stepdad is great, loves him as if he were his own. That’s what’s important.
I miss them so much. I would cry if I could. My brain can’t get the message to my eyes.
My brain doesn’t do much of a job at all anymore. I hear the nurses say that I’m a vegetable and I can’t communicate. But I do: I tell them my story.
I know my mouth doesn’t tell them. All it does is scream. It refuses to say the words I want it to say. But I tell them every day, in those fleeting seconds when they look into my eyes, and I know they hear me.
I’ve tried holding their hands to show them how grateful I am for their care. They clean my helpless body, and sometimes it’s a real mess. They move it from side to side to keep it from getting bedsores, they turn on the television so I can watch it. They hook up food to that tube in my belly. I want to pat their arms, kiss their cheeks, but the commands I send to my brain don’t get through and instead my arms flail and they step away from me to keep from getting hit.
This is not how I thought my life would be. I’ve been here twenty-four years and I haven’t been able to say a single word. My brain is nothing more than an umbilical cord tying me to my body. And it’s a strong one: there is no chance it will fall off and shrivel up anytime soon.
If I could talk, I would tell them that all I want is for someone to bring me a cheeseburger. Hold it to my nose and let me smell it. Put a little bite in my mouth.
And I want them to sing for me. She sang all the time, sang as good as Whitney Houston. If they aren’t up to that, maybe they could sing me songs from my childhood. Songs I would have sung to Crocker if I’d been there when he was a little guy. Itsy Bitsy Spider. Old MacDonald.
He must be grown up by now. I wonder if I have grandchildren.
I would tell them that for just one night I want someone to lie next to me. Keep me warm. Nothing more. Make me feel human again.
They take such good care of me but they never stay to talk. I know it isn’t their fault. They have at least a half-dozen more people in the same shape as I am to clean and feed and turn. But I wish they had time to tell me about their families, show me pictures of their kids, bring in their dogs and let them lick my face.
I know my uncooperative brain would make my arms swat at them. I might hurt them.
Twenty-four years. My mom has grown old. She visits every week and her hair is white and she totters into my room with a cane.
I haven’t felt rain on my face since the accident.
But I remember how it feels.
A Lit Match
Samuel Harris (HarrisPortraits) | acrylic painting on canvas
With Eyes Wide Open
Shelli Rottschafer | poetry
00:00
With eyes blazed wide, Madre’s emotions barked. In that protective embrace, her face aged twenty years backward. Released from the cage, once she let go, before her a new spark
glowed. Soon, the darkness covering desert smoldered like the smoke behind her eye lids.
She saw the world again, anew. Quizaslike a newborn baby’s innocence lost.
When humanity faces hereafter, all that remains is guffawed laughter.
When all that remains is tearful sorrow
Marrow memories line southern border
Invisible dirt roads run long & straight
Cholla pricks, araña stings a foreshadow
Matriarch watches observantly keen
Shouldered by love, like shawl artfully hewn
Trickster coyote spies jackrabbit preen
Sandhill crane migration eclipsed by moon
May wings bring escape upon sacred land
She reaches deftly for maternal hands
Wrinkled hands smooth plains like churning ocean and wind pushed grasses undulate in waves.
Highway descansos, plastic flower grave
IF echoes propel our forward motion
una voz would not carry very far.
We’ve echoed through endless generations
‘Cause we’re constructed by reverberations the voices of many can heal our scars
Si, escuchamos a nuestras preguntas: Once we are aged, do we opt for the cage? Or give emblazoned bark to spark our rage!¹
scorpion mother
Natasha N. Deonarain | poetry
00:00
drip gasoline down the side of your leg & light the whole thing on fire watch its trail ignite like a dynamite fuse
that would feel better or at least the same as this pain this pain it crawls under your skin deeper than you can get to relentless like a clawing ant
carving its way for other hexapods to follow wired to obey their queen at all costs & the pain goes on & on like stingers lashing at your soul
& there’s no way to stop & there’s no way to stop not benzos-oxys-t3s-cbd- aspirin-please-please-let-me-find-someones-leftover-tramadol inside the medicine cabinet
from years when she stayed advil-tylenol-excedrin-nothing-nothing icyhot-icycold-biofreeze-deepfreeze-gelpack-hotpacks-icebaths-nothing
& the pain goes on & on & soon you find yourself contemplating Youtube’s DIY-amputations in various subtle & not-so-subtle ways
followed by flipping the pages of your Natural Remedies cookbook then throwing it aside to make it up as you go with ½ cup of milk 1 tbsp. honey & sugar sugar
& a few handfuls of organic all-purpose flour but suddenly you realize with a sickening heart that she’d got you first & it was so unexpected that you didn’t think to act fast enough before she disappeared & now she’s nowhere to be found perhaps six-feet underground so you live in the horrid space of no closure & no retribution & no way to defend your point of view
How Does One Ask For Kindness?
Kelsey Phillips | pen and gouache on paper
The Emotional Effect of Devastation
Savannah Rose Dagupion | creative nonfiction
Ihad just returned to Arizona for my junior year at ASU after spending the summer at home in Maui, Hawaiʻi, when “The Council,” or the Instagram group chat I have with my cousins, started blowing up my phone with notifications. The messages read:
“Our fucking houses are gone.”
“It’s all burnt.”
“We lost our homes.”
Then came the photos and videos. Avery’s house, where we’d spend every Christmas, was unrecognizable. Zachry and Dylan’s apartment building was still smoking. Liam’s house was nothing but a pile of ashes sitting on the concrete driveway.
The day prior, August 8, 2023, wildfires started ravaging Maui. That was also the day my mom dropped me off at the airport and hugged me goodbye before sending me off to college. The wildfires were burning by then, but they were only sequestered to the mountains and hadn’t hit the towns yet, so I reassured myself that everything would be fine. I was excited to start my new year of college I was finally going to live with my friends in a new apartment, I had just gotten a remote internship with Lonely Planet and I was going to be a managing editor at State Press Magazine. Little did I know that I’d spend my first weeks back in Arizona, or the weeks following the fire, running through a gauntlet of emotions.
Week 1: Shock
I found it hard to peel my eyes away from my phone. Headline after headline, post after post, my sweet little island was getting more media attention than I’ve ever seen in my entire life and there I was, paralyzed on a couch thousands of miles away unable to do anything but scroll.
I saw flames chase after familiar faces, fleeing people jump into the ocean, and every place that I know and love crumble to the ground. My cousin told me he heard screams from inside a nursing home as he was evacuating. He wanted to help them, but he couldn’t. Nobody couldn’t. Everything happened so fast.
My mind reeled that entire week.
Week 2: Grief, Survivor’s Guilt
Things started to set in. Everyone on my dad’s side of the family lived in Lahaina, which is where a majority of the damage was done. All of them were displaced. I worried about my cousins, who were supposed to start school soon, I worried about my grandmother, who had immigrated to Maui from the Philippines for a better life decades ago, and I worried about everyone so many people’s livelihoods were affected, and I empathized with the uncertainty and fear.
But who was I to empathize? I still had a house back in Maui. I wasn’t forced to flee from the fires. I didn’t hear the screams. Instead, I was sitting pretty on the continent after leaving at the most dire time. Guilt washed over me.
That was also the week I spoke to a handful of news organizations. ABC15 wanted to get my reaction to the fire and aired me crying in the interview. The AP wanted to get an insight into what it was like on the ground, but I couldn’t tell them because I wasn’t there. Already being a journalism major and practicing journalist, my name was out there for the taking, so any reporter who had a vague tie to me reached out for a comment. I was overwhelmed.
On top of that, anyone I encountered would tell me that they’re sorry as I tried to plaster positivity all over my face. On the inside, my sadness swelled.
Week 3: Anger
More time passed, which meant more coverage about Maui. I grew angry at the parachuting journalists exploiting my island for content. I cringed at the way news outlets capitalized off my sadness.
Misinformation started to spread. People thought direct energy weapons started the fire. Infamous Maui developer and colonizer Peter Martin told The New Yorker that protecting water for Native Hawaiian cultural practices was “a crock of shit” and that invasive grasses and “this stupid climate-change thing” had “nothing to do with the fire.”
Bitterness spiraled in my mind even as I slept.
At least not all coverage was bad. A column in The New Humanitarian pointed out that the Maui wildfire exposed the colonial roots of humanitarian reporting. I decided to rechannel my frustrations.
Week 4: Passion
As a Native Hawaiian, I was taught about the colonization and annexation of the Hawaiian Kingdom, I learned about Maui’s water debate, and I saw the ways in which the wildfire exposed longstanding problems of overdevelopment and overtourism.
As a journalist, I knew I had the privilege of combating misinformation and clickbait news with the true story of the island and my people. After interviews and research and writing, I finished an article and got it pub-lished.
I coasted on the joy of getting published for a good while, but then I fell back into mediocrity.
And So On
Time passed and so did the emotions. I, along with everyone else it seemed, came to terms with the devastation and realized there’s nothing to do but wait. We all found our new version of normal while slow progress was being made to restore everything the wildfire had taken.
It took a year for the debris to be cleaned and for the affected areas to be deemed non-toxic. A few months later in November 2024, the first home to be rebuilt after the fire was finished and the family moved in. Most recently, the State of Hawaiʻi announced on Feb. 10 that the $4 billion Maui wildfire litigation settlement will move forward.
Devastation is a funny thing. It forces you to grapple with contrasting emotions. You mourn what’s lost but are forced to be grateful for what’s left. It reminds you that there’s no beauty without pain.
Spencer
Samuel Harris (HarrisPortraits) | acrylic painting on canvas
A Taste of What You Cannot Have
Kelsey Phillips | oil
on panel
Angels Whisper to Me
Simon Angel | poetry
I fear that in some strange way
I am in love with my agony
That my longing to rekindle its petering flame might keep me from sunshine
My heart aches and I revel in it
Lapping at melancholy like a starving dog
Angels whisper to me
And still I stay
Craving each sting
The First Fire
Jasiyah Ayshe | poetry
When I close my eyes I feel this elder thing
Not liquid, not air under my ribs, above my heart.
Sometimes I wonder if trees have it too
If they long and weep like me, Or yearn for other trees.
For when I listen beneath their heavy boughs, I can’t help but hear their Pecking groans
Those poor broad bodies calloused Immovable and silent.
Did the first man wonder too?
Of the heart hidden underneath the unspeaking wood, Did its groans and whispers keep him awake?
Under the cold newborn darkness-
He felt the soul somewhere in his chest like me
Did he hear it too in this giant thing?
That all too familiar aching
But when the lonely cold threatened his life, He set the thing alight.
That giant branching tree, I bet he waited for its scream.
And when the air stuck together into an almost solid thing,
The fire crackling and hissing, with silent sobs.
Did he stare in fear at the climbing smoke? Mistaking it for the timber’s soul.
Man of god, he panicked at his terrible sin.
As he watched its soul escape to heaven there
Up, up, up
Did he mourn his quiet friend?
I know not.
The man set many fires after that
For another glimpse.
He taught his children too,
Of that great soul he saw.
Giant billowing thing that wanders within, And mankind has never left that fire since.
Husk at Dusk
Estelle Spinner | watercolor on paper
Not Enough
Kelsey Phillips | oil on canvas
The Lay of the Fugitive:
An Old Norse Tale
Salvatore Arnoldo | scripts
EXT. NIFLHEIM HEL. ETERNAL NIGHT.
An infinite darkness hangs overhead, and the immediate landscape is shrouded in an icy mist. Directly in our view is a hard packed terrain of slag and glacial ice. There is debris scattered across the ground; torn rags, glittering gold rings, jewels, scraps of forged iron, they all have the same value here. Horse hooves can be heard on the swift approach. A shadowy figure on horseback becomes visible in the murk and charges out from the darkness directly before us. It is HERNOD (Male, Late 20s), one of the Aesir and son of the All-Father, Odin, on the back of Odin’s eight-legged horse, SLEIPNIR.
In stark contrast with the bleakness of their environment, Hernod and Sleipnir are ornately decorated in fine fabrics, red-gold, and forged iron. Hernod wears a wolf pelt around his shoulders and has a broadsword sheathed on his waist. Hernod pulls on Sleipnir’s reigns and the horse whinnies and rears back before promptly coming to a halt. Hernod looks up at something in front of him with an icy look of apprehension in his eyes.
We flip perspectives to reveal ELJUDNIR, the hall of the dead, a massive and imposing construction tiered with many levels, made from decaying wood and dark-colored stone, it emits a pale blue light from within. As soon as Eljudnir becomes visible to us there is a blasting of discordant horns, and the murmurs of demonic throat singers can be heard emanating from somewhere in the murk of Niflheim.
The figure of Hernod, sitting atop Sleipnir, is dwarfed by the massive structure. Hernod looks a moment longer and dismounts from Sleipnir. He steels himself and walks up the stone steps to a pair of tall imposing double doors. He places palms flat on each door and pushes in through the massive doors.
INT. ELJUDNIR. CONTINUOUS.
Hernod enters a crowded space, full of shadowy and decaying faces; seated around banquet tables, crowded along the walls and in corners, and dragging themselves across the stone floors. Hernod takes several more steps inward. He looks and at the end of the long chamber there is a seat of honor, above all the rest like a throne. A single shaft of light like sun falls across it and Hernod’s brother BALDR (Male, Early 20s) is seated upon it. Baldr is ethereally beautiful and wears long fine fabrics of gold and white with red trim. On his head is a crown made of mistletoe and his eyes are turned up towards the light, wide and hypnotic, his mouth agape in Saintly agony. He wheezes and gasps through trembling lips, a bloody wound in his chest. Knelt by his feet, holding his hand and weeping with her face pressed against it, is Baldr’s wife, NANNA.
HERNOD
(Filled with grief)
Baldr...Brother...
A DEAD MAN approaches Hernod, dragging a limp leg behind him, his face partly rotted and one eye a milky white cataract.
DEAD MAN
I recognize you. Hernod. Another son of Odin. But not dead...
The dead man motions to Baldr, gasping on the throne.
DEAD MAN
You hear how Baldr tries to breathe...? He doesn’t yet accept that he’s here. So he gasps, wheezes, searching for the perfumed air of heaven with his lungs.
HERNOD
Where is your master? Where is Hel?
DEAD MAN
Sleeping. She’ll wake soon and then you can bargain for him. But don’t hold out much hope, Aesir. Her grip is icy, and she lets nothing go easy.
HERNOD
Then I will wait.
DEAD MAN
(Pause)
What is to be done, eh?
HERNOD
What’s that?
DEAD MAN
What vengeance is to be paid for this insult? What sweeping and horrible punishment...? For a murderer of all murderers, for one who kills a god.
Hernod looks at him and turns slowly back to Baldr on his throne. The air trembles and sounds build in the room as Baldr continues to gasp; cymbals clash, throat singers murmur, and horns blast. It builds until there is a hellish cacophony and Baldr raises his head up towards the light, his eyes glistening, and one last time wheezes fruitlessly the dead icy air of Niflheim.
EXT. FOREST. MORNING.
A lush green pine forest, back in the warm light of day. A serene bird song drifts down from a treetop. A solitary STRANGER (Male, Mid 30s) in an earthen colored cloak skulks through the brush. He pauses and looks over his shoulder with a cocked eyebrow then turns back ahead. He has narrow almost elven features, a shock of reddish-brown hair, and a wiry build. He kneels to the ground, producing a small cloth pouch from his cloak, and scoops rocks and pebbles into it. Overhead, above the treetops, there is the squawk of ravens. The figure starts and jumps quickly under the cover of a tree. He hugs himself to the tree trunk, concealing as much of his body as possible under the cloak, and watches through the canopy above, eyes wide with fear. Two ravens soar overhead and pass, their squawking fading into the distance. The man watches a moment longer, peels himself from the tree, and hurries on his way.
EXT. FIELD. LATER.
A HERMIT (Female, Late 60s) is in a hilly field close to the tree line of the forest tending to a heard of goats. She is dressed in a long brown cloak and walks with a hunch on her Shepherd’s crook. The stranger emerges from the tree line.
STRANGER
Hello, there!
She looks up at him. The figure stands at the edge of the forest, waving to her with a broad smile. She looks at him, grunts, and turns away. He scales down a ridge to her.
STRANGER
I’m so glad I found you! These mountains are so isolated and I’m afraid I’ve been a few days without a meal.
HERMIT
I’ve not got meat for two.
She keeps moving away from him and he pursues.
STRANGER
You misunderstand. I’m not asking for a seat at your table.
HERMIT
Good. I came here to be with myself and with me only. I’ve no use for strangers at my table.
STRANGER
I’d like to propose a trade. For one of your goats.
She stops and turns to him.
HERMIT
What could you have to trade me? Me who needs for nothing?
The stranger produces the cloth pouch from earlier and opens it. Where there were mere rocks and pebbles, the bag is now filled with glittering gold coins, rings, and jewels.
STRANGER
Everyone needs for something.
HERMIT
(In disbelief.) And you give your oath you deal fair? That this is no swindle ? The Terrible One sees all from his throne Hlidskjalf, you know.
She reaches for the pouch; the stranger draws it away. She looks at him, her toothless mouth hanging open.
STRANGER
And some rope. If you can spare it.
EXT. FOREST. MOMENTS LATER.
The stranger leads a goat through the forest with a length of rope tied around its neck. Meanwhile he has an additional spool of rope hanging from his shoulder.
EXT. HILL. LATER.
There is a large Ash tree sitting alone on a hill, the stranger is pushing against the tree’s trunk. The goat stands nearby, tied to a wooden stake in the ground, watching with disinterest and languidly chewing grass. The stranger strains and pushes with all of his might. There is a creaking sound, and thick roots begin shooting out of the ground at the tree’s base with flying clods of dirt. Once the tree is leaning far to one side, the figure throws some of the rope around the trunk, taking an end in each hand, and crosses to the other side and pulls. The tree rips from the topsoil.
EXT. MOUNTAINSIDE. LATER.
The goat meanders up a steep mountainous incline. The stranger follows not far behind, trudging up with rope wound all across his chest and torso. He strains with each step, as the other end of the rope is tied to the trunk of the felled ash tree, which he is dragging up the mountain.
EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP. LATER.
The stranger is hard at work. He drives a thick post into the ground, of which there are already three, one for each corner of a hut. The Ash tree lays to the side, stripped and half ripped apart. The goat is again tied to a stake. The goat bleats at him. The stranger pays it no mind, sweat drips down his brow as he secures the post. His eyes are focused, intent. The goat bleats at him again, loudly and insistently.
EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP. NIGHT.
The hut is complete, a small square hovel with a door on each side with a small square window in each. The stranger sits in front of it by a campfire, over which the dead goat is fixed, fully cooked, on a spit. He cleans off one of its bones and tosses it into the fire.
INT. HUT. MORNING.
It is quiet. The stranger is huddled asleep on the dirt floor in one of the corners, his back against the wall and his cloak draped over him. He opens his eyes slowly and gets up. He moves carefully to the North facing window, looks out. He sees only an empty landscape, the mountain slope going down towards the forest. He checks East, there is no one in sight. South, nothing. West, also nothing.
EXT. WATERFALL. LATER.
The stranger carefully makes his way down a steep rocky decline to a waterfall that runs into a river. He reaches the bottom and looks at the waterfall. He walks over to the river, hops up onto a large rock that projects into it and crouches there. He looks down into the water, the shapes of fish can be seen. In a quick movement, he snatches one out of the water. It is a salmon. He lifts it up and it slips from his grasp. He manages to catch it by its tail. He lifts it up and looks at it as it thrashes between his fingers.
STRANGER
(Mutters.) Slippery creature...
He unceremoniously puts it in his mouth and bites its head off. He remains there, munching on its bones, and thinking.
EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP. NOON.
The stranger sits by the remains of his fire, discarded goat bones laying in the ash. The goat is fully eaten and only gristle and congealed fat remain on the spit. The man plays with one of the lengths of rope. It is fraying and he pulls at the fibers, unwinding them. He pauses; he has an idea.
EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP. LATER.
The stranger is carefully weaving the rope fibers into a fishing net. He smirks.
EXT. FIELD. LATER.
The stranger exits the tree line and pauses, searching for the hermit and her goats. They’re nowhere to be seen. He heads down the slope and starts off across the field.
EXT. HERMIT’S HUT. LATER.
There is a crudely built wooden coral with goats bleating inside of it. Nearby is a small shack with one door placed in a lopsided frame. The hut is old and beginning to lean. The stranger approaches and walks past the corral. He is approaching the hut when the door swings open and the hermit comes out brandishing a short sword.
HERMIT
Away! Away with you! Not a step closer. What are you? Dwarf!? Giant!?
The stranger stops in his tracks. She takes the cloth pouch out from her robes and dumps its contents on the ground. It is full of rocks, pebbles, and dirt.
HERMIT
What kind of magic is this!? Deceiver! Enchanter!
STRANGER
(Smirks) But with enchantments such as these, imagine what more I could give you.
HERMIT
I want nothing more from you! Nothing to do with you at all! The All-Father sees you! Sees all your double-dealings and tricks from Hlidskjalf, oath-breaker! Nidhogg will gnaw on your corpse for this!
STRANGER
(Frowns) I suppose there’s no convincing you... She throws the pouch at him and waves the sword, taking several steps towards him.
HERMIT
Go! Go back from where you came!
The stranger glances at the goats bleating in the pen, turns on his heels, and leaves.
EXT. FOREST. LATER.
The stranger ambles through the woods, looking irritated. He pauses when he hears a far-off voice. He looks, there is a WOMAN (Mid 30s), ornately dressed in flowing white with golden arm bands and jewelry, calling in the distance.
WOMAN
Husband! Husband, where are you!?
The stranger jumps quickly behind a tree and peeks out at the woman, watching her.
WOMAN
Please, you must come back! We can appeal to his reason! I swear it! Please come back to us! Your sons need you! Husband! Husband!
He watches as she wanders off, her calls fading into the distance with her. He takes off running.
EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP. NIGHT.
The stranger sits by the fire. He weaves the fishing net, now more complete than when we previously saw it. A look of frustration appears on his face. He drops the net and looks down the mountain, into the dark of the forest.
EXT. FOREST. LATER.
The shadowy figure of a WOLF skulks through the brush, in and out of scattered patches of moonlight shining down through the canopy onto the forest floor.
EXT. HERMIT’S HUT. LATER.
The goats are sleeping quietly in the pen. In the darkness outside of the pen, a pair of glowing yellow eyes appear.
INT. HERMIT’S HUT. MOMENTS LATER.
The hermit is asleep on a straw mat laid out on the dirt floor. The goats begin bleating outside. The hermit’s eyes slowly flutter open. The goats scream. She leaps up and peers out through the cracks in the side of her hut. The goats continue screaming and there is snarling.
EXT. HERMIT’S HUT. MOMENTS LATER.
The door to the hut flies open and the hermit runs out carrying her short sword and a burning torch. She runs to the pen and looks inside; the goats are dead and bloody. She gasps and stumbles backwards, trembling. She hears a goat scream nearby and turns and runs to it. The wolf drags a half dead goat away by its neck, through the wooden railings at the far side of the pen and then across the ground.
HERMIT Get away!!!
She runs to the wolf and swings the torch at it. The wolf releases the goat, now dead, and snarls and snaps at her. The fur on its face is matted and clotted with blood. She swings the torch at it again and again.
HERMIT
Away!!! Away with you beast!!!
EXT. HERMIT’S HUT. DAWN.
The woman is on her knees, by the dead goat. The burnt-out torch and short sword lay on the ground nearby. The rest of the goats are motionless in the pen, flies beginning to buzz around them. The stranger comes loping up over the hill, carrying several salmon stringed together.
STRANGER
Hello there!
She looks up at him with hollow eyes, her lips trembling.
STRANGER
I bring gifts! I wanted to make up for our misunderstanding yesterday.
The stranger stops and takes inventory of the scene.
STRANGER
A good thing too ... looks like you’ve had a spot of misfortune.
HERMIT
(Murmurs) You stay away.
STRANGER
Surely you can’t blame me for this...
HERMIT
What are you?
STRANGER
(Smirks) Perhaps I haven’t been totally honest with you. You see, I needed to eat and you were being so unreasonable.
HERMIT
(Choked) What...Who...are you?
The stranger stares at her for a long moment.
LOKI
(Grins) My name is Loki.
HERMIT
(Trembles) I’ve heard tell of a murder, the rocks and trees themselves weep....For a murdered god...
Loki’s eyes are predatory. Thunder rumbles in the distance. Loki takes a step towards her, she scrambles back and grabs the sword. Loki takes another step. She jumps to her feet and brandishes the sword at him, her arms shaking.
LOKI
What are you going to do with that?
HERMIT
(Shaking) Don’t...Don’t take another step...I may die, but I’ll die on my feet, I swear it. I’ll be carried to Valhall for my honor...
Loki takes another step. He bows down and places his head at the tip of her sword. His lips twist into a maniacal grin.
LOKI
Go on. Try it.
Another rumble of thunder, this time closer. The sky is getting darker. The winds pick up. The woman trembles with fear. A raven lands on one of the goat carcasses in the pen. Loki hears it caw and glances at it. He lifts his head and looks at it. Another lands on the goat closest, that had been dragged, and squawks. He stumbles backward. The woman looks at the two ravens.
HERMIT
Huginn. Muninn. They’ve come...
The raven on the nearby goat carcass squawks at Loki. Thunder cracks and echoes across the mountain, lightning flashes, and wind blows. Loki’s eyes fill with fear.
HERMIT
They’ve come for you, Loki! The Terrible One sees all from Hlidskjalf! And now they’ve come!
Loki is backing away. Thunderclaps roll across the mountain. The woman’s look has become crazed, she spits toothlessly:
HERMIT
Hear hooves pounding against the sky as the living son’s chariot nears!!! They’ve come for you, Loki!!! There’s nowhere left to run!!! The Terrible One sees all!!! He’s sent his living son!!!
Loki turns on his heels and runs. The two ravens flap their wings and take off after him. The woman begins cackling as the winds blow and tear grass and brush up from the ground. Lightning flashes and thunder roars.
EXT. FIELD. MOMENTS LATER.
Loki runs across the field, towards the tree line. The woman’s insane laughter echoes after him and thunder rumbles. The ravens are trailing him, floating above him, and diving down and pecking at him at intervals. He yells and throws his cloak at them, disappearing into the tree line while the ravens fight against the cloak and wind.
EXT. FOREST. MOMENTS LATER.
Loki stumbles through the forest, trips, falls, and picks himself back up. Over the noise of the thunder, a booming voice can be heard yelling out, reins lashing, goats bleating.
EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP. MOMENTS LATER.
Loki desperately climbs up the mountain to his hut. He sees the fishing net beside the campfire. In a panic he scoops it up and crams it into the firepit. The winds begin dying down, as well as the thunder. He grabs two rocks and desperately strikes them together over the firepit. He makes some sparks, but they don’t catch. He keeps trying and looks down the mountain, a chariot drawn by mountain goats and three figures have appeared in the clearing at its base out of thin air. He strikes more sparks, these catch, and the net starts to burn. He scrambles to his feet and begins running down the slope on the other side, to the waterfall, shedding his clothes.
EXT. CLEARING. CONTINUOUS.
The goat-drawn chariot sits in the now serene field, the storm clouds above dissipating. Two figures are outside of the chariot and making their way up the mountain towards Loki’s hut. The third one, with a long red beard, THOR (Male, Mid 30s), sits brooding for a moment, before sliding out, the chariot creaking under the weight of his burly frame. He picks up a small ornate iron mallet that was on the seat beside him. It is speckled with viscera and skull fragments.
EXT. WATERFALL. CONTINUOUS.
A naked Loki comes scrambling down the decline from the mountain top and runs to the river. He jumps in and disappears. A salmon momentarily breaks the surface where Loki jumped in.
INT. HUT. CONTINUOUS.
The door flies open. KVASIR (Male, Mid 30s), an Aesir in full armor with an inquisitive expression, takes several steps inside and looks around.
KVASIR
Nothing.
He walks out. Thor, who is looking in with Hernod, fumes with rage and steps away. Hernod glances in briefly one last time and follows the others.
EXT. MOUNTAIN TOP. CONTINUOUS.
Kvasir kneels by the firepit, which has been extinguished and is still smoking. He looks at it with curiosity. Thor stands by the hut, fuming silently. Hernod is between them. He looks back at Thor then to Kvasir.
HERNOD
Any sign?
KVASIR
I’m not sure yet ...
Kvasir lifts the partly burnt net out of the firepit. Thor squeezes the hilt of his hammer, and it gradually swells in size, following the simmering tempo of his rage, until it is enormous and resembles the Mjolnir we would expect. Thor yells in fury and swipes at the hut with Mjolnir, the hut exploding inward in a thundercrack and a cloud of dust and wood splinters.
KVASIR
Thor, be calm.
HERNOD
Kvasir, our brother was just killed.
KVASIR
Grieve later. We need our wits.
Kvasir examines the net. Thor continues smashing the already ruined hut with his hammer.
KVASIR
Tricky little creature ...
HERNOD
What have you found?
KVASIR
I hear running water. Follow me...
Kvasir takes the net and gets up.
EXT. WATERFALL. MOMENTS LATER.
Hernod and Kvasir stand on one side of the river and Thor the other. They drop the net into the water and hold each side. They proceed to drag the river.
EXT. STREAM BED. CONTINUOUS.
As the net moves through the water, Loki swims as the salmon below it and it passes over him.
EXT. WATERFALL. MOMENTS LATER.
The three gods lift the net out of the water.
THOR
Nothing! Useless, Kvasir.
KVASIR
We’ll try weighing it down with rocks.
EXT. STREAM BED. MOMENTS LATER.
Loki sees the net come dragging back, now weighed down by rocks and flush to the bottom of the river. Loki begins swimming quickly away from it, the net gaining on him.
EXT. WATERFALL. CONTINUOUS.
Kvasir is on one side of the river and Hernod the other. They drag the net quickly upstream.
EXT. STREAM BED. CONTINUOUS.
Loki swims away from the net but sees that he’s been cornered and is about to run into the foaming waters at the base of the waterfall. In a quick movement he surges upward.
EXT. WATERFALL. CONTINUOUS.
The salmon leaps out of the water and flops over the top of the net. A hand snatches it in mid-air. It is Thor, stripped to the waist and wading in the river behind the net. Loki thrashes wildly and slips out of his grasp. Thor snatches him quickly with his other hand, clenching his fist tightly around his salmon’s tail. Loki flops hopelessly.
EXT. ENTRANCE TO DEEP EARTH. DAY.
The Aesir are all gathered by a tall stone door that leads into the side of a mountain. It’s inscribed across its surface and around its frame with runes. Loki is on his knees, Thor holding him by one arm and Hernod by the other. Loki’s eyes are downcast and miserable. There is the sound of ravens squawking. Loki looks up to see the two ravens fluttering and landing just outside the crowd of gathered Aesir. The Aesir part to reveal ODIN (Male, 50s) standing stone-faced and fully armored with ravens on both shoulders and his spear, Gungir, in hand. He moves through the crowd to Loki and looks down at him.
ODIN
Why?
Loki says nothing. There is a long pause. Loki looks up and merely twists his face into a grin. Odin looks at him a moment longer, an icy rage behind his one eye, and turns away. Thor and Hernod bring Loki to his feet. The heavy stone door in the mountain slowly slides open.
SIGYN (OFF)
(Sobbing) Loki! Loki! What do they mean to do to our sons!?
Loki turns and looks, Odin is standing before Loki’s two sons, VALI and NARI, restrained by Valkyries. SIGYN, Loki’s wife, the woman from the forest, stands off to the side weeping.
ODIN
The restraints that will bind you, until Ragnarok.
Loki watches with dead eyes as Odin waves his spear over Vali and Vali transforms into a snarling wolf. The wolf pounces on Nari, and he begins screaming. The screams die away and the wolf goes running into the wilderness, fur matted with blood. Nari lays dead. Sigyn sobs.
ODIN
Tyr, retrieve the son’s intestines...Thor, prepare the runes so that they will become hard as iron when they bind the father.
INT. CAVERN IN DEEP EARTH. LATER.
Loki lay across three large rocks. Each has been carved through with a hole and through these holes run the transmuted intestines that bind Loki’s legs, waist, and torso. A snake is dangling from a stalactite on the ceiling above him, its mouth open and fangs dripping with venom. The venom lands in a wooden bowl, full nearly to the brim, that Sigyn is holding above his face. Sigyn caresses Loki’s shoulder.
SIGYN
Fear not, husband. I will look after you. I will look after you until the end of the nine worlds: until the end of the gods, the end of man...
LOKI
But...
SIGYN
But the poison is nearly to the brim. I must go dispose of it now...
LOKI
(Somber) Go then ...
Sigyn takes the bowl and leaves to dump it. Loki lays and merely waits. Venoms drips from the snake’s fangs and lands on his face. The venom hisses and sizzles on his flesh and he lets out a scream of agony and writhes. The cavern walls shake as Sigyn drains the bowl in a stone basin.
EXT. MOUNTAINTOP. CONTINUOUS - DAY.
Loki’s scream echoes across the mountain where his collapsed hut still sits. The rocks and debris tremble violently. A pair of ravens, sitting on the ruin of the hut squawk and fly away. The earth stills and the sounds fade.
FADE TO BLACK, THE END.
Too Much
Kelsey Phillips | oil on canvas
Exorcism: for Helena Qi Hong
Yuan Changming | poetry
From every corner of my life
I have been trying desperately to drive
All your presences to an unknown space
Far beyond the reach of my synapses
So I can live peacefully with my old self
Reading books, listening to music, having A tea party with my friends, browsing Online, doing some mindful meditation
Or even writing something that has Nothing to do with love, but alas, I just Cannot concentrate on anything, or Anybody else but the thought of you
O for a single moment free of your spell!
Still life, Séance
Estelle Spinner | watercolor on paper
Final Stretch
Estelle Spinner | watercolor on paper
The Painter
Ivan de Monbrison | poetry
At almost fifty-six years old
I am myself another man, Always walking on his head
As a finger slips down my ear Maybe trying to get to the brain. And even when I am sleepwalking I can still spot this cute spider crawling somewhere over the floor, Until it reaches a dark corner And gently starts weaving its web. Then I pick up a book and read Lines, that say nothing to me, Written by some unknown writer Who nobody cares about.
So I stand up and drop the book, I cut my wrist, pick up a brush, To paint on the window with my blood, And with the snow falling behind It makes some scary painting, No doubt, a self-portrait, as usual
An Epiphany
Jules Stachiw | poetry
something has shifted in the corner of my eye; perhaps a flicker from the candle flame. my mind has a history of manifesting demons they consume my thoughts, my emotions, my reality but this time, i feel calm.
i think i feel calm my hands aren’t shaking and my eyes haven’t begun to water, yet there is a beating in my chest my heart’s thumping is growing louder and now i can feel my heavy pulses gaining strength.
there is a faint ticking from the clock; good, i can use this to ground myself. correct, time, a stable unchanging concept you can manipulate it’s about the perception one has over the content in their mind. correct, there is no shadow lurking only the flicker of a candle; which now that my attention has been brought to it, seems dimmer than before.
when did the flame get so low? why did it burn so quickly? how, did it burn so quickly? why is the illumination so strange? why is it not soft, but murky? why is the ticking getting louder?
it’s louder, slower, and of a different pitch the duration is longer; but it's louder, slower, and different— i’m looking at the clock–when did i shift my attention?–it’s stuck on three, but the creaking correct, creaking, is still getting louder
now silence, my hands are steady and my eyes are dry so i know i can see clearly, i can see my best friend's apparition clearly but she has a more youthful, warming presence; the silence feels comforting and there is a slight creak as she extends her arm. i reach out to embrace her yet, she seems impossibly far for such a small room. then within one step, she is gone. the silence has been broken by a drip; darkness has consumed the room in an instance. the candle has burned out. the drips are getting heavier but i cannot detect the source of the sound my hands are fumbling trying to search for a small lamp a click finally lights the room, i hear the drip hit the paper i was writing on it is a tear, my tear
The first thing you ask when I call is if I am okay. I return the question and try to explain my dream correct, dream, daydream, lucid- lucid daydream But you stop me, and ask if I have taken my medication. After a moment of harsh silence, you hung up.
It’s odd, I never thought you would say something like that.
the cold temperature is scratching my skin, i’ve noticed the faint ticking of the clock good, the clock, the ticking, the stability; it’s changing no, the clock, the ticking, the stability; it’s unchanging; correct through the haze in my eyes I can barely see the time its hands are stretched to three thirty-three.
Untitled 3
Shabani | gouache
Zahra
Reaching Towards
Nancy Miiller | in-camera multiple exposure
The Wave
Isabella Bickenbach | poetry
00:00
when the wave came no one was prepared people were boarding in the water tanning in the sand smiling for pictures to put on refrigerators and in Hallmark frames cleaning sunglasses shaking off the sand on towels chasing after umbrellas blown in the wind
when the wave came no one saw it coming it’s been building up in the ocean for days like a serpent feasting on revenge waiting for when it’s grown enough to come out in the night and attack
when the wave finally came it roared up and up like a lion stretching out its back and then it looked down on the people like an arrogant king dismissing its subjects
it came down slowly taking its time tormenting the screaming smudged faces while lifeguards were yelling clear the beach
there was a moment of silence before it came down and then white noise sounded like thunder and lightning
it ate up people and boards and sunglasses and sunscreen it ate and ate and ate like a greedy man eats before he will sleep for a hundred years and then the worst part came when it closed the mouth of his cave and there were no more people on the beach
except a little boy frozen in the sand where he missed the wave by two inches
What Family Couldn’t Save Me From
Suzzanne Bigelow | creative nonfiction
The sunset offered the same arrangement of colors that the sun's rays projected every evening into the AZ sky. But I couldn’t appreciate it because I had to focus on controlling my breath and not hyperventilating behind the wheel.
Tomorrow, I was supposed to leave for California with my parents. My mind was spiraling through scenarios of out-of-state family members asking me simple questions such as how is college, questions I couldn’t possibly answer now. I needed to tell someone what I was going through so that I wouldn't feel so alone in my suffering, but a family vacation wasn’t the right time.
So, I called my friend, the one I’d called the night it happened. I talked to her in the pauses between sobbing. I told her about the guilt I’d carried for not telling my mom. Growing up, I had never kept anything from her. She was my wing-woman, the one who helped get my father out of the house so that I could host my first girl-boy sleepover. In fact, throughout that day, I’d felt queasy and called my mom to say I didn't think I could go through with it, and she responded with I didn't take your father out of the house for nothing
I asked my friend why the boy didn't listen, even after continuously telling him to go home. I asked her why I didn't do more to make him leave. I asked her why I thought that once he was in my bed, I just had to go through with it. I asked her why I had to be thankful that he didn’t penetrate me, even though he dismissed my hesitancy. I asked her why I hadn’t viewed it as sexual assault before.
After the spring semester ended, I was no longer concerned with juggling academic responsibilities and social activities. The experiences I’d lived through forced me to rethink how I had previously framed them, eventually leading to disturbing revelations about myself and the world.
In the forty minutes it took me to drive home after work, the warm pastel colors of the sunset mixed together, resulting in a muddy blue that mirrored the array of emotions and profound confusion I felt inside. I pulled into the driveway of my house and walked into my living room where my mother and father were watching their show. Instead of simply saying “I'm home,” I told them that I had to get something off my chest. I sat down and prefaced the conversation by saying I didn't want any judgment from them. Then I told them, externally composed, what had happened to me. After I finished sharing my story, my mother responded with I thought I protected you from something like this ever happening to you.
Prohivito In Altum
Adams
Juli
| oil on canvas
Baby
Simon Angel | poetry
I fall back into obscure vivid dreams
The sky filled with dark clouds teeming with rain
A small corner edging on clearing where the sun shines through in orange and gold
And where he is being kind
He follows me everywhere I go
Stained on the back of my eyelids
And when I wake choking on my spit
I wipe at my mouth and realize
My dreams have become my waking thoughts
And my thoughts have confused themselves for reality
He lurks in the corner, I’m sure
Or I am back in his bed
Cold sheets
Colder gaze
I shrink from him, yet cling to him
While he calls me baby as he threatens to kill me
I don’t know what I’ve done now
But I try anyway not to hurt him better so he won’t hurt me
I’ve been good, I promise
I promise
(I Will Love You)
The Way Dogs Love Men
Simon Angel | oil on canvas
La Peu Belle
Samuel Harris (HarrisPortraits) | acrylic painting on canvas
Becoming
Autumn Byars | poetry
after Erika Sanchez
You carry traces of your mother in your long hair and the fat at the top of your thighs. Sometimes you think in her voice and want to die.
This ache opened up inside you before you understood what becoming a woman meant It became a chasm in your chest. Where your heart should be, there’s only a throbbing wound.
It stings in the open but the desert lets you feel its air in the late autumn instead of heat. You left your her house in a firestorm, but the sounds of planes and traffic and people laughing still weave you together.
Shifting and constant, the trees do their ancient dances, howling and throwing their shadows long. Even the thick, waxy skin of the cactus oozes when gashed.
You wish for the city to swallow you whole, to scatter your essence on the wind like a patron god. You want someone to cut open your ribcage and cup their hands around the pain or else, stuff it with the braid of hair you chopped off at fifteen, and the glass you broke from the walls, and the ashes and the pills and the flayed skin you leave in your wake.
You ache, you ache, you ache, and you become unknit.
Don’t Mean Nothing
Richard Epstein | poetry
00:00
Tim slept in the hooch across from me. I saw him every day.
Last night his bed was empty. Sarge came to get his stuff and left without a word.
No one said he was missing. We knew he had a girl in town and he’d been acting kinda strange.
I think there’s something above that laughs as it stirs a large pot and suddenly people we know are gone.
Every time I lose a friend there grows another hole. A hole too big to jump across and I can’t just walk around.
Rosette Nebula
Kenneth Naiff | astrophotograph
The Stairs in Georgetown
LB Sedlacek | poetry
00:00
are near Key Bridge a cut through from the Canal near the University but away from Tent City the homeless live on plush dyed green grass in the shadows of designer stores and gourmet cupcakes with a line wrapped around the building even in the freezing cold so that you can buy a $10 plus cupcake but you can’t give $1 to a person freezing off of M street near the chic boutiques and the fancy eateries even the fast food joints have special codes for the restrooms to keep them out
only tourists and joggers come to the stairs so thin so narrow so dark so steep so many
I don’t climb them I used to live here the stairs seem normal to me but my husband who is with me who is driving on this holiday trip asks me what’s the deal with the stairs they’re from a movie a death scene exorcism so many go out of their way to see where death was filmed completely ignoring where death is happening in a red or blue tent in the nation’s capital every single day.
Pretty Please?
Simon Angel | photography
A Day in the Life of a Not-Quite Hell, Asking:
How Do You Make The Days Worth It?
Kylie Smith | creative nonfiction
Wake up feeling not exactly well rested, but rested enough for the day ahead. Maybe one day you’ll finally sleep and not still feel tired, but today is not that day.
don’t check the news don’t check the news Check your email for any important announcements before you head off for work. Catch that over 220,000 probationary federal employees have had their job threatened (AP News), that USAID is being dismantled (New York Times), that the job offer to cull the federal employee rate has been allowed to pass (AP News), and that the instructions for one of your major essays has been updated. That was important assignment information, so you’re glad you caught that. Make a mental note to adjust your assignment schedule accordingly.
Go to class like normal. Admire the beautiful weather we’ve been having recently. Be delighted to cross paths with a friend on your way to another class. Pretend that this will matter in a few years when things inevitably go to shit.
At home, a mountain of laundry, a pile of dishes, and a huge log of homework await you. Today, you choose to start off with the dishes. Your best friend throws on their favorite tunes, and for a moment, while singing karaoke to one of your favorite songs, everything feels like it might just be ok. That warmth follows you for a few hours before homework inevitably takes priority.
Stay up late working on essays. Everything would be so much more manageable if you only had the motivation to focus more, honestly.
Hours of work later, you finally have finished enough for the day to call it quits. There’s more work to be done tomorrow, of course. But for today, you’ve done enough.
You wake up feeling tired.
Five days into the week, you finally have time to see a friend. It’s wonderful to chat with her; you talk a lot over text of course, but being able to hang in person is a rare enjoyment you try and savor. In one of your visits, she shows you her dual citizenship passport she finally got officiated.
“In case I get deported” she tells me. Both of us laugh the worry away, but the recent ICE raids (AZ Central) and whispers of deportation for the Chinese population (LA Times) hangs heavy in the background.
You wake up feeling tired.
Going into work for the weekends is always a tough schedule to plan homework around. But the work itself is not bad once you’re there. It soothes something inside of you, when you can tangibly help people.
Your dad mentions that the two of you should go to the Korean Fried Chicken place you both love dearly. A friend of a friend got searched by ICE there. It sounds like a fun idea, you say, except for the underlying wariness that haunts every activity you do now.
Even walking along ASU makes you on edge,
after the club announcement encouraging people to report students to ICE. You worry about your friends often, as many are part of groups who are being actively targeted by recent governmental mandates.
You wake up feeling tired.
In the few hours you’ve been asleep, twenty-four plus emails have gracefully swooped into your inbox, ready to crow their very important news at the digital crack of dawn (i.e. when you drag yourself out of bed). Most, however, are spam offers, with the occasional important email from the college and the teachers.
As for the news, it’s always something that feels so distant and terrifying and ruining and far away, all at once, but if you focus on it too much, you’ll be late for class and well. That’s not really something you can afford. So, you put the phone away and pretend that your immigrant dad and grandma aren’t next on the chopping block. And you text your friends to make sure they’re alivenot in prison-not yet deported ok, just to be sure.
You wake up feeling tired.
When you’re not at college, you’re doing work for college. And when you’re not doing school related work, you’re doing Research Assistant work for an ASU Center. Weekends are for retail work. Smile. Smile. Smile. Don’t slip. Nothing can break through your positive attitude; it’s dissociative. It’s soul crushing. It’s necessary.
Eight hours for two days in a row and it’s back again to school, pretending that we’re safe as students and hoping that your menial work somehow makes a tangible difference.
It’s exhausting after all, to go days without a break. To switch from lectures, to homework, to thesis work, to RA responsibilities, to retail work, every week with no break. It’s tiring, stretched so thin, over so many responsibilities, with no end in sight.
But every time you think of curling up into a ball and taking one day off, just to scream or cry or possibly even sleep, you remember your dad. Your stoic father, who carried the breadwinning capabilities on his shoulder for years without complaint. Who cried for the first time in years when he told you that he got laid off from his job and that mom alone couldn’t support the family.
So, you don’t take the time off. Mortgages don’t wait for those who need a break.
You wake up feeling tired. Again. And again. And again.
What do you do when the world is on fire, and it feels like anything you do is pointless in the face of an upended world order?
You, apparently, try to carry on as normal. Reach out to your friends. Laugh and share compliments with strangers. Tell your parents you love them when you see them. For me, human connection is what we have left to help us in these times; helping each other in what ways we can becomes not just a virtue, but an ensurement of each other’s survival. Laugh while you still can, take joy where you still can. Put in the work to make a tangible difference for someone. It’s all you can do, but it’s also what you must do, to make things better if only for a second.
You wake up feeling tired.
It’s My Passion!
Jakob Cohen | pencil and India ink
Hiding the Flaws
Edyn Hughes | graphite and charcoal
Mega Conflicts
Yuan Changming | poetry
00:00
1/ man vs god
He created us out of dust to let us
All prostrate before Him, while We made every kind of god from The same just to worship him
2/ man vs nature
She gives birth to each & every one of Us, but we grew up only to destroy Her
3/ man vs man
As if genetically coded with enmity
We must always fight against one
Another with words or swords
Otherwise, we’d all die of hunger
4/ man vs himself
We are what we are
Yet refuse to be such
There is Nothing
Peter J. Dellolio | poetry
There is nothing in the vague faucet news.
We give momentum to sad Brooklyn Day cannibals.
And the canon was filled with satirical works.
And the cannon balls destroyed the church. (The priests remained, safe naked and afraid, in the basement).
Maude
Samuel Harris (HarrisPortraits) | graphite pencil on paper
Cat Hair
Jacqueline Hyatt | fiction
Clumps of white hair cling to my clothes, painting me as a young version of a kooky librarian. I take a roller to my blouse, my skirt, and pray that the cat fur will pull away and leave me presentable.
The hair sticks to the car seats, blankets, gets into my contact solution. I find it in my food, and my face scrunches when some gets into my mouth. I glare at my cat in a loving disgust, wishing maybe she would shed less.
And then one day, all too suddenly, I start to notice the absence of hair on my shirts. I put away the heated blanket that my cat loved to sleep on, hoping to preserve whatever is left. I think back to the days when I could still roll my eyes at the strands of white stuck to the furniture. I wish I never realized what it means when the cat hair is gone.
clichés
Natasha N. Deonarain | poetry
how can this be any more cliché?
• nice husband
• nice friends
• nice house
by age twenty-six, well-made plans bound in a three-ring, printed tabs (not handwritten!), alphabetically filed:
• life insurance
• mortgage
• retirement
• voter registration
like your ex, southwest airlines mechanic organizing his toolbox
a place for everything and everything in its place
what is this life of clichés— a bunch of Jesus bugs scuttling on the surface tension of water, never diving deep, never willing to drown—
a childhood friend sends a selfie from somewhere in egypt, london, australia, india
she’s surrounded by
• pyramids
• the palace of westminster
• ayers rock
• the taj mahal
but something strange on her face that doesn’t quite reach her eyes a frown a shade something that cannot be named another friend: running and running running to
• cathedral rocks and
• monument hills and
• mountain vistas and
• volcanic ash and
• back home and
• back to the office and
running the moment she awakens at 6 a.m. in the airbnb you’ve booked and you haven’t seen her for five years; breakfast with coffee steaming on the table— running out the door and you haven’t discovered her daughter’s favorite class in school— running until the dinner you’ve cooked grows cold in the fridge and she wolfs down a microwaved meal at ten o’clock at night and you—
you breathing here in this chair you with your favorite pen in this dimming silence, scratching at these words in the moments you have before you rush out the door
• to work
• to a doctor’s appointment
• to the grocery store
where’s your quiet desperation— the ways you choose to disappear—
The Land of Fire and Ice
Paige Milatz | digital camera photography
Til Death Do Us Part
Paige Milatz | poetry
00:00
“Where in the world would you like to travel?”
Asked my aunt.
“Iceland,” I responded.
“Interesting,”
Thought my husband as he tucked my answer away in his pocket til Christmas.
My aunt the doctor dying of an incurable disease
Preparing for a funeral
Healthy cells losing the battle for good this time
Life once a dancing flame
Turning to stone, stiff, cold, dimming
The color drained from her hair, her cheeks
Shuddering to stagnation
One more shallow breath that would be
Her last.
Us newlyweds on our way overseas belated honeymoon.
Time:
All we had in Iceland when money was short but dreams were big
The land of fire and ice
Showered skin smelling like sulfur
Orange egg yolk breakfast
Waterfalls bleed into black pebble beaches Wind battered cheeks red-raw
Black-and-white world with hearts full of color
Inhaling the fresh energy of foreign sea mist air
Sunshine, no warmth to reach our faces
To be somewhere so beautiful yet shredded to pieces the ocean floor beneath those thrashing grey waves
Another trip planned before the first finished.
Returning to leave to say my goodbyes
Loss and its wicked ways of reuniting
“I wish we were together under happier circumstances.”
Beyond pain, body restored to peace
Ceremony comes to a close
Covered in dark Earth cast by a too-young son
A life lived over and done
The wounds of the living open and bleeding
Rushing waterfalls, continental divide
Geothermal activity as our pulsing hearts beat.
Honeymoon over, reality begun.
Question answer fire ice love loss beginning end
Carry on living
Remember her dreaming even now even then.
Nineteen
Jasiyah Ayshe | poetry
Melancholic hues of yellow yesterday
Featherlike, fall off the skinny limbs of elder trees
Heavy from youthful storms
And sunny dreams,
The years peel off my body.
Like snow after a scorching heat
Leaving me tired and abased.
Autumn’s crimson blues come sink beneath my skin!
Ink me with lemon sprit henna
Lines of arching daisies in bloom, Spiral out and away
And the horns of some mythical bird of prey
In feathered detail
Watching, Watching, With wide-rimmed eyes.
Red, orange, yellow skin
Scurrying in the wind
My bones click, clack, into new configurations
Still, my soul remains sacred.
And as the leaves fall forward, My hair falls down
The raising my eye lineAs I reach for
Summer’s last green apple, still glistening from the last sunshine of the season.
Grey skies frame evergreens.
Unpicked pomegranates rot in the street.
Time leaves me breathless and barren.
Aching for a taste of summer, I forget spring.
Untitled 4
Zahra Shabani | gouache
Whirlpool Galaxy
Kenneth Naiff | astrophotograph
Voyager
Peyton Bryan | fiction
You and I.
We sing a song as old as time. A hymn etched in the marrow of our bones. It softly whispers and tickles the cords in our throats. Its words evoke an old euphony. From a time when we were not so different. When the cut of each gib was a molten lake of gore. When our lips were grafted together, bleeding velvet pools into each open mouth. When we existed everywhere.
When it was impossible to tell where You would have ended, and I could’ve begun.
It echoes the gentle patter of toes on a blood splatter. Little fingers plucking their tune into our melded hearts. A string orchestra of veins that drink from the lake’s wine-red waters and spew symphonies back into the garden.
That garden where You and I were whole, ripe enough to bear fruit. The song grows ever louder. Its sound stretches to the sky. To the stars. Up there, where nobody can hear the chorus cry. No one but the weavers. They who rip the stars apart and sew the folds of a galaxy’s skin back into one. They who gnash their teeth between each dying sun and reshape the flesh into our sweet serenade, an ever-biting melody for our little garden.
If only they could weave You and I back together again.
But all teeth must fall out eventually. And the canals where they took root must gush their blood. And it must hurt. To bleed our song into the endless night. To carry our chorus to a place where it may never be heard again. And should it ever be found, it will be at the hands of the dreamer. Whose many open eyes see our psalm wrapped neatly like a gift. A little golden disc, encased in polyamide and warm greetings. It will hear “hello” in a hundred languages. Wince at the shrieking howl of the Earth’s wind. Reminisce on its favorite dreams to our melancholic blues.
And maybe it will long to be like You and I when our song was still alive.
Lover’s Prayer
Autumn Byars | poetry
Faith the size of mustard mustard seed would be enough for me to bend heaven into my footpath. No, I do not need a whole seed’s worth, I have only a taste, yet my hands are ready to build all on their own.
Spend a night with me and I will make us an entire future–you will never have to endure have an empty decade again. Smile to me from the corner of my vision and I will find you the perfect name for your children.
Turn your head away under the moonlight and only let me see the side of your face–that is the inch from which I will run a thousand miles.
O God!
That the world would let me love it as much as I am ready to–when the angels molded me together, they did not close the lock in my chest and so my heart has always been open and aching.
I am already moving mountains–if I turn my face heavenward and let my heart grow into a seed, I fear I will become too large for this life. I am running out of places to put all of this love.
Seeking:
A willing vessel who will stand fast against my current as I love us into a new being.
North 1510
Cyd Peroni | archival pigment print
Mary Oliver Would Have Hated That Guy
Amanda Levendowski | poetry
He liked poetry and, most unfortunately, me. Enough to text late at night when I would have rather been dreaming of better men.
He’d ask me to tell him about despairs, certain he was not among them.
He’d remind me, “You do not have to be good,” certain he’d convince me not to be.
He tried to give me a reason to walk on my knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting, unaware that I left the desert years ago already knowing how to let the soft animal of my body love what it loves because I’d found Wild Geese years before he did.
Cascade
Nancy Miiller | in-camera multiple exposure
In the Land of Coyotes and Sage
Kathryn Good-Schiff | poetry
I fell for a West Coast fisherman moonlighting as a Santa Fe farmer. Together we planted tiny seeds and heaved around sacks of grain for chickens. With joy we sliced the necks of lettuce, layering their heads into boxes. Driving at night, our headlights animated sunflowers, barbed wire. Alone one morning up on the mesa, I found a single paintbrush flower. It said, Do you know what you’ve gotten into?
You don’t belong here. By September we had bloomed and withered. But I followed him, tried for a life on the coast he’d described as ripe with rain, ferns and blackberries everywhere, their leaves making the desert seem like a dream. We argued on the beach as the wind raged. The Douglas-firs said, What are you doing?
You don’t belong here.
So I bought a bus ticket and headed east, trusting some flower or tree would tell me when I came to a suitable place.
Self-Made North Star
Kelsey Phillips | linoleum block print on paper
In the Footsteps of My Grandmother and Abuela
Suzzanne Bigelow | creative nonfiction
My name symbolizes the deep importance of family. My parents, grateful for the values instilled in them by their mothers, chose to honor them by naming the most precious thing they possessed after them. Thus, the names of their mothers and their values, Suzzanne Fiske Bigelow and Rosa Emilia Rodriguez Torres, continue to live on through me, Suzzanne Emilia Bigelow. In this way, their creativity, compassion, and wisdom are woven into the fabric of my identity, shaping who I am and how I see the world.
Mi Abuela Rosa lives on the neighboring continent of South America, in Colombia, where the daily fifty percent chance of rain is a constant reminder of their proximity to the Equator. Growing up, I visited her once a year, and those visits became some of the most cherished moments of my childhood. She taught me the value of curiosity and compassion, always eager to share stories and traditions, and encouraging me to embrace the beauty of my roots. But as I got older, life shifted. My focus turned to club volleyball, and eventually, college. What had once been an annual trip gradually turned into one year, then two, and eventually three years without a visit.
When I was younger, before I knew Spanish, my mother would leave me under mi abuela’s care while she ran errands. About an hour into being left alone with her, I began asking mi abuela for water. I remember repeating the word “water” over and over. However, no matter how many times I said it, the syllables didn’t make any sense to her. She looked at me, puzzled, unable to understand my request. After the sixth time, I could see the worry in her eyes. She quickly grabbed the phone and called my mother.
“Mija, mija, no sé qué la niña quiere,” mi abuela said frantically, clearly at a loss.
Looking back now, I realize the frustration of being unable to communicate something so simple. My need for something as basic as water felt so out of reach, both for me and for mi abuela. It was a small moment, but one that left a lasting impression. It highlighted how language, or the lack of it, can create distance between us, even when love and compassion are present.
My grandma Suzzanne passed away when I was five years old. I never had the opportunity to truly get to know her, as she lived in Utah during the summers and in California to escape the Salt Lake City winters, while my parents and I lived in Arizona. I have only one memory of her a trivial interaction with no sound, since I don’t remember her voice. In the background is the silhouette of the reddish claytone mountain range of Palm Springs, dotted with shades of green from the leaves atop the palm tree columns. Grandma and I were standing on a blinding white terrace that surrounded the blue-tinted clear waters of her community’s pool. She walked toward a cluster of flowers that seemed out of place in the blistering Southern California desert. She picked a flower, returned to where I was standing, knelt in front of me, and placed a short stem of a red hibiscus between the crevasse of my head and ear. And
that’s where the scene ends. I can’t remember if we broke the still waters of the pool or returned to my grandparents’ townhouse.
Before, when I thought of my grandma, I never felt sadness, as she never had much of an impact on my life. However, as I’ve witnessed the family dynamics of my friends and their relationships with their grandparents, I can’t help but wish I could know something as simple as my grandma’s favorite color. The closest I can get to her is by asking my parents about her, such as how every Halloween she would go all out and end up in a Salt Lake City newspaper or how much she loved scrapbooking, which she passed down onto my mom, hoping that time hasn’t skewed what they remember about her.
Both of my grandmothers embody values that have deeply influenced me. Suzzanne’s creativity and Rosa’s compassion shaped their lives and the way they nurtured those around them. Stories of my grandma taught me to approach life with an artistic eye, and mi abuela showed me the power of a kind heart, always seeking to understand and help others. These values continue to guide me.
I hope that as I carry their names forward, I also carry the essence of what they stood for. I will keep my single memory of my grandma Suzzanne as vivid as possible so that when my children ask me about their great-grandmother, I can share a personal story that isn’t just a hand-me-down memory. I wonder if she would be proud of me, if she would think I am honoring her name and the creativity she embodied. As for mi abuela Rosa, despite the distance between us, I strive to embody the compassion she always shows whenever I’m with her.
Untitled 6
Shabani | gouache
Zahra
Salvi Soul
Naomi Portillo | poetry
Sweat trickling down my forehead and the slope of my nose to end on my lips, The relief of finding a canopy to shade myself from a restless sun that just peaked among the clouds.
Soft white sands below my feet, lifting in the slightest breeze from the tide’s direction, Waves crash and drench my hair, leave saltiness in my mouth and a slight crunch between my teeth.
The current pulls me in and I am adrift in echoes of home. A stranger to its depths yet I welcome the pulse of the water as it drowns my dread. I am tucked into the seabed, a child out of reach.
Death mountains, silent and slumbering, secretive and serene as they watch over their own.
Churning rivers and roaring waterfalls, from their blue and their twinkle when sunshine hits the surface.
Will the death mountains watch over me?
As I tread their foreign peaks and summits like a ghost among the trees. My voice is lost in the stream’s ballad, tossed between crevices in the rocks and unable to float.
Handicraft and artwork, grinning red suns and yellow moons, beaded bracelets and woven shoulder bags.
Sisal hammocks sway between the trees, and hold up to two or three and swaddle them as if they were born only yesterday.
The suns and the moons laugh and point fingers, Mirala, they say through brush-stroked teeth and chipped cheeks. A fleeting presence in their time, I am left to swing in their shadows instead.
Smelling the feast before it is finished cooking and being told to set the table for the grown-ups. Laughs of children running barefoot on the streets and the warnings from their mothers watching from their front steps.
These same mothers whispering amongst themselves about their neighbors, about their kids and how rowdy they had been raised.
Their leather cheeks decorated with lines of years past, each one a testament and a dream lost.
Time and wisdom flows into the creek nested behind their homes. I dip my hands inside but they cannot seem to get wet, I look into the ripples and I cannot see myself.
FTW: the Super Competition
b/w China & America
Yuan Changming | poetry
Can boil down to a single word: [In terms of etymology,] ‘win’ results Simply from labor, struggle, or war [As long as we are all in?], whereas ‘赢’
Involves the complication of all the Five elements: the fear of 亡 [death]
The act of 口 [speech], the sense of 月 [Time], the use of 贝 [money] as well as The attitude of an 凡 [ordinary] mind
Pelican Mountain Nebula
Kenneth Naiff | astrophotograph
North 993
Cyd Peroni | archival pigment print
Metagenomics
Sanyam Shah | poetry
A method for studying the structure and function of microbial communities by analyzing the DNA extracted from environmental samples.
Small but not insignificant, microbes roam aimlessly, sailing the winds on invisible currents in search of vulnerable shores.
They enter the body, coursing the stream of blood, hijacking new cells, injecting its DNA. A poor worker, using its energy to live, to reproduce.
It flourishes while a young woman cries and a grandma worries, placing wet towels on her forehead.
We sample the environment, that harbors these crews. By sequencing DNA from the earth and the skies, we identify our foes.
But the result is in a never-ending war— we fight, knowing that at the end of the day, we can stop a loved one’s cries as the host recovers and the wet towels disappear.
Saguaro Cactus Flowers (1)
Natasha N. Deonarain | poetry
00:00
back patio, she’s drawn the curtains in the house to save AC costs and maybe after twenty years we’re used to the heat but she’s in the wheelchair all the time now, left leg always giving her a slight swing step but that didn’t stop her from driving or hiking. now, bathrooms are difficult without help and there are long pauses between half-complete sentences as she talks about doctors, chemo, hospital food; ever grateful that blue cross paid over $100K last month but her face is no longer plump peaches and cream, no longer framed in a white-gold glow of impossible curls, instead drawn with sallow, vertical lines I’ve never seen, crowned with a dull auburn wig to cover stubborn hairs that kept fighting and inside every cell she carries chemicals like sacs of water to drown her dry from inside out. I marvel at the jut of her knees like two knobbed knife handles, the angle of her collar bones like questions I can’t answer and when she opens her stuck mouth to speak, thick and slurred, she stops, agate blue eyes glaze as shadows stretch, the air cools in the yawn of dusk and I hold my breath one last time—
waiting for her to bloom
Saguaro Cactus Flowers (2)
Natasha N. Deonarain | poetry
00:00
lush petals only open when the copper-coin sun drops into a canyon slot as orange-blue ombre clouds close and muffle the desert growth is optimal from sea level to four thousand feet and flowers with creamy white blossoms and plush gold centers bloom on the crown of an arm in a counterclockwise direction moving from east to west each flower wilts after 24 hours the number of days over 110°F have increased by thirty-one per year and temperatures don’t cool at night when respiration occurs monsoons have failed to arrive and searing conditions dehydrate from the inside out as structural integrity is lost the body implodes unable to defend itself as internal tissues weaken then decay unable to breathe and gradually suffocate from excess heat
The Rape of Dinah
Rebecca Stevenson | fiction
00:00
The summer Dinah’s uncle raped her, the heat peaked at 38, and again when Dinah’s mother arranges her marriage, the temperatures reach 40. Dinah doesn’t believe her rape to be relevant, but the parents of potential matches tend to. As did Dinah’s classmates and teachers whose curiosity drove her out of school her final year, as did her brothers as they beat their uncle to death, as does her mother, Leah, when she prays nightly for the restoration of her husband’s honor, which he likely worries about daily in his St. Ignatius grave.
On the hottest day Kerala has seen in twenty years, a boy and his parents are in Dinah’s sitting room, meeting in consideration of marriage. The temperatures are even higher here in Puthenthope than where the guests reside in Mumbai. The two families sit underneath the AC unit and the air cools their necks, but even then, sweat shifts across their skin like a silk screen.
The boy, Jestin, sits between his parents, where the air hits hardest and most directly, but this is difficult to see, because he sweats the most profusely of all, shifting in his seat and airing out his shirt. He looks amazingly nervous.
Justin sees Dinah staring. They make eye contact and he glances away before looking back again. At first he looks caught, as if he’s the one that’s been watching her, but then he smiles, slowly and shyly.
Dinah looks down at her lap, feeling warm and confused. Could it be, Dinah wonders, that Jestin is nervous because he likes her or thinks her beautiful, and that the hope and happiness Dinah’s mother has placed on this meeting is not as misguided as she’d thought?
Dinah’s family knows Jestin’s through the friend of a second cousin’s brother-in-law’s teacher’s husband, and so removed a connection means they might not know Dinah was raped, at least not yet. They can’t possibly, she concludes, because they’re being so kind.
“Your daughter is beautiful.” Jestin’s mother says. She smiles at Dinah.
Dinah beams back, though not as brightly as Leah. Leah is sensitive and sociable, and the past few years have been difficult for her, though not because of her daughter’s rape. The rape was not ideal, to be sure, but it was miraculous, too. Dinah was raped at sixteen, which was too old to not have been asking for it. But she was raped by her uncle, and his perversion overrode presumption of her promiscuity, and as a result Puthenthopian society supported Dinah instead of shunning her. Against her uncle, Dinah has straddled the lines of social stigma and come out on top.
Then there is the trouble with Leah’s sons, who are murderers, but that has even less cause to worry her. Leah’s little brother, Filgi, is the police chief, and he ensured the investigation into her brother-in-law’s killing was quickly closed.
Not that anyone in the village would have brought charges against the boys, anyway. Support of a rapist’s murderer is less conditional than that of a rapist’s victim.
The past few years have ultimately been difficult for Leah not because of the extraordinary events of her life, but because of its ordinary circumstances. Her husband is dead. She is a widow. And the world is not as it was, the children do not stay in Puthenthope anymore. As her sons have left home for Delhi, for Dubai, for university, and for more, Leah has grown older, increasingly lonely, and increasingly sad.
Yet the one silver lining Leah secretly sees in her situation, the one advantage of being mother to raped daughter, is that with virginity lost, raped daughter will never marry. Raped daughter can live with mother forever, the two keeping each other company until the latter dies and the former is the one who has to live out the end of her days despondent and alone.
And yet, as Leah looks now to her daughter, who is still smiling, sweet and pure, she knows this is a silver lining she will shed. Leah is willing to let go of Dinah to give her daughter a happy future. Leah is willing to be lonely. Leah is willing to be sad.
Leah offers more Tang, and the guests accept. Dinah collects the grease-rimmed, sweatstained glasses back onto the plastic tray and returns to the kitchen. She fills five fresh glasses with cold water and stirs in Tang powder. As it settles, she looks outside the back door for the little street dog. She’s been giving him food and water and keeps the older dogs
away while he eats. Lately he comes around this time each day, more consistently since the heat wave began.
He is here now, laying to the side, on the dry, green grass. He looks dehydrated and drained and Dinah feels pity. She fills a halved Dasani gallon bottle and finds mutton biryani in the fridge. Briefly, she rests her head underneath the bulb to cool.
The puppy is used to Dinah now, and unafraid as she steps outside, the back door banging behind her. His beige tail wags and his eyes stare intently as Dinah sets down the bottle and the biryani. She is not surprised to see that this time, the dog dives first for the water.
Under the shade of a coconut tree, Dinah closes her eyes and contemplates the conversation inside. She imagines her mother is asking Jestin more about himself, about how he enjoys studying at IIT, and if he wouldn’t like to take a job near Puthenthope when he graduates, perhaps one in Techno Park.
The little dog begins to bark and Dinah opens her eyes. Two adult street dogs approach from the cashew grove, eyeing the mutton. She fed them when they were younger and as feeble as the beige puppy, but once they were grown and strong, she knew they could find food on their own. The little one, on the other hand, cannot. There is a reason that she never sees any of its siblings around anymore.
As the adults stalk closer, Dinah picks up a sturdy stick and swings it at them. They scatter as she throws it, but they do not return to the cashew grove. They lie down nearby and linger.
The puppy finishes its food and Dinah picks up the Dasani bottle to refill it. Her sweaty hands smear against its plastic. She sighs as she steps back inside, but stops quickly. Something is there that wasn’t there before.
Jestin stands by the dining table, in the space between the hallway and the kitchen. It’s a smart choice not only because it is in the direct path of the ceiling fan, but also because it allows him to spy out the window to the green grass where the puppy lies, and where Dinah was just a moment before.
Jestin looks at Dinah, suddenly straightforward and strong, as if by walking down the hallway and separating from his parents he has completed the journey of adolescence, and finally become a man. This startles Dinah, and she feels shy, all Jestin’s previous nervousness shifting into the shaking hands she hides behind her back.
“Your mother wanted me to check on you,” says Jestin. “You and the Tang.”
“Oh,” says Dinah. She looks at the three glasses on the counter, as does Jestin.
“Is it your dog?” asks Jestin, gesturing to the window.
“No,” says Dinah.
“You fed it.”
“I feed it every day.”
Jestin stares at Dinah with a look she cannot understand. She ducks her head, and then
looks again at the Tang. Her heart makes a tremendous sound as she puts the Dasani bottle down.
Jestin takes a few steps forward. He is no longer in the path of the fan, but he is closer to Dinah. “What’s your dog’s name?”
“It doesn’t have a name.”
“If you feed it everyday, you should give it a name.
Dinah doesn’t know what to say. “You give it a name.”
“It’s not my dog.”
“It’s not my dog, either.”
Before Jestin can respond, power sharing comes on, and the fan in the kitchen turns off, as does the AC unit in the sitting room. Dinah and Jestin look at each other as they hear their parents’ disgruntled gasps which, though Dinah doesn’t know why, make her and Jestin laugh, until the humor of it tapers off, and they become quiet again, looking at each other intently.
“The Tang is ready,” says Dinah. “And we’ll need it to stay cool.”
But Dinah stops as soon as she touches the tray. Outside, there is a horrendous, heartbreaking cry. Dinah recognizes it, because she’s cried it once before, in the year the heat was nearly as high as it is now. She doesn't look at Jestin as she slams past the back screen door.
Farther back, near the cashew grove and by the jack trees, one of the older street dogs holds the puppy’s belly, his mouth biting its neck. The older dogs surround the little one, the scattering crows surround the street dogs, the jack trees surround the crows, the oily sky surrounds the trees, and nothing surrounds that, nothing, and the little dog strains its neck, flaps its ears, and cries.
In the sitting room, Leah and the guests hear the cry, too. Leah is concerned. She doesn’t really care for the street dogs, at least no more than she cares for the crows and the jack trees and the other things that live by the laws of nature. But she knows Dinah does. Dinah cares deeply for the young dogs, the helpless ones, and she will go beyond what is appropriate to protect them. So, Leah is concerned.
Leah excuses herself and hurries to the kitchen, where she sees Jestin standing in its center as Dinah dashes outside.
“Dinah!” calls Leah, but it’s too late. Dinah is running, already outside, already shouting at the street dogs, scattering the adult ones. Dinah crouches down to the little dog, cooing, and it lies still until it meets her eyes. Slowly, it wags its tail. Dinah stands and begins to run again, this time to the edge of the trash pit between the house and the cashew grove, and grabs a shoebox that was discarded a day before.
Leah is still unsure whether Jestin and his family are aware of the rape. They have yet to mention it, so she assumes they do not. But if Dinah displays this kind of behavior, erratic and hysterical, they will ask questions, they
will ask around, and in Puthenthope, there are many more than willing to answer.
As Leah steps out the back door and onto its concrete steps, the heat worsens, the sun sags, and she calls, “Dinah, what are you doing?”
“I have to take it to Filgi Uncle’s,” says Dinah, flipping aside the top of the shoebox and placing the puppy inside. “Or they’ll just try to kill it again.”
Jestin hovers behind Leah’s shoulder, and her heart sinks. He will surely tell his parents what he sees Dinah touching a dirty little street dog, riddled with disease. Leah tries to think fast of something to say that will stop Dinah, that will slow her, and that will make her understand.
Leah thinks of when Dinah was young, when she used to ask Leah what age she wished to be forever. Leah had said she wished to be a child. And it’s true that it was during those years that Leah experienced the most unadulterated joy, when everyone she loved was still living and still good. It was horrible and haunting to become a young woman, and realize she would never feel a happiness like that again. But now, as Leah stands in the frame of the back door, as she looks back on her life and all she has learned, she sees it is not the days of her youth she wishes to go back to, but the childhoods of her children.
And yet, as Leah tries to think of the words as to why, as she tries to convert this feeling into a reason her daughter should take this potential proposal seriously and leave the dogs alone, all that comes out is a quick bark:
“Dinah, this may be your only chance.”
Dinah stops to look at her mother with the shoebox tucked into the crook of her arm, the head of the little dog poking out of it. Both Dinah and the dog look at Leah, and the image is almost comical, as the two of them have the same funny, forlorn look on their faces. Dinah nods slowly, and Leah thinks she understands, but then her daughter turns towards the gate and begins to run.
“Don’t leave me out of it!” says Jestin. He squeezes past and chases after Dinah, barefoot. Leah is left alone on the stairs.
Dinah does not look behind her, but instead into the shoebox, where the dog bobs and slides but doesn’t whimper. Quickly, Jestin catches up and jogs beside Dinah. He does not smile at her exactly, but gives a look of warmth and support.
Neither of them run very fast, because the air is too thick and so humid that it feels like they are running underwater. This, together with the fear and tender feelings Dinah has towards the little dog, makes tears of frustration come to her eyes.
They are almost to Filgi Uncle’s. His house is around the corner, just past the pathway that leads to Puthenthope beach. Dinah and Jestin are slowing down and overheating. The clouds that have been floating in front of the sun now stay stubbornly out of its way.
Dinah steps on a stone and stumbles forward. Her grip on the shoebox is tight, but Jestin
stops and reaches out anyway, steadying it with two hands. His fingers overlap with hers and Dinah looks up, the tears in her eyes already drying.
Behind them, a motorcycle approaches, and the driver honks his horn. Dinah turns around, taking the shoebox with her, and both her eyes and the motorcyclist’s light up in surprise.
“Who’s this?” asks Filgi Uncle, braking his bike. It’s unclear whether he’s referring to Jestin or the dog.
“Filgi Uncle!” Dinah runs up beside him and rests the shoebox on his handlebars. “You have to take this dog. They tried to kill it.”
“What, what?” At first Filgi Uncle is laughing, but when he sees the panic in Dinah’s eyes, he inspects the shoebox more seriously, and listens.
“This dog,” says Dinah. “I’ve been feeding this dog, and the other street dogs tried to kill it.”
Filgi Uncle nods. Dinah is at first frustrated by his silence, then struck by his calm. He breathes slowly. His feet are on the sand road to steady his bike, and his face is soft and almost sweatless. In his presence, Dinah is soothed.
“But moloo,” says Filgi Uncle. “I cannot take him, or the same will happen with the street dogs on my property.”
“But is there anyone you know? Anyone without dogs, who wants one?”
As Filgi Uncle becomes silent again, swatting mosquitoes with his mundu, a great gray cloud glides across the sky and smothers a small part of the sun, providing shade over where they stand.
Suddenly, Filgi Uncle smiles. “Yes. I can take him to Freeman Uncle.”
Dinah sighs gratefully and hands him the shoebox, but as soon as it’s in his hands, the little dog leaps out, landing on his face and front paws and spitting the sand out of his mouth as he stands.
The dog dashes behind Dinah and down the sand road. Before she can even see where the dog has gone, Jestin runs after it.
Filgi Uncle makes a noise of disgust as Jestin picks up the dirty street dog off the pathway to Puthenthope beach. Cradling the little dog’s back and behind, Jestin places it back inside the shoebox.
Quickly, Dinah flips the lid over the shoebox and passes it to Filgi Uncle, who places it between his legs on the motorcycle. He lifts his feet. It’s a quick ride to Freeman Uncle’s.
Dinah steps out of the bike’s way. She and Jestin watch the motorcycle turn back the way it has come, rounding the corner and rolling down the road. The great gray cloud, by the grace of God, stays above them, so they feel no rush to move, their chests still heaving from
the adrenaline as they stare ahead at the still trees and tangerine sand.
Jestin speaks first. “Filgi Uncle, that’s your police chief?”
Dinah swings her head. She doesn’t know how he knows this. It’s Filgi Uncle’s day off, and he wears none of his garb or gear. But if Jestin knows Filgi Uncle, he must know what he’s done for her and her family, and he must know the whole story.
Hoping her voice will not waver, Dinah says, “Yes, that’s the police chief.”
“Oh,” says Jestin. He begins to walk forward, out of the shade and back into the sun while Dinah stands there, stricken. Where, she wonders, is he walking to?
“Come on,” Jestin says, turning and waiting for Dinah to follow him.
Dinah remains where she is, unsure. Come on?
“The Tang is ready now,” Jestin reminds her.
That’s right, thinks Dinah in relief, stepping into the sun beside him. The Tang is ready now, and she must bring it into the sitting room, because Jestin’s parents are waiting there, as Dinah’s mother worries beside them, all unmoving and unchanged until Dinah and Jestin together return.
“Yes,” says Dinah. “The Tang is ready now.”
Wraiths of the Ruins
Estelle Spinner | watercolor on paper
Mother,
Avery Kim | poetry
I miss you, my imperfect and human mother. Mother Theresa and Kannon as the only shape I knew- despite its incomparable biological faults to gilded wood or precious marble.
My mother, who made the conscious decision to bear and raise another human, to bring me from the null of nonexistence. Gave me the taste of milk, the ability to breathe.
How much I have cursed and thanked her in return. For a faulted being bears another faulted being- but she and I have tried our best to live our best.
With anything worth something, there is the lingering fear of parting. It strikes in the middle of the night, and the earnestness of such thoughts forces my eyes to water.
That paralyzing, tear-wrenching fear is now the fuel for my continued love.
The inevitability of the human life will continue, but the mortal perspective shapes the world.
If I can part with the gentleness of a summer night’s breeze, and close my eyes against a park bench- perhaps with wrinkled hands,
How regretless our time was- how painless the nostalgia.
Father’s Day in the ICU
Autumn Byars | poetry
I am sitting in the dirt of the backyard, turned so that the tree is behind my back and to the left. Every few minutes, a lemon breaks off its branch and thumps to the ground, interrupting the stillness. I am fighting with a bush, trying to pick a fist full of your
cornflowers I don’t think you even know they are the national flower of the Fatherland, where you mother called home,
also known as
bachelor’s buttons do you remember when Jed would throw a temper tantrum if you wore a button down on a weekend because those are work clothes and work clothes mean you are going away?
In the heat, I find myself addressing the angels perched up in the tree:
Our Father, who art in heaven (I hope you are not yet in heaven)
Hallowed be thy name (typed out on your wristband after I brought your driver’s license down and they finally let me identify you)
“I’m going to bring him some flowers from his garden and play him some bluegrass and read the psalms to him”
“If you do all that, you might just manage to get a response out of him”
But I know better than to expect that.
I have been trained well by this chaplain who now sits in the care of chaplains, other:
Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.
North 958
Cyd Peroni | archival pigment print
(LEAF IN THE WIND)
Rick K. Reut | poetry
00:00
…the sun sets and the time pauses in a pantomime like an old black and white photograph of the night in the window. You dream of snow that tastes like cream. In the light of a moonshaped plate, a silver spoon mixes sugar and salt inside your restless soul. Each time you lose control over the steering wheel of your life, you may feel as helpless as a torn leaf in the wind. For a brief moment, your memory lane turns into a freeway of living without regret or fear. Inside your head,…
…the sun sets and the time pauses in a pantomime like an old black and white photograph of the night in the window. You dream of snow that tastes like cream. In the light of a moon-shaped plate, a silver spoon mixes sugar and salt inside your restless soul. Each time you lose control over the steering wheel of your life, you may feel as helpless as a torn leaf in the wind. For a brief moment, your memory lane turns into a freeway of living without regret or fear. Inside your head,…
October 2010
Pure Spirit
Nancy Miiller | in-camera multiple exposure
Untitled 1
Zahra Shabani | gouache
The Driveway as a Measure of Time
Sofie Wycklendt | creative nonfiction
00:00
Healing is reversing into the driveway of the house you moved out of a very long time ago just to have one more moment of familiarity. You should not be there, but you sit outside of the driveway recollecting an older version of yourself. You have already left this driveway before at a different point in time. It feels like just one more reminder of your past can help you cry out about how fast time flies even though you may not feel like the same person. You take a look around as you put the keys in the ignition and swear it is the last time you will leave this driveway. There is a part of you that knows better and should not be dwelling on a time that is considered the past. You eventually begin to turn the wheels, smearing your tears, and avoiding looking into the rearview mirror. You will do this over and over, months and years apart. You do not know when the next time will be, but with each visit, you will be there less and less until it becomes just another driveway that you think of, but no longer make the journey to.
Walks on Campus
Sabrina Bell | poetry
I am all trap beats and snares, muscle twitches and long strides. Rubber soles are floorboard springs. If I’m tall and swift enough no one can deny I’m floating. Snappy breeze zapping on tingling nerves, cheeks were made for reddening. Nothing but a ball bouncing on a court, buoyant, boisterous, and baleful. Raw, anxious energy manifesting into masculinity. I hope I come off ugly in a manly way, offputting in a suped-up, tricep-flaring, bass pro-wearing way. Would a woman walk with such haste, such superiority? Would a woman hide her feelings with hats, headphones, and haughty heeds? Would a woman wear blemishes and unkemptness so proudly? Mean eyes and downturned lips say don’t get in my way, I'm dangerous. And then a nice girl compliments my converse with bright eyes and pretty glossed lips. “THANK YOU!” I squawk back in so shrill a pitch it reached the frequency of ultrasound.
An Infinitum of Jo Marches
Autumn Byars | poetry
In every movie adaption of Little Women the book that Jo writes always becomes Little Women. Have we created a universe of Jo Marches writing themselves into infinity?
Two nights ago, a classmate and I stayed late in our painting studio talking about how we can never be sure if other people are real. I remember when I was kid and could never really be sure of anything I was supposed to believe.
I dated a person for two years but now I think he doesn’t exist. Oh, sure, any of our friends will tell you that whatever thing is using him as a sheepskin isn’t the person we loved, he’s changed alright, but I don’t think he was ever actually a part of my life. That voice and those laughs and any other memories are part of a fantasy I built myself, that’s all.
See, I daydreamed so much as a kid that I can’t find anything tangible in my head. Sometimes my hair curls, sometimes it doesn’t.
I think if you laid out every universe on top of each other like you were comparing maps, my pin prick would overlap in all of them.
Every adult man in my life, from my father to my professors, has told me to try going to bed earlier and all the grown up women have given me pills to make that happen, but none of them work.
I can’t say anything matter of fact or write nonsense images that put shivers in your soul, and most of the time I don’t think I can do anything; I have no idea if I’m really made up of cells or what color my blood is inside my veins.
I am a million different fractured selves and nothing has ever really happened to me and my brain is suspended for an eternal millisecond at the top of every step I take and no one will ever truly know me because I have never truly been known, but the adrenaline pump in my chest weighs too many tons to be fake and the little god using my ribcage as an enclave keeps whispering in the language of my sadness that she is too old for me to have written her into existence.
Gray Eyes
Edyn Hughes | colored pencils
Moonflower
Simon Angel | poetry
I miss my sisters
And dancing for the rain
That which would water our garden
And I miss building fairy houses
Out of twigs and moss and stone
And sharing a pomegranate that my mother would peel
I miss the old windowsill in the kitchen
That had peeling white paint
It would bathe me in morning light
While I sat on the deep basin, dark marble sink
Youtube Rewind
Chris Kads | poetry
Stalkers, we eat behind blue-lit windows, shovel popcorn into our pits.
Never full, we crave comedy, burrow into bits, and bawl when you bomb.
We insist on innocence when we’re no longer laughing. Insist We never liked you! when proof pours from the windows and floods the house.
Is it strange to still feel thankful? To hold guilt-soaked gratitude for your ghost?
Everyone seems to think so. And I can understand the reasoning.
Like bile in the back of my throat, it burns for me, too, to spit up an admittance of past admiration.
But I can’t seem to stop regurgitating one-liners, quoting moments from my rock bottom when you were all that could pull me up out of the dirt. Can’t seem to stop thinking about my clay-like personality, molded and sculpted by your invisible touch.
When I watch fellow stalkers through a blue-lit window - stare at their faces soaked with betrayalI wonder if it’s also strange for mefor usto mourn the idea of someone we never even knew.
Cheers to Grandpa Lee
Dennalei Peterson | creative nonfiction
In hindsight, it's the little things I remember most about Grandpa. I remember his cheesy smile that he used to make for pictures. Or his jokes that weren't really funny but still made everyone laugh. I also remember his hats; he had a hat with a joke for every occasion, and some for just everyday puns. Sometimes I remember how fond Granpa was of root beer floats and John Denver, and it makes me smile. It makes me sad that he won't be here for anymore milestones in my life; getting married, my first kid, college graduation, or my first professional career. However, as time has passed, the memories have turned golden; and honestly, some of my memories of him have become a bit blurry. But I remember the day I learned he passed with very distinct clarity.
July 9th, 2023 (present day):
I don't feel anything is that bad? I should feel something right now, I know I should. Or at least that's what the movies all show. I should be curled up in a fetal position with gutwrenching sobs and inhuman sounds coming from my mouth. Instead, I just sit here. My phone still pressing into my ear.
My older brother, Landon, sighs, “I'm sorry I had to be the one to tell you. It should've been Dad or Mom.” He sounds resolved, like he's accepted whatever my reaction will be. He should know me better than that, is all I can think.
“It's okay,” I finally say, my voice just as steady as if nothing had changed. As if I hadn't just
found out that a huge piece of my life is now gone. “Someone had to tell me.”
“We'll meet you up there, I guess” he says, “We're leaving in an hour so.”
I nod my head, then realizing he can't see me, I say “Okay, I'll probably leave around then too.”
“M'kay, love you” he says, then hangs up. He always says that. He was never one to express his feelings, but then he moved away for a couple years and came back and now he says “love you” all the time. I suppose it might be something about “say it in case you never have the chance again,” or something along those lines. Maybe I need to adopt that, I think. I missed my chance with Grandpa.
It seems strange, almost like a dream, or having an out-of-body experience. This time two years ago, I had all four grandparents, alive and well. Now, I'm down to one.
You need to leave in an hour, I say, finish getting ready. That thought seems to motivate my limbs to start moving again, but it feels like an empty routine, and my mind starts wandering to my grandpa.
July 1oth, 2022 (a year earlier):
It's early- far earlier than most people get up on their vacations- but I've always loved the early mornings in the mountains. The crisp mountain air, bluejays singing, and most of all the wind whistling through the trees.
I'm finished dressing so I unzip my tent and start the trek up to our cabin. Besides the rocks and pine needles crunching as I walk, there's no other sounds just as I like it.
However, as I get closer to the cabin, there are a lot of small, high-pitched screeches. When the cabin is finally in sight, I stop to observe what I'm seeing. My grandpa, in his bluewrangler jeans, plaid flannel, and black suspenders (I can also make out the words on his hat "Best Grandpa Ever") sitting in a black camping chair surrounded by a mini herd of squirrels.
His hand is outstretched and is just low enough so the squirrels can reach up and grab something from his hands. I can feel myself smile, knowing my grandpa, he probably has a pile of shelled peanuts in his hand.
I decide to walk up after a moment, the squirrels scatter for a moment, but after just a split-second they come back. “Good morning, Grandpa,” I say. He looks up at me and smiles. “Well, of course it's a good morning. The sun is shining, and God is good.”
I smile back. Grandpa looks back at the growing number of squirrels gathering around, “Never forget to be grateful for the small things, Dennalei.”
“Like squirrels?” I ask, almost sarcastically.
He chuckles, “Yes, like squirrels.”
July 9th, 2023 (present day):
I know these roads so well. The winding through the desert mountains then to the
forested mountains. Usually, I get excited about the destination. It's like reaching a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. This time, I dread it. Sad faces and tears are the only thing at the end of my drive, so I drive a little slower than I normally do.
I could've driven with my brother, but I want to have time to think for myself. I realize that the song playing on my stereo is “Poems, Prayers, and Promises” by John Denver. Grandpa's favorite artist. How fitting.
There's still so much to do
So many things my mind has never known
I'd like to raise a family, I'd like to sail away
And dance across the mountains on the moon*1
Finally, I feel it. The burning the back of my throat, the hot tears preparing to fall, and finally the gut-wrenching sob working its way up from my lungs.
July 2nd, 2023 (a few days earlier):
I walk into the room, and I see Grandpa sitting on our old beat-up couch. “Hi Grandpa,” I say. He raises his head just slightly, not all the way, but just enough to where he can raise his eyebrows and have a clear view of me. “Good morning!” He exclaims or exclaims as much as he can now. I laugh, “Grandpa, it's 5:00 p.m., morning was about 6 hours ago.” His raised eyebrows raise a little bit more, I can see the gleam there that he always gets when he's trying to be funny. “Well, don 't you want the first ‘good morning’ in Japan?”
1Denver, John. “Poems, Prayers, and Promises”. Poems, Prayers, and Promises., RCA Records, 1971, track 1.
Even though the joke isn't funny, it's so unexpected that I laugh. Grandpa laughs with me, probably thinking I think he's the funniest man in the world.
July 9th , 2023 (present day):
The tears are corning so fast now, my vision is blurry. I throw my hazard lights on and pull over to the shoulder of the road. John Denver sings his last lyrics and the music fades off. I manage to tum the stereo off while sobbing. I let myself cry for a moment longer and then try and steady my breathing. I remember an exercise a counselor had me try. I focus on each of my senses. What I can see, hear, smell, feel.
I feel grief at losing my grandpa, and dread over having to see the rest of my family right now. Yet, amongst the dread, the grief, and the heartbreak, I recognize that I feel regret above everything else.
July 8th,2023 (the day before):
“Are you sure you don't want to drive up with me tonight?” My dad asks while tying up the truck bed.
“Yes,” I reply, “I have a few things I need to do tonight before I go up.”
Dad finishes tying up the truck bed and looks at me, “Okay,” he says, “if you're sure. You might regret not coming up tonight though, we're doing root beer floats tonight.” I just shake my head, “I'm sad to miss it, but I really need to get some work stuff done tonight.”
Dad hugs me, “Okay. See you tomorrow then.”
I watch Dad drive away, and I have a really weird feeling. I feel that I will regret not driving up tonight. The feeling is so strong that I almost run inside to call my dad to tell him to come back. Instead, I just shake my head and reason away that feeling. You really do need to get things done, I tell myself, I'll see everyone tomorrow.
July 9th, 2023 (present day):
My breathing is steady now. My heart rate is slowing down. My hands slowly stop shaking. But the tears keep flowing. Warm, and hot, burning my eyes as they well up. I'm not sure how long I sit there, but it feels like one of those moments where time doesn't feel real, like I could stay here for weeks and think it was a minute.
I could've driven up last night, but I didn't. I chose work over family; and I missed my last chance to tell Grandpa the I love him, to give him a hug, or to see him smile. My dad was right. I do regret not driving up last night; but not because I missed the root beer floats.
In this moment, I understand two things clearer than I've ever understood before. One, I understand why people die of heartbreak. Yes, the grief is overwhelming so much that I could cry a hundred rivers and still have tears left. Yet, it's the regret that feels almost disabling—as if I'll never be able focus on anything other than this regret ever again. Two, I know why my brother always says “I love you”; because if you don't say it now, you may never get the chance again.
Despite feeling as if I could cry a hundred
rivers, I can feel my eyes finally start to dry. My head pounds as it always does after a long cry, but my vision clears, and I take a deep breath.
I tum off my hazard lights and pull back onto the road.
July 9th, 20204 (exactly one year later): It's hot outside, not atypical for the Phoenix Valley, but uncomfortable. Nonetheless, it's my favorite time of day- right before the sun disappears completely. There's just a small sliver of the sun visible over the horizon, and the sky is a dark, dusty, blue; the color it is right before you can see the stars. This was his favorite time of day too. I planned on coming early, but I needed to stop somewhere on my way. Either way, I think he would appreciate my coming to his grave at this time pretty fitting.
I sit down next to the flat marble stone.
Lee Wayne Peterson
March 31st, 1941 - July 9th , 2023
Beloved Grandpa Lee
It seems so short and callous compared to the great life he lived. Yet, I know he wouldn't want anything else.
As I sit here, I can't help but feel that familiar pang of regret that I wasn't there. I couldn't give him one last hug, one last “I love you”, or share one last laugh. I know he wouldn't want me to feel that regret, everyone tells me so at least. But I'm not sure it will ever fully go away. Regret seems to be one of those feelings that sneaks up on you unexpectedly and stays with you forever. At least now, however, it's not the same disabling, overwhelming regret that I felt that day; it's more of an echo of how I used to feel. Maybe someday, I'll feel like that echo has gone away completely, but as for today, it's still here.
I unwrap the straw I'm holding in my hand and poke it through the lid of my cup. The reason I came later than intended, a root beer float. The last thing he drank before he died.
I raise my cup towards the sky, toward Heaven where I hope he is right now, and offer a silent but meaningful, “Cheers to Grandpa Lee.”
Tranquility
Siv Limary | digital photography
North 933
Cyd Peroni | archival pigment print
Father’s Day in the ICU II
Autumn Byars | poetry
If this were anywhere else, it might just be poetic, but it is Phoenix in June so the sun doesn’t shimmer and its rays aren’t golden and my sweat doesn’t glisten, it’s just hot.
I am frustrated and sitting on the ground in the backyard, full denim to dirt, even though this is a good pair of jeans and I should be taking better care of them. My knees are tented up and my back is hunched over while I fight with a thicket of your wildflowers.
I have a never been able to keep plants alive, but I have been obsessively checking all of the ones here because if any of your plants die because you weren’t here to take care of them... well, I don’t know what, but I can’t let that happen.
I just want to put a couple of your bachelor’s buttons in an old salt shaker-I am temporarily blocking out the mixed feelings I have about how you managed to grow a garden in this desert, yes, but this flower is an invasive species and should we really be adding its pollen to the local ecosystem
Anyway, the stems are tough today, they withered while you were all away on vacation, but they will be fine again with some water, everything will be fine and I will bring them to you and you will like them because they are yours and you will think of home.
Later I will learn that flowers aren’t allowed in the ICU and later mom will tell me something that makes me very angry at you and other things that make me feel sorry for you but for now, in the backyard, your dusty, tangled garden is as good an altar as any.
I think the angels here might prefer Spanish, or maybe something older, but the best I can do is pray in English, or maybe German.
I’m not sure they would transfer my call anyway,
I think God is too busy for me, out-of-office at your bedside, and asking for things to be ok seems like something I’m not allowed to do in the face of a divine, ineffable plan.
So I open my mouth and all that comes out is a sigh. I guess that will just have to do.
Incident at Resettlement Village No. Four, West
of Soc Trang
Richard Epstein | poetry
00:00
I told Lewis to install a mine field along the west side of the village about 500 yards out. He posted signs in English. Come to find out, he installed a phony minefield to the west and dug in blast mines along the north.
I informed the village elder. Gave him a map showing the location of the blast mines. Several farmers with water buffalo left the village at dawn to work the rice fields. They walked north.
Three water buffalo and two farmers were injured. When I reported the incident, the Col. bit hard into his cigar, looked up from his desk and said: “Whoops.”
MoonlightSky
Siv Limary | digital photography
When the Loop Broke
Suzzanne Bigelow | creative nonfiction
It’s strange how certain moments linger, replaying in your mind like a broken record. They come to haunt you every night in an unrelenting cycle that makes it seem as though you’ll never escape until one day, you do. Each flashback pulls you back into that dorm room, into the unease, the hesitation, the aftermath.
For months, I tried to delay the moment I’d lay my head on the pillow, knowing that as soon as I closed my eyes, I’d be transported back to that night. The scene had become familiar yet unbearable a memory that clung to me like my shadow, always present, always a part of me.
Each night, the moment replayed itself with slight variations, a constant reel of “what ifs.” What if I had been more assertive? I needed to leave. What if I had expressed how I was feeling in the moment? I didn’t feel comfortable anymore. What if I had shoved him off me? The imagined scenarios looped relentlessly in my mind, as though rewriting the past could somehow diminish the hold it had on me.
But these questions didn’t bring clarity; they only fuel self-blame. Why wasn’t I stronger? Why couldn’t I stop it? Each question echoed, deepening the shame that already weighed heavily on me. I couldn’t shake the belief that I had somehow failed not just in that moment, but in my inability to foresee it, to stop it before it happened. These thoughts reflected the weight I placed on myself, as if I should have been able to protect myself, and yet I couldn’t.
Over time, I began to understand something I hadn’t allowed myself to see before: the blame wasn’t mine to carry. The hesitation, the fear, the paralysis those weren’t weaknesses. They were my mind and body doing their best to navigate an impossible situation. Survival had been the goal, and I had achieved that, even if it didn’t look the way I thought it should.
As I came to recognize that what happened wasn’t my fault, and that I had done the best I could with the resources I had, the grip of the flashbacks loosened. Slowly, I was able to release the tension and finally rest, no longer on high alert. I could finally sleep without the lights having to be on or needing to lock my door or nightmares waking me up in the middle of the night. I realized that the alternate versions of that night I had created weren’t helpful they were illusions. I couldn’t change what had happened. All I could control was what I chose to carry forward from it.
The moment didn’t lose its weight, but it stopped crushing me. I began to let go of the shame I had clung to, celebrating the simple truth that I survived. And while some nights, the shadow still lingers, it no longer dominates.
Over & Over
Emma Sperry | pencil on sketch paper
The Letters of a Lonely Cricket
Jasiyah Ayshe | poetry
When I’m feeling lonely, I look up at the great big blue sky above a distant, quivering thing
With its crackles, bellows, and calms, Unveiling with nothing in the creases and cracks, brimming with empty
Beautiful creature, It stole my breath. And I let it get away.
That sizzling, endless, shapeless, mass of blue, Like every lover’s eyes
Great pretender, ringmaster, circus dancer
Dazzling show of violets, crimsons, and dandelion gold
When you cracked your iron whip on my skin
Leaving my soft back frayed and fissured.
Beautiful, beautiful creature,
If only you were ugly, I could charge you with this crime! But your elegance is contrary, it confuses me, the crooked cricket who watches
Perched on my concrete slab
Chirping, chirping a relentless cascade of words no one tries to know, Or wonders why I chant
I remain always, where you can find me if you listen Under the black canopy, Pondering the infinite.
Systems Biology
Sanyam Shah | poetry
The computational and mathematical analysis of Biological Systems.
Equations: so small, so simple, encompass nature and all of its rules.
If we change the number of equations, an ecosystem dies, a virus survives, a species evolves.
In other words, the probability of your loved one’s death can be represented by an equation.
In other words, you would not be here to experience your joys and your sorrows if not for the correct combination of numbers.
Some evenings, I realize that if we knew how to simulate disease, my grandpa would still be here, making me tea to brighten the sky within me.
It is our job to contain a forest in a jar, to travel through the infinite mess of equations, to find the key to the universe.
Untitled 2
Zahra Shabani | gouache
Forest sunlight study
Y. Violet | oils on paper
All Out
Chris Kads | fiction
“Lorraine died today.”
I bring my head up slowly from the steaming pot of split pea soup. The sounds of the kitchen, beeping ovens, frantic shouts from cooks, and knives against cutting boards, all fade to a dull hum. I study her, desperate to find a trace of anything on her face. Her eyes are blank.
“What?” I croak.
“Lorraine died today.” Grace repeats nonchalantly. “She fell and hit her head last night. The front desk staff told me this morning.”
I open my mouth to say something, but I can’t seem to form any words. My mind is racing, a thousand interactions, big and small, dancing in the corners of my vision. Paintings. Wheezy laughter. A wrinkled hand squeezing my own.
“Honestly, I forgot all about it until I saw what we were serving.” She continues, gesturing with a casual flick of her wrist at the pot of soup in front of me. “It’s funny. I kept telling her we never had any. Turns out, there were two whole boxes of the stuff hiding in the back of the pantry this whole time.”
She pauses chopping the fruit in front of her and leans close to me, bleached blonde hair tickling my ear. Her breath is hot, which is usually a welcomed sensation, but right now, all I feel is cold.
“Want to know a little secret?” Grace whispers, a hint of laughter in her words. “I knew it was in there. I saw the boxes a while ago, but I didn’t let the cooks know. Could you imagine if every day we had to smell split pea soup? We’d go so insane we’d be the ones they’d be taking to memory care!”
She chuckles and pulls back, face beaming as though expecting a ‘my hero!’ or a lighthearted ‘you’re so bad’. Her smile fades as we lock eyes.
I’ve never been very good at masking my emotions. But in a situation like this, I don’t know how anyone could keep their face cool and collected.
Six months of shared classes at Pine Wood High and long, extraneous shifts at Rainbow Retirement.
And she doesn’t even know me.
“Oh. Um…” She fidgets with her apron, noticing my demeanor. “Are you…uh…?”
Before I have a chance to respond, a loud repetitive clanking of metallic objects makes us both jump.
“Girls!” Kevin hollers from the cooking station, glaring at us with two large pans in each hand, his face drenched in sweat. “Are we working hard or hardly working over there? Cause to me, it sounds like the latter!”
“Yeah Ronnie,” Tattle Tale Trevor quickly adds, standing beside the kitchen director. “Your order has been in the window for fifteen minutes now! What the hell have you been doing?”
I force myself to get moving and turn away from Grace. I try my best to ignore her confused expression and shut off my brain, turning on waitress mode.
With shaky hands, I dip the ladle into the pot and pull out a scoop of green, chunky liquid. As I place it in one of the bowls, a stream of the goopy substance runs down the container’s ceramic side and drips onto my hand. I let out a small yelp. Tears prick my eyes as searing, stinging heat floods my body. The skin around the splatter of liquid begins to turn a light pink.
Desperately I want to run and stick it under some cool water in the sink, but I know doing so will only piss off Kevin and Trevor further. Instead, I quickly wipe my hand on my apron, snatch my plates from the heat rack, and set them on a tray beside the steaming bowl of split pea. My legs carry me toward the dining room, and I push open the white slab of wood that separates it from the kitchen with my non tray-occupied hand.
“Soup is supposed to go out BEFORE the meal!” Kevin yells behind me.
I let the door slam shut.
The large, electronic Rainbow Retirement sign illuminates the dumpster area in a sharp,
unnatural glow. Behind it, a street lies with cars moving back and forth, racing through the night and creating strong gusts of wind with their quick speed. I move sluggishly toward the rectangular containers, a black trash bag slung over my shoulder. The bag is so heavy, it takes both my hands to move it, unfortunate given my burn. As I walk, I hear obnoxiously loud chatter from above me. I look up.
It takes me a moment to identify the source of the sound, but when I do, I feel my breath catch. The noise is coming from an open window on the second floor of the building with little succulents lined along the sill. Through the curtains, blowing gently back and forth in the wind, intricate artwork can be seen hanging inside. Two men walk through the room ripping the paintings from the walls. One of them takes down a gold framed piece and squints at it.
I recognize the picture from about a month ago when Lorraine had brought it to the dining room to proudly show off to us. It was a depiction of the farm where she grew up, quiet and far away from our bustling, suburban Berkeley. It wasn’t perfect by any means. The lines were wiggly and uneven. And the farm animals were more like little blobs than any real recognizable creatures. But there was something very inspiring about the way she was able to paint anything at all after her second stroke. And to hear her talk about her work with such passion and enthusiasm? It was precious.
Harsh laugher from the man holding the frame snaps me out of the memory. “What the fuck?” He exclaims, and I feel my insides shrivel at his
tone. “Rich, come here! Come take a look at this!”
The other man approaches and, on cue, bursts into similar laughter at the sight of the painting. “Oh my god that is terrible! Are those supposed to be chickens?” “Not sure. I think they’re pigs?” He shrugs. “Sweet of her to hang up her grandkids’ artwork, though.”
The second man shakes his head. “No, I don’t think Miss Lorraine had any kids - none that visited, anyway. Pretty sure these are all self made.”
The first man sucks in a breath. “Oh…yeesh. Well…at least she had a hobby, I guess. Can I see the bag?”
The second man hands over a big trash bag, and the first shoves the picture down into it, presumably compressing down other belongings inside. I feel my heart drop at the sight. I want to scream at them to stop. That they don’t need to throw away her things and that I’ll gladly take them and make sure they have a good home. But before I work up the courage, the men walk further back into the room. I hear a muffled “let’s move onto the bedroom” and, in the blink of an eye, the light shuts off, the once beautifully designed room becoming engulfed in darkness.
My face feels like it’s on fire, the night wind doing nothing to cool it. I’m sure my cheeks are as red as my blistering hand, which now almost unbearably throbs under the pressure of the trash bag strings. Turning to the dumpster, I imagine the large, plastic box is the two men from the room. Angrily, I fling the bag up and
over my shoulder at its opening. The stuffed plastic flies through the air, seemingly about to enter the chute. But my weak arms and injured hand must not have used enough force to beat the wind. Instead of falling in the dumpster, the bag collides with the container’s lip. It leans and then crashes back down on me. The plastic rips. I blink.
Putrid liquid and bits of half-eaten food are now all over my head, uniform, and shoes. For one long moment, I find myself frozen in place, dumbfounded. Then a small, bewildered laugh escapes my lips. Then another. And another. I laugh so hard, tears begin to stream down my face, warm, salty lines of liquid washing the green slime from my cheeks. I sink to the ground, clutching my stomach. The gravel is even more messy than I already am, the majority of the bag’s contents being scattered on the road, but I find, at this moment, I don’t particularly care. I let the messy road stain my clothes further, and I pull my knees to my chest. Holding myself, I sob into my ruined pants.
I stay this way for a long time, taking deep breaths to try to get my emotions under control. After several minutes, I hear the sound of footsteps. Scrambling, I rush to wipe tears from my face and pick garbage out of my once brown hair. I expect to see the two men from the room on their way to dump Lorraine’s things. Instead, a short girl with beautiful blonde hair, a gray uniform, and neatly tied, non-slip shoes walks into sight from around the dumpster
“Ronnie?” Grace looks around. Her eyes travel down to me on the ground. “Oh, man!” She
giggles. “You really did it this time, girl. C’mon, let’s get you up.” She sticks out a hand, and I stare at it. She waits several long seconds for me to grab her open palm before she returns it to her side.
“Look,” she sighs. “I know it’s embarrassing to walk inside like this, but you gotta do it. You’ve been here for like fifteen minutes now. Anymore and someone’s going to think you ditched on the clock.”
She taps her foot impatiently, waiting for me to stand up. I stay glued in place. “Fine. Suit yourself. But don’t say I didn’t warn you if you get fired.”
She turns to leave, and I watch her perfect frame start to round the corner. Before I think better of it, I feel the words leaving my lips.
“You’re an asshole.”
She spins around, eyebrows raised. “Excuse me?”
I instantly regret saying it as my mouth runs dry. But it’s too late to back down now. “I said you’re an asshole,” I repeat. “And I don’t like the side of you I saw today.” Grace stares at me in shock for several long seconds. Then her eyes narrow and she places her hands on her hips.
“Where is this coming from?” She demands. “I don’t understand what I did.” Even though I am almost a foot taller than Grace, I always feel incredibly small in her harsh gazes. I know how I feel is right, but I still avert my eyes from her cold ones anyway. “You were really insensitive
about Lorraine,” I mumble. “And you lied about her soup.” Grace scoffs. “Lorraine? Soup? This is what you’re worked up about?”
“Yes!” My voice grows louder at her tone. “It really bothered me how casually you dropped her death into conversation. Like you were talking about what you ate for breakfast. Or what you were doing after school.”
“Oh for the love of god, Ronnie,” Grace rolls her eyes. “Here I thought I really messed up big time. But this? This is a little melodramatic.”
“It’s not melodramatic!” I insist. “This is a totally valid reaction to someone literally dying.”
“Hon,” She says in that condescending fashion that I hate. “People die all the time here, and you’ve never had a problem with it. So I don’t understand why it’s suddenly so terrible when I act the same way.”
“I do have a problem with other people dying! But it’s even worse this time because it’s Lorraine! Our Lorraine, Grace!”
Grace pinches the bridge of her nose. “I’m not a sociopath, okay? Is what happened to Lorraine sad? Yes. Will I miss seeing her in the dining room? Yes! But we were never close, so I’m not going to feel super affected by this. Sorry.”
I am shocked by her words, and I feel like my world has turned on its side. She’s right. There have been a lot of residents that have come and gone while we’ve worked here. And with many of those people, I had never really interacted
with them much to feel a lot of grief. But for her to act this way about Lorraine?
More memories of the old woman flash in my mind, these ones including Grace laughing and chatting with her while delivering food. I remember the other residents filing out of the dining room and Lorraine staying late to chat with us while we cleaned, gossiping about her latest dates with the old, single men in the home and her outings with the other elderly ladies. I feel sick.
“What do you mean you weren’t close?” I spit. “She made us bracelets and paintings. She told us stories from her childhood. She saw and spoke to us practically every day! She was your friend!”
“No, she was your friend. Lorraine and I chatted, but we were really just acquaintances. I have to be friendly with the residents. That doesn’t mean we’re best buds, it just means I’m doing my job. And to be truthful, I don’t really see the point in getting close to any of the people here. It’s just going to be harder when they die if I care about them.”
“Well I cared!” I yell, turning my eyes back to hers. She looks shocked by my raised voice, taking a step back. “I cared a lot! And you told me she died in the middle of a busy hour? You told me she died and you made jokes about her favorite soup? And you hid the soup! She was dying, and you hid her fucking soup!”
Grace presses her lips together in a thin line. She stares at me. For a long moment, there’s no noise but the sound of the cars on the nearby road racing past, wind blowing in our
faces with each vehicle. I know she is expecting me to back down like I typically do. But today, for some reason, I feel emboldened. I don’t break eye contact.
“Okay,” She finally concedes after several long, almost unbearable seconds. “That’s my bad. I own that. I should have never brought it up that way, and I should’ve never told the cooks that I didn’t know where the soup was. It was silly of me. I apologize. If I had known you and Lorraine were so close, I would’ve never approached it that way.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “You don’t know anything.”
“What the fuck is this, Ronnie?” Grace snaps, and I feel myself jump at her voice’s increased volume. “I said I’m sorry, okay? What more do you want from me? I delivered some news wrong. That wasn’t great. I get it. But just because you see someone everyday doesn’t mean you’re always going to get emotionally invested. If Lorraine considered me to be like a close friend of hers that’s very, very flattering. But the way I feel isn’t weird. Sometimes, feelings aren’t always reciprocated. That’s perfectly normal. It doesn’t make me a bad person to not have the same level of care someone else does.”
Her words hang in the air. We both sit with them for a moment. I notice a new nervousness in her eyes, and, somehow, I know we are both no longer thinking about Lorraine. While my heart feels like it is shattering into a bunch of tiny, sharp pieces, my head, shockingly, feels clear. In some strange way, arguing about this death has finally, finally solved the mystery.
The confusion as to why, month after month, no matter how hard we try, we always seem to find ourselves fighting. It’s obvious to me now.
“Grace?”
“What now?” She says impatiently, glancing back at the building. “I’ve got places to be.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “You really don’t love me, do you?”
Grace freezes. Time seems to stop as both of us suck in a breath. She opens and closes her mouth like a fish out of water and glances all around, awkwardly trying to avoid my unwavering eye contact. With unsteady hands, she plays with the hair in front of her face. It has now mostly fallen out of her ponytail and hangs messy and uneven.
It feels like eternity before she finally mumbles, “Can we not do this now? We’re supposed to be working.”
“Then when?” I cry. “When are we ever going to talk about this? Because whenever I try to bring it up, you always change the conversation.”
“Would you keep your voice down,” Grace hisses. “Have you forgotten where we are right now? If any one of these fuckers here complains about how our identities make them feel uncomfortable, you and I both know we might as well kiss our jobs goodbye.”
“There’s no one here, Grace,” I press. “No one in this damn residency stays awake past 8:30. Just tell me!”
“We’ll talk about this later.”
“No! No we won’t talk about it later! I know we won’t. And if you don’t give me an answer now, then we’re done.”
Grace’s mouth drops open again. “Are you giving me an ultimatum?”
“I have to. It feels like I’ll die before you bring it up on your own.”
Grace looks as though she’s going to try to argue her way out of this. She frowns and gives me one of her intense glares. I expect the conversation to resume with more talk of Lorraine or even a lecture about how ultimatums are shitty and toxic. But then, surprisingly, she closes her eyes and lets out a long, tired sigh. Her shoulders slump and she chews her bottom lip, defeated.
“Look I…I really, really care about you,” She says. “I do.”
“But do you love me?”
“I…” She shakes her head. “We’re seventeen, Ronnie. I don’t think I even know what love is.”
I feel my eyes growing wet again. I knew that was going to be her answer. But hearing it still leaves me crushed.
“Well I do,” I say quietly. “I know I love you.”
“How?” Grace’s voice is barely audible. “How do you know?”
“It’s easy. You’re beautiful. You’re talented. You make me laugh. And you’re the first person I think of when I wake up and when I go to sleep. Every day I know my life is going to be better because you’re in it.”
“But it’s not better.”
“Of course it is! You’re an amazing, amazing person.”
“Girl, we just spent the last twenty minutes arguing, and I’m making you cry right now. I’m not amazing. And I know your life wasn’t great before us, but this isn’t the ‘better’ that you want or need. Trust me.”
I look at the ground. Grace takes a small step towards me. She moves cautiously, like she is approaching a wild animal. When she’s directly in front of me, she takes my hands gently and squeezes them.
“Ronnie, you’re the most thoughtful person I’ve ever met in my life-” She starts.
“Please don’t do this,” I whisper.
“And you deserve to be with someone that makes you feel equally special,” Grace continues. “I may not know a lot about love. But I certainly know that the way we’ve been acting - this constant back and forth we’ve been doing - is certainly not what two people over the moon for each other would do.”
I feel the tears running harder down my face. I know deep down that she’s right, but I still feel myself shaking my head anyways. Fingers rub
the tears from my cheeks and I notice that, as she is wiping them from my face, her own eyes are glossy. She leans in and gives me a soft, gentle kiss on my cheek before pulling back and stepping away.
“It’s going to be okay.” Her voice is hushed and breaking.
I sob. “I just don’t know what to do without you.”
“Don’t worry,” She smiles sadly. “You will.”
It takes me a long time to find the willpower to go back inside after Grace leaves me by the dumpsters. By the time I return, the lights are dim and the kitchen is cool. Some part of my brain still expects that she will be waiting for me near the employee break room like she always does at the end of a shift. Tonight, however, the kitchen is empty.
My stomach rumbles, and I realize that, because I was moping around by the dumpster, I didn’t get my usual free dinner from the cooks. I search around the kitchen for anything that has been left outside of the locked freezers and storage closets. The only thing that remains out is a covered and wrapped container of split pea soup on the counter, presumably too big to fit on the cramped pantry shelves. I grimace. Better than nothing, I guess.
I flip on the light and grab myself a bowl from the clean dish rack. As I unwrap the pot and dish myself up a scoop, I worry that I’ll get in
trouble for messing with the closing team’s handiwork. But then I remember that I’m already probably fired for the stunt I pulled today, so I dish myself an extra big scoop. A bit dribbles down the side of the bowl but this time, thankfully, it doesn’t burn me.
The microwave makes a familiar hum after I place the bowl inside, the noise being the only sound in the still kitchen. It’s weird to be here when it’s like this. I’m so used to the bustle and the craze that it’s strange to see everything so peaceful. While I watch my bowl slowly spin inside the machine, I run my now blistering hand under the cold water of the sink. After a few seconds, I remove it, grab a bandaid from the first aid station, and gently place it on the injury. It already feels infinitely better, and I sigh with relief. It will heal.
When I pull the soup out of the microwave, regret washes over me at the sight of my dinner. I’ve never had the split pea before. It looks even more like baby food heated up, and the smell is only ten times stronger. It’s hard to imagine someone being so passionate about it, and I feel a familiar pang as Lorraine’s smiling face pops back into my mind. Her words of praise for the mixture have me shoving down my nerves, and I tentatively take a spoonful and bring it to my lips.
I wonder if I could’ve done things differently
this week.
My mind wanders to Kevin and Trevor and I wonder, if I had been more focused on my food orders, would the chances of getting fired next shift be smaller?
I think of the obnoxious men in the room and wonder, if I had shouted at them, would I have saved the paintings?
Lorraine’s laughter dances along the edges of my memory and I wonder, if I had been working that night, would she have fallen?
And a life with Grace flashes before my eyes and I wonder, if I had been someone else, anyone else at all, would the answer still be the same?
I wonder if part of life is waiting for soup that never arrives at the table.
Slowly, with shaky hands, I squeeze my eyes shut and take a bite of the mystery mush.
It’s new.
It’s different.
And it’s delicious.
Messy Work
Simon Angel | poetry
The first week winter swept over Missouri
You brought me a pomegranate
After I told you I loved you
And I peeled it for us to share It was messy work
But I want it all
The sweet seeds and the red-stained hands
Orion’s Belt
Kenneth Naiff | astrophotograph
Grace
Nancy Miiller | in-camera multiple exposure
Mycelium Spring | poetry
These winged sandals are enchanted I know they'd take me to you if I let them
They are invisible to the naked eye
But like a balloon released into the sky
Or a sunflower turning east at dawn
You're where these shoes are drawn
And when I know your location
The feathers ruffle, preparing for flight
Ready to fulfill their mission
And if it wasn't intrusive, I just might
I just might let my feet lead me I just might go where I want to be I just might fly to be with you
I hope you'd want me there too
Metabolomics
Sanyam Shah | poetry
The study of interactions between small molecules in the body.
Within you are molecules, millions interacting in perfect harmony, like each pixel working together to create a perfect image.
The molecules divide, join and multiply, every second a new state a kaleidoscope spinning new patterns.
It surprises me that a billion cells, a trillion molecules work effortlessly to make a singular being.
What I’m saying is that chaos keeps us alive.
Rho Ophiuchus Cloud Complex
Kenneth Naiff | astrophotograph
Glutamate/GABA: Or, In Matters of Apostasy
Eli Moss | scripts
INT. THE BRAIN—LECTURE HALL NIGHT
THE NARRATOR, who is a neuron, walks confidently onto the stage. He holds a MARIONETTE CONTROLLER with strings that extend off stage to either side and into the rafters of the building. THE UNDERSTUDY, who is his identical twin, follows, puppeting A SMALL, MARIONETTE VERSION OF HIMSELF. In the audience sits a full house of YOUNG NEUROTRANSMITTERS.
THE NARRATOR
(quietly, to THE UNDERSTUDY)
I promise this won’t be a science lecture. This time I swear it! Besides, it took the big guy long enough to fall asleep; we’re behind schedule! I’ll behave.
THE UNDERSTUDY
That you feel the need to give me this promise does little to reassure me.
THE NARRATOR flashes his teeth in a smile, then dances his marionette controller. The lights in the auditorium dim, and the audience of NEUROTRANSMITTERS goes QUIET.
THE NARRATOR
Neurons provide the electrical pathway by which the central nervous system communicates with the periphery. It’s how we sense the world around us, how we move our body, and how we regulate internal equilibria. But the process isn’t purely electrical; no, in fact, the whole system relies on chemical signalling, too. Neurons speak to other neurons using neurotransmitters.
THE UNDERSTUDY
(puppetting his marionette)
But Narrator, aren’t you preaching to the choir now? We had best move on, before we bore them to apoptosis with this... science lesson.
THE NARRATOR and THE UNDERSTUDY’S PUPPET share a look. Then, THE UNDERSTUDY walks his marionette to the chalkboard. As the Narrator continues to speak, THE UNDERSTUDY mimes a professor with his marionette.
THE NARRATOR
(pointedly ignoring THE UNDERSTUDY’s actions)
As I was saying, class, neurons release many different neurotransmitters, and the receiving neuron integrates a course of action based on which chemical it detects. At its core, there are two types of neurotransmitters: those that excite action, and those that inhibit it. Perhaps the archetypal examples are the excitatory “glutamate” and the inhibitory “GABA.” Yes, yes, that’s you folk in the audience.
THE UNDERSTUDY
Are you really just launching straight into this without introducing ourself first? Tsk tsk.
THE NARRATOR
What was that? Oh dear, I see that you’re right. I forgot to introduce ourself! I’m glad you stopped me. I am moving too fast for our new recruits here. How rude. I apologize. Well, here goes. We’ve lived in Utah our whole life, and although neither of our parents grew up in Utah, our grandpa on our father’s side grew up here. Around the block from our house is a street named Mosshill Drive. Dad says it’s named after his grandfather Kenneth, who herded cattle through the area. Sometimes, Dad laments that Kenneth sold the land. If he hadn’t, we would be living rich today.
(As THE UNDERSTUDY slowly listens to THE NARRATOR speak, he lets his marionette relax)
THE NARRATOR
We’ve never fact-checked any part of this story, but we assume it’s all true. Greatgrandfather Kenneth’s family had lived here for many generations, having descended from the original colonizers of the land. Our parents were similarly drawn back to Utah because of religion. And it’s been a great place to grow up, which I see as validation of their decision to start the family here in Utah. Hence we were born a Utahn, so our devout faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints should come as no surprise.
THE UNDERSTUDY
(back to puppetting his marionette)
And it is okay, if anyone’s stressed about it, to call them Mormons. We’ve called them Mormons our whole life, so I authorize anyone to call them such as well.
THE NARRATOR
You said it, Friend, not me; their mileage may vary on that one. Anyhow, we became a baptized member of the church on March 25th, 2011, the day after our eighth birthday.
That morning, a family member had asked us a fun question. Baptism would wash away our sins and make us anew, morally. Akin to a swaddled babe. So the question was this: “How long do you think you’ll go after being baptized without committing a sin?” I don’t recall how we answered, although I know it was something lofty. We tried to fact-check with our parents, but neither of them remember the story.
THE UNDERSTUDY
(through his puppet)
So, knowing ourself, the Narrator and I have just made our best guess.
THE NARRATOR
We would place it somewhere between a month and a year. It would check out we’re excellent at raising that bar high. It bespeaks confidence, and the courage to push ourself to be our best. So, the baptism ceremony functioned seamlessly, and it was everything we had prayed for; we went home that afternoon knowing that our Heavenly Father was proud of us. Our seed of faith grew in fertile soil and we watered it regularly. We could taste the honeyed blessings our future held. We already knew we’d be ordained to the priesthood within a few short years, serve a 2-year religious mission that would yield strong success, and return to marry a beautiful woman with whom we’d found righteous family of our own. We were the epitome of the valiant youth and ready to be a pillar in the faith community. Heck, at eight years old we were already bearing our testimony in front of the congregation in monthly Fast and Testimony Meetings. Nobody ever suggested the idea to us. When we realized it was something we could do, we simply went ahead and made it happen.
THE UNDERSTUDY
But ...?
THE NARRATOR
(sighs)
But that night, after dinner, we got in an argument and yelled at our younger sister. A hasty end to the streak of purity. A month without sin? We couldn’t last a single day.
THE UNDERSTUDY
Talk about being handed a Fast Pass to failure, that mental metropolis with prison wall on all sides.
THE NARRATOR
Luckily, it was fine because that’s what the sacrament each week is for. Every Sunday, the sacrament provides another opportunity for us to renew our covenants with God. By partaking in the drink and bread, we return to that sinless state, disencumbered once again of our foibles of the week. Oh what joy! Nothing need come between us and our
valiant plans of Mormon greatness. It’s a Simple Plan. We merely must make our ancestors proud, stay obedient to our Savior, and attend church each week to renew the Christ’s Atonement Tier of our spiritual insurance plan. So, that’s me: pioneer-heritage me, white-boy-Mormon-Utah me, paying-my-tithing-in- surplus-a-decade-before-Ieven-got-my-first-job me. I hope that helps.
THE UNDERSTUDY nods his marionette’s head.
THE NARRATOR
And speaking of this relaxed confidence, that relaxation is quite similar to the effects of GABA, that inhibitory neurotransmitter from earlier. In coordination with other chemicals, GABA relaxes our body, regulates a steady breathing rate, and soothes anxiety. Religious anxieties, for instance you can think of GABA as akin to a cleansing sacrament. In essence, it enables us to actually achieve moral... hang on, what was that, Understudy?
THE UNDERSTUDY walks up to THE NARRATOR and whispers something in his ear.
THE NARRATOR
Pardon, but you’ll need to speak a bit louder.
(leans in closer to the whispering UNDERSTUDY)
I haven’t explained it well enough?? Preposterous, I just spent three quarters of a p ah, no? I see you shaking your head. That’s not why you’re interrupting?
THE UNDERSTUDY
(through his puppet)
No.
THE UNDERSTUDY whispers in the ear of THE NARRATOR again.
Ah.
THE NARRATOR
(small pause, where he looks back and forth from THE UNDERSTUDY to the audience)
Yes, I see now. Yes, I suppose my introduction of ourself was a bit hasty. Misleading, as you called it. Okay, okay. Let me start anew. You see, inhibitory GABA isn’t the only neurotransmitter that affects behavior. Just as important is the excitatory glutamate, which positively promotes movement.
THE UNDERSTUDY
As before, let us think about this neurology metaphorically, taking up the non-secular lens once again.
THE NARRATOR
The covid quarantines of 2020 have bisected much of society into pre- and post- covid. This also holds true for our personal life in many ways, but if we had to choose a single definitive bisecting period for ourself, it would be somewhere in the two-year period prior to that notorious turn of the decade.
THE UNDERSTUDY
(through his puppet)
We had signed up for our church group’s Trek in July of 2018: We were going to dress up in old-timey clothing (complete with a broad-brimmed straw hat, a handkerchief ‘round our neck, suspenders spangled with stars the whole nine yards), pile our minimal camping and cooking supplies into a wooden handcart, and spend long days of Utahn heat pushing our handcarts together as a “family” of about twelve. We even attended optional choir rehearsals in preparation for this definitive event of the summer.
THE NARRATOR
We would maintain that this was a fulfilling experience, but we could never pretend it wasn’t a bumpier ride for us than for most. The night before we left, we were studying our scriptures before packing them away in our travel bags. A gentle knock sounded at the bedroom door. We bid “come in,” and one of our siblings entered to sit gingerly on the end of our bed. They often did things gingerly, yet we could tell that tonight was different. We slipped the soft ribbon bookmark into place in our Book of Mormon and set it aside. “What’s up,” we asked, forcing levity.
THE UNDERSTUDY
We didn’t want to assume anything was wrong.
THE NARRATOR
But no, we correctly read the tension in their frame. “I wanted to talk to you about something.” “Sure.”
THE UNDERSTUDY
We insert noise into conversations when we’re nervous, or when we can tell someone else is.
THE NARRATOR
“My whole life, I have always felt inside like I was a girl,” she said, peering at us with caution. “I want to be called your sister. So, that’s... what I wanted to tell you. Soon, I’m going to change my name and, socially, I’ll be more feminine.” “Okay,” we said. In the moment, we didn’t really know what to think her words were an exotic concept to us. “I love you,” we said.
THE UNDERSTUDY
These are words that I worry are sometimes made polysemic in our family. By the frequency of their use, mainly. When we said the phrase “I love you” that night, we knew it meant two things. It meant “I love you,” but it also functioned as a sort of dismissal. In our household, we say “I love you” before someone goes upstairs to sleep, and we say “I love you” as someone walks out the door to go to school or work. When we said “I love you” to our sister that night, I know the words did mean both of these things but should you press us for the proportions in which these ingredients were mixed, we would be unable to decipher which meaning controlled the house majority.
THE NARRATOR
And so our sister tiptoed away, closing the door behind her with a soft expression on her lips and not another word. It breaks my heart to think back on how deliberately she crafted her language to avoid a bad reaction from us. The timing was also strategically planned out--we were leaving for trek the next morning. We’d have about a week of walking without stimulation from the outside world, a week in which we would be separated from her. Just in case our initial reaction was sour, our sister used this as a contingency. She was allowing us to work through our thoughts whatever they may be in private.
THE UNDERSTUDY
(through his puppet)
So you could say it was a memorable Trek.
THE NARRATOR
Most of those alongside us as we pushed the handcart were strangers at first, and without anything else to do, we often resorted to small talk to try to get to know each other better. The most frequent question by far was always some variant on: “Tell me about your family do you have any brothers or sisters?” Every time, the question flabbergasted me. It took weeks or months until we had returned to a place of confidence about that question. Her transition was truly unambiguous in its benefits and honesty. This was in direct opposition to what our religion told us. Within a span of about a year and a half, the beauty of our sister’s transition grew and our faith in Mormonism waned. Recognizing our sister’s identity was the first domino in a long chain of emotional events.
THE UNDERSTUDY
By the following May, we could no longer profess a belief in God.
THE NARRATOR
Critiquing the Mormon church is often a trap; in the eyes of the disciple, any negative aspect of their religious organization is an iota, not worth a fraction of the concern we fed
it. But to us, the whole thing was a web everything fed on each other, and even when two concepts weren’t directly connected, they still contributed to the moving of the internal needle that guides our morality.
THE UNDERSTUDY
The Holy Ghost, anyone?
THE NARRATOR
The move away from the church felt freeing. It became clear that Mormonism’s promises weren’t sweet, but sickly. Their half-vision of morality began to cloy. Too much of a good thing that was their problem, in that they overpromised with no ability to deliver. In compensation, they call everything good, except for what was irredeemably bad. They preached at every pulpit their saving graces, that GABA for the soul, in an amount akin to overdose.
THE UNDERSTUDY
An overabundance of GABA may cause memory problems, trouble concentrating. Mental exhaustion. Or in this case, spiritual.
THE NARRATOR
Overwhelmed by such concentrations, our soul’s system swapped outputs. Mormonism no longer provided us with steadying GABA. What it lent us instead was the excitatory glutamate.
THE UNDERSTUDY
(through his puppet)
The more we considered our church, the angrier we grew. The priesthood was a patriarchal death-strangle on society, our favorite hymns glorified emotional abuse of the highest degree. The prophets had literal blood on their hands. Those in our life allied with this trauma response sought to defend themselves.
THE NARRATOR
More and more, this spiritual glutamate coursed through our veins. The more fervently they defended their religious identity, the deeper we felt the rusty knife twist inside our soul.
THE UNDERSTUDY
Granted, we never would have used the word soul at this time. But hey, now that we saw the knife, we could pull it from our spleen.
THE NARRATOR
A painful process.
It required verve.
THE UNDERSTUDY
THE NARRATOR
But luckily, our anger provided us with just the thing. We butt up against the church frequently, whether it was driving past the chapel on our way to school or a friend pinging the group chat with pictures from the morning’s temple service. We consumed all the videos on YouTube that analyzed Mormonism using cult classification models, read every internet source that satirized the culture we yearned to discard as easily as a snake sheds its skin.
THE UNDERSTUDY
Day by day, we were all too eager to share our opinions with anyone who blundered onto the topic with us.
THE NARRATOR
In our freshman year of college, we sometimes bragged that nobody in all the state talked more shit about Mormonism than us and our roommate from Minnesota, who wasn’t a member and often had questions about why things worked the way they did here.
THE UNDERSTUDY (dryly)
How mature we were.
THE NARRATOR
The imbalance was no more complicated than any physical system. Glutamate is essential for our bodies to function, but too much at once and it becomes a potent toxin. Our experience suggests that it’s much the same in matters of apostasy.
THE UNDERSTUDY
(through his marionette)
At night, we laid awake in the dark to contemplate the embarrassing ways in which we behaved as a youth. Fuck, in second grade, had we really offered our only nonreligious friend a chunk of white marble that had been left over from the construction of a new temple? We had received it from Sunday school the Sunday prior. How stupid had we been, to feel offended that he shared no interest in that rock?
THE NARRATOR
Such restless nights were, of course, unsustainable. Appropriate doses of glutamate underlie memory and other critical messaging pathways within the brain; but an overdose of glutamate is worse even than too much GABA. There’s a special word for glutamate’s primary quality when it’s found in high concentrations.
Excitotoxin.
THE UNDERSTUDY
THE NARRATOR
Yet even below that toxicity threshold, too much glutamate is associated with Alzheimer’s Disease, strokes, and other maladies.
THE UNDERSTUDY
(through his marionette)
Our soul had swung too far in the other direction, and it was time we reined it back in. We cited compassion as a principal motivator for leaving Mormonism behind, and yet how swiftly we had forgotten that compassion as we found ourselves on the other side of the line.
THE NARRATOR
One year after Ella had come out to us, we received a letter in the mail. An exercise from trek had been to write ourselves a letter. We sealed it into an envelope, addressed it to ourselves, and left it in the custody of our leaders, who would keep it for twelve months as a time capsule. Our letter had a furtive line wishing us well regarding our sister, but was otherwise highly religious. We sneered and tossed it in the trash.
THE UNDERSTUDY
It’s something I regret. Actions made out of embarrassment for ourselves is always something I regret.
THE NARRATOR
We aren’t as objective as we think, especially not regarding our own self. The balance doesn’t come easily. Fine tuning is a constant.
THE UNDERSTUDY
(through his marionette)
We oscillate between sympathy and embarrassment, eras of kinship with our religious past and eras of rivalry.
THE NARRATOR
There’s no other way. Chemical equilibrium is also ascertained with time and through many oscillations. When a neuronal synapse releases too much of a neurotransmitter, measures are employed to round up the excess.
THE UNDERSTUDY
(through his marionette)
This is where you all come in. We are in a journey of re-defining our relationship to these emotions, and as new recruits, you neurotransmitters in the crowd must be ready. (dropping his marionette to hang limply in his grip)
To the stage! Everyone, pair up with a partner. Come, come!
THE NARRATOR
Wait, what?
NEUROTRANSMITTERS flood to the stage in a sort of flash mob.
THE UNDERSTUDY
(glances at a clock on the wall, nods to himself)
There’s no better way than some hands-on experience!
THE NARRATOR
(shouldering THE UNDERSTUDY away and regaining his composure)
And you were worried that I would be the one to diverge from the standard script! (looks at the neurotransmitters now packed onto the stage with him)
Very well, if you all insist.
A chorus of excited shouts and encouragement rise from the crowd. THE NARRATOR tugs on his marionette controller, and...
SMASH CUT to THE BIG GUY, who stretches his arms then sits up in bed. A PHONE next to his bed plays a WAKE-UP ALARM, which he silences. Then, he swings his legs out of bed to start his day, full of energy.
Anything is Possible
Juli Adams | oil paint
The Dream Collector
Juli Adams | oil on board
Untitled 5
Shabani | gouache
Zahra
When We Open the Windows
Kathryn Good-Schiff | poetry
Yucca angustissima
She said, I brought you a gift. In her outstretched palm: star-shaped blossoms. Down the block, the stripped flower stalk stood naked despite its sharp leaves.
Ipomoea pes-caprae
We went to the shore seeking some kind of anchor. Railroad vines held dunes together as ocean waves ground seashells into sand.
Syringa vulgaris
Let’s plant lilacs near our bedroom she said and even though we have no house yet no soil of our own every morning when we wake I can smell them.
Mycelium Spring | poetry
I've heard that trees can hear each other's thoughts. That fungi grow between and act as middle men. The chemical signals they provide allow the trees to think through them.
Three squeezes for "I love you". My heart skips a beat, so I squeeze two The electricity in my nerves flows to the current in your fingertips. Just like the trees, we don’t need words.
And in the moments before we touch, when we are separate still. I seek out our connection reaching reaching reaching Just like the mycelium
The Forest Floor
DEMON VINEGAR | digital art
Rainbow Wall
Jenna Watson | acrylic
Metaphor-ay
Shelli Rottschofar | poetry
00:00
What were the first flowers you ever saw perched over your mother’s shoulder, nestled in the crook of her arm?
These pastel-palette memories draw us in and tug at recollection to that vague hue.
We were born to these flowersa botanical superlative! An exclamation mark on our souls.
Purple and gold are heraldic colors Why stand beside each other, when they could grow alone?
Theirs is an alchemy which taps our shoulders, and encourages us to turn, and seek.
Nature wants us to hum her songs like bees fluttering between these multitudes.
Yet it is up to us, to trust this flight into a new way of bee-ing.
Forsyth Path
Jenna Watson | acrylic
Harmony At Dusk
Siv Limary | digital photography
Harvest
Catherine L. Hensley | creative nonfiction
00:00
The thing about growing pumpkins is, you really do need to wear gloves. There’re these little prickles all up and down the stems and on the undersides of the leaves. If you just brush your hand against the back of a leaf, there’s a fuzziness to it. But if you try to reposition or untangle a vine while gloveless, you may find yourself not so quietly cursing this autumnal wonder that is presently snaking through a significant chunk of your not-so-significant backyard space.
The vines come on so fast, or at least it seems like they do, even though you’ve been checking the plants every day. The tiny sprout in an old plastic tub on your kitchen windowsill is now a six, eight, ten-foot thriving vine. It lengthens daily! This is unendingly exciting, certainly because it was so small not so long ago. It was only a pumpkin seed, one from one of last year’s crop no less, and not one you added to a slow Thursday’s morning oatmeal in hopes of boosting your iron intake. This one was destined for more, destined for greatness, for what every good pumpkin aspires to deep in its orangey, seedy soul: Halloween display.
But that holiday is a ways off still. It’s hot Southern California, dry, desert hot for the moment and many more moments. It’s untangling time, making sure the vines aren’t growing too much into other vines or other plants. And keeping them well watered in this heat. They like a lot of water and yet have grown so easily in this rain-parched climate. Everything involved in growing them has been so easy. Not like the corn transplants that withered after a few weeks, or the tomato bush
that grew and grew and grew and after one or two mini, reddish globes decided it’d had enough and preferred life without fruiting, thank you very much.
Each year, you wonder at the strange alchemy that makes one pumpkin seed turn into an epically long vine with bright yellow flower after flower and eventually some orange fruits and an identical pumpkin seed that does nothing. Not even a sprout, despite your rich compost, your watering, your sunny, hot days. Verbal encouragement didn’t work. Neither did the stinky seaweed fertilizer. Sometimes, things just don’t work like they’re supposed to. On this particular Tuesday, a random Tuesday, the weight of this metaphor, as one seed vines and snakes its way across dirt and gravel and another languishes, is too much.
So you continue watering and adding compost and fertilizer. Maybe you don’t talk as much to a square of dirt, and maybe that’s OK. Maybe tomorrow will be the day a tiny shoot breaks through the top of the soil. Maybe this month will be the month that your period doesn’t arrive like clockwork, another failed cycle, another failed year, another failed many, many years. One seed doesn’t come up, but another does. Hope is the thing with wings, isn’t it? It perches but dawdles, asking for more than crumbs.
The deep heat deep into a Southern California summer can be more piercing than an Emily Dickinson yarn. In July, certainly into August,
you start to feel that you are spending a great deal of your early evening time trying to stave off mass plant death in your now-it’s-feelingsignificant backyard space. As the temperatures rise, so does your water bill.
Plants evolved to dry climates handle it all in stride your cacti, your succulents, your kangaroo paws waving their brightly colored hands in what little breeze there is. The special plants, the more decorative ones, need more hand-holding. The hydrangeas that remind you of home in the Deep South and the roses -good grief, all the roses will stretch your hose as much as your pocketbook.
It is tough to admit it, but your glorious pumpkins fall into the not-so-water-wise category. The longer they snake, the more they seem to need. Under the weight of the summer sun, their big, broad leaves droop down like wimpy umbrellas, and so you need to keep them very well watered. Just not the leaves so much, which you had convinced yourself they liked only to be reminded they don’t by a plentiful dusting of white, powdery mildew appearing for a time on their surfaces.
Still, the fruits are enduring and getting bigger, despite the late summer’s best efforts. Even the rogue acorn squash that has popped up with them seems to be living its best vine life. Given you’re six for six in corn stalk wilting, those visions of a dried corn and pumpkin gourd front-porch display come fall are quickly fading, but not entirely. The browned and crackly corn leaves could add a rustic, harvesty element, the underdeveloped, dead little corn cobs a spooky touch. There is still hope for it. Increasingly in an annoying
fashion, there seems to always be that teenytiny, eensy-weensy nugget of hope. It just won’t stop perching and dawdling. It won’t go away.
Much like this mildew blanketing the pumpkin leaves. Water under. Water at the base, you remind yourself. The vines are stretching out and around and up and down so long now, down cacti branches, up fences, around compost bins, and far out past the shade of the orange tree like they’re running to catch up with the heat of the sun. They are unruly, yes, but they seem to know what they want and are going after it with aplomb. The same could be said for this backyard space, this pretty unspectacular rectangle that is somehow morphing into a truly unique, actually interesting little botanical garden. “We’re going to fix up the yard” is what the original goal was. We were going to do some landscaping. We were also going to have a baby. Six some odd years later, we have the makings of a backyard botanic space, replete with a South African wing, tropical banana trees, a dedicated space for roses, vegetable beds, even compost bins made of recycled boards from our old deck, but no baby.
The garden as a metaphor through the act of gardening itself can be hard to escape, especially as these hot summer days slowly inch into more palatable sunny afternoons and slightly cooler evenings. One seed comes up, while another doesn’t. One pumpkin vine you planted twists and winds itself around every veg bed corner, stretching over junk piles of wood and gravelly footpaths. It flowers big, beautiful, full yellow flowers but never fruits. Another springs up seemingly overnight from
a pile of compost dirt left temporarily on your concrete patio. You do next to nothing to it or for it, and within weeks, it is booming. A greenish-blue pumpkin the size of a salad plate is ready to snip off the vine by the end of September. You try not to compare yourself to the fruitless pumpkin vine as you both marvel at and curse the randomness of nature. Why me? you’ll hear in your head an embarrassing number of times. But also, why not me?
As autumn subtly comes on, everything feels cyclical, burdensomely so. Test results that are generally positive, but procedures that fail one after the other. Osteospermums and a red hot poker that dressed up your curbside considerably in spring are now browning and wilting away until next year. Another month, another period. And another and another. Obscenely priced options with small odds will be presented to you as though you should be grateful for them. But it’s very possible that the shades of this you’re picking up on are coming not externally but from inside. The dried-up little corn cobs will seem unusually familiar: brittle, tired, probably bitter.
noticeable amount, the gourds practically calling out to be freed from them, it’ll be clear that “autumn” out West has arrived. It’s now fire season.
You spend an inordinate amount of time watering everything, not just the pretty little blue and green and — wait, is that yellow one actually a spaghetti squash?! — pumpkins. The city sends polite reminders to irrigate only one day a week to conserve water, while hand watering is still allowed loosely. You will feel very loose watering everything so much and so frequently, but at least a few things, like the pumpkins, don’t need much at this point.
Fall comes to Southern California much like the other seasons — it doesn’t. Not really. At least not like it does in some places, with the leaves changing colors and the temperatures dropping to lows that make wearing sweaters a fun and novel thing. There are some cooler evenings and more pleasant days, but the leaves stay green and hot, hot, hot days still show up. What really drops is the humidity, into the teens and even single digits. As the pumpkin vines start to twist and shrink a
So much time watering gives you an opportunity to indulge in another treasured pastime: overthinking. But between spraying the banana trees and lightly misting the stillsoaked hydrangea, it occurs to you that this is not entirely a bad thing, this time of indulgence. You have time to think and to write and to get a facial on a Tuesday on a whim. Go for an hour-long walk when the mood strikes, or a massage on a Wednesday. Stay up to ungodly hours reading old Nora Ephron essays and seriously considering buying something called a “spurtle” from QVC. There is a whole lot that you enjoy and indulge in that becoming a new parent would certainly diminish. There is a lot of good, a whole lot of life, even right in this little backyard.
In between trimming the pink geraniums and deadheading the purple roses, you question your feminist bona fides. Shouldn’t I feel more strongly after all this, after all this time? But that is not a question for today’s task. There will be more trimming and pruning to do
tomorrow and the next day and the next, more opportunities to discover what comes up. Today is pumpkin harvest day! Luckily, you remember that when handling pumpkins on the vine, you really do need to wear gloves. Snippers in covered hand, you’re once again delighted to see that this year’s stunner has retained its surprising color from its first appearance: blue. This year’s front porch Halloween display is going to look a little different from how you’d pictured it. But then,
everything does.
This leaves you feeling peculiarly peckish. Perhaps, long-awaited task in hand, you’re heeding the wisdom Nora imparted in her 1998 gem, You’ve Got Mail: “You’re daring to imagine that you could have a different life. Oh, I know it doesn’t feel like that. You feel like a big fat failure now. But you’re not. You are marching into the unknown armed with . . . nothing! Have a sandwich!” I think I just might.
Waking
Chris Kads | poetry
I buried the feeling of rain. The feeling of droplets falling from roof crack clouds above my bed. The sight of the water collecting on tornado blades, and splattering on piles of polyester.
I buried the smell of rotted root air that weaves through the strings of my sleeves, that slithers through the gray grates and the bathroom tile boards and dances through the glass Jenga in my kitchen sink.
I buried the sound of garbage trunk thunder and the overplayed siren melody constantly on the radio while I try to taste canned campbell’s chicken noodle soup, a flavor which I also long ago buried in the grave.
I buried Feeling. The whole of it. Caked it in dirt, pounded it down into place with the back of a hard metal shovel. Prepared for it to rest unmarked, out of sight, out of mind.
But then, You came, and Feeling’s zombie hands slowly dug up up up out of the dirt.
Back to the smooth of sunset hair, the sight of emerald eyes, and the smell of pine in your neck’s crook.
Back to the sound of drum laughter, deep and rhythmic, and the taste of peppermint toothpaste, fresh and cold
Back to the storm of my studio. The cracking ceiling that gushes on mountains of microfibers. The plate Pisa reverberating the road rhythms. And the cansso many cansof stale food that finally has flavor.
Found its way back into the mess.
Found a way to let it go.
Millionaire’s Panorama
Jenna Watson | acrylic
Sonder
Kaylee Pelland | creative nonfiction
sonder the profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passing in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it
The night is quiet, and the smoke from his cigarette curls against my face. Just like every Saturday, I’ve just gotten off a 12-hour shift. My feet ache, and I shift my weight as he stares at me.
“You know those are bad for you.”
I want to say the cause of our fight is the rolled-up nicotine he balances between his forefinger and thumb, but we both know there’s more to the silence hanging between us.
A thousand heartbreaks could leave me damaged but hopeful. It wasn’t until tonight that I felt real anger, a sour taste on my tongue as all the bitterness built.
You disappointed me. You hurt me. You betrayed me.
When you work alongside someone for two years, you develop an intimacy other people in your life can't compare to. They see you at 9 AM, taking down the chairs to the bar as you hum with the radio. They're there when you finally clock out, wiping away the sweat and frustration of the day.
We were as close as coworkers could be, trading smiles amid chaos and playing each other's favorite songs on the Bluetooth. It was a friendship dear to me. I assumed it was dear to him, too.
“I know,” he replies, tracking my eyes to his cigarette. “Everyone tells me that.”
We're standing out back as our coworkers close up shop, the frigid air tickling me through my clothes as I sit down on a spare beer keg. He was always taller than me, towering over me now.
“So you don't want to be friends with me?” I ask, looking at my feet. My voice sounds pathetic, cracking despite how confident and self-assured I want to appear.
“It's not that I don't want to be friends; I just...” His words fade as I fight back tears, my nose scrunching with anger. A script as old as time, one I should have prepared for when I made space for complicated relationships. “I just can't be friends with someone I have feelings for.”
I didn't understand it then. Insults threatened to slip off my tongue and contaminate the alreadypoisoned air between us. Instead, hot tears warmed my ice-cold cheeks. At that moment, disappointment was one of the most numbing emotions I'd ever experienced.
Life is too short. I wanted him to feel the way I did, to fight for the possibility of a beautiful friendship. Throwing away all that time was something I couldn't begin to fathom, but I knew I would forsake empathy in trying to convince him to stay in my life. My presence would cause more hurt in the end
I'd spent my entire life arguing my feelings, feeling fulfilled when I succeeded at showing someone my side of the mountain. My perspective shifted when he shut me out and ended our friendship. I promised I would no longer convince people why I deserved a spot in their lives.
Prying myself off the beer keg was agonizing despite how uncomfortable of a seat it proved to be. The well-prepared discussion points fell away as my realization became stronger. The expression on my friend's face was enough for me to know that arguing my case would fall on deaf ears. The most I could offer then was a hug, the warm embrace allowing me to appreciate the friendship that had been and retiring the constant need to fight my case.
Since then, I have been trying to navigate the line between empathy and self-love. It should be a straight path, but it throws me off balance endlessly. I still struggle to decide when to accept the faults of others and when to slip out the door. That night remains ingrained in my memory, and the lack of closure is most perturbing. I always hated stories without a clear ending. For a writer, a book lying open and a ready pen is all too tempting.
After 2 years, I quit my favorite job and prepared to say goodbye to the coworkers who had become my family. On my last day, he called out, and I never got the farewell I felt I deserved. I'll never know if it was on purpose, but it's an answer I'd rather not provoke with my own question.
People do things for many reasons we will never understand, and everyone deserves consideration. The more you write, the more you learn about yourself. The more you listen in vulnerable moments, the more you learn about others. As I began to put myself out there more, I saw the layers that make up the people around me. While it became easier to pick the right people, it became second nature to forgive the wrong ones.
I want people to wonder about me the way I do about them. Being in the minds of others is a privilege. To leave a lasting mark on a life that isn't your own is the same as signing a love letter or stepping back to view your painting. The famous Greek philosopher Aristotle claimed that humans were unique because of their remarkable ability to reason and rationalize. However, I'd argue that observing one another sets humans apart from any other species. The ability to notice, to care, to act. That's our function.
Eight Men
Richard Epstein | poetry
00:00
Aging veterans one has a metal leg.
One shuffles as he walks. Two steady themselves with cane and walking stick.
One drives a shiny Cadillac. Three pull up on noisy motorcycles:
All but two suffer from diabetes, Parkinson’s, heart disease, kidney failure, cancer Agent Orange.
They gather for a weekly luncheon at different restaurants around town.
They talk about old times, their first car, first love, the old neighborhood, shrapnel, dirty jokes, the VA, taxes, liberals and politics.
Unit insignia on their hats each man is a story, a novel, a play. Like tenacious weeds, they withstood storms, drought, and monsoon rains.
They come from strong seed. They blossom and now wither. May they rise again.
Rays Of Gold
Siv Limary | digital photography
Sunlit Playground
Fern Forrest | digital painting
Scripture & A Cigarette
Simon Angel | photography
Abe’s Cantina
Shelli Rottschafer | fiction
00:00
Abe’s Cantina
Abe’s is like the living room of Arroyo Seco. Everybody goes there. Skiers on their way up, or down from the ski valley. Locals for their breakfast burrito on their way to give their horses hay, who stomp the cold away while they wait. School children as they head to the school bus stop at the community center; they drop their mail off on the counter so as to not walk the extra football field length to the actual Post Office.
And then there’s Ruben, who has been holding court at the bar at Abe’s forever. He wrangles in those who stop by so that he can tell his stories. He explains that he detests Taos, but every detail that he gives shows otherwise.
If you listen long enough, or as many times as taoseños have, Ruben’s reality bends toward Magical Realism. His dreams conjured at night, blend with his past but reoccurring acid trips which send him through a new portal. His daymares gain relief by a shot of Jack Daniels, and a bar-back Tecate in order to soothe his tremoring hand as he steadies a “Major” hamburger to his lips.
Ruben lives not far away. Too long to walk, but short enough to drive his five long-haired German Shepherds in his tired Jeep Cherokee to Abe’s front door. His canine children are his constant companions, as his current girlfriends grow wary and leave. Rewarded for their not running away, like the women, Ruben doles out plain hamburger patties cooked well
when they don’t step on the raised door lock fob within the driver side window. Even when they do though, he still offers to buy their love in meat.
Today, Ruben has a mission so he is in-and-out of Abe’s with a wave to Cleo, the young but stoic bartendress. North of town, on NM 522 lies Costilla. If ever it were a spare-rib town, Adam lost out on the deal to Eve. She took his heart trapped rib cage and clearly sped off elsewhere. Ruben feels like he has had the same kind of luck. He only has his dogs to keep him warm at night. It’s a restless sleep at that as he is outnumbered one to five, and they hog the bed. Ruben pulls out of the cantina parking and drives to that arid mesa plain.
At 7,812 feet above sea level, Costilla is wind swept. Winds are barricaded by the Sangre de Cristo foothills. Piñon and juniper dot the eroded buttes and give shelter to roaming wild horses. Within a stretch of seventeen miles along the New Mexican and Colorado border there are two bands. One is guided by an old stallion, a bay roan with black mane and tail. He tames five brown mares to his heels, they remain out of habit. The other band, is much larger and are reigned in by a young black stallion blazed with a white star. His stocky muscles have won his mares, preferring his youth to the roan’s past stature.
Ruben feels sorry for the roan, who he has named Sebastian. Ruben can relate, all of his girlfriends gone to better pasture, whereas only his five dogs remain waiting for burger handouts. The roan doesn’t seem as bothered
by his loss as Ruben does. He still has his freedom, even if his gait has slowed. He still has his company, when he needs it. He doesn’t want the handouts of oats, nor the temptation of dangling carrots.
Sebastian’s range is from the Costillas of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the East to Ute Mountain in the West. Ute Mountain or el Cerro de la Yuta in 1600s Spanish is a 10, 093 feet old volcanic cone, now dormant. In between the two are farms gone to dust, some dotted with sparce cattle, some who’ve let things lie. Ruben is headed to where his cousin’s cousin owns land. This land has been left to lie, and Ruben tries to resurrect it.
Like Sebastian’s saint namesake, Ruben believes in the power of suffering. He believes in the lost cause of a disabled athlete like the roan. He believes in soldiering on, despite the daggers or the arrows flung at him. Ruben comes to this land as an offering. It is his chance to walk the broken fence lines, where the local elk herd has trampled down the barbe wire. It is his opportunity to breath in the sage, dusted in passing by the wild horse bands. It is his joy to see his dogs run, bound over chamisa, and sniff those prairie dog holes until the real whiff of a decaying elk femur calls their attention.
This time is Ruben’s prayer, if he would ever call it that. Ruben appreciates the company of his saints. His disciple dogs, the side-eyeing stallion with his skittish mares, and Ute Mountain hovering in the horizon. All of this is oddly broken by the one anomaly upon the mesa, an old trawler bow dipped into the gramma grass, plastered in red topsoil, and
whose propellor spins in the wind. Sagebrush gathers starboard to tender her abandonment. No one remembers the story of its desert docking. Merely that it is on Ruben’s cousin’s cousin’s land on a county road, east of Ute Mountain.
Today, Ruben parks his Jeep Cherokee next to the trawler on the shade side. He’s out to scavenge volcanic rocks, scattered in the field. He does this, every now and again, when the money is running low. Typically, after gathering, he sets his hatch open along the “Old Blinking Light” intersection, that now has a four-way traffic light. He duct tapes a sign, “Landscaping rocks for sale. Will deliver.” Hoping to entice the influx of second home owners along the ski valley road for their xeriscaping projects. That is his plan, at least.
Ruben palms one rock at a time and drops it in the back of his Jeep. Each shepherd accompanies him on his next find, hoping to sniff out the prairie dogs within reach. When he lays a stone in the truck, and wheels around to begin again, they press snout to his hand for a reassuring scratch. This is the company he needs, and he slows his gait knowing that the pace will take him longer, but his reward is riding those invisible waves that lie dormant beneath the docked trawler in the shallows of Ute Mountain.
Cleótilde not Cleopatra
“Cleótilde not Cleopatra,” I often say. But, I actually go by Cleo. Often times, I feel like I am giving an excuse. “It’s a family name, mi
Tata’s.”
“Your what?”
“Tata Abuela Cleótilde, my great-grandmother, pronounced Clay-o-til-deh.”
“Ah. But you do the Cleopatra eyes.”
And they point to my make-up. That’s why I have been going to the lash place lately instead. Extensions, it lasts longer.
Mamá wonders how much longer I am going to be back home. Or if I have chosen to stay, like my big sister, Brigid. Bri has been back since her Daniel, my brother-in-law, was redeployed. It was nice having them down in Albuquerque, while I was still at school. I could go over to the base, do my laundry on weekends I was feeling cheap, instead of going to the coin laundry. It was good, to be in her kitchen, smells of green chile stew that reminded me of home. But being at her house for a sleep over, to be woken by a colicky nephew, or having Bella, my three-year-old niece, suddenly appear snuggled next to you on the pull-out couch at 5 am; was something I knew I was not ready for.
I’ve been back now not quite nine months, and that’s something to say. I was always “gearing to split”, to use a “Ruben-ism”. University of New Mexico seemed to be my answer. Most of my senior class, if they went to college, start off at UNM-Taos, but I wanted to go farther. First semester was good, second semester. Well, I made it to Easter and decided to stay home. I don’t want to say I dropped out, I just stopped;
at least for now. So, I guess it’s a wash. Good grades one semester, incompletes that turned to Fs in the Spring. Spring is meant to be a time of hope, as the old-timers at the bar remind me. Last Spring was not for me, but they tell me, I will turn it around.
Since that April, I have been tending bar. Abe’s Cantina has been in my familia forever. My mom’s great uncle came back from World War II to marry his sweetheart. He was the post master for years in Arroyo Seco. When that dried up, he opened Abe’s Cantina, the only watering hole in town. Mamá has been cooking the family recipes in their kitchen since I can remember. Bri is now helping her when her kiddos are at daycare, and I “sling drinks”, as Ruben says. Altogether it’s pretty easy. It’s his Tecate back with a Jack Daniels. Lito’s diet no ice now that he quit drinkin’. El Mike’s one Silver Coin Marg to celebrate the end of a work day. Manny’s Coors, because it’s better than water. And Trey’s whatever is the Happy Hour Special. The only outliers are when a tourist going up to the mountain or down, steps in to our darkened cave of a bar.
It's easy to tell who’s who. They walk in, bow their heads to adjust for the light. Glance toward the bottle lined bar, and step forward to see if they are invited in. Usually by that time, one of the old-timers swings on a stool and shouts a “bienvenida”, so that the newcomer knows they won’t bite. They shed coats, layering them over the cracked vinyl stools, and inch up to the bar, squinting at taps and bottles to make their selection. I quietly ignore, clean the counter or some glasses, until I can feel their anxiety; wondering when I will come over to take their order.
Five days on, two days off. I work starting the Happy Hour shift until close. It gives me the mornings to sleep in, help Bri with her kids before she drops them off at daycare and starts her shift in the kitchen with Mamá. Mom is there at opening, prepping for the all-day breakfast burrito crowd, until she tires. Our shifts overlap only to the point that she knows I am on time to open the bar cash register, and to give me her side-eye “Good thing you aren’t late, mi’ja”, raised eyebrow look.
That stare down, was one of the reasons I was so ready to go off to school. But it was also what I looked for when I came home. Her “mirada” didn’t produce “mal de ojo”. Instead, it assured me that our matriarch knew me so deeply that I did not need to explain; because according to Mamá, “what is left unsaid, can be just fine, sometimes.”
Mamá said when I was born, I came out scarlet red screaming with my hands balled up in fists ready to take on the world. And even though Cleótilde is a family name, that is not why she named me that. What she tells me, is that Cleotilde is a female Germanic name, for one who is a great warrior. What I wonder is if by naming me that, she unintentionally set me up for having to take on those battles.
Perhaps my first battle was going off to school, and even though Albuquerque is only a 2.5 hour drive away, it seemed a world away for a first-generation college me. Fall semester was okay. Sharing a dorm room with someone other than my messy older sister was a challenge. Bri’s crap, I could shove under her bed. My new roommate came from Roswell, and she was alien to me. Hardly ever in our
room, she had her own friends from down south who all chose to go to UNM rather than State. She had her own crowd, her own things, and I was to not touch them. She orbited in her own atmosphere, and me, coming from a small Northern Nuevo Méxicano village seemed like I came from a far-flung planet. I avoided her, and stuck to my own thing.
My own thing became my classes, and weekends either studying in the library, recuperating at Bri’s on base, or going home for a holiday. February 1 is Brigid’s birthday, hence the name my Mamá chose for her, Brigida, after Saint Brigid. And, because this usually falls near Mardi Gras or the Superbowl, Bri and Daniel had a blowout party to celebrate for her, because it really was the first time since she had my nephew, and since she had stopped nursing, that she could actually drink.
Because we are my Mamá’s daughters, we know how to prepare for a family celebration. Bri called, a week before to make sure she knew all the correct ingredients for Mamá’s Chile Verde. We went to ghetto Smith’s on Yale near UNM, and their bakery was all set up for Valentine’s Day. It saved so much time to not bake a cake, but to just stick a bunch of candles in red frosting cupcakes. Watching Bella in her highchair, with a quartered cupcake, stuffing a section into her little mouth was a picturetaking highlight. Everyone toasted, with beers in their raised hands, to the young mother turning a year older, and her three-year-old who stole the show.
The party grew more and more sloppy, once kids were put to bed, and Daniel’s Kirtland based buddies brought more thirty-packs over
to continue their cheap-beer-buzz. Mama’s Chile Verde ran dry in the slow cooker quickly, even before the Super Bowl game had concluded. But the beer was still flowing, and Bri, saddened that Daniel’s CO had let him know he would be redeployed, and enlivened by her first drinks since her milk dried, was by that time, standing on tables swaying to music in celebration because her team, The Chiefs, had won.
This is where I took over, the dutiful Tía Cleo; turning toward the kids shared room to make sure they were sleeping soundly. How a colicky infant and a sugar-frosting-coma induced three-year-old can sleep through a house packed with jeering Airforce dudes is beyond me.
Their room was dark, a night light glowed in one of the outlets by Bella’s toddler bed. She clutched her Elmo doll in her sleep. Across the bedroom, I peered into my nephew’s crib to make sure he was on his back breathing soundly, with his blanket pulled to chin. Bent over the railing, I noticed someone standing behind me. Daniel’s best friend, the one who kept peering at me all party long, over his open and ever replenished beer.
This time, his empty hands found me. Pressing his knees into the backs of mine, he grasped one hand to my Adam’s Apple, and groped with the other, downing my baggy joggers, to my crotch, and shoved the fabric to thigh. He unbuckled his jeans, let them fall to his ankles with his boxers. The only thing I could see was my nephew on one side of the crib, and my joggers crumpled between the railing and my now bare legs. Daniel’s best friend entered me
from behind, one hand on the railing to steady himself, one hand upon my throat not so that I couldn’t breathe, but so that I knew not to say anything.
He came, in the dark, with me silently looking down at my nephew’s now open eyes, and outstretched hands. Wanting me to pick him up, awakened from the jostling of his crib. Daniel’s best friend cleaned himself off with a baby wipe and threw it away in the dirty diaper bin. He walked out the door, back to the living room where Bri and Daniel and the others shouted their post-Superbowl glee.
Me, I raised my drawers. Took my nephew in my arms, and rested on the floor, against Bella’s bed. Rocking him back to sleep, I whispered, “shh… it will be alright.”
But it wasn’t. This was the moment, I realized the world was bigger than I had guessed. There was a difference, a new space. My world felt roomy. Too big, for me to grow into. Two months later, it seemed to swallow me up. That’s how long it took for me to realize.
I had been late before, but never this late. One pregnancy test, and it revealed two distinct lines. Bri and I stared at it, in her bathroom, over the toilet where the rest of my pee landed. She is so much our Mamá’s daughter. With raised eyebrow she stared. Her words changed from heavy rock to a butterfly, something plummeting and wanting escape. “It’s positive. You aren’t ready for this, not yet.” She would know.
Sometimes, there are edges to a person that they often don’t know themselves. Perhaps it
matters less on the outside, but I was learning my internal edges. How much could I take, before I would jump over the edge? Brigid did not want me to get that close to my edge. So, she drove me to the Planned Parenthood on Candelaria, and held my hand all through the procedure.
Afterward, Bri took me back to my dorm. My roommate was packing her bags for the Easter holiday break, a trip back south. “You going north or staying at your sister’s on base?” Bri answered for me, “She’s going home”… and side-eyed winked at me, explaining no further.
Like her namesake, Saint Brigid insists the beauty of nature is that it takes its time. Bri lets me, be me. Mamá seems to need everything prepared. But with Bri on the other hand, nothing is rushed. Bri sees me from the kitchen, while I’m behind the bar. She side-eye winks to remind me, my confidence will return.
Perhaps this Spring, my hands will ball into fists for a time of new beginnings. Perhaps by then, I will realize where those edges start and where they end.
Manny sits at the bar waiting for his stooges. That’s what Cleo’s Grandma calls them anyway. La Mrs. She means well, but the stooge part sometimes hurts. Manny is his own stooge. He doesn’t want to be anyone else’s. Besides, which would he be, Larry, Curly, or Moe? Ruben, who’s already down at the other end of the bar, hovering in the shadows, says, “Well brah, you can’t be Curly. You shave your head. Better that way though, don’t do a comb over. Chicano with a comb over, no bueno.”
Cleo comes to the rescue. “Just cuz you gotta full head a hair Ruben, don’t mean you gotta comment,” and she slides Manny his usual, a chilled bottle of Coors.
“Ruben, you shave yur ass. Tú comentario no es necesario.” Manny takes a swig of his beer, winks at Cleo but reminds her, “Doesn’t not don’t, chica… Y yo, a comb over. Ni modo.” Cleo rolls her eyes and flicks the bottle cap from his beer along the counter top, thumping him in the chest like an old timey marble.
The Three Stooges
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is the three strange angels. Admit them, admit them, admit them. From “Song of a Man Who Has Come Through” D. H. Lawrence
From the street front door, El Mike and Lito glide in. They both hover at stools on either side of Manny, both having finished work. All three of them make this ritual on Thursdays. They call it their own Thirsty Thursdays but Cleo doesn’t tend to give them a discount despite their regularity. Manny calls it quits around 3:30 every day, or beer thirty as Ruben claims. Manny’s Excavating Service tends to close shop while the other construction grunts organize the job site, clearing it of debris if a GC arrives to inspect.
Sometimes he heads to his wood lot in the foothills out by Tres Piedras. If there are downed White Pines, he’ll haul them chained behind his pickup to the shed with the splitter. Set to work until the back of his pickup is full, and tarp the top of the wood until he can sell it alongside the road north of the Speedway Gas Station before the old Blinking Light. Sometimes Lito or El Mike join him. Most often he goes solo. It gives him time, time to contemplate.
Ever since his Micaela has been gone, he needs the time spent to slow down. Working with his hands, smelling the pine sap, making his muscles ache; a kind of penance. Or perhaps it’s his own type of Rosary to crave what is unwieldy, to appreciate what others pass over. Each deadwood, gnarled and split acts like a Rosary bead, a prayer lofted for his Micaela.
His wife tells him, go to church, lift it up there. But his church is outside, in the foothills. For him, a trunk still standing, is like a road to the sky. People think of trees as merely wood, a resource. But there’s spaces in trees between the limbs, around the trunk, how the evergreen branches hit the periwinkle sky. Lito has seen a lot too. He gets it, why Manny needs to be out in the space, in the quiet, until they all have answers.
Carlos growing up was called Carlitos by his ‘Ama, but everyone else called him Lito. Yet, Lito is not little at all, quite the contrary – he’s huge. His ‘Ama liked to say big boned, but Lito looks like a Sumo Wrestler, and he can wrestle too. Or, all he has to do is bear hug you, and he will take you down, on bended knee and use his weight, until the hugged give in to his embrace.
Even though Lito was the biggest kid in Seco, he never used his weight to counter unfairly. That’s how the Three Stooges came together anyway. Ever since their first kindergarten encounter, when Manny tried to “Mil Máscaras” pile drive Mikey during recess. Standing from the uneven gymnastic bars on the playground, Lito came, not to tag team him like Manny expected, but to come to Michael, the new-boy-in-town’s aid. Lito Half-Nelsoned Manny, helping Mike escape to the side-lines as the girls on swings yelled that if they didn’t stop it, they would tell la Maestra. Panting, in a semi-circle, Lito extended his palms out grasping both Manny and Michael’s hands in friendship, “I pity the fool who tries that again,” and until they graduated from high school they remained pegged like glue.
Now, Lito is Mr. C to his own students. He is the Tiger’s guidance counselor at Taos High. That is why he has seen a lot. He has seen the smart studious ones off to college, fearing the Brain Drain that is so endemic to small rural towns. He has seen the quiet introverted ones learn to blossom through art, through words, and to slam their poetry into the ground to reclaim their roots. He has seen the rebellious, who followed their father’s footsteps but took that rebellion a step too far, disappearing into the starless night.
Lito, hopes he can be an example of what can be and how cultures can collide but be resilient. As the great-great-grandson of a Buffalo Soldier stationed at Fort Garland, Colorado who had stayed in the San Luis Valley and married into a taoseña familia; Lito is an example of someone who’s heritage came from faraway, but had chosen to stay. He, himself,
had left, and came back to his roots; his querencia. Lito went away for college, but while in Albuquerque and dabbling with Zen he came to realize like Basho’s student Masahide had:
Barn’s burnt down –Now I can see the moon.
Lito’s filters of what society told him he wanted, had cleared. And, having returned to Seco, after all these years he could see that his compadres cleared the way for him to reach the moon. It was his turn to be there for them, to tap in, and tag team.
Michael at one time, was the new-boy-in-town but now, he like Manny and Lito, were the old dudes, the Three Stooges bellied at the bar. When he talked about Taos to his parents’ East-Coast families, he likened Abe’s Cantina to the sitcom famous, Cheers. It’s a place where everyone knows your name. And he, these days was known as El Mike.
Michael’s parents had come West during the counterculture 1960s. They lived in Truchas, southeast of Taos but eventually made their way to the New Buffalo commune in Arroyo Hondo, the town over from Seco. Here, they had El Mike and his siblings. Here, he rode his Schwinn Banana Seat bike to school. Here, he learned that in this community, you needed friends who had your back, in order to avoid skinned knee tussles. It didn’t matter that he had grime under his fingernails too, it didn’t matter that his family’s bathroom was a dirt floor outhouse. It didn’t matter, because his family could choose to leave. It didn’t matter that their Land of Entrapment, was his Tierra
Encantada.
Because, Michael looked like the white-Jesus painting that Father Stan had in the sacristy where Manny and Carlos’s families went to Mass at Holy Trinity; El Mike was teased a ton as a child. But, he grew into being their third. Manny and Lito as alter-boys, knew that una trinidad was sacred. And as adults, they all respected their bond, a sacredness in their Three Stooges pact. Precisely because they were more apt to laugh with the sinners, than cry with the saints; The Three Stooges knew they were a far cry from them being santos, and that was their glue.
So, the three buddies, every Thursday would come to glue their butts to the bar stools at Abe’s Cantina. El Mike had learned after the years to limit it to one Silver Coin Margarita, because Cleo knew how to make a real-deal strong one. His new mantra of late, “Keep it between the ditches.” He knew his parameters. Cuz, if you kept it between the ditches, you had a chance of making it home.
Home for El Mike was north of town, on Highway 522 toward Ute Mountain, where he had an organic microgreens farm in hoop houses. He supplied local farm-to-table restaurants with their fancy salad mixes, or what Ruben called dandelions and rabbit food. Sometimes, on his way to and from his stead, he would see Ruben out with his dogs, looking for lichen covered landscaping stones out by the abandoned trawler. Mike felt for Ruben, alone again after this last current girlfriend tired. El Mike understood, being the one on the edge of the periphery, as if looking down into the gorge. In one way or another, El Mike,
Lito, and Manny understood that isolation, self-imposed or not.
As ass met seat, Cleo gunned Lito’s Diet no ice and then began squeezing El Mike’s limes to make his Silver Coin.
“Hey Ruben, why don’t you leapfrog a few stools. We’ll rock, paper, scissors to see who buys your next round.”
Ruben downed his shot of Jack and palmed his Tecate to waddle his stoved up legs, wrapping them around the stool as if it were Rowdy Roddy Piper’s head, locked between his thighs. Slamming his can down on the bar, in his best pile drive imitation, “Thanks hermano, I’ll have another,” and belched.
a while if Brigid tugged at what had happened. The untelling is why Bri decided to move back home as well, rather than wait out Daniel’s State-side return. Before she had moved, she had tried to entice Cleo back to Albuquerque for a weekend, to see if she wanted to re-enroll next semester. A sisters’ weekend. She had hinted that Daniel’s friend had been asking about her. Cleo gave her a flat out no. Over the phone, without Bri staring into her eyes, Cleo dared to say, “He’s the asshole.” The next time Daniel made his check-in call, Brigid let him have it. How could he call someone like that a friend?
El Tres
When he had found out, he said he would have married her. Cleo told him that was stupid, and to quit trying to be her White Savior. That had surely stung, because ever since Trey had moved to Taos, he had felt the outsider looking in. But he had meant what he said.
“Trey, you would never have put me in that situation, you are too much a gentle man. You would not have done that to me, because you would have asked. Not forced. I see you, Trey, you are gentle,” and Cleo slapped his hand to ease the tension, from across the bar. Trey shrugged, not knowing how to reply.
Cleo had not meant to confide, she kept what happened inside and only alluded to it once in
Cleo’s truth unraveled one day bar-side while the local news reeled silently from the tv anchored above the bottles on the back wall. Down in Albuquerque, KOB Channel 4 news was filming outside the very Planned Parenthood on Candelaria where Bri had gone with her. On one side of the sidewalk were people with Bibles in their hands, on the other were folks with placards, “My Body, My Choice.” She dared to mutter, “Man, I would be living in a different world right now.”
Trey was the closest to her when she said that. And she noticed, when he tilted his head toward her inquisitively. “I would be in a really different situation now if I had been met with those screamers when I went there.”
“You were there?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m home… for now.” Trey left it alone, letting those silent spaces sink in because he knew letting your hunger show too much, was dangerous.
Trey was good at that, resting with the silence, listening, observing, letting words soak in, allowing to reveal themselves when they were ready. That’s how he learned most of his information around here anyway, because as an outsider he wasn’t readily let in to the circle. He understood he was allowed to linger, on the periphery, sort of being let in because he was in proximity of hearing.
Ruben sometimes noticed El Tres, as the Stooges called him, pining over being let in. Trey was like one of his German Shepherds, standing stoically at that back door, nose pressed to window pane, slobber dousing the door-jam, waiting for entrance to the warm hearth within. Ruben tried to explain it to Trey, without outwardly making his diagnosis.
“Sabes, it’s like the fences that mark the land out by Costilla, by the old trawler. You can trail along for hours walking that path closely. Hand on top rail, not leaving, not entering. It’s raro, muy raro… You know odd; the way the landscape on two sides of a fence is nearly identical, yet one side is yours, and one s‘not.” Ruben sometimes got like that, the Stooges called it when he was invoking his internal “Yoda.”
Trey got what Ruben was throwing down, but didn’t want to…. Nor could he help want to enter through that gate to the other side of the fence, into the inner circle of Seco. Trey had come down from Durango, Colorado for the summer after he had graduated from Fort Lewis College. He had graduated with a fiveyear plan in Environmental Conservation and Management. Most graduates like him then went on to Forestry School, or an NGO, or to
grad school. His father, expected he go on to earn his MBA, enough of the bohemian life. Time to join the “real world” and make some money, like he had, like his grandfather had, and who Trey now carried his name.
Instead, Trey had turned in his childhood moniker, he no longer wanted to be Trip. He was fine with making less than a third of what his father’s expectations were. So, he came down to Taos to dirtbag it a little longer. That summer he worked as a rafting guide for Los Rios River Runners. That winter season he was up on the mountain as a ski instructor in their kiddo program. What got him to stay, was the blue. Perhaps the rushing water of El Río Grande. Perhaps the Sangre de Cristo late coming snow. Definitely the skies, the bright inky blue that deepened while you watched it, and folded you up inside the day until dusk arrived.
Like Cleo had said, Trey was a gentle man. His silence prevailed, and his observations continued. Yet, he understood he was making his way, rounding the labyrinth, one more inner circle each season he stayed. He no longer was Trip, or Trey, but El Tres. He realized, like his anthropology class at Fort Lewis explained, if given a nickname, you were now part of the “in-group”, even if on the periphery.
By listening, that is how he came wise to the glue that stitched the Stooges together. They had been friends since kindergarten, but now this past year their brotherhood became even more clear. Manny’s daughter, Micaela was missing.
Micaela was the wild child, following the path of least resistance in her father’s renowned footsteps. It began with joining her friends from Taos Pueblo’s “minor-forty-niner” parties out on the mesa. But when her sprained ankle from soccer practice turned from Advil use, to stolen OxyContin, to shot up heroin, to smoked fentanyl. Yes, things had gotten really, really bad.
Carlota, her older sister tried to tell Lito. He was her guidance counselor at Taos High. He was leading her toward school at CU. He was good at listening to those types of dreams. But when she tried to tell him that Micaela was dabbling in things she should not be, his nonchalant answer was that, “the pot was calling the kettle black.” Lito knew all too well, what Manny had once done as a young man. Both he, and El Mike had done the exact same thing too. Yet, with Micaela he did not realize the severity of which path she had taken.
Micaela was good at disguising those cries for help. Her “My ankle hurts,” were met with his, “I remember back when I played football, I took the pain.” So, she swallowed her mom’s Oxy swiped from her prescription bottle in the medicine cabinet. The odd red dots along her inner elbow were explained away as “probably spider bites.” Wherein her mom demanded that Pest Control come out to spray for Brown Recluses. Then, one weekend when she was going to sleep over at a friend’s, that friend went to the “minor-forty-niner,” while Micaela confessed she was going to thumb her way to Española. She promised to make it back on time, to not blow the friend’s cover, and to be ready for mandatory mass at Holy Trinity.
But that morning at home, when Manny realized the water was still hot in his shower, meaning the hot water heater had not run out after three other showers before his, Carlota fessed up, saying Micaela had not tip-toed into their shared bedroom like usual. Manny called the cops to report their missing daughter. The friend was questioned. Then, Manny finally understood what those red tracks meant on his daughter’s tender arms.
Española, per capita, is one of the most addicted towns in the United States, and has been for generations. Even though the population barely reaches 10,000; addiction is apparent even as one drives NM Highway 68, the main street in town. From Taos nearly fifty miles north, to the heart of Española where Santa Clara Pueblo Casino stands with its red and gold adobe walls, the rest of the town is haggard. The most vibrant economic buzz is the Walmart which has paved away previous “Mom and Pop” businesses for its plastic wares. In the parking lot, customers are met with outreached hands, asking for whatever you can give, god bless. This is where Micaela went, with her fresh twenties pulled from the ATM, ready to trade her cash for a baggy a “tango.”
As far as any of them knew, Micaela never made it.
Over the months, as El Tres listened, he learned. Micaela’s name was always a hush. Manny would often opt to head out to his wood lot in Tres Piedras, rather than linger at the bar on Thirsty Thursdays. El Mike, would take his drives secretly looking for Micaela, but always aware of keeping it between the ditches to
reach home. Lito, in penance, had given up drinking completely.
And, all the boys at the bar; the Three Stooges, Ruben, and El Tres turned their attentive dedication to Cleótilde. She was the lost daughter, found. The too-young-for-younever-would-be girlfriend. But they all gathered that, she wasn’t their fallen fledgling to be saved. This bird would build her own nest, with her own song.
way, round the bend into the village to park in front of the cantina.
That’s when he saw her, and once again reminded himself to, “keep it between the ditches”. Along the roadside just beyond the Seco Community Center chain-link fence parking lot, a lady with a handwritten sign on poster board duct taped to the back fender of her crappy Ford Escort announced “Free Puppies”. El Mike pulled over abruptly, and the seed catalogue slid to the floor of his truck.
The Queen of Arroyo Seco
El Mike drove to the Seco Post Office on his way one “Thirsty Thursday” to Abe’s where he knew Manny and Lito were waiting. He knew he needed to pick up some bills that were waiting for him in his PO Box and was happy to see that Sandia Seed Company had sent their new organic seed catalogue. He knew when he placed it on the counter at Abe’s he would get roasted for being old. But Mike liked the feel of the catalogue in hand. He didn’t care if he could look the varieties up on-line, perhaps even easier. He liked the weight of the magazine, like old Sears and Roebuck catalogues to peel through while out in the outhouse of his childhood.
The thick mag was an easy mind number. Shuffling through the colorful pages, it was almost a meditation. A planning of what to order for next season while sitting in his lounger at home. A half listening to Manny and Lito drone on about nothing and everything at Abe’s. Or a quick glance with it spread open over the passenger seat on his
Rolling down his window he asked, “What kind are they?”
The lady nodded, and pursed her lips skyward in hello. “Your typical rez dog. Definitely some Heeler. Probably some shepherd or husky. Maybe some pittie. Who know’s for sure. I have my last one here. She’s fluffy. She was the runt.” And she lofted the sleeping pup from a laundry basket within the open hatch of her trunk.
“How much you want for her?” asked El Mike.
“It’s not how much, it’s a good home I’m after. I found her and her hermanos under my porch over a month ago. Mama would snarl and snarl so I couldn’t never get near them. Until a few days ago, Mama was lying on the side of a the road. Hit ‘n run.”
Mike put his truck into park, stepped out of the vehicle and unzipped his Carhartt jean jacket. With outstretched arms he lofted the pooch in air, “yep, she’s a girl.” And tucked her inside his jacket, cradled in his right arm along his ribcage. “Thanks, we’ll take good care of her.”
The lady unstuck the poster from her fender, tossed it atop the laundry basket, and shut the trunk with a slam of her palm. The lady stepped into her car, started the engine, and did her same pursed lip skyward nod gesturing goodbye. Mike settled into the driver seat with the pup at his side on the bench. “Don’t get too compfy yet;” but she placed her head on his thigh to snuggle in.
A few minutes later, Mike opened the door to Abe’s. Like usual it was dark inside, and his vision swirled to where he knew Manny and Lito would be perched on their stools. His line of vision dotted like he had looked into the sun because of the different colored Christmas Tree lights tacked to the bar wall. “Hey fucker, why ya so late?” Ruben chirped from the far side of the room.
Lito looked at him awkwardly. “Why are you opening the door with your left hand? Do you have a bum right arm? I know you’re lonely out there up Ute Mountain, but…”
“Knock it off. Nothing like that.” Mike eased onto the last stool open in between his buddies and spread wide his jacket. He put his left index finger to his lips in secrecy, but Cleo saw right away.
“Dude, this is a bar. You can’t have a dog in here.” Cleo tried to maintain order because she knew if she bent the rules then Ruben would try to bring his rowdy shepherds in from his Jeep to lie on the floor at his feet.
“Just this time please, Cleo. I just got her. Besides she’s asleep and I will keep her like this
on my lap. If anyone comes in, they won’t know the wiser,” said Mike.
“Sure, just like I didn’t notice. You’re acting like you snuck something in, not stealth at all,” replied Cleo.
From down the bar Ruben tried to get Cleo’s attention to distract her. “Hey, can I get a hamburger well? Just the meat, no bun, no nothing.” Cleo knew her protesting was done. Even Ruben was in on the game of giving the puppy, who most likely was still needing Mama’s milk, a decadent burger snack. As she turned to place Ruben’s order for the dog into the kitchen, Manny and Lito crowded round Mike’s lap to pet the new canine child.
“Whatcha name her?” asked El Tres from his stool while sipping his Corona on special.
“Haven’t yet. Not sure. She was free. Some lady in the Community Center lot had her in a laundry basket back of her trunk.”
Cleo came back to the bar from the kitchen and began prepping Mike’s Silver Coin. “She’s a girl right?” Mike nodded. “The Community Center is in front of Holy Trinity, right?” These were all things Mike knew Cleo knew. “Well, Trini is short for Trinidad. It’s a girl’s name. But also, since the three of yous are always together. It fits. She’s Trini, no ifs, ands, or buts.”
La Trini, as she became known, and El Mike became nearly inseparable. Like Ruben and his dogs, she was always Mike’s passenger seat sidekick. When at Abe’s, he’d carry her under his arm and perched her on his stool. He
would stand behind her, sipping his Silver Coin in hand while she leaned her back into his stomach. She could do that though, because her Heeler stunted her Shepherd-Husky DNA. She was a small dog, but well fed because Ruben always ordered her a burger when she was in the cantina.
As a joke, Ruben came in one day with an old Folgers can. Wrapped around it, he had Scotch taped a picture of Trini which read, “Hamburger Fund for The Queen of Arroyo Seco.” He placed it by the cash register. The regulars who came in would add a dollar or two, knowing that it wasn’t Trini’s Go-FundMe jar but rather for Cleótilde.
Cleo had been talking college again. She didn’t want to go back to Albuquerque, there was too much of a weight there. She needed advice and began asking Lito, as a guidance counselor, and Trey who had graduated from Fort Lewis, why he had gone there. Lito explained that because she had good grades in high school, she had been awarded the lottery scholarship for tuition free at any New Mexico State school. Plus, since she was first-generation college bound, there were perhaps scholarships for that as well elsewhere. Cleo worried that her first semester grades wouldn’t sustain her application because her second semester grades tanked. Lito assured her that she could either start over saying she had taken a “gap year”, or, with a little explanation to an Admissions Officer, her GPA would not be the problem of admittance. The question would be IF she took that next step to re-apply.
Trey tried to convince her Fort Lewis could be a good solution. Durango, Colorado wasn’t too
far away from home that she couldn’t come home for a bit of R&R if needed. Yet it was also far enough away to have the emotional distance she might need to begin anew. Fort Lewis also honored diversity scholarships, and first-generation scholarships, and had reciprocity with New Mexico State schools for high school grads with good grades. He tried to relieve her worries, she would be a great candidate. She just needed to apply.
This time around, rather than dabble in General Education, Cleótilde knew what she wanted to go to school for. She had been talking with Bri about it. Brigid knew what had happened to Cleo, not with details, but with the slight comments Cleo would offer. Cleo was coming out of her silence like when she would state, “Trey says they have a Criminology & Justice Studies degree.” Together the sisters looked on-line, and sure enough, Cleo could major in CJS, studying the factors that led to crime. She wanted to pick apart the sociology of men who preyed upon women. She wanted to understand why some women chose silence, and when would they learn to speak up. Cleo wanted to be an advocate for others, and through that become an advocate for herself. Plus, she could do an internship regarding Women’s Justice. She could help fight for those who had disappeared, like Micaela. Or even, like she had been disappearing internally, until she made the decision to reapply for school.
Bri assured Cleo, that she was making the right decision. “Who would any of us be, when what we think we know, changes? You are changing out of your silence. Mamá and I are glad. We’ll be okay once you’re there. It’s not that far
anyway.” So Bri, to everyone at Abe’s Cantina’s applause, made a switch. The “Hamburger Fund for The Queen of Arroyo Seco” Folger’s can was replaced with a “Cleo’s College Cash” tip jar.
La Trini didn’t seem to mind, because the hamburger patties still came her way. Besides, as she grew, she would hop off her stool and sneak out the door when someone entered the cantina. El Mike would inevitably find her down the road at Taos Cow. Sometimes Trini would linger at the door of Abe’s thinking Mike would soon exit, but if Ruben’s shepherds saw her, they would begin their cacophony and she would scuttle away. The lady at Taos Cow was partial to her, Trini knew how to beg and usually was rewarded with a scoop of vanilla. Tourists coming down from the ski area would stop for a cone, and Trini would saddle up to them for pets. Her collar reassured them that she was not the wandering lass her mother had been. She had an owner and El Mike would come to round her up when he was ready to go home.
As Cleo ascended to “The Queen of Arroyo Seco,” and Trini became her Sargent of Arms, things began to align the way Cleótilde needed. Lito had helped her fill out her Fort Lewis application and Mike helped her with the wording of her essay, knowing how to flower it up where necessary so when her acceptance letter arrived, she bought a round at the bar. The Stooges, El Tres, and Ruben had been anticipating this day and all had been adding to “Cleo’s College Cash” jar when able.
Cleo assumed the stray Franklin in the tip jar
came after the Farmer’s Market when El Mike brought his greens to sell. The wadded up Grants appeared when Manny had sold a truck-full of pine at the “Old Blinking Light” intersection. But that day of acceptance celebration awestruck everyone when Ruben smacked her open hand. She thought he was giving her a high-five. Instead he laid down two thousand dollars in crisp brand-new bills.
“You know, I collect those rocks outta my cousin’s cousin’s property by the old trawler in Costilla. Well, I have been working on this landscaping project for some lady, and this is what I’ve saved.”
Not to be outdone, Manny plopped in the tip jar an old set of keys. “I’ve been noticing the old junker you share with Bri to get to work. How’s she gonna show up for her shift here once you are in school, if you take the car north? So, I figured I give you these.”
Lito knew who’s car that was. Carlota had been driving that old rusted-out red Impreza to high school. Passed down from her mom, to her, now that she was going off to University of New Mexico, and wouldn’t be needing a car, it was meant to go to Micaela. Cleo teared up, “Gracias, Manny”.
“I’d rather it go to you, instead of waiting out on the property in Tres Piedras. Micaela isn’t here any longer to use it. The only one who would, if it were out there, would be La Trini. She likes to sit on the hood when we all are out at the wood lot. She gets all dopey in the morning sun while we are splitting wood before we haul it to the “Old Blinking Light” to sell. It’s your’s now.”
Cleo poured each man, even Lito, a shot of Redbreast Twelve Year Irish Whiskey; the kind Trey had said was the best they had on hand. They each took their dram. Lofting it high, a tourist walked into the bar and a stream of light hit the counter. La Trini followed them into the bar and sat at El Mike’s feet.
“Who are we toasting?” the newcomer asked.
Each pronounced in their own way, “Micaela.”
“Mi’ja mía.”
“Salud, chin chin.”
“We’ve got yer back Cleo;” and Abe’s Cantina had a moment of silence.
Through The Shadows
Siv Limary | digital photography
A Wren’s Morning Song
James Piatt | poetry
O’ tiny warbling bird of golden attire, sing to me with your heavenly voice the handiwork of angels.
I see you sitting on the limb of a sycamore tree with your kind, majestically, like ravens do, on a telephone wire.
The incoming sunbeams scan the 5-7-5 syllables of your words, hanging on to a Haiku dancing in a lotus pond.
Your song is not born of despair, or agony, but from the golden reality born of dawn’s glow, gliding over silent pods in the morning’s early hours.
Mockingbird
Nicholas Bratcher | poetry
00:00
Atticus warned never to kill, For lovely music’s all it makes. The best among the birds it seems Influencing my lifetime dreams. The mockingbird, the pacifist.
A modest bird of modest song, Longing to be heard and nothing More. Happy to be free to sing.
To share my deepest thoughts of life So, it might be more worth living.
Telling the world “You’re not alone.”
Being a shoulder to cry on.
A handkerchief to soften the Tears or convert them to tears
Of uncontrollable laughter: Neruda’s “Language of the soul.”
I may not give much. Still, I feel called to be a Selfless mockingbird.
Finding My Name
Maridaisy Arciniega | creative nonfiction
Aperiod of absolute silence no one to talk to, no one to hear me out. Just silence. When sounds did reach me, they were muffled, distant, like echoes in a vast, empty space. But even when I could hear, I couldn’t understand. I didn’t know what anything meant because I didn’t know what I meant.
I was only a teenager when my entire world changed. It wasn’t my choice. I just happened to be the lucky one, if that’s what you’d call it like winning a jackpot that I never asked for.
It wasn’t always like this. I used to be happy, full of life. My mother and I would talk about everything when I was younger, and my dad would play outside with my older sister and me. We were a family, whole and connected. But as our family grew larger, I began to feel smaller. I wasn’t me anymore I was just one of “the Arciniega kids.” My name, my identity, was swallowed up by the sheer number of us.
I tried everything in my power to stand out, to be seen, to carve out a space that was just mine. I tried being the smart one, but I wasn’t quite smart enough. I had real potential in soccer, but passion wasn’t enough when there was no money to fund my dreams. Every path I took seemed to lead to another dead end, another reminder that I was still just another name on a list, another shadow in the crowd.
I kept asking myself: Who am I? Was I really me, or just a reflection of the people I met along the way? A collection of borrowed traits, shaped by my parents, my religion, my friends never truly my own.
And then, in high school, I read The Crucible.
“Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies!”
John Proctor’s words hit me like a lightning bolt. His name was more than just a word it was his truth, his identity, his integrity. He refused to let his name be tainted by lies, even if it meant losing his life. That moment forced me to reflect: What is my name? What does it mean to me?
For the first time, I began to think critically not through the lenses handed to me by my family, my upbringing, or my surroundings, but through my own. I started to question, to analyze, to see the world for what it was instead of what I was told it should be. It was thrilling. It was terrifying. It was liberating.
I sought answers in books, literature, and philosophy, hoping they could articulate what I couldn’t yet put into words. Socrates' words resonated deeply: “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.” The more I learned, the more I realized how much I didn’t know but instead of fear, I felt excitement. The pursuit of knowledge was no longer about proving myself to others; it became about understanding myself.
But the more I searched for truth, the more I realized my world had no space for my questions. Self-
exploration was not encouraged. Instead of conversations, I was met with silence. Instead of understanding, I was given exile. It was easier for those around me to ignore my thoughts than to engage with them. Seeking truth threatened peace, and peace was more important than my need to be heard.
That silence the same silence I had always felt became deafening. I was lost, alone, and struggling. Every question I asked seemed to widen the gap between me and the people I had once trusted. But despite the pain, I refused to stop searching. I refused to accept silence as my reality.
Reading The Republic by Plato reinforced this idea. He described knowledge as a choice one that could either bring enlightenment or alienation. Learning wasn’t just about gaining facts; it was about stepping out of the cave and seeing reality for what it was, even when others refused to look. I realized that while I wanted to share my discoveries, not everyone was ready to hear them. And that was okay.
In time, I came to understand that we are all at different points in our journeys. I cannot force others to seek what they are not yet ready for, just as I cannot remain in silence for the sake of keeping the peace. I learned to embrace my own path, not for the approval of others, but for myself.
Now, I see my journey not as a burden but as a gift. It has shaped me into someone who seeks understanding, who values critical thought, and who refuses to let their identity be erased. I may not have all the answers, but I am no longer afraid to ask the questions.
I am still defining my name but at least now, I know that it is mine.
Sometimes, she felt like the only true one I had there.
The Artist
Jakob Cohen | digital artwork
Meritable
Michael Moreth | watercolor
Duende
Shelli Rottschafer | poetry
00:00
In the darkness she emerges
Past windswept arroyos speckled with juniper and sagebrush
The rocks above seem untethered from time
A mystery where opaque sounds ask for light and from which comes our struggle at playing human in this world
The canyon is not just deep, it sprawls toward the edge
Yoked to the present by its water
Gathered like a periwinkle thread
She surges from the inside; our Angel, Muse, and Temptress
Each pulse carves a line, stammers a stanza, crescendos in echoes
While rapids remake the canyon and belly-guffaw at all the old kinds of form
Like the invasive tamarisk
her green bellowing bushes dance and gesture to the living flesh of brook music
And harbors the willow flycatcher nested in her extended arms
She delights upon the chasm’s ledge
And baptizes all who gaze into her mercury
The sun touches sandstone
Its last glimmers reflect orange and gold
And like those ripples left in the current
The mountains that once were
Are all but gone
Eroded, scattered to dust
Flotsam upon surface, a mask to her scars.
Sunset Nostalgia
Jenna Watson | acrylic
Rogue Robot
Juli Adams | oil on wood
Haircut
Isabella Bickenbach | poetry
00:00
I want it all off, just cut it below the chin.
Are you sure? Wouldn’t a nice and pretty girl want something longer?
But i imagine her sweet face framed by short hair and Hers that used to be pink until someone hit on her and then it, That baby pink was gone & then black & then the brown that i haven’t seen for years except for in the roots somewhere, in the pink roots, her two buns that don’t look like Princess Leia buns but i tease her of anyways because she’s my Princess Leia and i’m on another planet/ Here’s to you, and no, i would like my hair below the chin. and make bangs too and my 3 piercings will show from hair tucked behind the ears, a face that will show from hair framed back, a face to show that i’m here and i’m not scared, i am right here and i will not hide behind any hair,
The hair that i want below the chin, please.
Her tiny body that i want to cradle in my hands she’s so delicate/i don’t want to crush her
The woman i want to feel and a chest that swells,
With her stomach piercing that i admire a fake bling
i know it’s there underneath the long jean skirt she wears
And overalls with tan stockings, her short blue dress mixed with sweats
That shows her small chest &/sweaters with ribbons on the shoulders--
The things we carry on our shoulders. i will no longer wear my hair on my shoulders because i would like to cut it below the chin and dye it blonde, my shoulders will be naked & exposed, cold but they will be free so that i can show that i’m here.
Do you know that i kissed her? The Canadian girl who is more woman than me who pierced her nose and tongue and who i always liked but didn’t know if she
Felt the same about me? The girl who is so fragile yet stronger than me/& who
Used to wear her hair in braids until she cut her hair below the chin so that i saw her face? So no, i don’t want it long. i want it so that you can see
The pinks of my ears and my triple piercing and so that she can see
My face for the first time.
Honeystrick
Sabrina Bell | poetry
Honeyed words i stick on. to. you. lisssssstening to your Honey, words! i am stuck to your lipssssss yet with only my eyessssss which crack that unspoken space between u s. eyes and ears i am Ss-Tu-Uh-Ck on that click, click, click from your honeyed lip. ssssss and sta-cca-to tongue
Yellow Eyes
Edyn Hughes | colored pencils
Good, but Not Good Enough.
Emma Sperry | mixed media
Padlock
Millicent Yurong | fiction
T00:00
wo turns to the right... 34... one turn left... 18... a partial turn right... 3.
Sarah yanked on her combination lock to no avail, the stubborn chunk of metal still affixed to her gym locker. She had checked the slip of paper with her assigned lock’s code on it dozens of times, but she still couldn’t free her backpack or the change of clothes that weren’t soaked in PE class sweat and emblazoned with the school’s coyote logo. Two days into high school and everyone already knew her as a weird kid. She wasn’t trying to worsen the situation.
If she didn’t hurry, she’d be late for her next period. Sarah felt the panic rising in her, but she took a breath and shoved it down before trying again.
34... pairs of eyes watched in shock as a basketball she had thrown collided with Erin’s head. Sarah had tried to pass the ball to her old friend during a demonstration for the PE class, but she had failed to get Erin’s attention, resulting in Erin taking a trip to the nurse that she still hadn’t returned from.
18... times she had practiced using her mom’s old combination lock at home to make sure something like this wouldn’t happen.
3... minutes left until the next class started according to the glowing red numbers on a built-in digital clock. Sarah was going to be late for the second day of geometry class. And Ms. Evans did not take tardiness lightly.
Sarah tugged on the lock. Nothing. Her throat dried, and she clenched her fists at her sides, reminding herself not to scream or kick the locker door. She had hoped that high school could be a fresh start. That maybe she didn’t have to be such a weird—
“Uh... why are you trying to open my locker?”
Sarah whirled around to see Erin approaching, an eyebrow raised and an ice pack held against her head.
“I’m not doing are you ok? Sorry!” Sarah's words came out in a jumbled mess. She internally berated herself again. Couldn’t she just act normal for a single school day?
Erin shrugged, seeming not to notice Sarah’s slip up. Or maybe she had just accepted Sarah’s awkwardness by now. “It’s fine. A bruise is forming, but I don’t have a concussion. You shouldn’t worry about it anymore. I’m more confused why you’re trying to open my locker.”
“Your locker?” Sarah asked. She could have sworn she picked the one that was three away from the end.
“Yeah,” Erin said, grabbing ahold of the lock Sarah had been struggling with. After a few rapid turns, a soft click rang out, and Erin pulled the lock free.
“Oh.” Sarah felt her face heat. Now she was going to miss class because of her own stupidity. And this mix-up wouldn’t have happened if she’d paid more attention or if she hadn’t hurt Erin in the first place. Swallowing the growing lump in her throat, she turned and spotted another locker with a lock attached.
34, 18, 3... click!
Sarah had expected to feel a sense of triumph, but all that remained was hollow dread.
“Alright,” Erin said, “you get dressed, and then we can head to geometry.”
Sarah retrieved her school clothes from her backpack. “We’re going to be so late though. Ms. Evans won’t be happy.”
Erin grinned and retrieved a yellow slip of paper from her shorts. “Not to worry. I have a note from the nurse. And you ” Erin picked up her backpack and shoved it into Sarah’s arms. “ were worried about me and decided to help carry my stuff.”
Sarah kept her gaze on the floor, vision blurring with tears.
“Hey, there’s no need to cry,” Erin said, squeezing Sarah’s shoulder. “It’s fine now. Besides, nothing that happened here is going to matter much in a week. Unless we’re unreasonably late for Ms. Evan’s class. Then we might not live to see next week.”
A soft giggle bubbled out of Sarah’s throat. She wiped at her eyes and nodded firmly before setting Erin’s backpack aside to grab her clothes.
Out of the Dark
Nancy Miiller | in-camera multiple exposure
Bookmarks
Meg Keenan | poetry
I started working at a library and was put in charge of returned books. Checking in to make sure they hadn’t gotten hurt while they’d been away from home. But when you flip through library books sometimes things fall out. Bookmarks.
It’s interesting what people think unimportant enough to fold between pages. If I’m seeing it, that means they forgot where they left off. Or didn’t finish the book. Or just didn’t care to take back their flat little scraps.
But sometimes the scraps are pretty.
Artwork I know I could never do myself. Expendable for an artist, but the prize of a librarian’s collage.
A child’s note that says “I love you!”
In their terrible, new handwriting on a colorful piece of paper. Probably handed to them by their teacher. Meant for their mom?
Which book did I find it in again?
There are no bookmarks in children’s books. No need to save your place if the story unfolds in ten minutes.
But when we grow up, our stories get interrupted. Which page was I on? It was at a good part.
A faded picture of a family. Grandma can’t possibly still be with us. What if this is the last photo of her? How can I just throw it out?
I don’t know these people, I remind myself.
Doctors notes, grocery lists. Things that were on their minds, but that they won’t miss.
The receipt from checking the book out. The only tangible proof the book was read. Discarded for the next check out receipt. I hope they keep a list somewhere.
Airplane tickets dated two years ago. These books go more places than I do. All my adventures are with them anyways.
Expired gift cards. Sticky notes. Buried treasure in books. Reduce, reuse, Recycle? Or regular trash?
I hope these people are doing well. Still reading so much they keep reaching for whatever scrap they can find to use as a bookmark.
Flesh to the Fallen
Demon Vinegar | digital art
Fish Baby
Edyn Hughes | colored pencils
Escaping to Other Worlds: An Exploration
By Shane Douglas
of Peyton Bryan’s Writing
Peyton Bryan goes in depth about his inspirations, growth as a writer, and love of otherworldly descriptions for how they can transport readers to emotions and experiences they may never encounter in their lives. Emphasizing the power of community for both the audience and creators, he gives us a peek into an upcoming short story series he’s been writing and refining.
How long have you been writing stories? What drew you to it in the first place?
I’ve been writing stories since my second year in high school, mainly via backstories for Dungeons and Dragons characters. It started out with a lot of jokes; I remember my first ever was a Warforged with a microwave in its stomach— eventually, I grew a lot of attachment for those little characters and each subsequent character had a more passionate backstory than the last. It fell into more original works as I moved on to ASU.
From where do you usually draw inspiration for your work? Was there anything in particular that inspired “Voyager”?
I usually get inspired by video games and other pop culture out there. I’ll get a specific feeling from the media I take in and the immediate desire to try and evoke a similar emotion in my own writing! In the case of “Voyager”, the content was derivative of the Garden of Eden coupled with Lovecraft’s idea of what’s out there amongst the stars.
We were particularly intrigued by the figurative language in your story. What was your thought process in choosing the descriptions in the piece?
My favorite thing to do in writing is the type of description that allows the reader to visualize the space that they’re in, as if they’re in a dream-like state. This intertwines with that Lovecraft
inspiration; the idea of seeing something that can’t be generally understood or comprehended. The goal was definitely to make something sound uncomfortable and alien in the midst of a story that is ultimately about human lamentation.
Do you have a favorite line from “Voyager”? If so, which line?
“But all teeth must fall out eventually. And the canals where they took root must gush their blood. And it must hurt.”
They say that nothing good is ever meant to last, and I felt this quote really reflects that idea.
Who are some of the people/artists who inspire you?
If I could shout out everyone in my workshop fiction classes, I feel they’ve really shaped the way I approach my stories. BUT if that doesn’t count, Greg Bear is one of my earliest and most influential inspirations. The way he writes environments and the people within them has been a big inspiration for me.
What do you enjoy most about writing? What do you find most challenging about it?
I love being able to escape to another world in my writing, and the ability to make someone feel something that they may never experience in their lives. I think that can also be one the hardest things about writing and a lot of creative endeavors; you aren’t going to satisfy everyone or strike everyone in the same way that you intend. But it’s still important to take input from as many voices as you can into account.
What are some of your plans and hopes for your future in writing?
I’ve always wanted to create a community around the things that I write. To give people the same joy that I get in a fandom is like my ultimate goal. If at least one person gets invested in the worlds I put them in, I am satisfied and can die happy. Currently, I’m working on a series of Sci-Fi short stories that take place in the constellation of Orion and I can’t wait to have that out there.
Would you like to elaborate on your upcoming short story series? Any details you’d like to share about the project?
This is the type of thing that I could talk about for hours, but I won’t go on for too long since the
topic is on Voyager. The Lament of Orion is a series of seven (as of now) short stories that are all loosely connected. This world is one of wondrous environments touched by an interstellar theme in a similar vein to Voyager. The stories each follow the individual perspectives of characters across each locale named after a star, at a time in which the lands are undergoing a cleansing war at the behest of the mysterious Queen of Betelgeuse. If you’re a fan of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, or just strange imagery that gets at the weird itches in your mind, it’s definitely the world for you. Hopefully, these will all be done and looking for a publisher in the near future/summertime, but if you want to know more, I’ll be giving a small presentation about it at the ASU Worldbuilding Initiative’s Student Showcase (this will probably pass by the time this issue releases, but I’m sure there will be recordings of it!)
What advice do you have for new and emerging writers?
I think the biggest thing that has kept me going is showing other people the writing that I do and taking in all of their thoughts. It helps to know what other people think so I’m not so tunnelvisioned on my own work. It really helps to receive praise when you aren’t sure about something and criticism for something you might’ve thought had been solid.
Art as a Manner of Speaking: A look into Samuel Harris artistry
By Jasmine Orlando
Samuel Harris is a 21-year-old artist based in Tamworth, England. Although his professional and educational aspirations have led him to achieve a bachelor’s in psychology, Sam has always loved art and its facets throughout his life. He specifically enjoys acrylic painting, graphite portrait sketching, and oil painting which can be seen with the work he submitted for Issue 31!
When did you realize creating art was something you had an interest in?
Honestly, I’ve always had somewhat of a connection with art. That sounds quite ambiguous, but creating pieces of work, painting, and scribbling color onto paper is something I did from such a young age to pass the time. I was always that child of the family who would make a mess, doing crafts and creative activities when I was bored. Making random doodles, paintings, crafty little pieces to be hung up on the fridge, like any child would enjoy doing!
However, as I’d gotten older, I realized through the encouragement of others (and my own personal skill development) that artwork was something I could turn into a core of my lifestyle. I kept doing it over the years, getting better and better. Now, at 21, I look back and realize that art was always somewhat there in my childhood and adolescence.
What sparks your creative interest? How long does it take you to create something?
I’m sure this is a scenario many artists can resonate with: you get your canvas, prepare it with
the correct coatings and sanding, and then you sit there for at least 10 minutes staring at this blank canvas wondering, “What do I create now?” This can lengthen the overall process of creating a piece of work, but because I’m so eager to produce something, I don’t necessarily consider what work I’m going to create until I have prepped the canvas or piece of paper. Nevertheless, I would still have somewhat of an idea as to the themes that I’m going to project onto the canvas. Some of my favorite works, like ‘Spencer’ or ‘Bow of a Ballet Shoe’ can take over a week to complete, alongside other daily endeavors. Drawings, however, can take a few days at the most. The quickest I’ve created a painting is within a few hours, depicting my interpretation of Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’, whereas the longest time it’s taken is probably a
large, 5ft canvas of the Toronto CN tower for my father, which took at least a week and a half. It’s especially so nice when you experience a period of a creative block and then, out of nowhere, an image or object is presented to you that sparks an urge to paint or draw – which happens to myself a lot. For me, it’s always an image or a particular event/object that sparks this creative interest to start a new piece, as I always wonder how the object would look if it was seen from my artistic perspective, how a simple object (like a candle, for example) can be transformed into a canvas that creates powerful emotions and feelings. These objects or events are also normally things that resonate to my personal preference of aesthetics, styles, themes, moods, and personal-ity, as it means I can feel an immediate rela-tionship towards the stimuli before my own work has even begun.
What inspired you for the pieces you submitted for this issue?
As you can tell, many of the piece’s I’ve submitted for Canyon Voices are of a similar aesthetic and style, especially the paintings. When I was younger, I used to create paintings that were so vibrant and colorful and magical; mostly depicting Italian scenery, over-the-top saturations, and dramatic landscapes. However, as my skills have developed and I’ve focused more on textures and details, I found a liking towards far darker and gothic paintings, typically with darker backgrounds. All the work I submitted, especially ‘La Peu Belle’ and ‘Spencer’ convey this new era, so to speak, of art style. Funnily enough, these were all produced while I was studying at university. Normally, I wouldn’t be able to find the time to multitask between passions and studies effectively. However, during my years at uni, I thought of buying a little pack of acrylics and some canvases and gave the painting a go. While
I did drawings all the time, painting was unfortunately something I’d abandoned when I started university. So, when I got back into it, it was to my surprise that the academic mindset could increase my artistic skills. I recognized here the impact of a black background with a bright foreground, and the ways artwork can truly sway one’s emotions in a way that was akin to the greats. I decided to recreate a piece from an Argentinian artist, Fabian Perez, who had originally created ‘La Peu Belle’. His art style was very similar to what was drawn to me emotionally, with darker foreboding atmospheres and situations. I attempted it, and realized ‘wait, this is actually really cool,’ and thus, I began this new art style, leaning more towards realistic, neurotic emotions as opposed to thoughtlessly happy and joyful images.
As for ‘Spencer’, this is still to date one of my most favorite pieces I’ve done, and I’ll always cherish it. To me, it’s my representation of the ‘femme fatale’. The image depicts the late Diana Spencer (Princess Diana), who tragically lost her life following a devastating car accident in Paris 1997. I wanted my painting to convey the movie poster and overall aesthetics of the movie ‘Spencer’, a film that depicted the mental health difficulties and troubles of Diana during a weekend stay with the royal family at Christmas time. The film touched me in such a powerful way, I knew I had to honor the artistry, and the life of Diana, by painting this canvas of her. I love how, although you can’t see her dress, you know it’s her, and you know she’s struggling in the image – and to have her in the dark represents how we’re seeing a side of her that was hidden and masked by the brightness of the fame and paparazzi camera flashes – and covering her in this golden glaze further emphasizes this. Even now, I look at that painting of mine, and immediately feel emotions of melancholia, tragedy, and utter immersion,
and it’s my way of honoring a powerful lady who should’ve had a shoulder to lean on.
What are some pieces you are extremely proud of?
As previously mentioned, I LOVE my paintings “La Peu Belle” and “Spencer.” I’m so proud of “La Peu Belle” because it’s come to encompass every essence of my artwork and art style. Whenever I come to produce a new piece of work, I always, one way or another, think back to that painting as stylistic inspiration. However, I feel the most pride towards work of mine that’s done for other people as commissions or requests. I recently did one for a friend of mine called ‘Wine by the Fire’, depicting a fireplace and a couple wine glasses. It was a reference towards a photo I’d taken of some wine I was drinking with friends on New Year’s Eve! So, when I created this and the final piece was to my satisfaction as well as the customer, it made my day.
In addition to this, another piece I’m proud of is ‘Proposal’. This piece was also done for loved ones of mine, this time being for family members. The canvas depicts a moment in which my cousin proposed to his wife. I love this one because it steers away from my darker art style, while still embracing the little details and the emotions of an event like a proposal. It also makes my day when I get to give an artwork like this to someone, and I can see the happiness and satisfaction in their faces. For this reason, I cherish this painting so much.
In the end, I guess you could say the pieces I’m the proudest of are the ones that have a personal level to it beyond emotional value. It’s something where I’m doing artwork for someone that means a lot to me, and I know that person loves the painting as much as I do.
Who inspires you to create art?
In another life, I feel like I might not have pursued art to the extent I have done now had it not been for the adoration, support, and recognition from my loved ones; friends, family, teachers, colleagues, everyone. Doing art is such a personal hobby, but you realize as well how much you depend on others when you think about those who root for you when you post artwork, or see you producing a new piece, or those who ask you for a commission. It’s those people that encourage me day in and day out to keep doing this as a hobby. Even as a child, my family always praised me and said how amazing my artwork was. I mean... you know back then they were probably just saying that because I was a child. Yet, this praising and love continued year in and year out as I’d gotten older, so I knew back then that this was a hobby of mine that I had to continue! Even nowadays, I’m so grateful for the never-ending support I get from my loved ones as I grow and build this hobby into a business.
I’m also a huge fan of a music artist called Lana Del Rey, a woman who encompasses so many themes of the femme fatale, southern gothic, and sultry Americana that I like to project in my artwork. For this reason, a lot of my artwork and drawings do depict her, but they also illustrate scenes that are of her aesthetic.
What do you most enjoy about the process of creating art?
As I’ve developed my skills and patience with creating art, I love the process as it allows you to view an image come together in real time. For example, ‘underpainting’ is an essential part of creating a painting, where a monochrome layer of paint is used on the canvas a base for the actual piece. Thus, things may be altered along the way,
and it might look different here and there, but as the artist, you have the privilege of viewing this and being the one that moves this process forwards to reach the final product. It’s such a blessing to be able to be part of this process, and get to cultivate this perspective yourself, stepby-step.
When it comes to creating art, whether it’s a drawing or a painting, I also view it as my sanctuary to unwind and relax. That the main thing I enjoy about the process. As soon as the canvas or paper is in your hands – this blank white space of opportunity – it’s all down to you. It’s your choice how you go about using this canvas/paper, and that’s something I love so much. You’re the artist, it’s your choice whatever you want to do, and there’s NO RULES! It’s so beautiful. There are no disruptions, and even if things go wrong along the way and you’re clinging to ‘trust the process’, it’s your work to mess up at the end of the day, which makes the possibilities endless. That’s an opinion of mine that’s remained consistent throughout all these years, despite my art style changing so much.
When people see your work, what do you hope they take away from it?
All of this for me is my attempt at growing and building my artistic presence in the hopes of gaining supporters and people who would want to purchase prints, canvases, and even originals of my artwork. However, it takes a long time and patience to attain a dream, and for the time being, I’m satisfied enough having people notice my artwork and praise me for it, while also seeing this hobby of mine that I enjoy.
I also feel like a lot of my artwork intends on reflecting emotions. I create these drawings and paintings in the hopes of people viewing them and
feeling a raw emotion, where you’re at one with the artwork. As the artist, I experience this a lot. Paintings of mine make me feel a variety of emotions that allow to connect with the scenario being depicted. With ‘La Peu Belle’, when I finished it, I took a step back and thought. who is this? Where is she from? Why is she sat at the bar on her own? What is she going through for her to allow herself to sit (with comfort) in such a dark and dingy bar? It’s these questions that I want people to question for themselves when they see my artwork, whether it’s viewing the bows on a ballet slipper, or a candle flickering on someone’s hand – my artwork is a stimulus for individuals to feel something. However long the process is in which people buy prints and originals, it fills me with joy just knowing that people can see my artwork and acknowledge it.
If you had to give another artist one piece of advice, what would it be? And what is something you wish someone told you about creating art when you first started?
If I had to give another artist one piece of advice, I would say, avoid comparison: don’t let someone else’s masterpiece define the worth of yours. I’ve struggled so many times with instances of imposter syndrome, and feelings of doubt regarding my own worth and ability at creating art. This has only been because, instead of appreciating someone else’s art, I’ve also decided to compare it to my own. However, I don’t personally think that this is beneficial in any way to yourself as an artist. You are the artist, the piece is your own work; the rest is a community of other artists to congratulate, advise on, give support to, and have help from. It can be difficult to stop yourself from comparing yourself to other people, especially artists of a higher degree and professionalism, but when all’s said and done, you are your own artist creating your own piece of
beauty. Don’t let the work of others cloud this judgement.
When I first started artwork to a level where I was open to doing commissions for people, and felt confident showcasing my piece’s online, I would say I wish someone had told me to be patient and break down the entire process if I wanted to pursue it even further to a business. It’s a complex experience and requires a lot of deciding, choosing, calculating, and patience. Therefore, making it into a form of income can seem scary, daunting, and overwhelming. But it takes time, and that’s okay. I also think there’s somewhat of a fear in the art world to ask for help when it comes to certain rules and using mediums. There’s so many different materials, textures, color theory concepts, and ideas that can define you as an artist, however I feel like it needs to be normalized more that it is okay to ask for help and for any advice about HOW to use mediums. Trust me, going from acrylic paint to oil paint is terrifying, and it took me a long time to build up my confidence and do this. Today, I still predominantly use acrylic paint, but I’m now open to oil paint. I think, had I been given the right guidance and advice along the way regarding this, I’d have had less fear when testing out new mediums that I weren’t familiar with.
What are some of your future plans surrounding your art?
I want to keep doing it – always. No matter what career paths I pursue or aspirations I chase alongside my creative interests, I refuse to let this joy of mine wither away. Art has always been more than a hobby for me; it’s a part of how I understand the world, how I process emotion, and how I express things that words often fail to
capture. I know it’s common for people to have passions they love deeply, only to leave them behind when life gets in the way – when responsibilities pile up, when confidence fades, or when other obligations take priority. But I don’t want that to happen to me. I won’t let it. I want my artwork to be something I carry with me for the rest of my life – something that evolves with me, that continues to grow even as I do. In fact, I’m not only committed to keeping it alive, but I’m also open to allowing it to become a career of its own. I often imagine the dream: my own gallery space, my own studio, walls lined with work that tells my story and connects with others in ways I can’t always predict. I’d love to sell my drawings and paintings on a wider scale – to have people from all over the world purchase my pieces and make them a part of their homes and lives. The idea of art being both a passion and a livelihood is something that genuinely excites me.
While I want to keep creating just as I am now, I’m also so eager to develop further – to refine my techniques, improve the pace at which I work, and elevate the quality and depth of what I produce. I want to master finer details, experiment with new forms, and grow in confidence with every new canvas. No matter what else happens in my life –no matter the changes, the challenges, the shifts in location or direction – art has been the one thing that has never left my side. It's been a quiet, steady force, stronger than anything else.
So, however it manifests in the years to come, I know that art will continue to be a guiding part of my journey. I just hope that, as I grow and share more, others will see it too – that more people will recognize, engage with, and connect to the work I put out into the world. Because ultimately, it’s not just about creating for myself. It’s about building something lasting, meaningful, and shared.
The Evolution of Simon Angel: An Examination of Art Inspiring Poetry
By Caitlin Schneider
Simon Angel focuses on how his journey led him to produce literature alongside his art. Simon takes us down the road of all who have influenced his creative outlet over the years, from the connections of his friends and family who share the same love and passion for multidisciplinary art to his personal aspirations.
What is a general background about yourself?
I am a queer multidisciplinary artist based in Kansas City, Missouri, currently attending my final year at Kansas City Art Institute. I grew up surrounded by art, as my mother is a painter as was my grandfather and my father a photographer. I have always considered art as important as breathing and am very fortunate to be supported in my pursuit of creation.
When did you first develop an interest in writing poetry and/or art?
I’ve been creating visual and written work for as long as I can remember. Being an artist was never a question of whether I should be, I simply always was. As I write this, I am sitting across a white dress I have pinned to the wall of my studio. I must have been five when my mom brought it home for me. The first day I wore it, I stained it with red paint. I have never been a skilled talker. I quickly found art to be my voice, and the only adequate receptacle to contain and communicate my humanity.
Do you have any people/poets/writers that have inspired you?
My friend Jim Stirling, who has the most beautiful mind. Her work is so incredibly human; both expertly hilarious and heart-achingly tender and poignant. She has inspired me more than anyone I’ve ever met.
What helps you get out of writer’s block?
I go and live more life.
Do you connect your art and writing and how do you do so?
My visual work is deeply concerned with storytelling as it is, though I more literally tie the two together as well, by placing poetry into or alongside my paintings and photography, etc. I have also been experimenting with alternative poetry presentation methods using fabric and other materials as a surface for the words.
What is your favorite medium to draw with?
I fell in love with oil paint in my sophomore year of college. Although I first began image making with charcoal. I haven’t touched the latter much in recent years, but, like a distant lover, it still holds a place in my heart.
How has art helped you in your life?
I create art to process and to speak and to rid myself of things. Art for me is a meditative, sacred act; something spiritual. It has allowed me to seek truth and understanding and to love deeper.
If you had a chance to paint with one artist, who would it be?
My grandfather, who’d always flash his sharp-canine-filled smile each time I would show him work. I cannot express how badly I want to show him the new stuff. I didn’t get enough time with him.
KathrynGood-Schiff,KathrynGood-Schiffisalibrarianand writer.AgraduateofGoddardCollegeandSimmonsUniversity,she hasbeenpublishedinCaliforniaQuarterly,MeatforTea,Naugatuck River Review, PANK, and elsewhere. She grew up in the NortheasternUnitedStatesandtraveledextensivelybeforerootingin WesternMassachusetts,wheresheliveswithherwifeandtheir animalsintheshadowofanoldmountain.
KennethNaiffgrewupinthebluebell-ladenEnglishcountryside, wherehischildhoodpassionfordeepspaceevolvedintoatechnology career,achieving7USpatents.In2004,herelocatedtoArizonaand begana10-yearself-imposed“apprenticeship”tomasterthe intricaciesofastrophotography,andin2015DarkSkyImageswas launched.Byintegratingartandscience,hecapturesandcreates high-resolution, deep space images which are both thoughtprovokingandnurtureasenseofwonder.
DennaleiPeterson is pursuing an undergraduate degree in psychologyandhopestopursueadoctorateinclinicalpsychology aftergraduation.Whileshe'snotcurrentlypursuinganeducationin writing,shehopesthatshemayhavethechancetopublishabook sometimeinthefuture.Inherfreetimesheenjoyslisteningtomusic, readingbooks,andbeinginthesunwhenevershecan.
SanyamShahisaseniormajoringinBiomedicalInformatics,witha passionforgenomicsresearch.Asaresearchassistantinmultiple labs, he contributes to metagenomic analysis, decision aid development,andhealthcarealgorithmdesignincludingamachine learningprojecttoimprovemetabolicsyndromeriskprediction. Dedicatedtoadvancinggenomicsandmakingimpactfuldiscoveries, SanyamaspirestopursueaPhDtoexplorethevastpotentialof bioinformaticstoimprovehumanhealth.
ThomasMariniisacurrentthird-yearstudentatASUworking towards a bachelor's in interdisciplinary arts and sciences. Additionally,heisworkingtowardsacertificateinartsand humanitiesingames.IntheCanyonVoicesliteraryandartmagazine, Thomasworksasaneditorinthesectionsoffictionandcreative nonfiction.Onanaverageday,whennotworkingonacademics,he typicallyspendstimewithfamily,outwithfriends,orrelaxingwith hisadorablecat,Smokey.
Gwyn Nacionales is a fourth-year ASU student studying Interdisciplinary Arts and Performance with a minor in Communication.ThiseditionofCanyonVoiceswillmarktheirfirst forayintotheworldofliterarymagazinepublication.Theyhavea particularinterestinformattingandthewaysitcanbeusedtoreflect andenhancereadinginwaysthatcannotbedonewithother mediums.Theirmannerofspeakinghasbeendescribedas"likea littlefairywhomadeawishtobecomehuman,”whiletheirmanner ofwritinghasbeendescribedas“sopowerfulyou'releftonthefloor for3-5businessdays."Outsideofthehumanities,Gwynholdsan interestinvolleyball,learningtorollerskate,andlookingatbirds.
RochelleRoblesRenteriaisasenioratASUworkingtowardsher bachelor'sinInterdisciplinarystudies.Shehasbeenmarriedfor5 yearsandhasa10-month-olddaughternamedAles.Rochelleis luckyenoughtospendherdaysathomecaringforherdaughterand takingcareofherhome.Beforegettingmarried,Rochelleservedin theUnitedStatesArmyasanInformationTechnologyspecialistand wasproudtoservehercountry.Rochellewasallowedtotravelthe world visiting places like Greece, Spain, and Africa. These opportunitieshaveprovidedherwithknowledgeandexperiencethat continuestohelphertothisday.
Alldocumentssubmittedshouldbedouble-spacedwitha12-pointfont,ineitherTimesNew Roman, Georgia, or a professional equivalent font. Poetry may be single-spaced. All writtendocumentsmustbesubmittedin(.docx)format.TheartworkmaybeinJPEG/JPG formator must includedthemediumused.Allworksubmittedmusthaveatitle.Ifa submissionexceedsthemaximumpermittedforthegenre,thepieceswillnotbeconsidered.
