Still Waters V, VI

Still Waters A BROOKS LITERARY MAGAZINE

VOL V, ISSUE VI

Still Waters A BROOKS LITERARY MAGAZINE VOL V, ISSUE VI

EDITORS Dean Charpentier, English Faculty Daniel Jiang ‘26 Abigail Nam ‘26

DESIGNER Kaden Almaraz ‘26

PUBLICATIONS Jennifer O’Neill, Director of Digital Communications Emily Williams, Director of Editorial and Multimedia Services

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”

— Stephen King

Still Waters is committed to publishing original, exciting material from a diverse collection of Brooks student writers.

While we actively pursue short fiction, poetry, and memoir, we will consider any form of writing submitted.

There are no restrictions on word count, and authors may submit multiple submissions at a time.

Table of Contents Letter from the Editor Pages 1 - 2 Fiction Pages 3 - 26 Aidan Davis Daniel Jiang Giada Musto

Personal Essay Pages 27 - 30 Dhruva Tailam

Poetry Pages 31 - 44 Kaden Almaraz Sofia Benayoud Taylor Betts Wes Bixby Baylie Campbell Harryns Cantave Lachlan Fletcher CJ Ford Victor Ha Kenzie Moore Sienna Steeves

Form Poetry Pages 45 - 56 Kaden Almaraz Taylor Betts Micah Dixon Victor Ha Henry Osborne Sienna Steeves

“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit is persistence in practice.”

—Octavia E. Butler

Letter From The Editor

Dear Reader, The old adage is Write what you know. We’ve all heard it. While there is more to it, it is commonly interpreted as Stay in your lane. If you haven’t lived it, you can’t write it.

Stephen King is just one famous writer who thought that advice was hogwash. I remember reading a reflection he wrote on the writing process for one of his stories, and he said something I will always remember, at least to a degree—I will have to paraphrase: You don’t have to write what you know. You just have to convince the reader you know it.

The development of young writers is a difficult and exciting trek along this particular path. Their early writing is thinly veiled autobiography. Change some names, maybe the setting, and bang you have a story about how this young person’s parents don’t understand them, or a poem about unrequited love.

Let me be clear: this is a valid and necessary stage in a writer’s development. But somewhere along the way, if they stick with it and reflect, if they really do some thinking, young writers come to two important realizations.

First, they take Stephen King’s advice and understand that if they write well enough, spin a yarn that is believable, the reader will buy in, be convinced and entertained, no matter how outlandish it might seem. We call this imagination, or creativity.

Second, they come to understand that using their own lives as content can actually be a good thing, and effective. One’s own experience—emotions, desires, dreams, heartache—it is all valid, and if you bring a thoughtfulness to it, a unique and reflective angle, readers will find a connection here as well.

The work in this issue of Still Waters taps into all of it: the writers’ own lived experience, imagination, and risk. The fiction writers have challenged themselves with content and form, attacking genres and making them their own in creative and fresh ways. The poets have rooted their work in the Brooks lives they’ve lived over the last few years and produced some powerful and lyrical reflections. We even have a thoughtful personal essay on the nature of humanity inspired by the memory of an innocent family car ride from the author’s childhood.

Enjoy. And enjoy the summer. It has been a year of great excitement and production in the creative writing community here at Brooks.

Dean Charpentier Faculty Editor

2 | Still Waters

“Half my life is an act of revision.”

— John Irving

Fiction

Moonlight

by Daniel Jiang Rêve Every tree in Rêve looks exactly the same. The same goes for the rocks, the water, and the breeze. Every particle of dust blown into the sky by the warm, Mediterranean winds must be the same ones that were blown out of here last year.

I was strolling around the edges of the northern woods, carefully stepping around the deteriorating marble columns in the midst of the Aleppo pines. The sunlight forced its way through my eyelids as I emerged from the opening of the glen, one of the entrances to the village. With my hand cupped over my eyes, I saw shriveled old Henri lying in his garden, bathing himself under the shadow of a single cloud, and he was singing.

Under the moonlight: Only a little can be seen.

I looked for a thought, A moment of clarity.

I was searching for something, But nothing was found.

But I do know that the door Was closed upon them.

For shame, for shame, She then danced alone in the meadows.

I did an awkward round of applause as his little song came to an end.

“Good morning, Laurence. Had your little excursion in the woods already?”

“Yes, Henri.”

“Good, good.”

His arms stretched on the wavering lawn, as if trying to grasp some nonexistent object by his side. We didn’t speak, but I stood there until the cloud above him began to disperse, which caused him to get up. Within seconds, he submerged into the shadows behind his door. ***

4 | Still Waters

“Laurence, clean up your stuff. I don't have the time to do this today,” my mom yelled from the living room.

I trudged down the stairs, watching my parents scurrying about, washing pots and pans and organizing those massive embroideries.

“Is it one of those special occasions?” I grumbled.

“Don’t be stupid, you know the pre-ceremonial preparation is today.”

“As if I care to know.”

Fortunately, they were too busy to hear.

“Put your things away, I don’t want to ask you again. Don’t make La Dame look down upon our household.”

“The Arkteia is tomorrow.”

I did what they asked me to do, only because I was in no mood for religious conversations today. Those archaic nouns annoy me deeply.

I locked myself in my room until they took all their stuff and left the house, saving the living room from the heavy flood of embroideries and embellishments. *** With rays of moonlight reflecting on my window, the cicadas began screeching. So loud that I didn’t even hear my parents walking in through the front door. They seemed very tired, which I observed because they completely ignored me when I greeted them, and went on to collapse on the couch of the living room. I understand that religious procedures are always cumbersome, but I don’t understand their unwavering devotion under all this extra work.

I tapped a finger on my window and stared at a cicada resting on the branch closest in proximity to me.

Its wings fluttered rapidly, the source of the annoying noise it makes, I’ve heard. As a child I always thought they had mouths to do that.

In the distance, I saw a bird flying towards the tree. Just as it landed on the exact branch with the cicada, another branch bounced with the force of the landing and struck the cicada on the back. It stayed still, but I could see its wings stop fluttering as it began to crumble. The small wing particles vibrated and drifted away from the cicada itself.

Fiction | 5

Though a devastating evening for the cicada, the moon shone still for me.

I slept in the next morning, so I wasn’t able to witness my parents’ pathetic departure to the ceremonial site, which happens to be the northern woods. The unfortunate thing is that I will probably hear their annoying singing and chanting on my daily walk by the edge.

The gentle wind brushed against my forehead as I walked on the cobblestone path towards the clear opening of the woods. A few birds rested on the taller trees along the clearing, staring down at me with their necks craned in an awkward angle.

I ignored the distant singing and prayers as I walked further into the green forest, but something caught my eye. A girl in a white, flowery dress, hopping around in the grass.

I don’t think I’d ever seen her before.

Lyon Article from Le Progrés, March 5, 2024, written by journalist Cecilia Durand Completely out of the range of prediction, a national research team led by the renowned geologist Ernest Moreau made an immense discovery among the ranging mountains of the Alps. A reservoir of unprecedented size was discovered under the peaks of Mont Blanc, alongside a generous collection of water resources.

Dr. Roland Dubois’s Research Log March 8, 2024 Three tanks of the water sample have been brought back to the lab today, thank god. If we can’t get Ernest to sign the contract by tomorrow we will have to start without it. Not as if it matters.

March 9, 2024 Joan got the signed contract today.

March 10, 2024 Distillation Experimentation: Inconclusive Showed no signs of condensed molecules after heated

6 | Still Waters

Filtration Experimentation: Inconclusive No visible solid particles Chloroform Liquid-Liquid Extraction Experimentation: Positive Collected remnants of organic molecules.

Reverse Osmosis Experimentation: Inconclusive Damaged condensed particle samples after water purification We’ve discovered that the collected organic particles from the water samples turns out to be lipid molecules of an unknown organism. Because of the lack of tissue bodies, it is nearly impossible to extract any DNA samples from the lipid molecules alone. On par with the experimental results, Dr. Tavernier suggested that we conduct serum experimentation.

March 11, 2024 Serum Experimentation Record: Blood samples: Control group: Cattle Experimental group: Human Result: Overwhelmingly Successful The results of the experimental group were unexpectedly far more favorable than the control group, which makes the experimentation unique from the majority of serum experiments conducted in recent years. This project could be far more than its expected worth.

March 18, 2024 Serum Injection: Subject A: Henderson Martin Subject B: Hellena Varga Subject C: Ronald Domingo March 19, 2024 All subjects were observed to have fallen asleep within 5 hours of injection. Electroencephalography was conducted.

March 22, 2024 Fiction | 7

None of the subjects have woken up over the past three days. Subject A was fed food and water as a control group, but showed no physiological differences from the other two subjects. EEG observations show intense neural activities present in all subjects, and the default sleep cycle seems to be completely eliminated as an effect of the serum. This indicates that all subjects are in a constant state of REM sleep, which was supposedly impossible to achieve.

March 23, 2024 Subject C has begun to rot. It was observed that his cell reproduction system has completely failed, resulting in the deterioration of his limbs.

Subject A and Subject B showed the same results three hours after the initial observation of Subject C. Surprisingly, EEG continues to display strong signs of neural activity and active REM stages.

March 24, 2024 With orders from Dr. Tavernier, Joan placed Subject B and Subject C in the same experimentation cell. New experimental group recorded.

March 25, 2024 Subject B and Subject C have completely merged together into a mass of flesh. Further experimentation and observation will be conducted by Dr. Tavernier.

Dr. Joseph Tavernier’s Research Log Today is the 35th day since the H-series experiment began, and I have to say we’ve made tremendous observations. The lipid particles found in the original water samples could be from an ancient specimen of humans, one with physical characteristics much more drastic than us. This hypothesis was agreed upon by both Dr. Dubois and Dr. Martin, though we scarcely have any favorable evidence to test its authenticity. One thing, though, is the experimentation conducted upon Subject Z-032. This subject managed to uphold a dominant status during the merging process, shown with the merging experiments among all the subjects from A to Z049. The other subjects seem to be naturally attracted to specifically Subject Z-032, with it centered in the middle of the entire merged product. Subject Z-032 also displayed the strongest neural activities, and it also experienced the least physical deterioration out of all the subjects. As stated above, it is clear that Sample Z-032 seems to be the breaking point of the H-series experiment, and more research will be conducted as such.

8 | Still Waters

Danse Snap.

I stepped on a twig.

Her gaze drifted toward me as she continued to dance, smiling ever so slightly.

“I’ve never seen you before,” I said.

Her feet came to a halt, and she looked at me. Her eyes were the color of a cloudy sky, gray with a hint of light blue.

“I live here.” Her voice was soft.

“I’ve been nowhere but this village since I was born. If you lived here I would know who you are.”

“By the southern edge of the village, there’s a cypress tree that's sixty-three feet tall. You can see it growing in the yard of a wooden cottage. The owner of that cottage just had a baby boy yesterday. The baby died this morning.” She picked at the wild flowers around her.

“What?”

“Do you want to leave this place?” she asked and her eyes glinted in the sun.

“How?” “I know a small town nearby that we could walk to.”

So that's exactly what we did. Like the majority of the villagers, I’ve never stepped foot outside of this place. No one wanted to leave this life behind, no one realized that there was a much bigger world outside, and nobody wanted to betray La Dame.

The girl held my hands as we ran. Her palm felt warm, and her obsidian hair waved behind her as we sprinted up the hill, past the markets, and through the meadows. At that moment, I realized that it was the first time I'd noticed the beauty of this place—just when I was about to leave.

When we reached the big wooden sign with the word Rêve painted across it, she laughed.

“After you,” she giggled.

Fiction | 9

“When will we come back?”

“Whenever you want.”

“I don’t, though.”

“Then don’t. But you never know.”

Before I could react, she pushed me with unexpected strength, and my feet crossed over the borders that I never knew existed. *** With a cup of coffee in his hand, Dr. Roland Dubois walked into the Frederick Lefebvre Research Center, the place where he had spent most of his time over the past forty days. After passing through the heavy metal doors, he approached the very large, newly constructed cell in the south wing to do the daily observation records.

Since when he was a toddler, Dr. Dubois had always had a higher tolerance for unusual things, and this trait had allowed him to work under circumstances that others could not.

For example, an average researcher would probably faint at the sight of this writhing, ball-room sized pile of flesh, but to Dr. Dubois, it was simply another experience from which to learn.

Z-032 was still visible in the center of the fleshy mass, her torso sticking out from the horror around her, the wires of the EEG devices connected in various places. No one could’ve imagined that the only underaged subject, a girl around the age of 16, could lead to such a breakthrough. This could only be explained by the marvels of science.

Dr. Dubois walked closer to the glass and looked down at the corners of the room.

A pile of flesh has separated itself from the giant, merged total, leaving a trail of blood and fluids behind it. It was Subject C, one of the first subjects.

Dr. Dubois scurried to collect the EEG results and found out that its neural activities had ceased to exist. This pathetic pile of meat was now officially dead, at least according to scientific definitions.

With excitement, the doctor picked up his phone to inform his colleagues about this exciting finding.

10 | Still Waters

Abode

by Giada Musto The speakers were blasting Shake It Off and Leo was screaming along. Eve was gazing out the window completely indifferent to the chaos happening beside her. She was going home and she didn’t care about the journey, only the destination. Still, she was relieved when the song ended and he turned the volume down to a far more manageable level.

“The idea is not to stand out,” Eve muttered to the window.

“I think we both know screaming Taylor Swift from the comfort of your car is hardly outside the norm,” Leo said. “Plus, you’ve made some interesting life choices for someone who doesn’t want to be noticed. If you wanted to fly under the radar, I might not have become a CEO, or built a dream house in the suburbs, or gone on morning shows to talk about your work, or visited The White House to talk with the President. But I’m just your assistant, what do I know?” He smiled.

Eve was not amused. “I stand out when I need to.” She offered no further explanation.

The car made its final turn toward the wrought iron gates barricading the property from the rest of the world. Leo punched in a password and drove through as they had done everyday before. The driveway was long, but Eve always enjoyed it no matter how many times Leo complained about having to drive up and down. It was her house and she had built it exactly as she wanted, after her husband had died.

She used to always imagine him dying. She always thought it would be a gruesome and bloody murder, but no. He hadn’t been murdered. He just…died. He died of an aneurysm in his sleep. End of story.

She was happy it wasn’t any of the other things that killed him. That it wasn't a rival who wanted to take over his business. That it wasn’t the police finally catching him in some drug bust. That it wasn’t a traitor from within the family. That it wasn’t her, finally sick of him coming home drunk and angry.

No, that would have been messy and that wasn’t her style. He simply died like everyone does.

So she took over the business. It was that easy. It was in her blood, it was how she was raised, it was who she married. She should have been in charge in the first place, but it is what it is. Because none of those awful years mattered now. What mattered was the house right in front of her.

They parked and went in and Eve made her way to the kitchen and grabbed a cup of water while Leo deposited the keys on the entryway table. They went through their routine while their minds wandered the events of the day. They heard a loud noise rumbling down the stairs.

“Mom!” Valentina shouted with glee as she entered the kitchen. She ran and gave her mother a hug.

Fiction | 11

“Hi Val, how was school today?” Eve asked as she guided her daughter into the living room, where they plopped down on the couch. Leo followed them and took a seat in a chair.

“It was alright. We read a little, did some more math, we learned about the American Revolution, and we talked about turtles. At recess I won our game of gaga ball for the first time ever but I’m also pretty sure Caty let me win because she felt bad for me because Paul made fun of me for knowing all the answers to the math problems but I didn’t say them out loud this time I only had them written down in front of me.”

“Did your teacher say anything about Paul being mean?” Eve asked.

Val shook her head.

Eve sighed. “I’m going into school tomorrow for the PTA bake sale so I’ll talk to him about it then honey.”

“You can’t say anything because then he would know I snitched and Leo always says snitches get stitches, and I don’t want to get beat up,” Val said. Leo laughed.

Eve glared at Leo, who held his hands up in defense. She’d been raised on the same code, don’t rat people out. She wanted to raise her daughter right, but right and wrong weren’t as clear as they used to be. All she knew was that even if Eve wasn’t perfect, Valentina was a smart girl and that she would be okay. She had to be.

“If you won’t let me handle it, then you’re going to have to learn to do it yourself,” Eve said after careful consideration.

Val hopped onto her feet and got into the fighting stance. She punched a pillow as she spoke. “I remember how to throw a punch just like Leo taught me.”

Eve grabbed Valentina’s hands to stop her from fighting the pillow. The girl was strong and she didn’t want to have to clean up pillow stuffing for weeks. “I’m glad you remember, but sometimes you can solve your problems without violence, didn’t I teach you that?”

Leo raised an eyebrow which Eve chose to ignore. “Paul won’t bother you anymore if he realizes nothing he can do will hurt you. The next time he makes fun of you, don't change a thing about what you are doing. Stand your ground and he’ll back off. Okay?”

Val nodded and Eve shifted back in the sofa. An hour passed filled by Val’s constant chatter, which morphed into her singing Frozen at the top of her lungs. Eve used Val’s distracted nature to cook dinner.

12 | Still Waters

She loved to cook. She still remembered her father teaching her how to make lasagna after a long day at work. When she built this house, her biggest demand was a large kitchen. She fussed over the shade of the countertops or the exact wood to use for the cabinets. This was the kitchen where she taught Valentina how to cook. The lessons were simple, but Val showed great promise. Eve remembered teaching her how to bake cookies, how to cook a burger, and how to frost a cake that actually looked good. But now Eve went through the process of cutting, chopping, grating, and mixing as she always did. The repetitive motions caused her brain to get lost in the mundane, something she could only do right here in her kitchen.

“They just arrested Ricky and a few of his guys. What should we do?” Leo said. He’d sat down a few moments before, easing into the chair at the island like it was his home, too. She supposed it was.

Eve didn’t stop cooking. She barely even glanced at Leo as she spoke. “Nothing. They don’t work for me. The rest of the world thinks I’m a biotech CEO. If I help out every petty criminal someone's going to get suspicious. If Ricky has a specific request, I’ll see what I can do, but until then I can’t put all of my actual employees at risk to save someone who doesn’t even work for me.”

They stared at each other for a few more moments. Leo looked away first, toward the timer on the oven, praying that it would go off. It did and he was relieved. Together they grabbed the food and set the table. He poured everyone drinks as Eve called out for her daughter.

“Valentina, get in here! Dinner is ready!”

The girl tumbled her way into the dining room before taking a careful seat to the right of her mother, who sat at the head of the table. Leo sat on Eve’s other side. The three of them ate dinner and talked.

Eve’s eyes lit up as she told her daughter a simplified version of the new project her company had begun working on involving bioluminescent lighting. Val ranted about the book she was reading for school. Even Leo pitched in to discuss the phone call he had with his sister the night prior. They were happy. They were calm.

Not every dinner was like this. Eve and Leo sometimes didn’t have the energy to contribute after a long day at work and on those days Val would carry the conversation like it was nothing. On gloomy days they might sit in silence, waiting for the storm to pass. But on good days like this one, they would simply be themselves.

–––

Fiction | 13

They had just finished dinner and Valentina made her way up the stairs two at a time. Her mom and Leo were still downstairs cleaning up from the meal, but Val had to get her homework done. She never liked finishing dinner before them. Leo and her mom had some deep connection that Val couldn’t understand. They had inside jokes and stories they would never share with her. Even at twelve Val knew it was something she could never be a part of.

She opened up her backpack, grabbed her book and pencil, then dropped down into the bean bag chair in the corner of her room. She had been doing work there since she was eight and the walls surrounding it were still covered in sticky note reminders of work long since completed, but she was too lazy to take down.

School had never been the place where Valentina shined. The problem had never been her academics, it had been her interactions with others. She knew how to interact with people—she simply didn’t want to. It always felt fake to her. She had her two best friends, Caty and Charlotte, and that was all she needed. They got her through the tough times at school, like when Paul decided to be a jerk. Ever since Paul left school it was better for Val, but she still got tired of acting all the time.

Paul technically didn’t leave the school—he was kicked out. It had been a sunny afternoon in fifth grade, and Val and her friends were sitting in the field next to the school during gym class. The teacher had just turned her back on the class because of an important phone call. Caty told a joke that made Val laugh and Charlotte was too busy braiding Caty’s hair to be paying any attention. Paul sauntered up to them for no particular reason, which was unusual ever since Val had taken her mom’s advice and started standing up for herself. For whatever reason that was the day he decided to walk up to her and say, “Why’d you cheat on the math exam?”

“What?” Val asked. It was the only reasonable answer she could think of.

“I saw you copy answers off my paper.”

Caty laughed, “Why would she do that if she’s like a hundred times smarter than you?”

“Don’t be a bitch, Caty,” Paul said.

Valentina punched him right in the eye. One simple swing that she barely even thought about. He’d called her a bitch before, that she could handle, but he had never insulted one of her friends. The punch was clean and came with enough power to knock him slightly off balance. She was hoping that would be all. But once Paul got his balance back, he tackled her to the ground and just kept hitting and hitting and hitting. Val didn’t know what to do. His punches were weak and felt like almost nothing against her skin, but maybe it was just her adrenaline. She wanted to fight back but she didn’t want to get in more trouble. But Charlotte and Caty were already screaming, and the teacher ran over to peel Paul off of her.

14 | Still Waters

He was promptly “asked to leave” by the administration. Every time he told the story, it was him who threw the first punch. He didn’t want to own up to getting hit by a girl. The four of them never told anyone the true story.

About halfway through her homework, Val became hungry. She started softly down the stairs toward the kitchen. Her mom was busy in the study and she didn’t want to bother her. Val slid her fingers across the wall as she took each stair. Halfway down, her fingers felt a small indentation, so small no one would ever see it. But she could feel it.

When she was eight she and Leo had been playing with nerf guns. They had been running through the house, hiding and trying desperately not to break anything. They’d gone so far as to close every door into the living room in case a stray nerf dart broke through and knocked over one of Eve’s precious vases. Unfortunately, they hadn’t considered that firing a nerf dart right next to a wall would have enough force to break through the plastering. They immediately patched up the wall with some materials in the shed, and Leo made Val promise never to tell her mother.

At the bottom of the stairs was the entryway. When she had turned ten, her mom let her paint the door a shade of bright red. Val had been sad at school. She and Charlotte had been going through a rough patch, which caused tension in her relationship with Caty also. It meant Val’s one safe place at school was gone, and she felt adrift in a stormy ocean. She had been coming home from school exhausted but relieved to finally be somewhere she could simply exist. To make Val feel more like the house was hers, too, Eve decided to paint the front door whatever color Val wanted in order to give her a burst of happiness whenever she saw it. Now, Val grinned like an idiot every time she saw even a flash of the bright red paint.

She slipped into the kitchen, ready to grab herself a cup of water. She reached for her favorite cup, a cup she had received from her mother once when Eve had returned from a long work trip. When Val placed the water pitcher back in the fridge, she looked up to find the remnants of a cake from her mom’s work party the previous week. She didn’t hesitate before cutting herself a slice and dove straight into it before even sitting down at the counter.

A loud bang pulled Val’s attention away from the cake. Frosting was still smeared across her chin when all the lights went off. The silence that Val had thought filled the room was now replaced by a far eerier soundlessness.

––– “Lock down the house and call the police.”

“What?”

Fiction | 15

Eve rushed to the safe and punched in a combination.“You heard what I said, Leo, now do it.”

“Don’t you think we can handle this ourselves?”

She grabbed a pistol from the safe, holding it carefully despite all her familiarity with the weapon.

“Not in my house. We do things by the book here.”

“Grabbing a gun isn’t by the book.”

Eve glared. Leo grabbed his phone from his pocket and dialed the police.

“Hello, my name is Leo and I want to report a home break in and active shooting at my location. Yes my address is …”

Eve tuned out the sound of the call as she scanned the room for anything else she might need. She didn’t know how someone could have broken in. She had gone to great lengths to ensure it was as heavily fortified as the Pentagon. Still, nothing was perfect, so she had made a plan just for this occasion. She just needed to find Val and get her to the safe room. After that she could figure out what to do next.

Leo was still on the phone and while this room was soundproof, the second she opened the door it would be useless. She couldn’t just give away their location to anyone lurking nearby. Eve gestured to Leo to signal it was time to wrap it up. Glancing at the book case, her eyes fell upon an old photograph of Val from when she was five years old. Eve wished she could bottle the girl up and keep her safe by her side at all times, forever preserved in a glass jar that no one could touch but her. Except this wasn’t a fairytale, and even if it was, Eve knew enough by now to understand she wouldn’t get her happy ending.

“Cops are on their way. What’s the game plan?”

Eve shook her thoughts away. “Get Val and go to the safe room until the cops get here.”

“Seriously? Why not just take these guys out by ourselves?”

“We have no clue what we’re dealing with here, Leo. And if we take down these guys all by ourselves, people are going to start asking some questions neither of us wants to answer. So follow my orders, or shut up.”

For once, Leo didn’t protest. Eve took that as the cue to leave. She gently turned the door handle and slipped into the hallway. She could barely see in the dark, but she didn’t need to, this was her house, even in the dark she would be able to make her way around with ease.

16 | Still Waters

Val should be up in her room doing her homework. Given how far away the gunshots seemed to be, Eve figured it wouldn’t be difficult to make it upstairs before the intruders.

She pressed her back against the wall as she made her way down the hall, never checking if Leo was behind her. When she made it to the entryway, the bright red door was visible even in the near total dark. They needed to get up the stairs, but that left them completely open to anyone in the kitchen or dining room. This may have been the perfect home to live in, but she hadn’t designed the interior for easy hiding. After all, her security system was top notch, and she never thought anyone could actually make it into the house. For all she knew, they hadn’t. The rest of her security team could have stopped the intruder right after the shot was fired, and maybe now they were double checking that everything was safe before turning back on the lights.

Eve swiveled around the corner of the hall and into the kitchen. No one was around, but a half-eaten piece of cake was out on the countertop. Valentina must have been here. Leo turned the corner and soon enough was beside her. Eve stuck her arm out to stop him from moving forward, then she holstered her gun.

There was a spot beneath the counter small enough for a child to squeeze into. Eve hadn’t designed the cabinet to be a hiding spot, but she still remembered the first time she ever noticed it was there.

Val had been six years old and they were playing hide and seek. Eve had been searching for over an hour to no avail—five more minutes and she would have called the cops. But then she had heard a small laugh from beneath her, and that was when she found Val tucked into a little nook beneath the counter.

Eve whispered into the darkness. “Val?” The girl crawled out of the cabinet and into her mother’s arms like it was just another game of hide and seek. Eve almost started to cry as she held her daughter. She didn’t want to let go, but her arms fell away anyway.

“Mom, what's going on?” Val asked.

Eve raised a finger to her lips.

Behind them Leo was standing guard. “We need to move,” he whispered, barely audible. He was staring at some thing out in the entryway. Eve followed his gaze and saw the figure of a man making his way into the living room.

Eve ushered her daughter toward the staircase. “Everything is going to be alright,” she breathed. Just go to the safe room.”

Fiction | 17

The shot rang in their ears.

Down the hall someone—the man from downstairs?—had fired at them while the another had raced up the stairs. There was another shot. Eve shoved Val into the room.

A scream cut through the air. Val cried out and tried to run to Leo to help, but Eve was in her way. He had been shot in the chest and lay sprawled. A pool of blood formed around him. The intruders were coming toward them down the hall and fired another shot. It hit the painting on the wall, a wedding gift from Eve’s grandmother.

Eve fired back at the two figures in the darkness. Two quick and clean shots were all it took. The first intruder crumpled to the floor and his partner was sent tumbling down the staircase. All Eve could think about was that she could finally get a new carpet after all these blood stains. She turned to find her daughter’s eyes filled with tears.

They heard the sirens outside. Eve started to find the energy for tears. That is when she turned back toward Leo. “Val, grab the first aid kit from the safe room,” Eve ordered as she rushed to put pressure on Leo’s wound. The girl did as she was told, and soon enough the two of them packed all the gauze they could on top of the bleeding, hoping it would stop.

Valentina stared at the blood on her hands. “Is he going to die?”

Eve tried to push back her tears, at least until the cops arrived. “No, sweetheart. There might be a lot of blood, but I don’t think any major organs were damaged. I know he doesn't look okay right now, but in a few minutes, we’ll get him in an ambulance and then the doctors will fix him.”

“How do you know?” Val’s voice sounded small in the dark.

“Our house is five minutes away from one of the best hospitals in the world. I made sure of it. That’s how I know.”

Val didn’t ask anymore questions; she simply nodded along. When the cops and paramedics arrived, she listened to what they said. She accepted their blankets and their food. They forced her downstairs away from her mother. They cleaned away all the blood and tried to cover up all she’d seen with candy. Everyone knew that wouldn’t work, but they still tried. They tried to smile, tried to turn Val’s face away from the blood, tried to make her laugh away the bad memories. They thought that Val would never be able to exist in that house again.

They were all wrong.

18 | Still Waters

Descent

by Aidan Davis Part One “What are you doing today?” Paul asked.

He’s not asking you. He’s asking his wife, Jane.

He tensed, awaiting the response he knew was coming. The bone dry, substanceless response he’d become accustomed to these past few weeks. “Work,” was the only sound that came back to him.

When Paul first got this response, it didn’t faze him that much. He was certainly confused, but it didn’t seem like a big deal to him at the time. She could’ve been tired, had a boring day ahead of her, or many other reasons why she didn’t give her usual enthusiastic response where she laid out her whole day to him. But it happened again the next day, and the day after that, until a week had gone by where the only response he’d gotten in the morning was work.

As for the nighttime, Jane had also been working late, so late in fact that she would come home when Paul was getting ready for bed, yet somehow she passed out asleep before he did, and before he could have a conversation with her.

Paul never asked if something was wrong. He was a pretty observant person and he could always tell when someone close to him was off, but he never chose to ask because he never wanted to seem like a bother to others. Plus, questions could lead to uncomfortable conversations, and Paul didn’t think he was the right person to have those uncomfortable conversations.

But this was different. This was making his own life uncomfortable. Paul thought for a while, and realized that this could seem like a selfish way of thinking, but he justified it to himself, thinking about how this could help make both of their lives better, how it could save their marriage. Realistically, Paul knew that a couple weeks of dryness didn’t mean a marriage was failing, but what about where it could lead? Months of no talking? Unhappiness? One of them seeking pleasure outside of their marriage? Yes, tonight, if Jane did her usual routine of going straight to bed and not talking to him, he would finally make her talk.

When evening came, Paul skipped his usual bedtime routine. He wanted to catch Jane before she went to sleep, not give her any time to slip by. When he heard the door open, his heart skipped a beat, not in an excited way, but in a nervous way.

Fiction | 19

This is why I don’t usually do these things, these uncomfortable conversations, Paul thought, because he knew his body couldn’t handle it. His heart rate spiked, sweat dripped down the sides of his head, and his limbs shook just enough to vibrate the sheets, displacing their dust. He took deep breaths but this didn’t help. This is Jane, he thought, I know everything about her, why am I scared to have a simple conversation? And yet the image of her, the thought of her name, brought back memories of the dry responses. Instead of the comfort and love he always felt when thinking of her, his stomach turned slightly, and he had to push her out of his head.

Jane walked into the room, a blank expression on her face as she made her way to the bed. Paul smiled at her, but it wasn’t returned. In fact, he didn’t think the smile even made it all the way to Jane's brain.

It had been stopped at the door, her eyes receiving it but refusing to send it any further.

“I need to talk to you,” Paul said, trying to make his tone as soft as possible to let her know he wasn’t upset.

“I’m tired, let’s talk some other time.”

“Jane, it can't wait, I need to talk right now.” His tone was less soft.

Heat rushed to his face, as he expected another dry response avoiding the conversation. Instead, he was met with her light breathing sounds , as if she had been asleep for hours. Jane was gone for the night.

The next morning, Paul got up thirty minutes before his alarm. His body was ready, he was ready, ready to talk. The second Jane walked out of the bedroom, Paul was there, had been for who knows how long.

Well, Paul knew, but he doesn’t feel like sharing it with you.

He jumped straight into conversation, asking what her day was going to be like. “Work,” she said, and it was also what Paul said at the exact same time.

“Jane. You've given me that same response for the past three weeks, every day, when I ask. And that’s the only conversation we’ve had. What’s been going on with you?”

“Nothing’s been going on. I don’t know what you’re talking about but work has been busy and I’m really stressed. I have to go now.”

“Then we’ll talk tonight!” Paul said, but he was only met with the sound of the door closing.

20 | Still Waters

The next few nights and mornings were the same—Paul attempting to make conversation, Jane leaving the discussion either physically or mentally before he could access her. Paul's frustration grew, until on the fourth night he grabbed her by her shoulders, holding her in front of him. He was tired of being ignored, he was tired of letting her just leave and not doing anything about it.

“Jane, you're going to talk to me. Now. What’s been going on with you? Why won’t you talk to me?”

Jane’s eyes finally met his and their doors unlocked. Her expression changed, and for the first time in months he felt he was actually looking at her.

“I’ve been seeing someone. Every day for the past month.”

Paul blinked and shook his head.

“Seeing someone how? Like…romantically? Or…like, a therapist?” As he asked, he saw her expression fade and her eyes lock again.

“Can you at least tell me their name?” he said. It wasn’t important to him, that's all he could come up with, but he felt her locking up, her mind drifting from the conversation.

Part Two Adrian. The name stuck in Paul's head all night, like the sound of a large gong bouncing off the walls of his brain and ringing through the night.

That name. it gave him a feeling of nostalgia, of familiarity, of someone who once was a part of Paul's story but who was gone long before this small chapter you are reading.

And yet, the name meant nothing, at least from what Paul could remember. Despite the feeling that he recognized the name, or that maybe it was attached to a memory, his mind drew blanks.

It was Saturday morning. Usually, Jane was out of the house well before Paul woke up on weekends, doing errands and whatnot. But today, when Paul sat up, the sound of light breathing filled the room, and he saw Jane, asleep, next to him. The urge to wake her up and bombard her with questions filled Paul, but he managed to suppress his urge and he waited for what felt like forever until he finally heard the mumbles and grumbles Jane made in the morning.

“What do you do when you're with Adrian?” he asked.

Jane looked up, puzzled, as if that name meant nothing to her. “Oh, that Adrian,” she said finally, absently.

Fiction | 21

Silence followed. Not a guilty silence, but a forgetful silence, as Jane appeared to lose track of Paul’s question.

“Jane, can you tell me about Adrian please?”

His heart was hoping for the best. Maybe Adrian was an old friend, or a therapist helping her deal with stress from work. But his mind prepared for the worst, that Adrian was a lover, or a divorce lawyer. As these scenarios played out in his mind, Paul tried to slow his thinking. He didn’t know anything about Adrian yet, he didn’t even know if they were a man or a woman. But those reasonable thoughts were quickly whisked away by worry of the worst.

“Oh yes, you remember Adrian, the one I told you about?” Jane said.

Of all the possible answers his mind could come up with in those few seconds between his words and hers, this might have rattled Paul the most.

“Yes, Jane, I remember I just asked you about them.”

“Oh, yes, right. You just asked about him.”

Him. Hold on, Paul, maybe she’ll say something that redeems her.

“Well, Adrian has been helping me a lot, keeping me company and telling me all these amazing stories that are so interesting.”

Yes, so redeeming.

“What does Adrian do?” Paul asked.

“I don’t know,” Jane replied. “She hasn’t mentioned it in any of her stories.”

What? SHE? The hell is going on?

“Wait. She? I thought you said Adrian was a he,” Paul said.

“No, I didn’t. Adrian has obviously been male. Are you okay?”.

I don’t know what’s going on.

I’m right with you, Paul. This is making no sense.

22 | Still Waters

“What does Adrian… do with you? Where and when do y’all spend time together?”

“Well. We really never see each other. She shows up and talks to me when she wants to. Could be anywhere I am throughout the day.”

She again?

“So at work?” Paul asked. He didn’t want to talk in any more circles.

“No, not really, why would she go there when she's coming to talk to me?” Jane looked at Paul as if that was a stupid question, a confusion so pure there was just no way she was messing with him on purpose.

“Jane, are you not at work all day like you’ve been saying?” I think you know who asked.

“No, who said that?” She spoke more slowly, as if to a child. “I don’t go to work. I don’t have a job. If I did, Adrian would tell me.”

Adrian would tell you? So far, despite all the words about Adrian, Paul still had not learned one thing about him or her.

“Jane, you do have a job, you’ve been a receptionist for a year at a tech company on the north side.”

Adrian would tell you? So far, despite all the words about Adrian, Paul still had not learned one thing about him or her.

“Jane, you do have a job, you’ve been a receptionist for a year at a tech company on the north side.”

“Paul, I think Adrian would know if I had a job. Why are you making things up?”

Is she seriously trying to turn this on me? I’m the crazy one?

“And why would Adrian know that, why are you trusting Adrian’s knowledge of you over your own?”

“Trust me. Adrian knows all about me. Sometimes Adrian will tell me what I’m thinking about before I’m aware, and then boom! He was right!”

Paul shook his head. “If someone tells you that you’re thinking of something, obviously you are going to end up thinking about it! And how would Adrian know so much about you? How long have you known him?”

Fiction | 23

“I’ve known her for about a month,” Jane replied, as calm as someone who’d just taken a very long nap.

You know what? I don’t think Adrian is real. There’s no possible way that Adrian is a real person. I’ve learned absolutely nothing about him or her in this whole conversation, and Jane is completely off the rails.

Yes she is Paul. But she also seems quite convinced Adrian is real.

Yes well we’ve already established that she’s gone completely mad, so I don’t care what she thinks is real— Adrian is sure as hell not.

If you say so Paul. Although, Adrian could be part of her inner monologue, which is something you should ask her.

Fine, I will.

“Jane, is Adrian real?” Paul asked.

Not how I would’ve done it, but I guess it's straight to the point.

“Of course he's real Paul, you’ve been talking to her the whole time.”

Part Three “Paul, are you okay? You’re really worrying me.”

Paul's mind twisted and raced. Every part of this conversation had been planned out in his head. He had gone over every possible scenario that could have played out, everything Jane could have said, yet every word she said surprised him. Nothing made sense. He had no idea how to continue the conversation.

“Paul? What’s wrong, can you say something?” Jane asked. “Are my words even getting to your head?

It feels like they’re being stopped at your ears and the doors are closed to your brain.”

No, that’s what you’ve been doing to me, this is what you do to me!

Don’t tell me Paul, tell her.

“You’ve been doing that to me. I don’t know what’s going on, and I have no words! All you’ve told me about Adrian, but the picture hasn’t gotten any clearer. You keep changing their gender, and somehow you’re not going to work because Adrian doesn’t think you have a job? What can I say?”

24 | Still Waters

Paul stopped trying to guess where the conversation was going, stopped trying to predict what Jane was going to say, what excuse she could give him that would answer anything. All of those thoughts swirled in his head and yet Jane’s next words stunned him more than anything she’d already said.

Really? What could she possibly say that would make me think that? Is she gonna say that I’m Adrian, or maybe Adrian is our dog? Or maybe– Paul, it doesn’t fit the story if you start trying to guess again.

“Who is Adrian? What are you talking about?” Jane asked.

Paul’s breathing grew quick and shallow. “No, Jane, we’re not doing this! You can’t keep doing this.

You know what’s going on! Stop playing dumb. You’ve been making me feel like I’m the crazy one, but I’m not. I don't know what happening, but you’re the one whose been…acting crazy!”

“Paul? Can you say something?”

Did I not just give her a whole speech? She has to be messing with me on purpose. Did she suddenly forget this whole conversation?

“I’m not messing with you on purpose, Paul. And who were you talking to? And I’m not sure what conversation you’re talking about. I just got home.”

Paul looked down to see that Jane was closing the front door behind her as she was talking, that her outside shoes were just coming off and her face was red from the cold.

What? No, I— she did not just get here. We’ve been talking for an hour!

Paul, just look!

No I’m not going to look. She did not just get here. You cannot just control what I do.

“Paul! Who are you talking to?” Jane raised her voice and it echoed in the front hall.

What the—? Can you both read my thoughts? How do you know what I’m thinking?

“Both of us? Paul I’m the only one here, and you’re talking out loud, apparently to someone I can’t see because really, I’m the only one here.”

Fiction | 25

I don’t know what's happening. Who am I talking to. Who are you? You’ve been narrating this whole story, telling me what I’m thinking, how I’m feeling, and what’s going on, but none of it is true, is it? Who are you?

Are you Adrian? Why are you trying to control my life?

“Paul?”

“So you couldn’t read my mind then?”

“Paul, I can't read minds, you’re really scaring me. I think we should call someone and get you some help.”

“No, I don’t know what's real anymore. You—you were being distant, and then I questioned you, and then you told me all about this…this thing. I don’t even know if you’re talking about a person at this point. And now you’re saying you just got here, and the voice in my head is gone, and now I’m the crazy one?”

Who are you? Where did you go? Why are you narrating my life? Come back! I need answers!

“Paul, the doctor I called wants to talk to you.”

Paul blinked and looked around. Had he had been alone talking to himself? For how long? He looked out the window and saw the sky had dimmed.

No I didn’t. I never looked out the window and I haven’t been talking to myself!

“Hi, Paul. I heard from your wife that you’ve been seeing people who aren’t there,” said a sharply dressed man with a neat haircut and a soft smile.

“I don’t need any help. I'm fine.”

“How about we just get to know each other first?”

I just want you to leave. “I’m Paul. I don’t have any issues and I want you to leave.”

“Nice to meet you Paul. I’m Adrian. Dr Adrian Johnson.”

26 | Still Waters

"I am large, I contain multitudes."

— Walt Whitman

Personal Essay

Monkey

by Dhruva Tailam During elementary school in fourth grade, my parents used to pick me up from Catholic school every Wednesday after chapel. I remember sitting in the backseat one afternoon still wearing my stiff uniform, staring out the window while rain slid down the glass beside me. Chapel had felt endless that day. Two hours of hearing about creation, heaven, God, and the beginning of humanity.

I finally asked the question that had been sitting in my head the whole drive home.

“So if God made us,” I asked, “why don’t you guys believe in Him?” My parents laughed a little before my father answered.

“It’s because we believe humans evolved from monkeys,” he said. “We believe in science.”

I remember sitting there quietly after that. I looked down at my hands resting on my lap and stretched my fingers against the fogged-up car window. Somehow, I thought the answer would appear there.

“We are so much different than monkeys,” I said.

“I know we are different,” he replied, “but that’s where we originated.”

Of course, I understand now that evolution is more complicated than that. Humans did not simply “come from monkeys” the way I imagined as a child. But at that age, all I heard was that I belonged to the same natural world I had spent my life believing I stood above.

I remember thinking: Does this mean I’m a monkey too?

Three years later, in seventh grade, one of my friends joked that my ears made me look like a monkey. Everyone at the lunch table laughed, including me. I laughed because that is what you do when your friends make fun of you. But later that night I thought about the comment more than I should have. What bothered me most was not even the insult itself. It was the fact that some part of me felt ashamed.

Ashamed to resemble something natural. Ashamed to resemble an animal. Ashamed to resemble something I had spent most of my life believing was beneath me.

That realization disturbed me more than the joke ever could. Looking back, I question: Why was being compared to a monkey offensive at all?

The more I thought about it, the more the insult started to expose something ugly about the way humans see themselves. Humans constantly separate themselves from the rest of nature. We build invisible ladders and place ourselves at the top. We act as if intelligence gives us ownership over the earth instead of connection to it.

28 | Still Waters

But when I got home that day, my dog sprinted toward me the second I opened the door. He never stopped to question whether he is important enough. He never stares at himself in the mirror wondering what makes him superior to another creature. He is simply happy to exist—happy to see me, happy to feel a connection.

Maybe humans are the only creatures cursed with the need to feel above everything else.

Curiosity is a blessing, but superiority is the curse.

I think that curse begins when we are young. Humans are taught that being closer to nature somehow makes us lesser. We insult people by comparing them to animals even though we are animals ourselves. We praise people for acting “civilized” as if civilization erased where we came from.

Maybe humans judge beauty so harshly because beauty has become another way to measure superiority. During my summer going into ninth grade in India, I remember watching monkeys sitting along metal highway rails while cars rushed past them. Nobody around me seemed disturbed by their presence. They simply belonged there, the same way birds belong to trees or rain belongs to clouds. I remember staring at them and thinking about how strange it was that humans spend so much energy trying not to resemble the natural world, while the natural world itself never seems ashamed of us.

The older I get, the more I notice how disconnected people have become from the world around them.

Everything feels artificial now. We judge each other based on appearance, status, intelligence, productivity, followers, and money. It starts small. A joke about somebody’s face. Somebody’s ears.

Somebody looking like a monkey.

But eventually those small judgments evolve into bigger ones.

Why don’t you work harder? Why don’t you make more money? Why don’t you own this technology?

Why aren’t you more successful?

Soon, maybe the question will be: Why haven’t you upgraded yourself?

In his TED Talk called “Connected, but Alone?,” sociologist Sherry Turkle argues that technology is not only changing what humans do, but changing who humans are becoming. The more people shape themselves around productivity, digital identity, and controlled connection, the more emotionally disconnected they become from both nature and each other. Sometimes I wonder if humanity’s obsession with superiority is leading us to a place that is emotionally empty.

In ninth grade, I started believing in God again, but not in the same way I understood religion as a child. I stopped seeing God as something that separated humans from the world and started seeing Him as something present within it. In trees, animals, dirt, oceans, people—everything alive.

Personal Essay | 29

That idea reminded me of the transcendentalists we studied in English class this year, especially Ralph Waldo Emerson. In Nature, Emerson writes, “I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all.”

At first that quote sounded ridiculous to me. But the more I read it, the more I think Emerson was trying to destroy the ego humans cling to so desperately. The “transparent eyeball” is somebody who stops obsessing over themselves long enough to feel connected to the rest of existence.

Henry David Thoreau believed something similar when he left society and lived near Walden Pond. In Walden, he writes that he wanted “to live deliberately.” The transcendentalists questioned whether society separates humans from their true nature, and I think I inherited some of that same questioning long before I even understood their writing.

Maybe that is what humans are missing now.

Connection. Not superiority.

A scientist named Frans de Waal studied empathy in primates and observed behaviors that looked almost painfully human: grief, affection, fairness, comfort, and reconciliation after conflict. The more scientists discover about animals, the smaller the gap between us and them seems to become. Maybe humans did not invent love, emotion, or connection. Maybe we only invented the belief that those things belong to us alone.

When I got home that day in fourth grade, I caught myself staring at my own reflection, searching for the distance between myself and every other living thing. At the time, the idea of being a monkey felt humiliating.

Now, I think the humiliating part was believing I needed to be something greater.

Human: A monkey intelligent enough to question its own existence, and insecure enough to believe it stands above everything else.

30 | Still Waters

"When I began to listen to poetry, it's when I began to listen to the stones, and I began to listen to what the clouds had to say, and I began to listen to others."

—Joy Harjo

Poetry

AS IF NOTHING CHANGES

by Taylor Betts I lay, warm light penetrating my skin, warm, heavy. silence crowds me as I inhale, slow, rays leak through my eyelids, my eyes water as constant burning persists, tiny spikes of grass itch at my back, I shift, trying to dodge the annoyance. the air hums, soft, like something just out of reach, the warmth grows heavier, thicker, until it isn’t just light anymore, but a glow I can almost step into. suddenly I am weightless, as light as a ghost, floating through streaks of green and pale blue, the grass replaced by clouds that bend beneath me, whispering shapes forming and fading, worlds opening with every breath I take.

I drift through colors that feel alive, through un-empty silence, until the glow flickers, the weight returns. the grass presses back into my skin, the heat sharpens, and the light settles back behind my eyes.

I lay, breathing slowly, as if nothing has changed.

32 | Still Waters

LETTING YOURSELF WANT

by Taylor Betts I wore a t-shirt yesterday.

Stood outside with my arms open like I was daring the season to end, the air still warm, the ground soft, something finally starting to ease.

I woke up and everything was white.

The yard erased, the street erased, the whole slow week of warmth like it never happened.

Like the ground can't hold heat any longer than I can.

It won't stick.

That's almost worse— the taking back before you're done letting yourself want it.

Poetry | 33

THE SHAPE OF MY GRIP

by Taylor Betts I am going back to the ball pit, slides, the rubber bands, driveway, the skinned knees, the streetlights that meant come home.

The leaves are confidently beautiful again, the same smell as always, the smell that used to drift on the summer air, and now, it is not something I can’t hold.

A stuffed animal somewhere, Still wearing the shape of my tight grip on its arm.

Will it ever be the same?

34 | Still Waters

TRUST

by Wes Bixby When I make that decision, And twist the buried knife, My adolescent mind Thinks only in reverse.

Selfishness guarded by pride, But that’s not how I see it.

If a tree falls with no one around, Did it make a noise?

Yes.

Poetry | 35

DREAMING

by Kaden Almaraz Standing upon the cliff’s edge eyeing the vast scape beyond me, where life flourishes on unsoiled land and energy flows through breaking seas.

Salt sifts, trailing the air, stinging sinuses, what it feels to be alive.

The pain proves I was meant to be.

The earth shakes crumbling before my feet as though a dog and a flea clash against one another with cruel company.

And I slip, allowing forces to take me down to my destiny, to where I was meant to be. my mind wakes upon a silk-satin surface, returned home from the internal sanctuary, and I know that I belong.

36 | Still Waters

WINTER SOLSTACE (Tijo)

by Victor Ha O thy pale abyss, blizzard devours hollow fields, as from glen to glen white frost spreads over the earth, draws me into thy bleak heart.

Poetry | 37

MY ROOM

by Sienna Steeves It always starts the same way.

Clothes on the floor, Piled up, Like thoughts I didn’t deal with.

I tell myself I'll clean it later.

I tell myself I’ll think about it later.

But later doesn’t come.

I pick up one thing— Just one thing— And put it away.

And somehow My head feels quieter.

38 | Still Waters

Lachlan Fletcher

LE SAMEDI PARLE

SATURDAY SPEAKS

Le samedi parle Il dit: viens

Saturday speaks It says: Come

Mais moi je dis non

But I say no

Le matin est lourd Il reste sur moi Comme un pied

The morning is heavy It weighs upon me Like a foot

Le soleli est à Mais il ne dit rien

The sun is out But it says nothing

Le temps est lent Trés lent

Time is slow Very slow

Je suis fatigué Je ne veux pas parti

I am tired I do not want to leave

Le samedi revenu Encore Et encore

Saturday returns Again And again

Il ne comprend pas Que je veux rester Libre

It does not understand That I want to remain Free

Alors j’attends J’attends Que le jour passe

So I wait I wait For the day to pass

Poetry | 39

Sofia Benayoud

LA VIE D’UNE ÉTUDIANTE

THE LIFE OF A STUDENT

Je voudrais aller chez moi.

Je suis très fatiguée.

Je veux partir de l’école.

Quelque chose d'un lion, je fatigue à mon travail.

Je n’ai pas dormi la nuit dernière.

Ma professeure de français n’aime pas ce poème.

Elle pense que mon poème est stupide.

Mon poème n’est pas stupide, c’est honnête.

Comme l’eau, je me déplace Je voudrais aller chez moi.

I want to go home.

I am very tired.

I want to leave school.

Like a lion, I am tired of my work.

I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.

My French teacher doesn’t like my poem.

She thinks this poem is stupid.

My poem isn’t stupid, it’s honest.

Like the water, I move.

I want to go home.

40 | Still Waters

Harryns Cantave

FATIGUÈ ET LIBRE

TIRED AND FREE

Je suis fatigué et libre, prêt à partir.

L’école est une prison, et moi je suis déjà dehors.

Je répète, je répète, je mérite une pause.

Mes années ici sont longues et difficiles.

Je veux respirer, je veux vivre, je veux avancer.

Laissez-moi glisser doucement vers la fin.

I'm tired and free, ready to leave.

School is a prison, and I'm already out.

I keep repeating, I keep repeating, I deserve a break.

My years here have been long and hard.

I want to breathe, I want to live, I want to move forward.

Let me gently drift toward the end.

Poetry | 41

CJ Ford

QUAND J’ÈTAIS ENFANT

WHEN I WAS A CHILD

Quand j'étais enfant Le monde était grand Et j’etais petit Mais j’ai grandi comme un arbre Et je n’ai peur plus pas Maintenant je suis fort Je suis plus âgé Et je suis libre

When I was a child The world was big And I was small But I grew like a tree And I am no longer afraid Now I am strong I am older And I am free

42 | Still Waters

Baylie Campbell

JE VIENS DE

I AM FROM

Je viens de “Cristal lac” au Michigan Où l’eau est claire comme le verre Je viens de la brise d'été qui fait danser les arbres Je viens du cerisier soufflant dans le vent

I am from Crystal Lake, Michigan Where water is as clear as glass I am from the summer breeze that makes the trees dance I am from the cherry trees swaying in the wind

Poetry | 43

Kenzie Moore

DANS CETTE MER VERTE

IN THIS GREEN SEA

La forêt est un grand océan vert et calme Les arbres sont comme des vagues lentes Les feuilles disent de petits secrets Les animaux marchent comme des ombres Dans cette mer verte, je me sens en paix

The forest is a vast, calm green ocean The trees like slow waves The leaves whisper little secrets The animals move like shadows In this green sea, I feel at peace

44 | Still Waters

“In summer, the song sings itself.”

– William Carlos Williams

Form Poetry

The poems in this section are loosely based on the poem Paterson by the great American poet William Carlos Williams. Paterson was a long, multi-section poem that Williams wrote as an ode to his home city in New Jersey. The first poem is a four-section poem in its entirety by Victor Ha. The poems that follow Ha’s work are excepts from longer poems.

THRESHOLD Victor Ha

I. Places / The Beginning At first the place appeared dim, but merciful in its limits after the long arithmetic of leaving.

I arrived carrying another weather, another grammar of appetite and restraint, my name still foreign in my own mouth.

Thus the beginning took the form of an island.

I was a last man before the abyss, not yet tested by the sea, content with shore, with walls, with little fires, mistaking enclosure for peace, not knowing every harbour is temporary.

II. Move In / Move Out

The lake held late light in a flat grey sheet.

The forest kept its damp, resinous breath.

Buildings stood in rows of brick and window-glass, severe as doctrine under noon, less hostile at sunset when the western light ran over them and made even hard edges seem negotiable.

Move-in began as wreckage.

Boxes broke upon the floor like timbers thrown from a blackened ship.

Folded clothes, books, chargers, shoes, small cargo dragged from a sealed sea, were laid upon the narrow bed, as if that bed were a raft, an island shore.

The chapel stood still with its face unchanged by weather, indifferent to petition.

The field spread in its measured green, white lines thinning after rain.

The tennis court, fenced and open to wind, kept the marks of frost in the morning.

The squash court enclosed its own echo, a small sealed chamber of repetition.

Dormitories carried the odour of old wood, detergent, dust, and the heat knocking through winter pipes.

Roads curved past snowbanks, mud, and thaw, like routes on an unfinished chart, not yet resembling roads of return.

The room received me without welcome.

Thy wall was a cliff-face.

Thy window, a grey opening to weather.

Trees leaned like masts after a storm, and the road curved off like water refusing return.

I had not arrived so much as been cast there, salted by distance, stripped of former ease, left to name this little coast my own.

I moved among these things as though they had been arranged to spare me from extremity.

I preferred routine, warmth, and lesser pleasures: a bed, a lamp, a familiar corridor, snow under yellow light, the brief calm of evening after obligation.

I mistook caution for wisdom, and comfort for liberty.

48 | Still Waters

Loneliness did not thunder; it seeped in, damp as bilge-water, through unfinished work, the late lamp, and the knowledge that comfort had no obligation to remain.

There was resentment in that season: the wish to crown weakness as virtue, to stand against the wind, and call its force injustice.

The spirit, cramped by fear, learned to call refusal depth.

And yet, even there, nostalgia began its quiet, patient labour.

The hard room softened in memory before I had left it.

Move-out came as another tide.

The same boxes returned, no longer wreckage, but evidence.

The desk gave up its papers.

Dust showed where books had been.

The bed lost its shape.

The drawer opened onto nothing.

To leave was stranger than arrival.

The island I had cursed had become a shore I knew, by pipe-knock, frost, lamp, and silence.

So I carried out my small cargo once more, not rescued, not restored, but changed by the coast that refused to keep me.

But no island, once left, is ever reached as it was.

Each year I returned to a shore that kept the shape, but not the life, of the previous one.

III. Graduation / Nihilism Graduation came with the thaw.

The chapel doors stayed closed.

Snow withdrew from the roads, leaving black salt along the edges.

Nothing declared an ending.

That was the cruelty of it.

Beyond the gate waited no harbour, only open weather: forms stacked on a table, debts like stones in the pocket, coins pressing doors closed along a corridor, choices sharp as unmarked reefs.

The old roof no longer held.

Hunger came.

Work remained.

The road did not answer.

To leave was to be pushed from the last narrow room into water without chart or lantern.

The loss was not only of place, but of category.

A room may be revisited, a path walked again, a field crossed in another season.

But the former self is a locked house, visible only from the road, lit by memory, unenterable.

Then the days thinned. voices lost their weight in air.

Names remained, but answered in void.

Time worked without witness, wearing each day into silence.

Yet in that barrenness something harder remained: the world withheld consolation, and in that withholding forced the will to kindle its own fire.

The word student remained on paper.

It gave order to morning, reason to the desk, permission to remain unfinished.

Then the name loosened like a coat outgrown in winter.

No bell mourned it.

No window dimmed.

Form Poetry | 49

IV. Change / Return The lake was still there, but it did not retain the old reflection.

The forest breathed through rot and leaf, burying one season to raise another.

The chapel held its stone silence.

The field received frost, thaw, rain, and rose again without asking to be what it had been.

The courts whitened and emptied, waiting for another echo.

The dormitories gave up one life and took another as the tide takes shells And leaves the sand bare.

Then the ache of returning across water became clear: not that home is lost, but that home remains while the former life within it has passed beyond recovery.

The room may stand.

The road may bend the same way.

The bell may strike its old hour.

Yet the old day cannot be summoned from beneath the earth of time.

To come home is sometimes to find a locked garden whose trees still bloom for another season’s hand.

If all this were to return— the first loneliness, the cold room, the names thinning into distance, the final stripping of the wall— I would not ask the hour to arrive otherwise.

Let the same dusk fall.

Let the same wound open.

I would take it entire.

50 | Still Waters

For the abyss did not close; it became a threshold.

No voice answered from it.

So the step had to answer.

So the hand kept working.

So the fire was willed.

So I no longer accused the sea for being sea.

I blessed the wreck, the island, the departure, the altered shore, not because they were gentle, but because they were mine.

And there, at last, morning entered: snow loosening from the field, water brightening at the lake’s edge, trees burning green after rain, the road bare beneath the sun, and the morning, severe and open, asking not for grief, only assent.

Excerpt from

Seasons

by Taylor Betts Fall The white buildings stood like promises Against the changing leaves And every face passed was a new door I had come from a summer I was still reaching back for Even as I walked into this new place With golden fields and open lawns, Its nights humming with voices Yet to know who I was

Something so small it had no name for me yet Left me out of a trip, telling me to stay.

The team flew south but I lay there in the silence of an emptied space.

I thought about time the way you only do When something has stolen it from you.

I wrote things down, Created with my two hands— A name, a vision, a future unknown to anyone I didn't know then what it would become Only that I needed to become something, and that time had given me the stillness to admit it.

We played until the sky went pink, The grass gave as we sank in, Watching, trying to learn new belonging.

Still some piece kept me looking back For the August mornings, Mourning a version of what was Who do I want to be here?

What will this place make of me?

The leaves changed colors, fell Leaving me to figure out the answer.

Winter The cold came as a verdict Everyone moved inward Into wool and fluorescence with the consistency of work never finished.

The buildings that had seemed so white and clean in September Revealed themselves as stone in January: Heavy, grey, indifferent.

I walked down the long street, The wind made sure I understood the cold of nothing.

Form Poetry | 51

Excerpt from

Through Heaven and Hell

by Kaden Almaraz Part I I met a girl, much shorter than the rest.

I don’t remember the words spoken, but rather the comfort in her voice, a place familiar to me, yet unrecognizable from experience.

A personality unyielding, unbound by conformity, far from her past, as if she didn’t fear the figures stationed around the reception, rather acquainted with one another as if the world had followed them here.

Fantasy, not grounded in reality.

I felt the same.

It was surreal that I would not return to my old place, the place I’d grown, the place I’d learn to survive, now released into the wilderness, like a frightened sea turtle emerging from its egg on that dangerous beach.

Her words reminded me of simply that: This was my home now.

And in one short day, I crawled from the sand and splashed into the water, safe, and I knew I’d be alright.

52 | Still Waters

Part II Lift, fly, seating the oar in each peg of the water as I pry and swing along with the sea, each send cutting the water like a knife in butter, clean and light.

Together, in unison, each catch and release brings more pain— more doubt that soaks the mind and floods the rest but also brings courage; the sense of invulnerability a shield for the mind, for the ambition to push through and break the spirits of others come to play on our turf. the freedom of sliding up and down the tracks, weightless, like a metronome quietly ticking behind the melody of rocking bodies, in and out.

But the sounds in our minds mimicked a different tune; The sound of a guitar flashing sparks in time with the screaming of our lead, the noise of our music smashing decibels higher than the other bands as we take seats away towards the finish of our race.

The music fades as we cross the line, believing what we’d just done was the best we could ever do.

Excerpt from

Main Street

by Sienna Steeves PART I Leaves drag across the pavement, catch against our shoes.

Main street is warm.

Someone laughs. I laugh too.

Outside, the maples are almost bare.

The fields are wet and cold.

We run away, calling names we just learned, forgetting them and learning them again.

We stand in small clusters, just people standing close enough to talk.

Breath rising. Grass dark with dew, the trees a little less full each morning.

I say my name more times than I can count.

Sometimes it sticks.

Like the leaves, some things hold.

After, we walk back slowly.

Kick leaves. Stretch the talk so it doesn’t end yet.

Inside, the dining hall roars.

Chairs scrape. Plates slide.

The days shorten.

We stay longer without even noticing.

The branches are bare now but it doesn’t feel empty anymore.

I sit wherever there is space, pick up pieces of conversation, try my best to stay inside one.

Someone saves me a seat.

Form Poetry | 53

Excerpt from

My Song

by Micah Dixon PART IV I’ve enjoyed this song.

Why? The song isn’t good.

Then why is it enjoyable?

Because it’s not good.

I’ve listened to it over and over again, to each wrong note played.

Some would cover their ears but I listen to this with melancholy, loving every second.

You seem confused.

I make mistakes— The thing that turns any tune, the muddy chord as the progression continues, separates each distorted note into a flourishing cadence.

Wow, your music taste sucks.

I have good music taste.

It seems I’ve found myself in the middle of a coda, reaching the climax of each arpeggio pounding at the keys, reaching for every feeling until there's nothing, the sound of silence.

You feel Bliss yet empty— I look out to the crowd that bellows ignorance.

You’ve never felt this before, How could you have?

You’ve never done this before.

But I’ve been here before, where the crowd gives no applause.

54 | Still Waters

BROKEN PIECES Henry Osborne

BROKEN PIECES ONE shattered and decaying I lay on the ground forgotten and alone nothing left can fix me as I am swept away

she leaves me to myself wishing to be perfect she breaks me beyond repair she doesn’t even notice she never seems to notice

BROKEN PIECES TWO she leaves me to myself wishing to be perfect she breaks me beyond repair she doesn’t even notice she never seems to notice

shattered and decaying I lay on the ground forgotten and alone nothing left can fix me as I am swept away

BROKEN PIECES THREE she leaves me to myself wishing to be perfect she breaks me beyond repair she doesn’t even notice she never seems to notice shattered and decaying I lay on the ground forgotten and alone nothing left can fix me as I am swept away BROKEN PIECES FOUR shattered and decaying I lay on the ground forgotten and alone nothing left can fix me as I am swept away she leaves me to myself wishing to be perfect she breaks me beyond repair she doesn’t even notice she never seems to notice

56 | Still Waters

“Go in peace and with love in your hearts.”

Thanks for an amazing 4 years!

– Kaden Almaraz ‘26

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.” ― William Wordsworth