The Cougar Feature Magazine, Ed. 4

SPRING 2018

SPRING 2018

THE CALHOUN SCHOOL ART & LITERATURE MAGAZINE

the cougar

hailey kim sara barker phil tedeschi lorenzo krakowsky

thank you contributors anonymous

kinara phillips

anya raikhovski

lily stevenson

bennett wood

lizzy finn

carina de la luz

lucy walkowiak

celia goodman

noah schaub

flora morrison

oliver rauch

geena janovsky

sara barker

henry harary

sydnie hyams

jesse fields

zoe stojkovic

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geena janovsky/2019

“CRYING TO GOD” Sometimes I look up and wonder, Is this just a dream?

Will I wake up, Weeks from now, Spiraling, Out of control, Banging on walls, Crying to God? Or is this reality?

Happiness, Love and understanding, Books and school projects, Basketball games and Starbucks.

kinara phillps /2020

I want it all to be reality But sometimes, I can’t seem to convince myself, That I’m okay.

And I won’t spiral, Out of control, Banging on walls, Crying to God.

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lily stevenson/2020

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celia goodman/2018

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noah shaub/2020

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bennett wood/2019

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flora morrison/2018

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anya raikhovski/2019

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carina de la luz/ 2018

“THINGS AREN’T SO BLACK AND WHITE: WHY THE PRO-LIFERS SHOULD ACT DIFFERENTLY” By: Lucy Walkowiak

As most of you probably know, in the past few years our country has become divided in more ways than one.

There is a constant state of discourse and argumentation that we tend to want to take one side over the other, with everyone taking a side and wanting to demonize the people who oppose them. I don’t believe in this kind of black and white thinking. I believe that everyone has a story and a reason for everything, and you need to understand what people go through before making your own assumptions. To show this, I will focus on the prolife movement, and why their arguments are usually ignorant of facts and create this sort of binary between the belief of “right” and “wrong”.

We as a country are divided between two conflicting arguments on abortion, pro-life and pro-choice. The pro-choice movement believes that the fate of a fetus is the choice of the mother and the mother alone. Pro-life is the belief that abortion is wrong on all fronts, and that taking life in any case is evil. I’m not going to argue that people in the pro-life movement are evil and moronic, because I don’t believe in that, but I do believe that many of the people fighting for it are uneducated, or have their motivations in the right place, but don’t execute in the most productive ways.

There are many cases in which the pro-life arguments are simply a one-way street. Many pro-life supporters believe that abortion is another form of murder, and that murder in any sense is wrong.

While this argument is fair, that killing is immoral, why is murder only being protested in this one case? Every day,

there are hundreds of deaths from gun violence and police brutality, as well as thousands more from civilian casualties in wars around the world. One could argue that this “anti-murder” argument is simply a guilt trip. If reducing murder were the real target, there would be enormous overlaps between gun control or anti-war campaigns and the pro-life movement. If you visit any pro-life movement website, they will say that they have no stance on war, but also state that in some cases war can be right. Why then is abortion always wrong, no matter the case? Why isn’t abortion also judged by the circumstance, and not only by the deed?

Or even on a simpler note, why don’t pro-life supporters also work to find a cure for the thousands of miscarriages and stillbirths each year? There are almost the same number of miscarriages each year as there are abortions, and in almost every case women who miscarry actually wanted the child and have a stable, loving home to raise it in.

If pro-lifers worked for finding a cure, or even worked towards better education regarding miscarriages, there would be thousands of babies saved from untimely deaths.

One of the arguments on the pro-life side is that women thinking of an abortion should carry the baby to term and that they still have the option to give the baby up for adoption. This opens up a whole new issue. The foster care and adoption system in America is not a safe place for a child. In many cases children are abused or neglected by their foster families. Children who come from the foster system also have a much higher rate of developmental issues than other children.

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Children who go through the adoption system are often never adopted, as the process of adoption is very long, difficult, and expensive. What the pro-life movement should be doing is working to make the adoption system safer for the children going through it and easier for people to adopt. If they want to women to give babies up for adoption, they should make sure beforehand that the system actually works.

One obvious thing that most prolife supporters do wrong is sexual education. Many pro-lifers actually distrust the use of condoms and birth control to prevent pregnancy, and teach abstinence-only sex-ed. This is another way in which this movement ignores facts to benefit their argument. It has been proven that abstinence only education does NOT work to reduce unwanted pregnancies, and teaching it is completely futile. It also confuses and misinforms students. You cannot support both pro-life and abstinence only education in a logical fashion.

Technically, the implications of these beliefs are increases in accidental pregnancy and then subsequent control of the resulting births. This is hypocritical and proves my point that these supporters are uneducated on their own topic.

There are many different organizations and causes that pro-life supporters can support instead of demonizing abortion. Working for better health and sexual education, anti-war movements, anti-rape movements, and even supporting Planned Parenthood, the organization they despise, would be more productive. Many pro-life websites purposefully keep information from the people about Planned

Parenthood. What they won’t tell you is that Planned Parenthood provides so many other resources for women’s health, such as OB GYN visits, access to contraceptives, breast and ovarian cancer screenings, STD treatments, sexual education, and counseling for abused women. Having these services accessible to women will prevent unwanted pregnancies from even happening in the first place. Outlawing abortion is completely unproductive, as women will just go to further and more dangerous extents to get the same procedure that could be easily and safely conducted by a trained professional. The pro-life movement goes to crazy extents to make women feel bad about their decision. Instead, they should work towards providing mental, physical, and emotional health to women who have had an unwanted pregnancy and care for the children who would be born from that pregnancy.

But please, don’t take my word for any of this. Do your own research, make your own decisions, and find for yourself what is right. There is so much more to learn about this debate that I haven’t even begun to touch upon. Visit a prolife website and find out what they stand for, and where there are holes in their logic. Look at Planned Parenthood to see what they do for women, as well as what they can do to improve their services and outreach. Find flaws in both sides so you can truly understand, instead of restating someone else’s opinion or ignoring the real facts.

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celia goodman/2018

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oliver rauch/2019

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bennett wood/2019

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geena janovsky/2019

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zoe stojkovic/2019

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celia goodman/2018

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noah shaub/2020

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sydnie hyams/2018

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lily stevenson/2020

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jesse fields/2018

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lizzy finn/2020

33 henry harary/2021

anonymous

from being alone: this is one fluid thought, you could be surrounded by millions of people but still feel alone ppl could talk to you every once and awhile, but you still are alone do you know what it like to sit in a hallway of people that you call your friends in your head but there is no one i just sit there among everyone and see all the clear ropes tying them all together but there is no lifeline connected to me when i need to calm down i just want to be alone it feels like it’s my nature to want to be left alone but not wanting to be alone at the same time when someone asks if they can help i say no but all i want is for them to stay with me it seems that i try to sabotage myself at least the darkness and the rain are a comfort to me they hold me tight close to their chest i hate how i have to care about fitting in and looking like everyone else when what i want is to be noticed how do you suppose that works sometimes when something is bothering me i do stupid things i am everything i dont want to be i scare everyone i want to be close to away maybe it’s because im some sort of fragile little creature but i take every single word thrown at me in to account its like a scar i try to reach out but im afraid none of you understand or you would have replied no im not suicidal dont fret i just have feelings i need to express i have a friend and she helps me be alive every day and i dont mean alive by living she helps me feel alive she backs me up even if she isnt there all the time but sometimes it’s not enough now im not saying im not happy i have happy moments i laugh but loneliness is a feeling you cant shake off sometimes it comes out and just you just drag it along with you sometimes you just need an outlet maybe this is my outlet who knows maybe this is a joke of words i am afraid of what you will think im not helpless or useless or lost I just need to be found i need to find myself one day i hope i will but for now i will cope like the rest of us do.

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35 lily stevenson/2020

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noah shaub/2020

37 sara barker/2018

“THE OCEAN IN MY HEART” By: Julia Labusch

It started out innocent enough. Three children on a rowboat, enjoying a picnic they had been planning for weeks. The first day of summer.

The sun’s warmth melted the ice cream, but they didn’t care. They spent the day laughing and having fun, not caring about sunburn or being late for dinner.

“I’m so glad we did this.” Jacky laughed.

“This is so nice. Why don’t we do this more often?”

“Because stealing this boat from my brother wasn’t easy,” Xander chided. Yvonne just giggled, her black hair gleaming in the sunlight.

“You won’t be laughing when I’m dead.”

“Shut up.” Jacky playfully nudged his friend’s shoulder. Yvonne picked up another cookie and ate it. “Yvonne, are you okay?”

“Hm?” Yvonne looked quizzically at him.

“You’ve been kind of quiet.”

Yvonne smiled.

“I’m fine.” She glanced down at the water, seeing nothing but their reflections.

“Jacky...do you ever wonder what’s down there?”

“Uh, fish?”

“Oh, it must be more than that…,” she said dreamily.

“Are you okay?” Xander asked.

“Of course, I am!”

Xander looked to Jacky suspiciously, who just shrugged. “I’m just curious. It could be anything,” Yvonne said.

“Yvonne, it’s fish.” Xander laughed.

Yvonne finally broke out of her trance, looking Xander right in the eye.

“Where’s this coming from?” Xander asked

“It’s not just fish.” Yvonne seemed unusually angry, her black hair draped over her shoulder.

Xander put up his hands defensively.

“Fine! Fine, it’s not just fish.”

Yvonne was satisfied with that as she went back to staring at the water. Xander and Jacky didn’t know what to think of it. But soon they had dropped it and moved on to something else. A few hours later, Jacky began to pack up the food as Xander started rowing. Yvonne jumped, startled.

“What are you doing?” She exclaimed.

“It’s getting dark, we should head home,” Jacky replied.

“Oh, but it feels like we just got here!”

“We can come again sometime if you’d like, Yvonne.” Xander smiled. “I need to get this boat home while my brother’s still at work.”

Yvonne looked disappointed but diverted

her gaze back to the light dancing on the water.

She gave a small gasp.

“What is it?” Jacky asked.

She ignored Jacky’s question. “...It’s calling to me.”

“...What?” Jacky started to inch closer to her, but Yvonne beamed as she stood up, looking down at the boys. “Yvonne! You’ll rock the boat!”

Jacky panicked. Yvonne just giggled. Her icy blue eye seemed to pierce the oncoming dusk. She took a step backwards.

“What are you doing?!” Xander shouted.

Yvonne stepped up on the boat’s tip. The weight began to shift.

“Yvonne!” Xander shouted again. And then, she was gone. Smiling, she closed her eye and fell backwards into the depths. The boys screamed and rushed to the end, trying desperately to look for her. But all they could see were their panicked reflections. The boys were frantic, calling for help, calling for Yvonne, calling for someone.

Jacky stared hard at the dark blue before him, trying to see something. He thought he could make out the icy blue glow of her one eye. All they could do was cry until Xander’s brother arrived.

That was twelve years ago. Diplomas in hand, Jacky and Xander made their way back to the shore where it had all begun, dusk slowly reaching its way across the sky. The two just stood there for a moment, taking it all in. After a while, Jacky finally spoke.

“Do you think she’s still down there?”

“She has to be.”

“Have you ever thought of looking for her again?”

“Every damn day.” But they knew there was no way of finding her. Even if her body had risen to the surface, it was probably nothing but bones now. Yet the fantasy of her return was always in the back of their minds. “It happened so fast.” Xander chuckled in disbelief.

“...Do you think we could have stopped it?”

“We should have stopped it.” They stared intently at the deep blue before them as the waves slowly came in and out. They had spent years with nothing but questions. Why did she do it? What did she mean? Who was calling her?

“Xander, do you remember when she first moved in? And introduced herself to the class?”

They both began to laugh.

“Of course!” The first words they ever heard her say would always be a happy memory,

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no matter what the circumstances were now. My name is Yvonne, I’m from Switzerland, and I always have my hair over my eye because of my eye! She smiled wide as she pushed her hair back, revealing the scarred skin where her right eye used to be. The whole class screamed, but Jacky and Xander just laughed. “That’s when I knew I had to be her friend.”

“Me too.” Xander chuckled. The laughter died down and the smiles faded. “You know...I still have nightmares about it.”

“You do?” Jacky nodded.

“I just…” He shook his head and looked down at his wave-soaked shoes. “It wasn’t right.”

“I...I still have nightmares, too. Sometimes.” As the sun finally set, and they were left with nothing but blue darkness, Jacky started to cry. “Jacky?”

“She was nine…she was supposed to be graduating with us.”

“I know.” Xander put his arm around him.

“Wanna leave?”

Jacky shook his head. “I miss her.”

“...Me too.” They stood watching the dark, cruel water for what seemed like years. They just stood peacefully upon the beach that they were always too scared to even bike past. Then something in the water shifted and began to move.

Something began to rise. The boys squinted in the dark to see, thinking it was a buoy or something.

They both gasped when the ice blue eye began to glow.

They were both speechless as Yvonne slowly made her way towards them barefoot with her wavy black hair dragging across the sand. Her alabaster skin shone in the moonlight. She was still smiling wide. Xander blinked, but she was still there. The boys couldn’t move. Jacky was shaking as he gripped his coat tighter around his shoulders.

They dropped their diplomas.

There she was, standing before them.

Looking as blissfully happy as she did the day she threw herself off the boat. She wore a long, lace black gown, nothing like the red checkered tunic she had worn on that day. Jacky took a shaky step towards her, still gripping his coat. She placed an ice cold hand on his cheek, wiping away his tears.

She was finally tall enough to do so. Xander knew he had to break the silence. He slowly made his way over, and placed a hand on her shoulder. Just to prove to himself that yes, this was happening.

“...Hello,” Xander said.

Yvonne nodded.

“Uh...how...how are you here?”

Yvonne said nothing.

“We missed you so much.” Jacky smiled. Yvonne took Jacky’s hands away from his shoulders and

hugged him. Her thin cold arms against his skin made the hairs on his neck stand up. Still, he hugged her back, burying his face in her mess of black hair. After about a minute, she did the same to Xander.

“Yvonne, why don’t you speak?” Xander asked.

She looked at him, confused. She then took Xander’s hand and began to drag him to the sea.

“Woah, woah!” Xander shouted. “What’s going on? You...you have to tell us where you’ve been!” But she just stared.

“Hello?” Jacky said.

Nothing.

“Can you speak?” Jacky asked.

Yvonne nodded. She took a step towards the water, and beckoned for them to follow.

“Yvonne, wouldn’t you like to see your mother? Your sisters?”

She paused. She looked down sadly, thinking for a moment. She then looked back up and shook her head no.

Xander was shocked. “What? Why not?”

Her face turned stern. She shook her head.

“All right, well...we can’t just follow you into the ocean.” Jacky stated. Yvonne gave them a look, as if they were the ones being unreasonable.

“Yvonne...please, just say something.” He pleaded. Yvonne opened her mouth, but closed it again, biting her lip. Her ice blue eye began to tear up as the little Swiss accent they knew so well came through.

“I found a whole world down there. My home. But...it’s not home without you two.”

Jacky and Xander saw so much in the small pale face they had spent so many years missing. In that single ice blue eye, they saw exactly what she had found. She found the world she had always been imagining. One far away from the children who made fun of her missing eye, far away from the sisters who hated her so much, far away from the noise that always pushed her into the corner and drowned out her opinion. She didn’t just find that world. She made that world.

And she had come to collect the missing pieces.

There was nothing left to do.

Jacky took her left hand while Xander took her right. And the three children on the rowboat walked hand in hand into the deep ocean, all smiling wide.

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edited by: bennett wood and zoe stojkovic

SPRING 2018

SPRING 2018

THE CALHOUN SCHOOL ART & LITERATURE MAGAZINE

the cougar