Cedar Valley Divide 2022

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cover art: Ella Ostedgaard cover design: Andrew Havel

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Dear Friends, Welcome to another fabulous edition of the Cedar Valley Divide literature and art magazine, both online and in print, where we showcase some of our finest and newest writers and artists in the area. We are very grateful to everyone who sent us work. We would have loved to include every submission we received, but we had to make tough decisions and select only a limited number for the final copy. We encourage all of the talented individuals whose work we had the pleasure of reviewing to continue to create.

The past couple of years have been difficult for everyone with the pandemic and the derecho, causing us to seclude ourselves into our homes at times, which separated us from the outside world.

Many lost their jobs, and many lost their homes; there were new covid-19 variants, and more boosters to schedule, and yet we continued on and are finally seeing bright spots in the horizon; normalcy is making a comeback.

Throughout these times, we’ve found new ways to express ourselves. We’ve been noticing things we may not have in our previous world. Many people learned to get back to themselves with writing and finding their artistic side while they were mandated to stay at home. And now, it seems we’re back!

We hope you’ll find works in here that speak to you and to the times, from “In Shadow,” which remembers the disastrous day when the derecho hit our city and surrounding areas, to “Freedom” which speaks to unity across diversity, to “Bug on a Flower” and “Busy Bee,” which remind us of the simple things we can enjoy right around us, to “What a Wonderful World,” which reminds us that no matter what we go through in this world, we can always push forward.

We at the Cedar Valley Divide want to personally thank each of the writers and artists for taking the time to share their beautiful and thoughtful work. And we thank you, our readers, who make the creation of this magazine worthwhile.

Sincerely yours, Marshall Harris Olivia Strempke Danny Plunkett (faculty advisor)

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Andrew Havel Ingrid Draper Lisa Angelella(faculty advisor)

Table Of Contents —Poetry—

If You Ask Me Where Home Is

p. 6

Open Hands

p. 12

Johnnie Each

Chris Klepach

Freedom p. 20 Melanie Matiyabo

Ohio p. 27 Rustin Larson

Man’s Excuse

Johnnie Each

p. 28

Anniversary p. 30 Rustin Larson

Death and Taxes p. 42 Isaac Pinnell

Hiccups p. 46 Kristina Glackin

—Non-Fiction—

Chili: To Bean or Not to Bean

p. 8

The Nature of My Nemesis

p. 23

Cathal-Marie Harmon Prindiville Colton Williams

In Shadow p. 33 Trey Koppedryer

A Puff of Smoke p. 54 Aaron Chiafos

Partying with the Id

—Fiction—

Cathal-Marie Harmon Prindiville

p. 14

Sonny

p. 37

The Invasion

p. 49

Melanie Matiyabo

Maggie Ackers

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—Art—

Drawn Deep JoEllen Ritchie

p. 7

A Drop p. 10 Tatum Hills

Iced p. 11 Thaddeus Barger

GeoDayDream p. 18 Marie Coffman

Notched Bones p. 19 Ella Ostedgaard

Bug on A Flower p. 22 Danielle Sargent

Roots: Four Element Tea Bowl David Clark

p. 25

The Verge p. 26 GO’K

Ella Ostedgaard JoEllen Ritchie

p. 32

Noblesse p. 35 Sarah Bran

Busy Bee p. 36 Emily Hiner

Valentine p. 44 Rebecca Ostrum

I Am p. 45 Ella Ostedgaard

Bin Patina p. 48 JoEllen Ritchie

Mind Circus p. 52 Sarah Bran

What a Wonderful World Tasha Ayers

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p. 53

If You Ask Me Where Home Is Johnnie Each

I am from the poetry of high school sweethearts. all Friday night lights, and cornfields, and first real love; I am from the prose of rain on that old church’s roof.

(You can hear it whoosh and pound in the wedding video, almost like the sky wanted to come in to hear their vows.)

I am from a small town public pool with hot cement and much too salty popcorn.

(My mother took me there the week after I was born, and most days after.)

I am from dancing on hard wooden pews and collecting plastic communion cups and running—always running—up and down the aisles after my brother.

I am from the calloused caring hands of countless hard workers, raising the pastor’s daughter along with him. Loving her like she didn’t deserve.

I am from moving trucks.

Down to the desert and back up again. Like a tired, slow swing.

I am from Great Aunt Luella’s quilt: just faded patterns and red yarn falling from their stitches.

Not much, but it kept her warm in Ethiopia, where she wrote “Good News” on her fingertips and shook hands with everyone she met.

And now it keeps me warm too.

I’m from singing when it isn’t needed and chipped piano keys and night lights and stage lights.

I am from a stubborn peach tree, who decided to grow even in southern Iowa.

We still have pies from two summers ago, when her branches brushed the grass, heavy with ripe fruit.

I don’t like peaches, but I did that July.

I am from crock pots and potlucks and sloppy joes enjoyed on the corpse of a barn.

I’m from long summer days and burning hillsides and fireflies just out of reach.

I’m from the soft yellowed pages of books.

From the imagination of Montgomery and Austen and Shakespeare.

I’m from tall tales and home videos and newspaper clippings and oh! I’m from too many words.

I am from my daddy’s strong shoulders and my mother’s guitar strings.

I am from “Keep your nose clean. Remember whose you are. Don’t forget.”

But most of all, more than anything, I am from an empty grave and a promise to return one day.

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Drawn Deep

JoEllen Ritchie

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Chili: To Bean or Not to Bean Cathal-Marie Harmon Prindiville

I am a good cook and a great eater. I grew up in Elmhurst, Illinois. I celebrated family, neighborhood and local traditions and sentiments through food. Chili blossomed as an American icon, and suburbia blossomed on a cusp of freeways and a pervasive optimism of post-World War II culture that included a mecca of fast-food operations such as McDonald’s.

Chili became a dish that was either dredged out of a can, or concocted from ground beef, canned tomatoes and beans, and a package of seasonings. My father, QU, cooked gallons of chili to feed an everexpanding family. I, the eldest child, became the designated sous chef. Dad and I would fry ground beef in a large kettle and add beans, onions, and water and wait while our brew simmered. We would freeze portions in small plastic containers. When solid, we would remove frozen cubes, insert them into freezer bags, and deposit them back in the freezer. This would continue until we had amassed a stockpile of portions. Later in life, I learned to add ingredients such as different chili peppers, and a variety of beans.

One of my fondest childhood memories was to return from school, heat a portion of chili, mix it with rice or spaghetti and a number of toppings. It was a heartwarming experience.

Later, I discovered chili. Francis X. Tolbert, a Texas writer, called it “a bowl of red.” Jane Beutel described chili as a passionate food. In the spirit of Tolbert, I developed a taste for a bowl of red that was different from that which I had become accustomed.

As I navigated life, I enjoyed many different styles of chili, and I learned about chili cook-offs. A chili cook-off is a fascinating social experience that includes opportunities to observe chili cooks prepare their food and to develop a sense of camaraderie among people who share appreciation for this unique aspect of American gastronomy. Food is communication. Chili communicates who we are as a culture. Forget beef Bourguignon and Peking duck. We have chili, fried chicken, gumbo and “Q.” My reason for proclaiming these dishes is to underscore the intense emotions evoked by local foods and food traditions. This is illustrated by my encounter with a chili cook-off sponsored by a Roman Catholic parish in Coralville, Iowa. After mass, I asked if the chili needed to contain beans. There was an awkward moment when the organizer said, “It needs to be chili.” I attempted to explain that chili should not need to include beans; the organizer suggested that “in the future,” they may create a special category for chili without beans.

I persisted, suggesting that chili could be considered a popular stew that may or may not include beans.

I heard a loud voice: “As far as I am concerned, if it ain’t got beans, it ain’t chili.” He added that he “knew stew and he knew chili, and chili was not stew.” I excused myself.

I decided to learn about beans and chili. Many people in Iowa appear shocked when I suggest that chili may not include beans. “How could it be chili without beans?” Many cooks in America do not agree.

Clearly, chili has become an integral component of American gastronomy. Its historical roots are embedded in the folklore of the southwest. Writers on this subject have attributed chili to the Texas prison system, and many wardens were known for the quality of the chili they provided to inmates. Others have described chili as cowboy food, and prominent in chili history are the chili maids of San Antonio who sold the stew from decorated tables on street corners.

Where in these delicious and intriguing chili traditions is the importance of beans? Perhaps beans and chili are a cultural and theatrical aside.

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The history of chili in America is an interesting tapestry involving numerous local and regional elements. One interesting interpretation of chili can be discovered in a great river city, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Cincinnati-style chili is a long-standing passionate tradition. Where else would you be able to celebrate this chili other than the neighborhood chili parlors of Cincinnati? Redolent with earthy flavors and aromas of the Levant, Cincinnati chili is a unique stew that is heartwarming, especially when served with spaghetti, chopped onions, and other ingredients such as beans, served on the side.

One emblematic element of the special place of chili in the culture of Cincinnati are the Gold Star chili parlors. I reached out to them and asked about their views regarding chili. Their spokesperson wrote about chili as an expression of the melting pot of America. She proclaimed the great tradition of preparing and serving chili the way people want it! “Whether you choose to have beans, onions or jalapenos in it; served in a bowl, on top a hot dog, or ladled over spaghetti; Texas-style or Cincinnati-style, it’s all the right way!” Gold Star parlors create spaces where people can celebrate community in chili.

Though smaller in scale, many gatherings of family and friends feature chili. Our family furnishes hamburger patties, hot dogs, and chili. We engage friends in creating the chili and side dishes. The result is invariably a convergence of hearts and souls. It is a production that transcends beans or no beans.

From the stew pots of Coralville, Iowa, to the chili parlors of Cincinnati and the rusty orange chili gravies of the southwest, chili has become a soulful food that reflects the heart of America. The presence of beans or no beans is not as important as an opportunity to share a flavorful food with comrades.

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A Drop

Tatum Hills

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Iced

Thasddeus Barger

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Open Hands Chris Klepach

Those open hands, Crafted by a factory for Lego, Room-temp Plastic warmed me so I wished they were large enough to hold mine.

My hands were free.

Modifying how they looked While boundless imagination took, Altered how they behaved, just for fun.

Those C-shaped hands Held fake weapons, fighting Off my boredom and light dying.

Away from what was uncontrollable.

My young greasy fingers, Sticking to their plastic attachments Yet despite seemingly messy interactions They were held with utmost respect and care.

Their permanent smiles Or whatever expression they gleamed Were a greeting that was very welcoming When I couldn’t welcome myself.

When I couldn’t decide where I lived When I couldn’t know how to give

These thoughts, these feelings

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When I couldn’t decide who had a custody When I couldn’t figure out my destiny They, those small friends, were there.

I was kind To my mini-mates, “fake” entities I gave them names, whole identities.

While they supplied an inner light Even if it poorly reflected off their accessories.

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Partying with the Id

Cathal-Marie Harmon Prindiville

Sigmund Freud once described children as polymorphous perverts. It seems that certain adolescent boys have honed perversion into an art.

It was a Friday night fall ritual. The local diocesan high school, where all four attended, had recessed for the weekend. Each of them, John, Jeff, Joe, and Charlie, attended to their afternoon responsibilities. Jeff had to finish stocking at a local grocery store that paid nearly $2.00 per hour. Charlie had applied to the same store but was rejected because he was not 16. Jeff, one year younger, obtained the job, remarking he had simply lied about his age. Joe and Charlie met at Hamburger Heaven, and after gobbling three double-decker hamburgers, proceeded to John’s place, three blocks away.

Theirs was an insular community perched on the distant environs of Chicago.

One by one, they descended on the expansive veranda of John’s home on Elm Street. Joe deposited four packs of English Ovals on the table. English Ovals were the choice of Sean Connery, “Bond, James Bond!” The cigarettes were also less likely to roll off of the sinks in the high school boys’ bathroom.

It was late afternoon when John broke open a well-worn deck of cards. “Are we ready?” They each lit a cigarette. The perfume of their collective smokes permeated the veranda. “BOND!! JAMES BOND,” they chanted. “Here’s to the id, the god of goofing off!!”

They played spades, followed by other games, including hearts.

John dealt as they toked on bottles of soft drinks. Theirs was an esprit de corps that superseded games. First and foremost was the presence of the Queen of Spades, an omen, the beast. When deployed, their tribute was, “Have a feast. Eat the beast.” John had said that card games were meaningless without a healthy dose of kibitzing. Their conversations invariably focused on sex and sports.

Outside, the chill and upcoming cloudy darkness became pronounced, and an edgy breeze troubled the landscape. Sodden, dead leaves rained across the ground, accompanied by twigs, branches and a staccato of acorns that pelted the veranda, roof, and windows. Occasional clumps of brown leaves attached to dried twigs convulsed in the wind, rising, and dissipating into decaying finality. Silent, cold hands sculpted the dance into unholy wind devils. The warmth and camaraderie on the veranda intensified into an atmosphere steeled against a rapidly approaching maelstrom. Across the vacant street, Circe squatted, watched and waited.

Beyond awareness, a dark shadow lurked. The specter of Vietnam also lurked in the lives of many middle- and working-class American boys, especially boys of Hispanic and African heritage. Equally menacing was an impending menace that would consume lives of strong, passionate leaders of America.

These were but shadows unworthy of awareness of these Four Horsemen of the Oblivious.

From the warmth and security of the veranda, John broke open a box of fireworks, including dozens of bottle rockets and cherry bombs. Within minutes, squirrels, birds, and other creatures had abandoned the neighborhood. The fusillade of bottle rockets abated.

Without warning, a lone crow appeared in the sky. She glided through the air with the presence of a B29 Superfortress over Nazi Germany as flack exploded around her. Without visible effort, the pilot adjusted her wings and the bird soared higher. She swerved back over her target as the bombardier adjusted the crosshairs and unloaded her payload and the airship disappeared. John excused himself and retired to the

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bathroom to wash off the liquid feces from his face and sweater.

Some of those shots were close, and this prompted another chorus.

“Close counts only with—” “A-bombs!”

“Horseshoes!”

“And farting in crowded elevators!”

“When you guys beat off, do you ever think of Dixie Mankowski?”

“Are you referring to the Polish knob jobber?” They roared with laughter, and Joe fell back onto the floor. He was still giggling as his friends hauled him back into his folding chair. There was a brief silence, and the four broke into an impromptu harmony.

“When Dixie was a girl, she went to sea, and polished all the knobs in the Queens Navy. She polished those knobs so carefully; she’s now the leading queen of the Queen’s Navy.”

Dixie had grown up on a dairy in Wisconsin before her family relocated to the west suburbs of Chicago.

One of The Four had spread a rumor about Dixie and the family bull. No one knew what happened between Dixie and Brutus, but it is rumored that when Brutus sees her, he displays a “shit-eating grin,” and a giant boner. Allegedly, Dixie attempted to bring Brutus to the Prom.

The evening ensued and John powered up the television. The news served as a backdrop for their card and board games.

Evening shadows extended, and the backdrop noises of commuter traffic abated. Above, at the treetops, a sinister gaunt shadow appeared and disappeared. It danced from treetop to treetop until an equally dark, tall and lanky shadow swept it away. None of the four recognized either wendigo or golem. They were too engaged in themselves, the moment and obliviousness. Apparitions were filed with Vietnam along with an inventory of friends who would perish in that distant land. An extra-large pizza with Italian sausage and mushrooms from Pizza Palace arrived. This was accompanied by Italian beef sandwiches ordered by Joe. He claimed he could digest anything that did not consume him first.

As the feast continued, the id rolled onto his back like an old hound dog waiting for his belly to be scratched. He sniffed the air, aware of the shadows. The id was uninterested; pleasure always preceded essence.

They dove into the pizza.

There was a pause, and a large blue flame erupted from Jeff’s side of the table.

“Fart flame!”

Joe nodded at Charlie. “Do you remember when you convinced Plunger Paulie (aka The Plunger) that he ought to light a fart with his pants off?”

Conversation descended instantly into more roars of gut-splitting laughter.

“He singed all the hair off his nut sack!”

The Plunger could not beat off for a month! And he had to wear one of those female napkins between his butt cheeks!” The Plunger made one attempt at masturbation, but he said that the result felt like a “blow job” from a crocodile.

Plunger Paulie earned his nickname from a preoccupation with feces and toilets. The plunger would avoid excreting feces as he was able. He would deposit an enormous raft of waste into the nearest available commode. He wanted to block the plumbing with his excrement. This happened frequently at home. Paulie’s father gave him a plunger with the command that Paulie had to square away his mess.

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“Do you remember when the Plunger encouraged his followers to engage in spelunking in the sewers?”

“He convinced them they would discover the golden stool!”

Within months, Paulie established the Plunger Club at their diocesan high school. His followers paraded through the school waving their plungers.

“Plunger, plunger—whoop, whoop, whoop!” All too frequently, the Plunger’s followers spent Saturdays in detention for disrupting sport events such as football games. Rudy and his fellow Hilltoppers slaughtered their football team at homecoming, but the Plungers had a great time. Plunger, plunger— whoop, whoop, whoop!

By the time the police patrol car cruised to a stop before John’s door, the fireworks were out of sight.

Officer Tom Olsen, another member of their parish, stepped up to the veranda and gave the boys a knowing look.

“I cannot speak with the authority of Rod Steiger, but I’ve got the motive which is stupidity and evidence strewn all over the neighborhood. When will your shenanigans end?” Just at that moment, the driver from Pizza Palace arrived with his last delivery, pizza, accompanied by additional Italian beef sandwiches. Officer Olsen shrugged his shoulders, grabbed a piece of pizza, and settled in at the table. Tom had been the bully of their parochial elementary school. He remained a bully but was now equipped with a variety of weapons and the approval to deploy them as he wished.

A solitary bicycle rider raced past the veranda waving a plunger.

They waited for Creature Features to begin on the black and white TV. Officer Olsen watched as the film, The Werewolf, began. Lon Chaney Jr. appeared, and the group began a well-rehearsed howling session.

Officer Olsen excused himself knowing he would return. The neighborhood dogs took up the chorus.

The night progressed; another familiar film began; it was Them.

“THEM!!, THEM!!,” they chanted, as giant atomic mutated ants ravaged their way across the country, flattening trailer parks, truck stops, strip malls and adult book stores.

As the ants descended on humanity, a Scrabble board appeared. From a vortex of emotions and thoughts, a pattern of words descended in tarot fashion: slither, spider, hobgoblin, betray, ghoul and demon. All were harbingers of darkness, and the merriment continued unabated. The Four Horsemen celebrated the state of obliviousness. The id celebrated with Them.

The solitary cyclist reemerged waving the plunger with an attached girdle that he waived as a flag. There was darkness in the rice paddies and jungles of Vietnam. Ghosts and ghouls ruled the night, blocking any sense of salvation and meaning. Ground pounders slithered into dark tunnels carved out by Vietcong. All too many returned with mutilated bodies and spirits. Their stories included finding rats nestled in sleeping bags and booby traps of feces-contaminated bamboo stakes that penetrated skin and psyche.

They became shadows embedded in a collective cultural ambivalence.

Black satanic wings crept around the veranda, fueling a sense of despair and hopelessness. Nothing penetrated the armor of the oblivious.

Outside, the feeling of dampness and decay intensified; John arose and increased the temperature of the electric space heater. The perfume of cigarette smoke staled.

Another quiet, black shape lurked on all fours in the shadows. Its rancid scent penetrated the atmosphere.

The creature disappeared into the darkness, unnoticed by oblivious revelers. It slithered, crouched, watched, and waited. The Four Horsemen remained oblivious. Too many Americans remained oblivious to Vietnam and social justice.

Vietnam waited.

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The Four Horsemen huddled around the table. They broke out sleeping bags. Slipping into their cocoons, each fell into his private, quiet space. Dreams washed over them depositing a frothy façade of peace. Oarlocks on the Argos creaked, as Steve Reeves, their protector, waited in the shadows. So too did Castor and Pollux. Their spirits were held suspended between Charybdis and Scylla while Vietnam waited, and countless corpses formed a queue to return to their homes.

A silent veil of small insects, dust, and detritus suspended in a translucent veil. Behind, a quiet creature crouched upon a pile of moldy paperbacks and magazines. The succubus wrapped herself in nearly transparent wings to ward off the approaching chill. She licked her lips; a solitary drop of blood fell from a fang.

She waited and blinked.

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GeoDayDream Marie Coffman

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Notched Bones Ella Ostedgaard

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Freedom

Melanie Matiyabo

It is time that we wake up and think about where we need to be Where we are is very far away from what our ancestors desired us to be We act retrospect not circumspect ‘cause we look back and feel we lack so we react and attack Pull away from that stagnant mind, and ignorant mind, black mind, white mind, Hispanic mind, colored mind or we will mind any mind that won’t mind us at all Think, feel, and think again to the days when you knew no lines at the time you were small to think tall and wide to not hide a smile

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Think, feel, and think again to the days filled with laughter that captured a butterfly, a bee in a field that held you and Me Now open your eyes wide to view with a clue that you and I are not the same to claim together a small place without hate in our minds that won’t subside with the trials of the past But we must, at least, discuss that we, you and I, need to be one.

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Bug On A Flower Danielle Sargent

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The Nature of My Nemesis Colton Williams

I’ve always been fiercely competitive. I always had a burning desire to be better than my peers at something, to separate myself from them. As I developed my desire to compete, I tried various sports and activities, none of which I was ever great at. After years of being a mediocre cross country runner, a decentat-best defensive lineman and absolutely atrocious basketball player, I found something that truly utilized my set of skills and a true nemesis to accompany it.

It was October of 2014, my junior year of high school. It was a Saturday morning. The specific date, I can’t recall, as the weeks and months prior had been a blur of breath exercises, repeated scales, and the ticking of a metronome. I was the first to arrive at my high school, greeted by a set of locked doors. I waited impatiently for our band director to arrive and let us in. The first other person to arrive, however, was the only other saxophonist from our school auditioning for the SEIBA All-state honors band, Andre.

He wore a tired, yet happy, expression as he walked towards me. “Morning, Colton! You ready for today?” he excitedly asked. “Yeah, I guess,” I replied, trying to hide my disdain of my competitor. We made casual small talk for a while and Andre complimented me on my work ethic towards the audition, which at the time I swore was a cruel form of mockery.

After five minutes or so, our band director finally arrived, leading us into the dark sleeping halls of our high school. We made for the band room, and I immediately split off from the group, stopping halfway down the hallway and sneaking into one of the two practice rooms between our band and choir rooms. I anxiously ran through scales and the selection I had prepared over the last few months, attempting to play them perfectly, all the while thinking to myself, “I need to beat him.” Halfway through playing the F# major scale for what had to be the 10th time in a row, I was interrupted by a knock on the door informing me that we had all arrived and it was time for us to depart.

We split up the small group of students into two vans provided by the school. A trombonist, Andre, and I piled into one, cramming our instruments and backpacks into the trunk. The drive was short, only about twenty minutes in total; the awkward silence of the ride was deafening. I tried to hide my spiteful glances at Andre, who was sitting just next to me, thinking to myself: Andre is one of the most successful high school saxophonists in the region, making All-state his sophomore year already, a feat that very few accomplished. This time is going to be different. I am going to be the one who earns the privilege of playing in the All-state band and takes home the glory of victory.

We arrived at the high school where the audition was taking place. After navigating through the maze-like corridors of this novel building we found ourselves in our temporary home, the gymnasium.

Sounds of instruments of all types echoed through the room, bouncing from bleachers and the distant walls, the sound only rivaled by the background conversations of hundreds of high school students. Andre and I set down our things, making sure someone stayed to protect our treasured saxophones, and we set out to find our audition room. As we did, whispers could be heard from nearby students: “I heard he can play all of the minor scales at 180 BPM!” “I heard he made All-state in middle school!” Andre chuckled at the statements and the accompanied nervous glances of these individuals. None of them were true, and Andre knew as well as I that he had become an almost mythical figure in the high school saxophone scene. My jealousy grew as we passed these conversations. I wanted to be the one they feared, not him.

Hours passed, compounding my nervous energy. I stared at the time on my phone, saxophone in

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hand, waiting for my audition time slot. When it was time, I began my trek towards the audition room. My fellow classmates wished me luck as I departed, aside from Andre, who decided to come along with me.

As he walked towards me, I turned around, making sure he didn’t see me roll my eyes. Of course, he would come with, if not just to further rub in his superiority as a musician! We ventured through the now-familiar hallways of the school. My mind was taken aback by a handful of new conversations I picked up on the way there. “I fucked up the 16th note run on bar 18.” “My scale was F# major.” The voice of Andre broke my nerve-wracking train of thought. “Don’t listen to them, you’ll do great.” Fantastic. He’s patronizing me again, I thought to myself.

We finally arrived, and I was led into a classroom where I could warm up. I set down my sheet music and began frantically playing one challenging measure from memory, pacing nervously in between desks.

Noticing my alarmed attitude, Andre spoke, “Chill out man, you sound great,” which I presumed was one last jab before I went into my audition. Mid-repetition, my focus was broken by the door behind me opening with a creak, followed by an inquisitive voice coming from it. “Colton? We’re ready.”

I don’t remember much from the audition. At this point, the pit in my stomach was all-consuming, an abyss that dominated my perception for the next five minutes or so. I do remember nervously staring at my sheet music, avoiding the presumably disparaging gaze of my judge, the one who would tell me if I really was better than Andre or not. I remember my violent internal reaction to missing a note on the 16th note run on measure 18, thinking to myself, Andre would never miss that! I felt physically ill leaving the room.

The next couple of hours were uneventful. I did what I could to pass the time until the dreaded moment arrived. I remember the silence that fell over the full gymnasium as a volunteer entered through the side doors, brandishing a bright red step ladder and a pile of poster paper. Hours passed between each step they took, and the deafening silence of the room was replaced with the thumping sound of my rapid heartbeat.

Cries of both excitement and disappointment pierced the assembled crowd, people reveling in their victory or sulking in their defeat. With each new list the voice in my head grew louder. Please be me. Finally, our turn came, and as the rolled-up paper unfurled across the white brick wall underneath, my failure was laid bare to the world. At the top of the list: Andre. My name was nowhere to be found. I was paralyzed at the realization that I was not better than him. My trance was broken by a pat on the shoulder and a familiar voice. “You worked harder than I’ve ever seen someone work for this. Don’t feel down. I have no doubt you will make it next year.” I looked up from my feet to see the smiling face of Andre. I don’t remember Andre celebrating his victory on that day until much later, but I do remember the thoughtful act of talking to each and every one of his fellow classmates that did not qualify, especially to me. In the clarity of this moment, I realized how unfair I had been to him.

I did qualify for the SEIBA All-state honor band the following year. Andre and I both played with that band and drew much closer over the course of our final year of high school and closer as we attended the same college music program the year after. Although we were still competing, I did not see him as the adversary anymore. I had lost a nemesis and gained a friend.

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Roots: Four Elements Tea Bowl David Clark

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The Verge

Ella Ostedgaard

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Ohio

Rustin Larson

When I was in Ohio running away from oatmeal it seemed like it would take forever to get home I wandered barefoot through closed department stores I interrupted women in their bathrooms my mother welcomed me back begrudgingly and gave me a mismatched pair of bowling shoes to wear and told me I could not outrun prophecy I am resting at the bottom of the washbasin near the drain I am welcome to drink all the water I want I was once her treasure she once took me shopping for vacuum cleaners and bought me Little Golden Books at Kresge’s where did I go wrong the church’s carpet is a plush red velvet it reminds us of he who died for our sins I have no more advice I am going back to Ohio to run away from oatmeal again and hitchhike on fire trucks

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Man’s Excuse Johnnie Each

scene one it starts with a school boy and his black eye. cavernous purple and foamy swells like an ocean across his face. this scene is too american for its own good; inside this boy’s gaping mouth femininity becomes the vindication for fists flying, fighting for the hand of a girl who didn’t belong to him in the first place. she is not a blue ribbon, not a laurel, not a trophy to be brawled for. but by this war of a boy, front-line knuckles shredded and salty, she becomes an excuse.

School boy tells father, “well, there was this girl.” scene two this courtroom smells an awful lot like piss and sour beer. the woman reminds herself to breathe in eight counts (she used to dance when she was young) but even so, as she stumbles back to her seat she trips on the shrugged-off responsibility. she hits her hip on the abandoned ownership. inside her mind she is thinking, this is what it looks like when testosterone goes bad, stinks up the fridge like the father who beats his son and calls it manhood. she avoids the defendant’s eyes as he begins his testimony, “well, there was this girl.”

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scene three and then who are we? the nymphs who are bad at getting away. caught by celestials, pinioned down with godly hands, pleasure pulled from underneath our fingernails, left with a broken-into body, bloody and blemished. while the god returns to olympus— trumpeted inside the gates of mountain idyll. ichor unspilled. and from the unholy ground we watch apollo, eros still in his side, not even bashful, standing on the root of daphne, “well, there was this girl.” scene four but then we realize, this—this is not new. this ribbed rhythm is an ancient ritual, bodies barren and teeth barred in eden. treason leaving a path of branches and stems. betrayal without even a kiss, or a smattering of silver coins. Just viscid juice, seeping into sinful flesh. and with the skin of the apple still in his teeth, adam, the second earliest, a bone named eve at his shoulder, stares into the probing of his MAKER’s eyes and all that can come from his mouth— “well, there was this girl.”

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Anniversary

Rustin Larson

Monarchs and viceroys fluttering over the zinnias air molecules swimming gray tuxedo kitten sleeping on the kitchen floor the tunnel of the moonlight only a memory take this object and grip it really tightly with your hand turn everything upside down laugh often I remember Nickerson’s Farms don’t you I remember when gas was 25 cents a gallon Gas War! the signs would say my bicycle required no gasoline but I did take advantage of the free tire pump white gray pigeons flying overhead like in a commercial for canned spaghetti they served in school lunches could I allow myself this memory the tomatoes growing in the garden don’t know about sauce in this moment are my shoes walking away the smell of hot tar is everywhere let’s do this one more time everything is reversed inside my head

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the lasagna the chicken the woman who strolled room to room playing flute when my life opened up I saw that my thoughts weren’t mine anyway if everyone sitting at the lunch table was Edgar Allan Poe would it make any difference Finnegan strolled into the next room if you have in you have out broadcast this on the crystal radio a lawnmower or a boat is flying over the house like a whirling piece of cardboard we will celebrate tonight the anniversary of our wedding did we run away I was content I had no clues water seeks its own level we have flowed together down many streams in the sky blue country

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GO’K

JoEllen Ritchie

33

In Shadow

Trey Koppedryer

In the small hours of the morning, just before the sun begins to brighten the horizon, when darkness fights to stay just a little while longer and dew clings to every blade of grass, when the damp cool of the night begins to say its goodbyes with a promise that it’s only till tomorrow, a stillness hangs about the world. It is a tense stillness; there is a sense of preparation rather than peace, as though the entire expanse of the universe stands waiting, rigid with anticipation, a rope pulled taut and ready to snap into action. As I step out each morning into such fragile tranquility, I often find myself tempted to stop and sit, to drink it all in until the suspense is too great. I want to watch as the rope snaps and the day truly begins, launching into hustle and bustle and the fuss of productivity. But I have my own hustle and bustle to attend to, and I must content myself with allowing those last few moments of calm to pass like a deep sigh through the open windows of my faithful Camry. Armed with sturdy boots and a sack lunch, I make my way down winding back roads to Morgan Creek Park, watching the remnants of the night slip away somewhere near Palo.

The morning of August 10, 2020 began no differently than any other. At least not that I’m aware of. My memory of that day is incomplete, some details lost in the course of time, and others left behind in the chaos of moments I will never be able to forget. The first thing I am able to recall clearly is standing on the roof of the Wickiup Hill Learning Center, hornet spray in one hand and a scraper in the other, in preparation for a new paint job. A single blast from the weather siren reverberates through my body. Above me the sky does battle with itself, the cloudless blue retreating against the advance of thunderheads on the horizon. The wind picks up, at first a gentle breeze, a relief from the dense humidity of the afternoon. Soon, it is steady, forceful. It buffets me as I stare into the maw of the oncoming storm. Scrambling down the ladder, I begin gathering tools, barely hearing as my boss gives the order to make our way back to our shop. As quickly as we can, we load everything, wherever it will fit, and split for our vehicles. Logan and I reach the truck just as the rain starts to fall.

We have the roads to ourselves. Everyone else has taken shelter. All that accompanies us on our journey are the constant rolling peals of thunder harmonizing with the low hum of the engine. Like Midwestern tumbleweeds, maple leaves and plastic sacks blow from ditch to ditch, serving only to emphasize the emptiness of the world around us. As we make our way west toward Palo, the wind howls around the cab. I can see the force pushing against the windshield, feel the strain in the steering wheel as the truck fights to keep moving. It becomes increasingly difficult to maintain speed; the tachometer bogs down with every touch of my foot on the throttle. Turning left as we roll to the four-way stop, I realize why the roads are untraveled. The full force of the storm, with winds over 140 miles per hour, broadsides the truck, and we are sent careening into the opposite lane. It is all I can do to keep from being blown into the ditch. I struggle to keep tight to the shoulder on my right and find myself straddling the median. In the rearview mirror, I see power lines fall in a shower of sparks, the heat steaming on wet pavement. Oak limbs slide across the hood, and through the passing leaves I watch as pontoons and johnboats sail violently through the sky away from a marine equipment dealer.

We cannot go on. I pull the truck into the loading bay of a meat distribution plant. A man waves us inside, his face telling us plainly that he’d rather not have opened the door, but his conscience had got the better of him. The three of us take shelter in the freezer. The wind is not muffled in any way by the pallets of short ribs and crates of pork loin. It’s louder somehow, as if it were locked in here with us. As the building shakes, I know that I should be afraid. Surely there should be some kind of fear. But there’s nothing. No terror. Sitting on

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a box of sirloins, it’s as if my fate is in limbo. Whether I live or die in the storm is, by all measures, a toss-up.

With no confidence toward either outcome, I am left with nothing but a tense curiosity, waiting for the odds to change. Even when the tin roof above us breaks free of its hardware and disappears from sight, all I can do is stare up into the blackened sky and feel the raindrops on my face. Sometimes when the world is on fire, there’s nothing to be done but sit and warm your hands on the flames.

Nearly an hour later, the wind blows itself out, the final gusts weak and forced, as though exhausted.

With only cosmetic damage to our truck, Logan and I set out again for Morgan Creek Park. A scarred landscape lies between us and our destination. Trees are uprooted. Roofs of houses lay toppled, each blown into the neighboring yard like dominoes. Row crops have been laid flat. A grain silo is bent in an “L.” A confinement has lost its fence, and hogs block the road. In the distance, a barn burns, the bright orange flames licking the clouds above, thick acrid smoke darkening the sky for the second time. The scene at the park is no better. The garage doors on the main shop have all blown in. The woodchipper has blown through the door of the secondary storage building, leaving a pile of twisted metal in the service yard. A gas main has broken in the wash bay. The secondary building is without a roof, and leans at a concerning angle on its foundation. RVs have been crushed by old-growth oaks and maples, and a tent has been punctured by the upper portion of a knotted pine, leaving an odd Christmas-like scene in the middle of the campground. But there is little festivity to be found. The rest of the day is spent cutting limbs away from camping units, allowing their owners to haul them away. There is nothing to be done for the woodlands in the rest of the park. The tattered remains of the arboretum must be left for another day.

It is late into the evening before the last of the campers is cut free. With a final, mournful look over what is left of a once pristine landscape, I trudge to the parking lot and drop bone-weary into the driver’s seat of my faithful Camry. A stillness hangs about the world. It is a calm stillness, as though the entire expanse of the universe is exhausted. So am I. With sawdust in my boots and crumbs in my lunchbox, I set out down winding back roads away from Morgan Creek Park, watching the last moments of the day fade to black somewhere near Palo.

35

Noblesse

Sarah Bran

36

Busy Bee

Emily Hiner

37

Sonny

Melanie Matiyabo

“Sonny, where ya goin’ this time?” Pearlie Mae yapped through her dentured mouth. “’Bout my business. Why?” “No big deal. Just wanted to know where you was goin’, that’s all.”

“Ma, I ain’t goin’ nowhere except up the street.”

“Well, you ought to throw that bag away first before the law catch you. I don’t know why you keep goin’ up them streets anyway. It ain’t like you have a job.”

“I got me a job. I work for the government! Only part-time.” Sonny turned away from his mother, standing in the doorway. He was tired of the same ol’ conversation. Where am I going? She knows where I’m going, Sonny thought. “Yep, just me, myself, and I waiting to get a piece of that American apple pie. Don’t keep asking me why a black man can die a thousand times. People cry why, oh, why—why didn’t he eat a piece of that apple pie. Heee-hee,” Sonny sang to himself.

Pearlie Mae watched from her porch as her son stepped out of the yard. Her mahogany skin wrinkled in her face. Sonny just don’t care for himself no more, she thought. He just ain’t the same. When will he change, Lord? His children need him, she prayed.

Pearlie Mae turned wearily to go inside. The porch door banged loudly in the cool morning air. The blue jays were singing their song. The wind howled gently as it stirred up the dust on the porch.

No one was up this early in the morning, save for the kids racing toward the red and white school bus that just pulled up around the corner of Taft Street.

Sonny passed the bus up. His strides began to lengthen as the wind picked up some more. He cinched his thin jacket tighter around his thin frame. He had no hat to cover his short, curled-tight hair. He turned the object in the brown bag up to his lips and took a long, healthy swallow. His insides began to warm up.

As he turned off Taft and onto Cherry Street, a group of dogs began to bark. They smelled him from the oncoming breeze.

“Why them ol’ mangy mutts keep bawlin’ whenever I come ‘round here? It ain’t like they never saw me before.”

A few cars lined the street, while others sat still in the driveways. Sonny turned into one of the driveways that held a blue, 1995 Chrysler LeBaron. Smells of Season-Alled eggs and sausages wafted toward Sonny’s nose as he threw the bag into an open garbage can. His stomach growled, but he ignored it. He made it to the top of the steps, knocked on the door a couple of times, and listened to someone opening the door. He smiled at the forty-six-year-old youthful face that answered the door. His friend Nank smiled back at him with his gold front tooth.

“Good morning, Sonny, my man. Come on in,” Nank said. Sonny went inside the warm house. He said hello to Tara, Nank’s wife of twelve years. She mumbled hello to him through the brush in her mouth.

Tara was combing their daughter Jessica’s hair. Tara gestured for him to take a seat. Sonny sat down on the worn-in burgundy couch. It felt comfortable, familiar.

A twelve-inch colored TV was playing Bozo the Clown. From a bedroom, Sonny heard Nathan, Jr., hollering for his mom to help him find his other shoe. Nank excused himself to go help his son find his other Nike.

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On his way back, Nank brought Sonny a plate of food. Sonny said to him, “No, thank you, man. I’m not hungry.”

Tara kissed her husband goodbye, led Jessica and Nathan, Jr., outside to the car and drove them to school.

Meanwhile, Nank turned to Sonny and asked him, “What you doing up so early, man?”

“Nothing. Just couldn’t sleep,” Sonny said.

“When do you sleep? Man, you need to talk to somebody.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Nank. What is your boy doing now? Ain’t he in basketball, Biddy Basketball?”

“Yeah, Jr. starts on his team. He scored 17 points in their game against the Berwick Panthers last night. Jessica is in kindergarten. Man, you should see how she draws.”

Nank left the living room and came back with a picture full of Crayola-drawn figures. Sonny took it from him, studied it for a while, and thought about his daughter Shannon. She used to draw pictures like this of four people—him, Cheryl, Derick, and herself. But now she only draws herself. It’s been two years since he saw Shannon and Derrick.

“Sonny? What is Pearlie Mae doing, man? How is she doing?” Nank asked him. Sonny said that she was doing fine. Nank asked him about rehab and what it was doing for him. Sonny said that it was helping him sort out his problems and deal with his past. But Sonny didn’t talk about it further. He asked Nank instead about what had been happening around Patterson since he was gone for the past two years.

He and Nank talked for the rest of the afternoon and watched some news and sports. By three o’clock, the Jennings kids rushed through the front door, bringing with them a lot of noise. Sonny thought back to the last time his children burst through the doors at his house.

Sonny got up to leave. Nank walked him to the door. Sonny said he’d catch up with Nank later.

Sonny headed up toward Dete’s Pool Hall. On his way there, he watched as cars and busses passed by. Mothers held onto their children’s hands. Teenagers were shouting to each other about the dance at the high school tonight. Sonny felt like he’d been away for more than two years. This scene of people didn’t look so familiar.

At Dete’s,he encountered a different scene. Smoke, laughter, and the smells of liquor and beer greeted him as he made his way through the doors. The juke box was playing loudly in one corner of the bar.

R. Kelly, After-7, and then X-Scape played for a while till the blues came on.

Sonny walked to the far end of the bar toward the 20-inch Sony TV screen. The Young and the Restless played for a while. Next the evening news. Then scenes of the Serbs, O.J., the local weather. Then ABC’s TGIF. Sonny grinned at the simple antics of the Family Matters main character Steven Q. Urkel. But he wasn’t smiling inside. His mother’s words kept echoing through his head. “Where ya goin’ this time? You hardly stay still since you came back, Sonny. Where ya goin’, where ya—” His head started to hurt again.

This time the pain lasted longer. So, Sonny asked the bartender for two shots of E&J, straight. He took a quick swallow of the first one. Then sipped his second one. It tasted good. The pain in his head didn’t pound as much now. He watched the TV till 11 p.m., told Jake the bartender goodnight, and then left Dete’s.

Outside, the air had turned colder, just like the weatherman said. It was about forty-five degrees.

Sonny closed his jacket tightly around himself, trying to get some warmth from it. His faded blue denim jacket offered him little protection from the wind. He made a block to Cleveland Street. More clubs. More wannabes, Sonny thought. He used to live out here. He knew the roles the guys played with the girls. He saw

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how the idle chit-chat flowed from one mouth to another, apparently not registering to any interesting ears.

There were BMWs, ol’ Cadillacs, and 5.0’s surrounded by some youngsters rapping to some women. “It’s still the same ‘round here. Ain’t nothing changed,” Sonny said to himself.

He turned onto Taft. A few people were outside, huddled into groups. Some young man called out his name, and Sonny quickly nodded his head toward him. Sonny weaved his way into his yard. His head began to pound again. As usual, the pain only pretended to leave. Taking one step at a time, Sonny climbed them slowly. He was almost to the top of the porch when he noticed how the stars in the clear black sky looked much too bright, how they were spinning around instead of being still, and how he felt colder than when he was at Dete’s. He suddenly clutched his head with both of his slender hands. He began to hear bombs bursting in the air, people shouting in another language, and felt someone kicking him in his ribs. He started to fall down the steps, putting his hands out to catch hold of nothing but air. The last thing he remembered was hearing a loud Thump-Thump!

“No, where are you taking me? I’m not supposed to be here!” Sonny shouted to the yellow-skinned man in front of him.

“Shut up, you Amer’can!!! Take him to hut!!” a fierce Vietnamese commanded to the other two ‘Congs holding Sonny under his shoulders. Sonny twisted and turned to break loose of their grips.

“Let me go!” Sonny shouted at the tan-dressed officer.

“Yen lang! Yen lang!!” the tan-dressed ‘Namese shouted at him.

“Screw you! My men are gonna look for me, and you’re gonna get your butt—” A hand whipped quickly across Sonny’s face so fast that it made him speechless.

“Yen lang! Yu stoopid Amer’can. You in my territory.” The officer spoke rapidly to his two men.

They started to take Sonny toward the hut.

Sonny pulled against them. “Let me go. I didn—” A rifle was jammed into his lower rib cage.

“AAAARRRRGGGHHH!” Sonny hollered. Then, it struck him in his head. Darkness overtook him as the two officers pulled him toward the prison.

“Sonny, wake up. Take it easy before ya roll out of ya bed.” Sonny opened his brown eyes slowly to see Pearlie Mae hovering over him with a concerned face. “Wake up. Don’t go throwin’ your arms. Wake up, baby.”

“Ma?” “Hush, boy. You done went and got yourself a big black bruise on your head. Doc Stevens said you gonna be okay, though.”

Sonny slowly eased himself up. His arms trembled a lot, so he sank back down into his bed. It was morning outside; the sunlight poured through his drawn-back curtains. A plate of grits, bacon, and orange juice was on a table beside his bed. He didn’t feel like eating. He wanted a drink of Crown Royal. He had a bottle in his drawer. Ow-ow, my head hurts, he thought.

Sonny turned toward his mother. He stared at her for a while. She sat on the edge of his bed waiting for him to start eating. “Why do you do this to yourself, Sonny?” She didn’t say the words. They spoke to him from the pale, milky brown eyes watching him.

His mother left him alone.

Sonny closed his eyes. He saw the jungle. He saw the women and children running to some huts,

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trying to hide from the helicopters whirring above them…He heard shouts of agony, cries of despair as bombs exploded around him, hurdling bodies into the air…It was smoky; the air smelled like charred meat; he was chained to a wall….

Pearlie Mae walked into the room. Sonny knew he had to tell her before he took another drink, before he lost his nerves.

“Here you go, Sonny. Doc wants you to take these painkillers soon as you woke up.” She handed him two blue-colored pills and a glass of water. Sonny took them from her, put the pills in his mouth, and drank the water. The medicine would only dull his pain, just like in rehab. He wondered if those doctors at the Veteran’s Hospital gave him candy, not something stronger.

He closed his eyes again, tightly this time to shut out the pictures, the screams, the bodies falling, the U.S. Army men breaking into the hut that was his home for six months, the rats and roaches gnawing at his skin….

Pearlie Mae got up to turn the light out, but she stopped when her son asked her to sit back down.

His eyes remained closed. He didn’t know where to start.

Pearlie Mae sat silently. She watched her son’s face twist into a shape of whatever was on his mind.

She wondered what held him in this condition, a condition that had him wandering them streets.

“The VA hospital let me out earlier than usual. I was not progressing any faster. I wasn’t responding to the medication in the first year. They said I had post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“What’s that?” his mother asked.

“It means that I was repressing things that I went through and saw during the war. Ma, they said I got shell-shocked. That’s why I can’t sleep or eat. I have nightmares.”

“I didn’t know, Sonny. I just thought you was stressed out. That you took things hard. I didn’t know you suffered. You hardly wanted to talk to anybody after the war.”

“Ma, I—. They said I was incapable of rationalizing. Some junk, something.”

“You’re okay, boy. Just took the divorce with Cheryl too hard. Miss your kids, that’s all.”

“Yeah, I do. I miss them. But I couldn’t handle it, Ma. I couldn’t handle a family, my family. That’s why I started to drink.” Sonny got quiet. He wanted a drink so bad, but he kept his craving at bay. Must be God helping him ‘cause he didn’t know he could get this far talking to his mother about the war, about his family, the divorce. It had been four years since he talked to anyone about it.

“The government lied when they said I was recovering at a hospital in ‘Nam. I was captured by the enemy. They held me as a prisoner for six months. They tortured me by not feeding me and by keeping me isolated from other prisoners. I had no one to talk to, to see, except for the rats and roaches that wanted my dinner! A dinner of stale molded bread and dirty water.”

His mother held her son’s hand tightly. “They wanted to know, they wanted me to reveal the locations of several American Army Headquarters. But I wouldn’t tell them. For six months, I wouldn’t tell them a thing! They didn’t want to kill me. I wished they had.

“Then, the Army rescued me. Good ol’ Uncle Sam didn’t forget about me. After that, for the next fifteen years I blocked everything out. Went on with my life as usual. You couldn’t tell, Ma. Had to be a man, proud black man, and wear my stripes of service to my country with my head held high,” he said bitterly.

Pearlie Mae just sat there on the edge of her son’s bed, holding his hand and rocking back and forth gently as she took in all that Sonny said. “Dear Lord, have mercy on his soul,” she prayed.

Sonny kept on talking about the war, the casualties he saw at that young age of twenty. He talked

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about how Cheryl, his ex-wife, had changed his life. “I thought I had nothing else to live for, Ma. Then I met her a couple of years after the war. We got married, Ma, too fast. I wanted to hurry up. I felt I was losing control. She didn’t protest. She put up with me for ten good years. But I gave her hell. She couldn’t take it anymore. Derick was born a couple of months after we married. Then, a few years later, Shannon came. I couldn’t handle it no more, Ma.” Sonny talked more about how his drinking started after Shannon was born. Every day he drank.

He began to beat on his wife. He didn’t know how to talk about his frustrations, his pain about the war, his inferiority complex from not being a good father. He had to drink. Like right now. He wanted it; he could taste it. He grew quiet. He didn’t talk any further.

Pearlie Mae got up and went to the window. She closed the curtains. And then turned out the light.

She told her son everything was gonna be alright now. The Good Lord was speaking to him. “You’re gonna be alright, now, Sonny. It gonna take time.” She kissed him on the forehead as he lay there quietly, sleeping.

As she closed the door behind her, she thanked God for bringing her son home, finally bringing him home.

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Death and Taxes Isaac Pinnell

They say there are only two things guaranteed in life— death and taxes.

But no one told me the first could precede the second and the tax would be the guilt that I was not there.

On the night of April 15, 2017, Bryan finished his food and insisted to me, “Lemme go out and buy you something to eat.”

I was thinking to myself, Why would he do this for me?

I was the one skipping classes just so I could watch TV, while he was working two jobs just so his family could breathe, so I was prepared to say “no” as he looked at me.

I saw his crystal cobalt-blue eyes blend into the broad smile above his chin, around his rippled red hair and silky skin.

Bryan was always my nearest friend.

I didn’t even think he had enough to pay, but I grabbed the remote and said, “okay.”

I would be lazy for just this one last day.

Bryan took off and swiftly arrived at the place only to realize he was going to be a dollar short for my order.

He paced out the doors and jogged toward the gas station a few blocks up the street to use the ATM machine.

About halfway there he stopped to catch his breath.

Then the bullets.

The first one zoomed past his ear forcing Bryan to become an Olympic sprinter diver long jumper hurdler all at once as the bullets whipped the air harder and harder and harder still Bryan’s last frantic

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leap around the corner resulted in a bloodstain of defeat as the last bullet pierced his heart and thrashed his skull into the ground taking him out of this world.

So I guess the old adage isn’t true.

Because Bryan never lived long enough to pay his taxes.

But because I wouldn’t pay for food on that one night, I will pay for his death the rest of my life.

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Valentine

Rebecca Ostrum

45

I Am

Ella Ostedgaard

46

Hiccups

Kristina Glackin “Why does your belly bounce like that?”

I asked as he held me on his hip for the first time.

Back when I still felt that questions were safe to ask.

“It’s because I swallow my hiccups.”

I thought that was silly, who could do such a thing?

No matter how many times I tried, I could not swallow mine.

I wanted to learn everything he could teach.

If only he could have shown me how to swallow pride.

That was not in the wisdom he held.

Neither was baseball.

He never threw a ball with me but he had an arm on him.

How else would he throw the crystal ash tray that rattled the floor?

The glasses that shattered in the sink?

The entertainment center down on my mom?

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He threw many home runs in the form of me running from home.

He would have made a great coach if he didn’t choke on his pride the same way his pride choked my mom from behind.

Still to this day, he swallows every hiccup.

And I swallow every opinion, Question, Thought, Emotion, Fear, But no matter what, I still hiccup.

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Bin Patina

JoEllen Ritchie

49

The Invasion Maggie Ackers

Mama says that everything I’m going through is completely normal. Sure as the sun rises in the east so comes the blood, the odor, the acne. Growing up and out, she calls it. Disgusting is my word for it. The first time I pass a blood clot the size of a marble I think I’m dying, black slime leaking out of me like an abduction victim in one of those staticky old tapes of The X-Files my mama loves so much. I’m too afraid to tell her about it because there’s no way this is normal. My dad can’t even look at me anymore, not since Mama brought home my first bra with ‘light-padding’ and told me I’m not allowed out of my room without wearing it.

It’s shortly after the bra incident that the boys start grabbing at me in crowded hallways, and I get asked on my first date. The answer is, of course, no, and the boy follows me the entire way on my walk home.

I try to talk to my dad over dinner, but he’s got his tired eyes stuck on his bowl of deer meat, and Mama says he’s just not up for conversation. So I steal one of his hunting knives instead of asking permission.

I wait till he leaves for work and rifle through his chest, where he stashes the shotgun, old porno magazines with long-dead blondes on the cover, and everything else Mama doesn’t want him to have. I stash it in my bookbag in case I’m followed home again. I think maybe if I dye my hair dark, Dad will stop looking guilty every time he glances at me.

I show Misty the knife in the bathroom while she wraps her lips around a cigarette. “Cool,” she breathes out with a plume of smoke, and for a second I’m proud of myself. I wonder what else I can do to impress her. Misty passes the cigarette to me and I take a big toke, burning my throat and lungs. She laughs as I cough and tells me to practice. Smoking the cigarette down to the butt, my eyes are fixed on the door while she retreats inside a stall. The familiar, embarrassing crinkle of a sanitary napkin being opened resonates through the empty girls’ room.

When I get home, Mama’s watching that episode with all the inbreeding, the mutant family one. I remember when she recorded it. There was a warning beforehand. I sat there in the dark watching it, and it felt like looking in a funhouse mirror. Misty says my life isn’t all that bad and that her step-daddy has been creeping into her room since she grew tits. Since she said that I stopped complaining. I am trying to find a good way to say let’s shoot our parents and run away together.

The dark discharge has become more of a film, slicked over my crotch like an oil spill. After every wipe it just regurgitates, thicker than before and spreading down my thighs. I feel the need to lie down, shuffle through the medicine cabinet for an aspirin, and head to my bedroom. Promptly unhooking my bra and pulling it out of my shirt, I flop on the bed belly-down. I slip my hands under myself and cup them around my sore abdomen. The wooden floorboard creaks, and I shut my eyes tight.

Misty isn’t in class today. She likes to ditch classes but usually shows up to our shared science lab.

Today we’re watching the teacher dissect a fetal pig. Last year’s eighth graders were allowed to dissect their own fetal pigs, but we lost that opportunity because one kid decided to take a slice at another. Misty isn’t missing much. My heart hurts for the piglet, ripped from its warm amniotic sac and sliced down the sternum. I imagine myself being extracted as a fetus, cut out like a tumor. Maybe it would’ve saved me a lot of grief.

I call Misty’s house as soon as I get home, dropping my bag on the kitchen floor and hoisting myself up to sit on the counter. Twirling the cord around my finger, I begin to worry as it rings about a dozen times

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before the machine picks it up. With a slam the phone is back down on the receiver, and I’m out the back door.

I’ll probably find her sitting on the curb outside the gas station, fiending for smokes from the customers coming in and out. I’d spent many evenings out there with her, playing with matches while she’d flirt with the old perverts for menthols.

By the end of the day, I’ve been to all the old haunts and haven’t found her. The street lights flicker on and that’s my sign to get home, before my mama starts to worry. I ask if anyone called for me. Mama points out the zit forming on the tip of my nose. I roll my eyes and make sure to slam my door extra hard. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror above my dresser, and sure enough there’s a bright red dot, dead center on my face. Moving closer to the mirror, I bring a hand up and scratch at the spot. At least now maybe the boys at school will stop flirting with me.

The next morning I head straight for Misty’s locker before school, waiting to see if she’ll show. I keep my eyes peeled for her, waiting for the smell of tobacco and cheap perfume that always comes along with her.

By the time the bell rings, she still hasn’t shown. Now I’m really starting to worry, like maybe her step-daddy threw her down the stairs or one of those weird old guys finally convinced her to get into his car. I don’t have to think twice before I’m out the front door and heading towards Misty’s house.

Maybe I’m crazy and I worry too much, but I’ve got my hunting knife gripped between my white knuckles as I bang on the screen door of Misty’s house. I can make out her step-daddy, he’s passed out on the couch in the blue light of the flickering TV screen. A quick tug on the handle of the door and it swings open.

I say a quick thank you to God that the asshole got too drunk to lock up the house. I make my way upstairs towards Misty’s room, each step creaking under my weight. I am starting to wonder if Misty’s stepfather has a gun like my daddy does, and I wonder if he’s the type to shoot trespassers.

I knock softly at the bedroom door but don’t wait for an answer before letting myself in. The sound of my knife hitting the floor permeates the quiet house, clanking around until finally coming to a stop. My jaw hits the floor along with it. I can’t tell if what I’m looking at is my friend or something entirely different.

The black film engulfs her. What was once flesh now looks more like a dark placenta. I can make out her eyes, blank and open, specs of white beneath the prison. Bending down to pick the blade up off the floor, I keep low and move closer, afraid somehow she can see me. The smell up close is putrid, metallic, like when Dad brings home a buck and the stench of death and butchered meat fills the home for days on end.

I want to cut her out, slice it open like a seed pod and take her home with me. But the material is too thick for my knife. A slice through one layer reveals a second, before quickly healing itself into a puckered scar. I’m making my fifth or sixth incision when the scattering of empty beer cans echoes through the house.

Misty’s step-daddy stirring from his drunken stupor. The next sound is the steady trickle of piss, and I know I have to get out before he gets out of the bathroom and makes his way up the stairs. Reluctantly, I fold my knife shut and make a run for it.

I dash out of Misty’s backdoor and down her gravel road, not looking back till my feet slam against asphalt and I am once again on my side of the tracks. It’s still the middle of the day when I get home, frantic and out of breath from running. Mama’s furious, tells me skipping school is cause for the belt and just wait till your dad gets home. I haven’t gotten the belt since entering middle school, so the threat seems hollow. I hate her for making it in the first place.

In my room I notice the zit on my nose has come to a head.

I see it, blood red and staring back at me in the mirror. I make my way over to it, close enough that my breath fogs the glass over my reflection and all I can see is my clown nose. Pinching with my thumb and

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forefinger, I go to pop the blemish. What erupts on my fingertips is not the usual translucent goo but instead that same black mucus that’s been haunting me. A scream escapes before I’m able to stifle it and I’m quick to wipe the shit off on my jeans as my mama bursts in. She wants to know what the problem is. She and I both.

I’m not expecting to see Misty at school again, ever, resigned to thinking she was dead and buried under the tree in her backyard. But she prances into science, having grown a half a foot taller and cutting a more womanly figure. Other than the physical change, she seems okay. Like maybe it was all a fever dream. But the residue of the pod is still stuck beneath my fingernails. Misty sits down next to me without looking in my direction.

“Were you sick?” I ask her. “You missed the dissection.” She just shrugs her shoulders, like she could give a fuck. She looks so different now, just a glimmer of the girl I first befriended. Her brown eyes once wild and full of life now stare blankly like a doe’s head mounted on the wall. She doesn’t talk to me during class. She keeps her head stuck down in her notebook, scribbling what the teacher is saying in chicken scratch. I’ve never once seen her take notes before.

In the hallway, I try to catch up with Misty. She weasels her way through the crowd way quicker than I can, though, and I catch her at her locker just as the bell rings. She’s got her math textbook in hand and slams the metal door shut. “What?” she practically spits at me when I approach. I open my mouth to speak but she takes advantage of my shock and snaps at me again. “You were staring at me the entire class, like some fucking lesbo.”

It takes me a while to think of what to say, with all the blood draining from my face at the accusation.

I feel sick. Something ugly has burrowed its way under Misty’s skin. “You look different,” I say with some difficulty, over the frog in my throat.

The laugh that follows is a mean, arrogant one. She takes the opportunity to hurl another insult my way. “Don’t worry, short stuff. You’ll grow into your nose eventually.” Just like that, she’s off, and I know our friendship is over.

I cry the entire walk home. Mama says this happens to everybody. Girlfriends grow apart, become young women who are more interested in getting a boyfriend than playing with each other. I tell her if this is normal I don’t want to become a young woman. She says I don’t have any choice. I know she’s right, the parasite that is puberty has already taken root in me like it did Misty.

Last year, a girl at our school killed herself right before her thirteenth birthday. I am starting to believe she had the right idea. That night I can feel it creeping over me, cold and wet and reeking of sulfur and I know it will take me. And I will be released from the pod as an alien being, a woman, my former self sheathed off of me in the harvest.

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Mind Circus Sarah Bran

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What a Wonderful World Tasha Ayers

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A Puff of Smoke Aaron Chiafos

As the putrid stench of burning linoleum permeated my nostrils, I couldn’t help but ponder at the curiously apathetic sensation that plagued my heart. Yes, my childhood home was ablaze, and no, I didn’t care. Mom and Dad and Dad’s girlfriend all were accounted for. Dusty, my finicky feline friend, was taking a nap under the sickly juniper bush in the front yard as he always did. I had no siblings, at least none that had the audacity to live under this same gabled roof as I did. No, this fireball that was once a double-wide trailer—in all its “white trash” glory—would not be taking any casualties today. Except, of course, my childhood.

Naturally, this inferno was my way out. At the ripe age of sixteen, I wanted my world to burn. Heck, I’d have doused the place in gasoline and struck the match myself if I had known I’d never get caught. I was tired of living next to drug addicts and sex offenders. I was tired of the three-in-the-morning “THUMP THUMP” of car stereos keeping me awake when I had to be ready for school at seven. I was tired of my mother’s schizophrenic outbursts and unintelligible ravings. I was tired of my father’s bullshit. As the heat from the flames oppressively made my skin tingle, I saw opportunity in this tragedy.

It’s not like I could be inherently angry at my parents; sure, they never actually chose to make the Five Seasons trailer park their home. Even in my naive teenage years, I realized our family’s problems ran much deeper than merely where we were forced to reside. The voices in my mother’s head made it impossible for her to find work, and my father’s marijuana addiction made it impossible for him to keep working. In spite of this, they still made boneheaded decisions that made my life a living hell. The only thing shocking about this fire was that it didn’t happen earlier in my childhood.

The fire itself, and the consequences stemming from it, were two such boneheaded decisions put into motion. My mother, the ever-puffing chimney, smoked cigarettes faster than she could light them. The whole fire started when she improperly disposed of a cigarette butt. And, as was par for the course, my mother’s mistake was multiplied exponentially by my father’s lack of responsibility. He was too concerned with quality marijuana to ever be trifled with things such as insurance for our mobile home. And while it was true that we stood to lose everything, it was I and I alone who stood to gain everything.

Even though I probably should have been angry at my parents, I wanted to wrap my arms around them and squeeze them until their guts popped out. I wanted to write them a Sumerian epic, expressing my undying gratitude for their recent stupidity. At my age, it would have been too much work for the state to ship me off to a foster home and very easy for me to convince a judge that I needed to become emancipated.

So, while the pitch-black smoke and orange waves danced their somber tune, I knew I was finally free.

Lindsay, my father’s girlfriend that lived with us, was making it difficult for me to concentrate.

Her alcohol-induced screams and cries were very befitting of her emotional instability, but they were a distraction I could have done without. “Oh, grow up,” I so desperately wanted to tell this thirty-somethingyear-old “adult.” As I was thinking this, one of my few friends who also lived in the trailer park pulled up beside me. Her name was Kellie, and she was a year or two younger than me. She always had this innocent expression; it made it hard to tell whether she had a crush on me or if she just felt sorry for me, though in hindsight it was probably both. “Is Dusty safe? I heard your place was on fire. I brought you this cat carrier...” Her poorly concealed concern painted her face no less colorfully than a Sunday morning cartoon.

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“Some things never change,” I nearly whispered aloud, as we marched over to the dead juniper bush.

Dusty offered little resistance, apart from a few squeaks, as we scooped him up into the carrier. The flames were getting close to the bush at this point, and I wondered if this blaze was supposed to be some sort of divine retribution against the whole God-forsaken mobile home complex. Before I could truly appreciate the image of a bushy, white-bearded deity laughing maniacally as Five Seasons went up in smoke, I heard the distant sounds of fire trucks getting closer. “Here comes the cavalry,” I said aloud, rolling my eyes. Kellie looked at me with that same bewildered look, but I had other things on my mind.

Of course, those thoughts would never carry any weight in my adult life. The Aaron of today, in retrospect, cherishes every memory and every lesson learned from those humble beginnings. And those memories have such pragmatism! Working with the socioeconomically disadvantaged and their own mental health struggles has allowed me to come full circle with my own. When I see a young man struggling to find meaning in a cruel and sadistic world, I can utter the words “I understand,” and not just in a shallow therapistin-training sort of way. When I tell my clients I understand what they are going through, I can take solace in the fact that that understanding seeps all the way into my bones. Of course, this took years of self-reflection, with many bumps and bruises along the way. For you see, I also experienced more than just bitterness on that fateful day.

I will never forget the surge of emotion that rippled through my soul as I turned around one last time, to look at that which once was. I erupted into an avalanche of tears. I was a boy. Boys weren’t supposed to cry. Nevertheless, I bawled my eyes out. Why? I had no clue back then. Fifteen years later, I can make an educated guess. I truly loved my parents. I loved my mother, even when she came after me with a knife. I loved my father, even when he smoked away our next meal. It was in that critical moment that I realized that I loved my home. It was far from perfect. But then again, nothing is ever perfect.

“What’s wrong, Aaron? Are you alright?”

I turned to Kellie, with a smile. “Oh, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. A puff of smoke just got into my eyes.”

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Contributer Notes Maggie Ackers channels her literary talents through both screenplays and short prose. A digital arts major who spends her free time writing, Ackers is currently producing a feature-length film. Her short story, “The Invasion,” cleverly uses the conventions of the sci-fi horror genre to tell a tale about navigating adolescence.

Tasha Ayers is an art major who has been trying different styles and media in the last few years. Her inspirations include the artists in her family: her Uncle Don, Aunt Darlene, and Great-grandma Young.

Ayers and her sister carry on the family gift. Of What A Wonderful World, Ayers says, “In my art class we had to pick from three different inspirational people. I picked Louis Armstrong because I have always loved his song ‘What A Wonderful World.’ After creating this, my Aunt Darlene actually gave me an autograph she got from him years ago when he performed in Marion, so now I have both the art and autograph framed.”

Thaddeus Barger is a student in the graphic design program at Kirkwood who considers art his passion. Of Iced, Barger says, “I wanted something to look cool. I always get my inspiration from YouTube. This piece was done in Photoshop.”

Sarah Bran, the artist behind Noblesse and Mind Circus, is the department assistant in Allied Health at Kirkwood. Bran is a multimedia artist who enjoys being outdoors, listening to music, reading, and creating artwork. About Mind Circus, Bran says, “This piece captures some of the complexities of our minds. There’s structure and pattern, while simultaneously there’s also asymmetry and seeming randomness—an organized chaos—much like the mind.”

Aaron Chiafos recalls being enthralled by literature since childhood and enjoys cooking, chess, assembling model kits, playing the bass guitar, and having profoundly deep intellectual conversations with Kansas, his ten-year-old black cat. Having worked as a mental health peer support specialist, Chiafos wants to continue to fight for the rights of the underprivileged and vulnerable. Of “A Puff of Smoke,” Chiafos says, “My inspiration comes from the countless individuals I have worked with over the years, struggling with their own uphill battles with mental illness and a deck stacked against them.”

David Clark is inspired by an innate need to create as a form of communication and self-expression.

In his free time, Clark enjoys photography, making music, reading, painting, and watching documentaries. About Roots: Four Elements Tea Bowl, Clark says, “The piece was inspired by a recent painting and an affinity for Japanese ceramics. . . To achieve the ‘gradient effect,’ the piece was dipped into glazes, but a small strip was intentionally left unglazed to reveal the color and texture of the unglazed clay and to add another value and texture to the green and brown values created by the adjacent glazed portions.”

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Marie Coffman, a veteran who returned to school to pursue a degree in education, enjoys painting, jewelry making, drawing, and coming up with stories to tell. Coffman has been doing art for over twenty years and is now majoring in mathematics. Of GeoDayDream, Coffman says, “The piece was initially a project in my Painting I class, but it’s turned into one of my favorite pieces. The challenge was to use as many colors as possible and to limit repeated colors and values.”

Johnnie Each loves music, HyVee Chinese food, half-priced books, her faith, and her family. A sixteen-year-old junior at Prairie High School, Each spends her free time writing poetry, reading old books, and socializing with friends. She plans to pursue a degree in English and creative writing.

Each wrote “If You Ask Me Where Home Is” for a creative writing class in her freshman year. Of her other included work, she says, “I wrote ‘Man’s Excuse’ after realizing that in so many cultures and countries there is the common theme of women being blamed for men’s mistakes, even when they are just a victim of circumstance. America has experienced waves of this during the #MeToo movement, but it’s been going on for so much longer than that.”

Kristina Glackin, a single mother and survivor of abuse and human trafficking, began writing poetry as a form of therapy while living in a group home during her middle school years. She now uses her passion for poetry to inspire and uplift others. Of “Hiccups,” Glackin says, “I have tried repeatedly to write my story but have struggled as trauma has caused blacked-out memories. However, after reading Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson for one of my classes, I threw away the metaphorical rulebook, as Woodson wrote the entire memoir through poetry. I am now writing my story in the most comfortable way I know how: poems. This piece is one of the first that I have written so far. It reflects on my experiences as a young girl shortly after my mother married my stepfather.”

Tatum Hills is a lifelong artist who has worked with various media, including printmaking, glasswork, photography, and painting. Of A Drop, Hills says, “This piece was an assignment for the Intro to Warm Glass class, the prompt being ‘everyday stories.’ This piece speaks to my everyday story in a pretty literal sense. I have worked at a garden center for five years and have studied horticulture during that time. . . Beyond that, this piece speaks to the everyday stories of those across the globe battling water issues of many shapes and sizes. Climate change as a whole is something that we are all becoming all too familiar with, and this piece speaks to that issue.”

Emily Hiner believes that art has helped her grow into the person she is today, citing the lasting friendships she’s made, the media she’s discovered, and the creative influence the figures in her high school’s art department have had on her. Of Busy Bee, Hiner says, “After the COVID-19 pandemic moved students online, I spent a lot of time around the house photographing anything I thought was interesting. While taking pictures of my mother’s garden, I saw a honeybee in one of her pink tulips.

I gathered up the courage to approach the small creature, fearing I would be stung, but remarkably the bee stayed put and pollinated while I snapped some pictures.”

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Chris Klepach is pursuing a bachelor’s in English and creative writing at the University of Iowa. A former Kirkwood student who wrote for the Communique, Klepach now writes for the Daily Iowan.

About “Open Hands,” Klepach says, “This piece is inspired by a home life I had lived through when Legos were an outlet for me. This piece was not only very meditative for looking back at those days, but also gave me a feeling of nostalgia, despite the circumstances.” Additionally, Klepach expressed his gratitude to his loved ones, saying, “I thank God and my family for supporting me.”

Trey Koppedryer, author of “In Shadow,” is a student in Kirkwood’s parks and natural resources program. Following a brief stint at the University of Iowa, Koppedryer shifted his life’s focus to the preservation of the natural spaces that have shaped him. In doing so, he stumbled upon the inspiration for his writing he had long searched for. Koppedryer enjoys hiking and exploring the world’s remaining wilderness. He describes his works as “a reflection of [my] life, [my] journey, and [my] connection to the natural world.”

Rustin Larson once worked as a television salesperson in the Village of Orilla and is now a Kirkwood adjunct who enjoys both viewing and creating abstract watercolor art. The author of “Ohio” and “Anniversary,” Larson plays the guitar and considers jazz artist Chet Baker to be one of his inspirations. Speaking of his inspiration for these poems, Larson says, “Hitchhiking in Ohio, 1975, October, cold, rainy wet, no one picking me up, walking for miles and miles, hungry, finally taken in

by Mennonites, dried off, fed, had a good nap, survived, the day after was much sunnier and dry. I wrote the sequence in 2020 during the pandemic furlough from my library job. I have never been recalled from furlough. I am three years from collecting social security and medicare. Three. Years.”

Melanie Matiyabo, a non-traditional Kirkwood student in the nursing program, enjoys journaling, writing short stories, and reading different genres of books. Of her short story, Matiyabo says, “‘Sonny’ was inspired by events of different people who grew up in my neighborhood. . . I want to shed light on PTSD, how it affects people differently, and how a caring person, like Sonny’s mother Pearlie Mae, can help to keep Sonny anchored.” Of her poem, Matiyabo says, “‘Freedom’ was inspired from events occurring over 15 years ago in the United States of America and the impressions those events left on my young and impressionable soul.”

Ella Ostedgaard found her passion four years ago when she attended LungA, an independent art school in Iceland, where she studied for three months and began to combine her lifelong interests in art and nature. Of The Verge, Ostedgaard says, “This piece is about tension and moments of indecision.”

She describes I Am as “an intuitive piece, visualized in my mind as I was taken through a powerful guided meditation.” Of Notched Bones, Ostedgaard says, “In September of 2018, I suffered from a violent sexual assault. This piece began as a study of the human body, but as I built the woman she began to take on a richer meaning. I was intrigued by the way the carving of the clay reminded me of my healing journey. As I marked the body with tally marks, I was counting the days that had passed since the assault and how my mind and body have adapted.”

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Rebecca Ostrum uses art as a way to move through her thoughts and understand her feelings. About Valentine, Ostrum says, “This is a drawing about bulimia, a horrible disease I’ve had the displeasure of watching erode people around me. I was frustrated when I made this drawing, angry that I was watching a person ruin their life and refuse help, and sad that I couldn’t do anything. I had just lost my pet fish, Valentine, which pushed me over the edge, and I made this drawing as a way to cope with everything in my life.”

Isaac Pinnell loves the ability to relate his emotions and experiences to those of others through his art, as it makes him feel like the world is more connected than we often realize. His faith is also extremely important to him, and he enjoys playing and talking about sports, watching television, and socializing with family and friends. About “Death and Taxes,” Pinnell says, “Even though I have never had somebody close to me pass away yet, I was imagining what it will feel like when that day inevitably comes. I can imagine the intensity of the emotion. . . I wanted to capture a scenario that would encapsulate some of these feelings, draw readers in emotionally, and perhaps motivate myself and others to treat others well while we still have them.”

Cathal-Marie Harmon Prindiville is a retired professor of hospitality and tourism management.

Since retirement, he has worked to learn more about spirituality and religion. Prindiville has also dedicated himself to promoting an understanding of the ways food and society intersect, a fascination that inspired “Beans or No Beans.” Of his other included work, “Partying with the Id,” Prindiville says, “My youth was spent in the western suburbs of Chicago. This essay represents my attempt to satirize my development and that of a group of fellow Catholic friends.”

JoEllen Ritchie, the creator of Bin Patina, Drawn Deep, and GO’K, is a nontraditional student returning to college to study the arts after earning a B.A. in Biology from the University of Iowa.

Ritchie enjoys exploring photography, video, and graphic design. Of Drawn Deep, Ritchie says, “Sometimes the most familiar objects around us can become the best subjects, if we just take an unusual approach to them. Rendering in black and white brings an almost alien feel to this deep focus of a fellow student’s car grill. I challenge everyone to view their world with ‘new’ eyes and see the spectacular in the mundane.”

Danielle Sargent studies business administration management and currently works as a family portrait photographer. Sargent loves to capture the often-overlooked beauty of nature and is working to become a photographer full time. Of Bug on a Flower, Sargent says, “This flower was growing in my garden and the bugs were covering the flowers. I was able to capture this one up close.”

Colton Williams, a dental technology major, enjoys reading, writing, and playing music. About “The Nature of My Nemesis,” Williams says, “As I enrolled in school again after a long break, I found myself reflecting on personality traits that I have, one of them being my sense of competition. This is a narrative reflection on how I came to understand that my competitive nature can be problematic and how it has changed since these events.”

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Submit to next year’s magazine!

Students, staff, alumni and community members are all invited to submit. www.kirkwood.edu/cedarvalley Due date: December 16, 2022

To inquire about joining the staff, contact: lisa.angelella@kirkwood.edu

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