Dossier Spring 2009 by CMU Dossier

Dossier Spring 2009

Carnegie Mellonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Art and Literature Magazine

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Dossier Spring 2009

DOSSIER 路 SPRING 2009

Staﬀ Literary Editor Alex Baran Managing Editor Destiny Ridguard Design Editor Randi Smith

Reading Staff Chloe Perkins Nicole Rappin Katie Dickson John Cooper

Cover Image Stephanie Huang Light

Contents Poetry and Prose

Art and Photography

The Casting Madeleine Barnes The Boatshack Seth Boyles

Five or Six or Seven Smokestacks

10 10 12 12 14 22 25 27 29 30

Caroline Kessler Paris in the Rain Shannon Deep Simple Gifts Shannon Deep The Burden Jordan Valley When He Leaves Dominique Davis Jordan Square Dominique Davis The Shepherdess Chloe Perkins Pink Jordan Valley One Day Kristen Staab Things Go In Pairs Alex Yuschik The quilt Kristen Staab

28 31 32 33

Pigeon Landing Robin Chen Surfaces Jackie Sizemore The Poet Huang Xiang Vivian Z. Song Far From Subject Stephanie Huang Svelte Vivan Z. Song Mind Battles Body Laurie Shapiro Gradation HJ Helen Kim

Biographies

40 Barnes to Huang 7 Kessler to Yuschik

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Letter from the Editors Thank you for picking up Dossier, Carnegie Mellon’s art and literary magazine. What you hold in your hands is the product of a great deal of work, both by the authors, artists, and photographers, as well as our dedicated staff. We would like to acknowledge those who have put forth their efforts to help make this issue a success.

To the talented writers and artists who submitted, thank you. Your pieces inspired us. We are in awe of what you can create and communicate and this publication will continue to showcase your effort. We hope that you will pursue your work and submit again in the future. To our dedicated editorial and reading staff, you are amazing. Thank you for attending last minute meetings and taking the time to read those tremendous lit packets. We are grateful for your valuable opinions about all of our submissions. Even though you are behind the scenes, the best credit is seeing something you were a part of put together and published. To our accommodating printers, thank you for being flexible while we made our final drafts and minute details. To the Tartan, we greatly appreciate you sharing your space and resources with us, and hope that we can collaborate on new content. To past editors, all graduating seniors who demonstrate so much tact and grace, we thank you. We would like to wish Rachael Clemmons, Claire Morgenstern, and Cecilia Westbrook congratulations and good luck in their future endeavors. These three were instrumental in shepherding us through the process of production, and their impact is irreplaceable. As the younger generation of staff, we want this Dossier to be a testament to how thoughtful and faithful you were by putting us in charge. For those newly familiar to Dossier, it has been interesting learning all about how this magazine works, and we thank you for getting involved. We changed a few of the rules, and added a couple of our own, to make a magazine that permeates all departments, majors, and schools, reaching out to the individual within the community. We look forward to the future of our publication, and we see a lot of bright things on the horizon. There are many ways in which Dossier can continue to expand and fulfill its mission, and many of those are in the works. We have big plans, and we have a great staff to help carry them out. So take a look at this copy of Dossier and the great work of fellow members of the campus community. We encourage you to get involved somehow and contribute to the magazine in your own way, as we are always looking for new talent. Regardless, we hope you enjoy this installment and look out for the next issue.

Alex Baran

Destiny Ridguard

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Randi Smith

The Casting Madeleine Barnes unclipped, lift from your wingspan, disband, freed from the curtain of steam, from the hands: unbraided, unchained, the lightest exchange where extraneous weight is abandoned. carry the bones, the flutes and plumes, smokestack and ash, carve the room from the room, rest in the rings of orbiting moons, weightlessness soon enough, soon. unlace the archways spanning your space, the opiate tunnels outlying erased, part from the skull that encases you. unthread the chest, the ulterior pulse, abandon the marrow of air where it drains you. let the vertebrae separate, wait for the current to part where it contains you. tread from the body whose framing restricts you, unhinge the skin from its webbing outside you, untie your hair from the bindings, bare as the vowels that wind and unwind you. misplace your name in circuitous pages, unfolding of structures that tether or plague you. shake off the ankles and knuckles that weight you, let your breath mark what remains of you.

Pigeon Landing Robin Chen

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The Boatshack

Seth Boyles

A fish was running the boat shack. “Oh,” I said, startled. “Yeah?” the fish said, his mouth gaping. He looked at me with his glassy black eye. At least, I think he did. “Oh, well, I’d like to rent a boat,” I said. “Great,” he said, and showed me a list of boats and prices. I chose one that seemed okay. “Okay,” he said, “That one comes with a complimentary can of worms.” “For fishing?” I said. “What else?” He handed me a fishing pole. “Thanks,” I said, taking the pole. I turned to find my boat, then stopped. “Isn’t this all a little backwards?” I said. “Am I going to go out there to find I’ve hooked myself a little slimy man flopping back and forth for me to mount on my wall?” “What are you talking about? There’s nothing in that lake but bull trout.” “Oh,” I said. “Well, isn’t that against your better interests?” The fish stared at me, gasping. “Do I look like a trout to you, asshole?” I apologized and left for my boat. As I pushed off I noticed it was a calm day, though the sky was gray and hung over me like someone was reading over my shoulder. I opened my complimentary can, took a worm from the gray tangle of flesh, and hooked it. I caught a few trout, but threw them back. The rest of my day was rather uneventful.

after Thomas Anschutz’s Steamboat on the Ohio, c. 1896

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Caroline Kessler

Five or Six or Seven Smokestacks

Leave your hearts at home, because otherwise they’ll be stolen, the father says. I the early summer morning, the children shove the rowboat In across the stones, into the water, wave goodbye to their father. All day, they collect scraps of tin and rubber, rewarded with a few grimy pennies. Lunch along the sandy bank: black crusts of bread. Far-off factories curve haze. The back-breaking, back-bending work continues. Sweat layy in the body’s y crevices— between neck and collarbone, underneath wrists, in the back’s hollow, between the shoulder blades. They let their sweaty limbs balloon into the water. What else is hiding in those depressions? Their father approaches, his back to his children as he bows forward to meet the oars: a prayer to the water while September looms: briny water, strips of fading daylight, chugging boats, whispering tide. The boys murmur as they drag the rowboat across the shore. Everyone’s cheeks are chilled from the nighttime air. Their hearts are waiting safely.

1896

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Jackie Sizemore

Shannon Deep

Surfaces

Paris In the Rain

When it rains in Paris, the city looks like an oil slick. Some beautiful accident one might find on the floor of a garage. A lacquered snail shell in the mud. In the rain, Paris is the color of a bruise that I don’t remember getting, barking my shin on the ottoman, staggering half-drunk to the bathroom, the darkness fizzing and popping just behind my eyes. Paris in the rain is the consistency of wet ash and it smells not unlike silt. The Parisians are like cats. They puff and hiss under their umbrellas, all of which are black. All of Paris is walking to funerals when it rains. My umbrella is fuchsia. Clipping along down the streets, cat-eyes watch me. I know my colorful protest against the rain is like a beacon. I do not belong! But in Paris, in the rain, everyone is wearing laundry instead of clothes. So I look unashamed and walk under my neon sky.

Simple Gifts

Shannon Deep I found some bubbles just now in the stairwell of my apartment. One of those little plastic bottles with a wand in the cap, the kind you sometimes get as wedding favors. I think about picking it up, and then I do. I plunk down on the steps, my keys making an unnaturally loud clatter as the sound echoes up and down the metal and concrete spine of the building. Trying to fish out the little white bubble wand, I drip a shiny puddle of the soapy stuff on a step. With only the buzz of the cheap florescent lights overhead, I blow swarm after busy swarm of tiny bubbles. Even in this light they look pearly. They bobble away from me, frantic, mounting the peeling-paint stairs as high as they can manage before bumping the concrete and un-existing with a wet snap. Their little muffled death sighs all come one on top of another like someone in the next room rifling the pages of a book with an anxious thumb. I send innumerable flocks of bubbles to their anticlimactic deaths until the stairs are slick with their miniscule silvery blood splatters. When I am done, the soapy stuff coats my fingers, the consistency of semen. This is the best time I’ve had in weeks.

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The Burden

Jordan Valley

Heavy, she picked up the needle and wove it through, in, and out, and in, and out again until eventually she could go through the motions without a quiver of her lip, just as if it were one more thread in the tapestry, another little jumble of colors that depict the big picture, that will make her all the wiser and prepared. Still, she couldn’t help but prefer that thread be forgotten, a snag or imperfection in the beautiful grand scheme, then to later show it to the next crushed little thing and say, “see? I loved and lost, too”

When He Leaves

Dominique Davis

Let the water scald you clean of his callous touch. Let it trickle down your back to break its bend, burn his rough hands from your scarred flesh. Caress the ripped skin round your knees. Rinse him from root to split end, untangle the mess he left. Spread your thighs & incinerate the seeds he left. Let the heat course through you, boil your blood, sear his beat, his song & dance. Let the jaded rhythm spoil. But when you hear the knock you knew would come You will feel him, frozen from icy rain You will warm him, for the last time again&again&again

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Gradation

HJ Helen KIm

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Jordan Square

Dominique Davis

“People have a way of gettin’ stuck in Jordan Square. I never told you bout Jerome Bates?” Uncle Joe dragged his tongue along the edge of the swisher and rolled a perfect blunt without ever looking at it. He pulled a silver Zippo lighter from his front pocket and put the weed to his lips. The only time his mouth was closed was when he had a blunt in it. He inhaled, allowing his chest to grow twice its size and when he exhaled his story started from behind a thick wall of smoke. “Jerome. Now he was goin’ places. He was a good boy. Good to his mama. Minded his daddy. Always kept his head ‘side them textbooks they give ya’ll down at the high school. Everybody round here knew he was gonna walk outta Jordan and never look back. One day, he got a letter from some school in Southern California. He didn’t tell nobody he tried to get in cuz I guess he didn’t wanna disappoint nobody. But sure enough they sent our Jerome a letter talkin’ bout he could go to down there to school—for free! Now you know don’t nobody give a Black man a handout less he somebody real special.” Uncle Joe brought the blunt to his lips again, and let the smoke sit in his lungs awhile before he continued. “All of us was so proud. We had a party at the fountain. Ate barbeque chicken, ribs, potato salad, baked beans, greens, cornbread—shit, just about everythin’ we couldn’t afford to eat, but we didn’t mind wipin’ our asses with newspaper for a month or so cuz Jerome was gettin’ out of Jordan. That night, I sat down on my porch, just like how we doin’ now, rolled my weed and leaned back in my chair. Then, all of a sudden, I heard a woman scream. I didn’t move at first cuz, well, you know good as me, a mama screamin’ in Jordan ain’t nothin’ to get excited bout. But when the screams got louder and the streets got quiet, I thought to myself, ‘that’s Jerome’s Mama.’ I got up off my porch and started walkin’ down to the Bates’ house. Right when I got to the end of the block, I seen him, lyin’ still like that in the street. His eyes was open, staring down the same street we all thought he would walk down to get out this place.” He passed the blunt to Nikki. “And that was that. We never found out who did it; Shot the boy in his back like that. But it just goes to show you, once you get here, you stuck here.”

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“I’m not going to get stuck here Uncle Joe. The second I get discovered, I’m leaving.” Uncle Joe let out a knowing chuckle. “I believe it girl. You too beautiful to be livin’ round all this ugly anyway.” Nikki passed the blunt back, stood up and walked down the cracked steps of Uncle Joe’s porch. “Where you goin’?” “To the post office. I’m waiting for a letter.” “You better be careful Babygirl. It’s getting late and we got some crazy niggas round Jordan. Don’t— ” “You think I don’t know? I’ve been living here 18 years. I know the kind of niggas we got. Goodbye Uncle Joe.” “Girl, you sayin’ bye like I ain’t gonna see you later tonight.” “You never know.” Nikki smiled to herself as she started down the street. She hadn’t told Uncle Joe that he might not be seeing her later tonight; he might not see her ever again. Today, Nikki was going to the post office, for the fourth time this week, to see if a letter from Ms. Ebony’s Modeling Agency had come and if it had She sent her headshots in a few weeks before and she had expected to get a response by now. She was confident that the letter would flood her with compliments and beg her to come work for them. As she walked, she noticed a few broken pieces of mirror lying in the street. She went over to them, picked up the biggest piece and admired her reflection. She ran her fingers through the curly black hair that flew freely down her back and looked deeply into the hazel oceans of her eyes. She pursed her lips together to accentuate their thickness. Her mother had been right; Nikki was one of a kind.

Her thoughts were interrupted by yelling. “Bitch, who you think you lookin’ at all crazy?” A fight between two women had broken out behind her. Nikki didn’t waste her energy turning around but watched the

familiar scene through the reflection in the mirror. How ugly these women were. The one in the see through black dress, pink panties and no bra had let Jordan’s air crack her skin so harshly, Nikki could see the ashy wrinkles all over her body. The other, in shorts that revealed about 30-pounds too much, had let Jordan’s burdens rest on her shoulders and put a bend in her back. As the crowd started gathering and one of the women pulled out a knife, Nikki shook her head and let the mirror fall from her smooth hands and shatter on the street. She wished she could have seen the Jordan Square that Uncle Joe had told her about so many times because it was hard to believe it had ever existed. He would look at her with half-empty eyes and say, “Man! I shoulda left this place when all the whites was leavin’. Now, they had the right idea.” Jordan Square used to be considered the playground of the rich. The sun shone down on it and reflected off silver Mercedes and diamond earrings. They built a fountain in the middle and lined the bottom of it with pennies to represent the endless amount of answered wishes the people living there had. The streets were all named after beautiful famous women: White Street, Davis Avenue, Hepburn Place, Kelly Drive and Monroe Way. Uncle Joe was the first Black man to move to Jordan. He swept their streets and they called him nigger and he let them and everybody was happy. But then the white people needed someone to clean out the fountain, so they let another Black man move in. And then the dishes needed to be washed, and the food needed to be cooked, and the houses needed to be cleaned and the light shining on Jordan Square grew dim as black faces replaced the white ones. Uncle Joe would say, “that’s the problem wit Jordan. You got a neighborhood full of people who is happy serving otha people so when there ain’t nobody left to serve, what do they do? They lost. But the men stayed cuz they was lazy and the women got pregnant cuz they was bored, and this is what we got left.” It didn’t take more than a year for the lively square to deteriorate into the state it was in now. Residents of Jordan had no drive, no dreams, no money, no peace, no opportunity. But Nikki wasn’t like them and today she hoped her letter would be waiting at the post office

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and she would walk out of Jordan Square and never look back.

“Honey, you got them baby-makin’ hips. Why don’t you let me put one up in ya?”

The post office was exactly two and a half miles away from Uncle Joe’s house. When she reached the center of Jordan Square, she looked out at the neighborhood she had never wanted to belong to and wondered how it got its name. Jordan Square was not a square at all. The main street was actually a circle. The fountain that now overflowed with weeds wasted away in the center of it. The water had been shut off and the people of Jordan had chipped out every penny.

They threw countless vulgarities at her and she let them all fall to her feet and crushed them with the heels of her black stilettos. Their words didn’t bother her. As a matter of fact, she enjoyed them. She acted like she didn’t hear anything as she put an extra twist in her step, just to tease them as she sauntered by. Sometimes, only when she thought of something witty, she would respond.

Connecting to the main street were four, mile-long streets, each one a dead-end. The street signs had all been torn down years before and most of the people living there now didn’t know that they had ever had names. Everyone had settled for calling the streets Number One, Number Two, Number Three and Number Four. But there was one more street that most residents overlooked and that Nikki dreamt about. Somehow this street had managed to keep its street sign which was rusted and illegible now, but Nikki had heard the name once and she would never forget it: Monroe Way. Monroe Way was the fifth street that grew from the center of Jordan, but this one did not end. This one was the only path that led out. Although no one she knew, and no one they knew, had ever stepped foot on Monroe Way, they all knew that if anyone ever did, they would be leaving Jordan for good. No one was happy in Jordan, but they didn’t have any place to go. It didn’t take long for word to spread that Nikki Ritz was out for a walk and the boys of Jordan all came running for their chance to talk to her. Nikki had a walk that turned heads. Her hips seemed to sing with every step as her feet used the battered concrete as a drum to create the rhythm. They all hoped today would be the day she put out the fire that burned inside their oversized, under-washed and faded jeans. “Nikki baby, let me holla at you for a sec.” “Girl, with all that you got, you need somebody to share it with.”

“When you gonna slow down Nikki girl? I’ve been chasin’ you for so long. I’m tired.” She wouldn’t even bother to look at them as she responded in an icy tone, “I’ll slow down the second you stop chasing me. Shit, I’m tired too!” And she’d keep moving, leaving them to argue in vain about which one was going to get her first. Before her mother died, she had taught Nikki more about men than she could ever imagine. Nikki’s mother was the type of woman who changed the music she listened to based on her current boyfriend’s taste. Unfortunately, her last boyfriend enjoyed the music that rang from the bottom of whisky bottles and the song kept playing even after he had left her. Once, after her mother had stumbled through their house cursing at every table and plastic chair that got in her way, she gave Nikki a necklace. It was a silver angel with a gold halo, whose legs dangled beneath her skirt. Nikki’s mother told her to give it to the man she loved and to never take it off until she found him. Nikki had searched for him when she was younger, but soon realized that men in Jordan did not exist. They were all boys. Whether they were 13, 27 or 102, they were boys. A man would never settle for living in this place. A man wouldn’t be afraid to break out of Jordan’s suffocating hold. Many of them had tried to sleep with her, but she believed that sex was an exchanging of souls, and the souls of all these boys were dead. She decided she was going to give her love, her necklace and her virginity to a real man once she got herself out of Jordan.

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“Honey, you got them baby-makin’ hips. Why don’t you let me put one up in ya?”

“Jordan Square had seven liquor stores, six gun shops, four nail shops, two schools, one grocery store, and one post office. To most, that meant they had everything they needed and in very good ratio.”

She got to the fountain and sat down to rub her feet. As she bent over, her hair caressed the side of her body. It smelled like honey. She ran her hands over her slim and silky calves and admired their strength. If only the main street weren’t so busy, the people, so loud, she would have danced so that the wind could taste her beauty. But two men were arguing because one had looked at the other’s woman. A group of girls were laughing like they wanted the world to know they had discovered something to laugh about in Jordan. It seemed like everyone had left their porches and come to the fountain to let God know they were still living.

Gummy had been Nikki’s best friend for her entire life. She gave him the nickname because he was a 250-pound sweetheart that reminded her of a gummy bear. He hit on her, of course, but he wasn’t sleazy like the rest of the Jordan boys. He had wanted to escape too, when he was younger, but he got a girl pregnant and had to marry her. He couldn’t adventure into the unknown with a woman on his arm and a baby on his back. Gummy would know what to say, so instead of following the circle down to Number Four, she walked onto Number Two. Passing Tina’s Liquor n’ Weave, and Calvin’s Liquor n’ Appliances, she made her way to Gummy’s Liquor n’ Stuff.

As Nikki sat watching the stagnant movements of those around her, she couldn’t help but wonder if she would actually escape. She rubbed hr hands against her necklace and closed her eyes. She was different, one-of-a-kind, there was no doubt about that, but hadn’t Jerome been different? Hadn’t he done what no one else in Jordan had ever done? What if the modeling agency didn’t want her? What if her beauty only stood out amongst the women she was surrounded by? Doubt began to take over her thoughts. She needed reassurance and she knew exactly where to go.

Jordan Square had seven liquor stores, six gun shops, four nail shops, two schools, one grocery store, and one post office. To most, that meant they had everything they needed and in very good ratio. She walked into the store and checked herself in the circular mirror by the door. “Why you lookin’ at yourself girl? You haven’t changed since the last time I seen you. You still the most beautiful girl in the world.” “Stop it Gummy.” She didn’t want him to. “Even if

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that were true, you would have no idea. You’ve never been anywhere else.” “I don’t need to go nowhere to know that.” Nikki walked up to the counter. “So Gummy, I’m thinking my letter from Ms. Ebony’s might come today.”

D av is

“What if they don’t want me!”

n ur pb He

“Why you sound so scared about it?”

“No one could ever not want you.” He couldn’t take his eye off of her as he walked around the counter and wrapped her in his arms. “This is the only chance I have Gummy. What will I do if they say no? I have no other way of getting out.”

She felt his steady breath and calm heartbeat and her confidence began to rise. “So let me ask you a question Nikki. When you gonna stop playing games and marry me?” Nikki let out a loud giggle. Gummy always knew what to say. “You know I can’t marry you Gummy.” “Why not?” “You’re already married!” “Yeah, Yeah. Excuses, excuses.” He looked out the door and noticed the dark gray sky. “You goin’ to the Post Office now?” “Yea.” “Why don’t you wait till I close up? I’ll walk you.”

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Monr Mo nroe Way nroe nr y

“I’m gonna tell you somethin’ I learned bout this place. There ain’t nothing keepin’ people here ‘cept themselves and each other. Long as you wanna get out and you don’t let nobody stop you, you gonna make it.

White #4 4

Kell Ke lly y #1

“By the time you close, the post office will be closed.” She turned around and headed for the door, making sure to move slowly so his eyes could follow every curve. “Besides, I’m sure your wife will be waiting for you.” “Well, be careful. It’s getting late and we got some crazy—” “I know, I know.” She stepped out of the store and sighed at heavy clouds. She couldn’t remember a day when the sun had been able to force its way through the gray to shine on Jordan. Even nature had no sympathy for this place. She walked back down Number Two to the main circle. The post office was the last building on Number Four, so she had about a mile and some to go. Every neighborhood has its bad areas, and even though living anywhere in Jordan could prove fatal, Number Four was the area where death was almost certain. She rounded the corner onto the street and immediately saw a junkie leaning against the side of a crack house. She approached Nikki the second she saw her. “You, you, you got an-anything? You got something? Anything? I-I’ll take anything. Just something to stop me fr-from dyin’.” “Naw, I don’t have shit for you.” Nikki pushed past the skin and bones and wondered how anyone could let their life turn out like that. She navigated over the used syringes and broken Southern Comfort bottles that decorated the sad street. So much blood had been spilt on the concrete that paved Number Four that the street was stained a sick shade of Burgundy. How tragic it was that even after their deaths, their blood still coursed through Jordan’s veins. She could see the post office ahead of her. The glass doors had been shot out a few years before and they still had not been replaced. A thin piece of wood had been hammered in to cover the frames, but no one had bothered to remove the broken glass. As her eyes focused on the shattered doors to her future, her nose wrinkled at the smell of piss in the air. Everyone

knew that scent. Chris Green was coming. Chris was only five foot two and was constantly exercising to make up for it. He could be in the middle of a conversation and he would just start doing pushups. He always had trouble controlling his bladder and had long given up on trying to be hygienic. He figured that if he could get used to the smell, so could everyone else. She started fast up the stairs but it was too late. “Hey Nikki.” She didn’t return his greeting, and tried to continue up the stairs but he jumped in front of her and blocked her path. “Where you goin’?” “Leave me alone Chris, I have things to do.” She stepped to her right. He stepped to his left. “Didn’t you hear what I just said or are you stupid? Move!” “I’ll go with you.” “No! I’m picking up something personal. Besides, I think we’ve seen enough of each other for a day.” She stepped to her left. He stepped to his right. “What the fuck Chris, I just told you I have to go.” She pulled her sleeve down to cover her hand and pushed him out of the way. He grabbed her wrist and yanked her down to his height. “You think you can talk to me like that? You think you’re better than me?” Nikki could see the anger and desperation in his eyes. Her wrist began to throb with pain as his grip tightened. “Get off of me Chris! Don’t make me get someone to come fuck you up.” Chris grabbed her harder and then, after picturing a fight between him and Gummy, let her go. She laughed in his face and then left him standing

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defeated at the bottom of the stairs. She pulled open the door and walked up to the desk attendant.

We think

“Hey Ms. Hill, is there a letter for me today?” Ms. Hill had sat behind the same junk mail littered desk, six days a week for as long as Nikki could remember. She showed her age in the way she slowly scanned the short stack of envelopes. Nikki tapped her heel anxiously on the floor until, finally, Ms. Hill said, “Nikki Ritz, here you go honey.” “Thanks,” Nikki said under her breath as she turned around, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This was it. This was either her one-way ticket out or her death notice. She tore open the envelope: “Dear Ms. Ritz, We received your photos, and we are sorry to inform you that we are searching for a different look.

you have great great potential but not for...” Nikki ‘‘s b body d b began to spasm with i h a fierce thunder. h d Every part of her begged for freedom. Her toes screamed to be released from the suffocating straps of her shoes. Her heart pounded against her ribcage so hard that for a second she thought it might explode out of her chest. This was it. She had always thought that her beauty would be what set her free, but the trembling letter in her hands proved her wrong. “What’s wrong baby?” Ms. Hill asked in a fragile tone. Nikki couldn’t respond. How could she say that she had just been sentenced to spend her life in Jordan? That she was afraid that she would end up sitting behind the same desk or the same porch for the rest of her life? Her knees buckled underneath her and she had to lean against the desk to stop herself from falling over. “Don’t you worry baby. Bad news is always followed by good news.” Not in Jordan, she thought. In Jordan, bad news was that your mother developed a debilitating drinking problem, and that was followed by, and she drunk himself to death because of it. In Jordan, no one lived. Either you died because someone killed you, or you died because you killed yourself, or you died because you were living. She looked at Ms Hill through tear-filled eyes, but for

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the first time she felt she saw her clearly. Gummy’s words replayed in her mind: There ain’t nothing keepin’ people here ‘cept themselves and each other. Ms. Hill didn’t have a ball and chain around her ankle. Her feet were not cemented to the floor behind the desk. She had given birth to three boys in Jordan and watched every one of them succumb to its seductive streets. She had buried three boys in Jordan and stayed, dreaming of the day she would be able to lie down next to them. She could push over the desk, let the mail scatter across the floor, walk out and never look back. Nikki was going to get out of Jordan. She tossed the letter in the trashcan, said goodbye to Ms. Hill and strutted out of the Post Office. She would leave right now. She didn’t care that she had no plan, the hardest part was leaving, and if she could do that, she could figure out the rest later. As she skipped down the stairs she thought about her new life. She would buy a house on a street with a name and she would never return to this hopeless neighborhood. When she reached the middle of Number Four, she paused. This would be the last time she stepped foot on this street. The last time she would smell the desperation in the sweat of the hopeless who lived here. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply so that she could remember exactly what it was that she had left once she was gone. But before she could open her eyes again, she felt something hard crash down on the back of her head and everything fell silent. When she woke up, the sky was somber. There were no stars, and the only light came from behind closed curtains inside the houses on Number Four. She was lying on her back and sweating so much that she thought someone must have poured water on her to try to wake her up. She attempted to stand but she was struck by a sharp pain in her pelvis and fell back down onto her hands and knees. It was then that she realized she was not wearing any pants and her panties were around her ankles. She squeezed her eyes open and shut rapidly to try to focus her vision. Her neck felt lightered than usual and when she went to grab her necklace for support she discovered that it was gone. She felt sore between her legs and brought her hands down to massage them. They were also soaked and when she brought her hands close to her

face she smelled a mix of urine and blood on her skin. She let out a scream like none that had ever been heard in Jordan and almost immediately, every door on Number Four opened and the street was flooded with light. Nikki looked down and saw that her white thong was red with blood. When she looked at the pavement she saw her blood was fresh on it. “No, no, no,” she whispered. “Not me. Not me.” She began to scrub the street vigorously with her hands to try to remove her blood from the dried layers that lied underneath. She scrubbed hard, but the pavement ripped her hands open and made her bleed more and the street seemed to soak it up gratefully. By now, people were gathering around to watch Nikki try desperately to wipe herself from the streets of Jordan. She left her panties at her ankles and stayed on all fours scrubbing and bleeding and scrubbing and bleeding. Everyone was quiet and motionless while they watched, except for the junkie in the corner who laughed and rocked. *** Brianna Wells walked down Number One dribbling a basketball around over-turned trashcans and dead dogs. “Hey girl, why don’t you come up here and help me finish this blunt.” Brianna climbed up the steps and plopped down next to Uncle Joe. “You know I can’t smoke that Uncle Joe. I’m an athlete. I gotta have strong lungs if I’m gonna get out of here and play pro-ball.” “Oh yeah,” he laughed. “I must’ve forgot.” “Hey, what’s up with that lady who’s always sitting half-naked on Number Four. I accidentally hit her with my ball today and she didn’t even notice. She just sat there rubbing the ground and mumblin’ to herself.” “People have a way of gettin’ stuck in Jordan Square. I never told you bout Nikki Ritz?”

DOSSIER · SPRING 2009

The Shepherdess

Li l did Little d she h kknow that h h her parents were worried i d ffor her journey. They had heard of strange happenings in the dark woods beyond their cottage. It had been said that a great forest people once dwelt there, but that they had vanished without a trace

Chloe Perkins

“Perhaps we should force her to stay,” said her mother. “It would be useless,” her father said, “For our word cannot tie her here forever. One day she will leave without our blessing. Fear not, for I will make her a gift that will guide her in her wanderings.”

Nestled deep in a valley far far away, there once lived a humble farmer with three beautiful daughters. The eldest had inherited her father’s wisdom and thus came to handle the farm’s affairs in her father’s old age. The middle daughter had gained her mother’s beauty and married a wealthy man in a neighboring town.

That night, the farmer took a lantern and an axe and chopped down a dead juniper tree that had stood, knotted and gnarled, towering over their cottage for years. From its wood he carved her a new shepherd’s hook and sang: “Carve from Juniper, ancient and wild, This, a blessing, to mine youngest child, Help her to guide and lead her flock,

But the youngest, Amaryllis, was too beautiful to be a farmer, for her slender body and red curls drove the village men wild. She was too smart to be a wife, for she would read from her father’s books, and argue with the village men, scaring all her suitors away. And so, with no role for her to fulfill, the farmer and his wife left her to wander the valley and tend to their sheep until they could find her a husband or trade.

But it is known that the destiny of the youngest is always an adventure, and one day, as Amaryllis lay in the pastures of the farm, the thought crossed her mind that she might one day be forced to marry, as her sister had. Amaryllis was afraid that she would never get to have her adventure, and so she told her parents that she would take her flock and leave on the morrow, and began packing her things. Into her tiny knapsack went the book her father had given her, the fine comb that her mother had combed her hair with, and the strong leather sandals that her sisters had made for her soft feet. She then went to her bed and slept well for the start of her journey in the morning.

Guard her ‘gainst wolves thence crows the cock.” The next morning Amaryllis’ father presented her with the new shepherd’s hook, and her mother sent her off with a small pack of food for her stomach and a cloth for her bed. Then she left with her sheep, driving them across the meadows until their cottage was lost in the distant hills. She eventually came to a dark forest that loomed ominous in the distance, but she decided to cut through it rather than go around. As light filtered through the thick branches, Amaryllis looked upward to clusters of decaying cottages high up in the tall trees. If this had been once a village, its people were long gone. But the paths were still worn enough that Amaryllis could walk them, even though spiders’ webs grabbed at her legs. She wanted to explore, to climb up into the little houses and wonder at where all the forest people had gone. But it was not long before the sheep grew impatient; they longed for the green of the meadows and to be away from the threatening grey of the forest.

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When A Wh Amaryllis lli andd her h flockk stood d at llast iin the h tallll grasses of the meadows, she took out her father’s book and began reading it, lying at the foot of a mighty Alder tree. The wind brushed its fingers through her fiery curls and hummed a lullaby in the rustling of the trees. She was about to nod off to sleep when a handsome young man with curling blonde hair and solemn grey eyes leaned over her. “What are you doing here?” said the man. “Grazing my sheep,” said she, peeking out at him from beneath an eyelid. “Aren’t you afraid of the wolves?” “Later I will bring my sheep out far into the meadows to make sure they don’t find us.” “But what if they do find you?” “Then I’ll guard my flock as best I can.” “Wouldn’t you run into the wood?” “Of course not,” she said, closing her eyes. “If I did, then who would tend to my flock?” Some moments of silence passed, and when Amaryllis glanced up from her book to look at the stranger, he was gone. She then shut her eyes for a quick nap. *** Amaryllis awoke that night to the howling of wolves, and struggled to count her flock in the moonlight; the ewes and lambs that nestled about her bleated in response. Some of the rams stood, grazing and guarding the flock while their shepherdess slept. It was late now; too late for her to drive them farther into the meadows and away from the forest. There was uneasiness in the woods, and yellow eyes pierced the darkness between the trees. A deep growling settled in the voice of the wind. She closed her eyes, frightened, listening beyond the wolves to the sounds of the earth and the sky, when the Alder tree on which she’d rested sang to her in a whisper:

“Cut ffrom myselflf one growing “C i bbranchh Hollowed out by bloodless hands To pipe a song on merry whistle That rouses alike both bark and thistle.” And so Amaryllis cut a young branch that grew from the side of the alder and began to carve out a small section of it. She stripped the bark faster and faster and whittled the wood smaller and smaller as the wolves inched away from the forest and into the meadow. When she had finished, she blew an eerie tune on the whistle until the wolves ran away in yelps of pain. Amaryllis thanked the Alder and touched its bark softly. She then took a strap of leather from her pack, strung the whistle upon it and fastened the strap about her neck. When the sun chased away the shroud of night, the shepherdess led her flock far from the forest and into the meadows, where her sheep grazed all day. When she was tired, she sat down in the grass beside a patch of white meadowsweet and began unknotting her wild curls with her mother’s comb. A man cast a shadow over the sun’s warm kiss and Amaryllis looked up; it was the young man from the day before. “Why do you come so far from home?” he asked. “Because I am the youngest,” said she, “And must seek an adventure, lest I become a spinster or a housewife like my sisters.” “Aren’t you afraid that your family will find you a husband and beckon you home?” “No, I’ll hide my flock and wait till they pass.” “But why? Wouldn’t you go home with them to a roof and a bath?” “Of course not,” she said, “If I did, then who would tend to my flock?” Amaryllis was about to speak again when she looked up and saw that the stranger was gone. She then put

DOSSIER · SPRING 2009

away the comb and shut her eyes for a quick nap. *** When Amaryllis woke, the meadow was dark but for the glimmer of a lantern in the distance. The light grew closer and she saw the silhouette of her father nearing her in the darkness, but her father’s voice was too deep, and his eyes shone yellow as the lantern’s flame. She quickly hid in the grasses and listened beyond her father’s calls to the sounds of the earth and the sky, when the meadowsweet flower, beside which she’d rested, sang to her in a whisper: “Take from me a flowered strand, Then tied to the staff in thy hand,

“Where are your sheep?” asked the man. “Grazing as they always do,” said the girl. “But I can’t see them.” “Of course you can’t,” said she. “Why can’t I?” “Because you want to eat them.” And with that, Amaryllis sprung from her grassy bed, and with her staff quickly drew a circle in the ground around the man. “What are you doing?” he asked.

Circle ‘round your flock to hide From treacherous wolves that wait outside.” So the shepherdess snapped a strand of flowers from the meadowsweet, but had nothing with which to tie the meadowsweet onto her hook. The leather strap about her neck was too small—it barely fit her slender neck, and she feared that the meadowsweet would snap if tied too tightly. She quickly ran to one of the ewes and combed through its wool with her mother’s fine comb. But her time was short. More wolves came now, disguised as her sisters, her mother, a neighbor, all of which called out her name and crept evermore closer. She quickly twisted the last of the wool into a strong thread and tied the strand of meadowsweet to her staff. Then she made a circle in the ground around her flock and waited in the grass. The wolves shook off their disguises and approached the flock with teeth bared. There they waited, until the rising sun drew them back into the woods. Amaryllis waited in the circle until the morning fully dawned, when she drove the sheep farther into the meadows. She kept the meadowsweet bound to her staff and thanked the flowers before leaving them. When the day was nearing its end, the shepherdess

put on her sister’s sandals and drew a circle around her sheep to hide them from the wolves. She then lay down in the meadow just outside it. As before, the strange young man came to her once again.

“I’m protecting my sheep.” Amaryllis then played the same eerie song on the whistle as before and stuck her staff firmly in the ground. The staff was ablaze with a white fire that drove the man mad until at last he shed his human skin. In his place stood a huge black wolf that snarled and snapped his jaws at her through the meadowsweet’s magic. But Amaryllis listened past its growls to the sounds of the earth and the sky that said to her: “Meadowsweet flower of calm and peace Alder whistle to summon the beast Juniper staff, alight with fire, Send this monster to its pyre.” Suddenly the white blaze of the staff caught onto the fur of the wolf. He writhed in pain as his skin burned away until the young man lay, curled in a ball, asleep in the grass. *** The next morning, the young man awoke and looked up into the eyes of the shepherdess who had saved him. They walked back to the forest, Amaryllis’ sheep trailing behind.

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“I am the prince of the forest people, but many years ago, our kingdom was put under a spell by a wicked sorceress,” he said. “She made us some into wolves, some into flowers, and some into trees, but only I could walk as a man in the day, to suffer the guilt of not protecting my people.” As they neared the forest, villagers began to appear. The Alder trees stretched their tall branches and shook off the spell like a long sleep, becoming the villagers they once were. The flowers trembled in the wind and were changed into yawning little children. The wolves emerged from the trees and shuddered— their fur fell to the ground and they tumbled to the grass as men, laughing. The prince grabbed Amaryllis’ hand tight and they ran through the meadow to meet his people. As they walked through the forest, the women threw crowns of flowers about them and all the forest was alive with happiness and cheers. Slowly, the forest people and their prince rebuilt their kingdom atop the strong alder trees of the wood. And one day, the prince whose people she had saved asked for Amaryllis’ hand in marriage. That day, Amaryllis the shepherdess became a queen with a much larger flock to tend to. She and her king sought out those who had been the Alder tree and the Meadowsweet flower, and appointed them as their most trusted advisors. Together, Amaryllis and the forest king lived a good and long life, protecting their people as the shepherdess had guarded her flock.

Pink

Jordan Valley

I’ve traced your face so many times if I went blind I wouldn’t mind. I can see the same, whether in the pink behind the curtain lids or in focus of your lashes. Smell would just grow stronger still and I always will remember the lemon sugar anyway. And touch, well skin never forgets skin, On our Sunday street I noticed my hand could find yours without looking down. Needless to say I would know you from a sea of others Just from brushing by.

DOSSIER · SPRING 2009

The Poet Huang Xiang Vivian Z. Song 26

DOSSIER 路 SPRING 2009

One Day

Kristen Staab I’ll wash the smell of turpentine from my hair and shave your sideburns, then lie on the oriental rug, and paint my nails gray-black, the color of liquid mercury.

One day, we’ll rent that little house on Elm and twenty-second, the one with the slanted porch and red patched roof that we biked past as kids.

you’ll get a job making braces for kids with stumbly kneecaps, like the kid I knew in grade school who weaved when he hobbled.

I’ll buy a duvet and a yellow bicycle from a garage sale down the street, and teach myself to cook like my great aunt, Dolly.

When we pray, I’ll remember to thank the planets for staying in line the whole time we were learning to walk straight.

When I lose my apron, get tired of playing grown-up, we’ll eat refried beans from bowls and watch pedestrians snake past our windows. Your nose will drip when the weather turns, but you’ll blame it on the mercury in the o-zone. We’ll have conversations in toothpaste on the mirror in the bathroom, and the floor, so that, even after it’s been wiped away our bare feet will tingle with menthol, alive.

In the summer, we’ll sit in muggy hallways of our house in cotton tank tops and count the raindrops that fall, ker plunk, into our living room buckets, forgetting momentarily that the mold on the floorboards is not a grassy bank for bare feet. Sometimes, when I make spaghetti, you’ll call your mother and tell her that you miss her. The smell of cooked tomatoes will do that to you. And then, when you want to repaint the bedroom, I’ll sit in the corner and cry because I’ve grown to hate the smell of turpentine.

DOSSIER · SPRING 2009

DOSSIER 路 SPRING 2009

Walking Out Snow sleet pesters the air gently tonight Things Lanterns give off an ethereal steam I’ve got popcorn in my pocket and the “I’m sorry”s in my ear and I’m walking Walking, walking the slushswept street, my dear. My hair is iced with cobwebs, there’s nothing New to hear, except the frenzied beating of your heart as you curl yourself to sleep. Desperate silver lights streak through the gloom, Hurry, and flutter past the midnight room.

Go G In Pairs Alex Yuschik

Stephanie Huang

Far From Subject

Wandering After I’ve got snow sleet in my pocket and your Murmurs in my ear, as steamy lanterns grasp starry lights to call the maelstrom near. Silver streaking through the gloom races past The midnight room, the frenzied beating of your heart Is through, what is there left for me to do? While popcorn cobwebs ice the sidewalks black Surely you must not, my dear, go walking Walking, walking, ‘til the coming dawn casts its mist, crinkling fingers frost through your hair.

DOSSIER · SPRING 2009

The Quilt

she sifts through shirts, Kristen Staab dresses, a tablecloth, silk slip, textile, tactile, secrets whispered to her palms, the quiet truths stained, frayed, graying, an almost mute pile of linen at her knees. stiffened from sitting on ankles, she shifts from floorboards to stool to toil at twill, to continue something she cannot remember starting. she has entwined with thread a structure, erected from soft cloth. from closets she has gathered garments, pulled from metal hangers, from boxes, fabric snapshots of people solemn, spectral flutters of cloth. unstitching, unmaking, she cuts these remnants into remnants, and pieces them into her own self-portrait, a semblance of gathered thoughts. the scribbled noise of sewing machine, needle beating burlap, canvas, any fabric scrap that is no longer form gains form in the fraught quilt, her map of nothing, a chaos of loose material, muted, obscured by pattern, impulse patchworked, placed lace, the scraps flattened against themselves, magic made when none is found. this faded quilt, formed from the path of fingertips will chart a map for cold sleep, so that, with each colder morning she can regain her place as the one who weaves together the fragile framework 30

DOSSIER 路 SPRING 2009

SvelteVivian Z. Song DOSSIER 路 SPRING 2009

DOSSIER 路 SPRING 2009

Mind Battles Body Laurie Shapiro

DOSSIER 路 SPRING 2009

Biographies

Seth Boyles Seth Boyles is a student at Carnegie Mellon University.

Madeleine Barnes Madeleine Barnes is native Pittsburgher and currently a freshman at CMU majoring in Creative Writing and Fine Arts. Blood type A+, likes sugar gliders. In March 2007, she placed first in Princeton University’s Poetry Contest, and in January 2009 placed first in Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Review poetry contest for Pittsburgh undergraduates. Her work has also appeared in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Splinter Generation, Allegheny Review, Spectrum, Madwomen in the Attic Vol. XIV, Oakland Review and North Central Review. In March 2009 she placed first in the Borders Open Door Poetry Contest, judged by Billy Collins, released on the Borders website in April. Robin Chen I speak six languages. But I’m only majoring in Mandarin Chinese. Dominique Davis

Shannon Deep

But it was saturday night I guess that makes it all right And u say, baby, have u got enough gas? Oh yeah, Little red corvette...

Shannon is a junior BHA Creative Writing and Directing major. She’s either a poet with a theater problem or a dramatist with a poetry problem. Many thanks to Professor Costanzo for his encouragement.

Stephanie Huang Stephanie Huang is a Carnegie Mellon ‘11 Design & Decision Science major. She is from Huntsville, Alabama.

Caroline Kessler Caroline enjoys when the buses run on time. She recognizes that this is a rare phenomenon in Pittsburgh, similar to sunshine. HJ Helen KIm Helen is a junior studying flute and psychology. She feels blessed.

Chloe Perkins

Chloe is a sophomore creative writing major gifted with eerie Cassandra-esque powers of foresight and inspired by sheep. She hopes that her quest to discover the proper usage of irony will one day lead her to Steely Dan.

Laurie Shapiro Laurie Shapiro was born in the underworld and then released to the earth at the age of five. Before that time, she was captive and has no detailed memory. Instead, she remembers bits and pieces and fragments of her early life, which she tries to inscribe onto her artwork. If you’re interested in looking through some of her work, or purchasing some of it, she has work under the name of “Sax Arba” that is available through: http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/laurie-shapiro.html.

Jackie Sizemore

Vivian Z. Song

Jackie Sizemore is a vampire.

Vivian is all he(art). She wants to change the world, one micron pen at a time. Kristen Staab

Kristen is a sophomore Art and Creative Writing Major and a Pittsburgh Native. She believes that writing is one way to recognize what may otherwise be left unsaid.

Jordan Valley

From Pittsburgh, Sophomore BA Psychology major, hope to one day get paid hundreds of dollars an hour to listen to other people’s problems, staff member for Oakland Review, no particular talents or fun facts worth mentioning, except perhaps for double-jointed knees and thumbs. I don’t even know my blood type.”

Alex Yuschik Alex Yuschik has always been a minor character in her dreams. Her life aspirations include becoming one of the Baker Street Irregulars, earning her doctorate in physics, and owning a hot glue gun.

DOSSIER · SPRING 2009

Dossier Spring 2009 is a publication and creation of The Tartan, Carnegie Mellonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s student newspaper since 1906.

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