Cover Art by Marlee Brinson
The Pearl The Literary and Arts Magazine of the Colorado Rocky Mountain School
Winter 2023 Carbondale, Colorado
Contents Various Authors - Six-word short stories
5
Anonymous - Stars Will Fall
6
Watts Brooks
7
Jacob Sam - Crawling Fish
8-9
Kira Harvey - Sunday
10 - 12
Graham Austin - Sound of the Wind
13 - 17
Jacob Sam - Brick and Glass
18 - 19
Bennett Jones - Senior Speech
20 - 21
Editor's letter Every corner of society overflows with something great. We all have our unspoken thoughts - private anxieties. We all go to bed at night and dream our dreams. We have favorite foods and friends and feelings; there is enough substance in every mind to fill a novel. In our community, I know that we have come from all walks of life, and our different exposures to art and literature become apparent in this issue. Every piece comes from a pure place. If you take the time to read all of them, you’ll tell that thoughts and learned experiences were poured into them. There is only so much to the human range of emotion, so you’ll probably relate to this issue somehow. Maybe you scrub your skin too raw, or you are scared of your family’s changing dynamics. Maybe you just really like airplanes. Whatever the case, enjoy our budding student writers' work. Let it inspire you! Transfer your notes app poetry to Google Docs and refine it into the best piece of literature Colorado has ever seen! You can do it! This editor’s letter is the sign you’ve been waiting for, but before you do any of that, read this issue first. All great writers are great readers, first and foremost. ~Jacob Sam
Six-Word Short Stories In the winter of 2023, every student at CRMS wrote a six-word short story in their English class. It was a competition - the prize being featured in The Pearl. These selected students have been chosen among every student to be in CRMS's first literary and arts magazine. WARNING: Happy Child. Please don't touch: - Wheeler Padgett
Green Ham? Normal eggs, I think: -True Bure
Climb the tree; escape the ground: - Paige Walor
Arson doesn't solve all your problems. - Nick Ingram
The fire alarm rang, hearing aid’s dead. - Ava Canova
Found: red boots, map, backpack, bible. - Abee Pabst
Phones distract young parents; lucky me. - Jacob Sam
Alas, serenity is wasted on the dead. - Max Seitel-Hayes
You didn’t say you’re my cousin. - Isla Brumby-Nelson
Stars Will Fall - Anonymous Falling falling Down. Stars falling to the depths of the earth. Through the grass. Through the rock. Through the water. Going through the earth, until the star reaches nothingness. The blackness, the inescapable blackness. It follows the bright star, the only light in that universe. Until the star dims, the blackness covering it with the Anger and sadness of the world. The star's light flickers, like a broken lightbulb, and goes out. Gone. Darkness once again takes over. And darkness stays, making everything around it burn out. No matter the number of stars that fall, They can not outshine the darkness. The looming cloud of darkness, that clouds the brain. The darkness will always beat the star. But the stars keep falling. One by one by one. Filled with the hope that they could stop the darkness. Or at least allow the others to see for a minute. Because when there is light for a minute, there can be light forever.
Watt Brooks This picture highlights a United Airlines Boeing 757-200 with the “Her Art Here NY” paint departing from the Eagle County Regional Airport on a brisk winter morning. This flight operated United Flight 1084 to Newark, a daily flight connecting tourists of New Jersey to the ski slopes of Colorado. On this day, United Airlines sent one of two special aircraft enveloped in the art of local female artists from New York and California. In 2019, the airline initiated the Her Art Here campaign, which highlights female artists and encourages the equal representation of females in art galleries. They cultivated this by selecting two artists and utilizing airplane fuselages as a canvas to display their work from the skies. A Boeing 757 aircraft was selected for the artwork because of its versatility and ability to land at regional airports and fly across the Atlantic. This allows these women’s artwork to be viewed from the broadest range of destinations across the Americas, Europe, and select destinations in the Pacific. This specific plane shows the artwork of Corinne Antonelli, showcasing the skyline of New York City and the country lands of upstate New York, illustrating her favorite places in the state.
Crawling Fish -Jacob Sam As I crawl up these granite boulders, my knees dig into their textured surface. The friction opens up my skin, revealing a soft pink layer that stings with every “step,” but my sense of balance as of late means that walking isn’t an option. My muscles have weakened because of the time I’m stuck in a wheelchair, but today I decided to leave it at the base of this… I’m not even sure what to call this. Hill? Mountain? Whatever it is is high enough for my head to throb. Bringing water would’ve been nice, but there’s no use in looking back now. I can take it. Even with my dry mouth, bleeding lips, and overall physical discomfort, this is my favorite feeling. Everyone’s been treating me like a sob story lately. When I was still able to in middle school, I’d watch the SPED kids with pity as teachers gave them baby talk and puppy eyes. You could see in their faces that they hated it, but their speech would always paint them as impotent. I hate it too now, but how could anyone look at me and think “Able.” I’m legally blind, crippled; my brain is rotting. Some days I’d wake up forgetting who I am, screaming in geriatric-esque grunts, but then I’d calm down, take my morning meds, and be myself again. Ever since I quit taking them though, it’s like a switch was flipped. The neurons in my head are firing and I can feel them swimming around like schools of fish. I’m tempted to say that it’s been all the doctors and prescriptions that were the problem all along, but if I did then I’d really sound crazy, so I keep it to myself. There have been some adverse side effects from my detox; I haven’t slept or eaten for the past 2 days, but it’s fine. I’ve never been a good sleeper and am more than ready to get rid of this wheelchair flab. It’s all a fair trade for being able to climb hills (and possibly mountains, I’m still not clear on that); to ignore discomfort; to think clearly. I’m above the treeline now, and when I look out, my limited vision is flooded with blue. At this point, you can see beyond the trees to the tops of city buildings. I wonder how many people there are in those buildings, and how they connect and interlock with each other. It’s insane how much life is contained in those drab, gray blocks. All those people with experiences I’ll never know, living through their epic comedies and tragedies while I sit on the outside; overheating and diseased, and I’m not even a blip on their radar. Somehow, through all the aches and nausea it took to get up here, this is what gets to me. All I want is to leave an impression. I know that I have enough intelligence; the only thing I lack is time. I’ve known this, sure, but the fuzzy outlines of houses and offices only remind me of what a sad sack of Batten’s disease I am. I can imagine every emotion felt, every memory had, every thought thought and more out in that cityscape, and I wish that I could feel it with them too. I thought I’d have company for when I reach enlightenment, but I don’t think I’ll even reach it alone. Sometimes the silver lining is clearer, but right now the only thing clear is that I am going to die without ever filling out
any of the boxes I wanted to. The fish swims my spine, and swims my ribs, effectively cradling me. This always happens with my revelations, and maybe it’s the heat or dehydration, or the growing weight in my chest, but this time they swim harder than ever. The sky is looking staticky, and it crosses my mind that I might find out what it’s like to die. I have to make it to the top at least, and that makes me forget all of my body signals and force my legs to stand. The fish freak from the sudden momentum, before collectively working to pull me back down to earth. I can let them take the wheel, at least just this once, so we fall as a unit, down into the granite below.
Sunday -Kira Harvey Rebecca liked routines, she liked lists and she liked schedules. So on Sunday, she began her weekly routine as she would any other Sunday. She cleaned the house. Top to bottom, bottom to top. She washed the sheets. Even in beds, people hadn’t slept in in years. She washed the dishes and swept the floors. Rebecca never seemed to find this boring or arduous. She preferred things to be clean. That was the extent of Sunday for her, a day full of tidying and treatment. On Monday she woke up early, earlier than she should have as she hadn’t gotten enough sleep. She had planned to go to the market before noon so she began getting ready. She put her socks on very carefully, as usual, making sure the seam was correctly placed. She tied her shoes with careful precision on the tightness of each shoe so that one wouldn’t be looser than the other when she walked. Even after taking all these precautions a little pebble still somehow found its way into her shoe, messing up her socks. It is all Rebecca could think about the whole trip back and forth from the market. The whole night even after taking the pebble out of her shoe she could still feel the shadow of where it had once lingered. That was Monday, a tiring and tedious day. Tuesday was a simple day. Rebecca read and listened to music, but couldn’t quite enjoy it for there was a pain in her neck and lower back. She stretched, but couldn’t seem to shake it. That was Tuesday, another treacherous day. On Wednesday, Rebecca went to lunch, hosted by a neighbor. Rebecca knew her neighbor wasn’t the best cook, since weird smells always seemed to surround their house. Despite that, she didn't want to come across as rude as everyone else in the neighborhood was. She worked up the courage to go, straightening her socks and tightening her shoes evenly. To no surprise the cucumber sandwiches seemed to have mold and the prosciutto seemed much too old. No one else at the party seemed to notice, so Rebecca decided it must all be in her head, caused by her nerves, so she ate. Soon she began feeling a tight swirling feeling in her stomach, and a choking feeling in her throat. The feeling pushed and shoved at her all day. It lasted through the night and just never seemed to begin fading. And that was Wednesday, such a torturous day. Since Wednesday was so stressful, Rebecca took Thursday as a resting day. Thursday was usually her favorite day; she loved the way the word pushed her tongue up against her teeth and the roof of her mouth. This Thursday was different though, she stayed in bed the whole day and tried to sleep away her discomfort. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t seem to sleep. She even closed the blinds in her room, thinking the light was the culprit of her consciousness. There was no use, she still felt the tightness in her throat, the pain in her stomach, the ache in her neck and lower back, even the pebble in her sock and now her eyes stung terribly from the brightness of her room. She then grabbed a pillow to try to stop her eyes from stinging, but there was no use. That was Thursday, a day full of twisting and turning. On Friday she went in for work. She worked all day and tried her hardest to focus on making the sweet delights, but couldn't quite ignore the pain she felt everywhere. They hadn't gone away and instead
were getting worse and more and more distracting. By her lunch break her face felt extremely greasy and oily. She went to the bathroom multiple times, she scrubbed and scrubbed her face, but the oily feeling stuck to her like a wet paper towel. Rebecca didn’t know what to do, her face had turned an awful blotchy pink color from all the washing. Her boss then sent her home early, saying she looked ill. Rebecca despised feeling so covered in grease; it only stressed her out more not being able to finish a day's work - a routine. By the time she got home, the pain was almost unbearable, she could now feel grease and oil dripping off of her everywhere, and she swore she could see a puddle on the ground from where she stood. She got in the shower and stayed in there all night trying to wash away the oily feeling. That was Friday, a torturous day. Saturday morning she finally emerged from the shower, her skin pale and eyes dull. She began at the top of her head and worked herself down to her lower stomach, the knife splitting her in half. Many think it hurts to do this, but Rebecca remembers only a sting. While it didn’t hurt it was very messy, blood and all sorts of things you’d find in the average human body were now flowing down onto the tile. She began with her lungs. Pulling them out and scrubbing them with a towel and sponge. Rebecca scrubbed and scrubbed, cleaning them perfectly so that they would never feel tight again. She would be able to breathe as she used to. Once her lungs seemed cleansed to her liking she placed them on the bathroom counter. She then rummaged through her stomach pulling out all the waste, till it was empty. The insides of her stomach flooded the bathroom floor. All sorts of things are laid out. The walls began to stain and the bathroom began to smell. Rebecca pushed it out of her mind though as she was not done. Reaching over her shoulder she slowly pulled out her lengthy spine. First, she straightened it completely, then she moved it in all different ways, loosening it up. She could hear the cracks and pops of the bone as she moved it. She paced around the bathroom with it holding it so dear and with such care while she looked for a place to hang it. Her feet sloshing around in her innards, which had been thrown to the ground, when she found the perfect place for her, now, very straight spine. She hung it up neatly on the shower curtain. She then reached within and took her liver and intestines out. She didn't want to mess with them too much as the texture was a bit strange and bothered her hands, so she left them to soak in her bathtub as she began to remove her heart. Rebecca was very delicate with her heart, her prized possession. She only washed it lightly with a pillowcase instead of a towel, to not irritate it. Once done, she wrapped it up in her nicest silk and placed it on the windowsill. She then proceeded to remove her eyes out of their sockets. The most painful part for Rebecca. She had always hated touching her eyes, even when she was little, always scared that she would catch pink eye. Rebecca set each eye in their cup of water. She could feel the stinging going away as her eyes eased into their new surroundings. Now with empty sockets, Rebecca began peeling her skin away. Only a couple of layers she decided, so she wouldn’t be sensitive after. The peeling quite satisfied Rebecca and set her mind at ease. The floor was now knee-deep in blood, guts, waste, and chunks of skin floating about. Rebecca laid down, letting what was left of her float. The smell was overpowering, but Rebecca continued to ignore it all. Now with empty sockets and fresh skin Rebecca placed all the pieces of her that were now scattered across her bathroom back inside her. She did this lightly and carefully to not trigger any unwanted tension or pain. Rebecca
then grabbed her needle and thread and began stitching. She started at the top and went to the bottom. Rebecca sang a song as she did this, humming the tune. She used a light pink thread to match the dress she planned to wear the next day. That was Saturday, such a thorough day. On Sunday she woke up having had the best sleep of her life. She cleaned the house. Top to bottom and bottom to top. She washed the sheets. Even in beds, people hadn’t slept in in years. She washed the dishes and swept the floors. Rebecca never seemed to find this boring or arduous. She preferred things to be clean. That was Sunday.
Sound of the Wind -Graham Austin The night was dark over the forest. Not a sound was to be heard save for the whisper of silken wings on the cool midnight breeze. He saw nothing that could be construed familiar, only endless trees stretching out as far as his eyes could see. He was far from his mountain eyrie and the family he knew so well. Only the feel of the wind on his wings had stayed with him. He clicked his talons excitedly, for he had seen a flicker of light in the distance. The warm welcoming light of a fire, just as the ones his plugin had used to cook the meat when one of them was to catch a meal. Those had been happy times when one of the flugen came back with a rabbit, or rarely a goat. He had only ever seen a goat twice in his life. They were ten times the size of a rabbit, white as the snow and they took two great warriors to fly back to the eyrie. The flugen would be able to eat for days when someone caught a goat. He dropped down lower to the trees to make his approach. As he came closer more lights started to appear. That was confusing, a flugen should only ever have one fire at a time so to be sure the eyrie does not catch alight. He perched awkwardly on a tree some distance away from the lights. He didn’t like these things. They were uncomfortable and rounded, unlike the sharp rocks and cliffs he was used to at home. He traversed along the tops of the trees with short wingbeats, hopping from branch to branch towards the ever-growing lights. He felt the leaves brush past him softly. These were nothing like the leaves he knew from the mountains. They were soft, smooth, and bent along with his movement instead of being as rigid as a stone and spiked. He now spied the source of these mysterious lights, strange shapes like straight rock but instead crafted of wood. His pale crest flexed in interest. These shapes were of wood, were they not? And wood burnt, which meant that the shapes should logically be burning. But they did not. They only stood silently with the fires shining around them. He heard a sound and looked upon shadows dancing with the light around one of the shapes. A figure emerged from the shape, a familiar silhouette against the light. Wait, this silhouette was not like him. It had no wings, nor did it have a long tail trailing behind it. He had heard of ones who had their tails cut off and survived. But a wing, let alone two? That was impossible. He swooped down lower towards the wingless creature, hearing sounds like the wind blowing through a cave and strange chattering noises from within the shape it had emerged from. He could see the figure now. It looked to be a man, with a long golden beard and pale skin. It was covered in what looked to hide, but they looked softer and were the colors of the flowers that occasionally bloomed during the spring. He saw no talons on the man, only strange brown feet that curved upwards to a point. By the man’s side swung a long, thin leaf. But it was unlike any other he had seen. It shone and flickered with the dancing of the light. On the man’s head was perched a pointed red cone with a ring of dark fur upon the base.
He was now sitting on the edge of the treeline, watching the man make his strange chattering sounds to what he could only assume were more wingless creatures. He reviewed the choices that he found before him. He was either to be lost forever in this endless sea of trees or he was to ask this man for help. He thought to himself that the latter sounded far better. After all, one should always help another in need, and judging by the smells, the man carried a sizable stock of food near him. He glided down from his perch and landed on the soft ground a ways away from the man. He rehearsed his lines within his mind, making sure they were as well sounded as possible so that he might make the best impression upon this man. He then proceeded to speak his greetings. As the man turned around, he stepped forth into the light, fluttering his wings behind his back in perfect synchronization. The man’s eyes widened. The man then proceeded to utter a cry in his strange booming speech and pulled the leaf from his waist. He took a step back. That was a rather confusing display. What was it supposed to mean? Was it to be taken as a greeting? How was he to properly respond? The man flourished his shiny leaf out in front of him, and he felt a stinging pain in his side. He looked down to see that there was a sudden gash in his side. That was unusual. He then looked up to see that the man’s leaf had been stained with the distinct scent of blood. He had been attacked, but he couldn’t fathom why. As he looked upon the man, more of the creatures ran out of shape, looking around for whatever had made the sound. They all cried out when they saw him. He was beginning to feel like they were afraid of him, but that made no sense. He looked like them. They had no reason to be afraid. The man with the golden hair cried a command to the others, and a few of them went running off into the grove of shapes. He wondered for a moment where they were going, however, his thoughts were soon diverted as the man began slowly advancing towards him, his leaf pointed out in front. There were no doubts in his mind now that he was being attacked, and decided that it was in his best interest to flee this place and hope to find salvation at another time. He launched himself above the creatures below and began flapping his wings to gain elevation away from them, but he felt a sting in his side and crashed back to the ground. The gash on his side was frightening. The fate, though, that awaited him should he stay in this grove of shapes promised a truly horrible outcome. He mustered his strength into his haunches and broke off into an awkward sprint, his taloned feet clicking against the ground and his wound dripping blood. With every movement, the gash burned as if the sun itself had burrowed beneath his skin. But he willed himself forward, kept so by the promise of death waiting behind him. He heard a noise and saw three more of the creatures run out from a shape. Their heads were dark and they wore the same soft hides as the man. They also had strange shining scales protruding from beneath the hides. In their hands, they held a familiar shape, that of a spear. Except, of course, for the fact that these spears were long and smooth with a shining brown leaf instead of a jagged bone as the tip. One of them yelled and the other two ran to his sides. He was now cornered: either he was to fly through the pain or he would die here and now. His answer came quickly, and he braced himself for the pain that was to come.
Gritting his teeth, he launched himself as high as he could, making sure he was out of reach of the spears. With every uneven wingbeat, he felt a surge of pain and an urge to land. But as he kept flying, he could see the creatures below watching him and making their strange sounds once again. He averted his gaze, keeping solely focused on fleeing from the shapes. He knew that he couldn’t fly for long like this. He was hurt, and badly too. He had to find shelter soon or he would find himself swimming amongst the stars. Eventually, he glided shakily down to a tall flat tree with bristles to roost. It was uncomfortable, but safe, at least. He discovered a large congregation of cobwebs in the highest branches. They made for a good way to patch his wound. Temporarily of course. He could feel his heart beating through his chest as well as everything else within his vicinity. This night would not gift him rest. He awoke to the silence of the forest. No birds were singing, nor animals slinking about. Only the soft rustling of the morning wind in the branches. He surveyed what he could see through the trees. He saw none of the creatures. He was safe, for now at least. His wound had gotten worse over the night. He could no longer fly without great pain, for the adrenaline of the previous night had dulled the feeling. But in this safe forest, the pain felt as if he had a block of salt underneath his arm. He managed to find a bush of dull red spheres that tasted sweet and rich. What were these things? Were there more of them in the trees? This he would have to discover. He wandered through the great forest, unsure of his direction or where he was. He turned his head towards any sounds he heard, watching for the creatures who now haunted his mind. He felt a weight press suddenly on the end of his tail and whirled around to find a small furry animal batting it around. The animal’s apparent harmlessness relaxed him as he watched it play with his tail. The animal was brown and spotted, with three dark stripes running down its forehead. Its ears were pointed and its eyes a soft brown. He flicked his tail and watched as the little animal chased it around and pounced on it. He felt a sliver of warmth inside him as he watched the animal play. It reminded him of the times in the mountains when his only concern was winning the game that he was playing with the others. His reminiscence was interrupted by a sound and he looked up to see another animal, most likely the small one’s mother. Its pointed ears had black tufts of hair sprouting off the ends, and its feet were comically large when compared to the rest of it. The small animal waddled its way back over to the mother and began playing with the two other small animals beneath her legs. The mother stared at him for a moment, and then curled her tail around her children and walked off with them. Leaving him once more in the silence of the strange yet beautiful forest. The sound of tearing leaves, breaking branches, and loud calls reached his ears. The calls were horrifying, screaming as some twisted imitation of the whistling wind. He spied three great beasts racing towards him through the underbrush. They were as large as he, with grey, shaggy fur. Their ears were pressed to their heads, and their mouths opened to show long, yellowed teeth every time they called. Behind them, he could see the colors of the evil creatures moving through the wood at a slower pace, no doubt hoping that the beasts would be able to pin him long enough for them to arrive and kill him.
He attempted to launch himself into the air, but he found his wings had become too damaged to fly. The beasts were closing in upon him quickly, he decided that his only choice would be to scare them off with a display of strength, and then run before the creatures reached him. As the first beast reached him, he sprung into the air and slashed through the air with his sharp talons. The grey beast easily darted out of the way and latched itself onto his leg, sending bolts of pain through him, and eliciting a loud, scratching cry of anguish. The two other beasts reached him quickly, and both barrelled into his chest, knocking him to the ground and grasping his abdomen and his other leg in their mouths. He was now writhing upon the ground, with both his legs and abdomen being torn asunder by the foul gray beasts. A sharp whistle ended the assault upon him, and the beasts raised their heads to look towards the creatures. Their ears lifted from the sides of their heads and held an angled position. The beasts moved away from him to make way for the creature who now stood above him. Through his pain-blinded eyes, he managed to recognize the imposing face of the man that he had seen the previous night. Now the shape on his head was tall and furred. He also wore brown soft hides with a longer green one on his back. The man took one of his arms, while a second creature took hold of the other, and they began dragging him through the grass and dirt. His legs left a trail of blood along the ground, whilst the bite in his stomach bled profusely. His mind produced him only pain, fear, and sorrow. After a surprisingly short amount of time, they dragged him back into the grove of wood shapes, where there were now more creatures gathered around more shapes. These shapes he had not seen when he was there in the night, although it had been dark, and he could have missed them. The first of the shapes was a large square stone, adorned with grooves and patterns upon its surface. The second shape was far stranger, it was two small carved trees, one shorter than the other. They together crossed and stood upright with the taller tree stuck into the ground. There was a pile of sticks and dry leaves at the base of the crossed trees, with two small fires flickering on either side of it. The creatures dragged him to the square stone, where they laid him between the carvings. Another creature approached him, this time a woman. She laid wet, strange-smelling soft hides on his wounds, which stopped his bleeding almost instantly. She then drew out a smooth and shiny knife, bringing it to the base of his tail. She proceeded to cut a long line down his tail, causing a bright new flash of pain and a scream. She spoke something in her chittering words and moved to his arms. She cut two short lines in either arm and said more words, this time to the creatures instead of him. The creatures responded in a loud unison and the woman nodded towards them. She spoke to the two men who had dragged him there, and they brought her two thick flaxen ropes. She bound his arms and legs to stakes in the ground and wrapped his wings lightly. Not enough to cause him pain, but enough to make sure he was not able to fly. She then spoke to the creatures gathered, and they dispersed, leaving him to his pain and misery, trapped upon the carved stone. As time passed, he watched the sun rise behind the clouds, and then fall until there was only a soft orange light sneaking out of the clouds. The wind blew softly over him, watching him, waiting. When the light lessened, the creatures returned to the stone, this time bringing with them a goat. He did not have the energy to remember the animal, he only stared blankly at the creatures. The woman from earlier
brought the goat towards his chest, and using the shining knife slit the goat’s throat, letting the blood fall onto his chest and flow into the carved grooves. She then removed the soft hides from his wounds, revealing the dark, curdled blood underneath. At the cry of the woman, two men cut his bindings and hoisted him off of the stone. They carried him to the cross of wood and uncomfortably positioned him. With his arms held up to the ends of the short log and his feet hanging down below. A third man walked up to him with a small collection of shining stakes in one hand, and a strangely shaped club in the other. He positioned one of the stakes above his palm and centered his club. He then slammed his club violently into the stake, sending it through his palm and into the log behind it. A screaming pain sent him struggling against the two men holding him and he cried from his mouth. The third man then moved to his other hand and rammed a stake through it as well. Eliciting the same reaction, albeit slightly more exhausted. The man then moved to his feet, crossing his feet and driving a single stake between both of them. This final action brought the contents of his stomach back to the light and over his chest. He began to weep and wished that he had never left the mountains and that he was still there with the ones he knew. But instead, he was brought here, pinned to a cross whilst being surrounded by mysterious and hostile figures. The woman began speaking, her hands raised to the sky. As if she were asking it for some great gift. She then pointed at him with a shaking hand and uttered a word that even though he spoke not their language, he understood the foul rage seething within. “Burn.” The two men snatched the small fires that burned at the base of the cross and threw them to the pile of sticks and leaves at the base. The wood caught instantly and crept up the cross and began roaring upon his back. The windswept violently and gusted smoke and dust into his face, feeding the flames and blinding his eyes. The pain he felt grew beyond compare as he screamed out to the wind, begging it to save him from this hell. To fill his wings and blow him back to his mountain home. But the wind answered not. It only blew harder, fanning the fiery beast that flayed upon his skin.
Brick & Glass -Jacob Sam The animals have taken over the garden, ripping out the remnants of everything green. Now, where your vegetables once grew lies the abandoned graves of buried bones and dog shit. You’d go crazy if this happened earlier, seeing it all uprooted and stinky. I bet you would have screamed, but you probably couldn’t care less now. “Out of sight, out of mind,” I think to myself as I watch two foxes fuck all over your mineral-rich soil. It’s only a matter of time before it happens to me. Being overtaken, that is. Already, mice have gotten bold enough to enjoy the open, streaming sun on the window sill. There is a small beetle society forming upstairs, with no domestic dictator to keep them in check. Birds have comfortably nested, lining your gutters and shitting all over me. I am beginning to suspect that something is living in the crawl space, evident by occasional skitters. At this point I am waiting for either a natural disaster to break me down and take these parasites with it, or for you to come back. The second option is more ideal of course. When the night comes and there is nothing to do but think in the dark, my memory is most vivid. To distract myself from the creatures burrowing inside me, I imagine you will arrive with your soap and chemicals and scrub me white again. It’s only a fantasy though, and I know that there will be bigger problems than rats and insects. As the winter gets colder, wolves will find their way in and that will be the final say that you aren’t coming back. It almost makes me want to collapse just thinking about it. I bet that something is going to be killed in me and nobody will be there to wipe away the bloodstained tiles. And I miss this being a place for comfort too. In the summers you would nap in the open, streaming sun, just beneath the window sill. And in the winters you’d build a fire and it’d be a reminder how lucky you were to have me, and I would channel the smoke out into the cold. We took good care of each other. But now it’s terrible here. It’s smelly and scary and freezing; I wish you’d waited at least until spring. The snow falls down the chimney and onto the charred firewood; it melts and mixes with the ash, covering the surrounding area and puddling the floor, and the cold sinks down into the cracks of my hearth, and there is nothing I can do about it. I am ashamed of all I am now, and I know it’ll only get worse. My wallpaper will peel. My stairs will warp. My pipes will rust. More disgusting animals will break their way inside. Still, I have hope, however dwindling. Even once the snow piles heavy onto my roof and my boards become bloated with moisture I will refuse to cave. Instead, I will sit and wait for you like a lonely house; until then, my roof will ache.
Senior Speech -Bennett Jones I have always been fascinated by light, its beauty is so captivating. Perhaps it's because I don't see much of it daily since I start and end my days in darkness. The only thing worse than a nightmare is the night itself because the night is real. Tangible. Cold. Dark. Most nights as a child, I’d find myself lying awake on my bed, too scared to enter the dreamscape, and paralyzed by the world around me. The obscurity felt all pressing, its embrace a reminder that all those who I loved and cared for were sound asleep, unconscious to this impending evil surrounding them. I’d cower in the midnight shadows until the sun rose again, melting the icy fright pulsing through my veins. But, darkness is simply the absence of light. At least, in theory, it should be. This theory, however, does not account for the way it sucks the air from my lungs, for the way my heart leaps out of my chest at the mere thought of its presence. It could be described as nothingness, a place where the light is missing. So, to define dark, it may prove useful to define its opposite. Light from all ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum consists of quantum particles, things smaller than atoms, called photons. The word ‘photon’ derives from the Greek word 'photos,' or ‘phos’ meaning light. Born in the hearts of stars and fire, they are the quickest things in the universe and move at devastating speeds through the cosmos. Photons allow us to see. When a select few of these particles stimulate the optic nerve cones in our eyes, our human brains take that information from our neurons and form a kind of picture, that we can use to categorize the world around us. If anybody is familiar with Newtonian physics, forget everything you know relating to the topic. And if you don’t know anything, you’re in luck. These laws that supposedly govern our physical world break down significantly when you zoom in to the smallest scale. Photons are very small, with no rest energy or mass, and just as they move through space in all directions at incredible speed, they can move through time in equally spectacular vectors. They violate nearly everything that we assume to be inherently true about the known universe. Yet, they are everywhere, all the time in day-to-day life. There would be no such distinction between day and night without them. When I was smaller, I harbored a special distaste for the days it snowed: when the sky was obscured by clouds, blocking out the sun and casting a miserable gray onto the world. Cold flakes fell to the Earth, burying the last of the vibrant fall bronzes and golds. It still makes me uncomfortable now, watching the frost creeping up the windows in a ghostly vignette. But everything became fine again, when the sun came out, and the fresh snowflakes sparkled. Their crystalline structure acts as a mirror, reflecting photons at various angles depending on the thickness of their surface. When you walk and bend your head into your jacket to avoid the inevitable cold, you enter different reflection zones for each snowflake, giving
the illusion of a glittering surface. Some photons hit your eyes, others don't. This same scattering effect is what paints the sky in sunset tones. The solar radiation from our star blasts white beams at increasingly acute angles relative to a point on the Earth’s curvature, and the light breaks the sky open, flooding the heavens with rainbow ambrosia. Color, what a wonderful phenomenon. Our perception of every hue is derived from some unique combination of red, green, and blue- the color receptors humans have. What determines the color of a particular photon is its spin. The spin of any given photon relates to its frequency: different wavelengths represent different frequencies. Red has a longer wavelength than, say, blue. Blue light has more energy. When the weather is dull during the winter months, less light passes through the clouds, less particles bounce off the nitrogen and oxygen electrons in the atmosphere- which is why the world looks gray, Earth’s iconic blue, diluted. When photons pass through different mediums, they slow down, causing them to change direction ever so slightly- this is refraction. During early morning swim practice when the dawn comes over the mountains, I often reflect on how light refracts in water, creating rings of silver and gold in the ever-changing eddies: the way that it bends as a swimmer kicks their legs, sending arcs of glitter into the air. How incredible is light? Allowing us to see the most brilliant things: to see the things that motivate and propel us forward. To watch swimmers in a pool is to see something that looks frustratingly effortless and elegant. You wouldn’t see the work, the blood sweat, and tears in the mundane routine of mornings and late evenings, or the nights spent envisioning the future: practicing technique, perfecting success in their heads, again and again. The way they dream of the things they are most afraid to lose. The way they fight with all their strength against the siren call of their pillows and warm bed, and the obscure tendrils of slumber lulling them back to sleep. There are no photons with the power to illuminate this, so reality often becomes obscured by the things we don’t see. If we try to observe a single photon at a time, they act differently than when observed in a group, or a beam of light. The process of quantum observation allows us to pinpoint its approximate location, but the act of observing fundamentally changes the nature of the situation. When photons are released unmonitored they scatter freely, like waves lapping on a beach. But when isolated and watched they act as a single entity, following straight lines. Physicists cannot explain why they interfere with themselves like this. Perhaps they cave under pressure. Do they worry about college essays, and bleachers full of eyes watching their every move? No one knows why they act this way, only that they do. These little photon things are weird, so much stranger, and powerful than the dark. So why am I so wary of something that should be meaningless in comparison? How can I be afraid of something that’s not there? When a photon exists, it takes every possible path simultaneously to its final destination. On Earth, there is a cornucopia of air molecules to interact with. Photons are flying all over the place, so even in minimal light, a shadow will never be completely opaque. In space, however, particles are unhindered as they stray further from their mother star and farther into the depths of the cosmos. Photons don’t
naturally occur on earth at 4:30 in the morning when my alarm goes off, because we are facing towards the vast vacuum of space. I spend most of my time awake and in the dark. I start and end with the thing I am most terrified of. I am afraid of the dark, of the things I can’t see coming, of the things out of my control. I am scared to be alone in the impending next chapter of my life, scared to lose the friendships with people who have always been in my life, and the people I’ve met along the way who will all divulge on their paths away from their mother star as they interact with the countless other particles of this world. We, and photons, are alike in this way. Yet, I wish I could travel back in time - I know I’ll never be able to go beyond the asymptote of memory. Or bypass anxieties at warp speed. There is no way to know my final destination, and what I need to do to get there. We cannot rectify past errors, we cannot travel back in time. All we have that stands between the past and what we can achieve in the future, is now. Although it’s night outside, we still remember the light, how it feels on our skin, how it sounds when it comes through a speaker as radio waves, and how it shines on a favorite color. Even when it seems dark, there is always light somewhere. The universe is made of - gamma, x-ray, microwave, ultraviolet, infrared, and visible. Attempting to understand the nature of light, to try and break it down to its elemental basics, is what allows me to get out of bed and face the cold quiet onyx void. Because if I see that brightness, the goodness in the world, can only be defined by the depth of its shadow, then the dark is not so scary anymore.
We are so excited to finally release students' work from the winter of 2023 in this time capsule issue of The Pearl. Last winter contained some unforeseeable obstacles when it came to publishing the first release of this magazine, delaying its actual publication to this year. That being said, we hope readers can enjoy this flashback of students' past work, including some former seniors! Thank you for reading - The Pearl
Editor-in-chief
Jacob Sam
Literary Editors:
Kira Harvey & Presley Vaitonis
January, 2024
