Impressions 2012

I p essio s

01

Alcohol Awareness

By Alysha Zaske

Plaza Globe

By Lara Lee Kunkel

Volume 24, Issue 1 Front Cover:

Land That I Call Home, Photo by Samantha Holzer

Back Cover:

Morning Fall, Photo by Stormie Sickler

Front Cover designed by Ryan Crossingham

Impressions is a literary art magazine created and edited by the students of Dickinson State University since 1989.

It is composed of material submitted by DSU students, faculty, staff, and Alumni. The goal of Impressions is to showcase the talents of those individuals assocated with Dickinson State University.

112 Stickney Hall, Dickinson, North Dakota 58601. Phone 483-2844, fax 483-2059, free, David.Schreindl@dickinsonstate.edu.

For the full color version and past issues of Impressions please visit our page at http://www.dsu.nodak.edu/Language-And-Literature/Impressions/.

South Window

By Meixuan Chen

Editors: Connor Cunningham Alex Jacobs Dara Anderson Ryan Crossingham

Advisor:

David Schreindl

Copyright 2012 by the editors of Impressions. The individual authors wholly own all future rights to material published in this magazine, and any reproduction or reprinting, in whole or in part, may be done only with their permission.

The opinions and representations contained in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, university administration, or faculty. Impressions is made possible by the sponsorship of Dickinson State University.

Awards for Impressions are judged and determined by the editors of impressions without knowing the authors of the submissions. Awards are handed out in five catagores: Poetry, Photography, 2-D Art, Fiction, and Non-Fiction. While anyone can submit items only current students are eligible for prizes. The editors of Impressions reserve the right to both edit submissions or refuse to print submissions.

Editors for Impressions are a part of the Literary Production course and the publication of the magazine is a class project. Submissions for the 2013 Impressions can be submitted to David.Schreindl@dickinsonstate.edu.

Table of Contents Contest Winners.............................................................................................................................................. 6

Poems

Choose to See by Diona Osterman-Api ................................................................................................ 8 God by Terry Harker ...................................................................................................................................... 9 Death before Dishonor by Alyssa Slinn ............................................................................................................ 9 Fallen by Steffannie Dubin ............................................................................................................................. 10 Stilettos by Tricia Myran ................................................................................................................................ 10 My Dickinson Flags by Tawanda Dzvokora ..................................................................................................... 11 The Novelist by Joshua Kralicek ...................................................................................................................... 12 Shall I Compare Thee to a Handsome Fox by Dara Anderson .......................................................................... 13 Beautiful by J.W. Riajad .................................................................................................................................. 14 The Mockingbird’s Cry by Jenna Sandman ..................................................................................................... 14 Adrift by J.W. Riajad ....................................................................................................................................... 15 Confidence by Britanny Miller ....................................................................................................................... 15 Wings by J.W. Riajad ...................................................................................................................................... 16 Nana by David Gene ..................................................................................................................................... 16 Fairy Ring by Terry Harker ............................................................................................................................. 17 I Will Remember by Tatyana Khmelyuk ........................................................................................................... 17 Pirate Talk by Terry Harker ............................................................................................................................ 18 The Memory Beast by David Gene ................................................................................................................. 19 Shall I Compare Thee? by Cheryl Schreindl ......................................................................................... 20 First and Last by Terry Harker ............................................................................................................ 21 Spy Game by Terry Harker ................................................................................................................. 21 Pink Elephants, by Tim Rosin ............................................................................................................. 22

Photography

Plaza Globe by Laura Lee Kunkel..................................................................................................................... 1 South Window by Meixuan Chen ..................................................................................................................... 2 Barbwire by Brenda Kostelecky ....................................................................................................................... 9 Blinking Sun by Meixuan Chen ....................................................................................................................... 10 Love Birds by Suresh Mishra .......................................................................................................................... 11 Arching Mirror by Zhang Yu Chen .................................................................................................................. 12 Alaskan Glacier by Brenda Kostelecky ........................................................................................................... 13

Sloping Canyon by Zhang Yu Chen ................................................................................................................ 16 Amber Waves of Grain by Stormie Sickler ...................................................................................................... 17 Joy Riding by Amber Lien .............................................................................................................................. 19 What’s Up There by Chelsea Sigvaldsen ........................................................................................................ 21 A Closer Look by Laura Lee Kunkel .................................................................................................... 22 Old Corral by Laura Lee Kunkel .......................................................................................................... 22 Charlotte by Alysha Zaske ................................................................................................................. 23 Abandoned Farm by Laura Lee Kunkel ................................................................................................ 23 Nature’s Swirl by Zhang Yu Chen ........................................................................................................ 25 Complementary Tractor by Brenda Kostelecky ................................................................................... 26 Grandfather Workings by Brenda Kostelecky ....................................................................................... 26 Last Sunbath for the Day by Suresh Mishra .......................................................................................... 27 Pin Needles by Zhang Yu Chen ........................................................................................................... 27 Prairie Grasses by Amber Lien ............................................................................................................ 27 Web by Alysha Zaske ......................................................................................................................... 29 Raindrop by Laura Lee Kunkel ............................................................................................................ 30 The Warmth of Winter by Stormie Sickler ............................................................................................. 31 A Closer Look by Laura Lee Kunkel .................................................................................................... 32 History by Alysha Zaske ..................................................................................................................... 33 Still Waters by Zhang Yu Chen ............................................................................................................ 34 Table End Beauty by Samantha Holzer ................................................................................................ 35 Road Leading Home by Samantha Holzer ............................................................................................ 36 City Under Water by Zhang Yu Chen ................................................................................................... 37 Mount Roosevelt by Amber Lien ......................................................................................................... 38 Feline Winter by Brenda Kostelecky .................................................................................................... 39 Frosty Three by Brenda Kostelecky ..................................................................................................... 41 Barn by Brenda Kostelecky ................................................................................................................ 42 Grainy Bin by Brenda Kostelecky ........................................................................................................ 42 Dakota Valley by Alysha Zaske ........................................................................................................... 43 Door to the White House by Amber Lien .............................................................................................. 44 Shady Path by Chelsea Sigvaldsen ..................................................................................................... 46 Wintery Beauty by Samantha Holzer ................................................................................................... 46 Harmony by Brenda Kostelecky ......................................................................................................... 48 Relaxing Observation by Samantha Holzer .......................................................................................... 51 Race to the Sky by Zhang Yu Chen ................................................................................................................. 51 Flag Plaza by Laura Lee Kunkel ...................................................................................................................... 51

2-D Artwork The Fiddler by Alysha Zaske ............................................................................................................... 7 Miremba by Keisha Sparks .............................................................................................................................. 8 Tiger Brothers by Denise Johnson ................................................................................................................... 16 Painted Lucky by Keisha Sparks ..................................................................................................................... 18 Blushing Roses by Jenna Alexander .................................................................................................... 22 Calla Lilly by Chelsea Sigvaldsen ....................................................................................................... 24 Eventide by Alysha Zaske .................................................................................................................. 26 Goblet by Chelsea Sigvaldsen ........................................................................................................... 36 Why Won’t the Snow Melt by Jenna Alexander ................................................................................................ 38 Deadpool by Dara Anderson ......................................................................................................................... 39 Faithful Sight by Samantha Holzer .................................................................................................................. 39 Chinese Calligraphy by Meixuan Chen ............................................................................................... 40 Colorful Eventide by Alysha Zaske ...................................................................................................... 45 Framed by Marissa Stanton ................................................................................................................ 47 Which One by Marissa Stanton ........................................................................................................... 48 Spazzed Frustrationi by Alysha Zaske ................................................................................................. 49 Simple Produce by Samantha Holzer .................................................................................................. 50 Skull Denise Johnson ......................................................................................................................... 52

Fiction

Unknown by Jenna Sandman ............................................................................................................... 27 White Rooms by Joshua Kralicek ......................................................................................................... 28 Water by Cheryl Schreindl.................................................................................................................. 31 The Table, by Tim Rosin ..................................................................................................................... 32 Revision by Alex Jacobs ..................................................................................................................... 35 Of Procrastination by Alex Jacobs ....................................................................................................... 37 Crows and Clocks by Dara Anderson ............................................................................................................. 38

Non-Fiction

No Negation of the Sea by Robert Meador .......................................................................................... 41 My Dad’s Barn by Tricia Myran .......................................................................................................... 42 Polansky by Jenna Sandman ................................................................................................................ 43 Torino: An Essay, by Tim Rosin............................................................................................................. 44 Neo-Traditional Meanderings by Diona Osterman-Api ........................................................................ 45 Cry the Beloved African Teacher by Tawanda Dzvokora ....................................................................... 47 Russian Christmas Divinations by Tatyana Khmelyuk ........................................................................... 49

Contest Winners

Poetry~

1st- God by Terry Harker - Pg 9 2nd- Confidence by Britanny Miller - Pg 17 3rd- Fallen by Steffannie Dubin - Pg 12 Honorable Mention: Pirate Talk by Terry Harker - Pg 20 Adrift by JW Riajad - pg 17 Pink Elephants by Tim Rosin - pg 24

Fiction~ 1st- Unknown by Jenna Sandman - Pg 29 2nd- White Room by Joshua Kralicek - Pg 30 3rd- Water by Cheryl Schreindl - Pg 33

Non-fiction~ 1st- Neo-Traditional Meanderings by Diona Osterman-Api - Pg 45 2nd- Polansky by Jenna Sandman- Pg 43 3rd- No Negation of the Sea by Robert Meador - Pg 41 Honorable Mention: Cry the Beloved African Teacher by Tawanda Dzvokora Pg 47

Two-Dimensional Art~ 1st- Eventide by Alysha Zaske - Pg 28 2nd- The Fiddler by Alysha Zaske - Pg 7 3rd- Skull by Denise Johnson - Pg 52 Honorable Mention: Mirembe by Keisha Sparks - Pg 8

Photography~ 1st- Morning Fall by Stormie Sickler - Pg Back Cover 2nd- Relaxing Observation by Samantha Holzer - Pg 51 3rd- Nature’s Swirl by Zhang Yu Chen - 25 Honorable Mention: Arching Miror by Zhang Yu Chen - Pg 14 Raindrop by Laura lee Kunkel - Pg 30

Impressions

6

April 2012

The Fiddler

By Alysha Zaske

April 2012

7

Impressions

Po e tr y

mother unwilling to have faith in the public school system.

I try to be unconfrontational and empathetic to staff entrusted with the well-being of my child, while fighting a bureaucracy that thwarts open-mindedness and mutual respect and love between families and teachers.

Choose to See

You may see a snobby peer who avoids eye contact and distances herself from opportunities for friendship.

I fight social anxiety brought on by self-doubt and overwhelming fear that the close-knit circle I am able to trust will turn away, or find me uninteresting, because I haven’t the time to nurture the friendships honestly held dear integral to my mental health.

By Diona Osterman-Api You may see a naughty child having a meltdown in the grocery aisle.

I see my “baby” crying out in pain from too much sensory input . . . the momentous squeak of the cart, the intrusive mix of too many colors on millions of packages, florescent lights feeding a migraine, the rumbling mumble of “too many words” of the checkers.

You may see a flighty, unorganized mess of a woman who forgets her children’s’ engagements, hasn’t time to do her hair, and shows disrespect with her chronic tardiness.

I fret about not having time to shop for groceries, pore over the accuracy of an IEP, create impossibly complicated special lunches, want to just play at the park with my toddler, seek the solace of the simple love a marriage must hold, and long to take a shower.

You may see a permissive mother held hostage by her child.

I feel like an ostracized, tireless but exhausted, machine... fighting the oversights of judgmental ignorance that put the health of my child in danger.

You may see an impoverished family with a messy yard and home.

I find a father putting in too many hours so that his children may be under the care of the woman that most loves them.

You may see.

But, Do you?

Miremba

You may see a bitchy pain-in-the ass and overprotective

by Keisha Sparks

Impressions

8

April 2012

Barbwire

by Brenda Kostelecky

God

By Terry Harker Fear me, Tremble before me For I am your God Who am I you say?

I am Nothing ***** You ask, “Is Nothing sacred?”

“Yes,” I answer. “Nothing is sacred!”

I have existed for millenia But I was weak and powerless because There was a time when God was sacred But now Nothing is When times are tough and people need strength They turn to God to find it When times are good and there is plenty They need nothing to sustain their minds or souls But that which I can give them which is Nothing

Death before Dishonor

By Alyssa Slinn

I am worshipped in many forms Images of me are carried by all and worshipped by the masses My subjects carry around cell phones On which they text inane messages to one another Ipods with which they listen to the religious music That glorifies my name The masses sit in front of big screen TV’s like zombies Hour after hour watching mind-numbing shows

You’ve chosen to fight for a nation, Built for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, One country, in God we trust, Fighting life’s righteous test.

A fight for democracy, A fight against terrorism, This fight between the East and West, One great mess.

And as you stand for this nation Representing a united fight, The red, white and blue, I stand fighting to heal this sadness growing deep inside of me;

For Nothing Nothing is happening Nothing is good.

Nothing is worthwhile.

All praise to Nothing! ***** Fear me Tremble before me For I am your god Who am I you say?

I am Nothing!

April 2012

I’ve never met someone so genuine, so kind, Such a short time and you already mean so much to me, But strength in you I find, What it means to keep the free, free.

It’s death before dishonor, It’s what you believe, where you stand, Living life in the line of duty, So much more than a young man should be willing to give.

9

Impressions

Blinking Sun

Stilettos

by Meixuan Chen

By Tricia Myran

Fallen

By Steffannie Dubin The early signs of winter Brakes screeching to a halt The crisp, gentle breeze Slicing through the evanescent sunshine A tear slides ever so swiftly Down my cheek Into the wispy curve that my hair has taken Trees are in a solemn standstill Whilst a second tear descends The chilling season to blame Flags waving As if sails on a ocean engulfed boat People passing One, maybe two, in the distance Carving into the vast horizon Time is passing. It has passed.

The grass is turning. It has turned.

The leaves are falling. They have fallen.

Yet, a seamless blue sky remains‌

Impressions

I had meticulously gathered my marbles And thought it would look best To show my colors in a second-hand vase To decorate my now empty nest.

Spears of sunlight bled a kaleidoscope of color Exploding into the room illuminating a painted history.

The colors and sizes of feelings and years worn Smooth by time mingle, chipped and eclectic with mystery.

The vase of crackled glass transparent reveals The hourglass figure of my youth on an heirloom table.

But that night her stilettos bumped the table And they crashed to the floor, fleeing under furniture, running away Chattering, laughing at me, little round bullies on the playground.

Stilettos struggled to balance amid the clatter she had caused.

Hubby, face ashen, his sin revealed Trembled in fear of my next move.

The ice-cold barrel glowed in the moonlight.

Fiery thoughts speared my brain.

Stiletto messed with a woman’s marbles.

Now a kaleidoscope of color explodes.

10

April 2012

My Dickinson Flags

But all these do not make me less responsible And less African, and less Zimbabwean.

But whether I am proud or not is neither here nor there

By Tawanda Dzvokora I pass by, some days, and I look up and my blood boils despite the snow Looking out and following my gaze, I see the flags I observe a moment of silence, in respect of the gone Outside Selke Hall In honor of those whose blood they spilled My window is directly opposite the flags In honor of the burnt! The petrol bombed Talent and TichaForty six in total, I see them all, every day ona!

I appreciate the presence of mine I see them, balls of fire as they ran in vein Does it deserve to be there?

Whether it should be there or not is neither here nor there. The sacrificial lambs!

I cry and weep not for the departed but for the departing I cry for my beloved brethren It is pacifying though. It is comforting indeed But it opens old wounds, just to see that flag It makes me proud yes Because home is home and home is best I see the red color, I see blood I see the black color And I am reminded to be proudly black, proudly African and proudly Zimbabwean But all the blood from my fellow black man, my fellow countrymen, makes me cry But whether I am happy or not is neither here nor there.

It blows with the rest To the north, to the south It blows with the best, To the east, to the west It doesn’t calm with the rest Yet it is amidst the best It doesn’t make it any closer to the best But again that is neither here nor there.

I cry to the world, for the world to see and hear I cry not for sympathy but for the forces of darkness to be removed, I cry for the forces of evil to meet their day, like the others have It’s darkest before dawn It’s near, it’s so near! Nothing is forever!

When? Is neither here nor there.

I look up again as I write And I see the mighty flag falling down As we all gather and shed not a single drop.

Cut it to pieces and drag it in the trash bin How? Is neither here nor there

Love Birds

By Suresh Mishra

Everyday I look up, and I see our flag I see the atrocities, I see the genocide I hear the crying by pregnant mothers Yes, in cold blood!

It makes me happy to see it there among the others, but just for a moment Behind it, I see the blazing guns towards a defenseless tribe The men, the children, the old, the young All add up to the 20,000 massacred for being born different to the powers that be The fact that I am angry is neither here nor there.

I see it everyday, each time I look up, outside And I elect tonight, to be the voice of the voiceless And speak for the speechless, the persecuted--for I am one I will be the spokesperson for the silenced and the tortured I shall not keep quiet, I shall speak I will speak for the murdered I will speak for the abused and the raped, for they are many and gagged

April 2012

11

Impressions

The Novelist

Yet, Seek and ye shall find

by Joshua Kralicek Hello to my friend the novelist.

I hope you’re here to stay.

Your presence like a mother’s kiss It comforts me till day Please don’t go my friend the novelist Your company I prefer to keep You would be dearly missed, My friend, And I would nearly weep I love you my friend the novelist None other I’d prefer around I feed off your knowledge And, never are you too proud Who are you my friend the novelist?

This question I often ask.

In our talks, the answer is amidst.

But I dare not upturn your mask.

You scare me my friend the novelist Your mystery is terrifying The truth may be the vilest,

Arching Mirror

Tell me now, my friend the novelist Where you hide from friends I seek you aimlessly now With grave messages to send You were here my friend the novelist I swear that this is true Our thoughts had once chorused A beautiful melodic tune Sorrow for my friend the novelist For now she has surely passed But you may come again, my friend, Maybe Once, If my travels last So goodbye my friend the novelist Our pathways never cross None I loved more dearly But, Alone I am not lost There you are my friend the novelist You had never been truly gone In all reality you never existed, Yet, You were with me all along

by Zhang Yu Chen

Impressions

12

April 2012

Alaskan Glacier

By Brenda Kostelecky

Shall I Compare Thee to a Handsome Fox

By Dara Anderson Shall I compare thee to a handsome fox?

Thou art more cunning and sly, But like the fox you don’t care about others’ hue and cry.

Oh how interest has sprung your ears, While I look at you through tears.

For once you see my soul, my heart, my fears.

From a distance you play, pucker and pounce, Though up close, you run to the hole, you renounce.

And like the fox you are, you run and pounce, Containing my bloody heart, still pumping in your mouth.

But when you come out sneaky like night, I see not evil, but you give me a fright.

You’re not ordinary; your back is not hairy, Your eyes strike thrice, which is nice but not scary.

On to the matter of heart’s pitter patter: In your voice I rejoice whether singing or chatter.

Close enough to the fox I gather, And I grow fearful like a lost sheep and blather.

April 2012

Running so smooth the grass doesn’t move, As you slither towards the she fox, for your love you must prove.

Used like a confused sheep during heat, I lay dying, to you I’m just meat.

As my heart in your mouth shall continue pumping, My love for you will never go slumping.

13

Impressions

Beautiful

Sloping Canyon

By J.W. Riajad

By Zhang Yu Chen Iridescent, luminescent, Sparkling are your eyes.

If I could fall into them now, I’d most likely melt and die.

Fiery core, consumptive powers, Growing in your waking hours.

When you blink, the lights go out And all the world in darkness shouts.

The Mockingbird’s Cry

By Jenna Sandman “What is it?” they asked “That drew you in The hair, the teeth, the smile?”

“What is it?” they asked “That caught your breath And stole your thoughts For a little while?”

“What is it?” they asked “That made you lose Your heart, Your soul, Your sense?

“What is it?” they asked That made you a fool And act like such an innocent?”

I looked into their eyes As their hate came off And knew that they had envy I felt their stares As their confusion coated

Impressions

And knew that they were worried.

I took a breath and then another Trying to just squeeze past Their judgments and concerns I held the breaths and breathed some more Trying to quench The burns.

“I’ll tell you,” I answered “It wasn’t His presence Or the particular way He looked.

“I’ll tell you,” I answered “It was something more Akin to the feelings He invoked.”

“I’ll tell you,” I answered “The Chain that haltingly unfurled.

‘I’ll tell you,” I answered “How that Chain whispered Of promises not to be ignored.”

14

Than a solitary mockingbird Began to hauntingly sing Her raw, barren refrain The melody already tattooed Upon the links Of the tarnished Chain.

She continued to sing Long after the questions Long after the answers Fell into a frozen array She continued to sing Long after the night Became a haze of gray.

She continued to sing Long after the Chain Unfurled and lay Limp without a use She continued to sing Long after It answered And echoed back Her cracked and haunting tune.

April 2012

Adrift

Confidence

By J.W. Riajad

By Britanny Miller Every muscle tense and shaking,

I feel like I’m not alive, Like my heart has ceased its beating.

And although rivers run inside my soul, The life they bring is fleeting.

With nothing left to give or take.

Something in my heart is quaking, And still I have a choice to make.

Someone, wake me up, Push me into the lights, Where I can float and soak in warmth, Uninterrupted by the cold of nights.

To swing, shoot, pass, or speak, Hold on to the ball, or take a leap.

Is it love or is it fake?

If stars were built for laughter, And each of us had two, Would they burn forever after, Capturing pasts of me and you?

Do you give or do you take?

Second guessing makes it harder, Only action will take you farther.

If I were a ghost would you finally see me?

Can you even see me, really me, now?

Each time I look into your face, I fail to wonder of future, how?

Just because you’re scared and nervous, Doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it.

I am not unwilling to strive, I just feel that I’m not worth competing.

I can hear all the earth screaming survive as I Am willing my internal and external bleeding.

Failing only makes us stronger, Thwarting death ever longer.

Knowing that impressions last, Willingness to take that chance.

I pick myself up, I am made of dust.

The wind carries me the rest of the way.

Now sprinkles me onto a reflection of us, In the water that whisks me away.

Every muscle tense and shaking, With nothing left to give or take.

Something in my heart is quaking, Destiny is mine to make.

Amber Waves of Grain

By Stormie Sickler

April 2012

15

Impressions

Wings

By J.W. Riajad Ripped from me Like the wings from a fly.

Sudden, painful The way that you died.

And like those wings You cannot be returned.

I have cried for days, My eyes, they burn.

Tiger Brothers

Wings are supposed to beat,

By Denise Johnson To flutter, to fly and to soar.

Nana

Without you I am the wingless fly,

By David Gene Crumpled raw and exposed on the floor.

She’s dieing Her body stays I can tell she knows It kills me to stay Is there a courage to be had that could save me If I go The death will continue Her need will grow If I leave I walk out the door The wind posts it’s message That through this very air Somewhere She’ll be in need Even with this consolation That she knows my retreat Is not my deceiving But the truth of my own Here I sit With the weight of her pain Compressing every breath

My heart still beats.

The world still moves.

I wonder when I’ll rise from this dream.

Here in this place Where I’m absent of you,

Each breath I release is a scream.

Impressions

16

April 2012

Fairy Ring

Joy Riding

By Terry Harker

By Amber Lien

Late in the evening on a moonlit night Walking amongst trees aglow in the pale starlight Look carefully as you go and you will see a sight Late in the evening on a moonlit night.

Watch where you step, they’re hiding you know There in the clearing can you see the faint glow?

A fairy ring, its luminous light fading away slow Watch where you step, they’re hiding you know.

“Who is it that’s hiding?” you ask of

I Will Remember

me If you look carefully, it’s pixies and fairies you will see.

By Tatyana Khmelyuk

Moments before singing and dancing carefree

My heart still beats with love and passion,

Who is it that’s hiding, you ask of me?

My dreams are captured by your face, I pray to feel your breath and kisses,

They are the little ones, that magic is made of

You chose to live with him in grace.

Always around to guide us and help us in love As we go through life, they watch from below and above

I will remember all your gestures,

They are the little ones, that magic is made of.

Your laugh and bright imagination.

Your sighs without any reason,

*****************

Your dress and favorite season.

Late in the evening on a moonlit night Watch where you step, they’re hiding you know

You will be happy more than ever,

“Who is it that’s hiding?” you ask of me

Joy will be always in your eyes.

They are the little ones that magic is made of.

You will forget my senseless anger, I will remember your priceless cries.

April 2012

17

Impressions

Pirate Talk

By Terry Harker “Are ye after blood, are ye after blood, Are ye after blood?” I said, said I. He eyed the two fingers of rum left in the bottle, Then drank it down and said with a sigh.

“No, I’m not after blood but treasure.”

“Treasure ye say, silver and gold?” I said, said I. “Aye and I need a ship and a captain.”

And he stared at me with his one good eye.

“Are ye after anything else?” I asked.

“If I might be so bold, Besides the treasure ye mentioned, The one of silver and gold?”

“Aye.” He said, “The viceroy’s daughter, A rare beauty, or so I’ve been told.”

I said, “Aye I’ve seen her myself; Don’t murder me, but the girl’s not that old.”

His pistol appeared on the table, And as he glared my blood ran cold.

“Ye scalawag,” he said, “she’s not for me, But a ransom, worth more than silver and gold.”

His fingers caressed the pistol, As he stared at me with his one good eye.

“Well be ye in or not, what be yer answer?

Say ye no, then say goodbye.”

Painted Lucky

By Keisha Sparks

Impressions

18

April 2012

The Memory Beast

By David Gene You dream of love But what of the cost You feel young enough To brave the loss Or don’t you feel the endorphins flowing Your heart beat a lofty beat This melody like a boy with a harp With opiate chords The more you get The faster you pour You pump a thing filled with flames Will all your scars be marks of shame From red to white Each mention of her name And then the shame Of the things before she came You are the same but lame now Detox-icing In corner behold the hole inside you Beside yourself Cement walls adorned with laments Walk down the hall To find that hole inside You tend to this separate thing that is you A creature Like a mother given birth to a beast Sick and morbid Afraid to show it light The beast, a spectacle for the eyes This puking coughing bag of love lost Spilling and stench-ing up your quarters Unterminated desire now rotten covers the beast’s sick shadow across yourself You hold tight to the vulgar notion of hope for this coil of refuse The ever-convulsing green and purple spitting shitting wretch Can not even be consumed by the birds

April 2012

The all manner of life Far too proud to eat such a thing And so it festers in the corner Your companion without an owner It mounts atop its waste In all manner of secretion and smells to taste In between the damp whiffs and the gurgles and sniffs Warm and wet of tears ready to set Burst of rage engulf your order You beat it purple, green and red You drip sopping foot to head This putrid figure yours but not dead You grapple limb Covered by the kicking twitching almost dead Immersed in a thing like a stomach sour for hours Into the light you hear screaming Like a thousand voices hot and searing The passing of a thousand memories Locked away Until today You hope there is a place That you can kill The thought of your lovers face

What’s Up There

By Chelsea Sigvaldsen

19

Impressions

A Closer Look

Shall I Compare Thee?

By Laura Lee Kunkel

By Cheryl Schreindl You are like the sea, with eyes mysterious and deep.

When you thirst, they become as black as ebony.

When your drink is filled, they are a golden mahogany.

Your feet are like the wind, agile and moving with unprecedented speed.

Your skin is like alabaster marble.

When your touched by sunlight you sparkle like diamonds.

You are stronger than an ox, yet gentle as a lamb.

Your hands though soft with caresses, are as cold as ice.

Your voice is like a piano; the soft tinkling is music to my ears.

Your kisses melt me like butter.

Your love knows no bounds.

Old Corral

Our hearts beat as one.

By Laura Lee Kunkel

Impressions

20

April 2012

First and Last

Charlotte

By Terry Harker

By Alysha Zaske

As one of your father’s trusted retainers, I was summoned the night you were born.

I bowed my head for the very first time, To my future Queen, my allegiance was sworn.

From young child to young woman As I watched you grow.

I bowed my head often to the petulant child.

But all that changed as we became friends not foe.

I saved your life that moonless night On guard when the assassin came.

I bowed my head as you made me a knight, You said, “Rise Sir; your reward will be fortune and fame.”

Many were the times I rode into battle, In defense of you and the crown.

I bowed my head as you showered me with praise, For my bravery in defending castle and town.

But a time came, when another Took my place in your heart and eye.

I bowed my head as you looked at me in anger, For attempting to warn you, his words of love were a lie.

Spy Game

By Terry Harker

But blinded by your passion, You chose thus to ignore, all the signs and facts So now I bow my head to you one last time, As I await the headsman’s axe.

Mitzi Tizer Femme fatale Ditzy blonde, Deadly as hell. ***** She plays the game using feminine wiles, With male spies whom she thus beguiles.

Abandoned Farm

By Laura Lee Kunkel

Like a game of chess, intrigue dictates the player’s fate With the end results the same, one word: Checkmate.

Once their secrets she possesses, they vanish without a trace.

A mind like ice behind an angel’s face.

She operates at the top of her game in spite of all her quirks.

Her outward appearance: frills and lace, inside, a killer lurks.

She lives for God, queen, and country, and all that is good, And that one false move, game’s over, is well understood. ***** Mitzi Tizer Femme fatale Ditzy blonde, Deadly as hell.

April 2012

21

Impressions

Blushing Roses

by Jenna Alexander

Pink Elephants

By Tim Rosin “Don’t think of pink elephants,” she said.

-An absurd thought.

We sit in a Paris sidewalk café, smoking hand rolled cigarettes.

Drinking deep organic rich French press, musing over Frost.

A waiter passes and the scent of raspberries is upon the air.

-Cheesecake.

“Don’t think of pink elephants,” she said.

-An absurd thought.

Her eyes are Pacifico blue; as she straightens my silk skinny tie.

Then silently slinks seductively into a mission style high backed chair.

Impressions

Hard wood clicks beneath my feet, patent leather upon Old cork soles.

Breathe in, breath out, Find a way to reach deep down, delving into your soul.

And ask that one burning question.

“Don’t think of pink elephants,” she said.

-An absurd thought.

White hot light strikes my eyes, and I awake, realizing I’m alone.

Dawn has broken, and with it she and sleep has gone.

Don’t think of pink elephants.

Don’t think of her.

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April 2012

Nature’s Swirl

By Zhang Yu Chen

April 2012

23

Impressions

Calla Lilly

by Chelsea Sigvaldsen

Complementary Tractor

by Brenda Kostelecky

Grandfather Workings

by Brenda Kostelecky

Impressions

24

April 2012

Last Sunbath for the Day

by Suresh Mishra

Pin Needles

by Zhang Yu Chen

Prairie Grasses

by Amber Lien

April 2012

25

Impressions

Eventide

By Alysha Zaske Impressions

26

April 2012

F i c t i on Unknown

By Jenna Sandman Type. Type anything. Write in riddles, in fragments. Just type.

She could feel the hamster stumbling over itself.

She would type then delete, type then delete. Nothing seemed to capture what she was feeling. Nothing seemed to bring justice to the storm inside of her. It wasn’t even a storm, though. It had been calm for some months not, not even brewing, just simply being, always hovering in existence.

Capture what your heart feels, she says. What crap. What does my heart feel? I am numb, is that a feeling? My gut is no longer trustworthy. You want me to type? How about we start with getting me to feel.

The keys are no longer pressed but rather punched in a song of nightmarish memories. Without realizing what she is doing, she types sentence after sentence, not even glancing up to see if her words make sense on screen, since they are perfectly rational in her mind.

The anger seeps out of her pores, cleansing her skin of the hatred she has carried for so many years. The air grows thick with frustration, blurred memories, feelings that don’t have names and meanings that don’t have descriptions.

She mumbles, as she types, not aware of the sarcastic bile that spews from her dainty mouth. Her head

April 2012

shakes back and forth gaining speed with each letter that is punched. Soon her body starts to shiver, starting from the core and rippling out. Still, she mumbles and punches, unaware of what is happening.

Her body now rocks as the memories displace the hamster. Her heartbeat becomes rapid, matching the pace of her rocking body. Her hands shake as her rage becomes human. The symphony of keys increases, pushing the rhythm of everything else. The air pulses with her tension, the silence crackling in anticipation of her release.

Type what you feel. Type what you remember. I don’t want to remember. I can’t remember. I can’t think. I can’t breathe.

As her chest heaves with memories her mind can’t handle, her hands move of their own accord. Her fingers fly across the keyboard, moving with an anger too long suppressed. The words appear on screen, beautiful in their simplicity and roughness. She keeps typing, even though the keys are slippery with her pain.

Finally, the seizure of sobs become too much and she is forced to finally stop. With her hands catching her heavy head, she cries. The moans are so physically immense that they push her from her chair. Hours later, her pulse finally flows smooth. With unknown strength, she lifts herself and looks at the screen, curious to see what her pain has said.

The screen is black, shut down, closed and at rest.

She echoes back its sigh and breaths.

Web

By Alysha Zaske

27

Impressions

White Rooms

tree was a behemoth, or so it seemed, so far alone and away from others and so twisted to an unusual shape. Are strange things automatically assumed to be bigger? Maybe it really

By Joshua Kralicek was not that big.

I was just a pilgrim. A pilgrim without faith, mind you, but The roots seemed to shift before uncertain eyes, or unnothing more or little else of any substantive quality defined certain eyes distant in day light saw reality incorrectly. A my person in those tiny villages that I had a penchant for hole? A hole in the tree? Carved out? It seemed so natural visiting. But this village! A pilgrim was not a pilgrim in this to my eyes. I dangled my feet into the hole. How remarkably place. How is it that there can be so many passing through like Alice! Take me to Wonder Land! And so I fell. this village and some are labeled as travelers and others as How long I fell I cannot say, but the fall was far harsher strangers? Why was I stranger? None explicitly accused me than that of Alice’s. Unlike her, I could see where I fell from. of it, as if it were something to be accused of, but wherever Several meters above a black hole stared back at me, but I went there was an unspoken animosity. No, not quite ani- the passage to the distrusting village was beyond my reach. mosity. It was as if they knew something How could I see black in the night? BeI didn’t and wouldn’t accept me until cause suddenly, my surroundings were some mystery was made clear. Bigots. illuminated. White, anyway, if white is A pilgrim is a sort of wanderer, just really illumination. This time it stung

By Laura Lee Kunkel with a more defined purpose. They travand blinded. And it deceived! No diel to specific sights, I grant mensions to be determined you, but what they hope to save for the ceiling and its achieve at those sites is apsmall black aperture. It went proached with the same on ceaselessly or the floors fascination and caution and blended into walls masterenigma as everywhere else fully. Frequently my eye would be for a wanderer. The rested on the pit from where site may reflect as much or I fell, and a maddening trick as little or more or less than of the eyes seemed to make a pebble happened upon a either the hole shrink or the gravel road. That has never ceiling raise. Or maybe I done me good. I keep munwas the one shrinking in this dane parts of the world in white room. their place.

It was clear I had to find After two days I contemanother way out, but cauplated departing for another tious I decided to take to one nearby site of endearing faspath and never travel away cination, but I decided to chance nature and go explore the from it. This way I could turn back at any time and come vicinity of the village. The sun hung low on the earth, and back to the entryway to hopelessly try and escape that way. shadows reached for me on the stretching green in vain. Of And so I walked. It was not long until I realized the enorlow constitution, I rested frequently on the grass and futilely mity of the room. The sound of my footsteps carried far, and tried to commune with nature. It was warm. It was quiet. And the ceiling was certainly high. The floor was smooth, never swiftly it was getting dark. In a rare fit of naïve curiosity, I seeming to shift or be inconsistent and it never seemed to decided to examine the world by night in hopes of attaining slant. It was as flat as the plains and more constant. Nothing something from it perchance lost in the daytime. After all, changed. The only variance was myself, and my eyes had to people assume that we lose sight of the world in the dark. keep at my hands or my shoes regularly to make sure I had Maybe I could prove that wrong. Maybe there was some- not passed out or that this wasn’t a vision. thing only to be seen by night beyond different wild life. If In time, the horror of situation did dawn upon me. It took night time is the devil’s playground, God’s artful hand is still an unmeasured yet long period of unmeasured yet far walkin its design, no? ing to realize that I may not survive and there may not be a Travelling further away from the village, everything was way out. I had stumbled into the wanderer’s dream and the deathly still. I had been accompanied by choruses of in- pilgrim’s nightmare. Nothing existed to stumble the wansects that were now stilled by the escape of day creatures, derer’s thoughts and nothing existed to be observed. All I and their nightly predators had not yet taken flight. Nothing had left to take refuge in were my thoughts and memories, moved save for me and a frightening gentle breeze hardly and it seems seldom that sojourning in the mind is anything strong enough to move a blade of grass. I approached a but miserable. Even more seldom for the pilgrim! I sought tree, gnarled sickly. I had viewed it from a distance by day the world to escape myself, and now as death seemed posand appreciated the stubborn work of growth in unnatural sible, the mind was the last temple to take refuge. I carried forms, but night time painted evil. Yet the same spirit that a knife with me and kept extreme action in mind. took me to wander in the evening took fear into pity. This I wondered, was this white room the attraction that pil-

Raindrop

Impressions

28

April 2012

The Warmth of Winter

By Stormie Sickler

grims sought? Or wanderers even? At the instant of this thought, I heard a distant echo of a soft footstep.

“Hello?” I asked the White. Nothing replied.

I kept walking, having never changed direction. But I moved quicker with those light echoes coming from the general direction I faced. They were footsteps, definitely. I had held my breath and ceased motion to make sure. With nothing to feel, smell, see, or touch, the faintest noise shook the world. Hearing the heart beat is nothing new or disconcerting, but hearing the blood flow through the veins! To hear your lungs stretch with each inhale! Those small, small footfalls relieved this soul.

Quicker I walked, getting close to a jog. “Hello?” I kept calling. A long time passed, I think.

“Hello?” They were there! Why didn’t they hear me?

There were two of them. The pitter patter of their steps was consistent, like they were trying to hide it, but the weight of their steps was different, I noted. They landed the same, but one was certainly larger than the other.

“Hello?” It wasn’t my voice, and in my excitement, I sprinted towards the source, but eventually collapsed to a jog when the distance became too great. I kept calling “hello, hello!” and almost cried.

And they appeared out of the white. The bulbous bags they had on their backs made them inhuman at a distance.

As I approached I saw that they were man and woman, well past their prime years, but fit enough for travel. They had the melded facial features of an intimate married couple of at least two decades, and they wore matching fatigues.

Their natural exhaustion became unnaturally in sync.

“Hello,” I said, excitement fading.

April 2012

“Hello,” said the man, unsurprised to see me.

Pleasantries escaped. “Where are we?” I asked.

“Nobody knows, but many come,” the woman said.

“To this white room? Why?” “Surely you see some value in it,” said the man.

“Is there value in it?”

“No, but most people think it has some value when they first get here. How long have you been here?” the man said.

I didn’t have an answer. I never measured time in any way. I carried no watch and had little to determine the passage of time except for a gradually sharpening hunger. I perceived well over a day had passed, but monotony makes hours to years and an abundance of it makes hours into seconds.

“You don’t know. I suppose no one ever really has known.

It’s comforting at first, isn’t it? To not worry about time. I’m assuming you’re American,” the woman said.

“That’s right, and I supposed the same of you.”

“That was right when nationality mattered. It doesn’t have any value here,” she said.

“What? You want to stay here forever?”

“We have no answer for that,” she said, nodding with her husband.

“Er. I suppose you have no idea how long you’ve been here.”

“A few months, probably,” the man said.

“Dear God! How?” “We have food, and this isn’t the first trip. It began with me,” the man said, “years ago before I was married I came across this village. You saw the locals, the snide way they look on wanderers and . . . .”

“I’m a pilgrim.”

“Whatever. Same thing. Labels and titles! Those fade away here. It’s quite amazing. Anyway, I came across this place probably a similar way you did. I fell here and wound up wandering this great white room. I was lost back then. I sought something; something in myself, some knowledge of me, the self, make my path for Nirvana or enlightenment or what have you. And a part of me felt like I did, and another part of me felt lost.You haven’t been here long, I can tell.”

“So there is a way out,” I said, feeling a great weight lifted. “Where is it?”

“We don’t know.”

And the weight returned, with a great deal more weight and the added pressure of gravity.

“How did you escape the first time?” I was sweating before, but now cold drops slithered down my body, tickling and sucking my flesh the whole journey.

“I honestly can’t recall. Sorry. And this is my wife’s first time here.”

“Why in God’s name would you put your wife through this?”

“I thought we would get closer. You’ll see in the next few hours or days. You learn who you are. You’ll feel the pleasure of enlightenment and find your way home. But I made a grave error bringing my wife. Now we suffer.”

The wife nodded and said, “Never take your lover here.

Never come here with anybody. You discover yourself. Your

29

Impressions

history and experiences dissolve and what remains is pure self, but there’s a cost.”

I was listening, in a sense, but despairing more over the fact that I ran far off my course. I had no orientation to finding the hole from where I fell. “Then why do you stay I you suffer?”

“Why leave? The whiteness, it seems to suck from you the world, and when people lose the world, what remains is a person, but just that, a person. The person. Nothing more or less. Your individual ceases and true humanity begins.

Take away the dressings of people and what remains is one.

My husband and I are one, and you are one with us. There are no politics here or religion or histories to distort us. We don’t leave because one cannot go back.”

I felt dizzy, but only when my sight rested on the couple was I aware of it. Otherwise I stared at another twisted solidarity. “What about gender or appearance?” I suggested weakly.

“The effects of evolution, we concluded. The physical world was not fully escaped. But look at what happens when a couple spends a long time with one another,” one of them said.

And I was afraid. Man and woman melded to each other in years of stagnancy. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to run away and scream and die and not talk to them anymore. I wanted to be me.

“You see it, yes?” One of them said. “Yes, you see. We can give you some food and company, if you still feel that need, but I must be honest, ours is a hollow presence. Usually people don’t find others as quickly as you found us.”

“There are more here?”

“Many,” said one.

“Very distant and far away, but they are here in great number. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands wandering this room,” said the other.

“I heard you from so far away. How big is this place? You don’t know.”

Neither responded. Nothing seldom affirms, but this was a rare exception.

“I don’t want anything,” I said faintly and wandered away from the couple, who said nothing and went on their way. I thought I spoke truly. There was some vague longing for the grass again, and that nice village with the distant people. I wanted my friends and family. They still existed. I still existed through them. No white walls would change that. But was I merely my origin? Who was I? Names were irrelevant.

Names are labels. What defines me? As I wandered and reflected those definitions became clear, but new context made it frighteningly generic, a rule that applied to everyone. A human was a human.

“Where does the light come from?” I thought aloud. All of my thoughts came aloud at that point. There was some stubborn part of me that held onto the individual. “How can an underground room be so bright and colorless?” It was night when I fell, and night came and passed at least once by now. But it’s never changed. Brightness remains. As if there wasn’t supposed to be night just like there isn’t supposed to be an individual. I have no name. No name. No name. No ti-

Impressions

Shadowed Tree

By Alysha Zaske

tle, no mission, nothing unique, nothing to add or take away.

What is the more universal name? A wanderer or a pilgrim?

I suppose wanderer. But that implies seeking something aimlessly. Do I seek aimlessly? I want myself. Where am I? Where must I seek outside myself? What distinguishes me from that man or that woman or my lover or my enemies? I can’t accept their way.”I said some of these things and more sporadically over what I thought was a long period of time.

I do not know how long I walked at that point or how far, but, fiercely refusing to lose myself, I broke into a sprint, and that sprint went on forever. I shouted and cried. There were more here, and I would find someone who had another view, another person unique from me. Hunger paralyzed my body and left me at periods of motionlessness. I was hallucinating maybe. Maybe the whole ordeal was a hallucination at that point. The white! The white!

I detested it! With a scream, I pulled out my knife and stabbed my hand; the sharpness of it brought back some sensation of touch, and it was clear that I had fallen to the ground at some point. Truly, I thought I had been floating previously. My hand was pressed to the floor and I slid it across, leaving a trail of crimson that was relieving to the eyes. I stabbed again to get a stronger flow and wrote out my name. I would die, but I would die with a name and a mark. The only question left was to end it quickly with blood or slowly with starvation. But I was intoxicated by that crimson. I wanted more, but my faculties kept me aware that my own body had its limits. No, I resolved to find either that couple or another wanderer and cut them and leave paths for other lost souls. And off them I could sustain myself.

And again I ran and yelled. I hunted and listened. My senses numbed again after time immeasurable. Nothing and no one was to be found, save for blood drops from my

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April 2012

hand that some trick of the mind continually brought me back to. Again I floated and I wanted to use my knife again, but it had fallen out of my hand. When that happened, I wasn’t sure, but malice blamed the couple. Malice blamed the village. And finally malice blamed myself. Some adrenaline of energy was afforded so I might pound at that white floor and shout at those white walls and cry to that white ceiling. Then there was blackness.

And warmth. I woke up feeling stiff, greeting a late morning sun shining through the window. “Where did you find me?” I asked to a man seated next to my bed. His bed. I was back in the village. I recognized the man from before, but never got his name. He had found me sleeping in the plains outside the village, he said. I looked at my hand that was stabbed in the dream, and it was bandaged and incomplete.

I raised my palm to the hospitable man and laughed heartily. The man betrayed his stoicism as a tuft of laughing air left his lips. I thanked him and made my way back to that tree, to his objections. I assured him I was alright. But then I realized I didn’t have my knife, and the man revealed that he took it off my person. Prudent, I told him, but now it was safe. He gave it to me and it was clear he tried to wash it, but some blood had crusted on.

On the way back, the village transformed. The people accepted me quietly. I ceased being a stranger and a pilgrim, but was now a guest, maybe a citizen. I reflected fearfully on this awhile in the grass field leading to that gnarled tree, which was more peaceful by day, but the hole was still accessible. I threw a rock down it and heard nothing echoing back. With a shudder, I drew my blade and carved onto the tree above the hole: Liars The irony amused me briefly. But then I wondered if it was really ironic and who ever really lied. That uncertainty was almost as relieving as arriving home after a long journey. I was at home, yet needed to go home, and so I did and stayed there a good while, among fleeting and constant companions.

Water

Staring down at the dry, cracked earth the

By Cheryl Schreindl man was astounded that this reliable riverbed had dried up. The man had always thought he lived in the most beautiful part of the world. No place could be prettier than the forest in the Canadian Rocky Mountains along the continental divide. The man had lived in this forest for over two decades. His neighbors were the towering pines and the elk and moose, which roamed free around him. The man was very happy with his one room shack and old black pot bellied stove. The forest provided tree lichen, berries and game, all the food and nourishment he could need.

Looking down at his faithful friend, the man decided he would need to start searching for another water source. It couldn’t be a better day for such an excursion as the sun was high and the sky was blue. The man asked the dog which way should he travel, knowing the dog wasn’t going to answer him, it was just nice at times to hear his own voice. The dog’s ears perked up, sniffing the air. The dog turned west.

The man scratched his whiskers and said, “Come Dog, we will travel north.” The dog bowed his head and followed his master.

As the man and the dog walked north, through the forest, the man vaguely remembered a visitor some time back, was it this year or last year, he couldn’t quite recall. The visitor was a city slicker who tried to get the man and his dog to move to a different part of the forest. Something about a freeway going in, but the man couldn’t quite remember. He thought maybe the freeway had something to do with the riverbed drying up. After a few hours of hiking, the man realized he was thirsty and feeling a bit fatigued he sat down on a log, and thought he would rest for a moment.

The dog curled up by the man’s feet. As the man rested, he realized he was not sweating as much as he should have been after such a long hike through the forest. Then he heard a low hum, and struggled to his feet to see what the sound was. Just as the forest tress began to thin and clear, the man saw it. The freeway. The man applauded himself for not being as forgetful as he thought. The man and dog stood watching the zooming vehicles for a while. Seeing no way to cross, he turned around, bidding the dog to follow him as they now headed south down the mountain. The man knew he needed water soon. His thirst and fatigue were signs of dehydration.

Stopping, the dog sniffed the air and turned to the west.

The man was annoyed with the dog for not following him.

“Come dog,” the man said. The dog’s tail fell between his legs, and hanging his head the dog turned and followed his master. A little while later, the dog stopped and turned, looking longingly to the west again. The man had traveled a few more hours and thought it odd that he still wasn’t hungry after all this walking. The man thought there was no sense in wasting daylight as he broke off a few pieces of the biscuit he carried in the sack on his back tossing them to the dog all the while continuing to walk south.

Soon the man heard that low hum again, and was amazed as he cleared

By Alysha Zaske the forest trees to see yet

History

April 2012

31

Impressions

another freeway. Sitting down to rest, the man reflected on the past many hours.

First he thought, I traveled north and discovered a freeway, and then I traveled south and found a second freeway.

The man was feeling a bit angry that the city slicker didn’t tell him about two freeways, or did he? He just couldn’t remember. The dog curled up at the man’s feet in the shade of the pine tree as the sun started its descent out of the sky. The man tried to remember when was the last time he had had a drink of water, and he couldn’t remember why he had not filled his canteen. Then chuckling to himself, he smiled as he recalled that he was out of water, which is why he went to riverbank to begin with. I must be getting old he thought, my mind is not as sharp as it once was.

Still reflecting on when was the last drink of water had been, the man couldn’t focus. Had it been a day, maybe two?

The man knew he was in the later stages of dehydration and if he didn’t find water soon, he would be in serious trouble.

As the man sat resting, he was annoyed with the muscle spasms in his legs. I must have walked farther than I thought, he said to himself. The man, being tired thought maybe if I close my eyes just for a moment, I will feel better and be able to continue my search for water.

A few minutes later when the man opened his eyes, he was surprised how dim everything looked. Then he thought it wasn’t his eyes bothering him, it was just the sunlight fading into night. I must get water now, he thought to himself.

The dog raised his head and looked at the man, then turned his head west and whined. The man ignored the dog, just a few more minutes of rest he thought. Darkness came and the man had not moved. The dog was getting restless and nudged the man with his nose. The man did not respond. The dog whined again, sitting by the man all through the night.

When the sun rose the next morning, the dog left his master, traveled west, over a deer run, and found water, not far from where the man still sat leaning against the tree in the forest.

The Table

By Tim Rosin Brittany had been driving home a week ago and had passed a small farmstead. In the front yard stood a sign announcing that an auction was being held by King Auctioneers. That’s when she spotted a deeply stained hardwood table. Immediately, she felt she had to have it. She argued with herself but a moment, but soon gave into the urge.

She slowed the Mustang and parked on the boulevard. She revved the engine, then cut the ignition, removed the keys and got out to take a closer look at the hardwood table and the condition it was in. The table itself had been housed in the old ice house on the farm. It had served as a display table, being used during wakes, and memorial services until the late nineteen-forties, as embalming and funerary service improved greatly.

The family had included images of it in use as well.

Once stately old men and shriveled old women, lying in pine boxes. Some looked more peaceable then others. The majority seemed to have not died gracefully. It seemed quite the opposite. One image was of an old man with a deep bruise around his Adam’s Apple. Another image was of an old woman with a terrified face. There were several which had closed caskets, and one or two of small, quarter- and half-sized coffins.

The table had arrived on a Wednesday. Immediately, there was a noticeable change in the tone of Brittany, who spent the afternoon designing a floral arrangement for it.

The table, it seemed, colored the behaviors of all those who came into contact with it. It’s almost obsidian color instantly changed the emotions of any person. Bram had arrived home twenty minutes later than usual. He had an excuse; he had stopped to purchase a bottle of wine and a dozen pink roses. He may have also purchased a C.A.O. cigar for himself as well, but he figured he could throw it into his humidor and save it for some afternoon while he was out in the Charger to smoke it. It wasn’t often that he spent money on things as such, but he figured a small celebration was in order; his company had received the bid on the newest art gallery in Minneapolis. It had been his design which had sealed the deal. He was fully expecting to be received with a congratulatory hug and kiss and see where the night went from there. That was what he was expecting; it was not what he received.

Upon entering the house there was no “Darling, I missed you!” or “Hi honey, how was your day?” Silence: silence is what greeted him. The flowers, the wine, and all amorous gestures seemed to be for naught.

Still Waters

By Zhang Yu Chen Impressions

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April 2012

So it was the entire evening, Brittany sat there and worked on the table, polishing it, then buffing the polish out and then going over it with linseed oil. Then as they climbed into bed, once more he tried to tell the good news to his bride. Again, he was met with silence as Brittany was asleep before the lights had been turned out.

The next morning as they drove to work, she did nothing but chatter away about the table. How nice she felt it looked in the dining room, how it matched the architecture of the room so well. It was only at this point she realized that Bram had been trying to tell her something all last night. Bram quickly downplayed his announcement as nothing real important, that they had received the bid on the new gallery was all.

No need to make a huge deal and embarrass her. State the fact then move on. That is exactly what he did. Brittany quickly congratulated him and then kissed him good bye with the promise of celebrating that evening. Upon exiting the vehicle, he watched as she slowly drove off, then ground the gears between second and third gear.

“Odd, the 69 Boss is her baby,” he thought to himself.

The rest of the day was odd as well. No texts or emails, not even a phone call. Then at five-thirty, quitting time, she forgot him. Soon it was six, then six-thirty, not that he was upset mind you; he had plenty of work. He called and it rolled to voice mail, so Bram did what was left to be done, walk home. As he traveled home he thought about Brittany. She was attractive; she was very attractive with bright green eyes that glowed and red hair. Her personality matched the color of her hair. She was fiery and passionate in almost everything. This often was a double edge sword to her as she hadn’t yet figured out how to let the little things go, at least not too easily let them go. She was working on it, and that she figured was a very good start.

It was her compassionate side which Bram had fallen in love with.

“Perhaps, this is a game she was playing with me. Perhaps, this is her way of making up for last night.” He hoped he would come home to a wonderful meal and a wife who looked just as good.

This thought more than anything quelled his anger. So three miles and forty-five minutes later he arrived home: jacket draped over his right shoulder, tie askew from the long walk. As he came to the front door of the Wright-Ian Prairie style home he noticed the keys still in the door’s lock, a silver mustang key chain clanging against the brass of the lock. Quietly, he slid the door open and crept in to the foyer.

“Britt? Darling are you in here?”

No response. Only the strange sound of a CD stuck repeating the same few notes over and over again. He entered into the living room and quickly passed through into the dining room. He came upon the culprit, his Bose sound machine playing a terribly scarred CD. Immediately, Bram reached over and pressed stop. Then, turning on his heel, he found his dear one lying on the table, neatly centered lying as if she was en state. She opened her eyes, and smiling, took a large knife from beside her and in a fluid

April 2012

motion she opened her wrist. Instantly, deep red droplets struck the table and seemed to be absorbed by the dark onyx table top. Almost instinctually, Bram clasped her arm and applied pressure with his right as he made a make shift tourniquet with his tie in his left hand. He didn’t remember the phone call to 911, nor did he recall the ride in the ambulance. Several frantic hours passed, but the next memory he had was of sitting in the waiting room of St. Alexis Emergency Room.

“No. He couldn’t see his wife.”

“Yes.” She would be fine.

“No.” There was nothing more he could do, except to, “go home and rest.” “Yes,” there was a pay phone; it was, “over by the doors of the gift shop in the main hospital.”

“Yes,” they promised they would call him, “should anything occur during the night.

Table end Beauty

By Samantha Holzer Having been told this, he made his way to the pay phone. He heard the click of the coins in the machine then the dial tone. He dialed the only number he knew: Kara’s. It was weird, he had maybe called her once, or twice before this, both times on the request of Brittany. The phone was answered immediately, and Kara gladly agreed to come and get him from the hospital. He hung the phone on the receiver and then after about twenty minutes, Kara arrived in her silver Volkswagen Jetta. Even though it was almost one in the morning, she still looked amazing. Kara had been one of, if not the first person on Dracol Street to greet and introduce herself. Her blonde hair and blue eyes were inviting and warm. Not to mention that she was curvaceous, like something out of a girlie magazine. Nor did it hurt that she was friendly, and had a really great smile.

The blinking yellow light sped the journey home, a simple brake tap was all the more heed given to the signals.

They traveled in silence for nearly twenty minutes, before

33

Impressions

Road Leading Home

By Samantha Holzer either of them spoke. A simple “Thank you” was all the more conversation made. Soon after, they arrived in the driveway of the house; the street was silent. Politely, Bram invited Kara into the house. She politely agreed, mostly because she wanted to make sure that Bram was ok. There may have also been a slight wanting to see what had led to an eleven p.m. call from St. Alexis Medical Center.

As they walked in it occurred to Bram that he hadn’t eaten since lunch. This was almost twelve hours ago, and he didn’t know what he was hungry for, only that he was in need of nourishment. He offered to order a pizza, but it quickly occurred to him no place would be open at this time of night.

Kara immediately began to insist that she be allowed to cook him a meal.

After about thirty seconds of arguing, Bram began to quicken to the idea that this would be just as fool hearted as fighting with Brittany, so he graciously accepted defeat.

Kara went work, or began. She stepped out of the living room and into the dining room. This was all the further that she traveled. Examining the room, she saw the table and its high backed chairs, the river glass and stained glass windows, cast sickly greens and yellow hues of moon light into the room, and onto the knife from the incident before.

The blood was dried now, caked on as layers of rust would be. Aside from the blood on the blade, she could find no other blood anywhere. It really seemed as if the table had absorbed it into itself.

Kara touched the cold black table top, immediately she could feel a change in her. Something electric like, yet dark, brooding, sensual began to take her over. It warmed her, thrilling her. Something electric like, yet dark, brood-

Impressions

ing, sensual began to take her over. It warmed her, thrilling her. Something deep in her id began to speak to her.

Quite out of character for her, she began to listen. Soon her second hand was on the table and the feeling grew to an even larger charge. She knew what she must do, and so she called Bram to the table. Bram, thinking Kara had discovered the blood and the knife from the fiasco earlier, came into the room fully expecting that Kara would be ill.

This is what he expected, but was not at all what he found. In the time that it had taken him to walk the forty or so feet from living room to dining room Kara had laid herself out on the table. The charge was making her body feel as she hadn’t ever felt before, certainly no drug, or man had ever gave her this feeling. Then she began to hear something deep inside her head. Telling her to do things, things that in her current state made total sense.

Bram approached the table and before he could do anything she had grabbed him and had begun to kiss him.

The electric flow passing through them both, fogging both their minds. It began as kissing and soon became much more than that. Again, Bram found himself in that fuzzy area again, where he wasn’t sure as to what had occurred.

But he was quite sure that he was lying on the table naked with Kara. They didn’t care though. It didn’t bother either of them. The feeling of electricity pulsing through them was all that mattered.

The voice was now in both of them, telling them deep, dark secrets. It then began to push them to do something else which they would never do in any other situation.

Things like taking up the knife. This demand of the table pushed Bram back to the reality of the situation. He forced himself off the table and away from the goddess who lie there with him. The terror of this latest thought made him recoil and begin to focus on the task at hand.

In an instant, and before anything could be done by Bram, the knife was in her hand. The blade glistened in the moonlight a moment, then plunged downward into her right breast. The sound of bone and sinew snapping was heard; her white shirt was now crimson. Bram stood there in disbelief. There would be no phone call to the hospital.

Kara passed on, and by her own hand. No way that anyone would believe that this had been accidental. He placed his hand on the table, and the voice called out for him. The electric pulse thrilling him more . . .

Sasha slowly drove past a house on Dracol street, the sign in the yard read “Auction: Today.” In the yard stood a great black table on display, one of the highlighted objects in the auction. On top of the table were images of it in use. The images were of once stately old men and shriveled old women, lying in pine boxes. Some looked more peaceable than others. The majority seemed to have not died gracefully. It seemed quite the opposite. One image was of an old man with a deep bruise around his Adam’s apple. Another image was of an old woman with a terrified face. There were several which had closed caskets, and one or two of small, quarter and half size coffins. The most recent of them was in color featuring two young women and a man in his late twenties or early thirties.

34

April 2012

Revision

By Alex Jacobs

It was a dark and stormy night, when “No it wasn’t,” someone remarked, as though patiently explaining something to a stubborn

child.

Startled, I turned away from my typewriter and gazed around the room, wondering which of the usual street toughs had broken into my apartment. In an area of the city as run-down as Hazel Street, it was inevitable that even someone as reclusive as I would get to know all the neighbors... even the shady ones.

However, no one seemed to be there, to my relief and confusion. Curious, I rose from my rickety office chair and wandered around my living room, wading my way through pizza boxes and cans of soda from weeks ago. Everything seemed to be in place: my unwashed laundry in a neat pile in that corner, that familiar black mold was growing in the other corner, the light fixture stubbornly clung to the ceiling by a frayed wire that was probably some sort of fire hazard... all was well. I was puzzled. Where had the voice come from? With trepidation, I put my eye to my outer door’s peep-hole. With any luck, for once there wouldn’t be another impromptu “Earth Day fundraiser” that consisted of selling “all-natural medications” that were really just drugs, or something else equally bizarre.

There was no one. No prostitutes, no drug pushers, no family men desperate for a little “excitement” in their lives... nothing. For Hazel Street to be this silent, this empty, was a strange thing indeed. At least I finally had a moment to myself. “I must just be hearing things,” I announced to my pleasantly filthy living room, as though to tempt the intruder into revealing him or herself. Normally, I would have just gone to bed, but I couldn’t stop until I got something typed up. This idea was too good to let die.

After another glance, I sank down in my chair again, savoring its slow creak as I hopped my way to my precious typewriter. Somehow, I never found the time to fix the chair’s faulty wheels. I grinned as I flexed my fingers, eager to get back to work.

I stared down the barrel of my gun at the rat before me.

“Please,” he begged, as though trying to somehow look to me, me, of all people, for salvation. “Don’t shoot, McPharson.

Youse was in my shoes before.You know what it’s like. C’mon, I gotta eat, right?” The snake of a man smiled, as though I was a comrade. Sickening.

“McPharson? Really? You could at least try to be transparent.” The voice had grown agitated. Again, I spun in my chair, searching for my elusive heckler. Once again, I find myself alone. I glanced at the mirror on the wall, my hair disturbing dust as I whipped my head around. I did have some bags under my eyes and I looked a little pale, but there was nothing some good rest and a little tanning couldn’t fix.

“I’m fine,” I stated. “Just fine.” I smiled at myself and gave myself a thumbs-up. “Today’s a good day.”

“It’s not you that’s the problem, Danny boy.” Again, the irritated voice seemed to come from right behind me.

“Okay, so I’m hallucinating. I’ll just ignore it and keep working. It’s not real and I’ve been out of my medication for a few days, so this isn’t totally unexpected.” With newfound resolution, I sat back down at my desk and began where I’d left off.

“Ya make me sick, Snively,” I growled at him.

What did the rat think, that I was going to spare him after all the trouble he’d caused me?

“This is a little too much.” Gritting my teeth, I ignored the voice.

On a dark and stormy night like this, I’d kill for love. Didn’t we always say we’d be together forever? He dared to keep us apart, and now he would pay the price.

“Stop!” the voice cried, as though in pain. The shout actually echoed off the walls and seemed to dash around in my head, as though desperate for some exit from my ideas and my life. I paused, considering how

City Under Water

By Zhang Yu Chen April 2012

35

Impressions

Goblet

By Chelsea Sigvaldsen

with your old landlord who overcharged you for rent.”

“Uh...”

“Furthermore, you use too many clichés. ‘A dark and stormy night?’ Outrunning an explosion? Really? You are better than this.”

“But...” I protested. “I have so many good ideas for this story!”

“This story is crap and you know it. If you start with a flawed base, you’ll only be working to tiptoe lightly, on the hopes what you build won’t cause your foundation to collapse.”

I stared at the typewriter, not wanting to agree.

“But...”

“No, listen to me. You want to write an epic tale the likes of which the world has never seen?

Right now, no one would read it.”

I sat and stared at the story I had written, feeling my ideas and enthusiasm evaporate. Much as I hated to admit it, the voice was right. I felt my shoulders slump as I leaned back in the chair.

“Will I write a better one tomorrow?”

“That’s up to you.”

I tore the story out of the typewriter and threw it on the floor. It joined a growing pile that had to equal dozens, if not hundreds, of failed drafts.

Grumbling, I remarked, “You win... again.”

Mount Roosevelt

By Amber Lien to proceed.

“Okay,” I remarked as I decided to humor my own warped view of reality. “I’ve stopped.

Now what?”

“Just look back at the story.”

I did so, quickly skimming over what I had down so far. “Yeah, and? It’s barely a start; I haven’t even gotten to his tragic past with his dead parents, or the gun-running, or the scene where he jumps out of a building, narrowly avoiding an explosion!” In spite of myself, I hopped up and down a few times. “I can’t wait to write the rest!”

“Are you sure about that?” the voice asked, thick with patience.

“Well, yeah! I mean, it’s a tale of redemption, even though the hero dies in the end! He overcomes the corrupt landlord behind it all and cleans up the neighborhood!”

I heard a sigh, adding to my confusion.

“Okay, Danny. Let’s go over this. The main character shares a name with you, and he cleans up a rotten neighborhood? Does that sound familiar to you?”

“W-well... that’s coincidence, is all...”

“And the villain he executes shares a name

Impressions

36

April 2012

Of Procrastination

By Alex Jacobs I sit at the desk, staring at the screen, trying to will something into existence, but nothing will come. Nothing ever writes itself. Language does not arrange itself into neat little bits of prose yet. One of the many drawbacks, I think, of moving from typewriters to computers is that computers are more versitile. At best, this feature is a double-edged sword. The very machine at my fingertips which will help me hammer out a relatively error-free story or piece will also provide an endless source of distraction, if I so choose.

Don’t think that I feel nostalgia for a time I was not part of. That is part of this sentiment, but when I was young, my parents had a reliable old typewriter in the basement of our home. We owned a computer, but I would be constantly drawn to the typewriter. There was something solid, something real, about the way my words immediately were put to paper while using it.

Somehow, when using a computer, I don’t feel that level of reality, of immediacy. The same screen that contains my current project can also contain humorous videos, irrelevant emails, and games to while away otherwise productive hours.

Somehow, my brain makes the connection that since they’re on the same screen, they’re all equally important.

Of course, computers have also made writing easier.

Spell-checking and word processing have caused dramatic improvements for all who write. Numerous places online dedicated to the written word have popped up.

As illogical as it may be, my brain assigns the blame to the many

April 2012

distractions afforded by the computer, not my own lack of discipline.

A typewriter has only one screen, one program, one function. Any procrastination from the work at hand while using one of those glorious old machines comes from outside sources. You have to work to put off work. A typewriter keeps me focused. It does one thing, which is frequently the only thing I need: something that puts my words on paper more quickly than my own hand can with a pen. I admire such integrity. For better or worse, however, the typewriter’s time has passed.

Truly, in this modern age, everything gets easier, including not being productive. Now, pardon me while I watch videos of cats for the next hour. My next literary catastrophe will have to wait.

Feline Winter

By Brenda Kostelecky

37

Impressions

Crows and Clocks

By Dara Anderson Tick, tick, tick.

When will it stop, this ticking echoing in my head?

I lay in bed, not wanting to look at the clock, hoping it’s the time I want it to be. At least the sun is still out I think as I look outside. Tick tick tick. The bed is damp and smells of wet dog. The flood was just a week ago, I thought.

I stare at the mold growing on the ceiling.

The mold is black. I’ve never seen black mold before.

Tick tick tick. Who has the hammer? Where’s the nail? I feel so tired, so sick, I think I might throw up.

I hear crows outside my window. Ping! My toast is ready. Breathe in, breathe out, don’t think about it.

The crows are clawing at my window now. They must smell my toast.

Tick tick tick. Am I being timed? I hear the roaches making homes in my lost dress under my bed.

There are more crows outside my window now it’s almost like its night outside there’s so much black.

Tick tick tick. I don’t want to look at the clock instead I look at the bedroom door, except the door isn’t there. I look beyond, to the hall.

Mold is growing everywhere on the walls.

“Caw! Caw! caw!” I hear, along with the ticking. Why do they want to get in here so badly? I pull a damp blanket to my neck. I don’t want to get out of bed. Maybe someone will bring me my toast.

“Mother…” I sigh. I miss her so much, even though she’s on the basement floor. Tears go down my cheek.

Tick tick tick.

I can’t see the sun anymore, stupid crows. I lay in bed, my feet dangling over the edge like I outgrew it. I lift my head to see my feet, and beyond. The TV looks at me with a blank screen. My head drops back down into my damp pillow.

Tick tick tick. I refuse to look at the clock, instead I turn my head to a photo.

Impressions

Joe, I thought, are you still out there? A week ago he proposed to me; I said yes, will we ever be together again?

It’s getting too hot, and I throw my blanket off the bed, revealing the clothes I’ve been wearing for the past week. I take in a deep breath; I’m feeling slightly better.

I look at my window again, the curtains pink stained with black mold. I look out my window; blood is smeared on my window now.

Stupid crows…

Tick tick tick.

Why Won’t the Snow Melt

by Jenna Alexander Okay fine, I thought, I’ll get the toast. I get out from the bed only to put on my disintegrating shoes and plop down into my bed again. The bed screeches as I move into place. I’m so dizzy. The smell of toast fills the room, teasing me. My stomach growls at me.

“Okay fine” I growl back, my throat raspy and tired from the many nights screaming for help.

Tick tick tick. I’ll get my toast. As I get up out of bed, I don’t look at the clock. I walk down the hall like a drunk in an earthquake. I try my hardest not to touch the black mold. The floor is covered with clothes that are not even mine. I finally make it to the kitchen, which is empty except for black mold growing, and my supplies.

38

April 2012

world. I run as fast as I can, jumping over rocks, trees, dead animals, and faceless bodies. The sun is at its highest point, making me sweat like crazy.

The crows are getting closer dive-bombing towards my body. Luckily I dodge most attacks, but my legs are bleeding, as they sink their beaks into my flesh. I look straight ahead not daring to look back. All over the place are crushed houses, flipped over cars, clothes, and the dead.

“Caw! Caw!” the crows are getting closer. I’m getting tired. My eyes scan the area for a safe place. I spot an outlet less than a mile away still standing.

You can do this, I encourage myself, don’t give up. I run with all my energy I have left, leaving the crows as they attack each other. It’s such an ugly sound. My bloody legs carry me to the outlet safely. I slow down to the doors pulling them open… only they won’t open.

“Help!” I yell. I pound on the doors as hard as I can, knowing that no one will answer me. I turn around only to face a flock of beady eyes coming my way.

I am going to die, I assure myself. I slide down sitting with my back against the doors, and giving up. Tears fill my eyes causing the black cloud to turn into a fuzzy mass.

“I love you mom,” I say crying, “I love you Joe.” I close my eyes awaiting my fate, hearing nothing but flapping wings and death cries, when something grabs my arm and drags me inside the outlet.

Faithful Sight

by Samantha Holzer

Deadpool

by Dara Anderson The crows are still at my window. I can hear them. The smell of toast fills my lungs. My stomach growls. I grab my toast and turn off the generator I found two days ago in someone’s garage. Electricity is indeed important. I shuffle back into the room, plop back in bed and eat my toast.

Tick tick tick. I really want to destroy that clock, but I still refuse to look at it. I stare at the photo Joe gave me, with him and I at Six Flags. Those camera people are so annoying. My eyes shift to the frame. “To Laura with love” it says; I smile. The crows are still scratching, pecking, cawing and bleeding. Stupid crows... I finish my toast.

Tick tick tick.

“Okay clock,” I say putting my hands up, “you win.” I turn my head to the left, next to the closet. I look at the disfigured clock. It reads 12 o’clock. Then the window crashes open, and I run.

It’s kind of hard to run away from hundreds of crows that are flying to get you, and there’s nowhere safe to go.

I run out of the house into the humid and almost alien

April 2012

39

Impressions

Chinese Calligraphy

By Meixuan Chen

Impressions

40

April 2012

Non - F i c t i on No Negation of the Sea

By Robert Meador I do not require a naming of the wave to feel the crest crash and roll about my legs. …

February 2012

I receive grades for everything. Today I passed waking-up, but I failed eating breakfast. I got extra-points for trying ear acupuncture. “Outstanding Robert, it’s really brave.” I’m just scared to sleep. I pace the white tiles as long as they let me. …

Early March 2011 My hands are hand-cuffed behind a cheap chair, the thin metal kind they mass produce with cracked leather cushions for the butt and upper back.

The dim lights and broad expanse of nothing but the cream luster of government floor tiles on every side are my interrogators. The empty room and the silence are playing good cop, bad cop. I demoted those outside to animal control. They got a call and put me in a brick kennel. I can’t wipe the foam from my mouth. …

February 2011

“We need everyone to immediately return to their residence halls and stay there. I am asking you not to get on Facebook or Twitter. We will notify you as soon as…”

I watch, standing in the back of the auditorium, a woman leading with her head as she climbs over the knees of those blocking her rush to the aisle. Strings of chaos are spread among the crowd, and are pulled tight by the fleeing back of the woman. The crowd washes me out of the building.

“Hey Rob, zombie apocalypse or what?” a friend calls as everyone is scurrying about with panic’s shopping bags tied tight under their chins, looking for their cars.

Frosty Three

By Brenda Kostelecky

I manage to get my lips through the handle hole—“May Hall roof.

I’ll bring blankets; you bring food.”

In my car, head on the steering wheel, my peripheral vision shows me a line of cars filling the small street in both directions. I imagine a horizon of exhaust fumes and panted mouth-breathing. …

Late March 2011 You only look at people from the corner of your eyes.

The cheap Van Goghs hung on the white walls are fuzzy enough to look at directly.

April 2012

“So how is school going?” my father asks over the phone.

“It’s fine,” I respond.

“That’s good. Your cousin Michael died.”

His voice comes in low but clear, pressurized, the fossilization of bad news.

“What? Wait. How?” “He killed himself.”

I don’t ask why. I just know he is dead and I wish he wasn’t. …

February 2012 Locked in my residence hall, I receive notice that the danger has passed. A man has lost his life, a man I never knew.

“I hate that even though he died and it was a huge deal, my life hasn’t changed much. It feels wrong,” my roommate tells me.

I agree with him. But when I move, I feel something like wet sand slosh in my chest.

41

Impressions

My Dad’s Barn

By Tricia Myran When I was about three years old, I found a baby mouse in a little hole in the wall near Dad’s work area in a low-roofed part of the barn. My little girl hands were not afraid to hold and play with the furry creature. I spent the whole afternoon sitting on the dirty floor, Indian-style playing with my “mousie” until suppertime. Finally it stopped moving, so I believed it had fallen asleep, put it back in the hole, and covered it up with grass so it would stay warm. At suppertime I told my parents about my new friend, and shared how I believed that God had provided me with a tiny mouse that fit perfectly in my small hands. Mom, with fork poised in the air, asked me if I had washed my hands. I thought I had, but she told me to “wash them again . . . NOW!” Later, Dad told me that while we always find fun things to play with on the farm, there are some things Mom doesn’t need to know about. I also learned that it was alright to touch things, but Mom liked things clean and neat so we all had to wash well when we came in from playing.

The barn had an interior room nestled between Dad’s workshop area and the old milking parlor. Dad heated that room during the winter with an old coal stove. We all sat on old milk crates while he told of standing on them as a little boy and washing glass milk bottles, loading the bottles into the crates, and delivering them to customers in town. He and us kids, his little helpers, took time to warm up, rest from working or playing, and sometimes think up games or solutions to problems we had that day.

Because Dad worked many hours on and off the farm, my brothers and I treasured those precious times with Dad. He would tell us stories about his childhood or just tell us about his plans for the rest of the day. We each hoped that he would have to go somewhere and we could come

Grainy Bin

By Brenda Kostelecky Impressions

along. He puffed on a pipe during the winter, which was much easier to handle with gloved hands than cigarettes.

While we talked and rested the fire crackled and glowed.

We learned so much about biology on the kill floor. I don’t know why it was given such a haunting name, but that was the room where Dad butchered cattle and was the only room he kept clean in the barn. Dad never told us kids when he planned to butcher in case we got in the way of the bullet, but when we heard a rifle shot followed by the sound of Dad firing up the little tractor, we raced to the kill floor to watch the master at work as he carefully peeled the hide off the animal. He never tore holes in it and would carefully spread it on the ground, salt it, fold it square, and tie it with twine. Then he would remove all the organs and put the tongue and liver in pails of ice cold water. My brother, Clif, and I would pull the tongue out of the bucket and “lick” each other with the sandpaperlike muscle. The liver was too slippery and squishy for

Barn

By Brenda Kostelecky our little fingers to handle, so Dad suggested we leave it in the bucket, but we enjoyed poking it. This was another experience better kept from Mom, as we later enjoyed a delicious juicy steak she prepared.

One day, my little brother Danny was up on the barn roof helping Dad pull nails and tear down a low-roofed section. His little preschool legs led him to a part that had rotted, and he fell through the roof, another wood floor beneath, and landed face-down on the cement floor of the milking parlor. Dad scooped up his limp body, put him in the car, and got Mom from the house. They raced him to the emergency room. Clif and I had been in school, so we were very confused to come home to an empty house. In the kitchen, caramel rolls had been flung onto the counter and there was caramel running down the cabinets and puddling onto the floor. Mom would have never left such a mess! We cleaned up everything and finally Mom and Dad came home and told us what happened that day. Luckily, Danny’s face landed in a low pile of manure, so his bottom lip was stitched up and he was kept in the hospital overnight. More pressing at that moment was locating his beloved blankie so he could

42

April 2012

go to sleep in that strange new place. It was this accident “I am loath that made us all understand why our beloved playhouse to give practical had to be torn down: that massive fortress alive with mice, advice to writBy Jenna Sandman spiders, cats, and fun was unsafe now. ing students.”

Before Dad tore down the big part of the barn, he anAs soon as Ponounced that we could use the wood piled in the haymow lansky’s booming voice made this comment, ears perked up for whatever we wanted to make with it. Clif was the in the audience. Students who had slumped sleepily in their architect who envisioned a new playhouse. My job was seats sat up attentively, knowing that this guy was going to be to select the boards, throw them from the large opening different--this guy was going to tell us something worth-while. of the haymow, and measure and cut according to Clif’s He spoke with his entire body. Every time his hands caught plans. Clif and Danny did the hammering. We even made on the microphone, there was a slight hiccup in his animated furniture for the inside and spray painted the outside. lecture, but it did not stop him. Nothing stopped this older, ecWe worked together, and fought together until finally the playhouse came together. We called it “The Goonie centric author. Even the time seemed uncompromising. The Fort” and it turned out to be a fun place for us to play with faster the end of the hour approached, the faster he talked and friends. the faster we listened, hoping to absorb everything he was The pieces of the barn went to good use. The two tall saying because we knew it would all be valuable. ventilators, riddled with bullet holes from Dad and his His appearance was not memorable. Upon first glance, he brothers shooting pigeons, were sold. Most of the wood seemed to be just another professor. After closer inspection, was used to build a three-sided hog barn in the barn’s it was easier to tell this man was not ordinary. His pants were place. The new hog barn seemed so small and perfectwrinkly, but not in a regular fashion. They gave the impression looking sitting where that giant dilapidated barn once that they had been run in or skipped in or even danced in with stood. It was painted red with white trim and the clean all of their frantic creases. His hair was in entire disarray, as if white fencing around it framed it like a picture in a farmeven the silver and gray could not keep up with his animation. ing magazine.

He told stories. He quoted authors. He asked questions and Dad’s new work space moved into a brand new steel building he built himself. It consisted of only two areas: he performed demonstrations. Not all was valuable, but all the dirt floor part for the storage of large farm equipment was entertaining. He gave us marvelous advice on characters and a cement floor part where Dad worked on engines while being the ultimate character himself. When the time ran and various woodworking projects. This new space had out, more than one of us sighed with regret that we did not get no secrets or stories like the old one, but Dad always had to know this man better. Yet, as he stated towards the end of listening ears for his growing children. The old coal stove the hour, “The great and tragic thing about came along to the new building, so being a human being is that we can never there was warmth in the winter. The be known.” familiar welding smell followed the Perhaps the greatest tragedy is that we coal stove and milk crates to the new will never truly know ourselves. We will building as well, but the farm cats and

By Alysha Zaske never know, for time always running out. mice had to find new homes.

Polansky

Dakota Valley

April 2012

43

Impressions

Torino: An Essay

By Tim Rosin 18.

I am eighteen; I have a license and a muscle car. I am a god. I can smell the gasoline on my hands from just filling the tank. It is mid-March and I am sitting in my car waiting for my little sister so we can go to the high school dance. It is a Friday and the radio plays only Sinatra and Crosby songs. I am meeting Amy (my girlfriend), at the high school. We have been dating all of three weeks, and we think we are awesome. Amy is like the Torino (my car), long and slender and smooth. She is a dancer, and we have the best times at high school functions. While every other couple is doing that which passes for dancing, we are really dancing. I think about last night – Thursday nights mean ballet and then jazz practice. I get excited because we stayed after and worked on new lifts for the swing competition that the school holds at these shin-digs.

I dig into the glove box looking for something mom would kill me for; I unwrap a fresh pack of Camels unfiltered. I take one out and then tap it on the dash while listening to Sinatra. Too late, never mind.

Kate has hit the top step of the landing. I quickly put the smoke into my suit jacket’s pocket.

I take a deep breath, smelling the new car smell that the air freshener gives this old muscle car. It occurs to me that this is my safe place. I love this place. I love her. I love my car. Kate gets in and I look at her smile and say, “Ready Katertot?” a nickname given her as a child. She laughs and I put the Gran Torino into drive.

We begin down the road way and I meet up with Kevin in his little Dodge Colt Vista. We begin to play as young men with motor vehicles do, ignoring our parents’ warnings about the roads, the ice and the fog. I fly past him then slow to a crawl on Century Avenue where the speed limit is 45. I drive it at 15, and then take the middle

Impressions

of the road, blocking both lanes of east-bound traffic, and the median keeps him from simply hopping into the west lanes to pass. Kate tells me to grow up and drive, so I pull into the far lane and motion in a way which suggests “after you” to Kevin. He flies past me and I give chase.

20.

I am 20, and we are running ten minutes behind schedule. I blame Erika. Her long blonde hair takes forever to blow dry. We are in the Torino this time we are going to church. She is buckled in tight and I have the radio blaring on some old country station, both our windows are rolled down, and I can hear the engine singing a song of praise to its maker. It’s ten miles from the camp where we work at to the church, and I have yet to be on time to hear the first hymn sung. We are expected in church, unless we are doing chores or visiting a congregation. In eight months I will dump Erika. I will rename my car after her once I realize I screwed up.

Er-

hite W e h t o t r o Do

House

n

ie

By Amber L

ika Irene, she will become my unicorn: mythical being, always chased, yet never actually caught.

I look in the rearview mirror and can see a little red truck coming down the mile and half-long hill; it’s not making any attempt to slow down. I step on the gas, afraid of being hit. It’s Frogger, I know it’s Frogger, no one else in the country owns a little red Chevy Sonoma. He is coming up fast on me. I check my rear view not sure as to where Frogger has gone. He’s no longer there. Erika screams – Frogger is passing on the shoulder! His little

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four cylinder engine is light and agile but it’s no match for my V-8. I let my foot off the gas, unwind the gears a second. His truck pulls ahead ever so slightly. I stop the pedal to the floor. A moment passes as the engine revs, then the wheels hook and the whole car suddenly bounds forward. I grip the leather wrapped steering wheel tight and watch the speedometer climb . . . 65 . . . 70 . . 75 . . 80 . . 85 . . .90.

In my rearview I see Frogger laughing as he pulls in behind me. He nods knowing he has been beaten, laughs, because that was crazy, and shields his right side as Sugar, his girlfriend is both physically and verbally abusing him for his antics. Erika unbuckles and slides up next to me and Kisses me. I slow slightly allowing for the turn in the road.

28.

I am twenty-eight. I sit in Erika Irene with my now five-year-old son. I watch as he plays with steering wheel, making car noises with his mouth. I feel the upholstery, warm and textured, not like today’s cars. This seat has character, it stood for something. Cars like these were and are status symbols. To own a 1976 Ford Gran Torino was a sign of being something big.

Only 5,000 were made. I own the only existing ’76 Torino in the state. I breathe deep and smell that new car smell thanks to an air freshener and the scent of vinyl. I look at the dash board with its tachometer and speedometer and feel good knowing that I have a place that’s mine. A place that’s safe. The truth of the matter is that through it all, the girlfriends, the marriage, the divorce, she’s always been there. Erika Irene: my unicorn. She is my security blanket. I will hop in her and just drive. She listens, knows my secrets, my faults, my guilt. There is a part of me that hops someday Benjamin will treat her with the same amount of love.

Auntie Kate and Uncle Chris pull up; Benjamin goes bounding out to meet them.

He doesn’t even take the time to show the door. He tries for a moment I guess, but it’s made of steel and weighs almost as much as him. That’s ok; I need to get into the driver side anyways. It’s July fourth and that means two things: a long slow drive down the river in an old friend, and fireworks for my son’s birthday.

Neo-traditional meanderings

By Diona Osterman-api I am non-traditional. Which is a hilarious way of classifying myself, since “older” usually means “traditional.” So it might be more accurate to say that I am “neo-traditional.” In either case, I am a minority on campus as a student returning to a university after a long hiatus, I am a longdistance education student, and I have children ranging from four to twelve years of age. I haven’t had a “job” for thirteen years. I do not have a circle of returning-stay-athome-mom friends, and I am an English major not interested in teaching.

When the subject came up, I balked a bit at the idea of writing an article regarding the challenges of being such a said returning student. My mind flooded with ideas and angles, but I soon started fearing their culmination would sound like a big whine-fest. Or, worse yet, a whine-fest that quickly became a cliché of a whine-fest with an ending paragraph written something like this: “Don’t get me wrong; being a mother is the most fulfilling role I’ve ever had the pleasure of filling. I love being a soccer/dance/autism mom. I wouldn’t change it for the world!” I would say that even acknowledging in print that being a returningto-school-stay-at-home-mom is “challenging” would be a borefest itself. Discussing the fact that I wanted to do “something for me” and needed something to fulfill my intellectual curiosity after passing the changing diapers stage, lack of shower syndrome (I can’t in all honesty say

Colorful Eventide

By Alysha Zaske April 2012

45

Impressions

I’m healed of that; but the differences are between the root causes: up all night with a newborn versus being up until three a.m. with a 10-page paper, because those witching hours are the only quiet ones), and the frazzle of a forgotten deadline seems overdone, especially considering the “everything’s been done, everything’s been written” conundrum I struggle with when sitting down to write.

Or the logic that I should return to the workforce as soon as our youngest child starts school.

Shady Path

By Chelsea Sigvaldsen

Or balancing housework with homework (both my own and my fourth and seventh graders’). Or finding time for my friends and family (who knew how much just “goofing off” was required to sustain a healthy soul!) Yawn.

Indeed, those tenets are by no means falsehoods (I really could use a shower). But in the interest and ethic of writing the truth, that paragraph covers up a whole heck of a lot.

Deeper and sometimes extremely troubling questions arise from the mulling around in my literary academia and kick-myself-for-forgetting-the-comma saturated brain.

Am I disserving my children by taking the time away from them to attend classes instead of “being their mother?” Is it okay to sacrifice an “A” for a chance to be a coach for my daughter’s soccer team? Am I forsaking the closeness I once had with my friends and family in order to someday get a good J.O.B.? Will I “grow out of my husband” (I know!

I’m horrid!) as I explore ideas and philosophies we never really shared or discussed before I ventured on this selfjourney of discovery? (Another cliché’. Grin/Ugh.) Where do I belong in the world? The grown up world (and by that I mean, the world in which everyone else has established themselves within a career) is close at hand (that might sound like a 2012 prophecy of doom, but I will probably be a Hawk until at least 2014). When people find out I am returning to school, the typical question of “What

Impressions

are you going to do after you graduate?” just about initiates a full-blown panic attack. I honestly don’t know what I’m going “to do.” What is the job market for someone who has no idea where her niche is beyond attending recitals and middle school band concerts, searching for a new crockpot recipe (I hate to cook), walking the fine line between encouraging technology for her children and letting them zone out and become Nintendo DS junkies, or worrying that 13 is too young for a child to have a facebook page even if all her friends have one, and hoping that grades don’t really matter too much? Is the money even going to be worth it?

But for the sake of brevity versus explaining how I might conquer the world, let’s just consider the microcosm of writing such a (possible) feature. What if I run out of philosophical meanderings? Am I clever enough to make an article humorous for every issue? Should I take a serious stance and broach the educational aspects of certain courses and the deeply emotional connections I make with literature? Is it fair to write about my ‘tween’s emotional development because I am excited about something I learned in Adolescent Psych? Should I write about all the goofy “Laurenisms” we encounter through the challenge of autism? Should one feature promote my platform of the nonprofit organization I recently founded? Is that ethical?

Should I share the interpersonal relationships I encounter in light of deciding to go back to school? And then the ever ever ever dreaded obstruction: I have everything to say and no way to say it. Writers’ block. (English and writing majors, I hear your gasp as I type.)

And then I remember advice I have heard again and again. Just write. Write what you know. Just write. Even if it’s crappy, just sit down and start. So I take a deep breath, and yes, my brain still hurts, and my four-year-old says in all innocence, “What is happening to you, Mom?” while she eats a piece of frozen bologna from the freezer because

Wintery Beauty

By Samantha Holzer

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April 2012

I am too “busy” at this very moment to help her make a sandwich, and my daughter with autism is freaking out because there is a bee on the window sill (outside), and my tween is singing a Selena Gomez song at the top of her lungs (I love that she is singing, but sheesh! I’m trying to write!), and the phone is ringing and the …And. And. And. AND. And then. An outrageously needed laugh creeps its way into my heart and psyche when I think of just how beautifully crazy this scenario is, how beautifully freeing it is to write about it, and how beautifully. Crazily. Uniquely.

Full my life is. So, maybe writing a feature about being a returning-stay-at-home-mom student isn’t such a daunting task. Maybe it will be a rewarding one. Maybe writing about what I know will teach me something that I never knew was within. And that is a cliché I will take to the bank.

Or to the petty cash jar on my desk that says, “Girls Night Out!” on it, depending on how sturdy that corporate ladder is or how strongly I feel about refusing to sell out and deign myself a poor freelancer. (My [petty] cash is on the second option. So I am able to coach soccer, take a forgotten clarinet to the school, and make a healthy meal of thawed bologna and ants-on-a-log for lunch). For today, I am going to submit. Not to a cliché’, but to conquer the fear of becoming one.

Cry the beloved African Teacher

By Tawanda Dzvokora In the middle of the class, and in the middle of a sentence, I froze! I just stood there stupefied, transfixed as if glued to the floor. Inexplicable fear gripped me. There was dead silence. The chalk I was holding fell. Everyone could have heard the sound of the chalk as it hit the floor. I heard it, only I was not listening! The children could have heard, but they too weren’t listening. My hand was shaking, no wonder the chalk fell. I could have thought of running, but my brain was numb. So I didn’t do anything. I didn’t think of anything, because I had stopped thinking.

The only thing I did was watch as the danger got nearer.

But my eyes were not on the approaching men. I was seeing the vision of what had happened the previous week. So as I replayed and visualized the previous scenario, I knew exactly what was about to happen to me and my fellow teachers.

The apprehension and fear continued. You could have taken a knife and cut through the tension. It was eerie.

The children were also frightened and very uneasy, but they knew they were safe. They knew what was going to happen. Despite that, one of them could not help it, he wet his pants and I was to involuntarily do that later.

As the men got nearer, we could hear the singing, and the war-cries. And they were all doing the toy march. The boys were in front. They had dogs with them and had weapons, knobkerries, well pruned tree branches, and catapults were dangling over their necks. As they approached the classrooms, we could hear what they were shouting in their war cry, “ Traitors! Beat the traitor!

Sellouts kill the sellouts,” Unimaginable fear gripped the class.

On arrival in front of the classrooms, at a place where we usually held our assembly with the students, they continued to sing and dance. Singing political songs praising the President and denouncing the leader of the opposition party. The leader of the group, a former freedom fighter was well known in the village for his cruelity and undying support

Framed

By Marissa Stanton April 2012

47

Impressions

for the President of the country. He put his hand up and there was silence. “ All you traitors get out and come here” You teachers insaid come outand come out now, or else I willsend my “boys” there.

The overzeleaous “boys” didn’t to be send. They advanced towards the classrooms. Two came to my class.

They kicked the classroom door and send it clattering on the floor. One or two children screamed and I cowered back to the corner of the classroom. It was just an instinctive move. I could not run away. I had no were to run to anyway. “You want to run away” One of the two, the short one said as he menacingly advanced towards me. He got hold of me and greeted me with slap across my face. Another clap, a more severe one came from the hand of the tall one. They took turns in clapping and kicking and the beating had begun in earnest right in front of my students who had packed themselves in one corner of the classroom like sardines in a tin. An upper cut blow connected on my chin and a kick on my groin had me groning as I fell face down on the floor.

“Get up, you sell out, we aint done with you yet. This is only the beginning. When we are done with you, you will know you don’t mess with us here” Another kick got blood spurting out and invoking more screams from the students. Yes, they had seen this before, but they had never seen a man dying! One of them, the tall one, began to make use of the stick. It caught me across the back and all the resistance broke, for the first time I screamed.

And this got the attention of leader, who came to my “rescue”. “Bring him here, did I say you should kill him! “We don’t kill people, you know that. Immediately the beating stopped and began dragging towards the leader. My col-

Harmony

By Brenda Kostelecky

Impressions

Which One

By Marissa Stanton

legues were already there and I could see the other “boys” had done a good job on them!

The leader was standing in front of them and continued to speak, “you know, we are brothers, we don’t want to kill you, not that we cant. And not that we are afraid, nothing happens to us. Nothing, we are law unto ourselves. So we can liquidate you today and that will be that. We don’t want to kill you, we are not killers. After all you are teaching our children”. And from there his tone changed. He was suddenly angry and he started shouting,” What we don’t want are people who teach our children politics. You come here and you start telling everyone about your puppet parties.

We have heard you and we know your agenda”. He was now screaming, almost hysterical. “Why are you doing that, why!”

The screaming was like a cue for the “boys” to start working on us. And they were all shouting, “Why!” It was as if they had had a dress rehearsal of everything. Every ‘why” was followed by a barrage of beatings. We were kicked and clapped on the already bruised bodies.

“Did I say you must kill”,the leader again and that was the cue for them to stop. And the leader went on, as cool as a cucumber, “we don’t kill people, we want peace in this country, we want our children tolearn, we want our children to pass. And you must teach them, sure, because that is why we employed you. You are employed because of us . We fought for this country and liberated it from the British and all of you were still in you diapers and here you are today teaching because you have a degree which you did when we were in the bush. And now you come here , you start telling the people that we must go!, That the Presi-

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dent must go!, Go where this is his country and your puppet leader will never rule this country, never in a thousand years! Go and tell your sponsors, America and Britain. We are ready from them. We defeated them once and we will do it again. Go you sellouts, Go you betrayers and tell your master bloody traitors That was another cuefor another round of beatings, more severe this time. I saw Mrs Kumba, falling down and passing out. I also saw my other bloody collegues and I heard themscreaming for mercy, begging their tormentors tostop. But all that fell on deaf ears. I also heard the students wailing in the classrooms. I heard the dogs barking, I think it was Andrew the grade 5 teacher who was trying to run away and the dogs were sorting him out. I heard Danger shouting again, “ did I say you must kill them, you know we don’t kill” And I felt a knobkerrie hitting my heard, a passing shot and a deadly one.

I did not feel the pain of that passing shot. Instead I saw plenty of stars. The voices …were blurred . The faces became hazy and I sank into a bottomless pit of nothingness. And my soul began to cry, a cry of hurt and disappointment for this cruelity and brutalism . I cried for all the other teachers and for all the voiceless and powerless.

In oblivion I was filled by hurt and despise of this heartless system and hate for a murderous rehime. I sank inti deeper oblivion as I got ready to meet my maker. And I saw him, in his white robe, hands outstretched with tears running down his cheeks as he awaited my arrival.

Spazzed Frustration

By Alysha Zaske

Russian Christmas Divinations

By Tatyana Khmelyuk It has almost been five years since the most mysterious moment in my life has happened. To be honest, it was the only unexplainable instant that my head still can’t comprehend. What has actually happened was that my best friend and I ventured to look into the future.

Most people around the world love Christmas and everything that is connected with this distinctively amazing holiday. According to the old Julian calendar, Russian people celebrate Christmas on January 7th. In addition to this tradition that differs from the USA and other European countries Russians also do not work and study from January 1st until January 10th. These prolonged vacations are just on time because no one wants to put his or her nose out-of-doors or walk to school when it is cold and windy outside. But this period has something more to enjoy then having a rest.

January is special month in the Russian calendar because it brings magical and joyful days full of hopes and expectations. On December 31st, people say goodbye to the old year, and with open hearts they meet a new year that they hope will be better than the previous one. Russian ancestors believed that spirits and unearthly powers were coming into our world and were open to talk about the future. Thus, many people, mainly school girls and

April 2012

women, are so excited about January.

Prior to Christmas Day, there is Christmas Eve, which marks the start of an old Slavic holiday, Svyatki, in which women use different rituals to foretell. Most of these ceremonies deal with predicting woman’s future husband, his name and age. The most popular and most scary divination requires a mirror and candles in a dark room a little about midnight. To invoke the image of the man, the woman has to look carefully into the mirror and at the stroke of midnight she might see him looking over her shoulder.

Braver women who want this procedure to be more effective use two mirrors facing each other to look at the reflections. In many sources, they say this type of ritual is only for emotionally strong ladies. Other women who still want to look in their future but fear such extreme actions prefer to melt wax and pure it quickly in cold water to see what is waiting for them by various pictures that wax will produce.

Svyatki ends on January 19th. Spirits leave earth until the next January.

The idée fixe to know my future had been following me since the age of ten when I read how people could know their fortunes with a help of mysterious rituals. Moreover, my curiosity was kindled by my close friends who had already made some rituals in previous years and some of

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their predictions became true. Being a skeptical person I can’t believe in something that seems unrealistic until I do it by myself.

It happened on January 9th. That cold winter night, a strong snowstorm was knocking at every window, reminding us all that the winter would be long and severe. Most of the people were sitting in front of their TVs covered with warm blankets and enjoying evening time, whereas my best friend and I were thinking of how to have fun. Thus, I decided that that night was a more appropriate time to test the words of all those who were trying to convince me in the existence of a paranormal world.

Most of these people were using one particular ritual— they were invoking spirits.

Everything that people need to communicate with a spirit is a candle, a big piece of paper, and a little porcelain saucer. So how does it work? On this piece of paper you have to draw one semi-circle of letters and on the other semi-circle you have to put numbers from one through ten. You mark a saucer with an arrow, turn on candles. Do not forget to open the window or door a little bit so the spirit can come in. When everything is arranged, you put the saucer in the middle of a circle (that is made from both semi-circles), all people put their two fingers on the edge of saucer and start calling for the spirit. When the saucer starts moving, you will understand that the spirit came.

What happens is that spirit directs the arrow on the plate to organize a word or number. You can call for a spirit of your relative or some historical figure or whomever you want to join you and talk about the future. In this case, you can ask not only questions about your life but things about the world’s events in general.

My best friend and I arranged everything according to

Impressions

the instructions but did not believe in the possibility anything happening. I intentionally brought a saucer from my house so she could not trick me. We called for the spirit of Sergei Esenin, Russia’s great poet of the twentieth century. But what imagine my amazement when this little plate starting moving. My first question was “Are you moving it?” but she removed fingers and I was feeling how the saucer was moving by itself without any force. My jaw dropped and my eyes opened as wide as it was possible. I could not believe! However, the most thrilling moment was waiting for me when the spirit would answer our questions.

The plate was moving from one letter to another arranging correct words. Was it scary, someone may ask? It was more than scary.

Besides being the most mystifying event, this thing was also a turning point in my life. Almost all answers that I received were negative. They made me feel depressed.

According to the words of the spirit, nothing good was waiting for me. And I decided to look at this situation in a different way. I made myself think that this divination had been a sign for me to work on my future and try to achieve everything that I wanted. For example, the spirit told me that I would never go abroad, and I remember how much I wanted to see the world. Thus, I started studying intensively so I could participate in the exchange program between my university and DSU. And I could achieve what I wanted. The same thing has happened against other bad predictions as well.

Simple Produce

By Samantha Holzer

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April 2012

Relaxing Observation

By Samantha Holzer

Race to the Sky

By Zhang Yu Chen

Flag Plaza

By Laura Lee Kunkel April 2012

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Impressions

Skull

By Denise Johnson Impressions

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April 2012

Online Table of Contents Poems Visitor by Terry Harker ...................................................................................................................... 55 Voyeurs by Tim Rosin...................................................................................................................................... 55 Tomorrow by Terry Harker ............................................................................................................................. 57 Stonehedge by Terry Harker ......................................................................................................................... 58 The Battle’s End by Terry Harker .................................................................................................................... 59 She Pirate by Terry Harker ............................................................................................................................. 60 The Girl and the Torino by Tim Rosin .................................................................................................. 60 Aging . . . Thoughts, Hopes, Pains, and Prayers by Feyisayo Ogunleye .................................................... 61 Things Sinatra Taught me by Tim Rosin ................................................................................................ 61 In a Dark Place by Joshua Kralicek ...................................................................................................... 62 Enough by JW Riajad ...................................................................................................................................... 63 My Grandfathers by Tim Rosin ........................................................................................................................ 63 I hear M’Lady Weep by Terry Harker .............................................................................................................. 64 She by Terry Harker ...................................................................................................................................... 64 Archaeologist’s Dream by Terry Harker ......................................................................................................... 65 Dispenser by David Gene .................................................................................................................. 65 Marbles by David Gene ..................................................................................................................... 66 Science by David Gene ...................................................................................................................... 66 Cutting into Life by David Gene ......................................................................................................... 67

Photography

Grand Canyon of the West by Amber Lien ....................................................................................................... 54 Up the Beaten Path by Alysha Zaske .................................................................................................... 55 Hollywood by Enkhbaatar Ider ....................................................................................................................... 56 BAC by Lara Lee Kunkel ................................................................................................................................. 57 Fighting Natural Growth by Amber Lien .......................................................................................................... 58 Frosty Six by Brenda Kostelecky ..................................................................................................................... 59 Little DSU Fan by Alysha Zaske ....................................................................................................................... 60 Mother’s Hands by Brenda Kostelecky ............................................................................................................ 61 Frosty-Two by Brendy Kostelecky ....................................................................................................... 62 Colorado Beauty by Brenda Kostelecky .......................................................................................................... 63

April 2012

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The Aww Effect by Alysha Zaske ..................................................................................................................... 64 A ruff Day by Samantha Holzer ....................................................................................................................... 65 Frosty by Brenda Kostelecky .......................................................................................................................... 65 Off Season by Stormie Sickler ............................................................................................................ 66 Support System by Alysha Zaske ........................................................................................................ 66 Red Rock by Zhang Yu Chen .......................................................................................................................... 67

2-D Artwork

Alcohol Awareness byAlysha Zaske.................................................................................................................. 1

Grand Canyon of the West

By Amber Lien

Impressions

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Up the Beaten Path

By Alysha Zaske Impressions

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April 2012

Visitor

By Terry Harker

Hollywood

The rasping sound of leather like wings Mingled with the dry rustling of dead leaves That lay scattered upon the flagstone covered terrace.

The soft glow of light cast from the gas lamp Upon the nightstand by the four-postered bed, Filtered through the glass of the French doors, but did little to illuminate A shadowed figure that stood half hidden in voluminous folds of a black cloak.

Moving slowly, ever so slowly until within inches of the glass panes of the door, The figure stopped, then pulled back the hood of the cloak to reveal, A brown almost blackened face, dreamy eyes half hidden by drooping eyelids, And bloodless lips pulled back in a grim smile, revealing long, pointed, yellow teeth.

On the other side of the door, lying on the bed in a fitful sleep, Bathed in the soft light from the gas lamp, Was she whom he sought, the Contessa Adrianna.

Pressing his face against one of the panes of glass in the door, He mouthed these words; “Invite me in.”

By Enkhbaatar Ider

James Stewart, Anthony Perkins, You. Watching Raymond Burr, Kim Novak, and me.

Voyeurs from a rear window, the Bates motel.

Your television screen.

Voyeurs

By Tim Rosin

Tell me, do you like what you see?

Are you titillated, Stimulated, and bemused?

If I kiss Sarah, what will you complain?

If she leaves me, will you say she threw it all away?

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56

My doctor swears you’re not real.

I know better, I see that she lies.

Ran a stop sign yesterday, Did you See? James Stewart, Anthony Perkins, You, Please answer me.

April 2012

BAC

By Lara Lee Kunkel

Tomorrow Sitting at a railroad crossing Waiting for a train Its car’s full of coal They have a schedule I don’t And so I wait I used to count the cars Now I don’t No one cared I realized I didn’t either I would do it to pass the time While I waited Now I don’t

Tomorrow

By Terry Harker

Mothers With sad tired eyes That reflect Fear, yet hope Men Look, but do not see Except that which is in their mind For the days and weeks ahead

The coal train fades I see now a train from another era Its car’s full of people Going west with dreams

April 2012

Children Look out the windows They don’t see me Just rolling prairie, bushes, and trees

A new life For them, their wives, their children Not the sun setting on today But rising instead in all its glory for tomorrow

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Five thousand years ago A man laborious incises deep lines Into a rock That will tell future generations The story of his people.

Others erect towering stone slabs A ring of stones to commemorate The great deeds That have occurred upon this spot.

Later with his arm around his son With pride he speaks Thousands of years from now People reading those words And gazing upon these stones Will wonder at our might and glory.

* * * * * Five thousand years later As people gaze at the giant Harker stones That ring this spot Their fingers trace the shallow lines Incised into a weathered rock And wonder.

Was it writing?

Or Stone Age art?

And what of the stone megalith?

A temple, a tomb, Or an observatory for the heavens?

Questions pondered, yet unanswered

Stonehedge

By Terry

Fighting Natural Growth

By Amber Lien Impressions

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April 2012

Frosty Six

By Brenda Kostelecky

The Battle’s End

By Terry Harker A glow of crimson fills the eastern sky spilling over the mountaintop, To the hills and valley below still bathed in pale light.

The moonlight fails as the sun makes its presence known, Two lines of men atop opposite hills, with green valley below, prepare to fight.

No sound is heard except the soft jingle of metal chain as bodies shift, Fists clenching hilt of sword or shaft of spear.

Eyes and countenance hardened by battles past, As one they move downhill to valley floor, no emotions show, no signs of fear.

Battle horn’s blare, the lines engage, swords raise then fall, against armored bodies strike.

Spears thrust, find their mark, into unprotected flesh they pierce, their target found.

The ground beneath the soldier’s feet, churns to dust that rises in the air, And like a blood red mist, hangs around them as the sun high above shines down.

April 2012

The battle rages, for those engaged it seems that time stands still.

But only death hangs still in the sky above, the sun continues its day’s journey through.

But as daylight wanes, and the fighting too; both soon drawing to an end, Before darkness falls those that live, have one more thing to do.

They move amongst the bodies, that lie strewn upon the killing ground, Pausing by the living to offer succor, the dead they pile upon the funeral pyre.

The sun has set, the moons light reigns once more, the truce between both sides holds true.

They pray and offer sacrifices to their Gods, before they light the fire.

As all this takes place, shifting mists move about the valley floor, Within, shadowy forms flit about, beauteous maidens laying claim to that which is theirs.

Those who die a hero’s death taken to a hero’s hall, those that didn’t will serve when called, The Goddess of the underworld: whose creeping minions, take those which are hers.

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She Pirate

By Terry Harker I followed her through the tavern door, She really was a sight.

From where I stood, it was plain to see, Her breeches were too tight.

Upon her feet, black captain boots, That went up to her knees.

Around her waist a sash she were, Holding pistols, cutlass, a ring of keys.

The blouse she wore was décolleté, But what attracted every eye in the room.

Was the ornate chain around her neck, Composed of gold doubloons.

Perched on her head, a tricorn hat, Her laughing eyes and half smile upon her face.

Belied her evil mood and plans, And her reasons for being in this place.

Aarrgghh! Don’t look into her eyes, a sailor said.

But his warning came too late.

For the man next to him, as he raised his cup, Had looked, and sealed his fate.

She drank her rum, And looked round the room.

Though the sailors tried to avoid her gaze, Still they looked, seeing in her eyes, a vision of their doom.

She had come for one reason and one reason only.

To assemble a crew to man her ship.

And as one by one they looked at her, She knew she had that crew within her evil grip.

And what about me you ask.

Did I too suffer the same fate?

I long ago looked into the eyes of Captain M. And for years now have sailed as her first mate.

The Girl and the Torino

By Tim Rosin Black shoes, blue jeans, and golden red hair, Pretty pearl ‘round her neck, Those jeans fit her just like they should, She sits four chairs ahead, with a black Carnation in her hair; -yet she can see me.

All dressed up and looking fine; -A tall lyrical jazz beauty, never to be mine.

Impressions

Little DSU Fan

By Alysha Zaske

She’d be at home at a honky-tonk, or in a muscle car, So what she doin’ here? I ask myself.

Come away with me, I’ve tuned up my Torino, No Copper or Charger will have legs to give chase.

My Torino’s Dynaflow roars and the carburetor will get us goin’ hard core.

The V-8 runs hot and pushed us through the curves heavy, It’s got five ten inch gears – damn girl, You’ve got no idea.

Black heels, tight blue jeans, golden – red hair, They’d all look good sitting next to me.

60

April 2012

Aging . . . Thoughts, Hopes, Pains, and Prayers

Mother’s Hands

By Feyisayo Ogunleye

By Brenda Kostelecky

As I near this feared word called OLD AGE I know that now I must go Yet, I don’t know when The thought of this makes me scared Many have perished out of those who came into my life Friends and colleagues and even my loved ones very dear to me My heart sinks each time I think of this Yet I can’t help but be grateful for my living As I look back at my life I cry as well as smile For a while I’m comforted But I feel pain sometimes Now that I am fragile Sunshine scorches my skin Yet in the shade I shiver My age I just can’t win.

Skin that used to be young Shiny, bright, and attractive Has depreciated over time Still I am grateful I breathe Does that mean that I am stressed? Or maybe depressed?

No, why should that be so?

My Heavenly Father knows What his child needs below May He see to it that I don’t while my time away While I enjoy the rest of my days Happy are those who appreciate old age Happy…maybe that should have been my name

April 2012

Things Sinatra Taught me

By Tim rosin Lucky Strikes and a nice lighter, Two birds at every party, Good Vodka, In a crystal tumbler, Lots of ice Nat King Cole, (For love making), Porsche Spyder (To show off the dame) The way you wear your hat,

-

Tea is for Charlie’s

Kick the crap out of any man who’d strike a woman, Or child, (ask Bogart or Bing).

These are the lessons Sinatra gave to me.

61

Impressions

In a Dark Place

By Joshua Kralicek The mind it wanders Down halls so gray Outlined in darkness Throughout the day Beasts behind corners They wait to feast Turn slowly now Lest being cease

Your hand becomes cold And then this one freezes Everything is numb And loneliness seizes But icier cold I still feel Once I grasp the door’s handle Pull, and behind he lays The master of this canto Fiery orange eyes open The only sight to see Walk so long in darkness And the flames devour thee

Their growls are heard The footfall quiet Anxiety rising Monsters riot

Every vice chains victims And to this being I’m trapped No longer my own destiny Of love forever sapped

Down these gray halls The joys we hear On the next floor Beyond our ears

But that last moment of flames Gives the last bit of light In that instant savior stood there Would he be my last sight?

Deafened by demons Quietly they stalk Ready to strike in a moment Growing hoards mock Soon nothingness extends Hunters’ shadows conceal Until the last of color ends And in terror blood congeals

Frosty-Two

By Brenda Kostelecky

Even the devil can’t keep darkness Figures frighten from the depths But not first without unveiling From their terror’s Sept

Behemoth lies beyond Past the great gate His slumbering growls haunt And testify my fate

Senses stolen with success No worldly features distinct But no thief has ever theft In total a man’s instinct

Great multitudes gather Their shuffling sounds Increasing shadows Unknown numbers surround

Intuition screams in the dark The escape way not lost Doorway above demon seen The moment strike’s cost

The quiet noise!

Blind and deafened too!

These beasts steal from me And they may steal from you

Final decision to be made Behemoth begins to strike Leap, man! To salvation Or be chained to vice

Your hand is all to feel Otherwise nothing remains Walk with me please To their master’s domain

Time’s frost thawed single hands Eternal moment to choose I win or fall in this dark place And both ways we always lose

Impressions

62

April 2012

Enough

My Grandfathers

By JW Riajad

By Tim Rosin

What is enough When nothing seems to be?

Really I’ve had enough of nothing, And nothing is always what it seems.

For if it were not what it seemed, Then sense would fall apart at the seams And fall like cloth, once stitches reamed, Can come apart, the beginning redeemed.

Nonsensical is what sense has made of me, Rambling, staring as though unconsciously, Subconsciously though, I’d prefer to be, As compared to being senseless in ecstasy.

They were my grandfather’s, stored in a rich dark black case, With golden letter that have all but faded away, Real tortoise shell, I think; (then again, this might be a misnomer); Encase beautiful, black translucent, semi opaque lenses.

Bright brass hinges sit nestled in the corners of the frame.

They were my grandfather’s, and when I put them on I feel as cool As he looked when as a boy I looked up and there he stood with Them on.

Colorado Beauty

That last statement there, it may be a lie.

I honestly, truthfully, don’t know.

To solve it I may repeatedly senselessly try, But is the effort worth it, probably no.

April 2012

By Brenda Kostelecky

63

Impressions

I hear M’Lady Weep

By Terry Harker Quiet Crying arises from deep within, The torch-lit fortress keep, My heart and soul are troubled when, I hear M’Lady weep.

Brave men have died this very day, Their lives laid down to sleep Defending her and these castle walls, I hear M’Lady weep.

She enters the room with grace and ease A ballroom mask revealing just her eyes to laugh and tease She stands there for all to see Yet who I perceive, is it really she?

She converses with friends and dances the night away But she really is, I cannot say An elegant beauty, cordial as she can

She

By Terry Harker

be Yet who I perceive, is it really she?

I listen as the night wind blows, Torches flicker and shadows creep Through corridors and halls of stone, I hear M’Lady weep.

Just as a mask may hide a person’s face Her persona may be a disguise and not show a trace Of who she really is. An Angel? Yes, she could very well be Yet who I perceive, is it really she?

What’er tomorrow’s dawn may bring, The price will be too steep Victory or defeat, twill be all the same, I’ll hear M’Lady weep.

She enters the room with grace and ease Yet who I perceive, is it really she?

The Aww Effect

By Alysha Zaske

Impressions

64

April 2012

Archaeologist’s Dream

By Terry Harker There I was.

Spiraling downwards, Steps, more, and more steps.

I saw mummies everywhere, Big ones and little ones.

Glittering gold and silver Artifacts everywhere.

Untouched tomb, Hurrah!

Tomb untouched.

Everywhere artifacts, Silver and gold glittering.

Ones little and ones big, Everywhere mummies saw I. Steps, more and more steps, Downwards spiraling.

Was I There?

Frosty A Ruff Day

By Brenda Kostelecky

By Samantha Holzer

Dispenser

By David Gene

Strange it is that I I hoard these thoughts But not socially weary Who has so many pages For no eyes No audience But for the page alone Page to page This is the way I dispense my rage

April 2012

65

Impressions

Marbles

Off Season

By David Gene

By Stormie Sickler

I’m sitting here Wondering if I want to see anymore people These leftovers of what could have been The old shells of who they were Animated and hollow Youth, with their blindness The old, rattled with death’s disease I behold the cum catcher that commutes from the dealer The others pathetic attempts of drunken civility A soiled teenage body With the song of so many lines gone by Each of them with eyes like sad marbles who have rolled Over and over Now just wishing to shine

Support System

By Alysha Zaske

Science

By DAvid Gene Most of us are space Tis’ true The void Nothing We are all spaces There is so little to me To you We are devoid through and through Always a place Between me To you Impressions

66

April 2012

Cutting into Life

By David Gene I cut the tip of my finger off I don’t believe I’m passing out But things are slow For this moment There is nothing else No sounds Visions surreal A focused flow spread elegantly Down

Around About Like a barbers pole Blood runs down it’s path Branching and waning like rivers over time Like a hammered crescendo of an orchestra in tune The pain slides itself into my reality I can feel the high From this pain So complete I am alive

Red Rock

By Zhang yu Chen

April 2012

67

Impressions