Comma Issue 1 Spring 2016

KAY D’ANGELO/THE OBSERVER

10

The Comma

February 25, 2016 THE OBSERVER

www.fordhamobserver.com

Because the N Train Now Reminds Me of You

By AREEG ABDELHAMID

Two couples are seated across from me and right next to me on these blue benches, the N train is Astoria Ditmars bound love is seated in between, glimmering and we make eye contact perhaps my jealousy has also made an appearance on this Friday afternoon.

I am still trying to calculate the destination of time, the weather and us. wishing love wasn’t trying to peel my insides raw right now because I have never felt so naked in public, to be anywhere but here.

the couples are sharing themselves on these blue benches and the N train is making seven stops hand in hand And I am wishing you weren’t 5000 miles away that my ears were shivering with goosebumps over your whispers laughing about nothing important expressions too familiar reminding myself that I could now add eternity to my vocabulary a language not so nostalgic. my hand would rest on your shoulders oddly so as if to say that my body has finally found its resting place I don’t know if God has made a place for us in heaven

yet I wouldn’t share you like this, the N train isn’t worthy of you, you are whole and real and we deserve the Nile the skies, the dirt, anywhere but painted metal benches that aren’t actually blue.

But I cannot stop obsessing over how lucky these benches are, the N train, the MTA that love also stops with them At this moment they don’t matter because I know how lucky I am to be yours.

MARIA KOVOROS/THE OBSERVER

In Bad Company

By ELIZABETH SHEW

Space and art are threatening co-conspirators. I’m unnerved by the installation in the lobby. Oh, the work itself is fascinating: I wish I had thought to impale a fleet of Ford Tauruses with flashing metal spears. And then to suspend those cars from the ceiling, a wave of everyday life caught in the moment between flight and death—it is simply marvelous. It truly is. Marvelous. But… I wish I did not have to see it in person. Did you know that a Ford Taurus weighs over three-thousand pounds? There are at least eight of them hanging from the rafters, but somehow, in this space, they look dwarfed. It must be the ceiling. Ceilings are usually the perfect limiters, boxing up space which would otherwise spread rampantly. But there’s something wrong with this one: its dimensions shrink the cars until they look bizarrely small.

I’m in an increasingly bad mood when Angelo finds me standing at the base of the escalator, unable to take the first step. I must look pathetic: a grown, disheveled man frozen by an ordinary piece of machinery. But the escalator will force me to confront one of the suspended Tauruses, and I can’t do it. I can’t put myself next to a car which looks like a mere toy from the ground, but which will look huge at eye level, and which will magnify the space a thousand, ten thousand times—Angelo sighs. He finds someone who knows where the elevators are. He looks exasperated, but it’s his own damn fault.

He knows I hate to oversee the installation of my own work. And I have never been a fan of museum tourists.

ter of the room? What about the lighting? Do I have any suggestions?

The only suggestion I have is that they scrap the entire piece and recycle it to make a bench for the visitors examining the Pollock next door. They stare at me. Then Angelo, ever the crowd-pleaser, proposes we take five. I ignore him as everyone files out; my insides seize with anxiety. Alone, there is nothing to divert me from the creature rising from the floor. Red metal twists and spokes through the air, carving burrows and passages out of the void. It is a massive thing, but it does not dwarf this room as it did my workshop; it no longer distracts me from the empty corners, from the shadowy joint where the lid meets the wall. I close my eyes and try not to choke.

I’m on my way out the door when Angelo comes back. He looks disappointed, but he doesn’t protest; I’ve already stayed longer than he expected. I tell him I don’t care what they do with the sculpture. The thing I labored on for months and months has already become like a lost friend. I take the elevator downstairs and leave without glancing up. I feel stretched. You know, some people say that loneliness is supposed to feel like a chasm in the chest, a yawning pit which stomachs all other feeling and leaves the body grasping at holes. But I have always felt in my chest a balloon of possibility, full of people who might exist or might arrive—a balloon which swells and strains until I am forced to create the next sculpture, a sculpture which leaves no room for anyone else.

When the elevator opens, Angelo ducks under a line of yellow caution tape and holds it aloft for me. I follow silently. I’m not needed here. The sculpture is done, the work is done—I do not care where they put it. Where it is shouldn’t matter; it will still eat space. That’s the whole point. Angelo and his team, however, don’t seem to understand. They ask me five hundred ridiculous questions. Should it face east or west? Should it be in a corner? Does it look better in the cen-

PAULA MADERO/THE OBSERVER

www.fordhamobserver.com

THE OBSERVER February 25, 2016

The Comma

11

00:00 EST

By SAM ROSS

I wasn’t feeling, but it was New Year’s.

Pretty scarf necks, the TV was on.

White teeth confetti and diaphanous laughter.

Everything was festive.

No one was around me.

At least that’s how it felt.

3… 2… 1 … I don’t remember smiling.

Sleeping beneath a different night, Kiribati light has come and gone.

AMANDA GIOSCIA/THE OBSERVER

House on a Hill

By FRANCESCA ATON

I told you I was afraid of cancer, afraid of falling, and I put a Band-Aid on to keep it up in the inside away from your hand, where ashes fall like tears in love’s eyes.

Tomorrow, you’ll use the same fingers to graze the small of my back—a soft, lingering touch—but tonight it belongs to the fire, the ash, to her. I’ll barter, one ruble for you. But it’s never enough and you’ll keep pulling back the Band-Aid the further you walk away to tell me my faults, my fears.

We’ll chuckle. Reset to new spaces.

Your house on the hill is the true prize, right next to the river, you feel the water flowing beside you but not over, never over you. You mention nothing of her as you wipe tears from my cheek, place your hand in the small of my back the gap isn’t physical but I feel her pull by your side.

You light me up and breathe me in, allowing me to burn as long as you’re pulling the air through the other side. Brand a poker in me underneath, no more adhesive, we’ve lost our quality. Nerves lead you back to the same smoke that brought you, ashes falling. We all fall down.

ANGELA LUIS/THE OBSERVER

14

The Comma

February 25, 2016 THE OBSERVER

www.fordhamobserver.com

“I just need to kill a few hours.” (says the assassin) These types of assassins don’t stop With just a few, They keep on killing— They serialize; They choose how they kill, When they kill, and The form in which they deliver Their kill.

Cutting single letters out of newspaper to disguise their hand to others And (themselves) They serialize, fetishize Their wasted lives.

Of course killers are afflicted Psychopathic Unto themselves.

Lack of self-empathy, Lack of disdain for their crime Unto themselves.

Thrice I say! It’s better to be Too hard on oneself, as opposed to Being Gelatinous.

Yet my opinion is not the overarching One. These assassins do so value their “Miserable Ease” Yet the only thing I value is Being able to be a Miser with my time.

They serialize, fetishize They’re wasted lives.

Suicidal Assassins

By ALEX CROSBY

JULIET ALTMANN/THE OBSERVER

The Plight of the Intern

By DAVID MILO

Someone whose name you don’t know comes up to your desk.

He or she starts saying a name that is not yours, but catches his or her self midway. Kind of like “Ryyyyyya, Oh sorry your name is Mike. Michael. I am Fred.”

“You are one of the interns right? Yeah, Bob told me about you,” as he answers his own question. (You think to yourself. Who the fuck is Bob? I have been here two years and there are only 5 people in this office and apparently now there is a Bob and a Fred).

After a little bit of mental problem solving and a few awkward seconds, Fred looks you in the eyes and asks you the two questions that every single intern has learned to fear.

“Hey are you busy?”

And “Can you do me a favor?”

Every alarm is going off in your body. You literally cringe in your chair but you can’t show Fred how you really feel so you pretend like it is a back cramp. What could this man want? I didn’t even know he existed 2 minutes ago let alone what on earth Fred does.

Is it accounting based? Fuck, I haven’t done accounting since freshman year.

All I learned in that class was how to play Cube Runner and look like I was struggling in class every time I crashed so the teacher would pity me and give me a better grade at the end of the semester.

Wait, I am in the marketing program. Maybe he will ask me to look at some logos or something. I can do that. People love the color red. If he asks me what color I think looks good. I am just going to say red. That will drive sales and everyone will be happy.

We sell oranges though. Red oranges?? Fuck it, I will say that we can have Marc Ecko to sponsor them. People love his shit for some reason.

Holy crap he is holding a tablet! I hate tablets. My fingers are too fat to type on the touch screen. It will take me a year to write a page. Little does Fred

know that he is pretty much holding the equivalent of a nuclear football in his sweaty hand. If he punches in the go codes and tries to hand that bomb to me, I am putting in my two-second notice and GTFOing. By the grace of god, Fred opens his satchel and safely stows away the football. My life has been spared. I live to work another day.

After all of these thoughts raced around in my head for what in reality was only an awkward three-second pause, I look Fred right in the eyes as if I was peering into this man’s blackened corporate soul and said, “No I am not busy.

What do you need?”

At this point I felt like I sold my soul to the devil. He digested my words for what seemed like an eternity as a singular bead of sweat appeared on my forehead. His mouth started to move and the utterance of his first word made my heart skip a beat.

“Change–” Change what??? Seats? My socks? Do they smell? My lifestyle?

How much does Fred know about me? WHO IS FRED!! This man cracked me without even trying.

“Change the–” Fred you better fucking tell me right now what has to be changed or I literally may die. “Change the Coffee Filter.” The coffee filter…?

I let my mind process this unexpected request. What I say next will make or break my relations with Fred for the rest of my internment. I took a hot second to compose myself and said, “ Yeah, sure, it’s no problem.”

Did he take the bait? Does he now think that I am so confident in changing the coffee filter that I could do it with my eyes closed? Like Moses waiting to find the holy land, I waited for Fred to acknowledge what I said as coolly as possible. He smiled and walked away. By the grace of god I made it through my first encounter with Fred.

Just as Fred rounded the corner to his office and closed the door, a first year intern came back from the bathroom. I looked at him with a smirk that screamed “I own your soul” and simply said, “Fred told me to tell you to change the coffee filter as soon as possible. He wants his coffee.”

IAN MCKENNA/OBSERVER ARCHIVES

www.fordhamobserver.com

THE OBSERVER February 25, 2016

The Comma

15

I Breathe the Smoke

By JOHN MCCULLOUGH

I breathe the smoke-choked air Of buses and trains Of strange unknown tobaccos Of light and sound and motion Smoke.

Paper burning.

People burning.

Smoke twirling and swirling Above the buildings and through the streets From Bleecker from Fifth from Park.

From Wall.

In the mountains of Kabul In the mines of Santiago In the halls of Brussels and London and Washington Burning, Burning, Burning, Burning I was a communist but I forgot I think I’m remembering again Call me Ishmael; Call me Sisyphus; Don’t call me late for dinner.

SARAH HOWARD/THE OBSERVER

Deus Ex Machina

By BENJAMIN STRATE

Is this what you see when you look at me?

A complex binary, But what of the mind of the machine?

Figures and algorithms brought you to me, Yet have you considered the soul of the machine?

Is this what you see when you look at me?

They say we worship technology, But didn’t the ancients create the god of the machine?

A series of cranks and pulleys Brought God to me.

Is this what you see when you look at me?

A ghost of the machine.

ZANA NAJJAR/THE OBSERVER

KAY D’ANGELO/THE OBSERVER