2017 Vibrato Book 1

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THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL | 2017 | VOLUME 52 | VIBRATO | BOOK 1

VIBRATO | BOOK 1 The Hockaday School 11600 Welch Road Dallas, Texas 75229 214.363.6311 www.hockaday.org

PHILOSOPHER’S

ABYSS

Dear Reader, As you read this magazine, feel the photographer’s passion. Debate your own disposition as you assess each fictional character, examine the emotion within a portrait and weigh it against your own experience. However daunting, as you tumble into this abyss of creativity, seek to uncover its meaning and contemplate how it reflects your own reality.

With this two-part magazine, we urge you to embrace oblivion in “Fool’s Paradise” and examine your consciousness in “Philosopher’s Abyss.” As you venture in, you might find that the two are not what they seem.

Tassneen Bashir | OXYGEN | Watercolor

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Brenda Lee | Couplet | Photography

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Brenda Lee | Lessons from Life Science: Building Blocks | Poetry Charlotte Toomey | Ear | Art

Wendy Ho | Grandfather | Prose Aurelia Han | Haircut | Photography

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Brenda Lee | The Human Condition | Prose Reid Cohen | Lake at Dawn | Photography

Emily Wu | Solitary | Photography

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Sabrina Sanchez | Five Ways of Looking at a Clock | Poetry

Lauren Puplampu | The Spindler | Photography

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Theo Cai | What Came First | Poetry Ashna Kumar | Up in the Air | Photography

Helena Perez-Stark | Cigarette | Poetry

Catherine Gross | Apple Picking | Art

Anonymous | Civil Rights, As Explained by a Chaotic Neutral | Poetry Giraffe | Elli Lee | Art

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Shannon Anderson | A Taste of Home | Prose

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Christina Yang | I am not Orpheus | Poetry Sabah Shams | Trashy Cathy | Art

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Adjoa Walker | Uncertainty | Prose Tassneen Bashir | Decomposed | Art

Ellea Lamb | Snake Skin | Poetry Anika Bandarpalle | Lil Banana Bird | Photography

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Anonymous | The Statistics Proved Us Wrong | Prose Christine Ji | Story of a Man | Art

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Tassneen Bashir | Re]Kindle | Poetry Ileana Kesselman | Abandoned | Photography

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Safa Michigan | Abuelo | Prose Lauren Puplampu | Alone | Photography

Melanie Kerber | Find X | Prose Cheryl Hao & Aurelia Han | Behind Closed Doors | Photography

Sonya Xu | Puzzle | Prose Safa Michigan | Iron Web | Photography

Kristen Romano | Warrior Girl | Poetry Tassneen Bashir | Drip | Art

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Elli Lee | Censored | Art

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Maggie Stein | Telescope | Prose Louisa Lindsley | Shed a Light | Photography

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Katherine Lake | Don’t You Remember? Don’t You Forget |Prose Claire Marucci | Château | Photography

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Maye McPhail | Driving: November 7th-11th, 2017 | Poetry Remie Hochman | Macabre Firetruck | Art

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Maye McPhail | Dear Stormé | Poetry Helena Perez-Stark | Careless Crystals | Photography

62 Midnight City | Nirvana Khan | Photography

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Brenda Lee | COUPLET | Photography

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Charlotte Toomey | EAR | Watercolor

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LESSONS FROM LIFE SCIENCE: BUILDING BLOCKS Brenda Lee

1.

In biology I learned that when placed under high heat, a protein denatures— Its structure is altered beyond recognition.

First untangles its secondary structure: Hydrogen bonds weave the backbone into spirals or pleats, Then collapses Its tertiary structure: It knows itself intimately, it folds in and in, is compact and complex, And finally snaps Its quaternary structure: It merges with another under a common function and becomes complete, Leaving only Its primary structure: a unique chain of amino acids, intact.

2.

I never knew we would unwind. I thought We were coiled too tightly to be felled by a flame.

I did not foresee 2) Our limbs untangling, 3) Our shared memories collapsing, 4) Our bond snapping at the seams, 1) Our cores severing.

Though, I suppose I should have known— No matter how important they seem, Hydrogen bonds are easily broken.

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GRANDFATHER WENDY HO

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My relationship with my grandparents mirrors my relationship with the Chi-

nese language itself, which is to say I understand enough to qualify as fluent but not enough to understand complexities. When I speak, the words don’t flow the way they should and I am actively self-conscious about the fact that though I look Chinese, the words I speak come with an indescribable accent, not quite the one of an American, but not as fluent as a native speaker either. Words stick like rice to the roof of my mouth, and I am mute, always a perpetual listener. So although my family is atypical among first generation Chinese families in that I have both sets of grandparents living in the Dallas area, I still feel as if the distance between my grandparents is not merely a few minutes away or only two generations, but as wide as the Pacific Ocean and as long as a dynasty.

And yet, although I couldn’t speak Chinese well and he couldn’t speak English well, I believe that my maternal grandfather and I shared a secret understanding. My grandfather was a man of few words and great restraint, but sometimes, I could almost understand what he was saying from the food he cooked. When he and my grandmother moved to Dallas permanently from China, he cooked dinner while both my parents worked and my brother and I went to school. It’s hard to describe something I haven’t tasted in several years, but the food he made had a symphonic quality to it. The dishes were not merely food, but had an extra emotional undertone to them, a richness that could only be obtained with a full orchestra and a talented conductor. The aroma swelled in the air, and the food always tasted just right, striking the same balance between almost in tune and hitting a note exactly. For my birthdays or special events, even though I never outright told him what my favorite dishes were, he seemed to know, and they would appear on the dinner table. In the same way orchestra music translates to a live audience, or how people gravitate towards counting numbers in their native tongue, I think we shared some kind of special connection.

But despite this, when he died from esophageal cancer, I could only view his death through the lens of my mother, even though my grandfather and I had lived in the same house together

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for many years. After he passed, my biggest regret was that I did not know how to communicate with him. Even though he was a man of few words, I wish I could have heard more stories from him. To hear stories, I had to ask about context, use my Chinese to express ideas about childhood, regret, pride, joy, love, something that I could not stretch my Chinese to do. And in reality, I was not that close to my grandfather. In the entire time I knew him, I cannot recall having a one-on-one conversation lasting more than ten minutes. The stories I hear about him are retold by my mother to me, rather from the source himself. And to this day, I cannot recall how many siblings he had or what his childhood was like, where he traveled, or even what his experience being a parent was like, save from my mother’s stories of him, which I could only hear secondhandedly.

During my grandfather’s cancer treatment, sometimes I felt like the roles between my mother and I were reversed.

“How was your day?” I would ask when she picked me up after school.

Sometimes, my mother would look straight ahead at the other cars crowding the street in front of us, her hands gripped tightly around the steering wheel, and she would let out a weighty sigh. Other times, she would talk about how my grandfather was doing and I would just listen. I think I had to have been thirteen at that time, but I understood in some ways that my mother just wanted someone to listen, so I would just sit there and listen as she would talk about her day at the hospital with my grandfather, what food was served at the cafeteria there, what kinds of people were also sitting in the waiting room, what her childhood was like with him, and I would just nod along, listening. I didn’t know what to say, but to me, my grandfather seemed more alive when she told stories about him. He wasn’t just another old man waiting for his journey to come to a close in a hospital room; he was my grandfather, someone who was part of my own origin story, my own identity. In some ways, I had a silent understanding with my grandfather, but in others, I did not know the man at all.

The curious thing about adulthood is that when you buy the plot of earth that you will eventually be buried beneath, it is similar to buying a home or car, meaning you can buy one at any time you have financial capabilities to. However morbid it sounds, my grandfather had already chosen what type of casket, gravestone, and plot of land he wanted when he knew he was going to die, so when he passed, the funeral was the very next weekend. It was a small service with no more than fifteen people, and only attended by family members who already lived in America. How strange, for a man to be born in a country where all his ancestors lived and died, spend his childhood, teenage-hood, and adulthood there, move to another country, and be buried an ocean away from his birthplace with only sparse relatives who also lived in this strange, foreign soil to attend his service. My grandfather also had a sister who lived in China, whom I have never spoken to, but she did not come. To be honest, at his funeral service, I felt more like a voyeur than a guest, like I was watching through the keyhole of another stranger’s funeral and hoping to feel semblance of sadness from my mom and grandmother. But I did not know my grandfather to that degree; he was only ever real to me in the food he cooked and the stories my mother told me. As I watched his casket sink into the unfamiliar earth, I did not feel like something great had been lost, but rather I felt as if a faint, muffled sound I used to hear had turned into utter silence.

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Aurelia Han | HAIRCUT | Photography

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Reid Cohen | LAKE AT DAWN | Photography

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THE HUMAN CONDITION Brenda Lee

The sea doesn’t think of us when it pounds glass—sea against glass, glass against rock, glass against sea. Like Hokusai’s Great Wave, the sea is merciless. Tides crash against broken bottles, first shattering them into a hundred pieces, then pummeling and shaping them until polished. I hold a piece of beach glass in my hand. The glass feels so smooth that my fingertips, rough with life’s burdens, find it soft. They rub across the once-jagged edges and come away unhurt.

This isn’t simple bottle glass. No, the sea has changed, transformed, transfigured it into something new yet still recognizable. Like a child again, I am lost in wonder. How long ago did this glass break from its brethren? How many seas did it travel, just to wash up on this shore? I thank the sea, but it does not answer. It continues on, mechanical tide after mechanical tide, always following the moon. It did not create this for me.

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Emily Wu | SOLITARY | Photography

FIVE WAYS OF LOOKING AT A CLOCK Sabrina Sanchez

I Among twenty darkened offices, the only audible thing was the ticking of the clock.

II I do not know which more to fear, the consequences of the past or the consequences of the future, the clock striking twelve or just after.

III The house cast shadows on the wilting garden.

The ticking of the clock threatened to turn vibrancy to brown choking in the shade an insurmountable dark.

IV O restless schoolchildren, why do you watch the hands of the clock?

Do you not see how your own hands hold the power to create and destroy?

V He wound his clock every morning.

Once, hesitation struck him in that he perceived the very clock he carried as mortal.

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Lauren Puplampu | THE SPINDLER | Photography

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WHAT CAME FIRST Theo Cai

My father taught me how to harvest eggs. Careful, go slow. Talk to her—

tell her it’s going to be okay. That she won’t even notice.

I emerge from her warmth with my treasure: thwarted chick, unbuilt skin and feathers, bone-white yet boneless, and the hen croons and shifts in her empty nest. It’s for breakfast. Just breakfast.

My mother waits in the kitchen, humming a song from her homeland – fields barren.

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Ashna Kumar | UP IN THE AIR | Photography

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CIGARETTE

Helena Perez-Stark Dorian, what’s become of you?

My dear, look how you’ve aged, Oil paint, yellowed with time and Caked with soot and wizened regret.

You told me I looked beautiful As you smoked your cigarette, Yet your veins have been cracked beyond repair; How ever will the nicotine find it’s way?

Lovely, you hold your head in your hands And examine the convoluted paths of your own mind.

I wish I could peel back your vileness and find your Untarnished self, and I think, “I must have made a small home in that skull of yours (Drenched in hallucinogens and crimsoned skin) And yet I have charmed you to your last breath And the first sign of your decay.”

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Catherine Gross | APPLE PICKING | Colored Pencil

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Elli Lee | GIRAFFE | Colored Pencil

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CIVIL RIGHTS, AS EXPLAINED BY A CHAOTIC NEUTRAL Anonymous

A feminist zebra walks into a Chinese restaurant.

I buy it an appetizer out of obligation, An entrée out of guilt.

Zebra, sometimes (when I’m bored) I pay (those white men) to see you (watch you) at the zoo.

It is now asking for a dessert menu. Damnit.

“I, a powerful, feminist zebra, do not watch you back” Pardon?

“Man offered to imprison you first, But I bargained on your behalf and we compromised with the wage gap” Thank you, feminist zebra, but please stop eating the fancy cloth napkins.

A TASTE OF HOME Shannon Anderson

26 “Alejandra,” Mamá called. “Time for dinner!”

The aroma of tamales permeated the walls, seeping under the door to her room and into her nose. Tamales, because those were Alejandra’s favorites.

Today had been a rough day at school. Honestly, every day was a rough day at school. As a new student—a “foreigner,” as her classmates deemed her—Alejandra struggled. Her classes were hard, her peers were unfriendly, and her friends were few and far between. She stood out in the crowd: not in the good way though. She was an outsider, and as far as she could tell, there was no way into the world around her.

As Alejandra plodded down the wooden staircase, she glanced around her house. Boxes were still stacked in every corner, breaking at the corners from their rough handling on the long journey. Nails were placed sparsely on the walls, laying claim to some space that would eventually hold a beautiful painting or picture, but for now just standing out, ugly and useless.

“Hola, mi niña bonita.” Her mother greeted her with a semi-knowing, sympathetic smile.

“Hard day?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Alejandra mumbled.

“It will get better, no te preocupes” Mamá reminded her. “Change takes time, but we’re lucky to be in such a nice home.” She handed Alejandra a plate filled with three steaming tamales and turned back to the stove.

This was not Alejandra’s home. Home was a feeling. Home was being surrounded by her friends, an intimate group who laughed as they ran from soccer practice. Home was bottled Coca-Cola with colorful straws. And here, surrounded by unemptied boxes and unfinished furniture, that was all missing.

Eager to escape the disorganized chaos of the kitchen, Alejandra took her tamales upstairs. In her room, isolation differed from that of exclusion at school or of lonely strolls on the street.

Her room was her space: at least there, her thoughts could flow freely. She breathed a heavy sigh and shut the door, sealing herself into her sphere of isolation.

Alejandra turned her attention to the plate. The tamales she always loved just didn’t appeal to her today. She pushed the meal aside and turned to her schoolwork. United States History, World Literature, Pre-Calculus. The words on the pages blurred together. Squinting, Alejandra willed herself to focus. If anything, maybe her schoolwork could be her escape.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” read her textbook.

“Pursuit of Happiness, huh? I’d love to know where they sell happiness in this dumb capitalist country” she grumbled, rolling her eyes.

As she slammed the textbook shut, a glimmer caught her eye. From the window that faced her desk, a playful light shone through. It danced like a fairy on her dresser, flashed across her face, then disappeared. Forgetting her rage, Alejandra crept closer to the window.

In her yard stood a small group of five or six people, bundled up against the cold and armed with flashlights. As she peered out, they nudged each other and pointed, laughing. She took a step back from the window. She had almost turned away when another light recaptured her attention.

Alejandra took another look. Six flashlights lit up her room. The strangers waved, and though their faces hid in shadows, Alejandra could feel the warmth of their smiles. She gazed out a few moments longer. They raced to her front door.

Ding dong, sang the doorbell. Alejandra hurried to the top of stairs, then faltered like a cliff diver lost without the adrenaline boost that had placed them on top of the cliff in the first place. Did she want to go down? Who even were they? She heard the release of the lock and the opening of the door. “Hola,” said Mamá, “who are you?”

Alejandra listened as various voices replied, speaking over each other. “We’re from Canyon View.” “Alejandra is in our history class.” “We’re just a few kids from Alejandra’s high school.”

Her heart raced. How did they know where she lived? Why were they here? Moments of continuous, unintelligible talking ensued, followed by a clear voice: “Alejandra, ven aquí, por favor!”

Alejandra practically tiptoed down the stairs. Turning the corner, she was met by six somewhat familiar faces. They were all smiling, white teeth standing out against the redness of their chilled cheeks.

“Hey Alejandra! We were just walking to dinner and thought you might want to join us? It’s totally up to you, we just wanted to ask. I think we’re getting burgers at Shake Shack,” a tall, blonde girl explained.

“Sure,” Alejandra said, still unsure. “Let me grab my coat. I’ll be down in a minute.”

As she grabbed her biggest coat and began her return, Alejandra paused, sensing a change. In her haste to go downstairs, she had left the door to her room open. Now, as she exited once again, she noted that the sense of isolation that had invaded the air before had completely dispersed.

With a slight smile Alejandra entered the cold night, her anxieties finally locked away as she shut the door behind her.

The group walked down the street, Alejandra at its center, chatting about classmates, homework, and extracurriculars. Their flashlights lit the way, guiding them to the Shake Shack.

Though the warm burger she ordered may not have been the same as a street taco in Mexico, the setting brought back a familiar sensation. The United States was still new to her; yet, she could just tell… she was home.

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Sabah Shams | TRASHY CATHY | Chalk

I AM NOT ORPHEUS Christina Yang

Of fair Isolde I dreamt, when the prophets of ages past Arose in a shroud of ash, Their brittle appendages Swaddled in linen, stuffed with straw.

And they proclaimed: Follow, and to the Elysian fields I shall lead thee.

They spoke not through pallid lips but through their wounds (For the mouth cannot tell a credible tale) And thus I travelled to the kingdom of Death.

Glosh, glosh, glosh.

The boat limped across the rolling waves, Because the ferryman is slow. The ferryman— He has all the time in the world (For dead men need no haste).

The wind whimpered. But the ebony sky with its cavernous maw Swallowed, swallowed, swallowed whole its timorous cries.

Glosh, glosh, glosh.

As we passed it, I stretched my limbs Towards the pit where dead men grind their bones into dust—dust and soil and earth tended by the gods Shall bloom even corpses into flowers exquisite as fair Isolde, Whom they called the lily girl, Even though she had no lilies.

Rasping, the ferryman: Man hat zwei Augen zuviel.

For only when vision fades does the mind open and truly see: Her face in all its youthful glow!

A dream of love that withered in its bloom And found anathema too long ago, For thine sight shall herald only gloom.

Oh Isolde! Isolde! I cried.

IcouldnotseeIcouldnothearIcouldnottouchIcouldnot— But I understood.

There is water in my lungs.

There is water in my lungs.

Glosh, glosh, glosh. The boat limped on.

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UNCERTAINTY Adjoa Walker

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The first year we spent the holidays together, I was so on edge about how you and my family were getting along that I couldn’t bear more than one shallow breath for the entirety of the trip. We were only an hour’s drive away from Dallas, but Burleson had a way of making even the most Southern of Texans feel unauthentic. Maybe it was the thick drawl that nearly every person over the age of 45 possessed, or perhaps the litter of TexMex restaurants that cluttered every street corner, bearing the constant reminder that there was no place like Tejas. Despite my own anxieties, we did well…. You did well.

You went fishing with Pa and bought my mom lilies. You’ve always been good with those sort of things. I’ve never seen a room that you didn’t fit in to. I guess that’s why I was shocked when you told me you couldn’t see me there in Burleson, “It’s so backwards here, like they never learned the word progression.” Your tone on the last word inflecting in a way that said not quite disgusted, but damn sure not impressed. Those words pricked and poked at me, perhaps deciding whether I was worth cutting deeply. This time they decided no. I don’t know why I had expected you to like a place I told you so little good about, but it’s something about an outsider insulting something you have a love-hate relationship that tends to evoke defensiveness. The same thing that happens when my family talks about you. Sure you did a number on them that Christmas, and my mom will never forget those lilies, but I think the hurt of losing her youngest daughter still weighs heavy on the heart. They blame you for me, they think you’re the reason why I grew restless in a sleepy town, the reason home is now fifty miles closer to “progression.” Maybe they’re right.

I’m now approaching the kitchen, our apartment an airtight box, it takes only seven long strides to get from the master bedroom to the kitchen counter… I counted once. You’re by the stove, mug of coffee in hand. I can smell the lack of creamer from here. You like it black, says it builds character. I take mine with two sugar cubes and a shit ton of milk.

It’s been weeks since I could stomach the smell of the stuff. My eyes trail down to my alabaster wrists, puffy rings purpling the surrounding skin. Your coffee had been cold one day, as was your heart, and no sooner had the coffee beans ricocheted to the floor that my body followed suit. But not to worry, our unborn absorbed the shock.

Without hesitation, you fill the empty space between us. Your lips brush against mine as your head drops, and soon your warm tongue invades my mouth. Bittered by caffeine and lies, the sour taste of you is a silent assault.

“Happy Birthday,” you exhale, as you lips sloppily trail down my neck. I won’t correct you on the date. A gentle tug of my arms invokes autonomous panic, and I wince at the crippling touch of your fingers. You notice, yet continue to pull harder until I am subject to only your embrace.

The ache in my heart competes with the throbbing of my wrists, and I know it will only be a matter of time until you have assembled an orchestra of pain. “Let me go,” you release momentarily and I watch as starry-eyed confusion turns into the grit of anger.

“What?” You dare me.

“Let me go,” my mouth is heavier after the words escape, and I want to rub away the faux numbing sensation. “I have to go.” You force my head onto the wall, your mouth pressed against my ear. The hot stickiness of wet saliva follows, leaving my lobe raw and exposed.

“You’re going to leave me?” Your hearty chuckle pauses only to welcome knuckles that collide with the left side of my face. The ringing in my ears joins the throbbing of my wrists. I wait to see what the conductor has in store next. You seem satisfied with me cowered below you, but that of course is never enough. Next comes the pounding in my head as you pull me by my roots into the master bedroom with seven easy strides. Our physical struggle continues, as we waltz to the rhythm of your orchestra, until I cannot bear to dance any longer. I stop struggling,

you stop, the music continues on by way of extemporization. The welts on my face are no match for the stinging tears that leave my eyes, I try to withhold them, because it is not fair that they can escape when I cannot.

You’ve fallen to your knees now, holding on to me with the terrible strength that left the marks on my wrists. No longer are you fueled by anger, but rather guilt. Dry heaves muffle desperate apologies, and I stand for a moment in silence, before matching your kneel. I take your head in my hands, and your face meets mine. I study your stinging red eyes, coating the deep brown irises. They accentuate the dark freckles that line your cheeks. The shadow that covers the room makes you appear corpse-like. I imagine your insides look similar. You reach out for me and I oblige, as you again forcefully pull me into your embrace. We are now intertwined on the floor, your face in my neck, my focus out this window and beyond this world.

“Don’t ever leave me.” You drowsily plead. “I need you, you need me…. This is our home.” Home is your heartbeat, the slight grin on your face when you fall asleep next to me... it is in the cracks of our intertwining legs and the crevices of our lacing fingers. Home is the copper taste of blood that coats my mouth, the pink scars that line my belly, and the anger that lives within you.

Tasneen Bashir | DECOMPOSED | Ink and Soil

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SNAKE SKIN Ellea Lamb

For the second time, Snake sheds her holographic skin, Her new mottled sheath glistening fresh under artificial lamp light.

As I reach into her cage to clear away the old encasing, I mourn my own inability to resurrect.

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If I were God, everyone would receive two sets of skin: The spare lives inside a black garment bag in the back of your closet.

Perhaps you’ll save the extra set for parties or graduation, Or, if you’re really desperate like I am, Sop up your mistakes with its new and fair complextion.

You would get to choose of course, because free will is important.

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Anika Bandarpalle | LIL BANANA BIRD | Photography

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Christine Ji | STORY OF A MAN | Oil Paint

35 THE STATISTICS PROVED US WRONG Anonymous

B

ig cities are no place for the sane. Maybe they used to be, but every small-town pharmacist who is more adventurous than his neighbor is inevitably driven to insanity by the trash and sirens of the modern world. Or perhaps We all just need some peace and quiet, and should not be held accountable for Our own mentalities in extreme situations. Doesn’t matter much right now. All that matters in Our present scene is a puppeteer named Bo who was never quite sane to begin with.

At least it is time for Bo to catch his flight back home to Nebraska. He doesn’t. Now it is time for him to attempt a second flight. He succeeds with grace. The airplane coffee is stale, but Bo feels no responsibility to complain or even sulk, because he himself does not understand where coffee comes from. Fortunately, nature is on its best behavior, and the landscape underneath the plane would make a riveting puppet scene. He sees a few wheat fields, so this puppet would probably be a farmer, like all of his childhood friends’ parents were. The puppet would have a girlfriend who looked an awful lot like the mousy flight attendant, but with rosier cheeks and strings.

Bo eats stale airplane pretzels and quietly remembers how soothing his old room is. Soothing and simple. There is still a berry comforter with white sheets and several posters of cultural prowess. In his cramped apartment, posters would overpower Bo with a sense of denial of his late nights, prescription snacks, and blatant rat infestation. Home doesn’t have rats. It has Mother, Father, Roger, and posters.

The plane is landing now, so Bo feels obligated to transition into a different mode of thought as well. He sends his regards to the Wright brothers, who must’ve found what we now know as routine utterly terrifying. Bo and Roger used to pretend to be them on the old pull-out couch, and Bo would always want the couch to crash right into the ground. Roger, to this day, still does not like plane crashes. He prefers commercial real-estate, living off of the old pull-out, and classical music. That won’t matter this year. Bo is going to forgive Roger for a lavish variety of insults, one-ups, and explicit superiority. Bo and Roger are adults and they are eating Thanksgiving dinner with their family. They will not fight. Bo does not fall into any stereotypical haze

STEREOTYPICAL

HAZE

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over the airport, and refuses all metaphors of people with nothing in ommon who are all between destinations. He does not have the time. He is not restless, he is hungry, and to confuse the two is to fall into a trap of overanalyzing Our character. The taxi adventure is uneventful and reeks of small talk, but it is what Bo needs. The driver smells like sweat, but not a drug-fueled, street fight sweat. He is just overweight and the air conditioning isn’t great.

The type of person Bo sees walking down the street is nostalgic, as she is mindlessly happy and racist and her husband has bad teeth. Home comes running up, says hello, and Bo pays the taxi fare.

“Thanks, have a good one.”

Home is neither warm nor small, but it is large and aggressively room temperature. It smells like a chain bakery: sweet, but in a planned way. Bo sees Mother and Father. Mother sees Bo, Father sees Robert Curtis Elswood. I’m sorry, Bo. Room temperature verges on breezy.

The ups and downs of Bo’s teenage years had been adorned with flickering lights of the smalltown computers Father tried to pass as a Nebraskan novelty. Bo saw no need to get drunk and play on the train tracks with his friends, but instead introduced his father’s leftover robotic scraps to some half-rotten logs from the backyard, finding somewhat of a passion in puppets.

Roger always shelved himself away, that is, until it was the hour to emerge from his side of the house to pull Bo’s strings. To remind him of his long nose, short legs, inability to hit a baseball.

These days, Roger is much quieter, but sometimes it only takes a momentary glance to remind Bo to feel ashamed for living with three roommates. That he wears dirty shirts and Roger wears ties. He is probably wearing a tie right now.

“Roger is up in his room, feel free to fetch him. We’re eating dinner soon.”

Mother is so pretty, much like a ripe starlet or a long, pensive bus ride. She is so tragically gentle like a bitch licking her deceased puppy, inviting it to awaken whenever it feels. Maybe someday when Our endearingly stagnant Nebraska makes her itch she will move to the city.

Maybe her apartment will be close to Bo’s (That is, if one could ever ascribe the adjective “close” to a woman who spends so much time singing to her garden and so little familiarizing herself with the cracks in Father’s hands).

Bo is defeating the stairs step by step and invents a new emotion. It is too similar to “resigned” to have any cultural significance, so he only considers contacting any formal committee of the English language for two or three steps. He finds a sort of consuming comfort in acknowledging that he will never be fine, yet still preserving the dignity of keeping his hair as neatly combed as a sane man. His teeth as thoroughly flossed. He maintains the privilege of rubbing his own soft wrist as a sign of wistfulness, as if he deserves something better but has no intention of pursing it. It is time for Bo to call Roger down for dinner.

“It is time to come down for dinner.”

“Alright.”

A while ago We decided that food tastes better the more we discuss it, so Father upholds Our decision by raving about the most mediocre ham a man can find. Its moisture is so present yet conservative! Its flavor so much like a factory, but probably one of the better factories (familyowned, good wages, etc.). However fascinating this particular ham may be, do not distract yourself from the euphemisms the Elswood family swallows like vitamins. Now, Mother is talking about her cousins and aunts. Gardening does not come up.

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“Angela is expecting twins this spring! Father and I will probably plan a trip down to see them once she gets settled.”

“Huh. Turned out a lot better than when she got knocked up in high school by that college jackass.”

Mother looks up from her ham, frozen.

38

“Just because it doesn’t pair well with holiday food, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. In fact, if the government outlawed euphemisms today this whole tacky house would collapse on top of our empty heads. The longer Father toys with those junky computers and Mother toys with that junky garden man from down the block, the more and more we treat each other like goddamn toys we can just wind up at dinner time and bond over how things smell alright. I need some air.”

Bo is secure enough to admit he is taken aback. Roger has always been nice. Maybe not selfless, caring, or sincere, but he wears a tie. He is nice. Mother and Father appear dissatisfied with their ham.

Roger returns with a bottle. The cork pop heard ‘round the table is so objectively minor compared to the dozens Bo hears paired with incoherent grumbles each night in the local pub. In the city, or at least, in his corner of it, the arrival of a new brandy is an object of casual celebration for those who need it most. Here, it feels forced. Artificially, spontaneously suggested. Mother and Father do not appear phased, but how much can be expected from the couple who took home slices of wedding cake after Angela’s fiancé skipped town once and for all? Huh. Maybe We end up with someone like Us after all, or perhaps We all just meld together eventually. Speaking of melding together, the ceiling is looking much more similar to the sky than We are told a ceiling is supposed to look. Maybe Bo is relaxing. Getting better.

Sometimes when a puppet is starts to break, Bo puts it in his closet for a while. Puppets can’t move, nor can they heal, but time can and does do both. The powerlessness of inanimate objects is so easily disproved by the constant changing of the world around them. Their strings can’t physically untangle as they sit alone in the closest, but the world around them gets even more tangled, making them appear relatively fixed. Relatively okay.

Luckily, Mother is ten years sober and does not drink the wine. Father prefers brandy. As for the newspapers, the family prefers not to label Bo’s death as a suicide, even to warn kids away from the big city. It is easier to call death a misfortune and to take Roger out with the next week’s trash, dooming him to end up in some dumpster where his strings may just untangle.

The city continues to move. Continues to flicker. Yet, We previously believed that small-town Nebraska would not. Maybe it does after all.

AFTER

39

ALL.

RE] KINDLE Tasneen Bashir

40

It is dark In this old, foggy room.

The once plush, Lavish and lustrous Leather of the furniture, now Wrinkled, loose.

A poppy yellow, Bright and youthful, Blanketed the walls with optimism, Bringing voices from shy girls, Widening the bored eyes of lazy souls.

Now it is ugly, A murky mustard, A color that shouldn’t be named Because it resembles more a Dirty moss, an infectious rust.

The table, made of deep cherry wood, Its masterfully carved legs once stood strong, Holding the weight of many Tea cups, filled to the brim With sweet chamomile and honey.

They would clink and clink Like a metronome to all the Chatting and laughing, Like a beating heart, So full of life rushing through its veins.

But cracked and hollow they are now, The table legs threaten to snap Like twigs, And the cups, left on the table, Simply a pile of broken glass.

In the middle of the forgotten, The broken, the heartbroken, Layered in dust, Is a candle.

It stands tall on its metallic post, A bit rusted on the edges, The flame of life and love blown out, Yet it is sturdy in that musty room.

Now, hands of time, Freckled and slack skin Gently meet.

They touch softly at first, Recalling the bittersweet memory once made In the midst of that black room.

It is dark, And they find solution in two items As they bring these two together, A scratch, a flicker, a sizzle, A flame.

41

Ileana Kesselman | ABANDONED | Photography

42

Lauren Puplampu | ALONE | Photography

43

ABUELO

Safa Michigan Abuelo loved to talk, and I loved to listen. His voice maintained its velvet quality long after years of smoking caught up with him. It sounded even more charming then, like cracked velour, a testament to experience.

My favorites were the stories about growing up on the island. I wasn’t an artist, but using just his words as a stencil, I could draw you the mango trees, his father’s calloused hands, his mother’s smile, the curvature of her hand waving goodbye to the boat taking her husband and only son to America. Land of promise. She didn’t know then she would never see them again.

Abuelo and I didn’t share a single drop of blood, as if it ever mattered, as if we ever pined for genetic material to prove he was my grandfather. Mama didn’t talk about her biological father, but she didn’t need to fill in any gaps in the family tree because there were none. Abuelo wrote himself in the day he met my grandmother. He tells it like this: he saw her walking out of the neighborhood grocery with a million bags and my sobbing four-year-old mother on her hip, and God compelled him to crush his half-finished cigarette under his boot and rush to her aid.

“That day, I fell in love for the first and last time.”

44

FIND X

Melanie Kerber Write your name in base twenty-seven. Ask yourself: are you anything more than a heptavigesimal string?

There’s something out there, far in the distance. It changes with the wind, shifting as the world moves. Space twists itself around it, but it’s somehow more substantial than a black hole, brighter than a star. Perhaps, if you unravel the world, peel away layers of rocks and sediment and plunge into the core, it’s waiting for you. If you unravel yourself the same way and pluck that ache from the center of your heart, it could be the same thing.

Clearly, all you have to do is take the integral of the universe. Is it definite or indefinite?

How do you put limits on its growth? Can you graph the way the sun looks in the first hours of the morning?

Go deeper.

Calculate the potential energy of the last leaf on a tree in the dead of winter, a brilliant green against a background of pure, unbroken whiteness, so beautiful your chest aches for the sight. Write a function for the distance from the sidewalk to your hand; what is the rate of change for the drop of ice cream twisting down your knuckles, drawing steadily nearer to the pavement?

You’re sitting alone in your bedroom, surrounded by the only house you’ve ever known, but you’re homesick all the same. Clutch a blanket tightly around yourself and take the derivative of the way your heart feels against your chest after you’ve run three laps around the track and your feet are merely leaden bricks.

Deeper still.

Write a program to loop the possibilities of a dying star. Ask for it back in binary integers, a string of on and off, something and nothing. Bring it back to decimals and add it to the number of times you’ve wished for the ground to swallow you whole.

After you’ve turned the lights off, when you’ve let the world slow around you, count until you fall asleep. Do this every night, and take the sum in the morning.

Even deeper.

Take note of every atom in the air you’re breathing right now. Careful - you can’t exhale until you know them all by name and number, atomic mass and electronegativity. Pick the one which reminds you the most of the color of the horizon as a storm rolls in.

There’s a splinter in the back of your heel. You ignored it as long as you could, but now you can hardly walk for the pain. Pinch it, pull it, stare at it. Multiply the grains of wood by the shards of ice in Saturn’s rings.

Take everything out of yourself, mix it all together, and put it back somewhere new. Adjust.

Understand.

Maybe then you’ll come close.

Cheryl Hao & Aurelia Han | BEHIND CLOSED DOORS | Photography

46

Sonya Xu

Safa Michigan | IRON WEB | Photography

головоломка *meaning puzzle in Russian

Sonya Xu

I.

My childhood is a series of puzzle pieces, A box of 1000 dumped on the coffee table Monday after school stacked, scattered, strewn.

I remember holding a side piece sometimes a corner piece but I never have all of the pieces.

Fragments of a certain moment in warped space drift in my mind.

Laughing at me. Mocking me. Taunting me.

What is real?

What is fabricated?

What have I created to fill the missing pieces of the picture?

47

What I do recall with certainty are my grandparents.

Who raised me, guided me.

Like the border and corner pieces.

Their knowing arms, Always shielding me from the rain at the bus stop A simple embrace.

Their hands, That would help me complete the puzzle.

Sort the side and corner pieces first.

II.

I remember sitting on a stool in front of the TV every morning of preschool.

Entranced by Clifford the big red dog as my grandfather ran a comb through my hair.

It almost seems strange now.

How hands like the bark of the apple tree we planted could effortlessly navigate my head of curls, Tucking the loose strands into my ponytail.

Until finally pinning the tiniest hairs at the top.

I wonder if he still remembers.

999 PIECES.

You ask me why I am going to school today.

I say that it’s Tuesday.

You say it was Friday yesterday and that there is no school today.

“No, Grandpa.”

I remind you as patiently as the way you used to brush my hair.

On Tuesdays, we go to school.

III.

You argue with grandmother You argue over paltry things that make you upset.

Why did you turn the light off?!

It’s Wednesday.

It’s too early in the week to argue.

It wasn’t always this way Do you remember what I remember?

Because I want to remember those Wednesdays Those days before you started forgetting.

998 PIECES.

IV. 48

Do you remember the bike rides to the park?

When I was in elementary school As we sat on the swings, Splitting a pack of skittles.

Eating first the ones we liked the least - brown…

And saving the ones we loved the most - green.

Green like the blanket on the couch for when you accidentally fall asleep.

Thursday afternoons That is what we did on Thursday afternoons.

I want you to remember that.

997 PIECES.

V.

Can you remember the past?

The memories that fortify your identity?

You cannot remember what you did yesterday, But you can remember phrases in Russian from fifty years ago.

Remember when you tried to teach me when I was in sixth grade?

I couldn’t even say hello.

I stumbled over the long e sound.

привет

Pree vee et.

I reminded you every day.

You did remind me every day until you forgot I was trying to learn Russian.

Will you remember tomorrow what you did today?

On Fridays, you go with your friends to the senior center.

You play cards You eat cake Drink milk.

996 PIECES.

VI.

You ask me why I’m not at school.

It’s Saturday.

995 PIECES.

VII.

You are not the same person as before.

Your hands are harder, weathered You have difficulty climbing the stairs.

And your memories are no longer yours.

They are mine.

Or the little I grasp from them.

I know from the few puzzle pieces I have, I know that this isn’t you.

This is the result of nature or perhaps science.

Parts of your brain have scattered your memories.

Stacked them somewhere.

Carelessly strewn them around.

Like the puzzle pieces lost around the house.

Your puzzle pieces Deteriorating parts.

Pieces where the cardboard has been worn from use.

You are missing them but I am trying to fill them in with my memories.

49

The doctor says you are fine.

But I know you aren’t.

You are not the same person as you were.

You are the same body, But you are not the same to me.

I want your old self back.

It’s somewhere in there.

Trapped.

Alone.

Suffocating.

But these missing pieces, we can never get back.

No matter how many wishes I make or how many prayers I say they are lost under the rug.

Perhaps the broom accidentally swept them away.

And only left...

994 PIECES.

Happy Sunday.

You squint at the English Chinese dictionary in front of you at the dinner table.

Trying to recall a word that you find in the newspaper.

Magnifying glass in one hand.

993 of your memories in the other.

VIII.

It’s Monday, There are...

And the puzzle begins again.

992 PIECES.

50

Tassneen Bashir | DRIP | Watercolor and Ink

51

WARRIOR GIRL Kristen Romano

She had the eagle eye That would pierce into the night, A spear that would tear a starry canvas, A weapon that could shatter the sky.

Damp streets filled with smoky breath, (Inhale) Silent silhouettes creep along (Exhale) Glittering paws prance beneath her as milky tear drops shoot from above.

A valiant constellation maps the sky And I see the warrior girl dance through the night.

52

Elli Lee| CENSORED | Print

53

DRIVING: NOVEMBER 7TH-11TH, 2017 Maye McPhail

54

On Monday I drive past the Orthodox Jews.

My therapist’s office is at the end of a long neighborhood street, and as I peel away from the parking lot— cradling singed emotions between my palms —I see them.

On their way home from synagogue, maybe.

(I don’t know much about Orthodox Judaism, and this occurs to me only as I watch the fifty men in tall hats and women in long skirts weave around my car.)

It’s difficult to drive by houses and imagine the people within.

But here they are, all of them.

On Tuesday I pass your stepdad in his front lawn.

He studies the newspaper headlines through the plastic wrap like he expects to read something different.

I wave; he doesn’t look up.

You could change the world with your eyes, but I haven’t made up my mind about your old man.

On Wednesday my tears come cold and heavy, hailstones on red cheeks.

When I close my eyes, the future is scalding.

I tell myself my words can heal something but the crack runs too deep for scotch tape and apologies.

I roll down my windows and blast “Under Pressure.”

Someone honks and a woman smiles at me from the crosswalk, but this is Texas and I doubt they understand.

On Thursday you hold me in your driveway.

You swear to God we’ll be alright.

I pull away but I can’t stand alone.

You carry me to my car and kiss my forehead.

Boy space friend.

Boy space best friend.

On Friday night I follow an old friend home.

She leans out the window to flick cigarette ash onto the asphalt.

The smoke burns her lungs but she once told me she wanted to go down in flame.

This is what terrifies me as I trail behind the white Kia: her transience, the image of car breaks squealing, a sudden swerve to the left.

Am I chasing girl or angel?

I never understood brevity.

But here it is, all of it.

Remie Hochman | MACABRE FIRE TRUCK | Ink

Maggie Stein I strain to touch the smooth blue sky that stretches infinitely above my pigtails. So round and bright and wide. I imagine it will be cold, like the snow that ices rooftops, undisturbed and pristine. The tails of airplanes that zig zag across this endless sea are like messy latticework, abandoned for another time.

But as soon as my hands prepare to find out what they sky feels like, I fall. My stomach flutters with the quick drop and my squeals of excitement floats to join the clouds above. I try again, again, reaching, never to touch, as I swing, back and forth; back and forth.

56

The sun sinks into the treetops, and the sliver of the moon delicately emerges from the darkening sky. From some unknown place, the daylight is chased away by a blackening sky. Like an ink drop that splashes into a never ending puddle, the blackness bleeds into the clouds, slowly, and then all together. But with this midnight blue blanket, winking crystals emerge. The stars glimmer like precious gems nestled in dark caves, waiting to be discovered. They are fireflies, caught in the wide net of the universe, stranded. They are alone with only the hope that a reckless wish will find its way into the planets and galaxies suspended above.

Shrills of ecstasy tumble down the shiny slides and chase after one another through the jungle gym’s treacherous maze.

The happiness radiates from deep within the woodchips that sprinkle the spongy ground, like the stars that are hiding above, waiting for the sun to melt into the treetops. I sit on the wooden caboose with my sister, contentedly slurping a pink panther ice cream. Drops of rosy pink and white plop onto the steaming sidewalk below. I always save the gumball eyes for last. Our bikes lean casually against the worn picket fence, their wheels still warm from the journey. Each evening, the contrails of air planes embellished the peach sky and the gentle hum of cicadas crowded the laden air. I spent my days there, in that place of mystery and surprise. Our imagination breathed life into its wooden skeleton and our memories sunk into every hidden nook. The park is where I learned to fly and to fall. Where I met Lila. A best friend who I would never see again. It’s where I grew up, where I didn’t place my life in a phone. In this place of freedom, I made new friends. We left our differences at the gate, climbed into the shoes of another, and ran around for a spell as unlikely playmates, but friends none the less. Even though I would one day leave those worn gates for the last time, the wood chips found their way into my shoes and splintered my heart. No one will know what the time spent with her dad and sister meant for a young girl who knew nothing but home.

No one will know how desperately she cast her wishes into the vast ocean of stars above, hoping, praying that it could stay this way forever. Those splinters wormed their way into my heart, as silent reminders of what used to be. As miniscule as a speck of dust in Saturn’s great rings, these fragments are a part of something bigger, something breathtaking. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and perspective is everything.

57

Louisa Lindsley | SHED A LIGHT | Photography

DEAR STORMÉ Maye McPhail

Stormé DeLarverie was a prominent figure in the 1969 Stonewall Riots, credited with throwing the first punch that spurred the protestors to action. I first learned of Stormé two years ago, when I wrote a report on her experiences.

Before you, I imagined myself as small.

My hands, my thighs, not really my own – passion sequestered to a corner of my chest.

Unsure of the difference between existence and deceit, my voice became the enemy.

58

In the space between my father’s self-importance and my mother’s self-doubt, I sought solace in patterns and the evanescence of existence.

Soon, I thought, my body would morph into a woman’s, fragile, no longer a conglomeration of contradictions.

Instead, I found you.

You were dancing in a gay bar 1,549 miles and forty-six years away, but I could feel you in my bones.

You demanded I grow to fill the skin around me: I would need a voice as loud as Christopher Street past midnight and at least half as bold.

When you threw a punch, I knew instinctively which muscles to tense.

When you fell in love, I fell asleep to the hammer of my own heartbeat.

It’s not easy to explain the way my voice is your voice in my mouth saying your words, or how there’s my flesh, your blood, two women, self-assured, never ending a sentence in a question mark.

But I have grown to love the feeling of my feet solid beneath me and the sticky taste left in my throat after I scream: like bubblegum and black coffee; With you, I didn’t need to believe in miracles.

I used to wish I could shed myself like a chrysalis – Stormé, you taught me that this soul does not need to be saved, it is more than pixie wings and pipe dreams, black sheep and no sleep, our soul is sweat and colored lights and the pulse of an unfamiliar beat; it is made of the times we found love in the dark, feeling too quickly and too much – Before you, I thought I was falling, but I was only taking flight like the acrobats we dreamt of as children, like we’re standing in front of a crowd and shouting, This is our story, take it how you want, we’ll tell it all the same.

Helena Perez-Stark | CARELESS CRYSTALS | Photography

60

Claire Marucci | CHÂTEAU | Photography

DON’T YOU REMEMBER? DON’T YOU FORGET Katherine Lake

Remember when all You could think about was death? Not your own, nor anyone else’s, just death. It was such a foreign concept, such a mystery—and You never could put down a mystery. You didn’t understand what it was: nobody You had really known had ever died. Of course You had seen it, surely some people distant to You had passed. But nothing had changed—to You, no one had really died. You didn’t know that death is when you feel it.

Even when You reached out far enough, You could never reclaim what was missing. You were powerless. And it left You lighter.

Remember when You rung that doorbell, hearing the muffled tones from behind that great front door? You had no idea. It took a minute, but William calmly answered. He was never calm. He never answered. And he told You to wait at the bottom of the stairs: Mom was coming down and she needed to talk to You. And then You looked right and saw Mima and Poppy and Uncle Chris and Aunt Elisa and Grandma Parker. That’s when You knew, how could You not?

It opens that great front door again. And I remember.

She probably told You, and hugged You, and divulged that great secret everyone knows— that everything would be okay. She probably reminded You that You couldn’t go to Europe with him anymore, like the sting wasn’t enough already. She probably showed You where it bled and why he went.

She probably couldn’t articulate any of that clearly. Couldn’t see through her tears, couldn’t speak through the shock.

But none of that mattered. It didn’t matter what she said to You. I don’t even remember what she said to You. All I remember was the feeling.

That day, that great front door opening before You ripped something from your chest, dangled it in front of You. And when You tried to grab it, it jumped away. It was as if You were a cat playing an awful game, trying to paw the laser beam skirting around the room.

Remember when that girl gave You a journal?

She explained to You that You would never want to forget. That You would forget. That You were young and things fade.

That was when I finally felt death.

And so I write.

Remember that day when all the windows were open, the sun streaking in, scribbling patterns on the hardwood floor. He let You stand on his toes while You waltzed in circles, until You dizzily slipped off his polished loafers and tumbled at his feet.

Remember when the tickle-monster tiptoed across the carpet to catch You offguard. Curling up into a ball in fits of giggles and happy-tears. Your face reddening and wrinkling up. Not being able to breath when he finally quit and resorted to crushing You on the couch instead.

Remember when he brought his enormous hand up to yours and told You that yours were getting bigger. That one day You might have hands as big as his. That one day You might be just like him.w Remember his arms, wrapped so tightly around You, enveloping You. He was so big.

And in those moments, our hearts beating in unison, our fingers drifting to sleep, our eyes squeezing shut, our lives fading to one, peaceful being, we were the only thing that existed. One being, in an infinite universe, just living.

Forget that the forgetting is numbing.

Remember that the thought of forgetting is insufferable.

61

3962

Nirvana Kahn | MIDNIGHT CITY | Photography

63

COLOPHON To read the 2017 Vibrato colophon, see page 62 in Book 2.

Number

of 650

66