The Gallery Fall 2015

THE GALLERY

FALL 2015

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the

allery

Volume 30, Issue 1 Fall 2015

Editors Co-Editors-in-Chief Heather Lawrence Lauren Murtagh Copy Editor Lily Gu Art Editor Katie Hogan Prose Editor Dominic DeAngio Staff Editors Patrick Eberhardt Kelly Giddens Renny Hahamovitch Lindsay Myers Sunni O’Brien Jackson Olsen

Cover Art

The Wanderers’ Arch See the complete work on page 19

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Table of Contents Poetry

Sunday Lunch Earthbound Run The University The Catcher in the Rye Annus Senescit From Galilee to Golgotha Orders of Magnitude Soggy Leaves The Bookshelf October Pretense Zzhul-uh DownPour Simplexity

Prose

A Little Get-Together Kokytos What We’re Worth

Art

Blaise Cotton Jordaan Alt Preparation for a Painting The Wanderers’ Arch Swan Berlin The Old Man and the Sea Halloween Walk Jumbo Shrimp Halfway There Garden of Eden A New Angle I am the Sea Sunset over the Massai Mara Untitled Untitled Solitude Hearts on Lock The Androgyny of Business Palmed Rose

Elizabeth Clark Natasha King Maya Barnes Walter Shuster Elena Bishak Walter Shuster Brian Sheehy Maya Barnes Dominic DeAngio Elizabeth Clark Lily Gu Laurelle Ahn Ashley Kendall Daniel Herrera

4 6 8 9 12 14 30 32 34 36 38 39 40 43

Dominic DeAngio Lily Gu Elena Bishak

11 16 45

Collin Ginsburg Collin Ginsbrug Aaron Cole Megan Man Collin Ginsburg Salma Elsayed-Ali Lydia Boike Salma Elsayed-Ali Priya Brito Lydia Boike Allison Shomaker Salma Elsayed-Ali Lindsay Myers Anna Newton Rachel Merriman-Goldring Lindsay Myers Megan Man Collin Ginsburg Aaron Cole

7 10 15 19 20 21 22 23 24 26 27 28 29 33 37 38 41 42 44

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Fall 2015 Poetry Staff Favorite

Sunday Lunch after Richard McNoughton The handle of the Playmate cooler slipped his grip a few times as he approached the small field, sweat pooling in his palms and making his shirt as heavy as his legs.

The extra sandwich in the cooler seemed to add fifty pounds.

He’d made an extra out of habit, and couldn’t bring himself to throw it out.

His arm started to ache before he made it to the table.

He dropped the lunch by a tree, crunching October leaves, lumbering to his seat.

The old wood dipped where he’d sat for forty years, remembering his body and where he put his arms to rest on the tabletop, always earning him a vicious fork to the elbow from the opposite side of the table.

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But no fork came.

He was alone at the table.

But he knew the other bench remembered her form as he did.

He gripped the table for strength and pulled himself to the edge, slowly standing up and asking silent permission to take a seat where he felt he shouldn’t be.

He couldn’t bring himself to turn and face the empty seat across from him.

If she couldn’t have her seat, why should he have his?

The gentle dip defined her spot, and as he ran his hand across the wood, a splinter gouged his palm.

A bead of blood welled up.

Sunday lunches for forty years.

All ending last week, leaving him with an extra sandwich, an empty table.

He hoped wherever she was had a picnic table for her, and that it wouldn’t have time to remember her shape before he was able to sit with her again.

— Elizabeth Clark

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Earthbound the bruises that mark my skin–

they correspond

to the deep holes

gouged in the earth. when oil bloomed and overflowed

pitch dark and choking in the shuddering ocean

I held my hand in terror

watching shadows stretch their way

across the lines of my palm. when jungles withered before the

advance of furrowed ground, I could do nothing I fell to my knees

and watched my

feet dissolve, watched

cattle chew through my toes

saw the long slender bones turn to rows of corn,

my ankles

swirling away as clouds of dust.

I hear the crack of every felled tree, feel splinters tumble

in droves from my hair. snow melts from my eyes, my

teeth fracture like ice floes, the glaciers, calving,

are my broken bones. the mingled oceans

rise ever higher, cut my insides

with formless shards of plastic, drain through the

fragile hollows of my body,

leaving poison in their wake.

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when I open my mouth,

only the dead come forth animals no longer on this earth, plants long vanished, forests and

people alike diminished. —Natasha King

Blaise Cotton

Collin Ginsburg, Photography

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Run My heart thrashes against the vise grip of my ribs Each beat tearing veins asunder as Pain explodes from my chest and finds solace In every cell Every organ Every wretched cubic inch of my body Beads of sweat race tears down my face I stagger through a haze that clouds my mind As well as my vision And while I scream Breathless Trembling It consumes me in a feverish blaze Seconds are hours Each minute is a year The passing of an age has racked my frame Perhaps beyond reclamation Rain spills over the pavement like blood Where I have fallen Brought down by weights in my flesh Regret like salt on my lips An ache that will enfold my soul Long after the rest of me has crumbled To dust But I guess this is what I get For going on a run —Maya Barnes

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The

University Little boys play in caves, Painting pictures of shadows On walls of smooth rock.

Pictures in colors of their choosing: Ochre and umber and Carmine most of all.

Grotesque forms of men like them, but Older and wiser and wizened.

Then they run about outside With magnifying glasses.

Eschewing the raindrop’s tumble Among veins of a leaf, Ink’s dance with ancient pulp To the tune of a thought.

Rather, sated, they burn ants— And call themselves murderers.

—Walter Shuster

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Jordaan Alt

Collin Ginsburg, Photography

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A Little Get-Together

by Dominic DeAngio

A

bigail sits brooding in the corner, glaring at Katrina. Bailey sits brooding in a different one, glaring at Abigail. Cameron uncorks a bottle of wine in the kitchen. Don speaks loudly of her “exciting new internship”

to anyone who would listen. Erica reapplies makeup in the restroom. Fiancé knocks on the front door, and wonders if anyone other than the bride even knows his name. Garret is getting punched in the face in the backyard. Harriet laughs convincingly. Irving steals an olive from the glass of the person beside him. Jay stubs his toe. Katrina opens the door for her fiancé, and wonders about Patrick.

Lily taps on the fish tank. Manny wonders where his olive went. Nancy hates her name. Oscar punches Garret in the face. Patrick drives by the house, considers stopping, then decides against it. Quinn pretends to listen to Don. Robin catches Jay, and their eyes meet. Stewart tries to remember his soon-to-be-son-in-law’s name as he welcomes him into the house. Theo scoops up Lily and puts her on his shoulder. Ulrich jokingly offers to trade names with Nancy. Violet tells Harriet another bad joke. Wilson paces impatiently as his wife powders her nose in the restroom. Xavier is almost run over by Patrick. Yvette rushes to the backyard to

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hold Oscar back. Zachariah makes a toast to the future newlyweds.

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The Catcher in the Rye From: Holden Caulfield To: Holden Caulfield This is my statement I prayed not to do it, but I had come all this way again.

As I left my hotel that morning, I knew I was no phony.

“Imagine, imagine, if John Lennon were dead.”

The Dakota, 72nd Street.

Would Jesus have lived in this palace?

Yesterday I told James Taylor about it, but he didn’t seem to care.

“John, would you sign my album?”

“Is that all you want?”

“He knew where the ducks went in winter, and I needed to know this.”

With my black Bic his practiced hand wrote on my Double Fantasy: John Lennon, 1980.

He looked me in the eye.

What else could I give him?

I went to lunch with Jude, and asked her to dinner.

She said no.

10:50 PM He was back.

He recognized me.

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“Do it, do it!”

“I was not killing a real person.

I was killing an image.

I was killing an album cover.”

“Do you know what you’ve just done?”

“Yes, I just shot John Lennon”

Four hollow point bullets from my own Revolver. into his back

He stumbled towards the stairs.

Yoko cradled his dying body and the concierge removed his blood splattered glasses.

I sat and read my scripture on the sidewalk, fingers trembling with sorrow.

I was no phony.

“I’m sure the big part of me is Holden Caulfield, who is the main person in the book.

The small part of me must be the Devil.”

They say All My Loving played at the hospital, they say he was dead at the scene.

They announced it on Monday Night Football.

There was no funeral.

Three days later, he did not rise.

And so I told them: What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.

—Elena Bishak

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Annus Senescit Death conducts a symphony: Whispering winds whistle Amidst ossified fire, Avian vees veer southward with squawks, A hearth’s smoky sigil Guides a footsore hunter homeward, Steps beating staccato As summer’s chorus crescendos…to silence.

—Walter Shuster

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Preparation for a Painting Aaron Cole, Graphite

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Kokytos

by Lily Gu

I

see him whenever I close my eyes. Something about his gaze that just won’t leave me.

My friends, trying to look out for me, would tell me I’m just hurting myself, coming back here. That is, they would if they knew. They’d know if I had any friends.

My bare feet squelch against the muddy banks. I’ve been coming back here every night for a week. Two weeks.

If he’s ever going to show up, it’ll be here, where I first met him.

I try to play the part of a sensible friend in my head. Someone needs to say the words that’ll go totally ignored.

Unfortunately, there’s no one else around, so I get stuck with being the Voice of Reason along with the idiot friend who just won’t quit.

Silly boy, Sensible Me chides. You’re wasting your time. You should be studying, not lurking out here getting disappointed when he doesn’t show for the umpteenth time. He’s probably gone, forgotten all about you, moved on. So should you be. Move on. Get over him.

Now that was out of the way. The next step was to ignore what had been perfectly good advice and to go on with my self-destructive patterns of waiting.

The rocks are cold against my thighs,

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smooth from months of water running over them. I look around. By now the landmarks around me are as familiar as the scars on my hands. There’s that light on the left, over the tip of a jutting stone. Probably some store in the shopping center right by our neighborhood. Two trees across from me, swaying and making these “shhhhh” noises like they’re promising that something special’s going to happen, something magical. Pretty cheesy, I know. But I can’t help holding my breath every time a breeze stirs them.

The water ripples, and I stare at it, hoping against hope that this time something will actually happen.

Something that’ll make all the time spent waiting worthwhile.

Slowly, just like the first time this happened, two years after we met, a whirlpool forms in a moonlit patch of river. He slowly rises from the center.

First his head, then his torso. Grinning at me like he’d never left.

“Knew I’d find you here.”

I want to rush him, wrap my arms around him, but all I can do is grin at him weakly. “Cock-eye. I always knew you’d come back.” “‘Always’? It’s been two weeks! Did

you miss me that much?”

“More.” I pause a bit. Committing.

“You know, this is going to sound angsty as hell, but I’ve decided. I can’t live without you anymore. I’m coming with you.”

He looks shocked, but slowly that sexy grin breaks across his face again.

“Great! Took you long enough, by the way. So, you wanna see my place?”

“It had better not look like one of those bachelor-flat dumps, or I’m not moving in with you.”

“Don’t worry. It won’t.”

We trek through the riverbed, bending under branches, slipping over stones on a winding path we’d been over dozens of times already, filling the silence with “Do you remember”s.

Soon the path widens. I’m standing right by the bank, but the water’s already reached my waist.

“Are we there yet? Not to complain, but I’m wet and cold and it’s pretty late at night.”

“Just a little further.”

And a few minutes later, we’re there.

“Dive in.”

I’m pretty sure the shock showed on my face. “I don’t know how to swim. I thought we’d just, you know, walk a bit, and we’d get there and it would be all dry and warm and stuff.”

He shrugs. “Told you it was underwater. But you don’t need to swim. You just need to follow me. I’ll take you. And I can’t promise that it’ll be dry, but you’ll be warm.”

I sigh. Steeling myself. The things I did for this guy.

There were bubbles on either side of me. All of the colors of the rainbow and then some, bright neon. I’m normally not the kind of guy who’ll admit to being mesmerized by a bunch of bubbles, but I’ll admit it was really something. I turn around to see him sitting cross-legged on a flat rock, smirking. “Welcome home.”

It’s dark. It takes me a few seconds to realize we were underwater. The place is surprisingly warm, but still. It’s underwater. I glare at him.

“I can’t breathe, you asshole.”

“Idiot,” he says fondly, and kisses me.

Just as dizzy as I thought I’d feel.

Surprisingly, I can actually breathe while kissing. I can breathe better while kissing him than when I’m not. Not that I’ve had much experience, but from what I’ve heard, that’s pretty unusual.

He pulls away.

“Breath of Life,” he explains. “Now you don’t have to worry about stupid things like the lack of gaseous oxygen.”

I threw a rock at him. “Nerd.”

News flash: Throwing things underwater doesn’t work out that well.

“Wanna see what this place can do?”

And then there were lights everywhere. Pretty lights. Like the bubbles, only brighter. They illuminate his place, showing off everything inside.

All kinds of colorful fish, eels thrashing back and forth with the light arcing off their bodies in rainbows, and hundreds of colors of coral furniture everywhere.

Hazy shadows of people dancing off in the background. Then the music starts.

“ ”

And I can’t promise that it’ll be dry, but you’ll be warm.

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Catchy, the kind that makes Jesus Christ want to dance, but at the same time somehow sounding the way water feels. The shadowy people get closer and sweep both of us up in a mad, frantic dance. I can’t help laughing.

This feels great. Exhilarating. Freeing.

Everything they’d said your first time driving would be but wasn’t.

I don’t know how long the dance had been going on for, but some time later I run out of air again. Frantically, I look around. “Kokytos!” There. Found him. Between two laughing girls. I wave at him wildly. He cocks his head.

“Kokytos, kiss me again!” He shakes his head, still puzzled. He can’t hear me. I gesture toward my nose, mouth, throat, panicking. “I can’t breathe,” I try to shout, louder, but it comes out as “blurble blurb”. Water fills my nose and mouth. I have to get to the surface.

He grabs my wrist. “Aren’t you staying?”

I can’t answer. Instead I frantically point upward, to where the surface had to be. I need air. He might have nodded, but I can’t tell, can’t see past all the bubbles coming out from my mouth and nose. I try to claw myself upward, noticing his hand isn’t on my wrist anymore. There’s mud everywhere, hiding all the fish and coral. Tadpoles freak out and swim away from me. I can’t see anything else. No one from the party. “Kokytos,” I try to call, but there’s no air left. I need someone to help me, because right now I can’t even figure out which way is up.

But no one’s there.

No fancy grottos or fish parties. No Kokytos. No one to hold my hand and convince me to stay longer than

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I should. Which I seem to be doing anyway.

There’s a flash of white light, making me think they’re back. And then it’s gone. ...

Aftermath “Did you know this was going to happen?”

“He’s been down ever since his best friend drowned, but we never thought he’d be this desperate...” G

The Wanderers’ Arch

Megan Man, Photography

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Swan Berlin

Collin Ginsburg, Photography

Fall 2015 Art Staff Favorite

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Salma Elsayed-Ali, Mixed Media

The Old Man and the Sea

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Lydia Boike, Watercolor and Pen

Halloween Walk

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Salma Elsayed-Ali, Mixed Media

Jumbo Shrimp

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Halfway There

Priya Brito, Acrylic on Canvas

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Garden of Eden Lydia Boike, Watercolor and Pen

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A New Angle

Allison Shomaker, Photography

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I am the Sea

Salma Elsayed-Ali, Mixed Media

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Sunset Over the Maasai Mara Lindsay Myers, Photography

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From Galilee to Golgotha I walk the rocky road from Galilee, On the last day of July.

Sharp stones cut my feet crimson Beneath a scarlet sky.

I’m going to see Sir Bercilak In his chapel of forest greenA pilgrim in the desert Searching for the unseen.

I have to answer the call, Though I did not make the vow; My will is free but destined.

To resist is pointless now.

Make me a channel of your peace, Or else a channel of your might, That I should save the woman.

That I should heal the blight.

From Galilee to Golgotha, Beneath the bright red sky, Souls walk the road beside meDead they can never die.

The desert sand is fallowA rolling sea of gold, Rivaling mines of Solomon Or Erebus of old.

Was this wasteland Eden Fifty years ago?

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I wish I could ask Eliot, I think that he would know…

But, behold, I spot a lake!

And there, sitting at its center, The lame and crippled King Whose palace he bids me enter.

I see a lance which drips His blood, I feel the glow of candle’s flame, I witness the holy chalice, And yet still I feel the same.

They want me to ask questionsThey think I can bend the bowBut I shuffle by silently, With miles still to go.

From Galilee to Golgotha, Searching for she who birthed me, I stagger toward the chapel But the long road is all I can see.

Orpheus was here once, Heracles made it too.

Gilgamesh couldn’t do it, And now lies stone with Enkidu.

The red sun above is setting, As night begins to fall, A pale disk takes its placeWe’ve entered Selene’s thrall.

“Once upon a midnight’s dreary” The desert’s turned so cold.

“Darkness there and nothing more” I barter for soul already sold.

Is it now Good Friday?

Or has Easter banished the gloom?

Won’t someone please just tell me?

Is the body still in the tomb?

From Galilee to Golgotha, In day and pressing night, I’m calling out your nameSwallowed by the silver light.

My bones have grown so tired.

My hair has grown so long.

No rock drawn water to drink.

No voice for cherub songs.

Ahasver’s my cousin, Sisyphus my friend, Shared misery our brotherhood, Endless in our end.

At last I spy the chapel greenDawn’s light through windows shine.

Radiant within the woman I’ve toiled so to find.

But alas she is of vapor, The body which bore me made mist.

‘Twas all a game of Pluto’s, Whose frozen corpse I kissed.

From Galilee to Golgotha, I walk but know not why.

In life she’s gone forever.

If only I could die.

—Brian Sheehy

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Orders of

Magnitude

There are two ways in which humanity tends to be lost And they both involve perspective In the first we are a multitude Of cells, elements, and particles The same series of reactions Defining all our lives Electrical, chemical, mechanical Evaluation at the simplest level Broken into constituents From birth to death we are the same In the next we are a multitude Of people, customs, and nations Repetitious interactions Defining all our lives Social, cultural, ecological Evaluation at the broadest level Absorbed as mere constituents From birth to death we are the same The individual is lost As part of a whole and a whole of parts Simultaneously too large and too small To comprehend So we climb through several orders of magnitude To balance the scales Between each other And within ourselves — Maya Barnes

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Untitled

Anna Newton, Photography

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SOGGY LEAVES Soggy leaves on the ground today Yesterday he flew Soggy's always full of surprises And there's nothing he won't do Soggy leaves after we play We always have such fun Soggy likes to chase me But never in the sun Soggy leaves when I am tired But stays until I sleep Soggy and I make jokes together His laugh is low and deep Soggy leaves a wet trail behind Everywhere he goes Soggy gurgles words to me Words only I know Soggy leaves when he gets mad It happens now and then But Soggy never hurts me He is my only friend Soggy leaves when I am safe He keeps me free from harm Soggy got rid of the dog Who bit me in the arm

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Soggy leaves when mommy comes We don’t like her much Soggy sneaks up behind her She falls down at his touch Soggy leaves them cold and scared Those people that I hate Soggy leaves to play with them And plays until they break Soggy leaves an awful smell Like rain and sweat and blood Soggy has a lot of eyes And loose skin the color of mud Soggy leaves me less and less I beg him to stay Soggy would do anything for me Takes the bad people away Soggy leaves on the ground no more It’s like a dream come true Now Soggy’s with me all the time Why can’t you see him too —Dominic DeAngio

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T he

Bookshelf

The Making of A Poem— Patient.

Creativity & Madness, Lives Like Loaded Guns.

My Wars Are Laid Away In Books, The Gorgeous Nothings, The World’s Greatest Love Letters, The Work of Knowing A Dream Within A Dream.

The Making of A Poem— A Dream Within A Dream, Creativity & Madness.

Lives Like Loaded Guns, The Gorgeous Nothings, The World’s Greatest Love Letters, The Work of Knowing My Wars Are Laid Away in Books, Patient.

—Elizabeth Clark

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Untitled

Rachel Merriman-Goldring, Photography

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October Pretense Jolly pumpkins smile empty, burning, and broken cut ‘til the juice flowed.

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—Lily Gu

Solitude

Lindsay Myers, Photography

Zzhul-uh* On a white meadow, a flock of sham goats and waves of bleached blankets wander around.

A neon-haired man, drinking the xenon gas of madness, crawls on the ground to blend into the atmosphere.

The pieces of grass, faded by emptiness and despair, fly away as he bites and grinds.

Zzhul-uh with fluids, he spots a car resembling his hair. To feel the breeze of his own freedom, he jumps on its back, slowly unlocking its fingernail butterflies, bees, and crayon colors of spring fragrance. He peeps inside, where revived flowerbeds breathe.

His eyes are still vague, but he gloats on a heap of dreamy treasure, or zzhul-uh bliss. In his left hand, he shakes a baton along with his neon head in a bizarre but zzhul-uh way.

He leads the goats with soundless melodies.

Call it madness or drifting genius‌. —Laurelle Ahn *A Korean word with many undefined means, both good and bad

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DownP our Light flashes, tails run, bells jingle as scampering feet hide underneath.

Boom, the bed shakes and crash, the power ceases. They cry from the anger.

Still. Quiet. Calm. Peace.

Eruption of rain scares them.

Water is not safe.

Remembrance of baths, and being lost on the street.

They curl together.

She enters the room.

Sweet-smelling and kind, she holds them close to her.

She brushes their hair.

Black as night, and whispers that she won’t let them go. —Ashley Kendall

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Hearts on Lock

Megan Man, Photography

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Androgyny of Business Collin Ginsberg, Photography

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Simplexity All our memories reek of tragedy, Of when you were next to me: on car rides long drives nine to fives under watchful guise just to see your eyes.

The happiest times, Bisecting spines, Broken lines.

I’ll have to face you again.

It’s all been planned.

I don’t know if I can.

—Daniel Herrera

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Palmed Rose Aaron Cole, Graphite

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Fall 2015 Prose Staff Favorite

What We’re Worth

T

he bedside machine methodically stamped out its duty beside her in the bleached hospital room: THIRTY MINUTES UNTIL CESSATION. Where is she? She was supposed to be here hours ago. Days ago, really. Oh I will let her have it– The large wooden door swung open with the clack of heavy wood against alloy. A pair of sleek black 2092 Spring/Summer Yves Saint-Jacobs heels announced her daughter’s entrance in sharp clicks that penetrated the hermetic silence. She approached the mahogany bedside chair with purpose and grace, her face devoid of the slightest inclination that her mother was half an hour from death in the bed before her.

The dying woman sighed. She certainly is my daughter.

“Excuse me, but where have you been? They have to harvest my organs in half an hour, and you just now waltz in to say your final goodbyes? And you’re alone?!”

“Mom, I Google-thought you about it last Sunday. Don’t act like you don’t remember, I know you’re not senile. The craft couldn’t lift off the island because of the hellacious storms. Tragedy, really, we barely had any beach days.”

by Elena Bishack

“And what about my grandchildren?

They couldn’t make it back from balmy Iceland to see their poor old grandma die?” The old woman contorted the fingers of her left hand with her right beneath the thin sheet. She couldn’t let her daughter see her cry, not now. She pinched the knuckles into an unnatural stack of bone to focus on what little pain she could still feel.

“Mom, please, you’re overreacting.

The pilot barely got the craft off the island as it is; I wasn’t going to risk that with the kids. I mean really, the money we’ve spent on their educations, did you want us to lose it all just to see you finally kick it?”

“Whatever.”

“Come on, mom, be logical. Think about someone other than yourself! Did you want us to all drown in the fucking Atlantic? Entrust your inheritance to Ben and my fucking sister-in-law? You really want all you’ve earned to be spent on spice and safaris?”

“Maybe I should. I don’t know that you deserve it.”

The old woman stared at the Mylar balloon tied to the thick wooden foot of her bed. “Congratulations!” it proclaimed in gaudy print. Congratulations on what? My death? She realized she hadn’t seen one like it since she was a child; the

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helium mines had long since depleted.

There was no way her family had sent it to her. But that’s how ritzy this HMO was, it could afford the little touches to convince the demented elderly that their family cared, and was on their way to say goodbye. The balloon moved in frantic bursts from the air spit out by the ceiling vent, tugging on the plastic ribbon like it was trying to escape.

“Deserve it? Well what the fuck else are you gonna do with it, give it to Red Cross-Komen? Cut me a fucking break, mom. And honestly it’s not like you have a choice,” her daughter glanced at the machine humming by the bedside, “looks like you only have seven minutes until it’s all over.”

“I guess you’re right.”

Her daughter released a frustrated breath and looked down at her wrist, double-tapping the skin to reveal the screen beneath. Her violet fingertips glided through information as her mother’s eyes bored into the crown of her lowered head.

“Seriously?”

“The world doesn’t stop for you, mom. It never has, and it never will.”

They both looked up to the subtle clack of the door. The well-coiffed head of a MedTech peeked in from the hallway.

“And how’s everything going in here?” His voice bellowed with practiced faux-cheeriness and concern. Her daughter’s eyes picked up from her wrist with instant interest. Her pose lightened into subtle sexuality: red lips

slightly open, legs crossed to reveal the pantyhose tight across her left thigh, sheer pony tail adjusted to drape down her right shoulder. She knew her daughter too well, always searching for a potential adulterous romp. After all, she is my daughter.

“Doctor, please, come in,” her daughter purred. “Everything’s just fine.”

He obeyed and stepped inside the heavy frame, closing the door behind him.

“I’m so glad to hear it! Are you ladies feeling ready for the procedure? We have to get those organs on ice ASAP!” He chuckled at his own terrible joke, and her daughter offered a dainty laugh in return. Of all the people she knew that had been scheduled to die, of all the medical wakes she had missed for some more pressing matter, she always comforted herself in the thought that the process was gentle and respectful. A wave of guilt shot down her spine as she realized their disinterested children had probably sat at the foot of their beds, tapping their feet in agitation. Is this what that shit karma feels like?

“I’m ready.” She looked at the screen of the machine: TWO MINUTES. “Just do it now, I’m ready.”

“Oh, well, I won’t be doing anything.

This is standard procedure, so GoogleMortality will be taking care of you today!”

“Excuse me?” Even in her final minutes, she could deliver a cool, scathing quip twice as potently as her.

“ ” The world doesn’t stop for you, mom. It never has, and it never will.

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daughter “Why, that beautiful machine by your bedside! It’s been monitoring your organ health via WiFi, keeping you company, and now will usher you into the Great Beyond!”

She stared over at the titanium hulk, humming along in compliance.

She could hardly say it had kept her company.

“Alright, well I’ll leave you two lovely ladies to it! Nice to meet you both!”

Her daughter didn’t grant him so much as a batted lash as he left, after being clumped in the same sexual category as her dying mother.

“What a fucking idiot,” her daughter offered.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

The machine picked up to a faster whirr as it began the ten-second countdown. She stared into her daughter’s eyes. Not a flicker of emotion passed in the space between the bed and her chair. Her daughter’s eyes were her own, the same stony grey-green gaze that was enough to seduce any man and then spend his money.

2...1...0.

She felt a final shiver as the machine remotely demagnetized her chip. Her body lay limp in the bed. A long probe extended from the center of its console and nestled perfectly into the temple of her mother’s lifeless head. It paused for a moment and then retracted, rotated its center console ninety degrees, and extended the probe to the daughter’s waiting temple:

into her body, the power of money vibrating through her veins. She arose from the chair and clacked out of the room in her now far too unexceptional 2092 Spring/Summer Yves Saint-Jacobs heels, in search of the daft MedTech to ask to a very expensive dinner he couldn’t possibly refuse. G

$90,723,560,657,998.34

She felt her mother’s networth rush

The Gallery 47

Contributors’ Natasha King: Natasha King is a senior who considers herself to be from New England but who has the uneasy feeling that she may have lived in Virginia for too many years to continue claiming that fact. She writes poetry in class and on breezy days.

Daniel Herrara: These are dedicated to my best friend.

Salma Elsayed-Ali: Salma Elsayed-Ali is currently a freshman at the College and has been drawing and painting since she can remember.

Hailing from Virginia Beach, Salma takes inspiration from her environment and nature, and often incorporates elements of her Middle Eastern heritage in her artworks as well. Salma aspires to use her passion for art to create positive, and progressive, change in the world.

Collin Ginsburg: Collin Ginsburg is a freshman from Reston, Virginia. Influenced by Garry Winogrand, his grandfather Frank, and Tumblr, Collin began pursuing photography, academically and as a hobby, after his freshman year of high school. His preferred photographic subjects are street scenes and natural landscapes. Most notably, his photograph “The Androgyny of Business” won a silver medal in the 2015 National Scholastic Art and Writing Competition.

You can find him creeping near Matoaka shooting with a DSLR and sometimes an old film Canon with a broken light meter.

Allison Shomaker: Allison Shomaker is a senior at the College of William & Mary. In her free time, Allison enjoys designing business cards and photographing anything she can find in order to avoid doing homework. Apart from graduating on time, Allison’s goal in life is to work in advertising and run a photography business on the weekends. For more of Allison’s work, please visit www.facebook.com/ rvaavphotography.

48 The Gallery

Notes Laurelle Tae Eun Ahn: Laurelle Tae Eun Ahn is a Government & Political Science major but loves writing poetry, especially the ones that encourages people to live on their lives with inspiration and imagination. She learned to find joy and imagination in travelling and exploring different cultures, playing various instruments, reading fantasy fictions, shopping in NoLita, watching weird movies, and socializing with her lovely friends. Laurelle is obssessed with using metaphors, vivid imagery, and colors in her poems. She tries to live colorfully and surround herself with the things she loves.

Priya Brito: Most of my work is from realistic depictions of landscapes and still life’s where I look to explore the hidden colors and value tones of everyday objects. I hope to continue my exploration of art as an art minor here at the College while studying pre-med.

Lydia Boike: Lydia Boike is a chemistry major at the College.

She enjoys researching enzyme kinematics in a biochemistry lab, performing classical Indian dance, and taking long walks through colonial Williamsburg in the evening.

Megan Man: Megan is a mac & cheese enthusiast inspired by C.S. Lewis, Gustav Mahler, Mister Rogers, and the beautiful soul reading this.

Lindsay Myers: I am a sophomore at William and Mary from Cincinnati, Ohio. I am majoring in International Relations and I am also a member of the cross country and track teams. My photographs were taken in Kenya during a safari on the Maasai Mara.

Aaron Cole: I am a freshman planning on studying chemistry and going on to study medicine. At William and Mary, I divide my time between academics, Team Blitz, Canterbury, playing guitar/ukulele/ harmonica and drawing/photography.

The Gallery 49

Editors’ Note Dear Reader,

We are thrilled to present to you the 30th volume of The Gallery.

At the beginning of the semester we were intimidated but in awe of the task we were taking on. We had lost not only our previous editors-in-chief, but also over half of our staff. However, we were lucky enough to have an amazing and dedicated group of people who stepped up into the role of staff editors. They were there with us every step of the way, always eager to respond to our countless emails and provide us with funny viral videos to play at meetings.

We all worked hard to live up to our predecessors and present an issue that embodies the standards and traditions of The Gallery. We poured over submissions, putting the magazine together piece by piece. Starting with advertising on campus, hosting our first interest meeting, bribing attendance with pizza, and working on layout, we found our way as a staff, developing our own rhythm. You’d be amazed at how being locked in a small white room in the basement of campus center for hours can bring people together.

This issue of The Gallery, like all issues, is composed of works from our talented student body. We hope you enjoy this issue and we look forward to many more to come.

-Heather Lawrence & Lauren Murtagh

Colophon

The Gallery Volume 30 Issue 1 was produced by the student staff at the College of William & Mary and published by Western Newspaper Publishing Co. in Indianapolis, Indiana. Submissions are accepted anonymously through a staff vote. The magazine was designed using Adobe Indesign CS5 and Adobe Photoshop CS5. The magazine’s 50, 6x9 pages are set in Garamond. The cover font and the titles of all the pieces are “Philospher”. The Spring 2012 issue of The Gallery was a CSPA Gold Medalist with All-Columbian honors in content.

Check out the Gallery online www.wmpeople.wm.edu/site/page/gallery www.facebook.com/wmgallery @wmgallery

50 The Gallery

Submit to gallery@email.wm.edu