The Gallery Fall 2016

THE GALLERY FALL 2016

G

the

allery

Volume 31, Issue 1 Fall 2016

Editors Co-Editors-In-Chief Heather Lawrence Lauren Murtagh Managing Editor Dominic DeAngio Copy Editors Patrick Eberhardt Kate Sandberg Art Editor Katie Hogan Emma Russell Poetry Editor Alexis Jenkins Prose Editor Julia Wicks Staff Editors Cameron Bray Lindsay Pugh Maxwell Cloe Sydney Rosenberger Jakob Cordes Gwen Sachs Mallory Cox Joanna Schneider Kelly Giddens Zoe Stallings Rebekah Harris Bronwynn Terrel Makeda Jackson Noah Terrell Jacob Manvell Olivia Vande Woude Christina McBride Katie Wright Lindsay Myers Zoey Wang Cover Art

Mountain Faces

See the complete work on page 19

2 The Gallery

Contents Bones in the Junkyard Campus, 1959 Short of Two Purgatory Mindfulness Messiah It Is Out There Passing View of an Alleyway White Shoes Eclipse Solstice Hunger Strike Grumble of Pugs Gattamelata or The Speckled Cat Apathy Adrift Matroyshka When Crimson Fled Sometimes You Get Lucky

Poetry 4 6 8 9 10 12 13 15 15 30 31 33 37 38 40 42 43

Alvin Chan Lydia Brown Sarah Malks Dominic DeAngio Barclay Sparrow Elaine Edwards Cameron Bray Brett Morales Collin Ginsburg Sarah Malks Barclay Sparrow Patrick Eberhardt James Cole Young Woo Park Emily Wynn Olivia Vande Woude Ryan Onders

Prose But This I Will Call To Mind Hell Is...

Wells of Fire

17 34 45

Catherine Green Julia Wicks Jakob Cordes

Art View from Petřín Tower Portrait of a Boy Named Nati Sugar Hollow Looking Ahead Moutain Faces Psi Dead Souls Semolina Pilchard Eroded Facade Before the Flame Goes Out Byproduct of a Model Microcosm Black Hills Milky Way Panorama Monday Morning, Turning Back Quiet Walk Through Strahov Monastery Innocence Monk in King’s Palace Ain’t No Dancer

7 11 14 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 26 27 28 29 32 39 41 44

Lindsay Myers Megan Leu Dominic DeAngio Amy Nelson Rebecca Shkeyrov Collin Ginsburg Rebecca Shkeyrov Zoe Stallings Emma Russell Megan Leu Katie Hogan Rebecca Shkeyrov Abe Winterscheidt Zoe Stallings Lindsay Myers Bronwynn Terrell Krista Braun Zoe Stallings

The Gallery 3

Fall 2016 Poetry Staff Favorite

Bones in the Junkyard There he sits, day by day, the way he feels inside, the things he dreams to do whispering sweet little morsels of love into her grave humming a soft low-he-e-e because fidelity doesn’t spoil, it survives.

It can’t be stripped of the opposite sex, be tied to demise, neutered to be like children, for we are babies, we will be in blue jeans playing double-door round of innumerable measure bug-bitten, bruise-ridden, a playground of beings. On

4 The Gallery

June mornings, she is a drop of beauty, a napalm bomb to inflame your brain, plush lips and wide hips, a pretty face laid to rest in the junkyard. Oh, how smitten he is to see her day by day, gaze to gaze against the soft light. They say he is shy, so he speaks in whispers and quiet tones, mouthing words only she can understand.

“Here’s to my love, the one I’ve had for years.”

— Alvin Chan

The Gallery 5

Campus, 1959

Lady Onassus comes riding through on horseback And it is not yet May. Azaleas and honeysuckle sap the air; Pollen clumps on waxy magnolias.

Cocooned in a white blouse, I see it all from the reading room— Head a feathery orb, Hair a bloom of high cotton.

Here I am learning etiquette and silence In cigarette pants rolled at the ankle, Leather shoes heavy in the heel.

I take my notes.

The ink from my pen does not smear.

I master this idleness, See with intensity the marble Of soap on the floor, Blue-black body of a fly in the window.

Down on Chapel Road across the front dell A cameraman runs.

Nothing to hear but hooves hitting stone. — Lydia Brown

6 The Gallery

Lindsay Myers

View from PetrĂ­n Tower

Photography

The Gallery 7

Short of Two Simple turn of a doorknob coarse, or is it my hand that can give anything.

I am beating here like a drum, and they accept me even though I was born lost, without an orixa.

I know, anyway, it is only the blue shadow of an arched spine that can give me any clarity.

8 The Gallery

— Sarah Malks

Purgatory Small towns don’t feel real Like a pastiche of themselves They seem upside down Two types of buildings: Churches and antique stores, both Obsessed with the dead Trump bumper stickers Pass run-down gas stations and Confederate flags Backwards, bucolic Dilapidated downtowns Drinks served with a smile Miles without signs I drive between fading lines Through purgatory Barbed wire fences Like the sutures of pastures They conserve what’s left Rusted railroads snake Past shacks and broken bridges Suspended in time Front yards full of toys Forgotten but not quite gone In their kudzu tombs I watch the past through Scratched sepia sunglasses And ponder what’s next

— Dominic DeAngio

The Gallery 9

Mindfulness Focus far away. Breath comes first. Cold gusts from cliffs and silent sun-warmed currents meet as cyclones in my lungs. And now repeat.

Paralysis turns to wanderlust against my body’s breach of trust.

Knee-jerk resistance sustains the offbeat tin rhythms in my chest, my eyes, my feet, which tap unruly calls-to-arms in dust.

Impatient crows caw from their watch. The screams skim over air and trip across leaf strewn side streets that smell like lightning and old fires.

If I run to catch them, I’ll burst my seams and my breath of peaks and valleys will soon be gone. I return to wind and briars.

— Barclay Sparrow

10 The Gallery

Megan Leu

Portrait of a Boy Named Nati Graphite

The Gallery 11

Messiah Take a vacation, you’ve earned it, God says, so Jesus does, and for

the three days that he’s dead he wanders up and down the highway in a hoodie with his thumb out, I’m good for gas if you’ll get me as far as Atlanta, he says, and Susannah shrugs her one good shoulder and tells him to put his shit in the trunk. In the city he buys a pomegranate smoothie and licks the juice from the rim, he gets his hair cut, he takes a walk and blesses every pigeon on every gum-stained street. When someone with a Kennesaw bumper sticker asks where he’s headed he says I’ll go where you are, and Malcolm lets him ride for free because once you suck dick for a way out, he shakes his head, you just trapped all over again. And you seem like a nice guy. Malcolm drops him off two blocks from a bar where he knows the owner, and Jesus sits in a booth turning pitcher after pitcher into water. In the morning he walks barefoot to the bus station and a white Chevy picks him up three mileposts in, Casey in the driver’s seat telling him about the pills and the kid and the asshole father, You got an asshole dad? Everybody does. She takes him to a Motel 6 where he spends the afternoon watching reruns of Happy Days and listening to the couple arguing next door, and at night in a diner on the coast he finds Lucy, knows the devil when he sees her, but because he’s won she just asks Why’d you run?

And he says: Because I was afraid they wouldn’t be worth it. She drinks her coffee, asks Were they? and he thinks of Judas, and he sits and stares down at his hands and doubts, because this is what you do the night before a miracle.

— Elaine Edwards

12 The Gallery

It Is Out There O, wouldn’t it be sweet, O, wouldn’t it be grand To rip the ponderous tome from the old sage’s hand?

To take him to the high cliffs where he may greet The seas far beyond the fair forests and the golden plains, To tear out his dull book’s pages, To show him a true beauty untouched by all the ages, To cast down his papers like rusty prison chains, To tell him to hear the waves crash, to breathe the salty air And to say to him, “It is out there!”

O, wouldn’t it be sweet, O, wouldn’t it be grand To grab the gray-bearded philosopher by the hand?

To remove him from his dusty study where he may greet The sound of cars and people walking round To point to the life, the energy, the spark!

To feel the light and not stay trapped in the dark, To imbibe both the common and profound, To tell him to appreciate a life so wondrous and rare, And to say to him, “It is out there!”

— Cameron Bray

The Gallery 13

Dominic DeAngio

14 The Gallery

Sugar Hollow

Photography

Passing View of an Alleyway .beyond lies nothing where silver veiled skies sail to eyes dead and corners dark from endless journey ghosts underneath the glass journey endless from dark corners and dead eyes to sail skies veiled silver where nothing lies beyond.

— Brett Morales

White Shoes You are so delightful, Gleaming in the early fall sun, Your blankness now filled with an orange soul And your steps now turning into a run Down the pine needle streets, And past the chainlink basketball hoops, Where the gravel path meets The geese greeting the lake with gentle swoops.

You were perfect, Until I brought you to that punk show

— Collin Ginsburg

The Gallery 15

Amy Nelson

16 The Gallery

Looking Ahead

Photography

But This I Will Call To Mind

R

By Catherine Green

obert visited the other weekend. It’s been, God, four years since I left home, and I’ve only seen him a handful of times, so each encounter feels weighted. I was surprised to get his text, saying he was coming into town, but I knew I couldn’t ignore it.

So Robert and I met up for breakfast. When he showed up at the Waffle Heaven, something in me immediately fractured. Robert Bell, best friend since first grade, still wearing the same tattered bracelet that Annabel made him when we were fifteen. His button-down shirt was an ancient flannel that blended in with his faded jeans, a perfect monochrome man.

“Megan, hey,” he greeted me. I got up and hugged him tightly, feeling the atrophied muscles and protruding bones that resulted from protracted selfloathing. It had not been so long ago that my own body held that shape.

As we sat down, I pressed my nails into the vinyl of the booth, bracing myself for a conversation I knew I would not enjoy. “How are you doing?” I asked, feigning brightness.

Robert smiled with his mouth, but his fidgeting hands betrayed him. “Not bad, not too bad. I’m in town visiting my sister, you know, thought I’d try and see you.” He shifted in his seat, looking at his coffee mug. “How are things here? How’s Ned?” We made small talk. I wanted to say more. I wanted to ask if he ever talked to Annabel, or if he still lived with his mother, or if he still resented me. It used to be so easy—the four of us would lie out in the fields for hours, staring at the stars and discussing life and God and each other. Maybe that was it: it’s easier to bare your soul in the dark, when nobody can see how little it resembles your face.

When I looked at him across the table, I saw the person I never wanted to be again. God, I loved that boy, but he was still stuck. I guess I’d been the last wasp to escape before the amber hardened, and now I stared at the improbable specimen I’d left behind.

We had been good for each other, once, but the more we had each fought our individual battles, the more civilian casualties the other person had suffered. I had been so angry, and utterly ruinous. And so I would get angry at Robert and I would ruin myself, and until the morning I sat, sobbing, in his

“ ” Maybe that was it: it’s easier to bare your soul in the dark

The Gallery 17

car, I never imagined I could change. I had almost died two nights previously, and he had saved me, and I couldn’t forgive him. By the time I had finished yelling at him for it, he was standing outside the car, trying to breathe, and I was sitting inside it, trying not to cry. He drove me home, once he had collected himself and I had fallen apart. Before I got out, he told me he wanted me to get better. “What about you?” I asked. “Are you going to?”

He had stared at the steering wheel, saying nothing, and I knew the answer.

That was when I decided I would finally retreat, for his sake and mine. I got out of the car without saying goodbye, and told my mother that yes, I would go to Austin, I would get help.

Now, sitting in this booth, eating waffles as Guy Clark played on the radio, I regretted having left him behind. If I had yelled a little louder, if I had pushed a little harder, if I had just been meaner, could I have changed him?

A disinterested waitress handed us the check. I picked it up and doled out cash while Robert bit his lip and stared at the space next to my head.G

18 The Gallery

Rebecca Shkeyrov

Mountain Faces

Acrylic on Canvas

The Gallery 19

Fall 2016 Art Staff Favorite

Collin Ginsburg

20 The Gallery

Psi

Photography

Rebecca Shkeyrov

Dead Souls

Screenprint

The Gallery 21

Zoe Stallings

22 The Gallery

Semolina Pilchard

Photography

Emma Russell

Eroded Facade

Photography

The Gallery 23

24 The Gallery

Megan Leu

Before the Flame Goes Out Oil Pastel The Gallery 25

Katie Hogan

26 The Gallery

Byproduct of a Model

Mixed Media

Rebecca Shkeyrov

Microcosm

Screenprint

The Gallery 27

28 The Gallery

Abe Winterscheidt

Black Hills Milky Way Panorama

Photography

The Gallery 29

Zoe Stallings

Monday Morning, Turning Back

Photography

Eclipse Solstice broken into sheets by the sun, through iridescent tides to break and break again. in and around time for as long as life’s memory lasts. whether flame born of wick or a dreamer’s gold chipped heart balancing in the sky after dark light flickers in and around time, for as long as life’s memory lasts.

— Sarah Malks

30 The Gallery

Hunger Strike I put a hand like bone dipped in wax against the hollow of my throat.

The hollow is my throat.

Magazine ads plaster the counter in photoshopped autumn.

The fraying leaves are made of slender thighs and glass stomachs.

The girl in the mirror counts my ribs and picks up a glossy page.

The only flaw on the model hanging from a boat’s bow like a string of pearls is the crease where the paper folds.

The paper folds the same way a sash rimmed in lavender folded secretly at the bottom of my great grandmother’s bureau.

She ironed it before she marched on the House of Commons.

Policemen ripped it from her shoulders and jammed their knees up her skirts.

In her cell, she passed the time by counting her ribs and the meals she turned down.

Later, when the prison doctor tried to force a tube down the back of her mouth, she screamed that she would rather wrap that sash around her throat.

— Barclay Sparrow

The Gallery 31

Lindsay Meyers

32 The Gallery

Quiet Walk Through Strahov Monastery

Photgraphy

Grumble of Pugs From slumber gently tumbled in furry pants by brachycephalic melody, rolling rumble snores.

Kindness prevails in the pug dawg long from the she-wolf.

Pug dawg nuzzles my foot.

Chin angled, noticing.

Above one tooth, velvet ears sought for “Treat!” “Outside!” “Walk” devoutly alongside to sanctify each shrub.

Proud and sneezy dinghies float behind on leashes, towed home toward tender laps.

— Patrick Eberhardt

The Gallery 33

Hell Is...

By Julia Wicks

A

s soon as I open my eyes I know something is wrong.

The fact that I woke up at all means that there is, against all odds, an afterlife, and this definitely isn’t heaven.

I’m standing in a valley of jet and obsidian, on the shore of a dark, sluggish river. Everything has a weak red glow that is nothing like sunlight. I smell sulfur and something vaguely iron. Jagged mountains rise in the background, utterly devoid of color and texture. They’re just triangles in the distance.

There is a figure in the periphery of my vision. I turn to see a living, breathing man with all of his skin removed. His yellow gaze shows nothing human, and he – it – wears a simple black robe. It appears to be smoking a cigarette.

“You’re a devil,” I say.

“Yep,” it replies, and blows a cloud of white smoke towards the river. I wait for it to continue. It doesn’t.

"Aren’t you going to torture me?"

“Nah.” It keeps smoking. Is that even tobacco? It isn’t flaking away. Is he smoking a mineral?

“Could you maybe… like… explain where I am?”

It pitches its non-cigarette into the river. “Okay. You’re in Hell.” “…And?” The devil sighs. “Look, I’m not good at talking to mortals. We’ve got cable, barely, but we never go into your world

34 The Gallery

or anyone else’s because we can’t. We’re trapped, like you. The man upstairs says to torture you. Hell no! We rebelled in the first place because we weren’t gonna take his orders, and we’re not gonna start now.” I get the feeling it’s starting in on a well-rehearsed speech.

“You know what happens when you trap a bunch of punks in the worst place in creation?” It coughs. “Go on, ask.”

“What do you get?”

“War. You get eons and eons of war.

We can never die, so it’s always the same people. Satan’s plotting with Moloch to dethrone Beelzebub, never suspecting that his buddy Abraxas is a double agent even though that’s how this happens every man-damned time. Cycles of political tension followed by violent upheaval, a few years of apocalypse, then another empire ‘rises’ and it starts all over again. We all look like trash because we get killed a thousand ways, a million times, but we never die. We just keep fighting.”

“Okay,” I say. “So… you don’t care about humans. You’d rather kill each other and smoke chalk.”

It smirks. “Alabaster, actually. I’ve been exiled to greeting for the next century. I think of it as a smoke break.”

I have a lot of questions about the logistics of the devils' lives, and I’m going to ask them, but then I remember the situation I’m in. “Okay. So what does

this mean for me? What do the humans down here do?”

“Oh. Same thing we do, but we get to live in a castle. With cable.”

“Seriously? That’s it?”

“Okay, well, we have a king. At least we pretend to. The humans down here live in total anarchy. Everyone for themselves. Their crimes are more varied than ours. The human spirit is more, I don’t know, chaotic. It’s got to do with the creativity, I think, since angels don’t have as much of that. We were supposed to be obedient servants, not... mini-mes, or whatever you are.” It shakes its head.

“Always thought that was creepy.”

“Anyway,” the devil continues, “there’s all sorts of weird shit out there.

It’s anarchy. There’s tribes of raiders whose only pleasure is pain. People who re-enact genocides and famous murders for fun. It’s amazing what people will do when you trap them in the most desolate place in the universe, and tell ‘em they’re never, ever getting out.”

“So… Hell is other people?” Reality hasn’t set in and I almost want to laugh.

"You guys get to actually recover, at least in body,” he continues, as though he hadn’t heard me, “so your physical scars aren’t as bad. But when you remanifest you still remember everything that’s happened to you. Having dealt with both, I can tell you that remembering is the hard part.”

“Is anyone here peaceful?” I ask.

“Maybe not good, but, like, not crazy?”

“Sure. There’s some settlements here and there, if you can call them that.

The thing is, there’s nothing to do here.

No way to grow food, nothing to drink except the river of blood. You’re always hungry and thirsty but you can never die. Funny how this is what you people always ask for. Eternal life. And that’s it.”

I’m looking at an eternity of misery, then. Misery and damnation, and being torn apart by other idiots like me. I feel an emotion I cannot even process. I want to express it somehow – a lament, a sob, anything.

Instead I mumble, “Where’s the lake of fire?”

“What?

Who said there was a lake of fire?”

“Saint John.

Book of Revelation. My uncle was a priest.”

“Well, don’t look at me.

Interdimensional communication is hard.”

“But you have cable,” I say, suddenly angry at it. Anger. That’s something I can understand, and I latch onto it.

“You say you don’t know anything about humans but you talk exactly like one.

How do I know you’re not lying to me?

Am I supposed to accept your lies and say that God is dead? Because I’ll never –” “Don’t flatter yourself,” the devil cuts in. “Nobody gives a damn what you believe down here. You got tested, you failed, you don’t get a second chance. It’s exactly as simple as it looks.”

“ ” The human spirit is more, I don’t know, chaotic. It’s got to do with the creativity.

The Gallery 35

It pauses for a minute, looking distant. “If it’s any comfort,” it continues, a little gentler, “we failed, too. And we have to remember that every day. I mean, the cable is really bad. The picture’s really grainy and it cuts out half the time. I never found out who won the last season of The Bachelorette! I bet it was Jordan. That bastard. So, yeah, I don’t miss TV privileges at all.”

It gives a sly grin. “Just like I don’t miss heaven. And you won’t miss earth.”

I’m quiet for a minute. I’m not really thinking, just taking in the devil completely, at all of its strung-out arteries, the torn, stringy muscles, some yellow bone visible here and there. I wonder if all of its organs are bruised.

36 The Gallery

“You know what,” I say, “Hell isn’t other people.”

“Oh?” it sneers. “You’re the expert on damnation now? That was quick. Tell me, is the real hell the sting of moral failure? The denial of paradise? The torturous memory of what you’ve lost?”

“No,” I say, stoic. “Hell is… it’s just hell, man.”

We’re quiet for a long time, basking in whatever I just said. Then the devil starts to laugh, a really sad, hacking sound. And I’m cackling, too, we’re both doubled over. Our laughter bounces off the walls of the impossible valley. In seconds the sulfurous air has swallowed the sound.G

Gattamelata or The Speckled Cat In Narni, huddled on the streets you’ll find some loyal to the cloisters and salons some selfish brigands and some selfless pawns of players, whose great names may come to mind in ages lost, when hosts of old resigned they left a wake of ash and hazy dawns immortal in the guise of noble bronze when last the course of Empire declined Some yet will pause, and recollect the day when proud, their captain stood among the ranks his banners cast on high above the fray and they themselves held fast upon the flanks then life returns, and all their youth subsides to greener pastures where their master rides

— James Cole

The Gallery 37

Apathy Adrift a fish floats in rotten, the pit and gnaws the wit, the will, the wiles. out swims a fish swaying still the waves. tail swish with grace I gave I crave. — Young Woo Park

38 The Gallery

Bronwynn Terrell

Innocence

Photography

The Gallery 39

Matroyshka cut me in half and a smaller uglier self is born from a shell no Trojan horse hiding men I am sliced again in shades of blue yellow red halved and halved again until the last girl done waiting again crawls out of the epicenter a burning crisp

I look into brush stroke eyes and wonder when fire made them blind I crawl back into myself again — Emily Wynn

40 The Gallery

Krista Braun

Monk in King’s Palace

Photography

The Gallery 41

When Crimson Fled Met a man today who didn’t win the lottery.

Scratched three silver extensions on shiny purple cards Then bit his lip so hard that crimson fled.

Banged the side of his dented champagne colored 1978 Toyota Corolla Car his father lent him when he got laid off.

Threw the parchments of Providence into a cosmic abyss where waste lies with no destination but barges and hills and fields where sea gulls pray.

Shook his two iced teas hard Gold Peaks he bought at Hess Express they appealed to him when he saw glittering pieces of possibility lining the green colored wall Now the concentrated sweetness repulses him.

Told him I’ll buy the album you say no one will, supply the pencils for your lump charcoal lyrics hard to swallow, we can chew peppery sunflower seeds together because they taste like the filet mignon that we can’t afford.

— Olivia Vande Woude

42 The Gallery

Sometimes You Get Lucky There’s a pair of rabbits at the base of a tree trying to make more rabbits.

The red tailed hawk circling above is watching his weight and keeps circling.

— Ryan Onders

The Gallery 43

Zoe Stallings

44 The Gallery

Ain’t No Dancer

Photography

Fall 2016 Prose Staff Favorite

Wells of Fire

By Jakob Cordes

I

n San Carino the wells burned for five days, then fell dark, and then, hit by some stray tracer round or artillery shell, reignited and burned for another ten hours. On the sixth day, as night fell, Manuel knew he wouldn't be able to sleep without the dancing flames and dense smoke from the fields. He tried to sleep anyway, lighting first one lamp, then two, then every lamp in the house, but to no avail, because outside the same darkness, silent, crouching, waited.

Manuel snuffed them all, except for the one by his bedside. It was, he decided, not the light that he missed so dearly, nor the choking smoke, but the sound.

For weeks there had been guerillas in the forest around the village, maneuvering to seize the sizable oil deposits, and with them was a constant patter of gunfire and shouting. Then, when the well lit up like God's own roman candle and the guerillas fled, it was the roar of the flames that filled every hour.

Manuel lay for several minutes, listening to the soft hiss of the

propane lantern hanging above his bed, but behind it the silence of the still night lay unchanged. Manuel thought back to the time before the guerillas, and he remembered the nights filled with the hammering and gruff shouts of industry, the rhythmic clanging of the iron wells, pumping up the bones of great lizards. He thought to before that even, to his childhood in the village, before the prospectors arrived in their loud jeeps, and there he found the memory of soft sounds, not silence, but a close cousin – a symphony of insects and birds and rustling leaves. Manuel listened, breathless, but with a start realized that the forest was gone – it had caught, during the dry season, a spark from a shell, and like a pile of dry tinder had been consumed for miles around. The leaves were gone, and the birds and the insects too, and now that the guerillas were gone the silence rushed back in to fill the void.

Manuel rose and made his way to the entrance of his home, throwing it open and spilling a little light on the dusty ground. The small, squat structure

“ ” ...the rhythmic clanging of the iron wells, pumping up the bones of great lizards.

The Gallery 45

was positioned on the rim of a large circular depression, and on a clear day Manuel could see 3 miles across the depression to the opposite end of the town. In the moonless night, however, he could hardly see the ground five meters away. Manuel returned with the lantern in hand and latched the door shut, then took a deep breath of the warm night air. Almost immediately he began to cough violently. The air was thick with ash, blown up by warm air from the center of the crater, where the largest wells had been.

Steeling himself, Manuel made his way down the edge of the depression.

There was a path that cut crossways across the slope, beginning on the rim and running around and down until it let out in an open area – previously the town market, before the disaster. Now the stalls stood empty and burned out, tattered plastic banners and old signage blowing and creaking in the wind. As Manuel walked tentatively among the detritus he peered at the empty booths, even though he knew them to be stripped of anything even remotely worth scavenging, and even though he knew the whole crater to be abandoned by man and beast alike. Still, he kept careful watch, unable to shake a creeping feeling that the silence, inky and thick, could break at any moment into violent upheaval.

In 100 meters Manuel reached the edge of the market, and in the dim circle of glow cast out by his lantern he could see the ashy remains of the town orchard, tamped down

46 The Gallery

by passing footsteps but still liable to rise up in great choking clouds at the slightest breeze. He stepped out carefully into the char, shirt held over mouth and nose. His first step brought up a small puff, which slowly settled onto the ground and Manuel's clothes. Walking carefully, he made his way towards the other end of the orchard, where, he hoped, he could talk the village doctor into giving him a sleeping pill or two. In the distance Manuel could just barely see the faint red glow of the doctor’s sign, a small square cross.

The sign blinked.

It wasn't more than a millisecond, but Manuel's heart thrilled in pure terror as the darkness pulled him in tight. He stood, staring at the sign, now glowing steadily again, and willed it to stay lit, willed it to guide him in from the ashy expanse.

After a few moments he started walking again, faster now, clouds of dust rising behind him. There was a hint of desperation, and a touch of abandon, as he stopped searching for his footing and simply plowed ahead.

The sign blinked.

The second time caught Manuel by surprise, and on the uneven ground he lost his footing, sprawling out on his face, sinking slightly into the soft crust. The lantern flew from his hand and landed several feet away, snuffing immediately. Manuel lay, paralyzed.

A soft rustling came from his right.

Manuel turned his head, sweat beading on his back despite the warm night air.

There was nothing. The inky

blackness was unbroken; no hint of motion, no hint of form or substance.

Manuel rose quickly, and with a desperate cry, part fear, part pain from the fall, hurled himself towards the red sign in a full sprint. The rustling came louder now, to the rear still, but closing fast. The ash rose in great bursts, obscuring Manuel's vision till

his eyes were slits.

The sign flicked off.

Manuel didn't even notice it, so loud was the rustling now. He could feel the ash coating his lungs. He could feel his muscles burning. He could feel the darkness closing in.G

The Gallery 47

Contributors’ Alvin Chan is a lover of teddy bears, soft toys and puppets. His deal breakers include a freemason’s handshake and anyone who cares for or owns a furby. A dame by day and a broad by night, he is also the hard-earned breadwinner of a family of four.

Jakob Cordes is a freshman at William and Mary, interested in international relations and latin american studies. He has been published in places as diverse as his high school literary magazime — and literally nowhere else.

Dominic DeAngio is a junior at the College studying english and creative writing. When not reading or writing, Dominic also enjoys making bad puns that bother his friends.

Cameron Bray is a freshman at the College of William and Mary.

His hobbies include reading and daydreaming. As a volunteer for the Democratic Party in Virginia, he also pesters you to register to vote.

Catherine Green is a freshman at The College. She’s so grateful to be in the Gallery, and hopes you enjoy her piece Patrick Eberhardt is a senior at the College, is so serious about the arts that he recommends vehemently that no one should take the arts seriously, and hopes that people will smile when they read his poetry.

48 The Gallery

Notes Elaine Edwards is a senior from Clifton, VA studying English and Film. She’ll let you know where she’s going when she gets there.

Lindsay Myers loves running, trdelník, and poodles. She took these photos in Prague, Czech Republic.

Rebecca Shekyrov asks you to share some love and check out @ theboldstylo on insta.

Zoe Stallings is a freshman from Chesapeake, Virginia. In her free time, Zoe enjoys traveling and reading. Zoe plans to major in business.

Julia Wicks is a sophomore at the College. She has never been to Hell or watched The Bachelorette.

Olivia Vande Woude is a freshman at the College who hails from Charlottesville, VA. She has been writing stories for most of her life, and has recently focused her attention on writing poetry. Her work has been featured in The Sacred Cow, Literary Orphans, Stepping Stones Magazine, Poetry Space U.K, Carnival Magazine, Five 2 One Magazine, Oddball Magazine, Canvas, and other publications.

The Gallery 49

Editors’ Note

Dear Reader, For those of you who don’t know, the publication lab is a small white room in the basement of Campus Center. This small, magical space is not only where we create the layout of each edition of The Gallery, but also where we keep copies of our previous editions. The Gallery dates back to 1979, but the earliest editions we can find are from the 90s. When making this year’s magazine, we flipped through these old editions for inspiration and marveled over how much both the magazine and The College itself have changed since The Gallery was first created. This should not be surprising, however, considering how much the magazine has changed just over the last three semesters. When we finished our first semester as editors-in-chief we had eleven students on the staff. As we finish the magazine this semester, we are fortunate enough to include twenty-nine.

While having a bigger staff has come with minor challenges, such as finding a big enough room to meet in, we are incredibly thankful for how much our Gallery family has grown. Having so many members on staff allowed us to have a variety of opinions when discussing each piece, forcing us to look at each submission from all angles. Further, as English majors, we were both thrilled to hear so many distinct voices with such a passion for literature and art. As always, we would like to give special thanks to our staff for such an amazing semester.

Finally, thank you for reading this edition of The Gallery. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

-Heather Lawrence and Lauren Murtagh P.S. A note from Lauren: This was my last semester as co-editor-in-chief and I am sad to be leaving the position I enjoyed so much. I have loved coming to meeting every week and listening to the passionate discussions of our staff. I wanted to thank The Gallery staff, from this year and past, for making The Gallery such a fun organizaton to be a part of.

Luckily, however, I still have one more semester to participate in these discussions. I very much look forward to being a staff editor and thus being able to share my opinions about submissions once again. Further, I am happy to introduce the new co-editor-in-chief, Dominic DeAngio. Holding this position has been an amazing experience and I hope that you’ll feel the same way.

Colophon

The Gallery Volume 31 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 52, 6x9 pages are set in Garamond. The cover font and the titles of all the pieces are “Medhurst”.

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