Paragon (2013)

Paragon Gilman School Baltimore, Maryland 2012-2013 Volume XXXV Editors Literary Editor: Art Editor: Layout Editor:

William Herman Andy Shea David Cha

Literary Review Board William Herman Andrew Park Eli Clemens Ethan Park Gus Meny James Johnson John Lee

Kyle Tarantino Phillip Kwon Timur Guler Tyler Wakefield Ward Sandberg Will Sherman

Andy Shea John Lee Jack Dearing Kevin Kuczynski

Chris Cortezi David Cha Tyler Wakefield Michael Holmes

Art Review Board

John Rowell Adam Prince

Faculty Advisors

Karl Connolly Cesare Ciccanti

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Table of Contents Art

Page Title

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Cover 07 08 08 09 11 11 13 13 14 14 15 15 18 18 19 19 22 23 25 25 26 28 28 28 29 29 31 32 32 33 33 35 41 42 42 43 43 44 44 45 45 46

Back Studio Looking Up Anachronism Lovely Allen Reflection with Brother Lots Bass on Sofa Evening on Federal Hill Dad Skull Study Red Forest Landscape Whiteout VII, Iguana Tomato Still Life with Flag Column Skull Ivy on Wall Portrait of the Artist’s Mother Portrait of the Artist’s Father Parking Lot with Car CT-Stairwell The Spirit’s Third Eye Flower Self Portrait Self Portrait with Gray and Brown Figure on Bed Row Boats Diptych Mountain Bike NYC Devil’s Aces Waters of Capri Defeat Schwarzwald Sunset Glass and Path Lumen Steps Woods in Winter Self Portrait Strength in Unity Lake Tenaya Rofo Couch Pivot

Artist Andy Shea Gram Davis Mike Hanley Chris Cortezi Andy Shea Andy Shea Andy Shea Austin Evans Gabe Donner Theo Leasca Blake Benfield Ben Fisher Elie Baronghozi Freddie Leatherbury Kevin Wang Michael Holmes Jack Dearing John Lee John Lee Tyler Wakefield Huntington Williams Chris Cortezi Chris Cortezi Chris Stith Elie Baronghozi Mike Hanley Taylor Swindell John Lee John Chirikjian Jack Harvey David Cha David Cha Mike Hanley Taylor Swindell Bradley Tendler Kevin Kuczynski Blake Benfield Mike Hanley David Cha David Cha Tyler Wakefield Andy Shea Elie Baronghozi

Literary

Page Title 06 10 12 16 17 20 24 27 30 34 38

When the Spider is Most in Need of his Surfboard A Short Panic On the Expressway Mother’s Eyes He Sido Mordido I Was Bitten Duplicity A Mark Found You I The Boy and His Red Ball Converse Unnecessary

Author John Lee William Herman Zane MacFarlane William Herman William Herman Andrew Park Ward Sandberg Zane MacFarlane John Lee Kyle Tarantino Ben Fisher

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Paragon Submission Guidelines 1) Paragon seeks to publish innovative and well-crafted art and creative student literature, including poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and memoir. Other forms of student writing (i.e. analytical essays, editorials, etc.) will not be reviewed by the board.

2) Work may be submitted anonymously to Paragon but cannot be published as such. Any author who chooses not to claim his work after he has submitted it will not be published in the magazine.

3) All work submitted to Paragon must be the unquestionable product of the author. Any work which proves otherwise will immediately be taken out of consideration for publication, and the student who submitted it will be asked to refrain from submitting in the future.

4) Paragon only accepts work from current students of the Gilman Upper School. Work from any other authors will not be considered.

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Dear Reader,

Within the confines of 21st century American media, discussion of handshakes only arises under one of the following circumstances: either a TV doctor makes a particularly long flu-season appearance on a daytime talk show, or a public figure pulls a gaffe by misunderstanding the gesture as an unsent invitation for a hug or a kiss. Neither of these situations presents itself in this year’s issue of Paragon, but the cultural phenomenon of the handshake is still incredibly relevant to this magazine.

Some individuals presume to have a monopoly over what makes a handshake a handshake. In Emily Post’s Etiquette (canonical in the 1950s and ‘60s, and still surprisingly popular today), Post orders her readers to “One, extend your right hand—thump up, palm flat. Two, grasp the hand firmly palm to palm. Three, pump your hand two or three times. Four, release.” Because that’s how you’re “supposed to” shake hands.

But on a deeper level, a handshake represents an invitation. This could be an invitation to friendship when meeting someone for the first time, an invitation to success at the end of a job interview, or an invitation to share feelings of gratitude or congratulations. The actual physical movement resists a superficial construct. Nevertheless, the construct has value because, well, it represents these invitations—or connections if you will.

What no seeing individual can deny in the presence of American teenagers is that the handshake has evolved. We’ve proliferated the high five, the fist bump, the dap, the dap lock and fly, the dap explosion, the pound hug, and of course the Rocket Power woogity woogity. You can grab it, slap it, bump it, whip it, twist it, snap it, or lightly graze the epidermis. To the credit of the eighteenth edition (eighteenth!) of Emily Post’s Etiquette, the editors remark, “Above all, manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others…Whether it’s a handshake or a first bump, it’s the underlying sincerity and good intentions of the action that matter most.” It is a beautiful truth that we can continue to express the same feelings and connections with “underlying sincerity and good intentions” through ever-evolving forms.

That’s what you’ll find in this magazine: ever-evolving forms of human sentiment. Each painting, picture, poem, or short story is the artist extending his hand towards yours. You just have to decide whether it will be a handshake or a fist bump or a pound hug. Enjoy.

Will Herman

Literary Editor

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When a Spider is Most in Need of His Surfboard

Dropping from a far-up branch where the robin weaves its nest, the arachnid lands on the “i” of “Dropping.” He feels the ink below him and mistakes it for a dewdrop. When he has finished wiping each of his eight feet clean – dragging them slowly across the margin of my college-ruled notebook – he pauses for a moment and analyzes his situation. He estimates that this white leaf must be from the wrong season, that it has come too early. He has never seen a leaf so large, but perhaps this is a tropical leaf from Fiji – the spider once saw that on a plastic bottle. In any case, this slowly undulating white leaf is certainly not the golden organic surfboard with splashes of anthocyanin1 he had hoped for.

On a day like this, with a slight breeze and little moisture, he would have preferred a maple leaf. Maple leaves tend to carry nicely in the autumn breeze, and as they are light, offer the rider wonderful handling. Unfortunately, leaves have neither a reverse gear nor fourwheel drive. So if you hit a tree while atop a leaf, you can neither put it in reverse, nor ask it to work harder. You must jump off your leaf and onto the tree. Hopefully, it will be a maple tree, and you will have the great pleasure of choosing the most elegant and aerodynamic leaf of that tree. Then you must wait patiently for the leaf to yield to gravity, and the wind to take you away.

But now, the spider knows I am here. Because he is a spider of good manners, he walks to my free hand and gently taps my pinky2. Then he spins around slowly in a complete circle as if to say, “Out of all of these maple leaves I might have landed on… I mean… how fortuitous it is for us to meet!” As I write, it is clear that the spider is reading my work. Then, in a very discourteous manner, he walks all over this paper. After a minute of this, he calms down. He walks to one word. He pauses. Then another. He pauses. He is sending me a message. So, I write down each word he stops at: I Maple Jump Unfortunately Spider Tree As Spins Paper In Day Estimates Robin.

I’M JUST A SPIDER 6

The wind is picking up, so he leaps off my notebook and lands atop a maple leaf. He is trying to appear indignant, but for one moment just before the wind picks up, he looks at me and winks with all six of his eyes.

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anthocyanin = red leaf stuff This is a common homosapien-arachnid greeting

- John Lee ‘14

Gram Davis ‘15

Looking Up | Acrylic on Canvas | 9x12

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Mike Hanley ‘13

Anachronism | Oil on Canvas | 36x48

Chris Cortezi ‘13

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Lovely Allen | Acrylic on Canvas | 9x12

Andy Shea ‘13

Reflection With Brother | Oil on Canvas | 52x44

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A Short Panic on the Expressway

Please. Please!

I plead with you.

Put your light in my eyes.

Put your fire in my soul.

I want to be awed By your tall, Chinese steel, Your re-enforced concrete, Dangling thousands of panes Of glass, like an immense Chandelier over my city.

I lower my head, And raise my eyes; I want to cheer your Glistening magic.

But you fail me.

I only feel strain In my sockets, Tension in my neck.

No lightness of heart Or fluttering of stomach.

You, my city’s crowning jewels, Relinquish me to irreverence, And quiet apathy.

So I step on the accelerator,

Turning back to I-83 South.

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- William Herman ‘13

Andy Shea ‘13

Lots | Oil on Panel | 8x10

Andy Shea ‘13

Bass on Sofa | Oil on Panel | 10x18

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Mother’s Eyes

They say I have my mother’s eyes.

Mother and Father know They can always tell My head is high but heart below Skilled, deft am I To block the outer signs

Like a blind runner No vision Just motion and rhythm I feel my way Numb to pain

“Honey, your eyes,” she would say.

“Mum, I’m fine,” I would sigh.

Dad’s back His shoulders bent towards the knees A silent worker

I straightened my shoulders.

“Get some sleep, Zee.” I shook my head Rubbed my brow

I caught him Staring through me

They say I have my mother’s eyes.

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- Zane MacFarlane ‘13

Austin Evans ‘13

Evening on Federal Hill | Oil on Canvas | 36x48

Gabe Donner ‘14

Dad | Oil on Canvas | 16x20

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Theo Leasca ‘14

Skull Study | Oil on Board | 5x8

Blake Benfield ‘14

Red Forest Landscape | Oil on Cavnas | 16x16

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Ben Fisher ‘13

Whiteout VII, Iguana | Oil on Canvas | 20x20

Elie Baronghozi ‘14 Tomato | Oil on Panel | 4x4

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He Sido Mordido

Veo los verdugones De una manzana estropeada, En el zócalo, Sobre el piso, Y por toda la pared que me apoya.

Pero,

Totalmente claro es.

Veo con la perfección

De agua destilada, recién herida

Goteando en una copa, recién soplada

Dentro del aire a la superficie

De una estrella azul.

Pero,

El aire está podrido.

Cato el agua con los labios estropeados Volviendo a ser verdugones Me amarga la manzana.

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- William Herman ‘13

I Was Bitten

I see welts On a spoiled apple, On the molding, On the floor, And along the wall that supports me.

But,

Everything is completely clear.

I see with the perfection

Of distilled water, recently boiled,

Dripping into a glass, recently blown,

Within the air along the surface

Of a blue star.

But, this air is putrid.

I taste the water with spoiled lips, Turning into welts.

This apple bitters me.

- William Herman ‘13

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Freddie Leathurbury ‘16

Still Life With Flag | Charcoal on Paper | 18x24

Kevin Wang ‘16

Column | Graphite on Paper | 18x24

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Jack Dearing ‘16

Ivy on Wall | Graphite on Paper | 11x8.5

Michael Holmes ‘16

Skull | Graphite on Paper | 9x12

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Duplicity - (n.)

1. a quality or state of being characterized by deceit 2. deliberate deceptiveness

In essence, she was walking because she wanted to feel special. She was simply using an overgrown path next to a stream with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Or so she liked to think. She liked to think of many things, and often they contrasted with the things she was actually thinking about. And often, she was very confused.

Her choice of the obscure path made her feel stupid. In fact, she realized that she somehow managed to embarrass herself even when no one was watching which was not a good beginning to her walk. In an attempt to be her own trailblazer, she did something stupid. Like those so-called unsophisticated, uncultured people, she thought nature looked, smelled, and felt rather disgusting. Fresh mud was all over the place and was ready to jump at whoever put too much pressure on it with a sneaker.

Sometimes, she wondered how she would go about writing a memoir or an autobiography of herself. She wondered whether her life was interesting enough to deserve a book about it. She wondered whether having thoughts like these would make her self-centered. She wondered whether having all of these strange thoughts made her different, or did everyone else have even stranger thoughts that they hid Clunk!

Ouch. . . She tenderly fingered the quickly forming bruise on the bone that surrounded her left temple. The leftover rainwater had transferred itself to her forehead, and she was smearing the disgusting stuff all over her face. She had stopped walking and was now hunched over, eyes closed with a grimace on her face. Maybe I deserved to walk into a stupid tree, she thought. I was trying too hard to find meaning in my thoughts. Presently, she kept walking.

She resolved that her use of the obscure path also made her hurt her forehead, where there was fresh blood she was unaware of.

There was a perfectly friendly path on the other side of the stream.

Often, avoiding clichĂŠs was itself a clichĂŠ, so she paid for it. All of 20

this reverse-reverse-psychology set her on edge.

Today’s senior speech was about reverse psychology. She hated senior speeches. It was also about how bad the senior’s life was. She had realized that people often competed with each other to be able to say that their life was tougher than another person’s.

She liked to think that people got dumber as they got older, but by the time they were senior citizens they got smarter again.

The cyclical ideas were aesthetically pleasing, so much that She heard footsteps behind her. Her heart was pounding.

She discreetly glanced behind her to see a boy around her age feeling that bark of the tree she had walked right into, about twenty yards away. He may have been feeling reflective and connected to nature, or he may have just been trying to rub off some of the malevolent mud that had jumped onto his hand. It was impossible to tell.

In any case, the girl looked back to see a benevolent tree, one that gave, gave, and gave and received nothing in return except disgusting rainwater and malevolent mud. It was a giving tree that could teach people passing by, one that no one knew the name of. She imagined that in 500 years, its arms would be multiplied, its bark a darker hue. The tree would tower over everything else in the world, even skyscrapers.

She said to the stranger, “It’s a good tree, isn’t it?”

- Andrew Park ‘14

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John Lee ‘14

Portrait of the Artist’s Mother | Oil on Canvas | 20x16

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John Lee ‘14

Portrait of the Author’s Father | Oil on Canvas | 14x11

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A Mark

They left a mark on my soul They may not know it’s there But I do I know that you have a part of me You stole it in the night I was asleep and you awake With your sharp silver knife you stabbed deep Deep into my soul taking a chunk with you You then left the knife for me to remove

Your blade is gone now But the divot is still there It cannot be filled as it once was Because of it I cannot forget The mark reminds me what you did The hole is full of memories The memories are cold to the touch Yet I feel the heat coming off of them I hate and love them

Your mark is not the only one Others have sunk their fangs They pierced my skin to drain me I still feel the holes they have left I remember the feel of their cold fangs The feel of the fangs as they sank into me I remember the warmth that went to cold I feel the claws of others The memory of how they tore a chunk away

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- Ward Sandberg ‘13

Huntington Williams ‘14

CT-Stairwell | Oil on Canvas | 16x16

Tyler Wakefield ‘14

Parking Lot With Car | Oil on Canvas | 18x24

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Chris Cortezi ‘13

The Spirit’s Third Eye | Acrylic on Canvas | 24x18

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Found You I

I found you

In class, typing and writing

A piece unknown.

As I read

I found you

On my shoulder.

I breathed,

Focused on your beauty,

Your body curved to mine.

Lost in the rhythm.

The stream steady beat down,

Not enough to wash away the soap

Down the locker room drain

When her name, in conversation, arose.

Jealous?

Not I.

Then why

In my dream

Found you I?

- Zane MacFarlane ‘13

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Chris Cortezi ‘13

Flower | Acrylic on Canvas | 12x9

Elie Baronghozi ‘14 28

Self Portrait with Gray and Brown | Oil on Canvas | 16x16

Chris Stith ‘15

Self Portrait | Charcoal on Paper | 24x18

Mike Hanley ‘13

Figure on Bed | Oil on Panel | 6x6

Taylor Swindell ‘14

Row Boats Diptych | Oil on Canvas | 8x16

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The Boy and His Red Ball

The red ball rolled across the intersection and, like a teardrop, fell through the street grating. The little boy saw this and threw his cap on the pavement. Focusing solely on the street grating that had swallowed his toy, he rushed into the street. As he took his third step, the streetlights for the crosswalk changed to the image of a flashing red hand.

There were only two people to witness this – a well-dressed man, and a little girl.

The man held in one hand a cell phone and in the other hand a briefcase. His outfit had been dry-cleaned and ironed only a day before, and his shoes had been polished just that morning at the train station. The man had to shout into his cell phone as the oncoming traffic made it difficult to hear the unreasonable demands of his boss – something about missed opportunities and overtime.

The man looked up for a moment and saw a little boy running towards him. The honk of an oncoming Subaru steadily increased in pitch. His cell phone fell, clattering on the ground next to his feet.

He stood still, frozen in time.

The little girl held an ice cream cone. She had been eagerly licking the melting strawberry ice cream dripping onto her hands.

She had seen the little boy, who reminded her of her older brother.

The little girl had watched the red ball bounce up and down and up and down, until it hit the edge of a stone and changed trajectory into the street. She vaguely recalled something her mother warned her about playing in the neighborhood, but to be fair, it was hot, and her ice cream tasted so good. The little boy chased the ball into the street, and she savored the taste of strawberry on her tongue. The wind picked up, blowing her hair into her eyes, and she could not see.

The Subaru approached, and the little boy continued running. As he approached the street grating, the little boy heard the shrill honk of the Subaru and felt a strong gust of air against his back. He continued running. By the time the little boy reached the street grating several seconds later, the man had picked up his cell phone, and the little girl had pushed the hair away from her face.

The little boy knelt down and squinted. He could not see his 30

ball, as the depths of the sewage system consumed it in darkness.

The boy sat on the curb and wept. Only his tears fell through the street grating and found the red ball.

- John Lee ‘14

John Lee ‘14

Mountain Bike | Graphite on Paper | 17x12

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John Chirikjian ‘13

NYC | Canon 5D mkiii | 50mm

Jack Harvey ‘16

Devil’s Aces | Canon T2i | 18-55mm

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David Cha ‘13

Waters of Capri | Nikon D800 | 24-70mm

David Cha ‘13

Defeat | Nikon D800 | 14-24mm

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Converse It is you for whom my heart aches and my spirit longs Hey My mundane life continues, but just a glimpse of your soul inspires me not much hbu?

You protect others as fearlessly as a lioness protects her own Yur da best Your wit revives memories of a merry schoolboy replete with glee Hahahahha :) Our love is as unyielding as a blazing volcano and as pure as a thornless rose I <3 U I promise, my love, no wickedness shall wither our affection and I shall return gtg ttyl

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- Kyle Tarantino â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;14

Mike Hanley â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;13

Schwarzwald | Oil on Panel | 8x8

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Unnecessary

I released a piercing scream, the kind only achievable by little boys, as Marianne’s little brother lifted his metal fire truck from the ground and over his head. He cried out and threw it at me.

My heart pounded violently as I tucked and rolled out of the way.

The toy crashed spectacularly next to me and I let out a sigh of relief, smiling from the adrenaline release.

“The enemy is weaponless! Go in!” I screamed. There was a whooshing noise next to my left ear as a pillow soared past my head. It hit the boy in the chest and he crumpled to the ground.

Marianne bravely ran past me, a small blur of blond hair, tied in pigtails with impossibly long, bright red ribbons. They streamed behind her like fire from a rocket.

“Die!” she screamed, brandishing a rubber sword. Her stubby legs worked hard to cover ground and her arms pumped furiously in her too-small shirt that was stained with ketchup from lunch. Her brother got up in fright and ran to the open closet of toys, quickly selecting a Nerf gun. He aimed and shot a styrofoam bullet directly into the stomach of the charging Marianne. “Ahhh!” she cried.

She violently convulsed on the ground. “I’ve been shot. I’ve been shot!”

I ran to her side, and she looked up to me, her eyes fluttering. “Tell my husband, I love him.” She gave a pathetic cough and went limp on the floor.

“Wait, wait, who’s your husband?” I said.

Marianne’s eyes snapped open, “Don’t you remember, Adam?

The giant panda bear,” she pointed to the stuffed animal tucked tightly in a makeshift bed of couch cushions and an old blanket.

“He was frozen by the evil time wizard,” she said, nodding towards her brother.

“I thought he was your uncle?”

“No, my uncle is the lion but he died.”

“Oh, right.” I said. “I will tell him.”

“Awesome,” Marianne said. She closed her eyes again.

I guess it was like falling asleep in the car. One moment, your eyelids get heavy and you tell yourself that you will rest your 36

head. The next moment the car is stopped and you drearily look at your mother and she says, “We are home, sleepyhead.” And you realize that a time has come and gone and all of a sudden everything is different. The road is gone, your house is in front of you - you have been moved. This happened to me in the sixth grade.

It happened to her as well. Unfortunately, we had not moved together.

It was an unusual friendship from the beginning. The kind where either its exciting novelty conquers the glaring differences or those same differences are too distinct and the initial connection simply slips away, like a band-aid on a wet finger.

Luckily for us, Marianne and me, opposites attracted. It developed on the barren parking lot that our first grade class frolicked on during recess. We weren’t different people with different interests; she was just a girl and I was a boy and, in the lower school playground, that is a gaping chasm of pure, unconquerable dissimilarity. Grubby hands and skinned knees defended themselves from the treacherous cooties, but behind the severe lines - a simple exchange, “My name is Adam.” I said this as I spied her with trading cards of a particular show I liked. She looked at me with eyes dark as the asphalt upon which her velcro shoes stood; the dark spheres were like pools of distilled water and the landscape before them was reflected back in a dreamlike quality. I could see my unsure face in their glassy surface. “I’m Marianne,” she said, laying her cards out on the lot. “Do you want to be friends?” I said, with a casualness reserved for asking grandparents for toys at the store.

She turned her head to investigate a faraway scream on the lot, the sunlight caught her face and her eyes transformed into a deep, chocolate brown. “Sure.” That was that and we were inseparable.

For a bit.

It really all started with Jessa DiCampio, the pop star. It was sixth grade. In my heart, I know Jessa is a decent soul, her Twitter account proves this, but I still hate her. Marianne got one of the CDs from Sarah Dale. Sarah Dale was pink and she was glossy and she loved to take selfies in the bathroom with her phone. I didn’t know she and Marianne were friends. Or talked even.

Marianne made me listen to Jessa at her house. “Isn’t she wonderful?” Marianne cried. “Sarah’s favorite song is ‘This Booty Ain’t Yours,’ but I really like ‘Bittersweet.’ It’s very sad, but it gets 37

happy in the end. It’s this lovely song about a girl who wants to be a star.”

Jessa didn’t register with me. I wanted to go on the trampoline and practice flips. Marianne said, “One more song, and then we will go outside.” But it ended up being five songs and by then she was emotionally exhausted, and we sat in her room for the rest of the day. She read magazines, I drew superheroes glumly.

It was a Tuesday and I sat at the lunch table, where she and I always sat, along with our other friends. But Marianne was nowhere to be seen. I spied her giggling with Sarah Dale and Lucy Greene; her blond hair bounced lightly as she laughed, and it was tied in a ponytail with a long pink ribbon. I thought I would join them. If Marianne liked them so much, I believed I would, too.

Naturally, I was wrong, as neither of the two had much of anything to say. They gossiped and talked about a fight between two other girls in the class. One, Ellie, had a few girls over for a sleepover and didn’t include the other, Makayla. “It’s against girl code,” the table said. It was treason. It was unimaginably boring.

“But Makayla can be so annoying, like, all the time,” Sarah added. “It’s so annoying,”

At the end of the day, Marianne and I had plans to play Super Smash Bros on the Wii; it was our favorite game. She would always be Falcon and I would always choose Snake and we would fight over who was better. This time, today, we fought over if we wanted to even play the game at all.

“It’s just that we play it so much, how about we do something new?” Marianne said.

“We did something new last time and all we did was watch MTV for three hours. I don’t want to watch MTV.”

“Please? I really have to see this show. Sarah told me all about it.”

I don’t know why I gave in. I really didn’t want to. But I thought maybe if I watched the show, I would be able to participate in the conversations at the new lunch table. It was starting to really bother me, the way Marianne paid so much attention to Sarah and Lucy. And even more people now. I sat right next to Marianne and somehow over the period of the lunch, I would end up farther and 38

farther away as more people came to sit down. I had to crane my neck to be seen and there was no way to be heard over Sarah’s thunderous voice, rising above the table as if she was trying to fill every inch of the room with her own self.

It was better on Saturday, though. Marianne claimed she was “like, really stressed, from school” and so we sat at my house and drew pictures of faraway lands and laughed as we came up with stories for all the people and things.

“Her pimples contain a deadly toxic substance,” Marianne said. “And they’re all over her face.” She flourished the character, drawing with dots of red markers.

“That’s gross,” I said, laughing. I didn’t think it was all that funny, but Marianne always said crude things like that and I was so happy that things were finally back to what they had been. We parted that day stronger than ever.

“Hey Marianne,” I said to her. It was Monday. We were at school.

“Anni,” she said.

“What?”

“Anni. My name is Anni now,” she said and with a flourish of her pencil, she signed her new name in perfect cursive and dotted the “i” with a heart. “It’s so much cuter. Marianne is an awful name, I don’t know what my parents were thinking. As if I was going to grow up and be a professional knitter or something.”

“Oh, um, Anni,” I said. It felt weird to say it to her. It felt weird to feel weird around her. There was an anxiety, as if I were proposing a question to a stranger - not my best friend. But then I looked into her eyes and they were still the same. I could see myself in them. “The big Adventure Time marathon is on. We can finally catch those two episodes we missed.” Marianne (I still refuse the name Anni, and I’ve always felt she would regret the name change later on in life) smiled at me.

“Please come with me,” she said and she pulled me into the corner of the classroom. She grabbed my shoulders and looked down at me. She had begun to grow and now stood a good five inches taller than me. Her long blonde hair, usually drawn in her signature tight ponytail, was cascading down her shoulders. A slight curl was at the ends that had never been there before. There 39

was something weird about her eyes too. And then I noticed the black eyeliner, unevenly drawn along the edges, varying in tone as it stroked across the top of her eye, with inconsistent bumps from a shaky handling job. They were like little, black mountains.

“You can’t say things like that,” she said, still smiling. “Thats just, like, embarrassing.” The last sentence was perky. It was false.

She looked back at Sarah and her friends and made a funny face.

They laughed and looked at me. The five inch height difference became five feet.

“Yeah, yeah okay,” I said quickly. My face felt flushed and I felt ashamed. I felt embarrassed for my own self, and that was confusing. For it was Marianne who should have felt bad. I did nothing wrong; we always talked about this stuff. But here I was feeling bad for interrupting her and her friends.

After that I never instigated a conversation with Marianne,

she had to do so first. I no longer felt comfortable doing such a thing with her. I knew I wanted to hang out, but I was no longer sure if she wanted to hang out with me. The only way to know for sure was if she were the one to ask.

It was the winter mixer. The dance of the year for everyone, and I suited up in a nice polo shirt. I was carpooling with Sean and Jack, who were two guys I had met since that one day in the classroom. They were all right. A little spastic for my taste but they always wanted to play Super Smash Bros. and they never wanted to watch MTV.

As we pulled up to our school, the car in front of us was already unloading. An impossible number of girls tumbled out of the trunk and the sides of the car. All giggling and screaming for no apparent reason. Nothing was either funny or scary. They were just being dropped off.

I hopped out of Sean’s mother’s car and made my way to the door.

“Adam!” someone yelled.

I turned around and it was Marianne, “Come take a picture with me. Guys!” she screamed again. “Get my picture with Adam.”

She grabbed me and pulled me close to her, she was wearing a tight t-shirt and short jean shorts, even though it was winter. I looked up at her face and her lips were red and the mascara 40

around her eyes was now heavy and created a perfect black curve around her eyes. All of a sudden a camera was upon us and in the confusion I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a serious picture or a funny one. So I just went halfway, which was a mistake because it just looked like I had been caught in a wind tunnel.

Marianne squealed when the picture was taken and ran over: “I have to see if I should delete it or not.” When she saw the picture, she let out a hearty laugh. Her friends also laughed alongside her, but not openly. I saw the eyes turn to one another, exchanging some inaudible language.

She looked at me and said, “You are so funny, Adam!” And I was crushed. It was a compliment, yet I could not see it that way. A condescending blow rather. Because she knew me and she knew I was funny. And like the screams she and her friends were emitting, it was all unnecessary.

- Ben Fisher ‘13

Taylor Swindell ‘14 Sunset | Oil on Panel | 4x4

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Bradley Tendler ‘13

Glass and Path | Oil on Panel | 12x12

Kevin Kuczynski ‘15

Lumen Steps | Graphite on Paper | 15x22

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Blake Benfield ‘14

Woods in Winter | Oil on Canvas | 16x16

Mike Hanley ‘13

Self Portrait | Oil on Canvas | 24x48

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David Cha ‘13

Strength in Unity | Nikon D800 | 24-70mm

David Cha ‘13

Lake Tenaya | Nikon D800 | 70-200mm

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Tyler Wakefield ‘14 Rofo | Oil on Board | 16x20

Andy Shea ‘13

Couch | Oil on Canvas | 24x30

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Elie Baronghozi â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;14 Pivot | Oil on Canvas | 12x9

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