Paragon (2025)

PARAGON VOL. 46

[front cover] Coast | Grayson Mickel ‘25 | oil on canvas (30x30)

PARAGON Ad Astra.

vol. 46

P A R A G O N VOL. 46 | 2025 | Gilman School | Baltimore, MD

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Ellis Thompson Nathan Cootauco

VISUAL ART EDITOR Joshua Turner

LITERARY EDITORS Matthew Chi Jay Salovaara

FACULTY ADVISORS Karl Connolly John Rowell Arnisha Royston

REVIEW BOARD Cian Connolly Cameron Donohue Joseph Hutzler Liam Higgins Holden Herman Sean Jiang Evan Lauer Grayson Mickel Luca Mulligan Sam Nuermberger Billy Smyth Phineas Schanbacher Bo Vaughn

CONTENTS

Prose | Poetry | Photography | Sculpture | Visual Art

Dogs . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Cowboy . . . . . . . . . . 16

Noir . . . . . . . . . . . 2

In the Spotlight . . . . . . 17

Generational Divide . . . 3

Frozen River

Hudson Braue ‘26

Phineas Schanbacher ‘25

Timmy Edwards ‘25

Ronan Wrenn ‘28

Sam Sinofsky ‘26

. . . . . 18

. . .4

Roadkill . . . . . . . . . . 19

The Plane . . . . . . . . . 5

I Love You, Mom . . . . . 20

Hand in Hand Timmy Edwards ‘25

. .

Rohan Vesely ‘26

Dylan Moyar ‘26

Sound Waves Liam Digges ‘27

. . . . .9

Grayson Mickel ‘25

Teo Garza ‘26

Cow in France Michael Edwards ‘25

. . . . . . 21

Golden Hour, Crisp Collar 10

Call of the Future . . . . . 22

Ukraine Desperation . . . 11

Dragons in the Sky

Anders Martin ‘26

Matthew Chi ‘26

Prismatic Writer . . . . . 12

The Toddfather . . . . . . 25

Persecution . . . . . . . 13

Through the Trees . . . .26

Boy with Jug . . . . . . . 14

Caught by the Tide . . . . 27

Mourning Tomatoes . . .15

Eternal Sunshine . . . . . 28

Adler Spotte ‘28

Liam Digges ‘27

Joshua Turner ‘26

Ellis Thompson ‘25

Ellis Thompson ‘25

Leo Eiswert ‘26

. . . 23

Billy Smyth ‘26

Luca Mulligan ‘27

Eric Chen ‘25

Eric Chen ‘25

The Summer Ends . . . . 29 Peter Eiswert ‘25

Morning Hues of Spring

44

Sean Jiang ‘27

Night Walk in Antibes . . . 31

Snow Day . . . . . . . . 45

Flight 707 . . . . . . . . . 32

Midnight Pit Stop . . . . 46

. . . . . . 35

Not in Session . . . . . . 47

The User is Typing . . . . 36

In Venus’ Meadow . . . . 48

. . . . 37

Basket of Heritage . . . . 49

Grayson Mickel ‘25

Sean Liu ‘25

3 Musketeers Sawyer Enright ‘25

Justin Lin ‘26

Flipping in Amalfi Nathan Cootauco ‘25

Mom and Calf

Nathan Cootauco ‘25

Joe Hutzler ‘26

Tyler Linkinhoer ‘28

Francis Beam ‘25

Gabriel Zerhouni ‘25

Coco Bose ‘26

. . . . . . 38

Falling . . . . . . . . . . 39 Ben Barish ‘25

The Spotlight Jack Britton ‘28

. . . . . .50

Reflections of the Deep

50

Jack Britton ‘28

Scarlett’s Nails . . . . . . 40

Four Eyes . . . . . . . . . 51

Postludes

Adam . . . . . . . . . . .55

Ben Barish ‘25

. . . . . . . . 41

James McLaughlin ‘26

Randy Liu ‘26

Phineas Schanbacher ‘25

Slow . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Campus Whiteout

Bridging Time . . . . . . 43

Psalms 36:9 . . . . . . . . 57

Nikhil Gupta ‘26

Evan Choi ‘26

Max Shein ‘26

Sawyer Enright ‘25

. . . 56

Paragon is a proud recipient of a 2024 NCTE REALM Awards First Class award.

From the Editors: Paragon has enlightened me to the infinite realities that art can animate, deepening my mindfulness through interpretation and creative thought. Reflecting on the last three years of lighthearted, collaborative meetings, I am grateful for the personal growth this magazine and its contributors have inspired. Volume Forty-Six of Paragon showcases an astonishingly diverse range of art forms and styles. Its literature elicits both laughter and contemplation, its paintings challenge viewers to explore the boundaries of realism and abstraction, and the magazine as a whole will, I hope, leave you in awe.

Nathan Cootauco Co-Editor-in-Chief

My earliest memory of Paragon was sliding a copy from the Lower School front desk in fourth grade. Holding the magazine, I felt I had entered an exclusive creative society, comprised of legendary upperclassmen whose names I knew only from paintings hanging in the Lumen Center. Curled up in the backseat on the car ride home, I pored over the pages of the magazine until my curiosity had been satiated. I remained in awe of the incredible paintings I had seen and the captivating stories I had read. The past 4 years in Paragon have allowed me to continue to marvel at the artistic feats of my peers and to further celebrate them by showcasing them in our magazine. I cannot imagine my high school experience without the afternoons spent discussing, designing, or laughing with the Paragon staff. Paragon has brought me a stronger awareness of the sheer talent, creativity, and ingenuity that surrounds me at Gilman. This year, we chose to feature the notion of ad astra from Gilman’s crest, a notion that urges Gilman students to reach for the stars in all pursuits. We have placed a star insignia on a few pages throughout the magazine to invoke this value. While reading this magazine, I hope you observe Gilman students striving for artistic success—reaching for the stars—and that you are thereby reminded of the vibrant, impressively talented artistic community Gilman possesses.

Ellis Thompson Co-Editor-in-Chief

Dogs | Hudson Braue ‘26

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Noir

PHINEAS SCHANBACHER ‘25

I often think about my predecessors and Their black-and-white love.

Swallowing passion with A vase of gray flowers on the nightstand gray light shining in through the curtains, Looking down into their beloved’s Pale gray eyes.

To be loved in noir Is to be loved in secret.

I wish they could’ve seen the colors, The peach and red and brown of their Other halves, Not tinted by the shame of Being shot on a camera That cast their love In darker hues.

Generational Divide | Timmy Edwards ‘25 | oil on canvas (30x30)

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Hand in Hand | Timmy Edwards ‘25 | oil on canvas (24x36)

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The Plane DYLAN MOYAR ‘26

T

he world was the same, but my world was different. A spark from the fire in my living room ignited the red fibers of our wool rug and burned half of it. With the rug, the fire immolated my toy plane, which had been lying beside the imprint of my body, where I usually lay beside the fire on peaceful evenings.

The toy plane had been a gift, left by my former best friend five years ago. The plane was made of wood and not larger than my palm. Red and blue ran along its white sides and cut underneath slanted wings that jutted out from the body. It wasn’t particularly detailed. Something about its simplicity had encouraged my ritual of holding it, resting my gaze on it, attempting to draw some comfort on bad days.

Heading through school the next day was a strange experience. My skin felt tight, like a bubble shrinking around me. I couldn’t really perceive anyone around me, so caught up in what was playing out in the scenes of my mind. I hadn’t slept all that well, not only because disposing of the rug and cleaning the ash had taken hours, but also because I had kept flickering in and out of semi-conscious dreams that didn’t constitute real sleep.

Now it was as if I had never woken up.

“You look like a zombie.” I could hear her saying it. “Sweet dreams?”

I hadn’t gone to Sylvia’s funeral because it had been held in Australia. She had moved there after living the first twelve years of her life in Roland Park, as my neighbor.

My mom received the email, not me. She was the one who broke the news to me, then.

Two weeks later, a package arrived in the mail. It was petite, and in it was only a sealed envelope with a slight bulge, indicating a small object within. It was a toy plane.

Now that the plane was gone, my world had changed. The world beyond me, I could discern from the work stacking up for my classes and the fact that my mom didn’t take me out to brunch that day, was the same. It was indifferent.

After a couple weeks of lighting cinnamon candles by my bedside each night, I began to forget the plane. My parents got a new rug from Craigslist, covering the singed wood. The living room looked normal. I felt normal, mostly.

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Only I started considering something radical. Deep in my memorabilia drawer was a folded piece of cotton paper with my name scribbled in loose cursive script on the back. The letter had been with the plane in the envelope.

I had never read it. I had decided not to read it until the right moment came. Now I considered reading the letter.

But I put the consideration off. The queasy feeling it gave me as it nagged was only a little missense in my stomach. I ate more to cover it up.

My grades didn’t fall. I didn’t lose sleep. The memory of the plane passed on, first to my subconscious, and then, having retreated out of my brain, to the unreachable tundras of the past. I witnessed this in a dream. The plane passed all my memories and Sylvia on her altar. Fields. Eons. Civilizations. Flying, it passed out of my sight. I believed it passed away.

I had to leave history class because I puked. The funny and shameful thing was, I puked into Sammy’s bag, which was right next to mine, which I easily could have grabbed instead. Loosely registering that fact and brushing off a compulsion toward guilt, with my bag slung over my right shoulder, I followed my mom out of the nurse’s office.

It had been the video of the first plane crash on 9/11. That’s not what I told my mom or the nurse or my history teacher, of course, I told them it must have been something bad I ate the other day. But it was the plane crash that triggered this.

The plane rammed the tower without accelerating at the end. To the ultimate devastation, it glided. Guided by a steady, knowing pilot waiting for the explosion.

I had been the pilot.

Fear gripped me. And I was afraid like I’d been as a child taking the garbage out at night, knowing the monster’s claws extended behind my back. Afraid like prey. Afraid because I may have steered each plane: to Australia and to the grave and to the flame.

What had Sylvia wanted to tell me in her final letter? What had her mom, who had cut off contact those five years ago for no better reason than “the inconvenience of paper correspondence and undesirability of online communication”, deigned to send to me right before that vile email? What did Sylvia have to say to me?

She left because people didn’t like her, and people bullied her, and I didn’t defend her. I was caught between defending my popularity and my best friend: as a middle schooler, the first was the inevitable choice. But it wasn’t a choice, no line I crossed, it was a constant, steady cooperation. I was a smooth pilot. I thought she blamed me for it. For not being rocked by turbulence, for not protesting her departure more, for not sneaking 6

onto the plane with her to the red land. She may have even been blaming me still, for putting her plane beside the fire each night and letting my spirit dwell that close to the same danger which, in her new home, had incinerated her.

All of a sudden it seemed the only reason I had not read the letter five years ago was so that I could read it right now. It was midnight. My window was cracked open and a slight gust brought a shiver in.

I took the paper out from beneath the clutter of my memorabilia drawer. I was afraid the elegant script would be penned not by a slim, pretty girl, just barely a teenager, but by a woman who knew me, who had grown up at my side over the past five years. By the ghost whispering. I placed the letter on my large wooden desk, stood up to turn off the light, and lit a candle to read.

It was the girl’s handwriting.

Dear Tyler, I miss you more than you know. You’d love the kangaroos here. I wish you would visit, but I know Mom doesn’t want that. I don’t blame you for what happened.

I love you still. I wish you would be less melancholy all the time, because maybe you would start realizing why you do what you do and being okay with that. You would be friends with people you like and find classes that you like.

Me, I started woodworking at my new school. I’m the only non-Australian here. My classmates like that about me. Anyway, I carved you a plane as my first project, and one of my new friends painted and glossed it. Take it as an invitation to fly away, up and out of your Baltimore bubble. There’s so much to see!

The sun is blazing out here. For you it must be summer, for us it’s apparently winter, but with this heat I don’t believe it! It’s not possible!

There was a change: the script looked less controlled from there on out. The paper was more wrinkled, as if an eraser had scrubbed it several times, or it had gotten wet. I squinted.

I miss you. Leaving hurt. I hope you don’t forget me now that I’m gone.

Hold on to me, please? We had all these plans together, what to create and what to experience. Please admit that what’s happened now is silly. It’s only intervening briefly with us. We’ll be back together in five years, fresh, knowledgeable, ready. Nothing’s really gone, right?

You better write me back by hand. Soon. I’m not supposed to give you my new phone number, and honestly I agree with that (as long as you write me back), because texting or calling would not be very nice or soulful. Say hi to your parents. I hope you like the plane!

Sylvia 7 | VOL. 46

I put down the letter and pinched out the flame. I snuck quietly out of the house and went for a walk.

A yellow light flickered across the night sky, blinking. The streetlamps refracted through the tears that were spilling out as I sat at the base of the water tower and tried to keep them in.

I could not find a reason to move forward. I did not have a reason to look back. Trapped in between, I let the haunting of my past future possess me, and I heard the strong voice of a woman coming through.

“I love you still.”

I realized that day that my world would always be different than the world outside. That although a girl who passed on may have lived on in me, for everyone else, passed on was past, was gone, was forgotten. It was my special burden, handed to me by fate, to harbor a living ghost that I loved and feared and needed, the due of living to whom I owed.

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Soundwaves | Liam Digges ‘27 | mixed media ( 12x14) 9 | VOL. 46

Golden Hour, Crisp Collar | Adler Spotte ‘28

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Ukraine Desperation | Anders Martin ‘26 | oil on canvas (16x20)

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Prismatic Writer LIAM DIGGES ‘27 Writing is conflicting, so consequently the font face New Roman is a coin with two faces, and although neither are Caesar, the civil war is very real between these roiling two faces.

During summer, I went from a blank doc to a novel draft, from an old doc to a novel draft.

I’m thinking maybe I’ll turn the page on writing; Cut Janus in half, avoid one of two faces.

But sometimes, between the keyboard cracks and silicon tracks, my valence of thought and letter just breaks.

My own iron fetters and bismuth smoke alarms quench my flames, and they foil me, my two faces.

This siren is whaling, both seductive and repulsive. Moby-Dick would resolve me to bite back, But I’m more like Ahab because sometimes the creative mind is just destroyed in these two faces.

Writing block by writing block my great powers build a wall through my head, separating not East from West, but creative from not. So, I don’t, another brick in the wall. Enjoined by my two faces.

But when the time is right, when sun rays make a complementary angle to creativity, We sit, two facets, two faces, both nameless and unashamed that every writer joins two faces.

Persecution | Joshua Turner ‘26 | oil on canvas (36x24) 13 | VOL. 46

Boy with Jug | Ellis Thompson ‘25 | oil on canvas (30x30) 14

Mourning Tomatoes ELLIS THOMPSON ‘25 Last June, Tessa pushed Plump seeds Deep into three earthenware pots.

Soil swallowed them whole—little crumbs of Earth finally becoming something bigger than themselves.

Her promise: They’ll be tomatoes by August.

And tomatoes they became Yellow-orange-red marbles tumbling towards soil In scorching Baltimore heat.

In August, Tessa and I tore life from that spindly stalk in fistfuls.

The tomatoes bled yellow onto our sleeves, a merciless execution.

In December, once Tessa was Long gone, The stalks crashed to the groundt Cast in sickly hues by unforgiving winter light.

I watched in horror as soil swallowed Those tomatoes once more, Downing life and color in one staggering gulp.

On my deck, there are three earthenware pots filled with soil, forced to bear the corpses of felled beauty.

Burdened by a loss, they cannot seem to swallow.

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Cowboy | Rohan Vesely ‘26 | oil on canvas (11x14)

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In the Spotlight | Rowan Wrenn ‘28

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Frozen River | Sam Sinofsky ‘26 | oil on canvas (24x30)

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Roadkill

GRAYSON MICKEL ‘25 I remember heavy, hot nights in late June, the sun setting so late we begged our parents to stay up just to see the fireflies float up from unkempt grass. I caught one, once, felt its cellophane wings crinkle between my hands like hard candy. It wasn’t until I let it go, let it drop, a dim glow flickering in the grass, that I realized. The light seemed to beg for averted eyes, let me wallow in guilt.

I knew it would die. Everything dies, in the way a kid doesn’t really understand, but I killed it, which is different. I’ve never broken a bone, don’t injure easily or often enough; there was the time I scraped my knee in third grade, learned that scars do fade.

Once I cut my hand on glass and it wouldn’t stop bleeding; the sight of red pooling in my palm, irrigating the deep creases of my fingers, shocked me more than the pain.

Sometimes I forget I’m soft—blood and tissue.

It takes something physical to remind me of the real things, the things I don’t choose to be. Like the car knocked off the road on I-83, a pop of metal like fireworks, and it slid, tumbled, came to a stop in a ditch, hazards flashing in memoriam. Crushed like a bug, for lack of a better expression.

Was that fate? Seldom do I find myself knees down on cold bathroom tile, listening for a God. In the dark, the tender silence almost speaks. Stupid thing. Barely a whisper, you won’t find what you’re looking for.

I Love You, Mom | Teo Garza ‘26 | collage mixed media

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Cow in France | Michael Edwards ‘25 | oil on canvas (11x14) 21 | VOL. 46

Call of the Future | Leo Eiswert ‘26 | stone scultpure

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Dragons in the Sky MATTHEW CHI ‘26

W

alking down the elementary-school hallways, my second-grade self could not help but repeat the word “relinquish” over and over. I had first seen it as the name of a Yu-Gi-Oh card, and though I neither played the game nor watched the show, the name captivated something in me. At recess, I lay on the grass, staring up at the sky, sketching clouds that looked like dragons relinquishing smoke from their maws.

In hindsight, I realize little me wasn’t using the word quite right, but I was mesmerized by the idea of capturing such a complex state of being with just one word. I relinquished my pencil before recess. I relinquished ownership of the Pokemon card I gave to my friend. I obsessed over words that felt like they stole away some elaborate meaning I could never otherwise reach. In childlike whimsy, I was fascinated by how they sounded, how they felt on a page. I marveled at the way clash meant fight or battle in a way that the latter two could never reach. My teachers were constantly frustrated by how I could spell despondent without hesitance but struggled to spell mundane words like Whensday or Febyouary. I felt as though my words peeled away the layers of the world in all of its complexity beyond the dull four-letter words that championed our vocabulary lists or reading assignments.

Then, the same language that I was once so enamored with turned its back on me.

It’s not that I fell out of love with the words that colored the naive lenses with which I once viewed the world. It’s just that I had to wear the dull glasses that school prescribes, lenses that dim instead of sharpen. What ultimately greeted my juvenile vocabulary were red ink and crossed-out lines, my teachers culling my usage of the words leviathan and inhibit, my classmates ridiculing my daydreams. I began hating writing because it felt like the layers of my world, the crimson school building bricks and serrated pine trees, were being reduced to “red bricks” and “pretty trees.”

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I heard stop dreaming. Do as everyone else does. Get it done—the words you use mean nothing. I tried my best to listen, to shade the world over with monotony under the name of maturity like everyone. I did as I was told: grow up, letting the hands of time press upon my back, sending me stumbling another and another step forward.

I am terrified that the sky one day will no longer be the same cerulean that little me once stood so riveted by. That laying on the grass in the yard before my house, I won’t be able to switch off the filter of gray–everything will look so muted. Words bounce around my head, trying to escape captivity, and, so desperately afraid that one day they’ll slip away, I write them down.

I had grown to hate writing, believing it the very reason that my joy was restrained.

Yet, to write for myself was something entirely different. As I grew older, people cared less about the word choice, looking more at the inherent meaning, whatever that means. They relinquished judgement, and I’ve relinquished my fears. I write with the desperation of my child self, hoping to capture the things he couldn’t.

I write to remember sitting in class, gazing out the window, towards the sky. Mindlessly staring into the cloudy and cerulean heavens, broken only by serrated pine trees, pretending that they are dreary and verdant spears, mounted by little grassy warriors, fighting off dragons in the sky.

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The Toddfather | Billy Smyth ‘26 | oil on canvas (20x30)

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Through the Trees | Luca Mulligan ‘27

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Caught by the Tide | Eric Chen ‘25

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Ethereal Sunshine | Eric Chen ‘25

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The Summer Ends PETER EISWERT ‘25

T

hat evening, we drank flavored seltzer water from stemless wine glasses and drove aimlessly through the town we grew up in. It was only November, but by eleven, snow began to fall onto the windshield. I let it build up until we could barely see the road before letting the wipers wash it away. Three hours earlier, a semi-trailer crashed into an electric box, taking the driver’s life and the traffic lights with it. It took forever to get anywhere, but we didn’t care —we had nowhere to go. “This used to be fun,” you said.

And I agreed. It wasn’t fun anymore.

We drove on anyway, past the basements we first threw up in, past the houses we snuck out of. The landmarks not landmarks of anything yet: nothing removed from our lives enough to be nostalgic. I’d driven this same road two years ago before it was the road we grew up on and simply the road where we lived. You rolled up your window when snow began to land on your arm and melt into an uncomfortable dampness. I turned on the heater and closed mine, too. The sound of the air conditioner filled the cracks between our empty conversation. I didn’t know then where I was taking you.

We stopped off at an Exxon. I watched you as you walked into the store. Your skin, thin and neon under the gas station lights. I turned back when I noticed you were shorter than the last time I’d seen you and got out to fill the car. My hands turned red on the pump, catching the snow between the lever and my fingers. Cars slid by on the road just beyond the curb, their wheels quiet on the blanketed street. The car was full before you left the store, so I sat on the hood and waited. A coyote walked between the brush on the opposing curb. It was carrying something in its mouth, but upon seeing me watching, dropped it and retreated back into the berm and out of view. When you got back to the car, you told me they were out of gum, and I tried to tell you about the coyote.

Without a working stop light, it was hard to turn left out of the gas station. I turned on the radio and held your hand in my lap, as we let the cars behind us blow their horns and waited until it was safe to go. A few months earlier, you called me to let me know you were dying. I was on the chairlift, skiing with my family. The music in my earbuds quickly became awkward. It was snowing then, too.

We stopped again at a one-lane bridge and let a black GMC go first. You said that your mom drove the same one. I knew your mom’s car, and I wasn’t sure it was the same, but I didn’t say it. We switched the music to instrumentals; all the lyrics sounded corny.

Everything was cliché. I turned to watch your brown hair fall over your shoulder in the passenger seat; your knees pulled up to your chest, sweater pulled over your hands. From out your window, I could see the lights still on in the Cross Roads church. We pulled into its half-empty parking lot. Neither of us had been in years, but tonight, it felt appropriate.

Saturday night mass was just ending when we opened the wooden doors.

We sat together in the back left pew and watched the parishioners exit down the aisle. We flipped the kneeling bench up and down with our feet. A baby began to cry as its mother pushed its stroller down the ramp and out the door. I cried, too, and helplessly put my jacket over your sweater. We turned our eyes and stared out through the stained glass windows. Past its glass and the Cross Roads Church, somewhere at some intersection, the traffic lights started up again, catching snowflakes in flashing yellow arrows.

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Night Walk in Antibes | Grayson Mickel ‘25 | oil on canvas (36x36) 31 | VOL. 46

Flight 707 SEAN LIU ‘25

I

wake up lying on asphalt, surrounded by metal debris. A murder flies over my head, the sky cloudy and atmosphere dim. I hear a small simmering behind me and raise my head to see a fire roaring from the distant cockpit. I keep my head there in fear of seeing what else the crash caused.

When I regain composure and stand, albeit wobbly, a woman trudges over to me and starts hitting my arm with her purse. I see the tears fall down her face, but can’t feel the abuse of her anger, given the numbness that still lingered from head to toe. I feel sorry for her, but know that I couldn’t comfort her. I am the cause of it after all.

I start walking, and, not wanting to leave her baby, she gives up and falls to the ground. Eyes pointing downward, I come upon my next victim. Crushed by gravity and flattened out by the unforgiving stone. He enjoyed Harry Potter and was starting the next movie in the series. If only he had continued to watch instead of noticing the panicked people, his last moments may have been filled with bliss.

I want them to shout at me. Throw things at me and say it was my fault. But they’re just standing around and staring at the remnants of sabotage, capturing the horror on their phones. If I weren’t so distracted, I’d put on a big show for them to enjoy. But I’m just speaking nonsense, for why would I want to entertain my own kind?

Three vehicles are in front of me. There are no empty stretchers, in fact, there aren’t enough. The crimson and cerulean lights blind me, but I keep my eyes strained and wide open. I see the kind flight attendant and the humorous captain. I wish I hadn’t told her of his tricks, maybe then she wouldn’t have dared to go near the now extinguished door. I wish I had somewhat warned him, maybe then he wouldn’t have a hole in his head.

Then, I see him, flat on the concrete, my accomplice in this crime. His hat is on the ground, soiled by dirt and ashes. His uniform is burnt and in shreds, his rank unknowable without the visibility of hardworking stripes. It doesn’t matter to me. Doesn’t matter if he was captain. I was at the front, enjoying the lavender clouds, when he decided to come out of the control center for some secret communication. I tried not to look at him, for each time I sneaked a glance, he would lower his voice. I expected some “Get it done!” or 32

“Do it now,” but what I heard gave me clueless paranoia. “I got it hidden away… two simultaneous dings.” I saw him open the door, but before he went back in, he locked eyes with me, examining my body language for any sign of intrepidity and if it would be adequate enough to stop him. After he decided I would pose no threat, he gave me a masqueraded wave and smile.

Two blue men stop me when I walk a considerable distance away from the crime scene. They must be blind as they are now pointing to the ambulance car. I hadn’t a scratch on me, and, from the agonizing pain of curiosity, I put on a hysterical act, desperate to know who else was among the wreckage. I dash towards the remains of business class, ducking behind a deformed piece of fuselage, and meet face to face with the grotesque remains of an anxious individual.

“Hey! Wha- what are you… looking at?” I turned my head to a businessman looking over at me with an alert expression, newspaper wrinkled from his clenched hands. I had created an excuse of wanting to see the magnificent view, which only made his eyebrows raise higher. “You wanna? Wanna see how we could die at any moment?” I could tell he had acrophobia, collar darkened by sweat, and hand holding a trembling pen running out of ink from working on the crossword puzzle. The conversation turned some heads, and a flight attendant came my way, presumably to ask me to take my seat.

The police find me in the middle of a remembering and drag me through economy class. I dig my heels into the ground, eyes closed and mouth straining, until my heels catch on something metallic. 21A, my seat. I was next to the emergency exit and was given instructions on how to push open the door if they made an emergency announcement, but what came instead were two simultaneous dings. My hand crept closer to the door, acting purely on instinct. I heard a gunshot, a scream, and a thud, so I chose to open it. It didn’t work. They tie me to a nearby light post and fix their attention on the actual problem. I am back with concerned eyes. I look at the heinous culprit still lying on the ground, now contained by bolded inscriptions on golden ribbons. My line of sight is restrained, only able to focus on the aftermath of a sky battle marked on a sinner’s skin. I was in the back, fearing for my life, when he trampled in, digging around for an escape. So too was I ill-prepared and sat on the ground littered with wet footprints. He spotted me, and demanded directions. I was not cabin crew; therefore, I did not know where they kept parachutes. I shook my head over and over and over until a bullet was released from impatience, and soon we met land. Luck saved me, but karma made sure I felt the pain of the collision and flung my body out into the concrete jungle for the whole world to see.

Now, as I see the chaos extinguish, I start to lose oxygen. The woman on my right 33 | VOL. 46

asked me if I had an extra hand sanitizer packet. I asked her why she would need one if we were in danger. Suspicious and scared, she held her daughter’s hand a little tighter. We were in accordance. This will not go well. Now she is back and opens her jaws up to me, a paramedic trying to restrain her and clean off the blood on her teeth. Unfortunately, I can’t own up to the sorrow. The shot of the gun ruptured my eardrum.

Flight 707’s story will end up in the newspapers. But they don’t know the truth. We don’t know the truth. No one does. Everyone who does is either recovering or gone, unable to speak of the man who ruined all our lives. And so, I berated the bystander and locked him up in a cheap casket. Only the dirt that eats at the wood can hear him lying still, waiting an eternity as his flesh rots. He took his last breath in silence, unable to whisper the words, “suspicious pilot.”

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3 Musketeers | Sawyer Enright ‘25 | oil on canvas (20x16)

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The User Is Typing JUSTIN LIN ‘26

“Hey, can we chat a bit?”

“Not right now Mom - next time. I’m buried in work.”

As I always do, fooled her with another excuse.

Mom is typing...

She stopped typing. No message sent.

Mom is typing...

“Don’t worry about it! We can talk next time! Love you!”

Same old message, but what did she type in the first one?

Unease. Apprehension. Guilt.

How far away is she? How far away have I made her?

“Hey, let’s talk now.”

The call came before my next breath.

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Flipping in Amalfi | Nathan Cootauco ‘25

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Mom and Calf | Nathan Cootauco ‘25

Falling | Ben Barish ‘25 | oil on canvas (30x40)

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Scarlett’s Nails | Ben Barish ‘25 | oil on canvas ( 12x12) 40

Postludes JAMES McLAUGHLIN ‘26 note: this poem is in the acrostic form.

The brisk summer morning rudely awakens Harsh light appearing through the broken blinds, Each ray too bright for the morning’s eyes.

When my internal clock rings On the dot at seven in the morning, Reality sets in: the work must continue.

Kind white steam escapes through the shower door’s seams, Mounds of water on my skin that scald me alive; Usual scents of bacon and eggs make their presence known, Serving as consistent reminders of the day ahead: The work must continue.

Continuously tying the knot of my destiny, Overwhelming tiredness stumbling down the steepest stairs, Now sitting on the stained couch, breakfast in lap, The horrors of violence and left-right divide on the TV. Inequitable suffering of millions, the anecdotes of misery overpowering all good; Nevertheless, the work must continue.

Unready to finish the never-ending task, Enormous car doors are opened.

The city traffic–of Audis and BMWs and the occasional Porsche– Hardly prohibits our movement forward; Every day, the work must continue.

We persist down Roland Avenue, Olfactory nerves sensing the disdain for the day, Reintroducing the gloomy clouds stretched across the sky.

Keeping these sentiments, I proceed through the eternal halls, Manufactured excitement permeating beige-toned classrooms, Underscoring the monotony of the day.

Still, the work must continue.

The four o’clock hour strikes, Classrooms emptied, solitude overtakes the building.

Once, I glanced back at Carey, Noticing clusters of students hustling to their destinations, The sidewalks overpowered by a myriad of footsteps.

I ponder their origin and experiences, their Nuances and irregularities.

Untying the knot made earlier in the day, Evening’s routine of homework and sirloin steak is continued, Dense thoughts from before depart my mind, with One final refrain: In the midst of frantic lives, I know, we all understand: The work must continue.

Slow | Nikhil Gupta ‘26 | film photography Bridging Time | Evan Choi ‘26 | oil on canvas (18x12) 43 | VOL. 46

Morning Hues of Spring | Sean Jiang ‘27 | oil on canvas (9x12)

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Snow Day | Joe Hutzler ‘27 | acrylic on canvas (18x12)

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Midnight Pit Stop | Tyler Linkinhoker ‘28

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Not in Session | Francis Beam ‘25

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In Venus’ Meadow GABRIEL ZERHOUNI ‘25

Your hair scatters into the horizon Out of reach Out of sight.

Graphite strands grasping for the body of the night Moonlight blows upon your cheek As you shatter my restraints Conversation flutters back and forth Between my tongue and yours.

I am held in an unwilling embrace My eyes cannot bear to hold the vexation of your face.

We trample through a meadow of rose red tatters Let’s tear them apart Let’s hide them away.

Just tonight, Under your light Under our sky As we scatter our sight into the horizon once again.

Basket of Heritage | Coco Bose ‘26 | woven reeds and fabric

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The Spotlight | Jack Britton ‘28

Reflections of the Deep | Jack Britton ‘28

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Four Eyes RANDY LIU ‘26

I

lived in blind ignorance—literally—until my doctor outed me at 12. The hospital walls at Kimbrough Hospital were eggshell white as always, and the only thing more boring than the appointment itself was the hour-long wait in the perplexingly empty lobby.

My mom had scheduled my brother Henry’s and my yearly doctor’s appointment right before the start of the seventh grade, so that I could start the year with a clean bill of health and completed school forms. Initially, the physical examination was nothing unusual: poking and prodding of my organs, duck-walking the length of a room, and some spine stroking for “abnormalities.” Once I passed with flying colors, all that was left was to chuckle at my older brother failing to waddle like a duck and relish in my superiority. His only comeback was “It’s harder than it seems!” Trust me, it wasn’t.

Finally, with most of a beautiful day wasted at a sterile hospital, the doctor began to walk out of the room. I let out a sigh of relief and started collecting my folded coat and hat.

But then she paused and asked, “Have you boys gotten an eye exam recently?” I responded, “Of course, just a little while ago. My eyes are perfect.” My brother helpfully chimed in with a “Yup, 20/20.” Though to my intense chagrin, my mom resolved to have us take one “Just to make sure.” My brother was up first and walked away from the eye chart until he was told to stop. Like a machine, he spat out the letters of the last row. “P, E, Z, O, C, L, F, D,” and was only interrupted by brief affirmations from the doctor and a final “Nicely done.”

My brother strutted back to the eye chart, and I was up. Step by step, I crept down the linoleum floor toward the opposite side of the room. The distance between the chart and me grew endlessly, an insurmountable trench of emptiness between us. When my nose practically scraped against the opposite wall, the doctor finally shouted, “You can stop there, that’s good.” As I turned around, I felt acutely aware of the glare from the white hospital lights that I hadn’t noticed before, and the weight of my clothes pressing on my clammy skin. The only thoughts racing through my head were: What did Henry say again? Was it P then O, or P then D? Why didn’t I just memorize it when I had the chance?

Pointing to the lowest row, the doctor asked “What’s this letter?” From my distance, all I could see were black smudges. Shamefully, I replied, “Um, I can’t really tell?” Despite 51 | VOL. 46

very helpful family advice like “Try squinting,” “Rub your eyes,” or “Really? That one was pretty easy for me, Randy,” I still couldn’t tell. To gasps of shock from my mother, we progressed row by row, going up and up. Each new collection of letters was only slightly less smudgy than the previous. I repeated “I can’t tell what that says,” and was forced to endure this public humiliation for five more rows until we finally reached the giant block text. By that point, a cave bat that lived in darkness its whole life could have figured out the chart said “E.” I hadn’t actually taken an eye exam recently, that was a complete lie. Truthfully, I was purposefully avoiding eye exams since the end of elementary school. Throughout my entire life, my mom and grandma had emphasized that glasses were to be avoided at all costs. When I was younger and I was sitting an inch away from the TV, enthralled in my favorite episode of Spongebob Squarepants, my mom would holler, “Back up! You’re gonna go blind like that.” After I got a phone and constantly stared at it in the car, my grandma would bark in Chinese, “Stop staring at your phone, you’ll go nearsighted. Look outside at all the trees instead.” Beyond their valid concerns, they would supplement their advice with comments about how I needed to avoid becoming an unappealing four-eyes. Because “Once you put them on, you can’t go back,” and “Glasses change your facial structure, they push your eyes back and you never look the same again.”

When my vision began blurring in elementary school, my only instinct was to conceal and adapt. I figured that if I managed to keep it under wraps, I wouldn’t need those dreaded lenses that would change everything. During fifth-grade Spanish, I privately arranged with my teacher to sit in the front row. No, not because I enjoyed Spanish–I hated that class–but because I couldn’t read the small vocab words on the board otherwise.

While I sat in assembly, I ignored the fact that I couldn’t tell who was speaking and zoned out instead. After all, if no one noticed my blurry vision, was it really blurry?

I managed to convince myself that seeing smudges was a normal fact of life that everyone just dealt with. My tactics continued into middle school, and COVID-19 let me kick the can down the road a little more. By the time the physical rolled around, my vision actively interfered with my life. During summer camps, signage was Greek to me until I was a foot away, and waving to friends became a game show of “I wonder who that voice belongs to?” But when I considered the solution, the price was far greater than the reward.

I mean, guessing who someone was from their voice and jogging up to every sign I read was way better than a pair of glasses.

Yet once I concluded my F- of an eye exam, my vision was inescapable. The doctor referred me to an optometrist and predicted that I would need glasses. The walk back to 52

the car, through the winding corridors of the hospital and the parking lot, was silent. Unlike my casual entrance mere hours earlier, there was no restless banter with my brother or playful shoving. Only a suffocating and impenetrable quiet that blocked all conversation. While my mouth remained clamped shut, my brain fired into overdrive. All I could notice was the blurriness of the world: the unreadable license plates in the parking lot, the murky haze of yellow and red leaves, and random people walking around, their shapes bleeding like blots of ink on an impressionist painting. Shame and failure consumed my mind. I had one job: protect my eyes, and I failed completely. I was confident that my mom and grandma would feel a combination of shame, disappointment, and disdain. Because, against their warnings, I had lost my eyesight and became trapped behind glasses.

On the ride home, my mom simply ordered, “Look out the car windows, look at the trees, and stretch out your eyes. Maybe that’ll fix them.” With that simple suggestion, my worst fears were confirmed. I was certain that she was ashamed of my eyesight, and that I would become a dreaded four-eyes unable to see past my own hand. At home, my grandma had the same reaction. After my brother described in unnecessary, excruciating, stepby-step detail how I failed each level of the test and couldn’t see even the giant, blownup cartoon text, I saw her face cloud. While my brother dashed upstairs to his room, I collapsed facedown onto our gray living room couch. I clenched my eyes shut and stewed.

I simmered in a self-made soup of disgrace and failure, lamenting how everything would change.

As the minutes slowly ticked by, my grandma sat by my collapsed self on the couch.

“Are you feeling alright?” “Yeah, I’m just a bit tired,” I lied. “Don’t worry about what Henry said, you know how he is. He just wants to get a reaction out of you, and you keep letting it happen. If you need glasses, you need them, nothing more to it. Get some more rest, you do look tired.”

My grandma had misinterpreted my despondency as a result of my brother’s jabs instead of my fears over getting shameful glasses. While she didn’t understand why I was passed out on the couch, her comforting tone was much-needed. Hearing no words of criticism and only assurances lifted my spirits. I continued lying on the couch, but my perspective was subtly changed. Getting glasses wouldn’t hurt my grandma and mom, nor would it ruin our relationship. The lack of any negative reaction shut down my doomsday predictions and sparked a revolutionary new idea. Maybe glasses weren’t the antichrist, and I was possibly overreacting a little bit. And, although I wasn’t aware of it at the time, my mom and grandma both suffered from vision problems of their own. I imagine they wanted me to go through life free of vision issues and glasses, and that they thought the best 53 | VOL. 46

way to do so was by demonizing glasses and preventing any eye strain.

I carried a mostly indifferent mood through my follow-up eye appointment, and while I waited for my glasses to be made. When my glasses were finally ready, we headed to the mall. This time, there was no longer an awkward silence overhanging the drive.

Without my own insecurities, the mood was far lighter, and I was apathetic rather than dejected.

Once I donned my new pair of light blue, square-framed Tommy Hilfiger glasses, I instantly understood their appeal. Suddenly, I could see everything. From the nametag of the employee helping me to the specific shapes and designs of glasses models from across the room, everything became crisp. It was as if beforehand, I saw life through the grainy camera lens of a waterlogged flip phone, and afterward, I stepped into a hyper-realistic 4K UHD world. On the way home, I giddily exclaimed various observations to my mom. “Holy cow, I can actually see the leaves, their shapes and edges! Everything’s so clear! You’ve been seeing this the whole time?” I finally understood the appeal of trees and looking out the car window, and I went so far as to say, “I’m never taking these off again!”

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Adam PHINEAS SCHANBACHER ‘25 I saw you eating an apple in the garden, Your shirt was a bit unbuttoned and Your skin was pulled tight over the muscle in your arms.

How I wish you’d share it, So I could have a sin to hold on to, One less destructive and cruel, Sin I wouldn’t have to slip into my pocket and only Take it out when alone.

Doing the wrong thing is lonely most of the time, And I’m often the wrong thing that’s being done.

Isn’t it just so sad That all they wanted was an apple?

To be in on it together?

Campus Whiteout | Max Shein ‘26

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Psalms 36:9 SAWYER ENRIGHT ‘25

note: this poem is in the acrostic and golden shovel form.

Goals and expectations, set in inspiring ways by everyone around us. Your life, is shaped by the good and bad, dark and light.

Men of character and kindness, we aspire to be. See, nothing to trust other than Gilman’s light.

[back cover] Summer | Nikhil Gupta ‘26 | film photography