Gmr vol15 full

the george mason review

The G eorge M ason Review

2005-2006

reba elliott , editor

laura portalupi , assistant editor

heather pontius , intern

Table of Contents FICTION

The Move, Jackie Bowen

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George Mason Review Fiction Prize Winner Helping Hands, Stephanie Juul 17 Mercy Me, Kim Johnson 20

POETRY

A Name Bears Limbs and Branches, Ethan Edwards 24

George Mason Review Poetry Prize Winner Momentarily, Alvin Malpaya 26 greyhounds, Nick Mohlmann 27 Had a good time, Elizabeth Prescott 28 For the Painter, Shauna Shiff 29 Putting on the Dress, Shauna Shiff 29 Mango Seller, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, Saima Yacoob 30

Cover Art

Abandon, Angela Ballard

Table of Contents PERSONAL NARRATIVES

Band Camp, Joseph Bourne 31 A Night at the Ball: Inside a Modern Debutante Cotillion,

Leah Donnelly 34 The Friday Librarian, Theresa Helen Koucheravy 41 Twindom, Allison Lechner 47

ACADEMIC ESSAYS

Conceptions of Time in “The Cherry Orchard” and “Swann’s Way, Overture,” Corey Beasley 52

George Mason Review Academic Essay Prize Winner The Road to Recovery: The Meaning of Metaphors About Soldiers Recovering from Injury,

Walker Chambliss 56 A Garden of Beauty?, Farisa Dastvar 61 Veiled Truths, Tori Demery 65 Hunger and Restraint in “Heart of Darkness,”

Ethan Louis Edwards 67 I Know More Than You Do: The Importance of Self Interpretation in Picasso’s “Guernica,”

Joe Hayes 70 Country-Western: From Hillbillies to Cowboys,

Joseph Swetnam 74

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The Move Jackie Bowen

One of Hallie’s hobbies as a child was the slow, earnest collection of cuss words. She practiced with them on the playground. She would climb up on top of the monkey bars and sit there with her legs swinging over the side, proud and merry, becauseitwasaboldplacetobe,andshewouldcalldowntoherclassmates,“Shityou!” or“Shit this!”in order to demonstrate something about herself that only forbidden language could introduce into her character.

Itwaseasytogetpeople’sattentionfromthemonkeybars,andgenerallyalot of people would look at her when she pulled a stunt like this. They’d frown up at her, andshe’dgrindownatthem,andoccasionallysomeonewouldcallherontheusage,but not most of the time. Recess was only twenty minutes long, and it would fly away from you if you stopped to mock every dumb kid who offended your sensibilities. Most of them already knew what came after Mother and why, but they were quiet and casual about it. They knew how to play it cool.

Hallie was a bit of an outsider in the schoolyard, a newcomer. She was nine years old, and she had spent eight of those years in a different world. Her new world, composedofaruralneighborhood,backroad,andschool,didnotfollowthesamerules as her old world, and Hallie was still getting used to this. The main thing that was new to her after the move was certainty.

Consider her climbing up onto that fiberglass monolith after lunch for the first time, the sun high in the sky and the midday light filling her eyes with precise information about theschoolyard below her. Aftershe got her balance, gulped down her fear, and decided to stay put for a while, the logical thing to do from up there was lookaround. Shecouldseethesandbeneathherdanglingsneakers,thewoodenframe that held itin,the grassbeyondit, anobstaclecourse, andasoccer fieldinthedistance.

Ifshe’dwantedto,shehadthepowertoinvestigatethemannerismsandconversationof thechildrennearby,keepanearprickedforgossip,andlearneverythingsheneededto know to establish herself in the schoolyard as a knower of secrets and a teller of tales.

But Hallie’s feelings were mixed about this new experience, this looking down from a high spot in a well-lit world, and she never took up the notion to study her classmates, because she couldn’t stand knowing too much about what she saw.

Her old world had been green and dark, and everything had been close together. Inthatplace,yourneighbor’streeputashadowoveryouryard,andyourtrees putshadowsoverhis,andsincefallneverseemedtoprogressfarenoughforthetreesto droptheirleaves,fullmiddaysunshinenevergottheopportunitytointerferewiththe children playing underneath them.

The dim place had given Hallie an ability much more wonderful than the power to eavesdrop and look over the things around her. When she saw shadows and haze, she didn’t have to see whatever it was they were hiding. She got to make things up. She had used her ability, her privilege, to make the place she lived in amazing,

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putting a wild jungle full of fairies and witches on the other side of the hole in her tall woodenfence,andbuildingamonster-infestedmazeoftunnelsbeneaththeground connecting her house to the houses of other children. She used to be able to fill any uncertain spot with something hypothetical and grand, and she had liked it that way.

With the noon sun shining in her eyes and running along the surface of the world, Hallie knew the details of her surroundings. She knew that her options were limited. She could play in this sandbox, climb on the pipes of that jungle gym, talk to those children over there about the action show they liked. The reality of her playgroundwasboringtoher,andshedidn’twanttopayattentiontoit. Soshetookup the practice of calling attention to herself.

“Shit it! Really!”

The central drama of Hallie’s life in those days was a little piece of her new world that looked like it belonged in her old one. Along the side of the road on her walk to school, there was a grove of trees set like a stage to open up and display two mighty and mysterious things for Hallie’s inspection. One was a tiny house, burnt to a crisp. Beside it was a tiny graveyard, all the graves crumbling and ignored except for the grave to the far right, which was fresh and well-kept. Every day Hallie saw red and yellowflowersthatwerealwaysnewonthetinygrave.Thesethingsweretinybecause she never got very close to them, but remote or not, they told a story to Hallie. And it was a ghost story.

At her old school in kindergarten, Hallie used to walk circles along the track in their play-yard, and a little friend would fill her head with interesting lies. She told Hallie about ghosts that haunted their school and ghosts that lurked in the woods besidethepaththeywereon. Shewouldpointandwhisperaboutthevarioustragedies that had taken place in their elementary school and around it.

She would say to Hallie,“If you see two red lights floating in the air, they’re the eyesofthegirlthatdiedherefiveyearsagowhenshewaspinnedunderafallentreefor days and days. She’s angry and restless, because no one ever heard her crying for help.

Don’t look right at the eyes, or you’ll die too.”And Hallie had gaped and shivered with delight, because it was strange and fun to feel haunted.

The old ghosts had all been snitched by Hallie’s friend out of books and campfirestories.Therewasnomanwhodiedinaconstructionaccident,nodisfigured killer you could hear rustling through the brush just out of sight, and no ghostly eyes.

ButHallieboughteverywordofitandcarriedthestoriesaroundinsideofher,because she was a foolish girl with a head full of glitter and smoke. But she had sense enough to knowtherewerenoghostsinthesun-cookedworldofsoccerfieldsandsandboxesand neighbors you had to hike to see over narrow roads and huge cropped lawns. Death andmagichadevaporatedintheheat.Theoneexceptionwas this lastspot, this shady diorama by the side of the road. Maybe there was still uncertainty here.

Onemorning,shewandereddowntobreakfastandfoundherfathercheerfully mocking curious names like“Mildred”and“Hubert”in the obituaries, which was not unusual. Her mother greeted her good-morning, asked her if she’d prefer a bagel to a toaster pastry, and then pulled a switch, telling her to go and make one for herself the

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moment she decided which one she wanted best. Hallie was used to this too.

Hallie walked to the counter and untwisted the twist tie on the package of bagels,comfortableintheroutine,andthinkingofvampires. Shewonderedifmaybe they wrapped themselves in long black capes to hide the secret fact that they had no feet. She wondered if they could bite people in turtlenecks. She set the toaster too high,burnedherbagel,andateitwithoutmindingthedifferencemuch.Thetruthwas thatshedidn’tlikebagelsortoasterpastries,evencookedexactlytherightamount,but shehadbeenpretendingforfartoolongtosuddenlyspringsomethinglikethatonher parentswithoutprovocation. Halliepickedupherbackpackinthelivingroom,carried it with her to the kitchen when she went there for a quick kiss goodbye, and then walked outside into the morning sunshine.

Something was different that day. The stern, quiet girl who walked with Hallie to school each day was there in front of her driveway as usual, exactly where theyusuallymetup,butwhenHallielookedathereldercompaniononthatparticular morning,staringrigidlyonaheadasifherlifehadbeenpauseduntilthelittleneighbor child emerged from her house to join her, Hallie was overcome by a realization.

Wasn’titpossiblethatthissolemnandunhappycreaturewaswaitingforsomekindof adventuretoo?Alwaysbefore,ithadbeennothingmorethanthegirl’scalming,rational influence that had kept her from straying from the shoulder of the road to the mulchy dirtacrossthewaythatcontainedherdiorama. Ifthatcalming,rationalinfluencecould be demolished by temptations of fun, perhaps the younger girl was in business.

They began their walk, and Hallie began her pitch.“Anna,”she said, because her neighbor’s name was Anna, “do you believe in ghosts?”

Anna looked askance at her, dull and cynical with the burden of her twelve years of worldly knowledge. “Of course I don’t.”

“Really? You don’t? Why not?”

“I’ve never seen one.”

Hallie smiled a secret smile.“That’s a silly reason not to believe. I’ve seen one.

I see it every day in the same spot, but as soon as I turn around, it sneaks away.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yup,”said Hallie, now swinging her arms, very much into the game.“It’s right around this bend, actually. Have you ever heard the story aboutThe Haunted House Of Pine Street?” She had a story prepared about the Haunted House of Pine Street.

She had made it up herself, but recited it in her head so many times that she basically believed it.“A man and a woman used to live in the House all alone, and they were very very happy and very in love.”

Anna was looking at her incredulously, but she continued,“Except one day, they got into an argument. They fought for hours, and it made them both so mad that they couldn’t stand to look at each other. So the man went downstairs to sulk, and the woman shut herself up in the bathroom and took a bubble bath to calm down. There wasonlyone problem. Shehadcandlesallaround, andsheknockedoneof them over with her elbow. It rolled and rolled, and when it got to the door, the wood caught fire right on the spot. The whole place burned before they could do a thing! And only the woman survived.”

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Anna snorted a little, and Hallie amended,“It was strange, of course, because she was closest to the fire, but she was also in the bath, so she ducked down into the water and didn’t get burned. But anyway, she blamed herself for what happened, and herhusbandblamedhertoo,sohebecameaghostandyoucanalwayscatchaglimpse of him in the window when you go by the house. If you pay attention, that is.” She looked over to the other girl eagerly, hoping Anna was interested by her tale.

But Anna was merciless: “Are you talking about the burned down church up ahead?”

“Um,”said Hallie, her arms stiffening and her stomach taking an embarrassed dive,“It’s a church?”She let out a nervous laugh.“Of course that’s not where they lived.

In fact, it’s not the house that’s haunted at all. That’s the trick to the story. He haunts the graveyard. Not everyone knows that. I do. Because I’ve seen the ghost.”

By this time they were nearing the diorama in question, or at least the half of it that hadn’t been ruined by stupid Anna forever. It came slowly into view as they approachedit,andthereagainwasthecrumbly,blackenedbuildingthatwasboringnow because no one had died there, and there again were the mysterious graves, the fresh flowers that never disappeared.

“We’ve gotta go over there,” said Hallie. This was the day for it.

Anna rolled her eyes, but Hallie leapt the ditch separating them from the graves before she got a chance to dissuade her. The younger girl trotted towards the curious plot that had held her imagination for so long and peered down at the stone’s inscription, wondering how she might make the grave’s occupant angry enough to materialize. When she looked up, Anna had one foot on one side of the ditch and one foot on the other, and she was maybe not quite stuck that way, but she was definitely at least stalled until she could figure out a way to shift her weight firmly enough to one side that she didn’t fall into the muck. “We can both see there’s no ghost,”said Anna, with painstaking dignity,“So will you come back, now? You don’t want to be late, do you?”

HalliewalkedovertotheedgeandpulledAnnaovertoherownside.“Seeinga real ghost is a lot more important than school.”

Anna sighed. It had been right of Hallie to suspect that the girl was a little bored with herself, for as soon as Anna was separated from the ordinary routine by a shallowmud-canalshewastoocautioustojump,shebecamequietlywillingtosuspend her disbelief, at least for a little while. The two girls looked at the grave in silence.

“So, what was his name?” Anna eventually asked. Hallie reread it, then answered reluctantly, “Mary.”

“Oh well. That doesn’t mean there’s no ghost.”

Hallie looked at Anna with sudden respect and excitement. “Yeah?” If the skeptic was beginning to believe, there must really be spirits about.

“You know what they always say you should never, ever do?”

“Uh huh?”

“Stand on a fresh grave. The person in it will grab your ankles and pull you down and try to trade places with you.”Anna smiled mischievously, too wise to really believe what she was saying. “But we wouldn’t dare do that.”

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Hallie huffed. “I’d dare!”

Shestareddownatthedirtwithabrandnew attitude, challenging it to attack her and inviting it to as well. She took a few steps back and then ran at it full force, launching herself into the air and coming down in a two footed stomp in the loose soil of the plot. Time froze for a moment as she spun off into imagination, convinced that somethinghorribleandwonderfulandnastywasabouttohappen.Shesawbonyclaws in her mind and smelled their moldy stench. She shrieked and shrieked as they pulled her down and the dirt filled her mouth and she couldn’t shriek anymore, and she tried desperatelytotakeabreath.Theaircameineasy,becauseshewasn’tdrowningingrave dirt under the ground, and she realized she had her eyes clenched shut. When she openedthem,shewasonherrear,sittingatopthegraveinperfectsafety,andsunlight was filtering through the branches of the trees overhead. It was shining on her face.

She scowled.

“Timetogotoschool,”dronedAnna,andHalliedidn’tspeak,justfollowedher miserably back across the ditch. They both jumped it, and Anna’s mood improved.

As the rest of the day progressed, Hallie found herself feeling like a different person. She sat in her stiff little desk hating her lessons as always, but now she hated themandbelievedthem. Shelearnedthatananimalcouldbeonlyamammal,areptile, an amphibian, or a fish, and that was very true. She learned that twelve times twelve is one hundred and sixty or something like that, and that was true too. In the space of one morning, Hallie had resigned herself to becoming a woman of science.

She went back to the monkey bars after lunch. She pulled herself up over the side, perched in her usual spot, and when she looked over the schoolyard safe in her sunlight,therewasachildsheknewstandingthereinthegrass,afamiliarfacefromher old home. Her name was Laura, and Hallie used to play in her house as a very young child.

Laura’s house was where Hallie had learned her very first cuss word. The wordhadbeen“piss.”Thecircumstanceshadbeenstrange.Shehadn’toverhearditfrom Laura’sparents,andshehadn’thaditwhisperedinherearby her friendinamomentof mischief. Laura had told her to say it in their house when she wanted to be led to the bathroom,“I need to piss,”and Hallie had said it, just as she was told, and nothing had gone wrong at all. She’d never discovered why it was an expletive outside those four wallsbutnotinsidethem,butshestillrememberedthescoldingshehadgottenwhen she’d taken the word home.

The two girls had been very close to the same age, so it was natural that they had been playmates in their twos and threes and fours. Hallie had grown into a foolish andexuberantyounggirlwhowouldbecapableofrunningandjumpingandbreathing in and out for many years to come, but Laura had developed a serious illness and died just three days earlier. But Hallie had no way of knowing that at the time.

Shehadn’tplayedwithLauramuchasshegotolder,butshehadcertainlyseen heraroundtheneighborhoodupuntilthemove. Shewaveddownatherformerfriend and happily called out her name.

Laura was too far away and too low to see her, Hallie supposed, because she

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only looked to the left and right, not responding to Hallie. Hallie nearly jumped down from the monkey bars to greet her better, but she took a look down first, gauged the distance to the ground, and thought better of it. She climbed on all fours to the edge of the bars, swung down over the side, and hung there for a second before dropping, then looked around for Laura again. Laura really must not have seen her, for she had wandered over close to the side of the school almost out of sight. But Hallie was on the ground by then, and she ran to Laura excitedly.

“What are you doing here?”

Laura smiled at her with sudden enthusiasm, but Hallie didn’t wait for an answer.“Man, I haven’t seen anybody from home in so long. It’s totally different here. I hate it.” It was okay that she didn’t know Laura well. They shared common roots. She could still gripe to her.

“Imisshometoo,”saidLauraenigmatically,carefully,lettingHallieassumeshe had been uprooted by her parents. It wasn’t true, of course. She was a ghost. She had been uprooted by viral pneumonia.“Do you remember the games we all used to play when we were little?”

“Like crawling through the tunnels?”

“Ha, you mean the ditches under the street?”

“Whatever. The first time through them, there could have been anything in there. Snakes or spiders, or the way through could have gotten skinnier and skinnier until whoever was in front got stuck there forever.”

“Rachel always led us. There were spiders. She’d use a stick to brush the webs away for everyone else.”

“She was brave. But there’s nothing creepy like that here. There’s nothing to do. You’re gonna hate it too.”

“It’s not hard to creep yourself out, Hallie. What about playing Concentrate?

You can do that one anywhere.”

HalliegrinnedabiggrinatLaura. Concentratewas agamethatnever failedto scare the crap out of you, no matter who you were and how bright it was outside. That wasbecauseyouhadtoshutyoureyesandpretendtobesomeoneelsetoplay. Leaveit to someone from her old neighborhood to remember it.

“Come on, let’s play,” said Laura. “Turn around.”

Hallie put her back to her old friend and squeezed her eyes shut, and the dead girl began to chant.

“Imagination,concentration.Concentrate,concentrate.”Witheachsyllableshe rappedonHallie’sback,herfistsnotcoldinthemselves,butHallie’sbloodrunningcold as she became aware of her heartbeat, speeding up to match the rhythm.

“Imagination,concentration. Concentrate,concentrate.”InHallie’sreality,the rulesoftheworldcouldchangedependingonwhereyoulived. Ifyoulivedsomewhere shady and full of secrets, you could let your imagination run wild, and nobody could evertellyousomethingstupidyou’dmadeupwasn’treal,becausenobodyknewforsure whether it was or not.

“Ten needles in your head and let the blood rush down.

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Let the blood rush down.

Let the blood rush down.”

Laura’s fingernails clawed into Hallie’s hair just enough to prick, and she moved her fingers down like running blood. As Hallie’s skin crawled, she wondered what it would take to make the world less boring, to cope. It was a big problem that she couldn’t remember exactly what she had put in all the shadows of her old world, besides spooks. There had to be more to her fantasy than ghosts and danger if it was going to be worth missing so badly. Maybe unicorns. How had she forgotten unicorns?

“Imagination,concentration. Concentrate,concentrate.”Unicorns,crystals, pumpkins and spooks. What was missing? She was siezed with a feeling that she hadn’t lost her imagination on the car ride across the river to a new town, she’d lost it insomeclassroomaftershe’darrived.Therehadbeenalesson,amind-numbinglesson about categorization and matching sets.

“Plunge a knife in your back and let the blood rush down.

Let the blood rush down.

Let the blood rush down.”

TwofingersjabbedbetweenHallie’sshoulderbladesandthenalltenwavered down like liquid. Hallie had given an unlucky being like Laura much reason to hate her.Shehadescapedchildhoodandemergedintothesunnyandtechnicalrealworld, and she had the gall to hate it, while Laura stayed under the ground in the dark, not rottingintheforeseeablefuture,butpreservedbythebestofmoderntechnologyand no moreusefultoherselfthanifshe’dbeenturnedto ash. Laura had liked living, so she had become restless, become a ghost. But they had been friends when they were too young for malice.

“Imagination, concentration. Concentrate, concentrate.”Everything in the world had already been discovered and named. Even the things that hadn’t been discovered were discovered. There was a pattern out there somebody had mapped.

Hallie wished no one had bothered. She didn’t want to learn it. She didn’t want to know. Wasn’t she more than a head with a face? Wasn’t the world more than a ball coveredwithgrass? Itwouldbeallrightifthereweresomesubstanceontheinside,but everyone knew that people were just full of brains and guts. Laura smiled behind her, out of sight even if Hallie’s eyes hadn’t been closed.

“You’restandingonabridge,”saidLaura,becausethemainpartofeverygame of Concentrate started about like that,“and you can feel the wind blowing all around you.”She began to crisscross her arms back and forth across Hallie’s back and neck, a little too close, so that her not-there hands passed through the girl and froze her from the inside out.

“You’re thinking you might jump, because you’re sad. I don’t know what you’resadabout,you’rejustsad.Watchthewavesrollingdownbelow,andlistentothe cars going by behind you. Nobody notices you’re there. Nobody’s going to stop you.

But then you think—maybe not, maybe you don’t wanna jump after all. You’re too scared. You’re just about to step back away from the edge. But just then, somebody

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notices you, and that someone decides to give you a …PUSH.” Laura’s hands shoved Hallie forward, just like in every game of Concentrate.

And it was exactly like Hallie’s moment jumping onto the grave, but worse and more and awful. Her body just stumbled forward a little, but her mind—her mind caught the full force of the shove and went whirling off into the sky and landed in the soccer field at least a hundred feet away.

In the meantime, Laura shuffled forward and took full advantage of the vacancy,squeezingintoHallie’slimbs,pushingherfaceforwarduntilshewaslooking out of Hallie’s eyes, and then squirming around until the fit was just right everywhere else. And the bell rang for the end of recess, and Laura dashed back to the front of the building. She was first in line to go back to class and get started with living the rest of Hallie’s life.

How unfair it was. Two girls played with dolls in Laura’s house before they wereoldenoughforschool,andatthattimetheywereequals.Theylookedalike,acted alike, laughed alike. Think of how much more living Hallie would have gotten to do if Laura hadn’t turned the tables. It didn’t matter which girl died young, really. It was unfair either way. The matter just came down to who wanted to live Hallie’s life more.

Hallieliftedherselffromthegroundoftheschoolyard,puzzledandspooked.

She was certain that she had experienced what it was like to die of fright, and she was proud that she had survived it. She looked around and couldn’t find Laura or anyone still standing about, and she felt a moment of subdued panic, because it meant she had missed the bell and would probably have to serve time for it at the next recess.

She was not able to panic fully, though, and she realized that this was because she felt almost exactly as if she had been submerged from head to toe in warm water. She was comfortable, but otherwise not feeling a thing. Her stomach didn’t lurch, her heart didn’tskip,andshefound,asshejoggedacrossthesoccerfieldtowardstheplayground andtheschool,thatshewasn’tfeelingpressureinherkneesortheearthbelowherfeet.

She had somehow numbed down to a great, human-shaped blob of neutrality. She decided not to worry about it.

But when she reached the door to the school, her problem became more intense. She could not turn the knob. She couldn’t even wiggle it. Because she had no feeling in her hands, she stared at them to make sure she was squeezing, but still, no amount of squeezing could make the door respond. Her hands just corkscrewed aroundandaroundtheknob,slickwithincorporeality. Sheslammedonthedoorwith a fist and it didn’t shake, didn’t make a sound.

Hallie slumped where she stood, hands against the door, and she stared at it as if the slick old knob was the cause for all her problems. She was becoming more frightened as the moments passed, but the feeling was dull, different—a part of her thoughts and not her body. She didn’t recognize it as fear and decided she was angry.

Whycouldn’tshegetintothebuilding?Twelvetimestwelveisonehundredandthirty.

Every animal is a mammal, a reptile, or a plant. She wanted to learn!

Hallie noticed that her feet had lifted off the ground. She stared helplessly as her hands began to slide up the wall and the top of the building drew closer and closer

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to her face. She had missed her opportunity to hold onto the knob to keep herself on theground, soshe grabbedwildlyfortheedgeofthe roof, butshewas already drifting away from the building, caught on some kind of current in the wind. She was starting to wheel around, too, but she only knew it because of what she was seeing. Her feet were over her head one moment, and the next moment she was rolling sideways, watchingthegroundandtheskyswapplacesoverandover.Thensheflippedadifferent way,andtheschool,soccerfield,parkinglotandroadallturnedcirclesaroundherhead.

SomethingaboutthespectacledistractedHallie,andshebecamelessunhappy abouthersituation. Flyingaroundintheskywasn’tsomethingshehaddonebefore. In fact, it was impossible. She was breaking big rules and no one was around to catch her.

Not, she knew, that the laws of nature were enforced by the faculty of her elementary school, but just the same, she wouldn’t be surprised to see a teacher try to send her to the quiet room for doing it, just in case no one more important noticed in time to punish her.

So she began to enjoy herself. She laughed a little and tried to use her arms and legs to direct herself in one direction or another. It didn’t work at all, but she pretended to herself that it did. She tried to send herself left and went right. She tried to send herself up and went down. She tried to send herself right, and went upwards.

That was when she first saw the sun.

The sun was not a sun anymore. It was a great white hole in the sky, rimmed with a black, pulsing circle that tapered at the edges into a dust of specks. The specks seemedtomovefreelyaroundthewhitehole,buttheystuckclosebyit,twinklingthere like hungry gnats. The circle of gnats flowed and buzzed. It had arms like the Milky Way Galaxy. It turned clockwise, slowly.

Hallie found that she was moving closer to the great hole, and the closer she got, the more she imagined she could hear it making a noise. The noise was highpitched and strange and grinding. It made her think of the sound an old lightbulb makes right before it’s about to blow itself out. Something was being processed in there. What was more troubling than the noise was that some of the gnats were closer than others, and the first gnat she got close to turned out to have two arms, two legs, and a head. It was a person.

She cupped her hands and shouted, but she was too far away, and the sound got lost. The wind was bringing her nearer and nearer to the great white hole, if not this other gnat, and she realized that she and the rest of them were going to be sucked into it. For a moment, considered going with the flow so that she might see what was insidethegreatwhitehole. Shewasn’tswimmingwhereshepleasedinthesky,afterall, shewasbeingpulledthiswayandthatbysomeforceotherthanherself,anditseemed likeifanyonewasinchargeofwhereHalliewasgoing—upintothewhiteholeordown to the earth, or even right or left—it definitely wasn’t Hallie.

Buttherewerescarystoriesfromearlierchildhoodfloatingaroundinherhead even at a time like this, a dozen stories about children transformed—not into other livingthings,butintofoodforselfishmonsters. Shebecameafraidthatifsheletherself fall into the hole, she would surely get turned into a sausage or potroast or a cherry pie,

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and either way she would become something that was intended for other people to enjoy. This was the Witch’s Oven. It would make her into dinner, dessert, charcoal. A dinosaur fossil. She wondered what she was missing in class, and she began to fall.

She couldn’t feel the falling in her stomach, but she could see it as she started turning again. First the people being eaten by the sky became tiny, then the school and the soccer field became large. She fell straight through the roof without a sound, stoppedwhenshewaswaist-deepinthefloor,andhadtopullherselfoutoftheground.

This was when Hallie finally realized that she had become a ghost. She sat crossleggedonthefloorandlookedaroundthehallwayatthebulletinsonthewalland the pastel fish mural near the lunch-room. Her relationship to these things had been completely redefined. She was dead; a sudden graduation without honors.

She supposed that life would be a little better now, at least. She wouldn’t have to stay in class when she was bored, and she wouldn’t have to eat toaster pastries anymore. She could goof off as long as she wanted. She wondered if anyone could see her, and decided to try to get into her old classroom and see if she couldn’t haunt somebody. There were a few noisy girls whom she didn’t know very well and didn’t really like. She kind of wanted to scare their pants off.

Shewalkeddownthehallway,andwhenshereachedtheclassroomdoor,she wasabletosqueezefairlyeasilythroughthelittlespacebetweenthedoorandthewall, becausesheknewshewasaghostnow,andwasconfidentwiththepracticeofhaving fallen through the roof.

In the time Hallie had spent discovering what Laura had turned her into, class was in session, and Laura had started introducing Hallie’s body to all the people in her class Hallie had never bothered to meet. Laura, as Hallie, giggled and passed notes, enjoying the privacy provided by the back-row seat her host had chosen for daydreaming. Hallie entered the room as a mist, or at least she imagined she was a mist,andwhenshegatheredbackintoagirl-shapedblob,shewasstartledtoseeherself in her usual place. Not only was Hallie where Hallie usually was, even though Hallie had died, but she was doing things that Hallie would never do, laughing and carrying on with the most awful and boisterous of her classmates. Hallie didn’t have the first idea what to make of it. Could it be that she, herself, was not Hallie at all, and had confused herself with this other girl who seemed to be healthy and totally alive? She could definitely remember being called Hallie, and she was fairly sure she’d seen this girl in mirrors, but it was still possible that she’d made a mistake. Things didn’t fall into place until she saw herself lean over and whisper to the girl beside her: “Hang on, we’re gonna get caught. I’ll ask the teacher if I can go piss, and you ask in about two minutes. We can meet in the bathroom and sneak outside.”

Suddenly, Hallie was incensed. Not only had Laura, who she had never knownverywellanyway,somehowstolenherbody,butshewasnowconspiringtouse it to get Hallie into unspeakable amounts of trouble.

Hallie wasn’t sure, though, what she could do about it all. She had no idea if Lauracouldseeher,andshewassurethatnooneelsehadnoticedwhenshefizzedinto theroom. Shemarchedforward,rightuptothegirlLaura was planning to sneak out of

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class to have stupid adventures with, and put her face right up to her ear.

“BOO,” she yelled, feeling foolish. The girl didn’t flinch, but Laura snorted.

One question had been answered at least, but it remained to be seen what good it would do Hallie if Laura, who had turned out to be an enemy of sorts, could see her.

“What did you do?” Hallie asked the girl she was used to seeing in mirrors, trying to start off politely, in case Laura had an excuse and wanted to be reasonable.

Laura simply ignored her, putting Hallie’s hand in the air and asking the teacher if she could please go to the bathroom. The teacher released her from class, smiling, and Hallie, the real Hallie, began to scowl unconsciously.

Nomatterhowboredshehadbeeninclass,shehadnever,neveraskedtogoto the bathroom just to be able to leave. No matter how stupid a lesson was, sitting in the bathroomwasstupider.Ifonlyshehadknownthatpeopleweren’treallystayinginthe bathroom when they asked to go there, she might have tried it. Her attitude towards Laura was becoming less and less reasonable. Why hadn’t she known that trick?

Where had Laura learned it? When Laura stepped out the door, Hallie followed her.

She was fuming.

Laura closed the door behind both of them, for she had held it open just a little too long—long enough for Hallie to duck through it under her arm. When the latch clicked shut, Laura smiled sheepishly at Hallie, which was a little like Hallie smiling at herself, and she began to walk.

“Anyway,” she said after a time, “I’m not giving it back.” She sounded a little guilty, but stubborn, too. She had anticipated a confrontation.

“But it’s my body,” said Hallie. “Why did you even take it?”

“You couldn’t figure it out? I died. I don’t have one anymore.”

“Oh,”said Hallie. That would explain a lot, but it didn’t seem possible. “I saw you, and I could feel you.”

Laura shook Hallie’s head and shrugged her shoulders. “Yeah, I don’t know why that was. I was only drifting along when I showed up here, but I had a feeling, you know? I had a feeling I could do this when I saw you.” She was silent for a while, thinking to herself, then she added, “Sorry. Thanks.”

“You’re not welcome! You can’t just start being me! What am I supposed to do?”

“You can be me.”

By this time, they had reached the bathroom, and Laura looked around carefully to make sure no one was around to see her talking to nobody. She peeked inside and saw two feet beneath one stall, and so when Hallie violently blurted,“But you’re a GHOST,”Laura only smiled, put a finger to her mouth, and began to pretend Hallie wasn’t there. The other girl flailed her arms and yelled, but Laura just stood there, calm and silent, occasionally flinching a little at her outbursts or mouthing,“I’m really sorry.” But Hallie didn’t think she was sorry at all.

It wasn’t long before Laura had perfected her poker face completely and stopped responding to Hallie even in small ways. She didn’t move again until her classmate—formerlyHallie’sclassmate,butHallie’sthingswerebelongingmoreand

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more to Laura by the minute—came strolling up to her, grinning with mischief.

Laurasmiledwidely,andthetwogirlsstartedoffdownthehalltogether,takingquick, sneaking steps. Hallie gave up on Laura and trudged out of the building, wondering where she could go.

Though she could really wander wherever she wanted, Hallie soon found herself walking along the road to her house, looking not at the buildings and fields aroundher,butatthewhitevortexoverhead. Shethoughtshecouldseetiny,tinygnats scatteredthroughouttherestofthesky,blackagainsttheclouds,headedtowardsthe vortex,and shefeltbadforthem. Shehopedthatthey knewitwas only ameatgrinder, abugzapper,someplaceblackanddismal. Shehopedtheyknewhowtofallbackdown to the earth.

Hallie looked down at the ground she was walking on and noticed that her steps were slowing. She had gone into autopilot, she realized, and if her timing was correct,shecouldnowlookoverherleftshoulderifshewantedto,andseeherdiarama, theplacewhereshehadlearnedearlierinthedaythattherewasnosuchthingasghosts after all.

She did look, almost compulsively, for she had never walked by her diarama without looking. There was the tiny burnt up house as usual. There was the tiny plot of graves. And there, sitting behind the one with the flowers, was a tiny girl about sixteen years old.

Hallie jolted to a stop, almost midstep.“Hello?”she asked the girl. She wanted to giggle. She was afraid. They were both ghosts, she and this older girl, but the older girl was a real ghost. A celebrity ghost. A ghost she must have walked by every day, believing in but not seeing.

“Hello, Mary?”

The ghost girl stood up, looking at Hallie. She seemed startled at first, but as Hallie moved closer and jumped the ditch to stand across from her, the ghost noticed the grass not bending under Hallie’s feet, but sticking straight through her sneakers, and she began to look at the younger girl as if she wanted to hug her,“You poor little thing,” she said. “You were okay this morning. How did you die at school?”

Hallie shook her head. I was murdered! she wanted to say, but she hadn’t really been murdered, and the real explanation would be too hard to explain to a stranger.

“How come I didn’t see you before? Is your name Mary?” she asked. “I’m sorry I jumped on your grave.”

“Yeah, I’m Mary,” she said. “Don’t worry, it was funny.”

This embarassed the youngergirl, andshewas glad her face couldn’t burn.“It wasn’t supposed to be funny. I wanted to see a real ghost.”

“I noticed,”said Mary, grinning more than Hallie might have wanted her to.

“Why do you stay by your own grave? Are you visiting yourself?”

“No, I’m trying to keep myself where I’m expected to be,”Mary explained,“my motherkeepscominghereandputtingflowersonmygrave. Idon’tknowwhothey’re for if they’re not for me, the spirit of me. I don’t want her to start bringing flowers to

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nobody. It would be too sad.”

Hallie thought about that for a second. “But it doesn’t make a difference if you’re here to get them or not. You can’t pick them up, can you? Or smell them or anything? They’ll just lie there.” It seemed to Hallie like Mary had chosen a boring place to haunt and a boring way to haunt it.

Mary shook her head. “No, I can smell them.”

Halliewasprettysureshehadn’tsmeltathingsincebecomingaghost,justlike she hadn’t felt or tasted anything.

“You do not smell them.”

“I do,” said Mary. “First I pretended I did, but I really didn’t. Then one day I really did.”

“Maybeyou’restillpretending,justsohardyoufooledyourself.”Halliesniffed the air, just to be certain, and she was surprised. There was just the faintest, tiniest distinctive scent of red-and-yellow flowers in her nose. She crouched down over the grave,whichoccupiedthespacebetweenMaryandherself,andsheputherfacesoclose to the flowers that they blurred in her eyes. Then she took a deep breath through the noseshedidn’thave,andsureenough,theairwasflowers,flowers,flowers,eventhough she didn’t need to breathe, didn’t need to smell, and wasn’t really there to begin with.

It seemed to her that Mary had wished a scent into the ghost world, and Hallie didn’t know what to make of it. Everything in the world had a name, she knew. Twelve times twelve is twelve dozen, and every animal is either alive or dead, except for her. Hallie wasn’teither,justsomethingdisplaced. Shehadlostaveryimportantgameofmusical chairs, that was all, and when she thought about it that way, confused and sorry for herself, she found herself turning end-over-end in the sky again, Mary and her grave lost somewhere below.

Thistimeshecouldfeelthewindrippingoverher,andshecouldfeelthewater in the air, and her stomach protested each time she turned. She could feel the blood sloshingfromoneendofherbodytotheother,andthegnatsintheskywereallrushing closerandclosertoher,explodinginsize.Thegreatwhiteholegapedopen,andshesaw that the gnats were not just people, but elephants too, and fish and birds and insects.

Shesawsnakesandtreesandchildren,cartwheelinginthesky,andshesawthemcatch in the teeth of the great white hole. She saw them pull apart and vaporize, and in her heartsheknewthattheyweresausagesnow,deliciouscakesandpiestobeenjoyedby monsters, the real rulers of the world.

But even if digested and converted to some other form, one day, maybe, she would be a girl again. She could wake up in another world and be a girl, or maybe she could be a field of grass, and every time she stretched too close to the sun, some kind personwithloveinhisheartwouldcomealongandmowher. Evenasshewatchedthe skydevourhorsesandspidersandalgae,swallowingeverything,lettingnothingescape again, Hallie still believed that she would not be a sausage forever. She put her arms out and moved them in slow circles, treading sky, looking at the great white hole and treasuring her uncertainty.

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Helping Hands Stefanie Juul “Excuse me, miss?”

I glanced up. “Yes?” “Hi. Could you tell me where to find the manager? I’m new around here.”

Indeed you are, I thought, setting down my pen. “He’s up on the third floor, room B,” I clarified.

“Thanks.”

For a moment the stranger paused, and I realized he was staring at me. Color rose to my cheeks as I raised my eyes to stare back.“Can I help you with anything else, sir?”

He shook his head. “Sorry. I was just wondering, you’re obviously not the security guard…”

“Uh-huh.”

“So what are you doing at their desk?”

Actually, that was a rather good question.

I let my eyes flick down towards the old desk behind which I was seated. It wasprettywornout;theonlythingthatcalledanyone’sattentiontoitwasthefactthat there was a sign hanging nearby that read, “Security Desk.”

At the moment, it was very apparent that I wasn’t a security guard for this ancientapartmentcomplex. Iwasdressedinsweats,preparedtoheadtothegymonce I got my homework done-homework that was currently spread all over the security desk. So I could understand his curiosity.

“Are you their kid or something?” he asked, offering an easy answer.

But then, I never did settle for the easy way.

“We don’t have any security guards.”

“What? No security?”

“Nope. Old guard got in an accident. We’ve been waiting for a replacement eversince,”Iexplainedshortly,closingmyGeologybookanddroppingitovermyclass notes.

“Then why…?”

I remained silent, blushing again. Damn my lack of social skills! My idea hadseemedsogreattwohoursago;nowitsoundedchildish,evenstupid. Iwondered briefly if I could melt through the floor and disappear off the face of the earth right then.

Apparently that wasn’t about to happen for me, though.

“Miss?”

“It’s a bit hard to explain,” I replied.

The stranger nodded as he rested one elbow on the desk to watch me. I felt a little thrill at this-both of alarm and of, well, interest. How could I not? Here I was, a poorcollegestudentwithsomeoneattractivevoluntarilytalkingtome.Thiswasnotan

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everyday occurrence.

“When did you lose the security guard?” he asked.

“About a month and a half ago,” I said.

“Have you done this ever since?” he asked, looking surprised.

“No, just today.”

“Why?” Why did he have to ask that again? “It’s stupid.”

He waited. I glanced up at him; then, swearing at myself, explained.

“Aneighborofminewasrobbedlastweekend,‘causenotonlydidwenothave a security guard, our cameras were apparently down.” I gestured towards a monitor behind me. “This place is so old… well, she wasn’t the only person who was having problems like that.”

Abruptly, the stranger nodded.“I see. An interesting experiment, this…”He smiled. My brain, the ever-helpful organ, decided at this point that it should tell me he had very nice eyes.

Stop that, I rebuked myself.

“Testing to see if even the possibility of security will lessen the crime ratio. I like that idea. Though I like the idea of actual security even better.”

“So would the rest of us,”I replied. “It’s just that our manager’s having money trouble and stuff right now.” Lovely choice of vocabulary, that.

I thought I told you to stop that.

Great, now I’m talking to myself.

Focus, dear, he’s speaking to you.

Crap. I returned my attention to him.

Thestrangerwasnowthoughtfullytappinghis chin with thetip ofone finger. “…money’s the problem, then raising some might help?”

I blinked. “Raising money?”

He waved a hand impatiently. “If he needs money to hire security, then why not raise some? It’s in our interest as well. What do you think? Up to it?”

He’d completely lost me. “Up to..?”

“Haven’t you been listening?” he asked, exasperated.

No. “Yes, but I don’t understand…”

“You came up with this play-at-security thing, right? Why couldn’t you raise money?”

“Money? You’re kidding, right? Trusting a starving college girl with money.

Look, it’s a good idea,”I added hastily.“I’m just not… the right person to ask. You could ask the manager-“ “And why not you?” he interrupted. “You came up with sitting at the desk, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but-“ “And not only did you come up with the idea, you did it!”

“That doesn’t-“ “So why the hell can’t you just go out there and get some money for hiring actual security?”

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I stared at him, inwardly cursing at my pale skin. I seemed to redden at the drop of a hat, and no doubt he believed he was now talking to a tomato.

After a moment, he sighed. “Sorry. I know you’re busy with college and all that. Look.” He pulled a little card out of his pocket. “I’ve helped with a couple of campaigns before. This is my cell number and… well, if you change your mind let me know. Okay?”

I accepted the card dumbly, turning it repeatedly in my hands.

He’s got nice hands.

Shut up, I thought absently.

“Then maybe we could bring it up to the manager. Speaking of which, he expected me to show up an hour ago.”The man laughed and offered his hand again.

“Sorry, I didn’t mention my name.”

Weintroducedourselves;himwithacarelessgrace,andmewithastutterand anotherbe-damnedblushonmyface.Then,withonelastglanceatme,hewentupthe elevator to the third floor.

I sighed and returned to my homework.

Later, I found myself absently turning the card about in my hands. The number seemed burned into my memory, as was his question.

“Why the hell can’t I?” I muttered. Then I heaved a sigh. “Because I’m a coward and I know it. Because someone else could do it. Because I don’t want to.

Because I’m a stupid git. Because I speak with a horrid British accent. Ugh!” I flopped downonthebed,determinedtodropthecardonthenightstand.Butitdidn’tleavemy hand. For a moment, I thought about going to sleep.

Then I remembered how nice his hands looked.

“Damn it,” I groaned, and went to pick up the phone.

It took a surprisingly short time to set things straight at our apartment complex. Once I finally gave in, the newcomer and I started brainstorming; then we took action. Somehow, things expanded far beyond that. Before I knew it, we had our security back and a new alarm system set up. We even had a new desk for the new guards, though I was quick to retrieve the old one-it was perfect for homework.

Evenwithschoolintheway,Imanagedtofindtimetohelpthenewcomerand manager get things set up. The recent crime issues evaporated shortly after.

And, when things were said and done, the newcomer and I had just enough profits left to enjoy a nice dinner out.

It surprised the hell out of me when he mentioned that I had nice hands.

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Mercy Me Kim Johnson

Theoldmulberrytoleratedthesummerheatbetterthantherestofus,though shecomplainedalotbydroppinghersweet,dullfruit,stainingthepatiowhereverthey landed. Soonafterwe’dcometogetherforourend-of-summerblockpartyshe’dbegun twisting and turning her leaves over, teasing those of us who dined in her shadows below. Not having made it through the first course yet, we refused to accept what she was trying to tell us—that a summer storm was on its way to ruin our plans.

“He was ninety-five and I was in my sixties. What do you think was going on?”saidMercy,wincingeachtimeherlargepasteearringsbangedagainstthesideof her neck.

“I did everything for him. That’s what was going on. I would check on him every morning before leaving for work and every night when I got home.”

Mercy’sbrightredtoenailsstuckoutrebelliouslyfromherswollenfeet,which hovered just above the grass because her legs were unable to reach all the way to the ground in front of her. She spilled out and ran down over the edges of the aluminum folding chair on which she sat, worrying the screws each time she moved. And she moved a lot. Moreover she snorted, scolded, and spat a lot. She reminded me of an opossumthathadrecentlychallengedmeoutsidethebackdoor.Thepoorfrightened creaturehissedandspatviciouslythroughitscrookedteeth,beforerunningforcoveron legs that looked too small and thin to carry it.

“Itseemedliketheoldmanhadbeenaroundforever.Therewasn’tasingleday thatIdidn’tcomehomeexpectingtofindhimfacedowninthegardenbetweenthose damn rose bushes, or collapsed with his head in the freezer. Fact is I made Harold promise to check on him every day when he come home for lunch. Harold used to put the ladder up against the back of the house and look in the bedroom window to see if he was dead yet. Turned out the old fool got a real kick out of seeing Harold with his face pressed against the window looking in at him like that.”

At that moment a scheming gust of wind blew by our table, carrying with it theenticingsmellofcatfishblackeningonthegrill,mixedwiththesweetscentofthe night-blooming jasmine that hung down over the side of the garage. It left quickly, muchthesamewayithadcome,butnotwithoutpilferinghalfadozenpapernapkins and a plastic fork or two.

“You know, the night he died I sat straight up in bed and told Harold. I said ‘That’s it. He’s dead.’ Can you believe it, Harold says to me, ‘What? Who’s dead?’”

Mercy paused, tapping her empty glass on the table.

“Well I gave him a good slap and said, ‘Wake up you old goat and quit that snoring. Who do you think is dead?’”

Mercyhungrilyacceptedanotherglassofwine. Anyreservethatshenormally wore had begun to fall away, along with the other conversations around us. Oddly enough, after all these years no one had ever seen Mercy eat. When the first round of

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catfish came off the grill she was the first one offered a plate, but as usual she refused, preferring to drink her dinner.

“I always said that God had sent an angel to tell me. ‘Cause it was two o’clock in the morning and something made me sit straight up in bed. Somehow I just knew after all that waiting that the old man was gone. Harold said I should go check, but I told him I didn’t need to ‘cause an angel had been sent from God to wake me up.

He said it must have been‘cause I had done everything for him for so long that God thought I should be the first to know. Well, I never could get back to sleep that night.”

“The next day Harold stayed home from work ‘cause the old man was dead.

He figured I had a lot of grief about it so he poured me an extra cup of coffee. After that we sat on the front porch, and while I stared at the house next door with all the drapes still drawn, Harold read the old man’s newspaper. When I finally got up the nerve to go next door I took my key,‘cause I knew he wouldn’t be getting up to let me in.”

“And what did you find when you went over there,”I asked, refilling her glass again. “Was he dead?”

“Of course he was. What do you think? It was just like I told you. He had died in the night right there in the damn bed,”she said, assaulting the anxious folding chair each time the inflection in her voice changed.

Thoughwecontinuedtoinsistthatitwasaglorioussummerevening,theeverperceptivemulberryknewbetter. Shecurleduphersmallglove-likeleavesandshook thematthesky,challengingastormcloudthathadbeguntoslowdanceitswayinfrom thesouth.Theneighborhoodcatscrouchedintheshadows;theireyeswidenedasthe summer light began to fade away, along with most of our senses.

“Anyway I went down the block to let Johnny Wilson know that his best friend had died in the night. I told him about the angel that God had sent to tell me ‘cause we had been so close and all. Johnny Wilson had worked on the railroad with him for over forty years, and I guess since the old man never had any children or anything, he left everything he had in the world to his longtime friend.”

“He sure knew what was what, that Johnny Wilson. He told me that the old man had wanted me to have the money in the bank ‘cause I’d done so much for him and that I’d better run back and get it before the police showed up,‘cause it wasn’t written down in any will or nothing. He said that the old fool couldn’t even write his name and that he didn’t trust no bank so he always kept his money stuffed in the radiator next to his bed.”

“Well I didn’t say so but I already knew that, cause the old man used to always say to me,‘Just a minute, SweetThing,’he always called me SweetThing,‘while I go and withdrawsomemoneyfromthebank.’Thenhe’ddisappearintothebedroomandcome back a few minutes later with twenty dollars that he’d give me to go do the shopping.

Mostly I shopped for vegetables and stuff like that for him at the farmer’s market, but a few times he asked me to buy bullets for his gun cause he needed to get rid of all them damn cats that had been messing in his garden.”

No one moved as those words dropped from Mercy’s stained lips, except for the neighborhood cats that pushed back further into the shadows.

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“You can imagine I wasn’t too keen about digging around in any dirty old radiator for just a couple of bucks, especially with the old man laying there dead in the bed right next to it. What was I to do? He had wanted me to have it,‘cause I’d done so much for him. So I ran back and told Harold who was still sitting on the porch looking at the ads for a color TV. I said, ‘Come on, the old man left me some money in the radiator and you got to go with me to get it out.’”

“Hey, Merc, how come you never told us this story when Mike was around?” askedsomeone,notingtheabsenceofouresteemedChiefofPoliceandhisfamily,who lived across the street.

Mercy only glanced in the direction of the question before continuing.

“Well, the first thing I did was make sure the old man was still dead before I called the police to come get him, and Harold went to work pulling crumpled up bills out of the radiator one after another and stuffing them into his pockets. I couldn’t help myself. I just stood there watching. There were also lots of tightly rolled up bills wound around with rubber bands that were burned all black on the outside from having spent so many winters crisping in that hot radiator. ‘You crazy old fool, what were you thinking? Why couldn’t you learn to read and write like everyone else?’I said, whacking the old man on the chest. Harold said I wasn’t being much help and that I’d better go find something else to carry the money in since he’d filled all his pockets and wasnowworkingonhissocks. So Igrabbedtheoldman’s hatoffthedresser andthrew it at Harold, and stood there watching as he stuffed it full of money.”

For a few moments the sky lit up as bright as day all around us, followed by a mocking ovation of thunder, which undoubtedly irritated the old mulberry tree. We moved our chairs in closer together and began to hand around dessert, stubbornly refusing to give up on our evening’s entertainment.

“You wouldn’t believe all the crumpled up bills that kept coming out of that radiator,”Mercy shouted, as the applause over our heads grew louder and louder and lightning sliced open the sky.

“Harold said he was sure there must be more than a thousand dollars. Well, I couldn’thelpmyself,justasthepoliceknockedonthefrontdoorItookonemoreswing attheoldmanandsaid,‘Youidiot,whatwereyouthinkingleavingallthatmoneyinthe damn radiator?’ Then I let Harold out the back door with the money and went to let the police in.”

While leaning over to refill her glass from mine I asked,“So Merc, did you tell them that God had sent an angel to let you know that the old man had died?” “‘Course I did. And they’d liked to think I was nuts when I told them it was at two o’clock in morning. I told them how an angel had made me sit straight up in bed.”

“Anyway the coroner said that he’d been dead for about ten hours by then. So I just kept my mouth shut figuring they could do the adding for themselves.”

“How much money did he actually leave you in the radiator?” I shouted, topping off Mercy’s untouched glass again.

“Well, I went back over to the house to find Harold, who was down in the basement ironing all those bills that had been curled up for so long. I could tell right as

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I started down the basement steps that something was wrong. I could tell by the way Haroldwasslammingtheironaroundontheboardthathewasmadaboutsomething.

Of course he demanded to know what it was I had really done for the old man next doorallthoseyearstodeservesomuchmoney.Well,Iputonmysweetestfaceandsaid I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. Then Harold told me that I’d better get an idea, ‘cause the old man had left me almost twenty thousand dollars stuck up inside that dirty old radiator. It was at that point I pretty well lost all my sweetness and fell down the stairs. And Harold, well, he didn’t even move. He didn’t take one damn step to try and catch me when I fainted and fell all the way to the bottom.”

Suddenlytheskysplitopenandourtimewasup. Abelligerentrainfellheavily down on all of us. The story fell from Mercy’s lips, in much the same way she had fallen down the basement stairs. We left everything behind, and ran for cover, tripping over chair legs and scattering cats as we made for our homes – leaving the rain to do the dishes and refill Mercy’s glass.

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Ethan Edwards A NAME BEARS LIMBS AND BRANCHES “Agostina, these are observations upon which peeling lips get bitten.”

Over the table linen blazing sun & citrus your suspicious right eye regards the smirk of your only miché à la mie*.

He’s splayed against the patio wall coaxing our waitress with his drowsy English, with those elbows of his, pinned to the bricks and those fingers of his, embracing nothing and then those legs crossed into twine just beneath his table.

Agostina, this is just a small French painting.

You’ve got bruises up and down your arms and eyes reacting to a yawn.

You hold a cigarette which burns the pieces waiting, without ceremony.

Still, your eye at left seeks to fulfill but one wish: that John might cough on your bill, and beg to “roll in it, still.”

Agostina, take a closer look.

Our server seems to have acquiesced.

She’s on her way to the bar.

And John seems pleased he’s picking poppy seeds from his suit of twill and coughing into his fist.

But Agostina has come to grips with the gift of second sight.

Her eyes mark the scales of a balance on loan from a Venetian bone thrower; a blind-drunk woman who put a glass chaplet over Agostina’s head,

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dragged almond fingernails down Agostina’s face in one ages-long encounter.

A soapstone Christ with blackened feet was displayed, spanning cracks in the wall, just above the only candle burning in the augur’s nook.

Agostina recites only one revelation of divine love.

She kisses His image to receive His kiss.

Then she murmurs for the precious blood of the Son repeatedly, as the poor souls in purgatory are flies attracted to His holy wounds.

Agostina is an alchemist.

She’s the last complete magnolia blossom dressed brown, and just as low, as those fallen.

Agostina’s walking wounded.

Her foliage of prayers and beads impresses, but the fate of any tree can be found around its roots.

* miché à la mie— soft spot of a round bun; a prostitute’s soft spot—a‘favored’client who enjoys her services but is not expected to pay her fee.

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Alvin Malpaya Momentarily, this at first was a breath worth it.

That is, the time it took to breathe it in.

Don’t ask. I can’t tell, really.

Tell me, funny face, what’s it like to be desired? I’ve lost touch of touching, and being touched—– Slight grazes arrest me, alas.

Say, let’s talk conspiracies and Christ-sightings, crucifixions and verse narratives. Let me fix myself on this here spot where God ends.

Or begins, depending—– Even constancy’s conditional.

And don’t exempt yourself, you, with that beyond-all, opalescent melancholy of yours.

We all see night nightly.

(Hush, hot stuff. They say I’m selfish as a covered sun, burning bridges in effigy of other bridges.)

So feed my ego, starving artist, paint me breathing.

Who knew I felt too new?

I’m short a few decent perceivers.

Where are the Judases and Brutuses when you need them, anyway?

Gather here, dear friends, in this supper table moment, and have a here’s-to-you from me in each of these seconds.

George Mason Review

Nick Mohlmann greyhounds o tapered dogs o smoothed dogs needling out of pools of wine deer eyes & colorless coats o light tipped dogs in folds of purple velour tongues lined with gold coins o dogs greased down on wire legs picking your way through the hard pointed stars mouths wide & crocodilish o

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Elizabeth Prescott

Had a good time that winter, snow burying the little garden we planted last Spring.

I, with my jumbo, plastic shovel, and you with the seeds.

Today I am creating a tiny snowman On the grave of these seedlings.

I can see their damp remains beneath the snow in the circle I’ve cleared around the little man.

You come out on the back porch smiling in long, bare feet, flattened under the weight of motherhood.

I shriek with laughter, you with surprise.

I toss glistening chunks of snow at your exposed feet.

I in my stiff, puffy snow suit

itchy, woolen hat and mittens

thick, heavy boots, And you, You in your bare feet.

George Mason Review

George Mason Review

Shauna Shiff For the Painter You know, I had lived here in the heat and grime for four years and I never felt Southern till one hot August night forced us into drinking icy vodka and breaking into the neighboring pool.

It could have been mint juleps we sipped while wilting on those plastic chairs, with our woman talk of sex and art.

I trusted your talent, if not your friendship. The following summer I would attend your funeral.

Your mother hung your paintings— My God, they were beautiful.

Shauna Shiff Putting on the Dress You could not raise a daughter without pride, and so you robed me in your own. Out of the trunk that kept you from man to man you dressed me: black silk that exposed the collarbone’s hollow, vintage white lace that lured drunken men and droning voices, burgundy rayon, amber shear, all worn by your own hard brand: beauty with its eyes bruised.

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Saima Yacoob Mango Seller, Yogyakarta, Indonesia I saw you this morning In mango columns Picking your teeth for Breakfast remains I said Brapa ini* and Laid a palm on green-gold Bricks. You looked at Me fearfully From behind wrinkled Face folds You invited me To ask.

You answer 30,000 a kilo And when I refuse, You do too: You will not part with them For any less.

* translated as How much is this?

George Mason Review

George Mason Review

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Band Camp Joseph Bourne

Throughouthighschooltherearenumerouseventstoparticipatein. Notonly arethereopportunitiestoexperiencethingsnewanddifferent,buttherearealsoevents to help one become involved in his or her interests or to excel in his or her already acquired skills. For instance, there are academic activities like debates, quiz bowls, and of course, classes and homework.T here are also physical activities like football, basketball,baseball,andanysortofsportonecouldimagine. Anotherwaytobecome involved is through the arts; there is concert band, choir, drama team, and of course, marchingband. Imyselfparticipatedinmyhighschool’smarchingband,anditwasan experience I will never be able to forget. My years in the marching band left me with lessons,memories,andskillsthatwillmakemyentirelifemoreenjoyableandsuccessful.

I remember my first summer of band camp. It was the summer after my freshman year, and since I was new to the band, I did not know many people. I reluctantly got on the bus and went to the dreaded band camp. The night we arrived, the food tasted absolutely horrible. We were at one of the smallest colleges I had ever seenandthefoodwasworsethanmyhighschoolcafeteria’sfood. Irememberthefirst night’s dinner was“steak with potatoes,”which made me sick all night. Regardless of the food situation, I was forced to wake up the next morning to begin the hottest and mostgruelingweek Icanremember. Eventhoughwe were in temperatures with heat indexes up to 111º, we all had to stand on the field getting yelled at and had to march military-style as the sweat dripped off our backs and down every other part of our bodies. Despiteourobvioussuffering,ourleaderswerenotafraidtomakethemselves known. There was our Director, who constantly yelled at everyone, and the drum majors who were students who directed the band during performances, but I quickly learnedwhomyownleaderwas. Myleaderwasoneofthesectionleaders,andsincehe wasbesttrumpetplayerandmarcherintheband,hewasassignedtoleadandteachthe othertrumpets. Iquicklylearnedhisname,whichwasJohn,becausefromthemoment I stepped onto that hot field I got yelled at. “Band Ten Hut!!,”is the call we would hear every 10seconds tocallusto attention. Ifwewerenotatattention,“Getdownandgive me 20!”was the next thing we heard. I quickly got used to the commands and learned never to miss them. I learned how to flank, how to slide, and how to do every other marching technique from John. I will never forget the way he made us work.

My time at band camp taught me many things. Two of the most important things I learned were how to be content and how to be patient. Dealing with an awful bedandterriblefoodbecameminorproblems. Irealizedthat I had been taking things for granted; at least I got to eat and sleep. Patience came with realizing I was with 300 other people and I did not always get to eat, sleep, take a shower, or even use the restroom when I needed to. Camp also taught me how to work and not stop because we only got five minute breaks for water, and that was if we were lucky. But most of all, bandcamptaughtmetoworkasapartofsomethingbigger,somethingwithstructured

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leadership, something that required me to listen and also how to understand the big picture. All of these things I learned from attending band camp will stay with me my entire life making situations easier and life more enjoyable.

My senior year in the band I had the honor and the opportunity to be the section leader for the trumpets. My hard work had paid off, and my skill and dedication to the band led my peers to elect me to be their leader my last year in the band. So that summer, when the freshmen and my other peers walked on the field, I was their role model. I had to be a strict teacher so they would listen, but at the same time I had to be their friend. I remember walking up and down the ranks as they stoodinformationcompletelysilent. IcompletelyeyeddowneachpersonasIwalked by inspecting every little aspect about the way they were positioned, and if one thing was out of place they would have to practice coming to attention so many times they would never make the same mistake again. I would yell and get them to march until they could popthosetrumpetsupinto aflawlessuprightpositionwhenIyelled“Band Horns Up!� every single time. It was quite a task being a leader to my friends and to new acquaintances. I always had to make sure I knew what was going on as well as making sure my section knew, but I would not have traded that job for the world.

Beingtheleaderofmyownunitofpeerstaughtmethingsthatareimpossible to read anywhere. It taught me to listen, and to be patient with the ones who did not know what I knew. I learned how to listen to other leaders and realized that I was not the one in charge. Being a section leader also taught me to have self esteem, because sometimes it was difficult to stand in front of a huge group of trumpets alone and tell them all that I knew the only way to do things. I doubted myself sometimes, but after a while,IrealizedthatIknewwhatIwastalkingabout. Itwas always anawesomefeeling whenpeoplewouldthankmeforhelpingthemlearnmusic,orforspendingextratime withthemteachingthemthemarchingtechniques. AllthelessonsIlearnedfrombeing atrumpetsectionleaderaregoingtostickwithmeforever,makingeverysituationIfind myself in easier to deal with and get through.

The most enjoyable part of my band experience and what I always looked forwardtowerethecompetitions.Theaurathatthefieldgivesoffatcompetitiontime is indescribable. As I walk towards the field, I just begin to hear it: the cheering, the voices of all the hundreds of people who have come to watch. It is deafening at times, but the thrill I got from standing there in uniform listening to the cheers was amazing.

I remember walking out on the field. It was nighttime and the lights were shining like I have never seen. We got called to attention and as I held my horn up I could see the mass of people cheering and yelling, but they were all just silhouettes against the luminous power of the field lights. We started our show and it was amazing. We played, they cheered, but then my favorite part came, my solo. It was heart-stopping every time I had to leave formation and assume the spot where I would play my solo.

Soon after the music died down I began to play what I had practiced hundreds of times. Hearing the cheers as I played and after I was finished gave me the best feeling asIlookedattheaudiencescreamingforwhatIhadworkedon.Competitiontimewas definitely my favorite part of being in the band.

Workingsohardtogogiveafinishedproductatthecompetitionsleftmewith

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some very important lessons. Being able to go give a performance to so many people gave me a feeling of self esteem that I hope everyone gets the chance to have. Most importantly, the competitions taught me how to trust. I had to trust my section, but I also had to trust that everyone else in the band was on the task at hand. Being able to be a part of and to trust a huge unit like a marching band was a great tool. Tools like these that I learned from attending competitions are the things that will help me my entire life, making things easier and more enjoyable.

To have experiences like these, one does not necessarily have to be in a marching band. There are so many things in this world that work the same way, and I hopethateveryonehasthechancetobeinsomethinglikeamarchingbandduringtheir life. The things I learned from being in the band will make my life easier and more enjoyable. Being part of a group like that is amazing and it pays off in many ways that couldotherwisegounnoticed. AdviceIwouldgivetoanyoneistonotgiveupachance to be in a group like a marching band, or any other opportunity that comes their way.

The lessons one takes away from it are life changing.

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A Night at the Ball: Inside a Modern Debutante Cotillion Leah Donnelly The Rehearsal When I was a young girl I was fascinated by Blair from the television show “The Facts of Life.” My friends and I used to pretend we were characters from the show and I was always Blair. Blonde, self-assured, a proper young woman from an upper class family, Blair embodied all things elegant and refined. She used her status as a defense for everything:“But I was a debutante.”I’m actually embarrassed to admit my childhood obsession. As a self-proclaimed feminist my fascination with Blair has changed from adoration into morbid curiosity. And, in fact, it wasn’t until I stumbled upon an African American debutante cotillion while researching the debutante phenomenon that I began to revisit and reconsider my images of debutantes.

“I always imagined debutantes to be just like Blair from the Facts of Life,”Sheri Cooper, PR rep for the African-American Zeta Phi Beta Sorority cotillion committee, explained to me outside the First Presbyterian Church. This is where the cotillion rehearsalisscheduledtotakeplacetodayandwhereI’vecometobeginmyresearchfor afeaturearticleontheevent. OnanunseasonablywarmSundayinNovember,people in the northeast DC neighborhood where the church is situated are huddled in their living rooms watching football. Sheri and I are talking about the ideas people have about debutantes and how the tradition has come a long way from Blair.

Sheri, a small, spunky woman in her early thirties, wears her hair pulled back.

Her face is very pretty, and she achieves this without any make-up. I’m surprised and a little relieved that Sheri shares this image of Blair as the quintessential debutante.

Sheri tells me, however, that the girls in this cotillion are a far cry from Blair. They all comefrommiddle-classfamiliesandtheyelecttobecomedebutantes,unlikeBlair.The traditionaldebutanteusuallyparticipatesbecausehermother,grandmother,andsoon were debutantes.

The girls that Zeta Phi Beta sponsors, she explains, are, in a sense, starting a tradition that will continue with their daughters. To be considered for sponsorship, thegirlsmustshowthattheyareinvolvedintheirschoolsandtheircommunities,they must have high GPAs, and they must write an essay about themselves. The girls who make the final cut embody the values of the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority: commitment to community service, leadership, and respect for all people.

“These sorority sisters dedicate almost their entire lives, well beyond their undergrad years, to their sorority and to working in the community,”Sheri continues asthegroupofwomenaroundthechurchentrancegrows.They’rewaitingfortherest of the committee to arrive. “One facet of their service is the debutante cotillion,”she adds.Thewomengreeteachotherandmewithhugsandfriendlysmiles.Acommittee meeting is scheduled before the “debs” arrive at four.

We have some time to kill and Sheri is more than willing to tell me about her

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sorority and her involvement with The White Rose Cotillion. Running a debutante ballisabusiness,itseems.Thereareticketstosell,flowerstoorder,programstodesign, seating to arrange, marketing and advertising to conduct. All the women involved, mothers of the debutantes and sorority sisters, give up their free time to help plan the event.

Sheri’s sorority has had many notable women as“sorors”in their long history.

Founded in 1920, members have included many famous women: author Zora Neal Hurston, jazz singer SarahVaughn, R&B singer Minnie Ripperton, opera singer Grace Bumbry, and singer Dionne Warwick, to name a few.

All of the devoted sorors are involved in many altruistic activities, but one activity that is a great source of pride is the debutante cotillion. The cotillion serves to introduce girls at an early age to sorority life and start them on the path to higher education and success.“My daughter is definitely going to be a deb,”Sheri declares.“I wish I had been one. I love working with the girls.” She also explains that she wants herdaughtertobeadebutantebecauseoftheeducationalandculturalopportunities itprovides. Debutantetrainingincludeseverythingfromknowinghowtochoosethe correct fork to how to write a college entrance essay to how to dress for an interview.

She also adds that many of the debutantes go on to prestigious universities and are successful in the fields they choose.

The woman of the hour arrives at the church a little late. Regina Gardener, president of the local chapter and head of the cotillion committee, pulls up in a gray four- door Honda. Her tardiness is completely excused, as she’s a very busy lady and everyonehassomethingtoaskher. Beforeshe’sevenoutofthecar,she’ssurroundedby questions:“Did I leave my bag at the meeting?”“I called you, did you get my message?”

“Do you have any tickets with you?”Both friendly and formal at the same time, Regina greets me,“It’s such a pleasure to meet you.”She promises that we’ll speak one on one later and that I should make myself at home and “try to take it all in.”

InsidethechurchIencounterthepastorandhiswife,whoarecleaningupafter Sunday services. The man stacks folding chairs and whistles a tune as his wife happily sweepsthefoyer.Thedebshaven’tarrivedyet,althoughoneoftheescortshas. Dressed informally,helooksaboutseventeen,andwearsanoversizedbasketballjersey,faded baggyjeans,andhasn’tremovedthecellphonefromhisearsincehearrivedhalfanhour ago. He looks like a typical high school junior and more young men just like him will arriveshortlyfortherehearsal. I’vebeenwatchinghimsinceheistheonlymalehereso far and I ask him how he got involved in this event. “My girlfriend is one of the…uh, debs, so I pretty much didn’t have a choice,”he answers with a shy smile and returns to his cell phone.

At the ball the debs will be escorted by the young man with whom they will danceandalsobybothoftheirparents.Theboysaremostlyclassmatesfromschoolor steadyboyfriendsofthedebs. Thefathers,however,playaparticularlyimportantrole.

Besidesescortingtheirdaughterandpresentingthemtothecommunityattheball,they also have learned to waltz over the past four months. They will perform an elaborate waltz on the big night, which is only a week away. Everyone will be here for rehearsal

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today and Sheri reminds me how this is a big commitment, not only for the young women, but also for their families.

Today is the last rehearsal before the big night and tensions are high. The choreographer,astrictolderwomanwithananimatedface,isfumingwhenat4:10only two debs have arrived and“they were all told to be here by four.”When I comment on the strictness of the instructor, Sheri just laughs and says, “It’s good for them.”

Asthedebsarrive,theyarecarryinghomemadescrapbookswiththem.What does it mean to be a debutante? The girls have had to tackle this question in the scrapbooksthey’vecreatedandinsidewhichthey’vechronicledtheirentireexperience.

They allow me to look through the scrapbooks, which are being judged today. The winner is announced next week at the ball. The scrapbooks are fascinating and each one is better than the last. It’s obvious that a lot of effort and creativity went into this project.

Thechronologiesinthescrapbooksallcovertheexperiencefromacceptance letter to shopping for the perfect white dress with their moms. There are photos from all the events and from the activities they have been involved in: working at a soup kitchen, a lecture on the Brown vs. the Board of Education from a docent at a museum in the District, their sorority sleepover in a hotel, etiquette class, and waltz lessons. A favoriteeventwithallthegirlsisthesleepoverwiththesororitysisters.Thethemewas self-esteemandpositivethinking. Issuessuchasbodyimageandpeer-pressurewere discussed.

Another activity that seemed to occupy the most pages in the scrapbook was titled the“Dress Hunt.” Each girl used this exact phrase to mark a section of the scrapbookwhichwasfilledwithpagesofpicturesofeachdebstandinginwhitedresses in David’s Bridal dressing rooms, surrounded by proud moms and bored little sisters.

“Thegirlsaredefinitelymostexcitedaboutbuyinganelaboratedressfortheoccasion,” Reginaexplainsaswesitandtalkforamoment,“butoncetheyarein,theystartgetting involved—making friends, being exposed to new experiences—it becomes really exciting, the idea of being a deb.”

I wonder at this point if the idea of being a deb is wearing a white dress or havingthesenewlifeexperiences…oralittleofboth? Regina,whoisalmostpainfully friendly and is carefully aware of her speech, explains to me the idea of being a deb as she sees it. “The goal of the debutante cotillion is to prepare young ladies for the academic and professional world and for leadership roles. Also, an introduction to thefinerthingsinlife,buildingself-esteem,andtheprocessimprovestheirdedication.

They are also taught about being pleasant at all times even when dealing with unpleasant people.”We both laugh, and I wonder if Ms. Gardener ever looses her cool.

I don’t think so. She smiles, and we both watch as the girls glide across the room with their fathers. The music stops suddenly and the choreographer says,“No, no, no. All wrong.You’resupposedtobeswayingandgliding. Putsomeeffortintothis. Haveyou forgotten everything we’ve done? Remember, all your families will be watching you.

Make them proud.”

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A Brief History of Debutantes

The word debutante comes from the French word“debuter”, which means to leadoff. The tradition as it is commonly known in the US has its roots in England. T he idea was that when a girl reached a certain age (marriage age--17 or 18), she must be presented to society so a man of similar status can select her for marriage. The marriage circles of the upper class were small, with very few eligible ladies for wealthy men to scoop up. The “young ladies” were presented as well as their large dowries.

AprilthroughJulywastheoriginaldebutanteseasoninEngland.Wealthylandowners traveled to London and their city-homes during these months. Homes were opened and the social season brought about arranged marriages and business deals.

Asthemiddle-classesgainedwealthinEurope,theyalsotriedtogainaccessto thesocialsceneoftheupperclass. Presentingtheirrefinedandeligibledaughterswas one way to do this. If an aristocrat sponsored a girl, she was able to be presented and thus marry into the upper class by the end of the social season.

This ritual first appeared in the US in 1748 in Philadelphia and was called a “dancingassembly.”Theritualtookholdasawaytocontinuetheupperclassvaluesand to keep marriages within the class. Debutante Balls continued with largely the same purpose, polishing women and displaying them as proof of a family’s status.

The tradition declined in the US during the 1970’s in response to feminist and others’critiqueoftheritual.Todaymostcotillion-sponsoringorganizations,including Zeta Phi Beta, claim that the purpose of being a debutante is for women to gain social and cultural training and to welcome them into “a world of civic responsibility and social awareness.”

Debutantes Today “For our girls it’s different than what most people think,” Regina explains.

“We want to prepare the debs to be successful on their own, as women not wives. And also to serve their communities and know how to behave on an interview or use the right fork and to rip your bread into small pieces and not bite into it.” Some of these behaviors that Regina is discussing are referred to in the academic world as“Cultural Capital,” and is defined by Dr. Amy Best, a sociology professor at George Mason University, as“a general cultural background that includes knowledge, disposition, and skills that are valued and passed on by a particular class.” In other words, these valuesservetocohereandcontinuetheideasofaclassfromonegenerationtothenext.

Cultural capital is seen as one of the most important assets one can have in order to gain upward mobility.

Participation in a debutante cotillion is one method by which a family might gainaccesstoupwardmobility,howeverthatisdefined.“Youngwomeninoureventare sponsoredbysororitysisters,havehighGPAs,areinvolvedinextra-curricularactivities, and volunteer in their communities,”Regina reminds me. Cultural capital includes suchthingsasetiquette,philanthropy,andacademicachievements.Thesevaluesarethe cornerstones of the Zeta Phi Beta cotillion.

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But what about the feminist critique, that the tradition focused on a woman’s beauty and poise rather than a woman’s individuality or intelligence? Or, that the eventservedasawayforwealthyfathersto“marry-off”theirdaughters? Itseemsquite possible that the cotillion I’m attending still presents some of those feminine ideas aboutbeautyandpoiseandgrace.“Thistypeofballcouldbeseenascontradictoryina way,”Dr.Bestsays,“becauseononehand,it’screatingopportunitiesforthesegirlsbut, ontheotherhand,itseemstodependlargelyonthegirlsfollowingfemininescripts,i.e. the white dress and gloves are a symbol of purity, their quiet demeanor, focus on their poise. Someoftheproblematicelementsthatthefeministsrespondedtointhe1970s that led to these types of balls falling out of favor.”

Bestconcludesthatwhilemaybethetraditionisadouble-edgedswordinsome regards,it’snotexploitativeandisultimatelypositivefortheseyoungwomen.Thegoals are different today than in the 1970s, but there are still pressures placed on women to represent their family’s upward mobility in society.

The Big Night…Being a Debutante

I’ve enlisted a friend to join me under the guise of a fabulous party with champagne. Carlton, my escort, is a strikingly handsome man in his early thirties who looks dashing in a tux. We arrive a little after 5:30 on a Sunday evening, find our way to our table (#28) and discover that there is no alcohol being served.“Sorry, Carlton.”He’s disappointed,butremainsmyenthusiasticcompanionasweminglethroughthecrowd.

The crowd is filled with women in royal blue dresses (the color of the sorority) and they are all posing together for pictures and flashing their sorority symbol. The room is decorated with blue and white tulle garland and there is a large dance floor in the middle of the room with twelve chairs covered in lacy white slipcovers along one side of the floor. A jazz band composed of drums, bass, guitar, and a vocalist provides the background music for the first part of the night.

I introduce Carlton and we talk briefly to Regina and Sheri, who are in their game-facedworkmode,thenightthattheyhavespentmonthsplanningishere.They are both wearing royal blue floor length gowns. Regina’s gown sparkles around her.

Sheri’s blue satin gown is sleeveless and fitted and creates a pool of blue satin around her feet where she stands.The air is filled with pride and excitement from the families.

Those seated at our table have been to this event in years past and tell us we are in for a real treat.

Bread is brought to the table and everyone looks at it. We are all starving, I know. Carlton, my trusty companion, dives right into a roll, ripping it with his teeth.

Having just learned the proper way to eat bread, I am very aware of his behavior. I feel a little embarrassed and gently correct him.“I’m not a deb and I’m hungry and you said there was going to be champagne,” he responds. How could I argue with that?

Sitting at out table, eating small bites of bread, we notice the reverend as he enters the room. He walks in like he’s walking the red carpet at the Oscars. Shaking hands, posing for pictures, kissing babies, all smiles. He’s obviously the most sought

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after tablemate at this event. And I find myself feeling proud that our table is across from his and we can watch him throughout the night. Later in the evening, Carlton and I laugh when he admits that he felt the same way.

Our salad course is being served as the first debutante takes the floor to performaninterpretivedancetoaChristianrocksong. She’sverytalentedandseveral others follow her. One sings a Celine Dion song, the next performs a tribal dance, and another plays classical piano as we are finishing our spinach stuffed chicken with jasmine rice, carrots, and asparagus. I’m very aware of myself as I eat, trying not to eat too quickly and taking small bites.

DessertcomesandIamwonderingwhentherealfestivitiesaregoingtobegin.

The debs are so far out of sight that they are never seen, save the few talents that were performed. Infact,duringmyvisitstorehearsalthedebshardlyeverspeaktome.They answer a few questions about themselves very politely and quickly. An air of mystery that lends to the debutante fascination surrounds them.

Finally, the master of ceremonies is announced. It’s Marita Golden! She’s an author of both fiction and non-fiction and a former George Mason faculty member.

Shespeaksbrieflyabouttheprocessandpreparation the girls have gone through. An etiquette class called Classy Not Trashy, a sleepover weekend with sorority sisters, and weekends spent volunteering in a soup kitchen. Marita Golden is taken with the dedication and accomplishments of these women, as all their families surely are, too.

She gushes and says that she “can’t say enough about these young women.”

The junior debutantes enter first. The girls, ranging from fifth to ninth grade, dance to a modern song on the main floor and then move to one side to make way for thebonafidedebutantes.Thejuniordebswillbedebutanteswhentheyreacheleventh or twelfth grade, and their preparation begins early to ensure their position later on.

A trio of trumpets announces each debutante and each walks in slowly with her white gown orbiting her youthful glow. Her parents follow right behind. Mom is in a black dress and dad is in a tuxedo. The first debutante walks in too quickly and her mom says between her teeth while her face remains in a tight smile, “slow down.”

Marita Golden describes each young woman as she walks in. Her age, school she attends, her goals, and her individual achievements are highlighted. GPAs range from 3.2 to 4.0 and goals range from forensic psychology to flying planes in the Air Force.The girls spin so everyone can get a good look. There is a woman in tears as her niece is presented and Carlton and I both feel proud and admit that we don’t really know why. It’s just the moment sweeping us away.

After the girls are announced there is a series of formal activities. First, the waltz with their fathers is flawless in 3:4 time, followed by an equally flawless dance with the escorts. They are all clad in tuxes, a long way from their baggy pants and sports jerseys. Next the rose of the ball is announced, the crown debutante picked for herachievementsinschool,workwiththecommunity,andherscrapbookdescribedas “a creative interpretation of her experience.”

The crowd is wild with pride and Carlton and I are tired. We sneak towards the door and leave the families to continue their celebration. On the way out I ask Carlton what he thinks of the event. “It’s nice to see families coming together to

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celebratetheirdaughters,andit’snicethattheyareinvestedintheirdaughter’sfuture.”

I think that debutantes have come a long way from Blair on The Facts of Life.

Thereisanemphasisonwomenasintelligentindividualsandthedebutante’spersonal achievementsarehighlighted,notjustherbeauty.Yet,thoseproblematicfeminizing elements arestillsomewhatpresent. ButIdidn’tcomeherefor adefinitiveanswer nor do I think that there is a definitive answer. I ventured into this world to gain a sense about the people involved and not to decide if cotillions are right or wrong.

In the end, the girls are happy, beaming in fact. This has been a good experience for them and they all used the words “magical” and “like a fairy tale” to describetheemotionsofthenight.Tonightwasacelebrationofwomenasintelligent, amazing,andbeautifulindividualsanditwastheloveoftheirfamiliesandcommunity thatmadeitallpossible.Regardlessoftheunderlyingsocialcurrents,beingadebutante will help these young women in the future. The night was unforgettable for all the debutantes,theirfamilies,friends,andforthededicatedsororitysisters. Regina,elated from the excitement of the night and a little tired, concludes, “I think it was a big success. Everyone’shardworkanddedicationreallypaidoffandhelpedmakethenight so special. Now, we start preparing for next year.”

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The Friday Librarian Theresa Helen Koucheravy After living in Fairfax,Virginia for twelve years, a college senior walking down the worn brick sidewalks of Main Street on a Friday afternoon might find herself, for no specific reason whatsoever, staring up at the weathered wood and brick of Old Town Hall. The two story building with its red brick steps, and white wash simplicity is a familiar enough sight, and nearly impossible to miss by anyone attempting to cut through the six miles square that make up the historic City of Fairfax. She has passed byontheseroadscountlesstimesweavingbytheoldbuildingnearlydailyonthewayto school, friends, dinner, and various other distractions. On many nights she has found herself caught in the long lights of University Drive and Main Street as they intersect before the old Town Hall, where through the warmth of lit window panes she has witnessedtheweddingcelebrations,costumeparties,andmeetingsthatcontinueto warm the belly of the building. She is a romantic with what her mother calls a healthy imagination,andinherheadshecanseethesesameevents,thesesamecelebrationsa hundredyearsagowhenFairfaxwasknownas“Providence”andconsistedlargelyfarm land.Whenanyonewhowasanyonespentweekendsinthecolumnedbrickbuilding.

Matchesweremade,landwassold,laughterandshoutsechoedoffoflowceilingsand hightempers. Shefeelsaparticularcamaraderiewiththissilentobserverofthecity,has wantedtogoinandintroduceherselfonmanyoccasions,butforonereasonoranother has never followed though.

But lazy Fridays are often conducive to wandering wistful jaunts and selfreflection. Standing there in early autumn she might think to herself,“Why not just go in?”like she has so many times before, except this time she does. She pushes open the worn,wideoakdoorsandbeginstowandertheemptyhall,examiningtheportraitsof people she never heard of that hang in the shadows at odd angles. “Hello?” She calls out in an echo that is met with musty silence. Some might stop there, feeling that they had pushed the envelope of exploration far enough, but curiosity drives her further.

She slips down hallways full of step worn wood and up creaking sunken stairs feeling as sneaky as a child.Through the shadows she is beckoned by an assault of light down thehallwaybeyondthecorner,andfollowingittothesourcethroughtheopendoorof averylarge,brightroomspanningthelengthoftheentirebuilding.Whatisthisplace?

If she does all this on Friday-follows her curiosity far enough and is lucky enough to do so between the hours of 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., she just might stumble through a wardrobe and find part of a historic Fairfax legacy. “Welcome.” She will hear in a strong classic voice reminiscent of magnolias and finely aged wine. She will meet Mrs. Gruendl.

Every Friday just before 1 p.m., an extremely active Mrs. Gruendl climbs the back stairs of the Old Fairfax Town Hall to her quiet cavern, and, taking off her outer layer, settles behind the same scarred desk that used to welcome her friend Carol. She opens the drawers of the old desk and pulls out the tools of her work--rubber date stamper, ink pad, razor-sharp pencil and card catalogue--all of which she lays out to

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her left, retired soldiers waiting to be called upon, and becomes the keeper of one of Fairfax City’s best kept secrets, the Huddleston Memorial Library at Old Town Hall.

She looks around for a moment, drawing the room into herself. Around her, forty or sonarrowshelvesfivestackshighlinethewallsbetweencathedral-stylepanedwindows.

They are full of books. Old books, new books, classics, and bestsellers.There are books abouthistoryandscience,romances,creativenonfiction,poetry,andmysteries. Books upon books. They all have their place in the quiet here with her, and she is happy to be amongthem. Sortingthemandarrangingthem,“Thewaytheyaresupposedtobe.The girlherebeforemewashavingbackproblemsandcouldn’treachdowntothebottom shelves—andshevolunteeredhereforagesandages—soshejustputthebooksbacking the general area they belonged in if they were supposed to be on the bottom. By the timeIgotheretherewashardlyanythingonthebottomshelves.Youcanimaginehow difficult it can be to locate a book when the library is arranged like that. So, I have been fixing things--Once a week I fix things here, and I have to say it is getting better. The bottom shelves are filling out!”

The quiet of the library is eerie, even as cars and the hustle of the old roads go on below, bouncing off the rafters and eggshell paint. There is a calm and constant quiet that comes with age—in both people and places—and Mrs. Gruendl is at peace here where no one can find her. If you were to ask anyone or any historic preservation society in Fairfax for information on the Huddleson library, you would most likely be met with blank stares and an assurance that such a library doesn’t exist. The official websitesofthecounty,loadedwithinformationfortouristsandlocals,havenomention of the library. A scan of the entire Internet through a search engine will not yield much greaterresults.Thehoursofthelibraryarenotmentionedoradvertisedoutsidetheold building itself.

“Do you have anything that tells about the library?”the girl with the pen asks, and the spunky old librarian’s laugh crackles up to the rafters.

“As a matter of fact, I just found this paper the other day. The only copy!

The only thing I have ever found that talks about the library!” She disappears into a darkcorner and slips behindahodgepodgestackof paperbacks for amomentbefore rematerializing. “I used to ask about it and no one could tell me anything, and here I am messing with things and this sheet of paper appears. I was going to take it home with me to read.”She thrusts a single sheet of what was probably once white paper at the girl and with the benevolence of a empress adds,“Here. You may read that if you like.” Her eyes narrow as she scrutinizes the girl facing her from the other side of the imposing desk as if her visitor is a child determined to finger-paint on the original oak floors, “but you can’t take it.”

Theexactprocessthroughwhichthislibrarycametobeisfuzzy,butaccording to the wilted paper, it appears that the idea of a community holding of books in Fairfax was first formed in the 1930’s, but did not manifest itself as a library in any true sense until the early 1940’s. That was when the town and the county in association with the boardoftrusteesandonevolunteerlibrarianmovedthecollectionintothegroundfloor of the OldTown Hall. A yearly membership fee was set (though there is no memory of whatthiswas)andthistraditionofcommunityownershiphascontinuedthroughthe

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years,andtodayforamembershipfeeof$1ayearanyonecanusetheprivatecollection.

At her death in 1946, Ms. Elizabeth Chilcott left $10,000 to the library, and in 1962 Dr. and Mrs. F.W. Huddleson also left a“substantial sum”to the Old Town Hall library, which then became known as the Huddleson Memorial Library of Old Town Hall.

“Money enough to take care of the books and buy new ones when we need them. We get all the bestsellers, you know. Of course, I don’t deal with any of that. TheTuesday librarian does all that. I didn’t want to deal with that whole book ordering mess. Like I told Carol--I miss that woman--nothing new!”

The books lined the walls of the lower meeting room of the Hall, witnessing all the activities there until 1986, when the collection was permanently moved to the upper floor. Which is probably when things got really quiet for the Huddelson library.

The Fairfax City Regional Library branch of the Fairfax County Public Library is just two blocks over on Chain Bridge Road. It is well publicized, easy to find, convenient to access, and has a much larger pool of titles and authors to draw from across the state. InnowayarethetwolibrariesconnectedandnowhereistheHuddlesonLibrary advertised. With all of this being said, how does anyone ever find out about the library to begin with?

“Oh, most people just wander in like you did. They look at all the books on all the shelves and then ask me all wide-eyed,‘Is this a library?’and I say,‘Why, of course.’

As if it could be anything else! Do you see the books? Do you see the librarian? And theywanderaround,andtheylook,andtheytellmehowtheyneverknewthatthiswas here. And then they leave. I guess I can’t blame them, I had no idea this was here and I work at the Fairfax Museum! But then, I enjoy the fact that no one can find me.”

She is, by her own description, the reluctant librarian. Or at least she was some two years ago when over martinis the retiring librarian and keeper of the keys, Carol, who had been pestering her to take the position for weeks, leaned in and asked once again, “So how about Fridays?”

Maybe it was the warm ease of the martini in her belly or maybe something struck a chord with the sentimental side of her analytical mind. Whatever the motivation,afterweeksofsaying,“No,no,no!”tobeingtheFridayvolunteerlibrarianof the Huddelson Memorial Library, Mrs. Gruendl (age a secret) looked up at her friend Carol and in her most crotchety voice said, “Fine. I’ll do it…but only on Fridays and I don’t want to learn anything new!”

Andsoitwasthatawonderfullyindependentanddirectcreatureofsocialexperiences and“distinguished”yearsfoundheronce-a-weekmatchinaplacecompletelyconducive toresistingchange.“Onewoman,anex-librariansomeplaceelse,wasinecstasybecause I had a card catalogue and was sitting at a desk. We still do everything by hand here, you know, and I guess that still tickles some people. They like to see those old cards.

Do you ever remember having a card catalogue?”

“Yes. I--” “Probablynot.Youwereprobablystartingtoreadwhentheybeganbringingin thecomputersystems.Wellsomeplacesholdontothecards.Theyrespectthehistory, or at least acknowledge it. That same lady was telling me that some library in San Franciscoorsomeplacetookthecardcataloguecardsandpaperedallthereadingroom

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walls with them. Can you beat that? I mean, they were just going to be thrown out andtherewerethousandsandthousandsofthem. Apparentlythepeopleloveit.They like to see‘novelty’stuff like that.”She snorts,“So I guess all this makes us a novelty. At least to those who find us. Then some other librarian in Maine said that they have to take all the old books out of the library and keep them in a warehouse because there isn’tenoughroomfortheminthepubliclibrary.Canyouimagine?Whatifyouwanted to find an old author—well I don’t suppose that people your age care for old authors anymore.” She waits for a reply, “Well, actually, I--” “But people my age like the old that are hard to get.”She shifts proudly on her chair and with her right leg elegantly crossed over her left leans in dropping her voice as she exposes her secret.“But we have them all here. We have things here.”She looks over her shoulder out the ancient multilayer glass that distorts the setting sun’s hold on Main Street and the girl thinks what a poetic photograph it would make. “Nevil Shit!” Mrs. Gruendal announces as if she has stumbled upon the secret of life, her eyes striking back to the girl. The girl blinks a few times not really sure that she heard correctly, “I’m sorry?”

“Nevil Shute. Shoot. Nevil Shute. He is one of my favorites. Things that are hard to find—mystery books. Good ones, not any of that sex-filled mass production trash. But, then, these books aren’t as important anymore. Cell phones are more important. But it doesn’t matter. Those are crafted stories! Every piece fits just right.

I’ll read his books over and over. I never have to fight anyone for them. They are always waiting for me. Nevil Shute is here.”The girl finds her eyes darting around the roomattheoldlibrarian’surgency,halfexpectingthedeceasedauthortoannouncehis presence. “But then he was a bit before your time. I always wanted to be a librarian when I was a girl, you know. Tried to be a librarian at the New York City Public Library, you know, the one with those great lions in front when I was sixteen--maybe seventeen--when I became an adult. I’m from NewYork City originally. I thought that that would be the greatest job in the world, not having to talk to anyone, just sit in the quiet. All those books. Have you been there? It is a wonderful place! So, I got dressed up, and made my way down there, and they told me they couldn’t hire me because I was too short! Can you imagine? I couldn’t reach all the shelves. Hum--well, this was wayback.Theshelveswerehigh,thecardcatalogueshuge,andyouhadtolookforthe book. Really go and look. People think life didn’t exist before computers. I don’t even own a computer and look at me, I turned out fine! Survived. Doesn’t anyone write letters anymore? Have you ever written a letter? —But yes, I was too short. I left and never thought of becoming a librarian ever again. At least not until Carol. A delightful woman. I really miss her. She talked me into it. So, me volunteering here, this would be—what is it—full circle?”

There are little changes that happen at all libraries—books leave and others return— but so few of them leave anymore that she sometimes amuses herself by randomly selecting books and examining the last checkout date. “The last one was something—Oh, I don’t remember. But there is this woman who comes in every two

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years and checks out the exact same book. Every two years!”she chuckles to herself, “I suppose she loves that book. Not enough to buy it, mind you, just to visit with it regularly. If you were to find that book and open it on up to the back, you’d find her name spaced out by two years nearly exactly every time! --I wonder about people like her. But then, you have to wonder about most anyway, I think. Don’t you?”

“Well, yeah I guess--” “Like those kids, you know, the ones who are permanently attached to their cell phones. The worst! I will be sitting outside in a café eating and they will walk up and whip that piece of waste out and start talking! And they engage in the most pointlessconversation!”Hervoicedropsthreenotchesinpitch,“Ummm—hey,I’m,uh juststandinghere--whatareyoooudoin’?Yeah,Idunno,maybegetsomethingtoeat…’ and it just goes on and on! And I get angry. I just want to smash their cell phones! I mean, why is that necessary? Do these young people think that the rest of the world is interested in their inane inner dialogue? Get a life! Read a newspaper!Volunteer with something! Getajobandservememylunch,butdon’tjusttalkonthatphonebecause you can! I mean, you’re a young person. Why do you people do that? Are you scared of your own thoughts?” The girl shifts in her seat wondering when she became the speaker for her entire generation.

“The silence maybe?” Mrs. Gruendl shakes her curly cap of dusty white hair sadly,“That is just too bad. I think words should mean something--You’re not going to quote me on all that in your thing, are you?”

“Of course not.”

“Yes, well. So this is what I do. And then I go home.”

“Can I copy the information off of that sheet?”

“Be my guest.” She hands over the lone page of information ever typed up about the Huddleson Memorial Library. “You just can’t take it because I am going to take it home and read it. In fact, it is time to leave. Hurry up, girl. Closing time, you know?” The girl scrambles to copy as much information as possible from the sheet thatmightneversurfaceagainasthemasterofthetimecapsulestands,stretchingold bones.“It is a good place here, you know. Quiet and real. Children can ride their bikes here, or at least they could before all of this—what’s it called? Urban sprawl? No that’s not right either.You have to be careful with children these days, you can’t just let them go off on their own like you used to. I don’t see many children here.” She laughs and pulls on a plum trench coat, shaking her head,“But then I don’t see much of anyone.”

Mrs. Gruendal pulls open the sticky drawer of the old desk and puts her tools away—a rubberstamp,inkpad,cardcatalogue,finelysharpenedpencil--Allofthemaspristine as they were when she opened the library for the day hours before.“All right, dear, you should go. But be sure to come back and see me. I will be here. I am always here, you know. Well, on Fridays at least. I like to see young people who have some sense about them.” She parades the girl across the groaning pitted oak floors, past the stacks of books,tothedoorandpracticallypushesheroutoverthedoorjambandbackintothe abandoned shadows of the hall. “Yes, you must come back. We’re creatures of habit you know. Good-bye.”And she turns away, walking back to the desk to claim a crusty

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umbrellafromadarkenedcorner.Thegirlstandsthereinthehallfrozenfor amoment, a little like Alice thrown from the looking glass, listening to the honk of unaware traffic belowandwatchingoldMrs.Gruendlcurseatherkeys. Sheshakeshermuddledhead andturnstowalktothesunkenstaircase,wonderingexactlywhothe“creaturesofhabit� really are.

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Twindom Allison Lechner

The Speech

Mid-May 1998—the time of year when students begin to dream of summer vacation. I was on my way to the auditorium for an assembly—at least this got me out of class. However, this assembly was more important than that. As I made my way to the seats in the crowded Paul VI Catholic High School auditorium, I stared intently at the stage, willing my twin sister Amy to look my way so that I could tell her,“break a leg.”She was too occupied with getting last-minute instructions to notice. I took my seat,surroundedby1,000image-conscious,heckling-prone,uninterestedhighschool students. They didn’t care that this was the Student Government Executive Board Speeches—thatpeople’sreputationsmighthavebeenontheline.Theyjustwishedthat they had cut class completely today.

As the speeches began, my stomach clenched and my heart pounded in apprehension for Amy. Maybe twins can feel each other’s pain. She was taking a big risk— a lowly freshman doing a ventriloquist act in front of this audience. She had been frightened about it for days. Would she mess up her speech? Would she be booed off the stage? Would she be laughed at for the rest of her school career? I had been her mock audience for days—knowing the speech by heart, knowing it was funny and creative. Would it be successful in this environment? I wanted the boring, pretentiousspeechesbeforehertoendsothatAmy’stormentofapprehensionwould end, too. The students around me were falling asleep.

Finally, Amy’s turn. She was dressed very professionally in a lilac blouse and floral skirt that had already garnered her many compliments. Her companion—a Charlie McCarthy ventriloquist dummy that I had received for Christmas one year— was on her arm. He had a Mylar balloon with the words “vote for Amy” tied to his wrist.“This is it,”I thought,“This is the moment of truth.”The audience began to come alive—what was the deal with the doll? Amy set him on the podium and introduced herself and her“friend”who would be helping with the speech today. We called him Chuck—not only because his“real name”was Charlie but also for the evil doll Chucky from the horror movies. When Chuck began speaking in a shrill, raspy voice that Amy always puts on for fun, the nappers in the audience woke up, startled. It was a typical campaignspeech,infusedwithbanterbetweenAmyandChuck. Ididn’tcarewhatthe audiencethought. Iknewitwashilariousandwasawestruckthatshehadthecourage to do this in front of all these people. I was proud of her. The crowd began to laugh at Chuck’s antics and laughed some more. She got cheers and applause at the end.

Instinct told me that she had nailed these votes but it didn’t do to be hasty. I voted for her, of course, and waited with my stomach clenched all day while the votes were being counted. We were in different classes so I did not see her, and I could not focus on the boring lectures—all I could think about was,“are the votes counted yet?”

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Finally, towards the end of the day, I got the news: Amy had won by a landslide. Gutsy speeches with Chuck became her trademark every year for the rest of her high school career. How did she have the self-confidence to do this speech every year? I have trouble saying my own name in front of a much smaller crowd. We’re supposed to be twins—how can we be so different?

Different People I was born at 7:31 pm on April 10, 1983—a full hour after my sister, Amy. My parents, deciding for some arbitrary reason to give us both“A”names, had no idea of the awkwardness this would cause down the road. Having two A. Lechners living at the same address has to be very confusing for administrative purposes. For all I know, some of my medical or school information has ended up in her files due to an administrative“screw up”—and I will eventually find out about it the hard way. Talk about a case of mistaken identity.

However, other than the same first initial and the same home address, we are not exactly the same. Whenever I tell people that I am a twin, the first question always is, “Are you an identical twin?” Well, I’m not. I am a fraternal twin, which means that my sister and I are, biologically, two different people—we look like we are related, but do not look exactly alike. Think of it as being sisters who share the same age and birthday. Whenever I say that I am a fraternal twin, people say things like,“Oh, then you’re not a real twin”or,“It would be so much cooler if you had a double of yourself out there.” But even though my sister and I don’t look alike, we are still twins.

In fact, we look nothing alike—I mean we look like we’re sisters but we are not clones. Amy is three inches taller than I, has green eyes, and has had to wear glasses since she was five years old. She has always liked stylishly shorter hairstyles, short enough that some people used to think that she was a boy. Of course, nobody ever makes that mistake now. I have brown eyes, did not have to wear glasses until high school, and have always worn my hair longer.

Temperamentallyspeaking,wearecompletelydifferentpeople. Shecoulddo the“Chuck Speech”while I was always known as“the shy one.”I was quieter, was more of a follower, and tended to stay in the background. However, my grades were slightly better than Amy’s, and I therefore became known as the“smart one”as well. This was, of course, not true—we are both smart and both graduated with high honors in high school. Psychologists would probably have a field day in examining how birth order dictatesthesetemperaments,butIagainwanttopointoutthatwearenotexactclones.

Nevertheless, people have still confused us. We went to a private elementary school (a school for gifted kids that by some miracle we both had high enough IQ’s to be accepted to) that was so small that the school only had one class at our grade level.

This meant that we were always in the same class. Teachers would still call me Amy andherAllisonandwouldjokinglycommentwhenwecorrectedthemthatwelooked so much alike. I still don’t know how they thought so except that, perhaps, since we were twins, they subconsciously thought that we looked alike. The fact that she wore glassesthenandthatIdidn’tbecameagreatdifferentiatingtoolforthem.Theywould

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say, “Amy is the one who wears glasses” and this would be enough to “tell us apart.”

Study Buddies Our grade in elementary school was so small that teachers knew what each student looked like, so they would go down the list—“Megan is here…Andrew is here…Laura is here…” then they’d get to our names. “Amy and Allison are here.”

We were not known as two individual people. In this way, we took on one name, “AmyandAllison”that stuck with us the rest of our school careers. I don’t know why the name“Amy”came first in this word the teachers coined for us. Alphabetically, my name should have been mentioned first. Perhaps it was due to seniority in that Amy istechnicallyolder,orperhapsthedifferentnumberofsyllablesinournamesdictated how the “word” was said.

Being in the same class was not a bad experience by any means. Many people mightthinkthatwewereinfiercecompetitionwitheach other to get better grades, or hated being stuck together all day every day in school, but it was nothing like that. I think that it actually made school better. We always had someone to talk to and had built-in study buddies since we were taking the same classes at the same time.

We also always had someone to work with in a group project. We have always shared the same wry sense of humor and creativity so the two of us working together caused us to create hilarious and extremely creative projects and presentations. I rememberonemathprojectwehadtodoaboutplanningabarbeque—actuallyaboring topic since it was for a math class. Between the two of us, we generated our necessary postercombiningthetediousspreadsheetsweneededwithcolorpicturesofbarbeque foodcutoutfromcookbooks,andflame-patternedborders—thewholethingtopped with fire-cracker-shaped Memorial Day decorations. Cheesy, yes, I admit it probably was. I don’t even remember the grade we got. I just remember how great the final product looked and how much fun and laughter we experienced by working on it together.

Bummers It’s April 10, in any given year of our childhood. We come to the kitchen, which has been festooned with Happy Birthday banners and balloons strung onto festivecrepepaperdrapedacrosstheceiling.Wesitdownatthetable,whichhasbeen decorated with tablecloths, napkins, and plates in a particular theme. One year it is Hello Kitty, giving the table a bright pink and white glow. Another year, it is an outer space theme with neon green aliens marching across the tablecloth.

After lunch in this jolly setting, we get to our favorite part—cake, ice cream, andpresents.Thecakeisunveiled—achocolatecakehandmadebymomwithfrosting writing on it. “Happy Birthday Amy and Allison.” We even have to share a cake.

Gift time! We open gifts from our parents. Where Amy gets a The Doors or a Tracey Chapman CD, I will get a computer game like Sim City, 2000. This is okay since it caters to our particular tastes, but when we start getting to the gifts that our

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extended family have bought us, it starts to get unusual.

I will open a bath potion set—Freesia shower gel and lotion. Ooh! I like Freesia. Then Amy unwraps a box of the same size and shape—guess what it is? The exact same Freesia bathpotionset. Sheisgratefulanduses itacoupleof times, butshe doesnotreallylikeflowerscents,preferringthewarmscentsofvanillaorcoconut. Iend up inheriting her mostly-full set in addition to having my own, which is not a bad thing in itself. What is bad is that Amy is cheated out of one of her gifts because it is not something she would routinely use.

The rationale of these relatives is that they don’t want to give one of us a more expensiveorbettergiftthantheygivetotheother.Theystrivetokeepeverythingequal, even if it means buying us the same gift. While it is admirable that they think of this, it can result in some minor unhappiness at birthdays.

This bummer is trivial, and sharing a birthday with a relative is not all bad. It is actually a nice experience sharing the special day with somebody else because she has the same birthday as me. It is nice knowing that there is somebody else out there who shares my happiness on my birthday for the same reason. When I grow to the age where I begin to feel pessimistic on my birthday, it is nice to know that there will be someonetocommiseratewithbecausethesamethingishappeningtoheratthesame time.

Amy and I also have our fair share of arguments and sibling squabbles. Amy isobsessedwitheverythingbeingneatandorganizedwhileIamadisorganizedslob. I can have a large amount of clutter around me while it is unbearable for her. She will then give me a hard time asking, “How can you live like this?” and, “How hard is it for you to clean once in a while?” This gets me to snap back,“Excuse me that I’m not obsessivecompulsivelikeyou.”Wegetintobigargumentsabouthowandwhenwewill clean the house.

Another annoyance, albeit trivial, is the questions we both endure when people find out that we are twins. My sister particularly loves when people ask her the question,“Did you and your sister ever dress alike?”(We never deliberately did by the way). We also get questions like,“What is it like being a twin?”or,“Do you like being a twin?” It is a way of life we have dealt with for twenty-two years now. We don’t know what it’s like to not be a twin. It would be like us going up to a random person on the street and asking,“So, what is it like to not be a twin?”This wouldn’t quite work. They say that there are no such things as dumb questions but, from being asked things like this, I disagree. This issue is nothing major, but can become irritating from time to time.

Diverging Paths In mid-October 2001, I was staring out the van window towards the entrance of Elizabeth Waters Hall at the University of Wisconsin. This had been Amy’s and my homesinceSeptember.Wehadbeeninoneclasstogether,andhadexploredMadison together on the weekends, discovering the tastiest restaurants and the best shops.

However, I was leaving Wisconsin for good—I could not finish out the semester. I

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was homesick and quickly discovered that life at Wisconsin was not the kind of life I wanted. My parents had come to move me out and to take me home. Amy, made of sternerstuff,waslastingitout.WehadpackedallthebelongingsAmywouldnotneed and were ready to leave—to make the thirteen hour drive back to Washington, D.C. Amy had begun to cry. I was leaving her and taking Mom and Dad with me. Seeing her sadness caused me to cry as well. I think we both knew that things would not be like they used to be anymore. As we pulled away, I saw Amy standing in front of the dorm to see us off. She was a solitary figure standing there. We were on diverging paths—Iwasheadingtowardsatwo-yearquesttofindanewdirectionforcollegeand for life and Amy was finishing out the semester at Wisconsin before transferring to Smith College in Massachusetts.

She attends Smith and I live at home and commute to George Mason. The diverging paths have allowed us to become individual people.“AmyandAllison”is no more.Wehaveeachchosendifferentmajors,andhavediscoverednewacquaintances to be with at our respective schools. Many people would say,“Finally, a chance to be independent.” However, I feel slightly nostalgic for what once was. I miss going into a class and seeing at least one person whom I know well and whom I can sit next to. I miss not having a built-in person to eat lunch with and hang out with on my breaks between classes.

My twin sister Amy has always been my built-in friend. When I was with her at school and when she lived at home, I always had somebody my own age to talk to.

We played Barbies as children and did homework as we got older. Living in the same house,wekneweachother,includingeachother’sflaws,andwereabletoaccepteach other for who we are in spite of them. We are a combination of friends and sisters so thatwecantakethebestaspectsofbothrelationshipsandcombinethemintoourown.

This is a very rare relationship that very few in the world can have. I feel lucky to have it.

Converging Paths?

Interestingly, our paths may converge again. My sister graduates from Smith thisspringandshehasbeenacceptedtoandisconsideringattendingGeorgeMasonfor graduate school in its New Media program. If she goes to GMU, she will be living at home, like me, and will be going to graduate school at the same time I am finishing up myundergraduatedegree.Willitbearepeatofelementaryschoolorwillourdifferent experiences create an entirely new school experience at George Mason? It is difficult to tell. But I’ll tell you this: her email address will have to be“alechner2@gmu.edu”-“alechner” is already taken.

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Conceptions of Time in The Cherry Orchard and Swann’s Way, Overture Corey Beasley

One hundred and fifty years ago, the general human conception of time remained relatively unchanged from that of the centuries before. Humankind held time to be immutable, an ever-marching force reigning over all inhabitants of the universe.Insightsmadeoverthelastcentury,however,havepermanentlyalteredthe notionoftime. Einstein’stheoriesascribedamalleable quality to time, hypothesizing the possibility of time travel—the force now more like water than concrete. Freud’s writingsondreamsandthesubconsciousprovedtimeopentopersonalinterpretation, with each individual repressing or fixating upon different moments in his or her life, evenalteringtheverynatureoftheseeventswithinthemind. Publishedonlytenyears apart,AntonChekov’sTheCherryOrchard andMarcelProust’s Swann’sWay,Overture both examine time and memory, reaching very different conclusions regarding the nature of time. A reflection of the zeitgeist of the decades before, 1904’s The Cherry Orchardmorereadilyembracestheincontrovertible,linearperceptionoftime;1913’s Swann’sWay,Overture,however,makesitswaytowardthenewawarenessoftime,ina suggestion of things to come.

The Cherry Orchard opens with a line foreshadowing its thematic fixation, as the merchant Lopahin remarks, “The train is in, thank God. What time is it?” (1298).

Similarly, Swann’sWay, Overture begins with narrator saying,“For a long time I used to gotobedearly”(1477).Theseseeminglyroutinestatementsactuallyrevealagreatdeal about their respective works’ opinions concerning time.

Lopahin makes his comment in agitation: the train is presumably late, and heisconstantlyfocusedonthetime,acutelyawarethatsecondstickawayrelentlessly, never ceasing. This attitude reflects that of the play as a whole. The Cherry Orchard tells the story of a family and their hangers-on ravaged by the passage of time, until nothing exists from which to siphon happiness, except (in Lubov Ranevskaya’s case) bittersweet memories of the past or (in Pyotr Trofimov’s case) deluded dreams of a distant, utopian future. Despite the fact that time has not been kind to the family in thepastfewyears,itcontinuestopressagainstthemwithgrowingstrength—inseveral days,theRanevskayafamilyorchard,whichLubovcannolongeraffordtokeep,willbe sold.Thusmostofthemajorcharacters—withthenotableexceptionofLopahin—find themselvestrappedbetweentheplanesofthebygoneandtheimpending,theironly tangible anchor to the real, contemporary world joining them in a state of helpless transience.

The narrator Marcel’s opening remark in Swann’s Way, Overture reveals a correspondingpreoccupationwithtime,thoughinadifferentmanner.Thestatement cleaves Marcel’s life into two distinct halves: the past, in which he went to bed early, and the present, in which he does not. This suggests a certain degree of flexibility on Marcel’s part in the face of passing time. He had established the routine of an early bedtime,towhichheapparentlyadheredformanyyears;nevertheless,heeventually

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broke this habit and has since behaved differently. Marcel, then, does not fall easily intothetrappingsoftime,andinsteadfightsagainstthenotionofinevitability. Indeed, the whole of Swann’s Way, Overture is an exercise in unpredictability, with Marcel’s thoughts jumping from one topic—and one point in time—to another, with little warning or explanation beforehand. Whereas Lopahin and the Ranevskaya family succumb to the onslaught of time’s flow to the point of being ruled by it, Marcel favors a more active role, swimming freely among his memories and dreams as if they were merely islands in the sea of his consciousness, always at his disposal.

Thoughbothworksareheavilyfixatedonthepassageoftime,theauthorstreat the concept of this motion very differently. As it is a play,The Cherry Orchardnaturally concernsitselfprimarilywithdialogue. Nonetheless,Chekovrelegateshischaracters mainly to cyclical musings on the past and the future. The characters are devoid of epiphanies; rather, they ramble incessantly through the whole play about the same topics—Lubov about her nostalgia for her days spent at the orchard,Trofimov about the ills of the lazy Russian populace,Yepihodov about his bad luck, and so on. In doing so, they effectively refuse actualization, choosing instead to live in the past or future (even these romanticized visions), avoiding the present whenever possible.

The elderly manservant Firs serves as an excellent example of this, telling the story of his rejection of emancipation decades before. His proud assertion that “I wouldn’t consent to be set free then”sounds oxymoronic—freedom should not come with consent, as it is the natural state of all beings; still, Firs actively discards this opportunity to live a free life, instead opting to cling onto his established routine (1314). This stands in direct opposition to the opinions and actions of Marcel in Swann’sWay, Overture, who eventually casts off his customary habit. In the end, Firs neveracceptsfreedom,neveracknowledgesthechangesthatoccurredinthetransition from past to present; in refusing to do so, he dies alone and forgotten, with nothing to show for a life of servitude. He recognizes this, saying,“Life has gone by as if I had never lived…nothing is left, nothing”(1333). Firs’s lonely death serves as Chekov’s damnation for those who decline to capitalize on the opportunities offered by the present.

Chekov’s purposeful omission of any major“action”in The Cherry Orchard acts as commentary on daily life and the passage of time therein: in Chekov’s vision, day-to-day existence is monotonous, devoid of any revelations or insights worth examining. Rather, people recycle the same thoughts ad naseum, rarely—if ever— breaking free of the seductive embrace of effortless repetition. His characters make numerous references to the past, but never pausing to reveal the intricate details of thesememories. Lupov,forexample,repeatedlymentionsthathersondrownedatthe orchardmanyyearsago,butnevermorethantosimplysay,“Mysonwasdrownedhere” (1321). This suggests that, without proper foundation in the present, these people cannotevenadequatelyliveinthepast—theyformonly vaguenotions of memories, never processing them into lucid versions of history.

In Swann’s Way, Overture Proust differs sharply from Chekov’s perspective.

Thoughequallycomprisedofpersonalmusings,Marcel’sworldcouldhardlybecalled monotonous. Rather, Proust elevates daily, mundane occurrences to transcendent,

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revelatory experiences. Furthemore, Swann’s Way, Overture is not a narrative in the normal sense, but rather a collection of thoughts and memories flowing almost as if in a stream of consciousness. This in itself reflects the dissimilarity between Proust’s and Chekov’s visions of time: Chekov remains tied to the traditional forward-moving narrative structure, while Proust discards it almost entirely, moving back and forth between memories at will.

Marcel opens Swann’s Way, Overture by examining at length a seemingly unexciting, everyday incident: sleeping. In what will become typical fashion, he describesvariationsofhisownexperiencessleeping,whilesimultaneouslyrelatingthem to fanciful imaginings, as when the thought of midnight conjures an invalid waiting forhisservantstocomeatdaybreakandsavehimfromthetormentsoflonely,helpless nights (1478). He reveals the daunting power of sleep, saying,“When a man is asleep, he has in a circle round him the chain of the hours, the sequence of the years, the order of the heavenly host”(1479). This suggests, in a Freudian notion, that during sleep, timebendstothewillpowerofthehumanmind,asonecastsanunblinkingeyeacross thevastentiretyofone’smemories,thoughts,hopes,dreams,regrets,aspirations. One couldhardlyimagineYepihodovorLopahinsuggestingsuchaconcept;indeed,when Chekov’s characters sleep, they do so in between acts, with nothing but a page break to sum up the process. The contrast this makes with Proust’s page-long paragraphs accentuates the disparity between the attitudes of the two authors.

The close of Swann’s Way, Overture lends the best example of Marcel’s achievingtranscendencethroughtheordinary.Thebiteofatinymadeleinedippedin lime-blossomteaconjuresupastaggeringarrayofmemoriesandvisions,andsuddenly MarcelseestheentiretyofhisboyhoodhomeofCombray,magicallysoaringoverevery locale tinged with the sweet nostalgia of childhood, all of the homes and streets and flowers—all of them“sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea” (1510). Thus the reader sees a final distinction between the perspectives of Chekov and Proust regarding time: while Chekov dooms the Ranevskaya family to eternal melancholy for their listless adherence to the past, Proust rewards Marcel for his constantrestructuringoftime,finallyawardinghimanultimate,wondrousvisionofthe whole of his existence.

Different conceptions of time now spring into being everyday. In the 21st century, humankind has the convenience of regarding centuries of examinations on the passage of time as mere reference points; the notion of time now seems, to many, completelyrelative,aswefreelyexplorethepast,present,andfuture,assigningtothem our own judgments.This comes, however, as a result of the work of brilliant artists in the years past. Anton Chekov and Marcel Proust, though their perspectives on time differ, have added rich chapters to our collective understanding of its nature.

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Works Cited Chekov, Anton.“The Cherry Orchard.”The Norton Anthology ofWorld Masterpieces.

Ed. Peter Simon. Trans. Avrahm Yarmolinsky. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1999. 1298-1333.

Proust, Marcel. “Swann’s Way, Overture.” The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Peter Simon. Trans. C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1999. 1477-1510.

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The Road to Recovery: The Meaning of Metaphors About Soldiers Recovering

From Injury

Walker Chambliss

Recovery from serious injury is a long, arduous process. When that injury is suffered on the job, there is a whole new set of issues to deal with. This is essentially what happens to United States soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, except that their on-the-jobinjuriesareusuallymuchmoreseriousandpublicizedthanthosesuffered at civilian jobs. Their recoveries at military hospitals are highly reported, as are their homecomings. There are three main types of stories on which papers report on. The first kind of story in these small town newspapers are human interest stories on a fallen soldier returning home. The second kind of story covers the basic fact that a homegrown soldier has been injured in war, and reports about their recovery from injury. The third kind of story is an investigative piece, carried out by what is normally alargernewspaperlikeTheWashingtonPost,onthefinancialhitthatsoldierssufferas a result of their injuries, or how government bureaucracy has created undue financial hardships for injured soldiers. For each of these types of stories, different kinds of metaphors are used. These metaphors, though they vary in character, are all tied to thesameissue:thatthesesoldiersareengagedinthelong,difficultprocessofrecovery.

Also, in each of these cases, metaphor use is appropriate to show the severity of the situation.

The first kind of story, and the most common, is the report of an injured soldier’s return home. These stories primarily use road- or travel-based metaphors to make their points. Sometimes these metaphors are found in the titles of the articles, such as “Injured Vet’s Return Paved With Kindness,” but they are also subtly found in more generic, objective articles with titles like “Injured Soldier Home” (Messina, Winters). Above all other metaphors here, the use of one particular example stands out.This metaphor is the phrase“road to recovery.”This phrase is used in many articles about the soldiers’ recovery in the hospital after his or her return back to America and is the most stereotypical metaphor about the subject. By using the phrase“road to recovery” in such commonplace articles like “Injured Soldier Home” in the local Grenadian paperThe Daily Sentinel Star, most writers take the hackneyed metaphor and show that the process of recovery is long (Winters paragraph 6). However, when combined with other road- or travel-based words or substituted for other words in more in-depth pieces, the metaphor can illuminate the issue.

Take, for example, the November 6th, 2005 article from The Toledo Blade by Ignazio Messina, “Injured Vet’s Return Paved With Kindness.” Immediately, it can be seen in the title that a road-based metaphor is used. Further down in the article, references are made to such things as a“milestone”(Messina paragraph 1). Though there is not specific use of the phrase“road to recovery,”the article goes into talking about how the injured soldier, Matthew Drake, has “mobility problems” (Messina paragraph 6). Later it talks about how Drake was injured when he was driving a

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military vehicle, and then how the attack came in the form of a suicide car bomber (Messina paragraph 11; Messina paragraph 9). With all these things, and the understood information that Drake had to have a long journey or“road trip”home to AmericafromIraq,theuseofroad-andtravel-based metaphors deepens inmeaning.

Usingthesespecificmetaphorsinthiscaseaccentuatestheimageryofthebombing,and oftheinjuriesitcaused. Metaphorically,Drake’s“road”beganwhenhedrovedownthe Baghdad street and a car bomb exploded. He continued down it on his trip back to America,andduringhisrecoveryinthehospital. Finally,oncehefinallycamehome,he hascometoanewpartoftheroadthatis“pavedwithhappiness,”andhehassurpassed anew“milestone,”eventhoughhehadtroublemovingdowntheroadaftertheattack, due to the mobility problems it caused. In this case, the use of the road metaphor is an excellentchoice,becauseithighlightstheseverityoftheinjuryandgivesitanemotional touch. The road metaphor is a common yet apt one to use when talking about a soldier’s return home from the warfront with an injury.

The second kind of story is similar to the first, but varies in terms of content.

Inthisstory,the soldier’srecoveryisdocumented, andthedetails of his or her struggle to recover are seen. Here, the metaphors most commonly used are conflict-based metaphors,andmorespecifically,battle-orientedmetaphors.Throughoutreportsof recovery,soldiersarereferredtoas“fighting”theirinjuries,orareengagedina“struggle” to return to normalcy. One of the best and most explicit uses of this style of metaphor comes in the article“Bomb Blows Away Soldier’s Life”from October 9th , 2005 in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The title uses this metaphor in a drastic way by referring to the bomb that injured the soldier as not only ruining his physical well-being, but his life as a whole. As one reads down the article, other words start popping up, like “stunning,”“attack,”“collateral damage,”and“banged up”(Stephenson paragraph 31; Stephenson paragraph 51; Stephenson paragraph 10). Each of these words has a battle-orientedmeaning. Inthisparticularstoryabouthowthebraindamageasoldier suffered in war has ruined his life, the title and metaphorical words in the article create a very haunting look at how the war has been brought into his home, and how he had to deal with it. The use of war metaphors is appropriate for stories like this, because it doeshelpexplainhowdifficulttheprocessofrecoveringfromsuchdisturbinganddeep wounds can be. These metaphors do not dramatize the process, but instead parallel thesoldier’s“battle”todefeattheenemyofinjury,makingitasmall-scaleversionofthe wars in Iraq andAfghanistan. Itpersonalizesthewar, which is necessary sometimes in realizinghowwaraffectsnotonlythesoldiersfightingit,butthepeoplearoundthem, and the nation as a whole.

Otto Santa Ana’s article, “Immigration as Dangerous Waters: The Power of Metaphor,”is a serious analysis of the use of metaphors in news articles, and how these metaphors can be detrimental when used recklessly. Santa Ana’s thesis is that news articles from the Los AngelesTimes about Proposition 187 in 1992 in California were discriminatory towards immigrants and Hispanics at large because they were statistically shown to portray the growing immigrant population as, primarily, a nameless, faceless body of dangerous water (Santa Ana 29). The main issue with the

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articles Santa Ana dealt with was the way they depersonalized immigrants entering the country. By referring to immigration as a“flood”, the immigrants themselves lose their faces. Santa Ana observes that these metaphors“divest immigrant workers and their families of their humanity”(40). In comparison to Santa Ana’s article, however, the metaphors used in the articles about injured U.S. soldiers do not do anything to lessentheseriousnessofanevent, orto makeagroupof peoplefaceless.Therecovery articles suffer from no such problem. Here, these articles actually personalize a seeminglyfacelessissue:war. JuxtaposingthemetaphoruseinSantaAna’sarticlewith themetaphoruseintherecoveryarticles,acleardifferenceofmeaningandoveralltone can be seen. In one article from Santa Ana, the phrase“awash under a brown tide”is used,degradingimmigrantsbybothusingtheirskincolorandafacelessmetaphorto depersonalizethesituation(30). Incomparison,thetitleofoneoftherecoveryarticles is “Bomb Blows Away Soldier’s Life” (Stephenson). In this title, a weapon of war, an impersonalidea,isimmediatelypersonalizedbyshowinghowtheman’slifehasbeen affected by his service in Iraq, and how that service will affect the rest of his life. By showingaman’sbattletorecoverfromtheinjurieshesufferedduringwar,thereporter artfully explains the problems faced by injured war veterans and their attempts to recover. Many of us will, thankfully, never have to know what it is like to have a“bomb blow away our lives,”but by using words that are as dramatic as the situation, we begin to have some idea of how difficult it is.

The third story that is written about recovering United States soldiers is that which documents their financial problems. These articles are typically investigative and/or editorial in nature, and they also mainly use battle-oriented words to describe how veterans have been treated with respect to paying for finances. Generally, the veterans are placed in the role of victim, and the debt collectors are seen as being attackers. Articles such as “For Injured U.S. Troops, Financial Friendly Fire” from October 14th , 2005 in The Washington Post, use these metaphors. In that article, the title uses the metaphor“friendly fire”to refer to the U.S. Government as harming its own troops by attempting to retrieve debts from their injured soldiers. Further along in this article, a soldier is referred to as being“hit”with debts by the government, that his wife was“stunned” to see more debts, and that the soldier“battled”with bill collectors (St. George page 1; St. George page 2; St. George page 2). Other stories, like“Hounding the Wounded”from The Ledger, a small, local newspaper from Polk County, Florida, use similar language. Words such as“shocked”and“hit”, continually show up (“Hounding the Wounded” paragraph 10; “Hounding the Wounded” paragraph 11). The use of metaphors here, however, does justice to the situation.

While it does not happen that often, it is embarrassing and a bit sad when a seriously injured war veteran is billed for debts he incurred during his service and recovery period. There were 331 cases of this reported last year, and by using war metaphors, these“battles”betweenwarveteransandtheU.S.governmentaremorphedintowhatis equivalenttoatinygroupofpeoplebeinghurtbyalargerforce. Battlemetaphors,once again, do well to show the struggle between the two sides (St. George, page 1).

With each of these kinds of stories, the metaphors are used well. While

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Santa Ana contends that metaphors in newspapers can be used detrimentally when used carelessly, he never really makes a statement as to the positive use of metaphors in articles. Metaphors are used to bring imagery into a piece, and when they are used wellinnewspaperarticles,itisnodifferent. Justbecauseitispossibletousemetaphors carelesslyanddangerouslydoesnotmeanthereuseshouldbestopped. Metaphorsare a powerful linguistic tool, and when used wisely they can be highly effective.

News articles have the potential to sway public opinion one way or another, andtheirwordusemustbecarefullyselectedinordertoshowwhatneedstobeshown.

Of course, this goes for metaphors as well. Right now, most articles about injured soldierscomefromsmall,hometownnewspapers,andarelesscoveredinlargerpapers.

Inlargerpapers,injuredsoldiersareusuallyonlyseeninarticleswhichreportthelatest bombing or skirmish. In local papers, the injured soldiers are celebrated as heroes.

Rightnow,thelackofcoverageinmajorpapersandtheintensecoverageinsmallpapers seemstobepromotingagrassroots“supportourtroops”mentality. However,itisquite possible a shift in public opinion could occur at any time. If these wartime casualties begin spiking and severely increasing, the opinion could switch to a more“bring the boys home”mentality. Also, an increase and emergence in prominence of the second type of articles showing the struggles of injured soldiers to readjust to society and returntonormalcywouldbealikelysourceofopinionchange. Sincethesearticlestend tousemoredramaticlanguageandmetaphorusagetheyappealtopathos,moresothan any of the other types of articles presented. Emotion is the easiest way to sway public opinion. In the same way that people feel pride for a hometown soldier who bravely foughtandwasinjuredonthefrontlinesofwar,theymayfeelempathywithaninjured soldierwhoselifewillneverbethesame,andtheymaybegintoquestionthenecessity of our troops overseas. Metaphoric language is a powerful tool in wartime situations.

Most of the time, when it comes to stories about war and the soldiers fighting the war, themetaphorspersonalizetheirsituation. Personalizinganythingmakespeoplefeel more in touch with the subject, and more emotionally connected to it. So while those at home may not know exactly what it feels like to be injured by a rebel soldier on the streets of Fallujah, they may still feel touched by what the soldier went through, and thatexperiencecanbeveryimportantindevelopinghowthepublicfeelsabouttheissue of war.

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Works Cited “Hounding The Wounded.” theledger.com. 21 Oct 2005. The Ledger. 10 Nov 2005 <http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051021/ NEWS/510210456/1036>.

Messina,Ignazio.“Injuredvet’sreturnpavedwithkindness.”toledoblade.com.06Nov 2005.ToledoBlade.11/11/2005<http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs. dll/article?AID=/20051106/NEWS18/511060402/-1/NEWS>.

Santa Ana, Otto.“Immigration as DangerousWaters:The Power of Metaphor.”What’s Language Got to Do With It?. Comp. Keith Walters and Michal Brody. New York: W.W. Norton Company, 2005.

St. George, Donna. “For Injured U.S. Troops, ‘Financial Friendly Fire’.” washingtonpost.com. 14 Oct 2005. Washington Post. 06 Nov 2005 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/13/ AR2005101302166.html>.

Stephenson, Crocker. “Bomb blows away soldier’s old life .” JS Online. 09 Oct 2005.

MilwaukeeJournal-Sentinel.10Nov2005<http://www.jsonline.com/story/ index.aspx?id=361971>.

Winters, Lakisha. “Injured Soldier Home.” The Daily Sentinel Star. 09 Oct 2005.

Grenada Daily Star. 10 Nov 2005 <http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?ne wsid=15357348&BRD=1433&PAG=461&dept_id=170165&rfi=8>.

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A Garden of Beauty?

Farisa Dastvar

People always say,“pictures speak a thousand words,”but in all honesty, I feel like a certain picture of mine speaks beyond a mere thousand. This particular picture mayseemtoencompassbeautyandliberty,signifyingcontentmentatfirstglance,but if analyzed deeper, it shows the opposite of what it conveys to viewers superficially.

Rather than encompassing beauty and freedom, this picture represents the lack of suchhumanrightsandlibertieswithinacountryandconveysthestrugglesofanentire country.

The date written in small red digital numbers on the lower right hand side of the picture indicates that it was taken on August 19, 2004. I am standing alone, centered in the middle of the picture, in what seems to be a beautiful garden, but is, in fact, the location of the previous Queen Pahlavi’s summer vacation villa in Shiraz, Iran.

Shiraz, a city in central Iran, is famous for its poets, wine, aromatic flowers, and tribute to romance and love. This city always felt as though it were a Mediterranean port ratherthananareaontheedgeofadeserttuckedbetweenmountains. Overcenturies thiscityhasproducedsomeofIran’smostaccomplishedandhonoredscholars,artists, and poets. On that summer day, I was visiting what has been made into a museum and popular tourist attraction. Pictured behind me is an intricate sign, illustrating the maze-like structure of the villa’s garden. The board describes the different sections of the garden, the plants within each area, and the significance of each division. Also includedinthesignaredirectionsthroughthegardenandabriefhistoryofthequeen’s chalet,nowfamouslyknowntoPersiansasBagheEram. Picturedarethegarden’srows ofcypresstreesthatformitswalkwaysandnumerousclustersofred,pink,andorange flowers in the surroundings.The weather seems pleasant, sunny, and heart warming.

I have on a pair of fashionable black sunglasses and I am holding a black oversized bag that is resting on my shoulder and protected carefully under my arm. Although it seems that I am smiling in the picture, my grin gives away an obvious artificiality, indicating my annoyance with the amplified heat beneath the Islamic dress I, as a woman,mustwear. Ihaveonabeigejacket-typecoveringthattravelsbelowmyknees and a loosely draped black scarf over my hair, giving away my general location, the Middle East, immediately. And, although the actual environment surrounding me is captivating,it’salmostdishearteningtoseemyselfsocoveredandrestricted;it’sashame to be in such an open, free environment with such a burden of limitation.

When looking at this picture, it’s natural to conclude that I may be simply on a vacation, out enjoying a historical site with a pleasurable view. However, the viewer might not see the Islamic Revolutionary Guards swarming the beautiful garden’s grounds,althoughonemaybenoticedattheveryedgeofthephotograph.Theywalked with guns, polluting the beauty of the area with their intimidating looks and hostility, making sure women were properly following the Islamic dress code.

After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Shah Pahlavi, the ruling king, and

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the monarchy in Iran were overthrown and replaced by the Islamic Republic, led by AyatollahKhomeini,whowasbroughttopowerbyIslamicfundamentalistsandclerics withinthecountrywhoweregreatlydissatisfiedwiththesupposededlycorruptShah, who was accused of being a puppet of theWest. Currently, the country is controlled by the same hardliner clerics that supported the deceased Khomeini. Before the end of the Shah’s rule in Iran and before the great Revolution broke out, Iran was a place of relative social freedom for all, and especially for women. After standards in society began to undergo a great change with the success of the revolution and the establishment of the Islamic clerics, women were required to wear the veil in public withoutchoiceoralternative,andthefreedomsonceregularlyenjoyedbythepeopleof Iran were gradually taken away.

With this photograph, I’m reminded of what a change my country has really gone through. Even though on the surface of the picture I seem happy, smiling in the beautiful vast garden on an uplifting bright day, what people may not know is the pain I feel for not being able to fully enjoy freedoms within my country, as once all women did. At one point, I’d be able to walk the streets of Iran freely; now, however, I can’tevenwalkagardenwithfullenjoyment,feelingasthoughtheguardsarejudging my every action, eating me whole with their malicious eyes. I distinctly remember continuallyalteringmypostureorfixingmyscarftocovermoreofmyhairincomplete distress and discomfort. Such worry and tension should not be present in such a beautifullypleasantgarden,wherethekingandqueenoncespenttheirvacationsand where,inthesurroundingcity,famousPersianpoetsareacknowledgedfortheirgenius were commemorated and buried with honor.

As the international community observed in June 2004, Iran recently witnessed the largest protest against the government in four years, demonstrating just how dissatisfied the nation really is with the current Islamic regime. According to Amnesty International statistics, about 4,000 demonstrators were arrested; half of them were detained for more than a week, at least 65 charged with criminal offenses, hundredswerewounded,andhundredsmorearrestedinJuly,August,andSeptember.

The view of the general public of Iran is that the current Islamic regime is simply a democratic façade for an oppressive regime. Not only are freedoms of expressionlimited,butthegovernmentdirectlycontrolsthecountry’stelevision,radio, and press. Anything that is “insulting Islam” or “damaging the foundations of the IslamicRepublic”isbanned.Thebroadstandardthatmustbeobeyedbyindividualsis exactlywhatallowsthegovernmenttobehavesoillegitimatelyandimmorallyagainst the people of Iran. Absolutely no criticism against the government is accepted. With such extensive limitations on the freedoms of a people, it’s no surprise that animosity and urgency for change within the government exist among Persians.

As for the rights of women in Iran, though women have the same political rights as men, and many hold seats in parliament, they often face discrimination in legal and social matters. For example, women cannot obtain passports without the permission of a male relative, whether a husband or a brother; they don’t enjoy equal rights under laws governing divorce, child custody disputes, or inheritance; and a

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womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s testimony in court is given only half the weight of a manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. In addition to this, women are forced to abide by strict Islamic dress codes, without any choice in preference, and they are segregated from men in most public areas.

Aside from the negative policies established within the social aspect of Iran, economic instability within the nation is now a leading problem and concern for all citizens. Though Iran is the third highest producer of oil in the world and has many naturalresourcestotakeadvantageof,theisolationistviewsandlackofcooperationof thecurrentregimehavecausedunemploymentratestorise,andthecountryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;seconomy is facing harsh consequences. Statistics published and released by the government state that there are 19 million active people able to work in Iran and approximately 3.5 million of them are currently unemployed. Although strikes and work stoppages are common, authorities ban and disperse any sort of demonstrations that criticize national economic policies. Moreover, the GDP per capita of the nation is currently only a quarter of what it was in 1979, before the revolution and Islamic Republic was established,illustratingjusthownegativelythecurrentgovernmenthasimpactedthe nation.

As for the legal system in Iran, there is an established Council of Guardians which rejects any bills reformists actually try to get through the parliament, showing just how skewed the politics are in Iran and how ineffective the efforts of reformists are within the government. As for the court system, the Revolutionary Courts decide trials in all cases, and many are held unofficially in illegal detention centers where tortureisoftenusedasamethodofpunishmentandwheredetaineesarekeptwithout any rights; legal counsel and due process are completely ignored. As for the offenses againstthepenalcode,methodsofflogging,stoning,amputation,anddeathareused for a range of social and political offenses under Sharia Law, Islamic Law, which the Islamic Republic rules in accordance to. However, a majority of the country are Shiite Muslims, and feel it is not fair to conduct the laws of the country in accordance to Islamic law. Not only is it unethical to enforce certain religious laws upon an entire nation, without considering diversity among a people or freedom of choice, but also, usingsuchharshmethodsofpunishmentagainstthosewhodonotfollowsuchlawsis simply unreasonable and immoral.

The fact of the matter is that the lack of civil liberties, freedoms, and rights underthecurrentIslamicRepublicaremuchtoogreattoignore.Theoppressionofthe peopleandillegitimategovernmentandpolicyareleadingIranintofurthereconomic instability. Economicliberalizationandpoliticalreformareimperativeandthecurrent Islamic Republic of Iran must be replaced with a lawful democratic government, one which the majority of the people within Iran are continually protesting for.

Looking at myself in the photograph, as I stand in a suffocating outfit in a gorgeously designed garden trying my hardest to smile, I feel as though there are more than a thousand meanings behind this picture. I stand in a place of beauty, a garden that should express hope and freedom and, yet, I wear a veil unwillingly and there are political guards roaming slyly around me, as though they are accusing me of something simply with their presence. With the lack of advancements and social

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and cultural fallbacks Iran has undergone as a result of the past revolution and war, a garden,perhapssomethingcommontopeopleoftheWest,seemssounimaginableand enchantingtopeopleofIran.Thisphotographillustratesbeauty,peace,andfreedom ofemotionatfirstglance,however,iflookedatdeeper,signifiesthelackofsuchthings within a country; a lack of social and political freedoms, a lack of aesthetic beauties within a nation, a lack of cultural expressions among a people, and, simply put, an absence of rights and liberties within Iran and the struggles of the Iranian people.

Works Cited Farmanfarmaian, Manucher. Blood and Oil. New York: Random House, 1997.

Mackey, Sandra. The Iranians. New York: Penguin Group, 1998.

Mason, Whit. “Iran’s simmering discontent.” World Policy Journal 19 (2002). 3 Nov 2005 <http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=118425937&sid=1&Fmt=4&client I d=31810&RQT=309&VName=PQD>.

Navid,Shomali.“ProgressivesurgeunityagainstIranian‘coup’.”People’sWeeklyWorld 20 (2005). 3 Nov 2005

<http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=890854391&sid=1&Fmt=3&clie

ntid=31810&RQT=309&VName=PQD>.

Raana, Bahar. “An Interview with an Iranian Actress.” Off Our Backs: A Women’s News

Journal 17 (1987). 2 Nov 2005

<http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=659285521&sid=1&Fmt=3&clie

ntId=31810&RQT=309&VName=PQD>.

The World Factbook: Iran. 20 Oct. 2005. Central Intelligence Agency. 24 Oct. 2005

<http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ir.html>.

Tuhus-Dubrow, Rebecca. “Iran Daily; In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs; Lipstick Jihad.” Washington City Paper 25 (2005). 2 Nov 2005

<http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=846133791&sid=1&Fmt=3&clie

ntId=31810&RQT=309&VName=PQD>.

Whittington , James. “Youth Shapes Iran’s Economy.” BBC News. 3 Dec. 2002. BBC News: World Edition. 24 Oct. 2005

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2535127.stm>.

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Veiled Truths Tori Demery “The Tale of the Rose” and “The Minister’s Black Veil” deal in separate ways withtheideaofandsubsequentreactiontohiddenfaces.Thesetwostoriessuggestthat whenpeoplehavetruthhiddenfromthem,theyroboticallyassumetheworst.Veiling thetruthfrompeopleleadsthemtobelievethatthereissomethingsinistertobehidden, andthatthereareulteriormotivestotheact.Inneitheroneofthesestorieswasanytruly threateningevilhidden,butsimplybecausethingswerebeingconcealed,peopleassumed the worst.

In the story “The Tale of the Rose,” a beast hides her real appearance from a woman. When the captured woman removes the mask from the beast and finds that her monstrous captor is remarkably similar to herself, she is stunned, as she had been imagining the beast to be a horrible thing, a captor who was the furthest thing from herself and from whom she would stray as quickly as possible. The woman was never givenanyreasontothinkthesethings,buttheyweretheonlythoughtsthatevercame to her. The veil causes the woman to wonder“what scorn this courtesy veiled”(78). In fact,theonlymonstrousbehaviorthebeasteverpresentstothewomanisthefactthat shecoversherfaceandanswerstothecallof“beast”(78).Thatthebeastwasgruesome madesensetothewoman,thoughshecouldnotseethebeast’sfaceforconfirmationof her presumption. It is when she finally sees what is behind the mask that she becomes confused. The beast bears remarkable resemblance to herself (79-80).

The woman later understands the reasons for the beast’s hiding when she removesthemaskfromthebeast’sface,andrealizesthatthebeastislikeher—turning down suitors, refusing to do what is expected of her. The woman, like the beast, had taken to keeping herself a certain distance away by turning away her own suitors, and being interested in the sort of things that were not expected of her (75).The beast did not wanttolive the lifethatwasexpectedofher, andthereforecouldnotshowanyone herrealself.Itwasbecausenoonecouldseeherindividualbeautybeyondheroutward appearancethatthebeastchosetowearamaskandsecludeherselffromtheworld(80).

In“TheMinister’sBlackVeil,”everyonegathersincircleswhisperingaboutthe minister as they depart from church (62). No one’s initial reaction is to ask the minister what the reason for the black veil is; the initial reactions of the entire congregation of his church were all negative. People whisper about him as he passes; some people simplyshake their headsandgo straighthome(62). Ithadbeentheroutinefor people to take honor in walking beside the pastor as he mingled among the crowd, but after theappearanceoftheblackveil,thepastorwalksalone(62). Somepeoplesimplymake uptheirownreasonsfortheveil,suggestingthattheminister’seyesaresoweakhenow needs a veil to block the bright light (63). Of all the negative reactions to the veil, there is only one which directly refers to the veil in a negative light. A woman states that“a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper’s face!”(63). But everyone in the congregation is made

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uncomfortable by the minister’s veil. The husband of one woman remarks that the veil’spresencemadetheminister“ghost-likefromheadtofoot”(63). Peopleevengoso far as to comment that they would not even be alone with him anymore, the presence oftheveilmakinghimmuchtoouncomfortabletobearound(63). Nothingisunusual abouttheirministerbesidesthefactthatnowwhenhedresseshimself,headdsablack veil over his face. Just this one fact makes people look on him with more disdain than ever before.

The black veil that the minister wears simultaneously hides his face and puts his sins out for the world to see. His veil makes others uncomfortable, it makes them squirm when they looked at him, it makes them look at the minister as a terrible personjustlikethem,anditeventuallyleadsotherstothinkabouttheirownsinsasthe minister had reflected on his own (63).The minister’s hiding makes him more similar tothepeopleofhischurch,makesthemunconsciouslyorconsciouslyawarethatheis not perfect either, even if he is their pastor.

Both of these stories prove the fact that no matter what is being obscured, people will always come to believe that only negative things are being hidden.“The Minister’s Black Veil” and “The Tale of the Rose” show that people’s thoughts will alwaysextendtothenegativesideofthingsbeforewanderingtoandspeculatingabout positive solutions. Neither of the things being concealed in these two stories were actuallydangerousordreadful,yeteachpersonautomaticallyconsideredthemtobe, andthesetwostoriesprovethis.Eachmaskedpersoninthesetwostorieswasrevealed tobeessentiallysimilartotheonlookers,simultaneouslyhidinganddisplayingapartof themselves that the onlookers also knew they had, and did not want to recognize.

Works Cited Donogue, Emma. “The Tale of the Rose” The Conscious Reader. ed. Caroline Shrodes,

Harry Finestone, and Michael Shugrue. 9th ed. New York: Longman,

2003. 75-80 and 60-63.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Minister’s Black Veil.” The Conscious Reader. ed.

Caroline Shrodes, Harry Finestone, and Michael Shugrue. 9th ed. New

York: Longman, 2003. 60-63.

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Hunger and Restraint in Heart of Darkness Ethan Louis Edwards Joseph Conrad employs racial and cultural stereotypes throughout Heart of Darkness inordertocolorhisillustrationofImperialEuropeaninfluenceintheCongo.

HissegregatedtreatmentsofEuropeancolonizersandAfricantribespeopleprovidesa juxtapositionwhichiscrucialtoestablishingasenseoftherelationshipbetweenthese twogroups. However,Conrad’sraciallychargeddescriptionsfallshortofdefiningthe nature of the cultures involved in this novel. Furthermore, the descriptions fail to fully explain the character groups’actions toward one another. These aspects are actually illuminated by either culture’s reaction to the physical or material hunger Conrad assigns them. More so than the stereotypical physical descriptions within Heart of Darkness, a tension between hunger and restraint works to reveal and solidify the natures of Conrad’s character groups.

InthecaseofConrad’sAfricancharacters,hunger provides a narrative aspect somewhatremovedfromMarlow’sracialconstructs. Conradwrites:“‘Theyweredying slowly—it was very clear…they were nothing…but black shadows of disease and starvation,lyingconfusedlyinthegreenishgloom’”(2030).Thisquotation,delivering scenerydevoidofmuchsociallyconditionedthought,allowsConrad’sreadersaglimpse ofthekindofhungertheAfricansendure. Itisaphysical,threateninghunger,thecause of which Marlow goes on to describe. “‘Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food,theysickened,becameinefficient,andwerethenallowedtocrawlawayandrest’” (Conrad,2030).ThisreferencetoEuropeanconscriptionofthedyingAfricanstouches upon the relationship between these cultures. Immediately, European imperialism assumestheaggressor’sroleinacircumstanceofgrievousinhumanity.Therefore,when ConraddescribesthesamegroupofdyingAfricansas,“‘moribundshapeswerefreeas air—and nearly as thin,’”the Africans’hunger becomes quite significant, for it allows these characters to be understood as victims (Conrad, 2030).

Yet perhaps even more important than this characterization is the Africans’ reaction to hunger. A specific example is contained in Marlow’s experience with starving cannibals. Conrad writes: “‘Why in the name of all the gnawing devils of hunger they didn’t go for us—they were thirty to five—and have a good tuck-in for once, amazes me now that I think of it. They were big powerful men, with not much capacitytoweightheconsequences…’”(2048). Here,Marlowdiscussesthefactthatan overwhelmingnumberofcannibalsrefrainsfromeatingtheircaptives,despitehaving eatennothingbut“‘stufflikehalf-cookeddough…butsosmall…itseemeddone…for thelooksofthethingthanforany…purposeofsustenance’”(Conrad,2048). Intheface ofoppression,conscriptionandstarvation,thesepeople,consideredsavagesbyImperial Europe, exercise restraint.

One explanation for this is the extent to which they, as Africans, have been victimized. Their restraint could very well be due to a fear of retribution. Yet Marlow’s

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speech reveals other possibilities: “‘I saw that something restraining, one of those human secrets that baffle probability, had come into play there’”(Conrad, 2048). He continues: “‘Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear—or some kind of primitive honor? No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply doesnotexistwherehungeris;andastosuperstition,beliefs…theyarelessthanchaff in a breeze”(Conrad, 2048). Marlow’s feelings indicate that the cannibals heed some instinctwhichsupersedesallconditionedmodesofthought—evenfear. Hegoes on, testifyingtothecannibals’resolve:“‘Don’tyouknowthedevilryoflingeringstarvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts…Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly’”(Conrad, 2048). This admission is of great import, especially when, in subsequent lines, Marlow states: “‘Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield’” (Conrad.2048).Thesecannibals,whetherrecognizingtheirowndefeatbythepeople Marlowandhiscrewrepresent,orduetosomehuman,or“primitivehonor,”ignoretheir bodies’verywillstosurvive.Therestraintexhibitedbythesetribesmen,whichMarlow feels defies the limits of human capability, contradicts popular notions entertained

by European imperialists. Furthermore, it complicates the novel’s racial and moral depictions of this character group.

TheAfricans’abilitytoemployrestraintinthefaceofstarvationprovidesstark contrast to the utter lack of restraint displayed by their European oppressors. In fact, thereasonfor theAfricans’starvationisadirectresultof Europeandesires, specifically material hunger. For instance, Conrad writes: “‘I met a white man, in such an unexpected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision.

I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket…Hair parted, brushed, oiled…He was amazing, and had a penholder behind his ear’”(2031). This specter of European fashion certainly exists at odds with the dying batch of Africans mentioned above, but he serves a similar purpose. He sums up the novel’s European attitude and priorities quite nicely. Marlow questions this singular character: “‘I could not help asking him how he managed to sport such linen. He had just the faintest blush, and said modestly,‘I’ve been teaching one of the native women about the station. It was difficult. She had a distaste for the work’’”(Conrad, 2031). Evidently, his adherence to fashion is hardly free. This character has enlisted the aid of a native—against her will—in order to satisfy his material hunger. The lack of restraint that inspires this scenario is representative of the European practices within Conrad’s novel.

Consider Marlow’s description of the European members of his crew:“‘Their talk…was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy withoutaudacity,andcruelwithoutcourage’”(Conrad,2040).Theveryspeechofthese characters,whichprecedesanin-depthexaminationoftheiractions,revealstheirlack ofself-restraint.Theyare“reckless,”“greedy,”and“cruel;”withoutsubstance,though,asif theirimmediatedesireswereinfullcontroloftheirbodies. Marlow’sdepictiongoeson: “‘To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe’”(Conrad, 2040).

This characterization shows Conrad’s European character sect to be ravenous with materialhunger,which,uncheckedbyrestraint,drivesthemtoactwithmoresavagery

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than the tribes they aim to civilize.

Consequently,in HeartofDarkness,Conradportraysareversalofthepopular cultural characterizations of his time. He assigns his African characters the ability of restraint,evenastheyendurephysicalstarvationandexploitation. Ontheotherhand, Conrad’sEuropeanoppressorsappearmorallyinferior,asthischaractergroupsacrifices humanity in order to sate their overwhelming material hunger. This comparison is a bitmorecomplicatedthanthatsuggestedbyMarlow’sracialdescriptions,whichmerely providealayerofperceptionthatsimulatesbigotry.Theunderlyingtensionbetween hunger and restraint actually works to contradict the race-tainted characterizations within Heart of Darkness.

Works Cited Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness.” The Longman Anthology of British Literature.

Vol. 2C. Ed. David Damrosch. New York: Longman Pearson.

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I Know More Than You Do: The Importance of Self-Interpretation in Picasso’s Guernica Joe Hayes

It can be a difficult task attempting to understand Pablo Picasso’s most controversial artwork, titled “Guernica.” His use of abstract painting and the wide range of analyses that result allow much room for interpretation and debate. When examiningabstractart,thedesiretomakeconnectionstothephysicalworldbyforcing meanings on visual images is natural. It is unnerving and frustrating when we cannot immediatelyunderstandsomething. Relatingaconfusingimagetosomethingmore tangible and familiar helps us to reestablish peace of mind. But“Guernica”demands your time and attention. This work cannot be offhandedly cast aside and restricted to atime,place,oreventintheworld,casuallyunderstoodasanisolatedpieceandjustas easilydismissed.Whiletheartworkisdefinitelybased on a single event, the painting’s message relates and speaks to a universe full of fear, sadness, and hope for the future.

Picasso is able to establish this line of communication from the past to the future by his liberating style of painting. How does Picasso’s use of abstract art in “Guernica” help what was an isolated event transcend space and time, and why is critical analysis of its symbolism detrimental? In order to answer these questions, a brief description of the inspiring event for the piece must first be discussed, giving light to the painter’s motivation.

In January of 1937, the Spanish government commissioned a mural from Picasso for its building at the World’s Fair (Arnheim 18). This task was especially important and challenging to Picasso, as he was born and raised in Spain and desired toincorporatehisexperiencesinthepaintingwhileconveying“inoneimageasenseof the drama in Spain as a result of the Fascists”in the Spanish Civil War (18). The event that he was searching for occurred in April of the same year, when the little village of Guernicawasbombedandentirelydevastated,providingPicassowiththesymbolismof the“totalnessandbrutalityofthebomb”that“resembledtheharshnessoftheFascists” (18). Guernicarepresentedthespirit,pride,andfreedomofalltheSpaniardswhowere innocent in the war, further portraying the viciousness of the Fascist attack. With the importanceandrelevanceoftheincidentunderstood,Picassosetouttodecidewhich style of art would best correspond to this terrible tragedy.

Picasso was living in a period in which “society no longer provides rules, conventions,orevensuggestionsastotheformsuchapresentationisexpectedtotake” (Arnheim 18). He was free to explore any form of art he wished, restricted only by his imagination. There is a vast array of books and articles written on this particular piece, andeachoneaimstoclarifywhyPicassousedthisambiguousmethodandtonaildown exactly what the images say. Author and art critic Gijs van Hensbergen offers:“It was impossibletosaywhichinterpretationwasthemostconvincing,particularlyasPicasso was angered by the critics’need to be so literal and reductive, and he refused to help them in their mission to close the painting down”(55). Large numbers of art critics

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personally interviewed the artist in an attempt to isolate the meanings and symbolic imagery behind Picasso’s creations, especially Guernica, but without much success.

As one such interviewer recalls“Various artists who make their living by putting their labels on people identified him with a wide variety of schools – surrealist, classicist, abstractionist, exhibitionist, and even conventionalist. But beyond this lot of fancy nonsense, these people never did explain Picasso. He remained an enigma” (156).

While this attitude proved frustrating to those dedicated to defining the meaning of Picasso’s art, his actions provided this piece with the ability to relate to a much larger audience and larger historical significance. Had Picasso painted Guernica with an alternate,morerepresentationalmethod,orhadhedetailedtheexactsymbolismofthe imagery in the work, there is no doubt that this piece would be isolated and limited to the attack on the village of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, where“the view is limited to an extremely close environment”(Arnheim 19). This would have secluded thepaintingtotoonarrowanevent. AswaspartofPicasso’sartisticgeniushowever,he realizedtheimportanceofusingthe“properstyle”ofpaintingtodepictthedelicatetask (22).

In examining the work of art,“there was nothing that specifically alluded to Guernica, or the terror that rained down from the skies. Instead, Picasso had resorted toemployingimageswhosesimplicityandmeaningcouldtravelacrosseverycultural divide” (Hensbergen 4). Because of abstract art, the painting of the bombing of Guernica takes on a much more global voice. In fact, the importance of Guernica was not recognized until after the bombing of Pearl Harbor when the“imagery became morerecognizable,indeedpainfullysimilar”(5).Thepaintinghadbeguntotakeonthe meaningoftheinjusticesintheharshandviolentslaughterofinnocentpeople,which are not limited to any corner of the world. Picasso’s use of abstract art allows for this paintingtomeanavarietyofthingstoanynumberofpeople,eachindifferentwaysand seeminglycorrespondingtodifferentevents.Thiscanbeexperiencedwhendescribing thepaintingitself. Uponfirstapproachtotheartwork,thealmosttotalabsenceofcolor revealsthedisparityandgloomofthesubject,andthevaryingshadesofgreyandblack help to support the initial response of seriousness. The feature that is next noticed is the alteration of normal physical features and images; one object in the painting is harshly and severely broken up by another, allowing for nothing to be complete or whole. The interruption of images and the halting method of painting evokes a sense of uneasiness in the viewer, and a certain feeling that something is not quite right, but what is wrong cannot be easily discovered. It is then that the faces of the people come into view. The unmistakable expressions of fear, misery, and anguish further provide the viewer with a glimpse into a world not so far from hell. The continued use of black paint surrounding the images and comprising the majority of the artwork appears to cloak the entire piece in mystery and death. Stepping away from the artwork, the viewerfeelssickened,anditisherethatpeopleattempttodefinejustwhytheyfeelthe way they do and begin to question how to apply this relentlessly honest portrayal of a local attack.

It has been stated that in Guernica “the mural represents no crowd at all,”

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becauseeachfigureis“concernedwithoneandthesameevent”but“thereisnogrouping through duplication of function” (Arnheim 19). The subjects in the painting are all reactingtosomethingthathasjustoccurred;however,Picassodoesnotexplainwhat event they are reacting to. Each character has its own story to tell, but each story is connected with the other as the result of an indefinite incident. The focus of Guernica on the“floor level”of the event is interesting in that Picasso specifically refrained from showing the sky:“one further deviation from the historical facts”is that“the enemy is not present”even though eyewitnesses say that the sky was “black with German airplanes”(20).Thiscanrevealthatthroughtheabsenceoftheenemy,Guernicacould become relevant to more of the world and this little city. It can be seen as current and applicableinanyviolentsituation,becausethroughtheutilizationofabstractpainting, theentireworkiscomposedofagreyarea,allowingformuchinterpretation;excluding no one, relating to everyone.

This freedom of interpretation can be harmful to the painting, however, in that many critics desire to be the one who defines the symbolic references of Guernica,therebymakinganameforthemselvesbutrestrictingthepainting’spossible applications. Some critics believe that the work is solely focused on the people of Guernica, and because of this the mural stays away“from being a political statement” (Arnheim 21). One critic defines a much more broad influence on the creation of Guernica when he states:“Guernica had become a collaboration between Picasso’s imagination, his phenomenal skill and almost perfect hand-to-eye coordination, his autobiography, the history of art and the present drama of his love life”(Hensbergen 52). A further explanation of the art is“the broad historical and political implications of the tragedy in Spain propelled Guernica into world consciousness and made the painting a symbol of the plight of victims everywhere” (Chipp vii). In fact, this last responsetoPicasso’spaintingseemstobethemostrelevantandthetruestconception of Guernica. The author continues: “the work proved to be prophetic of similar terrors that were soon to engulf our age”and“imbued as it is with all the power and force of Picasso’s expression, Guernica has endured for more than half a century as a beacon against violence, the cry of all humanity for peace and justice”(69). Defining and limiting the endless possible reactions and interpretations of Picasso’s art would too greatly restrict the artworks importance in present society. Guernica cannot be tied to the local devastation of a small, innocent town, or else the magnitude of this masterpiece becomes lost in the strings of detail in symbolism.

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Works Cited Arnheim, Rudolf. The Genesis of a Painting: Picasso’s Guernica. London: California Press, 1962.

Chipp, Herschel B. Picasso’s Guernica: History,Transformations, Meanings. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Held, Jutta. “How do the Political Effects of Pictures Come About? The Case of Picasso’s Guernica.” Oxford Art Journal. (1998): 33-39.

Hensbergen, Gijs van. Guernica: the Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2004.

O’Brian, Patrick. Pablo Ruiz Picasso: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1976.

Russell, Frank D. Picasso’s Guernica: The Labyrinth of Narrative and Vision.

Montclair: Allanheld, Osmun & Co., 1980.

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Country-Western: From Hillbillies to Cowboys Joseph Swetnam Wholesomemothersandfatherswhostickwiththeirfamilies;lonesomemen whospendtheirlivesontheroad,goingfromtowntotown;hillbilliesonfrontporches intheSoutheast;cowboysroamingtheplainsoftheSouthwest—suchimagesappear againandagainincountrymusic.Todaytheirjuxtapositionmayseemperfectlynatural, but as D.K.Wilgus explains there is a dichotomy in the term“country-western music:” “the‘country’traditionoftheSoutheast”and“the‘western’traditionoftheSouthwest” (164). The former, he says, is more closely associated with“the domestic tradition… and warm, intimate family values,”the latter with“the lone wanderer, the rounder, the ‘poor boy, long way from home’”(164). How did these distinct images come together to form the personality of modern country music? The answer lies in the contrasting musicalstylesandpersonasofthegenre’sfirstgreatstars:theCarterFamilyandJimmie Rodgers.

The impact of these artists cannot be understated; indeed, country music became a viable commercial genre only at the moment they began their careers. It happened in 1927, when Victor Records hosted a recording session in Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia (the state line runs straight through the city). The company’s goal was to tap into the“old-time”and“hillbilly”music of the South, a wide variety of musical styles rooted in the American folk tradition. The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgerswererepresentativesofthismusicalheritage,andinahistoriccoincidenceboth happenedtoarriveinBristolandmaketheirfirstrecordingsinthesameweekinAugust 1927. In their subsequent careers, they would go on to become“America’s first great countrymusicrecordingstars”andthusfacilitatethetransition“betweenfolkmusicand a newly developing commercial‘hillbilly music’business”(Dawidoff 12; Doman 67).

They were the pioneers, and they set many precedents.

When the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers traveled to Bristol, however, theywerecomingfromverydifferentworlds—geographically,culturally,andmusically.

The Carters lived in Maces Spring, a remote town in theVirginia Appalachians, home to perhaps 50 people at the time (Dawidoff 55). In the relatively insular, agrarian Appalachian society,“the family was the economic and social unit,”and“the frontier penchantfordrink,violenceandrebellionwascomplementedbyanevangelicalreligion dominated by the Old Testament” (Wilgus 158). Fittingly for such a culture, A.P. Carter, the group’s principal songwriter, was influenced by his mother’s love of music anddevotiontotraditionalmoralvalues. Shewouldsingoldhymnsandballads“while shewentaboutherdailychores,”butobjectedtothefiddle,whichmanyAppalachians regarded as “the Devil’s box” (Zwonitzer and Hirschberg 24; Doman 69). Hence, it is no surprise that the Carter Family’s artistic persona placed“emphasis on home and mother and old-fashioned morality” (Malone 68).

While the Carters came from Appalachian Virginia, Jimmie Rodgers was traveling from Meridian, Mississippi, then a town of about 50,000 made fairly

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prosperous by the railroad industry. He was thus accustomed to a more urban lifestyle than that of the Carters (Dawidoff 8). His was also a less family-oriented upbringing—hismotherdiedwhenhewasveryyoung,and,saysLilly,“atoddswithhis stepmother, Jimmie Rodgers was brought up in a series of foster homes, occasionally tagging along with his dad on railroad runs”(55). As a young laborer for the railroads, Rodgers met many itinerants and hobos (Dawidoff 8). Later, he spent years traveling the country in search of work and opportunities to entertain. His music thus took on a cosmopolitanvariety,andincontrasttotheCarters’preoccupationwiththehomeand moralgoodness,Rodgerssangoftravelers,“roundersandroustaboutswith‘roughand rowdy ways’” (Dawidoff 9-10).

The Carters brought their Appalachian roots to Bristol, and for the rest of their career they stayed true to their origins. As America rocketed toward modernity in the first half of the twentieth century,“the Carters did not change; they merely got better”(Malone 66). Part of the reason for this could be that the world they depicted in their songs could not change, for it was fast becoming a world of the past. Their “old-time music”depicted the America of folklore— the good old days. Indeed, their homeintheAppalachianswasoneoftheregionsthathadresistedmanyofthechanges occurringintherestofthenationintheearlytwentieth century, so they were not as far removedfromtheAmericaoffolklore.AstheCarters’careerprogressed,aspectsofthe recordingqualityandotherfactorsmayhaveimproved,butthesongsweremusically similar to those that had been presented in the group’s 1927 debut and lyrically dealt withmostlythesametopics:“thedomesticsphere,stressingthemesofhomeandearth” (Doman 74). It is fitting that the Carters, singing about“the domestic sphere,”should have seemed so settled in their particular style and persona. Their art had a home in the Appalachians.

The musical family’s constancy was, in fact, part of their appeal. Many of the Carters’fans were“misplaced Appalachians,”who had migrated in search of jobs and now“longedtoreturn”home(Doman84). MalonetheorizesthatasAmericawasgoing through the changes of urbanization and modernization, the Carters’old-fashioned songs“had a special poignancy for people who saw the stable world of their parents disintegrating around them”(68).Thus, the musical family’s stylistic stability was part of their appeal for Americans fascinated with the good old days. Though there was much innovation in the Carters’ art, the primary function of their music was not to explore, but to evoke an ideal of a more stable and wholesome America of tradition.

On the other hand, what Rodgers brought to Bristol was a life of restlessness andexploration,andhissubsequentcareerwouldmirrorthis.Thoughhiscareerlasted less than half as long as the Carters’, he managed to display a vast spectrum of artistic styles. Hecan“beviewedasrepresentingtheconvergenceof many disparatemusical idioms, including blues, traditional folk,Western, Hawaiian, jug band, and early jazz” (Lilly 65). Much like the man who made it, the music did not stay in one place. While the Carters’music seemed to grow from roots, Rodgers’drifted around and explored.

In his travels around the country, he even significantly varied his persona.

First he was called“the singing brakeman”because of his past experience as a railroad

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George Mason Review

worker. Then he became “singing cowboy” (Malone 78; 89). Of course, the native Mississippianhadnoexperienceinthelattercareer,buthistuberculosishadcompelled him to relocate to “the drier regions of Central Texas” where his famous image as a lone wanderer merged readily with that of the independent cowboy of the Lone Star frontier (Malone 81). From Mississippi to Tennessee to Texas, from being the singing brakeman to the yodeling cowboy, Rodgers spent most of his life on the move—physically, musically and stylistically—as he attests in the song“I’ve Ranged, I’ve Roamed, and I’veTravelled.”Rodgers appealed to the American attraction to the “liberated and rambling life” (Malone 78).

As Rodgers roamed the nation, the Carters stayed put inVirginia. From there, they established Wilgus’southeastern tradition (164). They are the classic hillbillies on the porch, a direct projection of the way“Appalachian families‘used to sing sitting around at home’” (Dawidoff 59). Listening to their records, one is taken away to an America far from the distractions of the modern world— a down-home, rural society where the community is centered on the church and the general store. It may be a partly idealized vision, but it strikes a chord with many country fans, and that is why “itisaself-imagethatthecountry-musicindustryhascarefullycultivated,andtowhich it has resolutely clung” (Malone 68). The Carters set the precedent for the countrymusicindustrytopresentitselfasanechoofthesoundsofasimpler,morewholesome America.

Rodgers, in contrast, evokes a “rough and rowdy” America (Dawidoff 10).

While the Carter Family’s music scarcely strayed from their front porch, Rodgers populatedhissongswithcharacterswhowerefarfromhome—rambling,homeless,or in prison.While the Carters advertised their shows with signs that said,“The Program is Morally Good,” Rodgers played songs like “Pistol Packin’ Papa,”“Ninety-Nine Year Blues”(written by a man sentenced to life in prison), and“Gambling Polka Dot Blues” (Dawidoff 60; Malone 88-89). Of all the independent, renegade types in Rodgers’ songs, the most lasting image was that of the western cowboy. He sang,“My cowboy life is so happy and free, out where the law don’t bother me” (qtd. in Malone 89).

After Rodgers’travels finally took him to Texas, he helped establish country music’s southwesterntradition,and“themodernconceptofthe‘singingcowboy’andof‘western’ music may very well date back directly” to him (Wilgus 164; Malone 141).

It may be an oversimplification to say that country music’s image and selfidentityaredefinedbythedichotomybetween“theimpulsetowardhomeandstability” and“the tradition of the rambling man,”between the southeastern hillbilly and the southwestern cowboy, the blues-inspired “Jimmie Rodgers style” and the folksy “‘mountain’faction”of the Carters (Malone 64; McDonald 333). But these threads are certainlyamongthemostcharacteristicofcountry-westernmusic,andtheyclearlyhave their precedents in the first great artists of the genre. The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers were also not the only entertainers to leave their mark, nor did they alone popularize the elements of country music for which they set precedents. But in many waystheyepitomizedandhelpedestablishtwocontrastingandinterwoventraditionsin modern country music.

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George Mason Review

Works Cited Dawidoff, Nicholas. In the Country of Country. New York: Pantheon Books, 1997.

Doman, Katie.“Something Old, Something New:The Carter Family’s Bristol Sessions Recordings.”The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music. Ed. Charles K. Wolfe and Ted Olson. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers, 2005: 66-86.

Lilly, John. “Jimmie Rodgers and the Bristol Sessions.”The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music. Ed. Charles K. Wolfe and Ted Olson.

Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers, 2005: 54-65.

Malone, Bill C. Country Music, U.S.A. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.

McDonald, James J. “Principal Influences on the Music of the Lilly Brothers of Clear Creek, West Virginia.”The Journal of American Folklore. 86.342 (1973): 331344.

Wilgus, D.K. “Country-Western Music and the Urban Hillbilly.” The Journal of American Folklore, 83.238 (1970): 157-179.

Zwonitzer, Mark and Charles Hirshberg. Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002.