Daedalus 2025

DAEDALUS

DAEDALUS 2025 Greenwich Academy Volume XXXVII

daedalus@greenwichacademy.org 200 North Maple Avenue Greenwich, CT 06830

Daedalus, the ancient Athenian, created the Minotaur's famed labyrinth and invented wings so that he and his son could escape from King Minos.

Daedalus reminds us that we are all creators and all inventors.

Chief Writing Editors Alessia Cutaia, Maggie Nichols Chief Art Editors Zara Kurbanov, Anna Leventon Associate Writing Editors Shriya Gupta, Emma Jones, Alexandra Zummo Associate Art Editors Izzy Hartman, Summit Mock, Elena Schmedlen, Denise Seol Members Charlotte Armstrong Emma Mao Elizabeth Montgomery Talia Bock Gianna DeBono Mira Nederlander Katherine Feiner Carly Seidel Kiki Taylor Cece Heyworth Scarlett Li Paula Zanol Over the last 37 years, Daedalus has earned 67 national awards from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA) and the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE). We continue to be inspired by the community of writers and artists at Greenwich Academy. To gather the writing contained within the pages of this magazine, students of Greenwich Academy submitted writing to five monthly deadlines. Submissions are anonymous and read by the entire Daedalus writing staff. During subsequent manuscript meetings, the Daedalus staff discussed each piece, offering constructive feedback to each work so as to improve the general quality of our community’s writing.

Club members then anonymously voted yes/no (whether or not we think it should go in the magazine) on the submissions. The writers of the top two pieces from each manuscript meeting as dictated by these ballots earn the coveted title of “Writer of the Month,” which comes with a gift certificate to Diane’s Books, a favorite local bookstore. Meanwhile, the art editors also select from hundreds of original pieces over the course of the year. In March, all editors narrow their selections and begin production, which continues through April. We use the publishing software InDesign to format our layout and construct graphics. In May, chief editors collaborate with our printer until Greenwich Academy’s end-of-year Publications Assembly, where we read from the issue, exhibit slides of all art, and celebrate!

Faculty Writing Advisor Lauren Delapenha Faculty Production Advisor Rob Pursell

Faculty Art Advisor Sherry Tamalonis

Printer Graphic Management Partners, Port Chester, NY Colophon 800 copies of Daedalus have been printed on 80 pound Euro Gloss text stock with 120 pound Euro Gloss for the cover. The text is set in Avenir Next, designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988.

CONTENTS

Cover: Bonnie and Clyde || Colored Pencils Inside Covers, Section Dividers: Wallpaper Studies || Acrylic Back Cover: The Stairwell || Colored Pencils

Wings

The End || Poetry Escape Room || Digital A Miniature Retelling of the Trojan Horse || Poetry Child’s Play || Photograph My Wife and I Went for a Walk || Fiction Allee of Cherry Trees || Acrylic Water Under the Bridge || Oil Pastels The Watchers || Fiction Sight Seeing || Oil Pastels Letter to a Love Lost || Poetry What Lies Beyond || Acrylic A Walk and a Dream || Nonfiction See Food || Acrylic Lovely || Music Misplaced || Mixed Media Hummingbird || Mixed Media Bear || Mixed Media Iguana || Mixed Media Betta Fish || Mixed Media Black and White World || Fiction Echoed Sky || Lino Block Shadowed Summit || Etching Fly || Poetry Bubbles; Branching Out || Mixed Media

Labyrinth

A Formula for Winning || Poetry The Essentials; Still Life || Charcoal Mythic Proportions || Fiction Fractured || Pen Reflection || Mixed Media Perception || Poetry Introspection || Watercolor Before the Gate || Nonfiction Tondo in Blue and White; Tondo in Pink and Blue || Acrylic The Doctor || Fiction The Waiting Room || Digital Arachnids || Poetry Artistic Eye || Colored Pencil Melancholia || Stoneware, Porcelain, LED A Bar, Thanksgiving 2006 || Fiction Sealed || Mixed Media A Tale of Two Sisters || Poetry Alone; Together || Mixed Media A Poet’s Words || Fiction Kaleidoscope || Acrylic

Zara Kurbanov

Izzy Hartman Zara Kurbanov Alexandra Zummo Morgan Dweck

8 9

Alessia Cutaia Lila Nachbar Rena Georgakopoulos-Ueta Este Tejpaul Zara Kurbanov Emma Jones Zara Kurbanov Shriya Gupta Angelina Hubertus Mira Nederlander Scarlett Li Joy Akuffo Denise Seol Vanessa Nyambi Atley Dimsey Lila Nachbar Riley Scollans Chloe Weldon Izzy Hartman Izzy Hartman Emma Mao Zara Kurbanov

10 11 12 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 24 25 25 26 27 27 28 29

Alexandra Zummo Anna Leventon Abby Kesmodel Elisabeth Schmitz Anna Leventon Talia Bock Ava Van Moorsel Abby Kesmodel

32 33 34 39 39 40 41 42

Persia Shipman Charlotte Armstrong Morgan Dweck Zara Kurbanov Liv Litt Kate Liu Abby Kesmodel Denise Seol Maggie Nichols Elisabeth Schmitz Piper Spevak Penny Lazar

44 46 49 50 51 52 54 55 56 56 58 61

Mortals and Immortals

Ephialtes || Fiction Iced Memories || Mixed Media Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret. || Nonfiction Flowers For You || Mixed Media Mars || Music Galaxies || Acrylic Coffee Shop Character Sheet || Fiction Somber Lunch || Photograph Life, Death, and Las Vegas || Fiction Surfing the Crowd || Photograph The Harbinger || Fiction The Birch Tree || Soft Pastels OCAD Awareness Month || Fiction Fish Out of Water || Acrylic Family Gathering || Poetry Siblings || Acrylic Collecting Love: Fragments || Drama Transcending Reality || Digital Kiwi at Home || Paper Circuit - Mixed Media

Scarlett Li Anna Leventon

64 65

Maggie Nichols Abby Iles Charlotte Armstrong Este Tejpaul Elizabeth Montgomery Lila Nachbar Gianna DeBono Lila Nachbar Kiki Taylor Zara Kurbanov Emma Mao Liv Litt Alexandra Zummo Elisabeth Schmitz Elizabeth Montgomery Morgan Dweck Sofia Bhatti

66 67 68 68 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 83 84

But the Air and the Sky are Free

Dusk in Ibiza || Acrylic A Rock is Just a Rock || Fiction Seashells by the Seashore || Acrylic By the Stone House (and That River) || Poetry Seeing Double || Colored Pencils Innocence || Fiction Rainforest || Digital Second Chances || Mixed Media Resilience || Stoneware, LED Shifting Perspectives || Stoneware, LED Herald of the Haiku || Nonfiction Rope Painting || Acrylic Underwater Worlds || Mixed Media Storm-Born Silence || Acrylic Footprints || Poetry Gator, Mystic, Jellyfish, Jaws, & Lupine Guitar Bodies || Acrylic Orchid Guitar || Mixed Media The History of Stillness || Poetry Sailing Through a Story || Mixed Media What Did I Know? || Nonfiction The Pen Takes Over || Mixed Media The Girl in the Yellow Boots || Poetry The Morning After Halloween || Colored Pencil The Unfamiliar Path; Cognition || Mixed Media A Letter to Myself || Poetry Evening Train || Fiction Behind the Frame || Mixed Media

Persia Shipman Elizabeth Montgomery Zara Kurbanov

88 89 91

Chloe Cerniglia Zara Kurbanov Gianna DeBono Morgan Dweck Maggie Whidden Maggie Whidden Maggie Whidden Alessia Cutaia Honors Art II Casey Duval Izzy Hartman Anna Leventon

92 93 94 95 96 97 97 98 100 101 102 103

Zara Kurbanov 104 Zara Kurbanov 105 Rena Georgakopoulos-Ueta 106 Quinn Lahey 109 Charlotte Oh 110 Elisabeth Schmitz 111 Kiki Taylor 112 Scarlett Li

115

Leighton Collier Talia Bock Emma Mao Denise Seol

116 117 118 119

Letter from the Chief Writing Editors As Daedalus publishes our 37th annual edition, we commemorate both the present members who continue to allow the club to thrive as well as the long legacy of brilliant writers and skilled artists who have led this magazine to print each year for nearly four decades.

We would also like to thank our faculty advisors Ms. Delapenha, Mrs. Tamalonis, and Mr. Pursell for their steadfast dedication to the writing, artistic, and production efforts respectively in addition to their continued cultivation of the student talent within this club.

Contained within this collection are pieces inspired by the club’s weekly writing workshops exploring flash fiction, the study of iambic pentameter, screenwriting, and much more, as well as each writer’s own grasp of the world around them coupled with the other work they read. Monthly Manuscript Meetings and open ballots have allowed us to hone the submissions to 37 pieces representing the most impressive skills of writers here at Greenwich Academy. Each writing submission is paired with student art submissions that were carefully selected by our brilliant art editors.

Beyond submissions, Daedalus has explored its rich writing culture by hosting our annual Daedalus Coffee House to welcome in the holiday season before the school went on break. Here, authors shared their own or somebody else’s work at an open mic.

Beyond school wide writing initiations, we were incredibly grateful to learn from the larger literary and art community. This year, we hosted our 18th Annual Writer’s Fest, where students of Sacred Heart Greenwich and Brunswick School joined us in learning from three established creatives: poet and editorin-chief of The Adroit Journal Peter LaBerge, screenwriter and producer Roberto Patiño, and novelist Kathleen Willett.

We would like to once again thank the committed writers and editing team who allowed such a vibrant literary and artistic community to spread through every aspect of Upper School life, and towards the making of this edition.

Happy reading!

Maggie Nichols and Alessia Cutaia

WINGS

The End after Sun in an Empty Room by Edward Hopper

Alexandra Zummo

to a doorway, engraved into light beige walls, standing upon dark beige floors. Light floods out from the doorway, dusting the room with more shades of beige and more shades of beige and more— but inside the doorway is a room cluttered by creatures, creatures with horns and spikes and pointy teeth and beady eyes that sound like screaming and— in this room, the floor is the ceiling and the ceiling is the floor, and the moon never sets and the sun never eclipses— and there are cobwebs in the corners of the open sky above, and knives are dull and flowers are sharp, bleeding blue from my finger— and I suddenly want to return to that beige room, where the puzzle pieces have no notches, and so they always fit together, and I try to go back and I can’t go back but I must go back and should I even go back and is this doorway even a doorway?

8

Morgan Dweck

Escape Room 9

A Miniature Retelling of the Trojan horse

Alessia Cutaia

Some wooden creature, Drawn sallow eyes, carved hooves, Scrapes across the room.

The soldiers have planned.

Laud you, dear conspirators!

Sneak into the hull.

Miniature soldiers From deep within the vessel, All men hidden inside.

Peripherally, One creature plans your demise, With round wrists and cheeks.

From the greasy clamp The wooden horse shook, now still.

The breath of defeat.

Its firm grasp weakens.

Out slips the drawls of wartime Each man comes tumbling.

Release the damp clamp.

Broken and feverish ground.

Dead battle field’s salve.

Hold tight dear soldiers, I am coming somehow now!

I have pitched my tents.

Bring the wounded quick!

Wrap your arms in cut linens To see other days.

10

They have not seen this Baby, Stuck in a scarred bloodied haze, Marred from its tight grip.

Don’t plant one white flag, Nor accept bloodied pardons.

Clamber in your horse.

Shrunken army, do not relent!

I place my winnings.

You, friend, strike your foe!

Await the Baby.

Reconceive your wooden guise.

Your army anew.

Alas, young Trojans, I dare not see your demise.

The toy steed awaits.

Lila Nachbar

Child’s Play 11

My Wife and I Went for a Walk

Rena Georgakopoulos-Ueta

My wife and I went for a walk the other day. It was just a walk, a short afternoon stroll in the park. I made the suggestion towards the end of our afternoon, as our earl gray tea transferred all its heat to our hands, cup rims untouched. Some afternoon tea, one might say. But this is how we always spend our afternoons—talking. We talk all the time about everything—our days, who we’ve met and talked to, our strange neighbors, the squirrels that come by our kitchen window every day, death, love, our pasts, and memories of good and bad. (So explain to me, Suzanne darling—why do you think of consciousness in this way?) We’re never not talking.

(Well, it is all really subjective in the end, isn’t it?) We walked through the garden arm in arm, past the roses, the gardenia, all the beautiful and odorous flowers. (What do you mean?) A pair of wings unfurled from a point in the sky. (The way you experience the world is not at all the way I experience it; it’s entirely different.)

They dipped before the treetops far above (But fear and happiness and anxiety and love… it’s universal!), flapping rapidly before (When we talk about such matters, we know what the other is talking about. Anyone can know what someone is thinking if they articulate it well enough.) two feet landed on the branches above. (Our feelings that we’ve labeled with universal words are not universal.)

It wasn’t until a couple minutes of standing there (But then how are we ever able to communicate? I mean, I know you so well, and you know me more than I know myself. Doesn’t all of us being human provide us with some inherent emotional connection?), watching the bird scan the world below, that I felt a cold breeze brushing the elbow of my shirt where my wife’s arm had been just a bit ago.

Alertness settled in from my head and feet, down and up to my chest, like freezing water. I started for the way we’d come, asking (Suzanne?) with no answer (...), my voice echoing against the leaves of the trees. I started to shout, my legs losing feeling as they hurried forth involuntarily.

And suddenly I noticed bright yellow patches among the leaves of a bush, and the blue bow of my wife’s hat deemed the yellow to be in fact not part of the bush, but spatially beyond the bush; part of a dress. The relief at the prospect of my wife at last 12

within reach was like a wash of warmth that pooled at my toes, my feet regaining feeling. I walked past the bush, eager to get to her.

When I saw the woman’s entire figure, I stopped.

She was sitting on a bench alone in a small clearing. The yellow was the first to catch my eyes, in this space of pure greens and reds. She wore this lovely yellow dress with white ruffles, hiding her body behind layers of fabric that only I had access to.

The light of the sun fell on her through the fractal-like branches of the trees above and around her. It left a large shadow on her back and the side profile facing me. I couldn’t see much of her face, because of this large hat. Her head was bowed, the hat low just enough to cover her eyes.

It was quite striking, seeing her from here. I’d never seen her face in darkness; she was always turned to the light. And the more I looked at her, the more unfamiliar she looked to me. She held the same, elegant posture she always carries herself with, as if she were the subject of an art piece being scrutinized by hundreds of eyes. It was one of the things that drew me to her—an elegance that isn’t restrictive to her being—it is inherent to her as she is. But the way her hands were clasped together on her lap was quite odd. She was gripping her left hand tightly with her right, her left fingers curling together limply. It was almost as though her left hand were going to run away, or as if it wouldn’t stay forever.

Or maybe as if she needed something to hold onto and would otherwise fall. I can’t imagine where to.

While half her face was hidden, I could still detect some expression on her face. Her facial muscles were relaxed, her lips lightly touching yet solemn. And it was a bit difficult to tell, but it felt as though there was some sadness or something else of similar darkness embedded in her skin. It was odd, because I’d never seen her this upset before. I had thought she was happy.

She’d never told me anything otherwise, not even hinted at anything. Had this darkness always been there in the gaps between her facial muscles, only ever surfacing when her muscles relaxed? And then I noticed the wrinkles where shadow and light met on her cheek. It aligned with this odd expression on her face.

I thought I was the only one who knew her body so well, but did she see something different in the mirror? Was there something I had missed somewhere between her curves and creases and skin and cells?

I couldn’t help but feel very sad, like something was being pulled tightly from my chest. Or maybe like something was 13

weighing down on my chest. Maybe both. Now reflecting back, I also think I felt terribly lonely. All these years we’d been together, all these words we’d shared and kept sharing, so many words, and yet I knew nothing about her at all. Her chest rose sharply and sank slowly as she exhaled, and the moisture of her breath glistened in the sunlight. I imagined her breath paralleled the line of her gaze, and I followed the mist forwards to a pond. I don’t know how I didn’t notice the pond before. It was lovely, the afternoon sunlight spilling over the glass surface. It was as though the light couldn’t penetrate the water. I wondered if she was thinking the same as me, or maybe thinking about some other aspect of the pond. Or if she was lost in thought altogether (and if so, what she was thinking), or if she was simply taking the sight in without analytical thoughts.

Suddenly the soft sound of my name touched my ears. It was warm, it was familiar, like a melody you only ever heard before you knew that you existed. I rubbed my eyes to see my wife’s full face, half of it shining in the light of the continuously lowering sun and the other in shadows, her sweet smile rounding the tops of her cheeks. I slowly walked towards her, my entire body trembling.

I sat directly next to her and removed her right hand from her left, encasing her right hand in mine. She returned my gaze, her blue eyes shining with the light and love I knew too much. She barely smiled with a softness and sensuality so tangible, and she covered my right hand with her left. I stopped trembling.

We eventually returned home, hand in hand, and at last finished our cold tea.

Este Tejpaul 14

Allee of Cherry Trees

Zara Kurbanov

Water Under the Bridge 15

The Watchers

Emma Jones

She was eleven when she met him. Right outside her apartment building. I wish I could tell you where it was she lived, but such details are carefully guarded by bald men in onyx suits, carriers of briefcases that are probably empty. One of the lawyers explained that I could never put those details in writing, although there is technically no law preventing me from sharing them with you via word of mouth. I’ll whisper them to you later, when it is all over. Anyway, she was eleven. Again, you can’t know her name, so I suppose I’ll call her “Girl.” There is only one girl in this story, so I am sure you won’t get confused by this rechristening. She lived in the second-floor apartment of what was once a large singlefamily brownstone. She had never lived anywhere other than this subdivided old house and as a result, she could name everyone on her block.

It was boring to live with just her working mother, so in the between-time of her return from school and her mother’s return from work, she sat by her window and looked at the street and people below her. I suppose you could call it “people-watching.”

She couldn’t read very well, despite her teachers’ best efforts (it would later be revealed that she was dyslexic, but due to a lack of funds in her neighborhood’s public schools, she was never tested and her struggle with reading was deemed to be a product of a lack of hard work on her part). They had a tiny box TV, but it had a habit of shutting off midway through an episode during what always seemed to be the pivotal moment. So instead of filling her days with trashy love stories and too-long nature documentaries, she faced outward and looked inward, thinking thoughts that were much too deep for little girls. Whenever a person looked up, after feeling the prickle on the back of their neck that told them they were being watched, they would see this grim little girl’s face. Passers-by often believed she was crippled in some way, and that she couldn’t leave the apartment. Obviously, the neighbors knew that Girl was not, in fact, crippled, as they had seen her walk to school, so for the most part they ignored her.

Whenever new people moved to the neighborhood, the longtime residents would point up at Girl and say, “She’ll watch you.

But do not be disturbed, she is a quite happy, but introspective individual.” Obviously, they didn’t say it exactly like that, but a 16

translation of their vernacular yields the same result.

One day, someone new moved onto the block. Onto the concrete, more specifically. A homeless man. Now, this neighborhood had experienced their fair share of vagrants and squatters, drug pushers and prostitutes, but had never yet housed a homeless person. Which, I suppose, makes sense. An apartment block is for housing people, so the neighbors wondered why this homeless person would have any interest in a street with homes. He was clearly not a prospective buyer. The concept of homelessness had yet to penetrate their minds. And yet, no one seemed to care that this dirty-looking, rag-clad man was tainting the perfection of the block. By perfection, I do not mean wealth…

God knows no one on that block had more than a couple dollars to spare. They fell in the strange in-between of people rich enough to donate money and poor enough to receive it. So they neither gave nor got. I digress. When I reference the block’s perfection, I mean the people, trees, houses, rusty door knobs, forgotten flower planters, eviction notices, and even the vermin that scurried down the road in the night all lived in perfect balance with each other.

This was equilibrium. This was the place between happy and sad, fulfilled and bored, and, like I mentioned, rich and poor. Despite and because of all these things, the homeless man, who I will be calling “Man,” spent his days exactly like Girl: watching.

Zara Kurbanov

Sight Seeing 17

Letter to a Love Lost

Shriya Gupta

O elusive youth!

Where have you gone?

Did you slip away while I was sleeping, Into the arms of another?

What does she have that I lack?

Is her unknowing smile brighter?

Her mind lighter?

Did her curiosity endear you?

Her foolish laughter?

Her thoughtless eyes?

Tell me!

Tell me what to do to bring you back!

I’ll cry stupidly, like a child, at your door.

I’ll fill my heart and empty my head.

I’ll dress myself up in her skin.

Oh what can I do?

Curse you, dear youth, and your wandering eye!

Angelina Hubertus 18

What Lies Beyond

A Walk and a Dream

Mira Nederlander

Cars honk, people rush, and the doorman smiles as I walk out of my building. A chill engulfs my presence as I step onto the concrete streets of Carnegie Hill. People’s eyes dart around, while refusing to make eye contact with the person adjacent to them. There are no head nods or cordial waves from your city neighbors, just a mutual understanding that each one of us is in our own little worlds, and the worst possible fate we could dream of is to be dragged into small talk at 7:30 in the morning.

I stare down the avenue; as far as the eye can see, buildings corrupt the sky line, melding together as I look farther and farther down the streets. The intuitive nature of looking down at my phone is eliminated by the fear of missing something; however, it could just be the wind that is frigid to the point where my hands are forced not to stray from my pockets. Nevertheless, it’s awakening and lively—I love it. As I continue to walk it is easy to become entangled in my own thoughts. Wandering from imagination to the present reality, it feels like it is just the city and I going on a walk down a long avenue where multiple people are walking beside me, but I don’t seem to see them.

I make my way to my favorite coffee shop and say hello to the barista, who knows my order—that’s when you know you’ve made it. After I grab my matcha and muffin I take it over to my job at Goldman Sachs. Just kidding! Oh wow, that was a rush. Imagine if that was me–that could never be me. Nope! I spend my days at the Met. I am an intellectual. Then, I will make my way to Central Park, where I will write my column in the New York Post that dissects the inner workings of the Manhattan social scene—call me the next Carrie Bradshaw. Next, I’ll head to dinner with my hedge fund fiancée and then grab drinks with him and my friends—what a day!

I look up at the city skyscrapers and think to myself, Wow! If only that could be my reality. If only I could dance along these streets with airpods playing “Changes” by David Bowie for miles until I meet the West Village and my feet tire. Alas, that is a reality for another day or even another year, because right now I am walking down the street to the car that will take me back home where the birds chirp and the air is clean. There are no loud, disrupting crazy people on the sidewalk, or honking taxis that wake me up in the morning, but merely the sound of the wind brushing against the tree branches on a cold winter day as I sit in my room waiting for my life to begin…

20

Scarlett Li

See Food 21

Lovely

Joy Akuffo

I thought forever meant forever But you lied about that too And they all said, Well you shouldn’t have danced with the devil But I could’ve sworn it was you When tongues get tied And rules are getting switched It’s coming down like a house And I’m the Wicked Witch I didn’t know, but you knew what you were gonna do and Now I feel like I did something wrong, maybe I read a miscue and I didn’t know someone could hurt me quite like you did and I didn’t know someone so kind could be so ruthless That you could do this Because loving you Was just like losing you You can feel your stomach drop And your heartbeat stops And leaving me must’ve come so easily Ugly truth inside while you tell me pretty lies It’s all news to me Cried a river till I drowned in misery I bet you’re fine at home, fast asleep Well you were home and now it’s like I’m dreaming on the street Return to me Why’d you leave?

You were lovely When you loved me Do you remember that time When you left me in the dark?

And you said, I’ll love you to the moon and back I guess that isn’t far And after a whole trip 22

Listen to the author perform this song.

Around the blazing sun I’ve gone to war and you come back You know you had already won I didn’t know, but you knew what you were gonna do and Now you’re telling me I’m wrong when I was never given a clue and I didn’t know that your heart wasn’t fully in it and I didn’t know that I could ever look so stupid I prayed to God that you wouldn’t leave me in ruins Because loving you Was just like losing you My stomach dropped I felt my heartbeat stop And leaving me, did it feel like pulling teeth?

Or were you just okay, did you go about your day?

It’s all bruising deep Cried a river till I drowned in misery Point out all the blades embedded in your skin but don’t you see?

My veins were made to bleed.

Denise Seol

Misplaced 23

Vanessa Nyambi

Atley Dimsey 24

Hummingbird

Bear

Lila Nachbar

Iguana

Riley Scollans

Betta Fish 25

Black and White World

Chloe Weldon

East Berlin, the early 1950’s My grandma lived in a black and white world. She wore only gray clothing that was sown by her mother, as she had little money.

West Berlin was practically a utopia through her young, sheltered eyes. She visited this magical place by train to buy groceries, wearing a little gray dress on her pale skin with her blonde silky hair flowing onto it.

The train stopped and opened her eyes to a wondrous place full of color. West Berlin was a watercolor painting. East Berlin was before the paint, and West Berlin was after. The market was painted a beautiful white with a blue banner, and it was full of food she was hungry for. There were foods vibrant with color all around the shop my grandmother eagerly explored.

A small yellow fruit caught my grandma’s eye. It was curvy and had a few black splotches. Mutti! Mutti! Can I please have this? It looked more delicious than anything she had seen before. The mother felt the sharp pain of disappointing her child. Almost as if somebody stabbed her with a knife. We don’t have the money for this fruit. We can only get what we need. My grandma started to feel salty rivers flow down her cheeks flushed with red. She and her mother made eye contact with glum faces and sadness in their eyes. Okay, okay. We can find a way. My grandma jumped with joy at the sight of her mother buying this new, luxurious food, though her mother slouched with sadness at the sight of using her last Deutsche Marks on this thing of opulence.

With the seller’s help, she peeled it open and eagerly took a bite of the white, creamy inside. When her mother looked away, she immediately spat it out into a nearby black garbage can full of smelly food.

She hated this curvy food. She hated the thing her mom used all of her savings on. The guilt followed her the same way her shadow did. She could not bear to face her mother, the woman who used all of her money on this foolish item she once loved, but was now disgusted by. The banana was bitter, and somewhat sweet, but not the kind of sweet in my grandma’s mind.

Soon afterward, as she hopped on the dark green train, she 26

felt the salty streams begin to fall on her gray dress. She, sitting on a tan seat in between her two loving parents and their warm soft arms, looked out the window with watery eyes. The train she liked once before was pulling out of the station, causing her watercolor painting to lose its color again and her banana to fade into another black and white detail in her black and white world.

Izzy Hartman

Echoed Sky

Izzy Hartman

Shadowed Summit 27

Fly I saw a fly lying on the window sill; the tips of its wings kissing the glass; a prima ballerina on an old wooden stage; facing the world with a thousand tigers’ eyes; flirting with the reflection of an emerald beauty; a kaleidoscope wonder; an iridescent knight; a sweet, tender delicacy; I whispered to him: fly.

I brought my hand near his face; I nudged him with my finger; I flipped him over.

He fell to the ground.

28

Emma Mao

Zara Kurbanov

Bubbles

Zara Kurbanov

Branching Out 29

LABYRINTH

A Formula for Winning My pencil clashed with the paper, in a sword fight with the numbers, the formulas, the erase marks it created.

My pencil won.

I locked up the answer in a box, a jail cell, made of perfect lines.

How’d you get that?

A friend classmate competitor. I hesitated…

I showed her.

Her hand shot up into the air. She shouted the answer, shooting a bullet through me.

My hand slammed onto the desk, and I charged out of class.

11:45…

11:50…

11:55…

12:00.

The doors of the classrooms tore open, and chatter exploded into the air. A few classmates loomed near me…

A hand raised, shielding my mouth.

Whispered fictions, traveling from mouth to ear, mouth to ear, mouth to ear.

32

Alexandra Zummo

My competitor sobbing in the corner a few hours later, shouting, It isn’t true! It isn’t true!...

I win.

Anna Leventon

The Essentials

Anna Leventon

Still Life 33

Mythic Proportions

Abby Kesmodel

He was one of those folks that devoted his entire life to his wife. He didn’t realize how awful of an idea that was until he was beside her deathbed.

If anything, Rex was more upset than June, even though she was the one dying and all. He was barely able to get out anything other than squeaks, burning tears. She stroked her veiny hand through his hair one last time. “Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay.” He collapsed into her soft shoulder, if only to curl up with her one last time. “Remember your proposal?” A slight shuffle from under her arm. “You were just about to get down on one knee, and then there you were, sprawled out in the mulch.” She chuckled. This visibly brought her great discomfort.

“June—” “You swore you’d stay with me until the end. That was the happiest moment of my life.”

“Then I will keep you happy forever.”

“Oh, darling.” His face was brushed dry for half a moment.

Then her hand froze. *** When a man dedicates himself to one cause, he becomes a mere shell of himself if his plans fail. That first year, she seemed to be everywhere. That ratty blanket in the living room smelled like her favorite detergent. That old beechwood sitting in the basement would not ever be turned into a crib. And a king sized bed never felt so large.

Of course folks came by with flowers, but only for the first few weeks or so. After that, Rex’s misery lingered like a thin mist. It was definitely there; it just wasn’t material enough to concern anyone else. His friends and brothers still came by for consolation, but prayers of comfort and warmth soon became those for the Falcons to finally have a winning season.

Rex taught second grade at Athens Elementary School. The kids didn’t understand death as anything more than your Gran has moved on to a better place. In a way, that was comforting. He could sit with them in ignorance of his pains. It would never be the same, but it was bearable enough.

34

*** But that was before Lauren. She hit him quick and fast in the park. Or rather her frisbee did.

“Jesus Christ!” he yelled, clutching the back of neck. He turned around, taking great effort not to move his head, and standing there was a thirty something woman trying to regain her hold on the leash of a dog that came barreling right toward Rex’s labrador Cooper. Pretty soon the dogs were going at it right at Rex’s feet, wrestling and jumping about.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he lied, handing her back the frisbee.

“Cooper seems to really like your dog. He’s got a beautiful coat.

What breed?”

“He’s a pitbull.” Lauren pitched the frisbee to the other side of the field. Her dog went darting after it, Cooper sluggishly struggling to keep up. “I’m new around here. Lauren Clark. From New York. Would you happen to know any good places to eat?”

“Well, there’s the Echo Cafe right down this street, if you’re looking for a quick bite.” My wife loved it. “How are you liking Athens?” The pitbull was now on his way back, but Cooper was making a valiant effort to intercept the frisbee.

“Oh, it’s lovely. Beautiful scenery. I’m a florist, that’s why I came here. But I don’t know anyone. I mean, I’ve got Wilbur, but it’s still pretty lonely.” A decent pang rang through Rex’s back, and he had the feeling it would not go away for quite some time. Was he getting old?

“Would you ever like to meet at the Echo Cafe?” Once it was out of his mouth, he regretted it immediately. But what else? Go home to another empty week ahead?

“That would be lovely–” “Rex. Wait, here’s my number.” He reached into his left pocket and pulled out a business card. But no sooner than it passed through her fingers did something come bolting into them. And then his arm was lit up on fire. He was on the ground, probably getting his dress shirt all muddy, but this thing was on top of him, clawing, scratching, a high pitched scream lingering in the air. The edges of his vision began to darken, but still, he wrestled around, arms flying loose to get it off of him. And then everything went black.

35

*** When Rex came to, he was in a white room. Was this some sort of ward?

“Mr. Theodore, good evening.” A young lady was attending to his cast—how did that get there? And wasn’t it afternoon when he was talking to Lauren? Suddenly, it all came rushing back to him—how much less lonely even the smallest interaction with her made him feel. And how that pitbull’s docility suddenly turned to belligerence, almost as if it was being possessed by something.

But what? Or who?

“Excuse me, but would you happen to know what happened to the woman I was with?” Surely it had to be some sort of coincidence.

But the nurse shook her head. “She got mauled in the face.

By her dog. Poor thing.” She passed him a piece of paper. It read: Rex, Apologies on behalf of Wilbur. I would talk to you, but I fear the damage is too gruesome for both our sakes. I’m moving back to NYC. Thank you for being the first to show me compassion here.

—Lauren *** But that was before Katie. Katie taught third grade across the hallway and was taller than almost every other man in the building, but none of them seemed to care in the least bit. When she looked at you, it was a good day. And Rex had a lot of those recently.

“Hey, Rex,” she beckoned from across the cafeteria. “I was wondering if you could help me out with these spreadsheets.” He probably couldn’t—the only columns of ABCs he was good with were the ones he taught to his students each day, but it was worth a shot. Why, though, Rex? “So this function here should add together the number of students in each class.” She extended her baby blue nail to where the error was, breathing down the back of his neck as he worked. Her breath smelled like apples and cinnamon. The sling slowed him down considerably, but she hardly seemed bothered.

“Thanks, Rex. You’re very clever.” She closed her laptop before he could get to the fifth graders. He didn’t say anything. “Are you free 36

this evening?”

“Yeah. What for?”

“Well, I’ve got a table at the Parisian tonight, but my friend had to bail out at the last minute. People are just so busy! I bet you’d never do that.” Rex quite intentionally did not mention he hadn’t even had any plans to bail on within the past month. “If you’re too busy, though, it’s alright…”

“No!” He was slightly surprised at the conviction in his voice.

“I mean, I’d love to.”

She smiled. A bit of strawberry lipstick was smudged on her otherwise pearly whites. “Then it’s a date.” She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Suddenly, that old feeling from before coursed through him— like fire—no—it was lightning. Like it would smite him if he stayed for a second longer, with the kids gaping from all sides as their teachers kissed! and her lips impressing into his cheek, firmer than the last graze of June’s hand— His free arm went flying into her, seemingly disobeying the storm brewing across his body. She staggered back, tripping over a table, clutching the side of her face where Rex’s fist made contact.

“THEODORE! GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW!” beckoned a voice—he would recognize it as his boss some point after the noises of children and shaking of his body came to a close. What had he done? It wasn’t him. It— “It was June,” he murmured. Everything blurred together, the shouting, the trays and tables, the wisps of thoughts he maintained. All he could do was yell it out—“IT WAS JUNE!”—yell it out and gain some semblance of control of himself—or was he even himself anymore, or just some puppet of hers? “JUNE DID THIS TO ME, GODDAMNIT! CAN’T YOU SEE! THIS WAS JUNE!” Needless to say, Mr. Rex Theodore did not return back to Athens Elementary ever again. *** But that was before Alana. Alana came to him at the Castaway, somewhere between his third and fourth drink, smelling like bad perfume and even worse wine. She asked not for a drink, but for ambrosia. “What’s that?” Rex couldn’t help but ask. He was not nearly as numb as he wished to be by this point in the night. It 37

was nearing ten already, and if anything, he was feeling more miserable.

But Alana just gave him a hearty grin. “The bottle makes you live forever.” And then she’d take a swig of whatever no-name cheap beer was being poured. She kept at Rex all night, stealing his drink or making jokes or punching his good arm when she had nothing to say.

She sent no lightning—only a dull throb in his arm. But he could begin to envision the end of this day, and that was enough to propel him towards home before his wallet gave out.

Yet as he reached the door, he began to feel again. No—what happened? I was okay when I was with Alana— He did not know what he was doing as he brought her out the door to the street. And as they staggered alongside each other back to his house, it seemed almost as if he was watching two people from afar. He felt nothing for her, just the need to be with someone, anyone. A need that overwhelmed his now miserable days, where the most exciting event was taking Cooper out and praying he wouldn’t see any parents of his former pupils. A need that pinched at him as he spent many a sleepless night in a cold bed.

Well, he would sleep the best tonight he had in months. *** Rex woke up to a hand soft in his own. Alana…. He began to relax again when something trickled down his wrist.

He bolted up, tossed his sheet aside. Something was wrong.

He didn’t have to look very hard to find it, either—just a quick turn of the head to the left, and there was Alana’s body, beaten and bleeding.

He had to get out. He didn’t know where, but he certainly couldn’t stay here. Not in a bed that had seen two deaths. The cops would come soon, and unless he put up considerable distance by then, he was a goner. But as he haphazardly threw on clothes in the dark, facing away from Alana’s bloody face almost out of respect, it was not them he was fearing, but her. ***

38

But that was before Death. Sweet, delicate Death. She was a persistent one, following him from Athens to whatever sad town he ended up in, lingering over his shoulder with every lost step, almost as if to say there’s no reason you need to suffer any longer, dear. She was a flirtatious one, drawing Rex in by the neck of his tie, holding him there until he gave in to her as well.

June has nothing she can take from me anymore.

He did not realize, however, that he could not escape her even in the afterlife.

Elisabeth Schmitz

Fractured

Anna Leventon

Reflection 39

Perception

Talia Bock

At the edge of a circle she stands alone, The voices around her hum and drone.

There’s a workshop nestled deep inside her head, Artfully crafting her words with needle and thread.

It’s an endless pursuit that is never quite right, Knowing if she dares speak it will leave her contrite.

In the next room over, resting in her mind, Is an oracle constantly casting assumptions blind.

If the flow of words ceases from her lips, No unease will surface or sink like ships.

Ever the author, she edits the script, Planning plot holes to ensure nothing slipped.

By the time she produced the perfect addition, The talk shied, leaving her response to the mental mortician.

So she never achieved the kinship she prized, For the fear of perception rendered her paralyzed.

40

Ava Van Moorsel

Introspection 41

Before the Gate

Abby Kesmodel

Have you ever had one of those moments where you have felt completely useless? Like if you tried to aid the situation, you would end up making it even worse? Like the triangle player in a thirty piece orchestra? Well, that’s me at the airport. It seems the older I get, the less I can do to facilitate our trip from A to B—A usually being a JFK airport stocked to the brim with angry moms who can’t use lines like normal people because their darling family is just too special for those!

When I was young I was just another item getting brought along for the ride. The only thing that separated me from a bag was my sentience, a word I was probably too young to know at the time—and also my lack of corners, I guess. But around the time I got big enough to exceed American Airlines standard dimensions, I was entrusted with a shiny new task: I was presented with my own bag of luggage to carry.

I hated it. It was so large and heavy and big and heavy and my nonexistent biceps couldn’t take it. But to give it back to Mom and Dad would have been suicide, especially given the blood vessel beginning to form on my dad’s forehead because we were only two and a half hours early, not three. Besides, they gave it to me on purpose, and I didn’t want to be a baby, especially if my younger brother was also doing it. So I begrudgingly dragged my bag along across the airport, but not without incessant complaints, because that was most certainly the best way to passive aggressively state my case without having to outright admit defeat, right? (Later I’d learn a much more effective strategy called sarcasm.)

But I guess I didn’t pull the bag fast enough, because in the blink of an eye my family had teleported to the other side of the room.

So I’d drive my little legs as fast as I could in their direction, only to end up at the gate for actual Hollywood instead of Hollywood, Florida. Well, that’s a bit of a dramatic exaggeration, but to be fair, I am talking about my nine year old self, who would entirely stand for that level of flair. Or at least sit on the floor for it, because athleticism is not one of my gifts.

And, every year, there’d always be some different alteration made to my bag. Take this bag, we’re gonna give Dad the one with the important stuff. Or you’re going to carry the snacks this year.

Please don’t lose them! And the increasingly frequent just give it to me, usually after I had taken too long putting my shoes on after TSA because I found the pattern on the floor interesting, or almost left it 42

under the gate bench while we were boarding. Until one morning in the parking lot, I was presented with a new task: watch your sister.

As an alum of Human Baggage Academy, I didn’t see her as anything else except a student there, so this was hardly any different from before. Except usual baggage didn’t try to wriggle out of your hand at every chance it got, or yap your head off. Jeez, was I like this? But the arrangement was mostly fine for the next few years.

But as she moved up the ranks, my job contained fewer and fewer qualifications. First, she couldn’t leave my hand. Then, she couldn’t leave my side. Finally, she couldn’t leave my sight. Pretty soon, she’d practically be leaving on a flight halfway across the globe– which very well may have happened if I took a second longer in the bathroom, at least according to my brother.

So we were flying out this winter, and my family had finally discovered these weird things that could go on bags called wheels?

We had four bags, two wheeled, and it was three in the morning, so I quickly grabbed a wheeled bag before my parents or brother could try to take two and be miserable about it. I instantly fell in love with it: the way the wheels clacked against the grills of the horizontal escalator, and then spun uncontrollably while getting on and off. The chrome purple paint that made it look like it belonged not in a Pittsburgh airport but in a Ravens game, the way it swiftly drifted through black and yellow. The way I could hold it in front of me and it would just glide along like a plane, no turbulence.

But all good things must end, and my time with the suitcase did on the way back to the States. After haphazardly bumping this specimen of a bag through those ropes that look like seatbelts, it was given to my sister, my little sister who I was supposed to be responsible for. Well, I guess she was not only good enough to mind herself, but now somehow more responsible than me? Just hang tight and stay out of everybody’s way.

Well, that was a new one.

By the way, I forgot to mention she’s eight. Forget how heavy a bag could ever have been, that stung. I can’t even do something as simple as getting through an airport without there being some hiccup. And believe me, there’s always a hiccup, usually upwards of five. (The record is likely somewhere around twenty-five, but I always lose track in the teens.)

But despite my shortcomings from A to B, the UNO reverse in my favor is fabulous: for most, airports are just a dreadful wasted day of travel. I get thorough entertainment from the journey as well as the destination.

43

Persia Shipman 44

Tondo in Blue and White

Persia Shipman

Tondo in Pink and Blue 45

The Doctor

Charlotte Armstrong

They can’t get me.

They think they’re so clever, eat your food, Johnny, like it doesn’t have anything in it, drink your water, Johnny. Like it doesn’t have anything in it at all. You’re doing so well, Johnny. So well.

I’m no fool. I know what poison looks like—I know! I’ve seen them do it! In my food, they put the poison, every day, at breakfast lunch dinner, breakfast lunch dinner. Every day. A little white powder, every day. Just a little. A little pill, every morning. A little poison, every morning.

Do I know why they do it? Oh yes, I know exactly why. Precisely why. Because they are trying to kill me. Johnny can’t know, that’s right. They say it’ll help me get better. But better for them means a DEAD Johnny. A DEAD Johnny, right down to his toes and fingers. Stone cold Johnny, that’s right.

So I stopped. I stopped taking the poison. But they don’t know. I make it look very nice, you see. I’ve been very clever. They don’t even have a clue. I’ve been doing so well, you see. So well.

All the doctors always talk—they say, oh that Johnny, how wellbehaved that Johnny is. Johnny will go down without a fight. All the doctors always talk, but never with their mouths. Always with their eyes. When they take me through the halls, I see them talking in their crude, silent language, with their beady eyes and blank stares. Plotting against me. As they pass me their eyes tell it all: Johnny is going to die and we are going to kill him. Swish swish swish on the linoleum floor. Tick tick tick. The clock is counting down for Johnny.

There is one doctor I hate most of all. I don’t know his name— they keep those from me—but he knows mine. He walks me down the hallway every morning and he smiles and says to me Hello, Johnny. It’s nice to see you again, Johnny. He is a nice man. But the way he smiles at me lingers in my head at night, long after my lights shut off. He smiles brightly in the dark of my room, over and over again. Over and over and over. A smile as bright white as his coat, bright white as the newly plastered walls of the examination room, blinding like the lights he shines each afternoon into my eyes and my open mouth. It’s sickening. I hate the smile of that man. I hate the way his pale brown trousers pool on his thin behind and I hate his long, cold fingers, I hate the way he clumsily shoves 46

his small, round spectacles up the bridge of his crooked nose, but most of all I hate the way he smells—like bleach and death.

When I sleep, I can hear him lumbering through the halls at night outside my door, his scuffed soles scraping slowly across the floor, dragging with each step. I can hear him take his key from his pocket and slide it into my keyhole, twist it just once. The hinges creak and my door rasps along the concrete floor as he opens it, worn iron whining softly as the gap widens. He steps inside.

He walks to my bed, slowly, quietly. He leans over.

He is hunched next to me, his hulking form twisted over at my bedside, contorted in the blackness as if an infant strangled in the womb. His mouth is at my ear. He slowly exhales. I can feel him, his icy breath in my hair, in my eyelashes, in the dark. I can smell his bleach-scent under my nostrils and I can sense his cold fingers crawling towards me, hovering inches away from my throat. Just inches away in the dark, waiting for a chance to close around it.

Dead Johnny. His bony fist uncurls like a spider descending on its prey, pale fingers reaching out, veins throbbing and black beneath his translucent skin. His yellowed nails nearly graze the side of my neck, nearly brush me as I sleep, so close that my skin becomes clammy and cold, with hairs standing on the gooseflesh like needles. Just inches away. When the lights come back on he’s gone. But in the dark, he is always just inches away from me, a monstrous silhouette with glassy eyes and that piercingly white smile.

I will smile back at the doctors. But I will not take their poison anymore.

Each day they bring me my breakfast, and each day I’ve got this little routine, I’ve got just a little preparation for an idea of mine. I take the pill and they watch me take the pill, and take the water afterwards, but they do not watch me wait till they have gone and retrieve the pill from my mouth. They do not see that I have not swallowed it. They do not watch me crush it into a fine white powder and put it with the rest inside of the hollow spar of my bedframe.

It has been months. The dust almost fills up the entire spar now. How many pills will it take?

How are you today, Johnny? Johnny?

Oh, terrible. I’m faint and I feel as if I might fall over any second…

47

Johnny’s a sick boy, oh yes, Johnny needs help. Johnny needs an IV. In fact, I feel amazing. I am being wheeled to the infirmary now. My pocket is filled with dust. I am waiting for him.

I pass the doctors on my way and they stare at me. I can see the furrows in their brows—they are suspicious of me. Why isn’t Johnny dead yet? We’re killing him! Killing him!

In my sick bed, I lie in wait, fed by a tube through my arm. He comes to assess me late in the afternoon. The infirmary is empty.

We are alone. He is surely thinking the same thing as I am: I am going to kill this man today.

He perceives me to be asleep. My hand is buried in my pocket. I clench the powder in my fist. He leans in close to me. His face is inches from mine and his uncanny odor hangs heavy in the air—it makes my nostrils burn.

Johnny? He opens his mouth to speak.

In that instant I fling my handful of pill-dust into his gaping mouth. He staggers backwards, stunned by my quick and deft motion—the likes of which neither of us has seen in me before— and he coughs as the powder enters his throat. But the poison does not affect him. How? I planned so carefully! Surely months of poison would be a lethal dose! He is still coming towards me, his eyes frantic and his front covered with white powder. I spring up from my mattress, and tear the IV from my arm. The needle is poised in my hand. I must emerge from this alive, I must, I must.

As the doctor lunges at me, I pierce my IV needle through his neck, and his dark blood begins to flow from the wound. He lets out a frantic noise, a strained, gurgling cry, and the wheels of my bed rattle back and forth across the floor as I stab him again and again in his throat. Blood gushes from the wounds as he collapses onto my bed.

I am not finished with him. I take my IV tube, wrap it twice around his neck, and begin to pull it tight. His slender body writhes and contorts, his hands grasping for me as he is slowly choked.

Blood spurts from his neck, and his pale face is now gaining a color that I have never seen it show before—a deep red flush! Oh, what a visceral scene! He twitches like an animal on the ground!

His small eyes seem to bulge out of their sockets, and they take on a magnificent gleam in the stark overhead lighting. As he gasps in pain, the remnants of the poison dust are spewed from his mouth into the air, and hang there, slowly drifting towards the floor.

48

As I give the tourniquet one last yank, a triumphant spray of blood exits the doctor’s mutilated throat. He is dead.

His body lies limp on the sick bed, his features frozen in a final expression of grief.

Working with tender care, I remove his white coat—now stained dark with his own blood—from his slumped shoulders.

I dress myself in his coat. The sleeves are much too long—they cover my hands and hang foolishly at my sides—but this garment feels to me like a second skin. I adore the way it rests on my shoulders, and the brightness of it makes my eyes water with a certain giddy admiration.

I smile.

Wearing his bloodstained coat, I lean down and kiss the bastard on his gray forehead.

They can’t get me.

Morgan Dweck

The Waiting Room 49

Arachnids

Zara Kurbanov

But why must I die for being born the way I am?

Because I must.

You swallow eight spiders a year in your sleep Well there’s a dead spider in the corner of my room I hear nothing: not even a creep I killed it last Sunday Lying in bed, I count the sheep And so they come crawling and crawling And so I swallowed nine to compete The whispers in the trees; forgive me Maybe I’ll end up in hell The bugs squirming under the mossy rocks; forgive me And then I’ll be able to tell The jellyfish echoing in the seas; forgive me That my heart is deep inside a well I will continue to brew my tea Tomorrow I’ll wake up a bug And I will continue to live as me My limbs will stretch far and wide Maybe then you’ll let me be Spinning my web in the dark But why?

Because I must.

50

Liv Litt

Artistic Eye 51

52

Kate Liu

Melancholia 53

A Bar, Thanksgiving 2006

Abby Kesmodel

I can’t quite shake that night. I’d been working at O’Reilly’s for about three years at that point, and had met my fair share of people: buddies and enemies, experienced drinkers and nervous kids, handsome bastards, and ugly ones too, they all blended together.

The ones distinguished in my head are the regulars. Lenny and Pete come in every night around the same time, talk about the wives n’ kids n’ jobs. I serve as the tiebreaker for their arguments, although I suppose they’d ask anyone to do it in my place. Laura comes in alone every night and leaves with a different man. Dana and Connor practically live here; more than once I’ve come in at three to see one of them passed out on top of a table. What I’ll do is drag them to the back room; if they’re still asleep, I’ll tuck them under a blanket. They had this buddy Ron, but he disappeared one day and I don’t know where he ended up. Maybe rehab.

Maybe he skipped town. Maybe he OD’d. They don’t seem to know either.

Most of the regulars were there, save Pete and Lenny. I could only anticipate their conversations the next night, bitching about some aunt from out of town. I had put on a playlist of old music and an old man in the corner kicked his old boots onto the table and gave a big old hearty smile. In front of me were a few more frequenters: guys who’d ask for one more and stay until their pockets were empty. Some nights it racked my conscience—me aiding their disease, I mean, but I was always the most sober to this at the beginning. Repeated rounds throughout the night would eventually numb the guilt.

The Cowboys and Redskins (this is when they were still called the Redskins) were up on the TV and a crowd huddled around it. This one man had bought five plates of nachos for the whole mass of them. Quite a bold move given half of those hands had likely been clutched around cigarettes and dingy subway poles beforehand. I couldn’t tell if any of them knew each other—I didn’t remember seeing their particular group before, but they all acted like a long lost family.

A woman in her forties sat next to the space heater, hands clenched tightly around a hot apple cider. She was all bundled up in a torn winter jacket. The mug never touched her lips.

54

On the left side of the bar, a father and two young kids enjoyed a simple dinner. The girls ate mac and cheese and he a chicken sandwich with Coors Light. They were happy.

And then there was me. Quietly mixing drinks, out of everybody’s way. Out of all the people that come to a bar on Thanksgiving, which sight is sadder than the bartender?

Denise Seol

Sealed 55

A Tale of Two Sisters

Maggie Nichols

Yes, I told you that already—yesterday you swore you heard me, too.

Elisabeth Schmitz 56

Alone

Elisabeth Schmitz

Together 57

A Poet’s Words

Piper Spevak

Somewhere deep within a bar on 52nd street, where smoke curled up the walls and colorful lights cast shadows across tables and drinks and faces, a woman sat smiling, her leather pants too tight on her hips and the unusual taste of campari, vermouth, and cherry-flavored lip gloss swirling around in her mouth. Her hair, unbrushed, glowed red in the face of a hidden light, so that from far away, one might mistake it for having caught fire. She wore no makeup, with the exception of a rust-colored lipstick. She watched her warped reflection buckle around the ice in her drink and admired the way her lips made her already pale face look even more ghostly in the light.

Across the room a man took the stage, a piece of paper in hand, and the warm undulations of saxophone, bass, and trombone were replaced by rhythmic verse. It was an original poem, but the woman was certain she had heard it before. He spoke of billowing waves, darkened skies, a man who’d perished alone, and now of spring, of youth, of birds, and lilies. Despite the words’ elusive familiarity, she could not seem to grasp their meaning. Refusing to confront her own ineptitude, the woman turned her attention to the rest of the room.

She felt for a moment as though she were in a dream, watching as coils of dimly colored smoke entwined in a strange sort of dance. She let her eyes dance, too, until they landed on a man sitting alone in the center of the room. A beard, colored orange in the light, nearly concealed the cigarette that hung from his lips. His age echoed in his hunched posture, and a soft cap obscured his eyes. In a proper setting, the woman thought, anyone with a cigarette appears distinguished, and suddenly, she found herself wishing for one. She was sure that she had seen this exact image before. Or maybe this young man with his poem of clichés had created a false sense of familiarity. No, that wasn’t right, she had definitely seen this old man before, with his back curled over the table and the light hitting him so. She had seen him in a painting, a Caravaggio. In the painting there had been more people around the table, but the light was all the same.

She was pleased with herself now, at her intellect and her rather brilliant understanding of art. She smiled. She was the old man now, or the couple at the table across the room. And she 58

looked with their eyes at the woman smiling at a joke that she shared only with herself, and she thought how smart she must be, for surely, she understands the man on the stage, she understands his words, she understands a deeper meaning that we have not yet understood.

The man who shared his table with the blonde, empty-eyed girl looked with vague disinterest about the room. He watched a woman with dark hair and red lips, and for a moment, he thought he saw her smile. But he knew the smoke to play tricks on his eyes, so he returned his gaze to the girl in the chair across from him.

Her features were nice enough, but she wasn’t exactly pretty.

She had one of those faces you could never remember that, even while looking at it, seemed to be slipping away. The light cut her face into a collage of sharp, distorted lines. Still, he liked her. He would never admit it, of course, but she reminded him of a girl he used to date, and maybe that was part of the appeal.

He watched the man on stage with reproving eyes. He looked at his thin, wrinkled gray suit, and then down at his own, which was undoubtedly of better quality. On stage, the neon lights accentuated the several inches of bare skin between the young poet’s wrists and the cuffs of his jacket, seeming almost to mock him.

The man in the audience noticed this all and assumed it was equally obvious to the rest of the room. For a brief moment, he imagined taking an iron and smoothing it over the puckered collar of the poet’s cotton shirt. Letting the thought fall from his mind, the man, quite unaware of himself, brushed his fingers over the starched collar of his own button-down.

Overwhelmed with a sense of the poet’s obvious failure to understand the art world and finding himself unable to watch him any longer, the man shifted in his seat to face the girl opposite him. He let his eyes drift from her bloated lips to the indelicate neckline of her dress and then to the awkward space between her tortured, blonde curls and the dark roots that threatened her garishly manicured appearance. Feeling suddenly that this was too intimate a place for his eyes to rest, the man lowered his gaze to the girl’s face. He felt content here, looking at her, the rambling poet’s words crashing, muffled, against his back.

But the feeling lasted only a moment, for the man soon became aware of the uncomfortable sensation that he was drowning in this girl’s grotesque, affronting beauty. Deciding instead to focus on the poet’s words, he softened his gaze and 59

let the lines flow through him, hoping that something would get caught around his heart as it tried to pass him by. He wasn’t sure what he was searching for, exactly—a word, maybe, or a metaphor.

He didn’t dare acknowledge it, but he was afraid. Afraid of losing this something, this meaning, before he even had a chance to grasp it. Afraid of the inevitable moment when, after the poet left the stage, the girl asked him, What was the meaning of it all, and he would have to say, I don’t know. Afraid, as he looked through the dim haze at the eyes trained on the stage, that he was the only man in the room who could not grasp the poet’s meaning.

With a soft sigh, the old man pushed his chair back and stood up. From the middle of the room and with the exertion expected from a man of his age and posture, he moved slowly, shifting his weight back and forth between his legs until he had nearly disappeared into the stairwell.

The man with the blonde, startled from his trance, found himself seized by a sudden urgency. In that moment, he wanted more than anything to follow the old man, to find him outside the bar, the yellow whiskey stains on his beard illuminated by the greens and reds that lit up the cold, lonely street. He would ask the old man what he thought of the poem, and the old man would be silent for a moment before turning, slowly and with a wisdom that comes only with age, to face him. The old man would explain it all, and upon this explanation, he would realize that he had always known the true meaning of the poet’s convoluted words. So he would return to the girl at the table, satisfied and proud that he, too, had understood. And over breakfast the next morning, he would tell her what it all meant, and she would be grateful to him and impressed by his remarkable mind. And he would smile as if the explanation was quite simple and because really, he had known it all along.

The girl looked at him now, any emotion in her eyes hidden under the shadow of crudely painted lashes. She wondered if, when they stepped out into the biting air later that night and he pulled her coat up over her shoulders, he would lean in close and ask, his voice low, if she would go home with him. She wondered if, when his words brushed indecorously across her skin, she would say yes. She wondered what the man with the cigarette was thinking; she wondered if he was thinking anything at all. And she wondered, as she turned to look at the young man on stage, his face drowned in a soft red light, whether she would ever catch the meaning of the beautiful mess of words drifting out of his mouth.

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He will insist on explaining it to me later, she thought, her eyes back on the man sitting across from her. She imagined asking him, imagined the bitter thrill of hearing his words communicate his own envisioned intellect and her inferior mind. Yes, she would go home with him when he pulled her coat over her shoulders and leaned in close.

The woman with the red lipstick had finished her drink. She was listening closely to the poet’s words, trying to catch them as they ran past her with impossible speed. She looked at the man and the blonde, and then at the old man lifting his fragile body out of his chair, their faces now painted green. Surely, they must understand this man’s words. And she did not, although she would not let herself know it. She looked again to the man with the blonde, and she thought surely, he must understand.

And the man with the blonde thought about chasing after the old man, for he would tell him the meaning behind these words.

But he didn’t do a thing, and he looked around again at the faces, the intelligent faces, and he thought they must know, they must know, and I, for all I try, do not. And he looked at the girl with fear of what she might ask the next morning.

And the girl looked back and thought, Yes, I will go home with him tonight, and he will tell me what it all means.

And the old man reached the stairwell, the poet’s words nothing but a faint buzz now. But then again, his hearing was going, and even as he had sat in the center of the hazy room with the dancing smoke and the flickering lights and the colorful faces, he couldn’t hear a thing.

Penny Lazar

Kaleidoscope 61

MORTALS AND

I MMORTALS

Ephialtes

Scarlett Li

A baby girl was wrapped up in layers—a patchwork of colored cloth covering her stubby legs. Her mother, Caroline, whispered a lullaby as the child gently closed her eyes and gave in to the slight rocking of her crib. As soon as she saw the girl was asleep, Caroline slid on an unwashed shirt, prepared to leave her baby for the day, and did not bother brushing the knots out of her hair before she trudged toward school.

Her landlord came that afternoon while Caroline was in class and posted a final eviction notice on her rusty apartment door.

After all, she had not paid rent in three months and merely stacked each notice neatly on her kitchen counter.

Yet, two hours later, she did not come home to only another yellowed piece of paper, but an eerie silence. Her baby was nowhere to be found.

Hysterically, Caroline sought apathetic neighbors for any sign of her child’s whereabouts, pleading while they mostly rolled their eyes and muttered about teenagers that ruined their own lives.

She sobbed on the doorstep of her parents’ house, although not even they cared about their lost grandchild. Instead, her parents claimed, “It’s good you lost her,” and “You can actually do something relevant now.” They were giddily optimistic that the blemish of their daughter’s pregnancy simply vanished along with any evidence.

Looking back on the seemingly charming street of her childhood home, never had Caroline been so relieved that she moved out at eighteen.

Without a child in her arms, she could only tear every eviction notice to pieces, scattering them across the living room to let the rats feed on. She begged the police to post an Amber Alert and to save her kidnapped daughter, but instead they berated her for neglecting her child—for leaving her baby all alone in an empty apartment. She dejectedly put up missing person posters even though she thought that posters were meant for dogs and cats and not children. In her dreams, she was the one who handed her daughter away to a faceless man in a black ski mask. Before she stepped off a cliff and fell through the endless darkness.

So, when Caroline woke up panting to her little girl’s cries still ringing out from the crib and realized it was all a nightmare, her teary eyes dried, and her heavy breaths eventually evened out—until her landlord knocked on her door, and the nightmare began anew.

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Anna Leventon

Iced Memories 65

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. after Judy Blume

Maggie Nichols

I know it’s been a minute, but I really feel I should explain myself.

I take you back to a preschool classroom that overlooked a small courtyard with fake grass, separating that wing from the nave.

It was in that cubic classroom of some alternate universe containing only shrunken furniture that we first got to know each other.

Rumors of your actions and echoes of your words claimed the air as a five-year-old colored between black lines of varying thickness to ultimately depict an image of your son. We were encouraged to accept all of these stories as something between hearsay and absolute fact.

With time, and in a wave of gross and wondrous maturity, a once incredulous child became a reliant teenager who viewed the superstitious with cynical judgement, but, in moments of midnight solace and fits of worry, could appreciate prayer even without admitting reverence.

But somewhere in those years, I released my agency. And then one day, I turned to you and felt you turn away. I felt abandoned, and I absorbed it with subtle anger and some attempt at indifference that couldn’t quite mask my embarrassment around my childish pursuit. I had intended to grasp what I understood as a sense of wisdom and joy at answered prayers all of the adults that shared my pew seemed to feel each time they closed their eyes. But, in the end, it was something else.

Yesterday when I walked through the seventh floor containing a department that straddled comfortable and critical states, a stagnant air captured me in the quietest area of that glass arena I needed a name tag to enter. This all combined to define a feeling that stood in odd opposition to the various battles being fought all around me.

Other oddly opposing forces became glaringly apparent between my prayers for better grades and those that surrounded me concerning life. Only life. Nothing else. They were such simple wishes, and I felt a new temptation to apologize.

I can only imagine how much you missed me calling up, so I apologize for my certainty in your rejection of me, and for doing the same. I apologize, also, for my negligent ignorance, but we both know I’m still working through all that perspective stuff.

In any case, if you’re still listening, I really need an A on that paper.

66

Abby Iles

Flowers for You 67

Mars

Charlotte Armstrong Scan code to listen to this original composition (headphones recommended).

68

Este Tejpaul

Galaxies 69

Coffee Shop Character Sheet

Elizabeth Montgomery

One male—the one people watching; he orders an iced black coffee despite it being 30 degrees outside. He wears bright red gloves and doesn’t take them off inside, even when writing. He records everything he witnesses from the exact time (including seconds) that any given person enters the cafe to who notices him studying them—and more excitingly, how those who do react.

Two older men—playing chess. Neither of them are very good, but they’re both too stubborn to admit they just like spending time together. Chess is an excuse to see each other, to talk about their wives and the books they’re reading. Their wives are friends; they have brunch together once a month. One of them is rereading Frankenstein, making jokes about how his mother was the monster for making him. The other has decided to read the bible for the first time—he’s been going to church his entire life.

One lets out a deep throated cough, and the other narrows his eyes to the chess board. You don’t ask an old man with a cough about his health, you just let him win a round of chess as he tells you where he found God. One couple—it’s their first date. They’re cute, but they probably won’t last. She’s talking about zodiac signs and he nods along politely. He knows his birthstone, she says they are compatible.

She asks him what time he was born. He doesn’t hesitate before answering: 1:29am. She asks, “Really?” He says no. She laughs lightly to herself, as if his ability to lie with such ease is charming and not alarming.

Two girls—they’re studying. One girl has on a greenish sweater that matches her eyes and a thick cream colored bow in her hair.

The other has on seven rings and a pair of distressed low rise jeans. The first one looks up and then back to her book. The other does the same. They continue like this for a while, never knowing that when one looked away, the other was looking up at her.

One male—wearing a St. Jude’s shirt that says “This shirt saves lives.” He waits for the barista to return before putting his tip into the jar. He has a copy of The Feminine Mystique tucked under his right armpit and a pin that says “Love makes a family” dangling from his keychain that clinks loudly against his belt as he settles into a stool at the counter. Seated, he adjusts the placement of his matcha in relation to his book seven times before pulling out 70

his phone and testing the numerous angles from which he might capture this moment.

Two baristas—one behind the counter taking orders and making drinks. The other wanders around clearing tables. He sweeps up wilted flowers, a cough drop wrapper, and a torn plastic sticker that reads “Skip the straw” before spraying and wiping down the tables.

Lila Nachbar

Somber Lunch 71

Life, Death, and Las Vegas

Gianna DeBono

“You’re late.” A young girl tapped her foot, looking sternly at the teenage boy sauntering across the stone walkway towards her. A dark leather jacket hung over his shoulder, only slightly covering his faded green T-shirt with the words Last Responder printed in large block letters.

“We’ve got all of eternity. I can’t be late.” The boy grinned at his own remark and leaned casually against the silver railing.

He appeared to be about six years older than the girl, who bore a seasoned expression of exasperation that looked strange on her youthful appearance. She clutched a vellum bound book, approximately the size of a large phone directory, and shoved it into his hands.

“I don’t have time for this. Where have you been? Not a single name has been added in here since February 19th. That’s three days ago.” She anxiously gestured to the book, now open in front of the boy. Hundreds of names filled each page, meticulously written in besides a date of birth and death.

“You’re kidding me, right? I told you I’m on vacation.” The boy rolled his eyes, scanning as he skimmed the pages flippantly.

Laughing, he pointed at one of the carefully written names under the month of October. “Ha! Remember Arlo? Funny chap tried to offer me his wife instead of him. Couldn’t take the deal of course, violation of protocol, you know. ” He winked at his companion, a sardonic smile tugging at his lips.

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Stop it. Sorry, but the reaper can’t go on vacation. It’s not in the job description, so I suggest you cancel whatever plans you have for the rest of eternity, and do your job so I can stop babysitting you like an insolent child.”

“You’re calling me a child? Need I remind you of the debacle of 33 AD? What, you thought I wasn’t going to notice you raised a guy from the dead when I specifically told you not to?”

“You never told me anything.”

“I shouldn’t need to tell you anything! We’re supposed to be partners, which means if I decide it’s someone’s time to die, you can’t unkill them.”

“You’re changing the subject. This is about you hanging out 72

in Las Vegas for three days with complete disregard for proper conduct—” “You’re not serious.”

“I’m completely serious. You have a reputation to uphold, and more importantly, I have a reputation to uphold.”

“How is me taking three days off from work threatening your reputation?”

“Because if people don’t take Death seriously, they won’t take me seriously either!”

“That’s not true.” He scoffed.

“It’s completely true. You can’t just take off. People need to die, otherwise they’ll get lazy and nothing will ever get accomplished.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Of course it does! Why do you think the gods sit around drinking wine and getting into stupid fights? Because all they have is time. It’s not a precious resource to them, and without you, it won’t be a precious resource to anyone. So please, for the sake of mankind, do your job.”

“Fine.” He answered begrudgingly. “But I’ll be working remotely, maybe from Shanghai.” He flashed a grin in her direction.

“I don’t care as long as you add names to this book.”

“Deal.”

Lila Nachbar

Surfing the Crowd 73

The Harbinger

Kiki Taylor

I needed entertainment. See, this is how it started. This is how I convinced myself to sit there in the shadows, waiting, watching. She came down the alleyway in her high heels, the cold air biting against her skin, her breath forming a thin mist. She knew something was wrong. Her posture uncertain, she was lost.

Perfect. I will show her the way. Some refer to me as a vampire or werewolf—a monster, in short. That I am not, though I take little care in pronouns and names; call me The Harbinger. I am neither monster nor devil. I am neither god nor saint. I am neither good nor evil. Rather, I represent truth in its harshest and rawest form. I am all that came before and all that shall be.

Her high stiletto heels clicked against the cracked pavement, the sound echoing throughout the narrow alleyway. As she began to pick up her pace, sweat formed on her forehead and a glimmer above her lip glittered in the moonlight. She wrapped her arms around herself, tugging the short black sleeves of her dress down.

Her teeth chattered with such ferocity. She regretted leaving her jacket in the club when she had so desperately tried to escape the crowded environment that reeked of alcohol and vomit.

She replayed the route to her car in her mind. Right turn, then walk up the street to the stop sign and…and turn? No. Keep going straight, then turn left at the house with the porch swing. All the events of the night swirled together in her mind, leaving only cloudiness. In the darkness, a low, gravelly voice began to sing. As she walked the voice grew louder and louder, wrapping around her, consuming her. Penelope’s vision faded in and out as her body swayed from side to side. She paused, her heart beating in her ear, her guts twisted. She lurched forward with a sudden urge to hurl—but then she heard it again, the music as clear as ever. As she stumbled forward, her eyes searched through the darkness, scanning for whoever was the source of the music.

There, sitting hunched on an old bucket, was an old man, his face hidden by the old red cap he wore that was tearing at the brim. He cradled a worn yet beautiful guitar in his lap. His fingers, thick with callouses and dirt, glided with a graceful elegance over the strings. His voice held an foreign twang, one so mysterious and alluring. Penelope blinked, struggling to focus, her eyes n locked on the old man as he played. His words were ones of an 74

ancient song that spoke of a place she had never known existed, one of lost souls, and monsters.

“She painted herself blue, she brought that on herself,” he sang, his voice somber. The words struck her as strange; they stirred something deep in her. Her heart pounded faster as she leaned closer, her mind transfixed.

In the real world, they can’t walk away, They stand frozen among their lies, They hide in the shadows, chained to echoes and lost goodbyes…

The old man’s eyes glinted under his hat as a slight grin formed on his face. His gaze rose to her, all-knowing and holding, seeing through every part of her she tried to bury.

“Some say the painted girl was lost,” he murmured softly, his voice near a whisper, yet clear as day. “But perhaps she was found.”

Zara Kurbanov

The Birch Tree 75

OCAD Awareness Month

Emma Mao

HEWTMR! OMG, sorry. I’m learning this new language on Duolingo and I’ve been practicing so much! So anyway HIEDOTFM? Shoot, I did it again. Sorry, it’s just that this language is so much faster. Have you heard of it? It’s called phoneaddictionese, more commonly known as SMS language. Well, YOLO! Or maybe I just have FOMO? LMAO I guess I’ve just been spending too much time on my phone, my B. Maybe I contracted the same virus that my phone did from opening too many sus TikTok shop links! Maybe I have…could it be?…OCAD?!

Obsessive Compulsive Abbreviation Disorder! I knew I should have stayed off of Urban Dictionary.

HEWTMR: Hello everyone, welcome to my rant!

HIEDOTFM: How is everyone doing on this fine morning?

Abbreviations have gotten out of hand. For example, sus— that comes from the word suspicious. Rizz? That’s just charisma.

Delulu? Delusional, obvi! Simp? Oh, that definitely means simple doesn’t it? Like if someone is a simp, that means they live a simple, eco-friendly lifestyle? It means that they are independent and do not care for people’s attention, right? What do you mean it means the opposite?

I recalled a conversation some months ago I had with an eighth grade student about her daily use of slang. My memory was fuzzy, so I contacted her on Sunday to see if she remembered the same exchange. Specifically, if she remembered telling me about how people in her grade use the slang word “ate.”

This was her response: “Ohhh yeah. Yeah ppl say like you ate or cooked so hard or just ate down. Like ppl would say you ate so hard u created world hunger and then u cooked so hard that you solved world hunger.”

- pause The same girl texted me in September about registering for the AMC 8 math competition. In that same text, she spelled “school” as S-K-O-O-L. I lost a few brain cells reading that text. It’s only two letters away from the actual word. Just two taps.

Let me get this straight: My beef is not with slang. I use slang all the time. What I have a problem with is the shortening of perfectly sized words. There is an epidemic of word truncation.

OCAD symptoms include writing IYKYK and not immediately 76

thinking ih-yick-yick! Stages of the disease can be measured by how you show appreciation. Stage 1 is just “thank you.” Stage 2 is T-Y-S-M. Stage 3 is T-H-X, Stage 4 is T-Y. And Stage 5…hands pressed together emoji.

By removing letters, you remove meaning.

What really irks me is the use of numbers to shorten words.

Like G-R-8 for great. Or H-A-G-1 for have a good one (often said to people on their birthdays). Nobody wants to be called your number #1 hag on their birthday. Or C-U-L-8-R for see you later.

You will not be seeing me later. After that, you won’t be seeing me ever.

Last but not least, I-L-Y for I love you. It’s ok for friends or maybe old married couples with weak thumbs, but otherwise, if you really loved me, you’d type the whole damn thing.

Recovery is possible but difficult. It involves a lot of touching grass, speaking face-to-face, and (unfortunately) conforming to the U.S. TikTok ban if there ever is one. We provide AAAA (American Anti-Abbreviation Association) support groups, but they do require some level of social capability which can be learned through watching reality TV.

🙏

Liv Litt

Fish Out of Water 77

Family Gathering Fragments of flowing conversations fill every crevice of the furniture, and a girl sits on the staircase above, sempiternally suspended in hesitation.

78

Alexandra Zummo

Elisabeth Schmitz

Siblings 79

Collecting Love: Fragments after Ovid

Elizabeth Montgomery

Iphis, daughter of Telethusa and Ligdus, was born female and raised male to avoid infanticide by her father’s hand. After falling in love with another girl, Ianthe, the goddess Isis transforms Iphis into a man so they can marry.

The scenes with Iphis and Ianthe cover a range of places and times. They do not follow a single storyline. Iphis and Ianthe do not need to be (and quite frankly should not be) played by the same actresses in each fragment.

Iphis and Ianthe’s tragedy is not simply a product of the GrecoRoman environment in which Ovid wrote them. They are restricted by the perpetual belief that Iphis’ love for Ianthe was wrong until Isis intervened.

Fragment 3.

IPHIS Do you see that star?

Which one?

IANTHE

IPHIS points up to the sky.

That one.

IPHIS

IANTHE There must be a million stars up there, Iphis!

IPHIS Well, that one is particularly beautiful.

IANTHE Okay, sure yes that one!

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IPHIS Do you see how the other stars seem to follow it?

Like a snake!

IANTHE

IPHIS Yes, yes! Exactly. Do you know your constellations?

Not at all.

IANTHE

IPHIS Oh, me neither.

IANTHE laughing

We could always just make them up! That snake, it will be ours.

Okay!

Okay.

IPHIS IANTHE

Fragment 4.

They stare at the audience as if it’s a piece of art.

IPHIS What I love most about this painting is that wherever you stand, all these beautiful, tired people are looking back at you, watching intently. You feel like you know them and as if they are deeply invested in getting to know you. (beat) I read that the artist of this piece was a nun, cloistered. She spent years devoutly praying to some God or other. And one morning, the 81

convent woke up to find that she had run away. All she left behind was this painting of strangers they had never seen before.

Really?

IANTHE

IPHIS Probably not, I just made that up.

But maybe.

Maybe.

IANTHE

Fragments 5 & 6.

IPHIS and IANTHE run around the stage. There is no specific path nor timeframe. At some points they are holding hands, at others they are not. At some points they glance or even stare at each other, at others they do not. They remain in constant motion.

ANOTHER IPHIS and ANOTHER IANTHE enter and sit, watching the first couple. They laugh at the couple running aimlessly around the stage.

ANOTHER IPHIS Wait, watch. This is the best part.

The FIRST IANTHE throws herself to the ground, joyfully. Her IPHIS joins her. She rests her head on her Iphis’ shoulder and closes her eyes.

FIRST IANTHE Could you read me something?

FIRST IPHIS I don’t have anything to read.

FIRST IANTHE Then write me something.

The first IPHIS takes a pen out of her pocket and writes I LOVE YOU on her IANTHE’s arm.

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ANOTHER IANTHE That’s stupid. Anyone can write “I love you.”

ANOTHER IPHIS Exactly! How incredible is that!

ANOTHER IANTHE It’s just so impersonal.

ANOTHER IPHIS What could be more personal than defining a word together?

Than understanding another’s language as if it were your own?

ANOTHER IANTHE What will our word be?

ANOTHER IPHIS It can be anything you’d like. I’ll understand.

Maybe.

Morgan Dweck

IANTHE

Transcending Reality 83

84

Sofia Bhatti

Kiwi at Home 85

BUT THE AIR AND THE

SKY ARE FREE

Persia Shipman 88

Dusk in Ibiza

A Rock Is Just a Rock

Elizabeth Montgomery

Her lips were the shade “mightiest maraschino,” a bright red, painted on, begging to say something or everything or nothing.

Her face was otherwise bare. She sat directly on the sand in an off-white bathing suit decorated with watercolor pomegranates and oranges. Next to her was a pale blue mug with small yellow flowers which her wife had made for her years ago. The flowers were buttercups; she had picked a handful of them from the corner by their first apartment and worn them in her hair at their wedding. She drank from this mug every morning, and every morning for the past 50 years; the buttercups reminded her of their first apartment and their wedding day and their love which felt in every way heretical and in every way worth it.

She drank her coffee black, room temperature because she believed it obsequious to do anything at the time when some law or norm demanded it from her—that or sometimes she forgets that she made a cup. She drank her coffee black, leaving a stain on the rim of the mug in the shape of her bottom lip, which she refused to wipe away. She drank her coffee black, two cups in the morning because she still made one for her wife even though she was no longer there to drink it.

As she stared out at the ocean, she watched the waves fold and crease. Staring out at the ocean, she found herself particularly conscious, for the first time, of her wrinkles. She had seen them every morning and every night in the mirror as she cleansed and moisturized and so forth. She had seen them in photographs and films, even the portrait her grandson had drawn of her when he was in elementary school. Her eyes were sunken, she knew, her mouth framed, but she had never sat and stared out at the ocean and thought of her folds and creases. She felt them now, tracing her middle finger from the tip of her jaw up her cheekbone, she traced just below her eye, down her nose, which she had once thought too round to be taken seriously back when she longed to be serious, and finally her lips which, despite being bold in color, felt weak and damaged.

Her eyes fixated on a little girl with red rubber boots splashing in the small ring of water that was forgotten when the tide drew back. The little girl with red rubber boots did not yearn for the ocean behind her—no, she was perfectly content in this forgotten water.

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The little girl did not have the language yet to understand what it was she felt, only that it was the feeling she had when daddy had given her the red rubber boots which looked so much like mommy’s. Oh how she loved to muddy her pair! A dog, at first glance comically large, joined the little girl with red rubber boots, sharing with her the inability to define his feelings. Somehow, however, they knew they both felt it. In that way, life was simple: feel only what they feel, do only what they do, be only what they are.

And the little girl smiled as a distant warmth embraced the otherwise windy afternoon. She smiled as the dog licked her muddied red rubber boots, and she noticed something slightly purple peeking out of the sand and reached for it. She smiled as she held the rock, imbuing it with significance the other pebbles could only envy. And when the thought of making the other pebbles feel bad crossed her mind, she put her deeply significant rock back where she found it and, smiling, went back to her comically large dog.

She did not know she was smiling for any particular reason.

To her knowledge, she was simply smiling because it had not occurred to her not to.

“Gunnar!” a man’s voice yelled from the shoreline. Another dog, this one only slightly smaller than the first, leaped over the ring of water where the little girl and her dog danced and splashed. Dashing through the sand, Gunnar crashed into two teenage girls who had been sitting at the beach for hours. One girl scratched beneath his chin while her friend covered their frozen yogurt cups with her hands. They had come to the beach straight from school, longing for an adventure or a sanctuary or a moment distinctly theirs which could not be tainted nor taken.

They both wore jeans and sweaters, sitting directly in the chilled sand. It was not particularly warm, but it was as crowded as it gets in mid July. They talked of foolish things: the Chicago cast party, prom dresses and dates, college tours, and middle school.

One traced her fingers in the sand methodically creating patterns as they talked. It was poetic or maybe humbling, as she spoke of the girl she liked’s new boyfriend or the ending to a book she read four years ago, to make something incapable of surviving beyond this moment of theirs.

“I’m so sorry,” said the same voice from before. Softer now, he chuckled lightly, even awkwardly. He called Gunnar again, luring him away from the girls’ mini oasis and journeying on in the 90

opposite direction; the two of them shrank until they became a single spec of gold on the horizon—not quite as bright as the sun, but the comparison was rather brilliant.

Zara Kurbanov

Seashells by the Seashore 91

By the Stone House (and That River)

Chloe Cerniglia

Her mother and sisters live there—in that stone house.

The one that always smells like sap and smoke.

Between a river and the thick grove of pine trees that she hasn’t walked through since her last birthday.

She hasn’t visited since her last birthday.

And she takes a right, now, at the old patch of dandelions that have wilted from the cold.

A breeze crosses the water and ruffles her scarf and carries a memory to the front of her head.

It is of her and her sisters in clothes that are stained brown and green from sitting in hot summer mud and bushes and water all day.

They are eight, and wearing dandelion crowns of river-bank flowers. Someone’s hair is knotted in a twig.

They are all on the ground trying to help.

But the day has gone for too long, so their faces and knees are stinging from sunburn, so they are fighting until their mother calls from the porch to come in for dinner.

And even though her words are muffled by the ivy and trees each girl gets up quickly, each girl forgets about the twig, and each runs to their stone house excited for food that will leave them full and sick.

This memory is slightly hazy, but it makes her smile.

Since she has moved, she only talks to her sisters through the phone. And they have all stayed here, looking after the dandelions and the forest and the river and their mother.

She approaches the old front door of the stone house now.

It is barely night, and dusk lingers as the sky’s grip on sunset is slowly fading.

Nobody is there, and nobody has spoken.

She has not knocked yet, 92

but it’s loud: crickets, fireflies, the rush of the river that floods her head with nostalgia so intense it makes her dizzy and catches her voice in her throat.

She knows now she will always return home.

Zara Kurbanov

Seeing Double 93

Innocence

Gianna DeBono

Right in the thick of the age of innocence, I used to sit and wait for an angel beneath a small apple tree beside our farmhouse.

His face changed with the seasons, appearing as a tall and lanky Rwandan man in the summer months, a young Italian boy with red hair when the snow was deepest, or an American with a heavy southern drawl around harvest time. These visits occurred only on the second of each month, although I often found myself beneath the tree days prior, hoping for an accidental glimpse of the divine.

My mother was a simple-minded woman, often forgetful of the ground she stood upon and easily enthralled by fantasies much like my own. She found my descriptions of the monthly encounters endearing, while my father ignored them entirely as fleeting symptoms of a child’s fanciful imagination. As my childhood withered away, so did his patience, and dismissive ignorance quickly turned to fits of white rage, of which my mother bore the brunt. In the fourth year of these events, and on the second of July, my father was able to evade my detection and follow me out into the orchard. I had always insisted on receiving the angel alone, per his request. However, and to my father’s dismay, on the day of his pursuit he could not see an inch of the large Rwandan man who kneeled to speak with me, and he quickly abandoned his investigative attempts for other more aggressive preventative measures.

At each meeting, the angel brought me a small gift in a felt box tied with brown string, and within each box was a single word spelled out on a thin sheet of gold leaf. The very first gift he gave to me was in the springtime of my twelfth year, wrapped in a deep purple felt. I remember weeping because I could not make out the shining letters, my left eye having swollen dramatically since an encounter with my father the night before.

The angel that morning looked to be a boy of ten with jet black hair and soft curling lashes. As I wept, he cupped his hands beneath my face to collect my tears and whispered the word fortitude into my ear. The blazing afternoon sun soon dimmed until the orchard was replaced by the weak pulse of overhead lights. I found myself in a stark white room sitting beneath a small, circular window, the only furnishing a narrow bed with a metal frame. Lying on the mattress was a papier-mâché woman 94

with sunken eyes, her body steeped in the distinct fragrance of suffering. She did not meet my gaze, but strained to look through the window to the sky. She was smiling.

I later asked the angel if she had died in that room, but my words were only met with silence and another felt box. My mother’s face reminded me of the woman’s, for each morning she smiled at my father just as the woman had smiled at the sky.

For years the angel gave me other words and visions, though none as striking as the first. The last visit occurred right before my mother died, after which I only saw the creature in the faces of strangers. I occasionally caught a glimpse of a boy’s bright red hair, or heard the lick of a southern accent, and would be instantly stricken with the need to rationalize the events of my childhood: I might have invented the apparitions, allowed selfinflicted illusions to quell my own discomfort, or perhaps I simply had an affection for indulging insanity. Those moments, however, disappeared quickly, replaced by the face of the papier-mâché woman smiling radiantly at the sky.

Morgan Dweck

Rainforest 95

Maggie Whidden 96

Second Chances

Maggie Whidden

Resilience

Maggie Whidden

Shifting Perspectives 97

Herald of the Haiku

Alessia Cutaia

This summer, I stumbled across a secondhand copy of E.M. Forster’s A Longest Journey. I initially bought the book as it completed all my requirements: nestled between the slightly misanthropic shop owner’s sleeping cat and other deteriorating books, yellowing pages, a broken spine, and, call me strange, but that old book smell that can only be emulated by just the right amount of years passed. But, what was most notable about this book was the timeline of events written in what can only be described as academic chicken scratch nestled at the very end of the warped pages. The 300-page everwinding book was broken into seven simple plot points. It all seemed so simple. And, therefore, it was completely and utterly against everything I stood for. You see, the character flaw that I have revealed to be most true for myself is a criminal and critical overcomplication of every aspect of human life.

This acute condition of overcomplication is something I still suffer from today. For instance, when I read a particularly brilliant quote by the late American filmaker David Lynch, I believed I had solved the answers to human life. The quote goes: “If you have a golf ball size consciousness, when you read a book you’ll have a golf ball size understanding. [...] But if you could expand that consciousness, then you read the book with more understanding; you look out with more awareness and when you wake up you have more wakefulness.”

I thought, brilliant, the physical expansion of my consciousness, the evolution of a golf ball into a divine-like state, is achieved through the complication of my reality. Therefore, I tried to find the longest, oldest, most complicated books I could find. With each page in a Dante-esque spiral of novels, I could come closer to a holy becoming. I compared different regions of religions and the varying pinnacles of philosophy in the hopes that this golf ball would be physically expanded by every word read. But the golf ball soon turned into something like a grape, a grape into something like a gumball. The pursuit of trying to discover every literary nuance led to a muddle in my mind—the existentialist thought of “why does it really matter if I do my homework if nothing really matters at all” mixed with Horace, and “carpe dieming” the day. What I had initially thought would expand my worldview in fact shrank it.

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What I most needed was a simple breakdown of the thoughts of my mind, like that simple breakdown I found in the back of that old book. That feeling of being overwhelmed could be brought to clarity.

What I yearned for soon found itself in the poetic form that I will preach today to be the form in which everyone should fit their life into. That is the haiku. Earlier this year, my English teacher, Mrs. Maliakel, posed the question, if you were to give a TED talk with the entire world watching, what would you talk about? Now presented with such an opportunity, I seek to convey why the world should solely speak in haiku.

I do not praise the haiku for its rhyme, nor its choice of words, but its simplicity, the need for tight intentionality to fit your thoughts into its syllabic guidelines. I have always envied the order that exists beneath my fingertips, as small as the blades of grass: millions of uniform rectangular cells or seed heads arranged in the Fibonacci sequence. It is all just so simple.

In fact one of the most meaningful haiku I have received from my classmate, Emma Jones, read: Hi, Alessia you look fly, Alessia bye, Alessia.

Turning my words into calculated rhythms, allowing this feeling of being overwhelmed to become something more natural, something more succinct, I can almost start to see my own consciousness developing right at the back of my eyeballs.

By making things more simple, the golf ball naturally expands.

Therefore, in the expanse of the ever-muddled teenage brain, I will not seek to overcomplicate my life. I’ll simplify it.

Each task I do can be a simple action of intentionality. With the innumerable meanings of life, the billions of different ways one can perform the word, it can all be so simple. I’ll perform the verb in its simplest form: “To live, I live.” David Lynch goes on to say: “It’s consciousness and there’s an ocean of pure, vibrant consciousness inside each one of us, and it’s right at the source of mind, right at the source of thought, and it’s also at the source of all matter.” The matter beneath my fingertips, that exists beyond my eyes, every thought crammed into my cranium, can be broken into five, seven, five. Through only seventeen syllables, the awareness that I so stubbornly chased after becomes tangible.

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Honors Art II 100

Rope Painting

Casey Duval

Underwater Worlds 101

Footprints

Anna Leventon

The waves crash, the beach surrenders Five days in the crisp ocean breeze Will it last, will it last Walking for miles, talking for more Ducks scatter the blue seas The waves crash, the beach surrenders Ocean world removed from the other Words exchanged, a life overseas Will it last, will it last I will never make you stay The ocean envelopes, water flees The waves crash, the beach surrenders Sixth day, footprints fade Emptiness follows, you leave Will it last, will it last Footprints retreat into the ocean’s grasp A memory never guarantees The waves crash, the beach surrenders Will it last, will it last

Izzy Hartman

Storm-Born Silence 103

Zara Kurbanov 104

Gator, Mystic Jellyfish, Jaws & Lupine Guitar Bodies

Zara Kurbanov

Orchid Guitar 105

The History of Stillness

after “the Bronze Horseman” by Alexander Pushkin Rena Georgakopoulos-Ueta

I Thousands of years ago, the pond stood still, Surrounded by plants and trees Dropping and exchanging leaves and life.

Individuals passed only once every month, A cautious gaze through the trees, Fearing the deathly presence of another.

Hundreds of years ago, a maple tree had grown, While people passed in carriages and argument, Watching the rise of wooden buildings each day.

Two hundred years ago, a man held his thoughts On the lovely little pond, Claiming the land around it as his own, With the vision of a united future.

A hundred ninety seven years ago, arguments dissipating away, People passed by the pond that still stood still, Their gazes blocked by an awe towards the colossal wooden building.

A hundred ninety seven years later, Through wars and laughter and death and joy, The building still stands, its striated columns Covered in bright white paint Years of inches thick.

Excited chatter fills the air, Little girls in white shirts and kilts Followed by taller ones in reds, blues, and greens.

One of the little girls falls, And another sweeps her up.

Now the building is a part of a bigger complex, Built in place of old buildings made and torn down, Juxtaposed against glass buildings through which The sunlight filters, shimmering on the identical lockers of the Lower School, 106

The geometric form of the buildings, All smiling girls chattering before the start of class.

The modern rooms mirror the ones of the floor below, Reflecting the thoughtful construction of the building.

The teachers display their thoughts and ideas through Projections onto the walls, Giving the ultimate truth of the world.

The thoughts echo in the girls’ heads, From mouths to ears, Across pages of ink and pixels.

Even through lunch and sports, Socializing and exercising what they are told.

They harmonize beautifully In gospel choir, in dance, in their chemistry labs.

It’s no wonder then, The pond still stood still, its boat untouched.

II Two years ago, and for much shorter a time, perhaps, A girl wondered about the boat by the pond.

The gate was always open, But how was the pond never touched?

It seemed that everyone’s eyes that passed by The big glass windows and The wooden library of stellar light Didn’t have the aperture to capture The still water that had never changed.

Figures zoomed past in the field adjacent, Colorful sticks above their heads, Exuberant with exclamations of passion.

But didn’t those sounds look constructed?

The mouths moving in synchronization, Pursed in the same manner.

She had quit sailing the year before, Much slower than, less understanding than, not as agile as Her fellow skippers, Who sighed when she entered the boat.

She disturbed the synchronization of the team, The crew’s and skipper’s harmony.

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She slipped away without notice, A momentary blip in the water.

But art.

It was her greatest love, An intellectual and emotional question Moving her fingers, her brush across the canvas, Shapes upon shapes only intelligible To her.

She realized an unreality, A fantasy of her mind.

She kept it to herself Until she came to her class, Shyly then certainly coloring the pages As emotions poured from her mind.

That’s not right.

A heavy breath by her ear.

The eyes of her peers, boring into her own.

She looked at their works; All the same blaring colors, The same blaring shapes.

The teacher spoke gently and replaced her work With a blank sheet of paper.

The girls all turned their heads back to their pages But she couldn’t help wondering If they had looked at her to say I understand.

She finished, because she must, Her paper full of All the same blaring colors, The same blaring shapes.

The teacher nodded and clapped, assembled the works on the wall.

Girls gathered around the exposition, awed by The symmetry.

The girl saw nothing.

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Outside, the pond still stood still.

A girl walked through the open gate, Unwrapping the boat from the overgrown weeds.

With the background of yelling from the lacrosse fields yonder, She stepped off the edge of the pond, Into the boat, Into the middle of the pond, Where she sat and sat With dreams of fantasy Even while another boat charged her way, Blaring lights of red, blue, and white.

Quinn Lahey

Sailing Through a Story 109

What Did I Know?

Charlotte Oh

I knew that I had a math test on Monday, an English essay on Wednesday, and a problem set due Friday.

I knew what grade I had in each of my classes and what I had to get on the upcoming assessment.

I knew about Shakespeare, quadric surfaces, matrices, and triple integrals. I could tell you about atoms, cell division, triangles, and the history of the United States.

I knew how to answer the questions on my practice test, what to say in class, and when to listen. And for a while that was good enough.

But the older I got, the more people started asking me a different set of questions: introduce yourself, describe yourself in three words, tell me a little bit about yourself. And to those, I was utterly dumbfounded.

I didn’t know what my favorite song was, which movies I prefer, or even which team I wanted to win the Super Bowl. I didn’t know how to learn something without only focusing on how I’ll be tested on it.

I knew that spelling never came easy to me, that mental math was not a strong suit of mine, and that my theses tend to be too wordy. I could write you an analytical essay, lab report, or mathematical proof. I could even make an attempt at poetry. But I didn’t know what it was all for. If I did everything I was supposed to—then what? Would it make me happy? Would it make me the person I wanted to be?

I knew that, for some reason, no one brings an umbrella to school when it rains, that my kilt should be no longer than a pair of shorts, and that when someone asks you how much you studied, it’s common courtesy to tell them less than you actually did. I knew that I was good at squash, but my sisters were far better, that the Brunswick Cafeteria was out of bounds, and that having hobbies is only cool if you’re good at them.

I knew my place, and I stayed in it.

I knew about work-out culture, that the GA cafeteria empties out near spring break, and that no matter what I was doing somebody else was doing more—doing it better. I knew that there was more to me than letters and symbols on a report card, how many parties I got invited to, or which boys thought I was pretty.

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But I didn’t know how to remove myself.

I knew that comparison was the thief of joy, but I just couldn’t stop.

I’ve learned the curriculum here—the one in my classes and the hidden one too. But how is it possible that I know everything and nothing at the same time?

I spent 14 years at this school mastering tests, essays, and formulas only to realize that the real questions about identity, passion, and purpose don’t have an answer key. So, sure, I was educated, but was I knowledgeable?

By the time you graduate, you will have received one of the best high school educations.

But what will you know?

Elisabeth Schmitz

The Pen Takes Over 111

The Girl in the Yellow Boots

Kiki Taylor

Aged beyond her years, an old soul they called her, as if it were something delightful, something they desired, their words draped in deep admiration.

In class, she sat at the back.

Her yellow rain jacket matching her boots, hood pulled tight over her head.

Her books were stacked high on the edge of the table.

Like a Jenga tower.

Precariously placed.

One sudden act away from collapse.

Then it would all come tumbling down.

People saw her for her large glasses and wild hair and quiet demeanor.

Nothing more.

They figured she was wise.

Before even speaking to her.

The books meant she was smart.

Too smart for them, they thought.

An old soul.

A compliment wrapped in a smile, they didn’t know the heaviness of the words, the burden that sinks deeper and deeper into her chest, like an anchor grabbing onto her very soul.

They never asked why, why do you read?

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It was good they didn’t ask, she thought.

It would only bring about the tumbling tower.

What would they see if they looked past the books?

Would they see how she navigates the shadows?

In the clear daylight, seeing the cracks they overlooked, hearing the pain in the veiled silence, shrieking cries that banged against her heart, she wraps them up and keeps them hidden.

In others’ lives she sees the dips and cracks, she sees the canyons of pain, and plateaus of joy.

So, she burrows into her books, not to be otherwise.

This darkness is irrelevant, She does others no good by complaining.

Their pain is relatable, she feels their tears, wet against her skin.

They think her strength is innate, she becomes their rock, the pillar they think is unshakable.

Strength comes at a steep price.

She’s hardened because she had to.

It is heavy to bear not just her own pain, but to be the passenger on a journey of trauma.

She doesn’t know when she let the darkness invade her life.

When did she become an old soul?

To be old is to once be young, But was she ever young?

Did she ever not feel the grip of a calloused hand around her neck, forcing her to feel, to learn from it.

She wishes to just once feel weightless.

To bask in the pleasure of blissful ignorance.

To be free from the constant ache of seeing.

But she can’t turn it off.

Can’t escape the visions that age her.

That force her to be strong.

When all she longs for is to crumble.

To reclaim the innocence she never had.

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It’s a lonely, unspoken strength, A burden few will comprehend.

Because they’ve never had to carry All of what she’s been holding.

Not just wisdom but scars of understanding, A weight that digs deeper with each year, She knows the truth: This old soul within a young body Is too far ahead, too far removed, From a life she never lived.

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Scarlett Li

The Morning After Halloween 115

Leighton Collier 116

The Unfamiliar Path; Cognition

A Letter to Myself

Talia Bock

When the sun descends beneath the starless sky, your ghostly hand raps twice at my weathered door.

Perhaps it’s the mailman, or the gentle footsteps of the downstairs cat.

Yet my heart leaps free from its brittle strings, gliding back through the familiar dance of past memories, when it would be your scuffed brown boots resting on the doormat.

In the days passing I’ve learned of sleep’s cruel abandonment, but maybe it’s my mind that’s to blame, for the figments floating through my head, holding my peace hostage, morphing into my sole companion, digging its dagger into my back.

Or maybe it’s you.

The ears that heard my every thought left alongside you.

Have you found solace nestled deep in the earth?

My nights grow late, akin to your tear-stained goodbye letter.

Blazing, your absence ravaged our town.

Embered, you leave me to lie amongst ashes.

On rare nights a feverish slumber claims me.

I’m haunted by your somber gaze, admiring the wreckage you fled.

Did your hands shake when severing the line that bound us together?

Were they still when you ended both our lives?

It’s despicable how your desertion made me, too, a phantom.

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Evening Train

Emma Mao

Another ticket, another run. The way the world blurs, you’d think we were trying to beat the night. The ticket man is long gone, but I want to see him again. He has a pleasant face—all sharp angles and hollow cavities. And he has big, bright eyes. This matters to me.

Yet the girl in the left corner stares at me with cold eyes. I wonder if she feels a bit cold herself, with what she wears and all, and the way she watches.

Sometimes when I forget where I am, who I am, and what I am meant to do, the outside beckons me.

The latch behind me—I’d pull it open with one swift movement and come face to face with something…or someone. Someone who will save me and sweep me into a waltz. Absent of a ballroom, of a dress, of a man—through the window and into the sky.

The way the world blurs—like a smear of paint.

And I think…no, I know the girl in the left corner shares my thoughts. The way she sinks, unblinking, against the wide window.

I can tell, with what she wears and all. And the way that she stares, toward me, through me, at the latch behind me, easing it open with her mind. Her bitten nails dig into the leather cushions.

I blink, and it is pouring. I watch schools of eager droplets race to surpass each other.

The ticket man is back. He trips when he approaches my seat.

The edge of his coat narrowly misses my arm.

A young man stumbles through closing doors. He throws his drenched body into the seat facing mine, checks his phone, and sighs, aging five more years. Too-large suit sleeves bunch around his shoulders and swallow his whole bony frame. A shiny briefcase comes into view, new and sharp with a residual stench of suppressed city pipe dreams.

I’m already standing before the ticket man reaches me. He grins gorgeously, lingers, and then leaves, his cigarette-andcologne smell tainting my train car.

An old man looks up. At first I think he smiles, then he turns, and I see the glimmering wetness on his cheeks. Blood-shot eyes reflect cool-toned flickers from a limply held cell phone. Creases form around a sagging jaw, dragged down by lost time and accumulated regret. He sits the way a flower wilts, like a Van Gogh painting.

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The ticket man is here again, but so is my stop. Excuse me, he says with a laugh and a glance. It’s a silvery, tinkling, painfully empty sound. His eyes are gray and woeful.

The doors open, and I rush out into darkness.

Denise Seol

Behind the Frame 119

We would like to give a big thank you to Mrs. Tamalonis. We thank her for all of the support and guidance she has given us over the past 41 years. It has been truly rewarding to work with her as she provides so much insight into the world of creativity. Mrs. Tam wishes for her students to enjoy art for the rest of their lives by not only making art but also by appreciating how special art has been to people from all over the world for thousands of years.

In 1984, a student named Lara Scott asked Mrs. Tam if it would be possible to start an art and writing magazine. Mrs. Tam has helped Deadalus grow from a black and white magazine that was stapled together and evolve into a professional publication that has won 67 national awards. Mrs. Tam couldn’t be prouder of Daedalus’s accomplishments and finds it wonderful how so many students have been so eager to go to meetings, submit their work, and help in the publication. Each issue could not have been the same without her input, as she has been a leading force in helping match art with writing, as well as designing and formatting the magazine. When working on this year’s edition, she continuously showed us artwork from rising artists and suggested we include it. We truly admire her dedication to inspiring students and making sure everyone’s art is included.

While a well-deserved retirement means she will no longer be guiding this production, she has provided us with a legacy that will guide rising artists and bring so much more fabulous art to the pages of Daedalus. She has taught student artists over the years to bring their imagination and creations to life through a wide variety of mediums that have then been showcased in Daedalus. Mrs. Tam describes her favorite moment at Greenwich Academy as “seeing a light turn on in a student’s eyes, knowing they’ve made something unique and good.” It has been an honor to be Mrs. Tam’s student as she has passed on her visual artistic talent to us and guided us through the creative artistic process. Whether a student of Mrs. Tam or not, just knowing her is truly a blessing. Mrs. Tam is very talented, but also nurturing, loving, and very passionate. She will be missed at GA! From Zara, Anna, and the Daedalus members!

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GREENWICH ACADEMY VOLUME XXXVII