epitome 2014

20 West End Avenue New York, New York 10023 212/246-7717 • www.heschel.org

Editorial Board

Dedication

Editors in Chief

T

his year, Epitome is a showcase of journeys, dedicated to the wanderer, the hunter, the explorer within each of us.

Mikaela Gerwin Caroline Guenoun

Editors

Sasha Bronfman, Yael Fisher Charlotte Rauner, Rebecca Sussman Aaron Tannenbaum, Talia Wiener

Art Staff

Jacqueline Eizak, Grace Gilbert, Heila Precel

Staff We invite you to join us on an adventure through time.

Skip stones on an endless lake and breathe the air of childhood. Reflect on the experiences that define you. What did your laugh sound like when you were five? Who were your friends when you were ten? What makes you unique?

Explore with us. Travel back through years of homework and tests. School is a journey, a rough slap on the back, a cry yourself to sleep and laugh yourself awake adventure.

Remember the struggles and the lessons. Which experiences teach you how to live?

Dara Diamond, Allison Kaplan, Abigail Rasol

Faculty Advisor Sandra Silverman

Special Thanks to

3rd Rail Marketing Strategies, Publimax Printing, Graphic Paper New York, and Barry and Zachary Goodman AJHHS Alumni Class ’08 for contributions to defray costs of Epitome.

Gabe Godin and Dena Schutzer

Feel the wind on your skin as you swing in the playground.

Taste your grandmother’s warm cookies. Hear the sound of the raindrops on your windowsill. Smell the freshly mowed grass. Watch the golden fish dance in the flickering light of the shallow pool. Listen for the cries of joy and the deadly silences that haunt the night.

Graphic Design/Production

Come with us on a journey through time, from childhood through adolescence. Let us walk together.

Colophon

Caroline, Mikaela, Sasha

The Abraham Joshua Heschel High School 20 West End Avenue New York, New York 10023 212/246-7717 www.heschel.org

Head of School

Roanna Shorofsky

High School Head Ahuva Halberstam

Memberships & Awards

Member, CSPA, 2006 – present (Columbia Scholastic Press Association)

First Place Magazine Cover – Black and White, 2009 Gold Medalist 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013

Gold Circle Awards 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013

Silver Medalist, 2006

By Design Communications

Production Supervisor

3rd Rail Marketing Strategies, Inc. Printing Publimax Printing Paper Graphic Paper New York The pieces in this magazine emerged from both class projects and independent writing. Students submit material and the editors make selections and suggest revisions as part of an extra-curricular activity. Epitome represents a crosssection of the literary and artistic talents of our students and seeks to showcase as many of their works as possible, reflecting Heschel’s commitment to inclusion.

This magazine was produced on the Macintosh platform. Body copy font families used: American Typewriter, Optima and Times New Roman. Assorted titling, decorative text, subheads, credits, page numbers and dingbats font families used throughout. 600 copies, printed on a Heidelberg Speedmaster 102SP 6 Color with Inline Coater. Paper stock: 100# Montauk Gloss 30% Recycled Text-FSC Certified and 111# Montauk Gloss 30% Recycled Cover-FSC Certified (promoting sustainable forest management). Front and back cover printed 4 colors CMYK with double hit of Black plus spot satin and spot gloss aqueous coatings; inside pages printed 4/4 CMYK (all CMYK inks used are vegetable-based).

Table

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Book Covers/ Opening Pages Dedication.... Sasha Bronfman, Mikaela Gerwin, Caroline Guenoun Dedication/Table of Contents photograph................. Zachary Stein Covers/Title Page art..................................Zachary Stein

Poetry A Sea of Myself..............................Yael Fisher..............................9 √ ∏..................................................Nathaniel Z.Stern..................10 I didn’t want it to rain.....................Charlotte Rauner...................12 Sonnet.............................................Ido Levy................................13 To Curly Hair..................................Talia Weiner..........................14 Ink...................................................Charlotte Rauner...................15 Colors..............................................Sydney Shaiman....................16 Mixing the Senses...........................Johanna Kohn........................20 The Words of Keats.........................Naomi Rosen.........................21 Night’s Demons..............................Dara Diamond.......................23 Deaf for an Hour.............................Orly Silverstein.....................25 Inspiration.......................................Caroline Guenoun.................26 The Nanny and the Knickernack.....Naomi Rosen.........................28 An Ode to Music.............................Dara Diamond.......................30 Looking From the Outside..............Johanna Kohn........................31 Wind................................................Johanna Kohn........................40 To Be...............................................William Pollock....................41 A Curse to My Future Ex-Boyfriends.............................Sydney Lorch........................42 Clean-up..........................................Talia Weiner..........................43 Sui Generis......................................Charles Weinshank................51 She..................................................Rachel Wenger......................52 Valedictorian...................................Talia Weiner..........................59 My Song..........................................Sara Kern..............................60 Who I am today...............................Orly Silverstein.....................66 The Battle for Control.....................Evan Chernov........................67 Spelling Counts...............................Charlotte Rauner...................68

contents They Still Ask Us To Be Perfect......Dara Diamond.......................70 Truth and Fiction.............................Jordan Katz...........................71 My Teacher.....................................Sydney Shaiman....................72 So, Why Can I Not Write Poetry?....Lauren Kupferberg................73 The Machine...................................Jessica Freiman.....................87 Curse to My Mountain of Homework...................................Sydney Shaiman....................88 Freedom..........................................Aaron Tannenbaum...............98 Angel in the Snow...........................Leora Nevins.......................100 How Not To Be...............................Leora Nevins.......................103 Dimples and Death..........................Mikaela Gerwin..................104 To You.............................................Johanna Kohn......................106 Butterflies........................................Nathaniel Z. Stern...............108 The Artist’s Fear..............................Nathaniel Z. Stern...............120 A Whole New World.......................Leora Nevins.......................130 No Stop...........................................Mikaela Gerwin..................142

Fiction/Plays Girl’s Tale........................................Mikaela Gerwin....................17 What Was It Like?...........................Sasha Bronfman....................32 they go to the lake...........................Charlotte Rauner...................44 Sincerely, Vietnam..........................Tamar Arenson......................54 The Abyss Stared Back...................Amior Schmidt......................62 Go For Broke..................................Ethan Rosenberg...................74 6 Word Stories.................................Hannah Ball,

Maximillian Eckhardt, Jessica Freiman,

Jonathan Granowitz, Sarah Joyce, Katya Kantor,

Johanna Kohn, Lauren Kupferberg, Leora Nevins,

William Pollock, Charlotte Rauner, Naomi Rosen,

Sydney Shaiman, Orly Silverstein, Rachel Wenger.........90 Outside the Bubble..........................Nava Sido..............................92 God’s Country.................................Samuel Messenger..............101 When Even Dragon’s Blood Can’t Save You............................Matthew Epstein.................109 Drafted............................................Yael Fisher..........................122 The Fifth..........................................Heila Precel.........................133

Essays/On My Mind Community.....................................Mikaela Gerwin....................24 He....................................................Charlotte Rauner.................119 I Am Ashamed.................................Yael Fisher..........................132

Table

of

Art

Oil...................................................Yael Fisher..............................8 Watercolor.......................................Heila Precel...........................11 Watercolor.......................................Sasha Chanko........................13 Charcoal..........................................Alex Cohen...........................14

Ink...................................................Heila Precel...........................15 Collage............................................Gilad Palley...........................18 Digital art........................................Dylan Posner.........................19 Watercolor.......................................Noa Rocco.............................20 Acrylic.............................................Lindsey Falack......................22 Duct tape figures.............................Daniella Forman,

Jack Gindi, Louis Shalam...................24 Oil...................................................Yael Fisher............................27 Oil...................................................Gabriella Uvegi.....................30 Oil...................................................Gabriella Uvegi.....................33 Ceramic...........................................Alex Cohen...........................36 Digital Art.......................................Jacqueline Eizak....................40 Digital art........................................Juliet Sage.............................41 Watercolor.......................................Benjamin Shaiman................42 Mixed media...................................Benjamin Shaiman................43 Oil...................................................Anna Malisov........................49 Craypas...........................................Dylan Ades............................51 Watercolor.......................................Heila Precel...........................53 Charcoal..........................................Grace Gilbert.........................59 Pencil...............................................Grace Gilbert.........................60 Oil...................................................Yael Fisher............................61 Acrylic.............................................Lauren Kupferberg................63 Watercolor.......................................Rachel Wenger......................66 Digital art........................................Caroline Guenoun.................61 Digital art........................................Ben Meshel...........................68 Sculpture.........................................Leora Nevins.........................68 Digital art........................................Dylan Posner.........................69 Digital art........................................Laurie Sarway.......................69 Digital art........................................Benjamin Sternklar-Davis......69 Multi-media.....................................Julia Sutton...........................71 Multi-media.....................................Alex Cohen...........................72 Digital art........................................Ariela Orgel..........................73 Digital art........................................Juliet Sage.............................74

contents Collage............................................Talia Cohen...........................87 Digital art........................................Eliezer Mauskopf..................88 Multi-media.....................................Mirina Rosen.........................89 Digital art........................................Sasha Kagan..........................92 Digital art........................................Eliezer Mauskopf..................94 Multi-media.....................................Elliot Kleinman.....................97 Ink...................................................Rachel Wenger......................98 Colored glue....................................Grace Gilbert.......................100 Ink...................................................Tenth Grade collaborative....102 Digital art........................................Joseph Sutton......................103 Craypas...........................................Julia Sutton................. 106-107 Digital art........................................Caroline Guenoun...............108 Relief sculpture...............................Tenth Grade collaborative...118 Collage............................................Emanuela Tsesarsky............123 Mixed media...................................Jack Levy............................124 Collage............................................Talia Cohen.........................125 Collage............................................Grace Gilbert.......................127 Oil...................................................Yael Fisher..........................129 Collograph.......................................Dylan Ades..........................135 Acrylic.............................................Grace Gilbert.......................144

Photographs Zachary Stein................................................................................12 Zachary Stein................................................................................14 Zachary Stein................................................................................21 Zachary Stein................................................................................25 Zachary Stein.......................................................................... 28-29 Eve Kaufman................................................................................31 Alex Ben-Yosef....................................................................... 38-39 Aaron Tannenbaum................................................................. 44-45 Joshua Silverstein..........................................................................51 Zachary Stein.......................................................................... 54-55 Juliet Sage.....................................................................................70 Jonathan Mack..............................................................................78 Zachary Stein.......................................................................... 83-86 Jonathan Mack........................................................................ 90-91 Zachary Stein.......................................................................... 90-91 Jonathan Mack.................................................................... 104-105 Jonathan Mack.....................................................................110-117 Aaron Tannenbaum............................................................. 120-121 Joshua Silverstein................................................................ 130-131 Eve Kaufman..............................................................................132 Joshua Silverstein........................................................................136 Jonathan Mack............................................................................138 Jonathan Mack............................................................................140 Jonathan Mack............................................................................141 Joshua Silverstein................................................................ 142-143

A Sea of Myself I am floating in an empty ocean A sea of myself Of bones and broad smiles and confined spaces And biting my nails You have to control your sense of self somehow Right?

I am slowly drifting in the direction of a horizon One that I can barely separate From the crashing waves of right-this-second Waves of muted blue Washed to a mere shadow of a hue Getting where I’m going takes infinite time But once I’ve stepped my toes ashore The journey will become a series of images Flashing across my consciousness in split seconds Infinity is not so long when measured against itself

Yael Fisher, oil

The line separating sky and sea is a jagged and colorless streak It splits my insides in half Between the head that darts and flits Back to the beginnings And the heart That waits for someone to turn my skies pink The self of tomorrow Yael Fisher

Pages 8 – 9

√π “I am perfect” she says as she stands jauntily before me arms akimbo head to one side (But her head, oh the horror, What misshapenness resides there) “I am perfect” she says as she looms above me distended belly weaving writhing wriggling on her guise, ill-fitting her tawdry guise of beauty (A guise fashioned of saran wrap and scotch tape, Attractive to a grocery cashier or homeless man, no other) “I am perfect” she says as the wind blows against her clothes pressing up against her skin blue from the chill her skirt slowly rising to reveal her squat mutated squarish legs painted with the words “I am perfect”

Heila Precel, watercolor Nathaniel Z. Stern

Pages 10 – 11

Sonnet Muses, how shall I write my sonnet?

I didn’t want it to rain I didn’t want it to rain because I usually like to listen as if I am someone worthy of hearing (who chose me to hear) it seems a gift, like rain, but we don’t thank anyone (for anything) for hearing voices of people we don’t thank for existing and to exist without hearing doesn’t seem to be a desirable existence but then what is enough to not hear for an hour and be fine unlike my mother who couldn’t hear for a week and was scared

even after the medicine helped that it would come back and I couldn’t hear (barely) for 60 minutes the whole time screaming (like rain) as eating or thinking or breathing screamed (like thunderstorms) in my ears who pretended to not hear

In the beautiful dactylic hexameter of Homer and Virgil?

In monometer, amphibrachic, anapestic, pyrrhic?

Oh muses, clamorous caesurae exhort me to make them into works of art!

But I shan’t grant them their wishes Lest I slander their great reputation Pentameter is the safest choice Only five dactyls and merely five spondees If Shakespeare spewed it so naturally Then why should not I do the same myself?

Yet I am but a humble modern man Neither Shakespeare nor Homer nor Virgil Muses, I implore you, come to my aid!

Help me write poetry!

Ido Levy

the thunderstorms of my b(rain) but it only seemed louder when it should have been silent but silence isn’t enough so I wanted it to rain as if it were deaf and I wanted everything in the clouds to throw tears at my window to make noise that would exist for my ears Charlotte Rauner

Zachary Stein, photograph Sasha Chanko, watercolor Pages 12 – 13

To Curly Hair Curse you, You unruly rebellious locks, Sitting atop my head Torturing me I have tried every product known to man and woman To get you to behave To you, I am enslaved I have gone to others seeking help, but when they see you they cringe I have punished you with a flat iron Attempting to straighten you out Obviously, that was the wrong route You sprang back with a wrath I had yet to see Entangling yourself Just to mess with me We are fighting a civil war Two entities battling I have given up my hopes Talia Weiner

Ink

It’s funny when you think

Alex Cohen, charcoal

Pages 14 – 15

Opposite: Heila Precel, ink

about the permanence of pens. Tattooing paper with ideas reiterated. Fragile thoughts drifting far from mouth, winds full of words pile up slowly, a congregation in ears. Buzzed with music, noisy, hinting to unappreciated

angst. The bored ones doodle scenes of their stifling creativity, sketching and stabbing pages, only slightly. But it’s funny when you think pencils could be chosen -- everything erased ideas, moments simply temporary – equivalent to breath, an event never written in pen.

Charlotte Rauner

Colors

W hen my father speaks, I see the color red burst in the air.

In large zigzagging dashes, Of surprise and thunderous noise.

T

When my mother hushes him, Her voice is blue.

She calms the air instantly, Like the periwinkle glow of quiet music.

When my grandmother tells me ordinary stories About her ordinary day, Her easy amusement and her clear contentment are pink.

The unexpected lone daisy in the sea of grass.

When my aunt says something rude, Her relentless refusal to say she’s sorry, Makes an uncomfortable black blob hang above us.

For a few minutes it doesn’t go away.

When my cousin laughs, Light green dots bounce across my vision.

Even though so much has changed, Those light green dots have stayed the same.

And then there’s me.

I wonder what color I am to them.

Or maybe only I think this way.

Zachary Stein, photograph

Pages 16 – 17

Sydney Shaiman

Girl’s Tale

he street was grey. Not a dark color, more of a faded grey. If you squinted, really stared at the pavement, the grey almost looked like it was white, like it was happy. Girl would sit outside for hours just focusing on that slab of concrete. Her eyes would tense up from the concentration and her head would start to spin, but still she would stare, waiting just waiting for it to turn white. And then the instant it did, she would shut those eyes and let the black envelop her.

Girl lived with the woman whose stomach she came out of and the man who had held her when she was born. Girl could remember a time when she thought of them as something more, when she called them Mom and Dad, not Caregiver 1 and Caregiver 2. It seemed weird to her now that she had ever sat in Caregiver 1’s lap or been spun around by Caregiver 2’s long arms. Why would should do that when there were chairs to sit in and her own legs to spin her around?

Girl could remember a time when she thought of them as something more, when she called them Mom and Dad, not Caregiver 1 and Caregiver 2.

“Girl, Girl, what are you doing? Why are you staring at the sidewalk again? We have to hurry up or we’ll be late to your Knowledge Injection.”

Caregiver 1 spoke as she always did, calm and steady, completely in control. Her lips remained pursed in an even line.

I remember when we had enough Units for her to do something more.

For her to hug me, hold me, show me there was more than just the blank stare I’ve grown used to. The last time she Loved me was two years ago.

It was a sunny day and we walked giggling through the woods together.

But this was before Caregiver 2 lost his job at the Better America, a job that came with enough benefits for Love, Fun, and Happiness. Before the taxes on Emotions got so high; back then they weren’t so expensive.

The same time he lost his job, Better America decided to cut off all the lower employees, and stop printing Units. Of course the Uppers have bribed enough officials to get a good supply every month. But the rest of us just can’t afford them any more. The only good thing about it is that when something bad happens, you don’t feel it. Boy was killed last year, but we had no love so I haven’t missed him since then.

The Caregivers spend all their Units on Knowledge for me. I know that is what allows me to have these thoughts, but I can’t help but wonder if Love wouldn’t be better, or at least easier. What’s the point of thinking, if you know you can never feel emotions again? When I’m older, I’ll use my Units on something else.

“Girl, get over here! Now!” Obediently, she slipped on the standard issue beige jacket Caregiver 1 held and slid into the Car. Caregiver 1 got in and started moving quickly. The Car passed rows of beige houses, flecks of people, gates where the Upper lay saturated with Emotions. Finally it pulled up to the Source of Personality.

The Source of Personality was built with sheets of metal and Girl shivered as she walked in. Was it from the chill in the air or the thought of seeing Injector? They all had their Roles in this new world.

Girl. Boy. Caregiver 1. Caregiver 2.

Friend. And Injector.

“Okay, Girl I’ll be back in two hours. Have a numb time!”

Caregiver 1 walked away before Girl could remind even her how much she hated that phrase.

So she was alone again, doomed to wait all by herself in this freezing room. Girl stared at the black floor, maybe if she looked hard enough it would turn white…

“Hey, you. Yes, I’m talking to you!” It was an Outsider and from

afar she looked remarkably similar to Friend. Same perfectly creased straight brown hair, same olive-toned skin. But Friend would never break the law like this, never do something so dangerous.

“Are you deaf or something?”

“No.” “Then, why didn’t you answer me?”

“We’re not supposed to talk to people outside of our Circle, everyone knows that.”

“Oh, do they?”

“Yes, it’s one of the four laws of the Better America.

If we don’t keep it, there will be no Better America. And without Better America, we’d have to go back to living in a time of just America. A time when people had so many emotions and relationships that they killed and fought and raped. A time of great destruction.”

Girl hated herself for having basically just recited the Tapes, but she knew better than to trust this Outsider.

The Outsider walked over, breaking the space in between them. She leaned over until her mouth was practically in Girl’s ear.

“We killed and fought and raped because we cared. You’re old enough to remember emotions like Love, like Joy, even like Sorrow. You’re old enough to recall the days where there were no Roles or Circles, when everyone could just talk to whom they wanted and be whom they wanted. You’re old enough, yet young enough to still have hope, to still want to fight for change. Don’t you agree?”

I could yell. I could sprint away. I could silently leave the room, letting her know that I don’t agree with or encourage that kid of talk. It’s blasphemy!

It’s ludicrous! It’s profanity! It’s sacrilege and wicked! But, it’s true. It’s true and I know it.

Wait, she could be spy, this could be a trap. I’m in a building built by the Better America, in their domain. This is a setup. I shouldn’t say anything, do anything. The risk is too great.

But look at her eyes; they’re not blank like mine. They shine, they glitter, they feel. I want that, I need that.

“Yes.” Mikaela Gerwin Dylan Posner, digital art

Gilad Palley, collage Pages 18 – 19

The Words of Keats The words of Keats wash over me like life-sustaining water

Noa Rocco, watercolor

Mixing The Senses: purple feels soft warm and comforting like fresh baked cake with sweet chocolate icing purple feels smooth shiny and dark like a winter dark sky with a glowing moon purple feels calm settling and quiet like curling up with a book when it rains purple feels nice uniting and together like community with a place for everyone

Johanna Kohn Opposite: Zachary Stein, photograph

Pages 20 – 21

They coat me in velvet verse and cashmere syllables.

Without the distractions of the mortal world, I am the nightingale. Immortal in her song.

I don’t know trouble or anguish. I know only love and song.

Then again I am man. Forced to be content with his ephemeral existence.

The darkness coupled with the verse creates a strange atmosphere.

A lack of sight makes way for countless images in my mind.

I am with Dionysus and then writing ballads Scents of flowers fill my nose and quickly disappear.

They are replaced with sepulchral notions and despondence.

I am left with Keats’ ambiguity His doubt and melancholia resonate within me I am left with an undetermined amount of time.

Pondering each word of the poem, I listen to the poem again.

Again I am swaddled in his syntax and rhythm.

The euphonious voice of the narrator gives emotion and poignancy to every sound.

Naomi Rosen

Night’s Demons It felt like the wind, swirling around me, the night blowing in my face.

It surrounded me like a soft cloak, protecting me from the demons, but allowing me to become one with the dangerous night.

It was plush like velvet and hard like brick, yet resilient when I pressed into it.

It filled my mind, and it touched my heart.

It was exhilarating.

The touch was gentle like a mother and firm like a father.

It spoke to me and whispered in my ears.

It spoke of the heroics it achieved, The crimes it had seen, the damage it had done.

The night is a force not to be trifled with.

To fight with the night Is asking for death.

Dara Diamond

Opposite: Lindsey Falack, acrylic

Pages 22 – 23

Deaf for an Hour I can see the words Hanging on the edge of their lips But no sound seems to escape them No indication of laughter Except for the widened smiles I observe plastered on their faces My thoughts have become increasingly loud Wanting them to disappear, I unconsciously shake my head I look around me feeling out of place Wanting to be apart of my surroundings I try to blend in by moving to my own beat

Daniella Forman, Jack Gindi, Louis Shalam, duct tape figures

Communit y

My New York apartment building is weird. It’s the awkward ten second exchanges in the elevator with random people saying I’ve gotten taller. It’s the doorman teasing me for wearing too short a skirt. And it’s my next-door neighbor, Manny, one of seventeen children and a Vietnam veteran. He fasted on Ramadan with the fruit-seller across the street, and attended synagogue with us on Yom Kippur.

My building is Will and Jim, the gay, Catholic couple who’ve been together twenty-five years. On their door, hanging side by side, are a huge crucifix and a rainbow sticker. Their 80s disco-music constantly echoes through the hallways.

My building is a community whether or not we choose to acknowledge it. We’re bonded together by acceptance. I’ve grown up with this casual notion of simple diversity: the idea that two hundred people who are radically different can live together, and get along, under one roof.

I cannot imagine living in a place where all my neighbors are similar to me. Our community thrives because we don’t look past the differences; we revel in them.

My goal is to take these values and spin them into a life that dances with pluralism.

Mikaela Gerwin

Pages 24 – 25

Strange stares greet this idea Weirdly trying to save my sanity I lie down and openly welcome a nap

Orly Silverstein Zachary Stein, photograph

Inspiration

She carefully selects each color.

A blue crayon for the pig’s body A green one for the head.

Orange grass as the landscape.

As she mixes the paints She sees all the subtleties Between the lilacs and lavenders Carefully noting where each one will go.

Her small grubby fingers grip the crayon tightly As she scratches the surface of the page.

Her hand knows no bounds.

She easily ventures outside the lines.

She picks out her favorite brush With its long, waxed wooden handle And its strong black bristles Made from hog’s hair.

She glances at the tall supply closet across the room Looking for inspiration.

She springs up and dashes across the smooth wood floor Sliding around in her pink socks.

As she approaches the canvas Her mouth dries.

The progress she has made since last week Is simply not enough.

Jumping to reach the marker box She successfully pulls it out And grabs a fistful of colors All waiting to be added to her masterpiece.

She brushes the paint along the woven fabric Warily proceeding with her vision.

She imagines a serene desert landscape With one single flowering cactus.

With each new streak of ink Her intensity increases.

Her excitement is palpable As she shrieks with joy over the bright colors.

Pages 26 – 27

Completing the final strokes She feels relief.

She steps back, examines her work And finally removes her smock.

She hastily tears the picture from the book And rushes to her mother to show it off.

It is proudly displayed on the refrigerator Next to her macaroni-noodle abstract.

It hangs in the biggest gallery in town Among the likes of Picasso and Monet.

“We’ve seen it before,” the critics remark as they walk by “Do you have anything else?”

Caroline Guenoun Yael Fisher, oil

The Nanny and the Knickernack A Homage to Lewis Carroll

The lake invited the children in The gurgling sea lapped the sand The abundance of frothy, bubbly foam Was gathered in her hands.

The fishies were a-swimming The sun beat down on golden hair The spectacles reflected raybeams And looking on was the au pair.

And suddenly a Knickerknack Appeared upon the beach His tail was lined with spikes and plings And he held a bright blue peach.

“Goodzoo!” He called and flicked his tail.

His eyelashes batted thrice.

Their eyes were glued to his scales “My name is Quentin Price.”

“I come from Abigash,” he said “The trees are tall; the fruit is ripe.

But Galumbo rules today, my friends.

All the happiness he will swipe!”

“Humble little wallyhoos, Help me, please! Of you, I beg!

In return, I’ll give you jewels And then throw in a cradlesweg.”

The children goggled at the beast The nanny fainted on the sand The water sloshed upon the seashore This wasn’t going as he’d planned.

And suddenly the oldest, Christened Thomas Wagner Scott Looked up into the monster’s eyes And said, “Nay, sir, we will not.”

Zachary Stein, photograph Pages 28 – 29

Quentin’s eyes filled with befuddlement A huffy gasp escaped his beak “Good day to you!” He hullabalooed And dove down with a squeak.

And thus concluded the Scotts’ great outing An affair to be observed Quentin Price was ne’er seen again He got what he deserved.

Naomi Rosen

An Ode To Music:

Looking From the Outside

To:

the world goes on

The notes that intertwine to make melodies The lyrics that tell stories The harmonies that sing praise to my ears,

silent but fast no stopping for anyone people brushing by lips moving words unheard

I thank you.

feeling the subway rumble beneath my feet stepping from car to platform people talking expecting me to hear their apologies as they brush by not knowing if anyone is behind me waiting for me to move Gabriella Uvegi, oil Thank you For keeping the demons away when they were haunting me For lighting my eyes again For giving me my imagination back For being the relief in the endless ocean of pain For wrapping me up in blankets of comfort For drying my tears For the words of support For being here when no one else was For loving me unconditionally For making me whole again.

Dara Diamond

the world goes on the city strangely quiet no one ever stopping Johanna Kohn

Eve Kaufman, photograph Pages 30 – 31

What Was It Like?

June 11, 1976 San Francisco, California

“S

am, dinner!” Molly hollered up the stairs just as she did every other Friday night at 6:55 pm, no matter what time the Sabbath actually started that week. She liked routine. The house smelled like brisket, the same brisket that we had every week. It was good brisket, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I wished we could have chicken or steak. But I never told that to Molly. She liked to have brisket, so I ate my brisket and didn’t complain.

“Sam! Now!”

“Sam! Now!” “Coming, sorry,” I replied, though not loud enough for her to hear me downstairs. I slowly got up from my desk in the office that Molly designed for me when we bought our new house. She said that it would be a good place to work on my short stories. Maybe now that I had an office I would actually publish something. The mahogany shelves were stacked to the brim with books and little knicknacks. The desk sat against the window facing east on Alvarado Street. We picked the street because of the way that the trees form an archway down the whole block. Oh, and for the way that the trees smell in May. Molly said that it reminded her of the park she used to play in as a kid right outside Louisville.

Yes, Louisville as in Kentucky. Molly grew up the favorite daughter of the only conservative rabbi within a ten mile radius of her town. Abraham, my father-in-law, was descended from one of the first Jews to come to America in 1584. Abraham was also – consequently or not – far removed from the politics in Europe during the war. His sermons never included allusions

Pages 32 – 33

Gabriella Uvegi, oil

to what was going on in Germany, and his prayers never went out to those affected. Molly’s father has always been a bit uncomfortable around me.

I made my way down the carpeted stairs to find our new neighbors, the Hirshes, sitting in the living room. Their three-year-old daughter (I didn’t know her name) was sitting on the floor playing quietly with a rainbow Slinky.

“Sarah, Andy, what a surprise. Molly didn’t tell me you were joining us.” I extended my hand to shake Andy’s and kissed Sarah on both cheeks.

“I’m going to go see if my wife needs any help in the kitchen.”

“What a good husband! Andy, why can’t you be more like Sam? Sam, the day I get Andy to change Delilah’s diaper is the day pigs will fly!” Sarah laughed her irritating laugh that sounded more like a dying moose; it was an ignorant laugh.

Sarah and Andy were born and raised in San Francisco. They grew up as Reform Jews, but now called themselves ‘Jewish atheists.’ They preferred Buddhism to Judaism.

“But how could you be Jewish and Buddhist and an atheist?”

“But how could you be Jewish and Buddhist and an atheist?” I once inquired.

“Oh, Sam! Buddhism is a way of life not a religion. And surely Jewish atheism doesn’t confuse you.”

It did confuse me, but I didn’t care enough to question her further. Due to their atheism, Sarah and Andy made it abundantly clear that they were not here for Sabbath dinner, but rather for a dinner with friends that happened to fall on a Friday. I think they were just in it for the free meal.

“You didn’t tell me we were having guests for dinner.” I said plainly to Molly as I entered the bright kitchen. Well, at least I thought I said it plainly – she seemed to detect the annoyance in my voice that I was trying to mask.

“Seriously, Sam? Seriously? How many times have I told you that I want

Pages 34 – 35

to have the Hirshes over for dinner? Ten? Twenty? I said that I wanted us to be friends with the people on our street and for them to like us. You agreed, remember? Well, this is how we do it. Not to mention that I told you on Monday that they might be coming depending on if their niece was feeling better. Look, they’re nice people.”

Apparently I visibly raised an eyebrow at that last statement, because just then she changed her argument to her usual rant.

“Why can’t you just give them a chance?”

“Honestly, I just don’t understand why you always have to be so negative about people. Why can’t you just give them a chance? You’re always so quick to judge, so skeptical. And frankly, Sam, I’m getting tired of it. And why did you have to wear that shirt? I told you I hate that shirt. It’s just not your color.

Look, I’ve been cooking all day. Sarah called three hours ago apologizing for forgetting to tell me that she, Andy and Delilah, were vegetarians.

“So we’re not having brisket?”

“We are. And rice and carrots and broccoli and potatoes and soup.

Anyway, all I’m saying is that I did all this without complaining. All you have to do is eat the food that I put in front of you and make small talk for a few hours. Is that really that much to ask?” Molly put down the wooden spoon that she had been using to stir the matzo ball soup and stared at me.

I guess that question wasn’t rhetorical.

“No, it’s not too much to ask. I’m going to go change my shirt. The brisket smells great.”

When I got back downstairs they were already sitting at the rectangular table. My seat was reserved for me – to the right of Molly who sat at the head. She said that since she cooked the food she got to sit at the head.

I didn’t argue. The table was set beautifully; Molly had decided on the beaded placemats and the good china. A light pink and white arrangement of tulips, calla lilies, and peonies rested elegantly on the middle of the table.

“Did you guys bring that highchair?” I asked Sarah as I pulled out my chair to take a seat.

“Oh yes. We don’t go anywhere without it.”

“Isn’t she a bit old for it?” I asked, motioning to Delilah.

“Sam. Don’t be rude,” Molly audibly scolded me.

“It’s okay.” Sarah waved off my seemingly rude question. “You’re actually right, Sam. Delilah is three, and a baby is usually out of a highchair by the age of two at the latest. We don’t conform to the norms of society.

When Delilah is ready to sit in a big girl chair, she will. Right, sweetie?”

She turned and smiled at Delilah but the baby didn’t seem to know that her mother was addressing her; she was preoccupied with trying to pick up her runny spinach with a fork.

“Isn’t she just adorable, honey? I can’t wait until we have one of our own.” Molly cooed as she reached over and touched my hand. I stared blankly back at her. She widened her eyes, as if encouraging me to agree on both counts. Molly knew that I didn’t want kids—I told her on Day One. She said that it didn’t bother her, that I would be enough to make her happy.

So why was she doing this now? And here? I was not about to bring a child into this shameful and unprotected world. I attempted a weak smile and stared into my soup.

“Andy, tell Sam and Molly about the new deal you’ve been working on.”

She turned her attention to us. “It’s fascinating, just fascinating.”

But before Andy could tell us about his latest undertaking, Delilah started to wail. Sarah got up to comfort her but it didn’t stop, it just grew louder and sharper. Another reason I didn’t want kids – it brought me right back there. Every time I heard the sound of a baby crying, my mind couldn’t help but return to Warsaw.

I saw the filthy streets crammed with garbage and dying people. I saw the shacks they called houses, overflowing with desperate families – two, sometimes three in one room. I saw the gray skies and the train tracks in the distance. I heard sirens and gunshots and wailing and commands and dogs barking. I heard metal rods colliding with raw flesh and shattering weak bones. Every time I heard a baby cry, I felt the cold, putrid air that circulated throughout the ghetto. I felt my stomach

Alex Cohen, ceramic

Pages 36 – 37

turn in knots the way that it used to when they would march in and ‘borrow’ my mother for the night. I could taste the stale bread and ‘soup’ that I’m sure was really water mixed with dirt. Most of all though, whenever I heard a baby cry, I felt my baby sister’s soft little hand squeeze my finger one last time before she died of typhus.

“Sam. Sam? Sam!” I was snapped back into reality by Andy’s incessant calling of my name. I looked up at him and noticed that Delilah was quiet again and sitting calmly in her chair.

“Yes?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, well, we’ve been wondering… what was it like?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you — forgive me if this feels intrusive, just, well, we know your history, you know, what you’ve been through. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to ask you, well, we’ve been wondering…what was it like?” His voice trailed off into a whisper.

I stared at Andy blankly for what must have been several minutes.

No one said anything. Andy and Sarah looked at me eagerly while Molly quietly sipped her tea. I slowly stood up and pushed my chair back with my legs. I kept staring at Andy as I walked out of the suffocating dining room and went upstairs to my office.

Sasha Bronfman

Journeys

Alex Ben Yosef, photographs Pages 38 – 39

To Be Everyone wishes he were a kid again, And so do I. I would be able to have little responsibilities And have a second chance at what I did wrong.

But there are no second chances.

You only have one opportunity to write the script.

Make it right, No regrets.

The simple things in life may be the most important.

Have a positive attitude, Be confident, And always strive to be the best.

Wind

ghostsoft the wind whispers across the steadfast roots thunderstrong the wind rips branches from the green tops underlifting the wind uproots the trunks from the leaf covered ground tiredslow the wind stops Johanna Kohn

Everything starts in the mind, The better you think about yourself, The better person you will be, And the more those actions will reflect on others

Don’t settle for average, Always try to be better than the man next to you Nothing is ever good enough Be motivated To be the best, Don’t try not to fail, Try to be successful.

And now, Son, I just want you To be.

William Pollock

Opposite: Jacqueline Eizak, digital art Pages 40 – 41

Juliet Sage, digital art

A Curse to My Future Ex-Boyfriends

Clean-up

To the one who was to scared to commit And didn’t want to meet my parents.

To the one who cheated on me, When I was making dinner at home for two.

To the one who gave up and ran out, After we got into an argument.

To the one who could never say I love you back, After two years of being together.

To the one who was the workaholic, And thought a meeting at work was more important than our anniversary.

To the one who would rather hang out with his guy friends Than be seen with me in public.

To the one who never met my expectations, Because let’s be honest, all girls are picky.

To the one that always talked about his ex, And called me her name when saying good night.

To the one who never picked up my phone calls past ten o’clock Because “it was always dead.”

To all my future ex-boyfriends, This curse is for you.

Sydney Lorch

I’d chop up all the hours we spent together and put all your kisses in the blender.

I would measure out all your comforting hugs and stick them in the oven.

I’d put all of your presents in the freezer; Heat all your compliments until they boil Draining out every last reassuring word.

Unwrap the lies and steam all the tears.

I’d beat out all the fights I’d cry while cutting the onions of your special laugh, Wipe my hands on my apron And be clean of you.

This curse is to all of my future ex-boyfriends:

Benjamin Shaiman, watercolor Pages 42 – 43

If I were making dinner, I’d lay out all my memories of you on a cutting board.

Talia Weiner

Benjamin Shaiman, mixed media

they go to the lake

Pages 44 – 45

H

e threw with all his might, but the third stone came skipping back. He threw in anger, yelling for the stone to listen, to leave, but the third stone skipped back. He threw in frustrated amazement, getting distracted by the sun and the clouds, but the third stone still skipped back and landed at his feet.

Looking down, this little boy knew he couldn’t get what he wanted. He wanted the rock, the rough rock that sweats green lake water, to leave. He wanted it to belong to the water. He wanted it to sink, sink beneath sunlight, sink beneath fish, sink beneath sand. Sometimes this little boy wanted to sink beneath sand, but little boys don’t usually get what they want, especially this one.

I guess you could say this summer was strange: strange as in completely alien, not as in something new and scary. This summer was hot and sticky, unpleasant and gray. This little boy’s family went away. They went to what they called the “country,” which was just a fancy way of saying they were going to live somewhere fancy in the summer. This little boy knew his sweater vests were strange. Eight year olds didn’t usually like what he liked.

He was strange, strange because he was different, so by default, scary, but he thought he was strange because he was an alien.

He wasn’t ugly. He was fastidious, and appreciated aesthetically pleasing things. He was a combed hair type of boy. He liked books and fine dining, and he liked being alone in the country, or the fancy place with trees. He wasn’t teased anywhere he went. People knew who he was. For all eight years of his life, people always knew who he was. He had fancy parents who did fancy things and he had a fancy sister who was universally fancied. He was a fancy kid. Eight fancy years he lived, and this inherent fancy helped this little boy survive, survive school and survive himself.

His parents told him all his thinks were lovely and his teachers told him all his thinks were delightful.

Thinking was kind of his thing. He wasn’t really into sports or sciences and he wasn’t into television or typing. But he liked thinking. He liked thinking to make a drawing and thinking to invent. But he didn’t know if he was a talented thinker. His parents told him all his thinks were lovely and his teachers told him all his thinks were delightful. But he didn’t know if he believed them. Part of this little boy didn’t want to believe them, and part of him feared that they were lying; his work wasn’t lovely or delightful, which would mean he wasn’t a lovely or delightful little boy.

Previous page: Aaron Tannenbaum, photograph Pages 46 – 47

His room in his family’s country house was bizarrely shaped. The ceilings were low and the corners were sharp and everything seemed short.

This little boy felt like a giant in this room and he loved that. This little boy usually felt quite small. He never felt invisible, just small, as if his silence made him an observer to people much older, much more experienced at living than he. He never felt out of place, just small, as if his clothes should be baggier and his hands should be smaller.

He liked magic, but he didn’t like magicians.

He liked ordinary people turning into extraordinary, magical things.

This little boy sketched magical scenes. He liked magic, but he didn’t like magicians. He liked ordinary people turning into extraordinary, magical things. He liked imagination and fabrication. His family let him wander and wonder and he explored places not so pretty and not so fancy.

He went home with muddy loafers and sketched muddy magic and hung it on his low ceiling and watched the scene change as the sun rose and fell.

He didn’t have many friends. He knew who the other little kids were and they knew who he was. There was a little girl who always twirled. She liked looking up and she liked searching for sparkles. She walked with her eyes closed while counting her steps and holding her breaths. She was an odd little girl. If you saw her you might say she was awkward, a clumsy, skinny thing, but she would tell you she was an explorer.

This little girl was a music type of girl. She had elastic fingers that stretched complete pianos and she had posture and she had good ears and she had a voice that hummed almost inaudibly with every song she played.

Her parents wanted her to be a prodigy. They tried to train her to be a prodigy and they tried to train her to be more present in the moment they would say. She wanted to stomp on the piano keys and use her fingers to grab forbidden candies and sing in screams.

Her family wanted to be fancy. They wanted to eat from diamonds and wear china. They wanted everyone to know they were fancy and that they had fancy children and fancy things. But they weren’t. They were casual

and they laughed and they were disorganized and they were fun. The fancy people usually weren’t fun.

It was a pretty day, when everything went ugly. This little boy’s family went to a funeral and this little boy cried. His parents promised him he would never die, and he cried some more. He hated when people lied because that meant they were liars and liars are people you should never want to be. This is why the day was ugly, because this little boy realized his parents were liars.

This little boy couldn’t stop crying. He was embarrassed and his face was red and he wasn’t acting very fancy. His parents told him to go home and calm down, so he screamed. He was calm. Everyone and everything was spinning and this little boy fainted. His parents carried him to a tiny room, separate from the funeral and left him to awake, alone.

There were bubbles in his vision when his eyes yelled to open. The bubbles were green and purple and they floated over his thoughts as he sat and listened to the fancy people mourn. His sister walked in, angry to be wearing black. She usually expressed her angst through colors and today she was feeling particularly full of angst.

“They suck,” she said taking off her sweater and exposing her shoulders, something she thought would impress a not so fancy boy. This little boy looked at her as a blob of speckled green and purple and his eyes widened as she continued to rant about her never ending frustration with those who gave her a fancy, insignificant life.

She stormed out, leaving her sweater crumpled in a ball. Then the little girl stormed in. She wasn’t even mourning. Her family wasn’t the type to get sad, but they were there to pay respects because paying respects is a fancy thing to do. She entered the room panting.

“Hey,” this little girl whispered. Squinting, this little boy couldn’t tell what color her hair was. She sat down next to him and started to stare at the ceiling. “What an interesting pattern,” this little girl said. She didn’t expect an answer.

“I never noticed,” this little boy said. She looked at him surprised because she usually was ignored. This little boy was also usually ignored.

They had this secret understanding. They were just little in this big world.

And they were going to be friends.

Choosing friends seemed weird. For this little boy, his parents organized

Pages 48 – 49

Anna Malisov, oil

friendships for an afternoon. They called other fancy parents who had fancy children and those fancy children were driven over to play with fancy, inanimate objects and eat cut up peppers. This little girl made friends with inanimate objects and ate peppers like apples, letting the seeds make a mess. Being friends seemed special, this little boy and this little girl had a genuine, immediate, not so fancy friendship.

“Let’s go,” this little girl said. They opened the door to the tiny room and walked out. This little girl walked faster. This little boy struggled to keep up. Then, they ran.

She liked to run. He liked to run. They decided to sprint away from the rain cloud of fancy people. They decided to go to the lake. It was a pretty day and lakes are usually quite pretty on pretty days. The lake was like a mirror. It showed this little boy’s floppy ears and this little girl’s bruised knees. The lake wasn’t able to reflect the distaste they had for the way the fancy people decided being fancy was better than being free.

The lake wasn’t able to reflect the distaste they had for the way the fancy people decided being fancy was better than being free.

The rocks by the lake were old. They were almost buried in the ground and they were damp with earth’s early morning tears. This little girl picked one up. The rock was more like a stone. It weighed more than the little girl herself. She walked close to the water staining the tips of her shoes with water too warm for a pretty day. This little girl placed the stone in the water.

“Float away,” she said. This little girl and this little boy watched the large rock plummet towards the sand.

“It’s too heavy to float,” he said.

“I guess it’s forced to be stuck here,” she said.

This little boy picked up a smaller rock and skipped it along the lake.

It skipped three times then stopped, and then it sank quickly towards the lake’s floor. It seemed to like that spot. It wasn’t too close to the edge, but it wasn’t too deep. The rock seemed to belong there.

This little boy and this little girl watched the lake for a while. This little girl’s brain stopped its routine of hula hooping and bubblegum popping. It breathed for a little bit. But this little girl and this little boy knew they weren’t going to get what they wanted. I’m not sure they knew what they wanted. So they got angry. This little girl screamed and this little boy chucked two rocks deep into the lake.

“It’s going to rain,” she said.

“It’s always, really raining,” he said. This little girl smiled without her teeth. She knew what he meant. This little girl held onto this little boy’s shoulder. Then he threw with all his might, but the third stone came skipping back.

Charlotte Rauner

Pages 50 – 51

Sui Generis I am myself, and I have unique qualities, And what I possess makes me my own.

For everything that I am is one of a kind.

I am an individual, yet not alone.

The world is full of individual– Each a distinct soul.

Some strive to embody the qualities of others, But I embrace my uniqueness.

People are united by overlapping qualities.

Joshua Silverstein, I’ve seen the incompatible join together photograph Only to split like an atom and explode– Impacting those around them, While others join together to create beautiful pictures.

But I am that which is waiting for me in my future; The future becomes the present, Moving forward in time and experience.

I am always learning to love.

Learning adds character to those who absorb what is around them; Those who learn to look back will move forward the most In the race to finish last.

Shall I continue on my path in life without knowing what is ahead of me, Or shall I wait to see where I want to go?

In truth I may never find out.

Is my life about the entertainment or success?

Can there not be both?

Charles Weinshank

Dylan Ades, craypas

She She sits small and pale New into the world In her mother’s lap Pressed against her breast With tears trickling onto her cheek Father beaming nearby She lies small and pale Fading slowly, gone for good In her daughter’s arms Pressed against her breast With tears trickling onto her check Husband weeping nearby It is the 1st of January On a gloriously chilly day The airy snowflakes swirling Outside the hospital window It is the 30th of December On a drearily rainy day The raindrops fall in clusters Outside the hospital window Nurses walk by and smile The doctor gives his congratulations She is taken from the hospital In a bassinet Nurses walk in, eyes averted The doctor gives his condolences She is taken from the hospital On a gurney

Pages 52 – 53

In her apartment She sleeps in her neutral-yellow room With the animal mobile bobbing over her head She opens her eyes and coos On a hilltop overlooking the sea She rests in her casket With the image of the Lord standing over her head Her eyes remain closed People come from far and wide Relatives bring food for her overjoyed parents Her grandmother cannot stop smiling Her grandfather makes a speech Everybody laughs People come from far and wide Relatives bring food for her grieving children Her granddaughter cannot stop crying Her grandson makes a speech Everybody weeps When the family leaves She is lowered into her crib Kissed by her parents As she drifts off into her dreams The family leaves She is lowered into the ground Kissed by her children As she drifts off into our dreams Rachel Wenger

Heila Precel, watercolor

Sincerely, Pages 54 – 55

Vietnam

T

en years after the war in Vietnam, I found myself writing down my experiences from the war. Telling the stories of my friends and their lives proved to be therapeutic for me. One of the moments from the war that had the most profound effect on me was the death of my closest friend in the platoon, Billy White. The company had set up camp when a soldier accidentally stepped on a rigged mortar round. We ran for cover, and when we counted the men, one was missing. Once the grounds were deemed safe, the platoon searched for the final member of our company.

Buried under mud and shrapnel, we found Billy. I could not process his death. It was so surreal. There was no one in the company I felt comfortable sharing my emotions with; for me, writing down my emotions allowed me to express on paper the things I never could say out loud.

When my lieutenant, Roger Thorpe, came to visit me ten years after the war, I asked him about Billy’s death. After we found his body that night on the campground, Roger was never the same. None of the men thought to ask him what he had written to Billy’s father to notify him: we knew it would not be right. No soldier would dare ask his lieutenant about something so personal. But, in the back of my mind, I was always curious as to what that letter contained. When I asked Roger all these years later, his body stiffened.

No one had mentioned Billy’s death in years. He took a few minutes to mull it over, but decided he would share with me what he told Billy’s father.

“I began the letter extremely formally– as any Lieutenant would.” Roger said. “I wrote that it was with great regret that I must inform him that his son had passed. I couldn’t help but feel that his death was entirely my fault.”

Roger continued. “I told him that he should be proud of his late son.” Roger took a deep breath, “Tim, in that moment, I began to contemplate why it was I had taken a position of power in the first place. What made me qualified to lead you all? And then I realized why I did so…her.”

“I thought that maybe if I had a position of power she would love me.

If I could show her that I was brave, she would love me...”

Pages 56 – 57

Her. We both knew exactly whom he was talking about. Pamela was his motivation. “She was so perfect.” Roger continued, “I thought that maybe if I had a position of power she would love me. If I could show her that I was brave, she would love me. And I would be happy. But I wasn’t brave. I let my emotions dictate my decisions.”

I remained silent. I thought of my own reasons for going to war and how no one’s intentions are pure. But I kept that to myself.

“I just thought of the praise, and none of the responsibility.”

Roger continued his story. “I did not think of the consequences when I signed up for Reserve Officers Training. I just thought of the praise, and none of the responsibility. When I was interviewed, I made up a story about my longing to be a lieutenant my whole life. I felt bad about lying, but all the guilt was overshadowed by my undying, ill-fated, single sided love.”

Hearing Roger talk about Pamela was a painful experience.

Roger pulled something out of his pocket. It was a few pages from Billy’s Bible that he used to carry around. “ I told Billy’s father that his son’s devotion really inspired me. Shortly after I finished the letter, I found these pages scattered in the mud. They must have fallen out of the rucksack when Sanders found it. They’re almost completely illegible. But I can make out a few of the passages.” Roger handed me a page. All that was legible was a part of one line. “For the wages of sin is death.” The line seemed all too perfect. I handed the page back. He folded it up and put it in his jacket pocket. I could see that Roger had bottled up Billy’s death and put it away just like these pages.

Roger continued to tell me about the letter. “I wanted to write that it was my fault. My misjudgment led to the untimely death of his brave son. But I knew that is not what grieving parents want to hear. They want to hear that their child died a hero. So, that is what I told them. Billy was a hero. He was brave, devout, and dedicated. There is not a day that will go by when we will not feel his absence. And that is all I said. I wish I had said more. But I could not.” Roger sat quietly for a moment; recounting the story seemed almost too much for him.

“Billy’s father wrote to me a few months after I returned,” Roger finally stated. “He thanked me for leading his son and the rest of the company. He told me it was a comfort to know he had such a dedicated leader. All I could think about was how I was the exact opposite. It was my constant distraction that led to the untimely deaths of our men. I am responsible.”

Little did Roger know that he was not the only person who claimed responsibility for Billy’s death. Another member of the platoon, Charlie, wrote me a few years ago and told me that he was with Billy when the mortar went off. Billy fell behind and Charlie kept running to save himself.

He told me how guilty he felt and that Billy’s death was his fault. He said he was a coward, and did not deserve the medals he was awarded upon his arrival home.

Both soldiers failed to realize that in war, death is on everyone’s hands.

I had never seen Roger so vulnerable. “I should have known to get you guys out of that place. Billy’s death was easily avoidable.”

Charlie Anderson and Roger Thorpe both felt that Billy’s death was on their hands. Charlie felt it was his direct actions that led to Billy’s death.

Roger believed that his lack of leadership was the cause. Both soldiers failed to realize that in war, death is on everyone’s hands.

Tamar Arenson

Zachary Stein, photograph

Pages 58 – 59

Valedictorian

They said go to school: I enrolled in college.

They said work hard: I was Valedictorian.

They said get a job: I interned at Wall Street.

They said wear nice clothes: I bought suits and shined my shoes.

They said speak clearly and respectfully: I respected my elders.

They said stay away from the bad kids: I surrounded myself with the ‘good kids.’

They said don’t get involved in gangs: I managed to stay away.

They said don’t do drugs: I stayed clean.

They said they only want to help you, help them, too: I believed them.

They said nobody could mistake you for a criminal: They shot me.

Talia Weiner Grace Gilbert, charcoal

My Song I am proud of myself I grow each day– as a structure expands from a piece of wood into a house My values, experiences, loved ones, These are my building blocks.

I listen to my peers’ opinions, form my own ideas, express my thoughts to the group A block is added.

I dismount the tall steps of the public bus, see a woman with an unwieldy stroller, hold the bus door open– A block is set on top of the last.

I arrive late to events, apologize to friends whose trust I broke, regret statements I did not mean to make– The blocks are shaped into place.

I share stories with a distant loved one, introduce myself to the newcomer to our club, pray for an ill member of our community– The blocks are fused together.

And I am happy with the source of safety, warmth, and comfort I have become.

I stand with my toes in the sand, the infinite number of tiny grains tickling the bottoms of my feet, moving underneath me as the joints curl and uncurl.

Grace Gilbert, pencil

Pages 60 – 61

I watch the undulating turquoise waves and notice the vastness of the ocean, which stretches farther than I can see.

Hidden shells and creatures dwell inside the water and sand, leaving me to wonder about their nature, And the salty aroma fills my nose with memories and a sense of serenity.

With the smell I taste fresh food and health, I hear the stillness under the surface as the water keeps me afloat, I feel the current forcing my muscles to work harder as I swim.

The hot sun beams down, tinting the atmosphere a subtle shade of yellow orange and inspiring bold thoughts.

Your feet rest on the same sand– Your eyes stare at the same mysterious water– Your nose smells the same crisp redolence– I am small compared to the ocean, And so are you.

We are part of a universe much bigger and more powerful than we are; Together we are part of the grandness of the world.

We rejoice in the miracle that is the world’s existence And our own.

We are beautiful, complex, essential.

Proud.

Sara Kern

Yael Fischer, oil

The Abyss Stared Back

“B

eyond the hills… over the cliffs and through the ocean, live the giants.” These were the stories that my grandfather used to tell me when I was just a young boy. He spoke of Sapia, the mysterious land where terrifying creatures roamed the Earth. “Their feet are twice as big as even the largest among us, and they thunder around on limbs as thick as cars. They have tentacles protruding from their bodies that will lash out and grab at you, and their shrieks can shatter glass.”

Yet even more horrific than the physical descriptions my grandfather gave was the way in which he described the nature of these beasts. “They are always at war: stuck in perpetual conflict with one another. They are petty and jealous, and will become aggressive with minimal provocation.

They will not hesitate to kill creatures they view as inferior, nor do they have qualms about killing each other. This is a species of death; a bad scar on the earth.”

Jokingly, my grandfather would tell me: “The only thing that keeps us safe from them is their obsession with fighting each other.”

When I was a child I dismissed my grandfather’s tales as mere myths.

After all, he was the only person from our country who had ever ventured beyond the hills. But everything changed when the giants docked on our shores.

I was just twelve when they first arrived, two giants who emerged together from beyond the hills. When their massive heads materialized in the distance, the whole country reacted in shock. Never before had we encountered anything quite like them. They had hideous, twisted faces sticking out from their bodies, large armored weapons attached to their feet, and crude white fabric draped over their bodies. They were clucking to each

Pages 62 – 63

Lauren Kupferberg, acrylic

They will not hesitate to kill creatures they view as inferior, nor do they have qualms about killing each other.

other and pointing about frantically, as if they were in disagreement about something. Suddenly, one of them let out a mighty bellow, roaring with such ferocity that most of us were knocked to the ground. As this giant began to lumber towards the city I regained my senses and quickly ran to the Mayor, to relay all that my grandfather had told me. Although their sheer physical presence was frightening, I reassured the Mayor that they were mere savages, easily susceptible to our superior tactics and technology. Two well aimed shots from the city’s photon cannons made quick work of the crude beasts, and their remains crashed to the ground, leaving craters in their wake. Although we had emerged unscathed from this encounter, we knew there would be more to come. However, nobody could possibly predict the magnitude of what was to follow.

That night will remain etched in my mind forever as the most fearful night of my life. They came as the sun was setting: twenty giants in similar armor to the two that had come earlier. They shrieked and clucked among themselves, shrieking louder and louder almost frantically. They circled the city, screaming and clucking until the sun rose. When the rising sun illuminated the remains of the giants who had ventured over the hills before them, their shrieking reached a crescendo. At that point, if any windows were still intact, they shattered instantly. They circled around their fallen comrades, wailing as they examined what remained. Then, in a fit of outrage, they stormed towards our city. We tried to fend them off with our photon cannons, but their size and numbers quickly overwhelmed us. When they breached the walls of the city, madness erupted.

Their tentacles shot out in every direction, latching onto whatever they could touch and drawing it in. They were grabbing people, cars, planes, and even some buildings. I tried to hide in my house, but the entire house was seized and thrown into a giant black box. That was the last thing I could see, the last time I ever saw my country. With one loud shriek the giants picked up the boxes and headed back over the hills. My fate unknown, I hoped for the best in my strange future among these savage brutes.

My fate unknown, I hoped for the best in my strange future among these savage brutes.

Pages 64 – 65

ts in Awe is t n ie c S : d Discovere New Species ITH a state of ity is still in

J. SM mmun g ion

BY MICH A EL l scientific co a on ti a unex plored re rn e te th in to e h e T v ti -a K R species n were NEW YO very of a new nd continent co la is is d e e rg th la er is ft ecies ition to th amazement a e dominant sp t on an ex ped h n T se s. s n st a ti m u en h ci bed but not by of Panasia. S helled si x lim y in habited, d -s ea rd a lr h a it re d a n r, fi ebilior dolo surprised to nicknamed assified as d cl y tl en appropriately rr , cu ls , a d n im la n a is e e ossibly es of th ities, which p e of mice. Th il z b si a l e a th ic g ly lo h o g n u e and tech creatures ro high cog nitiv ed y la p is d ” ader of the “spider-mice, of humans.

Clark, the le se ld o th ro a H en y ev b this week ed as a cou ld exceed filed earlier ly be describ ts on or ld p u re co to t a g h led by w rm the Accordin bers were kil who can affi em s m se m es a n te it o w o ere are n coherent ex pedition, tw pon. W hile th y indicate a ea rl w ea y cl g s er ie en d o rks on the b Gloria high-powered ounds,” said ons, “The ma p w r ea w se la ch in su l g y, ty pica existence of ital. ution of ener ib tr is d d y terian Hosp te sb a re tr P n k ce n or Y co an just d ew an much more th A nalyst at N c of si le b en a p or F ca f ie re feats of er-mice a Sanders, Ch ves that spid y remarkable ie la p el b is d rk s la w C o , rr icles that However ider-mice bu collected veh amples of sp S m . a ry te ’s on p rk ea la possible hermore, C advanced w eering. Furt as declared im w in t g a en th d y n g a lo o , a techn architecture nuclear fusion y b ed er w o p said Peter seem to be orang utans,” . w go ie a v s e k w ee y a w w our e

by MIT two w us the sam y, our society, g ie v lo o n st u ch m te s r eature ition. “Ou icate that “These cr 25-man ex ped ’s rk la C seems to ind r of fa er b so em ed m er .” a , ath Northman arians to them at we have g rb th a b ce e k en li id k o ev lo of the . We must cu lture… all d cou ld r beyond ours fa ed ss s so advance re ie g ec ro p sp s a a h w y o h their societ to ex plain anasia is y humans. “P ill struggling b st on re ti a s ec st et d ti ent Scien time w ithout entire contin of e d th io d er n p a , g n ss ch a lo st landma thrive for su ped the from the close e or sh f ve we develo of a h es y il tl m n 0 ce 0 re ,0 located 1 lark. “On ly cliffs,” said C p ee st y b d pedition.” is elevate e and t such an ex or p p of spider-mic su s to le p ed m d sa ee n g y in technolog rly analyz ays been team are eage ecies has alw is sp h is d n th a If rk r.

W hile Cla e way we still unclea us in the sam e mystery is er v on o y, le g lo ru o t n o n ore their tech ary chain? M s, why do they on n ti a lu m o u h ev n e a d th e top of th more advance we tru ly at th re A ? ls a im n eeks. er a the coming w ru le over oth er v o ce a rf likely w ill su information Amior Schmidt

Who I am today That had been me Walking in straight lines down the crowded street Laughing with my friends Not knowing it was the end The last moments Carelessness, craziness, fun Time would never bring back those emotions Time wouldn’t let me save them forever

Caroline Guenoun, digital art

I want to tell them to turn around You’re walking in the wrong direction!

But it’s inevitable They have come too close

The Battle for Control

The path where I sit every day The edge to the future The beginning of the end Or the end of the beginning

You consume hours of my nights.

Seconds, minutes, days ticking away Gone, never to return!

To procrastination

Dwindling my precious time,

Orly Silverstein Just one video A minute to surf the web?

This trickery is masked By your façade of innocence.

You steal the attention of the weak, And struggle to control the strong.

An eternal battle Of strength of mind.

May you perish!

My self control will conquer your evil As it eliminates every whisper Of temptation.

Be gone!

Evan Chernov

Pages 66 – 67

Rachel Wenger, watercolor

Ben Meshel, digital art

Spelling Counts

i never want to use spell check because how else will i learn how to spell resteraunt which i can never spell right and after writing a six page paper about a deli and about the Industrial Revolution and about poor people i still can’t spell restaraunt and people are still poor

i saw you everyday in carpool from 4th grade until 8th grade you were always late, but showed up in fourth grade you’d stand behind my desk throwing rolled up paper into the trash can to prove you were a basketball star and in fifth grade you came to Oceanography night presenting the “Coral Reefs” originally you wrote the “Corol Reefs” in seventh grade you quit playing piano (like you quit third grade) in eighth grade you quit drawing class (like you quit third grade) in eleventh grade i still think about how you misspelled my name Charllete when we met and i consider if you’ll spell it “Charlotte” if we meet again and i worry about where you went in third grade even though you eventually came back Charlotte Rauner

Leora Nevins, sculpture

i used to get 100s on every spelling test third grade was fun because of those 100s but third grade was also weird because you disappeared and nobody spelled out for me what happened now i don’t have spelling tests and i miss those “good job” stickers i know sixteen year olds who ask if spelling counts on every test i know it doesn’t becuase iff i new how two spelll it write i wud i know how to spell most things because i sound.it.out.in.my.head but what you don’t know is that i’ll put a silent q in my name if i want to because spelling must be a joke to you given you were absent for every third grade spelling test and learning how to spell wrong in cursive and for the Astronomy night and trip to some museum about people dead (you could have died i think) but you never bothered to spell words to say why you spelled third grade wrong; you just didn’t show up

Dylan Posner, digital art

Laurie Sarway, digital art

Benjamin Sternklar-Davis, digital art Pages 68 – 69

They Still Ask Us To Be Perfect

Truth and Fiction

I wonder if she remembers

She said, “It will be an easy book.”

Remembers how it felt to be one of us The anxiety to be perfect

I scowled.

She said, “It’s a great book.”

I disbelieved.

She said, “It’s so interesting.”

I grunted.

She said, “Here is the Reading Guide.”

I frowned.

She said, “It’s only two chapters each day.”

I laughed.

She said, “You’ll love the story.”

I cringed.

She said, “It will help you understand history.”

I scorned.

She said, “You won’t be tested on it.”

She lied.

The teacher smiles and says, you can do it; it’s not that hard, I was a teenager once, too But is that really true?

When tears over work become an everyday thing, And anxiety is a normal feeling for students, Does that concern you at all?

That we paste on smiles And fake laughs so that we get through the day Because the work overwhelms us at home?

Thinking about the work for the next week, Month, and year causes our hands to shake But the teacher still asks us to be perfect.

Jordan Katz Dara Diamond

Juliet Sage, photograph

Pages 70 – 71

Julia Sutton, multi-media

So, Why Can I Not Write Poetry?

I cannot write poetryI have tried and tried and tried again.

Tell me to write an emotional speech: I am your girl.

Give me twenty minutes: I can be inspirational.

But tell me to write a poem and I am lost.

So why can I not write poetry?

If I could rhyme shoe and boat I would, Inspiration and emotion are both part of poetry So why can I not write poetry?

Is it because I lack true emotion, Or because I have not felt true love or loss?

Is it because I am in constant battle with my words?

So why can I not write poetry?

Alex Cohen, multi-media

My Teacher Your life is normal, nothing extraordinary.

You never changed the world.

And you probably never will.

I know you better than anyone else, But I don’t know what you would say Your greatest achievement is.

You’re not a failure, but at the same time You have never taught me How to succeed.

You don’t have brilliant words of wisdom, You don’t ask all the right questions, And you don’t have all the right answers.

But perhaps the greatest thing you’ve taught me

Pages 72 – 73

Is that sometimes there is no answer.

And sometimes I will fail.

Not everyone is Einstein, Success won’t always come Even if I deserve it.

Nothing is guaranteed; Not every day will be extraordinary.

What are the chances I’ll change the world?

But that doesn’t mean You have nothing to share.

There is nothing sad in being ordinary.

Appreciate everything, anyway.

Nothing is worth quitting.

Thank you for teaching me that.

Sydney Shaiman

Writing should not be this hard, Poems are suppose to make you feel, Writing is meant to express your emotions.

So why can I not write poetry?

But still poetry seems to be impossible.

Even with love, Even with loss, Even with happiness, Even with sorrow.

So why can I not write poetry?

Lauren Kupferberg

Ariela Orgel, digital art

Go For Br One

W

ke

atsonville, CA. Huddled around

the family radio, we listened. My

mother was clearing the leftovers from the table. My father, Ichiro, had just gotten back from plowing our artichoke field.

I was thinking about my English homework.

We were reading Moby Dick. I thought it was stupid (I was wrong). All I really cared about was the big game the next day. We were playing Palo Alto High School in the California Central Coast basketball championship. I was the only Nisei on the team. I played point guard and was damn good. My sister was playing with her doll by the fireplace. My grandmother, back in Japan, had made this doll for her. It had straight black hair and was wearing a bright red kimono, a traditional Japanese dress. She was Juliet Sage, playing happily, singing some stupid song she had digital art learned in school.

I was reading my book when I heard President Roosevelt’s distinctive voice come over the radio. That moment, my life changed forever. America had been attacked. It was December 7th, 1941, “A date which will live in infamy.”

The next morning I woke up to the beautiful sunrise over our farm. We lived a quiet life in Watsonville on a small artichoke farm. It was bordered by more artichoke farms that bordered more artichoke farms. If you went far enough, eventually you would reach strawberry fields. If you went even farther, the ocean. Most of my friends in school also were the children of

Pages 74 – 75

farmers. There were some fisherman from nearby Capitola mixed in. Most of my class was white. I was the only Japanese kid in the class. I occasionally got made fun of but certainly not bullied. In fact, I was pretty popular.

I had a girlfriend named Joan. She had beautiful blue eyes and blonde hair.

Kinda the quintessential American girl. We would go to the beach on the weekends. We would meet at my house, never hers. I got the sense it was because her dad wasn’t too happy she was dating “the enemy.” I never really asked her, though. Thought it wouldn’t have been proper.

That morning after Pearl Harbor, I went to school as usual. The game had been canceled but that was okay because I needed the time to do work anyway. I soon learned that things were not normal. There was a tension in the air that I had never experienced. People were upset. Some even crying.

One girl hadn’t yet heard from her brother who was stationed at Pearl Harbor.

The first thing that happened to me that day came from Joan. I went to her locker to give her a morning hug. I put my arms around her from behind, and she immediately pushed me away. I was shocked.

“What’s up?” I ask. “Everything okay?”

Her reply was short and simple.

“I can’t be with you anymore” she said.

“Hold on a sec, what happened?”

“I just told you. Leave me alone.”

We had been going out for over a year. That was the first time I really cried. I had cried as a small child, but those were meaningless tears. They came when I wanted another cookie or had “hurt” my pinky on the table.

These new tears were real.

Behind them was a hurt soul.

These new tears were real. Behind them was a hurt soul. A hurt mind. A hurt person. Practically speaking, a hurt reputation. Many people heard our short conversation. Suddenly the entire school was talking about how we broke up. Things got pretty crazy.

“She said she never wants to speak to him.”

“I heard Joan punched him in the face.”

“She called him a Jap piece of garbage.”

“Her dad is going to shoot him with his shotgun tonight.”

I went home that day feeling like an outsider for the first time. Before, I could count on one hand the number of times people made fun of me for my heritage. Now, well, I can’t even remember how many. Everybody was in on it, even the few Chinese kids who I used to hang around with.

“Hey, Jap, why you in front of my locker?”

“Go back to where you came from, you sushi-loving Jap.” I “quit” the basketball team the next day at practice. I entered the locker room to find that my locker had been cleaned out with the team surrounding it. They threatened to make my life a “living hell” if I didn’t comply. What choice did I have? I went to the coach to hand in my uniform. I expected to at least get a “so sorry to lose you” or something. But nothing, he didn’t even look up. All he said was “Thanks, Paul.” I left with tears in my eyes.

I had been a senior captain and starting point guard. I haven’t touched a basketball since.

We lived like this for a little while. Luckily, I went on Christmas vacation soon after Pearl Harbor. This allowed me to get away from all the crap going on at school. People wouldn’t speak to me anymore. When they did, it always included the word “Jap.” I stayed on the farm during vacation. I played with my sister and helped Dad in the barn. It was a nice reprieve.

In order to seem more American, my mother decided to make a traditional Christmas dinner. We had awesome roast pork with lots of sides. I can still taste the roasted artichoke (obviously we had some) and mashed sweet potato.

Two

It was mid-February when we heard that the Government was going to take action against the Japanese living in America. We weren’t exactly sure where or when it was going to happen. I was scared.

“What if they put us in prison?”

“What if they make us go to Japan? I don’t even speak Japanese!”

“I’m American for Christ’s sake!”

“I play basketball and hate the Emperor as much as anyone.”

Such were the thoughts racing through my head. I couldn’t sit still. I stopped going to school. I couldn’t deal with those kids who supposedly were my friends.

A week later I saw the sign in town. It was titled, “Instructions to all Persons of Japanese Ancestry.” We were told to report to the town recreation

Pages 76 – 77

center at 10 AM the following day. We were to bring only one suitcase per person. Our houses would be seized by the government.

“Instructions to all Persons of Japanese Ancestry.”

We were told to report to the town recreation center at 10 AM the following day.

We were to bring only one suitcase per person.

Our houses would be seized by the government.

“What is wrong with these people?” I asked my mother.

She didn’t respond. She just looked at me and cried. That was the first time I ever saw my mother cry. We went home and began packing. It was my eighteenth birthday.

The next morning we got up at around six-thirty. I went downstairs to the kitchen. There, my mother was cooking an enormous stack of pancakes, awesome pancakes. “We had to get rid of all the flour and milk so I decided to make you guys a treat before we leave,” she said. She said it with a smile, but I knew she was devastated inside. My sister and I devoured the delicious pancakes. At around seven, we put our luggage in the car and left for the assembly area at the recreation center where I learned how to play basketball. We were greeted by soldiers with big guns. One of them was holding a Thompson machine gun, just like Al Capone used. We went to the counter to register. An officer, who looked like he could have been younger than me, asked for my parents’ identification. After looking over them he asked how old I was.

“Eighteen,” I proudly answered.

“Well then you have two options: remain with your parents and go with them to the relocation center or join the Army.” he said. “I remind you how

much your country needs you during this time of war.” I rolled my eyes: “My country needs me?”

“Can I think about it?” I asked. “I’ll need to talk to my parents about it.”

“Yes, you can. When you get to the camp just be sure to visit the Draft Office with your decision. Here are your papers, please wait in the gym for the buses to arrive.”

Around an hour later the buses arrived. They were old and said “US ARMY.” I sat next to my mother. The driver wouldn’t tell me where we were headed. After around twelve hours of driving through the middle of nowhere, I noticed a sign on the side of the road that said, “Welcome to Oregon.”

Two hours after that we pulled through a gate. It looked like a prison camp.

There were rows upon rows of barracks. Guard towers that looked like they belonged in San Quentin. The camp was surrounded by a barbed wire fence patrolled by armed soldiers. An officer came onto our bus and, rather rudely, told us to get off. We went into a building to get “processed.” They gave us a bunk number and told us to report to the bunk immediately. By the time I got to the bunk, I had already made my decision. I was going to join the Army. I didn’t care if it meant fighting for a country that locks up my own family. As long as I didn’t have to spend the next I don’t know how many years trapped in a cage in the middle of nowhere. That night, against my mother’s protest, I went to the draft office and joined the Army.

The sun was about to set.

Night would soon fall over the snowy forest we had called home for the past week.

I huddled in a foxhole…

Three

Somewhere in the Rhone Valley, Germany. Pfc. Paul Okomoto, E Company, 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, 422nd Infantry Division, US Army, March, 1945. The sun was about to set. Night would soon fall over the snowy forest we had called home for the past week. I huddled in a foxhole, my M1 Garand pointed toward the line. My friend, Allen, and I took Jonathan Mack, photograph Pages 78 – 79

turns keeping watch for stray German soldiers. I knew what was coming.

Every night, the Germans shelled our position without fail. They knew exactly where we were and were happy to bombard us. The Army didn’t give a crap. “Just keep pushing forward” they said. Easier said than done, guys.

I’d already lost two of my friends in the past week and the Army told me to just keep going. As usual, the crack of artillery came and shells exploded all over the place. Wood splinters flying everywhere and giant flashes of light. Simply put, misery. Except tonight was different. We would be moving out in the morning. The 522nd had been ordered to capture Kleinblitterdorf, a village about seven miles north of our position. E Company (mine) was to make the initial assault. I was in second platoon. Our job was to circle around the village in the woods and attack from behind while first and third platoons went in from the front. We hoped that this would create a two-pronged assault that would catch the Germans off guard.

I’d say I slept a total of two hours that night. Between the gunfire and screaming of wounded men it got pretty difficult. As the sun rose, we were told to report to Company HQ to regroup for a final briefing. An Army chaplain led us in a prayer and we were off. I was assigned lead scout. This means that I went about a hundred feet in front of the platoon to check what was up ahead.

After about five miles of marching, I saw some sort of camp. “Halt,” I ordered. I gave the signal to my sergeant that there was enemy ahead. For a second I thought it was a military base. From about a hundred yards away, I looked through my binoculars into the camp. I saw a man come out of the barracks and I knew immediately that this was no military base. It was a prison.

…I knew immediately that this was no military base.

It was a prison.

After observing it for about half an hour, we decided to approach. There was a gate, which was chained shut. The people inside were approaching the gate. They looked so sad. Most stumbled as they walked. They looked like death. Just skin and bones. Many of them had star patches on their striped

Pages 80 – 81

uniforms. Slowly, we walked up to the gate with our guns drawn. We had no idea who these people were. I shot the gate lock with my rifle and pushed it open. Immediately, dozens of the inmates converged on me. Initially I thought they were trying to attack me and instinctively pointed my rifle at them. Then I realized they were crying. We had arrived at Kaufering IV Hurlach, a satellite camp of the infamous Dachau Concentration Camp.

We had arrived at Kaufering IV Hurlach, a satellite camp of the infamous Dachau Concentration Camp.

The prisoners walked towards us like skeletons brought to life.

The prisoners walked towards us like skeletons brought to life. They were feeling our uniforms and saying something in a language I couldn’t under stand. I think it was Polish, but to this day I am not positive. Still at the entrance, we radioed to the other platoons that we had found a camp of sorts. Our first step was to try and communicate with someone. Eventually we found a prisoner who spoke German. He began telling his story to John, our translator.

He described how he had been taken from his home in Berlin and moved to this camp. He had been forced onto a train and imprisoned in this camp in the middle of the woods. Up to here, this sounds similar to what happened to my family. But what I saw and heard next was utterly unimaginable.

In the camp, the Germans had subjected them to the hardest of labors.

Prisoners worked fourteen hours a day logging, only to receive a single bowl of broth. John asked the prisoner who he was and he replied, “We are the lucky ones.” He told us that the rest of his family had been shot months ago. “Those of us here are the strong ones, if you can believe it.”

“No, but who are you and why are you here? Are you criminals?” John asked.

“No, the Nazis are the criminals. We are doctors, lawyers, musicians, cobblers, and farmers. Jews,” he replied.

We walked through the camp. There were piles of bodies everywhere.

The stench was indescribable. We decided that the first order of business was to get them food. We had only our K Rations, not enough to feed them all. We radioed back to base to bring as much food as possible. After we spent hours watching these people beg for food, a truck full of bread taken from a German bakery arrived. We started giving it out. It was as if the prisoners had never seen bread. The looks of joy as they bit into the crusts was unbelievable. Further horror began. One of the doctors who arrived with the food told us we had to take it away from them. The prisoners had gone without food for so long, they could die simply from eating. This was the hardest thing I have ever done: taking food away from a starving man, knowing it is for his own good. Hearing him cry, “Please, please let me have it,” will be forever in my mind. I don’t think anybody in our unit ever said, “I’m starving” again after witnessing the food distribution.

The next day we were told to move out; the MPs were taking control of the camp. As we boarded the trucks to head south, we saw the MPs leading the local villagers into the camp. Apparently the MPs were forcing the locals to clean up the mess at the camp. One of them said to me in German accented English, “We didn’t know; we didn’t know.” I managed to get a good lougie on her shoes. Damn Nazis.

I … thought about my own family.

I think that they would have been proud of me for enlisting if they knew what I had done that day.

Before it got dark, we evicted a German family from a nice two story house. I went to sleep in the master bedroom and thought about my own family. I think that they would have been proud of me for enlisting if they knew what I had done that day. I dozed off unable to forget the moment my officer told me to take the bread back.

Ethan Rosenberg

Pages 82 – 83

Journeys

Journeys

Pages 84 – 85

Journeys

The Machine: I want the great waves of creativity to crash upon me I want to feel inspired Less like a parasite trying to jump from host to host just to stay alive More like the pigeon living in Central Park.

I don’t want the burden, the privilege, of life love and security; I don’t want the opportunity to succeed.

Take it.

I want to be like the wispy tips of my hair On a particularly windy day The scraggly wisps that refuse to settle down The in-your-face curled tips.

I want to be the upward curve of my lips, The plush inside of a glove, I want to be anything but a computer; I don’t want to continuously code and decode myself based on my javascripted audience.

I want to be told I’m right.

I want to be rid of that sickly-sweet acid corroding the back of my throat as I scan the test calendar Over And over And over Again.

I don’t want a number to make me feel dumb.

Maybe I can’t facilitate diffusion-but I do have worth. I have value.

I can string syllables together that cause your knees to quiver And tears to prick the corners of your eyes.

Call it arrogance Call it avoidance.

I’m sick of scurrying at the sound of an automated bell.

Jessica Freiman Talia Cohen, collage

Zachary Stein, photographs Pages 86 – 87

Curse to My Mountain of Homework “Just do this,” my teacher said, As the end of class bell rang, “For tomorrow!” she added, And I quickly felt a pang.

Little did she know, that six other teachers, Had preceded her in turn, Each thinking his own subject, Was the one we had to learn.

Every period my desperation grew, As teachers built my mountainous pile; Classmates groaned and shook their heads, Schoolwork became increasingly vile.

By last period I was desperate, My long night looming over me, How I wish I could make it disappear!

Just go away and let me be!

So now I sit, perched at my desk, Eyeing my mountain with dislike, There is just so much to do, I know, So why can’t I begin the hike?

Sydney Shaiman

Above: Mirina Rosen, multi-media Opposite: Eliezer Mauskopf, digital art Pages 88 – 89

6-w o rd Can I make up for the past?

She cried and no one heard.

The end is the best part.

stor i es

We’re throwing out all your possessions.

A dirty look. A push. Done.

Scared for new class. Untested skills.

The world spins. I stand still.

The broken shell was left behind .

Dreams of sea made him cry.

Even when I remember, I forget.

Often she wondered. He did not.

After touching our lives, she vanished.

Step by step, reached the top

Bell Rings. Open book. Let’s begin.

Sibling feud made world war three.

Left on a plane to anywhere.

The cloudless night uncovered the body.

Hearts hum as the curtain unveils.

He cried over their dead bodies.

She hated him. He loved her.

Colorful kites reminded her of freedom.

Earth laughs with its flowers

Nothing. A bud. Then a flower.

This is stupid, I give up.

Time crawled by. She missed him.

One day done, more to come.

Want to shout, but struck speechless.

I wish I knew my opinion.

She fell. Paint spilled. Modern art.

Breathe in, out and start again.

He cries tears of lost love.

He fired and they cried out

In the end, she’d understand why.

Her imprint on the grass faded away.

Hopefully, someday you will love me

In love wasn’t what I meant.

Pages 90 – 91

Stories: Hannah Ball, Maximillian Eckhardt, Jessica Freiman, Jonathan Granowitz, Sarah Joyce, Katya Kantor, Johanna Kohn, Lauren Kupferberg, Leora Nevins, William Pollack, Charlotte Rauner, Naomi Rosen, Sydney Shaiman, Orly Silverstein, Rachel Wenger Photographs: Jonathan Mack, Zachary Stein

Characters: Jenna Skylar NYC Subway Riders

the

Pages 92 – 93

The lights are low and only the immediate interior of the subway car is visible on the stage. The voices of other NYC subway riders are heard throughout the car.

Jenna (tightens her grip on her bag as soon as she sees Skylar peripherally) Do you mind if I’m sitting here?

Bu b b

ble ub B Sasha Kagan, digital art

le

e th

Out si

e d

Outs id e

Scene 1 A crowded Number One train is arriving on the local track in a station in the Bronx. The screeching noise irritates the delicate ears of Jenna, a privileged girl of French descent. To her dismay, her BMW is getting its tires changed this morning and she is forced to take public transportation all the way from Scarsdale to her elite private high school on the Upper West Side. In her right hand she carries her transparent American Apparel backpack, revealing a map of the subway, pepper spray, and an Organic Fiji apple. In her other hand, she carries a Starbucks grande-sized Hot White Chocolate Mocha Latte. As the train opens its doors, Jenna storms in without waiting for anyone to exit first and then manages to find the single remaining seat in the entire subway car. Next to her sits Skylar, a high school dropout who is a poverty-stricken girl from the Bronx. Skylar leans her elbows on her separated thighs, cupping her jaw with her hands.

She rides the subway mindlessly with no particular destination in mind.

Skylar holds onto a worn out mesh bag.

Skylar (comes back to reality as she surprisingly hears a voice similar to that of the Khardashians) What?

Jenna (rolling her eyes) Ugh, well, maybe if you listened the first time I wouldn’t have to repeat myself.

Scene 2 15 minutes later.

Same setting.

The voices of the other nervous NYC subway riders reverberate in the car. They lower their voices as Skylar and Jenna come into view.

The spotlight on Skylar and Jenna is still red but slightly dimmer. The darkness engulfs the rest of the subway car.

Jenna I’m starving; ugh, I can’t believe I missed breakfast.

Eliezer Mauskopf, digital art

Skylar (very aware of the situation) Listen here, girlfriend– you either sit here and shut ya mouth or go find anotha place to go ’cause I ain’t about to deal with your attitude.

Jenna (glances at her pepper spray) I’m just trying to get to school on time; I don’t deserve to be dealing with your kind of people this early in the morning.

Skylar (heats up with anger and clenches her fist) You say one more word and you will not live another day to have the chance to be sassy with “my kind of people!”

Before Skylar rises up to strike Jenna, the subway lights abruptly go out and the train comes to a halt on the tracks. A red spotlight focuses on Skylar and Jenna while they remain silent.

Jenna (suddenly stressed) No! I need to get to school on time or else I will have detention. I can’t possibly stand to sit in a room for one hour alone; that’s torture!

Skylar (with biting sarcasm) You poor thing.

Curtain

Pages 94 – 95

Immediately, Jenna reaches for her Organic Fiji Apple and cleans it with a napkin. Enervated by Jenna’s attitude and restraining herself from exerting all the remaining energy she has against Jenna, Skylar looks into her bag and takes out stale McDonalds’ French Fries.

Jenna (disgusted) Oh my gosh, how can you eat those fries? How can you be SO IGNORANT to the terrible consequences of fast food?

Skylar (eating her fries more aggressively to annoy Jenna) I don’t go to school. I was forced to leave ’cause I need to find a job.

Before Jenna can respond, the train starts moving and there is turbulence.

All of a sudden, Jenna clumsily spills her Starbucks Hot Mocha Latte on Skylar’s shirt. Feeling defeated, Skylar stares at her shirt in shock. The red spotlight intensifies.

Jenna (in an off-handed manner) Just tell your mom to wash it. It’s no big deal.

Skylar (defensively) I HAVE NO MOMMA. (Tears fill up in her tired red eyes) Jenna (trying to make the situation better but not really caring) I’m sorry, do you

want some money? I’ll give you twenty bucks; you can go to Urban and get yourself something cute.

A strong white spotlight shines on Skylar only as she looks towards the audience and addresses them directly.

Skylar (building up in emotion) I don’t need this girl’s pity money.

And who in the world can buy anything cute in Urban with 20 bucks?

This girl thinks that she can just fix all of her problems by throwing money at them.

She probably thinks that if she dies, she can pay someone to bring her back to life.

But life’s not easy, son.

I’ve no money.

I’ve no fancy choices of food.

I (clap) HAVE (clap) NO (clap) MOMMA (2 claps).

How can I enjoy my life when I barely have the physical and emotional necessities that come so easily to this girl’s life? What makes her more deserving of these things than me?

If life’s not fair, then why should I respect life?

The red spotlight fades away as the lighting in the whole subway car resumes. The NYC Subway Riders watch as Skylar accepts the $20 bill from Jenna, spits on it, and hands it back. Their eyes follow Jenna, as she runs off the train at 59th street Columbus Circle in a visible panic considering her iPhone 4G is unavailable, which prevents her from finding the nearest Starbucks shop.

In a sudden rush, Skylar gets off the train, runs to the beginning of the platform, and walks towards the tiled wall that reads “59th Street” until she sees her mother in the distance. A vivid red light consumes the entire stage.

Curtain Nava Sido

Pages 96 – 97

Elliot Kleinman, multi-media

Freedom Slowly sipping perfectly chilled imported water, she admired the gleaming diamonds of her ring which came into sight as she lifted the glass to her thin, red lips.

His leathery hands, worn out by their struggle to clean the constant parade of grimy dishes, retreated in pain after being singed by the treacherously hot stream of water coming from the sink’s rusty faucet.

Rachel Wenger, ink

The dining room’s sumptuous décor distracted her from the exorbitant waste that she left on her plate as she muttered false thanks to the tuxedo-clad waiter.

His role in the automated kitchen was so simple; he was ignorant of the complex work that went into composing the elegant dishes that he scraped and scrubbed.

Rapping her immaculately manicured fingernails on the mahogany table, she quietly prayed for something to say to her aloof, taciturn father.

His left arm ached as he shook off the suds to count the hours until his liberation on the cracked face of his watch.

Resigned, she sat in silence twirling her hair tapping her feet waiting to be set free.

Untying the apron from his sore waist, he let out a deep breath as envied the world of opportunity awaiting his customers just beyond the window.

Aaron Tannenbaum

Pages 98 – 99

The snow Is falling the Wings of the angel come into view Her dim glow Staring Through the window Quietly she stands there watching them The people she knew The snow reminds Of something Then again Snow melts the memory fades Wings of the angel Disappear Grace Gilbert, colored glue

Pages 100 – 101

Leora Nevins

T

Country

Angel in the Snow

God’s

he hot steel cut into the impacted soil as the skinny sixteen year old swung his pick-mattock over and over again. He hit the blunt side of the mattock and pulled down to loosen the dirt. The metal was deep in the earth – becoming one with Earth just as the kid was becoming one with the land, the air, the dry rain, and the surreal, blue sky. The soil felt the rhythm of each blow of the tool – a contradictory rhythm. The mountainside was being assaulted in order to save itself. Trail was being blazed paradoxically. Cutting the land. Smashing the land.

Abusing the land to save it from harm.

The teenager sat down carefully -- wary of making more impressions on the Earth. The sound of nothing but wind was more beautiful than any song he had heard. The wind blowing through emptiness was especially beautiful, juxtaposed with the horns and engines of the city. The sky was bluer than any sky he had ever seen. This moment of tranquility made him remember how far he was from home. He was on the opposite side of the country from New York. The trees were taller, fuller, and natural-unlike the trees that seemed awkwardly placed in the city. Even the water tasted natural and untouched.

The simplicity of life enabled him to appreciate many things. He felt more like the bears, cows, and mountain lions that roamed the peaks and valleys, because he lived his life focused on necessity, not time pressures and material objects. He drank the same water, felt the same weather, and had the same worries. He worried about other animals and the weather. The air grew harsher the higher his elevation became and the closer he felt to God and the clouds. God’s wrathful lighting was his largest fear. The fear was heightened every afternoon when the clouds came together to water the

dry mountains. The same clouds that give life to the meadows, threatened his life.

The boy felt the intensification of the wind as the ominous, lowering clouds approached. His heart raced as the time between lightning and thunder increased, but he continued loosening the now damp dirt. He took his last swing with the mattock when he saw lightning strike in the distance.

He counted the time in between lightning and thunder and concluded that the lightning strike was four thousand feet away. Then, he heard the loudest strike of all – a sound louder than any noise he had ever heard in the city.

The boy saw a tree five hundred feet away struck, and he thought he was going to die. The ground shook in terror and he began to pray and plead for the storm to end, as he smelled the burnt tree. Chaos surrounded him as he ran as fast as he could back to the campsite for shelter.

He reached the campsite safely and though about what had occurred.

He understood that the trail building was not the only paradox, but weather, nature, and God were ones as well. Nature expressed its beauty and wonder in the same way it expressed its wrath. The boy continued to ponder God’s wrathful paradise long after he returned home.

Joseph Sutton, digital art

Samuel Messenger

Tenth Grade collaborative, ink

How Not To Be She taught me how to hurt She taught me how to sneer She taught me how to make bad choices She taught me how to scorn She taught me how to ignore feelings She taught me how to hate others She taught me how to hate myself She taught me how to be selfish She taught me how to let my morals idle quietly But really what she taught me, is how not to be.

Leora Nevins

Pages 102 – 103

Dimples and Death She noticed his dimples, deeply set into wrinkly cheeks.

A single tuft of hair So delicately perched on a bumpy head.

Black eyes; slits.

He was all hers.

They bought her a black dress.

It had a zipper and delicate buttons.

But she didn’t want to wear black.

Black was mourning.

She wasn’t mourning; she was dead.

His death was hers.

He screamed as the milk entered his toothless mouth; Her liquid foreign to him.

His tiny forehead furrowed; Feeling his first emotion.

This was new to her too.

This was love.

She didn’t scream when they told her.

Stoically, she seemed to accept fate.

But not really.

Inside she was shooting drunk drivers everywhere.

Super Mom to the rescue.

Except she wasn’t a Mom anymore.

She stroked his skin; So new and fresh.

His tiny hand flailed out, trying to touch her.

He smelled of slippery soap and tears; Her tears.

They asked her how she was As if words could describe emotion.

She closed her eyes; Willing it all to wash away.

So many flowers, cards.

What could possibly replace love?

Mikaela Gerwin

Jonathan Mack, photograph, digitally altered

Pages 104 – 105

To You I never thought that I would ever meet anyone the way that I met you or that you would become as close as you are To You I sometimes can’t even remember a time before we became friends and when I’m reminded of it the memories are colored with disbelief To You how was I supposed to know that with a click of my computer mouse and a trip on the subway in the middle-end of december I would meet someone who is now closer than I ever could have imagined To You it seems it happened in a heartbeat in one second we were talking as if we had known each other our entire lives

Pages 106 – 107

To You I wonder what my life would be like sometimes if I hadn’t clicked that button and hadn’t made that subway trip in the middle-end of december and my mom hadn’t made muffins the day before if someone else hadn’t shown me videos and books if they hadn’t added me to the group To You I wonder and I am overwhelmed that such a small decision led me to meet you To You now you’re woven into the fabric of my life impossible to remove but why would I want to?

To You you know who you are Johanna Kohn

Julia Sutton, craypas

n e v E n Whe d o o l B s ’ n o g a Dr u o Y e v a t S ’ n a C

Butterflies I pray.

I pray that my mad murmurings Might filter into your subconscious mind And think your thoughts the way they should be.

I pray that some shuffling shoes Should perturb the air and shift The house of cards to its center of gravity.

I pray that countless cursory kowtows Could jostle my brain into conceiving THAT THE UNIVERSE IS DEAD. Nathaniel Z. Stern

Caroline Guenoun, digital art

Pages 108 – 109

T

he cold air whips at my face, waking me up immediately. Siegfried must have left the window open again. That would mean… I roll over and sure enough, there he is, lying peacefully next to me. So as not to wake him, I quietly get out of bed, and after shutting the window, tiptoe out of the room. The sun has just started to rise, meaning it can be no later then 6:15 in the morning. It’s a Friday, the last day of work before the weekend, and I make my way downstairs to the little shop I own.

Located on Krasnodonskaya Street, just a few blocks west of the Town Square, this store is one of my proudest achievements. I built the shop and the little house above it completely on my own seven years ago. It was a happy time. Siegfried was not born yet, but my wife, Aneta, was alive.

Still in my pajamas, I begin to clean up the shop so it will be ready by opening time. I sweep the floors, dust the counters, and make sure the appropriate amount of money is in the cash box. Satisfied that all is in order, I make my way back up to my little home above the store. The sun is nearly completely up now, and Siegfried will need to wake up so that he will be on time to the daycare he attends.

“Sigi,” I say softly. “Time to get up.” Slowly, he opens one eye and then, hoping I didn’t notice, quickly closes it. I smile. “Come on, Big Guy,” I say.

It’s a new day. Time to get up.” Reluctantly, he rolls out of bed and heads back to his room.

I go to the kitchen, and make Siegfried a quick breakfast while he’s getting dressed. As he’s eating, I go into his room. Lying forgotten on his dresser is the golden star with the word Jude inscribed upon it. Siegfried

always forgets to put it on. When he’s done eating, I carefully pin it on the upper left side of his shirt. He makes no objection, but I know he doesn’t like wearing it.

“But why do I need it?” he once asked me. “None of the other kids have to wear it.”

The walk from the store to Siegfried’s daycare is a short one—no more than ten minutes—yet it is my favorite part of the day. As we step outside into the cool September air, Siegfried slips his small hand into mine and we start on our way.

A s we step outside into the cool September air, Siegfried slips his small hand into mine…

We’ve always been close, Siegfried and I. After all, it’s just the two of us. His mother, Aneta, died during childbirth and it was a small miracle that he survived. The umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and he came out hardly breathing. For this reason I named him Siegfried. In German “sieg” means “victory”. It was a victory that he was born at all.

“Daddy, what’s that?” I follow Siegfried’s gaze and look up at a large sign that has been posted at the door of the daycare.

Quickly I read it over. My heart drops. “It’s nothing, Sigi. Don’t worry about it. Have a good time today, okay?” Happily he opens the door and runs inside, looking back only momentarily in order to return my parting wave. As the door swings shut I read the sign over once more.

“Jews of Kiev and vicinity!” It reads. “On Monday, September 29, you are to appear by 8:00 a.m. with your possessions, money, documents,

Pages 110 – 111

valuables, and warm clothing at Dorogozhitskaya Street, next to the Jewish cemetery. Failure to appear is punishable by death.”

I have not cried since Aneta’s funeral—which coincidentally took place at that same cemetery— and I don’t cry now, but I feel tears briefly well up in my eyes. Andriy, a frequent customer at my shop who is in the know about these things, had warned me of the likelihood of relocation, but I had not expected it so suddenly. Three days until the 29th. The walk back to my shop is a long one.

I have an ordinary number of customers that day, at fairly regular intervals, but hours seem to pass between each transaction. When Hanna, one of my Jewish customers, asks me if I have seen the notices, I feign ignorance and quickly usher her out, saying I am all out of the item she desires. I can think of nothing but the impending relocation. What will I take with me?

Where will we go? How will I tell Siegfried?

When Mrs. Pavlyuchenko—the mother of one of the other children at the daycare—drops Siegfried at my shop, I do my best to put on my normal, cheery attitude. Despite my failure to hide my anguish, Siegfried does not notice. That’s one of the charms of five-year-olds.

“We learned about me today!” he says excitedly.

I try to smile. “Sorry?”

“We learned about me!” he repeats.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Kateryna read us a story about a guy named Siegfried,” he excitedly explains. “She told us that Siegfried was a hero who was really strong and killed a dragon. Then he married a woman he loved and they lived together until they died.”

A fter killing the dragon, Siegfried bathed in the dragon’s blood, rendering him invincible.

I really do smile after I hear him say this. I know the story of Siegfried, and it is not quite how my son says it is. After killing the dragon, Siegfried bathed in the dragon’s blood, rendering him invincible. Unfortunately for him, there was a leaf covering the back of his neck. Since the blood never came into contact with that part of his body, Siegfried was still vulnerable.

Towards the end of the story, a javelin that is thrown at the back of his neck kills him. Princess Kreimhild, Siegfried’s wife, takes revenge on the murderer, eventually dying herself. It’s one of those happy stories where everyone ends up dead.

“Yisimcha Elohim ce’Ephraim vece’Menashe…” (May God make you like Ephraim and Menashe) The Sabbath that night is extremely emotional for me, as I’m aware that it is quite possibly the last one I will ever observe in this house. I hold Siegfried close as I recite Birkat Banim—the blessing of the children.

Pages 112 – 113

The next morning, on Saturday, I cannot find the strength to go down to synagogue. Instead, I pray to God alone and ask him for the strength to help me go on. I decide to tell Siegfried after Havdalah (prayers that mark the end of the Sabbath) that night.

“Sigi, you know how you’re always saying that everything here is so small?”

It is true. Siegfried does like to complain about how small our house is.

“Yes,” he replies.

“Well,” I say, “we’re going to be moving somewhere new soon. Someplace different.”

“Where?” he asks.

“I’m not sure,” I say. “But it’ll be somewhere exciting.”

“But what about all my friends? Will I have to leave them?” I can see the tears beginning to come.

“You’ll make new friends.” The tears are coming with full force now, streaming down his face. “Don’t worry, there will be other—” I don’t get the chance to finish my sentence. Siegfried runs crying from the table and slams the door to his room.

The next morning, there is no cool breeze drifting into my room from a left-open window, nor is Siegfried’s warm body lying next to mine. It is Sunday the 28th, one day until the relocation. Slowly, I get out of bed and begin to pack. It’s an emotionally wrenching process, sorting through what I will keep and what I will abandon. I take clothes first. Shirts, pants, socks— everything that fits goes into the bag. Then I begin looking for any valuables I can find. A gold necklace that Aneta inherited upon the passing of her

mother. A small sixteenth century sculpture that my late grandfather gave me as a wedding present. Carefully, I wrap all of it and gently nestle it in between the softest of the clothing. Finally, I find my prayer book, the one the rabbi presented to me at my Bar Mitzvah, and put it lovingly in the bag. Siegfried still isn’t talking to me and refuses to pack, so I do it for him. Slowly I go through his possessions, taking the things I think he will want most.

I wake up before sunrise the next morning when a chilly gust of wind smacks against my face. Siegfried is curled up beside me. I quietly get up and go downstairs. I run my hands over the smooth wood that I sanded myself, so many years ago. I breathe in deeply and allow the smell of my little shop to engulf me. I give myself a tour, finding little treasures I had forgotten existed. I go upstairs and, for the final time at my home, make breakfast for Siegfried and myself. I use the last of the eggs and pour the remaining milk into two tall glasses. Siegfried comes out of my room without needing to be awakened and we eat a silent breakfast together.

The sun is up now and Dorogozhitskaya Street is a far walk from our house.

“Come, Sigi. It’s time to go.” I take the bags and slowly walk to the door. Siegfried and I look back just once before it slowly swings shut.

Siegfried buttons his jacket and quickly takes my hand, holding on to it more tightly than usual.

I have never seen so many people in my life. Hundreds—thousands maybe—of people, all walking in the same direction. The same expression is etched into each face: one of sadness, but of strong determination. Everyone carries with him a large bag that contains his most important possessions.

As we make our way closer to Dorogozhitskaya Street, more and more Jews appear. There are easily enough people to fill the newly renovated (although not yet opened) Republican Stadium of Khrushchev—the largest of its kind in Kiev. Dorogozhitskaya Street is lined with SS-Sonderkommandos and Ukrainian police, each of whom wears a pristine uniform and looks solemnly ahead.

8:00 A.M. comes and goes. Then 9:00 A.M. passes. We nervously stand there until past noon, when the crowd begins to move. We walk under the Great Gate of Kiev—an arch built to commemorate Tzar Alexander II’s survival of an assassination attempt—and through the familiar neighborhoods of our home. On and on we walk, for an hour at least, until we reach the

Pages 114 – 115

outskirts of the city, on the border of the forest. Siegfried’s hand remains in mine the entire time.

At that moment, the SSSonderkommandos and Ukrainian police spring into action. Stations have been set up. At the first checkpoint, I am forced to hand over my luggage. It happens very quickly. It is out of my hands almost before I realize it. At the next station— “Znyaty pal’to.” (Give me your coat) It is a command, not a request.

“Ya zamerzne! Tse mayzhe snih!” (My coat! I’ll freeze to death!) I respond in Ukrainian to the officer, objecting to his order.

“Znyaty pal’to vy kike!” (Give me your coat, you kike!) I am taken aback. Yes, we are forced to wear the Golden Star, but there has never been much—if any—hatred directed towards Jews here in the Ukraine.

Certainly, no one has ever called me a kike before. Shocked into submission, I turn over my coat. I begin to walk onwards but— “I khlopchyka!” (And the boy’s!)

I stare at the officer, then remove Siegfried’s coat from his small shoulders. He does not object but

On and on we walk…

until we reach the outskirts of the city, on the border of the forest.

cries softly and begins to shiver.

At the next station we are forced to remove everything but our underwear.

Siegfried is crying with full force now, and I do not know how to comfort him.

What is happening? At the next station, I lose my final piece of dignity, as I am forced to strip off my underwear. I am naked. Completely vulnerable.

Around us, people are screaming and crying. No one knows what is happening. In the distance, a truck drives back and forth, leaving with a group of ten or so people on it and returning empty. We cannot see the truck’s destination, but it soon becomes clear that we are meant to wait for our trip on the truck. Perhaps it will take us to a train, which will, in turn, take us to our new home. Maybe we will be issued new clothing at the end of the trip. Maybe our possessions will be returned to us.

At sunset, it is our turn to go on the truck. I am extremely relieved. It appears that those who don’t get on this truck will have to spend the night naked in the cold. A truly awful fate.

The ride on the truck is surprisingly quick. There is no warm clothing or train to board awaiting our arrival, though. We have been brought to the very edge of a ditch that has been dug at the border of the forest.

We cannot see what lies at the bottom of it, but are ordered to jump down into it, and lie in a row on our stomachs. I look up, just in time to see the very first bit of the sun disappear behind the horizon before Siegfried and I are pushed down.

“Daddy,… I’m scared.”

Pages 116 – 117

I fall on what looks to be flesh. Human flesh. Quickly, I glance around and my heart nearly stops. Lying in neat stacks, facedown, are human corpses. I am lying on the body of a young girl who I realize, just a few minutes ago, was on the same truck I had dismounted. I try to cover Siegfried’s eyes, but he’s seen it all. Petrified into submission by fear, but still holding hands, we lie down on top of the corpses, waiting for our inevitable destruction. I hold Siegfried’s hand tightly.

“Daddy,” he whispers, as a gun just a few meters to the left of us goes off. “I’m scared.” Another gunshot.

I try to say something but my throat is completely dry. Another gunshot.

“Sigi.” Another gunshot. This time Siegfried’s hand goes limp. The tears that have been absence since Aneta’s death come. One out of each eye.

I feel the cold metal barrel of the gun against the back of my neck. I think of my son. My wife. That last sunset I saw just before climbing into my grave.

Another gunshot.

Matthew Epstein

Jonathan Mack, photographs

He H

e was a forthright sort of guy with a big voice. He was a pushing the boundaries type of guy. He was a make you feel uncomfortable for opinions type of guy.

He was a suck up and a complainer. He was a smile to get what he wants type of guy. He was a loved guy because everyone believed him when he said people should love him. He was a “get home safe *wink*” type of guy. He was a jerk, but you liked those types of guys. You really liked those types of guys. Emphasis on liked because you can’t stand him now. You see him in the hallway and imagine him exploding, randomly combusting and no one caring even a little. His honesty is cringe worthy, his voice is a chocolate covered ego and you despise it. To you, he is what hate is and that only makes you loathe him more. He invented hate in your world and you tell everyone about it. You’re a jerk type of girl. But what you don’t know is that now he’s leaving. He’s a terminal illness type of guy and you’re still a jerk and he still wants to be heard. He still loves you and you can’t stand him and he’s dying. I guess it changes what type of guy he is.

Charlotte Rauner

Opposite: Tenth Grade collaborative, relief sculpture

Pages 118 – 119

The Artist’s Fear i once went swimming in the sea to catch a book and when its pages looked at me i felt my fear i tried to read the things i saw through purple paint and thought to grasp her tooth and maw an empty doll

his tongue unwilling thus to say brown eyes see blue to die live die by magic may a language write no perfect way to weave a sigh to catch a wave the running ink saves only my Integrity Nathaniel Z. Stern Aaron Tannenbaum, photograph, digitally altered

Pages 120 – 121

d e t f a r D T

he Campbell house stands at the end of a long row of houses, all squat and tan with both front and backyards. No house has any distinctive feature and, often visiting family and friends knock on the wrong door. When Eric Campbell turns five, a new family moves into the neighboring house. His mother calls the new family eccentric. One night over a Friday night steak dinner, his father tells his mother to cut the crap and tell it to the kids straight. “They’re a bad family. He’s only five and he’s driving up and down the street every day on his bicycle, no parents in sight.

Who knows what they’re up to? Don’t get involved with them, you hear?”

Eric nods and continues picking at his mashed potatoes. He carries that monologue for the next twenty years, words, mannerisms and everything.

The next part becomes a little hazier, but remains just the same. Like a pair of beat up shoes that still “work just fine” or a man shot in the head who is gone but is still there, just barely.

After dinner, Eric sits at the sun porch and leans on the ripped window screen, watching the kid ride up and down the street. The sun sets fast and the boy’s parents never come to get him. A little while later, the boy’s bike comes to a quick halt in front of Eric’s door. He dismounts, runs across the yard, and rings the bell. Eric rushes to the door before his parents can get there.

“Why are you out this late? My parents say you’re crazy” “What are you doing in my house?” The kid puts his face an inch away from Eric’s.

“Newsflash, Bucko, this is my house! Guess you’re not smart enough to tell the difference.” Eric’s dad always called him Bucko.

The boy’s face shifts, embarrassment rising in his cheeks. He turns on his heel and marches back to his house. Eric watches as one light turns on in the attic of the house and a shadow paces around the room, grabbing

Pages 122 – 123

things off shelves and putting them back. He stays watching long after the light is turned off and the shadow disappears into the darkness. It’s past midnight when he finally goes to bed. ***** Jon Reed is at the Campbell house every day until Eric turns eighteen.

At first, his parents convey a discrete disapproval of his friendship with the boy next door. After a few months, Eric’s mother convinces his father that they can be stand-in wholesome parents for Jon, two filling in for four as they watch the boys ride their bikes up and down the street. When Eric turns twelve, his mom invites the whole class for a party. She buys a piñata. Eric’s dad grills meat, enough for an army, and his mom prepares a Jell-O casserole.

Only three of his classmates show up. One of them is the smelliest kid in the grade, one loudly whispers that she’s only there because her parents made her, and the third is Jon. Eric starts to untie the piñata from the tree.

“They’re all stupid morons, ya know? Probably doing homework or losing a Little League game or something.” Jon smiles at Eric and nudges his shoulder.

“I know”, he whispers, even though he doesn’t really. Also, his mom told him not to use that word. ***** Eric knows everything about Jonathan. When they’re fourteen, trying to explain why his parents have separate bedrooms, Jon tells him about the time his dad brought home another woman and his mom was gone for a month. She came back,

Jon tells him about the time his dad brought home another woman and his mom was gone for a month. probably because she was broke. He says that he still sees that woman slipping into the driveway before his dad thinks anyone is awake. Jon

Emanuela Tsesarsky, collage

starts playing with his jacket zipper and his face scrunches up all funny like he’s trying not to laugh.

Eric’s heart feels too heavy for his chest and he’s angry and he wants to kick Jonathan out of his room. He knows this feeling, but it doesn’t make sense. It’s how he feels when his little brother gets a toy that he wanted, or when Coach Rob picks someone else for athlete of the week. He’s never had a reason to play with his jacket zipper or hide tears or even complain. He wants to complain! He can’t understand why every day is the same and why his parents love each other and love him and love sports and big dinners and clean linens but don’t ever raise their voices or cry or laugh hysterically.

Eric has nothing to say to Jon, no struggle to compare. Plus, he’s a horrible listener. His mom always said so herself. Jon is still staring at the same spot on the wall with that same look on his face.

“That blows” Eric remarks. “Lets go to the park or something”. *****

…the senior boys tell them they need to find girls to wear their letterman jackets, or they won’t be allowed to walk with the team onto the field at homecoming.

Freshman year, Eric and Jon are both drafted for the Varsity football team. They wear high tops like all the upper classmen and get letterman jackets with their last names scrawled across the back flap. On the first day of practice, the senior boys tell them they need to find girls to wear their letterman jackets, or they won’t be allowed to walk with the team onto the field at homecoming. Eric has loved the same girl since the last day of seventh grade. Her name is Jack Levy, mixed media Pages 124 – 125

Julie. He doesn’t really know what going steady means or if he knows how to even form a sentence to tell her she looks pretty or that he likes her pink and purple sweater, but he knows he wants to try.

The following day, Jon gives Julie his letterman jacket after school…

The following day, Jon gives Julie his letterman jacket after school while they are standing next to Eric’s locker. Eric’s face scrunches up like that time when Jon stared at that one spot on the wall, and he turns to the first girl he sees and shoves his jacket into her face. Her name is Renee and she has a mouth that’s too big for her head. But she also has long red hair and blue eyes that Eric swears will make all the older boys high-five him in the hallways. Jon pretends to agree and they head home, spending the rest of the day riding up and down the driveway on bikes that are too small, legs dangling off the peddles and elbows resting on rusty handlebars.

Renee ends in three weeks but Eric moves on to the next girl and the next girl and then the next. None of them is Julie.

Renee ends in three weeks but Eric moves on to the next girl and the next girl and then the next.

None of them is Julie.

Talia Cohen, collage

They plan to go to university after high school. They have scholarships to schools only an hour away from each other. They say they’ll drive north together. Eric will drop Jonathan off at his dorm, while he’ll continue on with half a car filled with half a life.

Eric will drop Jonathan off at his dorm, while he’ll continue on with half a car filled with half a life.

A month into summer, they go with Eric’s mother to buy a new trunk because the one he had taken to Boy Scouts that one summer was “just too worn-down.” Jon comes along even though his dad refuses to give him money for the new shoes he wants– “the old ones work just fine.” The trunk is picked quickly, the boys eager to get home and meet the rest of their buddies back at the school football field. Jon and Eric leap out of the car and head to their homes, promising to meet in thirty minutes. Eric gets dressed, puts on his jacket, inhales his dinner. He walks over to Jon’s house and waits on the lawn. Ten minutes go by. He knocks on the door. No answer. He rings, and then rings again, and again. He rings seven more times before Mrs. Reed cautiously opens the door. Her hair is haphazardly tied up on top of her head and she’s still wearing a robe over a nightgown.

It’s five in the afternoon. She smiles at Eric and a year later, he still tries to remember if maybe there was a sign, a sadness in her eyes or a loss of color in her face, that could have told him. But he can never find it– he’s searched every corner of his brain and no second of those few minutes seems unusual, out of the ordinary.

…he still tries to remember if maybe there was a sign, a sadness in her eyes or a loss of color in her face…

Mrs. Reed tells him that she’s so sorry but Jon came down with a case of the stomach flu and he won’t be able to go out tonight. In fact, while Eric’s there, she thinks it’s best to tell him that Jon’s father would like to

Grace Gilbert, collage

take a goodbye trip with his son the next morning and they won’t return before school starts; does Eric have a message he’d like to pass along?

Eric shakes his head no, sure that they can talk later and he can knock some sense into Jon. He thanks Mrs. Reed and goes back home, smiling to himself and thinking how typical of Jon this is.

Eric watches television with his father that night, but the correspondent across the ocean, going on about casualties and the war in that faraway country in a static voice only annoys him more. At 11:30 he leaves the house again. He climbs up the stepladder that he had climbed a thousand times to get to Jonathan’s window. It’s locked. Eric is confused and annoyed, his brain full of questions and a little bit of anger. He peers through the window. Jon is curled up in his bed, paler than he’s ever seen him. A duffle bag is in the middle of the room, a few articles of clothing thrown in with a toothbrush and pocketknife on top. His books for school are still in a neat pile in front of his bed, just like they were last week and the week before.

Eric knocks on the window and Jonathan twitches, opens his eyes, and stares right into his face. Eric knows that he sees him, he’s sure of it, but Jon closes his eyes again and doesn’t move. Eric leaves, his face blotchy and his ego smashed, but it’s not just that. He has that same feeling he had that time when they were twelve, when he couldn’t differentiate between contempt and sympathy and melancholy.

The next morning, he watches as Jon loads the car with his dad, the bag looking no more full than it did the night before. They drive off down the road, passing houses that all look just the same.

Pages 126 – 127

A story is a story is a story. We sit in a pile in this middle-of-nowhere forest, smack dab in the center of this middle-of-nowhere country and talk about Eric and how he had that friend once and try to put it all together. We remember that he hated the Rolling Stones, remember that once he sleep talked about a girl named Julie whose mouth fit her face just right. Mostly we remember that one time past midnight, sitting around in a pile just like this one, when Eric was on guard. He was talking to himself, prattling on and on. It sounded like one of those giant bugs that call this hell their home– he just wouldn’t stop. Curtis got up and we all watched as he spoke to him, shook him, screamed in his face. No response. Curtis came back, quiet as I’d ever seen him, and we just sat there and listened. We couldn’t stop– it was like one of those radio shows listing deaths from the same war you were in. It was as if these thoughts, these alien ideas and words, had taken over our guy– embodied his whole self– and it was scary but you just couldn’t look away.

He kept yelling “You should have opened the goddamned window, Eric! He just drove off and you never saw him again, you idiot! He got the letter. He got the goddamn letter and you were too stupid to see it. Who goes to college without his books? They were in a pile in his room, Eric.

You messed up so bad. It was Jon in that coffin they brought back the next month. It was Jon! They couldn’t knock on your door to tell you, but it was.”

His whole body was shaking but he was standing there with his eyes on the horizon, still watching. “You died and you didn’t tell me, Jon.” Eric Campbell is dead, but not really. His words are burnt into my brain, play like a broken record every day, every minute. They’re always there.

He’s always there. His friend is always there. I never met him, but he’s always there.

Yael Fisher

Opposite: Yael Fisher, oil

Pages 128 – 129

A Whole New World

The feckless dotterel flies over the ocean longitudinally Abeam a companion in the sky.

He is in a nirvana-like state.

He has no responsibility to ratiocinate.

His whole life is taken in stride.

He basks in the dazzling light.

The two avifauna fly across the zodiacs Which change wonderful pastels.

They sing in adulation Mediating the sky and the ocean.

Like a kaleidoscope You make a turn and see a whole new world.

Leora Nevins Joshua Silverstein, photograph, digitally altered

Pages 130 – 131

The Fifth

T

I Am Ashamed

I can’t stop staring. The train is rattling on, faster and faster as the street numbers increase. The people in this car could make up a classroom, a city, a country. Men and women, stern expressions pulling down their cheeks, blank gazes covered by thick-rimmed glasses. School children, weighed down by heavy backpacks, yet still bouncing from seat to seat, tugging their parents along with them. College kids, faces buried in torn textbooks. The occasional homeless man, an entire row to himself.

At each station, just a few new faces replace those that shuffle out. The number of vacant seats grows until, just a few minutes before I am due to get off, only he and I remain. He was waiting at the same station as I, anxiously looking at his watch. His shoelaces were loosely tied, so that one mis-step might send him falling face-forward. His pants didn’t fit quite right and a smear of an unknown yellow substance dirtied his tie. His briefcase was worn and wrinkled; I knew it was at least ten years old. The tenacity of things, I remember thinking. Also, how could someone leave the house looking like that?

That was before I saw it. We boarded the train and he turned his face to the right, blankly staring at the decrepit buildings and billboards passing in and out of his vision. It wasn’t something you’d notice right away. Someone standing right next to me might not have noticed it at all. But I did. I saw the scar, running from the corner of his eye to the edge of his jaw. An indentation at least two centimeters deep, a dark burgundy color that practically jumped at you against his grey skin.

The color bled out past the gash. And I couldn’t stop staring, as if it were pulling my eyes and would not let go. Suddenly, he looked up. He saw me. After a moment of awkward acknowledgment, he flashed a sad smile. I redden. I looked down. I am ashamed. Why do I judge?

Yael Fisher

Eve Kaufman, photograph Pages 132 – 133

he first was a goldfish I’d won at a carnival back in the days when our town had a carnival, when you could run through front lawns and around street corners until your feet were blistered and grass-stained and you were completely covered in dirt and broken twigs.

I was with Grandpa, who’d taught me how to aim just right, and for weeks I practiced and practiced with grimy milk-cans I’d fished from the basement.

I remember squealing and jumping like a deranged monkey the day the carnival came back, knowing I’d finally get my chance to win. Aim, shoot, throw... 1, 2, 3 and I heard ten stacked jugs clattering to the ground. I felt so grown-up as I hoisted my plastic bag fish prize in the air. “Looks like my little Nattie-tat finally got good enough to beat her old grandpa, huh? Now that just isn’t right.” Grandpa’s outrage was fake and we both knew it, so I laughed in triumph and stuck out a lollypop-stained tongue. He beamed.

“Look, Annie, I won a fish! And Grandpa didn’t even help me throw. I did it all by myself.”

Annie’s black pigtails swayed as she swiveled to stare at the bag clutched in my sweaty fists. Suspicious prodding at the flimsy plastic. “It’s not moving.” She spoke with a slight lisp -- her first tooth had fallen out just a few days earlier and she hadn’t yet gotten used to the emptiness near the front of her mouth.

“Stop that!” I commanded, pulling the bag away before further harm could be done to my prize. “He’s just asleep. He was swimming all around before.”

“Really.” The tone was sarcastic, hands on her hips. This had recently become a favorite position of Annie’s.

“Really!” I huffed back.

“It’s not moving.”

“He’s just asleep.

He was swimming all around before.”

The second was Sue Cooper’s cat who paraded about our lawn every day just to prove that he was boss. He reminded me of my English teacher— crotchety, proud, and with an astounding ability to make ear-splitting chalkboard scratches. That cat was the bane of my childhood and I devoted hours to chasing him around the neighborhood with Annie. I don’t really know why we did it -- chasing cats just had this innate, irresistible appeal.

Just as cats can’t help but chase mice, we couldn’t help but chase that cat.

Sue Cooper, of course, huffed, puffed, shook her chubby wrists and ran after us, braid slamming against her back, and we would laugh and laugh, sprinting too fast for her to catch us. I always felt so satisfied when we, the measly little first graders, could run faster than Sue, who was in third. As the summers and years went by, the cat grew older and fatter until we could catch him almost every time, but he never once stopped pompously strolling around the block.

As the summers and years went by, the cat grew older and fatter until we could catch him almost every time…

“Hey Nat, let’s go get him. Five bucks says I can catch him before we get to Mr. Anderson’s.” Annie’s voice was eager.

I snorted. “Not even you’re that fast. Besides, if you run too quickly you’ll trip over that huge crack they’re too lazy to fix in front of Emily’s.”

“Four-time track champion at Heatherstone Middle School says otherwise,” she bragged. That flinty light in her eyes was not a good sign.

“Yeah, where your toughest competitors are that pudgy kid in Ms. Marks’ class who fakes his way out of gym and Karen, who’s only fast when she’s not tripping over her own shoelaces.”

“Your point?” Annie answered impatiently, “You gonna take my bet or not?”

“Fine,” came my weary response. “Just try not to trip, OK? If you crash into the sidewalk and die it’s not going to be my fault.”

“You’re not coming?”

“Nah, not today. I’m kind of tired, I guess.”

Pages 134 – 135

“But Nat, it won’t be nearly as much fun without you. This is our thing, just the two of us.”

“No,” I repeated more firmly, “I’m sorry but I just -- maybe another time, okay?”

Annie turned her head back to me, a slight pout on her lips. I opened my mouth to continue, but she was already off -- kicking up dust and gravel as Sue’s cat leapt away with a yowl that sounded suspiciously like his owner’s.

I twisted a few blades of grass that were caught beneath my fingers and stared for a moment at the gray-blue summer sky. Annie was fading off into the distance, and her stomps combined with the cat’s yowls until I couldn’t tell the difference between them. I’d known Annie ever since we were three, having pre-arranged play dates that our parents used as an excuse to drink coffee and gossip. I was used to her antics by now, to the way she’d swagger into a room, expecting all eyes to immediately veer in her direction.

She seemed larger than her 5”3 frame most of the time, almost as if it couldn’t contain the fierce intensity with which she approached everything she decided was important. Like that one time in lower school when our teacher happily announced that we would be making Mother’s Day cards.

Most of the class mimicked the teacher, snatching a handful of crayons and folding their favorite shade of construction paper into a square with clean

Dylan Ades, collograph

edges. Annie glued five sheets into a psychedelic, three-dimensional structure that put everyone else’s to shame.

As she gazed at her conglomeration of scraps and sequins, I remember noticing how, despite the relative colorlessness of her gray eyes, they were even more kaleidoscopic than her card. On days like those I’d look at how she filled the space around her, the way we’d learned gasses do in chemistry, while I was a block of graphite trying vainly to sublimate.

She came back heaving. “And?” I inquired.

“The Rogers’,” she gasped.

“Well, you were close. That’s, what, two houses past?”

“It’s not me. That fat cat is getting old. You’d think he’d learn to keep away from us by now… how long’s it been? Seven years since we started?”

“Yeah,” I murmured, wondering how we’d gotten so old along with him.

The third was Grandpa. It had been a year coming, what with heart failure and lung failure and all the good old stuff that comes with being a senior citizen. That year was a hard one, not just because Grandpa was in and out of the hospital constantly but also because Annie and I had just started high school. It was colder and cleaner than middle school, with these horrifying, light green accent walls and shadowy, foreboding rows of tall gray lockers.

Joshua Silverstein, photograph, digitally altered Pages 136 – 137

Annie had made friends with a crowd of artsy hipster kids, though, while my friends were the quiet bookish nerds. It wasn’t like in the movies where she cruelly ditched me, the helpless protagonist, for a group of sadistic vipers masquerading as high school teens. We were both happy with our new friends, and still saw each other after school and in some classes -- but she didn’t feel like an integral part of my life anymore and I didn’t feel like much to her either. I wondered if I was destined to be a short paragraph, sort of a childhood best friend afterthought, in her “explosive” autobiography (that’s what she always answered whenever anyone asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. Explosive. “Or a unicorn, if that doesn’t work out,” she’d add as an afterthought).

But none of my new friends knew me the way she did, and whenever I’d bring up Grandpa they’d say, “I’m sorry, that really sucks...” and trail off awkwardly, with the best of intentions, but not a clue how to reassure me.

I remember visits to the hospital, the walls of which were painted almost the exact same green as in my school. “It’s my body that’ll be the death of me,” Grandpa used to tell me, and just about everyone else, “but I’m never givin’ up my brains. Never.” Grandpa used to talk a lot, and he had this lilt that he’d add to the end of every sentence, his voice would get just the tiniest bit deeper. As a kid I’d ask him over and over again to repeat sentences, words, phrases that caught my attention just so I could hear his voice. By the end, though, he could barely talk-- he’d just sit, oxygen tank beeping, rest his worn old hand on mine, so much smaller than it had seemed when my fingers were mud-pies and chalk stains and he would teach me how to aim a stone at some raggedy bottles.

“Nattie. Nattie-tat.” he rasped, one week and two days before the end.

“Don’t try to talk, you’ll just wear yourself out, the doctor said rest and--” A squeeze to my hand, almost too weak to properly feel.

“What’s the point if-- I can’t-- damn this body-- wearing out too fast for-- my brain-- just want to say-- Love you, Natalie.”

“I love you too,” I whispered ferociously, “I love you I love you Iloveyou Iloveyou I…” “Hey Annie?” my voice was quiet, reserved, lonely.

“Yeah?” her voice matched mine in tone.

“Do we have to go to the funeral?”

“Do we have to go to the funeral?”

“Your parents would kill us if we ditched.”

“I don’t care.”

“Mine would too. Like that time we skipped gym to dye streaks in my hair and of course it was the one day Mr. Sloan decided to check attendance?”

Her smile wasn’t sarcastic, just melancholy, although I couldn’t tell if it was due to nostalgia or sympathy. Her voice was hesitant, small.

“I don’t care anymore. I just want to stay here and-- I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“We could run away. Steal Mr. Anderson’s truck, it’s not like he uses it any more and I can drive okay.”

“Okay? If you count crashing into every stop sign on the road okay, then yeah. Sure you can.”

Bolstered by my sarcasm, she kept the narrative going, “We can finally use that extra can of disgusting yellow paint your mom bought for the kitchen and then didn’t use, I mean it’s disgusting but it’s sure better than all the scratches and bird crap and God knows what else that’s ruined his paint job… we can splatter it completely or paint over everything or hell, polka dot the thing.”

“And glue sparkles on, of course,” I added. Annie had a thing for sparkles.

“Yeah, of course. We’ll have the coolest ride in town. We can drive out of here, anywhere, just drive and look at the scenery which will probably be mostly trees and road but we can find a guidebook and pretend we care about whatever it says...”

We sat there all day, out in the grass. My parents didn’t even bother arguing for me to come. I think they just figured I’d show up eventually, but better just to listen to Annie prattle on about all the places we would drive -as long as I concentrated on the story I could pretend the past months hadn’t happened. I drank in her voice like a dying man, don’t think of that, no one’s dying anymore we’re just living and driving to Yellowstone and Arizona and LA and New York and maybe one day to Europe or Africa with Mr. Anderson’s splattered glittering yellow mess of a truck.

“Hey Annie?”

“Yeah?” “...Nevermind.”

“No, what is it?”

“It’s nothing. Really.”

Jonathan Mack, photograph Pages 138 – 139

The fourth was Annie’s car -- a tiny, rust-red and heavily dented scrap that we rescued from an abusive owner off Craigslist. It was the summer after senior year, when graduation robes had started to lose their luster amidst piles of old clothes and closet mold. Our friend groups had mostly merged by the time graduation came around. Turns out hipsters and nerds are more compatible than you’d think and the result was that during graduation, we were all staining each other’s robes dark blue with tears. “We’ll keep in touch, we’ve got to,” we affirmed at least five or ten times throughout the ceremony. I wondered how many of them meant it, how many would go to college and immediately bond with their dormmates; how many would respond to messages with an obligatory “hi, what’s up?” before letting the conversation trail away into nothingness. I thought Annie would try for a little while, before getting caught up in more extracurriculars than she could reasonably handle and spending every free moment partying with new college friends. I was determined, though, to at least make the most of the summer we had left together.

Almost as though she’d read my mind, about a week into the summer she showed up at my doorstep with yellow paint, golden glitter, and a sarcastic smile. We would go crazy, she declared, and spend every minute we could exploring the hell out of the town we were about to abandon. Annie had gotten better at driving, thank God, but the car still amassed several more dents and the yellow paint started to peel and clump like oatmeal. We covered it up with more glitter, and when the neighbors started complaining about the specks of shimmering gold that persistently found their way to lawns, concrete, and small children, Annie just smiled and changed the sparkles to silver.

“Hey, Dad?” my voice was small.

“Yeah, Nat?” his voice deep but subdued.

“You know how I wasn’t gonna get a car for college because they’re expensive and I can just take the train from here or borrow your car if I really need to?”

“Yeah,” he responded.

“Well… I was just thinking,” the words spilled out in a rush, “I was just thinking that I know I don’t really need one or anything but Matt, you know Matt, he lives a few blocks down, younger sister used to go to my school…”

He nodded, “I know them, yeah.”

“Well, Matt’s planning on getting a new car and he said he’d sell me the old one for cheap, I’m broke but I could pay you or Mom back once I get

a job…It’s just that it’s this gorgeous shade of blue that would look perfect with-- with some glitter…”

My dad’s eyes were a light gray, piercing, glassy, but not at all flinty like Annie’s. They studied my face for a moment before his gaze broke off and he said, “Yes. Yes of course, sweetheart.”

I remember the first conversation, the hardest one. The scariest. It was one of those balmy, lazy summer days when it takes the amount of energy usually spent running a marathon just to get out of bed. I was lounging on a beanbag when I first heard the kitchen phone echoing through our apartment, but it was already on its sixth ring by the time I reached the receiver.

“Hi, Mrs. Barron? Yeah, this is Nat. Can I do anything for you?” I remember noticing that her usually bouncy tone sounded shakier than usual, but not wanting to ask if anything was wrong. While I’d known Jill Barron for most of my life, we’d never really been on personal terms.

“I-- what? Oh God, is she in the hospital? How badly is she hurt?” It was like a scene out of a movie. I wasn’t holding any fragile silverware, but if I were I felt sure that it would be on the floor in pieces.

“Where are you? Yeah, I know I’m not a part of Annie’s family but you said that-- just let me talk to them. The doctors, the police. Please?”

Jonathan Mack, photograph

I think my voice broke then, but it’s hard to remember very much of what happened. Strange how sometimes, when I think about that day, I feel like I’m right back in the cushioned kitchen chair with the wobbly leg and can almost feel the phone pressing against my hand. But when I try to remember what came later - the drive to Mayview Hospital, discussions with the doctors and the police and Mrs. Barron - all that I can see are fragments.

“It was just an instant…They wouldn’t have had time to suffer…crashed directly into the windshield…” Just like in the movies. The policemen, the hospital staff, they were mechanical, almost, repeating the same lines over and over again. But how can they really know what Annie would have felt, what she would have experienced, seeing a giant truck barreling towards her in the rearview mirror, maybe trying to swerve but realizing that it was already too late. I wonder if she came to terms with her death in the split seconds she had. I wonder whether she had any regrets, whether she wished she could have spent more time with her friends, her family. With me.

Sometimes I could almost see the crash -- glass cracking and crashing to the ground like rain, the car a can of Coke that some teenager had squeezed into a fist and flung carelessly at the ground. Annie bent with her head through the windshield, surrounded by red blood and red metal and silver glitter. The sun was always high when I pictured the scene in my head. I bet it reflected off the glass and the sparkles, making it look luminescent, surreal. I asked the policemen. They said they got there a few hours after it happened, and anyway it was probably after the sun had already set, but I couldn’t shake the vivid glow whenever I visualized the crash.

The sky on the day of the funeral was the same gray-blue it had always been during the days when we’d chase Sue Cooper’s cat across the neighborhood. I could even hear the muted shrieks of children in the distance -maybe they were out chasing pets of their own or winning toys at makeshift carnivals. As I heard their delight, imagining them trampling past sundamaged furniture and vivid flowers, I suddenly had the strange urge to ditch the service.

No, I decided, I couldn’t do that to the Barrons. And I wasn’t sure I could do it to myself anymore, either.

Heila Precel

Jonathan Mack, photograph Pages 140 – 141

No Stop Rushing.

Running.

No stop—an endless stream of people.

Boys smelling of too much cologne: maybe today they’ll get their big break.

Women bent down by life: they carry too many babies and not enough dreams.

Little girls scrubbed clean: innocent and naïve they skip to school.

Old men limping and tired yet they still must drag themselves along.

Different.

They come from different homes backgrounds perspectives Lives.

Yet they flow together, Becoming one.

STOP. I want to scream– throw up my hands.

They rush past: lemonade on sunny days, mountains illuminated by moonlight, fresh footprints in crisp, freshly fallen snow, buds just beginning to open.

Joshua Silverstein, photograph, digitally altered Next page: Grace Gilbert, acrylic Pages 142 – 143

Dashing, they miss: exchanging vows, holding babies for the first time, children nervously entering classrooms.

Hurrying, they skip over: long nights laughing with friends over nothing, mornings bursting with pancakes and sticky fingers, lazy afternoons lying in the grass finding shapes in clouds.

I throw myself in their path STOP!

Mikaela Gerwin

Come walk with us– we walk together.