Incite Magazine – April 2018

incite VOLUME 20 ISSUE 3

CO L O UR

Colour is forever tied to human experience. We think of colour as an identity, a means of recognizing locations, professions, institutions, and more. When we turn to nature, the seasons paint an everchanging landscape. Spring showers caress the naked greens of new life until the summer sun shines its sweltering yellow. Autumn’s mosaic of lush tones soon disappears by winter’s blanket of white. We automatically pair colours with emotions – red with anger, blue with sadness, and yellow with fear. As saturated hues speak to instances of passion, pastel shades cultivate a sense of hope and moderation.

Most poignant, perhaps, is colour as a celebration of our individual differences. It is the diversity in our personal histories that makes for stories to tell in art.

We’re often instructed to live a colourful life, envisioning a life marked by brilliance in every endeavour. If colour breathes life into our experiences, then the lack thereof is logically equated with decay. Thus, some may avoid the seemingly lifeless nature of a greyscale reality. Why, then, are black and white photographs tinged with an endearing timelessness? Why do graphite drawings communicate a supremely raw message? What we forget is that these monochrome images house just as much vitality. Maybe we should forgo this pursuit of only the most vibrant, most fantastic experiences and appreciate every moment for what it’s worth.

Volume 20 has been a process. This year Incite aimed to deviate from tradition and start anew.

We initially grappled with moving on from elements of the past, but as we slowly progressed, we streamlined our creative vision and carved a path of our own. We figured out what worked for us and redefined who we were. We ultimately settled into our polished direction, and hope to pass this vigour onto future volumes. Colour is the final installment of our three-issue narrative detailing the passage of self-discovery. It began with Burn – an adieu to the past in welcome of the present. New beginnings come with new challenges, and from experience we learn to navigate tough times. With Again, we repeated our best practices to pursue our goals; we generated countless opportunities because of our insistence on improvement. Now, through Colour, we’ve come to terms with the identity we’ve built for ourselves and achieved clarity. We at Incite hope that this narrative resonates with you as much as it has with us.

This year would not have been possible without our dedicated team of layout editors, art managers, content editors, and communications crew. Each and every one of you has been integral to the magazine’s production. To our contributors, you stand testament to the diverse talents the university has to offer. Many thanks to the McMaster Students Union, McMaster Museum of Art, and other campus organizations for their endless support of our journey. Finally, we thank you, the reader, for having this arts-focused dialogue with us. We hope to continue fostering a creative community for self-expression.

Here’s wishing you the bluest of skies in your days to come. x

Stay creative,

Matthew Lam Editor-in-Chief (Creative & Production) 2017–18

CONTENTS

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ART Incite Contributors STAFF STORIES: COLOURS COLOUR TV, COMMITMENT, AND COFFEE Evra Ali RASPBERRY TWILIGHT Suzany Manimaran 1947 Kashyap Patel OCEAN BLUE. Jhanahan Sriranjan NOW Bavmeet Kaloti THE HUMAN CONDITION Alicia Maya INTO THE DEEP Catherine Hu ART Emily Siskos ART David Shin & Michelle Chau “BLUE” Tali Fedorovsky THE ROSEWOOD BOOKSTAND Virginia Ford-Roy ART Ayo Yusuf SYNESTHESIA Manveer Kalirai ART Brandon Ng & Casey Li EYE STRAIN Coby Zucker THE REASON THE SKY IS BLUE Valerie Luetke COLOUR BLIND Sameera Singh AN EVOLUTION IN GOLD Suffia Malik YOUR JOURNEY Angela Dong DEATH BE A LADY Srikripa Krishna Prasad ART Matthew Lam LOOSE FRAGMENTS Tiffany Tse BEAUTY Simrit Saini 45 UNIVERSITY PRIVATE Emily Meilleur-Rivers PLANETARY COMMOTION Aranya Iyer NUMBERS AND LINES: THE TRUE EXISTENTIAL DEBATE Nicholas Schmid NOT JUST A NUMBER Takhliq Amir MAID OF MIRRORS Michelle Yao ART Susanna Chen MISSING BLUE Katelyn Johnstone CHAMELEON AND THE ROSE Grace Kang SHADES OF THE COTTAGE Mackenzie Green DUALITY OVER DEMOCRACY Neda Pirouzmand ART Josh Ravenhill PERPETUALLY STUCK IN TWILIGHT Grace MacAskill OUTSIDE OF ST. JOE’S WINDOWS Megan Babiski PATTERNS OF PURPOSE Jane Lee ART Matilda Kim & Anqi Wu

ART by INCITE CONTRIBUTORS AT THE “AGAIN” LAUNCH PARTY PHOTOGRAPHED by MATILDA KIM COLOUR

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CARISSA SIU

COLOURS

ART MANAGER

THERESA ORSINI

I did a BuzzFeed quiz to find out which colour best represents me, and I got hot pink. I hate hot pink. x

ART MANAGER My favourite colour is red because it represents all of the heightened emotions one can feel—energy, passion, anger, love, sorrow, and death. Red is life giving, whether it be a red rose about to bloom, or a red sunrise early in the morning. It is all the possibilities and joys of life in a single colour. x

YU FEI XIA CONTENT EDITOR When I think of the colours of my life, blue often comes to mind. In grade three, it was my second favourite gel pen (baby pink, then baby blue). It was the vast night sky during my first blackout, dark with an eclipsed moon. It glows from the screen in the rolling landscapes of Miyazaki movies. It melds into the smell of chlorine from dozens of swimming pools indoors and outdoors, at summer camps and waterparks since closed. It is the widest ocean surrounding cruise ships. It rises tall with snowy mountain peaks which blur against the sky on a windy day. It is the sensation of goosebumps while slipping into a backyard hot tub with friends on a chilly summer evening. Blue marks the track lines beneath the ice of my community skating rink. It makes up the cloth of my pencil case and the plastic of my house slippers. It the fuzziness of my mom’s sweater. x

HARRY KRAHN

MATILDA KIM PHOTOGRAPHER One of my favorite colors is mustard yellow because it was the color of my favorite cardigan from high school.

I wore it so often, it became something I was known for amongst my friends. Beyond that, I think it also represents a stage in my life and who I was in high school because it was a color that I thought was unique and trendy but also artsy – which was what I wanted to be. I was hesitant at first to buy the cardigan since it was such a bright color (and super expensive). It was kind of fateful, though, because my mom bought it for me for Christmas, without even knowing I wanted it. The fact that my mom thought it was a color that would look good on me surprised me but also gave me confidence. Even though it was a difficult color to style and wear, it became easier the more I tried. I feel like wearing the cardigan made me stand out and helped me become the person I wanted to be in high school. x

ALI DECATA ART DIRECTOR The shade of blue where the sky meets the ocean — you know, the one that’s not quite turquoise but brighter than the baby blue in most nurseries. When I was in grade two I discovered my love for seascapes and have been obsessed with finding the perfect colour blue ever since. x

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF (CONTENT) My family used to have a 2002 Honda Odyssey. It was a hideous car painted a deep and beautiful green. A family friend christened it The Big Pickle. I remember vividly the velvet-ish synthetic fabric seats, the trapezoidal headrests, the plastic steering wheel. It was not a comfortable car. We drove all the way to Edmonton, to Chicago, to Newfoundland and back in it. When I was young I would pretend that I was packing supplies in a spaceship when we were getting ready for those long trips. On the road, I would crane my neck from the back so I could watch over my siblings’ shoulders as they played their Game Boys in the middle seats. The thing was ancient when it finally died. I turned it off as I was dropping off some friends and it never restarted. x

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EMILY MEILLEUR-RIVERS CONTENT EDITOR My favourite colour is the yellow of New York City taxis.

This was true before I ever visited New York; yellow has been growing on me for a while now. Being in a city for three days where your favourite colour is everywhere only adds to its charm, I think. It’s the colour of endless horn honking and of a city that never sleeps. It’s the colour of awestruck gazes out the window as they wind through the traffic. It’s the colour of a million sunflowers, bowing slightly in the wind. It makes you feel like a stranger and like you’re at home all at once. x

COLOUR TV, COMMITMENT, AND COFFEE WORDS AND ART by EVRA ALI

I have five chicken fingers and they’re all stubby marshmallows.

The remote lies in the palm of my tree, its buttons oily and characters faded. Colour TV was invented in the 1940s, but wasn’t commercially viable until a decade later. Love was invented in the 2000s when we ran so fast we couldn’t breathe and you called my name when he hurt you; I regret not standing up to him. I regret not doing anything to make it stop. Please understand that I cannot fathom the pain and bravery it takes to be second rate to your parents’ addiction, but know that I will always be here for you to recline into like a broken lawn chair. If you could go back in time and hold yourself as a baby, would you laugh or cry? Who am I in this? I pause the movie and wander over to the balcony. I call my boyfriend of some time on the phone to tell him I’M SCARED of falling. I say this while dangling a toe over the rail for dramatic effect. I define irony as this: me wearing a Billy Rae Cyrus shirt. I’m not like this in real life, I’m a lot more emotional. I’m not emotional in real life, I’m a lot more Billy Rae. A word of advice: slap his hand away when he tries to hold yours in public. We can’t permit that hetero, cookie-cutter interracial, pop culture dream to be satisfied, now can we? I don’t drink coffee because I know it’s addicting. I eat donuts knowing I’m addicted. I like consensus decision-making, so: does anyone have any concerns? x

COLOUR

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Raspberry Twilight ART by NIKOO AGHAEI WORDS by SUZANY MANIMARAN

We sit on the curb of a cul-de-sac on Mavis Street in sweltering hot July. / Working through a pack of Marlboros, we watch the sun sink down below the horizon—an angry vermillion circle against the soft lilac-pink sky./ The clouds are grey like the puffs of smoke you exhale through cherry-glossed lips. / You pass me a half-burnt cigarette, stained peach-red, and for a second your hands graze mine.

It doesn’t have to be more than this. / More than two girls with clumsy hands turning silence into an art form./ Painting with brush strokes of words better left unsaid, / chain smoking under cotton candy skies, / keeping unholy secrets in empty light. / But as the sun sinks down into the horizon and night turns blue, / and we are smoking Fiberglass filters under an ocean dark sky, / I swallow my heart once again / and let my rose-tinted thoughts sink into the dark with raspberry twilight. x

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1 9 4 7 Look closely at my coloured skin, See the vast riches in the brown, Witness a spirit struggling within, With hatred for the false Crown.

Fear the ancient rage churning, In my heart for your callous kin, Fear my mind’s inferno burning, To avenge your countless sins.

Eras of culture, you uprooted, And threw carelessly to the fire, Millions of villages, you looted, And threw ruthlessly to the pyre.

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So fear us as we come for you, We are the Children of the Ashes, So run from us as we chase you, Run from our fire and our lashes.

We are Patel, we are Tilak, We are Rai, we are Lahiri, We are Pandey, we are Azad, We are Bose, we are Shastri. x ART by IMASHA PERERA WORDS by K ASHYAP PATEL

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OC EAN B LU E .

WORDS by JHANAHAN SRIRANJAN ART by CARISSA SIU

He stands on the edge of the cliff, Staring out at the ocean blue.

Diamonds dance across the waves, Reflections of the midnight sky.

On the horizon, the world splits, Two shades of navy, mirrored in one another.

Unyielding in their boundaries, An act of rebellion between two brothers.

Therein lies the gate to his kingdom, At the edge of two worlds, a welcoming abyss.

It has been far too long, he is finally home.

He begins his descent to the beach below, A final interface between both worlds.

The midnight tide is calling to him, Beckoning him forth to take his throne.

Black sands come to life below his feet, Swirling around his limbs, locking him in their embrace.

The ice around his heart begins to melt, he is finally home.

A whisper sweeps across the beach, As he places his trident in the sand.

His vulnerability permeates the silence; Not even he is free from judgment.

The froth, once calm, begins to boil, Shockingly white against obsidian sands.

Cerulean waves begin to stir, Swells of excitement rising from their slumber.

A warm glow pierces the rush of water, Illuminated in stains of bright green and yellow.

The sea has declared its verdict, he is worthy.

He steps forward into the deep, his body disappearing beneath the cool, indigo waters.

The light from above begins to dim, Overpowered by the wavelengths of emptiness.

At this depth, the ocean blends into just two hues — Light and dark, warm and cold.

But despite his blindness, on he continues.

He is finally home. x

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now

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ART by ALI DECATA WORDS by BAVMEET K ALOTI

Now, most days he is beige. Slumber pulls him back down into its grasps and the bed swallows him whole. His legs are anchors and his arms are lead.

Most days, the world moves and his head is too heavy to follow.

There are days in between when all he is, all he sees, all he dreams of is red, red, red.

His cheeks stay dry, like a river flooded by land.

He is cracked, empty spaces in layers of dirt. Most days he stays empty. Some days he fills with lava.

His home is like a Jenga tower someone took one too many blocks out of, teetering on the edge of collapse. The pieces lie littered at his feet in his dreams. They were pulled out by a young man he names “Under the Influence” in his head, because that’s all he’s heard in court, on the news, in the papers. He sees the heavy, guilty stare of a college frat boy who will eventually move on, will never feel his home go from laughter to creaks in the attic. He wonders if there is another, braver man, that could continue to face the world and step back into its steady rhythm after watching cities of happiness turn to rubble. He wonders if the boy walks the abandoned streets and hears the glass crunch under the rubber soles of his shoes.

When the lava rises, he is a red beam on the face of a terrified young boy in the driver’s seat of a family minivan. He is shaking fingers around a bottleneck and bile under the porch swing under the full moon.

He is the ghost of nine to five, weekends at the lake, little ponytails, and the smiling kisses of ruby red lips.

He is everything torn down to echoes. x

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WORDS AND ART by ALICIA MAYA

T HE

The human body; a rhythmic machine guiding blood through the system of veins that lie beneath your skin, allowing air to expand your lungs and for your diaphragm to relax and contract, for every second that the sky supplies your breath, your vessel of vitality wills for your existence.

Your heart; contracting sixty times a minute, does not acknowledge the details of your appearance that you dissect in your low hung bathroom mirror.

Your arteries; The continuous system of connections carrying blood to your five vital organs, do not have an opinion on the clothing you choose in the morning or the excess weight that drapes over your jeans when you take a seat.

Your brain; the organ inspiring the course of your journey is not a vehicle for judgment, as the body you inhabit is not a mindless machine, its purpose being to accompany you unconditionally.

C OND IT IO N

HUMAN

Your life; laced with shades more vibrant than the blood coursing through your veins is worth more than what is presented on the surface, the constellation of acne on your cheeks the cellulite that hugs your sides the darkened curves underneath your eyes and the stutter that succeeds every second word you speak are not detrimental to your being.

Your body; the outward projection of your essence and the force that brings life to your soul is worthy of admiration, the imperfections you emphasize are worthy of affection and pride, they deserve to be coloured in bold reds, yellows, and blues as an act of defiance to the thoughts that deemed them less than beautiful, as a projection of love to the body that has adapted with the tribulations fought by your perseverance.

So, before the world takes in your confidence with awe, place your brush in your palm and cover your body with the vibrancy of self love. x

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ART by JASMYNE SMITH WORDS by CATHERINE HU

INTO THE DEEP Andy’s earliest childhood memory is of a sea of stars.

Wide-eyed, her four-year-old self presses a palm to the cold glass and peers into the vastness of space on the other side. In the darkness burn soft pinpricks of light, steady, scattered, and serene in the emptiness that surrounds them.

“Beautiful, isn’t it,” Andy’s mother murmurs as she hoists Andy higher in her arms. “I swear, I could get lost in it forever.”

In that moment, the spaceship in which Andy has spent her young life so far feels incredibly small. And yet, as her mother places a hand on top of hers against the glass, Andy does not feel afraid.

— “Hey. Wake up. We’re here.”

The cruiser shuddered as it docked against the spaceport, and Andy jolted awake. Cass was already up and gathering their luggage, checking their seats for anything they’d forgotten. The two of them exited to the main terminal, where they slowed to a stop by a bank of windows allowing a look down at the planet below.

The first glimpse Andy ever got of her mother’s home planet was a curving expanse of blue—immense, cobalt plains of the open ocean, dappled with cloud, close enough to fill the entire field of view. Cass swallowed hard, and Andy debated reaching out to hold her hand. It was their first time seeing Earth with their own two eyes. As they gazed upon the planet their mother and all of humankind before her had called home, Andy let herself be filled by the strange bubble of emotion she’d kept down the whole journey, a ripple of sadness she vaguely recognized as a misplaced sense of nostalgia.

“Home, but not quite home,” Cass muttered beside her.

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s weird, you know. With the way Mom used to talk about it, I always imagined it to be a lot smaller.”

A shuttle, a local train, and a taxi took them to the seaside town where their mother grew up before nightfall. After settling

into their hotel, the first thing Cass did was video call her family. Andy curled up beside her to tease and crack jokes that had Cass kicking her in the shin, and watched the stress ease from her sister’s face as her niece and nephew’s laughter filled the hotel room. Cass hated being gone from her kids; even with the fastest interstellar cruisers, Earth was a long way from where either Cass or Andy lived. (“Hey, isn’t it messed up how even in death she wanted to be as far from us as possible?”

“Shut up, Andy.”)

Andy went out to the balcony to give them some time alone.

She couldn’t see the water from their hotel, but she could feel the ocean breeze against her face. The smell of it was light and tangy, foreign, and free.

— The last time Andy saw her mother alive and healthy was at Cass’s home over the holidays. The cancer had been diagnosed by then, hot blooms of light in scans of her bones and brain, but her mother continued regardless. There was work to be done, new systems to explore, great tracts of the dark and lonely emptiness to traverse. It was a year and half long expedition this time, to a fresh patch of galaxy just beyond the current frontier. Those were her mother’s words: fresh and untouched, a new sliver of the universe for her eyes alone before the rest of humanity followed soon after.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That was one of her mother’s favourite phrases. From stardust we were born, and to stardust we will eventually return. Andy remembered those words as she watched her mother pore over maps and calculations on the kitchen table, and wondered if she even intended to make it back.

“I don’t know why you’re doing this to yourself,” Andy said from where she stood watching. “Actually, I do know why you’re doing this to yourself. I don’t know why you’re doing this to Cass, or to me.” >>

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Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. That was one of her mother’s favourite phrases. From stardust we were born, and to stardust we will eventually return.

“Don’t be dramatic, Andy.” Her mother barely glanced up. “I’ve been on longer trips before.”

“I know. I remember.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The proble—Christ, listen to yourself.

The problem is there’s no way you’re surviving the whole trip.” At this, her mother finally paused.

“Have some faith. I don’t plan for this to be the one time I fail to return home.”

Her mother didn’t die in space. Andy saw her again two years later, already bedridden. Six months later she was dead. Returned to the ashes, with one last journey to make.

— In the morning they went to the docks and arranged a boat to take them out to open sea. It was a beautiful spring day, with not a cloud in the sky. The boat took them far from land, until all they could see was the dark waters surrounding them and the clean sky arcing above.

“This’ll do,” Cass called out to the captain. The captain cut the engine, and all was quiet. Cass dug their mother’s urn out of her satchel.

“We should do it together,” Cass said, and so Andy placed her hands on the urn too, but for a while neither did or said anything more.

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“You ready?” she finally said, softly, carefully. Cass nodded.

“Yeah. I’m ready. Let’s just get this done.”

Together, they leaned over and placed the urn in the water. Andy took one hand off and placed it on her sister’s back to keep her from falling. They watched in silence as the urn floated peacefully among the waves. Eventually Cass went back into the cabin.

Alone on the deck, Andy imagined what the sea must look like at night.

She imagined a younger version of her mother, standing on the beach or a boat much like this, eyes sweeping across the bottomless night sky and its reflection in the ocean below. She imagined her gazing like so many before her at the stars which seemed so far away, but may one day be within her reach. She imagined her mother feeling small but not afraid.

Andy realized with a start that she was crying, and raised her shaking hands to wipe the tears off her face. Her cheeks now dry, she turned to rejoin her sister in the cabin.

— The boat leaves, and the urn gradually dips below the waves. Slowly, the urn sinks away from the sunlight into the blue watery depths, air bubbles glittering like so many stars in its wake. x

ART by EMILY SISKOS

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ART by DAVID SHIN (LEFT) & MICHELLE CHAU (RIGHT)

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“ BL UE” ART by ALI DECATA WORDS by TALI FEDOROVSKY

When we first met You were blue, Cool like the moon And I Wanted to Light a fire in you, Bright red and Sharp orange hues.

Watch the flame Dance in your eyes And see the life Your light ignites.

To grow your grass A little greener To make your skies A little clearer.

And our love— It was like watercolour.

You add a bit of fuel And it spread like wildfire, Like it knew no boundaries Like it was boundless

But in kindergarten, Our teachers told us To colour within the lines And in high school We learned the term, “Starving artist.”

Despite all that, I stalked my brush As it filled your canvas.

Lost myself painting Over battered boundaries Until my palette Had run dry.

You were Mr. Blue, And I fell for you, And I bled for you Beautiful colours, But now I bleed In grey dilute. x

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The Rosewood Bookstand ART by CARISSA SIU WORDS by VIRGINIA FORD-ROY

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The fay within the trees noticed his blade. Knowing the ax for what it was, they wept, causing the trees to shudder and their leaves to tremble. In whispering voices, they tried to will him away.

There was once a traveling artisan who sold his craft made from the finest of trees. One day, while in search of an exotic wood on a foreign island inhabited by creatures seldom seen by man, he found himself under the spell of a canopy of greenlighted leaves. They enveloped him, hugged him, and lifted his spirits with their sweet, soothing fragrance.

The fairies rooted within the forest curiously watched him walk between the massive trunks; they watched as he gently caressed the mossy green body, as his eyes roamed over the smooth and grainy texture of their wood.

The scent reminded him of his mother’s wild English garden full of vibrant reds and oranges, splashing yellows and whites with sprinkles of blue. In the center of this woodland, the thickest green-covered tree captivated him. He could feel it calling to him, its whispering songs teasing him. He knew it would yield a richly darkened texture at its core.

The fay within the trees noticed his blade. Knowing the ax for what it was, they wept, causing the trees to shudder and their leaves to tremble. In whispering voices, they tried to will him away.

With flutters tickling within his chest, he took to chopping down the colossal tree, the one whose leaves danced the most for him. Chips of bright red wood littered the shadowy forest floor. He spent the next several weeks using the timber to build a pair of elegant but sturdy end tables, a bookshelf, and a bookstand fit for nobility. He lit the remaining wood aflame and watched the bright reds, oranges, and hints of blues flicker to warm himself on crisp nights.

The faeries didn’t know what he built; they only knew he felled one of their own. They had waited and watched from

other surrounding trees while the wood-maker crafted, spellbound in his attention. Their tears rained down on him from high above in an attempt to douse the flames that engulfed their beloved ancient one. When the man finished, they descended into the crafted wood and nestled where its fading red-glows beckoned them. Waiting to cast their spell, they slipped deeper inside the now swirling deep purples and reds and near black hues. The wood absorbed them, and the bottom shelf stretched around them to make space for their secret place.

Finally, back in his British homeland, the carpenter easily sold the one-of-a-kind woodwork to an affluent young Englishman. “For my bride,” the man had said. His reverence for the craftsmanship was visible while his fingers traced the light etchings carved into the wood.

The faeries quivered, repulsed when they saw this new man delighting in their stolen hallowed essence.

He savoured the fragrance, a sweet aroma cocooning the wood, the scent of the fresh cuts captured long after the last stroke of varnish. “She’s an enthusiastic reader, a collector of books,” he said of his young wife. The groom envisioned his wife excitedly filling the bookshelf with her tomes, each end table fitted with lamps twinning large reading chairs. Between them, her delicate leather-bound collections would rest atop the Victorian-esque rosewood bookstand. “This will go in her private library.”

The fay-folk plotted, sneering in contempt. They seethed when the oil-infused light blazed above the tables that were once boughs. Anger fuelled them, brightening the red wood where leather bindings trespassed, unwanted. >>

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After the gentlewoman gleefully decorated the end tables with silver lamps and adorned the shelves and bookstand with her cherished books, she stood back admiring the display.

The drifter had cut into their energy for the splendid beauty hidden within the rosewood tree. “They will learn to have their ears clean, their eyes wide, and their spirits open,” the faeries incensed. “Until they do, their words will billow through the covers and pages, mixing and bleeding like the whirling colours of our life force.” The lines of the rich red swirls pulsed through the wood where the faeries hid. They cast a messy curse on whatever rested upon its shelves. Its effects would forever torment the reader.

The next morning in her library, the young wife glided into the room on slippered feet. She sat in the chair closest to the window where the rising sun showered brightly through. Scooping a book from the top shelf of her new bookstand, the woman slid her fingers to the cloth page-marker, and opened the book. After several long moments of confusion, thumbing through the pages and squinting, she fumbled and grabbed for another book. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she began to see the impossibly unimaginable appear in her precious volumes. All the blackened words from all the books in her bookstand had danced and skipped through the adored brown-leather bound jackets. The words were no longer eloquently woven together. No longer did the sentences flow with flowered imagery. No longer could their tales be read and reread.

For the fay, it was just the way it should be. The black inked-lines were no longer read from left to right, were no longer lined and orderly on the white pages. Instead, the faeries made the woman’s coveted words dance through leafs and between covers. They made the letters swirl in spirals and thicken on top of each other in blotches to resemble grains of wood — eyes staring back. And the faeries had only just begun. x

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ART by AYO YUSUF

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SYN ESTHESIA WORDS AND ART by MANVEER K ALIRAI

“Do you know what colours look like?”

Sierra smiled.

She pretended that voices were like colours, and that the vocal chords in our throats projected different shades of sounds; tinges of frequencies and hues of timbres melding together like the acrylic on a painter’s palette, like art.

Sierra couldn’t see colours but she liked to pretend that she could hear them.

“Close your eyes—and listen.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and for the first time in my life, I felt that I was actually listening.

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I am older now, I haven’t seen Sierra since eighth grade but every time I’m in the city, and the air is humming with the sound of hundreds of voices, I stop and listen.

I hear purple and green and orange and fuchsia, but the one that catches my breath every time is the golden one.

It never fails to amaze me how a pure and genuine laugh can light up somebody’s face, how you can see the flecks of gold illuminate their skin like a halo of pure and genuine joy. >>

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And sometimes, when those flecks catch the light and it’s all I can see, I think of that morning on the school bus, I laugh —and in that moment, I feel golden, too. x

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ART by BRANDON NG & CASEY LI

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ART by NIKHITA SINGHAL WORDS by COBY ZUCKER

EYE STRAIN

Dr. Schultz only smoked when it had all gone wrong. That’s why, even though I liked the man and I liked talking to him, I was sad to see him. Arms crossed, cigarette hanging loosely between his index and middle finger, he sat on the stairs leading from the fire exit to the ambulance lot. I sat beside him.

I didn’t say a word, not at first. We had a sort of routine. Instead, I pulled a pack of cigarettes out of my pocket and eased out a stick.

Sheltering against the frigid Manitoban autumn air with my left hand, I flipped open the lighter with my right. I only smoked Marlboro. I knew Dr. Schultz never stuck to a brand. I didn’t hold it against him.

People say doctors only smoke because of the stress of the job. I say that’s bullshit. It’s true that after a tough day or a particularly bad patient I’d sneak outside, but that doesn’t really count ‘cause I’ve always smoked. And for Schultz? Schultz didn’t have any easy patients. No, if it were stress then he’d be sitting on those stairs every day, between shifts even. Instead, the only time I ever saw the guy out there were the days he felt he deserved the tar in his lungs.

“You know why surgeons wear green scrubs?” he asked me, “I bet you do, they teach the kids everything now. Prevents eye strain, they say. Offsets all the red.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Well, that and it makes the blood harder to see.”

I looked over at the older surgeon. He was still wearing his green scrubs, complete with his surgical mask hanging from his neck and a discarded cloth cap and gown laying beside him.

Spots of blood speckled the sleeves of his gown.

“What was it?” I asked.

“Does it matter? Pancreatectomy, esophagectomy, craniectomy, coronary bypass, fucking heart replacement. It’s all fucked,” he stubbed his cigarette end on the step beside him

“You know why surgeons wear green scrubs?”

“Offsets all the red.” and pulled out another. “Residency is different. Ya, you’re going to have it tough, but you’ll push through. Persevere. At least most of you will. But then it changes. The expectations grow and get bigger and bigger until you’re stumbling under the weight of the next time you slip up. And you think that’s bad? Try working in this place for a decade. Or two, or three. Then you’ll see. It wears you down. Not just physically and emotionally like they tell you. No, it’s like a damned virus. It’s a hopelessness that gets into every part of you. On the good days it’s waiting, just under the surface. On the bad days? It’s suffocating.”

I didn’t say anything. Again, we sat there silently for a while.

My hands were starting to get chilly, my fingers throbbing with a tinkling numbness.

“She’s comatose,” he said “just a twelve-year old girl. Brain tumour. Medulloblastoma. It’s fucked. You lost a patient yet?”

“No. Not really.”

“Is it ‘not really’ or ‘no’? Wait, don’t even say it. I already know. When you really lose one, lose a human being you were responsible for, you’ll feel it. It’ll hit you hard. When it happens come find me. I mean it. I don’t care what I’m doing, grab me and we’ll come out here, sit down, and have a long chat.”

Dr. Schultz scrunched the discarded cap and gown into a ball. He stood up and turned around, back up the stairs towards the hospital. He dropped his used-up cigarette.

“You should stop smoking while you can,” he said, grinding the butt under his heel, “it’ll kill you.” x

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T H E R E A SO N T H E SKY IS BL UE WORDS by VALERIE LUETKE ART by ALLY YA SHAHID

As little kids we wonder why the sky is blue.

Not purple or pink nor yellow but blue.

Your parents they’ll tell you in one manner or two speak of science philosophy and religion too.

But my father when confronted with the curious eye of a ruffle-haired tot questioning the sky, paused for a moment to gather his thoughts then slowly began and carefully taught,

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The sky is blue because it is blue, not in colour or hue, but emotion, it’s true.

The sky is sad, would say my dad it sees the ugly, painful, bad and watches without eyes the wind, its sighs So keep your eye on the blue blue sky for skies will cry and never grow dry.

Look to the sky and see what you’ll spy the sky has no secrets it cannot hide.

Then he’ll look me in the eye and tell me that’s why, that is why the sky will always stay blue. x

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C O L O UR BL IN D WORDS by SAMEERA SINGH ART by GRACE MACASKILL

His perceptions, imprecise He steps onto thin ice Treads the fractured rocks White lies would suffice His eyes, a bolt out of the blue As deep as the lake on which they stood Blind to the fate of still waters Wavelengths indeed misconstrued The sun cuts through darkness to rise Endures burning to give light It gives and gives the live long day He only sees the gray after its demise Amongst the evergreen spruce pines He builds a shrine Does not anticipate that anomalies Make it even more divine Love is not a single move to explore Black or white on a chessboard The destiny of the queen depends On how she is swayed on that dance floor She should have listened that time He told her he was colour blind But while his tunes sounded endearing She was just hard of hearing x

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AN E V OLU T ION IN G OL D ART by SABRINA LIN WORDS by SUFFIA MALIK

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one of my friends posted on Instagram goodbye beautiful hair; I asked her to take it down 14 is the aching years of facing fears, of breaking tears; 14 is when desperate to hold onto images so hard fought for coloured strands in drugstore dye people came to me to learn how to weave their hair, crowns of braids and pins and ends about to tear a weakened heart, so worn by approval so desperate for removal so aching with a doubt unmovable that when I covered for the first time; my heart rested.

Fray fabric with safety pins tuck in endless baby hairs; move from 10 to 1 to 0 silk pins remember how many you lost that week oh God; I wore 5 layers of pashmina with a volumizing clip thinking it would hide the fact that I had no idea what I was doing sisters in arms covering your hair in your ways textured, straight, none at all cover it in the colours you thought unreachable except me: avoid white if you can I haven’t figured out that colour yet Darling, God gave you some blessings What a shame it’s wrapped in a veil You could have been quite pretty I miss your hair come home to smell earthy mehndi that rests now in back couch cushions Oriental rugs under the table in my mom’s hair; no one will see them anyways

The grays are dimmed Copper and gold now catch the sun Signs of age disappear signs of history crystal clear copper hands Part through red streaks On black and brown hands with red palms On pale scalps with orange bursts; Thank God I have something going for me I have a different chance now in daylight mirrors And rushed mornings Not fighting with layered ends and braids But fighting with silk and light shades Other times I hide my tired eyes With glittered yellows and deep blues I have special occasion scarves that age Winter scarves, summer scarves Patterned scarves for solid sweaters Scarves I’ve never worn But somehow end up in my closet anyways Why did I fear limitation?

When my physical expression is a superficial manifestation that this person is more than her hair or her hijab or anything else she pretends to define herself by I didn’t acknowledge it before but this woman believes something Is something Was born or became something That she put herself on the line for something Without knowing it sometimes She is red sometimes She breaks tradition sometimes She waits in line just to be heard sometimes She makes her mother feel old sometimes so she dyes her hair with gold sometimes Just to forget the fact that her daughter Has grown into a new world Where she is spent justifying herself into different expectations But she’s prepared her for this x

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WORDS by ANGELA DONG ART by K AYLA ESSER

Your Journey

You emerge from white fog, slowly condensing matter and consciousness until you are a little glowing orb, floating in the midst of snowy nothingness.

Then suddenly, the world is an explosion of blue-white light, red drops, green gloved hands and the warm pink of your mother’s lips.

Infancy is a burst of sunshine. Yellow for sun-dappled roads of morning strolls, the joy of your parents’ smiles, and the cheerful color of your nursery walls. It’s the color of your rubber bath duckie, your onesie, your justifiably naive optimism about life.

As you grow, life becomes red. You play with toy fire trucks.

You use your chubby fingers to daub bright paints onto paper, sofas, and living room walls. Mommy is upset, but you think the handprints add an artistic flair. Red is alive, vibrant, loud and demanding. It’s an important color, and by the way everyone dotes on you, it’s a you color.

Entering school, blue becomes your favourite color. Denim jeans, azure notebooks, navy pencils, cobalt knapsacks. You think it’s a nice enough color—and everyone else likes it, so you will too. It’s important to fit in, be the same as your friends.

That’s why you’re friends, right? Because you’re similar.

But you’re soon sick of being the same as everyone else. Why should you listen to others? What’s the point of all the nonsense adults say? They don’t know what’s best for you, only you do.

Rainbow is soon your favourite color, because screw anyone who says you can only have one favourite. You like them all. It’s the dye of your hair and, complemented with black, makes you pretty cool. It’s edgy, you like that.

You soon realize that life is about survival on your own. To eat, you need money. It’s the green you see at the end of every long shift, the green that speaks. It’s a rat race on an emerald treadmill.

But soon that green fades to mundane, predictable gray.

Nothing tastes sweet anymore, clouds obscure the sun, each day

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is the same repetition over and over. You shudder, thinking that’s the rest of your life.

But out of the depressing canvas blooms a blossom of pink.

A whirlwind of flowers, cuddles, whispered promises and a fierce happiness unlike anything you’ve ever known. It’s a rose edged with passionate scarlet, soon brightening to the white of a wedding dress.

Gold accompanies that day, and the years following it. Those happy golden years, the enduring promise of living your lives together, the warm, crackling promise of hearth and home after long work days. Gold never tarnishes—you believe that of your life as well.

But disaster strikes. Black blots out any shine in your life. The suits are black, the hearse is black, and the sky as well by the time you finally drive home, alone. The dark tunnel is endless and there doesn’t seem to be a light at the very end.

Yet, one unsuspecting day, it slowly lightens. You squint, because today’s shade of black seems almost the exact same as yesterday’s, only something is different. A deep royal purple emerges, a queen coming back from exile, vowing that no matter what happens, she will not be defeated. In baby steps, you reconnect with the world. Indigo is the color of spirituality and, as you make sense of life and death, becomes the colour of your life’s journey.

Years fly by and you find peace. Life is once again a golden yellow as you look back in pride at your life’s achievements, at the people you’ve touched. The sun is eternal and you aren’t, but you’re okay with that.

As the white fog descends once again, you don’t fight the loss of warmth. You rejoice and embrace the mist. White is just an amalgamation of all the colors in your journey. And why would you fear that? Yours was a life well lived. x

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Death Be a Lady ART by ELISABETTA PAIANO WORDS by SRIKRIPA KRISHNA PRASAD

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Death meets Life at the beginning.

Not the beginning, because that happened long before her, but a smaller, more momentous beginning.

She melts into existence in the space between two breaths, appearing across Life, who is intently watching two tiny, squirming specks.

“Look at them,” Life says in breathless delight, her eyes sparkling. Her voice is the first sound Death has ever heard; she is the first thing Death has ever seen.

“Aren’t they wonderful?”

Death pulls her eyes away from her and leans closer to the dots. She reaches out and places her fingers next to one of the specks, intending to prod it lightly.

The speck glows, and a burst of something burning overwhelms Death’s senses, freezing her in place. Pain, Death realizes. This is pain. She didn’t know she could feel that — she didn’t know she could feel at all.

The speck has stopped moving, and beside it, drawing close to Death’s hand, is an almost identical speck but for its colour: a translucent blue-grey, the same colour as Death’s skin. The same colour as Life’s eyes.

Death looks at her first soul, and the words come unbidden to her lips. “I am Death,” she murmurs, “Come to me.”

The soul obediently floats into her hand. Death stands to take it away and catches Life watching her warmly. Death takes a sharp breath.

Life walks over to Death so that they stand face to face. She reaches up but stops, letting her hand hover above Death’s cheek. “Your eyes are the same colour as I am,” Life says softly, wiggling her warm brown fingers.

A piece of you is with me, Death thinks without quite knowing why. As a piece of me is with you.

Life’s eyes widen, as if she has heard Death’s thoughts, and she sighs softly.

“We have duties, you and I,” she says. She looks up from under her eyelashes. “Until the next time, then.”

Life smiles, the white of her teeth bright against the tone of her skin, and here’s another thing that Death didn’t think she could do.

She falls in love.

— Life’s touch causes the world to bloom, grasses and insects and animals and humans, creatures upon creatures that are born and extinguished. Death is constantly guiding away souls, constantly in burning pain as she watches Life’s miraculous creations fall by her own hand.

There is so much life to take away, by catastrophes and mundanities both, that Death does not see Life for more than the blink of an eye in the seconds they share a space together.

“Are you angry at me? For not feeling pain as you do?” Life asks her once as they await the result of a woman’s childbirth. She is gone the next second— both the mother and the child die, and Death collects their souls, bearing the searing pain and blinking away the few tears that rise to her eyes. She flickers all around the world for the next little while to collect millions more of souls, considering her answer to that question.

“No,” she tells Life in the next instant they are together. “I would never wish such pain upon you. I would shoulder every burden for you if I could.”

Life gives a shuddering sigh and looks at her, and a desperate, bitter longing twists her mouth. She reaches a hand towards Death and disappears in the next instant. >>

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ART by MATTHEW LAM (RIGHT)

Death closes her eyes for a long moment, in more pain now than any soul has caused her to be. She wipes her face, shaking off her exhaustion. There are more souls to collect, and Time waits for no one.

Duty is a terrible burden.

— In the moments that Death has time to think about anything but the next soul, she imagines Life’s hand reaching. She remembers their first meeting, where Life had stood close enough for Death to feel the icy wind of her breath.

She thinks about what it would be like to touch Life, to embrace her, to be joined with her as if they were one.

Death yearns, and yearns, and burns.

— One day, there’s a deluge of souls that need to be collected, infinitely more than Death has ever seen, and she drowns in pain even as hope bubbles in her chest. She knows what this is.

The world is over.

And if the world is finished, then Death’s duties are done. And if her duties are done — The second the last soul has been delivered, Death follows the tug in her heart and runs.

— Death finds Life at the end.

Life stands in what used to be a forest, face tipped up to the sky as if the sun still warms her face. The sky is a pale yellow-orange, a remainder of the fatal blow dealt by the cosmos, perversely beautiful for all its tragedy.

Death stops beside her, breath catching and heart hammering as she takes Life in. Eons of seeing each other in half light, in flickers, in the suspended moments of waiting for a breath, in the moments in between living and dying have all led up to this moment.

Life turns to Death, and Death can hardly breathe as those grey eyes meet her brown ones.

“I have been waiting so long for you,” Death whispers.

“I am yours,” says Life, tears glittering in her eyes.

Death draws closer so that they are face-to-face. Finally, finally, after millennia of waiting and yearning, Death touches her, pressing her fingers to Life’s warm cheeks.

Life’s brown skin dulls and greys, turning cool to the touch.

“Life,” Death says, voice trembling with suppressed tears. “You are dead.”

Life touches their foreheads together and reaches up to cup Death’s face. Death’s skin warms, softening and browning, now the same colour as Life’s, a mark of their reunion.

“And Death,” Life breathes, face alight with fierce joy, “You are alive.” x

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LO O SE F R A G M E N T S WORDS by TIFFANY TSE ART by K ATRINA HASS

The reflections bounce slowly across the room, reaching for any object within distance.

Some rush forward, some shrink back.

Fragmented and broken, individually searching to find themselves.

Each piece so unique— bright colours, lighting up the room.

In a quest for identity, each piece flies in desperation, yearning.

Every memory: shattered, lost and disoriented.

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They form a kaleidoscope of colours, some colliding, some free-floating.

Pieces of a mirror crashing together, outlining a disjointed reflection of you.

Shreds of your past, combining to form who you are today.

A broken history of colours, joining to become reality. x

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WORDS by SIMRIT SAINI ART by ALI DECATA

I hear feet scurrying around like mice. Nobody ever seems to slow down. When I hear the soft pitter patter of water hitting windows, I also hear complaints. People exclaim, ‘Oh no, my hair!’ but why can’t people just dance in the rain instead? Is it a rule to turn everything that life gives us into negativity? If so, I refuse to live by this rule.

I will let the gentle rain hit my body, and believe that angels are sending their love.

I will allow the fragrance of the flowers to embrace me. While everyone else is running around trying to get to places and trying to escape life’s slightest inconveniences, I will slow down and enjoy what life gives me, no matter how inconvenient. There is so much beauty to be experienced; I refuse to let life slip me by.

I choose to live a colourful life. No, I cannot see the colours of the rainbow after the rain, but I feel exactly like the rich man who has found the pot of gold. I don’t see the flowers, but I can smell their beauty, joy, and intricacy. It is true I cannot see the Eiffel Tower, but I can feel the love in the city—the love of couples holding hands and the love of little kids laughing in the playground. I don’t need the ability to see in order to experience beauty—my lack of vision has shown me more beauty in the world than I ever thought possible. God has given me the power to feel the presence of beauty others would have missed. My life is beautiful. x

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4 5 UN IVERSITY P RIVATE ART by HAMZA FURMLI WORDS by EMILY MEILLEUR-RIVERS

rose-coloured glasses make monoliths of memories they dedicate statues to exhaustion and write love poems to dorm rooms so small you sometimes felt propped up by the paper-thin walls they suit you, though and you’re pretty sure nothing would change if you took them off but just in case you’ll keep them on a bit longer — amber-coloured glasses dangle from the rear-view and you don’t reach for them until getting out of the van they soften harsh edges and make everything twinkle a personal sunshine filter that brightens up persistent rain-grey skies they add to the warmth of knit blankets shared by friends you were meant to meet you think maybe they suit one of them better since yellow was always her colour and you aren’t sure when you made it yours too — cinnamon-coloured glasses collect dust for most of the year since you’re worried the sepia tone will lose the magic that still clings to them because the last time you wore them it felt like family again and now time has passed and you aren’t sure they’ll still remind you that the warmth they cast is a home just as real as the one nineteen flights up it’s a home like the one whose floor you lay on, gazing up through those lenses while Rosario Dawson did yoga “it’s okay,” you heard her say, “I live here” x

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P LA N ETARY CO MMO TIO N WORDS by ARANYA IYER ART by ARANYA IYER (LEFT) & CLAUDIA SPADAFORA (RIGHT)

When I asked you to describe the painting of your childhood You took a step back into the reality of your past— A place where I could not reach you.

It was to my surprise when Your outstretched hand pulled me into your realm, And there, with strokes of an artist, You painted my imagination with the words, “It would be like a comet flying through the night sky, Only to disappear without realizing its potential.

Leaving behind no trails, Leaving behind an unlit canvas.”

I couldn’t bring myself to accept that.

To me, you are not a short-lived entity on a mindless trajectory, You are the whole solar system.

You are Mercury. Too close to that which burns you, Remaining there nonetheless because someone has to.

You are Venus. A world of volcanoes.

Though I don’t think I will ever see you erupt in fury.

You are Earth. A perfect blend of the most beautiful colours in their stunning clarity.

You give more than I thought you could, Bringing up treasures buried within your very core.

You are Mars. Close enough to touch, but still so undiscovered.

I cannot march on your surface, but I know that I could build a home in you, If you let me.

You are Jupiter. There are a thousand storms hurling inside you at this very moment, Designing your exterior with confusing red swirls.

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You are Saturn. You have a fence around you, And an army of more moons than I can bear to count.

That doesn’t stop me from wanting to skate on your rings.

You are Uranus, with your axis so tilted, That you are more upside down than right side up.

You are Neptune. You are an ice giant.

So unapologetically blue that the Romans decided to name you the god of the seas, They don’t know that you are still learning to navigate the ocean of your sadness.

You are Pluto. You are real to me, Though at times distant and elusive.

And I have looked, But I cannot find where your sun is.

Still, what I do know is that every time you smile, Every part of my being is alight with your happiness.

And even if you want to believe in your disappearing comet, Know that I have wished on it like a shooting star, Hoping that one day I can paint you a galaxy. x

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[NUMBERS] AND LINES: THE TRUE EXISTENTIAL DEBATE ART by JOYCE LEI WORDS by NICHOLAS SCHMID

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There is a bunch of numbers. And lines.

Lots of lines. Every now and then the lines decide to intersect at what seem to be the most inopportune places. The lines close in around the numbers, always keeping them hemmed in as if there was some sort of territorial war raging and they were two factions.

But of course no such thing is happening. It’s just a bunch of lines and numbers.

That I can’t make any sense of whatsoever.

So I suppose if the lines were waging war on the numbers I wouldn’t actually be that surprised.

What I would be surprised about is if the numbers were waging war on the lines.

Because that would be silly. There are way more lines than numbers, and no one wants to start a battle if you’re outmatched. Everyone knows that. Even numbers know that.

I decide to throw a bit of confusion into the mix. Or should I say add more confusion. I’m not sure. How can I be? I don’t know what I’m looking at right now.

Then again, I probably shouldn’t single myself out. I don’t think anyone could decipher the blob in front of me if lives hung in the balance.

Anyways, as I said, I throw in some confusion. And by confusion, I mean blue. I probably should have splashed some green instead. That’s probably what the numbers would have wanted.

But they’re losing to the lines, so they don’t get a say in what colour I heave at them. Though it’s not as if the lines get much input either. I have the supreme power. My whims are laws for the numbers and lines. If only math worked that way too.

It almost looks as if the blue is helping the numbers win. The blue is

splashed over some of the lines, freeing the numbers from their imprisonment.

There is no knowing what could happen next. Were the numbers about to rally? It is always dangerous when numbers are on the loose. Can you imagine a number breaking out of jail? I’d rather not.

I wonder what the lines thought when they saw the blue descending on them. Maybe they thought the sky was collapsing. Or maybe they thought there was a really big blueberry rolling towards them. Though I suppose it wouldn’t have to be an especially big blueberry. Any blueberry would look big if you are a little line on a page.

Partly because I have no idea what is happening anymore, partly because I have lost hope of ever figuring it out, I heave on some yellow. “Uh oh,” cry the numbers, “The sun is getting a tan.” Then some red. “Oh no,” cry the lines, “A radish just got put in a blender.” Then some purple. But no green. Splash, Splash, Splash. No splash for green though.

I lean back and admire my handiwork.

Well, not so much admire as stare in horror with perhaps a little bit of intermingled dismay. I’m sure the numbers and lines would have been distraught as well. But I don’t bother asking them. Because that would be silly.

Whatever picture this colouring book was supposed to guide me towards, it certainly wasn’t what I produced.

All I can see is a puddle of blue, yellow, red, and purple. No green, though. And no lines or numbers either.

I guess you could say I won.

Or maybe I lost, and the colouring book won.

But a colouring book can’t win.

Because that would be silly.

Existential debates aside, this book was a waste of money. x

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WORDS by TAKHLIQ AMIR ART by ANABEL YEUNG

Not Just a Number As of January 2018, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has reported that there are 5,481,262 Syrian refugees of concern.

Human Rights Watch has reported that 470,000 people have died as of February 2016. The website “I Am Syria” reports the total death count to be north of 500,000 individuals, with over 11,000 killed in the past year alone.

One of the first Syrian refugees I met, whose name I won’t disclose here, isn’t one of them. A few months ago, I was volunteering at a youth jobs fair in Toronto when a young ninthgrader, very shy and quiet, silently approached my table. I can’t remember how our conversation began, but I was surprised to find out that she was one of the 40,000+ Syrian refugees that Canada has opened its doors to since 2015. Before we had gotten far in the conversation, I had thought I was speaking to a regular immigrant girl whose parents had moved to Canada for better educational opportunities for their children, much like mine had. The course of that conversation truly showed me that there was little similarity between her situation and mine, and gave me a mere glimpse into the true conditions of those people from Syria, even when they are thousands of kilometres away from the place they once called home.

She told me about her family—her brothers, who are currently somewhere in Turkey and Germany, and about her other relatives still stuck in Syria. She spoke about the uncertainty they faced daily in trying to reunite with the rest of their loved ones, and even the difficulty in speaking to her other sibling who lives in Mississauga. Throughout that conversation, I saw the sheer strength and courage shine through her demeanour, even as her

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fears pooled clearly in her young eyes. When she spoke of regular things like making new friends and experiencing the cultural difference, I realized that she was a regular child, only one who had already experienced a world of horrors.

And I realized that she isn’t the only one. This is the reality not just of Syrian refugees, but of any individual out there who has ever faced situations like war, conflict, and terrorism, in any part of the world. Through that conversation, I also realized that to have lived the life that I do—the lives many of us do in Western nations—does not do justice to the fear that permeates throughout the lives of individuals like her on a regular day.

When I hear the death count of 500,000+ words, it does not evoke the same sharp sense of empathy or despair that I felt as I listened to her describe both a regular high-school experience and a childhood mired in terror and destruction in the same breath. When I hear about the over 5 million Syrian refugees of concern, it did not make me feel as helpless as I did when I heard about her broken family and compared it to the extended family I often take for granted.

Part of this is the portrayal of such conflicts in Western media. Its representation of such occurrences happening across the globe has served to pull our sympathetic hearts, but only to a certain extent, before we move on to the next story coming through. Numbers may mean little to us, because they often seem to be one in a long line of statistics with no real human value to them.

Stories matter, however. The picture of then five-year-old Syrian Omar Daqneesh, the bloodied little boy with a stunned expression on his face as he was pulled from the rubble in Aleppo, screamed. The haunted look in his eyes is painted in our minds even as the numbers and statistics fade.

Nothing has changed since then. Syria’s war still rages on, and people there fight every day in what most likely seems to be an endless battle. Even though my own connection to Pakistan, a nation where conflict has been and continues to be prevalent, has impressed upon me the horrors and pain of baseless acts of violence, I can’t claim to have the same understanding from the life I live here.

That is not to say this is a fault of our making, perhaps only a consequence of the great disparity in our nations. Meeting her made Syria—and its people—no longer mere numbers. Rather than the statistics I had previously heard, her words painted a small picture of the much larger stories, lived experiences, catastrophes, pain, and heroic acts of each and every child, woman, and man in Syria. It was a picture of terror, uncertainty, and also escape, but one that only became clear through her.

And, perhaps, one that is merely a small piece of a larger puzzle that still remains invisible to the naked eye.

In our society, we perhaps value the power of numbers because it helps us to deconstruct these lives into a calculation understandable to us. We forget that, sometimes, such things cannot be reduced to mere statistics, especially when we continue to hear them through the luxury of a screen within a heated home. x

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WORDS by MICHELLE YAO ART by ALLY YA SHAHID

Maid of Mirrors When I was born, I did not have a face.

I didn’t have a body either, nor a name to connect to it. Like everyone else in our world, at age zero, I was a soul without skin and bone, as unanchored as a sylph, invisible and insignificant.

When I was four, I was still the same blank canvas. While most peered right through me, my parents saw within my hollow frame a web of potential, diverging in countless directions. They loomed over me with measuring tape and tracing paper, blueprinting what kind of body—and identity—I would build for myself once I grew up. My father hoped that I would choose silver for my armour just as he had. My mother, as tightly strung as the yarn she was made of, thought that a metal was much too masculine. What if I encased myself with pink chiffon, instead? They hadn’t had that building material available back when she’d been my age. I could always marry a man of stars and science, if I wanted to.

I didn’t know what I wanted, just that I wanted to be wanted.

Of course, everyone wants that. But no matter what you’re made of, someone out there will always reject you—even if you’re gold. Especially if you’re gold. Golden rings turn the skin green, after all.

When I was twelve, I watched my mother dye her yarn tresses pink to match her co-workers’ cotton-candy-coatings. “People love being around those similar to them,” she’d explained.

“Entire empires are built on commonalities between people.”

And what would I build myself out of? The answer struck me like a bolt of bottled lightning: mirrors.

I would reflect the face of whoever I was facing. I would blend

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into any crowd, switch onto any team. Masked by mirrors, I would never be ostracized, because who would mock their own reflection?

When I was fourteen, I realized that I’d overestimated the world’s narcissism.

As it turns out, people hate seeing themselves in others—or rather, they only see in others what they hate about themselves.

Growing up, my best friend had been dynamic and confident, a vision of crimson pulled taut against a brimming

Growing up, my best friend had been dynamic and confident, a vision of crimson pulled taut against a brimming soul.

soul. When she looked at me though, she couldn’t see that blazing confidence reflected back, only reckless, scalding pride.

To her, my imitation wasn’t flattering at all; she resented who I’d become, even though she’d made me this way. She tried to fix me instead of fixing herself. Every time my mirrored skin reflected her likeness, we’d circle the same vices until our vicious cycles converged in a cyclone. Eventually, we were pushed apart like magnets of the same pole.

When I was fifteen, I realized that to be seen as perfect, to never be burned like that again, I couldn’t blindly echo others because no person was already perfect. I could only learn to become perfect myself. I began crushing my reflective flesh into tiny shards and implanting them into the eyes of others, so that I could see my reflection in their irises, see how they perceived me and monitor that perception as I adjusted myself accordingly. In my mother’s eyes, I saw a girl of electric blue, who conjured thunder every time she moved. So I began tiptoeing around her while I stomped around my peers, since they’d only seen greyish mouse fur quietly sprouting in the cracks of my skin.

When I was seventeen, I buried the last sliver of my mirrored membrane into the eyes of a purple stranger. I’d wanted to know what he thought of my outfit. The fickle ecstasy of his approval gave way to horror as it dawned on me that I’d become invisible once more. >>

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when you visit me, when you look through my glass, you’ll see a

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blooming deep beneath my skin’s surface.

I won’t need a mirror to know I’m me.

When I was seventeen, I set out to rebuild myself, searching for the pieces I’d left behind. This was no easy task; I’d lost too much to too many people.

Surveying what specks I could reclaim, all scattered across my childhood mattress, I noticed that no fragment reflected a clear image. The surfaces were bent and stretched like funhouse mirrors.

Some depicted me as better than I was; others were darkly distorted. Nothing fit together—the jigsaw pieces didn’t even form the same puzzle.

In autumn, when the colours fall, you can’t just reattach them to their original branches. Sometimes, it’s easier to wait for spring and start anew.

And so I returned to the workshop where I had first made my body.

Back then, I had chosen to be everything at once, to please everyone at once—and then I had lost everything and everyone. I’d spent so long staring at my reflection in the eyes of others, I’d forgotten how I looked in my own.

They say the eyes are the window to the soul. Eyes are how we observe others; for once, though, I wanted to observe myself—through a window instead of a mirror. I forged my new form with glass again, but this time, the glass was transparent. If my exterior ever shattered, I would still have the parts that counted.

When I’m a hundred, when you visit me, when you look through my glass, you’ll see a kaleidoscopic wonderland blooming deep beneath my skin’s surface.

I won’t need a mirror to know I’m me. x

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ART by SUSANNA CHEN

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MIS SING BLUE ART by IMASHA PERERA WORDS by K ATELYN JOHNSTONE

When I was six years old my favourite colour was yellow, The colour of the sun and the stars and the dandelions in full bloom.

When I was six years old I thought one day I could fly, Live with the sun and the stars in the sky.

My parents’ favourite colour was blue.

I never understood how they could love a colour so dreary, When there existed a colour with such vitality, Until I was old enough to learn that, No matter how many dandelions I wished on, I would never fly.

Suddenly the colour of the sea and the sky Held its own kind of beauty.

Because if the setting sun is reflected in the sea, Then maybe swimming is the closest I will ever get To living and being in a sunset.

My family’s favourite colour was blue, And that was the world before I met you One of broken dreams, full of colour, yellow and blue.

But you, You bring with you all the music of the stars, With you every blade of grass is a vivid singing green, Every fallen leaf a symphony.

With you I can feel melodies, taste harmonies, With you the world is HD, 3D, surround-sound, I’m talking 1080p on a tiny touchscreen.

Without you, Gone also is all the music and colour, The world is rendered in silent grayscale And I am left staring at a pale, faded grey rose, Wondering why anybody ever called it beautiful.

So I pump myself full of rom-coms and pop music Until an illusory pink hovers over the blossom.

I remember from school that in French ‘rose’ means pink And I am satisfied.

But only for a moment because I know, I know.

That roses are red And violets are blue But I’ve forgotten what either of those mean without you.

So if you’re asking me I’d say: I miss the colour blue.

But the truth is?

I miss you. x

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chameleon and the rose ART by BRYAN CHIU WORDS by GRACE K ANG

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There was once a chameleon, a slothful, fickle creature that prided herself on going through life unseen. She shifted her hues with a mere thought to match her surroundings. She chanced upon a rather beautiful flower, red as a cherry. The chameleon stood for a while, admiring its petals grudgingly, not sure whether to acknowledge her envy. Eventually, she turned up her nose in scorn.

“What a vain creature,” she said to herself haughtily. “Always standing out, desperate to be seen.

You’d think all she thought about was herself.”

The flower heard this, and raised her head. “I’d much rather stand out than not be seen,” she said coldly. “The only reason you wear your invisible cloak is because you’re so ugly, and you know it.”

The chameleon sputtered a bit, her long tongue catching on a leaf. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” the flower said, then muttered under her breath. “Scaly bitch.”

“Excuse me?” the chameleon repeated, her scales brightening with anger. “You’d better watch your mouth, you piece of—” She stopped herself and swallowed.

“Piece of what?” the flower demanded shrilly. “Go on!”

The chameleon took a deep breath. “Can’t we just stick to the script? We’re supposed to be teaching a moral here.”

“They don’t pay me enough for that,” the flower said.

“This script is trash, they docked my salary, and I’m stuck working with a judgmental, shrunk-down dinosaur.”

“You know what?” the chameleon said, finally snapping. “Fine. Fine! You wanna fight? You wanna throw down, you exposed plant genitalia? Everyone knows you’re easy as hell—”

“Shut the hell up, tongue machine, you think it’s fun being this pretty? Of course, you wouldn’t know what it’s like, would you?”

“No, I don’t know what it’s like to be a pretentious vegetable,” the chameleon retorted hotly. “Pray tell!”

“Here are the facts,” the flower continued, unfazed.

“I’m beautiful, and you’re just something God made when He was wasted.”

“I’m adapted to suit my ecological niche, you dumbass,” the chameleon snarled.

“Is that niche called ugly?”

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s the name of your autobiography—” “You watch your goddamn mouth. Stop lying to yourself.”

“God, shut up! Look at this. You’re making me turn red. I look awful in red.”

“You sure do,” the flower said. “You look like an expired chili pepper.”

“Shut up,” the chameleon said again. She shook her head furiously. “I can’t — I can’t do this. God. I’m done.” And she began to crawl away, though rather slowly, because chameleons aren’t quite inclined to speed. It made for an awkward exit — the flower had to turn away angrily for quite some time. And so the chameleon and the flower went their separate ways.

The flower let out an outraged huff. “Don’t deal with skanks, kids.” She chuckled drily. “There’s your moral.”

And she closed her blood-red petals softly, preparing herself for the chill of night. x

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SH A DE S OF T HE C O T TAGE ART by JASON TRAN WORDS by MACKENZIE GREEN

Late July, we sat in the screened-in porch and listened to Blues, the slow crawl of drums, the hurry of fingers over guitar strings.

In the low light of early evening the lake transformed, Mirroring the sky, From royal cape to witch’s cloak.

Grandfather unfolded a creased newspaper, Read slowly through the obituaries, glasses low on his nose.

Then he stood from his rocking chair and hobbled out the cottage door.

By the edge of the water, our bonfire surged as he tossed the paper in, The wild flames, like begonias in bloom, charring bygone faces.

Early next morning, Grandfather stooped over the garden to weed, the Green-thumb of the family my grandmother had always said.

His hand plunged down to grasp a dead bean plant, A single withered corpse in a formation of straight stalks That wore the army uniforms from a memory of his youth.

He stopped to snack on a cold, juicy Peach from the refrigerator, Ate beside me as I stretched out my bare legs On the rough planks of the dock, Trying to tan my pale skin.

Later that day, the phone rang in the cottage.

“Yyyy-ello!” Grandfather’s voice rumbled into the receiver.

A joyful change in expression — my aunt had given birth to a baby boy.

He grinned, turning his face into the sun That filtered through broad windows and cast a gentle glow.

To celebrate the news, we baked a platter of Brownies together, Watched quietly as molten chocolate became dense, The top cracked and crisp, Like the packed dirt path that led to the cottage door. x

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Duality Over Democracy ART by YU FEI XIA WORDS by NEDA PIROUZMAND

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“Let’s go back to where we left off at the end of last class.” The chalk in my high school teacher’s hand leaves behind a trail of long lines and curved edges.“Computers—arguably now smarter than humans—run on the binary code. The great founders of our education system used this to create something that had been right in front of us for years. A simple and elegant language made of just two numbers…”

I’m trying to keep up but my hands can’t move the pen fast enough. My page is a scribble of 0’s and 1’s that look like Picasso’s take on a Snakes and Ladders board.

— Duality is simple As she closes the door behind her I wake up.

I feel like a puppet being dragged downstairs. Even though my socks are pulled over my sweatpants, numbness runs deep through my body and out onto the tip of my tongue. My eyes dart from left to right as I flip the switch from cold to hot and release the breath I was holding in. Although baseless, I have this mulling fear that one day Parvan will come home early from work. I’ll only leave it for a couple hours, only for some comfort. Comfort in the sauna that will engulf our house in an unbearable heat. With drooping eyelids I carry myself back to bed and just remember to turn on an alarm for changing the thermostat back before the morning. As always, it will be as if nothing had changed. it runs on zeroes and ones The next morning my socks are still as useless as ever. I walk

by Parvan sitting on the couch and catch a glimpse of pale blue undertones on her cheeks. I must have had them too.

“I’m kind of hungry,” I bend down and begin opening the lower kitchen drawer.

She pushes herself up from the couch. “How many times do I have to tell you. You can’t be hungry and full at the same time.

You are one or the other. This or that. Choose one and stick to it.”

on yes’s and no’s I slam the drawer shut and stand up. “I don’t want to and I honestly couldn’t give a flying fuck. If you want to think like the rest of them then go ahead.” on irreversible rights and wrongs I wasn’t yelling and she wasn’t either, but our words were targeted. We’d been through this too many times before. “Don’t come running to me when your obnoxious thinking grabs the wrong person’s attention.” As she gets up I feel the couch rise. It fills with the air of a divide between us. She always likes to have the last word.

I stretch my arms beyond the edge of my bed to feel around for earphones that I know are somewhere on my bedside table.

My hands jolt to my ears as I play music that was meant for earlier today, for the background noises of a busy Second Cup. One effortless press of the headset and it quiets down. It’s still a bit too loud. I jam the button between my fingers until they go white. Nothing changes, of course.

— My chin is on my desk and my eyes loom over the page below me. At the front of the lecture hall, the professor is going on about orthosteric versus allosteric drugs. I used to look at this page and see snakes and ladders. you think in black and white But lately I don’t have the energy anymore. There’s no point.

Why bother with trying to change a system that works so well?

There are less misunderstandings, less feelings to be hurt, less words to be said. After all, life is easier this way. and after a while, you only see in black and white. x

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ART by JOSH RAVENHILL

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PERP ET U A LLY ST U C K I N T W I LIGHT ART by TALI FEDOROVSKY WORDS by GRACE MACASKILL

Sometimes we remember something beautiful The way the oil painted the streets in that morning light How it seeped from my lips and twisted beneath your feet Or the way you caressed my throat as if it would soothe the words that spilled out As if smothering them before they lit the match in my trembling hands could stop the fire growing in my heart.

And those who wake before the dawn understand beauty in that quiet light The beauty of I’m sorry I love you I need you The beauty of empty promises and mistakes on parade The beauty of repeated forgiveness And darling Oh darling I was dreaming in shades of scarlet Are we ever beautiful While you held dichotomy in gaze.

A stoic hero to my quivered lips.

— So go ahead, Chew my cherry heart Every day is the same.

And fold my paper bones The sun will rise at dawn ‘Cause I’m that sunset pink against your pale sky And you will kiss my tears and whisper my name.

And I’ll always crawl back for more The clock will strike twelve And I will hold you close and forgive your sins.

— The sun will fall at dusk And we will bide our time and renew our vows.

She spins constellations from my broken words Every day is the same.

No is Pluto Jupiter a turned shoulder — A shooting star the remnants of protest.

My ebony bruises are galaxies in the night sky But her star struck gaze erases it all Leaving me with heavy hands And a corpse earthbound.

— They say that every day morning breaks And evening falls But without one the other can’t exist.

And to think that all this time I thought I could never describe our love within a single day. x

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OU T S ID E O F ST . J O E ’ S W I N DO W S WORDS by MEGAN BABISKI ART by TEBA FAISAL

The hallway walls in the hospital have no colours.

They are all white, in straight lines leading you to different signs that say disorders on them.

They are not places, the clinics, they are just signs.

There are no colours in the hospital.

There are blue blobs on paintings.

There are green accents on doors.

In waiting rooms, there are orange seats.

Once again, I would like to repeat that there is no colour in the hospital.

I ignore all of the fake colour in the hospital.

It is not colour, it is cardboard fake smiles from secretaries somehow serenading something far away to my eyes.

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Just outside of the hospital there is a man who wears a blue jacket, a green baseball cap and orange pyjamas he stumbles on the sidewalk and asks for spare change.

He has colour.

He smells like cigarettes, like someone he used to love.

His face is bubbling with thoughts that nearly explode on him before he talks.

Sometimes, I try not to look at him.

Sometimes I don’t want to see real colour.

It makes me ashamed of my blank grey reflection in the bright white hospital bathroom mirror. x

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ART by CARISSA SIU WORDS by JANE LEE

Patterns of

From above it would have been a curious sight—colourful umbrellas lighting up that dull rainy day, save for the one black umbrella that leaked colour. Certainly unnatural, such a sight would cause many to wonder how colour could spill from a black umbrella. For my grandchild, however, this phenomenon could be explained with one word: Grandma. That was the day I came home with bags of thread in every colour imaginable.

Walking down the street I received many stares from passersby, surprised by the approaching mass of colour. Their eyes soon turned to the treasure in my hands, amazed at the threads spilling from my bags. They were so full of life it was like they were fighting to release colour into the world, to make themselves known. There were the blues used to paint the sky and the greens as vivid as the leaves of the rainforest. Even the neon purples that were on the 80s’ jogging suits I had sported as a teen and the colour of a golden pie crust. That day I was determined to teach my grandchild two important lessons: one was that every colour has its purpose and the second was to be confident in their identity.

I remember that day Grandma triumphantly walked through the door and dropped her bags on the ground with a soft thud, bundles of thread spilling from the bags like jewels, glimmering underneath the foyer light. Grandma was proud of who she was and gave no regard to stereotypes or if the colours of her possessions confirmed them. Her umbrella was black because it carried similar characteristics to its owner—unchanging to

external pressures, the umbrella would stay the same shade of black even when it got wet. Her socks were mismatched because she had more important matters to attend to than pairing socks, and they were all equally comfortable. Despite her quirks, Grandma was a master embroiderer.

Following her to her room, I ran my hands along the soft threads and wondered how Grandma was possibly going to use them all. She bought an equal amount of each colour, even though some colours were much more versatile than others.

Similar to an old box of markers it is easy to guess which markers will be full of ink and which will be dry based on their colours. Nobody needs to tell children which colours will be fought over because every child wants it in their drawing and which will be left to contemplate their existence within the confines of the cardboard box. Yet manufacturers continue to endlessly produce these unused colours and include them in the box with the favoured ones, a mystery I failed to solve. Life, at times, felt like I was that one marker, the one colour that sits unused, questioning my existence when every other colour was much more useful and desired.

The door closed with a click, following the sound of soft footsteps padding down the hall. My grandchild may be inquisitive, but they were not stealthy at all. Pulling out a large white quilt from underneath my bed, I smiled as I heard my grandchild ask how I could have strolled so confidently down the street, arms full of colourful thread as passersby gawked. >>

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Picking up a neon yellow thread, I recalled how the cashier had questioned my purchase as she scanned it, wondering what use I would possibly have for a neon yellow thread.

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This was the moment that I had been waiting for. With embroidery being one of my passions, I had discovered long ago that every colour has its use and, with the perfect combination, even the brightest or dullest of colours could shine. Some colours were meant to serve as a base, while others were used to highlight the features of other colours and enhance the overall image. Picking up a neon yellow thread, I recalled how the cashier had questioned my purchase as she scanned it, wondering what use I would possibly have for a neon yellow thread. Sewing veins into a leaf on the quilt with this very same thread, I watched as the yellow brought life to the leaf and my grandchild’s eyes widened. With just one stitch I had helped another person realize the difference that one colour could make to a piece.

Grandma picked up some roan thread and skillfully blended it into the branch the leaf grew on, accentuating the different shades within the bark. It was so lifelike I could already see the tree. Standing strong through all the storms, the tree would be immovable. It would be hurt when birds would abandon their nests after making the tree their home, or when lovers would etch their initials into its trunk. Yet each incident would only make the tree stronger and more beautiful. This quilt now sits above my bed, the tree brought to life with thread serving as a reminder of the important lessons I learned that day. x

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ART by MATILDA KIM (LEFT) & ANQI WU (RIGHT)

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INCITE MAGAZINE VOLUME 20, ISSUE 3 “COLOUR” Published March 2018 Incite Magazine is McMaster University’s creative arts and writing publication.

We aim to unite a community of creatives by promoting self-expression, collaboration, and dialogue within our university campus and the city of Hamilton. Every aspect of Incite’s writing, graphics, design, multimedia and event production is carried out by our wonderful student volunteers. If you’d like to get involved, feel free to get in touch by emailing incitemagazine@gmail.com. @incitemagazine facebook.com/incitemagazine issuu.com/incite-magazine

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF (CREATIVE & PRODUCTION) Matthew Lam EDITOR-IN-CHIEF (CONTENT) Harry Krahn ART DIRECTOR Ali DeCata COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR Annie Yu ART MANAGERS Theresa Orsini, Imasha Perera, Allyya Shahid, Carissa Siu COMMUNICATIONS Matilda Kim (Photographer), Annecy Pang (PR Manager) CONTENT EDITORS Takhliq Amir, Catherine Hu, Emily Meilleur-Rivers, Neda Pirouzmand, Yu Fei Xia, Coby Zucker COPY EDITOR Srikripa Krishna Prasad LAYOUT EDITORS Sabrina Lin, Tram Nguyen COVER CREDITS Art by Ali DeCata & Matthew Lam

CONTRIBUTORS (Writers) Evra Ali, Takhliq Amir, Megan Babiski, Angela Dong, Tali Fedorovsky, Virginia Ford-Roy, Mackenzie Green, Catherine Hu, Aranya Iyer, Katelyn Johnstone, Manveer Kalirai, Bavmeet Kaloti, Grace Kang, Srikripa Krishna Prasad, Jane Lee, Valerie Luetke, Grace Macaskill, Suffia Malik, Suzany Manimaran, Alicia Maya, Emily MeilleurRivers, Kashyap Patel, Neda Pirouzmand, Simrit Saini, Nicholas Schmid, Sameera Singh, Jhanahan Sriranjan, Tiffany Tse, Michelle Yao, & Coby Zucker. (Artists) Nikoo Aghaei, Evra Ali, Michelle Chau, Susanna Chen, Bryan Chiu, Ali Decata, Kayla Esser, Teba Faisal, Tali Fedorovsky, Hamza Furmli, Katrina Hass, Aranya Iyer, Manveer Kalirai, Matilda Kim, Matthew Lam, Joyce Lei, Casey Li, Grace MacAskill, Alicia Maya, Brandon Ng, Theresa Orsini, Elisabetta Paiano, Imasha Perera, Josh Ravenhill, Allyya Shahid, David Shin, Nikhita Singhal, Emily Siskos, Carissa Siu, Jasmyne Smith, Claudia Spadafora, Jason Tran, Anqi Wu, Yu Fei Xia, Anabel Yeung, & Ayo Yusuf.

SPECIAL THANKS TO The Underground McMaster Museum of Art