The Cycle of Life

Rolling Down the River

I come from a long line of mothers

I come from a long line of mothers quiet, unassuming souls who mended broken bottles and homes, hearts and hampers, and bent words no one could break as they held out what no one could give. And now I stare into your bright eyes and another part of me gives way.

I have felt it leaving, piece by piece, in the tiny clothes I bought, the pinks and peaches of your nursery, the baby-safe locks and plastic gates

It faded from me in the middle of the night, when I rocked you, slumbering inside of me when the tide approached, and left heavier than it was when it came in. It fell in the tears that hit my skin as I held you and cried in the dark even when I didn’t know why. The house was so still then, I could still hear the ocean before you came it took me away, piece by piece

When you came we shut the windows the draft and the tide disappeared but you stayed, and I kept losing myself a little more each day, each moment that I pushed myself under water to hold you up where you could breathe.

I see your little smile and I would give it all away, again without hesitation everything Last week we were playing, and you said, “Mommy

Why don’t you smile more?”

Stephanie Jorritsma – Honorable Mention

I looked at you, and said “of course I smile,” and our tea party continued. That night I remembered my mother somber in her flower-print dresses, baking or cooking, always focused in an eagle’s stare, head cocked to one side always giving always strong

I come from a long line of mothers who lost themselves to the distance in the cries of children and clanking pans and slamming doors, amidst broken hearts and snapped clothespins and wild forsythia In the tide I hear them whisper telling me to be stronger, stronger in the rocks I hear them breaking, in the wind their selfless love and in the waves, their wailing loss

Yesterday you were playing and I watched you from the next room. You were organizing your plastic dishes red blue orange green and yellow I saw something beginning in your face your focused stare head half-tilted to the side

I walked outside onto the porch in the gray New England afternoon. The sea was coming in and when it left, I felt it take one last thing away

Work Ethic

He said his work ethic was overdeveloped. A question on the sheet they gave me when I entered the ranks of middle management. How would you describe your work ethic? A recommended interview question. He tipped back in his chair and scratched his chin with his fingernails. He breathed in through his nose. “Overdeveloped,” he said. Then he laughed a little like it was a true confession. Like he was describing a shortcoming. Like he didn’t know it was the right answer. Overdeveloped, he said. I recommended him to the home office, and they gave him the job.

Then last night I see him on TV. Turns out he’s some kind of radical Seventh Day flavor of the week. Good-looking guy, nice shoes; I never would have guessed. He eats carrot sticks for lunch. But there he is on the evening news with all his buddies wearing white robes, speaking truth to power, planning on being there every night until we “release our corporate strangle-hold on the Creation.” The pretty-girl TV anchor nods compassionately and then goes back to you, Jim.

Their encampment is just outside town. There are lots of tall ponderosas, and they’ve taken over a Forest Service campground. They have trendy North Face tents with high tech coatings the rain beads up and rolls off of. I’ve seen those in the catalogues, and they’re not cheap. The news crews are gone now, and my guy is sitting on the ground reading a paperback, his legs criss-cross applesauce underneath his robe. His ankles are showing; he’s wearing Chacos.

I walk over and say, “What happened to your overdeveloped work ethic?”

He looks up and grins, “Hey Mr. Wu. Welcome to our little protest. Let me get you a robe.”

“Oh. I’m only here to chat,” I say. Although I do feel out of place in my Men’s Warehouse suit and knock-off Rolex. “We missed you today at work. And yesterday.”

“Right. Sorry I couldn’t call. We’re fasting from technology until our voice is heard in the corridors of power.”

“Like Gandhi,” I say, vaguely remembering.

“Sure. Minus the polytheism.”

Jonathan Frey – Fiction Prize

“Of course,” I say. “Well, listen, if we don’t see you at work tomorrow, I’m afraid I’ll have to let you go.”

He turns toward one of the tents and shouts, “Hey, Abel.”

The door unzips and another clean-cut white guy sticks his head out. “Yeah?”

“They’re letting me go,” and he looks like he’s just busted open the piñata of happiness. Abel whoops and then jumps out of the tent, runs over to another group of robe-clad white people. “We’re disentangling ourselves from the corporate infrastructure,” my guy explains to me.

“Congrats,” I say, knowing this is going to make me look bad. The home office won’t be amused.

On the way back to town I notice my Jeep is almost out of gas. I stop in the Chevron, and, while I’m pumping, I try to think about what it might mean to disentangle myself. I don’t think I knew I was entangled. And I feel a little jealous of my guy, spending some days among the ponderosas, believing in something and reading paperbacks instead of going to work like the rest of us. The Chevron is on a busy corner, and, watching the traffic go by, I feel like I’m in one of those neon, urban fast-motion videos where the traffic goes and stops and changes directions with the changing stoplights, and there’s jazz in the background, and night falls and the headlights come on, and the city full of people alone in their automobiles feels infinite and constant, and I feel alone among them, waiting to go home and watch TV and then go back to the office tomorrow and pick up where I left off, climbing toward an unknowable future. And then the pump clicks off, and I take my receipt and go home.

Unfolding Daisy

My Glasses

Iwas about 10 years old or so when it all went down. I have been bound to plastic chains ever since this day. To my perception, it seemed to be just another day as I went to school, ate my lunch out of my brown paper bag, got home to the tiny apartment, washed the pasta splattered dishes, challenged my brother to an intense game of checkers, and finally watched Family Feud on the antenna television. I’m reclining in the dark blue and dirty chair, intently watching the screen, and becoming exposed to one of the many devilish tools this world uses to slowly consume you into its grasp. When, after observing their child for several prolonged minutes, I was finally bombarded with an extensive amount of questions such as, “Hey honey, are you squinting? Can you see the screen OK? Can you read those words on the screen? How long have you been straining? Do your eyes hurt? Maybe that is why you are having headaches? Why didn’t you tell us your eyesight was bothering you?” It was as if it was all my fault when actually throughout my years of life prior to this I had been complaining here and there about not being able to read the classroom whiteboard. I would receive minor headaches and couldn’t see-read-let alone notice the figures and words on the television screen. I didn’t see it at all as a worry though, so I kept living life! My parents were just as oblivious as I, so they just never did anything. The years lagged on and now here I was. Slowly walking into the main entrance of the optical prison I could smell the aroma of coffee and cookies. As my nerves clenched with fear, I was greeted by the cheesy grin of a desk worker! Why was she so exuberant to ruin my life? Like what, at that time, did I do to deserve such a punishment? I dragged my resistant behind up to the front of her desk quarters as her cold smirk pierced my soul. She exclaimed with delight, “Oh, how wonderful! You’ve come to get prescription glasses! It must be exciting!” She handed my mother the death certificate, I mean form, to fill out with my personal information in order to get me in. Then she pulled me aside and asked to take my picture for security reasons. I forced a content smile. I told myself this couldn’t be happening because I was so young and naive! It was such an injustice in my mind; why would God make his child suffer such social abuse by society?!

I remember sitting in that cold airy, damp room. I felt secluded and boxed into a world that was not my own. I could ‘see’ my parents and the eye physician outside of my prison cell wall. I heard them whispering to one another about how concerned they were of my eyesight when the doctor hadn’t even checked me! (I guess they needed to figure out the funeral plans first.) This put me into an anxiety type mindset of, “Oh no! I’m about to be blind for the rest of my life. This is going to affect the rest of my life-body-soul so therefore resulting in no point of existence anymore! There is no cure; I’m diseased for the rest of my pitiful life!” I squirmed in that oversized chair thinking all was lost. The notion of hopelessness hit me hard like a metal anvil falling on my head. I beheld the walls and glided my innocent fingers across its roughbumpy texture. It’s as if the person that was in this cell before me had made it cozy and comfortable to his liking by adding photos of his two precious children and attractive wife. I did; however, appreciate his taste for success as I observed his many certificates of accomplishments in the careers of optometry. The prosecutor's computer would keep a record of all my cries.

Finally, my eyes rested upon a single four-legged chair kiddy corner of myself. It made me think about which family member I would want there for my last few moments. It was almost as if I was just chilling in space, staring off into the nothingness of my own little world when the antagonist yanked me back into the reality of life by having sat down and already interrogating me with various questions I had no idea how to answer. I stuck to the cliche response of yes, no, not sure, or I don’t think so. My heckler did the process of slow persecution. His first order of business was the pressure test to my eye. It felt like my eye was drying up and I had no way of escape! Next came the goggles of despair that floated onto my barren eyes. I was asked to read the last line of letters I could see clearly. After I had thought it was all over; I was wrong! He then shone a luminous light into my eyeball for which I had to keep staring at. He comes back with the news that my eyesight was screwed! So I was then rushed to the equipment room where I was to select my spectacle of choice. There were so many vibrant colored frames, but I only saw dingy shades.

I chose a pair that was oblong shaped and pink. The nose piece had a rubbery feel and it felt like a suction cup on my nose. The receptionist said she would contact us when my prescription glasses came in. I assumed those two weeks they said it would take to get them in should be enough time for them to prepare my desolate coffin. I went home in a trance, groveling through the next weeks which passed expeditiously. The day I was dreading had finally arrived! I was handed the device to my demise. I picked up the grotesque tool and closing my eyes, placed them upon my face. I had accepted my fate...I hesitantly opened my eyes and what beheld me was beyond words: A whole new world! I suddenly could see clearly and was able to perceive an endless amount of detail and sharp colors which triggered all five senses to their full potential! There was so much going on that I had never noticed before! I spotted the humongous billboards, graceful butterflies fluttering by, smoking hot red mustang in the parking lot, and the license plate numbers which had previously looked like a jumbled blur. I could smell the sweet lilacs invading my nostrils with a fragrance that reminded me of springtime. The whiff of cheeseburgers and fries from Hardees made my stomach moan for nourishment. I marveled in the smell and sound of burning rubber squealing by. I was in awe of all the beauty I had been missing out on! Although the frames were disfiguring, they have become my miracle in disguise. I walked out of that nearsighted prison, which was now the cure for my true disease: negativity. I proudly strutted away to the crystal white chevy malibu with my new chains of freedom and a feeling of release from the pit I had put myself into. It made me wonder, “If I had not gone through what I saw as this hell, would I have been able to find this haven of new perception?”

The Lighthouse

When I say nothing, they joke of alleyway assaults predators not at fault racism as a default.

When I say nothing, they snap pussy-grabbing selfies bra straps of young Chelseas disdain at the unwealthy.

When I say nothing, they claim the minority blindly insulate authority insist upon conformity.

When I say nothing, they poison the minds of my boys filter reality like white noise social gatherings destroyed.

When I say nothing, they threaten anhydrous from a cannon at people who aren’t like them and credit “experts” from Buchanan.

When I say nothing, they whittle facts into fiction wallop untruths with conviction disgrace the oppressed without restriction.

When I say nothing, friendships are unsoured ignorance is empowered I’m protected but a coward.

When I Say Nothing

Couple Overlooking the Aegean Sea

Springs Not Fail after Gerard Manley Hopkins

His consciousness stuttered and blinked out that night, sometime between bedtime story and breakfast, and he was newly buried. The mind we’d begun to know those first two years was suddenly blank, or at any rate suddenly lost.

That was a year ago. At dinner, that last night, he was making us laugh, sitting in the highchair and repeating silly things we said. He was smiley and manipulative, and, when Jack suggested i-c-e-c-r-e-a-m, Tommy slapped both palms down on his tray and squealed, “I-ce-areimmmm! Momma let’s i-ce-are-immmm!” Then, in ecstasy, he smeared his remaining supper across his face.

And the next morning he was in a ball, curled at the bottom of the crib, eyes blank and fixed on the middle distance, sweat standing out against his forehead, spots of blood on the mattress and around his mouth. I remember sunlight in the window that first warm day of spring, snowmelt in the draws, long flat mirrors screaming back the sky.

All winter I had waited for the greening of the fields, the opening of the lilies that blew against their stems in stirred wind. I had waited to walk with Tommy along the field edges, to show him all the new and growing things. And in those first days of his broken mind, spring grew and flourished, then languished into the fat heat of summer, then rotted and failed, falling again into the dark endurance of winter.

Between episodes, his eyes are fiery holes, smoldering deep down with the lost fibers of consciousness and self. The doctors all provide names for this, order batteries of tests, assemble arrays of data points to explain what happened and when it might happen again and why. Eventually their prognoses break down and their theories become moot in the face of our long and simmering days.

Jack told me that, if I wanted to keep shopping around for an explanation I liked better, I could. But that I’d have to do it on my own. He said I was ignoring reality those were his words, ignoring reality. He was leaning against the kitchen counter with arms crossed over his chest, hands tucked in the nooks of his elbows, still smelling of fields and machines. He was issuing declarations in a ragged whisper because Tommy was finally asleep in the next room.

Jonathan Frey – Fiction Prize

Between episodes, Tommy is rigid as a board but still enough for me to hold him. Which I do. I slide him into the pressure vest and cradle him against me. Sometimes for hours. Sometimes he sleeps. Days pass. This has become my solace, not healing or help, but quiet. These brief recesses of calm. Like a small boat on a still sea, we are exposed to the green swells that gather beneath us, but they are suspended; we are not safe but we feel safe.

Just now, we are sitting against the wall, near the window, and the house is dark because I haven’t wanted to get up and turn on lights. His chest is pressed to my chest, so it feels like his heart is within me like it was in the beginning.

This window looks out at the draw, which is again filled with snowmelt. In the quiet, I hear the soft voices of the swans, the murmuring chorus. They have only returned this week. Big and awkward, white bodies that daily glow with sunlight, spots of radiance dropped across the face of the thawing earth. Ours are not the svelte European mutes; ours are the straight-necked, black-billed tundra swans, plain and stolid. Each spring they populate these temporary ponds, and each summer they leave. Their voices are an ocean touching the edge of our little boat, rocking us. Each year they return, bright with expectation, promising something they can’t provide.

In the faint light, I ask to go where these bright and buoyant springs don’t fail, and out of the swing of the sea.

Brandi Malarkey

I don’t want to sit in church on Sunday using the walls to pretend the pain outside does not belong to me, claiming for myself what I refuse to others. I don’t want to sit in church on Sunday saturated in a version of God made convenient, rather than true, holding firm to faith that smells of fear.

I want to wake on a Sunday morning and go walking in the ordinary miracle that is the world, reminding myself that I am a part of it. I want to walk on a Sunday morning stopping to pick up broken glass scattered like confetti on the concrete, moving on without acknowledgement.

i’ve left all my dreams out in the cold the thought refuses / to show itself / it’s been snowing / for days & you’ve all but forgotten / how to sleep & now the long cold months ahead seem / like a dream purring / in your cat’s little black head / obfuscated & intimate / a feral sentiment / like the playful scratch that left you itching for days // you wonder if that is love / or a kind of love / or just another thing that won’t leave & won’t stop hurting // it’s okay / to forgive yourself / for hurting / okay / to watch the snow cover / the trees without care / for the mud / that will seep / into the earth’s wounds / when the snow can no longer / stand / to look at you // isn’t it true / even dreams can leave you / even this young cat / who gives you warmth when the winter wind / leaves you frostbitten & bitter / will leave you without reason & without goodbye when the time comes / to fall finally asleep

Carolyn Espe

Bookshelves

e moved to Pennsylvania in late summer right before I went into second grade, and my parents put an addition, intended to be a den, onto the large old slateblue farmhouse. My Uncle Pete, a tall, gaunt man who spit into coffee cans and taught carpentry at a local high school, offered to help build it. My dad and Uncle Pete dug the hole, poured the concrete, built the gritty cinder block foundation, and laid a plywood platform as the structure for this upcoming room. My cousins and I happily reveled in this new stage we knew we had for a short time; tirelessly, we played around on this huge floor wide open to nature’s inhabitants surrounding the house. In the cooling humid evenings, as we took a break from our games, we sat on the edge of the rough floor, swinging our little legs while slurping sticky popsicles and watching the sporadic traffic zoom by the new place. It felt like an island among trees in the middle of nowhere. Games continued and inevitably ended with the youngest of cousins crying in cranky sleeplessness “no fair!” and stomp off to the kitchen where my mom and my aunt relaxed while drinking coffee and tea, away from the outside.

As the addition rose up, and as the outside construction ended, my dad build bookshelves into the den. At first, the wooden planks were raw; these unpainted, unfinished planks smelled like the orchard behind the old house after it rained, steamy and green. Alone, because Uncle Pete went back to school, and armed with a level, a hammer, and an uncountable amount of nails, my father put shelves into the walls of the new room. These deep tall spaces, looking a lot like quiet vacant shadow boxes, were painted a neutral green tone, like a random chicken egg in a dozen at the grocery store. The den was empty still, a large room waiting with its new blond hardwood floor brushed with a stinky slick polish, a massive bay window overlooking the mostly empty road, and carefully painted drywall to match the bookshelves. As I sat alone in the room, away from my family, I felt small but anxious while surrounded by the walls; I imagined it was a perfect place in its spaciousness.

Sitting like giant unwrapped Christmas packages, large, packed boxes in the adjacent room soon revealed the stuff to fill in these empty pockets. Because a moving company helped to bring everything from Tennessee to Pennsylvania, I didn’t know what was in them. First, a heavy dark wooden desk my father acquired in the military overseas sat royally in the back of the room. Dad’s collection of fragrant pipes and tobacco sat on one edge of the desk while the two-tiered reading lamp with some wooden veneer sat on the other edge. A green leather blotter holder containing a darker green blotter poster protected the center of the desk. Dad’s desk was off-limits to us kids; he worked here while at home.

After placing furniture pieces about the room, we removed difficult packing tape and an overwhelming amount of packing material from boxes; then, books of all shapes and sizes and colors entered the den. Each one seemed to be different than all the others – some had must yellowing on the pages while some older book jackets were covered with a sheer crackly plastic. Library books marked “discarded” had tiny handwritten library codes written on their spines. We placed the books along the shelving, filling in and closing the space once green and empty.

After the books were placed in the room, my parents put the sofa against the only wall without books; it faced the shelves, and I found myself alone in the den once again. This time, staring around me, I found the variety of colors and sizes amazing to my eight-year-old eyes. I knew nothing of any place like this. The library at my elementary school possessed rows and rows of books too, but those were numbered and needed to be in order at all times because the librarian said so. In this room, the opposite was true. I was allowed to look at any of the books and order didn’t matter. The shelves were twice as tall as me; I pulled myself up to stand on a soft burgundy leather chair with striped rivets and wooden arms. Some books covered with dingy plastic looked torn and fragile. I found cloth-covered books, textured like my jeans. Some of the hard-covered books felt heavy, but the paper inside was so thin, I could almost see through it. When I clambered down and plopped onto the sofa and paged through these books, the soft sounds of paper falling whispered to me. Other books I found had thicker paper; these rugged pages along the edge felt weathered, and I ran my little hands along the book while imagining all that was happening inside. I read of travelers in places where people didn’t speak English. Authors I would later read and

Carolyn Espe

love sat among the stacks in these shelves. Intricate design of artists’ rendering of birds and flowers enthralled my mind while I carefully paged through the images. Dad’s thick dictionary, with its gold gilded edges, lived behind his desk; sometimes, I pulled it out and carefully placed it on the desk to find my word. Replacing it exactly in its spot, on the shelf, the dictionary became intrinsic to my growth as I often returned to it for information.

As I grew up, my reading increased. I poured over my dad’s collection as a resource for school assignments. Lauren Bacall’s first book, By Myself, served as a fourth-grade biography project. I utilized the illustrated Audubon Book of Birds for a sixth-grade project. I often referred to The Encyclopedia Britannica for the start of papers and other assignments in my high school years. Yet another little orange guidebook filled with easy chemistry experiments I somewhat successfully tried found its way into my hands. Surrounded by these walls of books, I felt my world grow. We lived in the middle of rolling orchards on a rural back road away from any neighboring homes, and books became worlds I explored beyond my little place. Books spent time with me after homework, on car trips with family, and with a flashlight as I fell asleep in my bedroom.

Growing up, I never thought of the den as anything besides a collection of stuff. But these heavy dense pieces next to slender novels and travel guides tucked into the walls, these decorated the room and offered variety while creating a sense of knowledge about a multitude of topics. As a young person, I never made the connection that my dad’s library illuminated my childhood and wandering mind; the library lent itself to my exploring in ranges unimaginable, fostering my love for reading and books. This library fed me and continues to find its way into my life as a I return to the bookshelves when I can.

strange bird autopsy

1. i paced for hours up & down insane hills imagining your cold body lying on a cold steel table a doctor’s nitrile fingers mucking up whatever memories might still be collapsing like black holes inside your brain

2. when we were children we ran through golden fields & your hair was golden & the flowers were golden & every time the wind blew you told us i can move the breeze with my mind

3. looking up i saw a raven descend from the mourning leaves of the moving trees & begin pecking maddeningly at the ground as i approached the raven flew off like golden petals on a golden breeze to a tree whose branches looked strong enough to hold a soul as heavy as a soul must weigh i didn’t even notice the grey corpse of a squirrel rising flower-like out of the ground all its memories blossoming in red where its head should be as i crossed over 5. the next morning i woke in a strange house & the walls seemed to shrink & the warm lamps i read by seemed to dull like scalpels who spent all night interrogating golgotha but outside the wind had already tore down every church in town every gravestone already turned over & lying face up & i could hear only a soft & distant rain whistling through the newly naked branches

4.

6. what good are these neurons that dance all night like ghosts in the hippocampus? these faint splashes of light haunting my eyelids? what good is this skull that houses all of this being if it server only to keep everything we’ve ever seen & loved trapped inside its grey walls until one day we vacate a newly emptied room filled only with our last glimpse?

7. brother tell me you’ve come back down as a raven or a rat or rain tell me to climb ararat that insane mountain where one might watch the world lay to waste & wait for the winds to carry me a dove i’ll hold its white body

Jonathan Frey

Cyrano after Denis Johnson

In class yesterday the kid playing Christian turned to the kid playing Cyrano and stuck a sharpened pencil into the corner of his eye. Cyrano stood there looking surprised and wonderfully speechless. The pencil dobbed up and down like a fishing line beside that great, bulbous nose, bouncing in a weird and living rhythm.

Huh, I thought, and I thought, Well. That’s fresh, anyway. That’s different. That isn’t what happened last time, as blood squirted and as EMTs strapped him to the gurney, careful not to touch the fishing rod end of the pencil. It might be holding his brain in, they said when I asked.

Well, I thought, as they wheeled Cyrano away still spurting a little and squirming against the restraints, I guess that’s about right. That’s what happens to you if you’re good at words but bad at love.

And the other thing I thought was, That’s why I hate teaching middle school. I drove home along the coast road, the masts of sailing boats bobbing like fishing lines with the erratic bumps of the sea.

Sometimes when someone asks what I do for a job, I look past them and say, I save lives.

Whan That Aprille with His Shoures Soote

The bugs have all come back. In the evenings and at night, it’s loud outside and inside, too. I hear them in the kitchen while I make falafel and clean the cabinets. Not loud like the south. Not screeching cicadas, which Patrick told me once long before we were dating, let alone married is his sound of silence.

Here, in coastal Maine, it’s crickets and nightbirds and toads and nightbugs and sounds I can’t identify, chorusing together in the mudflats and shallow pools that have returned tentatively this spring.

On the pond, there are ducks most times, swimming in pairs or alone and dunking periodically under the water to eat something floating by. They make a lot of noise, both when they are landing and when Patrick or I walk near the pond. These ducks are small and black and do not eat the bread and scones I’ve thrown in the water for them. I’m hoping for ducklings in the next five weeks, but you can’t rush these things.

Spring comes quickly in New England. Quickly is the wrong word, though, because we’re all waiting impatiently, for the chill to leave the air and for the winds to stop biting like winter winds do. Spring comes very slowly here, actually, and then very suddenly all at once. Spring comes here the way a crocus does, shooting its stem and small bud up out of the hard earth slowly, slowly, until it bursts open in deep color and tenderness against the lingering dull backdrop of winter.

We’re just at the edge, now, on the verge of spring, before that bursting point. You can feel it outside. The trees are buzzing. The ground is softening, opening up to let what’s been trapped all winter crawl up and seep out.

The toads can feel it, too. Get confused, croak in the daytime out of sheer exultation.

Mark Brown

James River in Winter

Tentacles of Life

Kirsten Vander Kooi

The Lady and the Baek-jeong hae-yeong kicked her jegi high into the air. The coin rose in a graceful arc over her garden, ribbons fluttering with anticipation. "You play jegichagi so well, my lady," her servant remarked as she watched. The coin fell back to Chae-yeong's foot to be kicked again.

In the second that Chae-yeong prepared to send it flying back into the air, her eyes caught on a peasant. His white jacket and pants designated him as being of low class. The straw sandals over his cotton stockings suggested he was of the manual labor field. Chae-yeong knew all the commoners allowed within her walls and this was not one of them.

The shuttlecock shot to the side, straight into the garden pond. "Who is that man?" Chae-yeong asked her servant in a low voice.

"Him? Oh-oh my! That would be the town butcher,” Lady Joh stuttered with eyes glued to the approaching figure.

Butchers were worse than peasants. "People of his class are banned from even entering the vicinity of the Kim residence, am I wrong?" Chae-yeong's voice was threatening.

"You are not wrong, my lady,” her servant answered nervously. "I will tell him to leave immediately." The man reached them before she could.

“Greetings, my lady,” he said, bowing at ninety degrees. She eyed him, lip curling and shifting to her back foot. “What is this baek-jeong doing here?” she asked Lady Joh pointedly. Her servant cringed at the derogatory term. Baek-jeong were the lowest class of peasants, and their names were associated with centuries of discrimination.

“This baek-jeong came to deliver the pork the Kim family ordered,” the man answered. “A servant was supposed to pick it up, but no one came. I did not wish it to spoil.”

Chae-yeong considered him and smirked. “The kitchen is in the back.” The man nodded in gratitude and hiked toward the south side of the manor.

Lady Joh was concerned but did not question her superior. “My lady, your jegi is in the pond.”

“What?” Chae-yeong turned to the pond in distress. “That jegi was made for me by my mother.”

“The late Lady Kim would surely not turn in her grave over it,” Lady Joh attempted to reassure her, but it was futile. The young Lady Kim was toeing off her slippers and gathering the layers of her silk skirts into her arms, much to Lady Joh’s dismay.

When Ha-jun rounded the corner of the mansion with a cheek that would bruise by the next morning and his meat successfully delivered, he hadn’t expected the scene of Lady Joh weeping and holding Lady Kim back from the lake. “Please don’t do it, my lady!” she begged through her tears. “What will your father say?”

Ha-jun approached cautiously. “Pardon me,” he said. “If the lady seeks something in the lake, I could fetch it for her.”

Lady Kim turned to him in desperation and gratitude. “If you can bring me my jegi, I will repay you whatever you wish for.”

This was unexpected. Ha-jun removed his sandals and stockings. Lady Kim had not seemed to him to be such a generous person in their first meeting. Ha-jun didn’t believe in judging appearances, though. He waded into the crystal waters and scanned the bottom for the feathers or ribbons of a jegi.

“Is this it?” Ha-Jun waded back to shore with his find. At the sight of the gleaming coin tied in colorful ribbons, Lady Kim gave a cry of delight. She snatched the jegi from him and pulled Lady Joh with her to stand at a distance.

“Will you honor your pledge?” Ha-jun asked in a light voice as he bent to pull his stockings and sandals back on.

Chae-yeong regretted her thoughtless words but prepared herself to fulfill them. She believed in the Confucian principles, and they emphasized sincerity. “I will repay you whatever you wish for,” she repeated.

“You seem skilled at jegichagi,” the baek-jeong mused. “I love games, but I have no company to play them with me. Would you play games with me when you are not attending to your duties?”

Chae-yeong stared at him. “You must have a lot of spare time as a butcher.”

Kirsten Vander Kooi

“I do find the time to enjoy myself when I’m not working or being disparaged,” the baek-jeong answered in a polite voice. Lady Joh detected a hint of flippance. She squinted at him in suspicion, but he maintained his humble expression.

“I will fulfill your wish,” Lady Kim decided. “I will not have you dirtying my property so I will visit your house for the games.”

“As the lady sees fit,” the baek-jeong answered dutifully, but there was a hint of a gleam in his eyes. Ha-jun was curious if Lady Kim would meet his expectations.

Lady Kim first appeared at his house a week later, at midday. The sun was high in the sky and the packed earth seemed to be baking. Ha-jun was in the process of hanging a pig’s carcass when she peeked into his hut. Immediately, the lady gagged and disappeared. Hajun snorted softly. “Set the water to boil and then join us,” Ha-jun instructed his fellow butcher, Seong-jin.

“How did my lady find me?” Ha-jun asked as he exited the hut and bowed briefly. Lady Kim had the appearance of a ruffled hen, matching Lady Joh who stood behind her. Several emasculated children and adults were gathered to peer at them from a distance.

“I inquired among the peasants about a baek-jeong who works as a butcher and they pointed me to this area,” Lady Kim said. “I traveled all the way out to this wasteland on foot. I do not wish to make a spectacle of our arrangement, after all.”

“I am honored.” Ha-jun bowed his head. “We baek-jeong live quite a far way from the village, don’t we?”

At this moment, Seong-jin joined him. Ha-jun gestured to his friend. “May he watch the games?”

Lady Kim frowned. “I thought you said you had no companions.”

“Only Seong-jin, and he refuses to play with me,” Ha-jun answered. He gave Seong-jin a playful flick to the head and Seong-jin shot him a restrained look.

Lady Kim turned her nose up but pulled out a jegi. It was different from the pretty coin Ha-jun had saved from the lake. This one was a feathered ball. The lady gave it an assessing toss into the air. “Have you played jegichagi before?”

“Most peasants have,” Ha-jun answered, “including myself.”

“I doubt your skill will match that of my lady,” Lady Joh asserted with a smirk that she hid behind her hand.

Seong-jin’s brows creased and he opened his mouth, but Ha-jun clasped his shoulder and made eye-contact with him. Seong-jin closed his mouth and straightened his face, shuffling to watch from the doorway of their hut.

Ha-jun was, unsurprisingly, not as skilled as Lady Kim. He wasn’t particularly bothered by it, since he rarely had time for games with the amount of work he took on. The game was intense, not particularly enjoyable. Lady Kim had an air of bitterness and determination throughout, but the fact that she was playing a game with a baek-gyeong in his slum was probably enough to fuel a fall from grace in society.

“This was a bad idea,” Seong-jin intoned as he watched the ladies make their hasty exit from the slum.

Ha-jun chuckled. “Not even a peasant would be caught playing a game with a baek-jeong. Lady Kim is quite open-minded, no?” Seong-jin disagreed.

It was several days before Chae-yeong was back in the baekjeong slum. The bitter odor of animal blood and unwashed bodies permeated every street. Lady Joh was tiptoeing behind her, flinching at every dirty child that would run past. The young ones would ask for food, but the older ones would herd them away from the ladies with knowing looks. Chae-yeong tried not to recall the butcher with red marks on his cheek after delivering the meat.

At his hut this time, Chae-yeong called from outside. “I brought tops to spin!”

“My lady, please keep in mind that your second breakfast is in an hour,” Lady Joh spoke up. She was shifting in her spot.

When the baek-jeong failed to appear, Chae-yeong cautiously entered his abode. The pig’s corpse was gone from the ceiling. The baek-jeong and his companion were seated on the ground with a few bowls between them. The companion was eating from a bowl of kimchi daintily as the baek-jeong wolfed down his soup. They froze at the sight of Chae-yeong.

The baek-jeong immediately stood and bowed. “I wasn’t expecting you in the morning, I apologize.”

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Chae-yeong ignored him to approach the meal spread out on the packed earth. “Where are the side dishes for your breakfast?”

The baek-jeong cocked his head at her. “Side dishes are for the upper class, my lady. Merchants–peasants even–could have a few side dishes, but baek-jeong certainly wouldn’t.”

Chae-yeong considered him. “I brought tops to spin,” she finally said. She turned to leave the tiny straw hut.

“That’s a child’s game,” the baek-jeong remarked with a grin as he followed her.

“There are not many games that both commoners and nobles know,” Chae-yeong answered with a huff. “Now let’s play.” She squatted on the ground to Lady Joh’s dismay, her silk skirts bunching in the dirt, and sent a pretty red top spinning. “Whoever lasts longer will win.”

“All right.” Ha-jun took a sleek black top from Lady Joh’s armful and bent to spin it with Lady Kim’s. Both watched with rapture as the tops spun steadily. When gangly kids inched out of the shadows to watch with them, Lady Kim hesitantly signaled her servant to give them the extra tops. She figured it couldn’t hurt.

Chae-yeong was in high spirits when she returned to her manor. They had guests over that day, so Chae-yeong played tuho with the younger nobles. She loved entertaining guests, but it was different from being with the baek-jeong. Lady Joh stood politely in the corner and waited for any orders.

“Lady Kim Chae-yeong, I hear you’ve been leaving your residence quite frequently,” Lord Kim Beom-seok spoke up on her turn.

Chae-yeong’s arrow missed the vase completely. Lady Choi raised an eyebrow. “I lost control of my throw,” Chae-yeong laughed nervously.

Lady Choi picked up an arrow and aimed at the vase. “Tuho can be difficult,” she mused, “especially when one is guilty.”

“Guilty?” Chae-yeong repeated incredulously. Lady Joh shifted in the corner.

“Rumor has it that you’ve been out playing games with baekjeong,” Lord Kim Beom-seok stated. “That’s obviously incorrect. You, of all people, wouldn’t break the Confucian principle of acting according to your class.” He laughed without warmth.

Chae-yeong stood silently. “And what if I did play games with baek-jeong?” she finally spoke up. “This isn’t the Goryeo dynasty, we can acknowledge that Confucius also valued humility and kindness.”

“You’re starting to sound like the king,” Lady Choi frowned. “Everyone knows baek-jeong are unclean.”

Chae-yeong pressed her lips together. It was true. Working as a butcher, leatherworker, or entertainer as the baek-jeong did was frowned upon even by other peasants. Still, the baek-jeong were only doing the jobs that the rest of society refused to do. Technically, the baek-jeong class had been merged into the peasant class once the Goryeo dynasty ended. This discrimination was just based on conventional biases, wasn’t it?

Chae-yeong set her jaw. “I want to learn more about the baekjeong before drawing conclusions.”

Lady Choi and Lord Kim Beom-seok eyed her. “Baek-jeong have nothing to offer you,” Lady Choi murmured.

“Perhaps not,” Chae-yeong murmured back.

Outside the baek-jeong’s hut a week later, Chae-yeong announced, “I brought yaksik with me this time! I was thinking we could eat before a long and intense game of yut-nori.” There wasn’t much left after she had handed some to the kids.

The baek-jeong emerged with red stains on his stockings and a tight smile. “What did I do to deserve yaksik?” he laughed as he bowed. His companion followed behind with a grudging dip of respect.

Chae-yeong didn’t answer but took the chewy rice bars from Lady Joh and handed half to the baek-jeong. She settled against his hut, sliding down the side to sit in a puddle of colorful embroidered silk on the dusty road. She popped a rice bar into her mouth and stared out at the dingy huts framing the opposite side of the street. “Do you ever wish to be more than a butcher?”

The baek-jeong handed a rice bar to his friend and sat beside her. “What’s the point? I was born a butcher. If I was a normal peasant I could take the civil exam, but as a baek-jeong I should just accept my fate.”

There was the sound of footsteps and the baek-jeong flinched. An aging man appeared at the end of the road, limping toward them. Chae-yeong and the baek-jeong watched silently as he limped

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past. The man eyed them in disdain and muttered, “Don’t mean much to me, ‘s long as those men stop showing up here riling the place up.”

“I know,” the baek-jeong answered. “I’ll try to do something about it.” He watched the elder limp around the corner and disappear. The baek-jeong took a resolute breath.

At Chae-yeong’s questioning look, he explained softly, “The peasants don’t like that a baek-jeong is getting attention from Lady Kim, so they come over sometimes to intimidate us.”

Chae-yeong mulled this over as she turned back to the open sky and squat huts. “What is your name, baek-jeong?”

He side-eyed her now, brows pulling down. “Ha-jun, my lady.”

“I am Chae-yeong,” she answered. “Lady Joh’s first name is Ae-cha. We may as well use first names as long as we play games together.”

Ha-jun’s rice bar fell out of his mouth onto the road. A puff of dust rose at the impact. He slowly reached to pick it up and put it back in his mouth, but Chae-yeong smacked it out of his hand. “That’s disgusting,” she said.

Ha-jun turned from her to the dingy huts. “Yaksik are my favorite. I like how they are sweet but have soy-sauce in them,” he answered. “Hey, Chae-yeong?”

Lady Joh flinched. Seong-jin was deathly silent. Lady Kim waited a moment before whispering, “Yes, Ha-jun?”

Ha-jun’s smile was blinding. “My friend’s name is Seongjin. He’ll act grumpy, but you can use his name, too.”

Their game of yut-nori was full of laughter and competitiveness as Ae-cha and Seongjin joined–those two had a vendetta against each other. Chae-yeong and Ha-jun suspected that perhaps the two were secretly attracted to each other. They conspired to make something happen at the next game.

Lady Choi and Lord Kim Beom-seok were waiting at the entrance to her house when Chae-yeong arrived. They took in her dusty skirts and wispy braid. Lady Joh’s smile was replaced by blank professionalism. She clutched the yut-nori sticks to her chest.

“We had a word with your father, but he insisted that you were making the right choice,” Lord Kim Beom-seok spoke up.

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“You’ve made enough of a spectacle of our class,” Lady Choi announced. “If the Kim clan refuses to take action then we will go to the royal court on this matter.”

Chae-yeong swallowed but set her jaw. “Alright.” The nobles silently stepped out of the way and gestured that they would enter their carriages. Chae-yeong watched from the doorstep as the carriages shrunk into the distance. Lady Joh was trembling.

Chae-yeong spent two days thinking over the matter. Then she visited Ha-jun’s house with gyeongdan. “I didn’t bring any tea, but I thought you might like rice balls!” she called through his open doorway. “They’re similar to yaksik… somewhat.” Chae-yeong chuckled to herself. “If you want we could even go to my house for tea, since gyeongdan isn’t the same without it.”

The hut was silent. Ae-cha shifted behind her. There were no baek-jeong in the streets. There was a putrid undertone of smoke accompanying the rancid smell of blood and grime. The surrounding huts creaked in the wind like empty husks. Chae-yeong ducked through the doorway with ice in her stomach.

Seong-jin was kneeling over Ha-jun with tears rolling down his face. Ha-jun’s body was purple and red and blistered everywhere. Seong-jin met the eyes of Chae-yeong and croaked, “I went out for the cow we were supposed to butcher today, but when I saw fire on the outskirts of the slum I came back. The peasants had gathered into a mob and come for him. They were threatening us before, but I didn’t think–” He burst into sobs. “They pillaged the slum on the way. Most of the baek-jeong are hiding in the forest now.”

Chae-yeong’s chin trembled, but she spoke through the film of water filling her vision. “Is Ha-jun dead?”

“No,” Seong-jin said, “but no doctor here would be willing to treat him.”

She set her jaw. “Pick him up,” Chae-yeong ordered, “we’ll take him to my house.” She hurried out of the hut. “Just run,” she instructed the confused Ae-cha still clutching the gyeongdan.

At the house, Chae-yeong ran straight past servants trying to offer her a fresh outfit and tea to her father’s wing. She burst into his study. “Doctor Lee is still staying in his quarters, is he not?”

Lord Kim noticed her lack of honorifics immediately. “Yes, shall I call him?”

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“Do so and come with him to the guest quarters,” Chae-yeong yelled over her shoulder as she exited. She met Seong-jin at the entrance and led him to their guest quarters. Doctor Lee and her father arrived shortly after. Her father’s eyes became knowing at the sight of the bloodied baek-jeong.

“Can you treat him?” Chae-yeong asked. “He was attacked by a mob, and I think they burned him too.”

Doctor Lee’s face was slack. “Do you know who this man is? It’s not a question of whether I can treat him.”

Chae-yeong’s father stepped in. “Do your best to treat this man,” he ordered. “If I suspect you withheld any of your expertise because of his class, I will dismiss you and find a new doctor.”

Doctor Lee swallowed and nodded. With the help of his assistants, he confirmed Ha-jun had cracked ribs and first-degree burns. They cleaned him up and fed him tonics for the pain. “I’m confident he will recover in a few months,” Doctor Lee informed Chaeyeong, who had settled in the corner to watch the whole procedure. Seong-jin exhaled beside her.

As the doctor and his assistants vacated the room, Ha-jun shifted. Seong-jin and Chae-yeong hurried to his side, Ae-cha watching from behind. He cracked his eyes open and groaned.

“My prince!” Seong-jin cried in relief. “You’ve been treated in Lady Kim’s residence. You’re alright, don’t panic.”

Ha-jun sifted a breath through his clenched teeth. “I’m in a lot of pain so I’m going to forgive you for the slip-up.” There was a pause. Seong-jin turned to a stunned Chae-yeong.

“His highness Ha-jun is the crown prince,” he deadpanned. “He’s odd so he decided instead of sending eunuchs out to do royal surveys, he would live as a baek-jeong for a year to understand what it was like.”

Chae-yeong sunk to the floor. “I’ll believe you because Ha-jun is lying before us practically dead. If this is a joke–”

“It’s not,” Seong-jin assured her. “Ha-jun’s father has been making policies to improve standards of living for the baek-jeong, but they wanted to know if the policies made a difference. We thought he would be safer with a small entourage to blend in, so only I was sent to keep an eye on him. We hadn’t expected the baek-jeong’s circumstances to be so dire.”

Ae-cha spoke up from behind them in a trembling voice. “Why did his highness target my lady?”

“Upon seeing the circumstances of the baek-jeong, his highness got it into his head to put together a board of advisers from all classes to make policies that would work toward improving the tensions between the lower and upper classes. I was skeptical when his highness returned from the Kim residence convinced that the young lady would suit a role on this board, but Ha-jun has never been one to judge by appearances. I’ll admit he was right.”

Chae-yeong moved to place her forehead on the floor and bow to the crown prince. “Your highness, I apologize for my rudeness. I should have been more accommodating when we met.”

“You were rude,” the crown prince rasped in an amused voice, “but you treated me rightly based on my appearance.” He inhaled painfully. “You learned to view people past that, which is why I want you to come to the palace. Would you be willing to work as an adviser to the king?”

“Your highness, I would be honored,” Chae-yeong stuttered, blinking at the floor.

“Please keep calling me Ha-jun–we’ve already decided that our classes won't affect our relationship, after all.” His voice was faint. “I know Seong-jin and I lied about ourselves, but I hope we can all continue to be friends.” He shot a significant look to Seong-jin and Ae-cha which made them blush. Chae-yeong stifled a laugh.

“I might have been hallucinating, but as I was lying on the floor of my hut and bleeding out, I thought I heard something about gyeongdan and tea,” Ha-jun said, tilting his head with a grin.

Chae-yeong shook her head at him, but Ae-cha was already passing the treats out, smiling shyly at Seong-jin when their hands brushed. Chae-yeong and Ha-jun exchanged a look at this and ate their rice balls with plotting grins.