Shards of Light - Vol. 1

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SHARDS LIGHT JOHN BROWN UNIVERSITY’S L I T E R A RY

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A RT J O U R N A L

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SHARDS LIGHT JOHN BROWN UNIVERSITY’S L I T E R A RY

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A RT J O U R N A L

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Ta b l e o f Contents “Jar of Clay”

Kathryn Dyer pg 9

“Letter on an Autumn Evening”

Kyriana Lynch pg 10

“The Final Autumn”

Jackson Tyler pg 12

“Meaningless”

Katie Gage pg 18

“Travelling Planets”

Spencer Patterson pg 19

“Jerome”

Abigail Babcock pg 21

“Fitted”

Spencer Patterson pg 25

“Snowballs, Thumbprints, and Sugar”

Allena Palmer pg 26

“A New Sunrise”

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Mariah Lawrence pg 31

“Cowtown ‘99”

Jackson Tyler pg 40

“Come Meet Me by the Ocean”

Anna Brodnick pg 45

“I Know You’re in Love with the Sky”

Anna Brodnick pg 47

“On My Grandmother”

Caleb Place pg 48

“The Magnolias”

Patty Kirk pg 50

“Reflections on a Life Well-Lived”

Michael Loeffler pg 53

“Childhood Should”

Katie Gage pg 64

“Ships”

Kyriana Lynch pg 65

“Fifteen at Five Guys”

Spencer Patterson pg 69

“The Artist”

Evyn McGraw pg 75

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Contributors Founder & Senior Editor | Poetry Council Claire Johnson Founder & Senior Editor | Nonfiction Council Alena Logan Founder & Senior Editor | Fiction Council Samuel Cross-Meredith Publishing Intern | Poetry Council Caroline White Junior Editor & Communications Manager | Nonfiction Council Callie Huston Junior Editor & Recruitment Manager | Nonfiction Council Caleb Place Publishing Intern | Fiction Council Eden Pierce Publishing Intern | Poetry Council Bailey Scott Senior Graphics Editor Mikayla Pruett

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The world of creative content can be an exceedingly dark place that promotes the estrangement of faith from creativity, but as Christians, our art should strive to bring light and hope to our readers and viewers. Our work has the potential to renew our culture and be part of a greater dialogue, ultimately fulfilling our God-given mandate to further the Kingdom of God. With the hope of the Gospel and the grace of God, we seek to bring redemption in our words, in our art, and in our lives.

We are S hards

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Jar of Clay K AT H RY N DY E R

Look.

Lust.

Return.

Repeat.

You are enough!

It is a known fact a memory and a promise Like Hosea you took my hand lifting me up— a limp body lying in its own filth; bare and broken there was no white dress upon me— unblemished and pure.

Ragged you took me steady hands you washed me— rough sand paper against my skin raw and bleeding layers of skin lay in water red Pain should be felt and yet— all I feel is warmth and joy unnatural and foreign molded in the furnace another jar of clay

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Letter on an Autumn Evening K Y R I A N A LY N C H

Violets grow on this patch of stationery. A warm breeze wafts through the window, carrying scents of Civil War belles penning flowing script as their beloved is blown to bits by cannons.

A withered leaf falls to the ground outside, and George Washington, in cramped tent by candlelight, writes Dear Martha, They offered to make me king today. Once upon a time there was a New World, bridged only by slant-wise scrawled letters savored in sooty squalor of Old World city. Centuries pass in the twilight between then and now. This afternoon I opened the mailbox and found a letter. On my computer await a hundred, sent like magic, the instantaneous vibrations transgressing the globe. Who knows why I prize this letter, carefully penned on lavender stationery. Maybe my world stops spinning for a moment. Maybe it means you’re here, and you’re listening.

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The Final Autumn Ja c k s o n Ty l e r

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eath lurked just behind his face, a skull pressing its unmistakable outline into his thin, mottled skin. Cancer had bitten off his left nostril,

too. Dr. Roman was a man in late autumn. These things I knew before I had spoken to him; I could see all that from a pew in the back of St. Gabriel’s.

St. Gabriel’s—a theologically sound, healthily active, and sensibly-affiliated

Anglican parish within driving distance—was probably the deciding factor in my choosing to enroll in John Brown University. The parish is a handsome little thing.

Distance from the cash-for-gold trade centers beckoning for passerby to squander family heirlooms, the wide highways filled with third-hand GMC Yukons on chrome 22’s, the liquor stores on gravel lots, and the strip-mall carnicerias that dominate much of the Springdale landscape helps the church’s curb appeal tremendously. It sits on a large lot in a quiet neighborhood of squat brick houses. Spare but well proportioned, the building is typical of old-fashioned Protestant provincial architecture— white walls culminating in a peaked, red roof with a modest steeple standing over the entrance. In fact, it once was a country church, occupying several acres on the edge of town. The vestry, in the church’s early years of low attendance and sparse tithes, sold off parcels of land year-by-year to eager suburban developers in order to keep the parish financially afloat. The twelve stained-glass windows lining the nave, in keeping to stricter Reformation interpretations of the Second Commandment, are only representative, not depictive, of the Apostles. They have no faces. I sit under the St. James the Great window—a sword and clamshell against a kaleidoscope field. Dr. Roman, with his wife Jeanette, sat closer to the altar—like I said earlier.

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I introduced myself to him at coffee hour the second Sunday I attended.

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Looking for a place among the white plastic folding-tables and former strangers, I set my Book of Common Prayer and my diminutive Styrofoam cup of decaffeinated coffee across from this Dr. Roman. He was going to be ninety soon. The thing about meeting an elderly person for the first time is that you are never quite sure how lucid they will be. He sat in the metal chair with his suspenders hanging slack and torso compressed into a slouch. His mouth hung open a little bit, wet eyes fallen to the tiles. Saying my name and holding out my hand to him, I didn’t know what to expect.

But his eyes burned bright blue, like flames dancing under pots on the claws of a gas stove. His Brazos drawl carried. Bill was the name he introduced himself by. If you’re ten years older than me and not family, I can’t call you by your first name. That’s my policy. He will always be Dr. Roman to me. And he was fine with that. He wanted to know if I was working or a student. He was pleased to know I was enrolled in a nearby university. He liked college students. After all, he had taught medicine at Texas A&M and practiced as an obstetrician for nearly fifty years. I asked what had brought him to Arkansas. Gesturing to his wife, a lively Mississippian named Jeanette (Mrs. Roman to me), he explained that he had come here to live out his final years with their daughter and grandchildren. The time came to leave if I wanted to make it back to the Kresge Cafeteria for Sunday’s chicken, but I looked forward to seeing him and his wife again.

We sat down for coffee after church like this every Sunday for the better part of a semester. I went to his house a couple of times too, eyes trained to the little fish on the lift-gate of Deacon Knox’s red Ford Explorer as I followed him out to the Romans’ Fayetteville home.

The sprawling ranch-house sat on six manicured acres atop a hill surrounded by a tall fence. The homes of the elderly are often like museums, present monuments to black-and-white glories. This was true of the Romans’ house. That green September afternoon we—the Romans, Deacon Knox, and I—took bowls of ice cream to his long, sunlit study. A large model-ship, complete with plastic sailors and paper flags, sat under a glass box on a table of its own in the far end of the room. Dr. Roman had mentioned to me his service in the Navy during the Second World War, but had said nothing about being the captain of LST 72. At 19, he was the youngest captain in the Navy, and had the plaque and everything to prove it. There was a pair of horns mounted on the wall too, which he explained were from his Cowboy Club in Bryan, Texas. Other ventures had included partial ownership in a Ford dealership and an

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art gallery in Tahoe, Utah. Along with originals and prints hung up on the wall were pictures of the Romans with the Bush family. And there was the desk and chair in the living room from Dr. Roman’s days as a Texas state representative, a lone star lovingly carved into the backrest. He was most proud of his reading lamp.

“It’s the best little reading lamp I ever had. But you can’t replace the bulbs on it so you just have to buy a new one every time it burns out.”

I can’t say I’ve done anything quite like that with my life. At 19, I’ve never had an actual job. I’ve volunteered a lot. Applied to for a dozen different menial labor summer jobs. Got turned down for Layton, who slips his vape-pen out of his Edwards Food Giant apron to puff bubblegum clouds in neglected aisles when the manager isn’t around. I can’t beat that. Much less the Japanese Navy, or General Motors, or the Democrats.

But there we were in the church basement together for that whole semester, Dr. Roman holding onto my arm while we shuffled across the green linoleum in search of carrot cake. He had a tall sort of personality, but when he stood that close to me I realized he was pretty short. It was like visiting Rowan Oak and seeing that all of Faulkner’s bookshelves were stacked low enough for a five-foot man. I guess I expected them both to be taller. In his Navy days, Dr. Roman was “Little Captain”.

Long years and a sagging spine had bent him shorter than that. I never saw him with a cane, but he could have used one. He couldn’t get around very well without either holding onto his wife, the deacon, or myself. But, having heard him, I had forgotten what I had seen. I thought he’d shuffle forever.

Dr. Roman missed a Sunday or two on account of falling. He’d come back to church the next week with purple blemishes all over his arms. One October afternoon, riding over a ditch, he fell off of his lawn mower.

“It was a nice day, so I just laid there in the grass until Jeanette saw me and got help.”

He said all this as if just bemused.

Dr. Roman had a stroke on Thanksgiving Day. I was told he was not going to last long. Death reaches a doctor’s door, in all of it jealous triumph, at a peculiar speed.

Mrs. Roman wasn’t at church that Sunday, and Deacon Knox told me that the Doctor was non-responsive.

That following Tuesday I parked at the bottom of a hill, making my way up a

flight of concrete stairs under leafless trees. Family and friends were gathered outside

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his room. Knox’s pewter cross hung over a thick, green cable-knit sweater instead of Sunday’s collared shirt. Mrs. Roman walked me into the room. The sheets clung to the little body in the bed. His loose-fitting Sunday jackets had masked his frail frame much better. His mouth hung open, drawing wheezing breaths, eyes sealed. I stepped back outside, and shook hands with all the people I didn’t recognize. The time came to go, so I went to say a final goodbye to Dr. Roman. His wife came in the room with me.

“Jack’s come to see you, but he’s got to go back to the college now.”

His eyes fluttered open, and then locked on mine. His spotted hand—bones bound up in tissue paper—sought out mine. He rocked back in forth in the hospital bed. He murmured, unintelligible but insistent, blue eyes wet and trained on mine.

He kept on mumbling. I stood there, holding his hand and straining to hear words.

Something was trying hard to be said. But he stopped and closed his eyes. I took one last look at him as I walked out of the hospital room. Dr. Roman lay there in profile, like a spindly crusader carved into a grave slab. A seemingly generous window gave only a backdrop of gray skies and an interstate buzzing along indifferently.

I didn’t bring a pair of black shoes to campus with me, so I borrowed Kevin’s. Dr. Roman had died about twelve hours after I left the hospital that Tuesday. A requiem Eucharist was held Friday. Mrs. Roman’s thin shoulders heaved under her black shawl.

Deacon Knox, in his eulogy, simply concluded that:

“ There’s not enough adjectives.”

And I’m left to wonder what Dr. Roman had tried so hard to say that last day

in the hospital—an unspoken final testimony. Mrs. Roman told me at requiem that her husband was very proud of me. I’m not sure what he’d actually say. Perhaps it’s impious to put words in the mouths of the dead.

The linens on the altar were purple that next Sunday—for a king who came in December. Perhaps it’s in that dim month that he finds himself most welcome.

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Meaningless K a t i e G a g e

I want so much more than small talk.

(Hello. How are you? I’m fine.)

Call me late at night when you can’t sleep and tell me about your father; how his hair greyed and his glasses thickened along with his middle, how he read you bedtime stories and how he drove you to school every morning for twelve years until the day he surprised you with a car (How are classes? Started the homework yet?)

Walk me to class and with no preamble tell me about playing football in high school; how you outran every boy on that field except for the one time you didn’t, how you dropped to the ground under his weight and you thought your skeleton would shatter but all that actually happened was your back and chest bruised yellow-green and your ankle hurt for weeks after (Definitely ready to finish, but it’s been a good semester.)

Grab a cup of coffee and sit with me and watch the rain spill down the window and tell me about how you fell in love with words and putting them together to make poetry (Yeah, the cafeteria food really sucks.)

Tell me about the girl you loved and lost and still think about, tell me about the little ache under your ribcage when someone says her name because trust me, I know that feeling too (See you later, have a good day!)

And then I’ll tell you about how I might possibly be falling for you-but no.

We’re still stuck at: (Hello. How are you?)

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Tr a v e l l i n g Planets S p e n c e r Pa t t e r s o n

I’m traveling planets to describe what I’m feeling and what I’m thinking—they are not the same: falling asleep with your face on the ceiling.

Watching limbless aliens wait for healing by the non-liquid water: a huddle for the lame.

I’m traveling planets to describe what I’m feeling.

Double moons outshining the sun, peeling my eyelids—my lips move: your name falling asleep with your face on the ceiling.

A lungless body with leafed arms, raised, dealing with an oxygen-dependent foreigner who came: “I’m traveling planets to describe what I’m feeling.”

Rocket away to your altar. I’m kneeling, sacrificing a bloodless, soulless Keer-Aym. Falling asleep with your face on the ceiling.

Please don’t leave. The Masked Welder is sealing my air-tight door with sparks and a blue flame.

I’m traveling planets to describe what I’m feeling: Falling asleep with your face on the ceiling.

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Jerome ABIGAIL BABCOCK

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oday is my twenty-third birthday.

My mother always likes to tell me about when I was born. “Jerome,” she

says, “you were born on a day of great rejoicing.” And so I was. It was a day celebrating the end of the war for America. My mother says that because I was born on a day of rejoicing, my life would be full of joy and happiness. I don’t know how much I believe that.

Today, I am going to enlist in the United States military. There is no war in America now, but I have no other ambition in life than to serve my country. Oh, how Mother cried this morning when I left. It seems like she thinks I won’t return. I told her to not be silly; I would be back soon enough. It was still several minutes before she let me go.

At the office, they say I cannot be in the army, but they will assign me to the navy.

That is fine with me; I like ships. Then they tell me where I am going: Hawaii. I had not thought about going to a place so tropical and foreign. Hawaii seems to me almost like another country.

It is such a relief to arrive in Hawaii. The bitter cold temperatures at home seem so far away in the warm island sunlight. I am taken to the harbor, where the battleships make their home. Even though there is no war right now, the country is prepared for any attacks from the Pacific Ocean. No one can predict the powers in the Far East.

I am introduced to the other boys on the ship. They seem like jolly fellows, and I can predict the good times we will have. My bunk is small, but I do not mind. I am in the company of so many fine men that I could not care less about my sleeping quarters.

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December is warm and balmy on the island, and there is seldom a cloud in the sky.

The days pass so quickly that I forget how long I have been on the ship. I have enjoyed myself thoroughly, and even though there is serious work to be done, the boys and I often joke around. Sometimes we have shouting matches with the men on other ships in the harbor.

I often forget the days of the week. I looked the calendar this afternoon and saw that today is the first Saturday of the month. Tomorrow, as they do on every Sunday morning, the boys will hold a church service.

We have very early mornings on the ship, but this Sunday morning I slept in until 7 a.m. I barely have time for apologies and breakfast before we gather for the church service. I mill around, chatting with the other men. The service does not start until eight.

About ten minutes before the service starts, we hear a faint noise. The captain looks up in shock as we realize what it is. It is the unmistakable whir of an airplane engine. Officers begin to shout commands to their men, and I can see other ships preparing for battle.

We are too late.

The Asian bomber planes are upon us before we can even get our wits about us.

I run to my post and brace myself for the worst. The first volley hits the battleship at the end of the harbor, and the waves and ashes almost smother us. I see some men swim to shore, but I am afraid to think about what happened to the rest.

The machine guns are ready on the ships, and as soon as the second round of bombers arrives, we will be ready.

The planes break the early morning clouds, and the men start to fire. Two planes go down, but the rest let their bombs go. One seems to head straight for our ship. I close my eyes, determined not to abandon my post at the last minute.

The bomb hits the ship to our right. The waves come rolling over the side of our ship, and we are overturned. I am plunged into the surprisingly cold water.

Underwater, it is hard to see. The sun has just barely risen, and the water is full of wreckage. I try to push my way to the top, but I catch on debris, and have to stop to untangle myself. My lungs begin to hurt, but I cannot get free from this debris. Worse, the broken ship is being sucked deeper into the ocean. If I cannot free myself soon, I will not surface alive.

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Deeper and deeper I go, until I can barely see. In fact, my vision seems to go black, and my lungs beg for oxygen. I have stopped struggling. Even if I could get myself free, I would not make it up. There is nothing to be done.

Another explosion rumbles in the deep, but I do not feel it. Some time later another bomb lands in the ocean, but I do not feel it. That day, war is declared, but I do not know it. Four years later the war ends, but I do not rejoice.

I am no more.

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Fitted S p e n c e r Pa t t e r s o n

Like the last piece of a cardboard puzzle

or an arrow through a coward’s back; Yin and Yang hugging, white on black under the nervous black sky and shaking white stars

watching tattoos and an orange scrub walking out of bars.

Us. Glove in glove— just breathe it in and remember how our hands first fit in: I found a unicorn on the pebbles and grass and you held out your—but instead I gave you mine and lost the head on my sweatshirt. It was a faded red.

If I could send sonnets from my palms, I would. If my ten fingers could fade your fears, they would. But, these God-made fingers—though frail—can run one raid: bending a bow (I), clenching a shield (love), squeezing a sword (you). volume two | 25

Snowballs, Thumbprints, and Sugar Allena Palmer

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Five hristmas never came without the delightful twirl of vanilla and peppermint extract. I decided it was time to help with the most important task that

secured the success of a Palmer family Christmas: Christmas cookies. Only being five years old, Mom assigned me tasks such as pouring the pre-measured milk into a bowl and rolling up spoonfuls of dough in my hands (my playdough training giving me some necessary skills). Despite my minor contributions, I felt as if I had helped bake the perfect crème brulee. Observing the squishy and powdery ingredients transform captivated me. Somehow, butter, eggs, milk, and water with flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt morphed from separate entities to cornmeal crumbs, to a smooth ball, to warm, sprinkled cookies. I had to learn how to create these Christmas masterpieces.

Thirteen The plastic, folded Christmas tree was shimmied out of our outside shed, and a refill on Christmas sprinkles (all ranging from red and green to blue, gold and silver) from Super Target prepared the house for another round of tradition.

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The perfect time to make Christmas cookies was about a week before the church candlelight service. That way, when my family started eating twice as many calories than we should in a day in cookies alone, Mom would wrap up half of our cookies and hand them out to church families to distribute the calories among thirty people rather than four.

I got up before ten to start making dough. No mixers, no processors. I had a plastic, blue bowl that was the perfect stage for a Barbie concert, a wooden spoon I was thankful never broke over my rear as it did my eldest cousin, and a counter sprinkled with flour that would be the only snow I would see in the Arizona valley throughout the entire winter.

Mom watched over my shoulder as I double, triple, quadruple checked the measurements. My sister peeked over the counter. Only curious. Dad snoozed in his recliner. It was hard to tell if he was asleep or consciously absorbing the music and calmness of home. Mom walked towards the oven, back towards me, and reperched over my shoulder. “You forgot to preheat the oven.”

I fish-pursed my lips. How could I forget something so simple? “ Thanks mom, I’ll get it now.”

I took a break for the oven to reheat and listened to “Blue Christmas” followed by “All I want for Christmas Is You” on the radio while thinking about my latest blackhaired, brown-eyed boyfriend. It occurred to me all my romantic interests had dark hair. It was time for a blond or a redhead.

Imagining a tall, redheaded, gray-eyed fit male, I overbaked the first set of cookies.

Mom made up for my imagination by silently checking the rest of the cookies and calling whenever it was necessary.

“Allena, check the cookies.”

The image of a dirty blond male with brown eyes vanished as I got up to check the spherical snowball cookies and dust them in powered sugar.

Eighteen I made the dough all by myself this time. Mom’s eyes were outlined with fatigue but still curled her head around the corner to check up on me.

“Don’t put too much jelly in the center of the thumbprints or they will overflow in the oven!”

I nodded but was praying the recipe had called for a tablespoon of baking soda

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(which I just put in the blue bowl) and not a teaspoon.

I had been able to use the stepladder earlier in the week to place our family’s Christmas star on top of our ever-dwindling tree, and my tabby cat was probably sleeping under it, hiding among the presets as if to say, “ That’s right. I’m a present to you.”

My sister, making herself known as the non-baker in the family, locked herself in her room, and came down to eat occasionally. She was a teenager after all. The only thing I could get her downstairs for was decorating the sugar cookies and eating the cookies.

“Katrina! Come decorate cookies!”

I spent five minutes painting each individual sugar cookie with sprinkles while she dumped on whatever color was closest to her. As she finished her fifth cookie, I was still on my first.

“You take way too long.”

“Well they have to look pretty! Otherwise what’s the point?”

I tasted more sprinkles than cookie as I sampled the Santa head that fell off Santa (happens every year). Katrina sneaked upstairs a couple stars or bells and would come back down to sample the snowballs once those were done.

Thinking about going off to college in between sliding cookies in the oven didn’t worry me as much as keeping in contact with my closest friends. And, naturally, my most recent dark-haired, brown-eyed interest came to mind.

Soon Mom, Dad, and sister were all crowded in the kitchen stealing broken cookies. I joined in by sampling the legless, antlerless reindeer, and twisted, cracked cookie candy canes that had peppermint sprinkled on top. The cat came by only to sniff the crumbs we dropped on the floor and beg for his own snack. The Christmas lights on the porch flicked on, and the Christmas tree lights buzzed awake. Dad nodded while popping another jelly-centered into his mouth. “Good job.”

Twenty-two Mom forgot to pull out the cookie recipes when I got home from college break, and it took me a few days to notice the new plastic tree didn’t have a place for our star.

After one batch of dough, a migraine crawled through my skull. A semester of aggravating classes, frustrating workdays, and hard relationship conversations (almost two years with dusty blond) left my mental capabilities fragile. Christmas songs kept

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repeating, so I turned off the station and plugged in my K-pop instead.

The cookies were made two days before New Years. Between fevers, more migraines, and cold sweats, I couldn’t complete the cookies before candlelight service.

Mom had also experienced migraines and had stayed in bed all day. I over baked all three batches of snowballs. I called Katrina down, but I didn’t see her at all. I put too much jelly in the thumbprints, and I threw sprinkles on the sugar cookies. Luckily, family came over that year to help distribute the calories. Everyone politely skipped over the snowballs.

Mom and I were sitting at the dinner table the evening before Santa snuck into my parents’ bedroom to move any presents hiding in the closet downstairs to the tree.

“I won’t make any more cookies once you’re out of the house. It’s a lot of work.

And it was mainly ever for you and Katrina. Katrina isn’t a baker like you anyway.”

I fiddled with the end of my shirt and looked towards our starless tree. A

Palmer Christmas without cookies. Was that even possible? possible?

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A New Sunrise Moriah Lawrence

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hours. She had been alcohol free for 24 hours. It was her longest dry streak in over five years, but she had a special reason this time. She

wasn’t going to blow it.

Anne Marie Chandler stood in front of the mirror, surveying her appearance. A new haircut, clean clothes, makeup. She pursed her lips to spread the lipstick evenly and she wondered if she was overdoing it. No, she reassured herself.

She had found her son, and she wasn’t going to give up easily this time. Anne had notified the Meyers family that she was going to fight for him. They welcomed her into their home to meet him. She was prepared for anything—fights, arguments, even kidnapping. Who cared what anyone else said? Anne would do anything to get him back, to get her life back, to be happy, to feel something when she woke up.

Anne took a taxi to Meyers’ house. It was a rusty orange, nestled in the back of a cul-de-sac with trees surrounding. Fairyland compared to Anne’s apartment, which she hadn’t cleaned in months.

Her heart raced as she raised her hand to knock. Before she worked up the courage, the door opened. “You must be Anne Chandler?” The woman smiled.

“Yes,” Anne said, shaking the woman’s outstretched hand.

“I’m Shannon. Come on in, don’t stand out there in the cold.” She took Anne’s coat and hung it in the closet. “ This is my husband, Bryan. He’s a carpenter, so, you know, flexible hours.”

“Hi.” He nodded his head. “We’re glad to have you.”

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The other woman stepped forward, sending a chill down Anne’s spine. “ This is Diane Rhodes, the social worker,” Shannon said. “She’s just here to make everything runs smoothly.”

Diane nodded and Anne sensed the judgment as she looked Anne down from top to bottom.

Anne met her eyes, wishing now that she had been alcohol-free for longer than 24 hours.

Shannon broke in, “ Take a seat, make yourself at home.”

Anne began to wonder if she had come to the right house. These people were so friendly.

“Charlie,” Anne began.

“He’s here, just playing in the boys’ bedroom,” Shannon said, pointing down the hallway. “I just want you to know, we’ve told him nothing. It’s completely up to you what you tell him.”

Anne said nothing but followed her down the hallway, with the social worker right behind. Playful laughter met her ears when she stepped into the room. There were Legos scattered across the floor, creations in the making. The boy sitting on the carpet…his white-blonde hair, chubby cheeks, bright, round blue eyes. He looked straight into her eyes and dragged her back in time.

Anne was sixteen at the time, a sophomore in high school. She knew she had met the one: Charles Payton. He was six feet tall with blonde hair like pure white sand, sea-blue eyes. He was also the smartest kid in the senior class and the one all of the girls in high school were fawning over. Somehow, he still chose her, saying that he liked her carefree spirit and beauty. She let herself be taken in—Anne knew that now.

It all happened so quickly. Three months after she met him, really got to know him, she knew she was pregnant. He was the first person she turned to, her baby’s father.

The air was hot and sticky when she knocked on his door late at night. He opened the door of his apartment, beer in one hand and a smile on his face. “Hi, babe,” Charlie said.

“Charlie.” The apprehension in her voice made him frown. “You’re going to be a father.”

He dropped the bottle. Glass and beer hit the wall, the kitchen tile, the table.

Silence reigned. Then he turned away from her. “Leave.”

“What?”

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“Leave, Anne.” Charlie ran his hands through his hair. “My parents expect me to do well. They expect me to make something of myself. I can’t be a father.

“I’ll show you the pregnancy test,” Anne said.

“I’m going to be a lawyer. I’m going to make lots of money. I certainly don’t want to have a baby now. No one would ever respect me.”

“But, Charlie-” “Just go.”

“Please help me! Please.” Anne pleaded with him. “Marry me—you said you would.”

His sea-blue eyes met hers when he answered. One word changed her life forever.

“No.” That was the last word he ever spoke to her. She had grabbed his shirt, his arm, begging, crying. He threw her off. She still remembered the feeling of hitting the wall, the bruise he left on her arm, the tears that wouldn’t stop. He left town for college to pursue his dreams, and she hadn’t seen or heard from him since.

It had been two days since Charlie had thrown her out. She had retreated to her parents’ gray house and refused to leave her bed.

“What’s going on?” her mom had asked, over and over.

Anne hadn’t even turned to look at her. “Nothing, mom. Don’t worry about it.

Leave me alone.”

When Anne didn’t eat, her mom grew concerned. “If you don’t eat, you’re going to make yourself sick!”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Just try something. I made your favorite.” Her mom held out the steaming fettuccini and Anne knew she was going to vomit. She barely made it to the bathroom in time.

“Oh, honey, did you catch a stomach bug?”

“Probably,” Anne said.

Anne still wasn’t able to eat anything in the mornings for the next week.

“Your stomach bug is lasting an awfully long time,” her mom commented when she sat down on Anne’s bed one morning.

“Yup.” Her mom stood up. “Well, if you’re not better tomorrow, we’ll bring you in to the doctor.”

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Anne rolled over to face her. “I don’t need a doctor.”

“But it’s been over a week and you’re still not better,” her mom protested.

“It’s not necessary.”

“Why not?”

Anne laughed bitterly. “I’m pregnant.”

“You expect us to be happy?” she asked her daughter quietly after the shock had subsided “You’re carrying no grandchild of ours.” Anne cried on her bed.

Her parents were good citizens, involved in church, the PTA, and even the homeless shelter. Anne seethed just thinking of them. They reminded her daily of the embarrassment her baby would bring them. How could she do such a thing after the way she had been raised? She never had gratitude for their kindness. The small jabs in everyday conversation and the talk of hospital bills only made her feel worse. They gave her an ultimatum: abort the child or put him up for adoption.

Anna chose foster care. She couldn’t imagine killing her child, never getting the chance to see him, touch him. At least she might have a chance if he were in someone else’s house. When she gave birth, she named him, but she refused to see him. She knew that if she held him, she never would have been able to give him up.

But now she wondered if abortion just would have been simpler…maybe she wouldn’t have had this longing to see him after all these years. Maybe she wouldn’t have this empty feeling of always needing more.

At eighteen, she moved out. She never finished high school. She got a job at a grocery store in Los Angeles and found her sole relief in alcohol.

The thought of her son continued to grate on her mind over the years. Here she found herself: opposite end of the country just to see him.

Shannon’s questioning voice broke through her memories. “Anne?”

“Here. Sorry.”

“Boys, this is a friend of ours, Anne Chandler. You can call her Anne, alright?”

Anne managed a small smile.

“Benjamin, Isaac,” Shannon’s voice softened, “And Charlie.”

“How long are you going to stay?” Isaac asked.

“As long as she wishes,” Shannon answered with a smile.

“She can have my room,” Benjamin volunteered. “I could sleep on the air mattress.

Right, Mamma?”

“We’ll see, dear.”

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Anne began to wonder if she were living in a dream. These people had such kindness, she never imagined. She had pictured tears, begging, that they would put up a fight. But this? Never. Charlie is my son, Anne reminded herself. Sure, she thought he would look like his father. But that he would be almost a mirror image, yet so different. She couldn’t get over it.

She blinked back tears. Shannon seemed to notice her distress. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Anne left the room with a backwards glance at the blonde-haired boy.

“Give us a moment, please?” Shannon asked Diane. “Bryan will show you the garden, if you like.”

Diane frowned. “Really, I shouldn’t.”

“Nothing is going to happen.”

The woman reluctantly nodded her head. “I’ll be on the back deck.”

Anne sat on the couch while Shannon brought her a cup of coffee. “You doing alright?” Shannon asked softly.

“Yes.” “He’s a very good boy.” She smiled, eyes looking to the distance. “He’s obedient, almost to a fault. One of his favorite things to do is help with washing dishes.”

“He didn’t get that from me.” Anne nearly laughed.

“Nor from me, I promise.”

Anne began to look closely at the woman beside her. Her hair was back in a bun, her appearance neat and orderly, but not overdone. The wedding ring on her finger sparkled despite the cloudy sky, reminding Anne of what she might have had if circumstances had been different. A different guy, different parents, a different life.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked. “Surely you don’t want me to have him.”

Before Shannon could answer, Charlie came into the room. Anne’s heart beat faster even at the sight of him. “Mamma, may I have a snack?”

Mamma. Anne’s tears nearly overflowed. Her little boy thought that someone else was his mother. He loved Shannon, not her. He was so loving, so caring. So… unlike his father. She watched his loving look, upturned face, hopeful eyes, taking in every part of it.

“Certainly, baby. Tell you what, why don’t you give our friend a hug first?”

Without a complaint, Charlie wrapped his arms around Anne. His soft cheek

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brushed against hers. He squeezed tight. It took all of Anne’s willpower to release him again.

Shannon turned back to Anne when he left. “We love him dearly. None of me wants to give him up, quite honestly.” She took a deep breath. “But you are his mother. If this is what is truly best for him, we will not stand in the way of his or your happiness.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Shannon leaned across the couch and hugged her. “He will love you, Anne. No matter whether you take him back with you now, years down the road, or never. We are teaching your son to love his mother. The children all know that there is something different, something special about Charlie. He is your child, and nothing will ever change that.”

Anne wiped away the tears on her cheeks. “I thought you would put up a fight, want to keep Charlie.”

“I want to do nothing more. But this is about Charlie. The decision must be for his well-being, first and foremost.”

Anne stood up. The wind had died down, and the trees were still. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds, filling the room with light. “He needs to stay here.” She swallowed back a sob.

Silence. “But-” Shannon began.

“No,” she interrupted. “He needs this life, not the mess mine is. I couldn’t give him the love, the joy, laughter that you have here. Someday, he may know me. But not today.” Anne grabbed Shannon’s hands. “Promise me, promise you’ll care for my son. Adopt him. Please.”

“I promise you that with all my heart.” “ That’s all I ask.” Anne looked back to the light, the sun that was trying to make an appearance.

She shut the door between herself and her son. And in that moment, she knew that she would find the strength to become a new woman. *** A few months had passed. Anne stood in front of the mirror, surveying her appearance. A new haircut, clean clothes, makeup. This time was different, though.

As she gave the curls in her hair another nervous twirl, she smiled at herself. A real smile.

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Her hands shook as she attempted to button her coat. It’ll be fine, she reassured herself. Smile.

She unlocked her car. She had calmed herself sufficiently in the half hour drive to her parents’ house. The same grey house, green grass, the crack in the front step that she had traced hundreds of times as a child.

Anne raised her hand to knock, but the door opened first. “Anne.” Her mom’s hair was white, and the wrinkles around her eyes crinkled as she smiled. Her lip trembled. “Oh, Anne.”

“Mom.” Outside, the sun rose.

•

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C ow t o w n ’ 9 9 Ja c k s o n Ty l e r

T

he grille guard jutted off of the Escalade like the mandible of some acromegalic bull. Verne parked far away from the other cars. His driver’s

door closed, and his penny loafers crunched against the gravel parking lot, incurring scuffs and accruing grey dust sure to be frowned at later. His tracksuit swished, reluctantly heralding his entrance into the Rowdy Toad. He turned around and hit the remote lock on his car keys a few more times. It was mostly empty that night of the championship. Mercifully empty, Verne thought.

Verne kept his hat on. He never took it off anymore. Wasn’t expected to. Back when he was young, when the roads on the outskirts of town were still dirt, when the cows bellowed and stank, when sweaty ranch-hands gawked a little at all of the glass and steel gesturing heavenward, when Babel was young, there was stricter etiquette for hats.

Verne pushed the brim to see the television better. That’s when he saw the glass door swinging open again. March was too early for short-pants and boat shoes, even in Fort Worth. If that didn’t give them away the pastel polos did. Greeks.

“I haven’t been to the alumni association in years,” Verne reassured himself.

He stared into his tequila, as if with newfound fascination for the familiar beverage. Looking over his shoulder, he recognized the two boys but didn’t remember their names. The banker’s sons. Their jaws were soft and their knits clung to their bodies tight. Freshmen don’t realize that drinking makes them fat. Verne was fat too, sitting farther from the bar than he did as a young man. Or even just a few months ago. He had been coming to the Rowdy Toad more often after his wife had died.

A genial hand clapped firmly on his shoulder. Another fell on his left.

“Mr. Thompson!” one said, triumphantly claiming that desperate, grey-headed query.

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Verne knew that this was a risk he had taken coming to the Rowdy Toad. He drew back his jowls into his best grin.

“Well, if it isn’t” he paused, almost imperceptibly, memory scanning financiers’ faces behind hardwood desks with nameplates on top, “the Greene boys! How are y’all doing? How long has it been?” “ Too long.” the taller said. “You ever get that letter of thanks from Ethan and me?”

“Yeah. Sam and me can’t thank you enough for your recommendation. We got picked up first-time-round rush week,” his brother added.

“Don’t act so surprised. Y’all know my word’s good. And y’all have gotten big.

Filled-out, I mean. Strong! Like a team of oxen.”

The boys smiled at his flattery. Conversation lulled as eyes drifted towards the television. A car alarm bleated faintly. Huskies were ahead but the Devils were close.

The boys stood by the bar, necks craned up at the game. Verne looked back at the door and tried for an exit: “Now I’ve been here for too long. Kitty’s bound to page me. Or call the bar. Would you believe she has their number now?”

Ethan whined, “Come on, Mr. Thompson. You’re not gonna let two Phi-Delts get their sponsor a drink? Game’s not even done yet.”

Before Verne could renew his protests, they took the seats on his right and his left.

“And how is Mrs. Thompson anyways?”

“Just fine. Talkative as ever. Have to find someplace quiet if I even want to enjoy the game.”

“So you come here a lot? Ethan and I have just started taking some of the brothers here and they’re going to start offering Greek discounts.”

Verne blurted an interruption “No. Can’t say that I do.” In a gesture of theatrical proportion, he checked his watch. They all stared past the bottles into the mirror.

Verne stared at his hat, lifting it a little and then letting it go.

Sam broke the silence. “You a Blue Devil? Not a good night to be a Blue Devil.”

“Just a beer?” Ethan asked, eying Verne’s emptied shot glass.

“I like Shiner. And hell no I’m no Blue Devil. Just thought I’d watch the championship. Like you boys, I imagine.”

Sam glared at his younger brother for asking an intrusive question. Verne shoved the hat between the bar and his red lap, the polyester whispering protest against

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straw. Sam rebounded.

“Good place to watch the game though. And if you really gotta go, that’s fine.”

Verne sighed, “No. Kitty will wait for me. Tell me, how are things at the chapter?

How are your brothers? I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had the time to really check with the other alumni.”

“Quiet around the house. No one was watching the game there.”

“But good, all around.” Sam added.

Verne nodded. Ethan changed the subject: “How about all this Y2K stuff? Our chapter is already planning the New Year’s party but it’s gonna put a real downer on the fun.”

“And your dad’s a banker. He’s worried, I’m sure. How about that new millennium, huh?” Verne said. “Maybe not so new and so shiny afterall.” He glanced back at the door, longingly. “Better in here than out there, though.”

“Should be warming up here soon,” Ethan reassured him.

“Should be.” Verne nodded. “And your studies? You boys still in finance?”

Ethan nodded and asked, “You studied finance too, right? How’d you like the program?”

Verne licked his lips “Well, all this elective stuff was new when I was your age.

And it’s changed a lot.”

“But that’s what you would have studied if you went back?”

Sam frowned at his little brother’s intrusion. Verne frowned at his Shiner. Toby Keith grinned from a tour poster above the hallway to the restrooms. A longhorn trophy stared a lovesick, bovine stare at all. The door swung open. Verne saw a police officer stepped in.

He turned back to Ethan and Samuel “ Tell you what. I wouldn’t’ve gone back.”

“Not to TCU? Would you have gone to Duke?” Sam recoiled.

“Not to anywhere. Wouldn’t’ve sold insurance.”

Verne lifted his gaze to the mirror, able to see the brothers passing nervous glances over the top of his grey head. Mournful sirens echoed dully past wood-paneled walls and into the Rowdy Toad.

“I should have gone to Montana. It’s cold up there but I would have done it.

Walked out of graduation and climbed on a horse,” Verne added.

The police officer made rounds in the back, quietly talking to patrons slumped over in booths.

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Ethan said “Yeah, I’ve heard it’s cold up there.”

“You ever been there? Probably don’t know the first thing about it. Anyone ever tell you boys that you’re a talkative pair? Maybe nobody watches the games with you because you can’t keep your mouths shut for just half a second,” Verne blurted.

The boys sat in stunned silence.

“I’m sure it’s a fine place now” Ethan said.

Verne finished Ethan’s sentence “And it was a better place then, I’m sure. Not so many strip malls or cellphone towers. Wild and free. Rangeland for the herds.”

Sam nodded and lifted a beer to his lips.

Verne continued, “Not so much concrete. I want to see Montana in the springtime.”

The officer walked closer to the bar.

“You boys want to go to Montana?” asked Verne, hands resting on the hat in his lap.

Sam and Ethan looked at Verne with all the seriousness of two professional counselors.

“I bought a new Cadillac. With GPS and four-wheel drive.”

“Maybe not so close to spring break and Easter. We’re eating at our mom’s this year. She still lives in town. Are you, you and your wife, eating dinner with anyone?”

Verne deliberated. “Well…”

The officer looked at Verne.

Verne looked at the officer and then back to the brothers, “Well you boys can keep getting fat, I’m going to Montana.”

Verne rose up from the barstool, leaving the boys with round jaws hanging open a bit. The officer interrupted “Sir, do you happen to own a Cadillac Escalade?”

Verne kept on walking. The night air whipped at his shell jacket. The Escalade was gone. The officer jogged to catch up. A neon halo jumped from signs in the bar’s windows onto the officer’s head, Gabriel in Technicolor.

“Sir, was it your Escalade that was stolen?”

“Yeah.”

“I can give you a ride back to the station. It’s early and our chances are still good.

That car had GPS, right?”

Verne set the hat back on his head.

“Naw. Never mind the car, anyways. But do you have any horses?”

•

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Come Meet Me By the Ocean Part of the Poem Series “Letters to the Sanpiper”

ANNA BRODNICK

Darling Sandpiper, Come meet me by the ocean, Where we can drown ourselves In feelings of longing as Deep as the Marianas— As hot as it is cold.

You’ll crack my chitin As your lungs full with salt & sea; I’ll choke on the bubbles Coming out of my throat; But I know you won’t—can’t—come Because your wings have Carried you toward the Heavens, And I am bound to the Earth.

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I K n o w Yo u ’ re i n Love with the Sky Part of the Poem Series “Letters to the Sanpiper”

Anna Brodnick

My Darling Sandpiper, I know you’re in love with the sky for her beauty.

Often, I see your adoring gaze glide over her form, And I hear how you warble out her praises As she lifts you on her laughing winds.

Perhaps, I could achieve some Herculean feat: To throw myself among her stars, So at least I might help you navigate Over the ocean, by my faint light.

But I fear that in transforming Under such inauspicious sign, I’d poison your sky while she sleeps, Webbing the dawn with my infection, Since I, Cancer, am by my nature thus, You’d have pleasure in neither of us.

But I couldn’t bear your sorrowing face; So I refrain. And I try to love watching how You love the sky.

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On My Grandmother Caleb Place

My father’s mother, Jean Chastain, laughed more before she changed her face.

We have pictures of her then—blurry pictures, bluing, dark, subject smiling right up front, bright-faced like a ghost: my father’s mother, Jean Chastain, but new, with an angel’s smile.

I’ve never seen it but in pictures, the old smile: the one my father says she laughed with once when his presence was new— arriving when she’d passed forty, his face long because her womb cradled first only the ghost that bore their two other children, light from emptiness, light from dark.

It didn’t last. The years went dark— the years went dark, and her smile, empty. She was a cobweb ghost shivering like a dead leaf. Her laugh, when she laughed, was derisive. She paid to scalpel her face a touch at a time. She wanted to make herself new.

New, she tumbled, snapped, shifted, cracked like a bookshelf rotting in the dark.

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Now, my grandmother’s face screamed when, with a smile, we danced by the lake, laughed, and tried to tip my father in. My grandmother, the ghost, snapped at my sister for a thief when she lost her keys. My grandmother, the ghost, huddled, clutching my grandfather’s shirt when we took her somewhere new.

Even though my father laughed to hear the stories, I knew he saw the dark.

His smile was to fix his own face.

One year was five; five were ten. And, I expect to face his mother’s vanishing ghost— to look at his mother’s fragile ghost, smile and say Hey, mom when she called or It’s your son when she took him for someone new was hell. Still he watched the dark and still he laughed for her and for us. I expect if someday I face the same, if I face a new ghost—if my father slips into the dark, I will try to smile for him. But my father, my father—laughed.

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The Magnolias Pa t t y K i r k

S

ome months ago I got to worrying about the toy magnolias out in front of the Cathedral building where my office is. I’m not actually sure what kind

of trees they are. Recognizably magnolias in summer from their shiny, deep green, overlarge leaves. In spring, each bony grey branch lifts upward first a fat furry bud then a large white flower shaped like a cup. The trees and their flowers are stiff and hard, full of intention. I call them toy magnolias because they are unusually short for magnolia trees, hardly taller than I am, and they don’t look as if they’ll ever grow much bigger. I can’t say what makes me think this. I guess it’s the same instinct that tells me, from far away, that some unusually short person is not a child. The trees look adult, somehow. Experienced.

I’m not sure why I take such notice of them. Perhaps it is some remnant of my primitive roots that I remark the status of their budding and blooming and leafing out as a sign of what’s to come. I walk by them everyday on my way to pick up my mail or attend meetings in other campus buildings or have lunch with a friend. They are clumped together like families on two long mounds of dirt covered with cedar mulch. That’s how I think of them—as families, crouching together, telling stories only for their ears and no one else’s. Perhaps they are gossiping about passersby like me or perhaps about the strange fungi that grow at their feet. I worried about those fungi last year, when I first noticed them and didn’t know they were fungi. I thought someone had vomited in the mulch until I saw, on successive days, more masses of it here and there in the shrubbery all over campus and had to conclude that if someone were throwing up that much I’d have heard about it in our emailed prayer requests.

I worried about the magnolias, though, because it was so hot at Christmas time that their buds were already swelling up. I knew my mother-in-law’s fruit trees had

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only one chance at fruit. If the blossoms or the tiny fruit froze, that was it for that year. No apples. No peaches. No pears. What would happen to the magnolias, I wondered, when it finally got cold, as it inevitably would? I asked some colleagues, and they said it wouldn’t make any difference. The trees would bud out again in spring.

Somehow the trees would know to try a second time. I didn’t really believe it.

My colleagues were right, though. After it got cold, the buds froze and fell off, and then, when it warmed back up again and the students started going barefoot, the tips of the little magnolia branches swelled back up into hairy buds and looked about to burst, and I was relieved. There’s something so hopeful and reassuring about how they lift their buds and then their blossoms upward. Like an offering. Like a gift from a child offered in two hands.

But then came a record cold, snapping the temperature from the sixties to just twelve degrees in the course of a day. That was the day before yesterday. I studied the trees in passing, huddled in my sweater, not wanting to see those buds fall off, but wanting to know if that was going to happen, wanting to be prepared for it, I suppose.

But everything looked fine. The swollen buds, already the size of the last joint of my thumb, look full and hard, as if about to burst, which is, in fact, what they did on the second day of serious cold.

Coming at the trees from the west, warmer now in the coat I hadn’t thought to wear the day before, I saw white flowers on the topmost branches. But something wasn’t right. The flowers were fluttering in the wind, like bits of plastic and, when I got up closer, I saw they’d gone limp and yellowish and hung from the ends of the branches like handkerchiefs clutched in bony fingers. None had yet fallen to the ground, and the buds lower on the trees had not yet bloomed out, but the prospect of no magnolia blossoms this year seized me with the certainty of a dream.

And though it’s warmer now and will be warmer yet tomorrow, I know the blossoms are gone for this year—twice tried, twice foiled—and the thought of those barren trees all spring, clutching their own grey knuckles, panics me now and again, as if there were some meaning in it.

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Reflections on a L i f e We l l - L i v e d Michael Loeffler

I

always wonder what life would be like if I hadn’t been caught. How many more lives I would have ruined. Still, I suppose I can take pleasure in

knowing that I ruined a few good ones.

After she died, and I was done mourning, I found myself along the California coastline. Who is she? Well, that’s off topic. Besides, I won’t tell you. She was beautiful. And now she’s dead. So that’s that. If you want to know more about her, think carefully. After my story is told, I’m certain a wise fool like you can figure out the truth. Regardless, I ended up in a small town about a two hours’ drive from San Fran. The town was in the middle of a parade as I wandered in. Not in my honor of course. If they ever did throw a parade for me, I’d probably shoot a few of them, just to ruin the mood. Can you imagine that? It makes me laugh.

The parade was for a soldier. He was a young man returning to his town after his first deployment as a Marine. Tall and strong, he was the picture of the American hero. The town was so proud. It made me sick—I was sick a lot. Everybody loved him. And just like that, without any research at all, I found who my last kill would be.

The actual planning process was fun. I wanted my last kill to be my best, but I knew I didn’t have a lot of time. If I wanted to inflict the maximum amount of pain and suffering, I had to kill him during the parade. So I crept ahead to the end of the route. Just as I had hoped, it ended in a park. A large podium had been erected,

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presumably to present the returning hero with a medal of some sort. I hung around the podium, making sure that I still had a gun in my pack. I always carry a pack. And I usually carry a gun.

I had to stay in hiding during much of the parade. Small-town people don’t like strangers. I discovered that the hard way after I wandered into one, hoping to lay low for a while after my fourth kill. That was the one where I used the spider to make it look like it was a natural death. Still, I had aroused police suspicions, and so I needed to get away from Dallas. I ended up in a small town near the Mexican border.

I wandered into this town looking like a tramp who had wandered the highways of Texas for the past two weeks (which, incidentally, I had). I walked into the drugstore hoping to get some supplies and hadn’t been there ten minutes before a sheriff turned up and almost hauled me off to jail. He finally letting me go on the promise that I would be out of the town before night fell. As it turned out, night fell a lot faster than I expected it to, and I ended up running from a small town cop who had spent far too much time lifting hay and far too little time eating donuts.

But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about him. The Marine. Who is dead. But we aren’t there yet. He’s still alive in this part of the story. So hurry up and tell it, you say. Yes, yes, I know. Patience is a virtue, my friend, especially for one in your situation.

There I was, hiding in wait for the wonderful Marine to show up, when I spotted the mayor. You can always spot a mayor in a small town. He’s the only one in a crowd who actually looks like he knows how to wear a suit. There he goes, off to the restroom before he has to give his big welcome home speech. This being far too good of an opportunity to pass up, I make my way into the park’s brick restroom. Here is the mayor, taking a leak. And so I make him leak more. I’m kidding, of course. I just knock him out and stuff him in the trash. I wouldn’t kill a politician. They cause enough suffering as it is.

Now there is no mayor to meet the soldier, so he meets me instead. Why no one stopped me from getting up on the podium, I have no doubt, will be a question that town will ask for years. Why still no one stopped me after I shot him is another. The answer to the last question is simple. I had done the world a favor. In destroying the joy and unity of a town gathered in celebration, I had reduced the people to nothing.

And nothing can’t do anything. It was wonderful. My last kill. Not my best. But my last.

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The best was Alixson Mavarik. Born and raised in Moscow, Idaho, he was thirty-two, had a wife and two kids, and led about the most average life you could imagine. Every day, he went to work at the electronic repair business he co-owned with a friend. They both loved it. It was distasteful, their love of work. He was a devout Christian. Not one of those hypocritical ones that go to church on Sunday to confess the sins they committed on Saturday while planning the sins they will do on Monday. I don’t kill people like that. No, he actually really cared about his cause.

Every week he worked down at the homeless shelter that his church supported. Every morning, he spent time praying and reading his Bible. I know. I watched him. Every morning. That’s how I find all my kills. I find a likely looking person, and start watching.

Ultimately, he was so normal I might have left him alone and let shear boredom take him, had it not been for his kids. He had two kids. Two boys. Children at that age are wonderful. They’re so susceptible to pain. Hurt them hard enough at the right age, and suddenly you have the next serial killer or school shooter or gang member. That’s not what happened to me, of course. I was luckier. But this isn’t about me. Or is it? I guess you’ll have to decide that later.

The kids seemed so happy. Their father attended all their baseball games. He always tucked them in at bed time. It sickened me. These kids never knew the true definition of sadness. They never knew what it was like to have everyone hate you, or wish that you were dead. They had their father, and he loved them. So I killed him.

The actual job was quite simple. The shop he worked at was a small thing, located downtown and nestled between a pet store and a bike shop. I walked in, pretending to be a dim-witted customer looking for help with my new computer which, for some reason, wasn’t working. (As it worked out, my laptop actually wasn’t working at the time. It was quite convenient to let him fix my computer before I killed him.) I ended up merely poisoning his coffee. It was a simple matter to find a poison that caused a heart attack. At his age, it would be unexpected, but I had done my research and found that he had a family history of heart disease. (On a side note, if you ever want to become a serial killer, the internet should be your best friend. Now don’t look so perturbed at the thought. Plenty of people in your occupation take a turn for the worse). The poison required me to visit his shop several times, so I made sure to find excuses to wind back up there. It was easy. I apparently have the face of a man who doesn’t know a thing about electronics. I think it’s the roundness of it. All serial

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killers should have a round face. It makes you look innocent. Like those kids. And their dad. Who I killed.

Over the years, I’ve killed many different people. At last count, I think it was twenty-one. That’s a good number. So why is Alixson Mavarik my favorite? Good question. Don’t ask too many though. Ignorance is bliss. If you keep asking questions, it shows you’re ignorant. Then I might have to kill you too. But I will answer this question. He was my favorite because of the result. What was that result, you ask? There you go again, asking questions. You really shouldn’t make a habit of it, especially in your occupation. The result, if you must know was utter catastrophe.

His wife, who had been so in love with him, was heartbroken. She spent months after his death mourning, crying, and trying to reassemble the life that was now torn from under her. She couldn’t get a job, so they ended up moving to Spokane with her mother. The kids, with their father dead and their mother crushed, quickly learned the hard facts of life. The move to Spokane was a stroke of luck. Spokane gave them the chance to explore the real world a little. A few poor friend choices. Some mild criminal activity. It escalated quickly from there. Eventually, they became leaders of two rival gangs, before killing each other in a nasty fight. Shortly after their death, the boys’ grandmother also died. I think the stress of having to help raise young boys again hurt her health worse than she let on. By that time, their mother had found a half-decent job, but the sudden death of three of her closest family members broke her. She committed suicide within the year.

The father was my third kill and by far my most successful. I guess you could say the third time is the charm. I was responsible for the death of four additional people through the killing of the one. But it wasn’t just their deaths that I was proud of. I ruined their lives. It was excellent. So much pain. So much suffering.

I can see it in your eyes. You seek to ask a question, but fear that I’ll shut up if you do. I like this. I’m the one in control now. Of course, was I ever not? Go ahead and ask. It’s only your third question. Or is it your fourth? No matter. But I do warn you, if you ask any more, your time with me might take a more interesting turn.

Why do I take so much pleasure in pain? Well, I can’t answer that. That would give you too much satisfaction. You could file it away in your head, and your brain would have the satisfaction of at least pretending to understand me. No one really does. Even the rare few who try. Most just think I’m mad. You do, but that’s alright.

I prefer it that way

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No, I won’t answer your question, but perhaps you can figure out the answer from this little story. Imagine, if you will, a child who, for the first time, notices the homeless. Now this child, growing up in the suburbs outside of New York City, has always seen homeless people. But now he really notices them. He sees the way they suffer.

The way they shamble about and act like animals trying to survive in the cold. He sees the way people ignore fellow people, choosing to run away from them. Treating them like the animals they resemble. And though the child doesn’t fully understand what it is he is seeing, it is a start of his education in the reality of suffering. As this child grows, he sees more and more of it. He sees it in the cruelty of one child to another at school. He sees it in the way that his mom cries out in pain. He sees it in the way he cries out in pain as well, and it angers him. He wants to change it. Destroy it. As he grows up and studies, he finds out how. At first, he thinks like all the others think. Let’s bring the suffering up to our level. Let’s make the suffering feel better.

But when he becomes an intern at a hospital, he realizes that it is impossible. Every day he sees death and pain. The man who has been slowly dying of cancer will never truly be happy. And his family will be even worse off. People can’t even take a breath without suffering. It sickens him. He grows angry. There will always be people suffering. Maybe we are going about it the wrong way. Maybe we need to make people who are feeling great suffer. Surely there are more people suffering than not. It would be a simple matter to make all suffer equally. Maybe the sick would feel better when they realize that everyone else around them shares their sickness. And the homeless would rejoice that everyone else is also lacking of a place to call home. If everyone was homeless and hurting, surely the world would become a better place. The child continues to ponder. If society reached such a great low, perhaps it would become a high. Perhaps people would understand, and no longer want to hurt others. And so this child, who is now a young man, decides to make it his life goal to ruin the lives of as many people as he possibly could.

He starts with a simple case: his boss. His boss loves her job. She loves helping the sick and miserable. She thinks that it is her calling to help the sick. But she’s so happy. How can she be so happy helping people so miserable? He decides to attempt to show her true pain. But he wonders. How does he do this? His first thought is of poison. Every day he deals with chemicals that could easily render her in great pain.

But at what cost? Pick the wrong one, and he would undoubtedly be caught. So he decides upon a new strategy, and it is a strategy he will keep for years: studying. Every

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day he rises. Every day he watches. And every day he learns who this woman is. He learns about her status as a newlywed. He learns how she’s inherited a great deal from her dead uncle. He learns about her plans for the future, how she hopes to travel the world with her husband, helping the sick. And then he realizes how to truly make her suffer. Not with any poison or drug. But with death itself. And so he turns to the husband.

I won’t get into the details of how he did it. You know them already. Look up the death of Peter Alexia. Really, I think it was one of my most boring jobs. There was no creativity to the death. I just shot him with his own gun as he drove through the streets of New York. It did the job though. Your kind ruled it a gang attack. It’s New York. It happens. Cops have more important stuff do to than hunt gangs. For that I am grateful.

The wife was heartbroken. She tried to take solace in her work. Ironically, work didn’t work. Every day she had to come home to that same house where she had once loved her husband, and every day, she died a little more. She did alright—better than some of my other victims. But for a while, she experienced some of the worst pain possible for a human being. I should know. I loved once. She’s dead too.

After my first kill, I quit my job at the hospital and traveled all across the country, killing about once a year or so. It usually took me about three months to find my victims, and a few more after that to find out how to kill them and not get caught. It didn’t take me long to discover that I was alone in my insight regarding the need for all to suffer. In fact, I discovered it in a short conversation where I tried to convince my mother to see things my way. She thought I was mad, but laughed and told me, “You know, I think it doesn’t even matter. You want to go out and ruin a few people’s lives.

That’s your prerogative. Can’t do much worse than what you already have.”

I’m done with my work now. She brought my killing to end and in the process became my life’s one regret. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, she was my penultimate kill. Her life was such a reflection of beauty that it positively reeked.

Her work in the slums of Chicago was truly astounding. She was the only person I’ve ever met who seemed to genuinely be able to make a difference with her service.

Countless organizations had tried to “serve the poor” and “make a difference” but failed miserably. In contrast, the amount of good she was doing seemed impossible.

I knew she had to die. She was giving all these people such false hope. It was only a matter of time till all her work came undone, and everyone would be right back where

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they started. It’s the way the world works. I began to get to know her. To study her.

The more I watched, the more I became fascinated with her. I carefully arranged for a chance encounter in a small coffee shop. We ended up discussing her work. She truly believed she was making a difference. We continued our conversation at future meetings, and as we grew in our knowledge of each other, our debates grew in intensity. We often argued fervently into the late nights over the value of her work. With the exception of my mother, she was the only person I ever attempted to convince of my beliefs, but she remained adamant in her stance. She left me no choice. She had to die. I won’t go into the details, but the deed was done. And then I watched. The people mourned. For a brief time, it looked like I would be proven right yet again.

Those she was caring for returned to their sufferings. For a moment it seemed like her work would be all for naught. The suffering would continue to suffer, and nothing would change. Yet a few of those she had initially helped stepped up, inspired by her work. I watched as they united together, dedicated to her memory. It seemed not even death could stop her. She left a legacy that continues even now. It was the only legacy that I could not snuff out, and, believe me, I tried.

The results of her death left me shaken. I spent months continuing our arguments in my head. To each of my comments, it seemed like I could hear her voice, countering them all. I had no choice. I could tell my work was finished. Perhaps someone superior will come and finish the work I began. I suppose you’ll kill me for what I’ve done. I’m rather looking forward to it. Perhaps then I can finish my debate with her. As for you, I’ve told you what you wanted to hear. I’m done talking. Time will be my judge.

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Childhood Should Katie Gage

Childhood should draw in the driveway pastel chalk caking smooth palms and drink from the water hose and build slippery castles out of sloppy mud Childhood should paint crooked red lines on it’s lips in the mirror wear mom’s oversized heels and trip down the hall feelin’ real pretty Childhood should spread a blanket on the floor with small china tea cups and stuffed giraffes and have a tea party with sweet apple juice and crumbling graham crackers Childhood should never have to cry for rips and tears feel their life be uprooted shredded and tossed in the trash

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Ships Ky r i a n a Ly n c h

“ There’s a problem with this,” he says, pointing out the dark carved point of Monet’s ships. “ The water should be going up by the stern— you see the slant of the sails here?”

She shakes her head. “No, it’s not goin’ that way.

It’s—” her hands draw boxes in the air.

They move into the next room in the gallery.

But is what they describe a ship at all?

Or is it the dark bent form of a lighthouse, bold and black against the pale shadows of distant ships, water scraping white around its immobile metal borders?

Ah—that’s but a trick of the light, the ship or the lighthouse, the movement against water or the salvation from rocks.

No one else today has noticed the difference.

And there on the shore is the real lighthouse, distinguishable, not molded from iron or darkness.

No waves carve its base.

The black mass in the ocean remains a mystery to trick the eyes of those who think they see.

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Orbiting H a n n a h Ho l l a n d

For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink’ Hosea 2:5

A

fter spending the fall semester out of focus, I created boundaries for spring. I stopped being spontaneous and canceled outings with my wild

friends, who were lovely, but more of my outer ring people. I learned to set up a system: I was the bullseye and the rings went out from there, ranging from my family (one ring out), my best friends (two), and expanding until it reached the outer edges of the galaxy. I prioritized those closest to my orbit and spent less and less time with those farther away, as does the sun. I was available for the ones I called closest, but at this time, they were unavailable for me.

I started having my first panic attack when Charis stood on the carpet in front of Piper’s bed, power posing forty-five degrees to my right. She was asking Piper and Audrey if they were free that night.

Piper was sitting on her bed about twenty-three degrees west, “I have to study for a nursing test, so I’m gonna study till I die. Have a nice time though!” She shoved her curls behind her ear before absorbing herself in her notes.

Charis’s eyes made their pass over me to land on Audrey, at her desk eighty degrees to the east of me, in my relative plane. I started to feel my chest constrict, the clammy hands of anxiety shimmying up my trachea.

“Audrey, you can go right? Your Thursdays are pretty free?” Charis asked, I guess not realizing that I was sitting a yard from her.

The hands were now pressing on my lungs and throat, telling me to be quick.

I made eye contact with Audrey, hoping that she would see my asphyxiation and understand my unspoken terror. She didn’t.

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“Yeah, and I don’t have any more classes, so we could stay out and get food!”

I ran out of breath, so I stood up, tossed some school supplies in a pile, scooped them to my chest, grabbed my keys, and sped walked out of there. Once I got to the car, I was sure I had received a text message from one of the three, at least Audrey, checking up on me. I didn’t.

I stayed in my car for about an hour, trying to make it a productive work environment. I didn’t have any Wi-Fi on my computer (one of the few items I escaped with), so I ended up watching YouTube videos on my phone and spacing out, heaving sobs off and on in the backseat, hoping that my tinted windows were dark enough to hide my sprawled frame.

Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths Hosea 2:6 I started going to counseling. I told her the out-of-focus background to my sharpeyed anxiety: the toothpaste utterance that was intercepted (my “I won’t bring it up to her.”), the shower tears of my best friend (“Why is this still happening?!”), the terrifying face of cold anger and the words that married it (Charis’s “I wish you hadn’t told her. You should talk to your mentor about this.”), the confusion and guilt that bled my heart (“I apologized, so why am I still indicted?”), and the resulting tension that remained and continued (silence from two out of the three, Audrey and Charis).

My mom, mentor, counselor, and best friends all repeated: “You should tell them how you feel. I bet they have no clue. Then, once they know, it’s up to them to decide what to do with that information. After you talk to them, you’ve done your part.”

She shall pursue her lovers But not overtake them, And she shall seek them But shall not find them Hosea 2:7 My words didn’t seem to have much effect on them. I remember Piper encouraging me to speak (I had talked with her about it beforehand), Audrey thanking me for confronting them, and Charis only speaking at the end, her words insulated with

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silence. I remember running my index finger through all of the ridges on the side of the wooden table, measuring the width of it with my hand, mentally mapping where the tree trunk covered the absence of branches (knots), and talking directly to the knots rather than the three girls positioned around me at north, northwest, and west.

Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now’ Hosea 2:7 And while I was searching for comfort in loneliness again, thrown out of rotation, regretting my decision to rearrange my rings, Gravity Himself pulled me closer, revealing a time-old truth: “I Am the One who spins you round and round.”

And she [I] did not know that it was I [God] who gave her the grain, the wine, and the oil, and who lavished on her silver and gold Hosea 2:8

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Fifteen at Five Guys S p e n c e r Pa t t e r s o n

T

he reward for family pictures was eating out at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Yum. Dip those marker-sized fries into some vinegar and color

my mouth with carbs. Being fifteen, I needed all the carbs I could get. Being fifteen, I was glad family photos ended so I could get my well-deserved cheeseburger.

“Order number fifty-one, fifty-one!”

Dad holds both Nehemiah, eight months old, and the door to Five Guys for my mom and myself, Samuel, Elijah, Caleb, and Luke. Samuel, Elijah, and I stood on the black and white greasy-burger tile floor smelling the wonderful, heavenly smell of a burger that weighed in at 3.5” and 800 Calories. The burger begins with a bun that is squished by lettuce, tomatoes, three meat patties, two pieces of American cheese, onions, ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. Of course, another, prettier, sesame-seeded bun tops it all off. Dad holds Nehemiah, bouncing him up and down while he orders.

“Hello, I would like six cheeseburgers and three large fries, please.” “ That’s coming right up. Your number is fifty-seven.”

Dad walks away but stops after he notices that the cashier is staring at Nehemiah’s head. Dad puts his hand on Nehemiah’s soft, hairless head.

“He has stitches.”

The cashier looks quickly at Dad and then looks away, embarrassed. “Sorry, sir.”

Jerk. My family started fostering Nehemiah, a shaken baby, two months after he was born. He had to have a head surgery immediately after he came into our home and then another one after he was helicoptered from our house to the Little Rock Children’s Hospital. He would be dead right now if they didn’t airlift him.

“Order number fifty-two, fifty two!”

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Dad hands Nehemiah, Frankenstein Baby, to Mom. “I’ll go get us another table.”

By “table” Dad meant the only table still available at Five Guys at 3:30 on Saturday. Dad enlisted the help of Samuel, the family buttkisser, and the two carried a table and four chairs over to the other free table that Mom and the rest of my brothers had already claimed. The other people in the restaurant wanted to stare, but they also didn’t want to be bumped by one of the dangling legs from a table or chair, so they kept talking. We were just a family trying to eat together like, you know, a family. Dad and Samuel once again go away to get waters.

“Order number fifty-three, fifty-three!”

“SHUT UP!!” A high-pitched scream.

I look at Elijah, who is looking in Luke’s direction. I didn’t want to acknowledge Luke’s scream. Maybe, other people wouldn’t acknowledge him either and I could peacefully fill my stomach with the burger that I had smiled so hard for. Mom looked at Luke with a less empty stomach than mine and a much kinder heart. “Luke, what’s wrong?”

Luke points at the microphone near the pickup station. “Mooom, that guy is talking loud!”

Elijah leans over towards me, “Look who’s talking.”

“Honey, that’s his job.”

“But it’s uh-noying-guh!”

Elijah keeps his mouth facing me. “So are you.”

Mom puts her hand on Luke’s shoulder. “Baby, that’s his job.”

What a terrible thing trauma is. Caleb and Luke both have RAD, a result of PTSD, which basically means they can’t attach to people or love them or even feel awkward. I swear, if I ever have kids, I’m going to freaking treat them well so my oldest doesn’t have to sit in shame. Maybe if I put my hands on my cheeks it’ll cover a few of the thirty-something faces trying not to look at my Wailing Wall of a brother.

“Order number fifty-four, fifty-four!”

“SHUT UP!!!”

Mom purses her lips. “Luke, it is not okay to yell-” “Mom! Mom!” Caleb, five, is staring at the table with tears in his eyes.

“What is it?” “ There’s salt on the table!”

Oh my gosh. Salt is on the table. Please, call 911. Please, shut this freaking joint

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down. Please, somebody call the hazmat team. This is a catastrophe. Hitler ate salt, and we all know what that means.

It means I’m burying my head in my palms, that’s exactly what it means.

“Wipe it off.”

“Order number fifty-five, number fifty-five!”

“SHUT UP!!”

“Mom I cay-yun’t!” Caleb’s whine iss turning into a sob.

“Yes you can-wait, Elijah, don’t-” Mom’s is too late. Elijah had already reached across the table and used his white sleeve from his buttoned-up dress shirt to wipe the salt off of Caleb’s spot on the table. Unfortunately, Elijah also wiped some salt onto Caleb’s pants.

“Mooom, there’s salt on my pants!”

NO! Please. I’ll do anything. Just get this salt off my pants. I swear I’ll tell you everything. Death Star plans? You got it. Please. I have a family. Unfortunately.

Elijah puts his hands up. “Dude, I wasn’t trying to.”

“Order number fifty-six, fifty-six!”

“SHUT. UUUP!!”

Dad, followed by Samuel, finally wades his way through the sea of peeping Toms and Tinas with cups filled with water and ice. Our family spectacle is better than whatever is on Netflix, I know.

Mom is looking at Dad with a half-smile and shrugged shoulders. Dad pulls his lips inside his mouth.

“Luke, be quiet. Here’s everyone’s water.”

Dad notices that Caleb is still crying. “Dude, what’s wrong?” Caleb keeps sobbing.

Mom looks at Caleb. “Oh, it was just some salt.”

“Did it get in his eyes?”

Worse Dad. The salt got on his pants. Can you— “Order number fifty-seven, fifty-seven!”

“SHUUT UP!!!”

Mom looks at the human fire alarm, then turns back to Dad. “No, it was on his table.”

And his pants.

Dad leans in towards the table to begin a reprimand about not being afraid of salt and doing things you don’t want to do and the hardship that comes from trauma and

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that just because we were fostering you that doesn’t mean we love you less.

“Order number fifty-seven please, fifty-seven.”

“SHUUUT UUUP!!”

Samuel grabbed Luke’s arm. “Luke, you shut up.” Mom covers her mouth, trying to suppress a laugh. “Dad, that’s our number.”

Dad walks away to grab our food from the counter, leaving two crying kids, two mad kids, one baby, and one Young Adult with his head coolly in his hands. Redemption, deliverance looks a lot like some fries and a burger. I am Stephen in the midst of my stoners throwing rocks at me because of my association with the family that came out of a clown car. Seventy-four eyes were watching my relatives like they were some TV sitcom. Idiots. Darn right we’re better than any stupid soap opera you’ve ever seen.

Mom puts her hand on my back. Thanks Mom. You understand how humiliating this is.

Dad brings back the burgers and places each of them in front of us like it was the body and blood of Jesus. He cuts Caleb and Luke’s burger in half with a “You two are on silent” and sits down next to Mom, who is smiling underneath her hand over her mouth. Samuel is staring at Caleb and Luke, shaking his head. Elijah is more sensible.

He follows my lead and sinks his head low to the table like a giraffe drinking water.

Nehemiah is oblivious. Luke is incredulous that the stupid man keeps yelling numbers. Caleb is incredulous that salt had dared manifest itself on his part of the table.

Everyone else in the dang eatery was staring at us. Oh, the looked away when I stared back at them, but I couldn’t stare down forty people at once.

Dad puts his arm around Mom and smiles the same smile George Washington must have smiled after he was asked to be the first president of a bunch of tealess barefoot ruffians.

“Honey, if you want, before we leave, I can change Nehemiah’s diaper right here on top of the table.”

Mom flung her head into Dad’s chest, laughing. “Oh honey, stop it!”

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The Artist Evyn McGraw

Your reach is wings of paint cast wide. With those Prophetic portals to the sky, your eyes, You tremble in opotheosis throes.

An artist, from the human race you rise But rising, you find sunspots like a smear Of shade between your iris and the sky.

You drop your prophet’s brush as dark draws near.

To lose your sight is to prepare to die.

From Man to Artist, then to corpse baptized, Through phoenix frenzy downward you must deign To be that blinded bird anesthetized And wake as fully human once again.

For, ink-eyed fool, to this you ought to cling, That truest prophecies from darkness spring.

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Index “inquietum est cor nostrum”

Rachel Barber pg 8 “Eureka”

Stephen Tatem pg 10-11

“Torn”

Stephen Tatem pg 13

“Dia de los Muertos”

Ciera Nash

pg 17

“El Comienzo de un Buen Cafecito”

Elizabeth Grumulaitis

pg 20

“Forest Wanderer”

Gabriela Leal pg 19

“San Francisco Rain”

Rachel Barber pg 24-25

“California Wonderland”

Rachel Barber pg 27

“City Skylight”

Garret Goolsby pg 30

“Mountain Reflection”

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Titus Hinton pg 34-35

“Lotus Princess”

Gabriela Leal pg 39

“Evolve”

Celeste Lindsey pg 44

“Hidden”

Heather Friesen

pg 46-47

“Elevate”

Stephen Tatem pg 52

“Ozark Studio”

Kyriana Lynch pg 56-57 “Hidden Beauty in the Deep Mask” (one of a three part series)

Mariah Christ pg 62

“Hidden Beauty in the Deep Tank” (one of a three part series)

Mariah Christ pg 63

“Watercolor Afternoon at Salt Creek”

Jeannine Pringle

pg 68

“Native to Nature”

Ciera Nash pg 71

“L’encre des trois Couleurs”

Garrett Goolsby

pg 74-75

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