Structured

Senior Olivia Stephens

The air is filled with exhaust and exhaustion, sounds of blinkers and music, smells of coffee and Black Ice air freshener, and he is sitting in his car that his mother called a death trap before she died. The time is 8:47 in the morning, and the man is right on schedule, his stomach a small swirl of satisfaction despite the unusual glare of the sun, shining straight into his eyes. This unhindered view of the morning sun is a new development; a result of the unexpected demolition of an old dentist’s office that used to block it at this time of day, and he has found himself to be quite disgruntled at the spontaneity of the city planners. It was all quite unprofessional, the way they had hardly even tried to put out an announcement to the public, and he often finds himself thinking rather reasonably that had he been in charge, he would’ve done the whole thing better.

He certainly would not have put up a sign with the company’s logo - EAP, “Eastern Architectural Productions,” unless he wanted a sure increase in one star reviews of the business, certainly coming from a wide range of similarly disgruntled commuters.

He switches lanes at the red light for the intersection of Bryant and Polk to get in line to turn left, his eyes flicking upward to the newly painful view of his rearview mirror, half-considering investing in a pair of sunglasses. However, his thoughts screech to a halt when, in the mirror, he sees her face. She is sitting in a deep red Subaru, and she has a widow’s peak and low cheekbones, all illuminated by this unexpected sun, and she is looking at him through his mirror, and he feels like a fool, an idiot that cannot look away. There is an amused smile tugging at her lips when she lifts up a finger to point toward the sun, surely an acknowledgement of how luminescent, how glorious she looks, but then he hears a honk from behind them both and he jumps, gaze shifting to see that she had not been pointing at the sun, but rather the traffic light - now green in front of him.

The Lady

The clock turns to a minute that it shouldn’t read until he is far on his way down Bryant, and he feels the palms of his hands clam up. He slams his foot down on the gas and his car lurches forward, coughing in protest, and he flings himself onto Bryant, lips twisted downwards, eyes darting between the clock and the road. He manages to catch up to his schedule by dodging expertly through the traffic, and it is only after he cuts through the parking lot of a gas station that he is able to settle back on track for the full ten minutes left of his commuteyet it feels as though only a second has passed when he’s cutting his engine at exactly 9:00 and staring up at his tall, pale, window-scarce office building. He picks up his computer bag - genuine leather, terribly expensive, perfect for the work laptop that he had purchased in the very same shopping tripfrom his car’s backseat and makes his way inside. ***

His computer bag really is very good. Even though he hasn’t yet removed his laptop, despite being already twenty-four minutes into his work day, his beautiful bag hasn’t burst into flames, or blown up, or grown sharp teeth to bite his hand off, or even a mouth to scream abuse at him. It’s for the better, because he can’t seem to bring himself to touch it. He’s tried. He has tried, but when he reaches down to do it, his stomach twists and he feels warm all over and her smile tears its way into his brain, which just makes him feel even warmer, and it’s a vicious, vicious cycle. Determined not to acknowledge the feeling, he assumes the calmest disposition he can manage, sitting straight-up and stock-still, one hand tapping against his desk, the other playing flappy-bird. Then his little bird dies at the score of eighty-six, then when he restarts it he dies right away at the pathetic score of two, so he turns his phone face down.

He hears keyboards clacking, all around him, and his gaze wanders to the side of his desk, where there is a plaque that reads Employee of the Quarter. He knows it’s likely only there because no other employee has ever left their work day just to continue working at home for another two hours every night, that there is no other employee who always shows up right on time, no other who has never once used his vacation time or his sick time or turned down coming in on Christmas or Saturdays. But he figures he is sure to lose that plaque if he is seen slacking off the way he is, and so, finally winning the fight against this unnatural feeling of trepidation, he unzips his leather bag, pulls out his laptop, and tries his very best to do his job. ***

The man makes it all the way up to his lunch break before he starts to feel annoyed. He has done only an hour’s worth of work in the three hours that he’s been there, and he has many a time found himself staring blankly at his screen, unable to process anything he sees. His routine has been interrupted before, of course; he can’t control the weather, or if traffic is extra slow, or whether or not he wakes up feeling perfectly incapable of opening his eyes to face his world - on those mornings, he skips breakfast to allow himself an extra fifteen minutes of keeping them firmly shut in his dark room. But there hasn’t yet been a morning where his routine has been thrown off as a direct result of him getting distracted.

He prides himself on being studious and alert, and his mother called him a perfectionist before she died, so the only explanation he can see is that the woman he saw in his mirror must be of some higher power. She can do what he has never before let traffic or weather or an extreme lack of motivation do - keep him from doing his job correctly.

So, he is annoyed, at himself and at the woman and especially at the sun, because he is sure he has seen her car behind him in that intersection before, and if it wasn’t for the sun, he would never have noticed who was driving it. He is annoyed that the old dentist’s office was torn down, and he is annoyed at the car that honked at him and he is annoyed that the salmon he brought in for his lunch is just as disgusting as it always is. He is still annoyed as he makes his way home, leaving work at exactly 5 in the evening, passing the gas station and the dentist’s office and the park he used to play at as a child, and he is annoyed at the soggy, single-serve chicken pot pie that he has for dinner. He is even more annoyed when he finds he doesn’t particularly want to bring his computer out to catch up on everything he didn’t do that day.

He is also annoyed that, despite his better judgment, he hopes to

see the woman again.

***

He sees her again. He sees her again, and she smiles at him again, but this time he is paying extremely apt attention to the traffic light, so his foot is on the gas as soon as it turns green, and he forces her out of his mind.

The next day is the very same. She smiles at him, and he makes himself forget it. This continues morning after morning, and he never, not once looks back at her when he is finished turning, and every day, by the time he has passed the gas station, she is no longer behind him.

One morning, as normal as any morning can be under these new circumstances, he is sitting at the intersection and looking at her, and she is looking at him. But today, for no apparent reason, his gaze travels downward, past her face for once, and he sees that she is wearing a lanyard. The lanyard is covered in a logo, one that he can hardly make out from so far away, but he squints hard and manages to read it: EAP. The light switches to green, as his breath catches and his arms get tingly, and without thinking, even though he is already on Bryant, he looks back at her through the mirror. He sees her deep red Subaru turn into the parking lot of the old dentist’s office to pull into a comfortable looking parking spot, surrounded by official looking construction equipment and tables covered with paper.

His stomach drops. His car still speeding away from her, he looks at the clock - a perfect 8:47 - then

Lonely Fortress

up at the mirror again. His heart hammering, mouth dry, he keeps driving, and turns into the parking lot of the gas station, just like that very first morning, but this time when he leaves it he is driving the wrong, wrong way, and the old office is on his left now, instead of his right like it has always been in the morning. Yet, he’s still going, turning left from Bryant instead of left from Polk, and it’s 8:50, and he knows he will be late to work, for the first time in his twelve years of working there, but suddenly he’s parking and he isn’t grabbing his computer bag, instead walking empty handed toward the motionless red subaru, inside of which he sees the silhouette of the woman.

Her car is facing the sun. When she steps out of it and turns around and looks at him, stopping him in his tracks, her face is not glowing in the way he is used to seeing but, somehow, he still feels just as entranced.

“You,” He begins. “You knocked down the building?” Her brow furrows as she shrugs, but she is smiling now, her familiar smile.

“I didn’t knock it down myself, they wouldn’t let me near the wrecking ball. But I did help plan it all. It’s nice to actually meet you, I see you and your car in front of mine every morning.”

“You should’ve given people more warning. Nobody knew about it until it actually happened,” is all he can think to say, “It was poorly planned.”

It’s silent now. She is simply looking at him, her expression mild. She reaches out her hand. It takes him too long to realize she wants him to shake it, and he does so hastily, resolutely avoiding her eyes. Her hands are soft and she has welltrimmed nails. “It’s nice to actually meet you,” she repeats, “We can talk more about my poorly planned architectural project over coffee?”

He sees on her watch that it is 8:54. He drops his hand and looks up to see her looking at him intently, the question still on her face.

“I don’t like coffee.” He says dumbly. There is another long silence.

“Okay,” she finally replies. “Is that a yes or a no?”

He looks at his own watch. 8:55. If he sprints back to his car, and speeds, he might be able to make it. He looks back at her, and her widow’s peak, and her low cheekbones, and her eyes that he can confidently state the color of, now that there aren’t sheets of glass and fifteen feet between them.

“Yes,” He responds. “I’m sorry. Okay. Right now?”

Nobody spares him a second glance when he walks into work at 10:36.

***

The air is filled with her laughter, because he said something funny, and he marvels at the sound of it. His morning smells like coffee and Cherry Blast air freshener - a new scent that he did not choose, and she is holding his hand across the center console of a car that his mother wouldn’t recognize. The time is 8:47 in the morning, and he is turning left onto Bryant, then into the parking lot of the old dentist’s office - which is slowly but surely being replaced by a library. He gets out of the car at the same time she does and hugs her, taking extra care not to jostle either of their travel mugs full of coffee that he poured that morning.

She gives him her smile and he commits it to memory, for the millionth time, even though he wholeheartedly intends to get another one, or two, or three during their lunch together that day. He thinks of that smile the entire rest of his drive to work, but doesn’t

Time Travel

resist it; it is pointless, now that he thinks of it whenever he smells the air freshener she hung up, thinks of it every time he walks past the single serve chicken pot pies or frozen salmon at the grocery store without slowing. He is thinking of it as he parks, as he picks up his lovely leather computer bag. He thinks of her smile, and how a pair of sunglasses is a small price to pay for a life like this.

He makes his way inside, at 9:04 on the dot.

Chillin in a Coffin

Papillon

For the Needed

Sophomore Adam Schwarm Ink Wash

Apotheosis Staff

EDITOR in CHIEF ............................. Lydia Hines

ART EDITOR ...................................... Karen Bose

WRITING EDITORS ......................... Elizabeth Cleary

Elizabeth Stolzberg

RECORDING SECRETARY ........... Lily Andre

SOCIAL MEDIA CHAIR .................. Lydia Krob

LAYOUT & DESIGN STAFF ............ Ivy Bani

Sylvia Hines

Fate Walbridge

MEMBERS at LARGE ..................... Lilly Burrus

Paige Andre

Quinn Prouty

Lavia Raof

CLUB MODERATOR ....................... Mr. Matty Kleinberg

Colophon

APOTHEOSIS, Lindbergh Arts Magazine, was published in the Spring of 2023 by the Apotheosis Club studetnt staff at Lindbergh High School in Sappington, St. Louis County, Missouri. The magazine was designed by staff members using Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator. The Headline font is set in Elephant Italic, the Subtitle font is set in Craft Gothic Bold Extended and the body copy is set in Craft Gothic Regular.

All attempts were made to accurately list names, titles, and represented written pieces. Any error is unintentional. All works of visual art and written pieces are used with permission.