The Abyss 2022

The Abyss Magazine

Showcasing Mercy Creativity

Mrs.

Ray

Sangita Mrs. Ray sketches and paints most often, but she has dabbled in other types of artwork such as miniature sculptures. This self-portrait was made in December of 2017. She was named Artist of the Month at one point as well as recognized in a library exhibit in the UK. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in drawing and painting from Rabindra Bharati University.

Then

Mrs. Ray took her first art class in 5th grade. She continued to practice frequently as she grew up in India. This painting was made when she was in 9th grade!

Now

She made this three-piece painting of New York City more recently while in America.

“Memories” Lanay Leryer (2022)

Senior Spotlight:

Charlie Weaver

Feeling blue?

“He is what you can’t see” Alana Talamona (2022)

He is what you can’t see You can’t see hope, you can’t see faith

You can’t see love, you can’t see joy You can’t see magic, you can’t see God But He is all of these things and yet you believe in them, not Him.

All musical photography by Michaela Miano (night 2)

“And like the moon, we must go through phases of emptiness to feel full again.” - anonymous

Rayna Mule (April 22nd, 2022)

Catherine Lyons (June 23rd, 2021)

Lucy Zajack (2022)

Light.

It’s everywhere.

It shines from the heavens to reflect across the lake. It illuminates sinful nights from neon wire. It feeds the struggling houseplant which sits beside the window.

Fluorescent bulbs bleed it into the eyes of sleepy students. Children stare into it, flinch away, then turn back, never learning their lesson. People stop and watch with awe as it sinks below the horizon.

It erodes the vibrant pigments of historic paintings. It was the muse for gods and festivities of ancient civilizations. It overwhelms hospital rooms, caressing the sorrowful faces. It touches the awakening faces of lovers, carrying away the last remnants of dreams.

In that moment, it was everywhere.

I won’t tell you who I was, or how I got here. That doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that one moment I was down there. With you. The next, I was up here. I don’t even know if where I am can be described as “up”. That just seems to make the most sense. I saw the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel”. Then it grew. As quick as an intake of breath. The small, distant dot enveloped my entire field of vision, then overflowed until I could feel, taste, and hear light. All sensation disappeared. And I was here.

I met no God when I arrived. As far as I can tell, this isn’t a version of Heaven or Hell or any recognizable afterlife from any human religion. There is only light, as far as the eye can see. I use the term “eye” loosely. I don’t think I have eyes, anymore. As best as I can explain, my body is also the light. The other beings here are both separate from the landscape, but also made up of the landscape. Sometimes I glimpse the moving edge of one of the amorphous, incandescent forms drifting toward me, but then it blends back into the expanse. I suppose that’s how I must look to them as well. As the beings wander, the floor shifts ever so slightly from side to side, like a boat on a calm sea- as if the world was trying to keep its balance. No one speaks. If I were back in my old world I suppose I would get bored like this, just endlessly drifting around a silent, blank space, but time doesn’t exist here. Nothing to pass, or waste, or run out of.

I can’t remember when I first discovered the windows. They seemed to appear just as suddenly I did in this place. Swaths of darkness tore open the lucent void, like scissors through paper. The beings flocked to them, curious eyes completely covering up the gashes. I claimed a vacant opening and peered through to examine it further. Immediately outside the window was darkness, as unnaturally absolute as the light inside. But when I moved closer, the frame seemed to single in on one spot. A patch of grass, illuminated only by fireflies and one flickering porch light from a small saltbox house.

The weathered, wooden door was unlatched, swaying slightly in a soft wind.

Two teenagers lay, their backs on the grass and toes just barely reaching the edge of lapping waves, in the middle of the frame. The girl raised a bottle to her lips, then turned to the other and mouthed a noiseless whisper. The other laughed, but also emitted no sound. Then the girl pointed straight up at me.

Could they see me? It was impossible. Even if they could, I realized, all they would see would be a blinding pinprick, surrounded by darkness. One faced back to the other with a shy smile. Their fingertips brushed lightly, rustling the fabric of their jeans and the damp grass. It felt as if the speed of the earth’s spinning slowed down, for just a moment.

They both started as if frightened by a loud sound, and ran towards the house laughing and tripping over each other. The door slammed and blocked my last glimpses of the girl pulling the other inside by their clasped hands. I felt like an intruder, peering in on their lives from above like this. A wash of gold began to transform the lake from dark indigo to the glittering sky blue of early summer, and I backed away from the window. As it grew brighter the scene below seemed to fade from my view, until the window vanished and the impenetrable screen of light returned. All of a sudden, I wasn’t contented with wandering around the oblivion, aimless, voiceless, purposeless. I stayed by the window until, a short while later, it opened again.

The clearing was darker this time; the porch light of the little house was off. The world was only visible by the small amount of pale bluish light that seeped out from my window. The teenagers I saw before were no longer there- in fact, there was no human life that I could see, only clues to indicate it was once there.

Broken glass sparkling between blades of grass, a few flickering embers in an idle firepit, a crinkled Cool Ranch Doritos bag discarded on the dock. I kept checking back in whenever the window opened. The couple never returned. Nights passed. I watched the sunshine yellow paint peel off the house. The trees grew apples, they fell, more grew in their place. The pack of coyotes that frequented the area brought up several new generations of pups. Time consumed everything that was familiar.

I didn’t notice when it started. Only when it grew too much to tolerate. Pressure, building from my insides and from the periphery of the glaring void. I had stopped going to the window. Over time, the world’s transformation grew monotonous. I couldn’t take it anymore- simply observing, with no way of communication. So I went. The further I drifted from the window, the colder it got, and the more pressure weighed on me. It was no less bright, but the void got less and less full of movement, of other beings. A vacuum opened up in where my chest used to be, and stole all the matter- the warmth, the light- of my being. I heard a rush of wind- the first sound I’d heard since arriving- as the light around me bent and flickered. It didn’t go out with a bang. It was quick, and quiet.

When I was all alone was when it finally ended. The void melded with my body and everything collapsed in on itself. And all the light went out.

Toryn Pulling (5/5/22)

Lauren Harton’s Pencil Drawings

Christina D'Amico’s Photography

1969 2021

Spanish NHS Michaela Miano (2020)

Medical Minds Vanessa Esposito (2022)

All Are Welcome

Mercy clubs represented by unrelated artwork

Helping Hands Helping Paws Lauren Harton and Lucy Zajack (2022)

Coming soon: Marine Conservation Club

Scientific Illustration Artwork

Froggy Went a Courtin’

Oscar’s Thinking Spot

bring May flowers!

Charlie Weaver’s Seniors Last Day Speech

Change. When used as a verb it means: To make someone or something different. Alter or modify. This word, used sporadically throughout life, has been a constant in ours.

Walking through the doors our freshmen year, who would’ve foreseen the adventure we were about to embark on. My goodness, it was quite a ride. We began our start sitting in the auditorium surrounded by unfamiliar faces. Finding our way around Mercy seemed like the most difficult task at the time. As we made it through our first academic year, success and fond classroom memories surrounded our experience. Drawing pictures of trees and outdoor observations for Ms. Ceberek’s Tree Journal caused us an extreme amount of unnecessary stress, but we always found comedic relief in Stew’s jampack World History Class. Especially when he fell off his chair and broke it. Or sitting in Mrs. Naumann’s Spanish Class, learning about Spanish culture, doing creative projects, and finding some of my best friends to this day. I can finally say I have read Romeo and Juliet over ten times thanks to Mr. Flynn and his test consisting of 100 quotes from the play. To learning new traditions and trying to wrap our minds around spending $90 on cake with Mr. Harley’s face on it, our Freshmen experience here at Mercy was one like no other.

We walked into Sophomore Year feeling unstoppable. As we moved up on the totem pole, we were no longer “the freshmen,” but a class now rooted in Mercy. I’m not going to lie; Sophomore Year was tough. Try taking two math classes, while trying to balance a social life. Or taking Chemistry with Mr. Oeschger, while constantly trying to get him offtopic by talking about global warming. We read some more Shakespeare, and a novel about a group of boys stranded on an island. We took life lessons from Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye. We were able to find the exact equation for the minimum amount of sleep needed to avoid falling asleep in class the next day. And then life at Mercy took a drastic change.

The energy inside our building soon began to fade as we were unfortunately stuck inside our homes with our only connection to each other through a screen. The eye-opening experience encouraged us to adapt to change and new environments. Thank you to our administration for making it possible for our school to wake up each morning and see our classmates and teachers while encouraging normalcy in a time of uncertainty. We were able to find lighthearted moments during the pandemic, especially when Sarah Seymour walked eight miles to Chick-Fil-A to find out they were not open during Civics Class or walking into my sister’s room to find her entire US History Class playing Among Us with Mrs. Durbois. We made the most of what we had at the end of our sophomore year.

Junior Year soon appeared as social distancing and hand sanitizing every 5 seconds became the new norms. We were finally able to drive to school for the first time and see familiar faces that we hadn’t in months. Walking into Mercy with my friends I made throughout the past few years felt like a privilege. I made sure to take advantage of each moment and opportunity from that point on. As the ongoing change circulated throughout the school, we learned to adapt to new schedules, traditions, and ways of learning. We connected in the classroom and virtually, each with a new goal in mind. We were back on track. Junior year was filled with some of our best memories. Whether we were stressing out in APUSH because our chapter notes were due the next day to cramming a two-week Social Justice Issue Project into the night before it was due. Sorry Pep. Or being constantly confused throughout physics but still managing to pass the test. Or having Mrs. Durbois spend months on reenacting the Civil War, for us to not get a single question on the AP Exam. From mask breaks to virtual cake auction, we took advantage of each opportunity and filled our lives with more memories here at Mercy.

Fast forward to Senior Year. After moving my sister into college, I tried my best to focus on the exciting year ahead. We began our start as the new leaders of the school, surrounded by a class with a vast number of memories and a duty to bring back traditions. We jumped into the college process, losing many hours of sleep writing college essays, touring schools, and searching for scholarships. We read many books that we wouldn’t have picked up if we were reading them on our own, and of course more Shakespeare. We served our community and grew as leaders. I finally learned what a derivative is thanks to Mrs. Dziatko and found new ways to get Mr. Oeschger off topic. We reenacted a fantastic nativity, even though baby Jesus was not happy camper that day. Maeve managed to go viral on Tik-Tok again, and I learned that you should never trust the Xavier boys to help you make blankets in limited amount of time without knowing they would distract each other, only making one in the span of an hour. We learned about new religions, new ideas, and set our minds towards the future.

We spent these last 4 years at Mercy preparing for this day to come. Now that it’s here, I can finally say the Class of 2022 has left their unique mark. This building has become our second home. We have found a community of people who cheer us on when we succeed and pick us up when we fall. Mercy has taught us much more than how to smuggle Dunkin’ in your backpack or how to wear a uniform without wearing as much of it as you possibly can. These past years have taught many lessons about friendship, charity, hard work, and learning to create your own destiny. They even fueled a tutu addiction. There is no other place in world where you could roll out of bed, throw your hair up into a “Mercy Bun,” and be surrounded by an incredible and talented group of girls, teachers, and faculty.

To the Freshmen, enjoy each and every moment of high school. I know you had heard a million times, but these years truly fly by. I wish I could sit in your seats again, but it is time for my class and I to move on. Try not to rush the days away and don’t regret any mistakes you make, learn from them. I wish I had taken the time to enjoy the little things and conversate more with the people I sat next to in class. Go to that football game or movie on Friday night with your friends. Making memories will mean much more in the end than stressing yourself out over schoolwork. I promise you will not remember that bio test you got a 65 on in the future, but you will remember the laughs, the people you surround yourself with, and memories that go along with them.

To the Sophomores, next year is going to be tough at points but extremely fun at others.

This is the year you find yourself. Push yourself academically, join that sports team or club, try out news things to see what kind of future you want. Be more open minded and create new connections. Set new goals, grab the opportunities that present themselves in front of you, and broaden your horizons. Here at Mercy, the possibilities are endless.

To the Juniors, good luck. With any great task, comes great responsibility. Your peers, administration, and school will be looking up to you to set the example. I promise, senior year will be the best year of high school, but it FLIES BY the quickest. Make sure to take a deep breath and enjoy the little moments even when things get stressful or overwhelming. I promise, there will be a ton of great memories that might pass you by when you are caught up doing AP homework or stressing about college. You will get into college. Know that it’s not the specific college you attend, but what you make of your college experience. That matters more than anything else in determining your future success. Make sure to spend time with family and friends, the summer before college will be busy and full of goodbyes, make the most out of the time you have left here.

To the Class of 2022, I wish you all the best of luck at your selected schools and future endeavors. We are truly the Class of Change, and we have made our Mercy Experience one that we will never forget. Make sure to take risks, set high goals for yourself, and branch out making sure you leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of what today you believe is your dreams. Have fun because you only live once. And don’t be afraid to change your mind, there are so many routes out there calling your name. I cannot wait to cross paths with you all in the future and witness your accomplishments. We have so much potential, from lawyers to engineers, from nurses to pharmacists, to our future teachers and economists, anything is possible when you put your mind to it.

Thank you Mercy High School for giving me an unforgettable four years. I have made connections and memories here that I would’ve never produced anywhere else. Thank you for giving me some of my best friends. Although we will be a part next year, I can’t wait to see what your futures hold for you. Thank you to Mrs. Durbois and our Advisor Group. From Day 1, our advisor has been one of my favorite places to be in the morning. You guys always manage to make me smile and I will miss Mrs. Durbois and her words of wisdom and constant support. Thank you to all my teachers throughout these memorable high school years. You all have truly impacted my high school career and myself as a person. To the Gymnastics Team, thank you for four memorable years. It was an honor to be on the team that brought Mercy home its first Gymnastic SCC win. To Mrs. Wamester and the Ambassador Board, thank you for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to lead and advocate for Mercy. It has been one of my favorite positions here. To Ms. Aparo and the National Honor Society Board. Thank you, you all have truly impacted my senior year for the better and it was a pleasure to work with you all. Ms. Aparo, thank you for encouraging me and supporting me throughout this position.

To my biggest supporters through life, thank you. Mom, Dad, and Abby, I am blessed to be a part of such an amazing and supportive family. Thank you for guiding me throughout this journey called life, and I will miss you so much next year when I’m at Embry-Riddle. Well, maybe not Abby, because she’ll be there with me. You guys have sacrificed your time and energy to making me the person I am today, and I will be forever indebted to you. I love you all so much.

We now accept that fact that is now time to leave Randolph Road after four extraordinary years. So bring it on college, they say that it’s one of the biggest changes in your life, but I think we can handle it.

❖ Isabel Kessler, Brayden Santagata, and Michaela Miano for cover artwork ❖ Michaela Miano for magazine design ❖ Mr. Butterly and Ms. Barone for collecting student work ❖ All creators whose names are not directly mentioned ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢ ➢

6: Michaela Miano, Youjia Tang, Calle Dennis 7: Chloe Gaboury, Courtney Klewicki 8: Emily Pulvirenti, Chloe Gaboury, Michaela Miano 9: Charlie Weaver 23: Clara Dobbs-McAuliffe 24: Nudrat Rana, Isabella Gonzalez, Natalie Pulvirenti, Sarah Hughes, Emily Pulvirenti ➢ 25: Christina D'Amico, Michaela Miano ➢ 26: Vanessa Esposito, Leilani Duong-Vazquez, Sofia Mancini

This issue was made in 2022, but it contains work from the lifetimes of current Mercy students and faculty. We appreciate everyone who participated in this project!