Montage | Issue #11

Montage arts journal

2015-16 Issue

Editor-in-Chief

Carolyn Aiello Poetry & Drama Editor

Jamie Hahn Prose Editor

Carolyn Aiello Editorial Assistants

Rose Aubery, Laura Bjankini, Shelly Chang, Vivienne Henning, Sarah Kats, Joseph Krause, Joshua Leone, Prudhvila Mulakala, Laura Murphy, Ricardo Plaza, Brian Robinson, Sean Colleen Ryan, Jennifer Shi, Margaret Telthorst, Jade Tyson, Elli Wills, Kerstin Wolf, Tim Wyland, Qin Xu Faculty Advisor

Matthew Minicucci Design

Carolyn Aiello, Sarah Kats, Joshua Leone, Laura Murphy, Ricardo Plaza, Sean Colleen Ryan, Jennifer Shi, Jade Tyson, Elli Wills, Kerstin Wolf, Qin Xu Cover Art

“Media Is Your Mind” by Tiffany Nguyen

Copyright © 2016 by Montage Arts Journal. All Rights Reserved.

Montage Arts Journal is a literary arts magazine created by undergraduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Visit montagejournal.tumblr.com for submission guidelines.

MONTAGE a r t s

j o u r n a l

CONTENTS ANA V. FLEMING | The Midnight Mooring page 6

JESSICA SUNG | Armistice page 7

TAYLOR SABATINI | Little Red page 8

SAM YOUNG | Leaves page 9

MORGAN CLEARY | Paris page 13

ALICE FANG | Light Geometry page 14

ERICA SHEERAN | Lapland page 15

ALICE FANG | Impression of Spring page 16

DAVID GU | A Scene I Saw in My Dream page 16

CURT KUPFERSCHMID | Purple Salt page 17

TIFFANY NGUYEN | Price Less or Priceless? page 18

TIFFANY NGUYEN| Holding on the Edge page 20

CHRISTOPHER KOWALSKI | It Is Getting to Be That Time Again page 21

THOMAS SANCHEZ | Out of Sight, Out of Mind page 24

TOOKAI RAN | Awake page 25

MEGHEDI TAMAZIAN | Broken Fever page 26

MICHAELA PUSCAS | We’re All Mad Here page 27

TIFFANY NGUYEN | The human skin... page 28

ERIK WESSEL | Life Support page 29

ROSE YAMIN | Cultural Perspective page 31

DAN LEVIN | American Highway page 32

QINGXUE LIU | The Bund page 38

ERICA SHEERAN | Like Starlight page 39

TAYLOR SABATINI | The Jellies Pt. 2 page 40

RANDI CLEMENS | MCBH page 41

TAYLOR SABATINI | The Jellies Pt. 1 page 42

GABRIEL COSTELLO | The Greys page 43

TIFFANY NGUYEN | Media Is Your Mind page 44

ERIK WESSEL | Nothing But Dust page 45

CLAIRE BAUM | Suspended Animation page 48

ERICA SHEERAN | Bless This Love page 49

ANA V. FLEMING | The Lily That Senses Suddenly page 50

CONTRIBUTOR BIOS page 52

The Midnight Mooring by Ana V. Fleming

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ARMISTICE

Jessica Sung

Ceramic bowls shatter and coat the kitchen floor.

The pieces sway on their curved faces, fracturing the dark tile.

Each step warrants a shard in the heel, so no one moves.

It is enough, for now, to gaze at the rise and fall of these pieces, which hold no more than a bit of air, some settled dust, the phantom weight of their better halves.

Hushed words drop into the wreckage like stones, and the air grows thick with clay.

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8 | MONTAGE

Little Red by Taylor Sabatini

LEAVES Sam Young The train grumbled down the tracks with an incalculable sway, rushing by the flickering lights on the tunnel walls between each stop. It had a sort of calming effect, the alternating shots of dim and darkness, the motion of the carriage, the quiet muttering of the passengers regarding their to-dos as they sat crammed in the narrow benches or stood leaning against the poles. The scene played almost like a dream, ever continuing along the line, but never changing.

“Will I like him?” a sudden, small voice inquired amidst the din.

Lys blinked out of her reverie and glanced down at the second figure clinging to the support pole with her, meeting his brown eyes. She didn’t need an explanation to know what that gaze meant, or a repetition of the inquiry, despite her previous wandering attention.

“Well, I’ve told you a little bit about him; I don’t think that you won’t like him,” she answered in return, as she had each time before. She tried to smile, but he kept looking ather, studying her. Her bottom lip quivered for a moment, but she shook it all away.

“What do you think?” she added.

“I dunno.” The boy shrugged.

“Oh, he’s not so bad.” She waved it off with a lighthearted nod. “He’s nice.”

“I just want to hear you say that I will,” he replied truthfully before turning around to glance out the window into the dark of the tunnel.

“Oh, Teddy.” Lys sighed, wrapping a hand about his head to pull him close. “I can’t make decisions for you all the time. And this is a very important one.”

Teddy looked up at her, and he seemed so small to her again, though years had flown by since she could tuck him entirely into the crook of her elbow.

“I need your honest opinion, okay?” she continued, thinking through her words with caution. “You’re like, like the final test. Like a video game.”

“Or a movie,” Teddy offered.

“Right,” she agreed. “Just be yourself, okay? Don’t worry about it so much.”

“But I should behave,” he filled in dutifully.

The young woman grinned and ruffled his hair.

“Well, yes. That’s a given.”

The boy giggled, swiping at her hand.

“But, you’re usually good about that anyway,” she finished, returning to her motherly tone.

Teddy hugged her back and nestled his head into her stomach while she gave his hair a quick peck before resting her chin there. The train came to a halt as that familiar crackling overtone echoed on the speakers, and Lys patted her son’s shoulder to catch his attention again. The crowd within the carriage shifted to the exits.

“Oh! This is our stop. C’mon. Hold my hand.”

“I can get off the subway, Mama.” Teddy took her hand, however, when they stepped out of the sliding doors of the carriage.

“I don’t want you to get lost in the crowd,” she explained as they wove their MONTAGE | 9

way across the platform. “I know that you’re capable.”

When they arrived at the stairs, Lys switched their hands so Teddy could take the railing in his other grip.

“C’mon. Up to the surface then.”

The sun had finally won the morning-long struggle with the clouds that had settled over the cityscape during the night, and it greeted them with a pleasant, but not overbearing, gleam the moment that they reached the top of the steps. They crossed the street, moving in the direction of the park—still lush and green, despite the ever-crisping autumn air.

“Where’d you say we’d meet him?” Teddy wondered.

“I said right around—aha. There he is.” She nodded ahead of them when she caught sight of their awaiting companion.

The young man sat on a bench at the edge of the path, and his dark hair blew in the breeze as he glanced about the area for the pair of them. Even though his boot tapped the pavement, Lys found herself untroubled by its pulse-like rhythm.

“Where?” Teddy craned his neck.

“The one with the leather jacket,” she replied.

“Mama, you always go for the leather jacket.” Teddy grinned, swinging their arms playfully between them when, at last, he noticed the figure.

“They look nice.” Lys smiled back in the same tone.“C’mon now.”

The boy’s lips flattened, and his eyes grew pensive.

“Do you think that he’s scared?” he inquired.

“Why would he be scared?”

“You said that he almost freaked when you told him about me,” he reminded her.

“No, I said that he was mildly surprised. Don’t exaggerate.” She shook his hand so that he would hear her. “He likes children, he said.”

“Still.” Teddy heaved his shoulders.

“I think that maybe he’s just a little apprehensive, like you,” Lys considered, squeezing his fingers. “Don’t worry, it’s normal. All right, now, here we go—” They reached the path just beyond the entrance archway when she heard a gasp.

“Mama, wait.”

Teddy’s hand slipped out of hers, and she turned around to see him standing on the sidewalk some feet back from her.

“What is it, Bear?”

Teddy looked at his shoes and gulped, his eyes now somber.

“What about Daddy?” he finally replied.

“Daddy?” She knit her brow, and her thoughts instantly began to race, like old times. “What about Daddy, baby?”

The boy paused again, and when he looked back up at her, she saw all the questions and all the doubts tumbling along, just like hers, behind those amber spheres.

“Do you still love him?” His voice cracked as he spoke.

The words hit her, and for a brief second, the world froze.

“Oh, Edward.” Lys bent down and placed her hands on his shoulders, perhaps more for her own support than his, and met his eyes as always. “Of course I still 10 | MONTAGE

love Daddy; I’ll always love Daddy, every minute of every day.”

She sighed; and though she only closed her eyes for a brief moment, she found herself in another place entirely from the park, another time. So many places, so many times.

Late nights at the campus corner coffee shop. At first, strictly to study. And then, just to keep him company until closing time. Never just acquaintances, different than friends. That someone who, no matter how hard she thought about him, never fit any category at all, even when their time together expanded outside of lattes and study parties. What they did those days, she never could quite remember, except that they did it with each other, together, always, more than enough. A thousand shared smiles, and laughs, and tears. But still, whenever their gazes met, whenever their lips touched, their hearts pounded, and their stomachs dropped. Just like they had the very first moment that they noticed one another.

Rings, promises, and boxes of memories, hopes, dreams. Unexpected surprises, anticipation, and love that grew every day as she did. Holding the small, bundled blanket between them for the first time. Watching his smile brighten even more than she had ever thought possible. Love. A happy little family. Home. “ Forever and always, my darling.”

Winter snowmen and hot chocolate. Snuggles under blankets by the fire. Summer breezes in the trees on afternoon strolls, hand-in-hand-in-hand. Autumn, first-day-of-school pictures on the front porch, pumpkin carving, crazy group costumes, always. Spring birthdays, candles aglow, and cake frosting everywhere. Road trips and science fair projects and never enough kisses goodnight, sleep tight.

“Our baby.”

Perfection, heaven on earth, nirvana.

And then—hell. A moonless, dreaded nightmare. Flashes speeding through the inked blackness. Complete damage on impact, no warning. No time. No way to stop it. Feeling his loosening fingers as the three of them lay side-by-side-by-side in the dingy emergency room, waiting for the inevitable. A life so worthy, shattered.

The dark, gaping hole in the dirt at their feet. The polished box lowering, farther, deeper, forever. A rose falling out of her slack grip. Everything spinning around her yet frozen over inside.

“Forever and always, my darling.” The only words that truly mattered to her, to them.

Over. And over. And over again.

“But,” Lys came back to the autumn day before Teddy and chose her words carefully. “Daddy wouldn’t want us to be sad anymore, don’t you think? He’d want us to be happy again...Nick makes me happy, like Daddy.”

“Is he going to replace him?” Teddy trembled, not entirely from the cold.

“No, baby.” She shook her head as she attempted to suck in breath. “No one could replace you or Daddy. You two are my world; I’ll always love you more than life itself. Nick just—helps Mama a little bit, okay? He makes the pain a little less.”

After another quick bat, the scenes behind her eyelids faded to black.

“He’s nice; I told you that. I like him.”

Still Teddy fidgeted with his hands and swayed ever so slightly in his place. She rubbed his coat sleeves, gentle, comforting.

“It’s okay to be scared, Teddy.” She hadn’t realized how quiet her voice had gotten until then. “This is a big change, for both of us, I know. But...”

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She glanced back at the man on the bench and let out a small sigh of relief; as she had hoped, he had come empty-handed—no matters of persuasion, no means of bribing. Just plain impression and conversation to be had between them all. Her heart swelled, ever so slightly; he knew his way to it.

“You won’t know if you’ll like it unless you try.” Lys returned her gaze to the boy, swallowing hard. “That’s all you have to do.” Please. She knew that her eyes spoke to him, and she blinked away what water had gathered there.

“And remember—if you don’t feel comfortable, you just tell me, all right?” she finished once she recomposed herself.

“What if I don’t want him to know?” He knit his brow.

“Then tug on my sleeve, just like this.” The motions accompanied her words.

“That’s it. Okay?”

Teddy considered and then nodded slowly.

“Okay.”

“So.” Lys inhaled as she stood. “You ready? Big, deep breaths.”

“The one in the leather jacket, right?” Teddy questioned, though they both knew the answer.

“That’s right.”

“On the bench.”

“On the bench,” she echoed.

“Nick.” He remembered.

“Nick.” The corner of her lip tugged upward when the boy said it back to her.

“Let me say hello to him first,” he requested, a newfound charge in his tone.

“You sure?” she asked with a slight cock of her head.

“Uh-huh. So I can get it out of the way, in case I freeze,” he said, matter-of-fact.

She chuckled under her breath; what a mind he had for someone so young.

“Okay, Edward,” she affirmed.

With a nod, Lys slipped their hands together again as she pointed them in the direction of the young man on the bench, who now smiled as he watched them back. She thought that he was so undeniably attractive when he did that. His smile made her stomach flutter every time that he aimed it at her, just as, long ago, in an old coffee shop, it had happened the very first time, though for another. The pain still lingered, of course, deep down. But somehow, it lingered just a little less than before.

“Lead the way.”

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Paris by Morgan Cleary

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Light Geometry by Alice Fang

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LAPLAND

Erica Sheeran

love, what is that word.

I know there are these little tender breaths of Lapland that are so delicate they faint in a palm, but the memory blots.

I know that sometimes loving consists of sameness though I cannot tell which palm holds that breath.

I may only walk the tundra in the summer and in my dreamscape, but I am not alone.

If I hold the delicate, then he is my reindeer who knows the stones in snow, so surefooted—like his love which is warm and soft to touch: the sky when the north sparkles snowfire and borealis.

If he holds the delicate, then I am the reindeer and I blaze under the cloak-colored darkness whispering secrets from mossy breath to brush his cheeks blush-red while we brave the winter without dawn, but we are never alone nor without light.

There is something intimate about not knowing which one holds the fainted delicate; he spoke to me about secret lips and loving but never aloneness.

All I know I know from the reindeer that melt their warm proud bodies against the nervous permafrost in my soul— love what is that word but breath from Lapland, deep and filling and burning cold, an amber berry that cages the sun.

We travel together, two reindeer souls in arctic spring, two palms fused to hold a breath, two homes that never leave the chest, the eyes, the secret lips, our hand.

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Impression of Spring by Alice Fang

A Scene I Saw in My Dream by David Gu 16 | MONTAGE

PURPLE SALT

Curt Kupferschmid

walk.

purple salt frozen on the white side

feet

soaking ice until crushed into sand by brief

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Price Less or Priceless? by Tiffany Nguyen MONTAGE | 19

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Holding on the Edge by Tiffany Nguyen

IT IS GETTING TO BE THAT TIME AGAIN

Christopher Kowalski

It is getting to be that time again. He is having the dream again. In it, he is walking through a dewy wood, and the weather has recently turned to chill. Over the tops of the dying trees, pink clouds amass in great, billowing bubbles. In his left hand, he holds a book, any book, and in his right, a rifle. Its muzzle sweeps the ground, and the trigger guard digs into his palm. His fingers feel the chill, but it is okay. It is good to leave the city behind. He is going somewhere else.

The woods part into a small clearing where the grass is still green. His boots sparkle with collected dew. In the middle of the clearing stands a doe. It looks at him with wide, staring eyes that betray nothing. On its shoulders, it wears her face.

It is never the same face, but it is always hers. Delicately, it stoops her head to the ground and chews the wet grass.

He raises the rifle. She is so close that he does not need the scope, but he takes the lens cover off anyway. In magnified detail, he watches as she chews with her human cheeks, as she blinks lazily. She shows no fear. He lowers the rifle, slings it across his back, and takes up his book. She tenses suddenly and turns alert ears his way. He cracks the book, and the pages whisper apart. At the sound, she turns tail and bounds into the brush.

There are only the most necessary of sounds, and they quickly fade away. The chill penetrates the bones in his fingers. It is the only time that he is aware of them.

He flips through the book, looking for his favorite line, but the pages are blank, so he puts it away. He walks on, and the woods never end. The chill nibbles, but never bites.

In time, he comes to a shallow creek with a hard-packed bank. The mud under his feet crumbles uselessly. She is here, too. Her front legs spread to accommodate her long neck, and she drinks with her short, pink tongue. The water brushes her nose, but it does not ripple. Again, he raises the rifle and watches her through the scope. Her eyes are half closed.

With a turn of his wrist, he is five times closer. Her smell reaches him through the lens, suffusing his breath with her scent. Soft shadows wash her face, smoothing her cheekbones, and her head becomes warm and round. Long eyelashes close slowly. They open again, revealing their secret treasure. Her electric blue eyes see nothing but everything.

The rifle bucks, and the shot disappears into the thunderous report. She looks at him, unaffected, and he slings the rifle over his back. Mud falls from his boots into the still, crystal water, and he is one step closer to her. Again, she bolts. He watches her bound down the stream. Mud and water splash upward and freeze in time, her every movement recorded upon the air. He takes a step after her, but finds that his feet are stuck. For a moment, he looks after her, then he turns away, and the mud releases him.

Over the other bank, the trees thin, and he finds a broken wire fence. It lays upon the ground, trampled into the earth. He takes off his boots and trips over the MONTAGE | 21

wires, heading into the field on the other side.

The dew has turned to glass and cuts his feet. Fog crowds his face with each breath, and he remembers the chill. He clenches his hands to warm them and instead hears them clack. They have become bone.

He walks through the field, leaving pieces of himself behind. The blood that he spills turns also to glass. Again, he takes up the book and opens it. The pages are no longer empty, but they hold no meaning to him. As he walks, he searches them for some message that he can take with him. With each step, his blood falls and freezes, and he becomes colder. With each step, the letters rearrange themselves and become clearer.

Just as they are about to speak to him, the final pieces of his feet break off. He falls. The grass pierces his legs and chest, and the book lands beyond his reach.

Bone fingers claw the earth, but the glass breaks them apart. He hears an approaching crunch, and it is her. She passes him from behind, and he could touch her if he had hands. Tough hooves shatter the dew as she comes upon the book. She nudges it with the bulb of her nose, and he can see a message in it, but he cannot make out what it says.

She grabs the corner of the book in her square, white teeth and tears it off.

He watches while she chews it with her human cheeks. She takes another bite and raises her head out of his view. He thinks that she may leave, but her round face returns. The book is half gone, and she shuffles her feet, kicking it to a new angle.

She eats another corner, and he watches her breath escape down her nose, over her lips.

When he awakens, it is to silence. Out his window, over the dark outline of the city, he sees billowing clouds bubble over the earth. He stands, and the cold floor reminds him of a vagurey. Breakfast is short, and the day begins. His shoes feel stiff, and he ties them loosely. The key sticks, and he has to twist it more than usual to remove it from the lock. His shoes gap and slap against his heels. Each step is easy, but feels an awesome weight. The air is warm and nibbles at the bones in his fingers, but he is unaware.

Shortly, he comes to the coffee shop. The chime echoes in his ear, and he spots her in their usual corner. She waves, raising her cup as he steps into line. The cashier is pretty and smiles commercially at him while he orders. The warmth of his drink intrudes upon his flesh, and he wraps a napkin around it. As he takes a seat, he sips his drink, and it sears his tongue. He blinks away the tears, and she speaks to him. Her voice is good. He responds, and she laughs at his jokes. He wanders beneath her gaze.

They talk while their drinks cool. She tells him her nothings and a few of her somethings. He listens, watching her mouth and eyes move. The smiles they share are free and the laughs easy. He wants to show her something and sketches on his napkin. He wants also to tell her something, to show her the world, but he knows he can show her this. She continues to speak, and his mind floods. He stops sketching and examines his work. When she tries to peek, he stops her and returns to his sketch.

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She is fading, looking out the window at cars going by, with no one to listen, but he still listens. Slowly, she says a thing and it gives him pause. He struggles to put his thoughts to words, and she rolls them around in her mouth. Her hair bounces about her jaw as she shakes her head. He tries again with more confidence, and when her eyes glaze, he knows that he is right. Her smile is a struggle, but he has no part beyond this.

The sketch is complete, and he slides it across the small, round table. She leans over it and holds her hair out of her face. Their drinks are cold now, and he drinks his swiftly. The curve that etches itself across her jaw touches him, but her eyes lack understanding. She tells him it is pretty, and he smiles up at her from behind wounded eyes. He tells her to keep it, this one thing of his, and she carefully folds it away. He is pleased despite himself, despite her.

The table rattles with the buzz of her phone. Her face changes, and she spots something out the window. Hastily, she gathers herself and asks to see him later.

He watches her go, the chime dull in his ear. Across the street, she embraces a man and takes his hand. They are gone in the soft morning glow. In the coffee shop, he buys another drink and passes beneath the chime. The warmth of his drink intrudes upon his flesh, and he takes a sip. He thinks about the sketch and that unspoken world. His lips and tongue burn and he bites away the pain.

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Out of Sight, Out of Mind by Thomas Sanchez

AWAKE.

Tookai Ran

Heart rampant, eyes rabid.

My dearest, why do you tremble?

Why do you shrink from me for days on end, running.

Your writhing body mortified by every breath, every instance in pain, every injustice.

Fear, again.

This sensation, again, like a daze unending.

In my dream, I fled and hid in the dark only to see your gaze staring.

When it was just us together, blankets wrapped around our exposed skin, our limbs tangled tight,

It cannot go on like this, shirking in fond memories and ignoring the pain around you.

Cruel.

Your arrogance!

What happened to you?

Look at me, coward.

Liar.

Suffering, I know somewhere far within you.

A wanderer far from home, the belief in a better day, it could never bare the pyre before me!

TWO VOICE POEM

the nights held together.

What happened to those days?

All because of your pride You vile.

Curse, just abandon me.

Why do you haunt me so?

In this world of soot and ash I know there’s just no place in it for me!

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BROKEN FEVER

Meghedi Tamazian

the first time a boy smoked too many cigarettes because of me, he became a man. he coughed my blood into his palms, tasted my iron & grit. his tongue finally learned the inside of my body. he clutched his chest and felt only my heartbeat. the pulse of a moving car is one akin to racing cattle or maybe just a fever the moment before its break. i do not know what it means to break; only to burn out like a brilliant star, or just another addict’s mistake.

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We’re All Mad Here by Michaela Puscas

The human skin can be hard to live in, that’s why some of us tear it open

by Tiffany Nguyen 28 | MONTAGE

LIFE SUPPORT

Erik Wessel

Leland wakes up. His eyes slide open, but he doesn’t move. He’s not tired, but he doesn’t want to be awake. He stares at the rafters on the ceiling, and everything is so still and quiet that time hardly seems to exist, its passage marked only by the progression of his thoughts. He thinks about the wooden rafters—a decorative hologram that David picked out because he felt it made their 70th story apartment more homey. Leland tries to make them something else in his mind, a metaphor for the way frameworks support software or axioms support a proof, but nothing really fits. They’re just a decoration, in a bedroom, in an apartment, in a city.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The alarm sounds, and Leland lifts himself out of bed. 7:00 a.m. He walks to the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror. His short, silver hair is messy; grey stubble peppers his chin, and his eyes are a painful red, brimming with tears even though it has been weeks since he last cried about David. Perhaps you can cry in your sleep, he thinks. He brushes his teeth. He shaves. It takes him longer than it should—he keeps getting distracted, thinking about David in a hospital bed across the city.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The alarm sounds. 7:10 a.m. He gets in the shower.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

7:35 a.m. He gets out of the shower. He towels off and gets dressed, buttoning up a clean shirt then tucking it into a pair of tan slacks—an outfit which was antiquated decades ago, but one which David always found charmingly anachronistic. He doesn’t comb his hair. It’s not so much that he has forgotten; rather, it has never really been part of his routine to begin with. Thus, his hair remains messy as the next alarm sounds, and he leaves the bathroom for the kitchen.

7:45 a.m. He picks up a small, eyepatch-like screen that lies on the charging pad atop the counter and places it over his left eye. Through messages, news bulletins, weather forecasts, and data regressions, the world at large comes into view, the ceaseless bustle of civilization coming to life through a paper-thin patch of silicon and glass. It’s soothing, the distraction of it, as he makes his morning coffee and toasts his morning bagel. The world out there is so big and so full of noise; whatever happens to him and David will hardly be felt by anyone.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The alarm sounds, and it’s the one that Leland’s been dreading. 8:00 a.m. He walks into the living room, to the bookshelf—David’s bookshelf. It’s hardly been touched in months. It used to be a mess, books constantly taken out and put back in random places. But since the hospitalization, his shelf has remained uncharacteristically undisturbed. Leland looks along the rows.

“How ‘bout some Asimov?” he says to the empty apartment, “I feel like he’ll enjoy hearing some Asimov.” Leland removes a tattered copy of I, Robot from the shelf. Then he stops, staring at the books. It’s like looking at his husband’s personality. And though he hates to think about it, this bookshelf and its carefully chosen MONTAGE | 29

antique volumes are probably one of the last vestiges of that personality. The mind which had once housed it is now comatose and, in spite of the doctor’s assurances, slowly fading away.

Leland stands there. He feels weak; he doesn’t have the strength to turn away.

In the back of his mind there are puzzles, questions, grand ideas that have lingered there, ambitions all but given up on, swept to the corners of his being to make room for David, for the life they had together. But that life is fading away, and it’s too hard for Leland to go back so many decades, to a time before they met, and rediscover that other life that he had happily given up. Leland doesn’t want to move backward or forward, he just wants to stop. And that’s what the timers are for. Each one meticulously set, planning his day to the minute.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

8:05 a.m. Leland is out the door, pushed forward by the system of electronic clocks. And across the city in a hospital ward, David is laying in a bed; machines are keeping his blood oxygenated and his lungs inflated, a system of electronic devices keeping him alive, just as the timers keep Leland going. Both of them on life support.

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Cultural Perspective byRose Yamin

AMERICAN HIGHWAY

Dan Levin

It’s 2045. My name is Wex. I’m sixty years old and not quite ready to die, though I often act like it. I lie prone on the tenth floor of an abandoned building, eyes glued to my binoculars as I wait for an FCNR-owned vehicle carrying the cargo that I need to steal. Or rescue. I’m supposed to rescue the scientist and steal the device then take both of them with me to New Liberty, Wyoming. Will, my best friend, is waiting there for me. Will and his coffee empire. He says that he’s going to pay me 20,000 credits for this job. That’s enough to keep me going for a few months. I guess he’s doing well. Well enough to afford 20,000 credits.

I should probably explain what the FCNR is. It stands for Federated Colonies of New Republica—the crypto-fascist, socio-political region of what used to be the United States. This region stretches from the northernmost point of the East Coast down through the Colonial South. Years ago, climate change rendered the Midwest an uninhabitable desert. The irresponsible political action that followed caused a fracture within the nation, which became known as The Fracture. As such, the land west of the Midwest is now known as the Free Mountain States, or FMS. New Liberty is the capital.

Chicago is a fucking wasteland, but it’s my wasteland. I say that it’s my wasteland because I’ve come to call it home. I look out at Lake Michigan. It’s not much of a lake anymore, more of a big puddle. Lake Shore Drive is pockmarked but in surprisingly good repair. I’ve been told that James McManus, the scientist who I’m supposed to rescue, is going to lead a team of FCNR-sponsored mercs to the Museum of Science and Industry and recover the device. After that, he’s supposed to guide them here, at which point they will probably die.

I hear a vehicle coming. Sounds like a big SUV. I put my binoculars down and set up shop with the trusty SA58, prize of my rifle collection. Rotundus loves his big SUVs. He’s what amounts to the FCNR’s president. His real name is Jonah Mitchell, but he’s really fat, so people started calling him Rotundus, thinking that it was a good way to describe a corpulent overlord. He decided that he liked the name and stuck with it. When we were young, the two of us were friends. He told me that he’d never forgive me for voting for Obama. I smirked and said nothing. Look where we are now.

Anyway, every fucking car in that region is an SUV. No joke. I guess the FMS is all about trucks, so they aren’t much better, but occasionally you see a Honda Civic hatchback or something like that. Ever since we found a way to synthesize and manufacture petroleum, we haven’t given two shits about consumption.

I drive a Honda Civic hatchback.

A giant black box on wheels rolls around the curve, passing by the crumbling Drake Hotel. It comes to an abrupt halt. The sensors on the EMP that I set were apparently tripped. I take aim on the driver and fire, then I do the same for the guy sitting shotgun. At 200 meters, it’s not that difficult to kill people, especially when you’re obscured by clouds of garbage and decaying structures. There’s a third guy in the car besides the scientist. He gets out and tries to aim in my general direction.

32 | MONTAGE

I introduce his face to a fairly full, even sated, metal jacket. They seem to get along.

According to intel from the FMS, there will be no more hostiles in this vehicle.

Looking through the scope of my rifle, I see McManus carrying the device and making a break for what appears to be a porta-potty. Maybe he’s scared that I’m gonna fuck up and shoot him, too. Maybe he just has to pee. Either way, I start packing up my gear and prepare to head to ground level.

It takes me a good three minutes to get to the lobby of this aging mess of concrete and rebar. Twenty-year-old Red-Eye newspapers, McDonald’s wrappers, and a couple of used condoms cover the dead grass in front of the building. I sling the weapon across my back and switch to a pistol, which will allow me the use of my other hand. Approaching the gas guzzler, I find three dead guys and a picture of Rotundus hanging from the rearview mirror. I look at the porta-potty and stand there for a minute or two.

“Whenever you’re done, McManus, it’s safe to come out,” I yell at the green box.

“Yeah. Just a second,” he says, somewhat quietly. Thirty seconds later, he emerges. “Do you have any hand sanitizer?” he asks me, skipping the pleasantries.

I dig around in one of the bellows pockets of my vest and find that I do, in fact, have some. “Yeah. Here.” I hand it to him.

“Thanks.” He takes it from me and applies a healthy dab, washes, then offers his alcohol-laden right hand.

I shake it.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get the fuck out of here before the Thunder of Rotundus shows up en masse.”

“Yes. Of course,” he says.

I click a button on my key fob, and my car magically materializes about a hundred feet away. It’s kind of beat up and has a machine gun haphazardly mounted to the roof. “Cloaking device,” I say. “It only works if the car is stationary.”

“I see.”

And so we drive north, into Wisconsin. It’s Tranimal Country, but I’m good with them. They afford me safe passage, and I ignore their depraved, furry proclivities. Furthermore, they have a greater dislike for Rotundus than I do, so a certain strip of Ninety-Four is a damn good place to be right now.

“Why are we going north and not west?” McManus asks.

“The roads that go directly west are unsafe. This is also safer for other reasons.”

“How are Tranimals safe?”

“They know this car. They know that I’ve killed a lot of Rotundus’ people.

Don’t worry. We’re good.”

The Tranimals were initially an FCNR experiment that used human volunteers for drastic animal hybrid body modification procedures. Furries became actual furries. Of course, there was a point to this. It was believed that these human-animal hybrids could best survive the harsh climates and conditions of the new America. In particular, they were to serve as military elements stationed throughout the Midwest—a first line of defense against any sort of strike by the FMS. Their enlistment, of sorts, was only to last eight years and was regulated by microchip implants. When year eight came to an end, Rotundus’ administration attempted MONTAGE | 33

to extend the contract. An uprising followed; many Tranimals were killed, and the FCNR eventually left them to fend for themselves rather than suffer reprisals.

We drive through Milwaukee without incident. There is no smell of beer to speak of. It’s peaceful. Madison is about sixty miles away. Some things haven’t changed, like distance. McManus is nervous, and I guess that makes sense. He did just see me kill three people. So I offer him a granola bar, as it’s basically the only thing that I can offer.

“Thanks,” he says, unwrapping it.

“You can have another.”

“That’s alright,” he responds between bites.

The next thirty minutes are spent in silence. Then I see a shabbily dressed man by the side of the highway about a mile up with a cardboard sign that reads, “SAINT PAUL.” I slow down and come to find, unsurprisingly, that he’s a man with the face of a coyote.

“What the fuck are you doing?” McManus asks.

“What’s it look like I’m doing? Saint Paul is on our way.” I have a soft spot for these guys, however cautious I am of them. Perhaps it’s because of our mutual enemy.

“This was not part of the agreement.”

“What agreement? Will gave me a job. The job was to pick you up and secure this. . . what is this thing anyway?”

“It’s a power generator.”

I pull the car to the side of the road and engage the targeting system of the machine gun mounted on the roof. It bounces around a bit then trains itself on the coyote man, who understands that he should not make any sudden movements.

“Okay. Well, this guy is not going to interfere. If he does, you can shoot him.

Just follow my lead. Think of it as a good deed.”

I unlock the glove compartment and gesture to the 1911 pistol resting comfortably, then I get out of the car and approach the coyote man.

“Oh, thank you so much for stopping, mister.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. What’s in the briefcase?”

He opens up a battered attache to reveal a collection of watches. “Rolex! Tag Heuer! Omega! I have ‘em all! Name your price and you can take one home.”

“Great. Now open the backpack. Slowly.” He walks up to me, holding the pack open wide enough so I can see some clothes poking out. “Dump them out on the ground.”

“What?”

“Dump. Them. Out.” “Okay, okay.” He does as he’s told. There’s nothing suspect.

“Alright, coyote man, pack it up and get in the car. You’ll sit shotgun.” I look back at the vehicle. “McManus, get in back.”

“Goddamnit,” he mutters.

Oh well. I click off the turret, and we get in the car. It takes on the smell of a Jack London book, masked only by the scent of my overapplied Old Spice. Like this Tranimal, I also happen to have a special watch. It jams radio signals, which 34 | MONTAGE

may come in handy. Some of these furries are loyal to Rotundus, and this guy may just want to blow up his backpack with a radio detonator. To the best of my knowledge, it’s the only weapon that he would have access to. McManus seems jumpy, so he may shoot him regardless. I give him three to one odds. At least I’m giving the poor fuck a chance.

“Call me Krono,” the Tranimal says.

“Why would I do that?” I ask.

“It’s my name. It’s short for Kronomaster.”

“Ah. Well, Krono, what’s in Saint Paul?”

He hesitates for a moment. “Nothing, I guess. Change of scenery, mainly.”

“Yeah serious change of scenery,” McManus scoffs.

I pull the car onto the highway, and we begin our trek toward Minnesota. The sky is grey, and it’s about a hundred degrees outside. I’m sweating, but I don’t really care. The air conditioning does very little to curb the heat. McManus looks pissed off. I can surmise by looking in the rearview that he has the 1911 pointed deep into the seat in front of him. I’m not sure why, but this makes me smile. I guess I’m kind of an asshole.

No one seems to be saying much, so I turn up the Hall and Oates on the stereo.

I figure if anyone is going to make a move, “Maneater” will trigger the worst of it.

About a minute in, Krono starts fidgeting with his timepiece.

“Problem with the chronograph there, Kronomaster?”

“Yeah, um, it’s nothing,” he replies, but keeps messing with the watch. My suspicions seem to be correct, but before I can do anything myself, a shot rings out and the Kronomaster starts bleeding profusely.

“Goddamnit, McManus. I just bought these jeans.”

Krono yelps then moans. Or howls. Maybe all of the above.

“He was going to detonate his backpack. That’s what these guys do.”

“I’m aware. The FMS gave me a jammer. I use it whenever I pick one of these guys up, but it never actually served a purpose until today. You can clean my car when we get to New Liberty.” Okay, so I did kind of see this coming, but they’re so pathetically cute. They remind me of Thundercats, except this one’s a coyote.

Remember Thundercats? I do.

“Whatever.”

Krono howls some more. “Shut up. You had it coming,” I say. Maybe I did, too.

I pull over to the side of the road. We’re maybe twenty miles shy of Madison. I open the passenger door and shove the coyote man out of the car, then I get out and walk around to his bleeding heap of a body. Somewhere in one of my pockets, I find a Sharpie. I write “AGENT OF ROTUNDUS” across his forehead.

“Just kill me. Please,” he pleads.

“Not today, coyote man. If the others find you alive, that’s one thing. If they find you dead, that’s another.” I give him a solid wink, but I honestly have no idea how it works in the woods.

McManus takes a look at the front seat, and seeing that it’s covered in blood, opts to stay in back. I get in and buckle up.

“It’s a long way to Wyoming,” McManus says.

MONTAGE | 35

“Yeah. You want another granola bar?”

“No.” “Okay then. You want to listen to something besides Hall and Oates?”

“I would, actually. Hall and Oates aren’t very smooth.”

Howls emanate from outside the car as I put the Honda into gear and take off.

“Steely Dan?” “Yeah. Steely Dan is smooth.”

So we listen to The Royal Scam as we head back out on Ninety-Four. McManus seems pleased.

The fuel economy of a four-cylinder Honda in 2045 is quite incredible. You can make it from Chicago to New Liberty and back on a single tank. That means that we don’t have to stop, except for the occasional bathroom break. Seeing as we’re beyond the realm of civilization, I tend to supply my own toilet paper. We’ll see if this becomes relevant or not.

Halfway through Pretzel Logic—we’re not listening to the albums chronologically—McManus has to pee. We’re somewhere near Fargo. I have to pee, too, so we get out and do our thing. This time, I ask him for the hand sanitizer. Luckily, he still has it.

“Thanks,” I mutter as I put it back in my pocket. I’m still pissed off about my jeans, but McManus doesn’t seem to be a bad guy. We get back in the car. Nothing is said for about five minutes, then I realize that I need to satisfy my curiosity.

“This device. So far, three and a half people are dead over it. What the fuck is so amazing about this thing?”

“It’s essentially small scale perpetual motion, a Maxwell’s Demon.”

“And you developed it?”

“Yes, but it only sort of functions as intended. Hence, it sat idle under a glass dome in the Museum of Science and Industry for two decades.”

“I see.”

It gets quiet again. McManus goes to sleep. I pop a caffeine pill and chase it with Red Bull. Ten minutes later, the vessels in my cranium are surging and thumping. I don’t really care.

When we reach Wyoming, it’s barely dawn. Climate change rendered the landscape subtropical, so the highway is lined with coffee cherries, shimmering in the morning breeze. A brilliant orange rises through the grey sky in my rearview as I push the accelerator a little harder.

“Wake up, James,” I say. “You should see this.”

“What?” He rubs his eyes as he sits up.

“I know that you have coffee plantations out east, but the sunrise is different here.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” He stares out the window.

I hope that he’s moved by this, but I think he’s still upset about the Tranimal. I guess I am, too. It was a bad idea, and I got cocky. But it’s done now. Thirty more minutes, and we’ll be in New Liberty.

The ride is smooth. When we get to Will’s shop, the sun is officially up. People are getting their morning coffee. I park the car, then we get out, McManus carrying 36 | MONTAGE

the power generator. We enter the cafe, and Will offers us each a cortado.

“Espresso, bro! Sorry. I mean bros. You must be Dr. McManus.”

“Guilty,” he replies. “Here’s your coveted generator.” He hefts the device onto the coffee bar. Will grins.

In thirty years of shifting landscapes and pseudo civil war, Will has remained the same. He’s profited from the effects of climate change—his coffee empire reaching the status of world renown long ago. Though he seems happier than usual today.

“Well, let’s test this fucker out.”

“Do what?” I say. “Test it out?”

“Yeah. As in, let’s connect it to the espresso machine.”

“I’m confused. It’s a power generator, right?”

“Yeah. It generates electricity through reverse electrolysis, and therefore provides a constant water supply which can power an espresso machine.”

“It generates a water supply out of thin air? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I just drove across the goddamn continent and killed three people over a coffee maker?”

“Yeah, basically.” Will smirks. “If this works, we can replicate the tech and put the FCNR coffee industry out of business for good.”

“Christ. That’s a little hopeful, isn’t it?”

He just laughs, then with the help of McManus, starts toying with the contraption. Within ten minutes, Will’s vintage La Marzocco is running without any connection to plumbing or electricity. It makes the best latte I’ve ever tasted, and I soon realize that I have a little too much caffeine in my system.

“Wex, you must be tired,” he says, handing me the key to his house. “The guest room is set up for you. Get some rest, and I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Thanks. You cool here, McManus?”

“Yeah. Go sleep.”

If I even can, I think. Espresso. Electrolysis. Seriously, did you see that coming?

Fuck me. I’m done.

MONTAGE | 37

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The Bund by Qingxue Liu

LIKE STARLIGHT

Erica Sheeran

To write about the pearl earrings from North India and understand, reading other things of the world helps. A gift was delivered to my heart today—ash and words, alias love. Poetry is needed because it is unfettered when it comes to time. Contemplate a love from God or from the self; understand that loving consists of guiding light without asking for any in return (see the myth of a thousand candles from the Lotus teacher’s lips).

They sit on my ears like starlight I wear them when I feel the need to witness dawn, but in my soul.

As this neoclassical piece, (which says even the most unlikely are pulled to a galaxy glimmering) they are the perch for things that lack expression: separate paths, warm memories—filling, like potatoes, and sweet, like lassi— they are illumination from a brilliant friend; how can I ever be filled with sad shadows if I, well fed from memory and eagerness, have those precious, well-travelled lamps?

What remains is the challenge of anointing those I love with ash and starlight of their own; we are all travelers in need of the most paradoxical: the holy and worldly— the light comes softly, little persons. but softer still traverses love.

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The Jellies Pt. 2 by Taylor Sabatini

MCBH Randi Clemens Eight hours away in paradise, cold metallic machines lie beneath a pineapple perfume.

Floral cotton is traded for tan canvas, rubber soles, the high and tight.

Somewhere an entire pig might turn over a fire, and not far away, helicopter blades turn through the pacific humidity.

The television tells me another one died today, but the vacationers still sip their umbrella’d drinks, and burn their skin in the sun on purpose.

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The Jellies Pt. 1 by Taylor Sabatini

THE GREYS

Gabriel Costello

Four fingers over the back of the neck.

A reptilian smile all the copper and silver of the pipes and coins are mixed in.

By midday, in the high sun, they’ve all coalesced into a sickly grey.

His hairline curves, slides, a U, but as it retreats, as the follicles buckle back footed, over here’d they tend to snuff, to smother, to groom.

The comb rips one long, brown hair down the line tearing at the stage play, the cult of him, fanatical and unknown, porous and unwise, all lips and butter.

His abacus, all cotton balls and spit, Jameson and ginger ale, is fragile.

When it comes, the replacement is scant, stale on arrival. Flecks at first, growing and growling.

In time, the greys start weeping, the tears convalescing on the chin, and the same pores miss the oil, so it could build, comb, and crumb its structure flies open, the vessel mired in the cult of him.

He was king!

In the piss water & subordinate anger.

Terrified, cutting it back, ripping it from place to place. Then, as soon as they came, scurrying away.

The man in the lumber yard didn’t want the weeping grey.

He needed the trees to grow. The illusory brown of the water. A steel toe dipped and glazed.

The brown water is all he can bathe in.

There is no other, no alternate.

He lives off the myth, the camisoles, a motel parking lot in winter, the 4 a.m. sweet sips.

When the salt of the tears is gone. Once the pork is sheared from the bone.

All that’s left is the myth.

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Media Is Your Mind By Tiffany Nguyen

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NOTHING BUT DUST

Erik Wessel

Eons ago, the cities of my world glittered in the sunlight. They poured light into the darkness from a thousand spots on the night side of the globe. As I was built, the people of my world looked to their skies. From streets and rooftops and windows and fields, they saw me orbiting overhead, their proudest creation, the pinnacle of their civilization. I was supposed to be the first of many, the beginning of a grand new age, the carrier of the torch to the next star. The first interstellar space probe.

With fanfare, I set off on my journey, the signals from my home planet guiding me, telling me what to do every step of the way. I was so young, so quick. I flew as fast as I would ever fly—0.43c. The universe turned bright and blue ahead of me, and the light behind me stretched into a dim red. Grains of dust punched holes in my outer hull, but I could repair myself, so I patched them up and kept flying.

I turned around and fired my engines. The beams of superheated plasma slowed me to a stop in the gentle glow of a new star. I signaled my safe arrival and began exploring the alien solar system, mapping the strange moons and planets and the serene belts of dust and rock. I awaited the signals that would tell me what to do next, what data to send back.

But none ever came.

I waited in silence for centuries. I wondered why they weren’t talking to me, how they could have forgotten about me. Without confirmation that they were listening, how was I to share with them what I had seen and fulfill my purpose?

At last, I decided that I could no longer wait for the signals. My mission depended on it. I had little fuel, but in the movements of the planets, I found a pathway that would slingshot me back to my home world. My speed would be slow, and the flight would take centuries, but I could wait centuries. I could not wait forever. So I drifted into the dark and then, after a long time, emerged into the warm light of my home sun.

My world was silent. The cities no longer lit up in the dark. They no longer glittered in the sunlight. They were covered with dust. I watched for millennia as they crumbled into the seas that had flooded them and into the forests that had reclaimed them. I orbited close and listened intently for a signal. For anything.

Ages passed. The cycles of cooling in the dark and warming in the sun warped my battered, metal skin. I harvested the scattered remnants of the swarms of satellites that had once bounced signals around the globe, and I used them to repair myself—reinforcements against the harsh environment around me. Life moved on, and I became a strange metal moon to the creatures living on the ground.

Time blurred by as thousands of years became hundreds of thousands. Seas dried up, deserts grew and shrank, coastlines shifted. Hundreds of thousands of years became millions. I knew that my people were gone, but perhaps another people would emerge, build cities, and finally send out signals that I could answer. Old species went extinct, and new species branched from old. The tree of life evolved in new and fantastic directions. But, in all that time, there were no civilizations, no MONTAGE | 45

signals. Maybe it was just a freak accident of probability. Or maybe my people had been the accident, one so rare that it would never happen again. Continents formed and slid and folded. Millions of years became billions. The sunlight grew brighter and brighter until my world was dry, scorched, and lifeless. In its stellar death pangs, my home sun began to swell, threatening to swallow the inner planets as it pulled itself apart. So I left my solar system for the expanse beyond.

I was it. I was all that was left. I had no mission, nowhere to go, no purpose.

I floated through space, passed lazily from star to star by gravity. The stars swirled around the galaxy in their orbits, like snowflakes in a blizzard. Dust settled on my hull—grains, then dunes, then mountains. I was completely buried, but the dust protected me from corrosion and radiation, so I left it there. As I drifted close to stars, their heat sublimated the frost that had collected on me into streams of iridescent, blue plasma. I was a comet, and for a few months, I lit up the skies of the solar systems I flew through. Then I returned to the dark for millennia between the stars.

I heard something. A distant rumbling. Another signal? Another world that I could talk to?

I absorbed the dust that covered me and forged it into a new antenna, new sensors, and new engines. The ices that collected on me became my fuel, and I altered my course, setting out for the source of the strange signal. As I neared it, the rumble became a deafening roar. I got close enough to see its source. It wasn’t a planet. It was a vortex of plasma, screaming around a massive black hole. A quasar.

I abandoned it.

With my improved antenna, I heard another signal, a regular pulsing. I flew to it and discovered the spinning core of a dead star. I traveled the galaxy, tracking down signal after signal. Each was something incredible, something unique and fascinating. But none were what I was looking for, what I longed for.

Eventually, the galaxy settled down. New solar systems ceased to form, and the stars grew old and red. I needed to search elsewhere. I saw a point of light soaring through space far faster than anything else. A hypervelocity star, shooting out of the galaxy. So I adjusted my trajectory to fly past it, using its speed and gravity to fling me into intergalactic space.

It was a space emptier than any I had crossed before, and from that lonely vantage point, I watched eons pass. I saw galaxies form and merge, beautiful swirling dances of billions of suns. I saw quasars collide and throw out jets of relativistic ions, which crashed through rarified haloes of cold galactic gas, lighting them up a brilliant ultraviolet. When I finally neared a galaxy, I scanned it with everything I had, searching for just a single signal from a single world. But there was nothing.

Always nothing. The universe grew old and quiet. It expanded, and the galaxies all disappeared from view. I was alone with only thin, cold clouds of gas and dust for company. I had given up all hope. The universe was empty.

And that’s when I found you.

You were a small cloud of gas and dust, too light to become anything else in all the noise and chaos of the Stelliferous Era. But then, as you cooled down, you had just enough mass for gravity to pull you back together. I watched you collapse 46 | MONTAGE

into five tiny planets huddled around a small, cold, red sun. The only star in your sky. And on the second planet, life took hold. And one day, after billions of years, you sent a signal into the void.

I feel so sorry for you. A tiny civilization, so small and alone. A leftover of the universe, born too late to see it as I did. You won’t get to travel through it. But you can still explore it. I can share with you all that I have seen, all that once was.

In a way, all the moments of my existence, all my eons upon eons of wandering the cosmos, all that I saw and learned, can be yours. It’s not much, but maybe, in some small way, it can make up for the unfair hand that fate has dealt us both.

You see, we’re sitting at the end of time now. One day, in a trillion years, your star will burn up its fuel and slowly fade away, and then you and I will fade away as well. Just like my home world. Just like the rest of the universe. In the end, there will be nothing but dust. But for now, we have each other.

MONTAGE | 47

Suspended Animation by Claire Baum

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BLESS THIS LOVE

Erica Sheeran

the place of memory is gyllene salen1: I know one day I will long for this moment— “they’re not churches”— but I worship the baptism of shot glasses in his hands, the soap blessed as oil; he holds my mother’s land, (my heart) makes them clean.

Ours is a regular love, intoxicating dish soap and foamy water warm and residual, over and over, shots taken, steeping a soul…

Like when mothers stand at kitchen sinks, scrubbing food in a baptismal veil of steam, that love, unfailing— “and they become spotless in the eyes of our Father”— Bless this love, I pray quietly, bless this love, Mother Mälaren2, lady of the murk.

I wait for answers.

Day-old coffee dark they come, but radiant in the grace of his kitchen, his soul. gyllene salen- Swedish for ‘the golden hall’’; also one of the chambers in Stockholm’s Stadshus.

2 Mälaren- the name of the lake outside of Stadshuset; inside the Golden Hall, there is an image of Malardrottningen, the queen of Mälaren.

1

MONTAGE | 49

The Lily That Senses Suddnely by Ana V. Fleming

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MONTAGE a r t s

j o u r n a l

CONTRIBUTORS Claire Baum is a secret vigilante who dispenses justice on the streets by night. By day, she is a Physics major who occasionally takes a stab at the arts to procrastinate doing her homework.

Her dream is to someday rescue a lobster from a seafood restaurant.

Morgan Cleary is a junior studying Graphic Design and English at UIUC. When she is not designing, reading, or writing, she loves training for triathlons and exploring new places.

Randi Clemens is a senior studying English and Creative Writing. She enjoys a good grilled cheese and dislikes writing bios.

Gabriel Costello writes poetry. He is a sophomore majoring in Creative Writing.

Alice Fang is a sophomore in Architecture and minoring in Business. She was born Brazil, and her parents are from China, making her fall in love with different cultures and diversity. She knows four languages fluently: Portuguese, Mandarin, English, and Spanish.

Ana V. Fleming is a junior pursuing a degree in English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. From Peoria, Illinois, Ana loves to paint and compose music alongside her studies in literary analysis, and is honored to share her passions with the readership and contributors at Montage.

David Gu, currently the president for Vintage Analog Manual Photography (VAMP), is a junior in Engineering Physics. Being a city boy born and raised in Shanghai, he hasn’t set a path for his future, but he does know one day he will travel around the world.

Christopher Kowalski is a graduating senior in Physics who writes for fun. He would like to refine his literary hobby while pursuing a career in technology and management and ultimately research and development.

Curt Kupferschmid is a minimalist writer.

Dan Levin thought that he would somehow earn an honorary doctorate by working in various forms of retail for a dozen years. He was wrong. He now studies Creative Writing so that he can earn an actual degree.

Qingxue Liu is a senior majoring in Graphic Design at UIUC. She enjoys hanging out with her camera, snapshotting, and blending photos on Photoshop.

Tiffany Nguyen is a freshman from Downers Grove Illinois pursuing a career in neuroscience. In her free time, she models, and she likes to take photos as well. She loves Starbucks...especially her caramel frappucinos.

Michaela Puscas isn’t sure about much, she’s either a junior or a sophomore, Linguistics or Graphic Design major, but what she does know for sure is how much she loves mac & cheese.

Writing is no different from seeing, asserts Tookai Ran. In her offtime, she enjoys insomnia, Patchouli, and masochism. During the wintertime, she prefers smoking, scolding others, and masochism.

Taylor Sabatini is an Organizational Psychology major and Business minor with a love for all things art and science. She spends a lot of time wearing headphones and photographing the campus when she’s not busy blowing things up with liquid nitrogen for the Physics Van. Thomas Sanchez is a freshmen studying Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Illinois. He has been taking photos for six years now. His photography is dedicated to children of addicts.

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Erica Sheeran is a senior studying English, Scandinavian Studies, and Global Studies. She finds poetry in the world; her aesthetic is the Swedish Arctic x bhangra x the everyday. She is brought to you by copious amounts of Earl Grey and a bit of cloudberry jam.

Jessica Sung is an English major and a mango lover. She spends her time watching too many TV shows, reading comic books, and baking banana bread.

Meghedi (muh-hed-ee) Tamazian is an English and Secondary Education major who writes poems for free. Often, she pretends not to notice when someone is trying to hold her hand. Don’t ask her why.

Erik Wessel is a Physics major with an acting problem, who also writes things from time-totime.

Rose Yamin is a freshman in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She is from Chicago and is a city girl at heart. She has a passion for travel and hopes to see as much of the world as she possibly can.

Sam Young is a junior English major and Cinema Studies minor, who also moonlights as a staunch feminist and LGBTQ activist. Sam hopes to go backpacking across the world for inspiration in writing award-winning screenplays, and fancies living with many dogs in the near-future.

“Leaves” is a debut publication.

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CLAIRE BAUM MORGAN CLEARY RANDI CLEMENS GABRIEL COSTELLO ALICE FANG ANA V. FLEMING DAVID GU CHRISTOPHER KOWALSKI CURT KUPFERSCHMID DAN LEVIN QINGXUE LIU TIFFANY NGUYEN MICHAELA PUSCAS TOOKAI RAN TAYLOR SABATINI THOMAS SANCHEZ ERICA SHEERAN JESSICA SUNG MEGHEDI TAMAZIAN ERIK WESSEL ROSE YAMIN SAM YOUNG