This representative collection of writing by Notre Dame students is published through the Creative Writing Program in the Department of English. Each year, a new editorial board consisting of graduate students solicits and selects manuscripts, and oversees the production of the journal in order to encourage creativity and recognize student writing of notable quality.
Graduate Liaison: Adalyne Perryman
Design and Layout: Connor Kaufmann, Sbeydi Ponce Duarte
Undergraduate Editors: Anna Fent, Allison Srp, Connor Kaufmann, Lily Brustkern, Max Dow, Sofia de Lira
Marketing: Sofia de Lira
Cover Artwork: “Hope” Shayanta Chowdhury, Digital Photograph
John Huebl named Re:Visions in 1986. Re:Visions, New Series began in 2002.
This is Re:Visions, New Series 22.
Copyright 2020 by Re:Visions
LETTER FROM THE EDITORS
Dear Readers and Contributors,
Thank you for taking the time to appreciate this journal, and for all those who participated! We enjoyed reading all of the submissions received this year. We read all submissions anonymously, and we appreciated the vulnerability of the writers and artists. There were many great submissions this year. The ones that follow we felt best reflected our message and vision for this journal; nostalgia, regret, hope for the future, nightmare, presence, yearning.
Dreams are acts of creation grounded in non-reality. When we write or make art, we are channeling a conglomeration of thought, instinct, influence, and imagination to create something that we can feel but not always explain. Just as we can’t always understand the source of meaning of our dreams, the hidden processes from which creativity is sourced are hard to pin down. But they’re unquestionably important. Leaning into uncertainty—leaning into processes we don’t understand—lets us create and share things that are good and true and beautiful.
Dreams are timeless. Our minds are often pulled out of the present by fear and desire. These two can control the narratives of both past and future, but there are places they can’t reach, moments of true presence where we just are. Are those moments dreams too?
We invite you to consider these questions as you experience our journal, and we hope they inspire deeper exploration of your own dreams.
Thank you for reading Re:Visions.
POETRY
Bittersweet Candi
Madeline Kroner
I had been all but nine when I found her, With a double, snaggle tooth and a gap as wide as the Grand Canyon.
I was tall for my age and had yet to grow into my lanky body. I wore cheap velvet sweatpants that were highlighter pink, Accompanied by a similarly horrific, yet youthful jacket of turquoise.
I wore a headband with small little tennis shoes for my tiny little feet.
I hadn’t yet become self-conscious of my wild, bushy eyebrows, On the verge of being a unibrow.
A wispy, wide-eyed nine-year-old girl of the early 2000s.
There had been three puppies to choose from: Chad, Chloe, and Candi. Pure-blooded beagles speckled with brown, beige, and black on their soft, white fur.
Chad, the only little boy. So meek and shy, cowering away in a corner, Disinteresting to a playful little girl like me.
Chloe, the classic beagle with black and dark brown spots. She zoomed around the crate and bit at my hands like a crocodile, Scaring away a timid child like me. Then there was Candi,
notable as she only donned light spots of beige.
She played tug of war with a certain restraint, but also nuzzled lazily into the side of my leg.
Her dichotomy of calm and chaos, an easy choice for an uncertain child like me.
As I grew up, so did she, right by my side. The little sister that I never had but always yearned for, I only had a “free-spirited” brother, older by a decade. We had thirteen years of me chasing after her for my shoes and socks, whatever else smelled.
Thirteen years of snuggling on the couch or bed my mom had insisted she would never sit on.
Thirteen years of poking and prodding with tantrums and growls. I bare my fair share of scars from our bouts of bickering, A nip on the nose, a bite or two on my hands and fingers.
Elementary school passed, and so did middle school, and college went on.
I grew older and more confident, I grew into my long limbs and my smile straightened as I lost my baby teeth.
I got my first brow wax and began a life of meticulously plucking and trimming.
I leaned into my personal dichotomy not as a insecurity, but a personal virtue.
Candi grew calmer over the years, but eerily so. At ten, she didn’t run or bark after squirrels with the same excitement or vigor.
She was a bit rounder than she should be, but we just called it more to love.
She didn’t play anymore and slept more and more, nearly all day long.
The chair she had claimed as a puppy became tattered until she fell right through the bottom.
She still loved to eat, we always indulged her right off the fork with food from our own plates.
I had gained stories and moments that I’ll always cherish, The time she was like a cat with nine lives, surviving after gnawing away on some rat poison, Or how she would rub her nose raw and let out a piercing howl when she was hot on a trail, When she slept, her small body produced echoing snores as her legs chased phantom rabbits.
I never imagined a life without her even when I was without her, Until it was clear that there would be a life without her.
An ordinary, October day just crisp and cold.
An unsuspecting day exactly a week before Halloween. It seems an omen now, Literally, metaphorically walking towards a macabre future. When I saw her for the first time in almost a year, she was all but a spooky skeleton.
Skin and bones, frail and as rigid as glass. Her eyes were hollow, a large mass on her left the smell of death lingering wherever she went.
I knew when I lifted her into the car that this would be the last car ride,
That this would be the last time she’d be in my lap, That she wouldn’t be coming home from this vet visit as she had all the others.
When the time came, I only choked because I knew, There was no magic potion from a cauldron to serve as an elixir of life and raise the dead. With the first shot, she only yelped but soon her knees buckled and she fell on her belly, And for the first time in what seemed like forever, she looked so comfortable.
Then the second shot, the lethal blow.
I hadn’t realized it would be so fast, I blinked and she was gone like she hadn’t even been there at all. Now, just a wraith left to haunt me. I sobbed like I never have before, Sounds that howled and pierced the silent air, An animal wounded, a wolf wailing at the moon. I left her with her leash and blanket: she’d sleep soundly now, go on walks again.
A few weeks later when the tears finally could be kept at bay, We committed a minor felony that was more than worth it. We spread her ashes on her favorite walking route on campus, On God Quad where all those squirrels and rabbits she liked to chase clustered.
I picked the spot in front of Father Sorin, who too had lived a long, full life,
In Mary’s clear view, perhaps the Madonna would walk with her too. She mingled with the dirt she so loved to dig in amongst the lively flowers.
And then I went to class.
Now, I’m still surrounded by specks of her, Stray white hairs on my leggings and dog treats hidden in the cabinet. But content because on despite the blurring of tears as I drove home without her,
I saw a beagle trotting happily down the street.
Yearning Shayanta Chowdhury
Cadaver Ava Hyde
the imperfect flesh doll is not smooth
it’s split in half as they run their hands over raging hurricane waves that dent discolored outer casing
this vehicle will get you there climb it, ride it, fence it in police tape rocky boat, leaky faucet
they call it bitch they call it whore it’s wrong, put it in handcuffs it’s wrong, legislate it, love it
the ugly mass of nothing is full of wet concrete it’s posed but the weight of itself shifts
onto the left knee it sinks into the hip socket the structure is fragile and bulky it endures -
no, the imperfect statue is in agony it is crushed under nothing and everything it wheezes a pathetic something “...feels dead”
(inspired by “I Followed You to the End” by Tracy Emin)
girl Anna Fent
The girl in the mirror catches me off guard. I am twenty-one and single. The flat pale skin of my waist lies just beneath the hem of my top.
The door swings open. Girls my age stumble inside, brows glistening, ice chattering in their empty glasses. Their glittering eyes disappear into a stall. I set my bottle down on the sink and press the cold pads of my fingers to my abdomen–
Somewhere deep in my ovaries is buried you, a little bundle of cells, sleeping, waiting to become you.
There is music pounding on the other side of the door. It rattles the walls.But it fades. I can hear your heartbeat.
Someday, you will crawl out from inside me, swim to the surface and I will wrap you up in my legs and breasts, your sweet delicate skin folded into my stomach. You and I have the same face. Your body is mine.
I grew you. Every part of you was part of me first. My body worked overtime— I poured my blood, my breath, my life into building you, a precious nugget of flesh and tiny fingernails.
18
Your brows are already too thick for your face, just like mine were before they were yours and my mother’s before they were mine.
One day, you will curl into my lap and your hair will tickle my chin, crisp, white, and wispy. But I know it will darken as you get older, because that’s what my hair did when I got older, and you are the same as me.
I will pick you up. You will slam the door, and on the way home, you will scream that you hate me today. You will try to squirm away But I will hold onto you, pull you in to me, hug you closer–our bodies together, the same, yours and mine.
I will help you blush your cheeks. You will laugh and roll your eyes. You are taller than me now with your heels on. Upon your gorgeous collarbones I will fasten my pearl necklaceThe same one I borrowed from my mother when I was your age. I will reach up to your face, hold it in my hands, and I will wonder: How did we get here so soon?
You will swing open the door to a stall. You and your friends will tumble out. You will stand and take selfies, tug your top down over your boobs, drain the last of your drink, fix your lip gloss at the sink
Your eyes will meet mine in the mirror, where before it was just me, alone
But now— tears have slid from my cheeks, leaving streaks on my neck as they roll down to my stomach, where they come to rest right over where you are, and I can feel you waiting.
Cradled Youth
Michaela Cooper
Haibun 2.0
Rina Shamilov
FIGURES 5 & 6: OPPOSITE BREATHS
We sip cold spit by a rain-hummed window, one smell of disjointed breathing from the porcelain of your mouth into mine.
You emerge under moonlight, shadow drenched in stardust coughing out wind & twigs, carrying ghosts of leaves in your hair.
Last night we were spinning & sweating — the cold outside — a mockup of breaths. My spleen thawed under the cover of your bones, shadows melting into bed sheets.
By dawn our bodies lie still, a collection of yellows: lipids, thrashes of sunlight, peeling paint off infirmary walls, the inside of kettle, dry calcium of your nail, exhaust staining snow bruise-brown, tea-beige, hidden birthmark – the one my mother has – stamped on my collarbone, a welted star.
Your breath echoes back into my mouth through lip, then gullet. We go to sleep itching: ridges in skin, the windowsill, rough patches of moon.
The wind carries your name to the shell of my ear. I itch it off, hold it in my palm, warm its blue tenor. In Michigan, the trees grow quiet in the nighttime, their limbs hug the body of your house, twigs tickling red brick. Our snores crystalize in thin air, skin matted plaid.
Held heart, I glug
Prism of my palms
Defrost in tomorrow’s
Shadow; I thump through
Headache and evaporate
Into air, a cloud
Frank (or the friend we’ve all forgotten)
Joe Murphy
Thanksgiving
1.
Snow fell lightly from the sky, turning the streets a dusty gray
Frank remembered his mother
She wouldn’t like this, he thought She hated when things got dusty
2.
Frank had always wondered how long it took people to process jokes
The study with his brother had produced fascinating results
Six years later and he still hadn’t gotten it
3. “God, you sound like a broken record”
She told him
That’s ok, Frank thought Even a broken record is right twice a day
4.
Autumn leaves fell with Frank’s tears as he tried to put them back where they belonged
Frank needed something to light his birthday candles so up he reached and down he pulled his favorite twinkling star
“I love you, Frank” It
was the best dream he’d ever had
Field Trip
1. “I
still keep your picture in my wallet”
The President’ s portrait did not respond
2. Frank went to the museum to see his best friends but they had been boxed and bubble-wrapped and sent away
3. A field trip passed Frank remembered Kindergarten and wondered if the other Children had to grow up too
The parakeet-colored pillow made Frank think about where wild rainbows go to sleep, and if they dreamed in colors as bright as themselves, and if they hit a television and not of a pot of gold could they make a black and white movie less distant and more warm he grabbed the pillow to take to the park to lie in the rain and wait for his answers
“Can I be frank with you?” Yes, please, it would be nice to share the weight
The Intermediaries
Lily Brustkern
the dawn of the new day’s labor is an icy, distant green sound of hoof and barrow insults earthen sleep and from above sparrows wing cooly on their way and beat a silent glower upon the coming day
away from the church’s steeple away from dawn’s rebirth they share a moment to scrape some seeds up from the earth
oh wool-wrapped neighbor tell me what prayer it is you say when you bow in his direction before the yawning day and where does your mind wander as the doves and foxtails trill and where does your spirit settle in the battle of pitchfork and mill
illumined by life as shadow and by sleep eternal light sowers of breeze, exhalers of seeds bridge between harvest and blight
Inspired by The Angelus by Jean-François Millet
Mother
Hannah Gatewood Durán
Mother
They ask if I want to bear fruit, Then condemn my answer, Even when my roots are dry and molded, They expect a sweet answer. Yet if I do as they say, Bearing fruits for the market to display, And they aren’t perfectly round, Without scuffs, And bright collorant, They’ll be tossed to the ground. Where the ravens will pick, And the ants will claw around, Til all that’s left is a pit.
bedhead
Lily Brustkern
sometimes I slip into solemn solipsism and fill shallow, slip-shod shelves with sea-shells from the shore sure, once shoals of roses tumbled through the window, muse fumbled in low tones with the smooth cocoon trussed with dusted bruises
lush ones, pink pinched onto sleeping cheeks, blush and bloom little one or two clothes in rumpled clumps, cushions on the floor
moth wing flutter eyelashes on cheeks warmth of a you there lying next to me suppose the prose the soft wind blows, the shows all close to the cardinal’s crow
below the hose the gray grass grows, the shows the shows are all composed
the hush knows how the winds will blow through lush lagoon and thick fern rows
the blue of June and gold of bugs my left-hand fingers prune in suds
once I wished to choose the moon sometimes the thrushes murmur conundrums through the door scores of dust and ...
cashews
slumber
Ghost Hair
Sophie Novak
I feel you, everywhere. like a ghost hair, kissing my neck, caressing my arm, and yet, I can’t seem to find you, to reach you.
The more I search, the louder the itch gets. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat.
I look for you, in restaurant windows, in misty shower mirrors, in sunglasses on mannequins, in streams of my dreams.
I consider cutting my hair, chop the dead ends of you, eliminate the itches, turn off the dripping faucet. But who would I be, without your breath whispering against my cheek? What will I do, when your smell decays off my sheets?
The loose shower handle shifts, a phantom breeze pulls it down. I feel the heat,
it washes over my back. The warmth embraces my arms, peppering them with bubbles like blisters. My nails melt off my fingers. The steam wafts around my feet, grabbing at my bare legs like a rip current. The water spirals, down the drain. I think, I’ll disappear for a while.
Ephemeral Whispers
Naomi Munoz
She’s fa l l ing. drop by drop by drop—stop. Each memory lands amidst the one before, and within the seconds it touches, the first is already gone. It vanished, drop by continuous drop. She’s falling, and she falls until, eventually, everything ceases. Coming from the darkest corners of her mind, coming from the stolen moments lost to time. Coming directly from the Heavens—each uniquely its own; except they’re not. Created in the mind of the divine, yet before it can be touched, before it can be loved, before it can be real, it's gone. Every concept that once was flies back to God’s palm. He taunts us with its beauty, its surrealism. We envision them and taste them; our minds throb at their touch, and we bow down knowing that we could never be as sure as transparency could exist. Told that each is distinct; told that we, as humans, are distinct. we’ll never know. What does it mean—no; what do I believe? Each fantasy, delusion, touch that lingers but never enough to forever hold, each unique but never truly known. Nothing, nobody’s, and no one’s is ever known. We never knew it—a dream, I mean; I only think of dreams—nothing else. We see the palms of those we’ve once touched; we wake up, and the room is light brown and warm—she shivers. All she does is fall. f a l l. no. She flutters and returns home; we melt into the cushions of familiarity and any resemblance of safety. why: we are falling.
Red Cloud
Jack Kaczmarek
Come gray devil; climb the wind, climb the rain; reach past the faucet, find the golden duck! I see black windows past three; a lankish green figure sifts candlelight, fragging purple dreams. Boot clacks, marble echoes; forest of light! Only fools poke the bear. Crowned features of fluorescent magnificence! I toke a bowl.
There were many books in that blue room. Mom caught me reading The Hobbit one midnight. Now I wander an empty hall of trees; does this land still love me? Sam and I killed that grass; our weapon, our feet—Gabriele’s brush! Burnt stars trickle like spice, bleeding the sky; they fall on my tongue & scar the glass room. I pity coyotes when they scream.
Leper phrases invade thoughts of death; a cloaked dagger lurks. You saved me! I’ll follow your path to Wonderland; potholed roads make for an easy journey. Fleeting nocturnes, cricket serenades, drowning waltzes, frantic sonatas; where are you? The plasmic shape of a dream-face eludes even Dante. Tormented symphonies, untuned pianos, choirs of sinners! I flit between sleep and wake, always weeping.
Moon-speckled irises, icy palms, porous dimples, trembling ocean sky. I didn’t expect a sycophant! Orange heaven; overgrown fences, hasty treadmarks, July bales, candied cow shit. Would you unsee a heartbreak? A rat snake writhes with a chopped head. Dad showed me. He’d find em in the hollies on the housefront. I wish heartbreaks were snakes.
Fable Shayanta Chowdhury
Forest of Thoughts
Lily Brustkern
I’d like to give you a bouquet but all I have are brambles— words tangled into toughened phrases struggling beneath the boulders in my chest
Once I tried to yank them loose but the thorns sank deep into my palms as if desperate for a drink and I recoiled back onto the grass
Without oxygen brambles whither and from ceaseless smothering they molder until the stolid stillness only shrouds flaky, silver, shells
Eventually, the victorious boulders part and uncover a bounty of parched wafers which scatter and drift, snag on willows and barren oaks until they’re studded with stars
So now when I wander my forest I find you there but only in those dim, twinkling fragments lifeless scraps of what I could have said
I try to climb on top of the boulders but their sides are slick and steep so I scream long and hard at the pearly sky scream until my throat rips and memories pour out thick and sickening drugging me with dense, noxious warmth filling my mouth and nose with erotic vapors of misery until I choke and gag
But it’s too late I ingest the venom that I create and lie in a pool of memory on the floor of my chest in the forest of my mind hardly noticing as the boulders begin blocking out the sky
ripend ripped out Tamsen Hayden
it all started on honeymoon island just the thumb, jutting out pointing, pointing, there. the sun
warmth photosynthesis photons kill and produce oh wait, i am burning the water is rising on the wall you built the bricks are made with lies, or the subconscious fear that laid in the back of your mind when our eyes, interlocked behind the meat laid a soul some physical i shouldn’t see news flash, flood flash flood honey moon island is crying park rangers fling tissues on sand and your wall is breaking i am in the middle inhaling the sealife pamphlets purchasing souvenirs and watching the wave i choke i scream i wish you didn’t kill our honeymoon
Stitching the Ephemeral
Mechelle Marie Gilford
The needle gleams, a silver sliver bright, Threading the fabric of a walking dream, With every stitch, I weave the fading light, And capture visions, fleeting as they seem.
The cloth, a canvas for the mind's design, Where threads of memory intertwine with hope, A tapestry of thoughts, in shifting line, Where zig-zag visions, like a migraine's splinter,
With backstitch bold, I bind the fading scene, Chain stitch secures where waking worlds convene, French knots like stars, a swirling nebula's gleam, And blanket stitch to mend where edges burn.
The fraying edges of a fading dream, With every stitch, a fragment finds its thread, A stitched-up dreamscape, woven in my head.
Welcome to Overland Park Ava
Hyde
the very best of the heart of America rooster crowing tractor rolling on yellow grass expansive empty parking lot
"...a symbol of how far we've come" sea of stagnant cars
"What did we give up to get this roof over our heads?"
After the Dream Comes True two Lysol cans to kill household germs and eliminate odors 134 stores a man fishing garbage out of the fountain
"...we've got some potholes that still haven't been repaired"
women with blown out hair on the escalator holding shopping bags
"there's nothing elected by the people in a mall" a large red column holds up the ceiling
"There's so much smoke in here" - children holding their noses
La Ville est Bordee Par Le Rhin / The City
Bordered by the Rhine
Jenkin Benson
la ville est bordée par le rhin
nous nous entraînons mais tu prends les pavés les névés les cuvées
nous abandonnons la viande de goethe (nos poches dévorent son porc) le
nord chuchote “aurelia de la bougeotte” il culotte sans jugeote sans mode
mon sac marin a mécontenté les allemands
the city is bordered by the rhine we train but you take the cobbles the snowfields the vintages we abandon goethe’s meat (our pockets devour his pork)
the north whispers “aurelia of the jitters” it seasons without savvy or fashion my duffel bag dissatisfied the deutschlanders
The 10th Floor Window
Lily Brustkern
I see a girl and a white sweater sitting together. Scars and freckles on hands still sticky from chalk.
dull r u s h of air conditioning blows lint into my brain swaddling then tangling newborn thoughts into sooty blots
I like her face best in the dark. Slightly blurred. Features blent and rather obscure. my eyes stare flatly at a 6 x4 surface.
Flatness stares back.
I want to drown
in the table the window the floor but we can’t drown in 2D, can we?
Her existence proves the e—x—p—a—n—s—e of reflec | tion I see how it all fits together layered sep arate inseparable.
And I am there too in both, in neither, hovering 10 stories up in cold drizzled air sitting soundly, legs crossed in a floor-bound blue chair
I’m not here anymore and neither are you. Here is here, there is not here with me. Does that mean we are together? I hope so.
Short Stories
Fan Mail
Max Dow
Dear Veronica,
This is my first time sending “fan mail,” for it would have been unfeasible to contact youany other way. The world kept you away from me. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t try to take you back myself. To know that you read my message would burn me in the most euphoric fire.
The moment I saw you on stage, I couldn’t help but love you. I was much younger then,but just as reckless. Your voice was incredible, of course. You already know that. But there was something about you that I had to explore. You made me wonder what a group of paparazzi was called. A gathering. A flock. A swarm. Whatever it was, I had to be a part of it.
I’m surprised they still used flash photography; you were bright enough to audition for the stars in the sky. We met that night, it’s a shame that we can’t recollect it here together. And after that, I just couldn’t stop seeing you. Thinking about you. The years and years of getting to know you, of studying your every move, your every way, were the greatest years of my life.
Then, what you know happened, happened.
I couldn’t, but I had to see you. I kept thinking that I heard your voice. Smelled your perfume. Or caught the back of your beautiful head of hair. Every time a woman would turn around, I’d curse the world that she wasn’t you.
I listened to your voicemail the other day, and I cried through the morning traffic. My home feels a world emptier without you in it, singing your beautiful songs to me. And after fiftywonderful years of marriage, even after you’ve passed, I’m still so proud to be your greatest fan.
See you soon.
The Hangman
Lily Brustkern
Somewhere in the liminal space just before creation, I felt a vibration of sound and knew my time had come. It was just an echo. Petulant voices, raucous and slightly lisped:
“Knowing you, it’s probably something nerdy. How about W?”
“What makes W nerdy?”
“I dunno, I was thinking magic. Like wizard.”
“Well, you were wrong—ha! Take that!”
The voices wrap around me, spinning faster and faster, weaving a net, then pulling me out of the darkness until, with an almighty silent crash, the world came into focus. Sounds, deadly clear as invisible glass pierced my new ears. My nose—they told me that’s what it was called—itches, but I can’t feel any part of me that can reach up toward it. Eyes. I had them, but they were stuck shut. I could feel my eyelashes resting on the top of my cheeks, but a stiff, paralyzing stillness trapped me in place.
“Ok, how about a Z?”
“Why are you guessing all the least common letters, dummy?”
BOOM. An explosion of heat and life as the rhythmic thrum-da-dum-da-dum of my heart kicks into gear. A heart, a stomach, a chest, and lungs. I feel the compression in my chest but can’t inhale. How I long to sip air into my new lungs. The older spirits told me how it felt: illumination, like flying without moving, and how the body moved in response to breath as naturally as the small spirits drift in their sleep.
“We learned about dinosaurs last week, so how about T for the tyranogobbler guy?”
“You mean the Tyrannosaurus rex?”
“Sure, whatever.”
A sudden weight attached to my right shoulder. I knew it was an arm. What potential! Humans did important things with their right hands. Like shaking hands to greet, holding onto “pencils,” and scratching the heads of “dogs.”
“This game is very un-fun, so how about ‘v.’”
“Uh-huh, would you say this strategy of yours is working? You only have a couple of tries left at this rate.”
Two arms now, what luxury. I had heard spirits tell of playing violins and pianos, swaddling babies, and rowing boats with their arms. Soon, very soon now, I would be ready.
“Well, I don’t care, X.”
“Fine, be that way.”
“Don’t stick your tongue out at me!”
Now one leg. Free from a life of seated stupor. Free to stand and make my presence felt. Just one more. Just one more to go.
“Ok, Y. Are we done now? Can we go outside and play?”
“Yeah, fine.”
The final weight is secured to my left hip socket with a click that reverberates up and down my spine. I close my eyes in anticipation, gloriously aware of my fullness of being. There’s a tension around my neck, uncomfortable at first and gradually becoming quite painful. Maybe this is the sign that I’m about to come all the way through. Perhaps the tension releases just as I take my first breath. My brand-new eyes press against the flat whiteness, unable to break it. Blackness starts to cloud around the edges of my vision; any moment now.
“Here, last thing—let me give him a face!”
“Ooh yeah, good idea.”
All at once my eyes opened. A gasp of painful, raw air scraped into my lungs through my too-small throat, and I looked up to behold my creators. Boys. Young. One freckled, with red stains around his mouth. The other, snaggle-toothed with glasses. In their eyes, grotesquely close to mine, I could see
I could see myself reflected. Crudely penciled lines showed a garish, grinning mouth, uneven eyes, and a rockstar’s hairdo.
And then I see it. The source of the pressure. A noose around my neck. And the gallows. My mismatched feet dangling far above the ground. The darkness deepens; a rush fills my ears; desperately, I try to wrench myself out of this two-dimensional prison. Laughter was the last thing I heard.
Desolation Shayanta Chowdhury
The Artist’s Studio
Amanda Dempson
Jean-Léon met Aurélie when art meant nothing to him. It was simply something he was good at, something that his teachers talked about on the back steps of his school through clouds of smoke. Art was an opportunity to get out of eastern France and a future beyond the smithery. Art was merely a means.
Jean-Léon could capture the focus in his fathers face as he worked, hunched over gold necklaces and cufflinks, the flicker of a candle flashing against his frown. They said that was impressive, but he knew his fathers face—it was the first thing his memory found. But his brush could chassé across canvases, illustrating places he’d never been to and worlds that didn’t exist, with such detail that he thought if he tried hard enough, he could walk through his work like portals, talking to his subjects and swimming in their seas. They had voices and empires, wars and warriors, and everyday he walked amongst them in his mind. Yet all the art, all his magnificence that was crushed to a fine paste and painted with, meant nothing. Until he met Aurélie.
At nineteen, when he left for Paris from his home in Vesoul, Jean-Léon lived in an apartment above a seamstress. He slept where he sculpted and painted where he prepared his food. The walls of his studio were a jarring shade of blue, a color he could only compare to the sky in Switzerland. Vast and cloudless. He’d never been to Switzerland, although if he had, he was quite certain that was what it would be like. The blue paint stopped a little above half the room and the rest was painted a smokey offwhite. He wasn’t sure why the studio was bisected in the way it was but he kept it. It made him feel like he was underwater when he worked, where everything was quiet and all that was below him was unexplored.
In this dream, he was everywhere and nowhere. There was all this space and it was filled, but he couldn’t describe what of. It was like looking outside with no glasses when you’re nearsighted—a lot of colors and shadows blurring like a pointillism portrait. There was only one image that he saw in perfect vision, that of a woman.
“Hello.” Jean-Léon said, his voice disembodied and distant.
Her eyes were ravishing and her black skin sparkled in the same way the sun hits dancing water. She wrapped him around her gaze and pulled him closer.
“I know you,” she said.
“I don’t know you.”
“But you will.”
“What is your name?”
“Aurélie.”
For weeks, she visited him in his dreams and when he awoke, Jean-Léon worked tirelessly on sculpting her. Her hips were a manifestation of Christ’s divinity, more awe-inspiring than the slopes of the world's greatest mountains. And her neck was long and elegant, like a crane in flight. Still, no amount of metaphor could do her justice. He tried his best to sculpt her ridges and angles that even mathematics couldn’t master. It was impossible work for human hands.
But it was her face that nearly drove him mad. Somewhere during the travel between his brain and the tips of his fingers, her face got lost. During their conversations he’d watch how her mouth moved and how her skin creased when she blinked, but every time his eyes opened, her details slipped away.
“How come I can’t remember your face?” He asked, pacing through the void.
“Am I an object to you, Jean-Léon?”
“Of course not,” he said, taken aback. “Why would you think that?”
“Then why must you sculpt me?’
“Aurélie, you are beautiful. You should be remembered.”
“But you will remember me, won’t you?” She asked, tilting her head.
For months, he only worked on models of her face thinking that maybe that would help. He lined them upon a shelf that was just below the line where the blue paint changed to gray, the failed faces of Aurélie sitting above the water and their necks below. With every face he took a scalpel and sliced the clay, watching his attempts at eyes, noses, and lips fall limp onto his workbench. He left the dried, faceless heads on the shelf.
“I’ve given up, Aurélie. I’m an artist, don’t you understand?”
“And I am a woman.”
“I’m not joking,” he sighed. “Why do you refuse to be seen?”
“I am seen.”
“Come on, you know what I mean.”
“I am afraid I don’t.”
Aurélie looked down at her feet and began walking towards him. Carefully in a line like she was at risk of falling, even though direction didn’t exist. There was no up or down, right or left. Their only point of reference in his dreams were each other.
She stopped an arm’s length away and looked back up. “Do you see me now?”
His pupils dilated, “I do.”
It was this moment—he was sure—that he’d been waiting for. A freckle below her right eye, the wrinkles in her bottom lip, the steep slope of her philtrum. He had it.
Then Aurélie smiled.
Although she was made all the more beautiful by it, his progress, almost immediately, was rendered obsolete. Her face had changed. In a desperate attempt, he reached out to touch her. But, she fell into nothingness. His right hand left lingering, curled in the shape of her chin.
Jean-Leon awoke in cold sweat, fumbling over to the window to let in air. The wind blew into his studio, kicking up a dirtied white sheet from the floor.
The silhouette of Aurélie was nearly finished, still sitting atop his table, but where her head should have been there was only a lump of clay. He took the dirtied sheet from the ground and wrapped it around her unsculpted skull, letting the rest drape off her shoulder and sway with the breeze.
There was something poetic about her unfinished form, her face being shrouded by a dusty curtain. Art suddenly meant something to Jean-Léon—this was the piece that changed his world.
He was never visited again and that was the last time he ever really dreamt, aside from fleeting nightmares when he was under the weather. It was his final dream with her that JeanLéon clung to for the rest of his mortal life.
People all over the globe traveled to see the allusive Aurélie. She no longer existed in the small studio above the seamstress, but moved to and from the world’s greatest museums. Though long after Jean-Léon died, Aurélie’s sculpture stopped being taken care of and people began to touch it, to take pictures with her. Her breasts became tainted by the oils from hands and her naked body a canvas for vandals. Yet even with full rein to the work of the famous Jean-Léon, no one ever thought to remove the sheet.
An Ocean Away
Emily Richardson
Nathan haunts my dreams.
It begins with the day we met. The sun shines, glinting off the Ohio River in a thousand tiny shards of light. The June humidity has turned my hair curly, but I don’t mind.
I sit on a riverboat, a light breeze rustling the sleeves of my pink dress. The paddle churns the murky river water as we pass Cincinnati on our left and Kentucky on our right, a sight to behold. I live on the Kentucky side, but I prefer it that way. That way, we get a better view of the city.
A friend of mine nudges my side. She nods to her right, where a man sits, pretending to read a book. I smile and manage to catch his eye. At first, he’s embarrassed that I’ve caught him. He looks away, then looks back. And slowly, gradually, he smiles the most crooked, beautiful smile.
Now, I’m standing in the middle of a field. Around me, gnarled, charred trees hunch over as if burdened by some great, unseen weight.
Everywhere, there’s ash. In the sky, on the ground, in the air. I inhale and cough, feeling the ashes clog my airways, polluting the oxygen. I glance around for any signs of life, anyone who could help me, but there’s no one save for a lone figure far in the distance, a shadow.
“Help!” I choke out, my voice no more than a whisper. “Please!”
I stumble forward, tripping over my skirts and the uneven terrain. The ground is pockmarked by artillery shells, craters blasted into the ground. In the distance, fire sets some town ablaze. I can see the burnt-out brick shells of old buildings from here. I wonder what the ashes that now choke me used to be. Someone’s furniture? The remains of someone’s garden to be
to be harvested soon? Or the remains of…someone?
I push the thought from my mind and push forward, gaining ground on the figure, who stands, unmoving. 100, 50, 25 yards away.
“Please,” I whisper when I’m five feet away.
I still can’t see the face of the person. They wear the uniform of a soldier, but I can’t make out their face.
“Who are you?”
BAM.
The crack of gunshot reverberates throughout the field. I glance around frantically, trying to figure out from where the shot came, but I see no one, no sign of life. I turn back to the figure only to find they’ve disappeared.
“Anna,” someone whispers from below, and I look down.
It’s Nathan.
He reaches out, a bloodied hand trembling as he grabs my skirts. “Anna, help.”
His abdomen is stained crimson, the stain’s diameter increasing by the second. With a sob, I kneel, pressing my hands to the wound, hoping to stop the bleeding but helpless to do so. It comes in a river, an unstoppable torrent.
BAM.
I wake up screaming.
Crunch.
My boots plunge through a thick layer of snow and ice. I hate winter.
I take two milk bottles from my wooden cart. Picking my skirts up with one hand and fisting the bottles in the other, I hop up the front steps to a large white row house. After three sharp raps on the door, Marjorie Wood, our neighbor, answers.
She meets my gaze and pulls her wrap tighter around her. She’s always been pretty, aging gracefully from the young woman who used to babysit me when I was little to a mature
mother of four. What features used to be soft and cherubic are now angular and severe, but the same can be said of everyone these days.
She blinks against the daylight as if it is a harsh summer sun as she emerges from the dark house. "Oh, um...good afternoon, Anna."
I tilt my head toward her. "Good afternoon. I have your milk."
Her eyes zip down to the bottles, and she smoothes her hair before reaching for them. "Oh, yes, thank you. How much do I owe you?"
"18 cents," I reply, puzzled by her question. Her order is the same every time. Why does she need to ask?
"Give me one moment." She takes the bottles and disappears into the house for a few moments. The whole time, I can't stop envisioning how close I am to home, to a warm fire, to food, to putting my feet up.
"Here you go." She hands a palmful of coins to me. After counting them, I notice she has only given me 10 cents. I frown. This isn’t like Marjorie. She never shortchanges me.
"Marj?"
She turns around, her eyes flitting about nervously.
"This is only 10 cents." I hold the coins out for her to examine.
“Oh,” she breathes, patting herself absentmindedly.
“Yes. Give me a moment.” She disappears again, and when she returns, her blue eyes brim with tears.
“Are you alright?”
She exhales. “I....” She shakes her head, and a few salty drops stream down her face. “This morning, a t...telegram from Western Union arrived. It said that Joe...that Joe’s missing in action.”
My throat clenches. Joe has always been kind to our family. He would leave sweets for me as a child in our mailbox
from his family’s shop. He lent us money some years ago when things were tight, right after Papa lost his job at the pork processing plant and Mama had just passed. Marjorie and Joe left casseroles on our front porch in those dark months when everything seemed as hopeless as the gray winter surrounding us now. The thought of Joe’s bright smile never gracing our front porch again is unthinkable.
In the back of my mind, another nagging, persistent thought arises. If Western Union came to our street today, what if they also delivered a telegram to our house? What if when I get home there’ll be a slip of white paper waiting for me, announcing that my future, everything I’ve hoped for and worked for, is dead and gone with the man I love, lost in a trench somewhere in France?
I blink and force my mind to clear.
No. He’s fine. He has to be.
I take a deep breath. “I’m so sorry. I’m sure he’ll be fine, though. He’s just missing. It doesn’t mean anything.” The words, although the only ones I can offer, are empty and meaningless. If I ever received a telegram that Nathan was missing, no words, not even from President Wilson himself, would be able to comfort me.
She nods, but her distracted look persists. “Thank you.” I hesitate. “Marj?”
“Yes?”
“If there’s anything, anything at all Papa or I can do for you, let us know.”
She nods. “Thank you. I’m keeping Nathan in my prayers, too.” She tries to hand me the correct change, but I shake my head.
“It’s on us.”
With that, I turn and hurry down the steps. I hear the soft click of the door shutting behind me. Though I fight them, the images of Nathan I suffer in my nightmares flood my mind.
He doesn’t talk a lot about the actual fighting he’s experienced in his letters. Instead, he asks about me and for news of home. He mentions some friends of his he’s made in the army, but otherwise, he doesn’t discuss the actual fighting. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s too difficult for him to write about, or maybe he thinks he’s protecting me from the atrocities of the war. I’m not actually there, so I can never know for certain what it’s like, but I’ve seen the blurry photos in the paper. While they don’t give clear pictures as to what the fighting’s really like, the journalists’ descriptions and my imagination have created some vivid pictures.
While each image is gruesome and disturbing in its own right, one in particular unsettles me: a trench flooded with a puffy green cloud. This cloud, though seemingly harmless, is the most violent killer of the war. I see Nathan lying next to his dead comrades, his bright eyes now dull and lifeless among his once handsome, now gruesome face. His dark curls are matted with blood, mud, and dirt. Just as a frigid breeze sweeps over his face, a boot, hard and unforgiving, stomps on it, bloodying it even further with a hollow crunch. The boot moves on, but what is left of his face remains, caved in and turning to carrion....
STOP. I can’t think about these things. I mustn’t.
Shaking my head, I focus on the snowy street and my cart as I make my way up the hill to our house. My work day is now over. Tomorrow, I’ll rise bright and early, go to the processing plant, and deliver more dairy with my cart on the same route I’ve been traveling for a year. My feet, freshly rested from a good night’s sleep, will throb and ache again in their way that is as familiar to me now as the small bedroom I’ve occupied all my life. The cold will nip at my ears, fingers, and toes until I can’t feel them anymore. I’ll make small talk with strangers who aren’t strangers anymore. I’ll deliver their orders, which I’ve memorized and can recite by heart.
But for now, I’ll rest.
When I arrive at our pale gray row house, I wheel my cart around the back before entering through the kitchen door. "Papa!" I call before shrugging off my coat, boots, and stockings and hanging them out to dry. "I'm home!"
I hear the familiar padding of his footsteps down the upstairs hallway. The stairs creak in their repetitive tritone as he makes his way to the kitchen. When he steps through the doorway, I say, "Papa, a telegram arrived for Marjorie today."
"I know." He rubs his temples with his thumb and forefinger, shutting his eyelids. "She mentioned it to me when I was walking home today. Poor woman."
I stare at the ground, my fingers digging into my skirt.
"Did one come for us?" "No."
I nod, exhaling and letting the tension in my shoulders loosen. "Oh. Well, I'm going to change. I'll be back down in a few minutes."
"Take your time. Keep Joe in your prayers." "I will."
“And Anna?”
“Yes?”
“Keep checking on Marj. She needs help.”
Looking back on it, I cannot recall the exact moment I fell in love with Nathan. There was not a grand epiphany, a moment where everything in the world suddenly made sense or the pieces of my life came together. It was more of a deep, guttural feeling as steady and soothing as summer rain. It happened over meals shared together where he would let me steal his food because it looked better than mine. It happened when he would hold an umbrella over me to shield me entirely from the rain even if it meant he was getting soaked. It happened whenever I said I was cold and he would find a way to keep me warm, whether by giving me a jacket, holding my hands
or wrapping his arms around me.
When he proposed, I did not have to question my answer. I knew it would be yes. In all of these moments and more, I knew I would say yes. I loved him.
When he left to go to war, I hated him.
We said goodbye at the train station. He told me he would write to me every chance he had and promised me he would return home. The entire time, all I could think of was how foolish he was for volunteering for such a death sentence. I hated him for leaving me, for leaving to fight for God knows what when he had a reason for fighting for our life together here by my side.
“I have to do this,” he said. “People are dying.”
I shook my head. “Not here, they aren’t.”
“That’s why I have to go.” He kissed my forehead. “We can both make a difference. I have to go away, but you can do that here. We’re making a better world, one our kids will love.”
I hated him until the moment he left.
Then all I felt was fear.
Marjorie had the same anxieties I did, so we started going to Church together to pray about them. We would share meals sometimes, and I would help watch her children. We found comfort grieving together.
Marjorie handled Joe’s absence far better than I handled Nathan’s. I could tell how much it strained her in the moments when exhaustion sagged her shoulders and the cries of four young children made her grimace. But she handled it all gracefully, never once complaining.
I, on the other hand, could not stop ruminating about Nathan, about the day he returned and the life we could build together. I sighed whenever his absence made my heart ache worse than my feet at the end of my dairy route. I lost myself in daydreams of stolen kisses and walks along the river.
Once, I asked Marjorie how she handled Joe’s absence so well.
“When you’ve been married as long as we have, you face all sorts of challenges. But together, you overcome them. Riding the storm out is much easier if you have someone to cling to.”
“Even with all this distance?”
She smiled. “He’s only an ocean away.”
Three days after the news of Joe’s disappearance, there is still no word. I’ve been checking on Marjorie. She’s been cleaning to distract herself. I don’t think her floors have ever been so spotless. I asked her if she wanted me to pray with her, but she shook her head and leaned further into her scrubbing.
“This is my prayer.”
I’m curled up in the living room by the fire. I hold my hands near the flames, relishing the heat that works its way into my skin, giving my muscles mobility and life. I’m cracking my knuckles when I notice the soft purr of an engine outside. My shoulders knot.
I rush to the front door and onto the porch steps. I see a black automobile turning the corner onto our street. My breathing hitches. I recognize that vehicle, the sight of which I’ve come to loathe.
It delivers for Western Union.
The first thought that crosses my mind: Please don’t let it be Nathan. Please, God, anyone but Nathan.
My heart stops as the vehicle crawls down the street. Every second is a century. I’m left standing here, breathless and helpless as shiny black metal prowls toward me.
Breathe, Anna. Breathe. I try picturing Nathan’s face, anything to bring me comfort, but instead of seeing his crooked smile, I see him staring blankly through the gas cloud.
I shudder. You stupid, stupid boy. Why did you have to volunteer? I swear, Nathan Miller, if you leave me here alone....
The vehicle stops. The driver hops out, and he sprints up the front steps onto Marjorie’s porch.
He knocks on her door, and a few moments later, she answers. He hands her a slip of paper before turning around and hopping back in his automobile. When he turns around and drives away from our house, I sigh in relief. The tension flees my body. My knees, which had been locked, start jiggling. He’s alright. Nathan’s alright. He’ll come back to me.
“When’s Papa coming home?” I hear Betty, Marjorie’s oldest child of nine years, ask.
The paper goes limp in Marjorie’s hands. She walks inside her door without shutting it, leaving Betty alone on the doorstep.
And that’s when I know.
She’s alone.
I swallow. I hadn't even thought about Marjorie. All I could think about was Nathan and how his death would affect me. I hadn't spared a thought for anyone else's husband, brother, son, or sweetheart. In fact, I had prayed for anyone else to be dead except Nathan.
Oh, God, forgive me.
With my prayer, the weight of the war, which has always loomed but which I've mostly succeeded in withstanding, crashes down upon me. I sink to the porch step as a sob rises in my throat and tears spill onto my cheeks, overflowing with the full force of every self-indulgent emotion I’ve been fighting but can’t anymore.
I cry in sadness, in self-pity, in guilt, in despair that so many people are dying and I'm helpless to stop it. All I can do is deliver my damn dairy as I wait for the war to be over, for everything to go back to normal, for everyone to come home
safely so we can go back to our sweet peace-time ignorance that kept us all happy.
But I can't do anything about stopping the war.
At least, not now.
I close my eyes. What can I do?
I think of Papa’s words. Keep checking on Marj. She needs help.
I think of Nathan, of his words to me at the train station. We can both make a difference. You can do that here.
I cannot stop the war, but I can comfort Marjorie. I can try my best to ease her pain by being there for her, by praying with her, by helping her care for her children.
And I will. I’ll comfort Marjorie, and then I’ll comfort others who have been victimized by the fighting. If I can’t stop the war, I’ll at least do everything in my power to soften its blows.
So I trudge back inside, lace up my boots, pull on my coat, and head down the street to Marjorie’s house.
Bubble Realm
William Robinet
The sky undulated slowly, as though it were breathing. Pastel bubbles moved in the air, shifting shapes and colors as they swam through the waves of the sky. Some were as small as pearls, others large enough to swallow me whole. Inside them, like a heartbeat, their lights shimmered with grace. Hues oscillated between blush-pink petals, sunbeam-yellow whispers, and apricot-orange dreams. There was no wind, no land, no one. Solely this endless expanse of floating iridescence, stretching all over the sky like a dream that had forgotten to end.
I had lost track of time. Or maybe time had lost track of me. Drifting through the void of pastels and dawn, my fingers kept running through the liquid air. Sometimes, when I caressed it, I felt a heartbeat pounding to the sound of military drums beneath its surface. But whenever I touched a bubble, it did not just dance – it whispered. Pieces of secrets, laughter, and melodies bleeding into the hum of the void.
It seemed like I had been wandering here since I was born, although memory was a fragile key in this realm. The only existence I was certain of was this spectrum – sometimes a fairy, a dragonfly, a winged horse; sometimes a monster, a cockroach, a spider. Its vessel shifted in an instant, reflecting the colored blood of the bubbles around it. It almost felt like I could see through it, glancing at sunken cities deep in the abyss, where rivers ran upward, where people moved through each other. Strangely enough, this creature was the only real thing I could believe in.
I often wondered if this was heaven, or a corner forgotten by the gods. A torn pocket of existence where everything slipped through, and no one dared to stitch it back together.
One day – or a month, I could not say – I found a bubble unlike the others. It was gargantuan, pulsating, its surface panicking into sharp shapes. Inside, I saw something different. It was not a dim light; it was a scene. A boy, pale like he was birthed by the full moon, stood still at the edge. His silhouette was a long curve like a painter’s neat line on a canvas. His hair was an ocean of curls like waves crashing on the beach. His eyes were planets collapsing into one another.
I reached out in awe, gliding my fingers over the bubble. It felt like a thunderball, heavy with static electricity. The spectrum rose behind me, its form glitching between prisms of unreality. It mercilessly pounced on the bubble and pierced it, like a knife sinking hard into a flank. A sound, like a thousand mirrors shattering underwater, resonated in the silence.
At the same moment, the boy turned his head. He stared at me. His eyes were full of firmness and dread. His jaw dropped to cry out, but his voice came as a cascade of falling petals. The bubble burst violently. I reached forward, but it already exploded before I could feel him. The scene shattered. The boy was gone.
A great silence fell over the realm. The orbs seemed to slow in their drifting, like they went on a pilgrimage to find the grave of the young man. Mourning with a glimpse of joy, the spectrum stopped, its light dimmed, like a struggling candle flame.
Suddenly, I could feel tears falling down my cheeks. The reflection of the pastel colors in them almost made the tears lively.
I had not known I could cry here.
Realizing this felt like fitting the right key inside the lock I had been trying to open forever. When the door opened, fragments of memory flew back in my mind. A winter landscape, the scent of night rain, the taste of cherry at the tip of my tongue.
At the tip of my tongue, the taste of him. But before I could grasp it, memories spiraled into new shapes, fading away like the ripples of a ricochet on water.
I turned to the spectrum. "Who was he?"
It did not answer. It never did. But it came closer, pressing itself against me. A warmth spread through me, bittersweet like the last note of alcohol vanishing into silence.
I looked at the bubbles, and wondered how many of them contained such lost moments, the echoes of people who had once been around me. Had I been searching for that man all along? Had he been waiting for me?
The bruise he left on me remained – another spot of color in this scenery.
Reflection of You
Peter Salt
You are ice skating in the dark right now. The sharpened knives beneath your feet glide across the surface of the silver ice. Your mind is clean. Your mind is sharp. Your world is empty. Nothing exists aside from your hot mind gliding, steaming, across the infinite plane in the blackened void. Listen as the voices call out to you. The voices wind together into a lyrical chant. They defile your name. They curse your presence. You are not welcome here. Aren’t you scared? You must be scared. Your shimmering skin is glowing green, and your gills are flared. Look in the mirror. See the monstrous visage reflected back at you. See its jagged jaw clenched, veins throbbing under oozing pustules. See its fangs bearing into your thin wormy lips. Look at the black blood dripping down your chin. See how it swirls around the drain, pulling you with it. Relax. Breathe. Get a grip. Pull your fangs out of your lips. Loosen your jaw. Go sit in a comfy chair. Maybe grab a book. Grab a drink. Grab your pipe. Your world is about to vanish. It’s been about to vanish. You may as well enjoy it.
Your mind goes flat. The monster’s gone. Your mind is empty. Empty. Empty. Still empty. Just as empty as the world around you.
It’s just you, standing there, unable to move, your eyes fixed on your own reflection. Look out the window at the ashen wasteland surrounding your home. Notice the fog leakingfrom your brain and coating everything in a thick shag of dust. This is all your fault. There is no light. There is no color. The dry, lifeless
trees spiral towards the sky like bolts of lightning, shrieking a shrill, dry howl. The grass, lifeless and faded, teeters with a brittle quake in the chilled breeze. Notice how there aren’t birds flying through the sky. Where’d they go?
The windows of your neighbor’s house have long been shattered, and their door has fallen off its hinges. It lies broken against the door jamb like a crumbled graham cracker. Words are sprayed on the wall nearest you with drab paint. It used to be words. The words used to say that the house’s copper wiring had been plundered. Trash accumulates on the lawn. Unbranded, unmarked paper. Plastic cups. Bags of what used to be meth. I bet you wish you could go scrape the traces of that meth off those bags. I bet you can still feel the fiber-optic cable tightly stretched through your skull, connecting you to the world with crystal clarity. I bet you can still feel the blue plasma coursing through your veins, fueling you. I bet you wish you could do it again. Pathetic. You used to be something. You used to be smart. You used to read for fun.
Do you even remember that? Sitting on a couch?
Lounging in bed? At your desk, alert, focused, and studious? Did you get real comfortable sitting down, scanning the page, and reading picture books about princesses, astronauts, or superheroes? Did you like putting yourself into someone else’s world like some kind of voyeur, aroused by the thought of others doing all the things you wish you could do? Now all you can do is stand there, frozen, eyes locked with the faded glass in the mirror before you. Maybe you should take a break. Maybe you should go do something more productive with your time. Go make yourself a sandwich. Draw a nice bath. Clean your house. Oh wait, you can’t do anything. You’re stuck here, frozen. You don’t have the nerve to fix your life. It’s almost like you don’t want to.
Oh, I think I see what this is about. Are you hiding? Hiding from what? Your responsibilities? Your parents? Or are
just hiding in general, hoping that the world magically improves in your absence? Well, it just might. You know the world would keep turning without you. Your body would probably be fully decomposed before anyone even found it, and when they did, it would only be by chance. No one’s going to come looking for you. Everyone is so busy with their own lives, doing their own things. Just down the street, doctors are performing surgery, lawyers are winning cases, and engineers are building bridges, and they don’t even know you exist. Doesn’t it seem fun? The world going on without you? Well, it is. You’re a drag. And after all that work your parents put into you, you turn up like this?
Do you remember being born? Do you remember the doctor slicing open your mother to pull you out? Do you remember how happy your mother was to be eviscerated on the sterile blue tile floor? Do you remember the first time your father held you? His arms were so strong. His body was so warm. His touch was so loving. Do you remember how your parents brought you home to their small apartment in the heart of the big city? Their neighborhood wasn’t safe, but it was still home. People would break into your building every night, but your parents wouldn’t mind. They were building a home. The home would be safe even when the building wasn’t.
Do you remember all the people who came to visit you in that home? Do you remember how they looked at you? Do you remember how scared they were when you fell and cut open your forehead? Do you remember how your mother applied ointment to your wound during the weeks it healed? Do you remember how, even after you moved out, she would rub her fingers over your thick, wide scar and tell you how much she loved you? Do you remember how safeyou felt despite that crater on your face? The whole world was beneath your feet. If you wanted, you could have taken it. You probably don’t remember that.
You’re so ungrateful. You really just left your parents to do all the heavy lifting so you could galavant off into a fantasy.
Do you remember when you built that castle at the insistence of the princess? She was so worried about that dragon. She said it was the biggest threat to a woman of her stature. She worried that it would swoop down and destroy her world in one movement with lungs full of flames and a heart full of wrath. She couldn’t wait for a charming prince to arrive, but she was sure he was coming. She surrounded herself with walls to keep out the intruders. Colorful walls. Flimsy walls. Paper walls that would eventually fall under siege while she was dreaming of animals working on a farm. The feeble walls were the most beautiful thing you had ever seen. Their array of stars and swooshes vividly lunged across the canvas, and you felt the colors ten times stronger than you had thought humanly possible. Behind those colors, the two of you fought her dragons. You slayed them from behind the walls. As they breathed whiskey-scented fireballs onto you both, you stood in front of her, shield in hand, pushing back against the flames. You couldn’t kill every dragon, but you tried your best.
Do you remember how hard your father fought his employers while you were fighting the dragon? While you were preventing the castle from siege, your father was holding down the fort of his office. He attacked his files. Destroyed his tax forms. Was beaten by the hands of his work. He smiled and kept a brave face, but you knew better. He looked haggard, and you could tell that he had been defeated time and time again. One night, when you were resting in your chambers, you heard him banging on the desk in his study. You snuck down the hall, your feet clapping against the silver cobblestones. They echoed through the corridor like a stone skipping against a lake. You saw your father weeping in his study, tearing at his thick black hair like a fascist tears at the pages of a book. You just assumed he wasn’t as strong as you used to think he was. When you saw him
the next morning, his face was sullen. It had lost its life, and he had lost his fight. The bags under his eyes sang of failure, and his stubble reeked of surrender. I bet you feel humiliated now that the kingdom has fallen, and your civilization has gone on without you. Revolutions of technology left your chivalrous imagination obsolete.
After the world had changed, you thought you had become too wise to engage in adventure, yet you still found yourself floating in space. Do you remember floating in the dark, wondering why you were wasting your time there? Surely your team of four was embarrassed of you and your laser gun. Before takeoff, you tried to hide your gun behind your back, but everyone saw it, and everyone knew you would use it. The sound of the phasers still rings in your ears, and you can still see the foul beasts fall at every turn. The fluffy brown aliens blended in with the dusty shag of the planet’s surface. Remember when an alien jumped out from behind a rock shelf, a sickening smile plastered on its face? You raised your blaster and shot it right in the heart. It wheezed and fell to the ground with a gentle thud. One of your comrades kicked the dead alien, and it flew across the room with a squeak. They all patted you on the back. “We did it,” they said. “We did it.” In your exhaustion, you looked out across the dusty, dimly lit surface of the beige planet, yearning for the colors of the castle wall.
Do you remember how your father was bound to a hospital bed while you were out exploring the cosmos? Do you remember how his thick black hair had thinned and fallen like your vanquished enemies? Do you remember how now it was your mother who cried and tore out her hair when she was told by the doctor that your father’s liver had failed? Of course you don’t. You were too busy in space, drifting aimlessly, staring at the pale colors of the distant Earth, completely unaware of the pains that befell those you left behind. You were so stupid to think that you could distance yourself from this pain. You were
naive to think that nothing could keep you down when armed and in good company. You used to be so foolish. Just an immature wreck, ignorant of the workings of the world. You spent so much time burning coal to fuel your follies that you had none left to stay warm when you grew cold. This squalor you live in now is all your fault, and your fault alone.
Do you remember sitting in your high school class, nervously tapping your legs during calculus? Do you remember why you were so afraid? Do you remember that secret you were keeping from your friends and foes alike? Do you remember how, when the sun went down, you retreated from your home and escaped into the night? Do you remember how you soared through the clouds, your cape fluttering in the wind, the darkened world twinkling faintly beneath you? Do you remember stopping that moving train and saving that girl who had been abandoned by her parents? Do you remember being knocked down by foes ten times stronger than you just to get back up again, daring them to try once more?
Your raw ambition and fortitude could inspire fear in all those who watched you, but you only used your gifts for good. You were a hero. There was nothing you couldn’t do except tell the truth. It would put you at risk. It would put your world at risk. If they found out, vengeful eyes would be on you and those you loved. You had to keep hidden your identity by day, but at night, you could patrol the city, defending honor and justice wherever you saw fit. So you kept your secret. You saved the world in the dark, and the darkness slowly crept into the day. The bright morning colors burned your dry, tired eyes as you dragged yourself out of bed each morning, and soon you stopped trying to see them at all. You knew it was for the best, though, as the brightness of your world paled beside the color of justice.
Do you remember how your princess’s walls were torn down while you were busy busting perps? Of course you don’t. You were too busy solving the world’s problems to notice
the danger that befell her. You couldn’t hear her cries for help despite your super-powered ears because there were no screams. She was silent. Sleeping. Prince Charming had arrived and tore down her colorful walls like wet cardboard, whisking her away in the middle of the night. He reduced something that once was so beautiful to a pile of gray rubble. You never saw her again. What torments you the most is that you think you could have saved her. At the very least, you could have avenged her. You were made of steel. You were strong enough to withstand any bullet. You thought you were brave enough to face any challenge then, but do you still feel that today? All your power is gone. All your strength has been depleted. You wasted it.
Notice how weak you look right now. It’s embarrassing to think that you could fight something so massive, so systemic, in your current state. How could you do anything good for the world when you can’t even take care of yourself? All the life from your face has been drained, and your skin has been stretched over your bones like the batter head of a drum. Your eyes are drab and lifeless, and your flesh is pale and gray. Even your memories of the colors on the castle walls have faded.
Do you remember the night you decided to rob that convenience store? Look at how you cringed at the mention of that one. No matter how much you fry your brain, you’ll never forget that night. All you wanted was to see the world once more in full colors, but you knew only one way to do that. You wanted to be a good boy, but the store called out to you, hypnotized you, with its song like a siren in the churning waves. Your sweaty, shaking body was dragged through the sliding glass doors by invisible strings, and the pistol in your limp arm was lifted to the cashier as if you were a marionette. Do you remember how quickly that excitement turned into dread when he responded with an equal but opposite threat? Do you remember scanning the room for an escape, but only seeing the faint blue and red flashes across the walls? You would have done anything to end it
immediately, but you were trapped there. You tried to return to your castle, but you forgot how to get there. You tried to launch yourself into space, but your shuttle was out of fuel. You couldn’t fly away because a gray box of your kryptonite lay just behind the counter.
Do you remember how gray your blood looked pooling out onto the tile floor? Do you remember how the blue and red lights slowly faded to black? Do you remember how the red lips pressed against yours became a haunting, pale blue? Do you remember how your body became a husk of skin like sheddings from a snake? When you look into your eyes right now, do you even see a soul? If you still had a soul, you would have felt bad when you saw your mother crying, convulsing with sadness, in the darkened light of the ambulance. You killed her that night, too. That’s all you do. That’s all you can do now. You’re pathetic. You’re a corpse. Look at the bags under your eyes. Look at your decaying teeth. Look at how you’re falling apart. You can never escape that pang of regret festering in your gut, and no amount of speed could put it behind you. You can’t outrun the shadow of your failure. And now you’re stuck here, staring at yourself in the mirror, wondering what you could do to fix your life.
Well, there is one thing...
But you wouldn’t like it... Who cares if you won’t like it? It’ll only last a second...
Yeah, but it would hurt a lot...
Yeah, but you’ve been hurt before. Look at that scar on your forehead...
Look at how it ruins your thin, decayed face. Look at how it shadows your few good features. Remember how much red blood poured from your skull when you first split it open? Remember they strapped you down and covered your face with a dark blue tarp to run the stitches through your head. Remember how you cried when they had to throw away your stained orange shirt? Remember how much pain and ridicule that caused you? It exists, centered in your face, reminding you of your pain, a sign of your brokenness. Look at it and remember all the hurt that you have felt. You could end that hurt forever. No one else will ever have to look at your scar and feel the pain you felt, either.
Do you remember how your mother screamed when she first saw your injury? Do you remember how horribly she felt for letting it happen to you? That pain is on your hands, too. Do you remember how tenderly she held you after it happened, how worried she was that she would lose you? Do you remember how your mother used to run her fingers over your scar? Do you remember how much she loved your smile and the way the scar furrowed when you laughed? She loved every part of you, even the broken ones.
Do you remember how, right before you moved out, she ran her fingers over that same scar and told you that she would always love you despite her broken heart, even if you never came back to fix it? She loved you so much that her love could penetrate through the rubble of your razed dreams that buried you. Maybe you should extend some of that love to yourself. Maybe you shouldn’t kill the monster behind your mirror. Maybe you should turn out the lights. Maybe you should walk away from the mirror. Maybe you should stop hating the withered body in front of you and instead love the boy with the paper helmet, plastic phaser, and nylon cape.
Do it. Turn off the lights. Leave the bathroom. Sit on your bed.
Let the darkness and mundanity of the world surround you. It may never be bright again, but you can still enjoy each shade of gray. Look out at the world. Clouds of all hues swirl and dance across the still gray sky. The wind sings across the quiet plains with a gentle rhythm. The littered fast-food wrappers almost even look yellow. The world is only a wasteland if you let it be one. You survived the hurricane and can rebuild from the desecration of your past. You survived battles with dragons, aliens, and supervillains. You survived yourself. If you can make the normal strange, you can make the strange normal. Let the silence around you merge with the blackness of your room. Spin deep into slumber. Maybe tomorrow will be more normal.
Hindsight
Max Dow
It’s hard to know why anyone is compelled to do anything. Free will versus a determined fate: a conversation Alan Booker had willingly escaped many times before. But also one that had determinedly clawed its way back into his life. Even years later, he never understood why he called the number in that newspaper ad. Some part of him was charged to do something good. Another was looking for some kind of praise. More honestly though, he was just bored. I need to get out of the apartment, Alan thought.
The ad was for a volunteer agency. People could go over to a senior citizen’s apartment and spend time with them. They must get awfully lonely. He had never thought about that before. The man on the phone was cordial but brief. He wrote down Alan’s information in a hurry and would ring him again once he got a match.
A long five minutes passed and he had already called back. The old man wished to remain anonymous, which Alan found normal. But what he found strange was that out of every applicant for this program, this man only wanted him. Supposedly, he had denied ninety-five people before. But the moment he looked over Alan’s profile, the decision was clear.
The operator gave Alan an address in a broken down apartment complex in the Bronx only a couple of blocks away. He still opted for the cab. Walking quickly into the building, he struggled ignoring the stains, crawling rats, and barren rooms. Choosing the flight of stairs instead of the death-trap elevator, he came across a destitute man sleeping on the ground. He stepped over him.
The floor creaked with every inching step, as Alan
approached the room number. His eyes creeped through the slit in the door. A streetlight encroached from outside, as a soft orange light patterned through the window shades. Alan felt around for a switch on the wall.
“Don’t turn on the light!” an older man’s voice came from the dark corner of the room.
The old man lit a cigarette, but the red burn still couldn’t light his face.
“Smoking’s a nasty habit,” Alan said, unsure of where to start the conversation.
“You’ll pick it up eventually. Smoking’s a curse, but it still helps.” The old man took another smoke and coughed. “Why don’t you sit down?”
He found a chair in the opposite corner of the room and sat. From what he could see, the place looked like the remnants of a horrible accident. It was so cramped that he wondered, above all else, how cheap this place was compared to his own. I wonder what they charge for utilities.
“Is it really you, Alan?” the old man asked.
“Have we met before?”
“Yes. A long time ago. And only for a moment did I truly know you. Now I feel... maybe I’ve lost it again.” Alan considered his own safety for a moment, but his curiosity was overpowering.
“Did we play baseball together growing up? Maybe a friend’s father?” Alan asked.
“I loved baseball,” the old man said.
“Me, too. I remember these great nicknames they’d give you when calling your name up to the plate. They called me Bookie.”
The old man laughed for a long time at this, before he took a deep breath and said, “My apologies. I can’t spend all of my time reminiscing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t call you here for a conversation.” Alan leaned away from the man, eyeing the door. I could probably slip out in a hurry.
“Don’t worry,” the old man reassured. “There are too many reasons why I wouldn’t want to hurt you.” Alan readjusted in his seat and stared out the window, thinking.
“What do you want from me?” Alan interrogated.
“I just want to give you some advice.” The old man smoked again, and Alan started to note the tonation and rhythm of his cough. That has to be painful.
“I’m all ears.” Truthfully, Alan had only been paying half attention.
“You and Lily are still together, yes?” he said. Alan regained his focus at her name. “Are you interested?”
The old man laughed until it faded to a whimper. “What you two have is special. Know that now before you come to regret it later.” The air lingered after that, and Alan laughed.
“I’ll think about it,” Alan said with a smug smile.
“This is more important than you realize, Alan.” Something large pounded on the door, startling us.
A commanding voice followed, “Alan, is that you in there?” Who could know that I was here? The old man whispered something to himself. Before Alan could think, the door blew open, and three men in doctor’s uniforms stormed in and held the old man down.
“You have to save me, Alan.” I got up to intervene, until one of the men put his hand on my shoulder and said, “He’s not supposed to have visitors when he’s off his meds.”
The old man desperately clung to his armchair, trying to find the power to escape.
“Hold onto her, Alan. Please don’t let her go.” Alan looked at him one last time. “And please quit smoking, it’s a terrible habit.”
Alan closed the door and desperately ignored his conscience. He walked down the hallway, took the elevator, and left the building. On his walk home, he heard a loud noise come from the old man’s room, but he kept walking anyway.
Once he got home, he was bored again. That’s how he justified making another call to the agency. There’s no harm.
“So, how did the service go, Alan?”
“It was probably for the best that it ended early.”
“What do you mean?”
“Some people barged into the room early into our talk. They told me he was off his meds, which wouldn’t have necessarily surprised me,” Alan laughed nervously.
“We didn’t send anyone over.” A cold chill ran down Alan’s spine, as he caught his breath at the response. He thought quickly about what else to ask the man.
“Did he ever give you a name?”
“He did. It was something strange... let me look at my notes.” Alan waited with childlike anticipation. He twirled the phone cord to pass the time before the man answered.
“Bookie. His name was Bookie.” Alan hung up quickly and thought to himself for the rest of the night. The next day, Alan went to visit the old man’s building and check up on him. His room was empty. In fact, every room was empty. The building was to be demolished in a month’s time.
Just before the building was destroyed, Alan parted ways with Lily. When he brought up the subject to her, he struggled to find a reason why. And at that same moment, Lily struggled to find a reason to stay. It’s hard to know why anyone is compelled to do anything.
She ended up marrying some mogul named Charles whose claim to fame was the invention of time travel. That novelty wore off quickly, Alan thought the moment that Charles monopolized it and made it colossally unaffordable.
Alan ran into Lily at a coffee shop some time later. She
was in a hurry, so she only stayed for a ninety-minute chat. Lily had never laughed so much. And Alan finally realized the reason he had broken up with her. The reason wasn’t good enough. Eventually, Lily had to part. And Alan became jealous of time itself for stealing Lily away from him. But they vowed to see each other again. Soon enough.
At least once a week, they would meet. Sometimes at a coffee shop, sometimes at Alan’s apartment. They could hold an entire conversation with just their eyes. Tears told a different story, though. Especially when Lily would tell Alan about Charles. She would often fall asleep in his arms.
One day, Lily was late getting coffee. After a long wait, Alan had assumed the worst. It still wasn’t awful enough.
Lily died in her husband’s arms. Strangled to death. Alan knew it was murder, and he nearly went to the police. Charles’ men got to him first, and Alan held his ground, claiming that all the money in the world couldn’t keep him from speaking out. They responded simply.
“If Charles could get away with murder once, you know he could do it again.”
The coroner diagnosed it as a tragic accident. That same day, Alan bought his first pack of cigarettes. As a reward for his silence, Charles gave Alan a parting gift. One trip back in time. Anywhere he would want to go. The time machine sat in the back of Alan’s closet, which grew emptier and emptier.
His mind started to do the same. He forgot about the old man that he met in the apartment that strange day. He forgot about the jobs that he had worked, friends he had gained and lost, birthdays and funerals. But one memory held on long enough to keep him alive. Lily.
Almost everything in his mind was fuzzy at best, obliterated at worst. But the details of her were immaculate. For the
first time in years, Alan dug to the back of his closet. He picked a specific time and date, about a month before they broke up. Once there, he thought of an inconspicuous meeting place and called up a senior citizen volunteer agency. He gave the man a name that made sense, but he couldn’t remember why.
It’s hard to know why anyone is compelled to do anything. Too many applications to count crossed Alan’s desk, until he finally found the man. Alan waited patiently in an abandoned apartment, lights turned off. A smoke to ease the tension. He wondered if his memory could hold on long enough to tell him what he needed to hear.
The man finally entered the room. Their conversation was brief. Alan tried as hard as he could to warn him. His innocence pained him deeply. Suddenly, some unknown men barged into the room with wild eyes and charged towards Alan.
It felt bittersweet for Alan to finally recognize someone. Even if it was the men that had threatened him over Lily’s testimony.
Alan yearned to say a thousand words more, but the man had already left.
“Nice try. Charles still wants the years he had with her,” one of the men said.
“So did I.”
Alan began to appreciate how quiet the night was, ignoring the arms holding him down and the barrel of a pistol pressed against the back of his skull. I hope he follows my advice. He could almost see Lily in the patterned light through the window shades. She smiled.
For her sake.
Hope Shayanta Chowdhury
Waiting Jane Quinlan
James sat on the edge of her bed and watched the digital clock flick from 7:59 to 8:00. She used to love that little click sound. Now she almost flinched. She awoke to another wasted day. A waiting day in this endless run-on summer. If there was news to come, it would come now. Around twelve more hours of fear. And then tomorrow.
Maybe it was good news. There could be good news at any time.
The War is over and the U.S. is coming home. Johnny is safe and asking for you.
Nixon is finally listening to all those protests.
Bad news, though, have their own business hours. No one would want to wake her in the middle of the night to tell her that the love of her life died all alone halfway across the world.
The tiles were cool to the touch–the one cool thing about Louisiana in July. As she padded across them, Mama greeted her in the kitchen, cooking breakfast.
“It's my turn,” she scolded her and gently shooed Mama away.
Mama sighed, resigning. “Did you sleep alright?”
She turned towards her mother from over the pan. “If I’m worried about him and you’re worried about me, that's too much stress on your load.”
In fact, the worry was starting to show on her mother. She looked older now than she had before the summer began. More wrinkles. More wisps of white hair. Always cleaning or cooking and doting on her.
“It’s my job to worry about you, Jamie,” Mama said with a smile, still hovering over the stove.
Of course, Mama used her real name. She never liked how undignified her preferred one was. I didn’t name you Jamie just for you to change it, Mama had said, Girls from good families don’t go by boy's names, especially when working-class boys ask them to.
Jamie had loved that boy too much to care. She was “James” the moment he had called her it and she was still “James” now. Especially now.
She flipped a pancake. “We agreed to share the chores and I’m eighteen years old. Past the worrying about age.”
Mama knit her brows and reached out to touch a gentle hand to her cheek. “I’m afraid that’s not true.”
The day passed excruciatingly slowly. After eating the less-than-satisfactory pancakes, James moved out to the yard and garden. It normally relaxed her, but lately, Mama had taken to watching from a few feet away.
Any minute now Mr. Jensen from next door could burst through with his promised dreaded news. Either Johnny was coming home. Or Johnny was dead. And Mama needed to be inside to hear this. She’d explained as much about a hundred times, but Mama would just pinch her cheeks and say, “If it makes you feel better, I’ll watch you from inside.”
James snapped the flower she was cutting a little too hard. Pressed in the warm southern sun, she squinted. In school, she and Johnny had read a story of a man in Greek mythology–whose name she forgot—who spent every day of his eternal punishment rolling a ball up a hill. And when he was finished he’d have to just start up again the next day.
That’s what this summer felt like. Every minute he was in danger over and over again.
She brushed it off. That was a boring class anyway. The boy who sat behind her was much more interesting.
Johnny Jensen was tall, lanky, and always covered in
dirt. He’d spent their childhood summers running into her backyard and asking if she wanted to go to the creek. Each day, Mama would answer for her and say no that she’d come home with permanent dirt for messing with a boy like that.
One day Johnny came and instead of the polite Southern decline, only silence followed.
Mama was at the store.
“Well?” Johnny bit.
She looked around. “I—I’m not sure.”
“C’mon,” he chided.
Jamie had looked down at her white frilly dress and mary-janes.
“Are you chicken?” Johnny asked.
That was Jamie’s final straw, evidently, because she wordlessly entered the house and changed into a swimsuit. Unsurprisingly, Johnny was waiting for her by the back gate.
That night when she came home, hair matted, wet, and dirty, Mama was a wreck. Before Jamie could even sit down to eat, she’d been ushered upstairs and into the bath.
“A girl doesn’t just play in the creek with boys,” Mama hissed, scrubbing Jamies’ shoulders, “It’s unbecoming.”
I’ll call you James, Johnny had said.
But that’s a boy’s name, she’d chided.
Funny right?
“Yes, Mama,” James had agreed with a smile.
The sweltering heat had been too much to handle, so James now sat on the couch, lemonade in her hand. Sitting up more, she groaned. Her muscles were all sore now. The stress was taking its toll. Speaking of stress—
The clock read 1 o’clock. James closed her eyes before focusing on the television once again. He’d be safe in seven hours. He’d be safe soon. At least for the night. She blinked back tears and changed the channel.
By the eighth grade, James and Johnny were practically inseparable. Despite Mama’s chidings, he’d visited their house every day that summer and every day after that. She could tell Mama liked him. She’d always laugh at his jokes, and Mama never laughed when she didn’t mean to.
James was starting to like him too. Well, more than she originally did. This school year he’d sprouted at least five inches and now all the girls whispered about him--even in front of James which she found disrespectful. When it came time for the end-of-the-year dance, Johnny easily found himself a date with the prettiest girl in their class. James had a date too. He was real nice and brought her flowers, but that didn’t matter much anyhow.
The whole dance she stared at Johnny from across the gym, scowling. Her date said something to her but it sounded muffled. She had an angry pit in her stomach.
Why was Louise Connor laughing at Johnny?
She never thought he was funny last year.
When Lousie touched her hand on Johnny’s arm, James had about had it. She marched right over there and told Louise to back off. The two of them started yelling. James wasn’t quite sure what she was mad about, but she was certainly mad about something. Johnny just watched laughing. Well, that certainly set her off.
“What’s so funny?” James hissed at him.
“If I knew you wanted me too, I would’ve asked you,” he replied with a smile.
“Oh.”
Louise huffed and walked away somewhere, but James only really saw out of the corner of her eye. She was too focused on Johnny.
After insisting to Mama that she was too anxious for dinner, James resigned to her room. She looked around at the yellow walls and pink carpet, which she once found stylish and fun. Now, they seemed outdated. She walked over to her vanity, where the photograph of her and Johnny at the prom was taped. Well, where it should’ve been taped. It was gone.
James’ stomach dropped. She tried not to think of it as a bad sign. Taking a seat at the stool, she cast her eyes towards the orange phone resting on the vanity. Always memories–always about him.
James had been lying on her stomach, flipping through magazines on her bed when she got the call. Practically falling off and chipping her drying nails, she picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hey Jamsey.”
Johnny. She immediately smiled. They’d been going steady for well over two years now and he was still the same old Johnny.
“Come out to the creek with me tonight,” he insisted.
James looked around. “You know I can’t. I told you Mama is all bent out of shape about me coming home so late last weekend. She blames you.”
“Well sneak out then.”
James rolled her eyes. “Johnny, is your head screwed on okay?”
He paused. “Honestly I don’t know.” His voice sounded weird. Slower.
“C’mon I’ll wait for ya in the yard,” he insisted.
“Okay—Okay, but I’m not coming down until I see you.”
Five minutes later he was yelling for her from below her window. She shushed him, said a quick prayer, and delicately extended her foot onto the garden lattuce. Many curses later, her
feet were firmly planted on the soft ground and he was hugging her–swaying slightly.
“Cmon, Cole and Ben are waiting for us,” he said with alcohol hot on his breath.
She opened her mouth to say something but thought the better of it. Everyone was coping with things these days. Dad never let them watch the news anymore. Mama included thanking God for giving her a daughter instead of a son in every prayer.
Over at the creek, James planted herself on a rock and wrapped her jumper over her hands. It was far too dark to swim and Johnny was frankly far too drunk to be moving around. Eventually, he sat down too and extended the bottle his brothers had bought towards her. James was already breaking one of Mama’s rules–one more couldn’t hurt. It tasted like bread, but it made her warmer. Even if she grimaced with every sip, James found herself polishing off three.
Soon, she was slumped on Johnny’s shoulder, cheeks feeling fuzzy like the static on the TV. He was the only thing keeping her remotely upright at this point, which she didn’t understand because he’d had at least three times what she did.
“Johnny,” she said in an odd sort of voice.
He looked to her and James vowed that despite the red in them now, her children would have Johnny’s green eyes.
Dinner was bland. Mama’s cooking used to be much better than this. Meals seemed to be the only thing James did these days other than wait.
Two more hours. In her made-up system there were only two more hours where she could get bad news. She felt herself fading away. Picking up her fork, her hand felt heavier than usual.
That ring looked bigger than she remembered it too.
It started as a perfect spring day. Johnny had just decided he was going to Tulane and she had started convincing Mama to let her go with him. She could walk around New Orleans like a real city girl.
She was upstairs, doing her makeup when she heard the door open. Thinking Johnny was just a little early for dinner, James padded down the stairs and stopped in her tracks.
Mr. Jensen stood in the doorway and was talking to Mama in hushed tones. Her stomach knew something was wrong before her brain did. What Johnny’s father told her next washed over her entire body. She felt cold and nauseous, having to grip the table to stable herself.
They called his birthday, sweetheart, was all she heard. Something about him shipping off soon. Something else about how they thought he ought to have told her by now. James was pushing past Mr. Jensen and toward Johnny's front door before she knew what happened. She’d never seen him look so solemn as he did, standing in his doorway with redding eyes. She wanted to curse at him and push him. How could he have gone to Tulane? He’d known for weeks.
Then he pulled out that skinny silver ring—his mama’s. When Johnny Jensen put that ring on James’ finger she knew it would be okay. He would fight, come back a hero, and then go to Tulane. She’d still wear that white dress and her kids would still have green eyes. She’d just have to wait a little. He’d come back to her.
Mama was helping her get ready for bed, but James didn’t understand why. The clock had just passed eight-thirty so Johnny was safe for tonight. She tried to tell Mama as much. Why did she have to go to bed now? She was eighteen years old, Mama needed to respect that.
“It’s bad for your health Ms. Jamie for you to be up all night pacing,” she insisted.
“But I’m fine now,” James countered, “Johnny is fine for tonight. He’s still coming back to me.”
Mama’s face contorted in such an un-Mama-like expression of pain. The doorbell rang. “I have to let Eleanor in,” Mama said, gently sitting her down on the bed, “Stay here.”
James felt so confused but she sat, staring at the wall. It looked more faded than she remembered. A few minutes later, a girl walked into the room, setting down a suitcase. She had caramel brown hair and eyes to match. “Hi, Mom.”
James looked around. Who was she talking to?
“How is she today?” the girl asked Mama.
“The same. She still thinks–”
“I know,” the girl cut her off, “Dad can’t bring himself to come here anymore. It kills him–who she chooses the remember.”
James watched as the strange girl thanked Mama–calling her “Nurse June”--and knelt before her by the bed.
“Mom, c’mon,” the girl said with her strange strange eyes, “You remember me, right? Your little Ellie.”
James blinked. How could this girl be her daughter? No, no she was eighteen and she had just graduated from high school.
Her arms were wrinkled. Her bedding was different than she remembered. The photo was gone. The ring on her finger was not the one Johnny gave her.
“But no,” James croaked.
It was all she could do. Because Johnny didn’t come home.
CONTRIBUTORS
Jenkin Benson is a PhD student at the University of Notre Dame. His debut full-length are we rocking with this? is dropping this summer via New Mundo Press. He is also the poetry editor for cult. magazine.
Lily Brustkern is a first-year undergraduate Math and Classics major from Denver, CO. She loves the outdoors and enjoys playing the viola, acting, rock climbing, and writing creatively. Her favorite poet is Walt Whitman and her favorite fiction-writer is Toni Morrison. She is currently working as an editor and hopes to keep writing regardless of career or circumstances. In particular, she is interested in the intersections between various creative media as means of translating the untranslatable. In this issue her writing touches on zreality, perception, and thought, in harmony with the various shades and modes of Dreams.
Michaela Cooper has always loved the camera. From a young age, she was mainly in front of the camera, smiling and posing. As she matured and started high school, she found the beauty in being behind the camera. It was a whole new world. She spent every weekend perfecting her craft, her angle. As she improved, she invested in more and more equipment to offer the best quality for her clients, but also for herself. Her favorite thing to photograph is people. The longer she practices her skills, the more refined she becomes in her techniques.
Shayanta Chowdhury is a fourth-year physical chemistry PhD student from Bangladesh. For his research, he focuses monochromatic beams of light onto nanoscopic specks of gold covered with wiggly molecules and studies the changes in the light scattered by said wiggly molecules. For fun, he occasionally focuses polychromatic beams of light onto a film of silver salt crystals, which can then be dunked in chemical baths and
scanned to reveal images from his memories. He is currently trying to figure out how to make a living doing both for the rest of his life.
Amanda Dempson is a junior from Brookfield, Connecticut, is studying English with minors in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy, and Chinese. She has worked at the Alumni Association as the Hannah Storm Journalism Intern for two spring semesters. In the summer of 2024, she worked at the Museum of Literature Ireland in Dublin, where she explored Irish culture and writers—many of whom inspire her. Music and art are her key sources of inspiration, often what sparks her wild imaginations. While she helped with the design and editorial team for Re:Visions in 2023, this marks her first time publishing her own work.
Max Dow is an FTT Major from Minnesota (bet you thought it would be LA, huh?). He’s been writing since his critically panned comic book series in the second grade. In screenplays and prose, he enjoys writing dramas, but he’s slowly getting into comedy with every laugh he gets (slow and steady wins the race). Science fiction and romance he finds particularly interesting, especially because both are equally unrealistic for him. He is one of Re:Visions’ head editors that decided which pieces went in. Max’s favorite pieces from this rendition of Re:Visions were “Fan Mail” and “Hindsight.”
Mechelle Marie Gilford is an art teacher, weaves creativity into both her classroom and her writing. Her work has appeared in Psychology Today and Notre Dame’s Yield Magazine. A participant in Notre Dame’s Teachers as Scholars program, she studied poetry with Sister Dr. Annie Killian and design with Dr. Clinton Carlson. Her poems, often inspired by everyday objects,
explore themes of memory, perception, and the beauty found in small moments. Fun fact: She believes even lentils might fear the counting spoon.
Jack Kaczmarek is an aspiring poet from Richmond, Virginia. He is a junior studying creative writing, Italian, and constitutional studies. Interested in a wide range of subject matter, his current work focuses on bridging the past and present, and reconciling the individual with the collective from a variety of perspectives: political, theological, philosophical, and personal. He is especially influenced by a trifecta of great American verse-writers: Bob Dylan, Kenrick Lamar, and Walt Whitman. Aside from his love of music, he enjoys playing sports and watching and discussing films.
Madeline Kroner is a senior studying business analytics and the proud mother to a seven year old ginger cat, Finnigan.
Hannah Gatewood Durán is a first-year student at Notre Dame, studying political science from Las Cruces, New Mexico, and currently residing in El Paso, Texas. Her poetry explores themes of cultural identity, loss, humanity, and politics. Besides poetry, she writes songs and is currently working on her first album. In addition to writing, Hannah is a Latino Studies Scholar through the Institute of Latino Studies at Notre Dame, and is involved in the Student Coalition for Immigration Advocacy, College Democrats, Latino Student Alliance, and the Political Science Association. Hannah plans on continuing her advocacy through poetry and music.
Sophie Novak is a senior from Lake Orion, Michigan. She is studying English with a minor in digital marketing. She is currently finishing her thesis in creative writing and competes
for Notre Dame’s cross country and track team, specializing in the steeplechase. When she isn’t running, she’s having fun writing about the surreal, always looking for interesting and weird similes to describe complex feelings. She wants to be a professional athlete and New York Times Best Selling author. This is her first published work! The skies the limit!
Anna Fent is a senior mechanical engineering major and hobby writer from Texas. This is her first time publishing her work in Re:Visions and also her first year as a member of the Re:Visions editorial team.
Ava Hyde is a Junior undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame studying Political Science and Japanese. She has always had a passion for creative writing, maintaining a poetry blog called “Secret Tunnel” (inspired by the TV show Avatar the Last Airbender) and taking English classes whenever she can fit them in her schedule. Many of her works center around either politics, the human body, or both. She also enjoys choreographing for the ND Dance Co and Transpose Dance Co and writing lots of reviews on Letterboxd and Goodreads.
Emily Richardson is a senior from Florence, Kentucky. She is in the Glynn Family Honors Program and studies Biological Sciences. Emily developed a love for creative writing as a young child, and the Scholastic Writing Awards published one of her works when she was in the eighth grade. She enjoys many genres of writing, and she loves a chilling horror story just as much as a cute romantic comedy. She plans to attend medical school, and it is also a dream of hers to someday publish a novel.
William Robinet is a junior at the University of Notre Dame,
majoring in linguistics, Romance languages, and English. Split between France and the U.S., he previously studied at La Sorbonne before continuing his education in the Midwest. His first publication marks the beginning of his literary journey, showcasing his love for writing and storytelling. In addition to his appeal for art and travel, William is a fervent volunteer of turtle conservation along the Greek coast and has both a cat and a dog. With a deep appreciation for language and creativity, he continues to explore literature, culture, and expression.
Naomi Munoz is a freshman at the University of Notre Dame majoring in English with an intended concentration in Creative Writing. Though on the pre-law track, she has a true passion for literature. She believes that reading and writing poetry is vital to the human experience and aims to capture the raw beauty of existence through words. When not found reading, she can be seen with her Shih Tzu, Chewy. She ultimately writes for her mother and father, for their unwavering support fuels her passions.
Peter Salt values his privacy almost as much as he values the literary arts. As an ordinary student and writer, he loves creating extraordinary things by taking the ordinary and adding extra. He believes that the most compelling stories are the mundane ones told with a purpose. Salt hopes that he, too, can live his life with purpose to make up for the mundanity of his actions. He can be contacted when inconvenient for all parties and can often be found on the sidewalks around campus, bracing for the coming snow.
Rina Shamilov is a poet from Brooklyn, New York. Her poetry explores self, grief, family, and movement, and she writes to preserve memory and feeling. She is a nonfiction editor at
MAYDAY and a managing editor at the Notre Dame Review. Her poetry has either been published or is forthcoming in The Foundationalist, Club Plum Lit, Mulberry Literary, Pink Disco, Udolpho, VENUUS Diaries, and Heavy Feather Review. Her debut chapbook, My Mother’s Armoire, was recently published by Bottlecap Press. She has written nonfiction pieces for Lilith, The Forward, and New Voices, where she serves as an arts and culture editor.
Jane Quinlan is a freshman from Chicago, studying Political Science and English. She currently lives in Pasquerilla East Hall. This past summer, Jane finished the first draft of a novel she had been working on for many years and has been editing it ever since. She enjoys period pieces, rewatching the same five shows, and complaining.
Joe Murphy is a senior studying political science at the University of Notre Dame, and originally hails from Pacifica, CA. He finds poetry to be a wonderful way to challenge himself creatively, and hopes to explore more narrative modes of storytelling in the future. This is his first time being published, and he wishes to thank Oli Peters for encouraging him to submit this piece and for furthering his development as a writer.
Tamsen Hayden is a first year student studying electrical engineering. He enjoys writing short stories or poems on occasion. He hails from the halls of Keenan, and is a proud Midshipman of Notre Dame Naval ROTC unit. His biggest inspiration is his dog, Boca, a black labrador retriever. In his freetime, Tamsen loves to hike the mountains of Georgia, workout, mountain bike, wrestle, or hang out with his pals.
She majors in English and Theology, with a minor in Italian, and just got back from a semester in Rome. In her free time, she reads, crochets, runs, and spends too much money on coffee. This is her second year editing Re:Visions, and she is so grateful for the opportunity to publish these amazing writers.
Connor Kaufmann is an ambitious third-year student studying history at the University of Notre Dame. His cat, Peanut, just took his first plane ride to Philadelphia. Weeee! He aspires to one day be an owner of a pet woolly mouse. As part of the design team, he hopes this journal is as fun to read as it was to design!
Sbeydi Ponce Duarte is a hard-working fourth-year mechanical engineering student at the University of Notre Dame. She enjoys building robots, helping others, and finding reasons to smile. Outside of her professional life, she aspires to continue creating artworks and expanding her wardrobe with classical and romantic fashion. As part of the design team, she hopes this journal is as fun to read as it was to design!
