Chameleon 2017 Issue

Chameleon 2017

The 2017 Chameleon Editor-in-Chief Kendall Manning

Faculty Advisor

Professor Sean Prentiss We would like to give a special thanks to Jacque Day, Michael Kabay, and Kathryn Alberghini!

The Allan Nason Prose Prize

Allan Leonard Hastings Nason (1889-1970) was a Norwich graduate of 1920. Nason was an untamed spirit, and it shows in his writing. He wrote about war and soldiers, and his characters are not respectful of authority. Typically, they are trying to find a way to come out ahead, though not at the expense of the war effort. His accounts of war focus on an individual in relation to the whole war machine, and the way the machine grinds all down. The Allan Nason Prose Prize goes to the best piece of prose that deals with Corps of Cadetslife or war.

The Robert Halleck Poetry Prize

Robert Halleck is a 1964 graduate of Norwich University. He lives in Del Mar, California, with two retired racing greyhounds and fills his days with poetry, golf, and volunteer caregiving with a local hospice.

He has written poetry for over 50 years and published three poetry books. His latest, Cabbages and Kings, is available as an e-book on Amazon. His works appear frequently depending on the level of rejection notices in various magazines and poetry blogs. The Robert Halleck Poetry Prize is awarded to the best poem by a Norwich student.

Chameleon Award for Outstanding Achievement in Creative Writing

The Chameleon Award for Outstanding Achievement in Creative Writing is decided on by Chameleon editors and highlights the best creative writing written by a Norwich University student.

Table of Contents Better Together, Bailey Beltramo.............................................................................................................. 1 I Love Him, Danielle Boucher................................................................................................................... 3 Echo Taps, Bailey Beltramo....................................................................................................................... 7 Dirty Grey, Rebecca Friend...................................................................................................................... 8 Johnny’s Time, Bennett Herdeman.......................................................................................................... 9 Skin, Rebecca Friend............................................................................................................................... 18 It’s Just a Grapefruit, Catherine Brennan............................................................................................... 19 Untitled, SMH........................................................................................................................................... 21 Song to Mother Nature, Emran Babak.................................................................................................... 22 Unifying Elements, Sheridan Steiner...................................................................................................... 23 Buried Love, Sheridan Steiner................................................................................................................. 24 Over Hill, Under Hill, Christian Albrecht............................................................................................. 25 Above the Clouds, Bailey Beltramo......................................................................................................... 29 When Winter’s Gone, Morgan Woods.................................................................................................... 31 Paradise Waters, Kendall Manning........................................................................................................ 33 War Never Changes, Tyler Wells............................................................................................................. 34 Windows, Charles Dodos........................................................................................................................ 35 Once Upon A Dream, Sheridan Steiner.................................................................................................. 39 Untitled, SMH........................................................................................................................................... 40 In A Split Second, Bailey Beltramo......................................................................................................... 41 Song to My Alarm Clock, Hunter Hammond........................................................................................ 44 Five Questions with Kayla Williams, Dana DeMartino......................................................................... 45 Natural Instincts, Kendall Manning..................................................................................................... 47

“Stomp” Cover image by Sheridan Steiner “Broken Memories” Back cover image by Sheridan Steiner

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Better Together, Bailey Beltramo

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I Love Him Danielle Boucher

I Love Him when I’m seven and he wakes me up at the beach. Our beach. Hawks Nest Beach. The beach we went to for a week every summer until the divorce. Even then we tried for another year. We split costs.

We split rooms. All it resulted in was split hearts.

I Love Him as I’m woken up at 4 a.m. The earliest a little girl like me had ever dreamed of waking up.

He packs the sandwiches and provides me with the milk and Ovaltine to make the travel chocolate milks.

He drinks all of his before we leave.

I Love Him even though I don’t realize that he drank his chocolate milk before we leave so that he would be able to have his first beer while driving us to the fishing boat. At 9 a.m. With me in the passenger seat.

I Love Him even when he tells me I can only bring two juice boxes because he has to be able to fit all of his beer. We’re on the boat from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m.

I Love Him but question this love for the first time when I’m coming down the stairs from my room. I hear him call my mother a bitch and wince, not sure whether the insult is meant for me or for her.

However, at this point it doesn’t matter because she and I are already so close that the things he says and does to her hurt me in ways that are monumentally larger than they are for her.

I Love Him, but it hurts when, at my cousin’s wedding, he chooses to go have a beer instead of dancing with me, when all of the other fathers and daughters are dancing. He picked the alcohol. I hated that feeling. Little did I know that I would grow used to it. I hate the feeling I get when I see how much him choosing anything over me affects my mom.

I Love Him, but after the divorce my mom told me that when she could picture herself picking one of the empty beer bottles off of the counter and smashing him over the head with it repeatedly until the cops showed up, she knew it was time for a divorce. At the time I didn’t understand why that was what she wanted to do. Now, at 19, I do.

I Love Him but am mad when we drive two hours to meet him so we could go to his house for

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the weekend and we wait almost 45 minutes. I am crushed when we get a call from him in which he explains that he was pulled over going 90 mph coming to pick us up. He told us it was because he was “late” and was “making up time.” My mom found the arrest online. He was drunk. There were a lot of beer bottles in the car. My mom cried. Not for him. But for the fact that he was willing to put us in his car.

I Love Him, and I love that he never would fight my mom on paying half of the sports bills and half of the back-to-school equipment, and half everything else. Until he lost his job.

I Love Him, but when he lost his job for taking pills he no longer had a prescription for, getting himself fired, I lost a little bit. Not because he took pain pills. Not because he was fired. But because he won’t take ownership of anything. He won’t take ownership of the fact that he wasn’t able to pay my mom child support. He won’t take ownership of the fact that his problems, his mistakes, and his bad decisions are the reason for so much struggling and trouble in our lives.

I Love Him, but I hate him for the fact that even though my mother and our family had to go without things she wanted and needed and wanted us to have, my dad still had his beer.

I love Him, but I hate him.

I Love Him, and that night I thought I’d lose him. I got the phone call at 8:17 at night from the tow truck driver. He had found my dad’s phone in the backseat of his car after he towed away from his one car collision into the rock barrier at mile marker 67 on I-91 S. I Love Him, but why were there no skid marks? It was the middle of the day. You weren’t asleep. There were no bottles in the car. You weren’t drunk. You weren’t coming to see us, why were you there? The weather was beautiful, it was summer, why did you crash?

I Love Him, but I’m terrified of the reasons that I think he may have crashed.

I Love Him, and I was right. I was sitting with him three or so weeks after the accident. We were talking.

I was the only one who had visited that day.

I Love Him, but why did you have to utter the words, “Danielle, what if I did it on purpose?”

I Love Him, but I hate him when he tells me that it was my fault. That I never answered his texts enough.

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I didn’t appreciate him. He couldn’t do right by me. Me. I’m the reason he crashed into the wall. Me. I’m the common denominator.

I Love Him, but I hate the spiral he sends me and my heart and my emotions and my life into after that comment.

I Love Him, but I don’t tell people what he said at first. I sit with it. It’s my fault.

I Love Him, but when he recovers, almost completely, I’m frustrated. I find myself angry. I find myself wanting something wrong. I want there to be something that makes him change. I want there to be something that is a reason for him to not work. I want there to be a reason for him to put down the bottle. I want there to be a reason for him to pick something, anything over the alcohol. But there’s not.

He’s still at home. He’s still drinking.

I Love Him when he gets a job. I’m so incredibly proud of him when he gets a job. But then he doesn’t go.

He lies. Says his mother’s dying, that he needs to be with her. She’s not. She’s fine. He tells us it’s the pain, which is possible I suppose, but he stays home. He drinks.

I Love Him, but when I do end up talking to him I can hear the beer dripping through the phone.

I make things quick and end the call.

I Love Him, but when my mom comes up for my lacrosse game this semester and brings me, my brother, and my boyfriend to get food here on campus, she has news. It’s the kind of news that she has to preface with “Your father’s alive.” I lose all of my breath, every inch of me aches. He’s done it again.

This time trying harder. It didn’t work, whether they weren’t deep enough or in the wrong places, he woke up. He went on with his day until he told a friend, who instructed him to get help.

They want to give him meds, but he’s going to drink. Most of those meds mixed with alcohol are sickening. He doesn’t have a way to the hospital because he lives alone. Once again, so many different people are willing to help. There’s so many things that could fix all of this. But again, he chooses the alcohol.

I Love Him, but again, it’s my fault. I’m here at college. I’m too far away. I don’t contact him. I don’t answer his calls. I don’t answer his texts.

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I Love Him, but I hate that when I talk to my mom I have to ask if he’s alive.

I Love Him, but I hate how much hurt he’s caused my mother, both directly to her and through me.

She worries about me constantly, as any mother would. The difference? Usually, the other mothers are worrying over nothing. I can tell she’s exhausted.

I Love Him, but I hate that he’s left me with so much doubt surrounding that. My mom always tells me that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m living. I’m doing what I need to do to live my life. He does not dictate my life.

I Love Him, and I’m trying to accept that. I’m trying to piece together that it’s not my fault. But it’s incredibly hard.

I Love Him, but he’s hurt my mom, he’s hurt my brother, he’s hurt my family, and he’s hurt himself.

I don’t know how to fix the situation and that scares me. I truly enjoy what I’m doing, however how can I pick school over him?

I Love Him, but overall, I’ve picked my mother, which I feel is fair.

I Love Him, but he has picked alcohol over me many times, and I don’t see a time where that will ever change.

“I Love Him, but I hate that he’s left me with so much doubt surrounding that.”

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Echo Taps Bailey Beltramo

Silence – not fragile, but firm, a tempered, shatter proof glass – rolls in on cool autumn air, rippling red and white stripes as it passes through flag folds and settles on the UP mass of NU collar brass and grey tunics, it’s tested only by the shuffling of patent leathers on concrete, as feet find their places beneath a sea of stone faces in platoon formations.

Silence – broken – by the low vibration tones of wind through brass tubes as a bugler’s mournful notes echo from Centennial Stairs to Goodyear Gate, off the walls of Jackman and through the halls of Dodge, and rushes over the ears and skin of the cadets who stand quiet. Bearing is broken as goose bumps ripple to life and hairs stand on end, electrified by the haunting melody that sends a shiver down the spine.

Silence – returning, not an accidental kind, but purposeful – an echo left screaming by those too far gone to ever again hear their voices or this mournful song; they have been discharged from human service. A tribute from all who raise their hands as one in a salute of honor to those who stand in their own solemn rows, and now forever rest in, Silence.

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Dirty Grey, Rebecca Friend

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Johnny’s Time Bennett Herdeman

He set his pack down and propped his rifle up next to a post. Silent sentinels surrounded him, dutifully watching over the quiet Virginia country side. In the newly awakening fields they were lined up, like blown over picket fences after a storm had passed. In the woods they were haphazardly strewn about. The effect was chilling.

Johnny shuddered, in spite of the warm sunshine, as he pulled his blanket out of his haversack.

He had seen horrible things recently, thousands of men cut down, pieces of their bodies flying in every direction. He heard men, mortally wounded, laying in pools of blood, surrounded by ever-growing mounds of comrades and former enemies, pleading for an end in whatever voice they could force out of their shattered bodies. Johnny had answered their prayers, sometimes with vengeance, usually with mercy. He slipped and slid in pools of blood. He bathed and drank from crimson streams. Yet nothing he had seen had prepared him for this sight.

He fished in the pocket of his filthy gray trousers and removed a well-worn pouch of tobacco. As he filled his pipe he was careful to keep his eyes focused on the menial task at hand. Only when he had finished stuffing the bowl and sat down to relax to a quick smoke did he allow himself to take in the horror that engulfed him.

There were thousands of them. The heavy spring rains had washed away the feeble covers of their shallow graves, turning the make-shift cemetery inside out. It had only been a year since the previous battle raged over this otherwise tranquil land but it seemed like a lifetime had passed. For the remains of the bodies of the soldiers lying silently in the warm afternoon sun, it had.

The Blue and the Gray armies met here last May in a terrible day-long battle. Johnny remembered it with a churning feeling in his gut. Eager, motivated young men clashed together, living out their fantasies of chivalry and grandeur yet enduring atrocities no sane mind could fathom. They intended to continue the time-honored tradition, experiencing the romance of war and warriors. Instead they slaughtered each other. Young city and country boys, using modern weapons too sophisticated for any of them to understand, respect, or fear, under the guidance of equally ignorant leaders who had never studied this type of warfare at West Point, stood in perfect rows in these fields and orchards and blew

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each other to bits. Both sides, battered and bloodied, staggered away at the end of that day, horrified from their first taste of modern war. Their encounter left disturbing fingerprints on the landscape.

Nature, however, had worked its rejuvenating magic on this former battlefield in Chancellorsville, Va. Where last year the fields were covered in human debris left behind by armies at war, flowers now pushed hesitantly up from the fertile soil. In another time this would have been a pleasant sight, one in which Johnny could have reveled while smoking, if not for the many flowers working their way through the bones of the fallen men. It was the most unsettling thing Johnny had ever seen.

Just over the ridge was the spot where General Jackson had been fatally shot, a long, long year ago. In spite of what he knew, Johnny had always kept his silence about that day, but it was something that haunted him to this day. He shuddered and looked away.

This was a much different Johnny than the one that started out to war three years ago. When the cannons opened up on Fort Sumter in the spring of his twelfth year, a new life opened up for him. His father died when Johnny was eight, leaving him to take over the Tennessee farm. He was of average size, but he worked hard and his tenacity compensated for his stature.

His mother insisted he learn to read. He resisted at first, but once he discovered the stories of the glorious Roman gladiators and the pageantry of war they described he was hooked. He devoured any book involving military history that he could get his hands on. He taught himself horse and marksmanship, becoming an expert at both, not only because the rural farm life required it, but more importantly to emulate his military heroes. Studying the campaigns of former generals and admirals, Johnny showed particular interest in the infantry and cavalry tactics developed by Friedrich the Great.

He drew them in the dirt and committed them to memory, dreaming of the day he could take his rightful place amongst his own fellow countrymen, fighting for his homeland. He read with a voracious appetite, stealing away time from his chores every possible chance he could, to read by the muddy stream that ran through the east side of the family’s property. He regularly traded books with the old schoolmaster in town who shared his passion and seemed to have an endless supply on hand.

Johnny documented his acquired knowledge, writing in a small black journal he kept with him at all times. He wrote of his future battles and strategies, waiting for his turn. The tone of his journal transformed quickly as his experiences on the battlefields of Tennessee and Virginia taught him the true meaning of modern war. The pages no longer described the glamour he previously associated with war.

Previous delusions were swept away by the sights, sounds, smell, and taste of mortal combat. The dust,

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heat, gunpowder, tears, and blood lent a sense of realism to his narrative that no homogenized, storebought book could ever hope to accomplish. The ragged pages of his journal were stained with misery.

In spite of his written accounts, Johnny’s memory had begun failing him a few months ago. The losses were isolated at first - forgetting the name of his faithful hound dog Fred, drawing a complete blank when trying to tell Otis about his second grade school teacher - but now the incidents ebbed and flowed relentlessly, pounding his head like the turbulent waves of a windy bay.

Johnny no longer knew where he had come from. The Tennessee of his childhood had slipped and faded from his memory. He couldn’t remember his mother’s face. His journal gave him some sense of bearing but it too seemed to be affected by the ominous shadow that enveloped his brain. Pages that had once been full of Johnny’s surprisingly elegant writing were now bleached white like some whale he vaguely remembered reading about. New pages appeared overnight. Other pages, once narrating his escapades long ago on the farm, were now saturated with strange squiggles that Johnny assumed were words in another language. The peculiar markings had worked their way across the pages of his journal until only one entry remained that he could still comprehend. The entry was from less than a year ago and he had read it several times this very morning, fearful it too would mutate into the foreign looking words that contributed to the obliteration of his memory. He read it once again. ___________________________________________________________________________________ June 29, 1862-Chickahominy River, Virginia We spent most of the day stalled at the Chickahominy. It was a welcome rest after all the marchin we’ve been undergoing of late.

When we got to the river, if you can call it that, the old man decided the blasted bridge had to be rebuilt, so that’s what was done. The water looked to be no more than two or three feet deep and looked like it could easily be forded, but no one was going to tell that to Old Jack. He said rebuild the Grapevine Bridge so that’s what we went about doin. Oddly enuff the engineers that were normally responsible for buildin bridges sat with us, ate and played cards while some of the Rev. Major’s men worked on the bridge. I’m too exhausted at this point to try and figure that one out. Maybe fatigue is weighin heavily on the General’s mind as well. I don’t know. Don’t really care. I’m tired enuff for the both of us.

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Every once in a while, whenever the officers were busy or just didn’t care, a handful of Yanks would sneak down to the opposite banks and yell over at us. Hell, they were just kids! After exchangin the usual round

of insults and braggin about what we were going to do to each other come tomorrow, the conversation always turned to the necessities of army life.

“Hey Reb, got any tobacco?”

“Maybe.” Of course we did.

“Give me some.”

“If you’ve got some coffee maybe we can talk.”

Of course they did too. It’s just a ritual we go through to break the monotony. In fact, while on picket duty a few weeks back, we shared a cabin with some Yank pickets, arrivin at dusk and holdin the cabin until daybreak, leavin just before the Yanks showed up at dawn. We left tobacco fer them and they always left coffee fer us. Most times there would be a hot pot sittin on the stove waitin. We almost walked in on them once but when we realized they were still there, we made our way back into the woods until they left. We left a note for them later telling them to keep better track of time. We’d hate to have to shoot them. They got a kick out of it and wrote us back about what they were going to do to us whenever they saw us on the battlefield.

So we spent most of this morning sendin coffee and tobacco back and forth across the river in little boats made from newspapers. I always get a charge out of readin what the Yanks think they are going to do to us. Why don’t they just leave us alone?

After lunch I won six dollars playin Poker with four of the engineers. They got frustrated and went back to bridge buildin.

At about three o’clock in the afternoon, the General sprawled out on the open ground and went to sleep.

I think I will too. I haven’t heard a gunshot since yesterday. Maybe we’ll get a few day’s rest. HA! Better do it while I can. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Still lost in thought, Johnny finished his smoke and instinctively scattered the ashes on the ground, yielding to the habit he picked up from the scouts, a time he no longer consciously remembered. He closed his journal and looked up, tormented and frightened by his grisly surroundings. The other men were going about the business of preparing for the imminent Blue onslaught. Sarge said to be ready before daybreak.

Johnny worked diligently, shoveling mounds of dark, rich Virginia soil, building a barrier in front of the

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the trench and clearing a small area for him and his fellow soldiers to move around in as they set up their killing station. Sweat poured down his face and back. He was able to ignore the neighboring skeletons as long as he kept busy, but now that he was finished and resting on his blanket he couldn’t keep his mind off them.

No matter which direction he faced, skulls penetrated him with vacant stares. He closed his eyes and tried to think of other things, but nothing could keep out the macabre scene.

Unable to sleep, Johnny pulled out a stub of pencil he had recently procured from a dead Blue soldier and began writing. The words that came from his hand, while appearing to be English did not form words that made sense to Johnny. Yet he didn’t, or couldn’t stop. The words flowed effortlessly across the page and with them, Johnny’s remaining memory. By the time he was finished, Johnny couldn’t remember yesterday.

Johnny slept fitfully that night, tossing and turning as he fought off the rotting corpses that invaded his dreams. Over and over, the dead rose from their resting-places to fall on him. His limbs twitched as the bodies piled on, crushing his chest and driving his final breath from his lungs. To his horror, it was a feeling he was becoming accustomed to.

He awoke abruptly as shots thundered out from the woods surrounding him. Dawn was just breaking; the Blue attack was beginning. As he looked up, Johnny saw the shadows of several hundred men running from the woods about four hundred yards down the right flank. Rapid flashes from the muzzles of their rifles confirmed they were using Spencers like Buford’s men had at Gettysburg. They were called “Yanks 7 Devils” for good reason. A man could fire seven shots as quick as he could cock the hammer. The men defending that position were in for a tough fight, but they had some good breastworks in front of them that should just about even the odds. The frantic digging yesterday could prove to be the edge the defenders needed, but the appearance of the Spencers, as always, caused the defenders to emit a noticeable groan.

Johnny jumped up, fastening his ammunition belt, grabbed his Springfield and pushed his way to the barricade. He saw an opening in the row of men lined up along the wood and dirt barrier, and jostled himself into position. He loaded his rifle last night before he went to sleep, so he was ready to fire as soon as he could get the barrel over the top of the wall.

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Reaching the wall, he raised the gun to his shoulder and quickly lined up the sights. He now saw thousands of shadows charging out of the woods in front of him. In an hour the sun at his back would be a great advantage, obscuring the vision of the crashing wave of blue, but for now it provided only enough light to

allow Johnny to slightly distinguish one shadow from another.

The closest advancing figure presented the best target. Johnny cocked the hammer, aimed and squeezed the trigger. A direct hit. The man fell like a stone. At this range and with this kind of time, there was no way he could miss. But time was limited. The swarm was great. Where were all these Blue soldiers coming from? No time to think about that now.

The only way the Gray soldiers could match the firepower of the advancing Blue repeating rifles was to shoot in tandem. Three or four men gathered together in groups along the wall in a coordinated effort that they had experimented with and gradually perfected during previous battles. After firing his rifle, the soldier at the wall stepped back to the rear of the group to reload as the next man, rifle loaded and ready, stepped up to take his place. A trained infantryman can reload, aim and fire a Springfield twice a minute with decent accuracy. Under conditions like this, however, aim was of little importance due to the sheer volume of advancing troops. You could point and shoot and still have a good chance of hitting someone.

With four men working together in this fashion, an almost continuous rate of fire can be sustained.

As Johnny turned to step back from the barricade to reload, a bullet whisked past his left ear, knocking his cap off and exploding into the jaw of the soldier next to him. The private’s face disintegrated in a shower of red.

Johnny scrambled down to his knees, splattered with the blood and bone of his comrade, and crawled back behind the men who were busy reloading their rifles. He followed the routine that had now become instinctive to him as another wounded man, a Corporal from Alabama, lay screaming at Johnny’s feet, his cries blending in with the sounds of gunfire and confused, charging men.

Crouching, Johnny intuitively placed his four foot eight inch rifle upright between his feet at a distance of approximately eight inches from his body. His right hand removed one of the forty, paper-wrapped powder-and-bullet cartridges from the box on his belt and moved up to place the powdered end between his teeth. He bit down on the paper and broke the cartridge in half. He brought the torn cartridge to the muzzle of the rifle and poured the powder in. The screams of the dying soldier were fading away.

Johnny removed the remains of the paper, tossed it aside and seated the Minié bullet in the bore.

The Minie’ heats up and expands in the barrel as it’s fired, allowing the bullet to take full advantage of the rifling grooves. The simple innovation of cutting grooves into the inside of the barrel raised the effective range of the rifle ten-fold, from less than fifty yards to five-hundred yards. The accuracy at these distances

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is equally impressive. One time at four-hundred yards, Johnny put eight out of ten shots into a silhouette of a man in the stove-pipe hat.

With the bullet in place in the muzzle, he reached for the rammer, pulling it out of its holder under the walnut stock and using it to drive the bullet down the barrel onto the powder charge. A kid from Mississippi fell to the left of him, taking a bullet to the chest. The boy fell onto Johnny’s leg but he hardly noticed, so intense was his terror.

Johnny replaced the rammer in its slot and lifted the weapon. He pulled the hammer back to the half-cocked position and reached into his cap pouch. He removed a copper percussion cap but in his excitement dropped it on the fallen soldier. Fumbling in his pouch, he grabbed another and placed the cap on the nipple at the rifle’s breech. Having completed the preparations, he moved up to take his turn at the wall.

Less than thirty seconds had gone by since Johnny started his mechanical actions, and two men in his group had fired their weapons during the time it took Johnny to reload. There was one soldier remaining before him at the wall. A loud roar rumbled from the boy’s gun and he turned to vacate his spot.

Smoke surrounded the area where the soldier had stood.

Johnny stepped up to the wall and brought the nine-pound gun to his shoulder. He still saw thousands of shadows pouring out of the woods. The ice-cold terror began to work its way up his spine. There were so many of them, and they all seemed to be firing directly at him. Bullets thudded into the wood and dirt barrier that separated him from being torn to pieces.

He thumbed the hammer to the full-cock position and aligned the opened “V” with the blade sight at the muzzle. His finger moved to the trigger and after quickly locating a moving form through the sights, he squeezed. The gun roared in his ears. There was no way to tell if he had hit anyone. There were too many shadows running and falling out in the field, and the impatience of the next soldier moving into position at the wall, forced Johnny to move to the rear without looking to follow his shot.

Over and over Johnny reloaded his rifle, firing into the continuous swarming line of men. The taste of powder in his mouth was nauseating, and he gagged frequently.

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Dead silence.

A single puff of smoke from one of a thousand rifles.

But Johnny saw it with the clarity of an eagle’s eye. He rose, rooted to the bloody ground, unable to move his feet. A lone puff of smoke.

Nothing else existed. The world had stopped spinning, frozen in that horrible moment.

Images flooded into Johnny’s head, too fast to grasp. Faces, one after another, too many to count, one blurring into the next crashed together like a kaleidoscope. He stood face-to-face with a Roman Legion as the broad sword came crashing down. A tattered Russian plunged his ax into Johnny’s back.

A black man dressed only in a cloth hanging from his waist aimed a spear at Johnny’s chest. A wild-eyed, pony-tailed man, flamboyantly dressed, pulled a long barreled pistol from his waistband and fired into Johnny’s face.

The blast of the buccaneer’s pistol brought Johnny back to the Virginia battlefield. The clamor hung like a blanket over Johnny’s shoulders as he stood in the destroyed meadow. The absence of movement and the sudden silence after the pirate disappeared made Johnny feel as if he were in a box.

A dark box.

A coffin!

He stood transfixed, a lone puff of smoke rising slowly from a solitary rifle hundreds of yards away, a whisk of cotton expanding in the wind. Slowly, ever so slowly, a tiny black mass emerged from the smoke created by the blue soldier’s rifle. Johnny still couldn’t move.

The black object flowed from the end of the single, solitary rifle’s barrel over two-hundred yards away, tediously splitting the expanding smoke cloud in two. Johnny stood motionless, mesmerized by the sight.

The orb inched sluggishly forward, moving like a marble through molasses. Slowly, agonizingly slow, but steady, relentless. The object increased in size as it progressed towards Johnny.

He recognized it as a ball, knew it was a bullet. His eyesight sharpened ten-fold, beyond that of any animal. From over a hundred yards away he saw the spinning chunk of lead moving toward him, could distinguish the scratches left behind from its explosive journey through the rifle’s barrel, etched into the sides of the advancing mass.

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Erupting from the silence, a sound traveled with lightning speed across the meadow, moving directly towards Johnny. It chased the bullet across the field in a deadly hare and tortoise race. The rapidly escalating sound wave roared across the clearing, in turn increasing the speed and momentum of the lead ball until they ran neck-and-neck in a race to Johnny. The surreal, silent, slow motion world of a split-second ago accelerated with lightning speed. The sounds of war, accumulated since time began, converged simultaneously in Johnny’s ears. All the cries, all the sorrow, all the anger, all the pain exploded in his eardrums and ruptured at the exact moment the bullet slammed into his brain.

He set his pack down and propped his rifle up next to a post. Johann shuddered, in spite of the warm sunshine, as he pulled his blanket out of his haversack. He fished in the pocket of his filthy gray trousers and removed a well-worn pouch of tobacco, rolled a cigarette and began writing in a tattered black journal.

The words that came from his hand, while appearing to be German did not form words that made sense. Ashes spilled over the pages. Yet Johann didn’t, or couldn’t, stop. The words flowed effortlessly across the page and with them, Johann’s remaining memory. By the time he was finished, he couldn’t remember yesterday.

At fourteen, he was one of the senior members in his ragtag battalion. The regular Grey armies had scattered to the winds months ago and there was no one left to defend the Fatherland but boys and old men. The old men died off at a much quicker rate, or simply disappeared overnight leaving nothing but the fanatical youths. For weeks they had fought a losing battle against the relentless Red army.

Their backs were now at the walls of Berlin.

Johann closed his journal and ground his cigarette out against the crumbling wall he was leaning against. Erupting from the silence, a sound traveled with lightning speed down the battered stone road, moving directly towards him.

At the same moment a squad of Red soldiers burst around the corner, machine-guns blazing. Johann grabbed for his rifle. Running at full speed, a short, red-faced man in a Red uniform lifted his gun up to his cheek.

They say you never see the fatal bullet coming.

Johann did.

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Skin, Rebecca Friend

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It’s Just A Grapefruit Catherine Brennan

The day was a typical North Carolinian day in late August, on the seventh year when the cicadas sang in the trees and left their shells for children to collect and leave on their mothers’ pillows. It was unbearably hot and humid, but the gentle breeze stirring up the white curtains in the kitchen windows brought relief to the family in the kitchen. I could hear it, the breeze, blowing softly past my ears as I sat at the kitchen table, gazing towards the window. The basil on the dresser in front of the window was one of my favorite things to look at. It sat in the shade behind the curtains, because basil wilts in the sun.

I had just returned from a hard day of playing outside in the backyard with the two dogs. Angus, a wily Scottish terrier, was lapping up water from the dark blue bowl, soaking his mustache and getting water all over the floor. Bitzen, who was a lovely Shetland sheepdog, didn’t really like to play and preferred to lie in the sun by the back door. My Papa was sitting beside me on the left side of the table, reading a book.

Holding the book open while he munched on some chips was the Handy Piece of Lead, which was simply a lead bar with “Handy Piece of Lead II” engraved in it. His Papa had it, and it had been passed down, used for nothing more than holding open books and occasionally threatening naughty children.

My Grandma entered the house from the porch with fresh sprigs of rosemary in her left hand and scissors in her right. I could smell the fragrant herb from my place at the table, which made me smile. It wasn’t hard to make my eight-year-old self smile. Grandma poured a glass of scotch on the rocks, then chopped up the rosemary on the cutting board. I watched her, mesmerized by the simple, precise motions. My Grandma was the best cook in the world.

My aunt, Aunt Cherry, came into the kitchen and took the bottle of vodka out of the cabinet, having a couple of swallows before wiping her lips on the sleeve of her grey pajama shirt. She worked night shift as a security guard, so she slept all day, but she always came downstairs to give me an afternoon snack.

I shifted in the wooden chair, my stomach rumbling. Grandma must have heard it, because she turned to Cherry. “Katrinka needs a wolf-away, Cherrita.” I grinned, showing the gap in my teeth where I had recently lost one. Grandma rarely called someone by their actual name. She always used a name that was special and only for her to use.

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“The wolf must be very close,” Cherry replied as she bent over the fridge to see inside.

I leaned forward, though I had no hope of seeing the fridge interior. Cherry pulled out a large yellow-orange fruit. At first, I thought it was just a big orange. I didn’t like oranges, so I started to protest, until Cherry said, “Catie, this is a grapefruit.” She retrieved a cutting board, the one with a chip in it where Aunt Nori had beaten a bee into the ground, and set it on the granite counter. She cut the grapefruit in half, wrapping up half in plastic wrap and putting the other half on a tea saucer. She set the saucer in front of me. “There you go.” She sat across the table from Papa, who was still absorbed in his book.

The grapefruit was pink on the inside. I thought it looked tasty, so I took my spoon and scooped out a big bite. The instant it was in my mouth, I immediately regretted every decision I had ever made. It was so sour, it made me squeal and scrunch up my face. I spit it out onto the saucer, sticking my tongue out.

Cherry and Grandma laughed light-heartedly, and Papa glanced up with a smile. Once I had regained my bearing, I sweetly asked, “Aunt Cherry, may I please have some sugar?” Her answer surprised me. “Sugar will only make it more sour. If you put salt on it, it will be sweeter.”

I was baffled. How could sugar make something sourer? Being a typical kid, I loved sugar and anything to do with it, and I just didn’t see how this could be true. I didn’t believe Cherry, so I shook my head.

“Sugar please!”

Being an eight-year-old, naturally obsessed with sugar, I put several large spoonfuls on the grapefruit half, watching the juice soak up into the little white crystals. I could see Cherry watching with an amused look, but I paid no mind to it. I scooped up another big spoonful of grapefruit and put it in my mouth.

It was even worse than the first time. After recovering, I began piling more and more sugar until it became a thick pink paste over the grapefruit. Each bite I took, which were progressively smaller and smaller, was even sourer than the last. I just didn’t understand; how can sugar make something sour?

That much sugar can make someone thirsty, and I was getting really thirsty, but I had no drink.

Grandma brought me a glass of water, and I washed down the thick sugar paste. Cherry clicked her tongue, “I told you, use salt instead.” I let out a dramatic sigh, taking the walk of shame to the trashcan and dumping the half inside, watching it disappear into the white bag of waste. I sat back down at the table, resigned to take my experienced aunt’s advice, and watched as she put the other grapefruit half on my plate. She shook some salt from the shaker onto it and gave me a clean spoon. I scooped up a reasonable sized bite this time, glaring daggers at the offensive pink fruit. I put the spoon in my mouth, knowing that the salt would actually make it sweeter.

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I still didn’t like it, but hey, at least it wasn’t sour.

Once I had finished properly disposing of the heinous atrocity that is grapefruit, Grandma reminded me to wash my hands, because “sticky fingers are an anathema!” I washed my hands with a grin, using warm water and soap, of course.

When I was sitting back at the table eating chips instead, Papa closed his book and peered at me through his glasses, his grey moustache twitching as he smiled; he had that familiar humorous twinkle in his eyes.

“You know, Catie-bug, people are kind of like grapefruit sometimes.” I was extremely confused. How were people like grapefruit? I asked him, “Papa, whaddya mean?” He set his elbow on the table and replied, “well, sometimes people are sour. We try to give them sugar, and we mean well, but sometimes they really need salt.” I tilted my head, digesting the information. Then I grinned widely, feeling awfully clever, “and sometimes people will just be gross no matter what you give them!”

Papa laughed in that quiet way of his, reaching over and patting my head. “Yes, and sometimes, people don’t need salt or sugar at all. Sometimes, they need to be taken as they are.”

Untitled SMH

Waste your lies on a girl with violet eyes She may hear but doesn’t feel them Waste your breath on things you regret You can hope but you can’t change them Say you lost faith in the human race Did you decide that looking in the mirror?

Says she can’t begin to comprehend But could it be any clearer?

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Song to Mother Nature Emran Babak

I appreciate the nice and chilly breeze which I feel early in the morning, me to seize the day.

I thank you for the softest touches of the sun rays that soothe my bones during summer time by the beaches that show us the infinite end of the blue oceans.

I appreciate the existence of the stars, which make the dark and haunted night tolerable.

I praise the birds that sing the peace and love’s song on the tree right besides my window, which I listen to every morning.

I praise the deep oceans and the life underneath it, specially watching when it swallows the sun when the gorgeous colors of the sky and the ocean blow my mind and make me say “Even heaven cannot be more beautiful than that.”

But why Mother Nature!?!

Why the breeze must get so cold that it makes us freeze as soon as we feel it?

Why do you want to keep the sunshine away from me during the cold winter days when I need it the most?

Why I cannot reach the stars when I feel like touching one? Why are beautiful things always unreachable?

Why would you make the birds run away from the tree in my backyard by bringing winter and destroying their nest?

Why would you take my paradise away from me and turn it into a cold, dark, and scary place in which every single living thing tries to find a place to be safe?

You know what Mother Nature?

I will give another chance.

As the old saying goes: “Everyone deserves a second chance”

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23

Unifying Elements, Sheridan Steiner

Buried Love Sheridan Steiner

Love

you either bury it or it buries you

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Over Hill, Under Hill Christian Albrecht

The forest is silent except for the occasional rustle of the wind through the tops of the trees as I pick my way through the wide path cut through the various poplars, beeches, and spruce trees. The path is seven feet across and can accommodate a truck with ease. Two deep ruts line both sides of the road and act as small channels for the spring snow melt that is now beginning to subside. The trees are in full bloom and the canopy of deciduous trees offers a green tint as the sun rays beam down through the forest. The ferns and various grasses have made the middle of the trail a green strip down the path. Many forests across the planet look similar to this one and have many of the same qualities as this deciduous and coniferous forest. But there is something about this particular forest that sets it apart from many others and makes it a familiar and sentimental home for many families. The connection between the landowners of the area and the forest is what gives it its identity and makes it such a storied area.

According to the map, this place is located in Andover, Vermont, and is nothing more than a small network of steep hills with half a dozen farms nestled away in the folds of the hills. To the locals it is known as “Finn Hill,� because of the large population of Finnish immigrants who settled in the area in the times between the Great Depression and the beginning of World War II. At the time, Vermont was a place of opportunity for low-income immigrants, and Andover became a home away from home for many Finnish-Americans. The large amounts of unsettled land and seasonal precipitation made the state suitable for farming and an attractive destination for hard-working people. One of these families to call Andover home was the Kalinens who resided at 365 East Hill Road. Much like the rest of the residents of the hill, they had golden-blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.

One of the five sons of this family permanently left his mark on the land. His name was Pete Kalinen and he was my great-grandfather. Born on the kitchen table in that twelve-bedroom farm house, he spent almost all of his life walking the woods on the property that he was born on, and eventually he made a living from it. His great love, though, was the art of logging and the transportation of lumber to various mills, and it is this very thing that ties my family so closely to this land and to the land that my grandparents now live on.

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As I continue to walk along this path that wanders the woods, I notice that there is a great variety in both the type of trees present as well as the size of these trees. I gaze through the forest and see poplars, beeches, maples, birches, firs, and pines scattered across the forest like the stars in the sky. They say that the apple

fell from the tree and was thrown haphazardly into the air and allowed to scatter and grow all across the ground. I continue to scan the area, and I see that most of these trees are young and thin with a handful of large trees mixed in. The large trees that remain tend to be crooked and irregular in shape, almost as if they were left there on purpose. Crooked trees were difficult to mill and were often tossed aside. Rather than cut them down needlessly, my great grandfather let them stand where they were as markers for navigation. I come to a point in the trail where there are two large and rotting hemlock stumps situated on either side of the road. The remnants of the stumps still boast the level cut mark that can be found on countless stumps just like these two across the plot of land. My grandmother and my father’s father always commented on how skilled my great-grandfather was with a saw and his handiwork still speaks for itself to this day. He was known around the house as Buppa and it is a very fitting name for the short Finnish man with the fiery personality.

While looking at these two stumps I can almost see Buppa standing behind the larger of the two hemlocks with his twenty inch Stihl saw in his meaty hands and the steel cable choker wrapped around the tree and the other end of the cable attached to another tree. Larger trees occasionally needed some persuasion to fall into the right position, and a fellow tree offered just the right leverage.

Buppa was usually the shortest man in his crew, despite being the boss. It was probably a two or three-person job with one at the saw and one or two near the other end of the choker to make sure that the tree fell where it was supposed to. Buppa almost always had the chainsaw and was an expert at felling trees where he wanted them. The rest of the crew would do their best to keep the cable taut and stay out of the way of the freshly cut timber. This was by no means a large production, but it was enough for my Buppa to be able to provide for his wife and two children, Janet and Paul. Janet is my grandmother and walks with the same bowed gait as her father used to. If you look closely at her, you can see his eyes and golden hair. He also had the occasional assistance from his brothers who lived down the road from the farmhouse on the top of Finn Hill.

This trail that I am using as little more than a hiking path was once an artery through the forest from the white farmhouse to the big timbers scattered across the large three-hundred-acre property. A property filled with hills, valleys, ridges, and creeks made the job of road building no easy task and one that took considerable time. The road extended in length each year as Buppa had to scour deeper into the woods to find the necessary lumber. He would drive out his 1942 Jeep Willys into new reaches of the property and scout out the newest edition to the lumber mill. This is how these roads started, with a lone man in a Jeep weaving in and out of the trees. What used to be a road with purpose and direction is now just a forgotten path that meanders across a backwoods Vermont property.

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I walk over to the other large stump to see just how large the tree was. The deteriorating stump extends further than my arm can reach across, with the old growth marks barely visible. As I inspect the stump I see something on the ground next to stump An old cable lying under another fallen log and barely protruding through the undergrowth. Sure enough, the frayed ends of the cable indicate that it had failed in its job to secure the falling tree and was left behind as a memorial for the job done here.

Growing up in the arid American southwest of New Mexico, I spent a large part of my childhood summers visiting my grandparents, walking their property and learning about who else might have walked those paths before me. Much of that time was also spent around their kitchen table conversing with my grandmother who was born and raised on the very same spit of land that she now resides on.

Mammy resembles Buppa with her silvery blonde hair, pale blue eyes, and slight build as she sits across the table from me. The house they live in now is located on the same property as the first Kalinen house, but is farther into the property and is accessed by what used to be the main logging road during the days of my great-grandfather. Like her father, my grandmother was born and was raised for most of her life in that same twelve-bedroom farmhouse with her one younger brother. Mammy enjoys recounting stories from her childhood about this property, so I let her share those stories with me. She talks about the type of tractor Buppa drove and the sound of the Jeep’s engine clunking through woods. I listen to her describe her early memories of her father and of his logging crew and I am amazed at how foreign all of this sounds to me. Being raised in the suburbs of a larger city, I wasn’t exposed to this type of manual labor on a daily basis and it wasn’t something I often thought about. She recounts the smell of her father’s clothes as he walked through the door at the end of each day. The smell of diesel fuel, saw dust, and chain oil fragrance on him as she hugs him each day.

This is a way of life that I have not previously heard about or even knew existed on such a scale.

She recalls many summers where her father would hire on two or three men to assist him during the logging season. She describes them as regular men who wore flannel shirts, thick denim pants, and stained leather logging boots. These are probably the men that I am imagining as I inspect the tree stumps and broken slack cable. They were hard-working and diligent men with a strong connection to the land they worked and had a deep appreciation for the forest and for its significance to their way of life.

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My grandmother was born in 1942 and grew up in the middle of the post-World War II era, which was teeming with manual labor and industry. She recalls, and photographs taken from that decade confirm this, that much of the state and hillsides were almost bare of trees. If you look at the hills of Andover and of most of Vermont today, you will be struck by the overwhelming canopy of trees that covers the entire landscape. The foliage is broken up only by the roads that crisscross the steep topography

and by the occasional farm and field. This was not the case during the turn of the twentieth century and the land remained that way for decades on into the 1950s. Farms and hay fields dominated the landscape and any wooded areas were being transformed into more fields for agricultural use. At that time approximately 78% of the state was considered to be open space full of fields and farmlands with only about 20% being forested. Today, these numbers have reversed and the state is almost overrun with trees and woody growth. This fact is overwhelmingly apparent to me as I walk along this path and see the resurgence of the forest in this area. The trees are resilient and will forever be a major identifying feature of the Vermont landscape. Twisted hemlocks and knotted fir trees litter this property and are callbacks to the stoic nature of the woods. Left alone and untouched, the trees will dig deeper into the soil and spread their appendages further into the skyline.

Buppa came into the logging industry just as the state began to move back towards its origins as a primarily forested state and when lumber was almost a scarcity. To his good fortune, the land that he grew up on was largely still a wooded area and full of enormous and straight trees. “Good plank wood,” he used to say in his thick, Finnish accent. Being a first generation American, he still carried the inflection of his parents and many English words seemed foreign when spoken by him. Along with being an expert woodsman, Buppa was also a gifted mechanic and fabricator. He and his brothers would take the chassis off scrap cars and convert them into homemade tractors. Doodlebugs, they used to call them.

Dozens of these old artifacts litter the landscape on Finn Hill. The Splittenpoppen was the mechanized wood splitter scrounged together from an old trailer bed and a hydraulic arm. Buppa was a man’s man, but his heart truly lies in the woods, and it was here that he thrived.

Everyone who knew him could tell you that he saw the forest differently from most people. For him it just wasn’t a beautiful and raw display of natural beauty, but it was also a gold mine with potential and purpose. Never did he seek to exploit or cause destruction to the forest without careful examination and consideration. But he did enjoy sawing the “board trees” as he called them and hauling them down his vast network of forest arterials back to the pulp truck. He would section the logs into smaller lengths and toss each length into the truck using the infamous pulp hook. It was nothing more than a curved spike with a handle, but it was a tool that only men who have been logging for decades could master. It required skill and an unbelievable strength that only developed from this specific trade. Anyone who volunteered to help him on the weekends was cursing his name the next morning and for many mornings to come. Those poor local town kids wouldn’t be able to pick up a spoon without their hands convulsing in pain.

Buppa became a master at the one-man pulp hook operation. And as he would clear areas of the forest he would always have a way of restoring the land to some state of repair and purpose. Evidence of this

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commitment is the dozens of small Christmas tree gardens littering the woods. He always had a soft spot for balsam firs, and they now exist in several “villages” all across Andover. These villages are slowly shrinking as one tree makes its way from the forest into my grandparent’s house each December, but that’s what Buppa had intended all along.

I pass between the rotting stumps and continue down the path that begins to veer to the right as it winds its way around the property. As the forest comes to an abrupt end, a field opens up before me. A field full of wildflowers and grasses that sway in the afternoon breeze is a reminder of the years long since passed, when much of the property that I stand on was an investment and a source of livelihood. It had served as farmland two hundred years before I ever laid eyes on it and had also served as a rugged logging property in the years of my great-grandfather. This is a history that is not written in any books that can be read, but instead it is written in the memories of my grandmother and in the stumps, stone walls, and countless logging roads that litter this landscape. It is a history of the lives shaped by the forest and a history of the forest that was shaped by the lives lived by so many people.

So as I pass through the field I see a small wooden structure at the far edge of the trees. I have seen it before and I know what it is. It is an old camper that was used as a logging hut by my grandfather and his crew

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Above the Clouds, Bailey Beltramo

during the summer. My grandmother says that they would trail these campers behind their trucks and place them in the middle of the woods to provide shelter and a place to sleep for the crew during the summer. Now it sits at the edge of a field as a memory and vestige of a time long since passed and a history that slowly fades with time. What was once a workable and usable tool for Buppa is now left to rot at the end of an old logging road. This camper is a memory of the relationship between man and nature and a reminder of how vital that relationship is to so many people. And as I walk passed the camper I see the black shingled roof of my grandparent’s house come into view through the trees.

Its white clapboard siding and large windows contrast with the vibrant green of the early summer foliage and I am home.

My family would not be where it is today if not for those woods and for the work that my greatgrandfather put into logging. I walk these trails and roads all across my grandparent’s expansive property and am constantly reminded of what used to be here. An old pulp hook left rusting on a stump and an old can half buried in the soil serve as callbacks to what used to be and what may be again. Though the forest has changed and will continue to change, the nature of its connection to my family and the other families on Finn Hill will not change. Those old logging roads will remain where they are for generations to come and will continue to tell the story of my Buppa and how he left his mark on this forest.

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WhenWinter’s Gone Morgan Woods

With the chime of the doorbell, you leave the diner with a belly full of coffee and a bag across your shoulder. Although it’s summer, you still take your coffee hot. There is something about gripping the mug, feeling its warmth radiate: It reminds you of the long winter nights when there was nothing to do but watch the fire crackle and the snow fall. But it is summer now. The sun is bright, and the air is humid.

Walking along the sidewalk, you pass hobby shops and boutiques. You pass a bank, towering over the town’s shops with its columns and arches. However, inside you know it is nothing more than vaulted office space, not even close to the grandeur its exterior implies. Continuing along the path you wind around a road lined with ancient elm trees, the branches bowed and bent from numerous storms.

Every time you walk past them, you marvel at how they can recover from lightning strikes, hurricanes, and car crashes—how something so lasting, so enduring, can be splintered so easily. You wonder how living things can recover from such deadly forces. You trace your hands around the scarred bark and try to remember what it would have looked like before. You try in vain; however, people never notice things until they are broken. You drop your hands and continue to the river.

At the end of the road, you reach a small wooden dock house. It reminds you of a log cabin with windows punched into it. Painted dark brown but the paint has long chipped away. There is a sign in front of the steps that reads, “Charles River Boat Rental, Open every day this summer!” You round the sign and walk along the gravel driveway to reach the back entrance. Glancing at your watch, you realize you have a full hour until you have to open, just enough time to paddle to the overpass and back.

Listening to the gravel crunch beneath your feet, you near the dock, which is little more than an amalgamation of aging platforms barely afloat; the company refuses to replace it. Held together by support braces and buoys, the dock’s wood platform somehow passes inspection every season. As your feet land on the weathered, faded wood of the dock, you feel the platform sink. Slowly, the water slips through the cracks and holes of the dock, slinking up to reach your feet. A cool contrast to the heat and humidity of the air, you wiggle your toes to allow the water to surround them. No matter how hot, humid, or muggy the weather is, the water never changes: always cool, always calm, and always collected amidst the ever changing winds.

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Once your feet have felt the water, you look toward the dock. There she is, resting peacefully on her side by the edge of the dock. You pull the blue tarp off and roll her into the water.

A Tsunami 1650. Your very own kayak; it took you nearly two months of work to pay for it. Measuring in at sixteen and a half feet of neon green plastic, it is nearly three times your height: sixteen and a half feet of smooth cruising on a good current. You remember how you were going to teach her to paddle it once the river thawed. You were going to take her with you before work somedays. You remember there were so many things you two were going to do when summer came. But summer has come, and not only the ice has left.

Sliding into the seat, you set your bag on the floor in front of you. As you push away from the dock, you reach forward and pull your paddle from inside the shell. Dipping your blades in to judge the current, you scan the shore. It is riddled with low hanging willows, broken branches, and lily pads; such defined and concrete shapes fade away as they are engulfed by the murky water. Still scanning the tree line, you begin to paddle up river.

“Dipping your blades in to judge the current, you scan the shore.”

The dip and drag of your paddle is the only accompaniment to the orchestra that nature is: a slow, soft percussion that supports the chirp of birds, the rustle of branches, the buzz of bugs, even the scurry of small animals. Slowly, you begin to hear the whir and buzz of the overpass. As you round a bend in the river, you see the concrete pillars extending from the water, a reminder that nature must bend to the will of humanity. Maneuvering around the supports, you angle your boat to be pulled by the current.

You lay your paddle across the opening of the boat, the current is now doing your job.

From your bag you retrieve a thermos and a tattered, worn, waterlogged book, titled, Winter’s Classics: Poems to Read by the Fire. Tracing your fingers over the wrinkled and mangled cover, you flip to the inside cover. The sweet nothings and signature have been long scribbled over and crossed out, but you remember what they used to say. You remember what winter was like, and how you like your coffee hot.

You remember how you promised to take her along with you once the river thawed. You remember all the things you had promised yourself to forget once the snow melted. You remember that book when she gave it to you, brand new with nothing but a signature lining the inside. But it is summer now.

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The river is thawed. The ice is melted. The book is tattered and worn. Your coffee is cold; winter is gone and so is she.

You also remember tracing your arms around the elms. Those elms survive winters and summers without wavering. They survive losing limbs from storms and leaves from winter. No matter year or season they grow taller, wider, and stronger.

You fold the book closed, passing your fingertips over the edges one last time. Slowly, you let it slide from your fingertips into the water. Slowly, the torn and tattered volume fades into the murky myriad of lily pads and mud. You take a deep breath, listening to summer’s song, and paddle back to a full day’s work.

Paradise Waters, Kendall Manning

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War Never Changes Tyler Wells

As I sit beside the fire, my grandfather stares blankly, gazing into the eternal dance of the flame. He wears his Marine Corps World War II Veteran hat on his head but that hat has a shallow meaning. Life was different in 1940, he would tell me, talking about how times were tough but fair.

Till the unthinkable happened and he was lined up for service.

With eight weeks of boot camp under his belt and a rifle in his hands, with vigor in his heart and his brothers by his side, they were mean green killing machines, they were Marines. Forged in fire that he stares into now. Light resistance they said. Tarawa should be wrapped up in a few days, he told me, as his hands started to shake, his right index finger twitching as he would do to pull his M1 Garand trigger.

They said, the island would be lightly defended. His eyes grew wide as the battle unfolded in front of him…. again. Men wading onto the beaches, into the valley of the shadow of death—1,000 did not return. He said, They were the lucky ones for they got to escape this hell.

As he continues to stare into the abyss of flame, sounds of war start to protrude into my thoughts. He begins to cry and mutter things that only one who witnesses war and carnage can tell. I see the battle unfolding in my head, bullets passing through flesh, making its awful whizzing noise, explosions sending bodies and parts flying, men being set on fire by flame throwers, sand bursting in every direction, the sounds of screaming and gunfire all a cacophony of sound and smell.

He keeps muttering, It was him or me, him or me, like a record player skipping on the track. He was in a time bubble trapped as he was re-experiencing the battle for Tarawa on the little island in the Pacific.

Stabbing, shooting, blowing up, lighting on fire—he did it all.

Just as it started, it had ended.

My father said that my grandfather never liked to talk about the war, for the sheer wave that washes over the psyche is too great even for a battle-hardened Marine because war…war never changes.

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Windows Charles Dodos

“I’m doing it.”

“The hell you are, kid. I didn’t ask for this.”

A pair of nurses rounded the corner, Ike eyeballing them both. Camden yearned to chuckle aloud but thought better of it. He’d prepared all night for this. He continued when Ike drifted back.

“You didn’t have to. It’s my decision and I’m going through with it whether you’re craggy ass agrees with it or not.” Camden wore his usual attire, a t-shirt, baggy cargo shorts, a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses docked atop his trusty baseball cap, and the watch his Staff Sergeant gave to him. The colors of his casual uniform were the only aspects that ever changed.

Ike sat up in the hospital cot, the covers shifting over his body like the waves of some creamy alien ocean. Camden could see the struggle just that simple series of movements demanded from Ike’s already frail figure. Camden thought of his own body then, and how deformed it must have looked.

Ike’s mouth twitched as he began his response, “Being craggy and being wise are one in the same when you reach my age.” A breeze whispered through the open window to their left, bringing with it the chaotic city life without. “Guys like me make it to this age in our profession not because we’re lucky,” He continued. “We make it because we’re survivors, we survive all odds because we have this… instinct, ya know? And instinct tells me this… this plan of yours, it sucks, and it’s selfish.”

Camden’s face twisted into a shock of astonishment from the outwardness comment. Ike had always been forthcoming about his beliefs. This, though… this was just unnecessary from the emotions the old man was probably working through.

“Selfish?” Camden began. “When was the last time before I met you that you decided to talk to her?”

“Don’t bring her up, besides I’m in the hospital.”

“So am I. And I… well, I talked with her a lot before everything fell apart.”

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“Whose to blame for that one, me?”

“Why would you be at fault for that? Did you push her into his arms? If anything it’s my fault for getting like this.” Camden gestured towards himself, that frail figure that once maxed every event on the physical.

That made him sad. “I’ve got enough radiation in me to make Chernobyl physicists blush.”

“That’s called feeling sorry for yourself, and being selfish still. In case you forgot we’re in the same boat flash.” Ike grimaced as he shifted his weight. Camden himself still felt a twinge from time to time.

The chemo had probably been the worst experience of his life thus far, or perhaps second to that time in Fallujah… “You know what, I see what you’re doing here old man, and it ain’t working. I’m going through with the operation.”

“I’ll get out of this bed right now and freakin strangle the life out of you.” Ike went to swing his legs out, but found that his body would deny even that basic function as well. Ike’s eyes widened in pain and he shook his head as he brought the appendages back onto the surface of the cot.

“We may be in the same boat, but I’m almost in the clear. You get out of that bed before my operation, you’ll be doing the kiver on the floor while I laugh my ass off.” Camden said.

“The kiver? What the hell is that?” Ike asked.

A smile crept across Cam’s pale features. “It’s when someone throws a tantrum on the ground and their body wiggles around on the floor like a fish. Ha! Your nephew did it one time when… when she told him not to run after the pigeons with rocks in the park…” The memory came back in a swirl of mocha and cream, bristling dead leaves, the nip of cold air, the autumn sun’s warmth, and her warm hands wrapped around his cold dying digits.

“You really love her, don’t you?” Ike asked.

Cam nodded. “It hurts to breath sometimes when I see her with him,” He began, tracing his fingers along the post of the cot. When his fingers ran over the warning label, he continued, “Every time she smiles, it’s because he tells her something funny. When she cries, it’s because he swept her off her feet. When she smiles at the clouds, it’s not me she thinks of. She sees them in the clouds together, with a family, with children of their own doing the kiver.” He shook his head, feeling that warm liquid that reveals true emotion welling in his eyes. “I had my chance Ike. The outsider, the washed up vet from a war everyone

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forgot already save for the weathered sticker plastered to their rear windshield. But you…” Cam brought his eyes back to Ike’s. “You’re her father. You’re the first man she learned to truly love in her life, and will unconditionally love whether you were there for her every step of the way or popped in from time to time. And if you can’t realize that Ike”, Cam made sure Ike was paying attention for this one.

“You’re just as selfish as me.”

“You’re right.”

What!? “What? Woah, woah, woah, wait a sec. You actually admitted to me being right about something?” Camden felt another breeze enter the room, and listening to the city life outside reminded him of the chaos currently taking place in his own mind following Ike’s retort.

“Yeah, I did. I haven’t spoken with her in over eight years, ignored the phone calls and mail, everything.

The last time we spoke…” He paused, looking to the ceiling. Strength, however, was absent from that domain as well.

Cam came to the rescue. “The funeral, I remember.”

“She was so beautiful Cam, and Evelyn reminds me of her so much. Her nose is mine but, everything else… Her eyes, I swear you look into them and you might as well be looking at Carol.” The huskiness in his throat almost brought the tears back. Cam had never seen Ike like this before. “So you’ve alienated yourself from Evelyn because she looks like Carol? That’s your reasoning?”

“Go ahead, say I’m selfish.” That vulnerability was gone entirely now from Ike, replaced with self-pity it would seem to Cam. “Both of us are selfish, how about that?” He watched Ike pick his head up to perhaps look at himself in Cam. Cam resumed, taking the initiative to press Ike on his plans. “But I can make it so that at least one of us can redeem themselves. Ike, please. For Evelyn’s sake, she needs you in her life.” That was unarguable. Cam was a drifter in her life, but Ike…everyone only gets two parents.

But Ike shook his head. “You just finished chemo. You go under the knife…”

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“I know the risks, old man. We both knew the risks joining the Military, but we did it anyways. We knew the risks of investing our hearts into women that could have possibly hurt us, and at least one of us

managed to come away with a solid relationship. Life’s full of risks.” Cam walked around the cot, Ike’s weak head struggling to follow the motion. Placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder, Cam finished, “We choose to take them.”

“Who sounds old and craggy now, smart ass.” Ike chuckled, coughing as he did so.

It worked. “So that a sign you’ve momentarily changed for the better? Are you showing me that there is hope for the elderly to be understanding? I better get Times here to report on this…”

“Cam?” “Haha, yeah?”

“Shut… oh!” Ike’s body twisted in a vehement contortion that rocked the entire cot with seismic motion.

His eyes shut tight, his lips curled in exhaustive pain, and the wrinkles across his features seemed to age another 100 years as they dug deeper into the surface. Cam’s smile slowly melted away as he pulled his arm away by instinct.

“Cut it out Ike.” He gave a worried guffaw. Ike writhed atop the mattress like a coiling snake. Whether he meant to or not, the old man grabbed hold of Cam’s arm in a vice that sent chills crawling up the young man’s spine. The icy touch of the ligaments didn’t help. “Ike?” Sudden as it began, Ike stopped moving.

His eyes relaxed, the lips uncurled, and the grip on Cam’s arm loosened. The startling realization…

“Holy shit, nurse! Doc! Anyone! Someone please help my fa…” Father, he almost shouted, but instead he corrected himself, crying out, “Someone help my friend!”

Father, he almost shouted, but instead he corrected himself, crying out, “Someone help my friend!”

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Once Upon A Dream, Sheridan Steiner

Untitled SMH

The touch, the feel Of your lips, of my hips In sync and in motion Like the waves of emotion That come crashing Through me and leave me Shaking and breathless I love you and your heart It beats like the wings of The single butterfly that Caused a tsunami a thousand Miles from where you are, Where I am, where am I? But somehow connected

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In A Split Second Bailey Beltramo

All the text message said was <Call me. I need to talk to you.> That’s weird I thought. Christine seemed okay just a little bit ago. I looked at my watch – just barely noon on a sunny Vermont Sunday, just barely nine out in Wyoming on my girlfriend’s day off. She should just be getting out of bed, what the hell could be wrong? <okay, just gotta change out of my uniform real quick> I texted back. <Now.> was the response.

Shit… did I do something wrong? Natural guy-guilt I suppose. Quick, mental check list: did I miss a birthday – no; did I miss an anniversary – nope; did I say something that offended her – I really don’t think so…

I dialed the number and heard the line pick up, but no words were said. “Hello? Babe?” I asked.

Still nothing… “Christine, what’s wrong?” Come on, I couldn’t have messed up that badly…

Finally she spoke, and her sadness soaked through the 2,300 miles that separated us. “Nicole had a car accident last night…” Christine’s voice trembled. I could feel all the tension in her body squeezing tight as she fought to keep her composure together to answer the question she must have known was coming next.

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The last time I had seen Nicole was nine days ago; the day I left the ranch to come back to school.

She was all smiles and cheerful goodbyes in her Texan drawl as I made my rounds through the staff lounge sharing hugs before departing. I think it was that southern twang that did it, but she always seemed happy – even when ranting about the fourth mouse she had to pull out of a trap while cleaning a guest’s room that day. Christine had been closest with her; a big sister/little sister kind of relationship that fit their age, personalities, and passion for riding horses, so I was more the friend-of-a-friend acquaintance. But on a ranch that small, just eighteen young adults to run the day-to-day operations, everyone knows each other, and her bright smile peeked through every greeting and every cold morning.

“An accident?? What happened?? How is she!?” Not naïve of me to ask, right? I had never known someone to experience a car accident and not walk away from it. Death didn’t even seem like a plausible option that I needed to ask about. Hell, I was 20 and just experienced my first death of a grandparent. I hadn’t lost any friends in high school to drugs or drunk driving, I had never even attended a funeral.

“No…” The word was sobbed more than spoken. “James…” She was fighting to get the words out, like she didn’t want to be saying them, like she couldn’t believe that she was saying them. “She didn’t make it.”

Didn’t make it… I thought. She didn’t make it… I repeated to myself. The words were having a hard time translating in my head. She didn’t make it to where she was going… Something happened so that she didn’t make it to where she was going… Nicole didn’t make it through the car accident that prevented her from reaching where she was going… Nicole is… dead.

“Oh babe… Oh my God, Christine I’m so sorry.”

It had been late at night. Christine, Nicole, and another friend had been out for dinner and drinks in Jackson before they came back to the Snake River Ranch. Nicole decided to go out to meet a friend at a campsite. She said a quick goodbye because she would be back in the morning, started her Dodge 2500, pulled out of the drive, and left. I never heard what, if anything, had been determined as the official cause of death. But it must have happened in a split second. Maybe it was a quick look at a text.

Maybe it was a glance out the window at the clear, ink-black but incandescently lit starry-canvas that stretches across the Wyoming sky. Maybe it was a quick drink of coffee to help stay awake. Whatever is was, it was enough to let those tires drift to the right, slip over the edge of that steep embankment and down into the dark woods that surround Slide Lake.

I wondered if she even had time to process what was happening. In my mind I could see her tan truck careening over the ledge, tires still spinning and engine revved, before it came to a crunching halt as it plowed into the line of timber below. Or maybe those kinds of things really do happen in slow motion.

Maybe she had a horrifying moment of realization that she had no ability to stop what was happening and could only accept her fate.

What I couldn’t imagine was the wave of anguish her family would feel once they heard the news. I couldn’t imagine the pain of guilt that must have stabbed through Carl, the ranch manager, to have to call her family and tell them their daughter wasn’t coming home from this summer in heaven. I couldn’t imagine the disbelief that must have resonated among all the ranch staff to wake up that Sunday morning to learn a

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friend has disappeared forever in the night.

“She’s gone James, she’s gone,” Christine cried into the phone. The lounge, that was the last time I ever saw her, I thought. She’s really gone. Christine’s sadness began to pull the tears out of the corners of my own eyes. I wanted to comfort her, to be there for her, but thousands of miles away I was helpless to do anything more than offer my feeble words of support and condolences. I continued to mumble, “I’m so sorry Christine, I’m so, so sorry.”

Through the pain, she murmured, “I have to go. Carl is getting all of us together.”

“Alright babe, call me whenever you need. You guys will get through this. I love you.”

The phone clicked off, and I sank to the grass, lost in thought. I had only known Nicole for a few months – how much can you really get to know someone in that amount of time? But she was the first person, a peer of mine, who had died. And had died so suddenly. The source of my incomprehension lay in the randomness of her death. She was not a soldier on deployment, a police officer on duty, a firefighter running into a burning building – she was a young, bright, energetic woman driving out to a night of camping. A young woman who had been a social worker. A young woman who was excited to become a preschool teacher after the summer. A young woman who loved to talk about her beautiful mare Ramona just a little too much sometimes, and she was now gone forever.

The next day they dragged that wrecked Dodge out of the wood-line. Glass was blown out. Metal twisted around the frame of the cab. I imagined the engine compartment was utterly destroyed. Not wearing a seatbelt, Nicole had been ejected upon impact with the trees: a beautiful life shattered through the windshield from the forces of physics.

But from the wreckage they pulled a laptop that had been resting in the backseat – unscathed and in perfect working condition. Having been contained in the truck cab that goddamn, fragile piece of plastic technology had survived, and was rebooted with the press of a button. But human life doesn’t get a reboot.

There is no button to press.

And all it took was a split second.

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Song to My Alarm Clock Hunter Hammond

I praise the soft tick of your little gears and each exact movement of your arms, which ceaselessly march onwards like a whirlpool through time.

I praise the simplicity of your design even if you are and always will be cheaply made to save the company that made you pennies on the dollar. Oh, I give thanks to this little clock!

That one morning I forgot to set you sleeping late till five-thirty, waking up to the unnerving thunder of an angry cadre screaming to get outside right now.

And who could deny the importance you brought, the need to start the day and finish that afternoon’s homework, never finished the night before because sleep is vital my cadre says and because who am I to argue at 1 a.m.?

Truthfully, I’d rather you stayed silent. Really, I’d rather not rise and instead sleep until seven thirty or maybe noon.

The little numbers on your face faithfully giving the time stay stoically in formation, slowly covered up by your hands, onward and onward, in cadence.

And how many times did I wake up to answer the call of nature in the dead of night and look over at your glow-in-the-dark hands reaffirming that indeed, it was very early?

I keep wondering how I would sign out without you dutifully dictating my time hack - a quick glance your way through the closing doorway standing at the ready. Honestly, my little clock, you’ve gone severely underappreciated and as of late your unwavering determination pushing the second hand along throughout the day and night has saved me too often.

Fine: I overslept.

But thanks to my trusty little alarm clock I made it to First Call and Formation.

Before dawn the droning revelry raises me from the grave to make my rack, to enjoy empty showers, the cold breeze from a cracked window shocking me awake, mentally snapping to attention, my mind awake, but it’s still 4 a.m.

Not that I mind really because its surely better to be woken up by my clock rather than my cadre.

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Five Questions with Kayla Williams Dana DeMartino

Kayla Williams is the author of Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army, a book about her experiences as a soldier, and Plenty of Time When We Get Home: Love and Recovery in the Aftermath of War. She served as an Arabic linguist in the Army for five years, including a year with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq. Williams gave a reading on campus in April 2015.

Chameleon (C): You’ve written two books about your experiences in the Army, Love My Rifle More Than You, about your deployment to Iraq, and Plenty of Time When We Get Home, which was about you and your husband’s relationship following his return from deployment with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

What were the main differences for you between those two works?

Kayla Williams (KW): The two books were very different in terms of content and writing process. I wrote Love My Rifle fresh off my deployment when everything was still raw. I sounded whiney and angry and that was intentional…I didn’t want to wait until I had reflected and let time change my perception, my experiences.

C: That’s a very different tone from Plenty of Time When We Get Home, which is actually very forgiving of the Veterans Affairs (VA) despite pointing out your somewhat negative experience with them.

KW: Right… I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just pointing out how the Veterans Affairs (VA) failed Brian and me without offering resources for others so the same thing didn’t happen to them; that was important to me.

C: There are certain parts of Love My Rifle in which you criticize both peers and superiors. What negative consequences, if any, did you face after its publication because of this?

KW: My publishers made me change everyone’s name, even Brian’s, who in the book is called Shane Kelly.

The book wasn’t first published in America, and the copyright laws made it so that every single person’s name needed to be changed…I have spoken with some people who were on deployment with me and they either remember the instances that I wrote about or are surprised I didn’t include worse examples.

So I don’t think there have been negative consequences from that.

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C: Plenty of Time discusses the difficulties you and Brian faced together as you tried to deal with his PTSD. At times your relationship turned very dark….What would you say to people who read your book and might be experiencing similar issues?

How did you decide to stay in the relationship even as it was so difficult?

KW: I really didn’t know that it was going to get better; I didn’t know if Brian would ever get better, but I also didn’t feel that I could leave him, so it was a complicated situation. At the beginning I didn’t realize how much his behavior was attributed to his TBI and what was PTSD. I couldn’t tell you why I stayed through it, but fortunately it did get better and we did find help.

C: People have many misconceptions about soldiers, especially enlisted soldiers. You defy several of these stereotypes because you are both a woman and a highly educated one at that. Do you think your work has helped to fight these stereotypes?

KW: I certainly hope so! I think there is a disconnect in part because veterans feel both that they want others to recognize what they have gone through but also that normal civilians couldn’t possibly understand. So we as veterans need to be willing to share our stories and civilians need to continue to want to listen to them.

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Natural Instincts, Kendall Manning

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To submit pieces online, please visit The Chameleon online at Norwich Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s College of Liberal Arts website.