Professional Children's School Literary Magazine, Spring/Summer 2021

Professional Children’s School Literary Magazine

Vol. 4 Spring 2021 Edition

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For Ms. Caroline Holder

We dedicate this issue of our Literary Magazine to Ms. Caroline Holder, our art teacher, inspiring community member, and amazing friend, who is leaving at the end of 2021 after 28 Years at Professional Children’s School.

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Table of Contents

Cover Art - Audrey Zhang Dedication

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Letter From the Editors - Toby Irikura & Audrey Zhang

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1(AM)ent of New York - Sierra Blanco

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Before the Quarantine: Café Blues - Audrey Zhang

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Letter to the Author - Sierra Blanco

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Untitled - Theresa Szafranski

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Bloom - Audrey Zhang

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Donkey Teeth - Zsofi Markus

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E Pluribus Unum - Sierra Blanco

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Bag of “Soybeans” - Zsofi Markus

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Soybeef - Sierra Blanco

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it is tuesday the third - Sascha Feinburg

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Homosexual Individual - Zsofi Markus

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Stream of Unconsciousness - Faith Jacobs

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Dirk Bogarde in A Tale of Two Cities (1958) - Eugenie Sappho Kourti Ferrante

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In Terms of Thee - Eugenie Sappho Kourti Ferrante

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Golden Stars in the Snow - Audrey Zhang

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Portrait of the Artist - Zsofi Markus

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Working on a Puzzle - Ms. Erika Petersen

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Betty - Mr. Vincent Sagona

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Snappy and the Big Dream - Lila Field

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The City Street - Faith Jacobs

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The Blue Pool - Eugenie Sappho Kourti Ferrante

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Lian on The Beach - Zsofi Markus

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The Crash - Sierra Blanco

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MIRAGE - Dashiell del Barco

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Untitled Short Story #2 - Toby Irikura

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An Exercise in Revision - Sierra Blanco

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Horses - Zsofi Markus

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Hidden Little Neighborhood - Faith Jacobs

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An Early Education - Ms. Caroline Holder

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Tributary at Noontime - Faith Jacobs

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Welcome Home - Annabelle Wachtel

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Dark Roomination - Mr. Kevin Casey

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Roomination - Audrey Zhang

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Masthead

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Letter From the Editors Dear Reader,

Thank you for taking the time to look at our magazine. We had many wonderful submissions this semester, and this is one of our best issues yet. We want to thank everyone who submitted this time around, and we especially appreciate our editorial team who worked so hard to make this volume a reality. We are eternally grateful, and it’s been so much fun to work with you all. Thank you to Mr. Laguzza for overseeing the creation of this project, and a special thank you to Ms. Evanoff for always supporting us.

As we reach the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, we have finally begun to return to in-person meetings, and we get to relax a little. States are lifting mask mandates, most people are vaccinated, and everybody's coming out of their shell.

Most of us are in a lucky position—the only things that we’ve lost are seeing people in person, going to school in person, and traveling. But, as we all know, some people have it way worse—they’ve lost jobs, family members, housing, and a whole variety of other things that we may take for granted. The small things that enrich our daily lives like getting coffee, sharing a warm meal, or simply saying hello to someone are invaluable moments that remind us what it means to be human. Let us remember to cherish all that we have.

As you read this issue, we encourage you to think about connection, whether it be with friends, family, or even yourself. Our connections to others were stable and strong, even when

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our Wi-Fi and internet connections were not. We hope that the writing and art in this magazine will allow you, the reader, to connect with the stories of others.

We at the Literary Magazine thank you for sharing parts of your life with us—we gained invaluable insight into the human experience, and we connected with you, despite the physical distance and time between us. You have touched us with your imagination, eye for amazing things in the world, and hope for the future—and we are excited to share this edition with you!

Sincerely,

Toby Irikura ‘22 & Audrey Zhang ‘21

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l(AM)ent of New York

By Sierra Blanco

It is 1:41 am, dark-o’clock if I bothered to look, and I hate the stars. They taunt me in their beauty, an oblivious display of false superiority, “look, you’d never see this in any city” kind of vibe that makes me wish I didn’t know what they could look like.

If the stars shone like this in New York, you wouldn’t need any streetlights in central park. Just look up, there’s a million little flames in the sky. Million little flashlights, billion little trinkets shining silver, like something a magpie might want to steal. We have those too, magpies fly here. They come in the morning with the crows and try to steal the potato chips we leave on the porch after grocery runs because we don’t have enough room in the kitchen to decontaminate everything. The delinquents, these corvids, tend to rip open the bag if I don’t take it in by dawn.

That would sound like some kind of gag story, some kind of superiority joke about the problems of suburbia if I was back in Manhattan.

I’m not, back that is, and I probably won’t be until God doesn’t care when, but I miss seasons. I miss having to deliberate whether or not I should put away the jacket that makes me look like Eurydice in Hadestown in favor of the puffer that looks like the coats in “Ernest Shackleton Loves Me.” I got tickets to closing night off a crazy girl I met on the bus that one time. I miss telling coffee-shop employees my name is Wyvern just to have them ask how that’s spelled and then follow up with “just put Ivy” and watching them smile in relief, in on the secret of my name without keeping it. Especially that one Starbucks in particular that used to be close to my mom’s job, they actually did manage to figure out how to spell Wyvern, and thought it was my real name for the three years I went there on internship coffee runs.

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Miss slipping forty blocks from home to school with some variation of bread-and-things in my hand, one-way half-burnt toaster waffles and whatever I shoved between them before running out the door like fire was at my feet, the other pilfered cold-cuts and bagel remnants from the cafeteria.

I miss the subway, skipping stops and getting lost in the rhythm of hurrying for the next closing doors walk if you can’t run - run if you can’t sprint - curse if sprinting isn’t enough, a kind of melody to the catastrophe punctuated by buskers.

I miss feeling like nobody in a block full of nobodies, a face in a crowd that maybe is worth a double-take as I swing-dip-dive-turn kinda-sorta dance to a song on cheap-knock-off-of-knock-offs earbuds, drumbeat in tandem or contrast to the footsteps drowning me in vibrant unending uncaring certainty.

I miss the bizarre things, the madness of the streets. There’s that vivid memory, it was raining and I took the bus despite my better instincts, and the girl sitting across from me I’d never met before greeted me like a childhood best friend and offered me a black-and-white cookie I’m pretty sure had pot in it. She also shoved tickets for the show, “Ernest Shackleton” didn’t I say, into my hand stating she didn’t need them anymore. I looked it up later that night, she was the younger sister of the lead.

I miss walking, stalking concrete, pretending I’m running to meet someone somewhere, hurrying off first one block then three then twenty as if late for an important meeting, just observing the way the men under the scaffolding outside of Ben & Jerry’s start to shift when my over-bright sneakers trudge by them one more time this week.

I miss being unseen, overlooked in throngs of college kids as I come home with my backpack and bad-taste being lumped in with the freshmen/transfer/newbie-idiots instead of

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native as I hunch over with whatever load of tasks I carry on my back. I miss not seeing the sunset, blinded when it shines between the grid of metal and dirt, and knowing what time it is.

The clocks in front of me say 2 am, but I don’t know whether that means I’ll need to wake up in 5 or 2 hours.

And so I hate the stars that inevitably shine like beacons or warnings through my curtains like they all want to outshine the sun. That is not right, that has no right to be so pretty, so beautiful when what I want is so ugly.

What I miss are subway stations that smell vaguely of urine and summer sweat, the chalky aftertaste of fake-dairy creamer from stupid-weak caffeinated drinks that I get either under or over-charged for depending on the retrograding of the planets and how heavy my backpack looks this week. What I miss are wary glances that wolf-whistle and dance away in the same gesture, eyes that both strip down and glitch over every stranger that swerves by. What I miss is the change of seasons, the way sleet and hot concrete bathed my sneakers bit by bit in dingy layers, the way I’d either be seen or be not seen at any given moment without having any consistent idea which way the story would go.

How dare the stars shine brighter somewhere not on Broadway, how dare those song lyrics from so long ago be wrong? How dare this temperature I’ve migrated to alternate between politely cool and aesthetically foggy when there are blizzards and blazing Indian summers to be weathered? How dare the sky be blue and wide when there are skyscrapers that could pierce it?

How dare there be beauty here, beauty that in any other time I would love but as each second drags into a frozen eternity, how dare this beauty rob the world I see of the change and decay I have set my life to observe and record?

So I hate the stars that shine so bright here.

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They should go to sleep.

Before the Quarantine: Café Blues, Audrey Zhang Watercolor on Paper, 10” x 14”, 2020

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Letter to the Author

By Sierra Blanco

Dear Poppy Zeigler, I know you’re technically the pen name for a rich fat man named Charles, but I really don’t want to address this to Charles-the-smart-old-white-dude-who-got-publishers-interested, because I don’t need a “Charles-the-bro-whose-story-sells-better-if-a-chick-wrote-it.”

In my life right now to talk to.

So, I address this to Poppy Zeigler, who isn’t real even though she should be.

Before I googled you, I imagined you looked like your namesharp, wild, eyes quick like a hawks’, like the dagger in your words.

Your name reminded me of my freshman english teacher, who had a brain like a lost top-hat in a historical romance novel.

But really, I didn’t want to think of you in terms of men, even though you wrote them.

I only made it a third of the way into your book before someone checked it out of the library and left me stranded with half a spindle of story-threads, so I won’t actually discuss your plot. Still, I wanted to write to you. Your words were such that I needed to address the person responsible for them,

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to understand how you dared.

Your soft low-cost paperback pages, between blue covers like a record album, Open on corpse. described the feel, still cooling, yet rotting, but before maggots could infest it, the way it’s touch would slowly stiffen on a person’s hand.

The way something could turn From romanticized to rotten over the course of the first ten pages of a fiction novel You opened with the rancid, bluntly shooed away those who didn’t want it.

More importantly, you didn’t write As if you were writing something brave.

So many women writers that I had perused before, while they didn’t always apologize, made it out in their blurbs or their bios or their analyses and interviews to be a story written for another.

To be brave and strong and ugly and horrible, but so the children would x, or the spouse might y, or so other women could be z.

Your blurb said, although I must paraphrase, “Poppy Zeigler lives in West Virginia, has won this collection of awards for her work; enjoys reminiscing about her childhood in Louisiana, long walks with her dog, and reading classic murder-mysteries; her website here.”

You did not excuse. did not shift the burden of your story’s rotten-corpse-heart to some other group to hold. You were

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selfish in your creation of a dishonorable world, and without shame for it.

What got me was that you knew.

There was something about how you wrote that, while gory and gruesome, proved you knew it was telling a story that people would listen to: even if only to see how long they could stomach a book from a serial-killer’s perspective.

You knew people would listen, knew just when to pull in tidbits from the real world into your fantasy, weaving and twirling fact and fiction until I could have been a bald man killing in Louisiana back alleys thirty years before I was born. I wanted how you weren’t afraid.

That selfishness of the story, especially the way it opened.

The way you looked the grime of death in it’s maw, then stuck a sign next to it saying three bucks a picture. That’s what your opening felt like to me.

You didn’t care who came (you knew someone would) and you charged the price for those who wanted more.

If I had ever wanted anything, I wanted you to tell me how you knew people would comeeven when you didn’t apologize for the dirt and the maggots and the drugs and the ugly ugly truth of the web you wove. I wanted to know how you knew that someone out there, anyone, anyhow, would pay for that picture of death.

How could you write for yourself

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like this, so improper, so grotesque, yet be so certain that your words’ siren call would still ring through the rivers of slightly-sedated blood.

I needed to write you to see how you tangled these portions of yourself, of your voice How did you dare be so honest, I suppose the word is.

You could show yourself so darkly and yet still be seen as good- not just good, but award-winning How could you manage to be so whole? I loved how you made your worlds how your words twinged on my tongue when I mouthed sentences You made something monstrous and it was beautiful you had to see that as much as I did if not more I don’t expect a response, imaginary people can’t well write, but I still wanted to do this So I suppose this is where my letter ends. Thank you for your words.

I still refuse to reconcile you with Charles-the-canny-published-guy, but I suppose that is a ‘me’ problem.

Sincerely, Author

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Untitled, Theresa Szafranksi Pen and Watercolor Markers on a Drawing Pad, 8” x 10”, 2020

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Bloom

By Audrey Zhang 3/9/21

If you held a flower in your hand And walked through all the land You’d see the sun illuminate the fields And all the wounds we could have healed Long ago And yet Remember, there is time still To climb up onto that higher hill And plant the flower that will face the sun And remind us that we are stronger together as one.

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Donkey Teeth, Zsofi Markus Acrylic Paint on Watercolor Paper, 6" x 3.5", 2021

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E Pluribus Unum

By Sierra Blanco

Pixelated white picket fences Behind which, they atrophy on astroturf Long gone are the once 'wooden' porches - melted plastic It melds with their sorrow, it molds their satiation Placated by holographic brownstones, the Mud and decay of the bricks tactile, the Rust and must of the tiny tinsel-bright town a tactic The hard-pressed dreams are lacking, what is sky but up Too far to reach and too far away to color

they mourn a past too old to remember days of leather jackets and lazy action stone-paved swollen ambition, coalition, the weight of slingshots and decisions remiss they miss the challenge and the champion then, not so polite as to leave unquestioned reverent as if the sky was bloodshed- hearts or tears read meaning, mean as the methods, their minds weapons they made their mansions they miss the madness

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Bag of “Soybeans,” Zsofi Markus Oil Pastel on Paper, 4” x 7”, 2021

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Soybeef

By Sierra Blanco

Veronica is a well-meaning woman who just wants the best for everyone. She is determined to remain optimistic and maintain her sense of normalcy during the pandemic, despite the many obstacles. She dreams of having a life like she sees in the movies with the tight-knit suburban neighborhood where she can make artsy tie-dye scarves and talk about the mysterious new postman. Unfortunately, she currently lives alone in the city. She's a bit of a dreamer, but uncertain of herself in her current urban and tumultuous setting. During quarantine, she has somewhat lost her mind and is overly enthusiastic for any kind of human interaction. She ordered 25 pounds of vegan meat to offer her newer neighbors as an excuse for conversation and contact. She has hauled the 25 pound box to her neighbors' door as a conversation starter. While doing this monologue, she hears mumbles through the door.

Veronica: Hello? (the door's peephole opens) You ordered twenty-five pounds of soy-beef? Well, for some reason they delivered it to me? No, I don’t know why. I mean, apartment 2, apartment 14, kinda hard to mistake the numbers.

Anyway, everyone here has been meaning to do a housewarming party for you, but then this whole COVID thing happened, and then this, so I figured now might be as good a time as any to introduce myself? I’m Veronica by the way, apartment number 14? But you knew that. So…

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how are you holding up with the virus? Cooking a lot of vegan burgers or… (Apt 2 did not order the soy-beef) You didn’t? Well, that’s unusual. I mean gosh, I wonder how that happened? It’s a bit of a shame, though, if all this delicious faux meat goes to waste. Ya know, I also, well maybe not also, share a passion for vegan cooking. What should we do with it all? Are you Vegan?

Vegetarian perhaps?

(Apt 2 isn't vegan) Well, I guess I can just congratulate you on the new apartment? Although technically it’s been four months but better late than never. Shall we cook up a burger? (you can keep the soy-beef) Oh really? Well, um, thank you! I'll send a pot of chili your way! Nice meeting (peephole closes)

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it is tuesday the third

By Sascha Feinburg

it is tuesday the third and i eat chocolate for breakfast, the brand from england with the purple packaging i slosh spit in my mouth i dot my face with olive oil (my one consistency, like Granny taught me) and when it is one or two or bone-ache hour i leave my house for the grilled cheese restaurant, newly opened

(i read the reviews repulsive, the reviews said. an abominable excuse for food, for cheese, the reviews said, italians everywhere are crying)

i am the only customer in the grilled cheese restaurant

waitress comes up to me and asks me what i want and tells me that another customer could be coming soon but what do i care

this is the part where i want more chocolate and so

i ask the waitress if they have anything

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anything chocolate

no she says and no? i ask and only grilled cheese here she says it’s a grilled cheese only restaurant but we have so many kinds of cheese though so many she says and i grimace and slosh spit in my mouth and so

i ask her to show me what the different cheeses taste like, to show me with her body and her face, to play charades for me

she tells me she can show me the menu ‘ts got pictures, she tells me

i tell her i don’t want to see pictures, i want her to show me what the different cheeses taste like, to show me with her body and her face, to play charades for me

after a while waitress says ok but tells me i cannot laugh and i know i will not laugh and she tells me another customer could be coming soon and so it must be quick she must be quick we must be quick

i say ok and she starts

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she says things words i did not know could mean some kind of cheese like gruyere and timberdoodle and camembert and after she says the cheese word she contorts her body and does horrifyingly almost-exact movements (a sharp-fingered arm through the stomach for brie, a juggling of her own two now detached ears for gouda) and she stops every once in a while to say that another customer could be coming soon and i know no one is coming and so i tell her no one is coming and no one will be coming and she continues (wrapping her leg round her head and hopping for limburger, pulling her tongue out her throat for gorgonzola it’s a thick tongue, long)

it lasts hours, maybe, the cheese demonstration and waitress is trying very hard but i am not getting much in terms of taste and so

i say i want cheddar and she is breathless and bleeding and nods and when she brings me the sandwich she says she prepared it quickly herself, the chef has gone home, who knew, and she says she’s worried that another customer could be coming soon

the cheese looks like mucus but i am hungry enough and it is late enough and i eat and i eat and i eat and when i am finished she comes back and asks me if i want to know her, to see her again, she says maybe she can come over to my place now and i say she shouldn’t because another customer could be coming soon

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and i walk back home and i slosh warm spit in my mouth

Homosexual Individual, Zsofi Markus Oil Paint on Paper, 12” x 9”, 2021 25

Stream of Unconsciousness

By Faith Jacobs

Who would I be if I didn’t know him?

My mother thought first Whole Better than she He thought next Unknowing, daughter You’ll forget it all I thought next, A pretty girl Sweet, seldom sour I’m a fool to believe it Yet still I do And I wonder Who would I love if I didn’t know him?

Perhaps it lies In meanings Definitions To love or be loved 26

Seems so silly But what is it?

Idealists, cynics Heroes, villains It’s all the same I reckon We bend, we break Shrink away Come back again today Who would I be if I didn’t know him?

It’s more comforting At least I think That No pain, only gain Can’t lose What I didn’t have It’s the memories That bruise me Kill me the most

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Dirk Bogarde in A Tale of Two Cities (1958), Eugenie Sappho Kourti Ferrante Pencil on Paper, 8.27” x 11.69”, 2021 29

In Terms of Thee

By Eugenie Sappho Kourti Ferrante

In terms of thee, I think, sleep, dream All around, thy face I search to see But I get a wink, a hint it doth seem That you and all the others in death creep My body above body an unearthly taction sensed The saddest thing is when you can’t watch the films you create in your sleep.

You were all that I dreamed you were In night’s camera you were lighted And in knight’s lustrous armor you shine dear sir But we the twain be ever blighted By some falsities, some verities flung at your identity The little girl in me your said-self hurt Not like the others, you know me!

Face in all directions, you past me Art my lover, oh long last, in art

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Yonder rest, do wait in glee You came, instantly settled in my heart I relate thy scattered pieces to all I know O, light your cigarette and burn in eternal flow.

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Golden Stars in the Snow

By Audrey Zhang “It was that very fire and blindness, that way of flashing with her whole self into one impulse, without foresight or sight at all, that had made her seem wonderful to him. When she caught fire, she went like an arrow, toward whatever end.” ~ Willa Cather, Lucy Gayheart, Book 3, Chapter III, pg. 186.

“I’m nearly an hour late as it is, and I’ve got to make up time on the road. Wish I weren’t in such a hurry.” He touched his fur cap with his glove and drove on (Lucy Gayheart, pg. 166).

All the countless months spent orchestrating meetings to speak to the real Harry—all her glances that he discarded as if they meant nothing to him—ignited a firestorm of pain and fury in Lucy. Boiling blood rushed to her face. She could no longer feel the cold, and her vision burned white-hot at the edges.

“Harry!” Her shriek chilled him to the bone. When his broad back did not budge, she tore through the jagged snow, flung her bag to the side of the road, and latched onto his sled.

“What are you doing, Lucy?!” Harry’s head swiveled back. His shaken voice spurred Lucy to dig her heels into the frozen mud and pull with all her might. The horses whinnied, and the sleigh bells cried out, but Lucy did not hear them. As Harry jerked the reins, Lucy hoisted herself up and hooked her right leg into the seat. Just as Harry pulled in his horses, Lucy brought in her other leg. The cutter lurched to a halt, and she slammed into him.

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“Stop. Running. Away from me!” Lucy yanked Harry’s lapel and forced him to look into her eyes. When her Tiger’s Eye gold met his icy blue, time stopped. They were an inch apart, and their heavy breaths, which heated their faces, became the only sounds for miles.

Harry trembled beneath Lucy’s hand.

“Y-you’re choking me.”

Lucy blinked and relaxed her grip, but she held him firmly in place. She inhaled, skating upon his sapphire gaze and parting the mist in his eyes with her resolute strides. On her exhale, she opened her mouth and coaxed his hibernating soul from the den of his frozen heart.

“I lied in Chicago. I was trying to explain my feelings to you, but you didn’t understand.

Don’t you see that feelings aren’t things I can hold in my hand, that I can prove to you in your physical way? That’s why I, why I–” Lucy’s voice cracked, and her eyes burned bright with tears. She shook, but she held her gaze as level as she could.

Lucy saw Harry fumbling for his mask of faux cheerfulness but to no avail. Heartache, anger, surprise, and longing rippled uncontrollably across his face. He was naked before her all over again. A breath escaped his parted lips and rose into the silver sky, which had begun to grow unbearably bright.

“I don’t want this,” Harry forced out to convince himself. Lucy felt his spirit struggling beneath her stare, squirming for a way out of feeling pain, of living fully.

“Who said I want it? I only want our friendship back. I’m not forcing you into anything.

I’m doing this … for me,” Lucy let go and moved away. “We’re such selfish creatures, aren’t we,

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Harry? But somewhere deep down, I want you to be happy too. I do. Harry, I’m sorry for breaking your heart. My heart’s broken too. Every day is torture when I’m not living anymore.

Can’t you see? I know you’re hiding. Haven’t we hurt enough? Can’t we build something better for ourselves, for each other?” Lucy stretched her hands out to Harry.

Lucy glimpsed a tear in Harry’s eye, but before she could speak, he pulled her into his arms. She stiffened, but when she felt silent sobs rack his body, she raised her hands, slowly, as if to conduct a symphony, and wrapped him in her embrace. Everything fell into place; they fit together just right. Her cheek was hot on the side of his warm face. From that moment on, there was no going back.

“I’m so sorry for hurting you, Lucy. Feeling everything frightens me,” Harry murmured, so low that Lucy almost didn’t hear him. As their hearts beat together, hard and fast like rabbits dashing through the snow, the sun broke out from behind the clouds and shone on them with warmth and kindness.

“You don’t have to be afraid anymore, Harry. You can let yourself feel now. I’m with you.”

They held each other for an eternity before Lucy finally stirred.

“I’m leaving this place. I can’t stand it here,” Lucy glanced at their hands, which had found each other, and then at Harry’s face. His eyes were watery, and so was his nose, but he had never looked more peaceful in his life. She lowered her eyes, “I guess this is when we say—” “I’m coming with you.”

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Lucy’s mouth fell open. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me, loud and clear,” Harry sniffed and straightened his shoulders. “I am coming with you. I’m through with running away. We haven’t got a moment to waste. Lead the way, Lucy.”

“You’re married, Harry,” Lucy sputtered without thinking.

“Yes, still,” He grimaced. Reluctantly, he let go of Lucy’s hand. Then, he tugged off his left glove and removed his ring, which he held up to the light. He twisted his lips awry as if the small circlet was giving him commands he did not like. He reeled back his arm to fling it into the barren woods, but Lucy intercepted, protesting that he shouldn’t waste a good ring so impulsively.

“Must have caught it from you,” Harry arched his brows, pocketing the ring. He wanted to say more but waited for Lucy instead. She was very close, and the rapid thudding of his heart hurt his ribs.

“Unbelievable,” Lucy flopped back and crossed her arms over her chest. Then, she snuck a peek at him very cautiously, as if he were a flighty creature that would dash out of her sight forever if she moved too suddenly. “Are you willing to learn? Will you open yourself up to the world, to me?

“I want to live with you, always.”

“Don’t dodge my questions.”

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For the first time in a very long time—too long—Harry burst out into laughter. The sound warmed Lucy from within, and she started laughing with him. The aching feeling in her chest began to subside. Their musical voices brightened the day, and when they both recovered, Lucy saw that Harry’s eyes had become the glimmering blue of Chicago’s river in the bountiful, lively spring. She saw blooming flowers, opera nights, and languid strolls beneath the stars in his gaze.

Lucy saw Harry throwing off the chains of caution he had used to protect his pride, to punish them both. She saw a depth of emotion that mirrored her own and an ocean of pure adoration that made her heart skip a beat.

“I will.”

Something stirred inside Lucy: her longing for an untamed companion who caught fire as she did. As Harry looked at her, saw her for everything she was, and accepted her wholly, the feeling blossomed into something more. Lucy smiled softly, and Harry understood. He released a breath and beamed.

That brilliant afternoon, they flew toward their future together like a pair of shooting stars.

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Portrait of the Artist, Zsofi Markus Watercolor on Paper, 8” x 6”, 2021

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Working on a Puzzle

By Ms. Erika Petersen

working on a puzzle when pieces are missing

and

knowing they are missing

is assurance that the empty spots are not due to you

working on a puzzle & knowing there are no flats

no straight edges in the stage right

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camera left corner

knowing that

the corner has no enclosing border/no enclosing edge

one has tolerance for those whose minds

like mine

escape through the open edge

and then

when

you find that inner pieces are missing

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as well

how now to assemble the inner within the open outer edge?

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BETTY

By Mr. Vincent Sagona January, 2021

There are long stretches of time where I feel sorry for myself with no one to interfere.

Sometimes I sit on the couch, alone with my thoughts, and see how long l can last in my own head without plunging into despair. Then I start to listen to the sounds of the electronics in the house. The hum of the refrigerator…the bathroom fan…and it becomes the music of my mind. I lose the ability to focus on any one object and my vision becomes blurred. I feel my consciousness slip and disengage until there is no time and space.

Betty, my dog, tells me that COVID will end soon. I think she likes quarantine even more than I do. It’s gotten to the point where Betty reprimands me when I take out the garbage. Today she muttered: “trash is so 2019”. I don’t always know what she’s talking about. Yesterday she said: “the fault lies not in our stars but in ourselves”… and then napped for three hours. What is she trying to tell me? She knows things. She likes to play these little games with me. No problem. I’ve got time. I’m not going anywhere.

Both of my legs fell asleep this morning and I couldn’t walk for 45 minutes. I imagined I was a slug housed in my own lugubrious ooze. It felt cold and damp and lonely. When I finally stood, I had become a newborn colt just learning to take its first steps. My knees wobbled as I lurched forward. I ate a carrot and reminisced about life on the ranch. Then I fell asleep standing for what felt like the entire day. I awoke to my neighbor Josh knocking on the door. Betty gave

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me a stern glance and I immediately knew there would be no intruders. Eventually, the knocking stopped, and he slowly walked away. He’ll be back. I’d like to tell him I’m okay, but Betty won’t have it. It’s fine. We have rules. Important rules.

As a precautionary measure, I put my cell phone in the dishwasher, so I’ve had no communication with the outside world. Betty does her business over there. In that corner. I don’t interfere. I’ve nailed the windows shut at her request. You can’t be too careful. Airborne toxins.

She’s right of course. Always one step ahead. She says we are outrunning it. I don’t understand, but that’s fine.

My food supplies are getting low. I’ve only got 3 cans of baked beans and a jar of tomato sauce left. Betty’s got plenty of food. But I can’t touch it. Not allowed. It’s fine. I’ll make mine last. The pandemic will end soon. Betty keeps reminding me to stay hydrated. Right again. She’s always right. Although I haven’t showered in weeks, Betty insists on daily baths. I oblige of course. Soiled fur upsets her mood. I try not to question. If she gets upset, I get upset and then the whole house is in peril. Can’t have that. Won’t have that. Must keep her happy.

Sometimes, in the morning, I feel the sunlight on my foot through an opening in the blinds. Since I haven’t been permitted to watch tv or track the passage of time, I’m not sure of the season. I’m trying to gauge the outside conditions from the intensity of the sunlight on my foot. Betty says I’m too fixated on the weather. I don’t discuss the seasons with her anymore.

She doesn’t allow sunlight in the apartment because she says it makes her jumpy. I get it. I oblige. No natural light. I’ve taken to lighting candles, holding the flame close to my face,

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shutting my eyes and imagining sunlight. I do this for hours…in the bathroom… while Betty takes her afternoon nap. It’s a risk. A calculated risk. Not to worry. I’m careful.

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Snappy and the Big Dream

By Lila Field

On May 4th, 2145, a Venus Fly Trap emerged from the soil. Since he was a plant, he never had parents to help him be a good fly trap, so he had to teach himself how to communicate, eat flies, and move about his home. He named himself “Snappy Trappy”, and decided that he would rule the world someday. Young Snappy did not know how he would do this, for he lived in a secluded yellow-grass grassland in the middle of South Carolina. After only a few days, the venus flytrap abandoned this dream. His friends teased him for having “too big a dream for a small-grassland flytrap”. Two months later, though, he would get a life-changing opportunity that would allow him to rule the world, and leave his friends in the rearview mirror of his life.

One day, Snappy Trappy heard a rumbling sound. It started out in the distance, but as seconds passed it got louder and louder. It was a truck that stopped a few feet away from him.

Men and women, covered in camouflage hopped out of the vehicle and rushed over.

“My name is Sergeant Robert Williamson, and I am from the United States military.

Snappy Trappy, the world is now endangered by poisonous aliens. They look like the flies that live in this South Carolina grassland, and we need your help to identify them. You need to save the world,” said one of the humans. A lightbulb went off in Snappy’s head. He thought that, maybe, if he saved the world, he could rule it, too. He wouldn’t take any chances, though, because his dreams were too big. He would not let this opportunity slip by, so he made a deal with the sergeant, who contacted the world’s leaders. They would then vote on whether Snappy should rule the Earth or not.

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They agreed to Snappy’s proposal because the situation was so dire, and he would not help them without their meeting his terms. He was accepted into the military and got fitted for a loop of camouflage cloth around his stem and a 2-inch hat. It was key to make him feel important, for he was a grouchy, mischievous, power-seeking venus flytrap, and he would threaten to walk out the doors of the Fort Jacobs military base without getting whatever he wanted. He wanted it not because he felt a desire to protect, but a desire for power.

After a while, the number of Snappy Trappy’s commands grew larger. The government and military started to grow wary of the forceful flytrap. They feared that Snappy would be a cruel dictator, and they would be to blame for it. Snappy had recently ordered that he was a god, and that anyone who did not treat him as one should be tortured to death. The government developed a plan, simple but effective: they would pretend as if they were going through with the deal, but when Snappy Trappy saved the world, he would go back to his grassland.

At the Fort Jacobs base, Snappy taught the military everything about the flies he grew up eating. In a small, metal-walled, dimly-lit room he taught them that they were black, like normal flies, but that their eyes had an irregular shape and color. He informed the soldiers that their eyes were nearly identical to those of humans, varying in color depending on the fly. “They are not dumb humans,” Snappy would say in his distinctly nasal voice, “so of course their dumb human-like eyes are smaller.” He drew a graphic illustration of one on the cold, metal floor, and wrote “DUMB” in big letters next to it. Even though the drawing was a violent depiction of an alien eating one of its eyes, in permanent marker, everyone still snapped photos of it, hoping it might help them. After six terrifying weeks with the tyrannical, insulting plant, soldiers all across the globe were ready to snipe the fly-like alien invaders.

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Regular flies were encountered, but thanks to Snappy, they would live their “Earth fly” lives at least a little longer. They were identified as safe and did not end up riddled with appropriately bug-sized bullets. The extraterrestrial population count thinned within hours, and after three days of endless sniping, it was whittled down to 4 (in the six weeks of preparation they made a basic device that could count the aliens). That would be something to celebrate, but they didn’t have any idea where the remaining airborne insects were. Panic rose across the world, and the citizens of every country smashed and burned and toppled monuments, in the hopes that they would smash or burn or crush a fly along with it. To add to these terrible events, Snappy found out about the plan to return him to his lonely grassland, and he withdrew from the military, and went off the grid for a little while. Things were looking bad for planet Earth.

Snappy Trappy went to a dark, wet woodland in New Jersey. There, the trees looked menacing, and the smallest noise was enough to make you jump and turn your head, as if in a horror movie. He had hopped for many miles, over the course of many days, barely getting the resources he needed to get by. He was allowed to keep his tiny gun, because the military had no use for something so small, and they needed to reward him for helping them. He stored it in the gardening pot he was inhabiting. Over those many days it had become the equivalent of a friend to him. It was all he had, other than his safety. Little information is known about this period of his life, for no one saw him, and he never spoke much of it.

Days after he settled into his gloomy, woodsy home, he heard a noise. It was a buzzing noise, so soft he would never have heard it if his home was not so silent. At first, he thought it was bees. Snappy hated bees, so he drew his weapon and pointed it at any hints of yellow or black, but the buzzing was not the fault of bees, but four flies. In all his time in the forest, he’d never encountered many flies. That’s when he noticed that these were no ordinary flies. Their

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eyes were different; they looked strangely human. Hatred for the species that betrayed him churned inside of him. He didn’t miss a shot when firing, and the creatures, previously feet off the ground, dropped to the forest floor.

Meanwhile, the chaos halted after receiving the updated alien population count. The destruction, though, was not easily repaired.

Snappy made the decision to hike back to Fort Jacobs. He was lonely and needed a place to stay. Somehow, after he shot the aliens, panicking and angry, something inside of him changed. He wanted to apologize to the soldiers, who were so nice to him, though he wasn’t in return. He also wanted to apologize to his friends, for how horribly he treated them. Most importantly, he wanted to apologize to the world by fixing the damage. His desire to rule the world was stronger than ever, but this time it would be for good, not evil. He promised himself he would never be evil again.

When he got back to the base, the serious soldiers stared and pointed, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, he walked in silence, head held high, in search of Sergeant Williamson, the human who had changed his life permanently. He waved at the people he passed, with a smile stretched across his plant face, saying the occasional “hello.” Questions filled everyone’s minds. “Is this a trick?” “Should I be concerned?” “Has Snappy really changed?”

After searching for an hour, the sergeant was found. Snappy Trappy explained that he was incredibly sorry, and that he had changed; he was no longer power-seeking or rude. He promised that. Tears flowed from his flytrap eyes as he begged for forgiveness from the people he had hurt. He informed the sergeant that he could fix the world’s damage if he was given a single day, heavily supervised, as the king of Earth. No one else knew the cure to such

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destruction, and even though they didn’t trust him, the world’s governments agreed. He did save the world after all, so he may be able to repair it.

His one day ruling the world was made up of gathering shipments of chemicals and materials, and instructing the citizens of the world what to do. They would be given small ball-shaped devices that they would throw at the destruction to fix it. Everyone laughed in disbelief, for something so “sci-fi”, as they called it, could not be the solution to a real-world problem. Some people thought that they could be bombs.

“I figured out the math during my journey back to society. I’ve confirmed that it will work.” Snappy told the world in a press conference. An image flashed on the screen. It was Snappy’s math, in plain sight, to be confirmed. Avid calculation was done around this, because the world needed to be one hundred percent sure that his device would work. Well-known engineers Sally C. James and Alexander Gurfoctle were the first to confirm. Gurfoctle became one of the primary manufacturers of this device, and the peace of the old world started to become a thing again.

Snappy went back to his South Carolina grassland to reunite with his friends, and to apologize. As soon as his friend, Happy Trappy, said the words “I forgive you”, Snappy Trappy’s life felt complete. He is still alive today, living in the place where he was born, friends by his side.

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The City Street, Faith Jacobs 35 mm Photograph, 4” x 6”, 2020

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The Blue Pool

By Eugenie Sappho Kourti Ferrante

Nothing to do in a blue poor of thought Not in the ways the many say But as a condemnèd fish by the rod caught To my love oh I swim to get away And tangled among the nets of the confusèd mind I look to the worlds lost To find that love’s greatest love’s untimed Ay, i, too, may be to another land tossed Doomed to live farthest from that known sea Not to belong in the common sphere of company Stuck in the misfortunes of the free Evergrowing tired of the same missing of thee And of this wet sorrow soon open the drain Unto myself ordain, “the fantasies must stop!”

Feeling then for my heart, the will is slain.

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Lian on The Beach, Zsofi Markus Acrylic Paint on Paper, 12” x 9”, 2021 52

The Crash

By Sierra Blanco

It is not a boom It is not a ba-ba-bang It is not even a pft It is the sound of division typed into a four function calculator One divided by four divided by three divided by two divided by one divided by infinity Because infinity plugs into a four function calculator just like four or pi or number X Because x is a number that means everything And everything is nothing And nothing is truth And I am a liar, so I plug that in as well The broken solar-paneled four-function calculator That will now some day run out of battery Because there was a battery of the battery and soon there will be no sun Strong enough to charge a broken solar panel Just enough to charge a calculator for a second So I shall plug that in along with biochemistry and clocks that run fast and closets and cores But since it can’t code, I need to plug it into a graphing calculator One of the ancient ones you get off eBay for three bucks Because nobody sane wants to use plus-plus-Polish entry on their chemistry test So they buy the twenty dollar ones at staples, or the pricier ones wherever else

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And they plug in the price in their new graphing calculator and it graphs an 100 Which they put on their test, and it gets marked down to an 85 because nobody sane Can actually get an 85 without trying, And it comes with a bang And a boom And a pft Because it is the crash and it is the sound Of one girl sitting and staring at the ceiling While her parents are a whirlwind around her A tornado, a hurricane, an unstoppable Hurricane Is-adore, like alternating rhythms in music class Like trying to ignore how there are names for parts of herself The hurricane of laundry and fix the sink and new shower curtain and love Because there is no boom big enough, No punctuation or onomatopoeia to explain The self-fulfilled prophecy of someday of ignoring of impossible She feels at home where she fails and at home where she exceeds And she is not I is not an i because i is an imaginary number, and she wants to use her four-function That will die before the end of the year, so she wants to make it feel useful and loved Because she loves her calculator and she loves her hurricane and she loves her life And she knows she has run out of time, but her heart is too stubborn to accept life True life, like the lives on reality tv, that know what normal is

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Because normal is not a function on a four function calculator There are only four, and she is only interested in the divide symbol Which really looks like a percent symbol from the side, when you tilt your head right And it’s rather important she remember ⅓ as a decimal and .142857 repeating as a fraction Necessary like her remembering how to spell necessary Which she rarely does, like she spells which wish sometimes Perfectly necessary typos and terms and hopes and dreams and lies But she is not a liar anymore Because she forgot that lies are only graphed on the Z plane And she’s only supposed to do trigonometry and calculus next year And she prefers to pretend she knows nothing of a subject until she needs it Like memorizing the 7th fractions as decimals and never mentioning it until eleventh grade She remembers it, almost everything she wants to really Because she is a ninja in her sleep, her sleep is self-defense and stealth-attacks She is a warrior with her sleep, showing opinions she is brave enough to never say awake She lies in her sleep, she steals in her sleep, she creates and destroys gods in her sleep Her sleep is deadly, but not half as deadly as a shard from a broken solar panel Like the one on her four function calculator That was probably stabbed with a protractor, but it was also stabbed with sleep Because sleep means dreaming and the girl forgets how not to dream And in the wake of her forgetting how to not, sleep surrounds her Sleep engulfs her, walls her off like a princess in a tower But the tower is made of the best and favorite books and worlds and movies

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And spans for centuries and centuries above the ground, too far for any prince to climb And the dragon that guards her is friendly and her best friend But that does not fit in a four function calculator, not even on a graphing calculator So the girl knows her name means everything and nothing And it ends without a boom Without a ba-ba-bang Without even a pft

MIRAGE, Dashiell del Barco Ink, Magazine, Soft Gel Matte, Watercolor, Bristol Paper, and Procreate, 3981 x 3007 Pixels, 2021 56

Untitled Short Story #2

By Toby Irikura

The maroon judge runs through town screaming at the top of his lungs I’ve just been made, eyes rolled into the back of his head, which is missing a scalp. Seneca hears but does not see and gets ready for her bath of sweat in which she will shed tears of joy. The train moves.

Delilah moans that her coal has been burnt and turns to Ovid who mutters to himself the fact that Johanna’s not here anymore. Delilah throws herself off a cliff looking like a dove and sinks into an ocean of black coffee and crude oil.

Zeno comes back from his work at the factory producing vegetable parts and sits down to a dinner of duck bills and chicken heads while Thomas gets ready for a banquet of roast beef and iced tea in his steel house that sits atop Skinner’s Row. Hear the judge belting out Leviticus 28:30. The guests file through and sit at the round table, Joyce first, Marx second, Mao III, James Baldwin, Joan of Arc, and an unexpected visit from the ghost of old Hamlet who takes a chair near the corner of the table and laughs uncontrollably before keeling over in his grub. The feast begins.

Jesus and Proust talk about the weather and how it wasn’t supposed to rain frogs today.

Proust yells at the sun and screams what is it made of, which was already revealed to him in a song. Jesus speaks, stop don’t do that it’s April and you know what happens then. The sky creaks and begins to weep lemon juice on top of everybody and those sprinkled but not covered begin to dissolve into a fine orange-colored mist. Thousands disappear in mere seconds.

You see the child. He dances in the street to an old Ellington recording of the standard Spain and begins to fly. Ophelia sees the child take off and gets on her wedding dress and dives

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into the river Styx, where she meets an old poet who blabbers about his hatred of April. The train moves.

Old Shakespeare gasps in horror at his creations and cries blood into a puddle of mud, tearing up his new play concerning war in East Asia. He conducts an orchestra of elephants and monkeys playing a Beethoven symphony. The deranged man runs by naked in the street prophesying the end of sea life and the extinction of mammoths in the year 2056.

Joan of Arc sits at the table and tells a tale of how she once slayed 20 boars with a broom while drunk on Turpentine, and how she wishes she had made it in Hollywood. Baldwin sits and agrees and proceeds to talk about racial politics on modern-day Mars. Joyce conspires with Mao on how to lead the Irish peasants into a full-blown revolution which will give the Proles bird feed and golden teeth. Old Hamlet weeps and tells his imaginary nephew to swear to avenge the destruction of his chickpea farm, destroyed right after the second war of the roses. The train moves.

Already the sun has set in the east leaving the sky deep green. As the guests file out from the steel house crying, Ezra Pound and Dylan Thomas take a stroll on the beach quoting Sophocles preparing for their debate in the House of Commons. The deranged man comes to a halt and collapses in a pool of his own feces. Ovid mourns the death of Delilah and prepares his coffee for yesterday’s morning. Jesus descends back down into the ocean in a flash of light screaming about the morality of architecture, claiming the Romans perfected everything before the age of modernity. I’ve failed, he says, while he comes past the floating body of Delilah which he pushes away with his left foot. Zeno settles down in his straw bed with his pet tiger and drifts off into a deep sleep in which he will dream about nothing in particular.

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The train stops.

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An Exercise in Revision

By Sierra Blanco

I’m all the way in exile, all the way out here, a different stage, somewhere near Canada, freezing cold; solitary and vast and open and indifferent, someplace that I walk like a tightrope and dance through as if I had infinite lives. I’m out here with the tormented and the forgotten, the freaks and the bitter lying “truthful” tragedies. I am here in a world where the endings don’t end, and the fragments build until they tie together, until all wars are one war, until all destruction is all one decay, until there is no complacency and every inaction is the biggest rebellion that cannot be sustained. So big, because it was never allowed to grow when it was small, when it could be stopped. So big, because if I started it big, it was because I wasn’t supposed to know about the things involved unless in abstract, three steps removed, her body and his heart and their skill and the “opposites” of my own decisions.

And to come back to these old woods, to stand here and be asked to make it so big, so encompassing? To be so small again, to be stopped again, to recollect that - yes, once I came from this town? To declare that once I allowed myself to be corrected on what I knew was correct? To declare I would allow that again? To declare that I see the sterling yellow eyes of wolves in my dreams, to declare that walls don’t heave and dances don’t freeze, that nightmares are warrens in caves off the cliffs, that I fear the feeling connected to those ice-framed images, slow, and steadily kindling my understanding of the whole. To declare, in so many words, what I press from my mouth like flowers. “I don’t know, or understand, or want to understand.”

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What I wouldn’t have given, to be given this gift earlier. Before the story was rewritten, before the loom was restrung, before the images were reshaped into new ideas. Before the word fate dug its way into my skin and threaded my failed projects into my greatest vocation. What I would have traded, I would have traded my soul for a chance to contribute and create and understand and extrapolate and turn myself inside out for what I knew of someone else’s worlds.

What I wouldn’t have given, to be taught the taboos I would accept like sour herbs years later in the dark of on-my-own. The embarrassment of my dissolving face in a pale gown, allowed to fall. Or, rather, given a reason to come back up so I could fall and come back again, instead of just going and staying for forever until the words “not yet over” stain my tongue with blood.

The words “not ever” are what ring in my ears, and promises are somber things meant to be kept, half-corrected by another’s hand, what I have always known; I turn my back and my shadow is ripped from behind me, I turn my back and I have never seen sun, I turn my back and the world is mine again - this beautiful canvas that cannot be pried from the words rotting under my tongue.

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Horses, Zsofi Markus Charcoal on Paper, 11” x 14”, 2021

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Hidden Little Neighborhood, Faith Jacobs 35 mm Photography, 4” x 6”, 2020

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An Early Education

By Ms. Caroline Holder

A new school. A new life. Queen’s College: home to the brightest and the best little girls, the girls’ grail of the eleven plus exam. We sat uncomfortably at ancient wooden desks with marks of suffering generations etched into them as surely as on the wall of any prison. Our mothers, aunts and sisters had gone here, perhaps sat at some of these very desks. Our Form Mistress, the cruelly immaculate Mrs. Cecil was corseted in disdain, from her rigidly marcelled cap of graying hair to her tiny angry feet. She was a drill sergeant to unwilling recruits, charged to refine us into models of rectitude. It was plain from the beginning that she would brook no impertinence, and expected absolute, unquestioning obedience.

Her compadre, Mrs. Fields, known saucily to the older girls as “Ma Flops”, haunted the adjoining classroom. A math teacher well past her prime, she was renowned for the phrase, “Understand? WHAT don't you understand? A blind man on a trotting horse would understand that!”. Many a girl had been reduced to tears and mathematical incompetence by Ma, who had been dangling the prize of her retirement before the community for at least a decade.

I was by no means personally unacquainted with strictness. The aphorism “If yuh can’t hear, yuh mus’ feel!” is a phrase known to every child of the Caribbean, and one with which I was intimate both at home and school, possessing an unfortunate short-circuit between brain and action. The headmistress of my elementary school had wielded a leather strap with energy and precision, supple and tattered from years of imparting discipline to future leaders, who nevertheless held her in the highest regard and deepest affection. It may well have been that her uncompromising expectation of personal and academic excellence from every single one of us 64

drew the sting out of the methods used to ensure it.

The quality of Mrs. Cecil’s censure was different, tinged with the patronage of expats who fled the damp of their dreary countries to bring enlightenment to the colonies. Mrs. Cecil waged an uphill battle to mold us into English ladies, daily casting pearls of wisdom before swine, plaguing us with box analysis, copperplate handwriting and needlework.

My first inkling of my unsuitability to be a “Squeen’s College Girl”, as we were known in town, was when I was sent next door to deliver a message to Mrs. Fields. Proud to be chosen and full of the importance of my errand, I was nonetheless terrified to beard the lioness in her den. I left the classroom, scuttled along the balcony, screwed up my courage, and flung open the door with bravado.

“Mrs. Fields…”

A tactical error, realized too late. I had interrupted Mrs. Fields while she was in full flow, and she did not care to be interrupted. I had not waited. I had possibly not even said “excuse me.” I was a goner. Mrs. Fields spun on her heel, bent the full force of her glare on me and spewed, without taking a breath, “Car-line Holder, you are the most IMPERT’NENT little girl I have ever come across.”

She turned around and continued talking as if I weren't there. Nor was I. I disappeared into myself, message forgotten, and slunk back to class, back to my seat, smaller than I had been when I had left home that morning. I was discovering that in this place I had an unwelcome gift for saying or doing the wrong thing.

One afternoon, Mrs. Cecil did the unfathomable and left the class with no adult in charge. What could have moved her to leave? We were convinced that she—like the Queen on 65

our blank exercise books—was impervious to the call of nature, so that couldn’t have been it.

Recalled home by aliens? She left strict instructions that no-one should leave their seats but moments after her departure, the fickle tropical sky blackened without warning, and fat raindrops sleeted sideways into the room.

“Psst!” I said to my dampening classmate. “Psst! Shut the window.”

She remained pinned to her seat. “She said not to move,” she hissed back.

“But we’re getting wet!”

“She said NOT to MOOOVE.” Explicit instruction warred with common sense and lost, and I felt impelled to close the windows on one side of the room. Moments after I regained my seat, the traitorous rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Mrs. Cecil’s foreboding silhouette filled the doorway, backlit by bright sun steaming the damp grass in the courtyard below. Faded blue eyes in a sun-curdled complexion swept the room greedily for wrongdoing, challenging the brown eyes that looked innocently back at her. Aha. The shuttered windows presented themselves, and plummy vowels dropped into the air like stones in still water.

“Who closed the windows?”

Silence. It was dawning on me that I was in trouble. Again. She repeated the question, more sharply this time.

“WHO closed the windows?”

Reluctantly I raised my hand, blue ribbons quivering at the ends of my stumpy plaits. “I did, Mrs. Cecil. But it was rai…”

The bony finger of judgement pointed my way. “DEE-tention!”

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My stomach lurched. We were in the first few weeks of the first term in the Lower First form, in my new school. Not only was I the MOST impert’nent little girl in the history of the whole school, but now I was facing my first detention. Worse, I had to go to the headmistress’s office to have it entered in the book.

I waited on the main verandah, in the dark green shade of the poinciana trees, hands twisting in my lap and awash with shame as Mrs. Jeffers, the Headmistress’s secretary regarded me with a raised brow. I could see her connecting the dots to my elder sister, future form-captain, prefect, house-captain and head-girl, and finding me wanting. I squirmed in my seat.

The voice that summoned me was deep and musical, a Bajan accent pleasantly flavoured with a taste of Oxbridge. As I studied the carpet miserably, a kindly voice said, “Why are you here, child?”

I sniffled. “Miss Cecil gave me a detention for closing the window.”

“Surely you must have misunderstood.”

“No, Mrs. Payne. She told us not to get out of our seats, and then it was raining.”

“I see.” The tone was startling enough for me to look up slowly and meet her eyes. Kind eyes. Brown eyes tinged with regret. Was it possible she really did see?

“I’m sorry.” she said. “I’m afraid you will have to take your detention as given.” Her warm eyes said what her voice could not. My eleven-year-old heart bore witness and felt solved as our most senior mistress acknowledged an injustice done, wordlessly taking my part even as she was obliged to support her teacher. The sting went out of the punishment; Mrs Cecil did not hold the moral high ground and we both knew it. In that instant, her power over me waned.

It was by no means my last infraction or my last detention. In fact, it was the first of 67

many. There was something about being an example of national excellence, a Queen’s College Girl, that impelled me to unconscious rebellion, from First Form to Sixth, and I was one of the only girls in the Sixth Form who would not be automatically awarded the office of Prefect.

There were so many rules, arcane and traditional, and so very many ways in which to break them. But I would always remember the Headmistress who let me know that being in trouble for breaking a rule, even if I had to accept a consequence, didn’t have to mean that I was wrong or bad. And it left me with a lasting empathy with the troublemakers, even when the time would come that I had to impose institutional rules of my own.

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Tributary at Noontime, Faith Jacobs 35 mm Photograph, 4” x 6”, 2020

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Welcome Home

By Annabelle Wachtel

I’ve waited long enough inside. The newscaster says to stay home for at least another day. What does he know? I creak open the pinewood door, as two leaves chase each other in the breeze in front of me. I take a few steps down my stepping in water you could nearly categorize as a puddle. I take a deep breath. I’m where I always yearn to be. The thick scent of grass is distracting me from the reason why I truly came outside: rain. It was not raining any longer, but if my calculations were correct, the rain stopped just a minute and a half ago, and its remnants are still in my presence. It smells fresh, like how I always expect it to. It always lives up to my expectations. It smells like days running alone down a grassy meadow, wearing a pale flowy dress, and never getting tired of my legs moving back and forth to keep up with the pace of the wind. I don’t quite understand how I’m the only one who appreciates rain. The rain is my motivation. It sounds like heaven. It smells like forever. It feels like home.

I’ve always wondered why my name was April. Of course, I’m aware the name itself has some sort of affiliation with rain, which may be a reason for my constant thinking about it. But from my understanding, my mother does not particularly like rain, and my father doesn’t think anything of it. I believe the universe was foreshadowing my true home as if it engraved an address into my brain. So I lie there, on the ground, the back of my sweater already soaked, with my arms open wide until the universe welcomes me home. It’s been a while.

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Dark Ruminations

By Mr. Kevin Casey

Middle of the night, faucet revealing.

Drips rust brown, vibrating, unyielding.

Chase crystal blue, vanishing, fleeting.

Dawn breaking, birds chirping.

Deliver me to the light.

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Roomination, Audrey Zhang Watercolor on Paper, 10” x 14”, 2020

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Masthead Spring 2021 Editorial Team

Toby Irikura Mr. Jeffrey Laguzza Audrey Zhang Zsofi Markus Valencia Hochberg Joanne Lin Faith Jacobs Sascha Feinburg

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Contributors

Upper School -

Sierra Blanco

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Audrey Zhang

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Theresa Szafranski

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Zsofi Markus

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Sascha Feinburg

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Faith Jacobs

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Eugenie Sappho Kourti Ferrante

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Dashiell del Barco

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Toby Irikura

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Joanne Lin

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Annabelle Wachtel

Middle School -

Lila Field

Staff -

Ms. Erika Petersen

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Mr. Vincent Sagona

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Ms. Caroline Holder

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Mr. Kevin Casey

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We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

- Marcel Proust

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