Penchant 5.1

THE

PENCHANT

WHIFFS OF POMEGRANATE IN THE SUMMER WIND by isabel lai “He turned feral and ignorant of the price they would both have to pay”

DEJA VU

Irvington High School’s Creative Writing Club is a student-run, interest-based club dedicated to providing a welcoming environment for writers of all kinds to convene and share their ideas outside of an academic setting. Members get a taste of publication through submitting to The Penchant, our online literary magazine. Meanwhile, monthly prompts, in-club competitions, and major writing contests are provided to allow members to explore the implications of writing, improve on their own techniques, and receive feedback from their fellow peers. Overall, our collective mission is to enable the students of Irvington to write what they wish and have their voices heard.

All images used are either submitted to us or public domain, CC0 photos. All rights remain reserved to their original owners, for those that have specified such guidelines.

Photo Credits: Cover Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash 1| 2011 Yoann JEZEQUEL 2| 2018 Nguyen Zi 4| Photo by Anna Kumpan 5| Hochgesang, Julian. 2016.

6| Wanderings, Graphic. 2021.

8| Photo by Diogo Nunes on Unsplash 9| Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash 10| Photo by Yoann Siloine on Unsplash 11| Photo by Florian van Duyn on Unsplash 12| Photo by Artem Gavrysh on Unsplash 13| Photo by kayleigh harrington on Unsplash 14| Photo by Miguel Alejandro García Bilbao on Unsplash 16| Photo by Ryan Hutton on Unsplash 17| Photo by Ren Ran on Unsplash 18| Photo by Nadiia Ploshchenko on Unsplash 19| Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust on Unsplash 20| Photo by Tamara Menzi on Unsplash 22| (leftmost: Dønnestad, Henrik. 2018.) (top right: Johnson, Steve. 2018.) (bottom right Czerwinski, Pawel. 2018.)

23| Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash 25| Photo by Joseph Chan on Unsplash 27| Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash 29| Photo by Dustin Humes on Unsplash 30| Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash 33| Photo by Tiffany Nutt on Unsplash 34| Photo by Pop & Zebra on Unsplash 35| Photo by Dima Pechurin on Unsplash 37| Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash 38| Photo by Tetiana SHYSHKINA on Unsplash To learn more about us, visit our social media: Facebook: @penchantlitmag Instagram: @the_penchant Issuu: @penchantlitmag To see our submission guidelines, click on the “Submit To” tab on the menu bar, or follow us on Facebook @penchantlitmag.

the penchant Irvington | creative writing club EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Janice Park CONTENT EDITORS Yale Han Nichelle Wong LAYOUT EDITORS Roland Zhang Helen Yuan

CONTENT Mykal Mashack Sadhana Chari Alice Zuo Samuel Vu Vinna Shen Fiona Seto Ella Kwon Rosalyn Weng Isabel Lai Priyanshi Rathod Aarya Morgaonkar Sophie Mo

LAYOUT Ishika Gwalherkar Sophie Leung Mandy Liu Elena Yu Daniel Wang Joycelyn Wong Khloe Fong

11

nov 2021

TABLE OF

CONTENTS

35 27

deja vu

3

7 17

Featured

Prose

Poetry

23| Whiffs of Pomegranate in the Summer Wind

5| Aftertaste by Nichelle Wong 7| trigger, camera, time by Mandy Liu 11| My Heart Remembers the Places We've Been by Red 17| I Met You (Back Where I Started) by Sophie Mo 23| Whiffs of Pomegranate in the Summer Wind by Isabel Lai 27| Blue Blood by P 31| Safe House by Kyle Peng 35| Hit Piece by Samuel Vu 38| Reasons for Waking Up by Anon

1| Not Just a Déjà Vu by Shrinidhi Balachandar 4| Wet Stones by Anousha Sannat

By Isabel Lai

“He turned feral and ignorant of the price they would both have to pay”

Photo/Art Anonymous, 3

POETRY

NOT JUST A

DEJA VU

by shrinidhi balachandar Looking in the mirror shows the real me With a mild terror about future hissing near my ear Want to wear red bottom and walk on the red pathway But protectors trying to recede from my flashes by making me carry cotton in the rain Want my background to get louder Losing myself in the same black and white hue Strings holding me like a puppet No one took a closer look Water and glitter sticking out on my lashes Is my recital a never-ending question?

1|The penchant||NOV 2021

Is my recital a never-ending question?

Dragging rocks with me to get help from the clouds But the clouds themselves struggling to hold up Trying to climb up the same ladder but slipping each step I take Dropping on the same boat that is learning to sway but can’t reach its shore yet Holding responsibility for everything I did and still have to Can’t cut my tangles forever Trying to arrange my tangles just to fit me with the rest I know it is the same with some changes as time go by I know it has a long way to reach the chart I know when it will happen I know what will cause it to happen I could see it every day even behind my eyes It distracts me from the present but encourages me for the future Realizing it is not just a deja vu but a precious daydream Realizing that I am writing verses that make sense, but only to me...

NOV 2021||The penchant|2

PHOTO/ART

STRING THEORY The world goes round and round.

Like puppets we hang on the strings, doing the same things over and over and over. This is life.

Anonymous 3

POETRY

WET STONES by anousha sannat

It rained.

It rained again last night.

It’s the same every time, and nothing changes.

Especially not the rain.

I get into my car and wipe the tears away from last night.

A few drops fall from the roof of the car.

Put the car in drive.

As I step over wet stones, I watch the neighborhood wake up.

It’s more of a slow stretch now, dragging between getting up and being productive or just staying in bed.

It’s cloudy as I drive on.

The streets have those same wet stains on them.

The trees glitter softly with a light wind.

People act surprised when water drips down their open car trunks.

I mean, really? What else would happen?

I want the storm to come already and rid us of all this rain.

The wet stones are an imbalance, sitting soggy on their designated space like cereal left out.

It’s not strong enough, not yet.

I look up at the sky. It’s cloudy.

How is it still cloudy?!

I want it to storm already.

But it won’t.

It will rain again tomorrow, and the night after.

Tears will still fall, people will still just grudge out of bed, droplets will slip down cars, streets stay wet, and the rain will fall down.

Tomorrow, I’ll say It rained.

NOV2021||The penchant|4

PROSE

AFTERTASTE by nichelle wong

Déjà vu nights are Fridays and Saturdays. Jamie has grown used to the cycling, the steady rising of the former and the sudden crash of the latter.

Sucking on a hard candy, she watches the traffic lights cut through the night as they pass her window.

It’s always something sweet. Last week was honey green tea. The week before, a caramel apple.

Fridays are the sticky outside, golden sweetness melting on her tongue. Saturdays are the crisp break of green skin, the tang filling her mouth. Sour is the aftertaste of sweet.

Even if she escapes the weekend unscathed, there’s always that lingering bitter in the back, a good day hangover. It’s always hard to come down from being happy.

Happiness is illusory. It slips out of her fingers right when she thinks she’s got it. Like when one breaks out of tree cover to feel the sun, only to see a never-ending forest. Lost.

5|The penchant||NOV 2021

She could be anywhere: an arcade, a friend’s house, a grocery store. Déjà vu hits like a shock of ice water, a realization of I’ve been here before: not physically, but here in this state.

On Fridays, the universe moves for her. On Saturdays, it moves for everyone else.

It laughs at her excitement, her anticipation for the future. It mocks the glow of her smile, the frenetic energy of her thoughts. It tells her, You don’t deserve good things.

There’s a black curtain in her room, one of those blackout ones that don’t let in any light. When she was a kid, she used to take the edge and wrap it around herself, rolling in tightly until everything was pitch black. Even her room’s light couldn’t penetrate the darkness. She felt safe, then. Peaceful. Nothing could touch her.

Now when she does it, she just feels alone.

Rain streaks down the car window. Tonight is a Friday. She’s

learned not to enjoy them anymore, despite the sweetness seeping through her chest.

She got an A on that chem test. The stationery store finally had the right pens. Her friends bought them all movie tickets, and they’re going out tomorrow. He texted back.

Collected memory fragments warm her inside out. The sun is shining through her. Everything is right in the world today.

It will not be tomorrow.

One of her friends will cancel, or someone will take their seats and refuse to move, or the pen will leak.

The A will turn out to have been a mistake. He’ll stop replying like he always does.

There’s a boy; of course there is. There always is one. Or a girl, or someone. He’s part of the reason for the honey sweetness uncoiling in her chest. But not the only reason, there’s that and everything like the world is simultaneously raising itself up and falling back down. Up and down, over and under, debris drifting in the ocean.

There are so many different types of love in the world and different types of people that feel them.

Different ways to love.

Most people dismiss teen romance. Ignorant, oblivious, innocent. Teens don’t know what they’re doing. Sneak out at night, make out during school, pick up dates at every party. Romance is a plot device.

She thinks that’s unfair.

There are so many different types of love in the world and different types

of people that feel them. Different ways to love.

This way, she doesn’t feel any of the usual ways. She thinks it would be nice to hold hands and go for coffee sometime. It would be nice to know she’s special to one person, that of all the people in the world that person chose her. To have someone feel the way she feels towards them, for once. But not dating, not a relationship, not anything more than holding hands and going out for coffee on Fridays.

Every Friday, he texts her.

Every Saturday, he doesn’t check his phone.

She knows it’s hopeless and stupid and insignificant. Her feelings, she means. Just because he complimented her purple hair back in third grade doesn’t mean he owes her his time or attention. He doesn’t know how she feels, probably doesn’t feel like the world is glowing when she looks at him. He’s got other people in his life, good people, actually, really good people who are much better for him than she is. If she can’t handle his absence for a day, she won’t be able to handle a relationship with him for life.

He’s got an exciting life with swimming and painting and going on nature walks. Her life is dull like passing clouds with lucky Fridays and unlucky Saturdays.

Monochromatic skies grace her weeks. She can’t get over how colorful love is.

Ever since he dyed his hair green and she complimented it, they’ve been talking. Nothing much, just casual conversation. But she’s happy when he’s here and empty when he’s not.

Dependent. Needy. She can feel herself slipping. She’s hinged her whole well-being on an unpredictable element that shouldn’t even matter. Falling in love is bad for her, and she isn’t supposed to hurt herself like that.

It’s one of the promises she made back when she used to hide in the blackout curtain. She would whisper words to herself like don’t talk too loudly when father is in a bad mood and there are no

kidnappers hiding in the bathroom and if something hurts, don’t do it.

Don’t keep hurting yourself.

Actually, it goes deeper than that. It’s more than just a boy. It permeates the way she lives, the dull shades of gray. Like whenever she’s happy, she’s walking on a tightrope.

She doesn’t trust herself not to fall.

Last Friday at her friend’s birthday party, when she bowled the strike, she felt it. The world was spinning right for her but wrong for her friend, who was a point shy of winning. The next day, her friend, who had promised to send the photos, didn’t text at all.

The Friday before, her group got together after school to work on their art project. She made friends with the group members, and they all traded contacts. She felt it when they complimented her shirt. The next day, her group talked to each other about a show they’d just finished, and she worked silently.

Déjà vu. The sensation of familiarity in what’s supposed to be new. Every week is a different situation, but the feeling is always the same.

The déjà vu on Fridays isn’t about the good, she realizes, as the car stops at a red light. It’s that moment when her hand is reaching out to pick a shiny apple, when she’s just secured a stuffed animal from the claw machine, when she feels the sudden drop in her stomach that this is a good thing, and good things don’t last. It’s the fear that the sweetness won’t last.

The light turns green, and her phone buzzes. There’s another text from him. Her friend has finally sent the bowling photos. The art project chat is going crazy with messages, this time about a show she has watched. The pit drops in her stomach, and she feels dizzy.

The hard candy is almost dissolved. She flips it over with her tongue, savoring it. The Saturday aftertaste is inevitable.

6

PROSE

TRIGGER, CAMERA,

TIME by mandy liu Erin plops down on the couch, sighing deeply as she sinks into the cushion, a hand over her face. “Work is so tiring,” she groans to no one in particular.

She stays there for a few minutes, unmoving, until the sound of the door creaking open stirs her back to reality. From the crack between her fingers, she spies a blur of pink approaching her from the door.

“Welcome home,” Erin calls out. The blur of pink—Ki, her roommate—hums in response, swiftly throwing off her shoes and making her way to the kitchen.

Erin hears her open the fridge door and set down what seems like a glass on the dining table.

It’s silent for a few moments more before Erin speaks up. “You’re back early.”

Ki grunts and closes the fridge. “Unfortunately, I have a new mission, so the boss let me off early.”

“Is it that bad?”

“We’re talking about the Arachnid here. There’s no way it couldn’t be bad.”

“I thought you got

7|The penchant||NOV 2021

dispatched from dealing with the Arachnid,” Erin says. The couch cushions dip slightly.

“Nothing is as simple as that,” Ki replies, and Erin doesn’t make an effort to pry more.

Despite working for the same organization in name, they don’t cross paths much, and Ki never replies when Erin asks about her work in detail, so it’s a wasted effort to begin with.

Their living arrangement began as something simple—Erin was looking for someone to split her apartment rent with, and Ki was looking for a place to stay.

They met through a common friend and started living together without much ado. In their early days, Ki was more of a ghost to Erin—they never really saw each other around the house, and when they did, they didn’t make much conversation. So Erin didn’t really know who her roommate was or what she did for a living or what her favorite foods were and didn’t bother to ask. It wasn’t until Erin was dispatched on a mission with the Butterfly, the rumored best sniper at her agency, that she realized who her

She stares at the camera inquisitively, as if asking a question. The camera stares back at her

roommate was.

And despite it all, after finishing their first mission together, they had kept rooming together. Even though there was a looming possibility that someone—anyone—could track them down after leaving work and trace them to their shared house, putting both of them in danger, it was no more dangerous than the work that they did on a daily basis, so working together didn’t change much between them.

Maybe Ki just wanted to keep living with Erin. Or at least that’s what Erin liked to think.

But Erin still doesn’t know much about her. And maybe Ki would like to keep it that way, with how fast she shuts down almost every conversation they have. And maybe it would be safer that way.

Erin’s eyes wander until they catch onto a camera gifted to her by an old friend, perched on one of the bookshelves. A thin coat of dust lines the top of the camera, and in the camera’s lenses, she sees a slightly distorted reflection of herself.

She stares at the camera inquisitively, as if asking a question. The camera stares back at her with no answer. _______________________ The first time she uses her camera for work is when she’s tracking down leads for her agency, the Mirage.

Erin and Ki check the same places they usually do and the ones mentioned in the information file — Asatari Port, the ninth district, the alleyways near the slums — but nothing shows up. And today, they’re embarking on their last lead, an abandoned coffee shop.

Nothing but dusty corridors and tables greet them, but Erin still decides on taking a photo, just in case it’s useful later.

The moment the shutter goes off, Erin feels a jolt in her body. Suddenly, a huge ache grows in the back of her head. She quickly closes her eyes,

wincing from the pain. When she finally opens her eyes moments later, however, she’s surrounded by a murky darkness, the only source of light being a rectangular screen before her.

Where is she? But she doesn’t have much time to think before the screen dissolves into what seems like the playback of a video. She watches herself and Ki, wearing formal dress and masquerade masks, run down the hallways at a party, the sounds of lively conversation and glass clinking in the background. It’s the Akureyri House, where many parties and gatherings are hosted, she recognizes.

A nice dream, but where is this dark place with a video player? Erin thinks.

The dream-her and dream-Ki turn a corner and burst into a room with a clock that reads 8:46 PM. There’s someone already in the room—except they’re tied up and bound to a chair? Their face is covered by a masquerade mask, but the mask stands out to Erin—it’s a striking black mask with red and gold flecks.

Erin watches as dream-Ki puts a knife to the tied up person’s throat and threatens them. Their voices bounce lightly off her ears, wisps of conversation too faint for her to hear, but from the pinched looks on their faces, she gets the gist of their talk.

She manages to catch the last few words of the captive, their voice a little louder and more prominent than the others.

“No thanks!” the captive replies lightly. “But since I feel bad for you, why don’t I share a little bit of information with you?”

They wink.

And frustratingly enough, the video player ends there with the only thing Erin heard being the last few words. The throbbing pain from before returns, causing Erin to wince and close her eyes again. She doesn’t know how long the pain stays there, except that after a while, it subsides, but she

still keeps her eyes closed. “... Erin. . . Erin. . . Erin!”

Ki’s voice comes to her in waves, but it finally jolts her awake.

When Erin opens her eyes, her surroundings take a while to settle, but her eyes finally focus on Ki, who’s peering down at her with a strained look on her face.

“Are you there?”

“Huh?” Erin looks at her hands, turns them around, then shakes her head. “Oh, huh.” It seems like she’s back to normal, except there’s a small ticking sound at the back of her head that wasn’t there before.

“You spaced out for a second there.”

“It’s nothing,” Erin waves in dismissal. She looks at Ki inquisitively. “Say, is there a clock in here?”

Ki frowns. “No, why?”

“Nothing,” Erin turns away. What she just saw. . . Could that have been a vision into the future? Erin’s hands twitch slightly with the itch to do something. The ticking that she hears in her head feels like a constant reminder that she has to be doing something, or else she’ll run out of time. . . For what? She’s not sure, but she knows instinctively she has to do something before it’s too late.

“Say, Ki,” Erin turns back to Ki with a growing smile, a glint of mischief in her eyes. “On a scale of one to ten, what would you rate crashing a party?” _______________________ “You’re absolutely crazy,” Ki grumbles. A two-hour-long car trip and a half-hour-long shopping spree later, they’re currently embarking on the endeavor to look the least conspicuous as they enter a party.

“Just trust me on this just once, won’t you? I have a gut feeling,” Erin replies. After a wary look-down by the guards, they’re in, and they make their way towards the back of the building, where the food tables are stationed.

“Look for someone with a

8

black mask spotted with red and yellow,” Erin whispers in Ki’s ear.

Inconspicuously looking around takes a lot more time than expected, but after a while, the person from Erin’s vision enters the room, greeting some other people with a wave of their hand.

Erin sips her cocktail, eyes trained on the walls of the room.

She inches closer to the person to try to get at least a snippet of their conversation, but all she catches from the conversation are faint murmurs and laughs here and there.

After the person dips from the room, Ki follows them out, and Erin follows her after a minute.

By the time she catches up with Ki, she already has the person tied to a chair in the same room she saw in the vision. Ki looks at her expectantly when she closes the door. “Now, shouldn’t you be telling me something?”

“This person is part of the Arachnid,” Erin whispers.

“Hopefully interrogation will bring us some information.”

“I’ll trust you on this one last time,” Ki whispers back, “but if we don’t get anything, you’ll be the one to take the blame.”

Erin can only nod before Ki puts a knife to the throat of the thrashing person in the chair.

She checks the time on the clock. It’s 8:46 PM again, as she saw in the vision. The ticking at the back of her head hasn’t disappeared this entire time. In fact, it’s even louder than before.

She watches as Ki says the same words she did in her vision and carries on with what was done. The ticking in her head picks up speed. Time must almost be up, she thinks.

She opens her mouth but nothing comes out, because the sound of ticking in her head is starting to drown out everything else. She winces, with what she originally meant to say lost on her tongue, eyes closing from the pain as the ticking picks up pace.

Faster, faster, faster. . .

9

She blinks and all of a sudden the ticking sound is gone and it slips from her mind as fast as it had arrived. Erin looks around, taking in the view of Ki putting a knife to the throat of someone sitting in a chair with fresh eyes.

“Wait, why are you threatening this guy?” Erin runs over.

“What do you mean, why?” Ki stares inquisitively back at her. “You’re the one who led us here and got us this lead. Are you telling us to let them go now?”

Erin ignores the captive snorting in the background.

“Wait, this guy is from the Arachnid? And I led us here?”

Ki furrows her eyebrows.

“Are you kidding me? Do you not remember what happened the last couple of hours?” At Erin’s silence, she narrows her eyes. “Do you have a short-term memory?”

“Not that I remember,” Erin muses. Although, she doesn’t voice out loud as she turns to view the rest of the room, why does this scene look so familiar? Where has she seen this room, this person, these walls before?

Ki brings a hand up to her face to facepalm, but the captive takes this opportunity to kick Ki in the chest, to which they miss, but Ki stumbles back a few steps, and the person manages to shrug off their binding ropes.

Erin runs towards the door in hopes of catching the person before they leave, but she’s too late—the person’s already out of the room by the time she reaches the door.

Ki curses under her breath. “Shit, there goes the only real lead we’ve gotten this past week.” Upon seeing Erin almost halfway out the door, she yells, “Hey! Get back here!”

“Are we not going to chase them?”

“This is a public party for God’s sake, there is no way we are chasing down someone in here without getting caught,” Ki hisses.

Erin pauses. “You’re

right.” She stares down at her hands. “I’m really sorry,” she adds in a small voice. “It was my fault they got away.”

Ki places a hand on her forehead, a fatigued look on her face. “No use for apologies now,” she sighs. “At least we know now that the Arachnid and the Mirage are more connected than we think.”

The ride to the nearest hotel is silent, and it stays that way even when they’re in their hotel room. Erin reviews the afternoon’s events in her mind as she waits for Ki to finish showering.

Where has she seen this room, this person, these walls before?

PROSE What was she doing, dragging Ki to a party in the first place? And how did she know who was the Arachnid member beforehand? Ki insisted that she was the one who gave directions, so how did she know?

Erin racks her brain for answers, but she can’t remember anything. A nagging feeling takes root in the back of her mind. It feels like she’s forgetting something, but she can’t quite put her finger down on what exactly she’s forgetting.

Among all the questions she has, one of them lingers in her mind longer than the others.

Why did the scene back at the Akureyri House feel so familiar? she wonders. _______________________ (“Do you know why we’re constantly getting in fights with the Arachnid?”

Erin hums. “Isn’t it because the Arachnid holds a knit-tight drug dealing ring and has control over major ports of the city and powerful positions in government?”

“Not just that,” Ki exhales. “This might sound silly, but. . . the Arachnid are actually investigating a small number of people who are born with strange, supernatural abilities. And they’re trying to reproduce and sell their abilities.”

“Huh. . .” Erin blinks. Her eyes flit across the room while she tries to process Ki’s words. “That does sound silly. Like something from an apocalypse fanfiction I’d read online.”

“It does.” Erin watches as Ki reaches out a hand towards the ceiling, almost as if to grasp something, but retracts the hand just as fast. “But it’s real. My brother was one of them.”

“He had. . . the ability to see the future,” she adds after a moment of thought. “In short bursts, however, that happened irrationally. That’s all I knew because that was all he told me.”

She sighs, a hollow, defeated sound. “But I would hear him

constantly talking with my parents at night outside in the living room about his abilities, asking what he should do about it.”

“But he ended up not being able to do anything about it at all when he disappeared one day when I turned seventeen.” Ki brings up her hands in front of her face again, looking them over with a foreign expression on her face. “The police couldn’t do anything about it, so I set off to find him. The only traces of him left were letters he had somehow left in his room—letters to the Arachnid. Something about them being able to help him, being able to ‘cure’ his ability.

“And from the letters, it didn’t seem like he wanted to have his ability ‘cured’ or anything: he just wanted to know more about it and why such abilities existed in the first place.

“And I guess he never got his answer, because five months after he went missing, his head came on a platter to us in the mail.”

Erin’s eyes go infinitesimally wide with shock.

“On. . . a platter? To you? In the mail?”

Ki laughs, but there’s no joy in her voice. “A warning of sorts, I guess you could take it that way, to tell us to stop investigating his disappearance.”

She turns on her side to finally face Erin again, allowing her to see Ki’s lips quirk up in a wry smile, but this time her eyes are closed.

“But in those months before his head came I had already found the Mirage and joined, so it was too late for me to stop if I had even wanted to. And here I am, two years later, but nowhere closer to where I want to be than where I first started.”

“But, there’s one thing I do know about the Arachnid,” Ki’s voice takes on a sharper, more determined tone. “They’ve been experimenting on people with abilities, like my brother and

trying to separate their abilities from the people so they can reproduce their abilities and ‘sell’ them to people without them for their use.”

“Soon, information about supernatural abilities will be everywhere, I predict,” Ki adds on. “For now, it’s just a matter of when this’ll blow over.”

Erin slowly nods in acknowledgement after a few seconds of silence. “I. . . had no idea about any of this,” she finally says. “Thank you for telling me.”

“No need to thank me,” Ki laughs again. “Consider this payment for helping us find a lead. Although I’m not sure how much my payment falls short of what you deserve as thanks.”

She pauses, and Erin almost thinks that’s the end of their conversation, until her roommate speaks up again.

“You remind me of my brother somehow,” she says.

“Although I’m not sure what you’d do with that information.

But you both carry around cameras a lot.”

Ki then turns away so that her back’s facing Erin, and after a minute of silence, Erin takes it as a sign of the end of their conversation, so she does the same. She doesn’t fall asleep until much later that night.

Abilities, huh. . . Erin stares at her own hands hours later, little slits of light illuminating the room. Her hands look oddly pale under the moonlight, coarse with years of work. She flexes them, reaches them out and retracts them.

What would it be like to have an ability of her own? she wonders fleetingly, her mind clouded with sleep. Any thoughts of abilities, of cameras, and of heads on a platter quickly slip from her mind.)

10

PROSE As the train skidded to a stop, hundreds of people hurried onto the platform. Through the sounds of the station, the frost on the tip of her nose, the push and pull of the crowd, she couldn’t focus on the feelings plaguing her mind. Making her way through the mob, she found herself on the cold streets of the little town. The weather was cold enough that the sky turned a dull grey, but not enough that it was covered in snow. Taking a deep breath, she reveled in the fresh, crisp air filling her lungs.

She climbed into a taxi, staring out at the strangers decorating the sidewalks as the lights blurred past. She arrived at the hotel, giving a quiet thanks to the driver and walked up the stairs.

“Reservation for Robin?” she said hesitantly.

Climbing up the stairs, she made her way through the hallways, keeping an eye on the room numbers to make sure she arrived at the right one. The second Robin entered her room, she focused on unpacking to keep herself from looking out the window. The sky filled her chest with a strange sensation, an ache that told her something in her was empty that shouldn’t be. A few days ago, the feeling had started strangling her. She was doing well in her current life until winter came around. That winter in particular. It left her breathless, a sensation stronger than she’d ever felt before. Being as old as she was, the past blurred together, and she eventually didn’t care enough to sort it out. She couldn’t remember the people she’d met, the people she’d loved, the people she’d hated, the people she’d left.

She couldn’t remember their faces, so she left it at that. But this, this was a feeling like no other. It was like a string had roped around her heart, urging her to go back. Robin had ignored it at first, of course, but the last night she slept in her bed, she tossed and turned

11|The penchant||NOV 2021

MY HEART

REMEMBERS THE PLACES WE’VE BEEN

by red

through flashes of memories, trying to get air into her lungs, before the sun shone through her curtains and she realized she hadn’t slept a wink. That morning, she spent hours in bed, her mind racing with thoughts, pushing her back to the beginning. She couldn’t remember when it first started, but after a frigid night, filled with snow and faded store signs, it only took a matter of time before she realized her hair wasn’t turning gray and her wrinkles never changed. Eventually, the people around her left, or died, and time became endless. She stopped trying to remember her past when she could only remember the feeling of a name so familiar, dancing on tip of her tongue, but not the person themself. She stopped caring. She stopped feeling. Wherever life took her, she went. But that winter, she found herself lying awake in bed, suffocated by the need to leave, to go to a place her heart called for, and so, she followed it. With no expectations, she made her way near the center of the land, a little town called Cordel.

The town was covered in buildings, misplaced neon sides, and faded storefronts. Snow littered the street that morning, and the cold struck her face as she stepped out the front door of the hotel. Looking around, she wasn’t hit by any feelings of déja vú like she expected. All around her, the buildings looked the same, the car horns sounded the same, the people looked the same. She closed her eyes and sighed, tilting her head upward. The sky…that’s when it hit her. The sensation of seeing this exact sky. That dull grey color, the one she sees through windows in little cafes.

She’s seen it before. Like she’d stood on these streets and seen the snow pouring from the clouds that decorated the sky. She felt a retreating warmth in her hand, a memory her heart yearned for but her mind couldn’t

And just like that, the feeling disappeared, and Robin was left to the hands of the cool air once again. Her hand felt colder than usual, and she quickly tucked it in her pocket anxiously.

Surely, this was some type of déja vù. She didn’t remember heading down these streets and alleyways, but something was familiar.

Something she couldn’t place. All that she knew was that she

Slowly, she turned her head. But what she focused on, wasn’t the bell, or the store, but her own reflection in the window. She stared, hit by the same feeling she felt when she saw the sky. Her reflection. Walking slowly up to it, she pressed her hand against the glass. Why did it feel like she’d stared at it like this, this very window, with the faded retail store sign in the back? It could’ve been any store, and window, and

needed to follow this feeling. She couldn’t let it escape.

Something…would disappear if she stopped. The feeling in her chest drove her down the streets, staring at the strangers around her, each going about their own lives. How many lifetimes had walked these streets? How many people had made their homes here? How many had made memories here? How many had forgotten them?

A chime. Robin froze.

she’s lived long enough to have stared at her reflection in millions of them. But there that feeling was again, walking down the road with someone else, her hand growing warm with her neck this time, an imprint of a scarf sitting on her heart.

“Young lady!” Robin jumped back from the window, alarmed. An older woman with a flour stained apron waved a wooden stirring spoon in her hands.

place.

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“If you’re a robber, then you best skedaddle. If not, then you must come in. Looking at my shop for more than 5 seconds means you’ll have to spend at least 5 minutes in.” Robin stared at the woman. The woman was fierce, with a bun of grey hair on her head and a prominent Irish accent. She was definitely not someone Robin wanted to get on the bad side of. Besides, entering the cafe might give her something more than the slipping feeling of warmth in her hands.

Stepping in, she felt a gust of warmth. It was a colorful cafe, full of swirling rainbow paints and plants. There was a little board of sticky notes where

people doodled and wrote notes, and little tables spread across the floor. The lively atmosphere of the shop felt like it didn’t belong in the streets of a dull little town. It felt like it should be crowded to the brim, settled in the center of a large, bustling city.

“So, young lady. What brings you to our little town?” the cafe owner asked. “I’ve never seen you around these parts, and I never forget a face.” She said, squinting slightly.

“Just feeling a little nostalgic, I suppose. The city was getting too stifling,” Robin answered.

“I get that feeling.” The lady sighed before walking

around the counter. “I haven’t seen my daughter in forever. She calls every night but the city is just too far to make the trip over and over. You know, she…”

Robin tuned her out. Not because she was annoying or anything. In fact, the older woman seemed pretty sweet. But she couldn’t sit there listening to someone else’s story when she couldn’t even figure out her own.

That feeling, why’d it start now?

There had been plenty of places she’d revisited for the “first time” without knowing she’d been there before. And sure, she’d had some déja vú, but it never really mattered.

Now, but now…it felt like

“

It was a colorful cafe, full of swirling rainbow paints and plants

”

that feeling in her chest was searching for something, leaving her heart yearning and threatening to shatter into pieces.

After decades of indifference, the immense pressure of it was creating more and more cracks in her demeanor. She had learned a long time ago that settling down and getting attached did nothing more than hurt someone who never aged. But this distant feeling of warmth in her hands, a fleeting presence of someone cupping her cheeks, it was breaking something in her. Why was she feeling it now though?

She was doing fine without it.

What did it want from her? Why wouldn’t it just leave her alone?

“Hey! Young lady!” Robin snapped up. The woman was staring down at her.

“You looked like you got

13

PROSE

The snow had started to fall harder, and the sounds of bustling people had quietened

lost in your head, child.” She frowned, crossing her arms.

Robin looked down apologetically, “Sorry…”

The woman glared fiercely for a moment, before sighing and smiling kindly.

“Here…take this.”

Looking down, Robin found a mug of steaming hot chocolate.

The chocolate swirled around, little marshmallows floating up and down. Wet. Her cheeks were wet.

“Hey! Are you ok?” the woman said, distress evident in her voice.

Robin touched her cheeks. She was crying. That feeling again. She’s lived this moment before. Sat down like this, and had a hot chocolate placed in front of her. Someone leaned over the counter and smiled. Someone kissed the top of her head, placed their hands on hers and brought them to cup the mug of hot chocolate. But when she looked up, all she saw was the woman.

And just like that the illusion faded. When she placed

her hands over the cup, she could feel its warmth through her frozen fingertips, but it seemed colder than usual. Apologizing, she thanked the woman.

Begrudgingly, the woman let her leave without an explanation, the only condition being she didn’t pay for the drink.

Robin walked down the street before sighing and pressing her back to a wall. Sliding down, she sat with her knees up, clutching the drinking tightly in her hands. The snow had started to fall harder, and the sounds of bustling people had quietened.

This was becoming unbearable. The feeling of something not quite nostalgia pressing down on her heart, the dja vu that overwhelmed her mind as she made her way through the town. It was driving her mad. She needed to figure out why she was here, and she needed to figure it out fast.

Once she did, she could go home, and never come back here. She just needed to figure out what was going on, but the little hints she momentarily lived

through weren’t giving her any useful information. They were just sensations of a presence so overwhelmingly…warm. She couldn’t figure out who they were, how she knew them, or anything.

Resting her head against the wall, she looked up at the sky like she was pleading to some unseen force. “It’s not fair,” she muttered. “What do you want from me?”

A brake squealed.

Glancing down half heartedly, she looked just in time for a bus to drive past, revealing the sign banner on the store across the street from her. One faded with time, meant to be inviting for tourists, if they had any to begin with.

“Come visit our wonderful Waterfront Gardens!” it read. And just like that, she wasn’t sitting anymore. The feeling of seeing that very sign invaded her mind. She felt herself staring at the sign, someone beside her, as she excitedly pointed at it.

14

“Can we go?” she asked excitedly. She saw the person beside her laugh and agree, but she couldn’t hear anything. A car horn. And just as quickly as she was brought into the half memory, it ended.

“The lake,” she thought.

“I need to get to the lake.” She didn’t know why. Her head couldn’t make any sense of it, but her heart jumped like it was agreeing. She needed to go to the lake. There was something there.

Rushing to her feet, she dropped the hot chocolate. It spilled over the sidewalk, soggy marshmallows scattering onto the ground. But she had no time to spend on it. She needed to get to the lake. Luckily, it wasn’t too far from where she was. Robin sprinted, wondering what she’d find, her heart pounding and her mind racing. She ran through the sidewalks, pushing past people with muttered apologies, tripping over stones, sprinting through the streets. It’s a miracle she came out of the journey unscathed. Turning frantically, Robin tried to determine which side the lake was. There, on her right. She could see the glittering water in the distance. Rushing down the stairs, she made her way through the crowd until she stopped abruptly at the gate.

It felt like she’d just crashed into an invisible wall.

Seeing the lake and garden from here, it left her breathless. It wasn’t anything special, the hedges overgrown and bushes bare from the winter weather, the lake just started to freeze over, but that wasn’t what left her breathless. The view was so, so familiar, and yet the memory wouldn’t come to her mind. What left her breathless, was the feeling in her chest, like her heart was swelling, like it was crying, like it was so, so close to being reunited with something only it remembered. Collecting herself, she took a deep breath. The air rushing through her lungs calmed her, preparing her for what was to

15

come. One foot in. Another.

“Just like that,” she whispered to herself. “One foot after the other.”

Everywhere she looked overwhelmed her with such a strong feeling of déja vú, she couldn’t tell what time she was living in anymore. She’d seen all this before, with a person by her side, someone she cared for, someone she loved. She’d hidden behind that bush and scared them. She’d tripped into their arms. She held them close to her as they stared out onto the lake.

But now, she was alone, her heart’s memories the only connection she had to them.

“Even if we forget each other, our hearts will remember the places we’ve been.” Robin fell.

That voice. She knew that voice. It was them. Standing right there on the edge of the garden, that was the last thing they’d said to her before they left the lake. It was then that everything was starting to come back.

There was a little cemetery not far off from the lake.

Maybe that was the reason not many people visited it, but generations of people who had lived and loved this town were buried there. She walked there, trudging past only a few crosswalks before the lake disappeared from sight and all that was left was the black gate of the cemetery. Walking in, Robin looked around, until her eyes landed on one in particular. She couldn’t feel her footsteps crunching on the leaves beneath her feet. She couldn’t feel her knees hitting the ground as she knelt in front of the grave. She couldn’t feel the tears slipping down her cheeks or the cold cutting through the warmth they brought to her face. She couldn’t feel anything, but the feeling in her heart. Pain, so much pain. But oh, it was so, so warm. This was what she’d been looking for, or rather, who she’d been looking for. Her best friend. Her family.

Her soulmate. Her first lover. Her

favorite one. The one who couldn’t stay, but the one who wanted to, so, so badly. She’d found them. She couldn’t feel anything but the smile so big, it was hurting her cheeks, the laughter that spilled from her lips, the relief, the pain, the warmth, the absolute love that poured out of her heart. She gazed into the sky.

“You were right…Even when I forgot you, my heart remembered the places we’ve been. Oh god, you were right…and I...I finally found you,” she whispered, tilting her head up to the sky, her eyes slipping closed for the final time as she faded into little fireflies, decorating the evening sky with their brilliant glow.

This is the story of a soul, or rather, two souls. One cursed

PROSE with an early death, and one cursed with too long of a life. A small god took pity on their poor souls, leading them to each other and giving them an escape. If they found each other after their curses had run their course, they might have the chance of finally being reunited after death.

However, they had to do this under the condition that the soul cursed with partial immortality would lose their memories, and had to find the other through their own circumstances.

Unexpectedly, these two souls had fallen to a bond like none

other on Earth, and suspiciously, the god had a name that correlated slightly to something like “dream.”

Nobody can say for sure what happened to the two souls, but they say, if you look up into the winter sky on a cold, cold night, you might see two unusual stars shining brighter than even the north star, in the centers of two interlocking circles. They say the more we remember their tale, and wish for their reunion, the better their chances are of finally being together again. So make sure you remember their tale, and

look up into the winter sky to wish upon them, because who knows, maybe…one day…they’ll find each other again.

One day… they’ll find each other again.

16

by sophie mo

PROSE

I MET YOU (BACK WHERE I STARTED)

The first time Huowen loses someone, it is by the hands of time, of natural decay and erosion.

Just as how mountains bow toward rivers whose cavities have shaped the hills, those who have remained since the birth of this world must learn to give back to their creations. And as such, on a vivid, lovely summer day under the shelter of a blossoming willow tree, Huowen witnesses the life leave her first friend’s eyes.

Her friend’s name was—had been—Laksn, one carved into the skies she had held and the barren earth in which she had nursed. It would be a name only the land itself remembered and whispered of, but in due time, Huowen is certain that it would fade away from the ears

and mouths of those who had ever heard of Laksn.

And on that day, Huowen had put down her sword, shed her armor, and let herself be vulnerable as she buried Laksn in the midst of a field of chrysanthemums. She wonders then, when the tears did not come and her heart did not palpitate, if this was what grief felt like—the gut-wrenching sensation that seemingly tore the very flesh out from beneath her skin. It was simply abhorrent.

Loneliness came hand in hand soon after, like the scent of rust that clings onto a wounded soldier. With its own two hands, grief shredded open a void within Huowen, throwing her into the impending darkness that lay dormant. It drove her mad; to live

life without a sense of purpose or meaning is to not live at all, and Huowen realizes this when she winds up in the place where she started.

The same sorrow led her by the hand to a vacant table littered with watercolor paint.

Dust had found a home in the crevices of a brush’s bristles, and as Huowen picked it up with her pulse in her throat, she remembers: “Art is the entrance to the heart,” Laksn had once said. At first, Huowen did not understand.

It seemed as if this “art” was no more of anything than some poetic splendor that Laksn had spouted once again to puzzle Huowen. Laksn had only laughed at her astounded expression when she took up the

The first time Huowen loses someone, it is by the hands of time, of natural decay and erosion.

17|The penchant||NOV 2021

brush and slashed it across the canvas as she would with a sword to the head of a foe.

Huowen, at that time, had not realized what Laksn meant.

But now maybe, maybe, if she held the fragile branch in her hand and learned to master all it had to offer, then maybe she would grasp those words.

So, Huowen picks up the quill and draws. Painting is a tedious matter, a hobby that certainly does not suit someone

who was built to be a machine of war. It requires gentler strokes across a blank canvas rather than ones which depend entirely on brute force, and Huowen at first cannot fathom the gesture. Her strokes are wide, rigid, straight, lacking in all the curves and delicacy she had seen Laksn bring to life.

It irritates her.

But patience is all Huowen has ever learned of, and that patience grounds her to her seat as she imagines Laksn, full in flesh and blood, standing on the island in the middle of the lake with a parasol in hand. She sketches the undulation of

Laksn’s hair all the way to the folds of her dress, though even then,it is not enough. Huowen scratches it off. Restarts. Outlines the tilt of Laksn’s chin, the glint in her eyes, the curve of her smile.

It is different. It is all different; Huowen drops her brush. Restarts. It comes to the point where Huowen can not make out who she is attempting to envision. The woman surrounded by familiar waters is no longer someone who exists.

Her eyes are concealed by strands of hair that cascade down her shoulders, her red lips no longer visible against the white of the forgotten background, her being

It is different. It is all different; Huowen drops her brush.

Restarts.

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nothing more than a fleeting presence devoid of life.

It is inevitable—Huowen discerns when the woman turns further and further away from her—to lock someone’s presence directly in time. Even if it was possible, nothing lasts forever, for time waits for no one—not even those who have passed on.

It takes her centuries to accept it. When she does, the cranes living in the marshes of the lake have left for a new home, the skies have turned gray under the weight of snow, and the waters in front of the table are frozen solid.

Huowen picks up the painting three hundred years later and starts again. This time, she would not draw for the sake of retaining Laksn’s memory, but for the sake of herself.

On this canvas, Huowen would allow herself to indulge in the peacefulness of the world.

She was a fool to think it would last.

The second time Huowen loses someone, it is no one other than herself.

She makes the grievous error of being blind to rage when some foolish mortals desecrated the field where Laksn

nothing lasts forever, for time waits for no one—not even those who have passed on.

19

PROSE

where darkness reigned supreme against the feeble rays of light leaking from above

was laid to rest. They uproot the gold, leaving nothing but black soot and upturned soil in their wake. The ten suns blither and burn with reflected rage, scorching the grass with a need to consume. It is the selfishness of humankind that forces Huowen to level the northern mountains and crush the forests with an unrelenting fist. She overthrows the tides and drains the rivers and lakes and soils the fruits growing on trees. She does not show an ounce of mercy in the face of ruin, abusing her power to lay decay before the feet of her people.

Within the movement of a breeze from the east to the west, the villages are pillaged, civilians are driven out of their homes, and corpses of cattle are scattered across the red earth.

Huowen cannot bear to see the rest.

No apology of any caliber could be sufficient enough to atone for what she has done. As punishment for her sins, she surrenders herself to the deepest part of the caverns where darkness reigned supreme against the feeble rays of light leaking from above.

There, she slumbers for ten thousand years more.

20

When Huowen awakes, there is light.

It is not the same light she had harvested from the suns many years ago; this light is sharper, brighter, scraping into her eyes and making her squint at the crevice that has miraculously formed overhead.

“Hey!” someone unfamiliar shouts, their voice reverberating through the vacant cavern. “Are you alright?”

Huowen blinks sluggishly at the face peering down. She does not respond, for the tongue in which the individual speaks is unlike the one she had heard back in her time. It’s heavily accented, colloquial, some form of vulgar language that Huowen could never think of using.

“Hold on,” the voice says again, this time further away, “I’ll grab a ladder!”

No need, Huowen almost says, though the person is long gone from the position they were in. What matters would she need a ladder for?

Have these people never seen their god? (With a pang, Huowen recognizes the fact that she is no longer allowed the luxury to be called the deity of this region.)

Huowen blinks and finds herself above the cavern, whose ceiling has worn away in the past centuries through the routes of dripping water and forming stalagmites. It leaves behind a large rift in its wake, one where the roots of trees in proximity are forced to stab through the dirt and crawl feebly toward the other side of the crevice.

21

Someone hiccups behind Huowen, and when she turns around, it’s almost unbelievable. If the misery that plagued her for many years before hadn’t been torturous enough, the blow to her chest at the sight of the woman in front of her just might have just as well wrenched her lungs from her ribcage.

The same hands and smile and complexion that Huowen had tried again and again to capture on paper in the past now stands before her as a whole, perfect in design; without flaw, it is: “Laksn,” Huowen utters so softly that it escapes into the wind.

“How did you manage to get out of there by yourself?” Laksn asks skeptically, but nonetheless starts fussing over Huowen’s ragged clothes, completely ignorant of Huowen’s words. “Did you climb up all the way?”

Huowen does not respond, partially because she does not dare blink in case the Laksn before her will disappear into a hundred splendid stars as she did when her soul left the world. She continues to stare at the woman, believing that, in the end, it will only be a fragment of her imagination.

Laksn brings Huowen to her home despite the doubts clustering Huowen’s mind. The home is disorderly, nothing akin to the idyllic atmosphere Laksn had once favored.

Orphans run from one end of the room to the other, some even wandering over to poke at Huowen’s long hair and tug at the hems of her sleeves. It is disorderly, yes, quite unlike anything Huowen’s experienced before, but even amidst this chaos, there lies conformity and a warm ambiance.

This, maybe she can get used to.

The Laksn of this era, Huowen observes later on when she settles into the daily routine of the household, is even more artistic than the one from a lifetime prior. Even when she was baking, her pastries were works of art—tarts made of cream from the cows’ milk and berries the children had picked in the early morning, still tasting of dawn dew. When she wasn’t near the oven or with flour coating her apron, she was with ink and quill, carving perfect lines into parchment.

She had an easel up every afternoon, carrying it down to the hillside to capture the same scenery.

From the great lake settled in front of the mountains to the birds that returned to their nests at dusk, Laksn captured them all.

In her hands, she held the world’s colors, and with her brush, she blessed the canvas before her.

Her palms were smeared with the rainbow she’d taken from the sky after a night’s rainfall, paint caked under her nails, fingers coated with charcoal, but she did not mind.

One day, Huowen so happens to be spotted gazing at Laksn, and the woman turns to her, beckoning Huowen toward the painting.

PROSE “Do you know how to draw?” Laksn questions. Huowen’s stomach flips in recognition of the kind tone, and she swallows thickly. Despite having eons of knowledge of watercolor and pigments of differentiating hues, Huowen chooses to shake her head.

“Art is the entrance to the heart.” Laksn smiles and presses a brush into Huowen’s hands. “Why don’t you give it a try?”

Huowen stops. Time begins to fall asleep in the languid heat of the sun’s rays, and Huowen—Huowen cannot even speak. Her eyes widen at the words and at the gesture, and the sensation of having been here before dawns within her.

The brush is the same color as the one Huowen had left behind when she hid herself from her people, with the recognizable lotus carved at the base right before the bristles. It is the same. It is all the same; Huowen drops her brush. The weather when Laksn said the same phrase decades ago is the same as it is now, the color of the sky is the same, the feeling of having so much time to spare is the same.

“Are you sick? Do you need a doctor?” Laksn furrows her eyebrows at a disoriented Huowen.

“Is the heat getting to you?”

“No,” Huowen manages to say with dry lips. “None of that. I am—” she chokes, “—I am fine.

Thank you for your concern.”

Laksn takes a look at Huowen’s quivering fist. In a heartbeat, her hand is upon Huowen’s, steading it.

“Do not worry. Practice will bring forth the fruit of your efforts.”

Laksn, with one arm, guides Huowen’s hand across the white, spreading gold across the canvas.

“Would you like me to teach you?”

Huowen could nearly cry.

Her eyes blaze with tears kept away for millenia, her shoulders shake with the tremors seizing her body, but she retains her posture, clenching her hands as she takes a shuddering breath.

“Yes,” Huowen replies, voice meek and faltering. “Yes.” For it had once been Huowen who had asked Laksn to show her how the brush was meant to be wielded, and once again, she would make the same selfish request:

“Teach me.”

22

PROSE

When the seas rage, they hardly stop.

Wave after wave, the sea blubbers white foam at its lips, salivating at the thought of consuming wandering

Neri’s frequent business trips to the Soda Islands often interrupt Kanzo’s scheduling.

A flash of scarlet interrupts their conversation, illuminating the sky as if it had been dyed with blood.

Neri’s face morphs as her body starts convulsing, her heart aglow with the same shade of ruby belonging to the

The boat rocks quietly in the small of the ocean, holding onto the waters like a child pleading to be carried by its mother; this is the only solace Kanzo can find in the brooding night.

The swaying lulls him to a light slumber, yet as his eyes flutter closed, a soft hum permeates the air once again. His head drifts in acknowledgment, nodding off in different directions as the notes change beat.

WHIFFS OF POMEGRANATE travelers. Crashes and booms fill the air as the thunder illuminates the crystal clear water. A lone, run-down ruin of a ship bounces across the sea, slowly disintegrating as the sea plays with its new toy.

Above the thundering lightning sounds a voice, sweet as honey picked right off the comb and light as a feather. As the tune swims through the air and into the cabin, a dark-haired figure turns his face towards the window, beady, raven eyes flying to the bursting column of water emerging from the water.

As a flying sword hits its mark a hair from his neck, Kanzo dryly weeps at his broken window.

“While I appreciate your flaunting of swordsmanship, could you aim farther away from my duck figurine?” He looks pointedly at the floating nymph. A glass duck that looks a little too close to the bookshelf’s edge glistens under the warm, fluorescent light, almost winking back at Nerissa.

Huffing, the sea fairy graciously leaps onto the dilapidated ship, sweeping the debris off the ship’s deck with a wave.

As much as Kanzo loves Neri, he knows that she cared not for the intricate design nor the clever naming of the U.S.S. Liquor Ice (how dare she). Despite becoming acquaintances 10 years ago due to “work”—with Kanzo’s job as a sailor and Neri’s as, well, the guardian of the sea—the pair rarely meets, as

23|The penchant||NOV 2021

sky. The ghost singer’s voice turns gaunt, the song’s melodious harmony turning into a mumble of broken words from an ancient spell.

Her eyes shine pure white, pupils shifting into a slight shade of wine as her arm stretches forward at an unnatural angle. The tune scales across octaves, reaching high into the soprano until—all sound breaks. An ear-splitting screech overtakes the world. Night turns from scarlet red to dark maroon.

Neri disappears.

Wincing at the noise, Kanzo scrutinizes the empty shadow. As the waves lap against the ship, the lone figure leans against the flagpole in blunt silence.

An ear-splitting screech overtakes the world

by isabel lai

FEATURED Entranced by the tune, he reluctantly arises. Kanzo shuffles his feet like a marionette following a play’s script, blankly gazing into the foggy waters. An invisible string pulls on his mind, pulleying him to the edge of the deck.

Tottering like a child over the tip, his foot slips. And he falls.

— The first time Kanzo meets her, she already looks annoyed. Deep in the cavern,

he wakes up only to see a seething bejeweled crown of red buns.

Glancing at the kelp in the entrance, he swivels around, only to be taken back by the ruby stare of a siren.

“You do that a lot?” he lazily drawls as he recollects his composure over this creature.

“No, we usually don’t get drowning sailors to join the team.”

Blinking back at her, Kanzo doesn’t know how to respond.

“Well, this drunk sailor’s

name is Kanzo. And yours?”

He watches a flicker of thought flash across her face as she debates whether it is worth spending more time on this lost cause.

Thirty seconds later, she decisively mutters a quiet “Miko” back to him.

He looks like he’s going to throw up, and she can’t tell if it's from laughter at her name or he’s actually seasick. While it isn’t exactly her real name, strangers typically didn’t laugh at her alias as a sign of appreciation after being revived from the practical dead.

Feeling well enough to get up, Kanzo propels himself off the make-shift bed, only to find himself drowning once again. While the cave did offer free oxygen, it did not warrant a “Caution of Water” sign.

He quickly gathers himself because, frankly, what sailor does not know how to swim?

LAI

Silently watching him, Miko—or whatever her actual name is—merely scoffs while monitoring the poor sailor-turned-merman struggle in his dearest attempts to live. She grabs him by the hood, dragging him towards the towering, red tourmaline castle.

As they approach a distant throne, Kanzo catches Miko’s eyes turn downcast, no longer looking straight ahead. Questioning the sudden change in attitude, he mocks her, kicking over sand as they march towards the looming figure. Yet as they become closer and closer, Kanzo looks up out of curiosity, straight into the bloodshot eyes of what he thinks is Walmart Maleficent.

Slapping his back, Miko glares blackholes that are centuries-deep and millennia-wide into the ground, motioning for him to avert his eyes. Unfazed by Miko’s blatant gesture, the Dark Enchantress smiles broadly at Kanzo. With no sense of preservation, Kanzo stares back, feeling a slight burn at the back of his head a few seconds later. The soft yet incessant pulling and tugging becomes more and more overwhelming, stretching into every crevice of his brain. It was as if his mind had already been accustomed to this feeling before, allowing it to adapt to its new host suspiciously quickly.

For a moment, Kanzo loses his heartbeat. It falls through the ground as manic panic fills his mind.

His human restraint is withdrawn and replaced with animal instincts.

His eyes grow yellower by the minute, resembling a savage wolf.

Then, his emotions come flooding back. He shakes his head as if he hallucinated the moment.

He catches Miko begrudgingly bowing to the Dark Enchantress with a blob of words ending with “Yes, Your Eminence.”

As they are dismissed,

IN THE SUMMER WIND

24

Kanzo looks questioningly at Miko, unaware of the transaction that occurred as he turned feral and ignorant of the price they would both have to pay.

— The next time Kanzo actually holds another conversation is one a little too close to death (which is, at this point, a recurring theme in their relationship).

In character and unsurprisingly like Maleficent, the Dark Enchantress does have mindless armies of animals and soldiers to fight on her behalf. Unfortunately, she needs another punching bag in case Queen Amaya decides she wants to inevitably fight back.

“

as he turned feral and ignorant of the price they would both have to pay

”

While Kanzo may not have been the first punching bag of his kind, Miko never necessarily approved of such appointments despite remaining loyal to the Dark Enchantress. She knows not if this is out of jealousy as the Dark Enchantress’s right-hand seaman or because some part of her conscience remained intact throughout the years and this was the time it decided to act up.

Unlike Miko, Kanzo knows little of the “mission” he is sent on. He merely recalls the two conspiring to steal the Heart of the Depth, an apparently incredibly valuable artifact found in the abyss. Little can be done about his position in their quest, so the best Kanzo can do, and all he ever does, is remain nonchalant.

It is on Sunday morning when Dark Enchantress decides it is time.

During the previous night, Kanzo

25

hears screeches and rustles of demonic creatures gathering in preparation for the big day. To an outsider, it may have looked like the bridal shower of an infernal wedding, as the witch was known to have pretentious and flamboyant attacks.

However, behind all the bustle and commotion lay a quiet siren, pondering over the battle plans. Miko hid in her typical cave, locked up away to figure out their plans to victory.

Creeping up beside her, Kanzo glances confusedly at the numbers scribbled all across the page. “What are those for?” He raises his eyebrow.

Stiffening at his presence, she dodges the question instead, asking, “What are you here for?”

He shrugs in response.

Silence lies between them like a heavy blanket, filling in the ruptures of their conversation. The two sit, each movement echoing throughout the spacious chamber. Peering over her shoulder, Kanzo glances admirably at the power and efforts behind a single siren (not that he would admit it). He and Miko lie in what could be considered their most peaceful moment, just living in the presence of each other’s company.

While they had not been close at first, she provides the little comfort he can find in the lonesome sea while he provides the first companionship she has had in years.

Yet knowing the transaction she made and the battle plan she makes in front of him, she knows this peace will not last long. Drifting away, she haughtily announces their departure time, an attempted display of bravado to cling onto some form of certainty.

Kanzo knows that he cannot leave. Whether it be from the lingering aftereffects of the staring contest with the Dark Enchantress, the mysterious voice of the sea, or because of this so-called “fate” that Neri often talked about, Kanzo is rooted to his role.

— And as he is hit in battle, he remembers this very thought. He does not instinctively move to protect

the Dark Enchantress’s body from Neri’s whirlpool of an attack.

Instead, he catches Miko’s eye and does not miss the scarlet glow in her stare, the same shade as the long-forgotten sky. The same vocal color as the voice that drew him into the ocean. The same incessant tugging on his mind.

In hindsight, he remembers the heavy words of Neri’s introduction when they first met. The grave responsibility and deep reverence she had for the ocean and its generous heart.

Alas, perhaps she was right about this ‘fate.’ As Kanzo lay on the ocean floor, his mind feels blissfully free. He senses Miko’s presence as her gaze softens at him.

Both know that it is far too late to repair anything, but they cling to a brief happiness neither of them fully ever experienced. As the light gradually fades from his eyes, Miko whispers to him.

“It’s Cherise. My name’s Cherise.”

PROSE

26

PROSE A girl runs as fast as she can along a track. The sky is pure black without any sign of the moon, the stars snuffed out. A blue light rises from the ground.

It’s her only light source.

Everything is eerie, and the shadows are not quite right. They twist and turn, and if the girl did not have a haze covering her entire brain, she would have noticed the shadows were all staring at her, twisting around trees and stones to have a better look. The air is supposed to be crisp and cool, but an odd staleness cuts into it, ruining it.

Each of her breaths is labored.

Fear propels her legs to keep moving. Sweat drips down her head, some of it from the exercise, some from fear, and she cannot quite remember why she could possibly be afraid.

She collides with a wall, falls, but she doesn’t feel anything. She can’t think properly, because something’s in her head. A haze, over her mind.

She still hasn’t realized what’s happened until a second later, when she puts her hand to her forehead and finds it come away covered in a sticky, blue blood.

Blue?

She groans. She tilts her head up, fully expecting to see a wall.

But no, she’s not on the track anymore. Nothing but black surrounds her, and she sits on a cold, hard floor. She’s hit by the air. It’s far more humid, far darker, and she struggles to breathe, struggles to take it in.

The only source of light is a faint blue spotlight illuminating only herself and the short patch of ground below her.

She moves her hand a single inch out the spotlight, and the spotlight grows, encompassing her fully. She moves it further away, and the spotlight moves along with her.

The light reveals the blue blood below herself, a single splotch. Everything waves, everything is muddled. Just

27|The penchant||NOV 2021

BLUE BLOOD

by p

barely, she hears a voice inside her head telling her to get back up, and, still muddled, she does her best to follow, but she slips on the blood. The world bends and twists, and just barely, she manages to catch herself on the wall.

The wall is cold, smooth to her touch. It’s almost like marble, but at the same time, profoundly different.

She takes a deep breath pushes herself back up. In a single movement, all the blood rushes to her head, and everything is magnified by a thousand degrees.

The blood becomes a lake before her, the spotlight an entire sun, but then she blinks her eyes, and everything is gone.

She’s on a track.

People cheer, faintly, but below that sound there is another, a tapping. The tapping fades into the background. It’s low. She’s running again. The injury on her head is still there, a trail of blue behind her, but she doesn’t care.

Elation pours into her as she realizes she is first.

The runners are all far behind her, and the crowd’s cheers fill her up with energy.

She’s faster than everyone else.

For a moment, she is the fastest in the entire universe, faster than a shooting star, faster than light, blowing everybody away, and the

finish line is right in front of her, and second by second, she is closer and closer. Blue lights flash on her, her head still muddled, but she’s drunk on the glory, everything swaying and coming in and out of focus.

She leaps over the line.

Her bubble of elation bursts, and she slows, swinging her head up. The wound in her head has closed, and the haze is stronger than ever. She’s ready to bask in her own brilliance, but nobody else has stopped, and the crowd doesn’t cheer. They’re hushed. She looks behind her, and in the short break she had taken, a runner passes by her.

They’re a giant.

They cast a shadow on her.

She’s so small.

The crowd bursts into cheer, and it is then she realizes the race is still not over. Right next to her is a water stand, and she lowers her head as she walks toward it. The shame is too much.

She takes a cup of water, and she’s just about to down it when she looks again, and she realizes there is no water; the only liquid inside is a blue, dark blood, sloshing around.

Her head spins.

She lets out a single gasp.

She drops the cup, and it cascades to the ground. A beat later, a force slams into her, and then she too hits the ground. Her head erupts

with pain. The haze fades away, and when she looks again, she’s no longer on the race track, and instead of ear-shattering cheering and the constant drum of feet on pavement, there is only silence save for a single tapping sound.

She’s back in the darkness.

A splot of blue blood smiles at her, right below her. She turns her head back. An entire trail of blood, still blue, leads all the way back as far as the light can shine.

Dark.

It’s so dark.

As quickly as she can, she tries to get up. The wound on her head pulses, but now her hips and her bones feel like they’ve been jumbled. They ache. She slips and falls, her hands barely bracing herself from further injury.

The tapping grows louder and louder. It reminds her of the nails of a beast, tapping on floor, but at the same time, it sounds exactly like a clock, ticking over and over again, unstoppable, but finally, it cements itself in her mind as the grim reaper, tapping its scythe on the floor, counting down to her death.

She staunches the wound on her head as best as she can with her hand, and she gets up with a single swift movement, and once again, the blood rises into her head, and cheering once again fills her entire world. The haze is once again thicker than fog. Her feet are pounding on pavement, her breath labored.

She’s running.

She’s last.

She needs to escape.

There are a million runners on the track, an entire world, and the track seems to span the entire world, but somehow, the crowd’s attention is all towards her. They stare at her, and the chant is still the same, though now it’s filled with desperation. “Run, run, run!”

I’m trying, she thinks.

Odd plants grow on the stand, ones with hundreds of

28

29

“...a million souls flying everywhere, and she hears a tapping. It’s constant, unstoppable.”

PROSE leaves and petals that seem to glow by themselves. This is not anything native to Earth, and she tries to avoid their gaze, but their petals swivel to face her wherever she goes, so she closes her eyes and shakes her head, and another blue burst of blood comes out her wound.

The crowd cheers.

The blood falls on the ground behind you, a trail of blue.

The world steadies and the haze thins even further, she feels like she can really see. She opens her eyes wide, and slowly, the truth of the world reveals itself to her as her memory surfaces, stage by stage, revelation by revelation.

The people in the stands are not human.

They are ethereal, with blue see-through bodies, their faces a blur. They are not quite there, and as a gust of wind blows, a few are blown away into the night. They scream, but their screams, too, are not real, and those sounds vanish.

There is no sky.

What she thought at first to be night is really nothing at all, because at the very edge of the sky, she can see the edges of the universe. She sees the truth of everything, too, a million souls flying everywhere, and she hears a tapping. It’s constant, unstoppable.

It’s closer than ever.

The crowd blends together, each voice the exact same, and together they howl for her. “Run, run, run,” they shout, and the girl tries her best to run, but everything feels so slow. The air feels like it’s trying to suffocate everything, and she realizes she’s not moving at all. She’s stuck: in limbo.

“Run!” She understands everything.

She closes her eyes, and she brings her arm to her mouth, and for a single second, the world is quiet. It is the single lull between chants, the single moment where she is in the air, not quite touching the ground. It

is the single second where there are no runners around her, no crowd, but at the same time there is no corridor, no darkness, no spotlight.

She bites.

A fountain of both blood and pain erupts, and now she is in the corridor, where a beast chases after her, where she is still and not running. The tapping is still there, louder than ever. She gets up, and she doesn’t slip this time because now her mind is completely clear. She runs again, forcing herself not to look behind.

She swears she can feel the tapping on her head, the grim reaper, the beast, right behind her. The haze is coming back, and a sob wracks her body. Her legs twitch. She almost falls again.

She lifts her other arm. It’s shaking. She bites her other arm too, and more blood comes spurting out, and finally, her memory is revealed in full. She pumps her arms as fast as she can, a trail of blue right behind her, and she’s going to fall, because she feels light headed and her body is wrong, and she doesn’t feel right, but she continues to run, fear the only thing propelling her now.

The tapping is loud.

It’s right next to her ear.

She closes her eyes, and she doesn’t quite care anymore.

She’s still pumping her arms when the beast opens its mouth, and right before she turns into nothing, she thinks she sees a lake. It’s full of blue, not water, but thick disgusting blood. Blue blood. She submerges into it, and she swears, she is with a million other people, a million other identities, a million other personalities, before her own is stripped away from her, and she becomes not quite anything but just another soul in a sea of blood.

An eternity passes.

She’s still running.

There’s a tapping sound behind her.

30

PROSE

SAFE HOUSE

It’s already been one hour in and I haven’t gotten any candy.

I’ve knocked on about 600 doors today and I’ve either gotten no response or been told to go away.

Honestly, I can’t even tell if it’s because I’m old as hell for a trick or treater or if my costume is too scary. Half the time I can literally see the freaking people running to turn off the lights in the front of the house. It’s really embarrassing to watch.

Oh well. I can’t really expect too much out of this town.

Ever since that family moved in and the dad became mayor of this county, everyone’s just been slowly becoming more and more isolated. No one wants to talk or hang out anymore.

There are no more local events or competitions. I haven’t made any friends recently. This town feels really, really lonely.

31|The penchant||NOV 2021

As I continue walking to the next house, I adjust my mask into a more comfortable position.

I’m not particularly dressed up as one specific character. Basically, I’m that clown from It, that freaky Mike Myers guy, and the Grim Reaper all packed into one. No one gives a crap about costumes, about Halloween, none of that, so I went all out this year. I thought I would get some attention today. I didn’t.

I knock on the door of the next house. And I wait. I wait there for a long, long time.

Literally all the lights are on in the front of the house. Wait, not just that. I walk to the right a bit, just enough to see the side of the house. The wall is covered in tall vines and bushes. A singular flower is visible underneath all the undergrowth. All the lights are on at this side of the house

too.

Freeloaders.

I pound on the door as hard as I can. The door seems sturdy, so I don’t care less about breaking it. Practically the biggest house in the town and the owners can’t even spare a chocolate bar for anyone. What the hell happened to this town?

I take a step back and pull out my phone. Hopefully, I’ll catch the owners spilling a drink on themselves or something, anything interesting like that.

Honestly, I’m so mad at this neighborhood right now that I can’t really think straight.

A figure emerges at the left window of the top floor, and my hand immediately jumps at the opportunity. Unfortunately, the guy in the window isn’t doing anything at all. It’s like he’s just standing there, staring at the

window… Wait.

It kinda looks like he’s looking at me. That’s really freaking me out. It’s not like I can see his eyes or anything, he’s just a blurry figure in the window.

Why do I feel so unnerved?

Something feels… off.

Well, not off, but just really really familiar with this guy. I look up again, and it still looks like he’s staring me down like his life depends on it. With my phone, I zoom in to try to see this guy a bit clearer, and—what the hell?

I rip my mask off, rub my eyes, and take another look.

Katie?

I can’t believe my eyes.

That can’t be Katie. What the hell is she doing here? She’s supposed to be at home recovering from her hip surgery. We were riding our bikes home from school when she fell into a ditch on the side of the

road. I told her not to ride so close to it.

I switch between staring at my phone and that thing in the window for a solid five minutes.

No, I just walked a bit too much today. I’m just seeing things cause… Oh, come to think of it, I don’t remember having much for lunch today. Yeah, it’s gotta be that.

As soon as I look away, I hear a loud thud from the house.

The top left window. I glance back and I freeze. Katie is now on her knees, fists banging on the window like a lunatic.

And something else. It feels… like she’s crying? From what I could see, she was in a lot of pain.

No, no, no. This 100% cannot be Katie. Thoughts are racing in my mind faster than the speed of light. I swear I’m on drugs or something I can’t remember. Gotta be a concussion or something during soccer practice.

Then, she collapses against the window.

Crap.

I frantically call 9-1-1 as I run towards the house. I can’t believe what the hell is happening. Ring. I try as hard as I can to break the door down. Why do these people even need this huge, thick door anyways? Ring. I try running into the door. I try kicking it down, almost breaking my damn leg in the process. Ring.

I scream my heart out for help

I scream my heart out for help, but when I look down the street, it seems like the only house alive was the one with Katie screaming in it. I hear more bangs on the window.

As I run around to the back of the house, I catch another glimpse of Katie slamming on the window. She’s bleeding.

I race to the back door, nearly crying while I’m at it. I knew I shouldn’t have left Katie alone at the hospital. I latch on to the doorknob, pulling it with all my strength. My right hand gives and I let go of the doorknob, stumbling backward and tripping onto the grass. I can still hear Katie, now screaming for help.

Then, I hear another screech. This time much closer, much deeper than Katie’s. And it sounds painfully familiar.

My eyes drift to the left window at the back of the house.

It’s my brother, Oliver. Last time I saw him was in his coffin, his hand ripped off, looking about as white as snow. And there he was, same as ever. He was kneeling, just like Katie, one hand hammering against the window and the other just like it was after the accident: mangled, broken, and useless.

I started crying. I almost threw up. Both Katie and Oliver in their separate windows, me lying on the dirt staring at my dead brother in disbelief. It was all too much for me to take in. A deep pit in my stomach started growing.

Taking a small, thick piece of wood from the ground, I ram the into the door as hard as I can.

It doesn’t seem to budge. I try again, but this time, I lodge my shoulder into the back of the log.

Running into the door with this piece of wood between me, something in my shoulder cracks.

Then, a sharp pain shoots from my arm into my neck. I think I dislocated my shoulder.

Top right window at the back of the house. Colson Thomas.

He helped me get through my first two years of high school. Every

32

time I needed help with something on my homework, he’d be able to teach it to me like magic.

I stumble off to the side of the house, my eyes darting from window to window to try to comprehend what the hell is happening. I can’t tell if I’m asleep or not.

George Porter. George and I used to mess around in school a lot. One of the nicest kids I’ve ever met in my life. One day, I almost killed him by running over him with my bike. He moved away to Oregon cause his dad got a much better job opportunity there. I never saw him again.

Behind some tall bushes, I see a slightly open door. I stagger towards it, my arm hanging by my side. A migraine suddenly started forming in my head. But I can’t stop now. Katie, Oliver, Colson, George, they need my help. My closest relationships.

I couldn’t just walk away and abandon them.

33

I ram open the door with my shoulder. The pain was growing more and more intense, but I couldn’t care less. The door impacts the side of the wall with a piercing thud, leaving a ringing in my ear.

I looked around the room in disbelief. Charlotte Mitchel.

Alexander Campbell. Chloe Foster. There were so many people here that listing all of them would take a lifetime. There were even faces that I knew but couldn’t recall. They were all staring at me in silence, crying.

Ethan Ross. Austin Rivera. Sophia Gibson. A crowd started to form around me. My eyes drifted from face to face, each one harking back to one of my old memories. My first kiss.

That time I fell in the lake during my camping trip. Coming in second at the talent show. The crowd started to close in on me, the circle growing smaller and smaller.

PROSE

Everyone is so close to me now. I can’t help but feel a bit relieved with all my friends in one place. Layla Crawford, someone I met just recently in my history class. I broke her pen the other day. Layla seemed really pissed off about that. I watch as she takes a step closer, rests her hand on my shoulder, and pushes me down. Jayden does the same.

Michael too. Soon, everyone around me is pushing me down to the floor.

They are all kicking me as hard as they can now. I can feel the pain in my chest, my legs.

Blood comes up to my throat and I start coughing violently.

But it’s okay. I know it’s my punishment. I deserve this.

I’m sorry, Katie. I shouldn’t have let you near that ditch. I’m sorry, Oliver. The accident wasn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have been messing around in that construction zone.

At this point, I can barely see. All I can get a peek of are my friends looming above me. The never-ending barrage of kicks hitting me in my back, my stomach, my face.

I can’t help but feel comfort. All of my friends in one place. I finally get to see them all one last time. The crowd around me dissipates, but I can barely breathe, blood filling up in my lungs.

As I lay there on my side, I watch as all my friends slowly walk away from me. All of them exit out the door, no one looking back at the boy on the floor. As my eyelids slowly drop, the last thing I see is my mother, steadily trudging out the door. I’m so happy. I finally got to see my mom one last time.

There’s nothing left. No one to watch, no one to talk to.

Everyone is gone.

I’m safe now.

NOV 2021||The penchant|34

PROSE

HIT PIECE A young man, Kyle, who lived in his parent’s basement, was in deep sleep. Around him were four indifferent pastel walls and a cluttered tiled floor. The room was motionless.

Knock knock Kyle was pulled out of his sleep, and he became aware of the knocking at the door.

Knock knock Eyes still closed and mind not fully awake yet, Kyle reshuffled himself in bed to get comfortable again, hoping to sleep away the noise.

sighed, exhausted from the day’s work, feeling his heavy shoulders heave in his tight suit. Business had not been going so well. He recalled the two dozen phone calls and scores of emails he’d made that went only to deadends and unwilling contacts.

Focus. It was not wise to dwell on these things. The man began a brief tidying up of his desk, reshuffling papers.

Knock knock “Just one moment,” the man called out. He recalled calling the same damn landlord seven times in anger and desperation. The man took a deep breath. He could not keep these thoughts away.

Finally, he made a quick adjustment to realign the name plate that rested on the front of his desk. Its glossy brass finish was unreadable with the light to the back of it, but it read: CEO, Kyle Pii. Knock knock

Knock knock Whoever was at the door was insistent. Kyle hated that.

Begrudgingly, he slowly pulled himself out of bed, his mental state beginning to unfreeze as he stood up, and he limped to the door. Before twisting open the lock handle, he paused at the mirror on his door: his baggy faded green shirt, dirty sweatpants, and mess of hair. He shrugged it off and opened the door.

Insistent, Kyle noted. “Come in, the door is unlocked.”

The door opened. _______________________ Knock knock Kyle clutched his pistol, an old relic from his father’s collecting obsession. He was shaking more uncontrollably than he expected he would be. He was terrified. He knew what was coming.

_______________________ Knock knock Knock knock Who would be at the office? There had not been any clients for a while. A man sat behind his dark desk. Dim yellow light found its way into the office through the cracks of the window blinds behind the man, casting a faint shadow on his features. The man

35|The penchant||NOV 2021

In the moment, Kyle shuffled around nervously between standing or crouching against the wall with the door. The crouching stance made his chest feel more secure than standing but made his neck feel vulnerable.

Knock knock

Why were they so insistent? Kyle inhaled deeply and exhaled shakily, as if on the verge of crying. Well, he was on the verge of crying. Then, there was a silence, a hissing noise from the gold-plated lock of the door, and an open door.

The Secret Society of Kyle-Haters is a lovely, welcoming organization. Join us: we insist.

The Secret Society of Kyle-Haters™.

The Secret Society of Kyle-Haters is a lovely, welcoming organization.

Join us: we insist. by samuel vu 36

PROSE

I once had a teacher that told me that his students were the reason he got out of bed in the morning. It was a nice sentiment, but the thing is that I hadn’t realized until that moment that other people had reasons to get out of bed. I couldn’t stop thinking about what mine were. And so from then on, every morning when I woke up for about the next month or so I would think to myself why?

There was never a satisfying answer. Because it is what I did yesterday? Why, then, did I do it yesterday?

Because I have to? According to who? Because I want to? Why do I want to?

If you ask people they will tell you that they are looking forward to each new day. I find it hard to

37

believe. I think it is one of the kind lies we tell ourselves, that our days are new.

What about today is new? The date. What else?

Today I will do yesterday’s tasks in yesterday's order and some things that I didn’t quite get done yesterday will be done today. And what about the things I do not get done today? They will get done tomorrow.

Maybe we are living in a simulation. No really.

It sounds stupid at first, but I’m starting to feel all the code of my life blend together. Was this task a yesterday task or a day before yesterday task? Does it matter? The machine runs the same thing every day.

Shhh the machine God whispers. Go watch some TV. Take your mind off of it.

REASONS FOR by anon WAKING UP

And then there I would be, melted down, nothing more than a carpet stain with no

But that’s what I did yesterday.

Sometimes I feel like we are putting on a production. But dear God, who is watching this? It is helpful to imagine an audience.

Maybe they are giants, laughing at how quickly I can run in circles.

Like a wind up toy. Can you hear the circus music in the background?

You know, on clear days I can look up at the sky like it’s the dome of a snowglobe and see hungry eyes peering in.

“Break it open. Set me free,” I whisper. But the eyes have no ears. But what would I even do, a small snow globe figure set free into the expanse of the world?

What would I be then? So small with no commands to follow. I guess I would just wander around untill I got too close to the fire place. And then there I would be, melted down, to nothing more than a carpet stain with no one looking at me. Even the snow globe breaker would have moved on from me then.

I guess that is why I get out of bed in the morning. What would I do with myself if I didn’t?

one looking at me.

NOV 2021||The penchant|38