Penchant 4.2

THE

PENCHANT TOWARDS THE STARS

SPACE

“Space is many things: it is the dimensions of everything, it is having the freedom to live as one pleases, it is the area which is unoccupied by anything and nothing but air.”

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.

Creative Commons Photos: Cover "Blue and Purple Galaxy Digital Wallpaper Photo" by Jeremy Thomas 12| “Photo of Deep-Sky Object” by Alex Andrews (left) “Night Sky View” by Kasuma (right) 13| “Cluster of Stars” by Kai Pilger 16| “Photo of Outer Space” by NASA 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 EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Felicia Mo and Kelly Feng COMMISSION OVERSEER Janice Park CONTENT EDITORS Catherine You Nichelle Wong LAYOUT EDITORS Roland Zhang Helen Yuan LAYOUT Harnoor Nagra Daniel Wang

january 2021

4

TABLE OF

CONTENTS

5 10

space

31

29 Featured

Prose

Poetry Photo/Art

3| Six Feet Apart

9| My Eternal Mistake by Red 11| Mistaken by Jonathan Cheng 14| What On XX Is a Crowd Disease? by Point Zero 23| The Fourth Dimension by Anusri Chavali 24| Alone by Anonymous 27| Astraphobia by Daniel Wang 29| The Song That Plays Across Time by Orion Fang

1| Un Caballo Y Yo by Adithi Sesani 2| Orbit by Tammy Shen 4| Making Space by James Lee 5| Our Future by Aabhaas Vijayvergia 6| The Unknown Depths by Mahika Modi 7| Dedicated to the Space I Know Best by Angelica Zatarain

By SelIna Song “define the space between us”

17| Towards the Stars

By Lisa Feng “Space is many things: it is the dimensions of everything, it is having the freedom to live as one pleases, it is the area which is unoccupied by anything and nothing but air. ”

25| The Story of Icarus and Daedalus But In Space

By Geetika Yelugoti “The black void was expanding, at an ever-increasing rate far beyond his ability to catch up to its change.”

5| Tanmay Lakhotia 9, 10| Sumukh Murthy 3, 4, 11, 12, 14| Adithi Sesani 31| Erika Yong 1, 2, 13, 21, 22| Tanish Sathish 7, 8, 15, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29| Arnold Cai

POETRY

UN CABALLO Y YO Cómo no me gusta ese caballo.

Ese caballo que siempre corre.

Ese caballo que come desmasiado.

Ese caballo que me sigue.

Ese caballo que nunca llora. ¿Qué es bueno de ese caballo?

Cómo no me gusta ese caballo.

Cómo me gustó ese caballo.

Ese caballo trabajador.

Ese caballo inspirador.

Ese caballo que está ahora en el espacio,

En el espacio no conmigo. ¿Por qué fue ese caballo?

Cómo me gustó ese caballo.

How I don't like that horse.

That horse that always runs.

That horse that eats too much.

That horse that follows me.

That horse that never cries.

What's great about that horse?

How I don't like that horse.

How I liked that horse.

That hard working horse.

That inspiring horse.

That horse that is now in space,

In space not with me.

Why did that horse leave me?

How I liked that horse.

1|The penchant||JAN 2021

Sathish, Tanish, “”

O O

”Trees of Fire”

i’m dizzy from spinning on a vast earth twisting through on its own orbit. my twirls cyclone: a never-ending sequence of figure 8’s hastily scrawled with a 64-pack of markers on the wall.

ORBIT

cobalt, copper, crimson: a blank canvas of my mind illustrated by my past self, unaware of my directionless path.

cacophony

a

of colors,

Sathish, Tanish, “Crayons on the Beach”

JAN 2021||The penchant|2

POETRY

deďŹ ne the space between us 72 inches, 2 yards, 1.8288 meters a dilapidated, blurry window with hands pressed onto the glass mouths moving in silence as though unmute, start video bold movements so rare

pixelated displays of friendship

Sesani, Adithi

all through a screen that separates the two of us gloved hands, masked smiles yearning for a touch so close, yet so far when we're only 6 feet apart

3|The penchant||JAN 2021

6 FEET APART

Sesani, Adithi

The Three Dimensions All making space.

Making Space

X. The simplest of things A mere line Yet it is the basis of all reality A vital cog in the workings of the universe.

Y. Creating area Fleshing out the story of the cosmos Forming words and pictures and videos The plane of our existence.

Z. The inventor of volume Adding texture to our world Letting us swing our arms and run and jump It makes us who we are.

by james lee

JAN 2021||The penchant|4

POETRY

OUR FUTURE The year has finally gone by.

It started off like every other, Filled with embracement of one another.

However, it turned into a nightmare real fast, The pandemic made each of us an outcast.

All our plans, all our hopes, Seemed to have gone below the ropes.

It’s fair to say this year was bizarre, Quite literally the craziest, by far.

Our generation deserves reparations, For all of our susceptible complications.

But my question is:

I hope I’m not the only one, Worrying about the future.

Yes, online school has been quite a blast,

But let’s not forget good things never last.

When selecting students, will colleges be lenient?

Or will the admission process be ever so inconvenient?

I would like to say I am excited to see how it goes,

But like it is said in astrology, there is fear of the unknown.

Where will we go from this?

The most important high school years, Robbed from me and my peers.

5|The penchant||JAN 2021

aabhaas vijayvergia

THE UNKNOWN DEPTHS Space A very interesting word indeed Somehow means a lot to me In the strangest way, it can be.

Lakhotia, Tanmay, “Eternally Floating”

A place where

The thing that my family refuses to provide The unknown ever-expanding silence Encompassing us all Holdings deep secrets

darkness creates a

That we are beginning to uncover Piece by piece But some parts of it, We may not find at all.

penetrated by

The newest frontier Where exploration persists The bounds of science are pushed Beyond their limits Starry nights and dark moons, Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's doom.?

blanket, Only to be

light.

A universe so vast Who knows what we will find?

JAN 2021||The penchant|6

POETRY

Cai, Arnold

DEDICATED TO THE SPACE I KNOW BEST by angelica zatarain

Nothing in my life has remained consistent.

Everything and everyone comes and goes, yet this space has been the only thing in my life that has felt familiar the whole time.

The space that doesn’t get any heat in the winter, the space where I met one of my very best friends on Zoom, the space I almost had my first kiss.

The familiar feeling of seeing the sun’s rays lay on my bed with me on a summer evening.

It makes me feel safe, and reminds me of the nostalgic feelings I experienced from August to September 2019.

The solitude I find within my locked door and blue-purple lights at 2 A.M. It never fails to keep me calm, and reminds me of the elated feeling of hearing one of my favorite songs live at a concert.

The paintings, drawings, and pictures around its walls act as tokens of life experiences.

It gives me an abundance of reminders as to why I’m still alive, and reminds me of the happy feelings have introduced to my life

this space has been the only thing in my life that has felt familiar the whole time.

7

Go through the main door, go straight down the hallway after passing the living room, and enter the room on the right.

From the space that used to be the playroom of my sister and me to my sanctuary, this is my space.

Nada en mi vida fue constante.

Todo y todos vienen y salen, Pero este espacio era la cosa solamente que me sintió familiar todo el tiempo.

El espacio que no recibe calor durante invierno.

El espacio donde conocí a una de mis mejores amigas en Zoom.

El espacio donde casi tuve mi primer beso.

este espacio era la cosa solamente que me sintió familiar todo el tiempo.

El sentimiento familiar viendo los rayos del sol se recostaba en mi cama conmigo durante una tarde de verano.

Me hacer sentir seguro, Y me recuerda el sentimiento nostálgico que yo tuve en agosto a septiembre 2019.

La soledad que encuentro en mi puerta cerrada y luces azúl-morado a las 2 de la mañana.

Nunca falla para mantenerme tranquila, y me recuerda el sentimiento emocionado de escuchar una de mis canciones favoritas en vivo en un concierto.

Las pinturas, dibujos, y fotos actúan como regalos de experiencias de la vida.

Me da una abundancia de razones para porque yo vivo, Y me recuerda la felicidad yo tengo porque de mis amigas.

Ve a la puerta principal, Ve por el pasilla después ve la cuarto principal, y entre en el cuarto a la derecha.

Desde el espacio para jugar para mi hermana y yo a mi espacio seguro, Este es mi espacio.

PARA EL ESPACIO QUE LO SÉ MEJOR 8

PROSE It was beautiful when I first saw it.

The Great Conjunction. A reassurance to all my doubts, a blanket covering up any regret. This was what I had waited for, what I had chosen to see. This was the reason. This, and so many other phenomena most people would only see once. Hell, most wouldn’t see them at all. But me, I’ve seen it twice now. Before, I was ecstatic about it; but now, watching the very same event that had fascinated me, that had comforted me, now, it is a reminder of the past. Of the losses.

Of the mistakes. Of my mistake.

When I was a kid, I was the ultimate space nerd. I was the most excited one when we went over our astronomy unit in school. I knew the names of so many constellations, I lost track how many somewhere along the way. I knew the nature of all the planets, the important scientists and scientific discoveries leading to the knowledge we had back in 2076. I was maybe, 13, 14, at that time. Technology and science had expanded our knowledge of the planet and the universe, even solved some of the problems we had on Earth. With things like man-induced climate change, global warming was reduced significantly—not completely gone, but enough that the planet was recovering. With Earth back in a healthy place, the number of astronomers, astronauts, and aspiring astronomers and astronauts had increased greatly. So did participation in other sciences, of course. But the space beyond our little planet that, ironically, was called space but wasn’t empty at all, filled many minds. Including mine.

As I grew, I had one goal: to become an astronomer, specifically focusing on things outside of our solar system like exoplanetology, the study of planets outside our solar system. New planets were being discovered every year by astronomers and they’d found evidence of extraterrestrial life. It hadn’t been certain, still an ongoing analysis, but it was basically the most interesting thing I’d found in high school. It’s not ongoing anymore; they concluded that it was

9|The penchant||JAN 2021

MY ETERNAL MISTAKE by red Murthy, Sumukh, “The Great Nebula in Orion”

real evidence many, many years ago, and right now, we’ve found and are in contact with life forms a few galaxies away. Exciting news, really.

This was what I had chosen it for, after all. But at this point, loss has surpassed gain.

When I finally graduated college, I was accepted into one of the best space exploration facilities.

My dreams were finally coming true.

I struggled, fought, and climbed my way up there, slowly, very, very slowly, but surely. And by god, I had made it. I started quickly as an intern, until I finally got a full time job. This was my dream. Studying planets, studying space. It was beautiful. Every day went by and I never felt like I was working. I felt like I was on top of the world. I was proud of myself, my family was proud of me, and I had never felt better. I didn’t realize my love for what was beyond had pushed away everything else.

There was a discovery. Or more so, a publication of a discovery.

It was a medical one, made when I was in my 30s: a medicine that was

said to prolong life by a couple decades. That stopped the body from physically growing for a bit. When I was in my late 40s, the pills went public. They were tested to the best of their abilities for the past few decades, worked on since 2026. At the time, I had reached a wall in my research. I was observing a phenomenon in the Igeqa Galaxy, the most recently discovered one. It was something like the Great Conjunction, but with 5 exoplanets. I had never seen the Great Conjunction and I would never see it in my lifetime, as it wouldn’t occur for another few hundred years.

Obsessing over this event, I spent day and night trying to figure it out.

True, it was similar to the Great Conjunction, but something was different. Something big. It created a sort of gravitation field only when the exoplanets aligned. But how? My curiosity and hard work was praised by my team, but it went too far.

When the pills went public, at first, they were only given to a select few. They were too powerful to be publicized all at once. Only those

with a great sum of money, or those who had done a lot, or could do a lot for the world were given them. And I, being one of the top astronomers at the time space was a craze around the globe, was accepted for it. I lost almost all my savings over it, but I was determined to see this through. I was so close to the answer, I felt it in my bones. So I decided that a woman in her late 40s could use a few more years to find the answer to this question and many more after it. My curiosity became something unquenchable and my sister saw this.

A few days before the appointment, my sister visited me. It was an unpleasant encounter. She argued with me, fought with me.

She said, “ASTER! THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’RE DOING!” I answered with just as much fervor. “OF COURSE I’VE THOUGHT ABOUT IT MIRA!” “THEN WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?” To her, the few more decades were a curse. Because the pill tripled your lifetime, she was worried for me.

Worried I would work too hard, worried something would go wrong, worried. She told me how I would watch the rest of them grow older and die. I would be left alone. I didn’t listen to her. Why didn’t I listen to her?

When I finally got the pills, I took them without hesitance. I didn’t know if they worked right away, but

by the time I reached my 60s, I hadn’t changed at all. I was ecstatic about it. Time kept passing me by, but I didn’t even feel it. I worked, discovered, changed. That phenomena I had obsessed over was now a closed case, and it had changed the world. There was nothing wrong, nothing bad. It was amazing.

Until my sister died. My mother died when I was 30, my father when I was 50. But when my sister died. I was supposed to be 84, but I still looked 40. My sister on the other hand, grew frail, weak, old.

Her hair turned white and her skin was littered with spots. She was a healthy woman, even in her old age, but her time was up. She died at 89.

From then on, my colleagues died.

My closest friends passed. Even my nephew grew older than me. I felt like I was stuck.Like I was lost in the middle of space, with no concept of time, gravity, nothing. I was just… lost. Newer minds came into the field, and I couldn’t keep up. I still contributed, but I couldn’t work as well with them. When I finally got to see the Great Conjunction, it reassured me. Made me feel happier than I’d been in a long time. Made all the pain almost worth it. Until it was time for me to start aging, and I didn’t.

I stayed 40, even after 500 years. I went to every single doctor, and the pills had never changed.

People who had taken it lived longer

lifetimes, but they eventually aged again. Only a few lived longer than that, and they told me, laughing.

They were laughing, when they told me I was lucky. That something—I wasn’t listening when they told me— something had made me practically immortal. I left the hospital that day numb. I was immortal, I couldn't be killed. I would just come back to life, regenerate.

The space grew larger. The stars that I had looked up at in the dark in wonder now made me feel a pang in my heart. Guilt, sorrow, frustration. I stopped studying space then. It was too painful to even think about, nonetheless stare at, for hours on end. I became closed off, worked in a local store for money. Day after day, night after night, nothing changed. My space grew larger, and lonelier, but nothing different. I became numb. Didn’t talk to anyone I didn’t need to, didn’t make friends.

I closed off, not wanting to feel that pain again.

So tonight, as I watch Saturn and Jupiter overlap once again, my spirits drop down a little lower. My sorrow rises a little higher, enough that you can almost see it in my dull eyes. Tonight, I stand under the vast expanse of space that had once made me so excited. Tonight, I continue to float in that darkness forever growing, my eyes closed but knowing what’s around me. Tonight, I mourn in my nothingness, as I will for all the nights to come.

Murthy, Sumukh, “Mare Imbrium and Copernicus Crater”

I didn’t realize my love for what was beyond had pushed away everything else.

10

PROSE

MISTAKEN The Crimson spaceship landed on Earth soon after sunset on the hectic day of August 13th, 2257.

A new school year was soon approaching and once again the students would be pulled into a blackhole that their life would be centered around for the next nine or so months. Anxious high schoolers had just received their course schedules for the year, unaware of the new forces, both weak and strong, that would soon influence their lives. Frustrated parents had just wrapped up back to school shopping for their whiny fourth-graders who complained that all their other friends were getting Meteor-pencils while they were only getting normal mechanical pencils.

College students were eager to leave the comfort of their own homes for the fast-paced orbits of college.

Across the northern hemisphere, the people of Earth were preparing themselves for a new beginning.

The aliens on the Crimson, on the other hand, were preparing themselves for a new revelation. The Nebula aliens of the Crimson had no idea that the bright days of summer would soon be ending and that the children would soon be studying in their school’s dim-lit classrooms. As they descended closer towards Earth, their first impression was that the atmosphere was full of holes and scathingly hot. The beautiful ozone layer they had heard stories about was unrecognizable. From far above, the aliens could see vague impressions of blue and white and brown swirls. But now, they could see the dust bowls and the jagged lines of mountain tops, charred from years without rain.

Of course, every alien in the Milky Way had heard of Earth.

The phenomenal natural landmarks, the diverse plant and animal life, and renewable resources were praises recorded by the founders of the

11|The penchant||JAN 2021

by jonathan cheng

Nebula civilization. However, the aliens had no idea that this was Earth they had just landed on, the Earth their ancestors had lived on countless generations ago and had left to create a new civilization on Mars for. After several generations on Mars, the society at Nebula had fallen stagnant from decades of dwindling resources and lack of

technological advancements. Their civilization was dying and they needed support. The only potential source of revival was their roots: Earth. Although they had only heard of Earth from historical documents and shaky recordings, they knew finding Earth and explaining their case would be their only way to salvation.

Sesani, Adithi

Sesani, Adithi

Initially, the leaders of Nebula were hesitant to go forward with such a risky plan as there were so many uncertainties. Did Earth still remember the Nebullans?

Would Earth be willing to relinquish valuable resources that Nebula lacked? In addition, without any source of communication with the people of Earth, the Nebullans only had a vague sense of where Earth’s location was. Their search for Earth would be futile without a clear sense of direction. However, the captain of

the Crimson had a strong faith.He was confident in Earth’s resources and knew that they would be able to find it. Ultimately, using the captain's estimations, the leaders of Nebula provided enough fuel for a one-way trip to Earth. It was an all-or-nothing plan.

When the aliens had first gotten a view of the atmosphere, some of them were certain that they had found Earth and their mission would be over soon. After all, their calculations had informed them of

Earth’s presence and the view from the exosphere seemed to match descriptions. Except now, as the members of the Crimson looked at the planet they thought would be Earth, their confidence began to waver, believing now that they must have been mistaken. Beneath the cloudy atmosphere, they saw the bleak reality. They had envisioned blue skies and green hills, not dark horizons and charred slopes. They had heard stories of imposing skyscrapers and impressive natural landmarks, not blank landscapes except for tornadoes of dust that swirled around and irritated the aliens’ eyes. Now, the aliens believed clearly that the foreign planet they landed on, for there was no way it was Earth, would not provide them with the resources they needed. The aliens of the Crimson were ready to leave disappointed, feeling frustrated by the deceiving look from space. The aliens thought that the planet was clearly dying, when suddenly in the far distance, signs of life began to appear.

Through all the dust and smoggy air, there were figures jumping up and down. It was a playground filled with excited kids who had waited a whole summer to have recess with their friends again. The playground had several robotic functions that allowed a user to customize the playground structure, confusing the aliens as the playground transformed every few seconds. The captain saw this as a glimmer of hope that maybe this was Earth or at least they could receive more information on where Earth truly was.

As the aliens approached the school and looked at the kids, they noticed the striking similarities. Even after two hundred years of isolation, it seemed evolution had not taken its effect yet. Could this really be humans? Humans on a planet other than Earth seemed absurd and unlikely, but still the aliens felt adamant that they had not landed on Earth. Earth is full of green and blue and other combinations of colors. It’s lively with diverse animals and plant life. It doesn’t have a playground of machines that leads to chaos and arguments.

JAN 2021||The penchant|12

PROSE “Let’s leave already,” an impatient alien complained, before coughing repeatedly due to the unfamiliar atmosphere. The aliens packed up their gear and began walking back towards the Crimson.

“Wait a minute. I have a feeling this is still Earth.” The captain of the Crimson began to approach a child. The child stood still as the alien approached him. To the child, the captain was just a human like any other, wearing a high-tech suit like any other adult.

“Earth?” the captain spoke out loud to the child, hoping the children would understand him despite his Nebulian accent. The elementary student stood in confusion. A friend of his came by to see what was happening.

“Earth?” the captain repeated, hoping for some type of response. The captain’s confusion was countered by more stares and confusion from the children.

“EARTH?” the captain shouted, demanding an answer to his question.

After a period of silence, the second child finally said to his friend, “Oh, he’s talking about Earth? I can’t believe he’s an adult and doesn’t even know that Earth is just a fairytale.” The kids began giggling to each other.

“Hey mister, Earth isn’t real you know. Didn’t your dad tell you about when you were a child? The stories about clean air and water and all sorts of cool animals. It’s just a fairytale!” the first child explained to the captain.

The captain stood appalled.

He could barely comprehend what the kids were talking about. What had happened to Earth? Where was Earth? As he boarded the Crimson, the captain’s mind continued to be full of these questions.

As the Crimson broke Earth’s atmosphere, the captain accepted that he was mistaken after all: this was not Earth, but he would find the true Earth one day. As the energy levels of the Crimson began to dwindle, the captain conceded that he had underestimated the distance to Earth after all and that Earth was out there in the distance.

As the engines of the spacecraft began to fail, the Crimson began to fall into the infinitely deep void of space. The captain continued to believe that he would find the true Earth, his true origins, for years to come, never to realize what his true mistake was: losing faith in his Earth.

“What had happened to Earth?

Where was Earth?”

“Hey mister, Earth isn’t real you know.”

13|The penchant||JAN 2021

Sathish, Tanish, “Autumn Beach”

PROSE

WHAT ON XXX IS A CROWD DISEASE? by point zero

Sesani, Adithi

Instead of the identical, prison-like jumpsuits you’d probably expect when first learning about XXX’s existence, everyone here is dressed in casual sweatpants and a long sleeved T-shirt, each person’s outfit in a single, near blindingly bright shade of the rainbow to match their hair—which is not a style choice, of course. The distribution of each color is prearranged, lines of violet, yellow, and red snaking through groups of color, and something tells me that if I were to look at this from an aerial standpoint, the outfits would form some kind of written message. The entire planet would. As we make our way to the night section, each person stepping mechanically into the footprints molded into the sludge in front of them, I stop short, and so does everyone else, when I spot an aberrance only a few paces away.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I ask quietly, emphasizing each syllable. My words are directed at the person with the audacity to try to secure four prints at once, emphasizing each syllable.

They slowly turn around, indigo curls swaying in front of their wide, childish eyeballs. I should really start enforcing those mandatory hair length requirements I drafted earlier, because that is really pissing me off. “I was feeling a little stifled, y’ know?” they squeak, looking as though they actually think I know what they’re whining about. “I kinda just wanted a little more—” Ugh. I thought we rooted these out months ago, but there’s a day section to everything. Before they can say more, I pull an xxz out of a hidden pocket in my lime colored pants. In a flash, they and a few others unfortunate enough to have been near them are *poof* gone. Like magic, others are beamed in from the other side to take their place, stepping in what they think is achromic sludge, but is actually all that remains of Aberrant & Company. Talk about the circle of life.

“So,” I say, still quietly, but now towards the entire mass of people, “we’ve almost made it. We’re almost there!” I know they heard me, because something in XXX’s

atmosphere carries sound waves like nothing else can. That’s probably the reason why there’s no verbal response. Still, you can tell that they’re happy about it, just from the way their eyebrows rise and their mouths twitch. Honestly, I am such an intellectual. All you have to do is give the right people goals and they’ll try to achieve them, with no questions or even so much as a disturbance.

“Hey!” yet another indigo nearby—probably also on their twelfth or thirteenth passage by the looks of them—shouts, tripping over a red when they somehow accidentally skip a set of prints. Full disclosure, by the right people, I meant not the young ones. I decide not to zxx them, and instead opt for a stern talking to.

“Hey, yourself,” I growl, channeling my inner polar bear. And that’s all that’s needed from me to make the kid literally cower in terror—no, really—and step carefully back in place.

I know what you’re thinking.

Just another case of “Look at the poor, poor people in this poor, poor militaristic dystopian society. I think JAN 2021||The penchant|14

I’m supposed to feel bad for these guys.” Come on, I just spared that useless teenaged aberrance. Far from being a dystopia, this is the closest to a utopia you could get. *** So, people have lived on XXX for centuries. Until a few years ago, they’d been at constant war with each other, for things like gems found in the mines of zzx and the factories at xzx’s heart that turned the grainy land into extravagant clothing only a few could afford.

While disputes did often occur under such materialistic fronts, the deeper cause was the most primal, the most trivial.

Territory. Everyone had a reason for trying to take it, all different, in one way or another, dooming all alliances. Some wished for the power that comes with a kingdom, while others just wanted to live a safe life on their own property. I was nearing what should have been my sixth passage when I realized all of this.

After carefully observing the old ones for what felt like decades, I blinked and found myself with the perfect solution in my grasp.

People crave unity, but they also want to make themselves feel special. That made it unreasonably simple. Instead of a single uniform that would remove that aspect from their lives, all they needed was seven different ones, thereby giving them a “choice.” As for goals, everyone loves a journey— nay, every hero needs a journey— whether they realize it or not. Just organize pointless, yearlong voyages across the planet, call them passages, and make them a huge deal, something they could spend a whole hour celebrating before heading back the other way, and you’ve taken care of their need for a single, seemingly worldwide objective. There was just one thing left. The distribution of space, which was, by far, the hardest problem to solve.

Well, that, and identification for incoming supplyships. Just like all of the other 82 flat planets in a two billion xz radius, XXX was a cloudless, sandy, gray landmass, making it difficult to get the necessary hair dye from joint moon D6 to the capital. When YYY complained of another misdelivered package in their trenches, right around the time when I had convinced some of the truly knuckleheaded old ones who thought themselves leaders to step aside, I knew what had to be done. With no time to spare, ***

“the deeper the cause was the most piral, the most trivial.

Territory.”

Cai, Arnold

15|The penchant||JAN 2021

I, with my young face and brand new xxz of my own, albeit accidental, invention, zxxed the entire population. At the beginning, the sludge was simply what I thought of as a flaw, useless, because it looked exactly the same as the previous sand, except, obviously, for its unpleasant texture. This thought process was short-lived, ending as soon as I saw what an incredible job it did of holding its shape once imprinted upon. Thus began the long and time consuming process of completing a hundred passages in one, keeping each set of footprints molded exactly one xz apart in the sludge, but I had eventually done enough to support a new set of citizens.

I’m still thinking about all that I’ve done to get here, with XXX recognized as the only planet that can be identified by the human formed coloring on its surface. In fact, when viewed at exactly the right moment, maybe three-quarters through any given passage, a shape that looks remarkably like a narwhal coughing up a rainbow is visible.

Once I’d finished marking the sludge, I’d needed to get an entirely new population to test it out. It was two more passages before I’d figured out my revolutionary light transportation system and stolen and remade ZZZ’s population (in my defense, ZZZ is a wasteland, and the people there were practically begging to be saved), but I’d managed it. I am, to say it quite plainly, victorious.

Then I fall.

It turns out I’d stopped short a few steps in, thinking about my achievements for that deadly extra second. The moron behind me had, without hesitation, made for the next print, stepping right around my ankles and over my feet with a great amount of force. I topple and hit the ground with a colossal boom— wait, that isn’t right. No, I hit the sludge with an almost unnoticeable squelch, but the xxz is what really blows, having shot out of my pocket and onto a terrified orange’s foot. I, not being a total idiot, knew I had to prepare myself for the event in which something like this might happen,

PROSE which is why I tinkered myself a zx radiation generator hidden in the lining of my boots, creating a protective bubble around myself exactly five point two xz tall and with a radius of one xz.

Basically, I’m now the only one left. The only living organism on XXX is currently face planted in a mountain of fresh sludge, my usually messy chartreuse waves solid and slicked back. Cursing, I get up, careful not to leave any of my appendages laying there, unrepairable, forever embedded in XXX’s surface. Catching a glimpse of the contours of my face, now semipermanently imprinted in the sludge, I turn away, starting to head in the direction of the southern pole.

I stop for a second, considering, then turn around and plant the sludge-caked sole of my boot smack dab in the middle of my inverted nose. There. Beauty doesn’t last, but sludge does. I hold back a laugh. All hope isn’t lost—I know there’s one other flat planet in the area with a viable population—but that can wait.

For now, well, I think I’m going to take advantage of all this space, apparently all mine to use as I please.

Actually, who am I kidding.

What on XXX could I possibly do with it all?

“ What on XXX could I possibly do with it all? ”

point zero

JAN 2021||The penchant|16

PROSE

TOWARDS THE STARS by lisa feng Space is many things: it is the dimensions of everything, it is having the freedom to live as one pleases, it is the area which is unoccupied by anything and nothing but air.

It is also the starry vastness of the vacuum that surrounds us, dotted by stars and dust; it is long and loud and eternal, forever and never, born from a ripple in time and inflating like a hot balloon, dictated by strange laws that push and pull miniscule amounts of matter into their positions in an unending cosmos.

Space is nothing, but it is also something because humanity has given it a definition and brought it into existence with their words.

John, poor undergrad college student, does not think about any of this. The only thing he has space in his mind for is that he has a creative writing piece due on it in 4 days.

His eye twitches as he continues his aggressive one-sided staring contest with a blank word document (outside the standard MLA heading, because doing that is coded into muscle memory since middle school). Nothing happens, because unfortunately one has to type words into a doc to make them appear.

John’s eye twitches again, and he quietly debates to himself whether he should punt the computer out his window or just bang it against the desk until it breaks. He can’t think of a good idea with actual coherency and a plot.

Instead, John sighs and breaks his internal turmoil to make some instant ramen, because repairing broken laptops is not something he wants to consider in his budget this month.

Some time later, after he decides to give up on the doc and start on that Comp Sci assignment he’s been procrastinating on, he hears a knock at his dorm door. His friend

17

Oliver’s voice breaks the silence, “Oi! John, brought you the 8-pack beer as the apology for last week!”

John doesn’t feel bothered to get up. He has better things to do, like anything else, instead of actually talking to people. He settles comfortably into his chair, careful not to make a creaking noise.

“Uh...if you’re not here...oh I feel stupid.” John feels half-tempted to yell back and agree with the statement and give up the game. It’s when he waits for Oliver's footsteps to signify his retreats does he hear the loud ‘ping!’ from his phone of a message, presumably Oliver notifying John of his gift.

Guess he forgot to mute it.

Oops.

“Oh John, open the door! I know you’re hiding in there!” sing-songs Oliver. John sighs in defeat and trudges over to unlock it.

Oliver delightedly barges in with a pack of beer and some Chinese takeout. “I knew you were ignoring me! Just like that One Time with the fish and how you chose to ignore my texts.”

John rolls his eyes fondly and bites back with a, “Ah- ah- ah, we don’t talk about that One Time With The Fish.”

Oliver grins and turns back to the subject at hand. “So me, Liam, Cassie, and the rest of us decided we had to apologize for uh- trashing your room last week and I volunteered to bring you this 8-pack we scraped together.”

“Oh.” John blinks. “Thanks and send my regards to the rest of them. Tell Cassie I’m still pissed at her for the permanent marker. Now, shoo.” John proceeds to push Oliver out the door, but to no avail.

“Hey!” Oliver quirks up an eyebrow in a question. “What’s with

the hurry?”

After some time, when Oliver stubbornly refuses to budge and continues to stand there, John finally starts, “So. You know how I majored in CS ‘cause I thought it would be better in college? Turns out, it’s literally just like high school.

But somehow the food issue is even worse.”

Oliver shrugs and crunches on a potato chip. “Wow, picking a major you don’t like. And then suffering. Shocking.” In the seconds while John was distracted talking about his problems, Oliver had already snaked his way to John’s snack cabinet and stolen a bag.

“Thanks for your incredible and unending support of me,” snarks John, with an added eyeroll for effect. “No, I actually do like CS. It’s just, my God, if I see another forum post of a specific issue and then that person replying “fixed” without detailing the answer, I’m breaking my coffee machine in half- hey, stop laughing at my problems!”

Oliver finishes his cackling, “Sorry, sorry. Just change majors man. Alicia changed it last year.”

At the confused expression on John’s face, Oliver explains, “Alicia, the overly competitive one back at our high school, the one that majored in chem on a bet. Ended up transferring to business some time ago and I’m sure she’s having plenty of fun terrorizing crusty old businessmen now.”

“Huh,” John intelligently manages, “Neat.” “…”

Their awkward silence is broken by Oliver’s phone ringing and his face comically whitening with a hushed whisper of “Oh God, I forgot to pick up my girlfriend at the stop.”

He then proceeds to run out of John's room faster than what should

have been humanly possible, dropping the bag of chips he stole from John.

Finally, blessed silence. John closes the door and tries to go back to crawling his way through lines of code. He polishes off the Chinese takeout Oliver left behind and cracks open one of the beers in the 8-pack.

Still cold, at least.

The sun inches downwards and one beer turns to two. And two turns to three, because somehow John forgot this was alcohol (even if it was the very cheap and diluted kind) and not coffee. And halfway through his third, he finally closes his laptop and collapses on his bed, dead to the world. And he dreams-

that strange fervor.

He looks away in some sort of strange shame and sees there’s no one besides him on the grass, not even Gran, who taught him the names of so many stars and constellations.

Oh. It crashes down on him all at once, Gran who taught him the constellations, and he devoured Leo and Draco whole. Gran who taught him the name of the stars, and the first one he ate was Sirius A, the brightest star. Gran who told him never to eat so many sweets because his stomach would hurt and now it did. And, wow, did his stomach hurt he feels like vomiting and then-) (of the most beautiful night sky, freckled with stars that spilt like shining crystals from a velvet twilight palm, a pale brush of clouds of nebulous dust so very far away.

The stars are so very beautiful, but they are also brimming with raw energy, singing of hopes and dreams and wonderful things they have and have not seen. They are so beautiful and so bright and John is so, so hungry. In a trance, John plucks the brightest one he can see with his thumb and forefinger and pops it into his mouth. It leaves a pleasant fizzing sensation and the thrum of electric power down to his fingertips.

A small part of John remembers his grandma scolding him for eating too many sweets and then getting a stomach ache after.

But oh, the every other part of him in the dream vibrated with the need to consume, because the stars are right there and an irresistible free meal full of fire and song, and he starts picking off the stars until he gets impatient and combs entire constellations off the sky at a timeIt’s finally when the voracious haze that clouds John’s mind dissipates after being fed so many stars, does he look up at the night sky and sees...nothing. It’s just a cold black void that greets him, with a smattering of lonely stars at the edges that escaped him during JAN 2021||The penchant|18

John wakes up ungracefully.

His stomach hurts and he flops to the side and vomits out the alcohol.

Under the soft glistening moonlight, his sleep-addled mind, and that completely unbidden dream there comes and goes a moment where he thinks, “Did I just throw up the stars I ate?” before promptly passing out again.

A few minutes or so later the smell of bile and beer starts becoming unbearable under his nose.

He groggily drags himself up and heads to the bathroom to clean up. A quick peek at his phone- wow the hangover made his phone even at lowest brightness sting his eyes5am. Delightful. Might as well get up now and capitalize on an early breakfast and some cramming before morning classes. ~ He chugs a glass of water and chastises himself about drinking on nights before classes.

The cafe always has a suffocating smell of pumpkin spice, and since John still had the lingering echo of a hangover he decidedly did not want to deal with that today. He heads towards the library shortly after class.

After a few hours of chipping away at work and researching he finally looks up, only to realize: Huh, he’s in the astronomy section.

John thinks of the dream the night before as he fingers through the wild array of books, with names and titles he half recognizes from his curiosity-filled research and what Gran taught him as a child.

John opens one of the textbooks, “Introduction to Modern Astrophysics”. As he starts reading, he finds himself not understanding anything except a few basic concepts.

But he’s drawn in all the same, and minutes turn to hours as he flips through pages, absorbing its contents.

When John looks up, it’s almost closing time. He shelves the textbook and walks back to his dorm.

It’s only when he gets back did he realize he forgot to eat dinner today, and he checks his snack stashyep, Oliver really went and stole his last bag of chips yesterday. It’s

19

getting late and John’s too lazy to go to a convenience store to refill, so he forgoes the idea of eating tonight entirely. Instead he decides to go to bed a bit earlier to avoid hunger pangs and fix his sleeping schedule (really, John’s fixing his sleeping schedule. The world must be coming to an end).

When John’s head hits his pillow, he starts dreaming

But then he looks up and the night is black starless void.

“Hello?” says Gran’s voice coming from behind him. When he looks behind him, it’s a residential facility.

The night is cold. It’s dark, and the fireflies are gone. There are no stars in the sky, and she opens her mouth and asks, shaking, afraid of John, “Who are you?”) (of the faint scent of mud and grass brushing past his senses.

His shoes squish on the grass, ground softened from autumn rains. Between coarse and summer-hardened blades, patches of soft fresh grass peeks out.

John looks to his side. There were the stepping stones, whose river they rested in playfully gurgled in the summer. There were the wildflowers, which made him sneeze but he liked the bugs that rested in them. There were the fireflies, like tiny whizzing stars which he tried (unsuccessfully) to catch as a child.

It’s so beautiful and nostalgic.

PROSE John wakes up in cold sweat. ~ “Wow, John,” Liam plops down next to John in the cafeteria.

“You look like garbage.”

“Thanks.” John snips back.

He forgot to eat last night and today he ate probably more than he should.

Ah well, it was fine. Now he would have to remember to purchase some snacks, as long as Liam didn’t decide to bother him and drag him off to God-knows-where before class.

Unfortunately, Liam, Idiot-Who-Caused-The-Fish-Inciden t, is a nosey loser just like Oliver. He opens his big mouth and says, “Did you not sleep again?”

“No.” John rolls his eyes.

“I’ve been trying to fix my sleep schedule. Just had a nightmare, that’s all.”

Liam snorts. “What are you, five?”

“No, just thought of my Gran.” John muttered, he kept his eyes firmly on his mashed potatoes.

“Eh, isn’t she dea-. Oh! Oh. I’m sorry for bringing that up.”

Thank God, Liam at least knew about lines he shouldn’t cross.

John sighs. “It’s not a problem, you’re forgiven. I just don’t like thinking about it.”

Liam nods in understanding.

“Well. Er, change of topic, you got the apology gift from Oliver right?”

Their conversation of idle chit chat concluded shortly after, with Liam luckily not dragging John away on an impromptu adventure across campus.

After that, John headed back to the library to continue reading astronomy textbooks, because hey, they really were very interesting. But he’s tired from lack of sleep, and he had a pretty hearty breakfast, and the words started swimming across the page, and

(he dreams of the smell of crisp autumn air, the smell of mud.

He dreams of the gentle waft of warm butterscotch and lemon creams that Gran would try to feed him and call him so small statured!

Goodness Maria, what are you feeding your son, John come here and eatSometimes, Gran forgot to bake muffins, even though John remembered that from his first memory til’ that point they had never missed a day without notifying her in advance. She was pleasantly surprised some weeks as if she hadn’t remembered they would come at all.

But one time, Gran forgot about the muffins the week, and then the week after, and then the week after that. He and his parents laughed it off, and Gran did too, because it was just old age nibbling away at little things. But there was the growing fear, that terrible no-good bad feeling that sits deep in John’s gut that his 10 year old self could never verbalize properly but was brave enough to say with full confidence that something bad was going to happen.

One time, he remembers going to a hospital and a doctor told his parents that his Gran had something that started with an A and ended with ‘mers. Something about forgetting things (only now does he

know what it was, it was Alzheimer's).

His parents visit Gran more and more and he starts getting to go to those visits less and less, especially after that time his mother comes home sobbing, moaning “she forgot my name, she forgot my name.”

He is a little older and wiser than he was a few years ago but not so much when he visits her for the second-last time. The way she looked at him in fear, and asked him who he was. It was too much.

But the last time John goes to visit, before Gran is about to die, he hesitates.

She probably couldn’t understand him anyway, he reasons to himself. She forgot all about him anyway, he thinks. And in the end, he finds himself with all sorts of things to say but absolutely nothing that can be said eloquently, and so he resigns himself to saying nothing at all.

JAN 2021||The penchant|20

He regrets and regrets and now John’s a little older and wiser so he opens his mouth to talk to Gran behind him, even if it is a dream.

Instead he heaves, beautiful blue-black sky and stars pouring out his mouth and drowning out any noise he planned to make.

No, no, no he frantically thinks. Please. I want to say something. Anything. Even a goodbye is enough.

When he looks up, she’s gone.

The residential facility in his dream has crumbled away like fine stardust, and John is on the gentle plains.

There’s no one besides him, only the starless ink black night and the sound of the breeze, darting across the grass and whistling the sounds of a flute.)

When he wakes up in the library from his nap, he walks back to the dorm, but John somehow finds himself even more tired than in his nap. The astronomy textbooks that he’s been reading in the past two days have somehow been more interesting than the CS courses he’s taken in two years of high school.

John is so, so tired, bone-deep fatigued and tired of nothing and everything. If he has to continue the monotony of university life, doing CS, which he likes but does not love, surviving but not living, he’s going to either explode or wilt away.

John opens his computer but he doesn’t do anything. There’s no point. Why put all these hours of research when there’s nothing worth doing. Comp is fun but it’s not his passion, and while he could live with doing it his whole life, who's to say he would enjoy doing it? Would he really?

He doesn’t do anything for hours, all throughout the night. It’s 8am when he finally shakes himself out of his existential crisis. Vaguely, he wonders if he’ll have the dream again. He wonders if he’ll see the ghost of his Gran again. He wonders what he could have said, and what he could say now even in his dreams.

Well, his sleep schedule is garbage but he doesn’t have class tomorrow, might as well worsen it by sleeping through the day.

He collapses onto his bed and concedes himself to

(the dream, but this time he isn’t standing in the field under a void. He’s flying, high, high above everything, above the grass where the wind whistled like a quiet flute, above the air which smelled of crisp autumn and innocence, above even the lilting melody of the stars of things they have and have not seen.

It is so, so beautiful and so familiar and he wants to cry.

One moment, he is flying, and the next, he is in a hospital. John speaks for the first and last time to her, “Gran…”

“Thank you for everything.”

It expresses absolutely nothing but it was the thing he wanted to say the most, and it was better than never speaking at all and living with the guilt of it.

Gran smiles and she says, “Good on you for speaking up, dearie.”

But it’s not Gran’s voice that comes out of her mouth, it’s a warped version of his own and what he thought she must have sounded like, because oh God, he forgot what her voice sounded like, didn’t he?

“Gran,” he tries, but this time Grandma is the one who shushes him.

“Shoot for the moon, and even if you don’t make it, you’ll still be among the stars,” her stardust-woven memory says, and then she’s gone.

Reality bends and the hospital disappears in a blink. He’s again, flying high in the void, staring down at the grass plains, power thrumming under his skin. He unfurls his wings and the stars he consumed stretch across the sky and splay over the ink-black night, covering it in galaxies and celestial lights.

He flaps his wings once, twice, unsure of himself. He’s seized with a sudden fear that he’s going to fall but he grits his teeth and reminds himself: trying is better than doing nothing at all.

John beats his wings made of starlight and soars.)

Sathish, Tanish, “Sapphire of the Forest”

21|The penchant||JAN 2021

PROSE When John wakes up from his nap the first thing he notices is that it’s 8PM. The second thing he notices is his alarm set to crunch the stupid creative piece for English in four hours.

This time, he opens his computer and cracks his knuckles and doesn’t think about making a nice topic related to space. He picks the first thing he can think of, some high school girl named Lisa trying to rush a creative piece for Extra Credit.

It’s quick. It’s incredibly stupid and meta but he doesn’t care. Going all out is better than trying, but trying is better than doing nothing at all, no?

He polishes off the piece in one sit-down and runs it through Grammarly. He submits at 11:56PM and steps back to marvel at all the words that filled the black space of a word doc when he refused to start on anything that wasn't a perfect idea.

In the next few days, John consults a couple of people about transferring from CS. His parents, some of his friends, he digs through forums. Not that consultation was much a factor since his mind was already made up from the start. It just needed a little push, a leap of faith.

For a second, he hesitates.

After Oliver knows, the gossip he inevitably spreads will socially pressure him to never turn back.

Does he want to transfer to Astronomy?

He thinks of grueling hours pouring over C++ and years wasted if he changes to a major he hardly knows much about on a whim, because of a few thought-provoking dreams in the span of a week. John thinks and thinks, and decides, he can change majors again if the stars don’t cut out for him.

Well. No going back now, John thinks as he presses the call button.

“Hey Oliver- I was wondering if you could give me Alicia’s number. No, no I don’t want a date with her, look. Yeah. I was actually thinking of transferring majors and the university webpages are being particularly unhelpful, so I wanted some first-hand...”

Going all out is better than trying, but trying is better than doing nothing at all, no?

22

PROSE The lab is bathed in a dim blue light. The creaking of machinery is accompanied by the squeaking of chalk against a worn blackboard. A stranger would describe the lab as eerie. For her, it is a magical playground where she can test and develop her wildest theories.

The clock hands click into position at 8 PM, and the last of the sunlight fades away. She does not notice the lab assistants packing their bags and turning off the machines, or the gentle bell ringing above the door as her assistants slowly file out. Her focus remains on the chalkboard in front of her, as she frantically records diagrams and notes that are speeding through her mind.

This is it. This is it.

Everything is finally coming together.

She is fueled by the realization that a breakthrough is just around the corner. Her hands move at what seems to be the speed of light and her eyes flash with excitement. The chalk begins to become dust under the pressure of her hands, yet she continues writing.

And then she is done.

To those who are not familiar with the complex concepts The Mad Scientist explores, her work will appear as a jumble of numbers and letters surrounding a simple cube.

But to her, that cube is a representation of the three visible dimensions of space: length, width, and depth. And the equations she has scrawled around the cube are her secret to accessing the fourth dimension: time.

"It will never work."

The Mad Scientist slams the door to the lab. Her rage intensifies every time she replays the words of the snotty council members in her head.

23

They understand nothing of my work, but they want to deny me the chance to explore?

She slumps into her seat and fixes her eyes upon the blackboard, filled with what are apparently useless theories that can never be proved in the real world. She picks up a green towel and goes to erase the evidence of her failures. Her hand hovers above the board. She scans the equations one last time, and as a new thought enters her mind, she tosses the towel back and picks up the chalk once again.

Nobody can stop her.

The final wire falls into place. She steps back and marvels at the giant metal contraption she has constructed in the corner of her lab.

Her once black hair is now streaked with gray, and her wrinkles run deep on her face. Her hands shake ever so slightly as she picks up remote and turns the machine on.

A whirring sound fills the silent laboratory. In her excitement to work on this project, The Mad Scientist has abandoned her other theories, and her lab assistants, feeling neglected and unproductive, have all moved on to fulfill their own destinies. So she has toiled alone for twelve years, growing increasingly eager to accomplish her goal as the machine becomes more advanced.

Now, the fruit of her labor stands before her, glowing with a blinding light and emitting a forceful sound that fills her with an overwhelming feeling of accomplishment. It is time to complete this project.

Her movements are no longer hasty and frantic, as they were so many years ago. She takes a slow and purposeful walk around her lab, touching every dusty machine,

DIMENSION

picking up every piece of trash, and thumbing through every worn notebook. She comes to stand in front of her machine again, staring into the light and trying to imagine every possible situation that awaits her on the other side of the door.

She discards her lab coat at the work table.

The woman places one foot in the door. She hesitates to continue.

With this one step, she will move away from everything she knows. She will break the limits of mortal existence, and discover the workings of a dimension only regarded as conceptual and abstract.

She will enter the dimension of time, and find the world that none have even thought of venturing into. And all she must do is place her other foot in.

She inhales. A sense of confidence, of courage, and of finality washes over her.

She takes the final step.

She takes the ďŹ nal step.

PROSE

ALONE I can still see Earth, safe and warm and getting smaller everyday. I try not to look for too long or the wanting starts to hurt.

I cried when they sealed me in. I was still crying when the thing started to shake. It was horrible violent shaking that rattled the very core of my being. It was like being turned upside down and inside out.

All the while my lips were starting to feel the salt traveling down my face.

I cannot tell you why I was afraid. They told me not to be. They showed me all the maps and calculations and things beyond my understanding. It all seemed very secure. But in the days before I couldn’t hear much more than my own furious heartbeat. The days before take off felt like nothing more than a dream.

Cai, Arnold

The shaking lasted so long that I had almost gotten used to it. It was a terrible shock when it stopped.

There is nothing like the complete and total stillness that makes you painfully aware of everything. Of course I was quickly distracted by the view from the windows.

But the allure of the vast wears off faster than you would expect. For an hour, maybe two, all I could do was stare at it. All of it.

Everyone I’ve ever known. Everyone I’ll never get to know. Animals and plants and millions of little lights.

But it was so far away and only getting farther.

I am the most alone that anyone has ever been. Sometimes I can feel my skin reaching out, desperately wanting to be touched. It is a craving so innate that it feels like hunger. I wonder if anyone will even be there when I come back. My nightmares are filled with images of a desolate planet. Maybe I will return only to be alone forever.

Everyday I delve deeper into the ever expanding vacuum. It’s cold and cruel and all that I have to protect myself is a little metal box. A box made by human hands, which really are so small compared to the monstrous expanse. I hear it creaking sometimes and the wave of fear crashes into me anew. There’s always a little bit of fear there though. That bit never leaves, like a dull knife constantly digging into me.

I keep looking into the cold and hollow void, imagining what it might do to me.

I can still see Earth, safe and warm and getting smaller everyday. I try not to look for too long or the wanting starts to hurt. If I had the chance to lay on soft sunlit grass right now, I don't think I would ever get up.

There is so much space between me and everyone else. It’s so cold and dark here and I want to go home.

JAN 2021||The penchant|24

PROSE

THE STORY OF

ICARUS AND

DAEDALUS BUT IN SPACE

25

That Icarus was the son of Daedalus was of great bewilderment to the townsfolk, for the boy’s idle nature diametrically opposed his father’s sharp mind and productive hands.

At fifty years-old, Daedalus was still in his prime, inventing toys, tools, and everything in between. His aptitude for invention was prominent even at the fresh age of nine, when he had made a business of fixing and upgrading the playthings of the town’s children. At sixteen years-old, Icarus was anything but precocious. Icarus passed the greater portion of his time by either walking around the outskirts of town with an absent minded gaze about him or playing cards with those who were shunned due to their drinking and gambling tendencies.

It was when he was engaged with the latter activity that he stumbled upon the prospect of flying. The man to the right of him in their card-playing circle of misfits, rambled something of birds and gold stars. The man was evidently drunk, but Icarus was one to give into any drunkard’s follies.

He surmised that it was reasonable enough: the stars glitter and gold was shiny. It was to be concluded, then, that stars were composed of gold. And the birds that fly so high in the sky must be witnesses to this truth.

An idea struck him: he was to become a bird. Upon becoming a bird, he would reach for the stars and steal them from the sky. Then, he would have all the gold he could ever want, and he would not have to dilly dally all day as his father Daedalus did.

Swept up by the charming notion of the persistence of simple life as it was, he abandoned the card game and ran to his father’s shop to propose his ingenious idea. Facing his father, he asked if they could build a pair of wings, just like the ones attached to the bodies of birds.

His father found great pleasure in this suggestion. It was a daring task, and it was the first idea that ever arose from his lackadaisical son; thus, Daedalus had every inclination to agree.

And so father and son, but mostly father, worked tirelessly to build a pair of wings. The son often stared blankly at his father’s work, played with the trinkets in his father’s shop, and was barely receptive to his father’s simple commands. After two years had gone by, Daedalus had built what he considered to be two perfect pairs of wings, an expanded model of bird wings to fit the larger arm span of humans. Icarus’s eyes widened at the very near prospect of his wealth, and he eagerly begged that they used the wings that day itself. Daedalus accepted his pleas, but he warned Icarus that they must not travel too far. Any farther than the Earth’s thermosphere and they would be lost in an unfamiliar dark void.

Through the night, Icarus and Daedalus made it well into the various layers of the atmosphere, and as the night began to fade, they had decidedly reached the end of the thermosphere. Until this point, Icarus had failed to even see, forget capture, the stars as he had hoped.

Ignoring his father’s requests to turn back, he flew further and further and further and left his poor father behind.

In his path, he came across giant balls of gas and many large odd-colored spheres, but no stars or gold as he had hoped. He figured that they must be even farther along his path, so he flew further and further and further. After many a day had passed, he found himself surrounded by bright spiraling things and yet no gold stars. His will had finally withered and he was ready to go back. Admittedly, it was a surprise that his patience had been tested for this span of a time.

Frustrated, he attempted to trace back his steps. But his returning path seemed to be longer than the path he had taken to get there, so he was convinced he had taken a wrong turn somewhere despite having traveled in, more or less, a straight line. So, he retraced his steps back to where he originally was to make his path more clear to him. His journey back to where he started on his path of return also seemed too long, but

he kept going in hopes that he would find something of familiarity, hopefully one of the grand spirals he had previously seen. After concluding that this journey was definitely taking longer than it initially had, he decided that he must have missed one of the telltale signs he was looking for along the way, and decided, once again, to turn towards his starting point. And then that was definitely taking much too long, so he turned back again. Soon, he found himself stuck in this loop of going back and forth, confused as to his position in the black void and the distance or path home.

Eventually, he grew tired of this loop and convinced himself that floating around in a void was better than wandering around back home, anyways. At least here, no one was there to bother him and he was free to do as he pleased, even if there was not much to do at all.

As he floated around in the black void and as his age increased beyond his ability to keep track of it, his mind grew every so slightly sharper and he reached two conclusions: 1.

The black void was expanding, at an ever-increasing rate far beyond his ability to catch up to its change.

2.

All that glitters is not gold.

All that glitters is not gold.

JAN 2021||The penchant|26

PROSE

ASTRAPHOBIA its flames barely visible and its heat barely able to be felt. But, the man had been deep in thought, and the little warmth the campfire had offered him had seduced him into a state of comfort, and he had not the foresight to control the fire, and the fire had flared up.

Its light spread out everywhere, and in an instant the clearing was lit up like a holy beacon beckoning crusaders to its location, and the man was thrown out of his daze. In another instant, he started to stamp at the fire, blowing on it desperately, trying to get rid of it. It receded, and the fire was no more, but it did not change the fact that anyone within seeing distance had known that there was activity there, that there was somebody there, and that he was in danger.

Ever since the aliens had come, such fires had never been safe.

The aliens did not come to Earth bearing gifts and technology, but neither did they come with great armies and space technology to conquer it. Indeed, their weapons were not so advanced after all, and their technology could not be considered advanced either if not for

27

their ability to travel through space.

Instead, they had infiltrated Earth.

Several weeks passed before anyone noticed the aliens, with their smooth ability to shapeshift, and by then it had been too late, and any last semblance of resistance the humans could have put up was devoured.

Ever since then, human lives had become worthless, and instead of humans, they had become more and more like prey to the aliens, game to hunt and enjoy.

And, if the man did not care about his life anymore, he would have let out a loud groan of self defeat and misery, but he did care of his survival, and so he held it in and did not utter another sound in fear that he still had a chance to live, and such a sound would be the deciding factor to his death.

His eyes were wide, and he surveyed the area, ears perking up almost comically. As such, when the leaves rustled, and the newcomer came to him, he was already aware of his presence, trembling. It had been a very long time since he had last met another human being, both of his own choice, and also because of his inability to meet another. It was dangerous to interact with another human being, for you did not know if they were an alien or not, did not know if they would kill and devour you after gaining your trust and lowering your guard.

He was not a wild man, as most would be by this point in time, but rather, he wore surprisingly civil

and clean clothes, a simple tee and jeans with only a tiny bit of dirt on them. He was, however, a big man, tall and towering, and it was clear how he could have survived for so long.

The newcomer looked around, and when his eyes found the cowering man before him, he nodded.

“Hello,” he said.

The last embers of the fire went out, and the smoky smell went away as well, carried away by a low wind.

“Hello,” the man responded, his voice carrying a tremor with it.

The newcomer glanced around again, before finally setting his gaze on the man before him. He stared intently for several seconds, a bit unnaturally from what the man had remembered from his past life.

The newcomer cleared his throat, bringing his hand up to his mouth as he did so.

“Can I stay here for the night?”

The man did not outright reject him immediately, in fear that he would provoke the man if he were truly a human. Still, his hand unsheathed the knife at his waist, and he responded only with a jerky nod to the other side of the campfire.

The newcomer nodded again.

“Thanks.”

He settled down, and without another word, the newcomer tried to light another fire, even.

under the other man’s judging gaze “It’s been a bit tough, hasn’t it, these past few years?”

The man’s eyelids twitched, and he chose not to respond.

Undeterred, the newcomer continued to speak.

“Used to have a wife and child, I did. Separated, though. Still dunno if they’re alive.”

His voice was not quiet, and he carried an accent unseen from his previous words. He shook his head.

“It’s a shame it is. Truly a shame.”

The man’s eyelids twitched again, and his body began to shake even heavier than before. His hand carrying the knife trembled the hardest. Now, he was sure the newcomer was an alien, and he watched the man before him with even more vigilance before, ready to defend against an attack–or, ready to attack at any moment.

The newcomer closed his eyes, and just as he was about to open his mouth, he heard the rustling of clothes, the whistle of wind, and a guttural scream. His eyes flew open, and before him, the man had raised his knife, ready to stab forward, and, by instinct, the newcomer flung his arm towards the man, and across the man’s body went against the brush, against the sharp sticks and leaves, and the newcomer was on the man. He punched, he kicked, he stomped, and the man was left bloodied, his knife never having touched the newcomer.

Just as the man’s vision was receding, his last image before he died was of the newcomer, his still very human face, scrunched up and sorrowful, yet still the very picture of shock.

Huh, the man thought. So, he was human all along,

Cai, Arnold

JAN 2021||The penchant|28

PROSE

PLAYS ACROSS TIME

Cai, Arnold

29|The penchant||JAN 2021

I. L’appel du vide Darkness, as usual. She frowned as she stared out the window, her cheek resting in her hand. She didn’t really expect anything different, though. Staring out the window was just something she did.

In front of her eyes, she saw nothing but the regular expanse of black and gray. In her 16 years of life, though, she hadn’t really come to expect anything else.

Sure, the tabloids and the newspapers could run whatever stories or articles they wanted. They could call it the ‘Great Expanse’ or the ‘Final Frontier’ or the ‘Infinite Beyond’ or whatever fancy title they wanted to slap on it. But nothing would change about space just because someone made a nice story or gave it a flashy title.

Mile after mile of emptiness.

No interesting features, no exquisite scenery. Just white and gray set up against a backdrop of the purest black. Empty space. Dead space.

She felt lonely here. Yeah, the Bowie Station had its crew and her parents so she wouldn’t be left in solitude, but… well, it was her and just her. No classmates. No friends. She didn’t like it here.

One day, she’d leave this station. She’d leave the Frontier, which was nothing more than some overglorified colonization and research effort, and she’d head for the Inner Systems and never look back.

There was too much space here. Too many empty spaces. Not enough people. People living far apart, 1 person sleeping in an individual room that could fit 4.

There was too much space here. Too many silences where there should’ve been talking. People felt distant, far away from each other.

Disconnected, disjointed. Everyone might’ve known each other’s names and their occupations, but that was it. Too much space between people, between her and her ‘classmates’, between her and her parents.

Everyone’s interactions were minimal, streamlined. Empty.

The Inner Systems would be her utopia. The places, the people… just what marvelous wonders awaited her there?

The glacial seas and sanctuaries of Europa. The brick-red deserts and man-made oases of Mars. The cityscapes of Earth. Earth.

The originator of humanity.

Humankind’s birthplace. What would she see there? The fabled Babel Spiral? The pyramids of Giza?

The underwater dome of Neo Atlantis?

“I’ll go there one day.” It was a promise she whispered to herself, only to herself and to herself alone.

Only she cared, anyways. There weren’t enough people to know, let alone people to care. Her parents were buried up to their noses in work and she had no friends.

But she could’ve never claimed to be empty. Even though she grew up in such a setting, she never would’ve called herself someone who had learned to prioritize rationality and logic over emotion.

She had tried before, to be sure. Tried to discard her emotions, tried to pretend that it didn’t matter, because the best thing that humans could chase after was knowledge, and nothing else.

But no matter what she did, she couldn’t deny the emptiness she felt inside. It wasn’t something as simple as a single word. It wasn’t anything like that, because if she tried to figure out and squeeze it into some sort of framework or definition, that wouldn’t convey anything she felt.

If there was a name for what she felt, she supposed it would be melancholy. Something she couldn’t express, something that didn’t let her show how she felt. She didn’t know how to show it.

Music became her escape, the window into which she could project how she felt.

It had started with a single song, some classic called “Fly Me to the Moon” by some long-dead artist called Bart Howard. Except, the thing was that the song itself apparently had been a jazz version

made for some old animated show, an altered cover of the original.

The samba beat gently rolling through the room, accompanied by strains of guitar, piano and violin, mixing together to form the perfect balance as the woman’s voice rang from wall to wall.

“Fill my heart with song, and let me sing forevermore…” She didn’t know what exactly it was that made her open her mouth. “You are all I long for, all I worship and adore...”

But she felt something in her resonate with the song, something that compelled her to open her mouth and sing, her voice brokenly following the melody like water running over rocks. “In other words, please be true, in other words, I love you…”

And when the song had finished, she knew, there and then: she needed to make a recording of herself singing to the song and put it out on SpaceNet. A cover of a musical cover. It was stupid, foolish, a thing that only naive amateurs would do. But she did it anyway. She needed to show how she felt, somehow, some way.

So she sang.

Sing. Sing with your heart.

Sing with your soul. Sing with every fiber of your being. Sing and sing.

Put your voice into the words and match every sound and syllable. Your emotions, your longing, your desires, sing them all into being.

Sitting at the window, she stretched her palm out towards the vast expanse of nothingness of the void. Even though she knew the odds of anyone finding her cover in the vast expanse of SpaceNet were infinitesimally small, she couldn’t help but wonder if somewhere out there, there was someone else like her, floating in the perfect stillness.

Could that person hear her singing?

Could that someone understand her?

II. The scenery that lay in front of that boy’s eyes Seas of liquid flames. Deserts of frozen ice. Buried ruins and sunken cities.

Hopes, dreams, visions, all of JAN 2021||The penchant|30

them were there, at the place where the beginning ended and the end began. The place of beginnings, the place of endings. The final frontier and the first step into the unknown.

He wanted to see what lay beyond. Space - it was everything to him. It was the celestial cavern where humanity was but a mere speck of dust sifting about, guided by forces beyond comprehension that moved stars and shifted galaxies. It was the place where all the unseen possibilities could take form, where the scene that lay in front of the boy’s eyes could be realized.

To spread his wings when he could finally graduate from the Academy and to move out towards the cosmic darkness where everything was open. Where things were far apart and everyone had the space they wanted. Where he could feel alone for once, occupied with nothing but himself and his thoughts.

Everything here on Earth was too cramped. Not enough space to move around. People living together in crowded apartments crammed into gargantuan skyscrapers where the cities were.

Everything here on Earth was too close. Not enough space to feel like you could be alone. Everyone knew everyone else. People knew the names and the secrets and the dramas and the scandals of everyone else around them. Nothing felt as private as it should’ve been.

SpaceNet was his escape.

There, space was a concept, and only a concept; in the world of SpaceNet, he could come and go as he pleased, moving about anywhere he wanted.

He could take a gander around the stations in the Outer Systems on HoloReality, or visit domains to see the newest publication about Frontier Exploration.

The world–no, universe–was his; all he had to do was to move, to explore, to wander about and to see what the infinite vastness could take him. What the infinite vastness could show him.

Wonder? Awe? Or perhaps something greater than that?

The perpetual half-dusk,

31|The penchant||JAN 2021

Where he could feel alone for once, occupied with nothing but himself and his thoughts.

Yong, Erika, “Alley in Osaka”

PROSE half-dawn of Schicksal. The permanent eclipse of Genesis. The frozen monoliths on Atran. What did one feel, living on worlds so different from the neon cityscapes he had seen his whole life?

One day, he’d see for himself what the Frontier was about. New things, new experiences, new ideas, new people. He wanted to know what it was like to do those things, to undergo those experiences, to think about those ideas, to meet those people. One day, he’d do it.

He wanted to know. And so, he’d keep looking. ~ Looking back, it must have been coincidence that he found that first video. Out of the billions of music videos on SpaceNet, and for him to come across that while drifting about listlessly on AutoPlay?

The chances were infinitesimally small, one in a billion–no, a trillion, even.

The video itself hadn’t been particularly amazing at first glance, either. The first shot had opened with some blurred stock video footage of light shining through trees before abruptly cutting to some take of a satellite passing by overhead, accompanied by the sound of strings.

Then, it had shifted to a picture of a full moon as the track transitioned into some classic samba with guitar, strings, a drumset, and the faint strains of what sounded like a piano in the background. The audio had a scratchiness to it, as if the person had been trying to replicate the phonograph record effect from over 200 years ago, but had failed miserably, since the static was just loud enough that he had to concentrate to hear the instruments.

Overall, nothing particularly impressive. He could understand why the video itself had less than 1000 views and absolutely 0 follows.

Anyone could have taken the half-a-dozen shots of Frontier scenery and buildings with better grace than the creator had, and even though he didn’t have any editing experience, he was fairly sure that he could’ve done something to make the animation of a full moon and the

spinning figure in the center of the video much better than the low-resolution mosaic that occupied the center screen for the entirety of the 4 minutes and 25 seconds.

“Fly me to the moon…” the voice that hit his ears after, however, had taken him by surprise. “And let me play among the stars…” he had nearly dropped his NetBoard. “Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars…” The singing… just, wow.

The voice was soft but clear, with a light grace to it that he never would’ve expected from such an amateur video. “In other words, hold my hand...” The singer had amazing pitch control, too; the voice harmonized with the background instruments perfectly, mixing in to create a beautiful melody despite the audio scratches. “In other words, baby kiss me…”

4 minutes and 25 seconds.

Pure bliss. It wasn’t until his NetBoard had let out a click to let him know it was transitioning to the next song that he had broken out of his trance. And before the next song started, he had jumped backwards and hit replay for another time, content to close his eyes and let the music flow through his head.

He couldn’t stop listening to the song. It was just that good.

Because despite everything bad about the video, despite everything from the crappy space shots to the low-resolution animation that was constantly spinning in center screen, the singing was phenomenal enough to balance out the scales. He could feel the singer’s passion, the emotions in her voice permeating throughout the whole song. There was a fragile beauty in her voice that made the song feel like a dream–untouchable and fleeting.

Who was she, to make such a song so beautiful yet lonely?

He wanted to know. Lying on his bed, NetBoard at his side set on Loop, he stretched a palm towards his ceiling.

Out there, somewhere… could she be feeling what he was feeling right now?

JAN 2021||The penchant|32