Preface 2019

The Preface A Magazine of Art and Literature

Fall 2019

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Staff List Editors-in-Chief

August Skylar Napolitano Anya Schwartz

Faculty Advisors Katherine Cottle Edgar Kunz

Honorable Mentions Mary Heinz Neassa Hunt

Keep Updated on Preface @ blogs.goucher.edu/preface Instagram @prefacelitmag Published Fall 2019

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Table of Contents Cover - Splatter by Jordan Wilkins 8 - No Filter III by Anya Schwartz 9 - Jesus Camp by Linsday Sletten 10 - Sacrificial Lamb by Jasper Levy 16 - tree of life by Charlie Collins 18 - What is Beauty? by Elaine Millas 19 - Untitled I by Hallie Rubin 20 - Pomegranates by Anya Schwartz 21 - Your Poems Don’t Have Heart by Lindsay Sletten 22 - Coming Out, in Reverse by August Skylar Napolitano 24- “Family” by August Skylar Napolitano 25 - Med by Anya Schwartz 26 - The Village that Raised Me by Mathias James 28 - these are the facts by Sebastian Bronson Boddie 29 - Vibes by Shot (Back) by Sebastian Bronson Boddie 30 - Answers by Mathias James 31 - Maybe You Need A New Map by Elaine Millas 32 - Where The Willow Tree Weeps by Emma Carrillo-Cordova 37 - In Praise of Folly by Sebastian Bronson Boddie 38 - Snail by Anya Schwartz 39 - VESTIGIAL by Lindsay Sletten 40 - Untitled I by Tsivya Laurence 41 - MapQuest by Sebastian Bronson Boddie 42 - Be Better by Mathias James 43 - Escape Attempt by Sophia Walker 56 - Untitled II by Hallie Rubin 57 - Untitled II by Tsivya Laurence 4

58 - Presence by Eliza Owen-Smith 59 - Untitled III by Tsivya Laurence 60 - Question Everything by Elaine Millas 61 - Burn by Briana Livelsberger 62 - Stars by Mathias James 65 - No Filter II by Anya Schwartz 66 - Birth (Part I) by Natalie Ruden 67 - Untitled IV by Tsivya Laurence 68 - The Miner and the Girl by Ruut DeMeo 75 - Mountain Cow by Hallie Rubin 76 - Scenes from a wedding ... by August Skylar Napolitano 78 - Untitled by Charlie Collins 79 - The Love by Sebastian Bronson Boddie 80 - Harlem by Sebastian Bronson Boddie 81 - Untitled by August Skylar Napolitano 82 - trailer park haibun by August Skylar Napolitano 83 - American Girl by Sebastian Bronson Boddie

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Dear Readers,

Thank you all for reading our first new, printed issue in 3 years!

We are so excited to have been able to put together this magazine and showcase the immense talent of Goucher’s writers and artists, and are even more excited that you get to hold it all in your hands. Over the past few years, the Preface team has run into quite a few roadblocks— funding fiascos, technical difficulties, graduating editors, and so on— but thanks to the endless dedication of Goucher students, faculty, and staff alike, we are back up and running once more.

Back before Goucher was even Goucher, the Women’s College of Baltimore had its own literary magazine, the Kalends (Preface’s great-grandmagazine, if you will). For over a hundred years, this school has been full of great creative minds desiring an outlet for their ideas, as well as their interested peers willing to sit down and admire them. Yes, we may all currently be gearing up for finals season, making plans for the holidays, and maybe even getting ready to graduate or go abroad next Spring, but we are grateful that you have taken the time to continue this tradition. As the editors of the Preface, of course we like to believe that the work we are doing is important to the Goucher community. However, it is readers like you who prove to us that we have fought for the revival of this magazine for a reason.

Before getting into the magazine itself, we have quite a few more people we would like to thank for making this all possible. First and foremost, thank you to every single person who submitted to this issue of Preface. Regardless of if your piece made it into the final publication or not, it takes a lot of confidence to submit something you made for publication, and we encourage you to continue doing so.

We would also like to thank everyone who helped us spread the word about Preface this semester, from fellow students who made posters encouraging submissions, to the professors who brought up the magazine in their class discussions, etc. One of the most common questions we got as we set out to bring Preface back was “What is Preface?”, and we are proud that we have gotten so much help in answering that question.

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Lastly, we would like to give a special thanks to our faculty advisors, Katherine Cottle and Edgar Kunz. Professor Cottle has not hesitated to help us in any way we needed, jumping aboard last Fall when the Preface team was just a mess of frustrated editors and writing professors trying to understand why we couldn’t make this thing happen. Now, with her guidance and encouragement, we have already managed to publish two magazines and don’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. Professor Kunz (who himself is a Goucher alum who was published in Preface several times as a student) understands firsthand the importance of giving students this opportunity to get their work out into the world, and was more than happy to return to Preface and refer his students to submit. We would also like to thank Ayumi Yasuda from the Office of Communications for answering any and all of our questions about how to make Preface look as best as it possibly can for publication and, of course, for giving us pointers on designing and printing our beloved little Preface stickers.

Getting Preface back on its feet has been a truly wild ride, but it has also been a fulfilling one. We are happy to be back, and look forward to collecting your submissions in the Spring so we can do it all again.

Love,

The Editors,

August Skylar Napolitano & Anya Schwartz

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No Filter III Anya Schwartz

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Jesus Camp Lindsay Sletten

Nested in the mountains of rural West Virginia, my pastor called it a thin place, where the line between heaven and earth began to blur. I looked, but didn’t see it. Not in truckbed hot tubs. Not in the smoke from the boys pissing out the fire. I didn’t see it when we were tossing our necks back taking shots of coffee creamer and the star-stippled sky was so clear you could see Venus. That night we scared ourselves in the woods, the sapped trees were a blur as we ran by and hit the barbed wire so hard that we should have been torn and strung out like Christmas lights. Instead it punctured but bounced out of the flesh on our stomachs. All that remains are a staggered row of scars that remind me of the stars that remind me to keep looking.

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Sacrificial Lamb Jasper Levy

“I want you to try and convince him,” the rabbi tells my mother.

He moves his hands as he speaks in ways only a rabbi could: dipping, and digging, and dredging with every word, as if the Holy Book itself were laid out in front of him.

Ima looks back at him, distressed, her eyebrows crinkling together the way they do during last minute Shabbos preparations.

“Rabbi, please… I don’t know the scripture as well as you do, I don’t know the real psak on what it means for my boy to be… what he is.”

She pauses, and then under her breath adds, “Motti wants to send him to a camp.”

As if only just remembering that I’m there, she and Rabbi Eisner turn to look at me with that pitiful, judgemental stare I’ve only ever known religious people to master, and it reminds me of how people used to stare at our dog, Benny, before we had to put him down.

Am I dying?

Rabbi Eisner clucks his tongue, strokes his beard, and starts rocking back and forth as if he’s praying. “I myself am a stringent man,” he says. “And what your son did is despicable -- no question about it. But even I believe that Hashem, blessed be his name, weeps at the purpose of these camps. Your husband is a learned man, Malka, he must know this.”

“Yes, Rabbi, he is, but he still feels differently,” Ima cries.

“Night after night he quotes pesukim to me, saying it’s the will of God. I try to argue with him, but I’m not as learned as he is, I don’t know how! And he… he gets angry with me.”

Rabbi Eisner puts his head in his hands and sighs. “Fine. I’ll talk to him in my office. Maybe he’ll be more cooperative alone.”

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“Oh, thank you, Rabbi, thank you!” Were it not a sin to worship human beings as we worship God, I could imagine my mother falling to her knees and kissing the rabbi’s feet. Instead, she hurries over to the bench where I’m sitting and clutches my hand so tightly I can feel her nails digging into my skin.

“Rabbi Eisner’s going to talk to you,” she says. “He’s going to help you. Okay?” She speaks loudly and clearly as if I don’t have the capacity to understand their conversation on my own. As if last week’s events mean that I speak a different language.

I try to nod, but end up looking like I’m having a neck spasm instead. My legs start to shake the way they did the morning of my Bar Mitzvah when I had to read my Torah portion in front of the whole synagogue. Except there’s no one watching now. No one but me and the pious gaze of Rabbi Eisner, following me as if I’m about to burn an entire Torah scroll in front of his eyes.

Ima walks me over to where Rabbi Eisner is standing, and he plants his hand down firmly on my shoulder, making his authority as clear to me as God did the Israelites in the Ten Commandments.

“I’ll pray for you,” he tells my mother, and then he guides me to the back staircase.

I know these stairs, and the hallway that comes after it. I know the pictures of the Gedolim — the great rabbis of our generation — lining the wall as if they were my own face. I’ve memorized the gray Peyos dangling from their ears, the holy fire blazing in their eyes; only today, it feels as if they’re looking down, rather than me looking up.

Eventually, we reach the doorway to Rabbi Eisner’s office, and I watch as he raises a hand to kiss the Mezuzah on the doorpost.

I follow his actions without hesitation, the tradition cleaved to me as strongly as the scroll is cleaved to the wall, my fingers tasting faintly like metal when I bring my them to my lips.

Rabbi Eisner motions me inside, and it feels so familiar to sit across from him like this, yet still so different. We’ve sat here hundreds of times, only today there’s no Talmud sprawled across his desk to learn from, no trope for the weekly Parsha to master. I feel empty, 11

somehow — far away — without the words of God to bridge the gap between us. Instead there is just Rabbi Eisner’s lashon, Rabbi Eisner’s scripture, as he removes his glasses and says, “Yitzchak, do you know why you’re here?”

If I were a rabbi, I think maybe I could give an honest answer.

Maybe I could dip, and dig, and dredge like they do, flipping through the air as if it contained pages of the sacred texts, and then maybe — just maybe — Hakadosh Baruch Hu could summon the words to my lips. But I’m not a rabbi. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu isn’t here.

Rabbi Eisner stares back at me, waiting for me to say something. To be his star student: his Talmid Chacham. I stare at my lap instead, fiddling with the knots of my Tzitzit underneath my shirt. I begin counting the strands in each knot, hoping the dumber I act, the sooner he’ll let me go.

One. Two. Three.

Four.

“Nu?”

Rabbi Eisner’s conversation with my mother replays in my mind. “Despicable,” he’d said. The man who mentored me all my life — taught me how to put my own Talis — the man who knew me better than my own father did, thought I was despicable. I count the numbers faster in my head.

Five, six. Seven, eight, nine.

“Fine,” he says. “You don’t walk to talk about yourself, fine.

Why don’t we talk about Menachem instead?”

I hear his name, and everything inside me stops. “I don’t want to,” I say.

“Ah, so he does speak! Boker Tov, chevra,” Rabbi Eisner chimes, a fake smile plastering his lips. “Why not talk about Menachem, hmm? Tell me.”

Ten. Eleven.

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Twelve.

“He has nothing to do with this.” The lie trembles against my lips, but I force it out anyway, as if I didn’t spend the entire year wondering how God could make me blush at the sight of another boy as effortlessly as creating the earth. As if the first time Menachem touched my skin I didn’t feel like some buried, wordless prayer inside of me had somehow risen to the surface just in time to be answered.

“From what I understand, he has everything to do with it. Did he pressure you? It’s okay. You can tell me.”

“No! Menachem is nice to me, he would never do that.” The room is cold, but my face feels hot, like I’m wearing a suit to Shul in the middle of the summer.

Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.

“It’s not unheard of, Yitzchak. If he pressured you, you can tell me. Your hands will be clean.”

I clutch at the Tzitzit in my hands, only it’s not my Tzitzit I’m thinking about. I remember so clearly how it felt: tugging Menachem’s Tzitzit. How my stomach leapt into my throat when after a year of stolen glances and accidental touches in the Beit Midrash, Menachem took my face in his hands and kissed me. How my hands couldn’t contain themselves as they traveled beneath his shirt and finally found his Tzitzit.

Rabbi Eisner always taught that Tzitzit weren’t just a garment — they were a reminder; a reminder to go out into the world and perform Hashem’s Mitzvot. With my body against Menachem’s and his Tzitzit in my fingers, I finally knew Rabbi Eisner was right. If having Menachem’s mouth so close I could taste his Neshama wasn’t a Mitzvah, what else was?

For the first time all day, I look Rabbi Eisner in the eyes. “And if he didn’t pressure me?”

Rabbi Eisner sighs. “Then it would be a toaiva. An abomination. You can see why that would be, don’t you?”

I’m combing through my Tzitzit with my fingers now, hard enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the stringlets started 13

falling off. “No,” I say. “I don’t.”

Sixteen. Seventeen.

“Okay.” Rabbi Eisner rubs at his temples and slowly removes his glasses, placing them on the desk in front of him. “You’re one of my best students, Yitzchak. You must remember what I taught you for your Bar Mitzvah those years ago? About why your parents gave you the name they did?”

“For Yitzchak Avinu,” I reply simply. “Our forefather.”

“Good.” Rabbi Eisner looks at me like he does the congregation mid-sermon, puffs his chest out, and continues. “So you will also remember, then, the story of Akeidat Yitzchak? When Avraham was willing to sacrifice his only son for the joy of Hakadosh Baruch Hu?”

I nod.

Eighteen.

“Then, maybe you can see, Yitzchak, how if Avraham could disregard his desires for something as big, something as important, as the life of his only son, — his own flesh and blood — how you could forgo your own desires for Menachem? If it’s what Hakadosh Baruch Hu truly wanted?”

“But God stopped Avraham,” I say. “He didn’t actually want the sacrifice. It was just a test.”

Is that what this is? I think to myself. A test?

Rabbi Eisner looks back at me, a pained expression on his face.

“Well… yes, I suppose you’re right, but…” He pauses like he’s going to finish the thought, but shakes his head, deciding to start over. “Giving up what you did with Menachem is the kind of sacrifice God does want to make. What you and Menachem have is not holy. It never can be.”

Something about the way Rabbi Eisner says that so casually makes me mad. Really mad. How can he just decide what God wants or doesn’t want? How can he tell me not to see, not to touch Menachem, like it’s just that easy? How can he always be right and leave me automatically wrong?

“How do you know?”

“The Torah says, ‘A man shall not lie with another man.’ It’s 14

very clear.”

“Good thing we were standing, then.”

Rabbi Eisner looks as if he could choke, the weight of my defiance crushing his windpipe. I never thought I’d see a rabbi turn purple.

“I don’t need your chutzpah, Yitzchak. That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“I’m just saying, if even Avraham didn’t understand God’s commandment, who’s to say you can? Couldn’t the Torah just be another test?”

“Yitzchak, do you hear yourself?” Sweat is starting to pool on Rabbi Eisner’s brow, and he’s staring at me like I’m asking him to commit murder. “This is Apikores talk — it’s heresy! The Torah is our most holy book!”

“But how do you know what it means?” I demand. “How could you know any better than Avraham?”

“I don’t have to know any better than Avraham, I just have to know better than you!”

“What makes you any better than me?” I scream. “Are you God?”

“So what if I am?” Rabbi Eisner shouts, spit flying from his mouth. “Maybe then I could have snuffed you out from the start! Fixed you before you became this —” he pauses, the words bulging at the corner of his lips. Finally, the fire spills from his tongue, and he yells, “This waste of a creation!”

His hand slams on the desk.

My fist collides with his face.

He grabs me by my ear, blood gushing from his face, and drags me to my mother. Tells her I can’t be helped.

When we get home that night, my father says I better start packing.

Tomorrow, I leave for camp.

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tree of life Charlie Collins

tonight i attended a vigil, in memory of my people slain it was in my synagogue. when i entered, i took note of the exits, i took a seat in the middle of the room behind the children. i wondered how many i could shield in case the worst happened. ‫אני מאמין‬ in my siddur every line of mourners kaddish is separated by the name of a death camp.

Auschwitz where my two great uncles perished.

Bergen-belsen where my great great grandparents spent their last pesach seder. etcetera. etcetera. ‎‫אני מאמין‬ and i look at the candles by the aron hakodesh. six. one for every million. and i feel my eyes glaze over and i feel my heart ache when my rabbi sings their lullaby their march 16

‎‫אני מאמין‬ this is what connects us this is what makes my eyes see things i didn’t. this is intergenerational sorrow. and each of us makes it our own, as we chant ‫יתגדל ויתקדש שמה רבא‬ while my mother cries for her grandfather’s broken tefillin ‎‫אני מאמין‬ may their memory be for a blessing. ‎‫אני מאמין‬ and i believe

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What is Beauty?

Elaine Millas

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Untitled I Hallie Rubin

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Pomegranates Anya Schwartz

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Your Poems Don’t Have Heart Lindsay Sletten

He pioneered the theory that if you hit a road sign with your car, it’s yours. Lifting 35 mph into the backseat, the sides were sharper than expected, slitting my fingertips.

We mounted the sign back at his place, used small magnets to pin up reminders.

The wrong way across the bed, my ear to his chest, his heart beats irregular. A note on the sign, he misspelled cardiologist.

With Bandaids on my fingers I cracked the yolk into the petri dish, the embryo’s heart settled onto the surface like oil on water, pulsing.

Talk about beating eggs. My professor dumped the yolks down the drain and let the water run.

Today I had to get rid of another lab coat, Chambered hearts are messy. I think it was Aristotle who called the heart a receptacle, where the blood lies loose. The frog is tossed into a receptacle, its heart will keep beating on the metal pan, not knowing the difference.

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Coming Out, in Reverse August Skylar Napolitano

No one says a word as the worms slink back into their can; the cats stare quizzically, unsure of if to pounce.

My family’s eyes go from red to white as their tears roll up their cheeks and my mother throws herself back on the sofa with a sigh. Like the mirror I’ve always been, I follow suit and settle into the old recliner, head in my hands. A plume of white dog hair reunites happily with the seat of my pants.

I dry the sleeve of my shirt on my own eyes and feel the knot in my throat untying itself.

My heart is still pounding, but I’m forgetting why.

Mom’s boyfriend walks backwards down the stairs now, his bald head hangs low. He reclaims his seat in my mother’s shadow and flicks the TV back on.

On screen, a Jeopardy! contestant wins money but looks upset about it. My sisters pick up their phones, fit earbuds to ears, go silent. My eyes make a vow of commitment to the floor as I saunter back into the kitchen.

The light comes on over the sink as I pour hot coffee back into the press and lift the handle. For a minute I watch it heat, see the grounds separate themselves from the water. I have just made a decision but now

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I forgot what it was. I look up at my family on the couch, then down at my hands. I do this a couple more times as I scoop dry grounds out of the water, and the grinder noisily makes them whole again. The faucet happily drinks from the kettle, which is now cold to the touch — and the light is gone again. I tiptoe back down the stairs with my empty mug and like every day no one says a word.

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“Family”

August Skylar Napolitano

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Med

Anya Schwartz 25

The Village that Raised Me Mathias James

It took a village.

One house next to another, four in a row.

Cousins and uncles on each end with grandparents in the middle.

It took a village to show me how to pick raspberries in the summertime, my grandmother’s wizened fingers yanking them from their place, piece by blessed onyx piece.

It took a village to separate my infant hands from the funny plant on Uncle Toto’s house.

It took a village to explain to me that that funny plant was the reason my arms were so itchy for a week.

It took a village of brothers to show me how to wrestle, how to be merciless, how to hurt and to love.

It took a village of moms and dads to break up our mock battles and beaming gentle warfare.

As my words turned cruel, and my attitude apathetic, it took a village of friends, and helpers, and lovers to teach me kindness again.

To listen to my silent screams for help and comply by tearing down my walls and giving me the chance to build a heart out of the rubble.

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When I was a kid, it took a village to get me to the top of the mountain.

The mountain where stood a quiet little cabin.

A cabin which contained a Giant of mossy rock and old-world magic and his wife who assured me he was only just a man.

When it came time to carry that man down the stone stairs of that mountain for the last time, I joined the village in bearing the weight of his legacy.

His Legacy.

It took a village to take a scalpel to my home, separate all the parts that keep me there, and transplant myself in a city far away.

Mom, dad, brothers and uncles helped me load everything that I am into the car and drive to my next destination.

My village grew when my roommates proved far kinder than any college freshman has the right to expect.

Three roommates is a lot for a freshman to deal with, I am told.

Three friends is the easiest thing in the world.

These people – my village of broken family members, part-time comrades, and houses four in a row – made me, like brilliant painters only just beginning to work with clay, slipping up, falling, failing, but dammit, they’re learning.

They’re learning.

We all are.

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these are the facts Sebastian Bronson Boddie

i always get too drunk at the open mic. this is a fact. i am a lightweight. also, i am always late to the open mic, and stand in the back of the room til my left foot aches. also, sorry for staring. i had one overpriced cider and ignored the stuttering slam poet to study light sound passing cars in the reflection of her teeth. i also always fall in what the brain calls love. this is a fiction. draught cider will do this when there is nothing to soak up the excess. wings, too, are a fiction. the moon, lipstick, pickup trucks, white orchids, long hair, tobacco, angels, oiled machines are a fiction. i’m not sure how to like her. i’m out of practice. i’ve had no examples, only my parents and the sugar bowl. what they hold irregular and small. it’s predecessor broken in three even pieces. what were its colors? i have lost them, but i remember her oatmeal cable knit, the flecks of a sturdy blue in the yarn and her eyes and the curl of her hair in an open field, where the sky has nothing else to reflect on.

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Vibes by Shot (Back) Sebastian Bronson Boddie

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Answers Mathias James

The day the scientists definitively concluded the answer to everything was remarkably like every day before it. People got in cars, drove to work, sold hours of their life away, and went home to gleefully or painfully repeat this cycle until their inevitable death.

Sure, people talked. “Did you hear about the latest discovery?

The one with all the answers?”

“Of course I did! Pretty exciting, right?”

“Exciting?! Load of rubbish. I don’t care how irrefutable the evidence; I don’t buy it.”

On and on, people spoke. This was not particularly strange for people. They gossip, and they rave, and they praise the minds of great men and women and simultaneously refute them. Since time immemorial, humans talked about that which they never really understood, or particularly cared to. It is and always has been the inevitable human condition.

At first, the scientists were perplexed. Now that humanity knew everything, how could they go back to living their lives from before. Shouldn’t this knowledge upset the balance, create discord, sow civil unrest? Shouldn’t people be reevaluating what their lives meant against the backdrop of the ultimate answers? Surely, they must feel something.

They did not.

Despite all wisdom, the cogs of society did not falter, the lives of the individual remained unchanged, and the now defunct theologies and philosophies of the masses proved far more resilient than reason should warrant.

Strange, the scientists thought, that even in the face of the great unknown becoming known, people were determined to remain so painfully boring.

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Maybe You Need A New Map Elaine Millas

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Where The Willow Tree Weeps Emma Carrillo-Cordova

Seek medical attention.

That’s all the Dream Interpretation book had given her.

Modeled like a dictionary, over 2,000 words and phrases alphabetically lined the pages with symbolisms and interpretations beneath them in place of definitions. Maeve had invested in the Dream Bible a few years ago after a dream proved to be a premonition. She dreamt of a hunched over willow tree, its trunk curved like a witch’s spine and its limbs brushed the black grass beneath it. It aged decades; withered and died in front of her in a matter of seconds. Online she found a willow tree normally symbolized protection. However, a dead one was the uttermost opposite. The next day Maeve was in a freak mountain biking accident that resulted with her bed ridden in a sling and suffering from her fourth and clinically worst concussion. The first thing her mother said from beside Maeve’s hospital bed was, that no doubt, the cause of the crash was Maeve’s ridiculous habit of retreating deep within her head to over think every possible case scenario. She claimed Maeve’s over analyzation of the worst-case scenario, and not the rock embedded path, had been the cause of Maeve’s downfall.

Literally.

“Predetermined Destiny” she called it, a term she’d picked up from the latest therapist. It’s when you think so much about something happening, due to fear or anxiety, that it manifests in the universe and actually does happen.

Maeve turned to the Dream Bible for guidance after she dreamt she and her family were stuck in a house plagued by shadow demons. The shadow demons allowed Maeve’s siblings to leave with their parents but stole Maeve’s shoes right off her feet to keep her hostage. Dream Maeve was physically incapable of leaving the house 32

barefoot. “Stolen Shoes” had not been on the enlightened pages, which seemed reasonable to Maeve considering normal people didn’t have shoes stolen from off their bodies, dream or not. Why waste ink on such a ridiculous notion?

She resorted to the word “Lost.”

Seek medical attention. It had to mean something. If the dream itself weren’t enough, what were the chances she’d also have LOST shoes? As a child, Maeve had been delayed in speaking, but contrary to her family’s beliefs, she had not been incapable. She preferred to observe. Listen. She’d developed the habit at around age ten to write down words and phrases she heard in the world around her that struck her. Words fascinated her because of their ability to manipulate and twist people’s perceptions, truths, and understandings. How simple it was for them to influence the world. Using white cubed beads marked with black upper-case letters, Maeve would spell out the truly exceptional words she’d heard. She’d thread her shoelaces with the beads so that a word sat across the most bottom horizontal strand above her toes. Today she had fittingly chosen to wear the LOST pair of shoes.

Shoes.

Undoubtedly a great neon sign directing her to a doctor’s office. But she couldn’t just walk up to the receptionist and say, “Hey, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but my dream told me to come by.”

She left Philosophy on auto pilot, her muscles’ memory leading her to her next class. She had written down “Symbebikos” in her journal. Anything can be anything; the ultimate manipulation of the world around us. Things are what they are simply because we say so; what a stupid rule Maeve thought. For example, a mug was a mug because humans said, “This would be a good thing to drink from.” But it could, unrestricted by the limitations we set for ourselves ultimately to preserve our sanity, be a doorstop, or a paper weight, or quite drastically, a toilet.

Maeve ran through a mental list of what could be urging her to seek medical attention. Surely something was festering deep within 33

her, hidden or laying low, for she felt relatively fine physically. No fever. No sore throat. No cramps. She’s a virgin so no unexpected pregnancy. No STD. What was it? She ran her fingers through her black curls and when she got to the base of her head, right where it connected to her spine, she felt it. A lump. Like a seed in the earth’s soil it was buried under a mass of hair. How long had it been there? Had she hit her head? She dragged her hands down to her neck as a tangible reminder to relax. Another one, just below the surface of her skin, like a marble had been implanted into the back of her neck. That was the final strike. First the dream, then the LOST shoes, and now the ominous lumps on her body. These were not coincidences, but superstitious bread crumbs luring her either to the doctor’s office, or to somewhere entirely different. Perhaps where the willow tree lived. No, died.

Though it pained her to deviate from any set schedule, she redirected herself to a bathroom. Straight to a mirror. She pressed her hands against the cool countertop, soaking them in a sink water puddle. She peered at her reflection; dark brown eyes staring back at her plainly, a simple unremarkable nose trailing down to average parted lips concealing braces fixed teeth. She gathered all of her hair to the right side of her head and carefully pressed her left fingers to her neck’s exposed surface. On the fourth press she found it again. The marble. The seed. The willow tree seed planted in her neck. She soaked her tee shirt in the puddle as she leaned up to get a closer look at this lump. On the surface of it, just off center, was a freckle. Had that always been there? Like most people, Maeve didn’t have a star chart memorized of the freckles that dotted her body. It could’ve been. She lived in a rural place for the summer running a camp. She could’ve been marked by one of the sun’s possessive rays. Plenty of new freckles had sprung up along the bridge of her nose and overflowed onto her cheekbones from the same rays. But she would’ve taken note of a freckle on her considerably covered up and pale neck, wouldn’t she have? She’d read accounts of cancer patients who, only upon reflection of past months leading to hospitalization, recognized the red flags.

34

Little details of their lives they had brushed off as being insignificant, if not slightly weird. Cancer showed itself in lumps, why else had her doctor constantly reminded her to check her breasts in the shower?

Why had no one ever suggested other areas of the body, like the back of the neck? The thought suffocated her. The air was thicker suddenly, like the oxygen had all been vacuumed out. Skin cancer was easy to miss until it had invaded your body, my body, she thought.

The doctor’s appointment was scheduled for 1:30 the following day. She sat on the exam table occasionally shifting her leg to hear the wax paper crinkle. Her arms remained firmly crossed over her chest to keep the flimsy gown flaps closed. When Dr. Ellis walked in, Maeve noticed the elderly woman’s brown leathery skin and long, shiny, silver hair let loose. The laugh lines and worry wrinkles stamped her face as a woman who had lived a full life. A life of experiences and encounters that most likely shaped her like a potter’s hands to a ball of clay.

Maeve wondered, if she were to leave the potter’s hands today, would she be shaped and molded too? Dr. Ellis crossed her brown weathered hands, a diamond balanced on her ring finger. Maeve noticed how genuinely warm the doctor’s smile was; natural wrinkles framed the corners of her mouth and her slight coffee stained teeth bore themselves honestly to Maeve.

“So, Maeve, what brings your beautiful face to me today?”

“I’ve got a lump,” Maeve pulled her hair to the side as she had done in the mirror, “right here.”

“Hm, okay well hon,” Dr. Ellis pushed her swivel chair towards Maeve’s dangling legs, “most of the time those lumps are swollen lymph nodes. Very common and they’re just warning signs for a wicked cold.” She laughed motherly; like warm honey when it coats your throat after a bitter cold has destroyed it. It took Dr. Ellis only two finger presses to find the willow tree seed.

“Oh,” she pressed a little harder, searching Maeve’s face for a reaction, “this is quite a small and hard lump. Almost like you’ve got a gumball or a-” “Seed?”

35

Dr. Ellis nodded as she ran her fingers up Maeve’s neck to the second lump on her head. She then asked all the questions Maeve had asked her own reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Let’s, for argument’s sake, say the freckle is new. Does that change anything?

Dr. Ellis paused. “Well, not necessarily. It’s most likely an angry lymph node.”

Symbebikos. Was Dr. Ellis calling the lump one thing to act as safety bumpers to keep Maeve from going insane? Was Dr. Ellis calling a glassless window a window despite it more accurately acting as a door permanently open to all threats and cruelties of the outside world?

Maeve decided to walk back to campus rather than taking the bus. It was October and she had grown too accustomed to the orange and red splotches around her; she’d stopped admiring them. She’d forgotten the satisfaction that came with crunching fallen leaves beneath her sneakers. Or how mystical it felt to actually witness leaves detaching themselves from shaky branches and embarking into the air like a ship at sea. Had she not been there to see it, it still would’ve happened, they still would’ve existed in the universe’s timeline without sufficiently being acknowledged. They’d float aimlessly, their journey dependent entirely on a slight breeze until they’d slowly drift to the cold ground. Did they miss the view from the treetops when they fell? Would she miss the view from Earth when she died? Or would she rise to a higher viewpoint and never miss the cold ground? Like one of those leaves existing with or without someone noticing, she’d be a blimp on the universe’s timeline. All the people she didn’t meet, and was supposed to, would go on with life unknowingly. Ironically, she thought, her funeral would be the first she’d ever attend.

36

In Praise of Folly Sebastian Bronson Boddie

37

Snail

Anya Schwartz

38

VESTIGIAL Lindsay Sletten

I dismantle the dried remains of a thread snake, looking for traces of lost legs. Evolution leaves cruel jokes like these, to iterate I am ruthless.

The toe of a horse, the wing of a kiwi, the pelvis of a snake is something like the muted faith of a man born christian, conviction restored by his own will. This body lies by an uprooted tree, the roots of vertebrae neatly curved. The spinal fluid is not motor oil, not ignited by a pang of envy for the shoe of the man who flattened it, limbs reclaimed from the ashes.

Coveting them all, legs, feet, shoes, maybe that is why snakes fill the boots of cowboys.

39

Untitled I Tsivya Laurence

40

MapQuest

Sebastian Bronson Boddie

In my family I’m the navigator.

My mother has no sense of direction, and the GPS confuses her. They don’t sound human and she can’t understand them. So I read her the directions I printed out. I splay the map we bought at a rest stop three years ago out before us. Paper makes it special. The blue lines of the tracks make their slow journey cross country.

It’s a weird blue, a teal like the faded earth tattoo on her back, near her neck, almost on her shoulder. It’s smudged, it was cheap and rushed and her skin has stretched.

She turns to me, “What’d you say? where’s the exit?” and the sagging sun light catches her nose stud. It’s small. It threatens falling through the hole. She used to have a hoop, but she has a job again. She can’t afford to stand out. “It’s exit thirteen. 20 miles ‘til you have to change lanes.” She frowns.

She probably had to piss again. Even after the surgery, she always has to piss, the phantom weight of her womb sitting heavy on her bladder.

Her stomach is puckered like a silk blouse gathered by a loose thread.

41

Be Better Mathias James

You used to pick me up from school in your cluttered hatchback truck because my mom was busy in the shop and my dad was busy being gone.

You’d play music that blew my eardrums and my mind.

You’d hit rewind On all the songs that had lyrics You knew my mom would gawk at.

“Fuck censorship” you told me. “your mom and I… we listened to far, far worse at your age.”

You told me stories about growing up with sisters.

How each day was gentle silent warfare And how you always won.

You taught me that a man is someone who puts himself last.

Who puts his family first.

Who disregards his own selfish instincts or misguided ideas of self-preservation and is better.

42

You taught me that even as you spiraled down into the bottle like the relapse on that one song mom got mad at you for showing me.

Even as you became an angrier man.

Even as you became a stranger to your wife.

Became a stranger to me.

Me, who saw in you more than my mother’s brother.

Everything I know about both good music, and what a man is… what a man does… came from you.

So why can’t you just be better.

Just try. A real man would get up and try.

Be better.

Dammit, Be better.

43

Escape Attempt Sophia Walker

Zara Envada wasn’t prone to panic or nervousness. Or any kind of fear at all, actually. She didn’t see much point to it. But one who was more inclined towards fits of hysterical panic and terror might have to admit that in this case, she was maybe, just slightly, moderately fucked.

For one thing, it had been a very trying day. She was missing her grandmother’s ninety-ninth birthday, she was tired from not sleeping, she’d missed breakfast so she hadn’t eaten anything in hours, her arms hurt from being yanked behind her and handcuffed to a desk, and her best friend had just confessed to her that he maybe sort of had non-platonic feelings in her direction, which she was wildly conflicted about, since she hadn’t had a serious relationship since Joanne and wasn’t sure if she was even capable of falling in love with someone else.

For another thing—well, again, she was handcuffed to a desk.

That seemed like the type of thing she should probably consider being a little worried about.

The laws determined by the Grand Coalition to govern Earth’s population in the 25th century had been forced to change rather radically after the entirety of human society had moved from dry land to the ocean floor. Pollution regulations had been strengthened, tax rules altered, limits on production had been set in place, and safety laws were much more strongly enforced. One can’t be too careful when one lives in steel and plexiglass domes miles under the ocean alongside terrifying creatures with too many legs. But, much to the dismay of many, the wealth disparity that had contributed to the destruction of their homes on land persisted down under. As did, to Zara’s current distress, laws against trying to forcibly correct that 44

disparity by stealing cargo shipments of necessities and giving them to people other than their intended recipients. Hence her predicament.

As a former employee of the Nautical Anthropological Scientific Association (NASA for short) and current member of the Rebellious Agents of Development Brigade (RAD Brigade for short, people liked a good acronym, what could she say), Zara was used to getting into difficult situations. RAD Brigade had contingencies for this exact type of thing. The cuffs that were currently holding her captive were magnetized, and the Brigade had developed neat armbands that had an identical magnetic charge. Bring the armbands close enough to the seam of the cuffs, and they’d be forced open. Unfortunately, someone had gotten caught wearing one of them on their wrist, had it confiscated, and was sent to jail. So, in order to avoid such a fate, Zara had put the bands high up on her biceps, under her clothes, where they were less likely to be found, and very far away from the handcuffs.

Useless.

There was also the added problem of the fact that the officer who had arrested her wasn’t an idiot, and had cuffed her hands behind her back and around the leg of his desk. Not being an idiot, he had not done the one-cuff-on-the-hand-one-on-the-desk-leg thing, which would have allowed her to escape much more easily. Also, he had cuffed her to a desk instead of a chair, which she could have just taken with her and walked out. Also, the desk was bolted to the floor.

Not ideal.

It also was not ideal that Jon had told her about his potential feelings right before they’d started this particular mission, because now that was bouncing around her brain in the space where escape plans should be. He was her best friend, sure. But she wasn’t even sure if she was technically broken up from her last relationship. When you’re running for your life and haven’t seen or spoken to your partner in almost three years, things tended to get a little dicey.

The last time she’d seen Joanne had been after a particular situation that had involved a swarm of giant twelve-foot long spider crabs intent on prying open the walls of one badly reinforced and 45

undefended farming dome at the edge of the Adriatic. The situation had also involved Captain Jefferson of the NASA exploratory submarine Jeremiah refusing to do anything substantial to help this undefended dome, because protocol dictated that endangered species, such as twelve-foot long spider crabs, needed to be protected. Which had resulted in Zara cornering said captain to soundly yell at him about it, then whacking the aforementioned captain on the head with a socket wrench when he refused to listen to her. She then commandeered the submarine, encountering very little resistance from the crew, and mounted an attack on the spider crabs, saving the lives of, oh, three hundred people. Naturally, there were consequences for that sort of thing, and once Captain Jefferson woke up (no worse for wear but spitting mad, for some reason) she was stripped of rank on the spot and confined to quarters (despite the fact that all two hundred fifty crew members agreed that she had been in the right), with the promise of being jailed upon their return to NASA’s headquarters.

Joanne had come to her room an hour later. “Pack your things,” she’d instructed. “We’re getting you out of here.”

While they were preparing for her grand escape, their friends were clearing the way. Mark was pulling pipes out of walls as an excuse to empty the hallway. Joseph was rerouting security feeds. Seema was keeping the first mate distracted with questions about her thesis, and Dr. Jacobs was running scans on Captain Jefferson’s injury for longer than was medically necessary. Joanne told her all of this very quickly as they hurried along the empty halls to an airlock chamber where a group from RAD Brigade had attached their pod. The Jeremiah had been hosting the unit for the past few days while they fixed their engine. Zara had helped them out herself.

NASA wasn’t strictly against the rebels, just indifferent. Which meant that they’d let them stop in for repairs or give out occasional supplies, but wouldn’t go out of their way to help or anything. Not like they had almost unlimited government funding and plenty of supplies to spare. And god forbid they ever take a stance on anything.

46

“They’ll take you wherever you need to go,” Joanne said, glancing over her shoulder. “Stay with them for a little while—if you try to go back to any of the domes too soon you’ll probably get ID’d.

We…probably shouldn’t try to contact each other. They’ll be able to trace you eventually, no matter how we route it.”

“Right,” said Zara, swallowing hard. “So, this is it, then?”

“Yeah,” said Joanne, biting her lip. “I guess it is.”

One of the members of the Brigade—Frank, she thought his name was—who had been watching from a polite distance, cleared his throat. “We really should get moving.”

“I’ll give our friends your best,” said Joanne. “You…you should go.” She gave her a quick hug, kissed her cheek, and left, closing the door behind her.

It was barely a goodbye, but it was all she got.

Zara went into the pod, took a seat near the back, put her head in her hands, and tried very hard not to have a mental breakdown.

She stayed there as the others in the pod disengaged itself from the bigger submarine, and set off on their course to wherever they were headed. A few minutes later, someone sat next to her. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

She raised her head. It was Jon, the one she’d been helping with repairs over the past few days. The others were solicitously ignoring her, but he, annoyingly, had taken it upon himself to check on her. How considerate of him. She was instantly suspicious.

“No,” she said, and turned away with intent to continue wallowing.

Jon, unfortunately, did not allow her to continue her panic-spiraling in peace. “You know, what you did back there—standing up to your captain—it was impressive,” he said. “You’ve got a solid moral conscience, and you’re clearly smart as hell. We could use someone like you.”

And so it went that she ended up as part of a revolutionary group, who specialized in stealing and smuggling supplies to the domes not inhabited by wealthy people, and trying to make enough 47

noise to attract the attention of the Coalition, to hopefully get some laws changed and get enough public funding circulating so that the world’s working class population didn’t have to worry about having their homes flooded and destroyed every time anything bigger than a school of manta rays came to visit. The fact that she’d been picked up almost immediately upon their arrival in Adriatica meant that their movement was annoying the right people at last.

She had to admit, seeing her face on a WANTED poster for the first time had been pretty gratifying. Unfortunately, it had led to her current predicament, unable to do anything about either of her potential suitors, since she was handcuffed to a desk.

Joanne was always very serious. Most of her jokes were intellectual humor, or from niche academia. (Which Zara had taken upon herself to learn all about, so she could keep up. She wasn’t a quitter.)

Joanne was reserved. Quiet. Followed the rules, most of the time. Incredibly smart, and could devastate you with one quirk of her eyebrow.

Jon was the opposite of Joanne in every way. He was very friendly, always up for an adventure, wildly overprotective, incredibly funny, kind. With him, things felt…safe. She could let her guard down around him, didn’t have to project the image of the strong, witty, un-shakable and invincible hero that she was around the others.

Well, okay, most of that wasn’t a projection. Ninety-four percent of the time, that was real. She could, and often did, beat ass when the occasion called for it (and sometimes when it didn’t). But the other six percent—it was nice to have someone who got her. Especially if that someone had a really nice smile. And thick, dark, wavy hair.

And warm brown eyes. And strong, broad shoulders that—

Focus, Envada. Escape now. Think about your best friend’s very nice shoulders later.

Ugh, this was all so stupid! She was Privateer Zara “Asskicker” Envada, scourge of the high seas, a literal wanted criminal, a Priority One political target, world-famous mutineer with a license to kill (in Times New Roman, thank you very much) and she was getting hung up over some guy.

48

Maybe it was because she hadn’t dated a man in a while. She’d just forgotten how. There were different rules for women. Maybe different breakup rules, too. If she were technically still with Joanne, then none of this would be an issue. Also, upon hearing Jon’s declaration of intent, she had given him a thumbs up and sprinted out of there like she had a six-gill shark on her tail, so that might not be an issue anymore, either. That would take care of the problem. Unless this was a problem she wanted to have…?

FOCUS, ENVADA. ESCAPE NOW. BE CONFUSED ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS LATER.

The handcuffs were around her wrist. The armband that could open the handcuffs was on her upper arm. Her goal: get the upper arm to the handcuffs.

Zara scooted herself downward, awkwardly trying to reposition herself in order to get her arms into the appropriate positions.

She stretched her arms out behind her as straight as she could, pressed her wrists against the floor to keep the cuffs from moving, and attempted to inch her arms backwards. She kept shuffling until she was practically lying on the floor, with her arms winched uncomfortably up behind her due to the limited range of motion the cuffs granted her.

Well, she thought, rather embarrassedly, at least no one can see me doing this. I’ll make it much more dramatic when I report back to the others. Especially Jon. Put in something about a tazer, maybe a fencing match—ooh! Fencing match with electric batons. That’ll sound impressive.

Now lying flat on the ground, arms cuffed around the leg of a desk, raised agonizingly back behind her head, she just had to get the magnetized section of the armband to the seal of the handcuff.

Which, according to a thorough investigation (read: wiggling her arms back and forth) appeared to be on the opposite side of her arm.

Desperately hoping that the act of doing this wouldn’t dislocate her one of her shoulders (again), she sucked in a deep breath and, straining, forced her arms to rotate.

49

Click! The cuffs popped open. With difficulty, she sat up, and pulled her arms back to their normal position, biting her lip hard to stifle a screech of pain as her shoulders crunched in their sockets.

“Fuck,” she hissed. Her left arm hung limply at her side, definitely dangling at the wrong angle. Well, at least she was out.

A quick search of the office yielded a disappointing lack of weaponry, or anything else of note, so, for lack of anything better, she picked up a heavy paperweight (why? No one had used paper in three centuries) from the desk and strode towards the door. Which slid open before she touched it.

On instinct, Zara shrieked and, like a good soldier, hurled the paperweight at the woman in the maroon NASA uniform on the other side, who ducked with a yelp of surprise. As she straightened up, Zara saw her face, and her heart leapt into her throat.

“What the hell was that?” asked Joanne Saylor of the NASA submarine Jeremiah, Zara’s maybe-ex-girlfriend.

Zara swallowed. “Uh,” she said, scrambling for a solution.

Somehow, in combat training, they’d never covered protocol for what to do if your ex who you haven’t seen since she smuggled you off your sub following your fully justified mutiny shows up to find you arrested in the city police chief’s office. They also hadn’t covered what to do if the ex in question had cut her hair really short and it looked very nice.

“That’s for, uh, not calling.”

Joanne gave her a wide-eyed incredulous look. “I couldn’t call!” she hissed. “You were on the run for hitting Captain Jefferson in the face with a socket wrench and commandeering the sub!” Her eyes swept over the insignia just barely visible on the inside of her jacket— three concentric circles. “So, it’s true, you’ve joined RAD Brigade.”

“Well, don’t shout about it.”

“And now you’ve been arrested!”

“To be fair, I was halfway through breaking out when you arrived. Lovely to see you again, by the way.”

“You—” Joanne broke off as they both heard voices coming down the hall. “In here, quick,” she said, pushing Zara backwards 50

into the office.

“Hey,” Zara objected, as she found herself right back where she started.

Joanne closed the door, and turned to face her, shaking her head. “You haven’t changed at all, have you? Still hurling yourself headfirst into the first insane situation you can find.”

“I did not hurl myself, thank you very much. I was carrying out a very important mission to bring food to the poorer settlements that the Coalition so loves to ignore. This is just an unfortunate detour. I’d be out of here already if you hadn’t shown up.”

“No, you wouldn’t. There’s a whole regiment out there, hoping some of your friends will appear to try and break you out. Apparently, you’ve made quite a reputation for yourself.”

“I’m flattered.”

“You shouldn’t be.” Joanne shook her head, frustrated. “You never think things through, do you? It’s always just charge ahead, figure it out when you get there, and now you’re stuck—“

“I’ll have you know,” said Zara, getting angry, “that before you got here, I was handcuffed to that desk. And yet here I stand. So, progress. I’m not stuck, I’m just…waiting for the opportune moment.”

“In other words, you don’t have a plan.”

“I strongly object to your tone. And I don’t need your help to get out of here.”

“If it weren’t for me, you’d be in prison now,” Joanne snapped, “so would you please listen to me for three seconds?”

Zara considered this. “No,” she said, after due consideration.

“I think I’m fine on my own.” She strode towards the door.

Joanne grabbed her left arm.

“Aagh!” Zara doubled over, cradling the limp appendage close to her chest. “Fucking Christ, Saylor, didn’t they teach you not to grab people’s dislocated limbs during basic medical training?”

Joanne leaned in, concerned. “What did you do?”

Zara glared up at her. “Got into a fencing match with electrified police batons, and just as he was about to get the better of m—no, 51

I yanked it out of its socket breaking out of the handcuffs, what do you think happened?”

Joanne rolled her eyes. “Don’t know why you’re complaining, you used to dislocate something every few weeks. It drove Dr. Jacobs crazy. Honestly, you’re still in much better shape than I expected.”

“It still hurts—wait, expected?” Her brain scrambled to scroll back their conversation. “Regiment waiting for other members? Did you know I was in here?”

“Yes, idiot, haven’t you been listening? Your friends with the Brigade contacted me when you got taken in. I’m here to bail you out.

Again.”

“Oh. Well. Neat. What’re we waiting for?”

“Shift change,” said Joanne, looking like she wanted to strangle her. It was a look she had received often over the course of their relationship. Ah, memories. “I’ve disabled the cameras in this room, which is why you haven’t already been caught. We get you in a spare uniform and sneak you out.”

“Hm. I’ll admit that’s a slightly better idea than I would have thought of.”

After a wildly awkward twenty minutes of silence, they crept out of the office. The hallways were busy, with enforcement officers going every which way. The uniform did its job, and no one noticed them. Joanne hustled her down the hallway, keeping their heads down, and out onto the street, where they hopped on a crowded tram towards the seaport at the edge of the city. Zara kept her eyes on the window, watching the streets of Adriatica pass by.

“Listen,” Joanne said eventually, so quietly that Zara had to lean in to hear her over the conversations of the other passengers, “we’ve been building a case for you. A lot of people have heard the story of what happened, that day, and you’ve got a lot of public support. If you wanted…we might be able to get you your position back.”

Zara averted her eyes. Joanne was watching her very closely. “Look,” she said finally, “I used to think…well, a few years ago I would’ve given anything to go back. I loved my job there. But I’m 52

done taking orders. Until NASA gets some better people calling the shots, I’m better off out here.”

“That’s what I figured you’d say.” Joanne gave her half a smile. “I made first mate, by the way.”

“Really? That’s amazing. Still under Jefferson?”

“Yes, unfortunately.”

“Well. At least the Jeremiah has someone who knows what they’re doing.” Tentatively, Zara touched her hand. “If more of NASA’s captains and directors were like you, I wouldn’t hesitate to come back.”

“Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

They reached their destination a few minutes later. The seaport was comprised of a few hundred airlocks set into the wall of the dome, allowing submarines and pods and other seacrafts could attach themselves to the outside of the semi-transparent city walls. On the inside was a complicated multi-story walkway, connecting the airlocks and controlling the flow of traffic. A handful of enforcement officers were standing by the entrances to the walkways, checking IDs, but with Zara in one of their jackets and Joanne in NASA uniform, no one gave them a second glance. Joanne led them past the bigger commercial transport subs and the NASA crafts parked in the busiest part of the port, to the smaller section for privately owned crafts.

A few levels up on the walkway, Frank was leaning casually against the wall beside one of the airlocks. He raised his eyebrows as he recognized Joanne. “Well. Here we are again.” He frowned at Zara’s arm, which she’d tried to hide in the too-big sleeve of the stolen uniform jacket. “What happened to you?”

“Got into a wild fight. No big deal.”

“I’m sure. Can’t wait to hear about it. I’ll give you two a moment, shall I?” He disappeared into the airlock passage.

The two of them stood awkwardly, avoiding looking each other. “I should probably go,” Joanne said finally. “Captain Jefferson will be wondering where I went.”

“Right.” Zara shifted, uncomfortable. “Listen…thank you.

53

For saving my ass. Both times.”

“Of course.” Another awkward silence. “I probably shouldn’t ask where you’re going.”

“I wouldn’t tell you if you did.”

Joanne nodded. “Okay. Well. I’ll let you go, then.” She held out her hand. Zara shook it. She turned to go.

“Joanne?”

“Yes?”

“Are we broken up? Like, officially?”

Joanne gave her another incredulous look. “It’s been three years, Zara! What part of ‘we’ll probably never see each other again’ doesn’t sound like a breakup to you?”

“Got it. Cool, cool, just checking.” Zara watched her start to head out before calling her back again. “We’re good, though, right?

You and me?”

Joanne turned back to look at her. Zara looked back. Joanne stood tall, professional, serious. She had ambitions and life plans, which no longer involved her. Zara found that the thought didn’t hurt like it used to.

“I loved you, I really did,” Joanne said, softly. “I’ll always care about you, to some extent. But we never would have worked, long term. You know that.”

Zara shrugged. “Yeah. Probably would’ve ended up mutinying against you, eventually. You’ll be a great captain, by the way.”

Joanne smiled, and nodded. “Take care, Zara. I hope next time I see you, it’s under better circumstances.”

“Yeah. Me too.” ****

Jon was looking over navigational charts when she knocked on his door, twenty minutes later. “Hey,” she said. “I lived.”

“Thank god.” He jumped up out of his chair and hugged her tightly. He gives great hugs, too. Definitely a factor to consider.

“So what happened?” He gestured to the empty chair and settled on the desk, looking at her critically. “What’d you do to your 54

arm? Crack open a bunch of heads? Zip-line across the city, mowing down police officers right and left?”

Zara laughed, playing with the sling on her left arm. “Well, I was going to tell you the whole exciting story about how I fought off four guards at once, barely escaping with my life, but I actually got cuffed to a desk and dislocated it from moving my arm wrong trying to unlock them.”

“Ouch,” he said, grinning.

“Didn’t even get to bust one head. Don’t tell anyone.”

“It’ll be our secret.”

Zara smiled up at him, really looking at him for what felt like the first time. He was a handsome guy, her best friend. And his shoulders really were quite nice.

Fuck it, said something in her brain. What’ve you got to lose?

“So listen,” she began, “we should talk.”

He raised an eyebrow. “About what I said to you before you left that made you run for your life?”

“You’re not making this easy.”

“Oh, I know.”

Zara shook her head, took the plunge. “I think we should do it. You and me. Dating. Romance.”

Jon snorted. “This is by far the most awkward way anyone’s ever tried to ask me out.”

“I always strive to reach new heights.” Why was she so nervous, all of a sudden? “You didn’t give me an answer.”

Jon smiled at her. “Okay, then. Let’s do it.”

Zara nodded, relieved. “Neat.” She held up a hand for a high five.

He gave her a look. “Has anyone ever told you how bad you are at this?”

“It has come up, yes.”

Jon managed to hold a straight face for a few more seconds.

“Well, I forgive you. Come on. Let’s go tell the others about how thrilling your escape actually was.”

55

Untitled II Hallie Rubin

56

Untitled II Tsivya Laurence

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Presence

Eliza Owen-Smith

we carry everything in our bodies–even if we do not notice it. we carry

our past our present our lives our selves– in the way we stand and move and breathe and are.

I carry loss with me I always will (it rests in my jaw, though sometimes I can smile it away

for the time being).

I carry fatigue in my bones discomfort in my stomach and thighs anger sits in my fists, though never used, touches, glances, brushes– they linger, anxiety and worry are wrapped deep inside me– I don’t think they’ll ever go away. but those are all part of me––not all bad: my mind and body are one and because of it I can move in a way that is myself in a way that encapsulates all my everythings– to move and be are one and the same.

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Untitled III Tsivya Laurence

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Question Everything Elaine Millas

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Burn

Briana Livelsberger

The air stings on the red surface yellow geysers spewing and never resting The ground cracks yellow seeping through burning, eroding until the shape changes Wishing for droughts but the rain never stops the ground saturated where no life can live

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Stars

Mathias James

“The stars are really vivid tonight,” she says. We lay in the yard in front of our house. It is our anniversary. Ten years together, eighteen if you count before the wedding. She inches closer and rests her head on my chest. Her hand rests across my stomach. Her breathing is rhythmic, and shallow, and alive.

“Yeah they are,” I say. I lift my head. Her oceanic eyes scan the heavens. They are alight with all the glories of the stars themselves. They haven’t changed since I first saw her, all those years ago.

Even as our bodies changed, her eyes did not. I lay in the grass, a soft spring wind rustling the grass, looking at her, looking at the stars.

“You remember when we used to do this all the time? When we were kids?” she says to me.

“Yes,” I say.

“We used to hang back from our friends, and just admire the stars. We walked on the train tracks through town back then. God, you remember the train tracks and the shitty diner at the end?”

“Yes,” I say.

“You asked me out in that diner, didn’t you?”

“Sure did.”

“All of our friends knew it would happen eventually, but they were all so excited anyway. We braved those high school years together, didn’t we?”

“Like brave soldiers,” I say.

Cicadas sing their nightly song, and the moon shines enough light to see the frogs hopping in the road. She traces her fingers across my chest, and they hurt like tears, or whiplash.

“We didn’t go to the same college,” she says, “but those years were a breeze in comparison, weren’t they?”

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“Absolutely.”

“I guess if a relationship can survive adolescence, it can survive anything. The distance was… hard sometimes though, wasn’t it?”

“The second hardest thing I ever did,” I say.

“But we managed.”

“Yeah. We managed.”

She smiles her crooked smile. “After school, when we got jobs and we moved in together. You worked night shifts, and I worked in the mornings, but we made it work. We always ate breakfast together, and we found time. We made time. Because that’s what we do, isn’t it?”

“Yes, darling. That’s what we do.”

“Those times,” she continues, “were hard, but they were true.

Some of the happiest years of my life were those I spent barely scraping by with you.”

I cough. I suck my burning breath deep into my chest and hold it there until I am sure my composure will stay. “I know, love,” I rasp.

“We got better jobs, we moved across state, and you got down on one knee. God, you were so beautiful you know that? With your hair that you wear long just for me, and your plain t-shirt and cargo pants. Honey, when you asked me to marry you, you were beautiful.”

“And you were my superior,” I say.

“None of that now. I won’t have it. Not on our special night.”

Our special night. Just one night in many that we’ve shared.

One night in a history that spans most of both our lifetimes. One night that comes once a year. Every. Year. And there’s no way to stop it.

She kisses my chest to stop it from heaving. “The wedding was small. We wanted it small. The honeymoon was really what we wanted. And it was perfect. Oh, love, I think about it all the time. Germany, the United Kingdom, France. You really spared no expense.”

“All of Europe is small compared to you,” I say. She slaps my chest, chuckling.

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“Cut it out,” she says.

“Cut what out?”

“That sappy gross compliment stuff.”

“Never.”

She chuckles some more, that kind she does from her nose that she hates when I see. I look anyway. Her childlike eyes look back at me. She settles her body back into mine and looks back at the sky.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know?” she says. Her body is inhumanly still. Even her chest forgets to rise and fall.

“Can we just lay here, please?” I say. My throat is fire, and my eyes a misty mess. “Remembering isn’t… fun anymore.”

“We came back from Europe,” she says.

“No…” “We lived together for five perfect, happy, glorious years, love.”

“Stop it…”

“And then…”

And then.

I lay in my front yard, looking at stars that were once hers, ours. No one is with me. No one has been with me for a very long time.

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No Filter II Anya Schwartz

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Birth (Part 1) Natalie Rudin

I think it’s time we were born I keep hearing her tell me this, each word icily dripping into my ear, Causing a buildup of frost and fallacies and broken promises.

I think it’s time we were born In straightforward terms, I’m alive, But there’re still parts of me that have never seen the rising sun Or the moon making her way across a starlit backdrop.

I think it’s time we were born I’m tired and I want to rest a while, But I can’t shake off her grip on my arm And must keep walking forward to reach her home, Then, maybe, she can give my body back to me.

I think it’s time we were born I think it’s time we knew what happens to our souls When suddenly we can’t see anything And there’s a cold iron hand plunging into our cores, Trying to remove our quickly withering heart that weakly flutters And reflects our dimming conscience.

I think it’s time we were born.

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Untitled IV Tsivya Laurence

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The Miner and the Girl Ruut DeMeo

Misty Mountain stood in its usual place, vast and unmoving.

If one were to fly like a bird and look down upon it from a distance, one would notice how the wide expanse of trees looked just like moss on a cone-shaped rock. The mountain kept in itself the memories of natives, then pioneers, then miners. And of the men whose names were carved on the walls of the quarry, there was one who still loitered about and was unable to leave the place.

This young miner knew darkness as the day’s true color, as the sun stayed behind the mountain’s cavernous side, letting a large shadow fall over it all through the day and past evening into night. He preferred the shade, felt the least translucent in it.

On that day - which the miner thought to be sometime in late October - he knew that though the sun’s heat had kissed the tips of the highest trees, the cold under their roots would win out. And just like it did everyday, that cold would turn into a mist that would soon prove impenetrable. Misty Mountain had surely gotten its name from this daily occurrence. The miner himself had learned of it when he’d joined the coal company in 1908. He had just turned seventeen that year, and still he saw the mist as a boy just shy of eighteen. Through the decades, it was the mist that had rendered a countless number of hikers irretrievable to their home-folk. The mist had given him purpose, which resulted in a stockpile of bones in the Northeast Quarry, nearby to where his own lay, brittle in moldering rot.

He was lonely and every hiker offered the prospect of company. He had yet to perfect their fall. To make it match the manner of his own.

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For the miner had concluded that were someone to land in the spot where his decaying figure lay, surely they would stay there with him and keep him company. In the days that had spun into a century, he had considered every possibility why he alone had stayed behind out of the hundreds that had died alongside him. It couldn’t have been the gas or the dust, for all the miners had breathed it just the same.

He had fallen three feet, eight and three-quarter inches from the rest of them, hitting his head on a lever on which they’d relied daily to keep the coal-carts from derailing. It was this irony - he’d surmised - that caused him to stay as the watcher and the keeper. For directly after the disaster of 1909, the mine had been shut down.

But on this October day, headlights ascended, waving in and out of the tree-studded ridge. They were square in shape, the left one ever so slightly dimmer than the right. There was nothing familiar about this type of light to the miner, even though he had seen such things over and over for more nights than he could comprehend.

They wove up his mountain, reminding him of dim oil lamps that drunken men carried as they stumbled home from the tavern. As the lights approached, illuminating the fog the way a bright moon would behind wispy clouds, the miner stepped quickly behind the trunk of an old oak. It was nearly as old as he. His step made no sound and his sharp inhalation drew no air, still he felt a stir in his chest and loins.

He played this game with himself, pretending to hide, when he knew none could see even an outline of his presence. Without peeking, he listened to the motor’s purr as it passed by him and stopped at the path that led to his shack.

Earlier that day, he had dreamt of hikers at Hornet Bypass.

This often happened to him. There was an old woolen blanket folded on a bench by the shed. It had bonded together in permanent pleats, like tar-covered wood left out in the sun, its creases glued so close that not even a termite could squirm between them. The miner had taken his daily place on it to keep watch. And it was there where the things that concerned him traveled like news on the wind into his mind.

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Today, crossing and uncrossing his legs, still in stiff britches blackened by soot, he knew by the pulse of that wind that hikers would be coming at sundown. He had let himself become bemused, considering for longer than usual, how they must have unclasped that heavy chain by the ranger station two miles down the windy mountain road. He wondered whether or not they had hooked it back in, or maybe left it lying on the ground? He had sat thinking of this seemingly small detail that would determine whether or not anyone would come looking for the new arrivals.

The door of the car squealed as the first visitor stuck out his colorful rubber shoes that were laced up with clean, white laces. He was young, the miner concluded and watched the boy step out onto the soft earth which was covered in a deep layer of long, brown pine needles. As the other passenger - a girl - exited on the other side, the miner could see a hungry smile on the boy’s face. The miner walked closer now, unable to resist getting a look at her. For a long while she kept her head turned away. The miner proceeded closer still, until he stood just inches away. By merely lifting his hand, he could have touched her long, very light hair.

He waited.

At the swift twist of her neck, he saw what had made the boy’s mouth open in thirst. The same sight made the miner’s eyes begin to feel as though they were growing tissue inside their concave pits once more. She was lovelier than any girl he had seen in life or in death.

Was it her sheerness? Her skin was so milky white, he could almost see through it. It seemed to the miner that she was close to death. Close to him. This thought incited a new desire in him. Not for mere companionship, but for something he hadn’t craved since he’d been alive.

Curiosity. Not just to hear the sound of her voice. But to know what she might say. He lingered behind her, staring and breathless. As if she might speak his name at any moment.

The girl held a flat, palm-sized lamp over her head. The light, like magic, dimmed after a few seconds. Then she chuckled, tossed the 70

rectangle into the car and shut its door. The boy and girl met in the rear, embraced for a moment too long. The miner held his gaze on them. He felt anger start to flare, but then the boy and girl separated and started on foot toward his shack.

Usually, travelers left their cars in the designated lot where the sign said: Welcome to Hornet Bypass at Misty Mountain. Please keep away from the quarry. Stay on designated hiking paths. Park closes at sundown. No alcohol allowed. Pets must be leashed. Daily, the Miner walked to the sign and read it, but the young boy and girl who had just arrived had driven past it straight to the edge of the wood, where the path to his shack started. That was how the miner knew that they had come looking for him.

Their laughter made the miner think of a chisel, and for some reason, he found it difficult to wait for them to find his shack. He concentrated on the predictability of their stumbling search for it. He followed behind them, yards away, and smelled them, rather aggressively. He inhaled deeply to get the full recipe of how they might land, a vision he had learned to foresee by the body odors of his visitors. In the girl’s smell, the miner recognized something surprising.

He stopped and searched for it. It was the smell of his own loneliness. A deep, terrifying hunger. A rather welcome shock. This was a scent that would not fade soon. She brought with her much less of that otherness from their city, from their homes, that the boy had brought with him. Or was it wishful thinking to make her into a creature of the mist, like himself? It helped him picture her landing on the right spot. Hitting her head on the lever. He could see the blood, already, dripping from the hole in her head. Her long white locks, like a horse’s tail, dragged through ripe mulberry bushes. He felt a stir in his chest at the thought.

A long moment passed before the miner realized that he had lost sight of the boy and girl. He rushed around the shack, only to find her sitting on his blanket, the boy standing over her, her chin in his hands.

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He watched the boy push the girl against the wall and kiss her incompetently. In his life the miner had - in his own opinion - mastered the art of necking a girl. Surely this girl would have agreed with that sentiment, if he could only prove it to her.

As if reading his mind, the blonde girl laughed and turned away from the boy. Then, to the miner’s shock, she spoke to the boy.

About himself.

“He’s probably watching us,” she said playfully through her soft pink lips.

“Hell yeah,” said the boy, leaning closer. “Let him.” He pushed her head sideways against the decrepit boards of the wall.

“Not here,” she said.

The miner crept closer and lowered himself slowly against the shack, until his eyes were level with hers. For an instant, he could swear she was looking directly into his eyes.

“Not yet,” she said, turning away and shoving the boy off herself. There was surprising force in her long, thin arms.

“Where?” asked the boy, who had tumbled backward.

The miner followed the girl with his gaze. She was walking straight toward the Northeast Quarry entrance. “This way, I think,” she said. A branch broke under her feet. “I wanna find the ghost,” she said, throwing a mischievous look to the boy, who was following her.

There was enough mist to blind them both.

The miner waited by the shack. Why would she jest about looking for him in the quarry if she’d looked right into his eyes? He was unwilling to admit she hadn’t seen him. He waited for the sound of their voices to change from near to distant. From hitting the side of the mountain to reaching its echoing canyon inside. When he heard the change, the miner neared the entrance, not needing to look where he was going. He knew the way.

“This is it,” the girl was saying when he arrived. “The haunted quarry. You scared?”

The boy produced a torch-light that was losing its vigor, 72

creating a slight, yellowish circle around himself. He lit the entrance with it. “Scared? More like, turned on.”

“Whoooo… Miner?” the girl said. “Where are you?” she sang.

Her voice rang, sending the miner somewhere into the distant past, where he hadn’t been since he’d been alive.

Her voice made him want to eat the sound of it, to feel its warmth go down into his hollow gut. He wanted to taste her, for even imagining her flavor on his tongue put him back in his hometown. Once more he could feel the sweat in his palm, seated at the back pew of the Catholic church, next to the girl he was after. He was there again, waiting for mass to be over when the heavy church doors let them out into the noonday sun. He was running across the street after the redhead, the heat rising from the pavement, then following her into the ice cream parlor. A rush of cold cream down his throat.

The redhead’s hips moving into his, her curls tickling his nose as he inhaled her sweet scent.

The miner opened his eyes, wanting to see nothing but the white-haired girl. What was the shape of her neck? But the sunken pit of moss and dirt at the entrance to the quarry was empty. The girl had gone all the way in, led the boy in with her, past the criss-crossed wood barrier to the collapsed pillars where the rails vanished under the rubble.

The miner hurried behind them, a charge in his loins from his daydream. He realized he’d almost missed the moment. It had come quickly. The thought of missing it frightened him, and for one powerless moment it seemed to him that the girl might find the place on her own. That her foot might slip on sleeper and she might fall wrongly, never hitting lever on the way down—

There was an exhale of pleasure. Then a gasp of pain.

Entering the cave, the miner saw both sweat-covered bodies of boy and girl intertwined on the exact spot where the miner wanted her to stand. The miner held as still as he could, doing his best not to be distracted by their buoyancy, their youthful skin stretching taut over their bending bones. He looked away and willed - with long 73

forgotten prayers - for them to separate. He begged that only the girl should slip. That her perfect landing in the bottom of the quarry would not be obstructed by the boy’s grip on her.

The boy growled and leaned on the rock-wall behind him, gasping.

The miner could wait no longer. Quickly, he moved toward the girl, sliding his black, sooty sleeves behind her, wrapping them around her naked waist. Then, he willed the emptiness inside him to condense and deliver one sharp tug as his fingers - with their dirty, overgrown nails - dug into her milky skin.

“What the—” she said, feeling the prod.

The miner pulled her against his chest, into himself.

The girl screamed and resisted. Her foot caught on a rusted spike in the rail and she flailed her arms as she fell, her body slipping right out of the miner’s grasp.

For several moments, the scream of the boy congested the cavern. He shouted her name, time and time again, until the sound of it had no more meaning, and it turned to dust on his dry tongue.

Breathless, the boy stood with his hands over his privates, his back glued to the stone wall.

The miner passed the boy like a stranger on a platform. He reached over the rusted rails to see where she had landed. He lowered himself down the ledge and let his hollow hands lead him to her, estimating the space between her warped arm to the heap of bodies and bones nearby.

The miner could tell three feet, eight and three-quarter inches the way a skilled sailor would know east from west. He had measured the distance over and over for a century. He lowered his coal-stained face next to her mouth, hoping to feel her final exhale, to ensure she had passed from one world to another.

This time, he would not miss a single beat of the clock. In fact, he knew no more time. The century had spun on its axis, like the wheel of a cart. He had waited through it for this one death, which was so much like his own. The simple slip of a foot. Twist of a heel.

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The miner touched the berry-blood wetness of her white hair, now spun and disheveled, but all the more beautiful to him. Her death developed under his soiled hands, knuckles black with waiting.

Then, the girl opened her eyes. Gasping in a lungful of old coal dust - and needing nothing more to breathe - she saw him. The ghost she’d come looking for.

Mountain Cow Hallie Rubin

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Scenes from a wedding I was not invited to August Skylar Napolitano

The love of your life’s father is the pastor at this church. It is not the first time you’ve been inside & it will not be the last. Look around, there’s nothing new. But the ruffles of your mother’s hand-me-down dress irritate your scaly skin this time, & you sweat under the lights. You should feel like this is the first day of the rest of your life, but it’s only Friday, & like every other one, you know your fiancé is playing catch-up. They shift gears nauseatingly, a half-gallon of Dad’s holy water swishing around in their dented trunk.

It’s all going to happen soon, you willed it to in the dark auditorium of your high school that you left half a decade ago but can’t stop re-entering at night, when the body pressed against yours isn’t warm enough. Could you have done better? Of course not, you roll your eyes at the thought. The man who stains the windows to your left winks — you swear you see it — you’re not sure if you believe in his ways anymore, but it’s comforting to tell yourself that someone has a plan.

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The pews seem emptier than they should be.

Family reservations are aplenty, but friends, you concede, are a nonrenewable resource -once they’re gone, you wouldn’t dare to get them back.

But you have bigger things to worry about now: will your love have trimmed their beard?

You shudder at the thought of them wandering in late, not having changed from their daily rotation of basketball shorts & a dirty t-shirt; a jester hobbling up to the altar.

You don’t think that you could be any happier.

I do.

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Untitled Charlie Collins

when nature escapes her bounds and reclaims the earth and its people i want to be taken and my soul buried on an old park bench on bliss road where i fell in love for the first time

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The Love

Sebastian Bronson Boddie

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Harlem

Sebastian Bronson Boddie

The C-Town grocery with its wilting cabbages like flaps of yellowed skin. The juice bar and its green smoothies, before they cost $9 and your dignity.

The small art studio in the basement of a church, closest thing to a castle. They taught me how to draw an eye. The Black bookstore that went out of business a couple years ago. My best friend’s house around the corner, where I ate the forbidden: McDonald’s and high fructose corn syrup. His mother, a short and wide Polish woman who smoked in the house. Sometimes she spoke to herself in Polish, things she wanted to say to her late mother who died before she could send for her. Or so my friend said.

Some days the apartment was grey and stretched thin as a veil with silence. His father, a quiet and tall African man, from which country I forget. When he came home from work, he would unbutton his patterned shirt slowly, reverent or tired. His rough worker hands, white undershirt stark against the dark of the kitchen at sundown. We would watch

him do it, chewing Froot Loops and drinking the stained-rainbow milk from the bowl quietly, so as not to bother him.

He beat his wife. I do not remember the details, if I’d ever known them.

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I did not know then we would move to New Jersey, so far from the

known world it didn’t exist. He had a bunk bed, but no siblings. One sweaty summer afternoon we sat in the top bunk and watched the first Spider-Man movie on his brand new DVD player. I kissed him there, fast, Mary Jane laughing in the rain on the screen behind us. Just to see what all the fuss was about.

Untitled

August Skylar Napolitano

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trailer park haibun August Skylar Napolitano

Mom is drunk again. It’s okay. When she drinks, she lets us kids get away with most everything. My sisters, our friends, and I call her “Cool Mom,” and she takes us out on adventures on Grandpa’s golf cart. It’s just a low-speed ride around the trailer park with nobody else around so nobody worries that she could get us into any danger. We stop by the community pool, but it’s all closed up for the night. She says she can scale the fence; we don’t believe her, but we dare her to do it anyway. She doesn’t. She doesn’t want to go to jail or anything like that. Instead, she pulls the cart around the corner of the barricades and takes us to the playground. She screams like a giddy child when she sees the tire swing and immediately jumps in. The boys go off and talk about their first crushes and sex like they know anything at all and the girls just take in the part of the world that they’ve never seen before, the part that exists past their bedtime. Then Mom realizes she’s spinning too fast and she’s puking and I’m shielding my eyes and covering my ears. We drive back to the trailer when she regains composure. Dad is sitting on the front porch but he’s put up the screen and locked the door. When Mom tries to open it he mock-punches her through the wall and calls her things that are not her name. She turns to me crying and says

“next year when we come

here, take good care of the girls –

you’ll be their dad then.”

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American Girl Sebastian Bronson Boddie

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